bitcoinbounties.org - collect bounties!

[Raoul Duke]

Posted a bounty for Wordpress plugin in the site. 13.37000000 TTC

[d33tah]

Note: this is just an old copy of my first message in this thread, for archival purposes only.

Hi,

One time I visited an IRC channel of the Bitcoin general discussion (actually, I've been to #bitcoin-dev as well) to ask people there what Bitcoin already can and what's in progress - my head was full of ideas, I was (and am) fascinated by Bitcoin and wanted to find out how many of my thought were already spoken out loud and realized. I kept asking about mining, QR codes, alternative clients, URI's, stuff I thought should be there in the first place. One of people on the channel told me we already have enough ideas, the problem was to get devs to work on them. I understood Bitcoin needs a lot of help to be a successful project that would not only interest geeks, but also regular people.

I thought I would try to help a bit and instead of whining what's not done yet or pointlessly asking them to implement this or that, move my own butt and code a thing. The problem was that 1) honestly, I had no real incentive, because I knew I wouldn't profit on that 2) I pretty much had no knowledge of how Bitcoin works internally, how to hack it up etc. I thought that many users come across either of these problems and I could try to fix the first one.

My idea was to provide the users a platform where they could collect donations that would later be given to a person who solves a particular problem. The current bounty system is presently in an IMHO rather sorry state and I thought I could try an write a more automated service.

What I would like to present to you guys is my first big PHP project (and the biggest one so far) that I've been working on for three weeks so far. It can currently handle:
*  user registrations (with CAPTCHA and e-mail confirmations)
* login cookies, password reset
* bounty submission, bounty solution ("commits") submission
* user voting whether to accept commits or not
* donation collection, payout support
* localization support
* theming made as easy as I could make it on my own
* e-mail notification when a payout is possible

The code is a disaster right now. I've been coding these things for the first time and at some part I got overwhelmed by its complexity. This is one of the reasons I'm posting it there - I'd love to get some feedback, what parts should be rewritten and more or less how, what else should be implemented (I'm thinking of: profile support, unconfirmed transactions support, searching; I also don't know what to do with comments yet). It'd be awesome if it grew into a something the community would like to use.

What's in it for me? In models/payout.php there's a code sending a fee to a user-defined account. If it was ever put mainstream, I would modestly ask for a 1% or 0.1% share of money collected, if it's not too much.

Posting this thread was basically the reason I registered to this forum. I'd be grateful if I got promoted from the 'newbie' status and if this thread could be moved to a more appropriate category, most preferrably 'Development & Technical Discussion', because my point is to rise a wide discussion about the project in general.

The project can be seen on https://github.com/d33tah/bitcoin-bounties - so far I only tested it on my laptop under PHP 5.3.0. I tried not to use PHP5-specific syntax, but might have been not too cautious about it . At first I wanted to follow some kinda self-designed MVC model, but then I realized I had no clear idea of how should it look like, so ATM models are mixed with controllers in 'models' directory.

