#i mean 1. posting content without attribution to the original creators is wrong

[cruyffista]

can i say something controversial for a second? i don't like when people repost gifs/fanart/edit from tumblr (fandom) users on twitter even if it's for innocuous reasons

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: Your Faith.Part3

The Six Pillars of Faith (Eemaan)

The Meaning of Belief in Allah

This means firm belief that Allah May He be glorified and exalted exists, resolutely affirming His Lordship, Godship and Names and Attributes.

We will now discuss these four issues at length as follows:

1) Belief in the Existence of Allah

The Innate Disposition to Believe in Allah (Fitrah)

Affirming the existence of Allah is something that is innate in human beings and does not require anything to prove it. Indeed, it is for this reason that most people acknowledge God’s existence despite their different religious beliefs We know in our heart of hearts that Allah exists because we always seek His assistance and support in times of hardship or when a calamity strikes because of the innate inclination to believe in Him and worship Him (fitrah) which He has instilled into us even though some people attempt to obliterate it or ignore it. The numerous incidents we have heard or seen about people having their prayers answered, their wishes granted and their distress relieved proves beyond any shadow of doubt that Allah May He be glorified and exalted does exist.

Proofs for Allah’s Existence are Clear and Countless

Man himself is one of the major signs which testify to Allah’s existence. We only need to reflect on the blessings of reason, the senses and the well-proportioned and perfectly designed bodies with which Allah I has endowed us, as the Qur’an states, “There are certainly signs [of Allah’s existence] in yourselves as well. Do you not then see?” (Soorat Add-Dhaariyaat, 51:21)

Everybody inherently acknowledges the laws of causality, that is, everything has a determinate cause. The numerous creatures we see around us must have a causative agent, that is undoubtedly Allah, for it is impossible for anything to be created without a creator, just as it is impossible for it to create itself, as the verse states, “Or were they created out of nothing, or are they the creators?”(Soorat At-Toor, 52:35) This verse simply means that people were not created without a Creator, nor could they have created themselves, which obviously means that it was Allah I who created them.

The superbly flawless plan in the universe, including its most subtle elements, its heaven, earth, constellations and trees, among numerous other great marvels and impressive wonders, prove without a doubt that it has one Creator who is Allah, as the verse states, “This is the handiwork of Allah who has perfected all things.” (Soorat An-Naml, 27:88) All the stars and planets, for instance, consistently orbit around their respective common centre of mass.

2) Belief in Allah’s Lordship

The Meaning of Belief in Allah’s Lordship

This means to firmly believe that Allah May He be glorified and exalted is the Lord, the Creator, the Sustainer and the provider of everything; that He is the one who gives life and causes death; that He is the only one who can do harm and good; that all power of decision rests with Him; that in His hand is all good; that He has power over everything; and that He has no partner whatsoever in doing all this.

Belief in Allah’s Lordship therefore requires a Muslim to believe that:

Allah is the only creator of everything in the universe, as the Qur’an states, “Allah is the Creator of everything.” (Soorat Az-Zumar, 39:62) Man’s creativity merely involves such processes as transforming something from one state into another, assembling and building; it does not involve originating creation, creating something out of nothing or bringing it to life after death

He is the only One who provides sustenance to His creation and no one else can do so, as the Qur’an states, “There is no creature on the earth which is not dependent upon Allah for its provision.” (Soorat Hood, 11:6)

He is the master and owner of everything “The kingdom of the heavens and the earth and everything in them belongs to Allah.” (Soorat Al-Maa’idah, 5:120)

He is the sole ruler who regulates all affairs of the universe: “He directs the whole affair from heaven to earth.” (Soorat As-Sajdah, 32:5) Man’s management of his worldly affairs is rather limited and depends on whatever material is at his disposal. Besides, in so doing, he can either meet with success or experience failure. However, Allah’s regulation of the affairs of the universe is comprehensive and is bound to be effectual, for there is nothing that would otherwise thwart it in any way, as the Qur’an states, “Both creation and command belong to Him. Blessed be Allah, the Lord of all the worlds.” (Soorat Al-A‛raaf, 7:54

The Arab Polytheists at the Time of the Prophet r Believed in Allah’s Lordship

The Arab polytheists at the time of the Prophet r affirmed Allah’s Lordship; they believed that He is the creator, the master and disposer of all affairs, but such affirmation alone was not sufficient for them to be admitted into the fold of Islam. As the Qur’an states, “If you asked them, ‘Who created the heavens and the earth?’ they would say, ‘Allah!’ Say: ‘Praise be to Allah!’ But most of them do not know.” (Soorat Luqmaan, 31:25)

Indeed, affirmation that Allah is the Lord of all the worlds, that He is the master and sustainer entails that all acts of worship must be directed to Him alone, without taking any partners whatsoever with Him in worship.

It would be ludicrous to affirm that Allah is the creator of everything, the disposal of all affairs and the one who gives life and causes death and then we direct an act of worship to other than Him. Indeed, doing so is a tremendous wrong and the worst of all sins, as the Qur’an states, “When Luqmaan said to his son, counselling him, ‘My son, do not associate anything with Allah. Associating others with Him is a terrible wrong.’” (Soorat Luqmaan, 31:13)

When the Prophet r was asked about the greatest sin in the sight of Allah, he replied, “To set up a rival to Allah in worship though He alone created you.” (Saheeh Al-Bukhaaree: 4207; Saheeh Al-Bukhaaree: 86)

Belief in Allah’s Lordship sets the heart at rest .

Belief in Allah’s Lordship Sets the Heart at Rest

When one firmly acknowledges that none of Allah’s creation can challenge His decree, being the creator and king of all mankind who decrees whatever He deems wise for them, who is their only creator, sustainer and disposer of all affairs, whom nothing as small as an atom moves or settles except with His decree, one’s heart becomes attached to Almighty Allah, asking none but Him, relying on Him in all worldly matters and dealing with all the ups and downs of life calmly and confidently, with determination and perseverance. For once we have done what we can possibly do to achieve a worldly goal and have prayed to Allah for assistance, we have actually done our duty. In this way, we become contented, as we do not covet what others may have, fully aware that all power of decision rests with Allah who creates whatever He wills and chooses for mankind whatever is best for them.

Parts 1-2:

https://basicsofislam.tumblr.com/post/627183884732416000/islam-101-your-faith-part-1

https://basicsofislam.tumblr.com/post/627229326084079616/islam-101-your-faith-part-2

[edtechlg]

Blogs

A Blog is a regularly updated page that explores ideas around a topic, discipline, subject/subject matter, or interest and is written to create or contribute to a conversation around that idea. 

How I Arrived @ My Definition During the process of creating this blog, I experimented with four different site builder/blog hosting sites: Wix, WordPress, Blogger.com, and Tumblr. Each of these sites allow users to create and edit pages with posts that include picture, video, text, links, and audio. Users are given a unique address that they can share, and other users are able to comment, share, and like the page. Now blogs differ from glogs (which primarily use graphics & visitors interact with the digital poster), vlogs (which use video to express ideas or experiences), discussion boards (which typically pose a question or problem for users to respond to) and web pages (which are primarily used to display information or ac as a landing platform for users to find resources) because blogs are usually focused on the creator’s exploration of an idea or topic. The modality of exploration is primarily written, but the creator can, and often does, use audio, video, and outside sources to supplement their exploration.  

The blog platform affords itself to sharing. Whether the creator is sharing recipes or photos of a trip to Italy, blogs allow people to show others what they think and what they care about. The conversational nature of a blog also affords itself to response. Users can like a blog post or comment about a similar experience. The whole point of us telling stories or sharing ideas is to make connections over shared experiences. In this sense, a blog is creating a digital community where we can share ideas and work out problems. Users are able to gather outside feedback that they may be unaware of based on their limited personal experiences. The threading of that conversation helps users follow an idea through the collaborative brainstorming process, and hopefully come to a new understanding based on the input received from other contributors.  

Other technology such as word processors, websites, and even notebooks allow users to record ideas and explore their own thinking along with others; however, these types of technology synchronous engagement. Google docs is trying to bridge that gap with collaboration features, but those features are not as visible within the program. The beauty of blogging is its ability to create conversation in an asynchronous setting. As new information or ideas are found the conversation continues without having to go back and revise the original post. The other types of technology lend themselves to a feeling of finality, but blogs act as a living record of an expanding thought. Even if the information added to a thread existed at the time of the original blog post, it’s addition doesn’t necessarily negate the original idea, but instead enhances it. In this sense, a blog isn’t about being right or wrong but playing with and exploring an idea.  

Examples of Blog Implementation

As an instructional technology specialist, I have recently focused my approach to include Jim Knight’s Impact Cycle for instructional coaching, so both of the examples that follow are ways that I could integrate blogs into this process.  

1. Blended Learning Instructional Strategies Blog: This blog will be utilized during professional development sessions, and it  contains research and discussions that focus on instructional practice in a blended learning setting. The blog would substitute for the traditional slideshow presentation that poses open-ended questions or a polling type program (ie. kahoot or nearpod) that you see so often in educational settings. Teachers would be directed to respond to a particular thread and asked to think of a way to tweak or apply an instructional practice and post successes and failures from strategies they have implemented. The thread supplies a scaffolding bringing educators up to speed on the conversation by reading the post and subsequent replies. This scaffolding takes the integration of technology to the level of augmentation, because it allows for asynchronous collaboration in a more authentic environment.       

Content

Learning Objectives

Teachers use high-yield instructional strategies to create lessons that maximize their effect size on student learning.

Teachers evaluate their own instruction and identify successes and challenges. 

Bloom’s Levels = Create, Evaluate 

Pedagogy

This approach stresses collaboration and interaction based on the research and meta-data collected by John Hattie referred to as visible learning. This research attributes student growth, measured by effect size, to a number of factors including instructional strategies. Consistently, collaborative activities score a higher than average effect size, and are therefore a more efficient way of teaching, especially when dealing with adults. 

Technology

The ease of reply for the audience and frequency of updates by the creator gives a blog a certain pace. A blog affords itself to quick responses that have an off-the-cuff nature to them. Related sources of text, video, or audio can simply be dropped in the thread and give the topic a fresh dynamic. This keeps the conversation fresh and enables the audience to create relevance.          

2. Impact Cycle PLC Blog (Redefinition): I currently work at Del Valle High School, in Del Valle, Texas and our content areas work within professional learning communities (PLCs). I work with these groups to improve instruction and technology integration. I have begun to implement a coaching cycle based on the Impact Cycle by Jim Knight. This cycle involves making goals, collecting data, implementing an instructional strategy, and then evaluating the strategy’s effectiveness (this is just a broad generalization for my purposes, the steps are far more detailed and nuanced). The blog assignment is used as a collaborative project that documents the different steps of the process. Myself and the PLC members are contributors to the blog, and as we progress, we post recordings of lessons, data, revised goals, successes and failures, etc. The blog is also used to guide the conversations we have when I meet with the PLC. As far as SAMR goes, this type of technology integration redefines the activity of meeting and working through a set of questions for each step in the coaching cycle. Instead, teachers have a space to use as a workbench to collect and refer to. The blog acts as a touchstone when so often goals and progress get lost in the immediacy of grading papers and standardized testing.   

Content

Teachers use data to evaluate their own instruction and identify successes and challenges.

Teachers create lessons and implement instructional strategies that maximize student achievement and address the challenges they identified.

Pedagogy

Jim Knight’s Impact Cycle for instructional coaching stresses questioning, self-reflection, and ownership of creative ideas. This last part, ownership of ideas, refers to the likelihood of a teacher to try a practice if they feel like it was their idea. A blog is a very unassuming way to present strategies and ask teachers to make it their own; personalize it, rather than forcing teachers to implement a strategy with the implication that they are doing something wrong.

 Technology

The asynchronous nature of blog posting and response affords itself to the busy nature of a teacher’s schedule. The coaching cycle drives a hard line between taking time to ask the right questions and respecting the time of professional educators who deserve to get the most out of their PLC time. The blog format allows teachers to prepare for and participate in discussion of pedagogy when they are able to. Growth needs to be able to happen whenever they need it to, and the blog format allows teachers that possibility even if they had an ARD or any number of responsibilities pop up during our planned meeting.  

Obstacles 

A blog’s rapid response nature does mean that ideally you will get a large number of responses, and of those responses, many will express similar ideas. A source can be overwhelming if it presents too much information. Students can become disengaged when a resource contains multiple redundancies. However, I would argue that the benefits of engaging in a conversation and the ease of which contributors can mix mediums outweighs any detriment concerning over-saturation. 

[natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk]

Underrated Anime Series (Part One)

I can’t say that this will be the only part, but I don’t know when the next part will come! “Underrated” is a little broad. 

My definition means that I haven’t met a whole lot of people that have watched it, and I haven’t seen a whole lot of content or it on this website. Of course, you might not agree with this list. If there’s one missing, it’s probably because I haven’t watched it (Mushishi, 3-Gatsu no Lion, etc.). 

In order to qualify, I watched 12+ episodes or the complete series (only Honey and Clover remains uncompleted for now). 

NO ANIME MOVIES! That’s over here “Underrated Anime Movies (Take One)”

The descriptions, general information, and recommendations are generally provided by MyAnimeList with some editing done.

This list started off small then swelled out of control. It took me a long time. Hopefully, you can find a new anime to like on this list! Prepare for a long post!

