HF20 Update: Operations Stable

in #steem6 years ago (edited)

HF20 Operations Stable.jpg

Hello Steemians, we are happy to announce that activity on the blockchain has stabilized. Transaction volume has returned and low Steem Power users are now able to comment, upvote, and transfer funds at an acceptable level. Ensuring that low SP users can transact as much as possible is our #1 priority and we will continue to work with the witnesses to optimize the system to that end.

Scale or Fail

The RC system was all about scalability and now that it is in place Steem has never been more scalable. One of the important limitations to scaling that has been removed was a hard cap on account creation that the previous system had in place. Before RCs the number of accounts that could be created was limited based on the amount of STEEM in circulation. This is because every new account needed to be created with pre-existing STEEM tokens.

Blockchain Subsidized Account Creation

The RC system has delivered the ability to create “blockchain subsidized” accounts, which means that it now has uncapped the scalability of the platform’s account system by introducing the possibility of account creation into the quadrillions of accounts. Prior to HF20, the hard limit of accounts was in its best case defined as the total available STEEM supply divided by the amount of STEEM spent to create an account. Now, because the rate of subsidized account creation is determined by the witnesses, Steem can admit as many people into our community as we desire, as long as the witnesses agree that it is safe to do so.

Limiting Abuse

While this is certainly an improvement, the risk of enabling this feature is that resources may be abused by the people who are given free accounts. In fact, the flaws in the previous bandwidth system were widely understood and had several consequences that made it unsustainable and also necessitated this change. It only became more important that these flaws be addressed with the introduction of free account creation. The fundamental issue is that network usage has costs, and in order for those costs to be sustainable, the value that is added to the network through user activities must be greater than the cost of performing the back end operations.

For that reason, we had to move to a system that more accurately priced resource consumption to ensure that those who were leveraging the blockchain the most were required to acquire a larger stake. However, during this process what we discovered was that the constraints the new system was placing on user experience were unacceptable. We responded by working with the witnesses to dramatically lower the cost of operations so the blockchain once again became accessible to small stakeholders.

Iterate to Greatness

While we are certainly not satisfied with how the RC system rollout was executed, the vast majority of those with a technical understanding of the system agree that it is the best path forward for defending against both the short-term and long-term risks associated with having a freemium blockchain. Thanks to the flexibility of this system, we can continue to optimize it in ways that ensure small stakeholders can take full advantage of this revolutionary platform while limiting the risks associated with spam.

Promoting Viral Loops

Thanks to the RC system, we are getting a more accurate picture of how much things cost on the blockchain. But now we need to work together to figure out what to do about those costs. This means coming to a consensus about what user activities should be subsidized by the rest of us so that people are still able to join the network, participate in the community, and initiate positive feedback loops of value creation. It is not our position that, “The costs are what they are and users just have to deal with it.” But these decisions are not as simple as they might seem, and we believe that the ultimate decisions should be made in a decentralized manner, based on the will of the community.

At the same time, we need to ensure that we are not opening the floodgates to spam, which would hurt user experience, increase the cost of running the network for everyone, and undermine the long-term sustainability and scalability of the platform.

Join the Conversation

We are declaring the engineering crisis over. But the end of this crisis is also the beginning of the discussion about how we can ensure that this is a system that works for everyone. We are committed to ensuring that this is not a path we alone determine. We will continue engaging in discussions with witnesses, community members, and any reasonable voice acting in good faith for the benefit of the Steem blockchain. We encourage you all to make your views and opinions known to the witnesses, and to reinforce those views with your witness votes.

Our mission is to develop code that you all love to use, and we are eager to participate in the process of coming to a consensus over what features this product should have. The RC system in particular was designed to be flexible enough so that it can be modified with limited disruptions in response to these conversations. But in order to incrementally improve that system toward success, it is critical that we communicate with one another and come to a consensus about changes.

Established Standards

We have already begun discussions with the witnesses about developing common standards, not just for testing code, but for holding Steem developers, such as us, accountable to their needs, and the needs of the community members they represent. We believe that the system that will emerge from this will be far more mature, effective, and powerful than the methods in place prior to Hardfork 20. We are excited about the potential for positive change that will emerge from the challenges we have faced, and will continue to face, as a community.

We want to thank you all for bearing with us through these difficulties and working with us to continue building a system that has rewarded so many people all over the world for their creativity. Together we are building something unlike anything else in existence, which makes building it all the more challenging. We know we cannot do it alone, but we also know that if any community on the internet has a chance, it’s the Steem community. Steem on.

It's supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it.
―Tom Hanks from A League of Their Own

The Steem Blockchain Team

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This is a most excellent post by the Steemit team. Focus upon the blockchain while working with the witnesses....that is an ideal situation in my opinion.

I commend everyone for opening up the discussion about how to best strike a balance between giving low SP accounts usage while deterring spammers. It is a very difficult task to pull off and it will take all of us collectively trying to determine what is best.

It was a tough week but there is no reason for anyone to be discouraged. This is something all blockchains are going to have to approach. The bottom line is networks cost money to run and this is no different. Therefore, how are those costs covered without directly charging?

People who leave STEEM believing there are other "free" networks out there are in for a rude awakening. There is no such thing as a free network.

