JoinSpace - Like Reddit but on Web3

Abstract

JoinSpace.xyz is a Decentralised Social Media Application (DApp) running on the Ethereum Network. Creators can earn tokens by creating quality content (whether memes, images, or posts), and contributing to the larger space ecosystem.

Similar to Reddit, JoinSpace is a network of communities where people can dive into their interests, hobbies, and passions. JoinSpace is broken into many communities known as "subspaces" - each of which covers a different topic.

What is a Space?

Similar to "r/" subreddits. A Space "s/" is a community where users can post and discuss a topic based on their common interests.

The prefix of a subspace begins with an "s/". For example, "s/investing" is a subspace where (degenerates/non-degenerate alike) investors can meet and talk about all investing, or users can join and search for a job - while handling payments within the subspace e.g., s/web3jobs.

Users can gain the ability to create their own community/space, where a creator would own a digital space on the blockchain. As a result, curating a community where other users can join a creator's space. (E.g. A creator creates s/memeeconomy).

Moreover, with the added benefit of earning ETH-based tips and a proportional amount of the native ERC20 Token (SPACE).

Rewards - Why use JoinSpace

  • Create your own Space (Community)

  • Store your Post/Memes on Blockchain (as an NFT)

  • Earn SPACE Tokens and ETH Tips proportional to the number of upvotes.

  • Create a community around your interest, create threads and comments.

Users, as a result, can earn SPACE tokens and tips received in ETH based on the performance of their content. In addition, like NFTs, a creator can hold ownership of their own original content on the Blockchain. (Whereby an IPFS hash of your image is stored on-chain)

As a User: an upvote from a user increases the “Net Votes” of the creator's content - whereby the creator earns a certain number of tokens based on the upvotes performance awarded by the community. As a result, the post rises up the feed based on the overall performance.

Note: by default, the feed is sorted by the most upvoted posts in descending order.

The fundamental difference between JoinSpace compared to Big Tech Web2.0 platforms is leveraging Blockchain technology. Creators are rewarded in ERC20 Tokens for posting quality content dictated by the community. Secondly, rather than the need for centralized moderators and subjective censorship. The market would control the quality of the posts within the space ecosystem through their upvotes or downvotes. (view trust and reputation)

The goal: creators can earn ERC20 Tokens and ETH Tips based on their contribution of original content and creativity.

JoinSpace UI

JoinSpace is the first Web3 Decentralised Application that models the Reddit UI for an accustomed interface - for familiarity and ease of navigation.

No need for potential power-tripping moderators. All Logic is built in the Smart Contract. (See JoinSpace Trust and Reputation).

The Homepage (or "Front Page") shows various top posts that have been posted across the top subreddit. You can sort these posts by:

Classic - Order of posts stored on Chain

Top - Top Overall Posts within the Space e.g., s/memeeconomy

New - Latest Posts within the Space e.g., s/memeeconomy.

Users have the ability to search for their space using the search bar.

Creating your own Space

As opposed to Reddit being governed by the admins and moderators who have power across the site, Subspaces can be created by any user, who gains the privilege to name a Space - consequently owning that piece of estate on-chain.

Users can gain the ability to create their own space (community) based on their interests. Creators who maintain a healthy space earn tokens as a reward from the Smart Contract. Incentivizing a good communtiy.

As a way to mitigate potential creators creating hateful communities, a user requires to meet the following requirements:

  • Created at least 1 Post

  • Earned the minimum amount of "SPACE" Tokens

  • A Minimum amount of UCR (Karma Equivalent)

  • Potential Requirement: deposit eth as collateral in a smart contract to incentivize good behavior. Reports from other users would use the ETH Deposit to cover any gas fees made by the user. (View Risks and mitigations).

How Users Earn Tokens and ETH Tips

By default, each content posted has a net vote of 1. (Net votes being the difference between Upvote and Downvotes)

Below is a simple scenario of how a Poster can earn tokens based on posting a meme:

1. User Upvotes Creator’s Content

  • The Post net count increments by 1

  • Smart Contract released a certain number of Tokens to the Creators Wallet

  • Post rises up in Feed

  • Upvoted score and Users Credit Reliability Score (UCR) Increases

2. User Downvotes Poster’s Content

  • The Post net count decrements by 1

  • Post Ranking Drops in Feed

  • Upvoted score decreases

  • UCR is recalculated

Note: If a posted content net votes drop below -2 (known as swamp zone). The content posted is no longer visible via UI (only visible on-chain via etherscan.io). The Poster's Credit Rating subsequently drops to reflect the negative performance of their content creation history.

This helps prevent bad actors from posting "offensive" content and filter low-effort shit posters/ recycled content. As a result, the community regulates itself. Thus all power is democratized amongst the user.

3. Users can also donate/tip Eth to specific creators

  • the A payable function whereby Eth is transferred directly to the Creator of the Post.

Below is an example of how you can lose value based on your post, leading to a lower credit rating.

1. Repost content (without any accreditation to the original creator)

2. Posting Offensive Content

3. Not Flagging appropriate content "NSFW."

Due to the Ethereum's Decentralized nature, Users can not be banned/suspended by a central authority. However, a significantly low User Credit Rating risks future posts being automatically filtered out when presented on the dApp UI. (View more on User Credit Score Ratings.)

Problem Statement and Solving

Centralized media have dominated the flow of information and money on the Internet. From centralized moderators deleting posts to payment systems being consolidated in the hands of a few big techs.

Solution

JoinSpace provides a web3 alternative to conventional media by:

  • Providing users the ability to interact without an associative real-world identity

  • Creators can earn SPACE Tokens and ETH based on their original content

  • The creator's content is stored on the Blockchain. (Giving the ability to create your own NFT)

  • Removing centralized servers for a Decentralised Application

  • Replacing power-tripping Reddit Mods with a Smart Contract, democratizing the power to the users.