Hachimitsu to Clover / Honey and Clover

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Josei, Romance, Slice of Life Studios: J.C.Staff Length: 24 episodes (23 min per ep)

Three poor college guys live in a rundown apartment building. Shinobu is a mysterious, quirky person, who does things on a whim. Takumi is passionate both in work and love, and Yuuta is a simple person with simple dreams and desires. They meet a girl named Hagumi who is friends with Ayumi. Hagumi is a petite young-looking girl (basically, what the internet calls a loli). Ayumi is a beautiful and talented young lady. Together, they all try to get through college life and romance.

Similar Anime: - Nodame Cantabile: College students from artistic faculties both overcome personal hardship while finding their own personal romance. - 3-Gatsu no Lion: From the same creator and mangaka, the slice of life way of telling the stories of these dynamic characters and the differences and contrasts between the two stories definitely make them unique in their own right.

This is a great anime with a light palette, a simple yet stunning soundtrack, and a great story that brings realism and charming characters together. With strong performances from the voice actors, you will notice notable names like Tomokazu Sugita and Hiroshi Kamiya. To me, this was one of Sugita’s best roles. It showed me a more dramatic, vulnerable, and emotional side of his acting which was probably shown in Gintama a few hundred episodes in.

My complaints are that the pacing is a little slow sometimes (as expected with a slice-of-life series), and I didn’t like Hagu much because the internet poisons those types of characters (lolis). It makes her romances very shady and uncomfortable for me. You also might be deterred if you don’t like the genre.

Death Parade

Studios: Madhouse Genres: Game, Mystery, Psychological, Drama, Thriller Length: 12 episodes (23 min per ep)

This originally came from a short film called Death Billiards which was part of the Young Animator Training Project's Anime Mirai 2013. This series is basically a young animator’s film being made into a series, and I think that’s awesome. It has the same director as Mob Psycho 100 despite being a dramatic series with no comedy.

After death, you arrive at a bar with no memory of how you died. Without heaven or hell, there stand two options: reincarnation or the void. To decide, you play a game like bowling, darts, or pool. Winner gets reincarnation while the loser is sent into the void. Welcome to death! Don’t be fooled by the opening, this anime is not happy.

Similar Anime: - Jigoku Shoujo: Divine punishment is delivered by emotionless beings. Each episode seems to have its own cast with an overarching storyline even though Jigoku Shoujo is a lot longer. - Psycho-Pass: Even though I haven’t watched this one, both touch on very philosophical subjects that contain the idea of the difference between right and wrong and the lines in between. They are both psychological thrillers.

This anime was one that introduces a new story every episode but has an overarching plot that wraps it together. Its development is done well. The characters may seem blank, but that’s for the sake of the new characters that come with each episode. It can be felt to be very emotional so have your tissues at hand for the finale (I didn’t cry, but I hear it was really sad?)

The art fits the plotline perfectly. The voice acting is strong with a cast that is filled with notable names like Tomoaki Maeno and Asami Seto, but there are many names in the supporting cast as well.

The side plot seems poorly done at times, and there are plot elements that are introduced that indicate another season, but we won’t be having one. There is pretty much no happiness to be found here.

Barakamon

Studios: Kinema Citrus Genres: Slice of life, comedy Length: 12 episodes (23 min per ep)

Handa is a calligraphy prodigy who is sent to the Goto Islands as punishment for punching a veteran judge who called his work “unoriginal”. He must find inspiration and learn the ways of his new life.

Similar Anime: - Poco Udon World/Sweetness and Lightning: I’m not including Usagi Drop because of the manga. SCARRED ME FOR LIFE. These are all about people who fall into a single-parent situation. - Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso: Both are about child prodigies who have to explore life beyond the book, but Shigatsu takes a more romantic drama kind of approach. *Gin no Saji: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!]

This is one of my favourite anime out there! Its story is relatable to many people who grew up with expectations. It’s about a guy who gets wisped into a life he never asked for and experiences a taste of the childhood he never had. This is one of the first anime I recommend to anyone of any age especially if they’ve never watched anime before. I think this was the first anime I showed to my own mom, and she enjoyed it.

Gakkou Gurashi!

Studios: Lerche Genres: Psychological, Slice of Life, School, Horror, Mystery Length: 12 episodes (24 min per ep)

Yuki loves school so much that she never wants to leave! But it’s not as if she can. She’s part of the School Living Club which consists of the president Yuuri, Kurumi, Miki, Sakura-sensei, and the club dog Taroumaru all live at school. Despite the illusions of Yuki’s imagination, the real purpose of the School Living Club is to escape from the shocking and disturbing truth: the girls are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and have barricaded themselves inside the school as the sole survivors.

Similar Anime: - Madoka Magica/Higurashi: I haven’t watched Madoka and Higurashi, but they both use cute as a facade to hide the darker themes and horrors behind everything. “Moe moe kyun”? More like “moe moe kill”. (I’m going to be kicked in the balls for that) - Girls’ Last Tour: I haven’t watched Girls’ Last Tour, but I know they have post-apocalyptic cute girls doing normal things. They all only have each other and try to enjoy each day peacefully. - Angel Beats: Both shows present normal high school students who live in excruciating circumstances that all hide a deeper meaning. This show has less cutesy moe stuff though.

It delivers on the promised cute elements. I even tried recommending it to a friend who likes Love Live! Let’s just say, there are some differences. The voice actresses do a great job, and I actually found this anime kind of scary (although I get scared too easily).

Gin no Saji / Silver Spoon

Studios: A-1 Pictures Genres: Comedy, Slice of Life, School, Shounen Length: 11 episodes (23 min per ep)

Hachiken is a studious and diligent student who found it unbearable to live with the expectations of his parents and society. With his entry into high school, he decides to attend a unique boarding school in the countryside. The new environment isn’t what he expects, and along with meeting his new classmates and surroundings, he tries to adjust while trying to survive his new life.

Similar Anime: - Fullmetal Alchemist: This is an unexpected entry, but they have the same creator! Both are beautifully developed stories with lovable characters that you get attached to. Hiromu Arakawa is a genius in her own right, and this story has her art and her brilliant storytelling. *Barakamon: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!]

The voice acting here is great too, and the animation does its job well, but the real magic here is in the storytelling and the characters. I love the entire cast so much. Each of them are realistic and hardworking despite having their own quirky attributes. The setting and the meaning of every line of dialogue really sticks with me. The morals in both Barakamon and Gin no Saji are ones that I will never forget. The only reason why I don’t actively recommend this is because it is a farm, and those with weak stomaches might not like the idea of dealing with farm animals that get eaten, but if that’s the case, why eat meat at all? No animals are killed on-screen.

Hai to Gensou no Grimgar

Studios: A-1 Pictures Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Isekai Length: 12 episodes (24 min per ep)

*Isekai = Term used for fictional stories where characters are thrown into a new (usually fantasy RPG-style) world

Thrown into a foreign land with nothing but hazy memories and the knowledge of their name, a group of strangers is given no other choice than fight and eliminate anything that threatens the peace in their new world, Grimgar. This is no game—there are no redos or respawns; it is kill or be killed. It is now up to this ragtag group of unlikely fighters to survive together.

Similar Anime: - Sword Art Online/Goblin Slayer: They are of the same genre, but Grimgar does a better job than both combined (but I dislike SAO and Goblin Slayer). - Tate no Yuusha: Another Isekai anime (like SAO and Goblin) except unlike the two other similar anime, these ones are both done well. Tate no Yuusha already has a following.

The voice acting here is great, and we see Hosoya playing the main role for once! The art and animation are done well. This anime takes a far slower approach comparing to other Isekai anime. They spend more time on the emotional burdens of each of the characters and their slower adjustments. While that’s a turnoff to some, they make you view the lives of these former normal citizens and make you wonder whether you’d be able to survive these circumstances, and if you don’t like that... well... there is the fan-service I guess.

Hinamatsuri

Studios: feel. Genres: Comedy, Seinen, Slice of LIfe, Supernatural Length: 12 episodes (23 min per ep)

Yakuza member Nitta is rudely interrupted when a young female esper barges into his life. He quickly finds himself being a caregiver and parental figure to the girl. The unlikely duo lives life unconventionally as circumstances change and everyday chaos ensues.

Similar Anime: - Mob Psycho 100: The number of similarities often go unnoticed, but they are both about shady adults (a conman and a yakuza) taking in a young esper (Mob and Hina) with hilarious stories. YOU MUST WATCH BOTH. - Gintama: Odd choice, I know. Both are quite similar in terms of humour. Gintama takes the shounen route while Hinamatsuri is a seinen series.

The majority of this voice cast are newbies (meaning people I’ve never heard of before), and honestly, they do such a great job that I genuinely thought that these people were seasoned veterans. Same with the studio. I don’t usually see them take on these kinds of projects (with most of their things being basic Slice of Life). The faces are hilarious. The characters are hilarious (thanks to brilliant writing and voice casts). It was so much fun to watch. I had to conceal my laughter at 2am because I was secretly binge-watching this. I failed multiple times. 

Net-juu no Susume

Studios: Signal.MD Genres: Game, Comedy, Romance Length: 10 episodes (23 min per ep)

30-year-old Moriko Morioka is unemployed—and she couldn't be happier. Having quit her job of over 11 years, Moriko quickly turns to online games. With the pesky societal obligations of the real world out of the way, she dives into the realm of an MMO. Life online and in the real world intertwine.

Similar Anime: *Wotakoi: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!] *ReLIFE: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!]

This oddly relatable and adorable (don’t know what other words to use) romance between two people who meet online is honestly so pure, but let’s not forget that one of the high-ranking staff members of this anime is... uh... less than wholesome. 

Kazuyoshi Yaginumi (director) is a Holocaust denier and a supremacist who has radical political views. But hey, if you’ve watched the third season of Natsume’s Book of Friends, Naruto, No. 6, Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, Hotarubi no Mori e, Black Bullet, Beck, or Akira, I hate to break it to you, but he was a part of all of them. I found this out after I watched the anime. I probably would not have watched this if I knew. But if you dismiss the anime that this man has worked on, you are truly missing out. Let’s not forget that he wasn’t the only person working on these projects, and he isn’t the creator, but let’s pray that he isn’t hired to do anything else!!! I don’t know of any other major work he got after this one (aired in 2017)

Wotakoi

Studios: A-1 Pictures Genres: Comedy, Romance, Slice of Life Length: 11 episodes (22 min per ep)

Narumi Momose finds herself running late for her first day of work at a new office. She makes a promise to herself that none of her coworkers will find out about her dark secret: that she is an otaku and a fujoshi. This goes wrong when she runs into Hirotaka Nifuji, a friend from middle school. Luckily for her, the only witnesses to this slip-up are Hanako Koyanagi and Tarou Kabakura who are otaku as well. But what happens when otaku date each other?

Similar Anime: *Net-juu no Susume: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!] *Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun: I constantly swear on this anime because I like both of these anime a lot.

I liked this one better than Net-juu no Susume, but that isn’t because of the director of the other one. I like this one for its cast of characters, its use of references that go beyond the gaming world (although this anime touches on it too), and the fact that there are different type of otaku out there. I seriously understood more references than I would’ve liked. 

No. 6

Studios: Bones Genres: Action, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Drama Length: 11 episodes (23 min per ep)

Many years ago, after the end of a bloody world war, mankind took shelter in six city-states that were peaceful and perfect... at least on the surface. However, Shion—an elite resident of the city-state No. 6—has an encounter with a mysterious boy, Nezumi who lived in the desolate wasteland beyond the walls of the supposed utopia. Despite knowing that the other boy was a fugitive, Shion decided to take him in for the night and protect him, which resulted in drastic consequences. Now, a long time after their life-altering first meeting, Shion and Nezumi are finally brought together once again—the former elite and the boy on the run are about to embark on an adventure that will, in time, reveal the shattering secrets of No. 6.

Similar Anime: - Banana Fish: I haven’t completely watched Banana Fish, but it features the darker sides of society with loads of casualties.  *Zankyou no Terror: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!]

Hosoya and Kaji are both amazing in this anime. This anime meant a lot to both of them. Hosoya wanted to give up voice acting while Kaji was a fan of the original series and was hyped to hear its news for adaptation. This heartwrenching story suffers from the whole “rush this bad adaptation”, but as someone who doesn’t read manga/novels, this anime is a great look into the inside of this intricate universe. Again, most of the shortcomings have to do with poor pacing and toned down storytelling (and toned down violence) which come from being badly adapted from the source material, but even after taking away all that good stuff, we’re still left with a pretty good anime. Just don’t cry... too hard... yeah.

Kimi to Boku 

Studios: J.C. Staff Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, School, Shounen, Slice of Life Length: 13 episodes (24 min per ep)

Four high school boys, who have known each other since childhood, hang out together in school every day in their mundane lives. There's the handsome twins Yuuki and Yuuta Asaba, the gentle Shun Matsuoka, and the calm class head Kaname Tsukahara. Although they have become used to a lack of excitement in their lives, the addition of a new transfer student, Chizuru Tachibana, may add a little more adventure to their routine.

Similar Anime: *Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!] *Hachimitsu to Clover: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!]

While I wouldn’t classify this as a complete shounen nor would I call it a shoujo, it achieves a happy medium with enough anime cliches to call it an anime and enough ordinary elements for me to truly feel that it can be relatable. It has a really nice OST that’s sung by Aoi Shouta at times. We have a stacked and entertaining voice cast, and the story is slow but nice. It pulls more at the slice of life side rather than romance.

Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou / Daily Life of High School Boys

Studios: Sunrise Genres: Comedy, School, Shounen, Slice of Life Length: 12 episodes (24 min per ep)

Hidenori, Yoshitake, and Tadakuni are just an everyday trio of ordinary guys trying to pass the time, but who said everyday life couldn't be interesting? 

Similar Anime: *Nichijou: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!] *Kimi to Boku: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!] *Gintama: The shows do share a number of voice actors, the humour is similar, and the general nonsensical writing will draw audiences from both sides.

Here’s the more comedic and strictly non-romantic side of Kimi to Boku. This one is probably relatable in way that shouldn’t be shared with the general public. Unlike the other Nichijou (with girls and by Kyoto Animation), this one doesn’t rely on the animation. It relies on humour in its writing. There aren’t any really good female characters in this anime. It does focus on three guys and their antics though. And I mean, is anyone in this anime really a winner?

Natsume Yuujinchou / Natsume’s Book of Friends

Studios: Brain's Base Genres: Slice of Life, Supernatural, Drama, Fantasy, Shoujo Length: 12 episodes (24 min per ep)

Takashi Natsume has had a connection with youkai all his life and soon discovers that his deceased grandmother Reiko had passed on to him the Yuujinchou, or "Book of Friends," which contains the names of the spirits whom she brought under her control. This makes him a target of enraged youkai that want their names back. His only companion is a self-proclaimed bodyguard named Madara. Fondly referred to as Nyanko-sensei, Madara is a mysterious, pint-sized feline spirit who has his own reasons for sticking with the boy.

Similar Anime: *Mushishi: I haven’t watched Mushishi (even though it’s on my watch later list). It contains similar ideas and concepts. *Hotarubi no Mori e: Same creator/mangaka! Yuki Midorikawa has taken her masterful storytelling to other stories, and Hotarubi has a wonderful anime movie that manages to get you with the feels in less than an hour.

I know this anime gets a lot of attention already, but I feel like I haven’t met a whole lot of people who’ve watched it. A shoujo without romance? It’s unusual, but this definitely works out. The simple art works in its favour, and its music is beautiful. This anime has a way of making all of its stories resonate, and if you aren’t going to watch it for the youkais’ stories, watch it for Nyanko-sensei. He’s honestly the best.

Sakamichi no Apollon / Kids on the Slope

Studios: Tezuka Productions, MAPPA Genres: Drama, Josei, Music, Romance, School Length: 12 episodes (22 min per ep)

Introverted classical pianist Kaoru Nishimi has just arrived in Kyushu for his first year of high school. Having constantly moved from place to place since his childhood, he abandons all hope of fitting in, preparing himself for another lonely, meaningless year until he encounters the notorious delinquent Sentarou Kawabuchi. Kaoru begins playing the piano at after-school jazz sessions, located in the basement of fellow student Ritsuko Mukae's family-owned record shop.

Similar Anime: - Your Lie in April/Shigatsu no Kimi no Uso: Both anime are about classical musicians breaking out of their shells in beautifully written stories. Sakamichi no Apollon is arguably more serious and take on a bit of a darker and more mature tone since Shigatsu is a shounen anime while Sakamichi is a josei. *Kimi to Boku: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!]

This anime suffers the same thing that No. 6 does. The story gets watered down and condensed to fit the short-episode format, and so much is left out in terms of pacing. The voice acting in this is phenomenal. Ryohei Kimura and Yoshimasa Hosoya do not disappoint. Yuuka Nanri barely has any other lead roles, but she does an okay job here too. Yoko Kanno on score composition is one of the best decisions to be made for this anime even if jazz isn’t her main genre of choice. She composed everything masterfully. I wouldn’t have thought that she did it if I didn’t see it on the staff list. Those things are the reasons why I liked this anime so much. The OST and voice acting are good enough for me to recommend this anime despite (like No. 6), the adaptation quality not being that great. Even taking that stuff away, we are still left with a great anime.

ReLIFE

Studios: TMS Entertainment Genres: Slice of Life, Romance, School Length: 13 episodes (23 min per ep)

Hopeless 27-year-old loser Arata Kaizaki bounces around from one job to another after quitting his first company. He meets Ryou Yoake who offers Arata the opportunity to change his life for the better with the help of a mysterious pill. Arata takes it and awakens to find that his appearance has reverted to that of a 17-year-old. He takes part in a unique experiment and must attend high school as a transfer student for one year. Arata struggles to adjust to his hectic new lifestyle and avoid repeating his past mistakes, all while slowly discovering more about his fellow classmates and himself.

Similar Anime: - Erased: Both anime are about adults reliving their past and trying to make amends for past mistakes that they’ve made. Erased takes more of the murder mystery route while ReLIFE stays in a simpler slice of life style. *Net-juu no Susume: [ON THIS LIST - Please look at both anime entries to see why!]

This anime suffers the same thing that No. 6 and Sakamichi no Apollon does. The story gets watered down and condensed to fit the short-episode format, and so much is left out in terms of pacing that they had to fit hundreds of chapters into the second season which had FOUR episodes. This one has an awesome casts which mixes experienced voice actors with newer ones. This was one of Yuuma Uchida’s first major roles, and we see new(er) people like Reina Ueda and Himika Akaneya mixed in too. In terms of experienced voice actors, we can look forward to Kensho Ono and Ai Kayano playing the main characters along with Haruka Tomatsu and Ryohei Kimura also playing major characters along with appearances from Noriaki Sugiyama, Daisuke Namikawa, and Miyuki Sawashiro. With a bunch of new EDs with practically every episode and an OST that people seem to love or hate (jazz piano riffs have to be your thing, and I liked it), the music is hit and miss. For me, it was a hit. The jazz soundtrack is out-of-place but unique. It takes a sharp contrast, and it isn’t bad music. 

Senyuu

[This anime is on the “Anime with Short Episodes” list]

Studios: Ordet, LIDENFILMS Genres: Action, Comedy, Parody, Fantasy, Shounen Length: 13 episodes (4 min per ep)

In a story we’ve all heard before, the demon lord is sealed until things go amiss! Amateur adventurer Alba Frühling and sadistic talented soldier Ross must go defeat monsters and seal the demons away.

Similar Anime: - Saiki: Both episodes have short run-time and derive their humour from parodying genres. Senyuu takes the RPG adventure genre and flips it on its head while Saiki takes overpowered espers and pulls it like Hinamatsuri and Mob Psycho 100. - Konosuba: I know this is strange coming from someone who actually detests Konosuba. I couldn’t stand the characters that were flawed to the point where I couldn’t like them no matter how hard I tried. Both take the RPG adventure world and parody it to the point where you wonder why these flawed buffoons are trusted with anything.

This anime is one of my favourite short anime out there. With a short run-time of four minutes, it quickly got me invested in the story and the characters. It was so funny that I found myself binge-watching both seasons and the OVAs within the same day. Yuuichi Nakamura and Hiro Shimono provide their perfect performances for this anime. The other cast members contribute a lot as well with other names like Ai Kayano, Yumi Uchiyama, Takahiro Sakurai, Kenichi Suzumura, and others. Hiroshi Kamiya also takes the lead role in the OVAs. Overall, it’s a great watch when you have no patience for 24-minute episodes.

Honobono Log

[This anime is on the “Anime with Short Episodes” list]

Studios: Fanworks Genres: Romance, Slice of life Length: 10 episodes (2 min per ep)

Insights into couples, why they’re better than being single, and why you’re just a sad loner.

This is actually based off a picture book.

Similar Anime: NONE!  I truly haven’t seen an anime like this around. While Tsurezure has its similarities in short-run time and romance, this one is vastly different. Dareka no Manazashi is too different to say it’s similar. Both are short (although Dareka no Manazashi is a short film) and about life, but Dareka no Manazashi is different because it focuses on one person doesn’t have romance and relies on more of the “growing up” part whereas Honobono relies on each specific situation.

This anime is another one of my favourite short anime out there. With a short run-time of two minutes, they manage to guilt-trip you for being alone and single. Of course, not all of them are about cute couple stuff, but some are about family and growing up. Miyu Irino and Asami Seto do an amazing job, and the OP is really nice and adds to the heartwarming factor of this anime.

Zankyou no Terror

Studios: MAPPA Genres: Thriller, Psychological, Drama Length: 11 episodes (22 min per ep)

Six months after a mysterious unsolved terror attack, a strange video makes its way onto the internet. In it, two teenage boys who identify themselves only as "Sphinx" challenge the police, threatening to cause destruction and mayhem across Tokyo. The police struggle to act effectively against these terrorists, with Detective Kenjirou Shibazaki caught in the middle of it all. The two boys behind the masked figures of Sphinx are known as Nine and Twelve, and they stand strong in a world of deception and secrets while they make the city fall around them, all in the hopes of burying their own tragic truth.

Similar Anime: - Death Note: I haven’t actually watched Death Note (haha), but they are both similar. I know that much. Both are about the police lagging behind some teenager as they wreak havoc, but while Light Yagami has a god-complex, Sphinx has its own secrets. - Psycho-Pass: I haven’t watched this one either, but both take on philosophical ideas that make you wonder whether society should be run one way or another. They are both centred around law enforcement and the detainment of those who step out of line.

Yoko Kanno provides yet another stunning masterpiece for this anime’s score which really drives the anime further. Along with extremely strong art style from Studio MAPPA, it creates for a very mysterious and eerie tone that fit the anime so well. The voice acting from the two leads and the detective are amazing, but I can’t say they have good female characters in this anime, and without good characters, I can’t say there was good voice acting on their parts, although, Megumi Han did sound pretty good in her given role. Soma Saito and Kaito Ishikawa are both close in real life, and it almost transcends onto the screen in this anime.

The story is riveting even if it’s been done before. It’s not the most unique in that right, but I still found myself finding these characters to be human. It was well-paced too and didn’t feel dragged or rushed for the most part. Shinichiro Watanabe directed and created this, and you might know him for Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Kids on the Slope, Space Dandy, and more, and he certainly does not disappoint with this anime.

[mermaidylluria]

Warning to all you mers on Tumblr out there: The purge has officially begun. My account just got flagged, and the only things I have on here are my own event photos (which are all family-friendly & fully clothed), and mermaid art (both classical and new, some of which has an LGBTQ focus- and may, at times, *gasp* in some cases feature kissing). So.. just as a heads-up, the whole Tumblog censorship hubub is a real thing. My hope was that in a page FULL of mermaids, it would be obvious what the space was about- that it was absent of pornographic or ANY kind of child-endangering content, n’ be subsequently left alone.  But it appears that’s not the case.  So now that we know mer art is going to be targeted (after all, “NEKKIT BEWBIES, ER MAH GURD!!”), I suggest we all get ready to either defend our posts (via disputing flagged content), participate in some kind of (peaceful, preferably meaningful & artful) protest, or just leave the platform all together. 'Cause this tells me that they're not only flagging classical art, they're also trying to eradicate LGBTQ content, and NONE of that is okay.  Personally, I’m going to do all 3.  Fight and dispute, while making preparations to move my space elsewhere.  Where that’ll be I’m not sure yet, but if we loose, I want a place for my mermaid stuff to go, and the demigods at Tumblr better be aware, I’m taking my decently-well-known bellydance n’ other blogs w/me too, if I’m forced to leave.

And just for my personal 2 cents on the matter?  Dear gods, not ALL of the internet has to be child friendly. XP Censorship like that happening on YouTube, Facebook & now Tumblr stifles creativity (look at channels like Glam&Gore, who can’t barely do SFX makeup anymore because she keeps getting demonetized), silences valuable artistic and minority voices, removes audiences for burgeoning creators (who, btw, may NOT be engaging in pornographic content in ANY way), and forces narrow-minded, puritanical standards of "decency" (which are by FAR the minority), over others' ability to operate successfully in that medium. This smothers decent, AWESOME things like art, science, expression and SO much more. XS  See, it’s not about the p0rn.  It’s about the CENSORSHIP.  This is the internet. It was designed to dispense and SHARE information, ideas, inspiration, fun, etc. Not be a surrogate nanny for your kids. XS

ANNNNYWAY, if you want to read more about what is and is not allowed on Tumblr now, you can visit: https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248. (And be sure to read to the bottom, where users can find out how to appeal post & entire blog flags under the last 2 questions.)  And if you have a mermaid blog where ANY kind of toplessness is involved, note that "female presenting nipples" is distinctly mentioned, which, as I'm sure lots of you already know, directly impacts classical AND modern art- one of the few things on Tumblr that can be shared WITHOUT a copyright, as well as a TON of mermaid art, classical and otherwise. XP 

What does this mean?  Well.. in simple terms, it means that stuff like Botticelli and Picasso are no longer welcome on Tumblr.  It means that Reubens, Waterhouse and Rodin, if they have artistic interpretations of naked women in their work, cannot be shared on Tumblr.  Even though their works are featured in international museums of the highest callibur, lauded all over the world as legends of innovation, vision, unparalleled beauty, & precision, expression & creativity, and world-famed for their social and economic value.  Those.. are not welcome here now, apparently.  Meanwhile, images & videos stolen from present-day & other modern hard-working artists, photographers, cartoonists, writers and other creators from allll over the world arrre hunky-dory. XP  DaFUQ, Tumblr??? (At -least- they mention mis-attribution & non-attribution on their new guidelines now. That at least, is an improvement. X*)

But now.. let’s see how that’s directly affected my blog, shall we..?  ‘Cause, as I mentioned before, I figured surely since I didn’t actually have any pr0n on my pages, I & other mer pages should be safe, right?  BZZZZZZZT, WRONG.  After getting this e-mail (pictured above), I went through my whole blog and found the 4 posts that were "flagged" as having adult content. *rolls eyes* 

3 of them were reblogs &1 was an original post. 