Just ask all those who get to use Facebook for "free".

I agree wholeheartedly, and thank you for providing a fresh, organic, COMMUNITY UPVOTED comment, not like the ones above yours.

I agree with you, unlike the nay sayers who have no clue about software development. (never mind some of their claimed 20-years-techincal-expertise who claim you can see a 8mbps twitch stream on a 56k modem, true story) The developers involved (NOT JUST STINC, EVERYONE) has done an admirable job this week, things are never expected to go wrong, and when they do, that is the measure of the workmanship, how you handle crisis.

Why pay to get your comment moved to the top in a an announcement thread? showboating.

If what you have to say isn't valuable, then you have to spend (some times charity money) on it to get it noticed, so that you feel like you're 'contributing'.

At this point I would like to call out the posers.

If your "contributions" isn't on github in the form of PR's you're not really contributing.

Throwing stones at those who do is frankly ignorant behavior.

Define "showboating" - and also, produce proof of your allegations...

I define showboating as basically being a hypocrite...

Observe your counterargument to yourself:

https://steemit.com/steem-promo/@lanmower/two-in-the-pink-one-in-the-stinc

Compared to the grandstanding above, it smells a lot like "throwing stones" and "ignorant behavior" to me...

Never seen you in github by this name. Funny, I'm on a few threads over there in the PRs and Issues areas. Even got one of the initiatives it took a year of campaigning for passed and into condenser, so you could more easily participate in a more democratic form of governance here than was previously possible. It took a year of broadcasting on the topic, and finally proof of my allegations by another witness who documented his pass through the barriers previously set, and then the calling on of a half dozen more to force the gatekeepers to acquiesce but the win was ours that day.

What did you do again? Oh yeah, apparently not very much of interest to anyone, for a year's worth of time "served"

Boom! Headshot. I tried to reason w/ that fella a while back. You commented on that thread as well. I'd surmise he is fishing for upvotes as his statement is rather inconsistent with the objective most reasonable Steemians share against the onslaught of spam that we at @steemflagrewards fight on the daily. Would be nice if @ned gave us a delegation so we would have the means to pay our mods and contributors but I digress.

The point I am trying to make is @lanmower is commenting positive about the update which effectively hinders spammers while he will object to the flagging of same spammers which is quite peculiar. Hopefully, he takes your message to heart and evaluates his self.

Perhaps, we can all work together to make this blockchain better, be it through flags, through Pull Requests, and discussions just like this. But I'm not holding my breath about this one.

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This little kid has been nothing but a troll since he showed up sometime this past summer, trolling around various discords I mod, mostly being a know nothing know it all punk. I fed him loads of bullshit and let him think he was winning so he would go away back then but it was time to school him and put him down for a nap. It's amusing when some barely out of highschool kid tries to troll someone nearly three times their age, it won't end well for them.

@sircork, honestly, you could stand to learn more than you could stand to teach.

But that's none of my business, your eyes are closed while your mouth is open, and that is your issue not mine.

Arguing with cork is like arguing with a 5 year old.

You have to keep your sentences short.

And allow enough white space for his brain to catch up.

@steemflagrewards accomplishes nothing more than breeding busybodies in my opinion, and I should be free to express that, but you feel like telling people they're not free to state plainly what they perceive is ok, which I respect, that doesn't mean I'm going to let you bully me into silence.

I understand that you are proud of your project, I am proud of your project too, its a good display of organizational talent and while I haven't seen the code it seems to work.

Do I respect it influencing peoples freedom of speech? nope.

I feel like I am free to say that, which I do. You're welcome to different opinion, that's none of my business.

What you're doing right here, is childish. But that's ok, we're all learning too and I respect the time you require to learn from your own experiences.

Cheers @anthonyadavisii I can't imagine how you think that you playing god over who gets flagged, is somehow better than blockchain patches but is I have always advocated passive fixes to the underlying problem rather than users fighting each other I am an automation designer so to me the solution is obvious and what the patch is about is a direct exploration at an automatic spam fighting solution.

Policing bloggers is a terrible idea in my opinion, but that's my opionion, and I'm free to advocate it, the fact that you attack me over it shows that you couldn't care less about the things I hold dear, like freedom, which is fine, you too will learn from being here and dealing with people who care about the important things you ignore, and I will learn too from people who deal with the important things I ignore.

Our lord and saviour, Dan the Man, created something called proof-of-stake. Whereby everyone on the blockchain has a stake in it. Whether it be borrowed stake or invested stake doesnt matter. What does matter is what people choose to use their stake for. I use mine to distribute wealth, and to troll occasionally. You use yours to build automation systems for communities, and to troll occasionally. @steemflagrewards uses their stake to apply censorship to the blockchain, and to troll occasionally.

Only one of us are trying to negate the ability of other stake holders to do their thing.

You guessed it.

It's @steemflagrewards !!!

Thanks for taking the time to formulate a thoughtful response, @lanmower. However, I believe one of your underlying premises is flawed and I will explain why.

You assert that the issue is freedom of speech and, in order to help you out, I would like you to consider one question.

How often do you see us flagging content that has declined rewards?

