I began mentioning it much more strongly prior to the hardfork when some Witnesses began admitting they hadn’t read the release notes and some top 20 Witnesses only began testing two days prior to the proposed HF. Ask Lukestokes or Reggaemuffin who began prompting Witnesses for their published standards and when.
Going forward speaking loudly to the definitions of the contiuents of Steem governance and their roles, especially going into SMTs and other innovation, is absolutely critical. Without stoic Gatekeeping from our Witnesses, the governance is weak. Without Gatekeepers holding devs accountable to Gatekeeper’s standards, or more importantly, without standards, deliverables are under tested. Without Stakeholders of users and businesses holding Gatekeepers accountable, Gates remain low. We need to raise the Stakeholders voice and raise the Gates and raise the demands for optimal approach to development, which should show itself in aggregate of Witnesses’ standards. Personally as a stakeholder I want from this governance a robust combination of conservative process with consistent drive toward innovative development. There are certainly marked improvements to make here in the short term.
Posted from my iPhone. Please excuse omissions, errors or grammatical mistakes.
Oh what the hell I will burn some resource credits linking to this brilliant piece right here by another deserving witness @paulag who will never have the chance to get to top 20 because she does not have the vote from freedom and that all but seals her fate to live outside the top 20 no matter what she does. Please help us @ned . This is a way to fix steemit. Also how many RC does it take to eit because I had to do a new comment because it was saying I did not have enough credits to edit a comment but I can make a whole new one.
@doomsdaychassis one day the distribution will change, you and I will be whales, freedom will be gone and @steemcommunity will have an amazing chance of climbing to the top. Why, well because we are working at the grass roots, nurturing the users that are sticking with steem. So when @ned and steemit inc do have a world class blockchain, they will also have the social proof because we will have created it.
Thank you for this menton, knowing some of the community regard what we do as valuable means a massive amount
Posted using Partiko Android
That's Right ;-)
Disappears for months, Shows up to point fingers at everyone but the team that has millions of dollars to spend on resources which are the "gatekeepers". Would flag for self aggrandizement, but I don't want to consume my precious RC on it and I can't afford it anyway, because I was using my power to help users all morning on other threads. Trying to retain some of them before this place goes completely ghost town over crap decisions and poor execution by the aristocracy, that fails at meritocracy.
I want to congratulate you @ned . People wouldn't comment or even waste their time if they didn't care. There have been some really cool things the STEEM blockchain has accomplished and it has been an interesting experiment.
What has been created here is hard to replicate. It is far too expensive and requires too much funding for people to easily build their own platforms to "fix" the issues here. If it was easy everyone would do it.
That all being said the platform has frustrated us for over two years. It doesn't really improve it just changes. The same scenarios continue to exist that the distribution was an absolute joke and for the most part the witness situation is a complete joke and always has been.
This blockchain has probably made about 50 people more successful than they were before. Everyone else has been stuck in a frustrating time trap.
Congratulations @ned ..... you won
I feel your emotion but I do not claim to understand it based on what you’ve described. Here are my premises for being resistant to even attempting to clarify your distribution comment because I feel it’s ignoring these: Distribution is woven by Pareto principle as are all the projects and you can’t change this. What exactly are you saying it’s a problem for, Proof of Brain? Peoples money should never be taken from them. Steem is entirely an opt-in system.
The system is broken in so many ways it is silly. There needs to be vote decay on the witnesses as well as a system that will rotate them out of the top 20 for a period of time if they have been in that position for over six months. A lot of them are just hanging out using this as a funding mechanism for their other projects specifically EOS related stuff. I get why they are doing this. They are already in a position of power and don't have to do much to maintain that. If I had to vote for just one witness it would be @good-karma because he has continually worked on making this blockchain more accessible and usable and has taken on other team members. He isn't just "witnessing" blocks. The bad initial distribution did effect the Proof of Brain mechanism because so much power was accumulated by people that didn't really care about the platform as a social / content platform. They treated it like I treated Ripple.... as a use it and loose it scenario. I don't care about Ripple. I think it is garbage and just rode a hype wave and then peaced out. That is how a lot of people who garnered a ton of power here treated this blockchain while the ones that have stuck around for a couple years and have fought for this platform can't really get into a position of influence because of the messed up initial distribution and no vote decay on the witness votes among other problems. At this point the witness stuff can't be corrected because the top 20 witnesses won't adopt a change that takes them out of power. Those in power will always seek to remain in power.
