WordProof Timestamp is now Open Source — Contribute to a trustworthy Internet
After an increasing number of requests for a public WordProof GitHub repo, we have expedited the release and invite everyone to participate in the WordProof mission — a safer web.
The WordProof GitHub now features three of our projects:
- WordProof Timestamp for WordPress (with the Timestamp Standard v1.0 proposal included)
- Timestamp Standard
- Timestamp Checker
Several developers — both independent and teams — have requested features already, while experts in other fields came up with improvements to make the plugin more compliant with the WordPress Coding standards, easier to use or better performance-wise. Thank you all for the amazing engagement, we can’t wait to see what you come up with!
How to participate
Even though the WordProof Timestamp for WordPress plugin was already available for download on WordPress.org, the React JS files can now be examined by talented developers worldwide. However, non-developers can help too: blockchain is difficult to use, help us in making it easier!
Release Cycles
To manage the new features, platforms, partnerships and improvements, we work with Release Cycles. New features and improvements are tested thoroughly so every new release will noticeably improve the quality of WordProof Timestamp, after which a new update (with new features, platforms and improvements) is released every other week.
Timestamp Standard
As we continued to develop new features for WordProof Timestamp, we noticed that several hashes became invalid. The reason was rather logical: the contents of a timestamped article had changed. In the very first version of WordProof Timestamp, only the title and content of an article were timestamped. Later, we added the date and time to this mix.
Of course, this caused the hash to change — even though the authors of the timestamped content did not alter their content. It became clear that we needed to think of a Timestamp Standard to make timestamps backward compatible.
WebArticle 0.1 Draft
To make the web a safer place, a flexible standard is needed, since there are many types of content (web articles, PDFs, images). This first draft is a pragmatic start. We invite individuals, big teams and companies to write this standard with us!
We know that there is a lot of room for improvement in the Timestamp Standard we published on GitHub and that is exactly why we published it. A universal standard should not be crafted by the hands of a small team, but by opening a conversation with talented people worldwide. This v0.1 draft aims to do just that. Please join the conversation on GitHub and let us know what you think should be included in the WebArticleTimestamp 0.1 standard.
OpenTimestamps
WordProof is chain agnostic and should also be standard agnostic. We are aware of OpenTimestamps, a great initiative for timestamping full documents. Our standard focusses on structuring content data. We can imagine our standard being the structured input for OpenTimestamps in the future.
The road ahead
Our vision is to have an improved version of the timestamp standard — one supported by important players in the content industry — at the end of Q3. However, we need your help. Think about the standard, discuss it with your peers and send in Git issues with your proposals, comments and other findings. The WordProof Telegram is a great place to start the discussion!
Get Started
View our complete WordProof GitHub repo here. You’ll find the following specific repositories there:
- The proposed web standard WebArticleTimestamp 0.1.
- The full WordProof Timestamp plugin, with WebArticleTimestamp 0.1 implemented.
- An open-source checker tool for WebArticleTimestamp 0.1, like the one we use for the WordProof Timestamp Checker.
“Celebrate Progress, Tomorrow is Just a Dream Away“— Walt Disney