2 of those posts were queer-positive modern art. 

1 was a photographic collection of pieces FEATURED IN "W" MAGAZINE, 

And the last is a piece of classical style, queer-positive art. XS 

One of the modern pieces doesn't even show nipples, just saggy bewbies COVERED with small seashells. 

The other modern-style piece was a Rackham style drawing, where the tatas are but a mere suggestion of simple lines and dots. 

One was shown in a INTERNATIONAL FRICKING FASHION MAGAZINE SPREAD, which was apparently suitable for SOMEONES' interpretation of public consumption, 

and the last only shows suggestions & curvatures of breasts! (Showing the side and outer portions of the female chest, with no nipples. XP)

-And WHY AM I HAVING TO JUSTIFY THIS???? THIS IS ART. THIS IS NOT P0RN. Again I say "WTF, Tumblr????" XS

As you can see, 3 of my posts were reblogs, so I had no means of disputing those posts.  (According to their new guidelines, the owner of the original post has to do that, and if they are found as having “inappropriate content,” there’s no further means of appeal.)   But one of them, one of the very first posts I ever made in this blog, was an original, so I was able to refute its being deemed as inappropriate.  FIrst, you have to go through allll of your posts to find.. whatever it is someone’s had issue with.  (Whether it’s a person who’s flagged it or something chosen by Tumblr’s algorithms/keyword alert systems, I have no idea.)  But they don't even bother to link you in your notification e-mail, so first you’ve gotta FIND what’s being flagged before you can repeal it.  (I didn’t even know what I was looking for at first.  They never specify.  Would it be a tiny new icon near the Edit and Share buttons at the bottom?  A wee little flag pointer, outside of the post itself..?  Do I got to my posted page n’ try to find it?  Or will it be in my Posts stream, & the whole post be red..?  Who knows?)  But eventually, after enough scrolling, I found what I was looking for.  A big red bar across the affected posts.  -And if it’s a post you can do something about, they give you a button to push on the designated "flagged" work, at the top right. After you hit the "dispute" button, you’re given a largely blank page.  In the center, you get to choose between Dispute, Cancel or Learn More.  No “tell us why you feel this should not be flagged, why it doesn’t violate our rules,” nothing.  Nowhere to speak your peace.  You just hit a button, and you’re done.  You get no say, other than “I object, your honor!”  NOT COOL, people. NOT COOL.  You clearly don’t wanna hear the voices of your content creators, or, at least, enough to allow them to speak for the work they felt appropriate enough to post..

Reading this from another media source?  Please don’t discount this issue if you don’t personally have a Tumblog.  It doesn't really matter whether you use tumble or not, whether you think it's lame or not, etc. The problem is much, much larger than that, and it’s growing.  This is another very large, social media platform that's being affected by censorship in the name of marketing- and thus, be child-friendly.  They want the whole family to be able to come and see all the ads they wanna put here, and without that, they don’t make their money.  So anything not child-friendly, even vaguely PERCEIVED as not child-friendly (by God only knows whose standards), is being wiped out from the whole platform.  Don’t believe me?  It’s happened on YouTube, on Facebook, and likely, many others.  Do some googling and check it out for yourself.  YouTube is a platform that’s being strangled by this phenomenon right this very second.  There are videos on it.  Go see. Now.  ‘Cause if we don’t educate ourselves about this n’ do something to fight it, what’s happening to YouTube is our future.  Not just here on Tumblr, but EVERYWHERE.

Big Brother isn't just watching, guys, he's stealing your open arenas for personal and creative expression, so he can better market to you & yer kids.  He wants EVERYONE to buy his Stuff.   And if the kids can’t see it here, they won’t ask mommy and daddy to go get it for them.  So out classical art, and LGBTQ content, and mermaids go.  Out the door.  (Meanwhile, who do kids love?? UM.. MERMAIDS.  HELLO!!!  What should be educating them about history and the arts?  UMM.. FINE ART, HELLO.  Who teaches them about tolerance and diversity and SO MUCH MORE?  Umm.. THE LGBTQ community!  Who teaches them about what human bodies look like, and that it’s okay to have ANY kind of body?  UM.. BODY POSITIVE ART, THANK YOU.)  

We need to put the kaibosh on this somehow, now. Not just for Tumblr, or Facebook, or YouTube. We've got to find SOME way of letting the Big Boys know this is not activity we will tolerate. 'Cause the places to freely express ourselves are going to continue to diminish, get scarcer, and fewer.. until they're all.. gone.

ART =/= PORN, YOU IGNORANT, PURITANICAL, MONEY-GRUBBING FISHTITS.  LEARN TO POLICE YOUR OWN CHILDREN, MORE EFFECTIVELY POLICE GENUINE CRIMINALS, AND LEAVE THE REST OF THE INTERNET ALONE.  Please.

♥

[housmania]

In Defense of TJLC

A response to this Slate podcast and to general misconceptions.

Hello! Call me soe. I like cats, BBC Sherlock, and friendly online communities. I hope you do too.

I also blog about TJLC. So, when a Slate podcast came out this week portraying TJLCers in a jarringly negative light, I was dismayed. What I heard was not the community I know.

This post’s aim is to tell the other side of the story. I’m writing both for people who support TJLC and were shocked to hear of the podcast, and for people outside TJLC whose initial impressions have been skewed by the podcast or other outside sources.

I’ll address four of the most common arguments against TJLC through the lens of the argument presented by Willa Paskin, the podcast’s creator:

TJLC, as a theory, is “far-fetched” and merits no serious consideration.

TJLCers are dogmatic, ideological, and close-minded.

TJLCers have hated on people outside of TJLC to an unusual and appalling extent.

TJLC has brought more harm into the world than good.

I intend to refute these points. In the process, I hope to represent your run-of-the-mill TJLCer: not a hateful extremist, but rather someone who supports a theory, enjoys discussing it, and is happy to let those who don’t live their happy lives.

It also means adhering to the standards of a good TJLC meta writer: going through the podcast thoroughly, addressing Ms. Paskin’s correct insights as well as her failings; reading and acknowledging critics and downright opponents; citing all sources; and remaining civil and open-minded. I wish Ms. Paskin had afforded us these privileges.

I genuinely believe that Ms. Paskin meant well. Nonetheless, the biases of her sources, combined with several misconceptions and imperfect research, result in a piece that portrays TJLC inaccurately.

To understand what the podcast got wrong, we first need to cover:

What is TJLC?

TJLC is the theory that the characters John Watson and Sherlock Holmes will end up in a canonical romantic relationship on the BBC show Sherlock. People who support this theory are called TJLCers. TJLCers write analyses of the show, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and numerous other sources known as “metas”.

TJLC is short for “The Johnlock Conspiracy.” I must immediately clarify that this name is a joke. It began humorously and is always, always used tongue-in-cheek. Keep this in mind: Many misconceptions about TJLC arise from the fact that we take very few things seriously, as I’ll discuss later.

What isn’t TJLC?

TJLC is not the same as Johnlock.

Johnlock refers just to shipping John/Sherlock—thinking they’d make a cute romantic couple, without necessarily having any expectation of that happening on the show.

More fundamentally: Johnlock is about creating transformative, creative content. It’s about making something new. In essence, it’s fiction.

TJLC is about analyzing evidence that’s already there. It’s nonfiction.

Ms. Paskin frequently blurs the lines between the two and mourns TJLC for not having the same level of creativity. She explains, for example, that fandom reads into tiny elements of a show to create a transformative space. But TJLC is not transformative. That’s Johnlock.

Neither is TJLC based on wanting the show to “bend to [our] desires”—i.e., Johnlock shippers projecting wishful thinking onto the show. I’m happy to serve as a counterexample for that! I actually didn’t ship Johnlock at all before discovering TJLC. Rather, I found the theories plausible and loved the idea that a show centered around deduction and analysis could also be the subject of deduction and analysis.

Of course, people who already ship Johnlock are more likely to be attracted to TJLC. But the basis of TJLC is not to “see in the story that you have, the story that you want” (46:40)—that’s shipping—but to analyze the story you already have.

I cannot stress this enough: TJLC is analysis, NOT shipping.

TJLC and the “Great Game”

As the podcast explains, TJLCers aren’t the first analyze Sherlock Holmes. Fans of the originals have been analyzing the stories since the 1880s. These early theorists actually gave the name to two kinds of fan analysis: Watsonian and Doylist.

Watsonian fans played the “Great Game,” treating the stories like a real world. Doyle didn’t exist, so every detail had to be explained in-universe rather than attributed to author techniques or error. They’re closer to your modern shippers, creating headcanons to fill in gaps.

Doylist fans acknowledged that (no duh) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a real person, and therefore analyzed the stories as works of literature. They are essentially literary analysts and critics, the kind that wind up on JSTOR.

TJLCers are Doylists. Obviously, someone made the show. That means we analyze character arcs, cinematographic techniques, and rhetorical devices in the dialogue like a researcher in film studies or literature would.

Ms. Paskin warns that in the Watsonian Great Game, people kept “tongues planted firmly in cheek; TJLCers, not so much.” And yet, that’s the point! You wouldn’t expect a literary analyst to go “lol maybe The Great Gatsby criticizes society but like who knows” any more than you’d want Watsonians to really believe that because John Watson’s wife called him James, his middle name is Hamish (Scottish for James) rather than acknowledging that Doyle just forgot. A ridiculous premise entails a humorous approach. A reasonable premise entails a rational one.

TJLC isn’t quite the same as highbrow analysis, however, for three reasons:

First, we use our analyses to speculate about the future of the show. We don’t have the privilege of analyzing a complete work. In that sense, the closest analogy I can think of is that of political analysts: examining what’s already been said and done to predict what will happen next.

Second, we evolved from a fandom space. That means that the barrier between TJLC and Johnlock, between nonfiction analysis and creative fiction, is never as solid as it would be in academia. Furthermore, a significant number of TJLC meta writers also engage in fictional fanworks, making it more difficult to distinguish where hard analysis ends and transformative work begins. I’ll go into some of the nuances of meta in a bit.

Third, the people in TJLC are generally queer women and often young. And we can’t discuss biases against fandom and TJLC without acknowledging sexism and homophobia. When a film critic writes a theory, it’s deep; when we do, it’s ludicrous. Paradise Lost is fanfiction just as much as AO3, but only the former is treated as legitimate literature. Theories about straight couples are plausible; ones about queer ones are suddenly delusional or fetishization. Adult fanboys are mature content creators; fangirls are hysterical.

Conversations about the implicit biases in media depictions of fandom aren’t my focus here. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to bear in mind that highbrow criticisms of fandom that focus only on its ill effects and ignore the complexity, depth, community bonding, and social change that fandom (analytical and transformative) creates often denigrate fans as immature and delusional without considering whether that accurately represents even a significant minority of a fandom. It’s a bias that we should all keep in check.

As progressive as Ms. Paskin may be, the podcast also falls into this trap. In particular, she emphasizes sensationalist depictions of TJLC theories—highlighting far-fetched theories and glossing over deeper points—and the contemptible actions of very few TJLCers while glossing over the far more plausible mainstream theories and kindness of nearly all TJLCers. As a result, we naturally look hysterical and delusional.

So let’s tackle each of those issues: TJLC as a theory and the behavior of the TJLC community.

TJLC as a Theory

If you don’t support TJLC, I’m not asking you to be convinced by a few paragraphs. The aim here is simply to explain why TJLC is plausible.

Ms. Paskin asserts that (1) TJLC is completely unsupported by the original Sherlock Holmes stories, (2) that romantic coding in the show is simply “a knowing wink,” and that (3) TJLC “is based on an unfalsifiable premise: that the creators are lying to you.” In fact:

1. TJLC is supported by the original stories.

The Sherlock Holmes canon contains significant, documented evidence of queer coding similar to other works of the same time period. It’s also reasonable to theorize, based on biographical data, that Doyle himself was bisexual.

The extent to which the stories were deliberately coded is a matter of debate. Yet Ms. Paskin simply asserts that “Conan Doyle wasn’t trying to create a homosexual subtext when he wrote the characters, but he did write a deep and committed friendship.” As @one-thousand-splendid-stars put it:

How on earth can anyone possibly know if the homoeroticism was intentional or not, when ACD could’ve been persecuted for admitting it, or making it more obvious?

Ms. Paskin’s assertion, which does not acknowledge any evidence to the contrary, again conflates Johnlock shippers with TJLCers. Johnlock is about transformative fiction; TJLC is about nonfiction analysis.

Ms. Paskin also suggests that TJLCers are “queering” the text, except that queering generally implies a queer theory approach to something that wasn’t queer to begin with. Our whole objective is to reveal that the text was originally queer.

2. The basis for TJLC is the show itself.

Ms. Paskin supposes that TJLC is “is based on an unfalsifiable premise: that the creators are lying to you.”

But TJLC isn’t based on anything the creators have said. It’s based on analysis of the show itself.

There’s a whole lot of analysis; good summaries are here and here. Essentially, we argue that given the level of coding on the show, the most probable outcome is that there is deliberate subtext meant to foreshadow that John and Sherlock will become a couple. Elements like Sherlock being indifferent to women, yet “romantic entanglement would complete [him] as a human being” suggest that the subtext isn’t just a “knowing wink,” as Ms. Paskin asserts: it would be poor writing (not to mention queerbaiting) to complete such a setup and not follow through.