Well, I think that's it for now. I'm going to subscribe the thread, hoping not the whole feedback would be negative .

~~~~
d33tah

@edit:

The project has received a virtual server through the courtesy of psy user.  The project can be seen at:
http://bitcoinbounties.org

It is currently connected to the testnet block chain. Feel free to test it, remember to report any bugs there! Security bug reports are most welcome

[d33tah]

I merged the template from psy. Some bugs might have sneaked through, let's hope not though. I'll be grateful for letting me know!

[d33tah]

Added a demo user:

username: demo
password: demo

I also added the information about login/password/title/description length requirements in the error messages. Planning to improve it further in the future.

[d33tah]

BUMP

[d33tah]

Since I found some votes complain about the first post being too long, I moved it here:

What is bitcoinbounties.org?

http://bitcoinbounties.org is a bounty system dedicated to Bitcoin-related projects that uses Bitcoin as its currency. Users can submit a request (called a “bounty”) for a solution of a particular problem (like, for example, fixing a bug or implementing a feature) and organize a fund-raising. All users are allowed to make monetary contributions (“donations”) that would be used to reward a person that passes the bounty claiming process.

What do I do to get the reward?

In order to get the reward raised for the bounty, one has to register and upload a file (“solution”)  that would solve the bounty. Then, donors are free to vote on whether to accept the solution or not. The vote strength is proportional to the amount of money the user has donated. The bounty is ready to be paid out if any of the send solutions gets accepted by 30% of total votes. [obviously, this should be yet to tuned; this is alpha only]

Why should I register?

For identification purposes, the unregistered users are not allowed to submit bounties or bounty solutions and have few site features to explore. The registration is free and guarantees you will be able freely explore the site's resources and take advantage of its useful features, such as donation returning. [yet to be implemented] The password you choose is hashed with a random salt and the e-mail is planned to be used for notifications only. [unless the site gets hacked]

What are the bitcoinbounties.org rules?

The site is in its alpha stage and every single tester is welcome, the only request is to do your best not to abuse the system. Abuse means spamming, excessive automated access (running bots etc.). Should you find a bug (CSS/SQL injections-alike bugs are very likely; I have little experience in PHP coding), send d33tah an e-mail or PM.

Is it safe?

Definitely not yet. The code was not audited, there is a lot of data verification missing and many adjustments have to be made. This is rather a proof of concept of the bounty system and its further development depends on the discussion in this thread.

The system is currently configured  to work in testnet Bitcoin blockchain. This means you have to run your Bitcoin client in 'testnet' mode, a few tips on that can be found HERE (if that's not enough information, use this forums to find out how to switch to this mode). Free testnet coins can be found HERE.

If you are a PHP programmer or just want to run this system on your own server, see the link below:
https://github.com/d33tah/bitcoin-bounties

And here is the online version of this script:
http://bitcoinbounties.org
Demo user data:
login: demo
password: demo

Thanks for your interest and testing. Once you're done, please post here whether you like the system or not (and why!). Any thoughts on it are welcome!

Topics to be discussed (feel free to start your own):

d33tah:

• get some hosting for bitcoind or move
• talk to psy about getting the rights to use the currently-in-development bitcointalk.org template
  
  • manually moderate the bounties until we have a working anti-scam solution
  • viewbounty pages:
    • 1. discuss comments implementation (just a link to this forum perhaps?)
    • 2. any need to format the descriptions
    • 3. whether to allow users to edit the descriptions or not
  
  Disposition:
  
  • add donate/submit button and description data available on the main page via a dropdown list like this: http://jrd89.com/codecanyon/quickfaqs/
  • implement project pages – user can create his own 'project', each bounty has a project associated to it, so we could gather bounties for Bitcoin familiar projects as well
  • consider using multi-sign transactions (http://bitcoinstats.com/irc/bitcoin-dev/logs/2011/09/26/3#l1839844)
  
  Dagger3:
  
  • rename 'commits' to 'solutions' (already in git repository, waiting to be merged with bitcointalk.org; thought of the word 'patch', but it might be unsuitable in some cases)
  • rename 'donations' to 'contributions' (or something else that associates with giving money only)
  • automatically pack the solution files with .zip to prevent abuse
  
  