I think you could figure what I'm getting at and believe this is where your argument begins to unravel. I think it is important you come to terms with the implication of this specifically in what it says about your actual position the feigned position you present.

If I am correct in my line of reasoning, your real issue is our affecting others freedom of extracting rewards or value from the network without making a meaningful contribution. That's our issue and, of course, it is subjective.

That is why I think your proposition that this can be achieved via a fully programmatic solution is a far cry from what can be achieved in reality at least not in a comprehensive sense.

Sure there is a higher degree of automation that can be achieved and I would like to work to that end but don't think it is wise to fully remove human judgment from the equation however imperfect it can be. Having both leaves us with a more robust solution.

I am one that believes also in the power of the human mind, the extraordinary creation that it is, is able to bolster programming in ways that AI or machine learning are not able... At least not yet

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define spam

Here is our consensus definition that may be also found on our GitHub

  • Spam - Repetitively posting articles/pictures/videos with the same and/or similar content, or recyling content after a period of time or across multiple accounts. Spinning one's own, previously published content, is also considered spam.

Thanks to @freebornangel for putting this in a post with an easily readable forget.

Please, let me know your thoughts. Always welcome community feedback in how we may improve definitions.

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You see the problem is then that all our services, yours included, is considered spam by your collective. You guys comment spam, we spam stats and live streams. And although we spam way more than you do, we allow for natural upvotes, whereas you guys autoupvote every flagrewards comment, thus stealing from all of us. I guess we should start an anti-steemflagrewards community to reduce your impact?

Or perhaps you guys should all come join us so that you can also see that bot accounts and spam is actually beneficial for all of us.

The blockchain itself is doing good. We have a LOT of transactions that happen every second. Steemit and other front end services arent doing so good. As the content that you guys want, do not appeal to mass audiences. Which means we arent creating any new traffic to any of these front ends.

Popular media consists of memes and cat pictures. Parody and satire. You might not like it. I don't even like it. But you have to accept the world as it is, before you can start to change it.

Another thing that bothers me about steemflagrewards, steemcleaners, and all the other busy-bodies. You guys all attack the little guy. Not once have you flagged haejin, or berniesanders, or any of the so-called bad-whales. You don't even flag us because we have enough stake to fight back. Seems kinda like a war between the USA and Nauru.

So, who's funding this blatant oppression of the minnow-class? And why are you, a person with a relatively good moral compass, part of it?

You hit the nail on the head, they attack the little guy just trying to get by and figure things out, what they consider spam is less bad than the spam they produce. They produce spam on other peoples blogs without permission while attacking the blogger accusing him of spam.

They are stealing from all of us by upvoting themselves under the ruse of being police.

Their idea of 'good content' is completely irrelevant and they have no understanding for internet communities, and only pretend to 'police' everyone else according to the wants and needs of the few, the very very boring few.

They are literally fighting whats normal on the internet because they want to pretend that its not normal on steem.

And yes they claim to have an ethical superiority which they certainly don't, they are actually producing harm and calling it good, which is very ethically challenged.

Well, the thing is that we have verifiable proof of brain behind the bot approval mechanism. I promise you our volunteer mods are not automatons. They are human beings with gray mass making the decision to review and approve the mention comments.

What you say though is important for what we are looking to implement soon, that is the auto-approvals for whitelisted abuse fighters. We will ensure that via that mechanism that no comments are generated something I did not think about before your comment.

Way to go, @stephanus! We probably would have overlooked that otherwise.

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finally a complement!

Bernie's got a strong mind and a sense of humor, and he's using it, just cause you don't 'get it' doesn't mean others don't ;)

at least he isn't making steem more boring

How did you get that info about the followers? I've long wanted a way to sift mine and get rid of those who are spoiling my feed page, making it difficult for me to see posts by those I want to follow!

Well, thanks for asking! I actually built the tool for determining your dead followers and dead followings as one our @noblewitness team's many varied contributions to the steem chain!

Find these tools and more here!

http://steem.agency

I am resteeming AND Bookmarking and this page will get pinned on my browser. Already got rid of nearly 50, but my hand is now tired.

I guess there is no way to mark who of the followers, never checks my posts? I think they are the biggest waste of time and space.

lol - that was funny - I actually hit a bug!!!

I hit the resteem button and I got the black bar telling me I cannot resteem anything but the top level...

Well technically thats not a bug as you cant and couldnt.. Its a user interface issue though but luckily ned is single-handledly building us a new one all by himself.

let's hope football and hairspray builds dapps.

corkyyy we all love you, but you are a very naive and lonely individual.

Being in a thread on github doesn't mean that you've contributed much more than what you've done here, which is talk shit. Difference is I don't attack you for talking shit, I talk shit myself, in fact my neo dadaist blog on steem is perfect proof that I know what's up enough to hold a year long satiric comedy about it, if you don't get any of it I'm not surprised, you wouldn't.

I always dig it when you take it out on me, good material :)

It's performance is exactly what I'd like it to be, which is more than what anyone can say about your blog, cause you're always bitching about how you're not getting your 'fair share' which imho you get more than. I have no clue what you're trying to say with your screenshot, I guess the usual right? trying to make steem a little more boring?

