Looking for WordPress plugin (or someone to write one)

[enmaku]

After Adam B Levine's lovely talk at Bitcoin 2013 I was discussing some ideas with him on taking the concept beyond YouTube and an idea came about that I love but frankly do not have the time to build from scratch so I'm hoping there's either already something like it that I can modify or that someone out there has already put in the time to learn how to write wordpress plugins that I can just beg or hire or whatever.

The basis of the idea is this: Individual Bitcoin donation/tip addresses for each piece of content with user feedback and back-end tracking. I'm thinking something like http://coinwidget.com/ on each post but instead of configuring, copying and pasting each and every time simply have a plugin add an address field to each post. Additionally, I'd like the ability to view internal reports from within WordPress, maybe even a dashboard widget on aggregated donations and top-performing content, maybe even the ability to publicly post a "top content" page or select a featured/sticky post automatically based on some kind of donation criteria.

Really, though, those are all nice extras I wouldn't mind having, simply the ability to paste in an address is the baseline requirement and if someone knows of another plugin with similar functionality that I could just modify that will do for now.

On the other hand, if someone wants to write me up a quote for full functionality or if others like the idea and want to start a bounty with me, I wouldn't be opposed to the idea either. Regardless of how we get to the final result, though, I intend to open source whatever I get so the community can make full use of it.

[torba]

The most complex part of your idea is the statistics, you would need to deal a fair amount with SQL.
Else I could finish you maybe a basic plugin that allowed flawless donation (using coinbase) for $30 over a weekend.

[mindtomatter]

For those not familiar, you can find my talk here from Bitcoin 2013 in San Jose
"Youtube is Broken - Rethinking Content Monetization with Bitcoin"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4tgNi5gle0

[enmaku]

The most complex part of your idea is the statistics, you would need to deal a fair amount with SQL.
Else I could finish you maybe a basic plugin that allowed flawless donation (using coinbase) for $30 over a weekend.

You caught the part where the donation address on each post is different, yes? I can do my own analytics on the back-end but it's important that the addresses be distinct to each piece of content.

For those not familiar, you can find my talk here from Bitcoin 2013 in San Jose
"Youtube is Broken - Rethinking Content Monetization with Bitcoin"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4tgNi5gle0

Thanks Adam, I meant to plug the video but forgot

[enmaku]

The most complex part of your idea is the statistics, you would need to deal a fair amount with SQL.
Else I could finish you maybe a basic plugin that allowed flawless donation (using coinbase) for $30 over a weekend.

Also, how much would you want for the entire plugin as described?

[edd]

After Adam B Levine's lovely talk at Bitcoin 2013 I was discussing some ideas with him on taking the concept beyond YouTube and an idea came about that I love but frankly do not have the time to build from scratch so I'm hoping there's either already something like it that I can modify or that someone out there has already put in the time to learn how to write wordpress plugins that I can just beg or hire or whatever.

The basis of the idea is this: Individual Bitcoin donation/tip addresses for each piece of content with user feedback and back-end tracking. I'm thinking something like http://coinwidget.com/ on each post but instead of configuring, copying and pasting each and every time simply have a plugin add an address field to each post. Additionally, I'd like the ability to view internal reports from within WordPress, maybe even a dashboard widget on aggregated donations and top-performing content, maybe even the ability to publicly post a "top content" page or select a featured/sticky post automatically based on some kind of donation criteria.

Really, though, those are all nice extras I wouldn't mind having, simply the ability to paste in an address is the baseline requirement and if someone knows of another plugin with similar functionality that I could just modify that will do for now.

On the other hand, if someone wants to write me up a quote for full functionality or if others like the idea and want to start a bounty with me, I wouldn't be opposed to the idea either. Regardless of how we get to the final result, though, I intend to open source whatever I get so the community can make full use of it.

Hi David,

We didn't "officially" meet but I also spoke to Adam very briefly after his presentation and I saw you at several others. I'm a big fan of wordpress and I'd be happy to contribute to a bounty for this.

As you said, a plugin that adds a BTC address field to each post/page and then populated a widget like coinwidget below the post would be great. I wouldn't mind tracking the stats myself if including that functionality requires a lot of work.