3. The creators

Ms. Paskin finds it alarming that TJLCers believe Moffat and Gatiss are deliberately lying when they say that Johnlock will not become canon.

And normally, I would agree! Except that Moffat and Gatiss have a long history of lying through their teeth about plot developments. For example, they vehemently repeated that The Abominable Bride would be a stand-alone episode completely independent of the show, but it turned out to be a drugged Sherlock’s theorizing about Moriarty’s plan. And before Series 4, they said that Mary would become a long-running character, then killed her off in the next episode.

So it’s not a stretch to think that they could be lying about one more thing, particularly when TJLC relies on independent evidence from the show itself.

In fact, Paskin argues that TJLCers, like Watsonians playing the Great Game, base their theories on a “contradiction”: “On the one hand the author might as well not exist, but then on the other hand, this person who doesn’t exist has made this perfectly explicable logical thing.”

Except that unlike Watsonians, we do acknowledge that the creators exist. We analyze the show as a work of fiction, with narrative techniques that can be analyzed just as much as plot elements.

Furthermore, the fact that the creators lie constantly doesn’t mean we don’t pay attention to what they do say. They have large incentives to keep upcoming plot twists secret, but that doesn’t mean they can’t reveal their motivations and influences. A lawyer questioning a lying witness can still gain information from what they do say.

Take a closer example: Say I went back to 1897 and asked Bram Stoker if there’s queer coding in Dracula (which is now well-documented). He would probably respond along the lines of “I’m not a sodomite; also, what???” But he might wax poetic about homoeroticism in Walt Whitman’s poetry and mention that his charismatic but domineering idol Henry Irving was the basis for Dracula.

So no, there’s no contradiction between analyzing the show and the creators’ influences while still believing that they don’t want to reveal upcoming plot points.

The Behavior of the TJLC Community

How Theories Work

Ms. Paskin rattles off several far-fetched TJLC theories that make TJLC as a whole sound ridiculous. Furthermore, she implies that TJLC is a monolithic community with a “dogmatic” belief in all of these theories, such that criticism and discussion don’t exist.

Guess what? I’m in TJLC, and I don’t believe half the theories she mentioned. That’s because TJLC is much less uniform than its detractors would believe. Furthermore, the general level of confidence that people have in a given piece of evidence depends on its strength. In other words, the more evidence for something, the more likely that TJLCers agree on it. The less evidence for something, the more likely we are to treat it as just something cool that could turn out to be coincidence.

We can divide TJLC meta into five basic categories:

1. Foundational meta

These are well-respected analysis of character arcs, dialogue, and other clearly deliberate plot elements such as this one. Pretty much all TJLCers agree with them. These are your best-researched, most widespread meta; they form the true basis of TJLC. Here are some examples. And yet they hardly show up in Ms. Paskin’s discussion, because they don’t make TJLC sound too far-fetched.

2. Circumstantial evidence

TJLC can stand on foundational meta alone, but there’s also secondary evidence to support it. This includes the “drinks code” (the theory that beverages serve as symbols on the show, supported by subsequent creator remarks) and similar theories that can’t hold up TJLC by themselves, but do provide extra evidence and add nuance to theories about character arcs and plot development.

3. Accessory meta

These are analyses of elements that could well turn out to be coincidence due to scarce evidence. If true, they allow us to establish character arcs in greater depth, but it’s perfectly possible that any given one is coincidence. These include the theories on wallpaper and lighting that Ms. Paskin reports as though they were the pillars of TJLC. They’re theories that I read and go, “Hm, interesting; maybe.”

4. Spinoff theories

These are theories that deal with specific paths the show might take. They generally have groups of supporters within TJLC, but each spinoff theory usually only has a smaller group of supporters within the larger TJLC community.

It’s important to note that many major theories don’t have to do with Johnlock at all. Take M-theory, the idea that Mycroft and other characters are under Moriarty’s thumb, or EMP, the idea that some episodes take place in Sherlock’s mind palace. If, as Ms. Paskin asserts, TJLC is about wishful thinking and wanting Johnlock to be canon, what would be the point of these? Furthermore, if TJLC is monolithic and dogmatic, why do we constantly discuss and critique these theories in constructive discussions? I had to make a whole table of theories after Series 4 because everyone’s opinion was so different!

5. Crack theories

These are usually clearly labeled “crack” and are never meant to be taken seriously. Again, TJLC contains a lot of humor. So sometimes, we goof off and write theories like this one that are clearly ridiculous, usually with an exaggerated conspiratorial tone, to have fun in the spirit of the Watsonians. Unfortunately, some people outside TJLC think we actually take these theories seriously and accordingly treat us as crazy people. Guys… Ctrl+F “crack” first.

To summarize:

TJLC contains theories with varying levels of evidence that are treated with corresponding levels of seriousness.

TJLCers are far from dogmatic. Different people have different views, and that’s OK.

TJLC is founded on criticism and discussion (here’s an example). By disagreeing on meta, we gain better insight into the characters.

Addressing Ms. Paskin: The theories she dwells on are EMP and M-Theory (40:04 and 10:37), both spinoff theories. They do not form part of the main body of TJLC, and fans are far more flexible about that stuff because it’s not nearly as firmly supported as foundational meta. She cites a clip analyzing Mycroft’s theme in the score, which is accessory meta that could well turn out to be coincidence. (By the way, I have serious doubts about all three of these theories. And TJLC is perfectly accepting of that!)

She also talks about loudest-subtext’s meta on the 2009 BBC queer representation report, whose objective was to demonstrate that it was possible for TJLC to happen from a production/permission standpoint, not to prove that TJLC was happening on the show. In that sense, it’s closer to circumstantial evidence.

She also fears that TJLCers “try to find order and logic and reason in every detail.” Again, sane TJLCers treat less solid evidence as less likely to be true. Caveat: Some TJLCers do go overboard. But they do not represent the overwhelming, sane majority.

TJLC Culture

Confidence and Criticism

Ms. Paskin finds it alarming that many TJLCers regarded TJLC as far more well-supported, even certain, than “an opinion or a possibility” or “just one ship among many” (14:50).

And yet, in an academic setting, isn’t it normal to think that the theory you researched and support is correct? Again, we hit the boundary in how the public perceives highbrow research and fan analysis. TJLC was not “just one ship among many” because (again) it’s not a ship, it’s a theory based on research and analysis. So naturally, we had a higher level of confidence in TJLC becoming canon than a shipper with an unsupported ship would.

Ms. Paskin implies that this confidence led directly to TJLC being unable to take criticism and therefore hating on people outside the community, since “denying [TJLC] was denying the truth” (14:55). But—first off—confidence does not directly lead to thin skins. Again, we debate everything. If good meta writers couldn’t change their minds given new evidence, TJLC wouldn’t exist.

Yet even when some TJLCers were more certain about TJLC than could be reasonably expected, the overwhelming majority was perfectly nice. We can, in fact, agree to disagree with others.

But this brings us to the most painful part of the podcast:

Fandom Toxicity: The Broad Picture

The podcast, having painted TJLCers as delusional, dogmatic crusaders, goes on to argue that TJLCers hated on people outside TJLC to an unusual and deplorable amount, such that TJLC’s main effect was to increase toxicity in the Sherlock fandom.

For starters:  Yes, a few TJLCers did fit this despicable mold. I universally condemn people who went out of their way to attack people outside or inside the community. They are an insult to TJLC’s values of inclusivity and rational debate. And my heart goes out to the people who suffered as a result of them.

But guess what? All the TJLCers I’ve talked to agree with that. Because the fact is that awful people form an incredibly small minority of TJLC.

Most of the TJLCers who listened to the podcast found this to be the most insulting and painful part. They’ve reiterated time and again that the community as a whole is not a toxic place.  @artfulkindoforder put it best:

So many TJLCers were never mean to anybody.

You can think we’re unrealistic, immature, delusional—fine. But at the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of us stuck to our circles of courteous people and just had fun.

In broad terms, there were several inconsistencies between the podcast and what I found. First, the podcast attributes toxic behavior to large swathes of TJLC, when in fact it tended to be a small group of repeat offenders, many of whom would attack people inside TJLC as well as outside it. loudest-subtext, a longtime TJLC blogger, discussed this here.

Secondly, the podcast makes absolutely no mention of the hate that TJLCers—often perfectly civil ones—received, which makes it easier to paint TJLC as engaging in vicious, one-sided attack. TJLCers, especially at the beginning, received shocking quantities of anonymous hate. Like attacks on people outside TJLC, I’m sure that the attacks on TJLCers were also due to a tiny minority of toxic people. But to gloss over them entirely is to paint an incomplete and biased picture. As @one-thousand-splendid-stars put it:

I’m not going to pretend that there was never nasty behavior from TJLC, but I’m also not going to say her description of us was accurate. She presented the TJLC fandom like it was a toxic cult.... She talked about fandom bullying as though we were never on the receiving end of it, and weren’t ever ridiculed, or called stupid, or sent anon hate, or harassed. To imply that tjlcers were only dishing it out is just flat out inaccurate.

The anonymous attacks on TJLCers had several results. First, TJLC developed a culture that stresses avoiding confrontation with outsiders: leaving other shippers be, unless they seek out TJLC posts. For example, some of the first things I learned were to misspell other ship names on TJLC posts so they wouldn’t show up when people wanted content promoting that ship, and not to reblog posts from outside shippers’ blogs with TJLC-related comments. Far from attacking outsiders, the whole point is to let people who disagree with TJLC do their own thing.

Second, the vast majority of TJLCers despise anon hate because they receive it unusually often. I’ve never seen a community with so many posts reminding people never to resort to it because they’ve seen how it hurt TJLC bloggers.

Third, a handful of TJLCers who got repeated and unwarranted hate did get more combative. But when looking at their later behavior, it’s important to understand that many of them became less willing to compromise on TJLC because they’d seen toxic fans remain unwilling to compromise or debate with them. And most of the conflicts I’ve seen as a result came from anti-TJLC people coming specifically to comment on TJLCers’ posts, not from TJLCers going out of their way to fight non-TJLCers.

Specific Incidents

I didn’t want to rely on secondhand knowledge about hate to write this response. In the spirit of TJLC, I wanted to be fair and impartial. That meant looking through the blogs of people who had received hate inside and outside TJLC. So here’s what I found out:

First off, it was awful. I was looking 4-5 years back to find the worst instances of hate in the community, and I wasn’t used to it because the bloggers I interact with are universally inclusive and civil.

Ms. Paskin discussed three specific incidents on the podcast: top/bottomlock, the 2015 221BCon incident, and post-Series 4 anger.

When top/bottomlock came up, I was baffled. First off, that discussion is ancient. It’s so old that by the time I joined TJLC in late 2015, it had practically died out. More importantly, a “debate” that Ms. Paskin describes as “very specific and dogmatic fanon” was—as I’ve understood—never taken seriously. Again, TJLC is not a very serious place, and people outside it are bound to misinterpret inside jokes. 99% of TJLCers saw top/bottomlock as nothing more than fodder for crack theories, and yet Ms. Paskin’s sources on this issue—none of whom are actually in TJLC—describe it as a debate of monumental importance.

The 2015 221BCon, on the other hand, was a serious conflict. As far as I can tell, people like Emma genuinely suffered, and the fact that neutral fans received anonymous attacks is shameful. But the results of this stretched to TJLCers as well as people outside TJLC, something that the podcast conveniently neglects to mention.

The end of Series 4 disappointed people throughout the Sherlock fandom. I’m not talking about Johnlock: plot inconsistencies, weird characterizations, and plot pulled from a horror movie resulted in its lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating ever. TJLC is too small to have that kind of clout, so to say that TJLCers were the only ones disappointed is clearly inaccurate.

Ms. Paskin claims that Series 4 “seemed straighter, not gayer, than before” and yet John telling Sherlock that “romantic entanglement would complete you as a human being” is uh…pretty gay. For many TJLCers, the problem wasn’t that there wasn’t Johnlock; the problem was that the quality of the show seemed to have drastically decreased.

TJLC immediately split into two groups. One group left TJLC, believing that Moffat and Gatiss had been queerbaiting. Many of them began constructive anti-queerbaiting discussions. Unfortunately, a few took their anger out on the creators.

The resulting hateful messages do not represent the views of the vast majority of former TJLCers, let alone people who still support TJLC. The fact that Amanda Abbington received a death threat is disgusting; and yet in TJLC, she’s always been regarded as a sort of beloved “fandom aunt”. In addition, Ms. Paskin cites an article that claimed that fans “dampened [Martin Freeman’s] enthusiasm.” But that interview has already been revealed as a clickbait-seeking misinterpretation—by Freeman himself.

The second group—those remaining in TJLC—were a bit desperate, and I’ll be the first to admit that several theories with scanty factual basis became more popular then than they would have in calmer times. The Apple Tree Yard theory, for instance, is clearly ridiculous in retrospect. But even I was willing to consider it. (Not my finest moment.) As a side note, however: the far-fetched “China cancelled Johnlock” theory she mentioned is by someone who’s not only outside TJLC, but also notorious for hating it

But regardless of the quality of these theories, 99% of the remaining TJLCers were certainly not hating on people—because who was there to hate, if there was no queerbaiting?