Doesn't sound like you did much more than imagine conspiracies :)

I'm just pushing your buttons bro, lighten up a little. And wake up ffs you've been sounding like a broken record since the first day we met.

Shades?

There may be 50 shades of grey between free speech and spam, allegedly. It depends on how you define spam. I'm happy with Steemit as it's better than Facebook.

Competition

Steem is doing better in some ways than Gab, Minds, Bitchute, Real Video, Dlive, and other online communities. I'm totally for decentralized, cryptocurrency, blockchain networks, like Steem. I'm for privacy over safety. I'm for personal ownership, and for free markets.

Subjectivity

The tough part might be in defining spam as it may mean what you may not want, like, desire, prefer. However, what I want may not be what you want. So, defining spam and hate speech, subjectively, can be cultural, social, and therefore not objective, which is a path down the wrong road.

So relevant and so right, thanks for saying what needs to be said.

I am a n00b here at Steemit, and very glad just to be a part of it. I don't pretend to understand the larger issues, so I'd be a fool to take sides, but I do understand very well when you say "there is no such thing as a free network".

This same issue applies to the F2P model in online games - if you are not paying a subscription, then you are the product which the game company is selling.

Much respect to all my fellow Steemians.

I designed a system that handles this issue perfectly. We will be launching on the Steem blockchain next year. Take a look and tell me what you think :)

https://medium.com/currentxchange/cryptovoting-with-purple-how-it-works-3d6db1df14b6

Looks like an interesting project and in alignment with the Age of Abundance which is centered out of love/energy/vibration/conscious.

You get it!! Thanks for commenting, that means so much to know that is being conveyed!!!!

Would you like to be involved? We have plenty of room :) Here is the update of the project I sent to the team this morning :)
Lots of ways to get involved! We are planning a steem app before SMT launches to get the Mapp up and running.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EpfJ_eqIpw

What about an Referral System based on Smart Contracts. Lets say Peer-to-Peer account creation would implement a 5 -10% lifetime Author Reward System. Therefore the new User would get 25 - 50SP with its new Account.
Also possible would be a lending System where the new user has to pay back a certain Amount of Steem to its creator.

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Lets say Peer-to-Peer account creation would implement a 5 -10% lifetime Author Reward System.

This does not sound like something new users would appreciate, ever.

Coming from a heavy MLM and marketing former life, I totally agree with you here. That borders on waters of network marketing and rarely do those endeavours end well and further yet - would surely attract the wrong kind of audience and userbase.

Well this option would be only for those who are not willing to invest anything in their Steem-account. They would have to let go of some of the potential profits, therefore they would get a fully functional Steem account from the start to check everything out! Its just an option and not something that is mandatory. I mean Bitshares also has a referral system for lifetime membership something like that would be also possible.

If anything there would be a limited ref reward such as until the 10% has reached the 3 Steem it costs for the account creation and then back to no affiliation.

Sounds good to me. I guess when implemented than every individual user should be able to create its own conditions on how he wants to support the account creation.

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My thoughts.. before i got to typing, then scrolled to read it in this comment.

Why? If you are a good contributer to the steem blockchain, you are investing in the platform with your time and chosen skillset, that's how and why you get rewarded, how much is up to the community. And this isn't Bitshares.

Yes and how you said it will always be like that. If a new user creates good content and receives upvotes for it, that will still be his major income. I was just giving an idea of how to pay for the extra Steempower a new user might want from the beginning. The question from this post was - who is paying for the extra SP for new users so they have more RC? What is your suggestion?

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Turning STEEM into a pyramid scheme would destroy its credibility.

I've literally had to show every new user I introduced that it doesn't have that kind of system, because they suspected it might.

If you have half a mind and have lived in the last century, you know that earning something for nothing is never a good system.

Adding a referral system to Steemit would be a total nightmare.

I agree, but that's common sense. Logic.

However, my brain can't comprehend the last few words you just typed out, I kinda exploded, but that's more because of the accusation you put in between the lines.

If your own brain capacity is limited by that much intelligence, i understand that you can't process the idea that good content is mandatory on this platform and worth so much more than "nothing". The ideology here is that the community decides how much it will be rewarded. There is a chance you earn nothing, but is earning the focus? Is creating good content the focus? Is curating shit posts for a higher CR the focus? You tell me.

Please, before making it sound like you're superior by implying that other people who do not agree with you are incompetent: Get a better understanding about the (revolutionary) concept of steem and get out of your litter first.

You are totally missing the point here and the message of the post from @steemitblog There is no free money here and we are far off from any pyramid structure otherwise you don't understand blockchain and the reward pool.
The question of this post was who is paying for the extra SP or RC so that new users have more ability to interact. Your answer is totally of the charts...so try to come up with something better?

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How about this: You buy more if you want more. And it's easy.

Get on a exchange or buy through @blocktrades.
Buy steem.
Send steem.
Power up steem.

That is not a new solution you can do that anyways. The question was how to solve the problem that new user accounts can interact more with Steem Blockchain without extra investing...read the post.

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I heard there might be some type of RC pool that would allow the leasing of RC...I am not sure about that though.