If some people were given the opportunity to get the type of rewards associated with being a top 20 witness they would treat it as a full time job. It actually cracks me up how some people keep telling me to launch a witness on this blockchain and see if I can get the votes. That is a quick way to be further unprofitable on this chain. I'm a witness on another chain and it becomes a very tight group with everyone jockeying for position to become God kings who will rule the blockchain for the entire life cycle of it's existence. It can quickly throw off the balance of power within a few weeks. On this chain there was the ninja mine and a few other factors that have skewed things into eternity.
Overall the STEEM blockchain has been a great success because it made the founders richer and Steemit INC has the development funds to continue to work on the codebase / hang out for the next 10 years. There is nothing wrong with that. You guys had the ability to solidify your future. It will always survive but there are a lot of reasons we don't see it thriving like it could. There is a reason it has slipped from the #3 spot on CoinMarketCap clear down to where it is now. The market has spoken.... it hasn't been a very good experience or investment for a lot of us. We are then looked at as complainers to the 50 people who made a solid amount of money here. Every time I have powered up here I have ultimately regretted it. My biggest power up was 0.5 BTC in December. I was willing to risk that but ended up regretting it once again. A lot of people feel the same way. I have never felt that way about EOS or even stuff like DigiByte or Litecoin or Monero.
In my opinion technologically STEEM is the #1 blockchain..... even better than EOS because of the 3+ years of development but I can't recommend it as an investment because the risk of being dumped on really badly is way too great. It will devalue a person's time like no other blockchain. Then you have risked your capital and your time. Double whammy.
I don't mean this in a negative way but I feel that you have grown up in a wealthy environment and therefore there is a large disconnect between your thought process and the thought process of a common person. It is all relative what motivates people but I feel like you are far removed from anyone who would have to do manual labor in a field or who has struggled to a point where they don't have enough money to fill up their gas tank. It is imperative for a large percentage of people to see value in the system for it to really get the numbers to thrive.
Again I'm not saying it is a bad thing but it just appears to be true over the last couple of years. STEEM is in serious threat of becoming like Friendster, BETA Max, or the Sega Saturn.
If you read all of this don't take it as a negative tone. STEEM is pretty cool and again technologically it is #1 in my mind. You guys have succeeded in becoming more wealthy so it has served its purpose. The clones are coming online confirming the admiration for what has been built here.
I have looked at what I perceive as the missteps of STEEM, Golos, WEKU, Whaleshares, VIT....etc.
STEEM is really a production level testnet and more 3rd party applications will go to their own chains and more competition will come online that are clones of STEEM and others that are being built on EOS. It is just simply reality and honestly I don't think it is anything you need to really worry about. You guys have generated enough wealth out of this system to ride into the sunset if managed correctly.
It is odd that when I was in Sydney as a mentor for the EOS hackathon that Block One employees actually though I had interesting things to say and agreed with me one the issues of why STEEM has never thrived and isn't a good user experience.
Over here the 50 or so people who are founders / ninja miners / top witnesses just act like I'm some complainer nobody. It is strange. Actually I just don't think any of you care.
There are the parties’ invisible, unmentioned incentives here. Much of crypto operates in fiefdoms and the resulting biases. Thanks for disclosing your status.
There really aren't invisible incentives. Clear back in 2016 I was voicing my opinions on issues with the STEEM blockchain instead of just becoming a cookie cutter content mill like other content creators decided to make. EOS didn't exist then and I clearly knew the capabilities of this blockchain far exceeded Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other chains.
I was investing in EOS last summer way before ever having any chance to be a mentor at their hackathon series.
I have said that STEEM is #1 technologically and is ahead of EOS in a lot of ways. Why would I say that if I was 100% all about EOS?
Also why would I be directing people back to Steemit from Instagram if I was trying to act like STEEM is total trash? I don't even direct them back to my YouTube channel that has a decent following.
A month ago I made an effort to directly convince @jerrybanfield to allow me to take over his #35 Witness slot. Ultimately it didn't work out and evidently someone else saw my video and was able to strike a deal with him to take it over.
