I am a final year student at the University of Glasgow, for my final year project I have been tasked with building an application that uses the SAFE network. This is still very early days in my research, but I have the idea of bringing Wikipedia or a Wiki to the network. I have a few ideas in my head around how to do this but my working knowledge of the SAFE network is limited (I have only known of its existence for about 4 weeks). I can see two avenues that I could explore, and these are not mutually exclusive.
In a similar vain to the efforts of IPFS, bring a static version of Wikipedia to the network. The future of the project could be to bring a more feature rich version of Wikipedia to the network, to align with the goals set out here. This would at first be a static snapshot of Wikipedia that could be browsed using either a web app or a desktop application. I am not sure how good of an idea this is, but it could be possible to adapt the efforts of the Kiwix project to help do some of the heavy lifting. I am not sure how well the SAFE network can handle large single files, Kiwix as it stands uses a single .zim file to store its content. The âlightâ version of the English Wikipedia is >20GB for example. So that casts some doubt on this approach. On this wiki page it does say âthere is no synchronization required whenever a User needs to access their data.â Does this mean it is possible to store a large file that a user doesnât necessarily have to fully download to use?
Develop a Wiki based on the Tiddlywiki project. Tiddlywiki describes itself as a ââŚunique non-linear notebook for capturing, organising and sharing complex information.â As it stands the tool doesnât support collaboration on the same wiki at the same time. Bearing that in mind it still could be a very useful application to have on the network. Think of it like an Evernote/Personal Wiki that uses the SAFE network as its storage.
I am open to any and all criticisms and comments on what I am proposing. As I said I am very new to all of this so if there are any glaring holes in my ideas please let me know! Depending on the success of my project I am very keen to continue developing on it for years to come. Bringing Wikipedia to the SAFE network has several advantages. Censorship resistant and decentralised information for all being the primary motive. Secondly, to reduce the operation costs of a website like Wikipedia.
Welcome @DaBrown95, it would be great to see work in these areas. Iâm not sure the approaches mentioned give as much âbang per buckâ as you might be able to achieve, but the aims are both great ideas IMO. Iâll have a think when I get time, but now busy for a few days. In the mean time, search for Quik Wik (thereâs a live version online for use with https://remotestorage.io) but as it is an âoffline firstâ app, it works with local storage when not connected (just no synching devices unless you connect).
I am porting the RS backend and have a buggy version of Quik Wik on the alpha 2 network that you can look at: safe://qw2 - it stores the first note ok, and also updates with changes (you have to hit Save though!) but with errors in the console and no doubt much broken functionality. Might give you some ideas though. Good luck
Nice, yeah someone else did something similar with the small version of Wikipedia (under 25GB) and it mostly seemed like an issue of the memory upload limits on SAFE right now.
But a simple, straightforward job to bring Wikipedia to SAFE, glad to see someone picking it up again.
Breaking it into smaller pieces somehow and using multiple accounts with many invitations is my guess as the only way forward.
Excellent choice for a final year project.
I think for CS or Engineering and maybe telecoms students should pick projects related to SAFE.
Excellent opportunities to demonstrate many skills on a new technology.
Anyone sent out info to the universities?
Maybe a job for the new marketing team, put together a pack explaining why the SAFE network is fertile ground for students?
Yeah if you have any ideas I am all ears
I did come accross your efforts surrounding RS, it does seem like a fabulous use case that will be very beneficial to us all. Anything that makes integration with the SAFE network easier is fantastic.
Thank you very much for pointing me towards Quik Wik, that will be a big help to me! Half the battle is being able to find projects that I can learn from
I can imagine the contraints of the Alpha 2 network would make storing such a large file difficult!
I will start with a much smaller dataset as a proof of concept before trying anything significantly large. Wikispecies for example is < 1GB.
Yeah that could be a way of doing it, interesting idea!
Alpha 2 is a remote but controlled set of nodes meant to provide proof of concept. This means that if you created a local SAFE network using the same alpha 2 binaries with slight modifications (i.e. size limitations and bootstrap nodes) you would effectively be demonstrating the wikiâs deployment under VERY similar conditions.
So first learn how to setup a local network, remove the temporary limits imposed by MS for testing purposes, change the bootstrap node to one of your own, remove the proof of resource challenge and then on to your project!
Once refined you just might be lucky enough to upload it to alpha 3. When is your project due? Alpha 3 is IMO at LEAST 6 months away.
Quite soon, working as a SAFE consultant is going to bring in the big bucks.
Students really should be focusing on this for employability or entrepreneurial reasons.
Thanks for your suggestions! Do you know if there are any limits to what Alpha2 can support even with those modifications?
Project is due around March time, so I guess that will be before Alpha3 is available! Depending on the success of my project I will most definitely carry my efforts on in my spare time.
Why donât we keep each personâs individual data in a separate file on SAFE? Makes too much sense to decentralise, rather than handing over the keys to the kingdom in one fell swoop.
I recently got fond of TiddlyWiki, but it doesnât work on SAFE yet (it canât safe with both browsers, while it works with Beaker locally).
Can someone explain if this is a limitation of SAFEnet or of the browser or whatâs the problem? This would be such a nice app!
It looks like TiddlyWiki has plugins for different ways to save, including one for Brave. To save on SAFE a SAFE plugin for TiddlyWiki would have to be made.
A bit late now, but gofigure.