We had an interesting conversation during @sircork's Steemitizens of Steemit show yesterday about inactive Witnesses. When I first started on the platform, I tried to learn everything I could about its structure and rules, both written and unwritten. I came across this post from @jerrybanfield about the importance of Witness voting, specifically how and why to set a proxy. The statistics are dismal:
"... current participation in witness voting is very low with only about 15,000 accounts out of over 387,000 making even one vote equal to about 3.6% participation."
"Out of the few hundred accounts with over $50,000 in Steem Power, only about 22% are making any votes for witness ..."
"Out of the top 25 accounts worth at least $700,000, most including the founder and CEO of Steemit Inc @ned, are not making any votes for witness while only @roadscape, @freedom via @pumpkin proxy and @thejohalfiles are actually using all 30 votes."
"The majority of active witness voters are not using all 30 witness voting spots meaning that if participation by amount of votes is multiplied by amount of users voting, our total witness voting participation by amount of votes and users voting is near 0% when not accounting for Steem Power. When we consider Steem Power, no witness has more than 18% approval today which most of that being from a few large votes."
Note that the post was written six months ago, the number of accounts on Steemit has more than doubled since then, and both Witness standing and participation have since changed.
Later in the day, I was buried under a million things to do - pretty typical, as many of you know - but saw a post by @enginewitty titled Frustrating Witness Update, which addressed some of this issue.
The current blocks being hashed are around 20,829,000, which will be a higher number by the time I finish writing this and even higher by the time you read it.
You can see the entire list of Witnesses here. Of the 400 listed Witnesses, only 121 are shown as active. Many Witnesses have been upgrading the RAM on their servers recently, but let's say for the sake of nice round numbers that 29 of those shown as inactive are just offline upgrading - that still means that only 37.5% of the Witnesses listed are active! So when I hear someone complain about Steemit being slow, and I see that they aren't voting for Witnesses ... well that's just fucking stupid. They not only want a Lambo, they want someone else to buy it for them.
Thanks to @drakos for this invaluable tool.
"Decentralization" is just a useless buzz-word without participation. Otherwise you end up with the wealthy who care throwing their weight around and the poor who care throwing their hands up in desperation. It becomes an oligarchy at best and fascism at worst. I don't begrudge those who joined early and/or are heavily invested in the platform, but I cannot stress enough how important it is to vote for good Witnesses who care about actively contributing to the platform, and ideally who are approachable with questions and concerns.
For instance, I like @gmuxx but saw his status as inactive the other day. I sent him a DM on Discord because I wanted to cast a vote for him, and he said he's no longer serving as a Witness. It was more important to me that he was willing to discuss it with me, and even better that he responded right away. I know the Witnesses are busy, so I wasn't expecting that. But that's precisely why he will get my vote if and when he decides to do it again. I also appreciate some of the top Witnesses' contributions, but the total vests (vote weight) of their voters makes their positions at the top secure, and I will re-evaluate my votes if that changes.
I don't recommend setting a proxy, because apparently some are voting for inactive Witnesses deliberately just to prevent others from moving up the list. To those users: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??? That's straight-up market manipulation, and you're not just hurting the minnows and dolphins actually trying to churn out good content that gets seen (ya, don't get me started on the shit-show that is "Trending"), you're hurting the long-term value of the platform as a whole.
If I have to pander to your short-sighted greed, that's your money they're fucking with! I spend an hour or so every single day making sure my Witness votes aren't wasted. Some of you should at least fuck off that stupid fucking meme you're making and spend that time on something productive. If you have to set a proxy, I can recommend a very short list of users who I know aren't playing games just to prevent any threat to their market dominance.
If you ever expect to see Steemit out of Beta, and more generally see the platform grow (and therefore see your Wallet grow, because we are all still pretty much on the ground floor), you will do your due diligence to make that happen. I have a couple of suggestions for a future hard-fork, and admittedly I know (and care to know) very little about Steemit's
Set an expiration time for Witness votes. I'm sure smarter people than I can figure out a practical duration, but this would eliminate inactive accounts' votes still counting and would increase the incentive for active users to both make sure their votes count and make sure new users we onboard understand the importance of Witness voting. One month? Three? Whatever. I don't see any downside to this and potentially a huge upside.