This is after I had been to the EOS hackathon and spoke with Block One employees. I still think that STEEM has a chance but unfortunately for me I'm not able to really focus on this chain.
I don't really know what to say other than I feel like there have been some missteps and it is ruled by very few.
Nothing in the crypto world has been able to do what the STEEM blockchain has accomplished in two years. I would like to see it take off and I will likely always keep a small investment in the platform.
I do wish everyone luck here. Ultimately I'm just a small investor and one of the 10% of people who actually didn't just leave the platform and stuck around trying to make it an environment that could progress the user base and the price of STEEM. A lot of us in that position feel our efforts are futile and have often wondered if we would have been better off never spending the time here.
@brianphobos - Welcome to TELOS http://testnet.telosfoundation.io/ and we need BPs...
TELOS will not be like EOS and STEEM which is ruled by Whales... We both tried EOS during launch but it was ruled by Whales who blocked all others.... TELSO is aiming to be a decentralized network with no whales (at least from start).... Just run a node in TELOS and contribute in it's development to make it de-centralized...
I'm aware of the TELOS project and support it. I'm interested in getting a BP team together for it. I'm going to have to dive into it more in the next couple of days because I'm currently on the road. Thanks!
I’m talking about all parties you mentioned in that paragraph. There are always invisible incentives.
If you want real feedback — my feedback would criticize your take on how witnesses and distribution are holding back the platform — and how they are different from other platforms. When I analyze your reference to one set of these things over the other, I see hypocritical analysis and comparisons. When I see hypocritical analyses, I look for incentives. There are always incentives.
Perhaps I'm just a jealous complainer. It is a plausible scenario. I was mining Monero in 2014 and was buying EOS in between $0.50 and $1 last summer / fall and still have all that EOS. With STEEM I have constantly got caught on the wrong side of it and always feel like I'm getting dumped on before I can power down. Haven't been able to gain major traction for the most part and while there are people who agree with my ideas on this chain they are typically people in the 1000 - 10,000 SP levels. So that doesn't end up going very far.
But If I'm a jealous complainer then what are the 85-90% of people who joined and left? Just quitters?
We appreciate your feedback and that you feel your voice isn't being heard here, I don't think Ned was saying anything to the contrary. I think you can appreciate the fact that we have been inundated with people telling us how we should do things differently since the very beginning. How we shouldn't use PoS or DPoS, how we should have smart contracts, etc. People often point to the initial "unfair distribution" and I think Ned's point comes down to the fact that they never point to another established chain that had a "fair" initial distribution. They are all fiefdoms but NONE enable anyone to join and begin earning that same stake simply by creating. It's not a perfect system, but we would love to be able to look at another system that was "better" so that we could learn from them. Unfortunately, as you say yourself, no one has been able to do what we've done, so we don't have many people to look at. We are open to positive changes for which there is a consensus, but it seems that most people just want us to listen to them and no one else. My point is really only that whatever the history of the formation of this ecosystem, it is responsible for both the negative AND the positive consequences. Those people who were most involved in the beginning, they're the ones who built a blockchain that was able to do what "nothing in the crypto world has been able to do."
If you believe in this chain we are eager to work with all who help build a consensus around the positive changes that need to happen. I don't believe we have ever done anything that indicates otherwise. At the same time, we have no problem with people looking at other projects, participating in them, and lending the insights they've gained from a project that is much farther along and mature than they are. It's not us-versus-them. We're all in this together trying to build a better future.
I would venture to say that something like EOS had a somewhat fair distribution because everyone had a year to cost average into a position. Also that has allowed us to have distributions in other projects such as Telos and many other projects as well.
I get it that everyone seems to have an opinion on what the platform needs. They just wanted it to become something that could succeed and wouldn't be MySpaced.
For the most part I'm not going to spend too much time expressing my ideas here because not much is going to change for the better.
More and more clones are going to come online and you have to ask yourself why there is more engagement on something like WEKU than there is on STEEM even when there isn't an exchange to cash out to with WEKU yet?
99 % of people's experience on STEEM is that they didn't have a chance. It is controlled primarily by basement dwelling whales who afraid to be in pictures or videos or anything so when everything is being dictated by shadow figures it is a very strange experience.
