I think I have to take issue with one of your core axioms – that this sort of redundancy maintenance isn't part of what the witnesses signed up for.
On the contrary, it's exactly part of what the witnesses signed up for and, in particular, the top witnesses have a vested (pun not intended but certainly appreciated) interest in making sure that the seed node architecture is distributed across multiple platforms and multiple pipes.
After all, a failure of the system like we had yesterday is, front and center, first and foremost, a problem for the top witnesses. They have failed in one of their primary purposes, to keep the blockchain supported and stable. Even if we discard the idea that they should be interested in the stability of the platform for its own sake, there is an even more motivating push:
If nobody can use the blockchain, they don't get paid.
As such, I think it's telling that you are not only asking for support for a series of seed nodes but as a witness.
I would actually be more interested in seeing a breakdown and analysis of what servers got saturated and why it was possible for api.steemit.com to be overwhelmed.
I reiterate, it is in the best interests of the current witnesses to want a solution to this problem as soon as possible, because nothing erodes trust like failure – and if the behavior of the system yesterday doesn't count as a failure, I'm not sure what would.
This invalidates your original point four where you state, "there is zero monetary incentive to buy, build, manage, and maintain the seed nodes which empower our network." Of course there's a significant monetary incentive to maintain the seed nodes. The witnesses and prominent whales have the greatest incentive to maintain the seed nodes, because without them, as you put it almost immediately before, "dude, where's my dough?"
If the folks who have a significant stake in the system and its stability can't be bothered to see to it, I'm not sure what tiny amount of support you're likely to get from a slice of minnows and plankton is supposed to do.
Wow when you break it down like that, it definitely hits harder! Remind me to be less modest in my next post. It's hard not to step on anyone's toes with this one considering the funding is expected to come from a space that is quite competitive. I definitely have to stand by you on the fact that contributions from those that stand to lose the most will go a long way in resolving instability in our networks. Thanks for your comment man it is extremely thoughtful indeed. Also as a side note, you can use steemit.chainchopper.com to see the availability of all of the Full rpc seed nodes as well as ours .
I'm not exactly known for being the most gentle of conversationalists. And I have a significant preference for being frank and upfront, which probably makes me a relatively hard-to-find entity around here.
If you are concerned about stepping on anyone's toes, you're never going to change the status quo. The toes are upholding the status quo, with all of the disturbing imagery that creates.
Arguably, you're taking the wrong tack with this. Rather than trying to create some parallel architecture for seed nodes, you should simply be campaigning to become a highly voted witness because you are interested in maintaining multiple paths and multiple locations for services, along with more seed nodes. After all, again, I maintain that doing such things is one of the core competencies of those who would like to be highly rated witnesses.
If that is insufficient to bring you to the top of the pile, then you know exactly how much the community values such things. After all, it's a lot easier to get a witness vote out of a large number of people than it is a continuing commitment for funding out of a large number of people – even if it does end up being the same thing in the long run.
If you can successfully make the case that witnesses have a responsibility to maintain the architecture of the blockchain because it's in their own best interests and can exemplify all of that, then you can actually make a difference to the situation. If you can't – better to know quickly and waste as little effort on the try as possible.
Fail fast, fail cheaply, after all.
That was very well put. With all due respect however, this isn't the first time that someone has stepped up to try and do something about node availability. The response was that more witnesses (top 50 albeit) started creating them and setting them up (or having their friends do it for them) which placed a sort of band-aid on the issue and also set them in the cross-hairs when things go awry. I'm sure several of the witnesses wouldn't mind supporting the initiative as well. One of them has actually voted for the @justinadams witness today (Thanks @ura-soul) and that's a big step. Hopefully other witnesses (especially top 50) and whales will do the same as that type of support will show that they do recognize the issue and they are willing to go above the call of duty. Not to mention PR never hurts anyone as many of them have their own business floating atop the blockchain currently so yeah plenty to lose . If we had to count losses yesterday, I wonder what they would look like on a pie-graph considering we had to deal with an already weakened sbd at the time when it happened? Maybe no one even noticed it and we can keep dreaming?
P.S. You should be my campaign manager btw lol. Such a way with words.
Unfortunately, I'm well aware of what has happened in the past regarding node availability.