Ultimately, the podcast’s descriptions of hate related to TJLC are one-sided, distorted, and do not reflect the conduct of the overwhelming majority of TJLCers.

Podcast-Specific Errors

There’s a reason why the podcast comes off so different from reality: its research is seriously flawed.

For a podcast about TJLC, Ms. Paskin interviewed a whopping one (1) actual current TJLCer, whom she apparently interviewed after building much of her argument. Every other interviewee was outside TJLC and specifically disliked it. That will hardly make for an unbiased final product.

As a result, she culminates with several remarks that are genuinely insulting. She likens TJLC to “any other standard conspiracy where you have a Judgment Day,” suggesting that we’re irrational and fanatical. She summarizes the entire community as “people being cruel to one another because they disagree about how a fictional TV relationship should turn out,” combining every misconception of (1) TJLC being a ship instead of hard analysis, (2) blaming every TJLCers for the actions of very few, (3) TJLC being a silly fan thing rather than a starting point for meaningful research into queer representation and literary analysis, and (4) ignoring TJLC’s vast contributions to TJLCers’ lives while overemphasizing those who were harmed by it. Both remarks are in keeping with standard media portrayals of fans as irrational and immature. I expected better of her.

Ms. Paskin says that she “had a dream about…digging deeper, talking to more people, ones who could perfectly explain the allure of TJLC to me.” She had the opportunity to interview more actual TJLCers, but didn’t take it.

But the offer still stands! Come talk to us! Learn about what we’re actually like! Criticize our theories, if you think we’re dogmatic. Ask us what we think of TJLC, if you think it ruined our lives. Our ask boxes are wide open!

What the Podcast Left Out

Swimming in descriptions of TJLC as a source of hatred, the podcast glosses over one tiny little detail: that TJLC genuinely improved the lives of the vast majority of TJLCers.

I came out because of TJLC. I learned how to analyze literature because of TJLC. I discovered new parts of history and the queer people who have always been part of it. I found a community of curious, passionate, funny, and kind people who I could talk to.

And I’m just one person. I know people who found lifelong friends because of TJLC, wrote books because of it, became students of gender and sexuality studies, found a community of support when they had mental health, financial, or other personal problems, and had a blast theorizing about the possibility of landmark LGBT representation. Heck, Rebekah of TJLC Explained filmed hours of people talking about how much the community meant to them. And I even know former TJLCers who, though disappointed with the show, still appreciate how much it taught them about queer theory, queer history, and themselves.

Evaluating TJLC as a whole, it’s not far-fetched, dogmatic, or primarily a source of “darkness.” It’s a legitimate theory, supported by debate and rational analysis, that improved the lives of far more people than it ever hurt.

You’ve read this. Now what?

If you’re in the media:

This Slate podcast is now the #1 result when I search The Johnlock Conspiracy. Thousands of kind and logical voices on Tumblr and other sites are immediately silenced by well-known publications. So yeah, I care what the media thinks. Few voices have widespread effects. I want people trying to find out about TJLC to get a well-researched, less biased view of it.

Please, take your research seriously when discussing fandom. Interview actual members of the community. Be aware of the public bias of fans as unworthy of serious attention and unable to construct rational, legitimate arguments. And fight against it.

If you’re inside TJLC:

Researching for this meant a trip into the darkest parts of TJLC. We need to acknowledge that not everyone in this community is nice to everyone all of the time, and this resulted in incidents that seriously hurt some people. Remaining civil, especially when faced with disagreement or outright malice, means we keep this community friendly for everyone.

If you’re outside TJLC:

Thank you for taking the time to learn about a topic from someone you don’t necessarily agree with. We need more of your open-mindedness in the world.

If you completely disagree with me, please don’t send me anon hate. Constructive criticism is cool. Anon hate is lame. Be cool. But I welcome questions, comments, and constructive debate. My ask box is always open.

 Thank you for reading.

-soe

        ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

@thesaltofcarthage @devoursjohnlock @waitedforgarridebs @one-thousand-splendid-stars @garkgatiss @shinka @witch-lock @jenna221b @sarahthecoat @inevitably-johnlocked @the-7-percent-solution @artfulkindoforder @warmth-and-constancy@marcespot@whtboutdeductions@tjlcisthenewsexy @bluebluenova @heimishtheidealhusband @tendergingergirl @sagestreet @ebaeschnbliah @221bloodnun @marcelock @watsonshoneybee @victorianfantasywatson

[tonxstark]

4D Speaking Through Cross-chain: DApp Empowerment, Trust Source, Governance Mechanism and Realistic Challenges

This article and "Focus on Application Governance, This is actually the Achilles Heel of DApps" are sister articles, and both discuss the decentralized application governance changes brought by Polkadot/Cosmos and their significance. The writer of "Follow" is Li Hua, which article is compiled by myself. Technicians usually think that governance has nothing to do with them, and also think that people who don't understand technology are just discussing irrelevant subjects. I utilized to think therefore myself. Until lately, I did not really realize the significance of governance for blockchain tasks. It is suggested that all entrepreneurs who are creating or preparing to create DApps, specifically smart contract programmers, read both of these articles. I also anticipate getting corrections from my peers. Welcome to communicate with me in the New Economic People or the NPC Crypto Labs team! Original title: "Cross-chain Unleashing Dapp Innovation Potential" Author: Liu Yi, Expert of Tsinghua University, Random Capital Partners, a large data block chain and technical experts. twenty years of investment knowledge in multiple funds markets, early Bitcoin investors Reprinted with authorization from Pinterest "NPC Source Task" and writer "Liu Yi" Liu Yi, master of Tsinghua University, companion of Random Funds, blockchain and big information technology expert. 20 years of investment knowledge in multiple capital markets, early Bitcoin investors Order cross-chain is currently among the hottest topics in the market, in fact it is also probably the most misread topic (no one). Some individuals believe cross-chain provides been realized long ago, and each exchange provides crossed dozens or hundreds of chains. Some people state that the trade is centralized, so that BTC/ETH/LTC/... trade without trust is cross-chain. Another person said it had been wrong. It was a cross-chain atomic trade or a decentralized exchange. It was a vintage idea, and Polkadot/Cosmos was a lot more than that. In addition, some people think that the resources of the medial side chain and the main chain could be anchored in both directions, so they may also be cross-chain... Although everyone includes a Hamlet in their hearts, they are able to go hand in hand. However, the industry lacks a very clear consensus on important concepts, which will only bring dilemma and troubled waters (we have been also cross-chain...). The starting point of Polkadot/Cosmos is not to connect existing open public chains, but first to aid developers to build up new blockchains rapidly and at low priced. New blockchains can be application systems (supporting smart contracts), but more new blockchains will be decentralized applications, such as decentralized prediction markets, TCRs, stablecoins, lending marketplaces, Exchanges and so forth, we might aswell call it the application form chain. Polkadot/Cosmos not only provides equipment for developing software chains (Substrate/Cosmos SDK), but also provides infrastructure (Polkadot Relay/Cosmos Hub) for achieving trusted interoperability between program chains. It could be noticed that the core of the cross-chain of Polkadot/Cosmos lies in the new type of DApp-application chain, and the trusted interoperability between program chains. So what is the need for cross-chain? The first is that weighed against the planet computer (platform public chain), the scope of consensus participation in the application form chain has been greatly decreased, and the performance and cost problems will be solved. The application chain developed by Substrate/Cosmos SDK can easily reach a digesting capacity of more than 1000tps, and the price is very low, which can meet up with the needs of all DApps. Another change is DApp governance. Governance isn't as apparent as performance problems, but it is a main bottleneck in the growth of DApps. Expressing the theme of this article in a radical way: smart contracts confuse the two different ideas of decentralization and verifiability, misleading designers, and making DApps almost spin around in place for 4 years. Polkadot/Cosmos (especially Polkadot) gives DApp chain governance capabilities. By removing both major development bottlenecks of overall performance and governance, cross-chain technologies is expected to release the innovative possible of DApps and result in the third wave of decentralized programs. Part 1: What's Web3 and Polkadot In order to understand the subject of this article, you must understand the concepts of Web3 and DApp. The handsome guy on the still left part of the image above is Dr. Gavin Wooden, the former CTO of Ethereum, the creator of EVM and the Solidity language, and the founder of Parity, the Web3 Basis and the Polkadot task. In project records such as the Web3 Base and Polkadot, the textual expressions of the Web3 vision are not constant. But both have two meanings. The first layer: Web3 is really a serverless, decentralized Web. Serverless serverless also means decentralization, because in the system processing architecture envisioned by internet3, participants or nodes are usually equal, there is absolutely no distinction between server and client, all nodes are more or less involved in the formation and recording of network consensus . What's the usage of a decentralized Web? This is the second meaning of Web3: everyone can handle their very own identity, resources, and information. Mastering one's personal identity means that there is no need for other folks or institutions to grant the identification, and other people or companies cannot fraudulently use, deprive or freeze the identity. Taking handle of your assets implies that you will not be deprived of assets and you may freely get rid of assets. Mastering your personal data implies that everyone can produce, save, conceal, and damage personal data according to their own wishes. Without his authorization, nobody or any company may use their individual information. In the digital age, those who control their very own identity, assets and data furthermore control their very own destiny. The Internet3 vision isn't exclusive to the Internet3 Basis or the Polkadot task. Many blockchain projects, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, have comparable visions. There are many different names, which includes open network, next-generation Web and so on. To be able to realize the vision of Web3, the planet needs decentralized Web applications, namely DApps. From the user's viewpoint, decentralization could be basically understood as a trustworthy app attribute that can't be managed by individual or a few individuals. Specifically, decentralization means three important attributes for users: trust minimum, permissioness, and censorship resistant, that is, trust minimum, permissionless, and censorship level of resistance. The three attributes are in the same line with the web3 vision. Through numerous decentralized programs, Internet surfers can control their electronic identities, possessions, and information to understand the Web3 eyesight. Blockchain is the mainstream technical methods to realize DApp, or blockchain may be the infrastructure of DApp. The blockchain talked about in this post refers to the general public chain unless usually specified. Furthermore, this article focuses on the realization of the Web3 vision, along with other utilizes of the blockchain (such as for example enterprise-level applications) aren't within the scope of debate. You can find already thousands of DApps in the three major smart contract public chains of Ethereum/EOS/TRON. However, with the exception of several short-lived gambling video games and capital plates, you can find very few users and low activity levels. Some individuals have actually questioned: Is decentralized application a pseudo idea? I think the problem is not really decentralized applications, but smart agreement platforms. It can be said that the development of decentralized applications on the clever contract platform has already reached a dead end. You can find two reasons. The foremost is performance and deal execution cost limitations. Low performance and high transaction execution costs are two sides of the same coin. For instance, the entire Ethereum network only has a processing capacity of 15 tps. In order to guarantee fairness while resisting witch assaults, it could only be transaction fee bidding. What customers experience is usually that DApps are usually gradual and cost money for each and every use. The complete industry has been watching the performance of the general public chain for a long period, and many teams are exploring the three suggestions of representative system, layering and sharding to broaden. The mythical work "The Polkadot Architecture of 4D Long Content articles" sorted out the specialized route of expansion, the problems and solutions encountered, and the main project implementation, and categorized Polkadot/Cosmos in to the shard expansion. In short, the cross-chain technologies achieves capacity growth while maintaining interoperability through a divide-and-conquer strategy. This article will nevertheless briefly describe this area of the content. Readers who have already browse the article "Speak Through" can skip the following three sections. But performance/price is not the only real limitation of wise agreements on DApps. EOS offers been able to achieve processing strength of a large number of tps through the representative system, that is two orders of magnitude greater than the functionality of Ethereum 1.0, and the transaction execution costs are borne by programmers, which makes DApps remove the slow and expensive hat. Nevertheless, the EOS mainnet has been on the internet for per year, and a lot of helpful explorations have also been done in areas such as open public chain governance, nonetheless it hasn't triggered development in the application form layer. This makes individuals question, when Ethereum 2.0 is fully implemented (it will take about 1-2 years), will the springtime of DApps really come? After a long time of repeated thinking, I believe that in addition to performance/price constraints, DApps also face the second essential limitation of smart contract systems: the lack of decentralized governance, and to be able to protect the verifiability of agreements, it hinders decentralization Realization of governance. While cross-chain technologies (specifically Polkadot) achieves capability expansion, in addition, it offers a technical foundation and template example for efficient decentralized governance. By removing the two major advancement bottlenecks of functionality and governance, cross-chain technology is expected to release the innovative potential of DApps and trigger the 3rd wave of decentralized applications. Polkadot is really a Web3 complex alternative proposed by Gavin Wooden and the Internet3 Foundation. Both pictures are usually from the Chinese version of the Polkadot whitened papers translated by Yue Lipeng. First go through the big picture on the right, Polkadot's basic network framework is star-formed, or known as spoke-shaped. The biggest market of the star may be the Polkadot Relay relay chain, and the periphery is a number of Parachains. Looking at the small image on the remaining, Polkadot network individuals have four functions: Validator, Nominator, Collator collector or checker, Fisherman or fisherman. The DApp could be a intelligent agreement deployed on a parachain, or the complete parachain is a DApp. Users initiate transactions on the parachain, and the transactions are collected by collectors, packaged into blocks, and handed over to several validators for verification. This band of validators isn't from the parachain, but from the validator swimming pool handled by the relay chain, and assigned to the parachain by random grouping. Each parachain has an exit queue and an entry queue. If an individual initiates a cross-chain deal, the deal will be placed in the import and export queue. Then the collector of the mark parachain is placed into its entrance queue. Enthusiasts of the target parachain execute dealings and generate blocks, which are finalized by the validator group. Polkadot runs on the hybrid consensus protocol that separates the block generation process and the finalization procedure. In addition to parachains, there are also transit bridges that link current blocks that can't be directly connected to the relay chain, such as Ethereum and Bitcoin. We have currently introduced the part of collectors and validators in the machine. So what do nominators and fishermen perform? The nominee may be the holder of the Polkadot fundamental token DOT, and he hopes to pledge the DOT to get profits. But either because of the small number of DOTs, or the lack of professional skills to operate and keep maintaining validator nodes. Thus, the system provides another solution to participate, that is, the holder chooses the verifier he trusts, pledges his DOT through the verifier, and shares the verifier's earnings. The advantage of this will be to increase the overall pledge ratio, improve the security of the machine, and at exactly the same time make the revenue distribution more fair. The fisherman's function is to monitor and report unlawful transactions and earn bonuses. In the Polkadot network, parachains have the effect of transaction execution and data storage space, and at exactly the same time, parachains can interoperate, achieving goals very similar to sharding expansion. Part 2: What's Cosmos After talking about Polkadot, let's introduce Cosmos. In the upper still left of the amount, A and B are two chains as part chains. Quite simply, chain A consists of SPV light customers of chain B, therefore chain A can verify the dealings of chain B. In turn, the B chain also includes the SPV light client of the A chain, so the B chain can verify the A chain's transactions. As a result of the mutual side chains, the tokens released on the A chain and the B chain can be exchanged. If you broaden from two chains to several chains, A and B turn out to be A/B/C/D/Electronic/F, an extrapolation concept would be to still utilize the practice of pairwise part chains, and type the bottom left The construction of the party. But doing so will bring lots of troubles. Each chain must have built-in light clients of most other chains and synchronize the block headers of most other chains. That is of program a huge burden. And each and every time you add a chain, you have to make modifications on all other chains. Because the number of blockchains increases, the complexity raises exponentially with n*(n-1)/2, that is obviously not feasible.