Your problem is you do not understand 1 Steem is 1 Steem, period. You got how many Steem for .5 of 1 BTC? There is no way that could equal a loss in terms of crypto, if you are referencing fiat than you do not need a witness position on any chain.
This is an opinion I do not share. Perhaps money should never unjustly be taken from them, but that's a far cry from never. When the very rich abuse their power and the poor suffer, the very rich should have their wealth taken from them to empower the poor.
This is true both on and off the blockchain. There's a gray area of where "abuse their power" begins and ends, and we should have some clarity before anybody does have their money taken from them on what constitutes "abuse", "power", and "wealthy", but the blanket
should not be our guiding principle.
Dear Ned, Everyone has lost. If there was a time to apologize and show a tiny bit of empathy now would be it. Upvoting for aggrandizement of Resource Credits Depletion Action.
Posted using Partiko iOS
picks up old copy of "The Sociopath Next Door" and begins to read....I also find it interesting that it's some of the strong women who have taken a lot of sh*t that will and can take matters into their own hands besides being told they "make good coffee"
hope it's a circle jerk of weiner waggers left bragging about whose nudes they scored when they realize that people with souls will not support this
Hi, @ned, I don't know if you're reading these or not, a lot of people have some pretty hostile responses here and while I feel them I couldn't blame you for feeling like this was going nowhere. However, I have a suggestion for addressing some of these issues, and I hope you'll consider it.
Part of the problem here is that witness rewards aren't tied into testing, code review, and so on. And I believe that they shouldn't be - there are different skillsets required for being a good dev and a good witness. But that means that sufficient testing of the hardforks is unrewarded, which is why no one was doing it.
I propose that we set up a Utopian-like system, supported with SP from Steemit Inc. and the top witnesses, specifically for Steem blockchain development. New code, code review, unit testing, bug reports, testnet experiences, and so on could all be done publicly through posts and rewarded through votes, so that instead of every witness having to do a private review of code that is scattered through github, there would be a reviewable public record of the testing that was being done, and more importantly, everyone could contribute to it. This would provide the incentive for more extensive testing that the current system is lacking without putting additional burden on witnesses, or requiring that any dev who wants to be compensated for that work also run a witness.
This would provide the witnesses with a collection of data they could more easily review, and expertise from a larger group of people reviewing the actual code and supplying their expertise, before making their decision to accept an update. It would also put their information-state on a par with the rest of the community's, so we would not be assuming that the job was being done in the background.
YES. I love this. And I also love that it would make possible and enticing the idea that even hobbyists could contribute. One of my favorite experiences recently was taking a look at the new code for when @steembasicincome will be automated and checking for any logic bugs with my little knowledge. Now, I didn't find any, and I don't know how helpful I was, and I didn't understand all the nuances of what I was reading, but that little real-world experience helped me learn so much about Python.
I can imagine a whole part of steemit dedicated to explaining what each section of code does and how it does it, and having that explained to the laymen. I think this would go not only a long way in helping find and fix potential errors, but also in getting so much more of humanity on board with what blockchains are, how they work and why we're using them.
Finally, some good input on how to improve STEEM.
Seems like there will be a bunch of arguing back and forth about each change where the consensus would be against change as people fear change.
How about we take your idea but instead place a bounty reward for anyone (not just witnesses) who can identify a bug? An account can be set up with SP with delegation renting to accrue more value until the next fork. This way it pays for itself.
I would name it http://SteemTest.io as the place where the test version of Steemit can be as you have stated, or we can call it something else, but something easy enough for enough people to know how to find for observing, testing, considering, contributing, for some feedback, and a great failsafe and also a great public record of it all just in case. Thanks for sharing this with the world.
And the true shame of it all is that we as steemians can do nothing about the witness situation. As we all know @freedom is a mega account and has allmost all the top 20 witnesses propped up there with his vote. Hell even @aggroed wrote an article about it.
https://steemit.com/freedom/@aggroed/the-twelve-million-dollar-miner-who-is-freedom
maybe in the next hard fork we could address that account so that the rest of us actually have any power to choose witnesses that want to do the job, not just sit in a top 20 spot and line their pockets. If what you say is true about them only testing 2 days ahead of time that is just shamefull and they should be fired by the people. I guess the obvious answer would be "well it is his stake and he can do as he wishes, If you don't like it doomsday then stop being a peasant." As long as witnesses are complacent because they have the @freedom vote in their back pocket we are all stuck with them no matter how hard we try to leverage them out.