Make each Witness vote carry equal weight. You want to upvote your own comment on some shit meme for $500? Fine. You're a bloody shit-stain, but that's your prerogative. You want to throw 25 Megavests at an inactive witness just to prevent someone else from moving up? Ya, you're rigging the game because the system is structured to let you do so. If you sort the list by number of votes, the top 50 shifts around a bit but 11 of those are inactive. That's on us, folks. This seems like a reasonable solution.
I care about this platform, many of its users and communities, and the good we do in the world using it. I want to see it grow and attract more unique and valuable contributors. Please be a part of the solution.
I will leave you with one of my favorite parables, which you may have heard before:
A scorpion is walking along the bank of a river, seeking to cross, and happens upon a frog. The scorpion asks the frog for a ride across the river. "How do I know you won't sting me?" asks the frog. "If I sting you, we'll both drown," says the scorpion. Satisfied, the frog begins to cross the river with the scorpion on its back. But halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog. With its dying breath, the frog gasps, "Why?" Replies the scorpion, "I couldn't help it. It's my nature."
VIEW THE LIST OF WITNESSES HERE
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Contact Me
Steem Chat, Signal, ProtonMail: ancapbarbie
Discord: ancapbarbie#0001
Thank you for sharing your thoughts @ancapbarbie. I agree with many of the points you've made especially the part about active participation by more users. And I'd hope those users (stakeholders) vote with at least a fairly good understanding of Steem and why they might vote or not vote for each witness.
One thing to note, with the exception of the top 20 witnesses, witness rank is not important when it comes to how many blocks a particular witness is scheduled to create. So their average income of SP is not affected by having an inactive witness ahead of them on the list. Inactive witnesses essentially are inert unless the owner of the account reactivates it.
The scheduling mechanism of Steem for the backup witness slot is voting-stake-based. Imagine a theoretical network where you have 22 witnesses, with the 21st-ranked witness having 10 times the voting stake of the 22nd-ranked witness: The 21st witness would produce 10 blocks for every 1 produced by the 22nd.
Regarding your solutions, I appreciate that you've proposed some but I have to tear them apart a bit:
This has some theoretical positives but overall it would be a bad thing for Steem to implement. The largest issue with witness vote expiration dates is that it reduces the amount of stake in STEEM Power needed to successfully attack the network's block producer list. Making the network less secure is not a good "feature" to add.
This would be an even worse feature. It's obvious to anyone in the decentralized network field that opening the door to a sybil attack is a no-go. Steem is stake weighted because, while not perfect, making an attack prohibitively expensive is the best defense these networks have.
It's news to me that some of the large stakeholders are purposely voting for inactive witnesses to keep other witnesses from moving up. People are free to do what they want with their stake, but only within what the system will allow. (You can't vote for 31 witnesses - so there are limits - as another limit I'd really like to see inactive witnesses purged from the rosters after - I think I've heard proposed - 90 days?) Thanks for taking the time to share this information. I learned a few things today :)
It was news to me too, but I trust @enginewitty to be honest, and he's my source for that bit of info.
This was a great post. Me hopes the new wave of steemians take time to read this. We can not always change the past, but this was helpful for our future. Myself, I have 7 more votes that i have some flexibility with. But I hope everyone gets out there and at least votes for 10, even 5, just to get started.
Good info, friend!
So did the frog and the scorpion drowned!!!?? I can't stand the suspense....
The moral of the story is: Don't blame the scorpion for being true to its nature. Blame the frog for thinking the scorpion would do anything but be true to its nature.
true story. I was just playin lol!!
How often can we vote? I'm afraid I can't change my mind afterwards? I only have 25 votes left! lol
You have 30 votes and you can change them at any time.
Oh thank god. I'm not good w/commitment ;)
Some good information on this very much overlooked subject, it took me a long time to start voting Witness's and I still did not realise what it was all about then either. Slowly I have learned more, but you have to hunt for the information and really it should be easy access - so everyone know's why they should vote for a witness. As a community vote, the top 19 with the most votes from Steemit accounts (us) get access to the block rounds and earn 1 Steem per block they resolve - it can therefore be very lucrative to get into the top 19 slot and access to regular block -resolving. This also explains the mentality of encouraging voting for inactive witness's - they won't be resolving blocks which leaves more for those at the top! The general rule though is we should each be voting for 30 Witness's - and we should choose to vote for the accounts we find engaging, post regularly and contribute to the community - the work they are doing is very important and the equipment required to run a witness server is very expensive to buy or rent - which is why some may drop out after a while and become inactive.
