Saito Community Projects and How to Help

We believe all community projects deserve our support. We also know it’s critical to build a community of developers and are grateful to everyone who has volunteered to help with Saito development. This blog post explains what problems we have run into, how we are fixing them, and what community projects are actually underway that need help.

The biggest challenge for us in accepting offers of help is when that requires tasking out work or managing a new project or taking on a significant amount of in-house coding. We are not complaining — just flagging that it’s harder for us when we have to take on new management work. With that in mind, we are finding that the following works:

If you are interested in hacking up existing code, please go ahead.

We have a list of random bugs and requests on Github. Some are also exploratory features. We welcome anyone to tackle any of these and submit a pull request.

If you are interested in developing a new Saito module or game, we will help you build it.

Our model for this is the great work that Naaq has done pushing Twitter forward. He started by creating a mock-up using HTML and CSS. That let us step in and build a backend once we had a wireframe to work from. We are a few weeks from being able to push this module back to the community. If you have something you want to build, this is a great model.

If you are interested in more foundational research, we have compiled a list of important tasks.

These range from researching commutative signatures to proposing ways to implement on-chain scripting or L2 VMs. If there is an obvious path forward from your research we will help you write a Saito Implementation Proposal. All members of our team can be reached on Telegram for private discussions of fundamentals and suggestions on approaches.

If you are interested in non-programming tasks, there are other ways to help as well:

• outreach and media work is always appreciated (you guys have been great).
• we need better tutorials and will assist writing them if you tell us what you need.
• please help keep Awesome Saito and SaitoFaqs updated.
• want to organize a game-specific leagues or tournaments?

We also have two specific community-led initiatives where assistance would be appreciated:

1. Red Square / Social Media:

Naaq who put together the HTML and CSS mockup that got the ball rolling with our Twitter clone. We quickly turned it into a live module that displayed the HTML. Then started brainstorming what features we think makes sense in a Saito-powered Social Media application.

We are about a week away from a basic CSS revamp well-enough done that we can continue work building this module. Once that is finished, we are hoping the community can help us flesh out the application — particularly the display of posts. Our team will focus mostly on generic features like the invites and scheduling features as we need them for arcade tournaments.

If you would like to help with this project and don’t mind the stop-and-go pace of development, please get in touch and we’ll connect you with the team.

2. Open Source Magic Game:

We have community interest in building an open-source card-based enchantment game. We think this is a great idea for many reasons:

• Two-player games are the most popular games on the Arcade
• Card games let us integrate smart contracts and NFTs atop Saito
• Historical resonance with the origins of Bitcoin and MtGox Exchange
• Massive potential for transaction volume at even modest scale

The challenge with card games is ensuring that there is no infringement. We are handling this by ensuring community work is done via a spreadsheet that allows us to confirm card-by-card if necessary that there is no infringement on anyone else’s IP. This means making sure that all Saito-implemented cards have unique and non-infringing text, descriptions and graphics.

Thanks to effort from a community member, we have a basic module that is letting us work through UI/UX issues. And we have a spreadsheet outlining a “starter deck” we can build. We need help with backend coding and with card design — but even non-designers can help by searching for suitable creative commons-licensed fantasy artwork. Once we have a playable game with usable cards we can consider sponsoring community development if the game picks up steam.

On a closing note, while we are happy to share news about where work is progressing, it is important to note that community projects really are community projects. One of the reasons we’ve been reluctant to talk too closely about work-in-progress is the concern that as soon as we mention the existence of any project, people will take it for granted and we will start getting “wen twitter” or “wen enchantment game” posts. We’re happy to help push community efforts forward, but we don’t want people developing unrealistic expectations since our ability to get this stuff done really depends on community support and assistance.