[mindtomatter]

Hey Edd, it was good to meet you

[edd]

Hey Edd, it was good to meet you

Likewise, Adam!

[enmaku]

After Adam B Levine's lovely talk at Bitcoin 2013 I was discussing some ideas with him on taking the concept beyond YouTube and an idea came about that I love but frankly do not have the time to build from scratch so I'm hoping there's either already something like it that I can modify or that someone out there has already put in the time to learn how to write wordpress plugins that I can just beg or hire or whatever.

The basis of the idea is this: Individual Bitcoin donation/tip addresses for each piece of content with user feedback and back-end tracking. I'm thinking something like http://coinwidget.com/ on each post but instead of configuring, copying and pasting each and every time simply have a plugin add an address field to each post. Additionally, I'd like the ability to view internal reports from within WordPress, maybe even a dashboard widget on aggregated donations and top-performing content, maybe even the ability to publicly post a "top content" page or select a featured/sticky post automatically based on some kind of donation criteria.

Really, though, those are all nice extras I wouldn't mind having, simply the ability to paste in an address is the baseline requirement and if someone knows of another plugin with similar functionality that I could just modify that will do for now.

On the other hand, if someone wants to write me up a quote for full functionality or if others like the idea and want to start a bounty with me, I wouldn't be opposed to the idea either. Regardless of how we get to the final result, though, I intend to open source whatever I get so the community can make full use of it.

Hi David,

We didn't "officially" meet but I also spoke to Adam very briefly after his presentation and I saw you at several others. I'm a big fan of wordpress and I'd be happy to contribute to a bounty for this.

As you said, a plugin that adds a BTC address field to each post/page and then populated a widget like coinwidget below the post would be great. I wouldn't mind tracking the stats myself if including that functionality requires a lot of work.

I don't think it would require that much extra work, but then I've never written for WordPress before - that's why I'm wanting to hire this out, in addition to my notable lack of time.

I also wouldn't mind tracking the stats myself, but one of the ideas I loved most about this stemmed from that stat-tracking: a "top content" page that's sorted by the # of donations. Once you've got those stats in WordPress it can be extended to so many things. Want to make the most donated-to page in the last 2 weeks sticky at the top of the site? Want to make a "best of" page with the top donated content ever? Want to have a "what's hot" page with the top 10 pages in the last 30 days by donation? All easy once you've got the data.

[mindtomatter]

See now I didn't even get that far David I just wanted to know myself!

[Terk]

I hate Wordpress development as its architecture is so wrong, but I loved the idea so much that I actually learnt writing Wordpress plugins overnight.

This is a result of my all-night work and this is a working plugin that does what enmaku described: http://terk.co/wordpress-bitcoin-tips-plugin/

The plugin is in very beta, but it's already working and you can download it and install on your blog. It is of course open source (the MIT License). There is still a lot of things to do and you will find a list of issues in the above blog post. Feel free to send me feedback and suggest ideas. I'm not publishing it into the Wordpress Plugin Directory yet and I don't announce it in a separate post here until it's more complete/mature.

I'd appreciate tips/mentioned bounties if you like this plugin and would like to support my further work on it (the plugin is already working, but all the little details will be much more time consuming than the first working prototype). Thanks!

[mindtomatter]

Really f'ing cool Terk, great work.   I didn't even think about automating the address creation, I do it manually each time.

[enmaku]

That's absolutely brilliant. I will be testing this out first thing tomorrow on a dev system and picking through the code to see where I can possibly help. I'm very excited to see this become a reality and you can bet once I verify functionality and finish doing a happy dance there will be a tip/bounty heading your way.

This is one of the things I love most about this community: if the idea is good enough someone will just do it.

[mindtomatter]

I'll kick in .2 for the bounty even though I don't use Wordpress

[enmaku]

I'll kick in .2 for the bounty even though I don't use Wordpress

Way cool of you. Every penny we can get to guys who see a good idea and just make it happen is a penny well spent.

Edit: Didn't realize that was my 1,000th post - it still came out as a pretty awesome 1,000th post though.

[Terk]

Great, let me know what do you think after you try it. I hope to find time to push it a little bit further during the weekend so that maybe It'll be ready for a public announcement early next week (and for submission into the WordPress Plugin Directory).