JoinSpace Architecture:

Due to the innovative and immutable characteristics of the Blockchain. JoinSpace interacts

JoinSpace DApp interacts directly with Smart contracts; data is stored on the Ethereum Blockchain without any tampering and retains proof of creatorship. As opposed to web2.0 centralized databases which can be manipulated. As a result, JoinSpace is scalable and decentralized within Ethereum limits or any Blockchains JoinSpace is deployed on. (See Roadmap on Page)

Further, JoinSpace Architecture can be broken apart into 3 Major components.

JoinSpace Consists of:

  • UI – User Interface – Web 3.0 Website (dApp)

  • Smart Contract (s) – Solidity-based smart Contract

  • ERC20 Tokens – SPACE Tokens

As mentioned, once a post is deployed, the contents are permanently stored on-chain. However, to avoid the inevitable bad actors, an array of safety features and deterrents have been put in place.(Join the discord to propose more ideas).

Trust and Reputation

Bad actors and low-effort shit posters are inevitable with this dApp. A series of spam features have been implemented into the Smart Contract.

Upvoted Score (%) displays the current performance of the post relative to its overall run. The higher the price, the more tokens the creator/poster earns.

The Upvoted Score per Post can be calculated by:

Post Performance, % greater than 70%, is highlighted as Green.

User Credit Rating (UCR)

The User Credit Rating allows the user to view the credibility of the overall user. Similar to Reddit's "Karma", this helps identify quality Creators' and exposes bad actors trying to exploit the dApp.

Users Build a Good reputation (UCR) from an overall net upvote score. Whereby (Upvotes > Downvotes) Introduction to Reputation Score. Users risk a lower UCR if a number of previous posts end up in the Swamp Zone.

Where Sigma is the accumulation/sum of Post's total votes per wallet.

JoinSpace User Credit Rating Tiers:

Note: a Net Downvote of 3 would reduce the user rating to Junk. Boundaries set to scale based on JoinSpacet User Activity. Spam Rated Users are not shown via DApp due to their previous activity of low post quality.

JoinSpace Verification (optional)

Users by default are anonymous, and only identified by their wallet ID. To prevent the number of low-quality accounts. A user can verify their JoinSpace account with their Twitter account.

A user would receive a verified blue check and may wish to share their post via their Twitter account to promote their own content.

Challenges and Considerations

The proposal of building a decentralized social platform provides an array of benefits, such as being decentralized with no authoritative party. However, a decentralized dApp does come at a cost - whereby certain users can take advantage doing the following:

Problem – User Credit Rating & Token Incentives

  • Stealing Content - Actors posting material with incorrect accreditation to the creator/incorrect source or misleadingly by flagging content as "OC" (original content)

  • Recycled Posts – reposting other users' posts/memes (claiming to be their own) in order to "farm tokens."

  • Posting Offensive Posts – Bad actors attempt to destabilize the markets by posting offensive content to harm other users' experiences.

Note: Reposting content is permitted. However, a poster should not claim to be the creator of the content. If found to be untrue, the community reserves the right to downvote if this event occurs. As a result, reducing the Users Credit Rating (See User Credit Rating).

Consideration – User Credit Rating & Token Incentives

View Trust and Reputation

View Rewards and Incentives

Problem – High Gas Fees

Further, JoinSpace operates as a dApp built with no centralized authority. As a result, each "Write" to the Smart Contract comes as a transaction via Metamask. Given Ethereum Gas Fees are higher compared to other chains such as Polygon Matic, this leads to each upvote/ content upload and interaction becoming expensive over time and can lead to a small number of Posters who are able to afford the Gas Fees required to interact with the dApp.

As a result, JoinSpace would initially be launched on the Goerli Testnet for early beta testing with an initial user base.

Considerations – High Gas Fees

Consideration although Polygon Matic may have some drawbacks compared to Ethereum Chain. In order to launch this Project on a Blockchain Mainnet. JoinSpace would most likely have to be deployed using Matic. As a result, Matic may be the underlying coin of JoinSpace compared to Ethereum.

Tokenomics

Total Supply: 800 billion

Main characteristics:

- Slight inflationary to encourage spending - token should be used liberally

- Vested injection Unlock Schedule

Roadmap / Next Steps

JoinSpace has been deployed on the Ethereum Test Network, view Smart Contract. A full launch of JoinSpace would be deployed on either Ethereum or Matic mainnet. The deciding factor would boil down to cheaper gas fees given the number of interactions required by the User for a better UI experience.

JoinSpace is an ongoing developing project with the goal to be a leading social media DApp focused on user content creation on the Ethereum Network. The following features are to be implemented as part of JoinSpaces' Road map to realize this.

Phase 2 – Release Spring 2024

- Token Swap Implementation – Swap SPACE Tokens for ETH/MATIC

- NFT Eco System with Lens Protocol – Allow Users/small creators to post NFTs/Pics and sell to Buyers.

- Layer 2 Implementation (ChainLink) – Reduce Gas Fee intensive transactions

- Top Users/Investors Leader board

- Transaction fee - 3% to contract when Tip eth

- Buy Awards and Customize User Profile

- Support Video Media Memes via IPFS.

- Token rewards are proportional to the user's credit score.

Licensing

The Smart Contract is open source under an SPDX MIT Licence. (More information on usability here). View Contract on etherscan.io [link to smart Contract]

Members:

Created by Alexey Octavius. Follow Alexey Octavius on Twitter. (This is the only official account).

Join in – Support the Team

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