The referral system sounds like a great idea. It might be good to elaborate on it some more...there is a way to write smart contracts on this blockchain now. I am not sure how it would tie into SP though.

Saw the idea for RC delegations being floated by @therealwolf. Sounded like another vote buying scheme to me.

pasate por weku y me cuentas luego

This is a most excellent post by the Steemit team. At the same time you fuck the money by just post a single comment .

I agree with you @taskmaster4450 and I have nothing to say! But what about a Referral System based on Smart Contracts.

I am glad to see the platform useable again. I however can not say I know exactly what the new features have come with the HF20. I would be glad to see a quick easy to understand summary of the changes maybe short bullet point. Thanks

"We have already begun discussions with the witnesses about developing common standards, not just for testing code, but for holding Steem developers, such as us, accountable to their needs, and the needs of the community members they represent."

Well, this is news to most witnesses I'm sure.

Aside from the overly agreeable, magically selected few invited into back room discussions, chosen seemingly in almost all but a few select cases, mostly by their inability to question the hand that feeds them, I'm pretty sure there are a couple hundred more witnesses keeping your business concerns alive despite the bumbling, often doing so for nearly free or even paying out of pocket to do so, because of our passion for the technical challenge, philosophical ideals and what are seen as many other potentials present here.

These others seem to be ignored and overlooked, even as so MANY of us bring decades of wisdom, experience and skills at both an individual level compared to some of the elite, insider witnesses and at a collective level as a group so vastly outweighing those of the predominantly young and vastly inexperienced chosen few, that it borders on inexplicable.

I know of many, who have more experience in the tech industry and in architecting systems, implementing infrastructures, building businesses and most importantly, meeting and appeasing users needs above all else, than most of the leadership of this platform even have being alive in the first place...

But are they at this table? Do they know about these in progress discussions?

Heh. No. Information is given later, then used against them because they were not precognitive to your infinite wisdom, deemed unworthy of participation by the magic anonymous votes that loft people to the top here. Votes so large they can only be owned by persons involved pre-zero day in 2015/16...

But let's just sweep all that under the rug, shall we? And make no mention of it in this blog, because there is a centralized government operating in secrecy, ensuring that no plans of the great leader go properly vetted or or challenged at any turn.

SMTs must be delivered or steemit incs team becomes unemployed. It behooves steemit inc to in turn control both gates and gatekeepers, lest they be delayed, or even prevented from making mistakes like the ones occurring here perennially over the past 24 months.

You know what other platform works just like this?

Based on your previous narratives, I thought most of the steemit witness problems were because the witness page only showed the top 50? Well, now it shows the top 100. Did that really matter?

To build a successful project or business, it takes a team. That means people who work together seriously and build trust instead of attacking one another. You may think this is a circus or a game, but many treat it seriously and professionally. You had an opportunity to represent yourself here as someone who wants to be part of a team and work together, but instead it's more accusations and hyperbole. How has that worked out for you so far? People who know you, support you, and love being part of the communities you build have urged you to try a different approach than being the "the Alex Jones witness" or building a following "largely built on anti-establishment people" (quoting a conversation we had 4 months ago which you said I could share publicly). I chose not to share that conversation because I'm hopeful you'll try a different approach than what was represented there. The last conversation we had on discord was agreeable, but you're here on chain again acting differently. There are better ways to get attention and be seen and heard. My suggestion: start with a post outlining your criteria as a witness for testing and rolling out hardforks. I started exploring my criteria as HF20 was going live. Put your thoughts out there and use your experience and expertise to build something useful that helps us all.

Or keep doing what you're doing if that's your thing. Just don't expect a different result than you've had so far.

Your opinion is valid. Your remarks are accurate portrayals of events. Thanks for your input Luke. Hope EOS isn't keeping you too busy. ;) I hear they got problems now with China that might should have your attention at the moment, eh?

Funny though, how such important top 20 witnesses and steemit inc execs are so keenly interested in a mid60s-70s witness. Yet you all turn to personal business. Not responses to the presented things. Wonder why that is? Why is little old me so important to you and some of your peers. Really seems a bit odd? We can let the observers, the users, the platform stakeholders who aren't in the elite circle judge for themselves.

Have a fabulous day! :D

Two things are wrong in retrospect, changing the witness page did matter, it's not a Bhengazi Hillary why does it matter now moment, because it DOES matter that all candidates in a voting booth get equal representation. And ask the bottom 50 we did get compromised into the page, and see if it matters to them. Hint: It does. A lot. Ask the remainder if they still deserve to be there also. Hint: They do, a lot.

And as for my presentation that you are so incapable of coping with that you endlessly refer to it in an attempt to discredit my positions without addressing them, it too matters, a lot, or rather doesn't matter at all, as demonstrated by upvotes and comments and communities supporting me, while there are not here piling on for the the few of you trying to distract and discredit my integrity. You know what integrity is, right? To me, when I took the title STEEM witness, I committed with integrity to that job, not to two or three side chick chains at the same time...

That's how integrity works. People can tell when it's real, and when its straddling the fence as an exit strategy to a competing platform, if it even is a competing platform and not just an extension of the bitshares/ninja miner club, into another new clubhouse. Hard to say based on who has dabbled in all 3 of them and demonstrated lack of commitment to none as a result.