The solution is to change to the structure shown in the upper right of the aforementioned picture, with a Hub in the centre. Hub can be a blockchain, and it is a part chain with all other chains. Basically, the tokens on each chain can be used in the Hub, and then transferred to some other chains through the Hub. The complexity of system interconnection is linear with the amount of blockchains. This is the architecture chosen by Cosmos. In the definition of Cosmos, the chain connected to the Hub is called the zone area. There are two conditions for a area to access the Hub. The foremost is to comply with the Cosmos standard process, the IBC inter-chain communication process. The second reason is to need Zone to have instant finality (it is best to adopt Tendermint consensus) to ensure regularity across chains. And Cosmos can assistance the interconnection of several Hubs. For present public chains, you can access the Cosmos Hub through process adaptation. Cosmos refers to the protocol adaptation gateway as the Peg Zone anchor area. The resulting structure is the Cosmos architecture proven in the image on the bottom right. The Cosmos Hub and other partitions developed with the Cosmos SDK all use the Tentermint consensus protocol. The block generation and finalization procedure are integrated. As long as the block is generated, it really is verified by the signature of more than 2/3 of the validators. The advantage of this will be that it's simple and quick, the block time can reach the next or even sub-second level, and it has instant finality. Nevertheless, in the case of system partitions or large-level downtime of validators, Tentermint consensus may suspend block production. Let's review Serenity together with Ethereum 2.0, Polkadot and Cosmos. All three are essential DApp platforms in the next several years. First of all DApp development strategies, all three chains support smart contracts. Serenity can be a good contract platform, and the Polkadot/Cosmos network could have parachains and partition chains that assistance smart contracts. Furthermore, Polkadot and Cosmos have brought a new method of DApp advancement, which is to develop a blockchain for particular applications. The tool supplied by Cosmos for the application chain is the Cosmos SDK, which presently supports Go language development. The device provided by Polkadot for the application form chain is Substrate, which presently supports Rust vocabulary development. Substrate is really a complete program chain development device with a total software chain framework. Gavin Wood demonstrated that on a whole new computer, using Substrate release a a credit card applicatoin chain in a quarter-hour. In addition, all modules of Substrate could be personalized or replaced, which is powerful and very flexible. In comparison, the Cosmos SDK will be thinner. It mainly provides core modules such as Tendermint consensus engine, IBC link communication process, and tokens. The majority of the superstructure must be developed by itself. Concerning performance, each shard of Serenity is about 100tps, also it even now prioritizes transactions with high fuel prices. Polkadot Hub will be able to reach thousands of tps, and the parachain can determine its own consensus algorithm, hardware and system, and there is absolutely no strict performance limitation. Both Cosmos Hub and partitions use Tendermint, that may reach thousands of tps. About interoperability. Serenity is the same as Ethereum 1.0, intelligent contracts can call each other. Polkadot parachain interoperates with additional parachains through Relay, and interoperates with some other chains through Bridge. The Cosmos area can exchange tokens through the Hub, and exchange tokens with some other chains through the anchor area. IBC messages likewise have a data field, just like an e-mail attachment. By extending the info field, any data can be passed between the partition chains. The access method Serenity is equivalent to Ethereum 1.0. Developers deploy smart contracts by themselves. Polkadot Relay accesses the auction slot and pledges plenty of DOT. Similar to Polkadot, Cosmos pledges Atom auction access qualifications. Then there's security. Serenity's shards are like standard containers. DApps can be put in, and protection is assured by the machine. In contrast to Cosmos, if the app chain is linked to the Hub or not, it guarantees its safety. The application form chain developed by Substrate is two options. Either connect to Relay to become parachain and make sure security by Polkadot; or operate independently and ensure protection by yourself. Finally, the DApp upgrade is closely related to the decentralized governance which will be highlighted later on. Here we briefly summarize that Serenity does not support DApp upgrades, and Polkadot facilitates DApp safety upgrades. The partition chain of Cosmos will be upgradeable, but the Cosmos SDK does not have built-in assistance for upgrades, and DApp developers have to carry out upgrades themselves. The largest innovation of Polkadot/Cosmos would be to provide a new method of DApp growth, that is, to supply support for the growth of application-based blockchains. App chains can interoperate through cross-chain protocols, and each software chain can specifically enjoy processing energy greater than 1000tps, and the functionality bottleneck of DApp is lifted. The following focuses on how Polkadot/Cosmos solves the issue of decentralized governance. Before that, we must first explain the function of decentralized governance and just why decentralized governance will be another main bottleneck for DApp creativity along with performance. Part 3: What's the source of have faith in for smart contracts? In early 2013, when I first came into contact with BTC, the most popular video game in the Bitcoin circle was Satoshi Nakamoto's dice. At that time, over fifty percent of the BTC network's transaction volume happened in this gambling video game. The gameplay of Satoshi Nakamoto's dice is simple, no sign up or client set up is necessary. Satoshidice.com has published a number of betting addresses, corresponding to different chances. So long as you transfer bitcoin, you can participate in the game. If the seller loses, the reward will be transferred back to the player's sending address. If the player loses, you will have hardly any btc sent back, which is equivalent to telling the effect. The true creativity of Satoshi Nakamoto's dice will be that players don't have to worry about the seller cheating, or that the game can confirm fairness. The proof technique is shown in the shape above. Simply put, the server generates a random number beforehand and announces the hash value of the random quantity. The server of every round of gambling utilizes random numbers to find out wins or losses. Following the outcomes of the gambling rounds are usually announced, the random numbers are also announced. The player can verify the correspondence between the random number and the hash worth to confirm that the random amount is generated beforehand. The founder of Satoshi Nakamoto Dice is certainly Eric Voorhees, who was simply furthermore the founder and CEO of shapeshift, a popular cryptocurrency exchange service. At that time, Eric managed the Satoshi Nakamoto dice website anonymously. In fact, despite having his real name, he was not a well-known individual at the time. Thus, dice players do not have faith in the application since they think the operator, but because they can verify the fairness by themselves. There exists a famous stating in the currency chain -- Don't faith, Verify! That's: Don't confidence, verify! The emphasis is certainly on verifiable. The In mathematics we faith proposed by Mr. Zhang Shousheng also offers the same effect. Verifiable applications make use of cryptography to generate Provable Fairness, which can also be thought to produce Truest, so some individuals say that blockchain is a machine that produces faith. AAVE The blockchain clever contract developed by Ethereum is a technology for building verifiable applications. The internal state of the clever contract is publicly visible, and the system does not support hidden data, which I call the state verifiable. Furthermore, smart agreements should disclose the program code. Code disclosure isn't only open source, but the system guarantees the corresponding contract source program code and execution program code. An individual can see the contract program code to verify that the digesting logic claimed by the developer is consistent with the actual implementation, that's, the digesting logic can be verified. Furthermore, smart contracts cannot call random quantities, the current system time, nor can they directly access off-chain data, thus making sure the determinism of execution. This shows that smart contracts certainly are a universal technology for establishing verifiable programs. And the descendants of Satoshi Nakamoto's dice furthermore shine on the three main smart contract platforms. In order to protect the verifiable processing logic, the platform usually will not allow sensible contracts to be upgraded, because developers unilaterally modifying clever contracts will undermine verifiable fairness. Nevertheless, non-upgradability causes huge difficulties for program development. It is extremely difficult for an application to guarantee that there are no defects. The sensible contract works on the open public chain system, and anyone can access it anonymously without permission. Furthermore, smart contracts are often used to procedure encrypted asset dealings, and any minimal flaws will be exploited by code hackers. Smart agreements such as for example TheDAO, Parity multi-signature wallet, and US chain 1CO all triggered large economic losses due to minor system defects. However, Internet apps and mobile apps often iterate quickly, constantly adapting to consumer needs, enhancing functions, and improving encounter. If the blockchain software can only "react to all modifications with the same", it will be hard to win the competition. To be able to split through the non-upgradeable limitation of intelligent contracts. Developers use methods such as for example delegateCall to bypass the platform and carry out an upgradeable style pattern for smart contracts, as demonstrated in the amount above. Upgradable intelligent contracts usually consist of three parts: agency contracts, state contracts, and processing logic contracts. Hawaii contract stores all of the data that needs to be persisted. The agency contract is responsible for forwarding external provider requests to the processing logic contract. The proxy contract saves the tackle pointer of the digesting logic agreement. By deploying a fresh edition of the digesting logic agreement and modifying the address pointer of the proxy contract, the processing logic could be upgraded. The upgradeable design model makes the smart contract upgradeable, at the cost of destroying the verifiable processing logic of the smart contract. The programmer can change the wise contract minus the user's consent or even without the user's information. So can users still trust clever contracts? The solution is that case analysis is required. Under the premise that the agreement is adjustable, the trustworthiness depends upon the trustworthiness of the controller of the contract. For instance, Paxo/GUSD along with other compliant steady currencies, we know that the working entity of Paxo/GUSD is a compliant business supervised by the brand new York Financial Bureau, and its own stable currency reserves are frequently audited. Although operators of the stablecoins can improve (modify) smart contracts at any time, users will not have any doubts about any of it. But everyone should remember that the confidence of compliant stablecoins is not created by the blockchain, but extends the have confidence in beyond your chain to the chain. For example, eher company issued USDT through the blockchain, just utilizing the accessibility of blockchain technologies and fast liquidation features. USDT's credit isn't made by blockchain, but supplied by Tether. Another situation is certainly that it's not most people or companies that have the right to upgrade sensible contracts, but additionally decentralized anonymous organizations (DAOs), such as for example MakerDAO, Aragon, etc. They work with a decentralized governance process (usually implemented with smart agreements), and stakeholders vote to determine the modification of the contract guidelines. In this case, the credibility of the wise contract depends on the credibility of the DAO. We shall continue to extend this subject later. Summarize the content of this section. Smart agreements are systems for creating verifiable apps. Verifiable state + verifiable digesting logic creates provable fairness. The recognition of smart agreement gambling probably originated from this. Verifiable and upgradeable are a contradiction. Upgradable clever contracts eliminate verifiability, and the foundation of these credit may be the operating subject of the contract. Component 4: The Faith Way to obtain Bitcoin Let's look at the source of trust in Bitcoin. The Bitcoin price surge in March 2013 is normally believed to be related to the Cyprus Banking Crisis. The still left side of the aforementioned picture can be an excerpt from the news of the major financial press at that time. Like Iceland and Ireland, Cyprus is an emerging offshore economic center. With its low taxes price and loose guidance, it provides attracted a large amount of capital inflows. Of Cyprus's 70 billion euro lender deposits, 30 billion came from Russia. Your debt crisis in Greece caused large losses to the banking institutions of Cyprus, and the banking institutions had been insolvent and faced bankruptcy. The ultimate solution is definitely for depositors to pay, and accounts with more than 100,000 euros are nearly dropped. For the very first time, the Banking Crisis in Cyprus obviously reminds individuals who cash stored in banks, even if it is stored in banking institutions in developed Europe, can be returned to zero overnight. At the same time, Bitcoin, as a non-sovereign value storage technique that does not rely on economic intermediaries, has entered people's field of vision. Since that time, whenever there is a foreign currency crisis in a nation, including Argentina, India, Venezuela, South Africa, Turkey, and Iran, there's been a significant upsurge in Bitcoin transaction volume. This series of specifics proves that Bitcoin provides been recognized as a super-sovereign value store foreign currency. Even in areas where inflation is not severe, more and more people make use of Bitcoin to protect their personal wealth. The shop of worth is crucial to people's survival and reproduction. How come Bitcoin bear such a heavy trust? We compare how Bitcoin generates have confidence in with Ethereum clever agreements, and we can discover that Bitcoin's credibility is neither because of verifiable code, nor because Bitcoin primary developers have credit. Most Bitcoin customers, including me, haven't seen the code of the Bitcoin node, , nor focus on the code, and the Bitcoin protocol can be altered (forked). As for who decides on the enhance of the Bitcoin protocol, Satoshi Nakamoto's preliminary idea is to vote for computing power. Associated with that computing energy is usually unforgeable, and miners will be the primary stakeholder group of Bitcoin. Nonetheless it is very likely that Satoshi Nakamoto didn't foresee the emergence of devoted ASIC mining devices, totally squeezing out personal computers from mining competition, and forming a status quo where several main mining pools monopolize processing power. You can find four primary stakeholder groups of Bitcoin: miners, designers, users and businesses (exchanges, wallet manufacturers, blockchain browsers, communities, media, etc.). They have unanimous passions in addition to conflicting interests. For example, virtually all individuals have got benefited from the long-term cost increase of Bitcoin. But customers want the transaction charge to be only feasible, while miners would like the transaction charge to be as high as possible. Because of conflicts of interest, all parties could have different views on the development of the Bitcoin process, and the four parties find a way and methods to influence the protocol research. Based on the history of Bitcoin's fork game, it is usually considered that Bitcoin Primary (developers), not miners, have the greatest impact on protocol evolution. Therefore do we have faith in Bitcoin because we have confidence in Bitcoin core? Recently, a large boss in the mining business claimed that Bitcoin Core will ultimately cancel the Bitcoin issuance limit of 21 million. Among the customers who make use of btc for long-term value storage space, should I worry? In all honesty, I'm not concerned, not because the boss's logic is faulty (I didn't also take the time to study his logic), nor because I confidence Bitcoin core. I don't even understand that the current Bitcoin core includes several people, who are they. But since I first purchased btc for a lot more than 6 many years, I know that there are a large number of Bitcoin customers that are consistent with my interests. Most of us regard BTC being an asset that we can fully handle (remember the Web3 vision?), and it is the most reliable store of value. Let's assume that the primary of Bitcoin will be in some cause to sacrifice the scarcity of Bitcoin, it must be implemented through a difficult fork. I only need to keep the BTC with scarcity assurance and market the forked coin (probably called Bitcoin Uncapped?) without scarcity assurance. That is to utilize my coins to vote for who does not support. I believe that you will see thousands (not and not necessarily all) in the Bitcoin community who'll make the same option as me. And there will definitely be developers keeping the scarce Bitcoin program code (to form the new core?). After some tossing down, apart from the marginalization of the initial Bitcoin core, I don't see any other possible results. Therefore, my rely upon Bitcoin stems from the multi-party power that affects the evolution of the Bitcoin protocol, and as the blockchain can be forked, organizations with different interests can move their separate ways, and the majority of Bitcoin customers can elect to support/not really support / Which fork will be supported at the same time. Therefore, the foundation of trust in Bitcoin is widely-participated governance and bifurcation, that is completely different from sensible agreements. This is actually the decentralized governance described in this post. Component 4: In-depth conversation of decentralized governance issues In summary the conclusions of the prior section: Along with provable fairness, the foundation of trust in blockchain programs is decentralized governance. And only programs that generate have confidence in through decentralized governance are truly decentralized apps. In this area, we expose the overall process and development position of decentralized governance. Take Bitcoin as an example. The foundation of governance will be substantial participation in discussions, with opinions expressed, discussions and even debates on bitcointalk, reddit's online communities, large and small conferences, and numerous media. Researchers will conduct analysis on a particular topic, such as privacy, performance or even more generalized signature schemes, P2P communication protocols, etc., and publish research results. Ideas for the enhancement of the Bitcoin process are presented in the form of BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal). Important BIPs will arouse the eye of the Bitcoin local community and result in wider discussions. The programmer (not necessarily the Core, nor the sponsor of the proposal) can implement a particular BIP. Presently, Bitcoin does not have a formal funding procedure for programmers. Cryptocurrency communities such as Dash/Monero have a standard process to decide whether and how to provide financial support to developers. After the implementation of the protocol improvement, it came to the most essential action of decentralized governance: who and how to decide the BIP deployment and online, and be area of the Bitcoin protocol. The governance of Bitcoin at this critical link is very ambiguous, and it can be roughly described as the core developer's choice to launch BIP based on the broad community consensus that is reached. Exactly what is a wide consensus? Includes a broad consensus been arrived at? There is no clear regular, which is especially apparent in the controversy of huge blocks versus. Segregated Witness which has lasted for nearly 3 years. The governance procedure for Ethereum is very similar to that of Bitcoin. Possibly the only important difference lies in the huge influence of God V in the Ethereum community, rendering it easier to reach consensus on the improvement of the contract backed by God V. Since the final result of this type of governance process is to implement process forks, it may be known as fork governance. Although bifurcation governance achieves the goal of decentralized governance, it offers apparent flaws. The biggest problem is definitely that the governance procedure will be ambiguous, so it's very inefficient, hard to improve, and an easy task to belong to dispute. For instance, the lengthy soap operas encircling ProgPoW in Ethereum will be the inevitable result of chaotic and disorderly governance. With out a very clear governance process, similar soap operas will be staged repeatedly. In reaction to the deficiencies of fork governance, Decred pioneered on-chain governance. That is, the holders of the Decred token vote on the proposal through on-chain dealings, and the proposal approved by the vote can be deployed online. EOS and Tezos also have done lots of helpful exploration on chain governance. The right aspect of the body above divides the quadrants of the current state of decentralized governance. Bitcoin and Ethereum adopt bifurcation governance. EOS and Tezos blockchains adopt on-chain governance. But so far as I understand, EOS and Tezos usually do not provide governance assistance for smart contracts working on the platform, so that they still haven't solved the issue of DApp governance. Decred is likely to be the only real decentralized application with full on-chain governance. But Decred's governance also offers obvious flaws. First of all, Decred is really a PoS+PoW hybrid consensus. Token holders and PoW miners are all stakeholders of the network, but PoW miners cannot straight participate in on-chain governance, and their appeals for passions are ignored. Furthermore, Decred's proposal will be direct voting by token holders, which is equal to a referendum for each choice. This is inefficient, and decreasing problem will be that the specific voting rate is quite low. Although some proposals possess tens of % of the tokens to vote, the participation price of the coin-holding tackle is pitiful. Both of these problems have already been nicely solved in some 100 % pure PoS chains. The governance foundation of PoS will be Staking. Staking represents long-term attention binding. The objective of governance would be to create the encryption protocol continue steadily to improve and increase long-term benefits. As a result, it is extremely appropriate for the holders of Staking to participate in governance. Furthermore, the brand new batch of PoS provides implemented a particular proxy mechanism, DPoS/BPoS/NPoS, which is equal to the realization of a representative system. Day-to-day governance can be executed by elected validators, that are equivalent to parliaments. Verifiers usually have huge common passions with encrypted systems, and they are inspired to invest resources in governance. In addition, major votes, especially proposals with conflicting passions between validators and delegators, can and should still be submitted to the token holders for referendum. Component V: Polkadot's governance mechanism Polkadot's governance is unprecedented full-procedure on-chain governance, based on the most cutting-edge blockchain technology. The voted proposal is not only a explanation of the modification of the contract, but also the brand new agreement itself, which is an executable system compiled and called wasm blob. Following the voting on the chain is definitely passed, the new edition of this program is distributed to the validator nodes through the blockchain and immediately activated. You will have no forks through the upgrade procedure. Based on breathtaking technologies, Polkadot could be said to be the best in on-chain governance, and is undergoing plenty of technology and exploration. Polkadot governance is still undergoing rapid development. A couple of days ago (May 24) Polkadot simply announced the release of PolkaDAO. PolkaDAO shifted the decision-making process for financing the proposal to the chain (currently it is Ethereum, it will proceed to Polkadot in the future). I believe the evolution won't slow down before the mainnet goes live, or even following the mainnet goes live.