[edd]

That's absolutely brilliant. I will be testing this out first thing tomorrow on a dev system and picking through the code to see where I can possibly help. I'm very excited to see this become a reality and you can bet once I verify functionality and finish doing a happy dance there will be a tip/bounty heading your way.

This is one of the things I love most about this community: if the idea is good enough someone will just do it.

Ditto.

0.25 BTC already tipped and I'll be happy to send more once new features are added.

[enmaku]

0.2 BTC tipped (because that's all I had in my phone wallet here at work) and more on the way as new features are developed. I like that you used wp_postmeta to store the addresses, that should make it easy to extend the functionality in the future.

[Terk]

Thank both of you!

Yup, I figured that I should use as much standard Wordpress features as possible and not reinvent the wheel. wp_postmeta seems perfect for storing post addresses.

I think I'll create a new data structure for storing info about collected tips, so that it would be easily sortable/filterable by time, easy to make sums, averages, etc. Meta data won't give much flexibility here.

[enmaku]

Thank both of you!

Yup, I figured that I should use as much standard Wordpress features as possible and not reinvent the wheel. wp_postmeta seems perfect for storing post addresses.

I think I'll create a new data structure for storing info about collected tips, so that it would be easily sortable/filterable by time, easy to make sums, averages, etc. Meta data won't give much flexibility here.

Assuming you already know the blockchain API it shouldn't be too hard to pull the # and btc amount of tips and add those to wp_postmeta too, right? Toss something like that in wpcron? This is all coming together so much faster and easier than I thought it would 

[edd]

I'd love a "Donate" or "Tip" button that, when clicked, caused the existing btc address and QR code to pop up. As it is, it takes up a lot of space.

[enmaku]

Found a problem. The blockchain.info payments API won't forward any amount less than 0.001BTC, currently worth about 13 cents. I know this because someone tried to donate 0.00015384 BTC to me, worth about 2 cents. I'm not such a broke blogger that I care about 2 pennies, but I don't like that blockchain.info is apparently microtransaction hostile. Time to go email Ben 

[Terk]

Found a problem. The blockchain.info payments API won't forward any amount less than 0.001BTC, currently worth about 13 cents. I know this because someone tried to donate 0.00015384 BTC to me, worth about 2 cents. I'm not such a broke blogger that I care about 2 pennies, but I don't like that blockchain.info is apparently microtransaction hostile. Time to go email Ben 

I think it's just being held until the balance to forward reaches 0.001 BTC or more, so nothing's lost.

Keep in mind that blockchain.info provides this service for free. It requires not only computing power to constantly monitor millions of addresses and forward all incoming money. They also pay fees for forwarding transaction. So each forward cost them 0.0001 BTC, and you get that for free.

[Terk]

Yup, I just confirmed that all payments smaller than 0.001 BTC are just waiting and they are included in forward after the balance reaches 0.001 BTC.

[enmaku]

Yup, I just confirmed that all payments smaller than 0.001 BTC are just waiting and they are included in forward after the balance reaches 0.001 BTC.

Good to know, I'll go update my article. Thanks!

I also just noticed that blockchain.info has a callback url in their payments API that could be used to populate donation information instead of relying on a cron job, although I think I'd prefer to use both methods in case something goes wrong with the callback, at least I'd have good stats updated every n minutes/hours/days.

[enmaku]

BTW Terk, did you ever get ahold of blockchain.info about your banned domain or whatever? I have a contact or two over there I could ping for you if you need it.

[Terk]

BTW Terk, did you ever get ahold of blockchain.info about your banned domain or whatever? I have a contact or two over there I could ping for you if you need it.

Actually I just found that it's an issue with my hosting provider who blocks anonymous proxies and foreign VPS services. They have resolved it just minutes ago so I can now implement the callback.

I also just noticed that blockchain.info has a callback url in their payments API that could be used to populate donation information instead of relying on a cron job, although I think I'd prefer to use both methods in case something goes wrong with the callback, at least I'd have good stats updated every n minutes/hours/days.

Blockchain.info expects the callback to return acknowledgement that notification was processed correctly. If it doesn't get that ack, it will repeat firing the callback at some interval until it gets expected response (or until it tries so many times that it puts your domain into a blacklist). So in theory that should work well even if you have temporary problems with your website.

