Community Spotlight — February 2019 Edition
February is a wrap! We at ARK are proud of our determined and bright community, and our monthly Community Spotlight newsletter will keep you apprised on some notable community activities. Let’s dive into just some of the ways the ARK community shined in February 2019.
10,000 ARK VIDEO CONTEST
The 10,000 ARK Video Contest concluded in February. Details about the contest can be found in the January 2019 Community Spotlight. The contest was created and conducted by long-time community member ‘Gongrabber,’ and anyone who likes ARK was allowed to participate. After a voting period, the winning video emerged!
Here’s the wrap-up article with thanks, entries, and more ways to earn ARK
FEATURED COMMITS
As they say, the best things happen with help. That’s why ARK runs monthly bounty programs for coders who contribute to our codebase on the ARK Ecosystem GitHub. Independent programmers can work side by side with our international team and make the ARK toolkit even more powerful and stable. ARK is awarded to GitHub participants by way of the ARK GitHub Bounty Program. Learn more about the bounty program here.
The community Spotlight Newsletter only includes three featured commits, and you can see all the hard work of our GitHub participants at blog.ark.io!
- GitHub member ‘dated’ implemented an important function in the ARK desktop wallet- searching delegates by name. This prevents any lengthy browsing that was needed to locate delegates to vote for out of the many choices available. Voting for a specific named delegate is now easier than ever.
- GitHub member ‘dated’ also implemented a user experience improvement that now shows which wallet addresses are in voting status within the wallet addresses table. This means it will be easy to tell which wallet addresses are voting for a delegate, and which aren’t.
- GitHub member ‘kalgoop’ squashed a small nuisance bug in the mobile wallet. When specifying ARK amounts to send, the interface was allowing more than eight digits of precision, causing an error when it came time to execute the send function. Now, the user is alerted right away of the issue. This has made the user experience in the wallet all the more smooth.
Multiple coders are contributing to the ARK toolkit 24/7, and you can too — it’s fun, rewarding, and you can earn ARK as well!
This guide will show you how to get started with coding for ARK.
If you don’t know how to code, but you have ideas to improve ARK open source projects, use this video to help you let developers know.
You can also now push issues onto ARK GitHub repos without a Github account using the Ark.Party Discord Bot.
NOTABLE REDDIT POSTS
The Ark Ecosystem Subreddit is a great place to seek ARK knowledge, and you can always find new and engaging content there. New to ARK? Check out my Welcome to ARK Reddit Post with simple instructions to follow.
Here are some notable February posts:
- ‘Skallzbucket’ wondered if Push Button Blockchains were done yet.
- ‘myusername1000’ asked about Smartbridges.
- ‘Massive-Lunch’ launched a discussion about ARK’s future.
- ‘debotsauto’ suggested we improve ARK’s Reddit description. Success!
- Apparently, ‘Rekted1’ loves ARK. So do we!
- ‘Buycoin_ATM’ made observations about the ARK delegate landscape.
- ‘yozivey’ wondered about ARK paying a Binance listing fee.
- ‘Zzzoem’ wondered about the average ARK block time. The short answer is each block is designed for a block time of eight seconds. Fast!
- ‘yozivey’ noticed an odd change in ARK circulating supply on Coinmarketcap. Looks like CMC had to do some API tweaks due to a recent protocol upgrade, and it was quickly resolved.
- ‘Polskihammer’ asked for the voting mechanics to be explained. Many community members jumped in to help.
- ‘BitAGift’ asked how the nodes of a newly launched chain are managed.
- ‘Lama_43’ posted an article on interoperability where ARK is mentioned.
- ‘Neralm’ asked about the importance of Push Button Blockchains.
- ‘velopic’ asked for a list of ARK-based chains. Delegate Jarunik provided.
- ‘Zzzoem’ asked about ARKVM and smart contracts with ARK. Keep an eye out for the new ARK whitepaper coming soon, which will clarify.
- ‘doktergreen’ wrote an article about ARK, which was well received.
- ‘SmallAI’ noticed an ARK photo from Consensus 2018 was randomly used as media for news that had nothing to do with ARK, vexing everyone.
- ‘cambo666’ as a previous ACF board member provided some closing thoughts and some suggestions for the new recently elected board.
- ‘ARKjd,’ a sitting board member, reported that the ACF recently approved a new project, ‘ARKPlace.’
You can browse more content and contribute your own voice to the ARK Subreddit- who knows, you may even receive an ARK tip from a community member using Delegate Cryptology’s intuitive ArkTippr Reddit tipbot.
FEBRUARY 2019 PODCASTS
COMMUNITY SERVICE SPOTLIGHT
Some members mentioned in the community newsletter are ARK delegates, who secure the ARK network and provide community services. Their inclusion in the newsletter is in no way an endorsement from ARK.io to vote for specific delegates, and you should always do your own research and consider all the options when choosing a delegate for whom to vote. ARK.io does not run the ARK network.
Here’s the February 2019 Community Service Spotlight:
- Delegate ‘Biz_Classic’ continued running their ARK faucet, which awards free ARK to its visitors.
- Delegate ‘Del’ also continued operations of their ARK faucet.
- Delegate ‘Fun’ continued to run ARK games online with daily ARK prizes.
- Delegate ‘Rising_Sun’ ran general bounties in February. Any community member can earn and win ARK for their creative expressions each month. Here’s how it works. They also generously agreed to provide some ARK each month to the ARK Community Committee for various project maintenance.
- Delegates ‘Goose’ and ‘ArkMoon’ continue their service, ARK CSV Generator and Income Estimator, to aid in trading and income reporting. You can input public keys to ARK addresses and get a report including fiat values. The resource does not constitute formal tax advice.
