For many years how I have been happily using the PeakD front end for doing the majority of publishing, curating, and commenting on HIVE. Between PeakD and Ecency, I think we have two top tier front ends at our fingertips.
One of my favorite features of PeakD is the "Favorites" feed that can be found under the Feeds link at the top left of the page. For users like me who follow a large number of people on Hive, sifting through all the posts on any given day can be a bit of a chore. The Favorites list allows you to highlight a select group of people so you can see what they have posted lately.
It has been game changing for me and the way I use the platform. Ecency has a similar feature, but it doesn't work quite the same way that PeakD does, so I haven't been able to make the switch fully to Ecency and still accomplish what I want.
Unfortunately, the reliability of the "Favorites" list has been hit or miss lately. Right now it is actually miss. Personally, I've been struggling to perform my regular curating tasks due to the inability to load my favorites feed.
I realize this is more of a "first world problem", but I know I am not the only one who has come to rely on this feature and having it work correctly would be amazing.
In recent discussions with someone on the @peakd server, it came to light that the reason the favorites feed continues to not work is because most node operators are not running this additional piece of software on their nodes that allows the favorites feed to work properly.
I fully understand all the factors that go into deciding whether or not to run a piece of software on your mission critical servers. I run servers myself and perhaps there is something about the software that is keeping more people from running it. If that is the case, please feel free to educate me in the comments.
If not, I highly encourage more node operators to install this software so that these extra front end features will work and work reliably.
It's not a great look for the blockchain if new users go to use the front ends and pieces don't work. It's also frustrating for long time users like me.
I appreciate your time and consideration in this matter. If someone from PeakD wants to hop in the comments and correct any inaccuracies in my post, please feel free. I'm not writing this post to call anyone out or point fingers at anyone in particular.
It seems like it is a pretty easy solution to a common problem, so I hope we can reach some kind of resolution on it soon.