I think not everyone has access to cron in their hosting environment and not everyone knows how to put something in cron. I think that since Blockchain.info repeats firing the callback if there's something wrong on your side, it should probably be enough to rely just on that callback. I may add additional checking by cron if there will be reports that stats are not always reliable.

[enmaku]

BTW Terk, did you ever get ahold of blockchain.info about your banned domain or whatever? I have a contact or two over there I could ping for you if you need it.

Actually I just found that it's an issue with my hosting provider who blocks anonymous proxies and foreign VPS services. They have resolved it just minutes ago so I can now implement the callback.

I also just noticed that blockchain.info has a callback url in their payments API that could be used to populate donation information instead of relying on a cron job, although I think I'd prefer to use both methods in case something goes wrong with the callback, at least I'd have good stats updated every n minutes/hours/days.

Blockchain.info expects the callback to return acknowledgement that notification was processed correctly. If it doesn't get that ack, it will repeat firing the callback at some interval until it gets expected response (or until it tries so many times that it puts your domain into a blacklist). So in theory that should work well even if you have temporary problems with your website.

I think not everyone has access to cron in their hosting environment and not everyone knows how to put something in cron. I think that since Blockchain.info repeats firing the callback if there's something wrong on your side, it should probably be enough to rely just on that callback. I may add additional checking by cron if there will be reports that stats are not always reliable.

Didn't know they repeated the callback, that should be adequate then. For the record, though, WordPress has a pseudo-cron built in since they expect that not everyone will have access to cron. It fires at intervals but can only fire on a page load.

[enmaku]

Can we add a custom address option to the feature list? Someone on Reddit made the point that since so many people aggregate Bitcoin content it would be cool if they could put in the author's tip address when they aggregate. It could also be useful for people who roll their own solutions on the BTC side etc. It would also be useful to be able to simply disable the widget on a post-by-post basis.

[enmaku]

Hey Terk, just wondering if there were any updates on this, maybe a wall you've run into we can help you through or something?

[enmaku]

If I don't hear anything soon I'll put this up on GitHub and start working on it myself - not that I have the time, but I feel like it's an important project so I'll make the time.

[Terk]

I didn't put it on GitHub as I read that Wordpress hosts all plugins from their directory in their svn and I think it's required if you want the plugin to be easily upgrade'able within Wordpress - so not sure if I want to manage the code in two repositories at the same time.

I plan to sit on this on Monday evening, finish some features and publish to the plugins directory.

[enmaku]

I didn't put it on GitHub as I read that Wordpress hosts all plugins from their directory in their svn and I think it's required if you want the plugin to be easily upgrade'able within Wordpress - so not sure if I want to manage the code in two repositories at the same time.

I plan to sit on this on Monday evening, finish some features and publish to the plugins directory.

Cool, glad to hear you're still around! I wasn't aware of the WordPress SVN thing, that's good to know (even though I despise SVN). Mostly I'm just glad to know you're still around, I was beginning to think you'd bailed and I was going to have to learn WordPress programming myself

[enmaku]

Any updates or should I set aside some time to start coding?

[Terk]

I'm knee-deep in work so this will have to wait until the weekend. Don't worry.

[Terk]

I just published a new version with all the initial features that I felt were required to publicly announce the plugin. The new stuff is: collecting data about received tips, displaying simple stats in tipping widget, email notifications of received tips.

I created a dedicated thread for the plugin to start the discussion over: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=237624.0

[bitcoinpreneur]

I saw this talk as well considering adding some of these features to the Bitcoin plugin we released for WordPress .

[sunnankar]

Yup, I just confirmed that all payments smaller than 0.001 BTC are just waiting and they are included in forward after the balance reaches 0.001 BTC.

It would be great if we could upload an Armory watching-only wallet and then tip addresses would be pulled from that pool of addresses.

In this case, instead of relying on the Blockchain.com API, where the service is known to go down from time to time, is to instead have the plugin author include the ability to upload an Armory watch-only wallet  and then draw from that pool of public keys each time a post needs a new bitcoin address.

This would remove the centralized point of failure, increase the privacy of the tip sender and receiver because the information would not be going through Blockchain's server, decrease miner fees and retain the same level of security because the Armory wallet could be stored by the tip receiver in offline cold storage.