  luke-jr:
  
  • need a way to vote the reward get split among people
  • get some math/sociology guy to figure out how to cap the voting to minimize a potential gain of the scammer
  • allow people to vote for a list of preferences, ie. order the solutions by which they think is best
    remove the voters off the list if they don't vote for too long
  
  lupine_85:
  
  • look at a different voting system to FPTP
  
  Gekz:
  
  • score voting, PR, range voting (needs clarification)
  
  gmaxwell:
  
  • use Schulze method: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Schulze_method
    
  
  The original IRC discussion can be found there: http://bitcoinstats.com/irc/bitcoin-dev/logs/2011/09/26/2
  
  @edit 27.08.11:
  
  I edited the first post to explain what bitcoinbounties.org is and how it works. The old first post can be found HERE.

[d33tah]

Bump

[d33tah]

Bump

[d33tah]

Bump

[btc_artist]

Nice idea.  A few randomish thoughts:

1. Better site structure. Have these four links across the top (where it currently says "home").

• Home -- Say what it is, answer one or two top FAQs, and have a list of the 5 most popular bounties
• Bounty List -- Main listing of all bounties.  Can be filtered/searched by name, bounty amount, etc
• FAQ / About --
• Account / Settings -- Show the email you registered with, allow changing password, etc

2. Better navigation. Add a breadcrumb under the navigation that holds all items. For example, if I'm submitting a solution, the breadcrumb should be:
Home > Bounty List > Some Project > Submitting a solution

3. Have the "Add a bounty" button at the top in the header.

4. Have a way for the original bounty creator to edit the title/description of the project.  Allow anyone to view previous versions of the title/desc.

5. Have a comment thread for each bounty for others to ask questions, clarify, make suggestions to improve the bounty, propose/discuss solutions/implementations.

6. Have a way for users to mark that they are working on a given bounty.  You won't prohibit multiple people from working on the same bounty, but it would be helpful to see a list of how many people (and who) are working on the bounty.  Have a comment thread for each of the people who are working on the bounty to clarify what they are doing, their progress, etc.  Have a way to show how active the person is who is working on a bounty.  For example, show the last time they logged on or commented, etc.

7. If you mark that you are working on a bounty, have a field to enter your progress.

8. When viewing a bounty, show who is working on it and what their (self-reported) progress is.

9. Have weighted voting on who wins the bounty after a solution(s) is submitted.  Have weighted voting where the bounty starter and people who contributed more BTC to the bounty have most of the say, but let other users of the site also have a small vote.  Have a comment thread for each proposed solution to discuss it / clarify problems.  Allow the person who submitted the solution to revise/re-submit, etc.

10. Have a way to close bounties that are no longer wanted.

-------

What language is the site written in?  I'd be happy to do a code review for you if you want to post/send a zip file with your code.

[d33tah]

Hi, a quick reply (more to come when I find more spare time):

Thanks for your interest in the project. I kind of implemented 9, 10 needs some discussion on how to tell if a bounty is "not needed". The code is totally an immense mess (I was training PHP programming and probably made a lot of mistakes), though if you are interested, there it is: https://github.com/d33tah/bitcoin-bounties

I'll comment on your proposals once I find more time, perhaps in a few hours, perhaps in a day or two. Thanks for attention and testing anyway! I'm really grateful ^^

[BTCurious]

Interesting!
For now, I don't have time to test it. But I would probably use it when it's public and running. (As a bounty taker, not an issuer.)

[d33tah]

Finally found some time:

1. Better site structure. Have these four links across the top (where it currently says "home").

• Home -- Say what it is, answer one or two top FAQs, and have a list of the 5 most popular bounties
• Bounty List -- Main listing of all bounties.  Can be filtered/searched by name, bounty amount, etc
• FAQ / About --
• Account / Settings -- Show the email you registered with, allow changing password, etc

2. Better navigation. Add a breadcrumb under the navigation that holds all items. For example, if I'm submitting a solution, the breadcrumb should be:
Home > Bounty List > Some Project > Submitting a solution

3. Have the "Add a bounty" button at the top in the header.

Well, I decided to keep it that way until next rewrite of the service. I'll keep your opinions in mind when I'd do it.

4. Have a way for the original bounty creator to edit the title/description of the project.  Allow anyone to view previous versions of the title/desc.

