Given your erratic behavior on Twitter following every town hall with witnesses or the community and all of the various statements you’ve made completely trashing the actual community’s elected witnesses, I just don’t find your words to be... credible.
One day you claim that you just want your money and want to leave. The next day you claim you want to stick around and build the community and pump money into development and marketing.
What should we believe? Are you the Justin that tricks exchanges into centralizing the platform by powering up their custodial funds? Or are you the Justin that wants to get STEEM listed on all major exchanges to help the community?
Are you the Justin that wants to de-escalate, get along with everyone, and have a good relationship with the community? Or are you the Justin that writes profanity-laden vote bribery posts and calls elected community witnesses “malicious hackers?”
Are you the Justin that likes the Steem blockchain and ecosystem? Or are you the Justin that just wants to f$!@ Steem?
I don’t know which Justin this is. I don’t know if I can believe or trust this Justin. I don’t know if I’m going to wake up tomorrow and see the Steem blockchain taken over by your 20 sock puppet witnesses again with the help of colluding exchanges.
Your credibility is shot. It’s going to take a lot more than a blog post to change that. If you want to take the first step...
Unapprove your witness accounts, take them offline, and allow our community witnesses to do what they were elected to do.
If you’re not willing to do that, then your words are meaningless and we have no reason to believe that this Justin Sun cares about Steem and its community.
Good answer and I agree with you. I would just add that our side should also show some more respect and pick some suitable people for negotiations.
His behavior has done absolutely nothing to command respect, which must always be earned. If he were to start now, it would still be long path to earning any but perhaps it could be done.
You need some time off, the show your rage, hunt him down part is behind us. More and more people will disconnect with it.
I've been taking most of the last week off. I come by occasionally to see how this shitshow is going, and I see it is not going very well.
Until his sock puppets witnesses are taken offline, @dev365 stops voting and our community witnesses can do what we elected them to do there can be no respect.
Respect is earned by action, not bought by words or funds.
As far as I can tell, based on what has been released publicly, those working to deescalate this situation on the STEEM side have been doing a fine job. They have not been disrespectful. A few tense moments, sure, but that's to be expected. This hasn't been easy for anyone and then the exact moment things start to look promising, Justin morphs into Bustin and starts going on a rampage. There's never been a man in history handed more opportunities to redeem himself. After everything that has been said and done, and even though some are quite frustrated, this community is still willing to give him every opportunity to help sort things out.
But you see the disconnect between what he says in witness meetings, blog posts and on twitter?
The 3 have zero overlappings. He constantly disproves his own statements. It's ridiculous and seems unstable. Or he is that smart and does it on purpose to hide his true intentions.
Are you paying attention to both sides? It hasn't been pretty, he doesn't know who is who.
Don't worry. I don't need your help to be able to see things for how they are. I've been watching everything. I see everyone. I doubt I'll ever know everything.
Open you eyes and read, he is still being bullied, when does this stop?
LOL that's absurd. The witnesses are mostly a bunch of low-paid volunteer community members (though a few are successful business people or investors) and Justin is supposedly a billionaire with a vast empire who thought he could make a deal with Ned and then command Steem to his will and all would obey. The witnesses are the courageous ones to try to stand up to this guy and his underhanded scheming.
If there is any bullying going on here, you must have been looking at it through a mirror.
Low-paid is a relative statement, care to back that up with actual USD numbers? The SPS is currently funding over $250,000 USD per year.
SPS pay may be more, for specific non-witnessing tasks, split up between multiple people. Also, almost half of total SPS funding is for @sbdpotato, which is to be given back, so not really "pay".
But that's largely irrelevant anyway as most witnesses aren't receiving anything from SPS.
Top witness at $0.20 STEEM makes about $19000 per year gross (before expenses, taxes, etc.) and backup witneses (including some involved with and contributing their time to this whole 'takeover' issue) make 1/4 of that or less, in some cases much less.
The ones acting petty in comment sections are not the ones sitting through meetings trying to sort these things out.
I hope this man is smart enough to sift through the nonsense. Not all voices here represent all minds. Some of these voices just want to speak for attention. Others want to speak the truth. The majority wants this situation resolved, like now.
There have been plenty of moments of unnecessary bs on both sides and overtures on both sides.
Maybe at some point they will line up at the same time.
I am fine with the current stand off, good for a cool down period.
Too man aggressive people.
I agree. It would be a lie to say only one party made mistakes.
The solution is always easy when you're not the one making the decisions.
Isn't patience fun?
To be fair, I've lost my patience several times.
I'm trying to keep my chin up. Sometimes failing at being the better person. Still haven't hit the bottle yet though.
I also agree about the stand off allowing for a cool down, Justin could remove some of his witnesses to show some action. Only time will tell.
While I agree with the need to show respect ! We need to collect our shit like grownups and talk and convey an unified message.
Correct. Repeating the same story what's happened is pointless. The whole crypto community knows the facts. We should make a step forward.
Absolutely agreed @oldtimer ...