#thealliance
So much this.
And this.
A witness is far more likely to get my vote because they are involved with the community and are approachable. I know many of them are really busy, but there's no reason every single Witness can't take a few minutes or an hour out of any given week to update the community on their projects, answer questions and concerns, etc. Sure, it's not a requirement, nor should it be. They're just far more likely to get and keep my vote because of it.
We gotta find a way for you to really come out of your shell.
You hide your true feelings. Its OK, once in a while to let people know. To add a little motion in your posts.
Try to let your feelings shine through.
LOL ya, I have a bad habit of biting my tongue, right?
😂😂😂 that is exactly what I was thinking. So reserved this one - she needs to tell us how she REALLY feels. Great post @ancapbarbie - I set Shadows as my proxy because I knew I could figure out all the witness stuff while trying to figure out everything else. Thanks for your excellent work!
Totally good information here.
How interesting it would be to see if the dynamics of steem / steemit changed if witness voting was changed from weighted to unweighted.
I am guessing the account creation factories would move into overdrive for a while to reassemble the status quo.
With 16 of the top 20 witnesses (and 8 of the next 10 just in case) heavily supported by the mega Freedom for Pumpkins vote, Status Quo is very much the tune we all should be dancing to...
PS Who are the Pumpkins that need their Freedom?
Ya, I have spoken with a couple of Witnesses about my second suggestion, and both stated that unscrupulous folks would just create as many accounts as it took to achieve the same result. So maybe that's only a good idea in theory.
I know the story as the scorpion and the fox ;)
Ya. I've seen it as the scorpion and the turtle too. I use the frog because the fox isn't known as a good swimmer and the turtle's shell might protect it against a sting.
tactical story telling. lol
Exactly. 'Cause you know someone won't be able to resist the urge ...
Wow, you have really said a mouthful there my friend. I’m fairly new to this platform and breaking my ass to put out good content daily. I can’t believe that the people that could really help make a difference to us minnows are sitting on their hands instead of helping. This was a great informative read. Thank you👍
I'm fairly new too, but I talk with a lot of different individuals and communities, mostly on Discord. It's totally overkill to check the Witness statistics every day like I do, but doing so regularly is part of using this platform effectively. I'm not interested in a mutiny - yet - but if every one of us pays attention to it and votes for good Witnesses, both the quality and quantity of the platform will improve. Imagine one day we have 2 billion accounts like Farcebook. We better have more than 121 active Witnesses.
I’m a member of #steemsilvergold and just applied to #the alliance. Our witness sends out daily recaps of posts from our group. He has answered my question on discord as well. I know that he’s not inactive. But I totally get where you are coming from. Cheers🍺
You have 30 Witness votes, and yes @guiltyparties is a boss. You can see the entire list of Witnesses and who votes for which (if any) Witnesses from https://steemian.info which was created by @drakos, who is also an excellent Witness. Anyone too busy to even vote for, let alone research, Witnesses ... well I'll call bullshit but rather than try to convince them that they're lazy turds, they can just set @sircork, @enginewitty, or even me as a proxy. Probably others too, just the three of us I know for a fact stay vigilant about these important votes.
Wow, that's a high level of trust, thank you Barbie :)
Thanks for the info.👍
Hell, I'm not even a minnow. I'm more like an amoeba. I've only been on about a week and I'm still trying to wrap my head around this "witness" stuff. I'm trying to be a positive contributor and do what I can to stiffle the spam/photo plagiarism/theft, etc. Not sure what a "witness" does, exactly but it sounds interesting. Thanks for posting this. You've put this topic on my radar!
Witnesses operate (or pay someone to operate) the servers that hash Steemit's blockchain. Basically that means every upvote, every post, every Wallet transaction, requires a bit of computing power from one of their servers on a 3-second rotating cycle (if I recall correctly - someone correct me if I'm wrong please). Many of the Witnesses are also skilled developers who have built useful tools like steemian.info, busy.org, Dtube, Dsound, etc. and charity projects like @youarehope. Without them, Steemit as a social media/blogging platform would not function. For the same reason, the more active Witnesses, the more smoothly it functions. I'm not an expert, and if any Witness would like to chime in to correct me or elaborate, that would be great.
