Are we rushing the hard fork or is just me? Dlive distraction and last minute updates to the hardfork.
I have been looking forward to the day of the hard fork more than anything in recent times on the Steem blockchain.
But in light of recent events I can't help but feel that we should postpone it by a week.
This is a personal concern of mine.
My concerns:
1 - The blockchain forked not to long ago and the stress of the repair job is still being felt.
2 - Last minute changes to the Hard Fork itself. A new version (v.0.20.2) came out today, only 3 days before the date of the Hard fork.
3 - One of the blockchains biggest CApps (Dlive) announcement that they are leaving days before the hard fork is a distraction right now.
I would personally like things to settle down a bit before implementing the biggest change to the Steem Blockchain in over a year.
So we have the right focus and also more than a 3 day old stable/unchanged hard fork version.
Again, it's a personal concern of mine, maybe it's completely unfounded, but I wanted to raise it because maybe others feel the same....and well...it's just not the coolest thing to say.
Having said that, the witness I am part of is ready for v0.20.2.
I am part of witness @blockbrothers.
Please consider us for your witness vote if you think we deserve it here:
Vote for @blockbrothers via SteemConnect
Set blockbrothers as your proxy via SteemConnect
We are the creators of Steemify a notification app for your Steemit account for iOS.
Get it Here:
I commend you @exyle for making these questions as it demonstrates your role and responsibility as a witness! These are the questions we need to ensure witnesses are asking despite they may be unpopular as it is to benefit of all the community. I am also happy that this is a transparent conversation being had by the responses here as well and appreciate these relevant conversations as I too have had concerns since the halt early this week. However, it seems that the teams remain focus on achieving the goal of implementing the Hard Fork which is great news! I hope the communication and transparency continues as it is implemented. Thanks!
Thank you!
@andrarchy's answer certainly seemed to put any dwindling concerns to ease. From my point of view anyways.
I'm pretty excited for it to finally transpire come the 25th.
We're a social media network, if something goes wrong and the blocks stop coming through it's not like there are mission critical functions that can go down. The closest we have to something mission critical is transfers, but currently the exchanges have Steem deposits and withdrawals disabled and they will do that again for the hard fork. So we might as well do it now and avoid an extra period of exchanges frozen for Steem.
We're not in a place where we should be ultra cautious. Steem is like Reddit, competing with other fast moving networks, we're not air traffic control or Visa (yet).
Well said. Also, the value of our token is intimately wrapped up in the other value propositions of the chain including social capabilities, application-related capabilities, and upgrade-ability. And of course far more time and effort is put into ensuring that the code around the token is more secure and robust due to its importance. That's exactly what caused the halt. When the blockchain sensed a threat to the token, it halted so as to not endanger that component of the system.
I was discussing the halting incident with a friend recently and he noted that banks and stock exchanges stop functioning for 12 hours every day and people tolerate it. A couple of halting incidents in exchange for all the other benefits of Steem is a relatively tiny price to pay and shouldn't be used, IMO, to justify turning Steem into something stagnant.
What do you want to do about it? Delay the hard fork? I say get it over with. Risk has to be taken sooner or later and better to follow through now that the process started. The other reason is the market cap is low enough that you can make mistakes that are harder to make the bigger the market cap might get in the coming months.
exactly what I thought, delaying doesn't achieve anything. Surely the buzz created by the hardfork will wash away the bad feeling of the crash.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, and I appreciate that this kind of change is scary. I assure you that we are fully confident in this release and there are serious downsides to delaying that you do not mention. Steemit and exchanges are prepared for this date and we cannot promise the same will be true of any other date. That being said, of course, if the witnesses decide to delay the fork, we will do our utmost to ensure that date is met, however, it will undoubtedly lead to delays with respect to other product releases like SMTs.
If we believed there were serious risks with hardforking, we would recommend a delay. The halting incident is now well understood and the relevant code has been thoroughly audited. That risk has been eliminated.
The last minute changes, specifically those in 20.2 were added to ensure a smooth transition to the new RC system. These are not significant changes. What we realized thanks to @timcliff's testing is that the new RC system, which appears to be functioning as intended, would lead to unpleasant UX because the bandwidth algorithm is under-pricing many ops. We added some code that we believe will ensure that user experience remains consistent as the RC system equilibrates. We could have not added that code and the system would have worked perfectly, aside from a temporary hit to user experience. We just wanted to make sure Steem maintained a good UX. That being said, compared to previous hardforks, these are not last minute changes. If you go back and look at previous hardforks you will see more updates closer to the release date. But none of this is relevant. What is relevant is that the best Steem blockchain developers are confident that the 25th is the best day for the fork. To delay would be to disregard their view that the risks associated with delaying are greater than the risks of hardforking (which they believe are minimal).