Why you gotta throw me in the mix?
:(

lol. Love it.

Oh thank god, I thought I might be about to get suicided in the back of the head...

Well, this is news to most witnesses I'm sure.

https://steemit.com/witness-update/@reggaemuffin/witness-statement-for-reggaemuffin-proposing-hardfork-adoption-requirements

https://steemit.com/steem/@pharesim/hf-20-lessons-finally-learned

https://steemit.com/witness-update/@followbtcnews/with-hf20-now-live-it-s-time-for-a-look-at-the-process-a-statement-from-one-of-the-consensus-witnesses

There was a lot of discussion, @ned even linked to a few posts on the last steemitblog update and many witnesses resteemed these posts. There were two MSP radio shows one from utopian, one from @aggroed. And this discussion was basically everywhere.

But I guess in all the negativity, no one is looking for actual solutions ;)

3 unofficial posts after-the-fact from witnesses, two top 20, sure, and yourself, absent for how many months? Red herrings in context here.

Thanks for your input Reggae, but Aggroed only hosts a few nice safe top 20s in the first comment, on his shows on a streaming platform I built for him with my own blood, sweat and finances till I resigned it over his charades, and those are by invite only. noted as directly beholden to convey only the messages allowed by their masters. Shadowspub hosts well over a dozen to as many as 25+ on her completely OPEN witness forums and the top 20 rarely show their faces. The rest are left to speculate. Those shows too grew from a streaming station I built and she evolved from when I shut it down.

Ask the other 200+ witnesses how much information they have received and when, and what input they were asked for, and again, when. After the fact?

Be it known one or two top witnesses were observed trying to spread information in time, but even they have publically acquiesced communication was dismal.

Cui bono in your case? Are you here to produce the voices of the hundreds of witnesses kept at arm's length to prove me wrong? Or to gain favor as you return to the platform after a prolonged absence?

Absent? Citation needed please... Don't talk bullshit because I didn't write that many posts the last months...

If you have been in steem.chat witness channel the last few days you noticed that I asked for everyones input after writing my post. I don't see that anyone was stopped from participating? Just that witnesses like you want to be all conspiracy and whine all day about things they can't change while they ignore the things they can change. And when then presented with things they themselves didn't do go into ad hominem?

What did you do to improve the situation? You personally? Do you have requirements for Steemit Inc that you can present without flinging shit everywhere? If yes, write a damn post about them man!

Requested citation...

3 blogs in 3 months. 28 days ago opening quote:

"This last month I was traveling together with @suesa visiting many steemians and seeing a lot of europe in the process. Today I am finally coming home again, with a new outlook and the motivation to post more on this blog."

But you followed up with 2 more on the same day... 6 days ago.

I did see your request AFTER the crashes. I didn't see you the week before during the unintended fork at 19.2/20 conflict. I didn't see you in the 20 or so communties Im most frequently in, informing users alongside myself, luke, timcliff, crimsonclad and followbtcnews

And I didnt see you BEFORE any of this, in those places either.

So I ask again, cui bono now?

I am on some github prs and issues. Not as many as others perhaps, as Im often busy doing many other platform wide, and just as critical things, like helping other witnesses operate their servers, sharing the drips of information we DO get to hungry users, and coaxing them not to quit in disgust. Building tools and new interfaces and attending copious meetups all over the SE, and earlier in the year across 6 other countries. Operating a steem exclusive global humanitarian aid foundation, building outlets for user voices and coaching users on how to survive in an environment often stacked against them in so many ways. Fought for and after a year, finally helped win an improvement to the go-to public witness voting page, to ensure all candidates were represented to voters. Took a bunch of us I helped rally to get a compromise to the status quo, but it was a small win none-the-less. Had lengthy public debates on these and the most recent HF topics and many others with luke, tim, inertia at various times and learned some from inertia, but also got concessions to my points and input from each of them. Announced organizing the largest yet to date steem business conference and meetup to ever be held next June in the USA.

What did you do again? Build a profit bot and cruise around Europe on vacation and then show up here to tow the party line with post-event posts as some kind of evidence?

Allow me to say something on behalf of all us users, like @reggaemuffin, who do too much behind the scenes to have time to post, and who sometimes like to pretend to have a life off the blockchain.

I barely manage to post once a week. And I am a WRITER. Does that mean I don't spend my time shilling STEEM in local economic publications? That I don't work to grow Utopian so we can better help Steem-based apps get developed? Regardless of what you might think, not everything we do for the blockchain is ON the blockchain.

In addition, I am not sure what the source of your anger is. Assuming reggaemuffin did nothing before this week, does it make any kind of difference? Do his current and future contributions no longer count because he needed a little push (or a number of them) to come into the spotlight as a witness and someone who genuinely cares about this blockchain?

It would be nice if they both started paying attention to the points being made by statements rather than other things. They may be able to find common ground to the benefit of everyone. There is a lot of ad hominum here - and whenever it surfaces, it should be called out, without fear nor favor.

