The Magic Frog Series: Recent Updates and Their Advantages [Episode 2]

Repository

https://github.com/mktcode/the-magic-frog

Introduction

The Magic Frog is a two way platform built on the Steem blockchain. This simply means that it has a website as well as a Steem bot/account that functions together. These two together, allows you to contribute to stories via the platform which eventually gets posted to the Steem platform.

It always piques my interest when I come across a project with a team of developers who are constantly looking to develop it. They know the importance of continuously working on their project to make it better, easier to use and also to be in friendly terms with the latest innovations.

This is one of the major reasons why I am interested in the magic frog, that is, apart from the fun I get from reading stories and also contributing my own quota. Hopefully, @mkt and every other person he is working with will not get tired of constantly improving the general outlook and performance of the magic frog’s different platforms.

Going further now, let’s take a look at some recent development updates carried out on the Magic Frog’s platform. Our aim will be to look at possible advantages as well as disadvantages if any that will emerge as a result of these changes. Let’s ride on.

THE MAGIC FROG’S POT AND NEW CALCULATION METHOD

I’m sure you as a new user may be wondering what you stand to gain from contributing to the flow of stories on the-magic-frog.com. First of all, there is the fun you get from submitting your own entry and reading entries from other participants. Also, there’s the high adrenaline rush that comes to you when you are seeing your own entry getting the higher upvotes from other participants and readers alike.

Finally, there’s that excitement that envelopes your body once your submission makes it into the story. But is that all? No it isn’t. Apart from the emotional rewards you gain from contributing on the magic frog’s platform, there are also some financial perks and rewards that comes with contributing on the platform. This is usually saved up all through the course of the story and shared to all contributors, upvoters and delegators when the running story comes to an end.

The Previous Calculation Method

Now just to show you how extensive this project has gone, the magic frog already has three variants of the account in terms of languages which are operating differently from each other. There’s the English, the French and the German variants of the magic frog. So if you feel you cannot contribute appropriately in English language, you can go ahead and contribute through any of the other two languages you are conversant with.

Since the magic frog project is built on the Steem platforms, it generates rewards in both Steem and SBD. This is majorly because a new post is released every day when the accepted contribution becomes appended to the existing storyline. For each new post, the payout was set to 50% SBD and 50% Steem power. The idea behind this was so as to build up the Steem power of the account to ensure larger upvotes in the future. The other 50% liquid SBD is the portion to be shared out to participants and contributors to the project.

Usually, the rewards held in the story pot are only distributed after the story has come to an end and by the consensus of the participants. Now, to make for a realizable sharing formula, the entire community is sectionalized into four. The rewards are then shared into four equal parts and sent out to people in each sections of the community. Let’s have a look at the sections.

The Sections

1. The Lucky Storyteller: Continuing in consistency with the visions of the project, the first set from the four equal parts of the reward is sent out to a lucky story teller. Most times, this person must have contributed sufficiently to the story to make it easier for him or her to get randomly picked. So the more you contribute, the luckier you might be in getting the reward.

2. Other Storytellers: Only one person can end up as the lucky storyteller who goes home with a large chunk of the rewards. However, are the other contributors to the story going to go empty handed? Definitely not! The other storytellers are those that will make up the list of rewardees in the next section. What you get in this section will largely depend on the extent to which you contributed to the story. Therefore, the more your contributions were to the story, the bigger your share of the rewards would be from the share set out for the rest of the storytellers.

3. The Magic Frog delegators: Where you can’t or do not wish to contribute to the storyline, you can however contribute to the project by delegating Steem Power (SP) to the magic frog’s Steem account. Those who delegate to the Magic frog make up the next set of rewardees. Part of the reward pot will go to the delegators according to the amount of delegation they gave to the project. So the higher your delegation, the higher your share from the delegators rewards would be.

4. Curators: If you cannot participate in the story, and you cannot delegate to the magic frog’s Steem account, don’t worry, the project still has a space for you. The next set of the rewardees are those who curate the posts made from the magic frog’s account. So the extent and worth of your upvotes on the story posts would determine the size or portion of the rewards for curators that would come to you.

The Problem

The developers had a bit of a problem with the previous sharing method. This was that since the rewards were sent out immediately after the end of the story, the proceeds from the last 6-7 posts of the story weren’t taken into consideration. This meant that participants and contributors lost out on any proceeds of those last few days. So a solution was sought after.

The Solution

To make for a much simplified sharing formula, the rewards being shared out at the end of every story was the current balance of the story pot. This is what would be divided and sent out to the four sections of the community. So what happens to the rewards from the last 6-7 posts?

The developer of the project has now made it so that the proceeds of the last 6-7 days of the project will be added to the pot for the next story, therefore giving the participants something to start off with. So if the previous story gives its last seven days post payout to the current story, the current story will do the same for the next story and the cycle continues.

The good thing about this is that it eliminates the losses recorded and any further calculation hassles as the post payout for the story’s last 7 days is simply carried over.

Better Flow and Reader’s Experience

On the magic frog’s website, the-magic-frog.com, every chosen entry for each day is added to the other chosen story with the username of the contributor below so as to create a flow. However, for some users like me, it was a bit difficult having to read a chosen story entry only to get broken off by the name of the contributor appearing right below his or her contribution.

I could manage so I didn’t make much out of it. But apparently, someone who couldn’t manage talked to the developers about it and a solution was almost immediately implemented. Now above, just below “once upon a time”, there’s a button which says “hide story teller’s names”. Once you click on it, it changes to “Show storyteller’s names”. At this point, the names of the storytellers under their own chosen entries are taken away.

Readers are now able to read the story with a better flow as the previous encumbrances have now been hidden away. To bring back the story teller’s names, simply click on the same button which now says “Show storyteller’s names” and their names appear like magic!

Till next time!
I remain your favorite dApps presenter,
@curtwriter.

Resources and Image Sources

• https://the-magic-frog.com/
• https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@mkt/the-magic-frog-new-pot-calculation-and-some-fixes-improvements-development-update
• Screenshots taken from my PC.

Series Backlinks/

• https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@curtwriter/project-promotion-the-magic-frog-series-episode-1