The problem is - why bounty creator only? Why not the rest of the users as well? How'd we decide which description is right? Voting?

5. Have a comment thread for each bounty for others to ask questions, clarify, make suggestions to improve the bounty, propose/discuss solutions/implementations.

That'd be a huge piece of code unless I'd use some external toys. I thought of allowing to add a bitcointalk thread.

6. Have a way for users to mark that they are working on a given bounty.  You won't prohibit multiple people from working on the same bounty, but it would be helpful to see a list of how many people (and who) are working on the bounty.  Have a comment thread for each of the people who are working on the bounty to clarify what they are doing, their progress, etc.  Have a way to show how active the person is who is working on a bounty.  For example, show the last time they logged on or commented, etc.

7. If you mark that you are working on a bounty, have a field to enter your progress.

8. When viewing a bounty, show who is working on it and what their (self-reported) progress is.

That actually sounds awesome, I wish I'd thought of that when I had loads of time.

9. Have weighted voting on who wins the bounty after a solution(s) is submitted.  Have weighted voting where the bounty starter and people who contributed more BTC to the bounty have most of the say, but let other users of the site also have a small vote.  Have a comment thread for each proposed solution to discuss it / clarify problems.  Allow the person who submitted the solution to revise/re-submit, etc.

Kind of already implemented/discussed, just without the small votes and the last sentence.

10. Have a way to close bounties that are no longer wanted.

Again, who and how would decide that?

What language is the site written in?  I'd be happy to do a code review for you if you want to post/send a zip file with your code.

BTW, did you have a look at my messed up code?

[JA37]

* There's no way to comment on bounties, there should be.
* There should also be a way to "claim" a bounty, meaning that I'm working on it. Why else bother if someone else can get the bounty while I'm halfway through. An estimate of completion should be included if you make a claim.
* If multiple solution exists there should be a way to choose/vote on who should work on their solution.
* Decide how many stakeholders must agree before a bounty is paid out. Expecting 100% is probably not realistic.
* A way to split bounties if only part of the solution is implemented. All or nothing is probably not a good idea.

Just a few suggestions off the top of my head. Feel free to do whatever you want with them, including ignoring.

[btc_artist]

4. Have a way for the original bounty creator to edit the title/description of the project.  Allow anyone to view previous versions of the title/desc.

The problem is - why bounty creator only? Why not the rest of the users as well? How'd we decide which description is right? Voting?

Make it editable by all members, like a wiki. Everyone can see the edit history.

5. Have a comment thread for each bounty for others to ask questions, clarify, make suggestions to improve the bounty, propose/discuss solutions/implementations.

That'd be a huge piece of code unless I'd use some external toys. I thought of allowing to add a bitcointalk thread.

A linked bitcoin talk thread (or more than one) would be better than nothing.

9. Have weighted voting on who wins the bounty after a solution(s) is submitted.  Have weighted voting where the bounty starter and people who contributed more BTC to the bounty have most of the say, but let other users of the site also have a small vote.  Have a comment thread for each proposed solution to discuss it / clarify problems.  Allow the person who submitted the solution to revise/re-submit, etc.

Kind of already implemented/discussed, just without the small votes and the last sentence.

Bounty hunters still need a way to revise/improve/resubmit their solution IMO.

10. Have a way to close bounties that are no longer wanted.

Again, who and how would decide that?

A voting system, along with some discretion by a site administrator/moderators, would take care of that. 

What language is the site written in?  I'd be happy to do a code review for you if you want to post/send a zip file with your code.

BTW, did you have a look at my messed up code?

I did.  For the time being I mostly looked for possible security vulnerabilities, of which I didn't find anything obvious.  As for stylistic/philosophical comments, I don't see a lot of need for that.  I would have done a lot of things differently (OOP, class design, MVC design, separation of concerns), but since this was a learning project for you, that's ok.

[film2240]

Service works like a charm so far under the demo account.

Currently running a test with a test project on there.I can't say more until it's finished.

[d33tah]

BUMP

[d33tah]

BUMP

[btc_artist]

Have you implemented any (more) of my suggestions?

[d33tah]

Honestly, I wish I had time to.