Reggamuffin makes a good call for witnesses to join in a pledge of some kind. On the other hand, sircork has a lot to offer also and dismissing him off as a troll seems too unkind imo. Both guys get a yellow card and a voucher to a hotel room (where they can go speak this out over a few drinks) on me ;-)

Ooooh can I get a voucher too? :P

But seriously - I can't disagree and I do wish discussions that can benefit us all involved a lot less drama and a lot more action items.

The work you and I and others have done, may become increasingly irrelevant as this round of poker plays out, just as when 9 players enter a hand, and only one can win.

Trial or poker game? I am officially confused.

Maybe the communities you are in and the ones I am in don't intersect much :)

If you didn't see me then maybe because your attitude smells strong enough for me to already regret engaging you...

That you don't see my contributions is no surprise to me. The only contribution I noticed of you is your toxic negativity. It seems contributions are only seen when someone posts about them...

That is a bullshit response reggae to legitimate questions.

Maybe if someone else asks these questions I am willing to put time in to answer them. But I don't think they were sincere this time so I rather disengage. Conspiracy people tire me. I know that I need to post more so that people actually see what I am doing for Steem and I want to post more. Doesn't mean I always do as I want do have some threshold of quality on my blog. If I post it should be important.

Yeah, that's the usual response I get when I lay out transparent truths. See ya, I guess?

Funny how when I lay out solid foundations of integrity and credibility, the opposition always decides im too "negative" to further oppose.

That's what defendants do in court rooms too. Attempt a plea of "prove it! I'm innocent!" then start pleading the 5th when the proof is delivered. Or try to discredit and gaslight the accuser or thin skinned-ly resort to flags in the more childish response repertoire.

Accused? Proof? Innocence? Evidence? Is this a discussion or trial?

i live a few hour drive away from kim jung un. i can understand your concern because when one single entity starts restricting any kind of human behavior, the endgame is dprk.

a leader might have good intentions, smart, even benevolent, but none of that matters if you're not willing to step back and allow freedom to go wherever the fuck it goes. in most cases leaders don't like the results they see when they let a community figure something out. they resort to control and one rule after another, you long for total control.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions"

I sympathize with you position. It is the age old problem of discovery "I got there first so me and my friends are going to benefit from this. If you want something it will be be my rules". Under any political system oligarchies will form and I think that it is close to impossible to stop this. However things need to be put in place to slow the process up.

yes. i'd even say it's been completely impossible so far. but i believe crypto and blockchains can get us closer to freedom, more so than ever before. it'd be wonderful if steem could lead the way. but i'm concerned because when one man has enough power to decide which content deserves rewards or not (as well as a whole bunch of other things), it reminds me of the same system that i experienced my entire life.

maybe i'm overreacting, but i came to steem hoping to escape the oligarchies. i dunno if steemit inc would step back in the future and let the community handle things (i just hope). the tools are kinda there, but we don't usually go out of our way to vote and support the witnesses that embrace decentralization.

partially it's the community to blame, not being able to get together and build a force behind change. as well as the organization that doesn't wanna let go of control.

As you say. I think DLPs will be disruptive enough to potentially get us more freedom but we have to be there from the start to make sure all the power freaks don't get through the door first and grab all the goodies. There needs to be a non-judgemental way to provide some form of opportunity for everyone.

It could be that Steem is already lost but I'm not sure. it is certainly becoming more insular and autarky-like. Maybe even a proto-chaebol. Like you say, the tools are there but some people have already got hold of them and only let their friends/peer group use them.

I've been having a look at eosDAC as an alternative but their constitution is really, "whoa there buddy - are you sure you want to go there?". When I brought this up with governance the administrator didn't understand the implications.

Basically the DAC separates itself from the state systems in place throughout the world, makes all the members liable for the DACs actions and names all the members. That potentially puts all members at the risk of prosecution and deportation to unfriendly jurisdictions if the DAC does something dumb or naive.

It's a bit like being thrown to the lions. If Substratum was up and running with a fully decentralized net, Emericoin with its decentralized DNS and there was non-signing crypto signatures you could get away with it. The platform and its members would be like air - impossible to grasp. That will be a couple of years at the least. There are some Steem bigwigs already in eosDAC too.

it does look like proto-chaebol! man what a comparison 👍 i dunno why never made the connection..

thanks for the great read. gave me lots to think about. not that i can do anything but just listen to what people have to say :)

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions". I love this quote @roundbeargames. Does mean that the changes in HF-20 ultimately lead us to hell? I want to go to heaven, you too, I'm sure.

i want heaven yes (and a haven from all the restrictions i'm facing in my country) 😃

i don't mean that hf20 specifically will lead us to hell. in fact, i think hf20->smts->oracles&account based voting->more decentralization & fair distribution of rewards->moon might even be possible.

but i'm saying if you leave too much responsibilities to a single individual, even if he has good intentions, it's not gonna end well.

Oh, i cath it. I agree with you. Responsibilities must be submitted to the system, not to each individual. Thanks so much.

thank you. ned has done a good job bringing it this far. but i think decentralization from the founder himself is kinda overdue :)

if you leave too much responsibilities to a single individual, even if he has good intentions, it's not gonna end well.

I'm not sure that I agree with that, or that it's even rooted in reality.