... as indicated in my own comment. I have "named names" of suitable people, although I am sure there are other "adults in the room" who might also be on the list of suggestions.
The book title "Bonfire of the Vanities" comes to my mind in watching the unfolding drama, although I left it to the young Mr. Sun to classify it in whatever manner he may wish ...
Very well said!
Actions speaks more than words ...
This guy @ats-david seems pretty smart and speaks eloquently. I elect him as our new leader or CEO or something! Hip hop hooray!
I hear that he's good-looking as well.
Very well said. Trust can be a delicate thing, and takes a long time to rebuild. No doubt there has been miscommunication on both sides, but that's no excuse for blatant dishonesty.
Word!
He sounds like a politician... sounfs better than the "f... talk", though :)
I mean it sounds good, if it would be true... :p
Agree wrt the trust issue. Not so much agree wrt the process proposed. In current situation with both sides not having enough witnesses to make chances to the blockchain, its time to come to agreements. Some high(er) SP holders are stating they plan to keep the equilibrium anyway, so listen to these users who - like witnesses - also represent a voice from the community ar large.
IMHO, we shall not lock the funds of Steemit Inc and we need to re-assure Justin/TRON we will not do.
We shall come to some agreement with TRON and Justin that TRON/Justin will invest in building out Steem. In my honest opinion, this doesn't have to be financed directly from the Steemit Inc Steem stake/wallet. The money may come from anywhere; Costs to develop the Steem eco system is mostly in FIAT currency anyway and just having the Steem Wallet of Steemit Inc as the source of income to fund all expenses seems a risk to me; What if Steem value goes down in dollar value as it is been doing the last few years?
Somehow we need to make sure, in writing, in contracts, in mutual agreed lockup funds (this can be in a trust fund for instance) the intentions of TRON and Justin wrt Steem and Steemit.com are verifiable, legal and eventually will be honoured.
We don't need contracts that may or may not be binding in insertrandomcountry
We have our blockchain with its own governance, and we decide together what the law it.
All fine, but will the witnesses also raise money for development of the ecosystem? At some point the Steem stake of Steemit INC is finished, and then? Bringing a chain into a bright future costs a lot of resources, and resources are being paid in the normal fiat world. Enough fiat shall be available to give Steem a future without becoming irrelevant at some point in time. I didn't see ANY proof so far the 'community' can handle the tasks required. We definitely need some form of organisation for that, wether that be one or more groups of people, project teams, or even better, companies, like Steemit Inc is a company. Decentralisation sounds great, but I don't know of any decentralised product that made it to the top without using (more or less) centralised planning and execution.
Whether contracts will be used, or some form of trust fund, or whatever other form to safeguard investments into the development of the Steem eco-system, it all ok for me.
We have the SPS for future funding. And of course there need to be businesses involved in the ecosystem, profitable ones at best ;)
When SPS is the way to go, fine by me.
BUT, we need to start talking with Justin/Roy/TRON to come to solutions which are good for Steem and at the same time good for TRON Foundation (the owners of Steemit Inc). So far, we (our witnesses) didn't really talk, we made demands while we dont have the control over the chain. Some of our spokespeople seem to be ok, but the rest sounds like children in these meetings. Also, am very unhappy with the fact many witnesses dont come forward in the TRON meetings (as well as our Town Halls) to add to the conversation, they keep quite and bitch in the chat channels. Very un-constructive.
I understand that a lot of people want a compromise to be found asap. I respectfully disagree, for my part I'm happy that our representatives don't give in with promises they are not authorized to give.
For me personally, the only way forward is giving control of the chain back and acknowledging that the funds are not his personal property. And a lot of the other big stakeholders see it the same way.
I belong to the group of people who first like to explore if a win/win is possible by means of acting professional, approach TRON with a business mind, stop bitching and hate speak. If we can't come to an agreement, we can always take more drastic steps.
Bit off topic but still: Interestingly, the large stakeholder will only have real value in hand, as long as many small stakeholders are part of the community. For small stakeholders it is much easier to step away from whatever service on the Steem blockchain, and start spending their time somewhere else. Every large stakeholder shall keep that in mind. The community is build by the small stakeholders, while the large stakeholders benefit from what the small stakeholders are building. Surely I paint it all a bit black/white while the world is always grey, but I simply like to point out the other problems we have, and the only way to survive and grow is for all community members to be involved together in one or the other way and everybody is willing to support decisions that is good for all of us and stay away from personal reasons.
This also applies to what deal we shall make with TRON! The small stakeholders opinions shall be taken into account as well, even when they may be different to the views of the large stakeholders.
Of course all voices have to be heard. I didn't see feasible suggestions for win-win scenarios yet though. As long as Tron doesn't accept the sovereignty of the community I don't see anything we can offer. When they do that, a discussion in the community can start. But right now we can only wait and see if he is willing to compromise on the stance that it is his personal stake.
I personally think that what @pharesim proposed or some variant of it is very much win-win, as I pointed out in my own reply.