I think the real mistake here is thinking that the lead up to any hardfork is going to be stress-free. We are all working our hardest to make sure that the hardfork goes as smoothly as possible, and believe it or not, that can be a stressful experience! That means more people start testing stuff and more tweaks need to be made to respond to that testing. The question is not whether changes are made, but what types of changes? What parts of the code are they altering? For example, 20.2 only modifies the initial state of the resource pools. It doesn't change anything about how the resource pools functions. That is the important distinction: are we rushing because we believe we can make this hardfork work and make Steem better as planned or are we rushing because something is broken and we don't know how to fix it? While the halting incident and Dlive might be contributing to FUD, they have little to do with HF20. Our exhaustive audit of the portions of the code around the halting incident is complete. The halting incident was an example of the blockchain's safeguards functioning properly. The reason why witnesses run the testnet is to expose bugs. Bugs were exposed. It is not reasonable to expect that leading up to major changes all tests will be passed and all versions will be perfectly complete. This is, for example, why some code is alterable via softfork.
Dlive leaving Steem is entirely irrelevant. They were never intending to stay here and this is an open source protocol. Apps are free to come and go as they please. I understand this might seem like a big deal to Dlive users, and may contribute to FUD but that is something they should take up with the people at Dlive and should not be part of the debate about whether to hardfork or not.
I would just like to close by reiterating that I promise we would never recommend this if we didn't think it was a safe course of action and the right course. Of course it's not the end of the world if we delay, but it is not as "cost-less" as you make it seem. The main cost is that it will seriously delay our other efforts. We really want to shift as many resources to SMT development ASAP, and a delay would seriously interfere with that and, again, for no good reason as far as we're concerned.
@andrarchy thank you so much replying. You have addressed every concern that was on my mind and more than that.
I contemplated for while this morning wether I should post this or not and now I'm glad I did.
Again. Thanks.
Glad to hear it :) I assure you, we are all working overtime, and if any red flags arise which change our view we'll be sure to make it known. We want this hardfork to go smoothly as much as anyone. If anything makes us think this isn't a good idea, we'll let you know.
Thanks @Andrarchy for the extended explanation... Keep Up the great work & Thank You @Exyle for asking the quesions !!
Cheers !!
A great job @andrarchy is doing at bridging this information to us...….also hugely motivating to know they have a very structured resource plan and road map. Sounds like the hiccup has happened, it's in the past, been managed and it has paved the way to the smooth transition to HF20.
Thank you, @andrarchy, for writing such a detailed reply to all the questions I had lurking in my non-tech brain. I feel better knowing that we do have capable people looking after these problems. For me, it is a little like buying a new car. I really don't understand the finer details of what makes it work, but I do really appreciate it when it does.
I am guessing @ned is paying you by character count ?
Just kidding..
on a Serious note...When moon?
wehn labmo??
lol, unfortunately his understanding of incentives is too strong ;)
clock in / clock out it is then...
cheers..
There is a joke in there somewhere about Dlive and incentives but it might be too soon...
"Dlive leaving Steem is entirely irrelevant. They were never intending to stay here,..." What do you mean by 'they were never intending to stay?'
Read my last post.
Well despite the sentiment in the comments so far being fuck it lets go I agree. Perhaps it is the tester in me but I don't like the sounds of a new version days before the release date. I will have to go have a look but yes in my opinion it is better to be prudent and make sure everything just works.
In my experience and I am sure you will have seen it too the gung ho, go for it types are the first ones to start screaming about the death of steemit when something goes wrong
Thinking logically right here 😬
Charles you should be sleeping it's 4 AM and your still awake................
@stackin never sleeps ;0)
I’m a steem vampire 🧛🏼♂️ 😂
:0D
Personal concern, but I think many share your concern. I completely agree that it feels a little bit rushed...
DLive missed your content there and decided to move on :DD
Hey @exyle, anyone who says they don’t have doubts or worries in a time of change like this, especially when it also depends on other people, would be lying.
There isn’t a time I don’t have doubt in any business, personal or community transaction I do. I don’t aim low ... average is boring as they say. I do therefore have my fair share of total failures, but at least I’m ready for them. There has been some doozies!!
I don’t fully understood HF20 or even the basic intricacies of the blockchain ( most of my learning I’ve the last 12 months has been from people like you )
In anything like this, I plan for the worst, decide what the worst could be, and if I’m happy with my preparedness, I soldier on.
If the bad happens, I’m ready. :)
I’m glad you are one of the Witness’s, that does make me more secure. Best of luck with the changeover.
I haven't got a scooby doo about tech stuff like this, but nice haircut buddy.
Similar to mine :D
Let's hope the hard fork kicks some ass...or something :D
I hope all goes well with HF20 @exyle.