@doomsdaychassis makes the best argument. I have been trying to get witnesses to take on a leadership role since Steemit Inc leaves major gaps in functioning as a leader. The argument from witnesses is that leadership isn't their duty. It is true it is not their duty especially when they are on the @freedom easy street. It really is up to @freedom to decide if the witnesses should take on a leadership role. The CEO can point fingers all he wants to, but at the end of the day, the CEO of the company that develops the software is the one responsible.
Thank you so much for having my back. I truly appreciate it. I am fully on board with exactly what you are trying to do also. I want steem and steemit to be wildly successful. I can not tell you how much this place being a great success would help me in life. I do not complain to just bitch about stuff. I complain because I see something that is broken and as a mechanic my job is to fix broken shit. Please let us help identify problem spots and fix it. I love getting on steemit. I have gotten rid of facebook 100% to stay here and interact with my fellow steemians. Please don't kill that. Please don't force me out of here. I am loyal. I want a successful steemit.
The fundamental problem with steem is that the rules are set up to encourage and then maintain an oligarchy. As long as that continues, Steem, as a content platform or social network, is doomed. An oligarchy is not decentralized. The hierarchy formed by proof of stake is not decentralized. As a content platform the rules need to be set up to reward quality content not who has the most stake. Of course with an oligarchy it is hard to change the rules to benefit the majority over the minority. We see that in government today and it is causing all kinds of problems. Yes, people can buy into Steem, but money is not a substitute for proof of brain in either the extra-steem world or steem.
I have introduced many people to Steem, but I'm the only one regularly using it. Once they learn about all the limits and that those highly paid posts are really purchased, they lose interest. Now with RC so limited for new users, things will be even worse. I see Steem as an interesting experiment, which is why I am here. My hope is that it will dramatically improve, or else a competitor will come along that bests it. The basic idea is really good, its current and continued implementation is just flawed. I could say that that is to be expected given the uncharted territory Steem is in, but many many posts have pointed out problems, some have suggested solutions, and as far as I can tell the oligarchy has rejected all of them.
Proud member of #steemitbloggers @steemitbloggers
THANK YOU. Someone finally gets it. I have brought many people to the platform and they abandoned it because of the "whale culture" we are going to brand it. The only people that get it has been here for a while and suffer from Stockholm syndrome. I love steemit. I hate being serious. I like to meme and shit post and mainly engage with other people here more than anything but this set up is not helping by penalizing me for making comments. I do not want to make shit posts I would rather follow people and check out actual real content that is informative and helps me in the crypto world. I have learned sooooo much here it is unbelievable. I can not imagine how shitty it will become if people are punished for talking to each other.
Sorry for a short reply but I believe a simple
100%
says about everything I could spend hours writing out. Thank you so much for your input and I believe that is pretty much what we are all feeling right now.
You forgot to throw the likes of berniesanders (and all his multiple personalities) into the mix of mis-fortune for good measure.
Thanks for the belly laugh.
Thanks more for the true words.
Bringing laughter to others really makes my day. I am glad I could provide a laugh in this time of unhappiness on steemit.
This needs to be trending...^^^ if these inequalities aren’t faced and dealt with, we will lose more and more users as they realize it’s rigged!
Thank you. I am going to try and sit down this weekend and write out a post about my concerns, some of which are listed here.
What I can do is remove all my witness votes... and that is all that I can do (and did). Oh wait... I can power down also!
At your desk, Ned
@ned I'm shaking my head
Lemme get this straight, you need rigorous gatekeeping witnesses to stop the shitty code changes, yet there are sweet fanny Adams that understand the code in its entirety
Inherently you are outsourcing code QA to people that are paid for their services by the output of that code.
And that looks like a serious conflict of interest.
Oh and vote for my witness if you want change 😂
I take blame here. Let’s now look forward again — the reality is the system is going to be stronger with published Witness’ Gatekeeping Standards. These become Steem’s development companies’ standards that must be met too.It’s something we’ll all arrive at together. I’m actually looking forward to the process. Once we get some of our sleep back
Thanks for the reply, you will be seeing more, Much More, from this fair lady, @Sapphic! 35 years IT and related fields experience, and since we've been together I have become more impressed by her skills every day. We are building something great together, and that vote request was not a joke, she can really back that up!