Once the ninja-mined stake (which I point out elsewhere, he paid very little for anyway) is redevoted to ecosystem development and taken off the table, a few things happen:
Rather, by focusing narrowly on the stake (even to the extent of lying to exchanges in order to trick them into helping him remove it, before even seeking to engage with witnesses or stakeholders on the matter, or responding to communications) is:
It isn't too late for a different course, but every day that goes by with the present "our funds" approach, more damage is being done to everyone (lose-lose).
I would agree on that point. As a large-ish stakeholder I have large votes when it comes to that but I also seek to listen and learn from everyone regardless of stake. Mostly in these discussions I don't pay any attention to it.
Correct, it could come from SPS or some other on-chain governance system.
There is no other practical way for the Steem community to hold someone to their obligations, even if it were someone who, unlike Justin, had any reputation for or track record of honest and reliable dealings.
We have that, using on-chain governance. I would invite Justin to embrace it instead of working to undermine it.
BTW, a blockchain can not sign a contract. There are good reasons why blockchains create their own governance and enforcement mechanisms.
Justin came to us (us meaning the blockchain, not Steemit Inc) uninvited. It is up to him to respect and embrace the values and institutions of the community that he is seeking to join. As long as he refuses to do so and, instead, acts like he bought a blockchain or community (which he can not and did not) and makes demands, while working to undermine those values and institutions through manipulation, cheating, trickery, and deceit, the community will continue to reject him.
Let the above statement etch itself into every fiber of your being!
Agree that the chain itself shall be decentralised as much as possible. I also understand all laws if the blockchain is to be implemented at the blockchain, as much as possible. However, outside the blockchain world, instruments exist that can be looked at as well to safeguard future investments into the blockchain itself. I'm simply stating that we shall have a very open mind and work to a mutual acceptable solution, even if this means to use instruments outside the blockchain. Keep in mind: the 'community' trusted Steemit Inc with their stake, without any enforcement in the chain itself. I would never have done that; But the 'community' did... Note the way I write community. Imho the top 20 witnesses are not speaking on behalf of the community at large. The system we have is skewed to a few high value SP holders. Somehow we need to tackle that problem as well. Although that problem may seem to be not relevant for this post, I personally want to see all the issues we have on our chain to be addressed and resolved in any roadmap plan for the Steem Ecosystem.
No this is false. There very much was enforcement, although I can understand how it might not be so apparent to newer or smaller stakeholders who were not a part of or well informed about Steem's history.
The stake remained transparent in the steemit account (and associated accounts) for the specific reason that it would then be subject to community oversight. Around a year or two ago when there was some consideration (albeit embryonic) about forking to exert more direct control over that stake due to lack of confidence in Steemit and Ned, Ned starting hiding it. This, in fact, made it more likely for a fork to occur, because failing to fork would eliminate on-chain governance over the ninja-mined stake. For that reason, Ned was convinced to stop hiding it and to leave it in a transparent powered-up stake, and at the same time stakeholders considering a fork backed away since the transparency and oversight could be retained without one. In some cases this was even a specific quid-pro-quo offered by some of the stakeholders and witnesses, though I personally never did such a thing.
In fact there has always been a degree of stakeholder control over that stake, and Justin will have to understand and respect this if he wants to gain support from Steem and its stakeholders.
I would imagine that this history and specific events (some of which documented on the blockchain and elsewhere) regarding the designated purpose, practices, and encumbrances of the ninja-mined stake should have been disclosed to Justin when negotiation for the purchase of Steemit Inc, since it certainly is relevant information about the company he was buying. If it was not that would be an issue for Ned and Justin to work out.
All that being said, I'm not 100% opposed to creating some sort of foundation or trust that could handle custody of the stake and enforce rules over its use, but frankly that seems a lot more complicated and time consuming to me than on-chain governance, to ultimately accomplish much the same thing (the stake used for the development of the ecosystem).
Thanks for the explanation of the Steemit Inc Steem stake and the history; Greatly appreciated. I do wonder if Justin and Roy knows this.
I think it'll be time to start preparing session with TRON, with documents and all.
I do wonder why we don't have a service (eg Website) where we store all this important type of information in a more centralised fashion. That would've helped so much in making things transparent, not only to the Steem community, but also to outsiders, like TRON, exchanges and even investors in Steem and Steem content creators.
I do not know. However, I do have it on good authority they got an enormous discount relative to the value of the stake, not to mention the other company assets.
So either they knew some reasons for that enormous discount (most likely the history and community encumbrances on the stake), or if they thought they were buying simple stake free and clear (again, plus all the other assets), they were getting a deal that was "too good to be true" and still should have been very suspicious IMO.
VERY TRUE. :)
blablabla
wtf whats your statement about this
Everyone can make witnesses and by the way, i prefer to vote for his.
Are you a Witness? What did you and other "community" witnesses do? (except some great guys, most of you do nothing productive).
Your communication is destructive, credibility of steem "community" witnesses is shot.
I agree 100% with what you write. These are exactly the questions the community is asking. I wish for a with each other and a look ahead.
Yours Querdenker