Mind you, having more witnesses starting to create them and maintain them is what we want. There is no ultimate solution, especially when you're talking about denial of service attacks and distributed denial of service attacks – there's just too much computing power lying around doing nothing and being poorly secured.
What we really need is for interest in seed node traffic capacity to be something that someone rates, tracks, and develops a solid metric for – and makes sure that the witnesses in place know that they are being observed and graded on that particular axis among others.
There's a much bigger problem at play, in that even at some of the top levels the assumption is that any blockchain technology and in particular the steem blockchain is "sufficiently distributed" to largely ignore this kind of issue. In fact, there are regular posts about how the blockchain is nowhere near maximum capacity in transactions per hour and that everything is blue sky if everything goes to the moon.
We both know that's ludicrous. The problem is that it's almost impossible to prove that is ludicrous because there's just no interest in actually figuring out what makes for a good witness at a technical level, grading and rating that capacity, and communicating it to the people at large. Instead, being a witness is largely a political position, even though the top witnesses must actually provide part of the technical infrastructure that supports the blockchain.
There have been occasional nods toward the technical underpinnings, but by and large I'll bet that you couldn't ask the average user on Steemit what a witness actually does and get anything like an accurate answer. Worse, even as someone with the technical inclination to understand it and having spent a good chunk of time working it out – I'm not sure I could give you good answer.
Really taking a long view, this is deeply unsettling and if you're not unsettled by it (in the referring-to-the-audience sense of "you"), you need to become more aware of how things actually work on the blockchain.
I hesitate to even think about trying to quantify or qualify value losses yesterday, because there's just so much smokescreen and general crap maintained with a straight face when it comes to the steem blockchain that I just don't believe that I have enough understanding of the underlying numbers to make a stab at it. The already weak SBD may have actually been beneficial by reducing the magnitude of potential losses.
People noticed, but how much it'll matter in the long run? Very much up in the air.
(Believe me, you don't want me to be anyone's campaign manager. I have far too underdeveloped a sense of self-preservation for anyone to want to tie their political aspirations to my butt.)
It's so funny that you use words like "smokescreen" and "political positions" because these are things that I had to deal with while trying to decide how to get these nodes funded so that they could be a real possibility. The issues are indeed broad when it comes to the technology behind the blockchain, and there are also other issues that I'd like to address. major ones as a matter of fact. This is what i see needs to be rectified first however because none of the other things matter if the network isn't in a consistent stat. I have to ask though, If there were a bar or standardized guideline to be set defining what exactly a witness was and how one would qualify as being able to actually do it, then what type of oversight would be in place to make sure that those standards were upheld? For the most part, The guidelines set forth in the whitepaper, Especially the price quotation, is expected to be regulated among the top 20 witnesses +1. I started to raise a bit of noise about the accuracy of that, and even how to stabilize the feeds as others have been able to manage it, but most have not (@justinadams witness maintains a stable price i'll add - see steemian.info/witnesses). A few people actually agreed, but just the same, a few people held resistance. Something about me being new and trying to change things. . . I kindly responded with the steemit logo proudly displaying it's "Beta" signature... This thing is still in the testing phase. Tests are designed for a reason. If change isn't accepted then how will we ever move beyond beta and pass it?
There are a number of issues that exist within the steem blockchain which is working directly against everything that you should be focusing on in order to maintain a clean and overly connected network of people who want to see what each other are up to.
However, the system was established with a clear disdain for and active work against setting up a central authority who would be capable of determining whether you have made a good decision this day or a negative decision. The lack of a central authority, beyond that of the witnesses, whom they themselves don't understand but from which depends their success is the core, is the very life supplied of what everything's about.
The problem, if we must to put our finger on one in particular, is the fact that we, as users, already except that the beta is implicit. No way in or out exists except through the beta. They've called for access to the financial side of things far, far too quickly. All of this would probably be easier to deal with if people weren't already counting on it to give them part of their rent. That's why all sorts of cunning manipulations may be in the offing once the weather opens up
No one on the blockchain has the power or the authority to make a declaration of how things are going to be and the power to make it stick in fact, most of the serious ones have already planned how to get out, it just needs a certain impetus. In the absence of an authority to go to, you get to see the worst parts of human society work themselves back together from nothingness. Congratulations, it should be amazing.
Luckily it does stay amusing.