- ARK Trend Statistics service is getting tweaked and resuming soon.
- Delegate ‘Jarunik’ launched a new web presence and continued his ARK recap video series, subscribe here. Jarunik also runs a continuous coding and non-coding general bounty service, with opportunities for both smaller and larger projects. Get involved here. In February, Jarunik gave an update on the program, sponsored SteemMonsters tournaments here and here, and even ran a Twitter giveaway.
- Delegate ‘Jarunik’ is also assisting Indonesian community members in ramping up ARK awareness. This includes ARK School Indonesia, educating people on ARK and crypto. Updates here, here, here, and here.
- Delegate ‘Alessio’ continued combing through ARK code to locate and repair vulnerabilities, with update. Delegate ‘Alessio’ runs under a Forging for Security model, similar to ‘Jarunik’s Forging for Contributions model.
- ‘Arkstickers.com’ completed a sticker photo contest, with 200 ARK prize provided by Delegate Jarunik, and winner announced (BroadcastJunkie). See more community-sourced photos by following ARK on Instagram.
- ‘AllThingsDecentral.com’ has physical ARK poker chips still available.
- ‘DGameShop’ now accepts ARK for online video game purchases.
- ‘Kezchenko’ created an amusing ARK image.
- Delegate ‘ItsANameToo’ released a service for ARK delegates to utilize called Hermod. This brings more powers when using ARK’s Core Snapshot System. That same month, Vanir was released as an additional service for ARK delegates, allowing them to forge their own transactions in various ways in a no-hassle environment.
- ‘PaulBermon’ mentioned that physical ARK keychains are still available.
- ‘cambo666’ showed off the recent arrival of his physical ARK cold storage wallet created by Lynx Art Collection.
- ‘NickTheBubble29’ posted a video about Persona, an ARK-based chain focused on identity management.
TEAM IN THE COMMUNITY
The ARK team has been sighted in the crypto community in February. Here are just some of the activities:
- I will be attending the launch party for the ‘Crypto Blockchain Plug’ crypto community center taking place this Saturday March 9th, 12–7 PM in Inglewood, CA. There will be food, drinks, fun, and special talks about various crypto projects, ARK included! I will gather media at the event to share afterwards. Register FREE here.
- ARK CMO Travis Walker put together and released a very well received article on how startups will choose to build their blockchains using customizable DPoS interoperable solutions. It’s a good read that sheds some light on how future startups may shift their thinking.
- ARK CEO FX Thoorens continued efforts in France, where he sits on the Blockchain Commission of the French Digital Asset Association. The first missions will focus on mapping the existing blockchains and their uses according to business contexts. Fix was also spotted at the French National Assembly, where he was seen asking questions to French MP Pierre Person, known as a ‘crypto deputy.’ For more updates, follow ARK’s Instagram.
- Members of the ARK team attended a community-run meetup event in Utrecht, Netherlands on January 25th. The team members in attendance were ARK CEO FX Thoorens, ARK CSO Matthew DC, ARK CTO Kristjan Košič, ARK CFO Lars Rensing, ARK Finance and Compliance Manager Gerard Blezer, ARK Core Developer Joshua Noack, and ARK Community Engagement Manager Sam Harper-Pittam. This meetup was organized by Delegate TheFoundry. In February, after a teaser on Instagram, ARK.io released a video summing up the activities that took place there, with the editing help of Delegate ‘Cam’s Yellow Jacket.’
GET INVOLVED
Watch this video on how to get involved with ARK, all skills welcome.
ARK COMMUNITY COMMITTEE
The ARK Community Committee creates and deploys community resources through anonymous and sponsored ARK donations.
- The ACC’s first completed project is ArkTimeline.com. ArkTimeline now supports URL query string, to create links leading to custom views! Delegate ‘Rising Sun’ assists ArkTimeline maintenance by providing some ARK each month to the maintenance team.
- The ACC is now pleased to release the second project (Codename: Project LAUDE), ArkThoughts.com! This new ARK resource has day/night mode, information on 30 ARK concepts, and over 60,000 words from community members like you. It is the result of the 30 Days of ARK Campaign that ran in December 2018, sponsored by Delegate ‘Jarunik.’
- Delegate ‘Jarunik’ sponsored the 30 Days of ARK campaign with a generous allocation of 1000 ARK that was proportionately distributed to participants based on word count. Jarunik then provided an additional 1000 ARK to the ACC for processing of comments and website construction. Here’s the launch article. Jarunik helps the ACC continue to do the great work!
I’m giving a special thanks to all the participants who earned ARK for their efforts on this project. I manage projects, but I don’t keep any ARK for myself.
- ArkThoughts Task Team
@itsrayecho#7199, @carlyewicklund#6141, @Azzurrii-08#3982, @Patrick#4631, @AeonC88#8302, @Saltas#5914 - ArkThoughts Dev Team
@MisterH#4641, @Moe B#5512 - ArkThoughts Host
Delegate ‘Deadlock’ - ArkThoughts Outreach Team
@Saltas#5914
To join the ACC, locate me on Discord.ARK.io which by the way, just increased its powers significantly with new bots, features, and feeds, courtesy of CMO Travis Walker’s oversight. ACC Projects are funded after the fact and pay is not guaranteed (fun is, though).
ARK COMMUNITY FUND
If you have an idea for an ARK project, large or small, and you are looking for funding, consider submitting a proposal to the ARK Community Fund for review. The ARK Community Fund started as a community initiative, and the elected board reviews ideas and projects that enhance ARK. Their website is ArkCommunity.Fund.