[openwebsolutions]

Is your SEO hurting your online business? 7 common mistakes to avoid from day 1!

New Post has been published on http://blog.openwebsolutions.in/7-common-mistakes-seo-avoid-day-1/

Is your SEO hurting your online business? 7 common mistakes to avoid from day 1!

Those days are history now when businesses have to follow daunting marketing strategies to promote their products or services. But, after the introduction of e-commerce and online marketing, the promotional methods have also changed. And, one of the amazing methods of online promotion of a business, product, and service is SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

But, SEO itself consists of so many components that it is not possible to define it in just one sentence. What is important is that it helps in the optimization of your website and blog which is a significant element of content marketing strategy. Even this powerful tool is changing rapidly as new attributes are added from time to time. Even after such changes it still remains favorite among the marketers because it is a strong method to bring clients towards the company.

As the perspective of the users are changing and development process is taking place, the SEO is also evolving. So, it has become really difficult to always make use of the latest SEO techniques for successful optimization. That is why many companies make mistakes and do wrong SEO. If such a thing happens, it will hurt your SEO more than doing good.

Your goal to increase the traffic and conversion rates can go upside down with the implementation of SEO mistakes. It is really tough to avoid those mistakes in real-time. But, one thing that can be done is taking preventive measures beforehand.

So, here is a list of 7 common mistakes of SEO that should be avoided from day 1.

Mistakes to avoid in SEO for your business to gain the desired result

1. Selection of the right keyword

The keywords are the prime aspect on which the optimization of SEO is based. A very common mistake often made by companies is selecting a keyword without checking the preference of the search engines and users for long tail keywords. It is important to understand the specific term that your potential customers may use while searching for your product or service. Sometimes, using a keyword that is too much generic can mean something else to people. So, it is best to use online keyword optimizing tools before making use of any kind of keywords in your new blog.

2. Proper keyword stuffing

One common mistake often occurred in the SEO or search engine optimization is improper keyword stuffing. You might think that using the focus keyword in every line of the sentence will increase your SEO rank. But, the result will come out opposite if you do such things. The overuse of keywords is considered as spam by the search engines.

In simple words, you can say that it actually hurts SEO. So, there is no point in using the keyword so many times in a blog. Posting such content will make it unreal and unnatural.

3. Creating content that has no relation to the keywords

A very common mistake often made by the content creators is that they create content not related to the keyword provided. For ranking a keyword high, it is important that the text of the content is related to the keyword. Search engines like Google like to provide their users with relevant content. So, if your focus on writing the content shift from the keyword, your keyword rank will fall.

It is a common problem that mostly occurs when someone tries to insert more than one topic in particular content. The primary goal of the content writer should be to create contents that are truly similar to the keyword and easy to understand.

4. Publication of duplicate or non-original content

Well, getting ideas from somewhere else is in practice since ages ago. But, today’s search engines are smarter than the old methods. They can easily detect the copying or duplication of the content. So, you should aim to create content that is Plagiarism free. Or else, the search engines will detect it as spam content.

So, instead of copying down the whole content that you have found somewhere else, just read it carefully 2 to 3 times and take the idea instead. Put your own imagination and words to create content instead.

5. Inserting proper title tags and meta tags

Only inserting the keyword will not make any difference if you do not use proper title tags and meta description. The title tags and meta description have a huge impact on the overall performance of your content. The search engines give huge importance to these optimizing factors. So, it is important that you make use of these tools for proper result. So, make sure to properly insert these things in your content.

6. Use of quality links

Inserting links in content is a common practice of the content writers. But, is it really helping your SEO performance? Nowadays, it is more important to use quality link than using them in bulk. Instead of using many external links in your content, try to put links that are relevant and belong to a well-ranking website.

Also, make sure that the anchor text used in the content is proper. The anchor text helps the readers as well as the search bots to understand what the link is about. So, putting relevant anchor text is important. Or else the readers may not find what they are looking for and leave your website immediately. Also, the search engines will find it spammy if you use same anchor text many times.

7. Not giving importance to internal links

Using internal links for the purpose of ranking your page is a common practice. But, you should not treat it as unnecessary work. The internal links are as important as the external ones. If you put the internal links unnecessarily, then it will be considered as spam by the search engines. Also, the readers will lose interest due to irrelevant links. So, make sure to put internal links that are focused and matched with the topic of your content.

I hope now you have found what you came looking for. These are some of the common mistakes that every search engine optimization or SEO personal should avoid.

How to deal with the SEO problems from day 1?

As we know, there are two types of SEO, i.e. on-page SEO and Off-page SEO. There are SEO or search engine optimization specialist who deals with the off-page SEO. But, the on-page SEO should be taken care from day 1. For on-page SEO, it is vital to make use of the latest technologies which follow the rules of the SEO while developing an app. So, the selection of developers for your new app development is very crucial. You should select an app development company whose developers know how to build an on-page SEO optimized website or app.

There is no need to worry if you don’t know about any such company. Here is one for you who can build a highly on-page SEO optimized app.

Best website developers at your service

Openweb Solutions is a one-stop shop for those who are looking for high-quality web and mobile apps that are on-page SEO optimized. Their developers have huge experience in developing apps for a wide range of domains like healthcare apps, stock apps, etc.

They only use the latest technologies that are vital for creating SEO optimized apps. For any kind of help or query, feel free to contact them at sales@openwebsolutions.in.