Sounds like something out of my pay grade. I just have a laptop and mobile phone. My friend's mining rig is an absolute beast and I have no $ or space in my flat to operate in that capacity, sadly. The concept interests me, but I'll readily admit I'm behind the curve, when it comes to blockchain knowledge. Thanks for some clarity. It's less fuzzy now.
You're doing fine.
Omg those statistics are shocking.... if I have never seen anything more apparant about the reward pool being raped its this I hope you are going to promote this on pypt because if you don't I will.
I usually prefer to pimp other people's posts, because they are doing work I consider far more important to the big picture than anything I'm doing. But this time, I'll make an exception.
This actually has nothing to do with the reward pool. Witness payment is a separate generation of steem that is not related to the reward pool at all. What IS wrong here is how many influential users and top witnesses appear to be colluding to keep the dead witnesses in the way of promising up and comers with the public community influence to break the ring at the top and some other issues alongside that. But it's not reward pool rape.
Thank you for the correction I posted that comment up before you spoke in pypt yesterday. Thinking now though how many others would think the same. Btw shouldn’t you be sleeping or are you on the non sleep kick again where your brain won’t shut down??? And did you look at high fidelity???
I havent had time for hifi, please don't let me forget about that, for sure!
I slept for precisely 3 hours from midnight to 3am, but set an alarm, because technically, sleeping during that window is my equivalent of going into work for a half day late.
lol but a weekly team standing meeting in an hour demanded I show up all the same. sigh
You made me check my witnes votes and change a few people there.
Actually, we have many people who do a great and meaningful job for the whole Steem blockchain, like developing tools and applications, supporting minnows, fighting abusers and so on. And if they have their own server to ensure reliable and stable operation of the network, why not support them?
Resteemed.
yeah! loved your passion today. one step at a time - eyes will open ;) hehehehe looking forward to seeing some change happening here!!!!
Hi @ancapbarbie, I just stopped back to let you know your post was one of my favourite reads and I included it in my Steemit Ramble. You can read what I wrote about your post here.
Join us on Thursdays for Pimp Your Post Thursday at 11am EDT or 7PM EDT in the Steemit Ramble Discord or:
If you’d like to nominate someone’s post just visit the Steemit Ramble Discord
So many nuggets of gold in this post.
Ain't that the truth. Mesmerising
A lot of useful and good information here; a lot to digest, for sure.
Should newbies vote for witnesses? Or rather, should anyone vote for witnesses until they actually understand what's going on?
Then the challenge is to try to learn and understand enough to cast informed votes. It's one thing simply to "vote for witnesses," and something else to actually learn about and then cast votes for the witnesses you believe are most in alignment with your individual perception of what Steemit is and should continue to be about.
For me, that would be a matter of finding witnesses for whom quality content is important. Witnesses who actually think in terms of "what's going to be here, three years from now."
All of which suggests the process mostly will seem important to those who see Steemit as a long-term proposition. The whole "get rich quick" crowd could probably care less what's going on behind the curtains. So we can immediately throw 50%? 75%? of members out the window under the heading "who cares? please upvote and follow me!"
Thanks for a very informative article though!
=^..^=
Yes. Of course, it cannot be mandatory. Therefore it is on us to educate them. Hell, I'm a newbie.
Great post! And good job calling out the greedy that just want more. :-) Resteemed! Have a great night.
"Decentralized is just a useless buzz word without participation".
This post right here! Thank you for sharing on this and for the convo we had last night in PYPT. I've reevaluated all my witness votes and will be posting about the "situation" in my next. Would like to link to yours too if you don't mind.
I agree with practically everything you said here and it's entirely on us to educate, mobilize and take action. You delivered the message powerfully, here's to a brighter future and more awareness on what happens behind the scenes! 👍
I would be shocked if you could coherently explain decentralization and how it relates to crypto. So far, I've only seen you shill obvious scams and use mindlessly non-descriptive words to promote yourself and your equally-idiotic world view, which can be boiled down to non-words, like "wholesomeness" and "balance."
Keni, have you ever thought about getting an education?
Hey @thealliance thanks for featuring this in https://steemit.com/thealliance/@thealliance/eyes-on-issue-7!
Yes ma'am, people need to be aware!