PS: Get some rest, we will all need it as these markets open back up. We need great leadership, @ned, so be ready for the task! I say that we are HERE:
This is a good conversation starter for Witness’ Gatekeeping Standards: https://steemit.com/witness-update/@reggaemuffin/witness-statement-for-reggaemuffin-proposing-hardfork-adoption-requirements
What about STINC/Steemit Inc. @ned? Are you planning to formalize steem's development process ever?
We have greatly improved organizational development practices since the several prior forks, including real adherence to Agile development, but we haven’t improved enough. The post mortem of HF20 will make us sick and cry. Our Standards will increase. I want the witness’ Gatekeeping Standards even higher. There is a silver lining in struggles or failure — it can be the beginning of new strengths.
Its not easy to focus on the business challenges and the software development at the same time especially in such a community where there are lots of people whose lively hood is from STEEM. So personally I would say, understanding is a good starting point and this can be the beginning of a new era. By adapting a model similar to Wikipedia and true to FOSS principles, IMHO this project can set standards in the blockchain software development.
Agile, yes -- but need "Test Driven Agile Development". This is the ONLY shortfall and everything else will fall in place auto-magically.
Few points:
Your biggest strength is an incredible community & wishing STEEM all the best!
@bobison, If you want to set standards, then start by following the lead of existing mature FOSS projects. For example Drupal (the biggest dev-focused FOSS project worldwide). It is 17 years old, Drupal adopted TDD 10 years ago and had its own moments of radical changes, but Drupal has tradition of communicating change pretty well! (starting from its founder & project lead)! In short, there is no need to reinvent the wheel @ned, if you really want to keep steem for the long run, make it formal, and if you know that you can't hold the technical weight of the project, then hire a competent CTO ;)
Valuable input. Thank you.
That is good will from you @ned! However, having a formal process requires more than just good will. I've been involved on a CMMI level 3 certification about 6 years ago, it was way too boring back then, but it brought the ability to scale. Not an easy process btw, we had to make hard decisions and to deal with key people leaving the company, but things stabilized over time. So, you had the guts to let HF20 go, how about letting your company to formalize with working industry standards?
This is great that you read one comment. I hope you read the rest. If you want to make improvements, then it is imperative.
Also I love that you know that you are a stakeholder. I hope you also recognize that your customers on Steemit are stakeholders too. And if you do, then as the leader of this organization it is your duty to address the issues many of the Steemit users will be facing with this new implementation.
@ned If you want real change it is simple give every steemian equal voting power on such important matters such as witness votes ect. like this people who actually earn the trust of the users get the power not some entitled sponsored idiots who could not bother to test or read ...
I am excited to see where 1 million accounts takes us. I remember when you were on TV talking about Steem at 100,000 users. Keep on @ned you are doing great! I am looking forward to SMTs
Welp, I tell ya, @ned... that is why I am working on this thing here that I call the "Dolphin Council" and we are working on making the role "Witness" equivalent and now that I am both, it is morphing into a combination council. I do not pretend to be the "leader" of this new group, but at this time I am guiding the charter of it. Your "gatekeepers" speech above gives me some great ideas for the Council. Thanks.
As you may have noticed, Many or Most of the new witnesses are mid-level folks, which is a good deal. New Blood, fresh ideas, different perspectives. The "DC" hopes to mirror this new(er) Steem Demographic and "inject" these traits into the Blockchain.
Could not have said it better myself, but that sums up a lot of my feelings about the "State Of Steem"...
Happy to read it now, link? Thanks for your patience.
poor little ned
Please feel slapped by me. Steemit is like the mental ward of the internet lol
I literally was not aware of any letter. If he linked it now, I would read it. If anything this is seeking out opportunity to connect.
I will need to mute you for intimating violence by slapping me.
Nice! I like democratic voting and I want to leverage it in SMTs with Oracles :)
The beginning of putting out information here: https://steemit.com/gathering/@ned/have-you-seen-this-post-yet
There will be more info from me as we move through the advent of SMT.