There are voting bots and voting rings, and self"ish" voting whales. There are spammers, flag wars, and a general lack of understanding what's going on at the top of the blockchain. Yes, I am aware of the problems. I've read quite a few well paid articles addressing them in a thoughtful, technical manner. It's not that there isn't anything to complain about, but a large majority of the complaining is completely counter-productive.
There are plenty of people working hard to bring light to the flaws of this platform, and to solve the problems we face. The issue is that there is no quick fix. It takes a long time to write the code for each new hardfork, and HF20 was already under way when the problems of voting rings and self voters came to the forefront of everyone's consciousness.
A very productive way to change this system for the better, is to vote for the witnesses who care about the issues and will vote for a Hard Fork that they expect to improve the platform.
The STEEM network has many checks and balances to ensure everything is vetted by a decentralized group of trusted (elected) individuals before taking effect. No hardfork will take effect until at least 67% of the active witnesses have upgraded to the latest update.
Just because Steemit Inc. releases a new version of Code does not mean that everyone is forced to upgrade to the new code.
So if you're making that assumption that Steemit Developer Control STEEM , you're Wrong!
That is why I included the witnesses on this open letter. I was wondering what their thoughts were.
I seem to be the only witness responding so far. Typical. And disappointing, eh?
You know what, i will give you a witness vote for that :-)
Me too!! You got my vote as well!!
You got my vote also, for caring enough to reply to everyone and get involved.
Very much so =/
Thanks for being involved!
Great points.
A caveat is that witness votes are stake-weighted, and the vast majority of Steem is held by very few accounts, and almost all of it was ninjamined before Steemit even existed. That's the ultimate reason the top witnesses are who they are, and why the code is what it is--because it's in the interest of those stakeholders that control the top witnesses.
I've posted a proposal to weight witness votes by rep, which not only democratizes the witnesses according to the communities wishes, it also secures the blockchain from a hostile takeover that presently requires no more than enough Steem to vote in witnesses that will run whatever code you want.
Thanks!