I see it as the opposite. Too much decentralization makes reaching a consensus virtually impossible and, at the very least, slows down progress to a snail's pace (which can be good in certain contexts, don't get me wrong). This can be seen with the sloth-like improvements in bitcoin over the last decade (which, again, isn't necessarily a bad thing and, IMO, isn't in bitcoin's case).

Then you have examples like Tesla and Apple and Amazon, and pretty much every fortune 500 company, growing from weeds to riches inside of a decade or two, being lead by small groups of entrepreneurs/ visionaries, if not a single individual.

Yes i see what youre saying. South korea is the exact same case, just on a national level. Under dictatorship we went from farming and fishing to selling millions of smart phones. Im not arguing against the fact that control can give us structure to get started. But we are also talking about 1/1000000000 chance success stories. One right decision from a single individual can make all the difference yes. But is ned the right man to make a fortune 500 from a garage? Or to build a thriving nation from scratch? Or does he need to start being more of a facilitator? 😀

The remark is more meta I believe, and not specific to technical issues (of which there have been plenty) but more managerial, philosophical and political ones.

Damn, are you actually from the North Korea?

oh no. im now explaining to people i'm not from dprk. i'm from south korea. i'm sorry because i never meant to mislead people 😐
when i refer to a dictator, i mean both north & south.

You know my friend, I want to say how smart you are.. but here it is. Many people are smart like you. The difference between people is some don't value or practice the freedom to make the connections and to share them as plainly as other do.

Why people cling to falsehood, or half truths? Sometimes for fear of reprisal, they go along with a lie - sometimes out of selfish dishonesty, they do it to continue gaining unfair advantage. Honesty is a complex formula comprising among other things, intelligence and courage. You have a fair measure of these things which makes you a very interesting personl. BTW - you live closer to the KJU than I do.. I guess lol. Say hi to him when you see him.

Theres a lot of things i didnt explain, partially because im lazy and didnt really care (now i do 😅). Both koreas are quite unique that theyrre very isolated and centralized. Theyre both democratic on paper but one chose to start exporting instead of having public executions. Its the only difference that led to a giant economic growth (altho a generation ago, south korea used to shoot down its citizens with m16s, the nation began thriving by allowing people to sell squids and wigs and eventually smart phones). I shouldve worded more carefully but i only wanted to say that not only am i physically close, ive seen the difference between 100% dictatorship vs 99%. All it takes is a bit of humility from the man in control and it could be the difference that sets this platform apart.

Lol, watched some of your vids right away after that, that level of english commanding answered my own question right away lol. I would be totally amazed if a 탈북자 actually gets to dive in innovative Steem platform just so you know haha.

haha yes i'm glad. i only meant to say that kim jung un is right there with his missiles ready and i absolutely hate all dictators.

anyways there are dprk citizens that speak perfect english. except they're part of the regime that murders people and sends their kids to american schools. if a defector managed to do it, that would be the most ambitious person on earth 😆

I've been watching your response on this page, and this comment is probably the most moving and directly experiential remark I've ever read on the internet, given your locale and cited life experience. Thank you for your thoughtful consideration and reply.

@ned - lol, you look ridiculous right now. I'm not losing money and if rep meant anything, i can bot it right back up. But it doesnt mean anything.

Keep Streisanding me though :) It looks good on you. The public adores you.

PS. I know who you work for ;)

got downvoted by ned? Cause you were saying something he didn't like...... Damn I didn't realize. Are ned and berniesanders the same person? bahahaha whale babies

No, @berniesanders has some common sense and class and a great sense of humor. @ned, has hair. He's got that going for him.

Ned will loose his hair to stress when we hack him and take his owner keys, and none ofthe witnesses help him and the stolen account recovery featurew will break, and ned will feel what its like to be like all the new users who get hacked and nothing replaced by him, when he could have easily replaced all scam and hack victims steem JUST ONCE , as a PR move to PROVE steem is SAFEST blockchain to invest your TIME into.

I feel like Ned is kind of like ISlam and we are Bush Era US foreign policy, ned only responds to Action ...

thanks. just in case anyone might be confused, i don't live in dprk 😄

i live in south korea where we might have a little more freedom but government controls nearly everything. you can't open a lemonade stand without bribing them (literally). some presidents might even have good intentions. they want the nation to thrive, but no matter who you are, if you have too much power, the moment you start making decisions for people who might not be as rich or powerful as you, you are turning yourself into a dictator.

194591_223698_0846.jpg

One of my friend said,

"People of DPRK are very much happy. They get everything they want. They go to work for 5 hours a day, the remaining time for spending time with their family and entertainment. But at end of the day, they gets get good sleep. Governemnt take care of everything. "

is it true? I should ask this question to a DPRK citizen, since you posted very close to them, you can guides us with some real information.

2003-58ab0af40b827__880.jpg

IMG_5863-58ab0b185ed2b__880.jpg

i'm not from dprk 😐 but i can assure you people are not happy over there.

All you can really do is take the word of defectors:

But in the grand scheme, it's highly unlikely their lives are somehow secretly wonderful

well, anybody who stops anyone from posting an opinion :)

The stark truth is black and white.

May the odds be ever in your favor.

sorry to interrupt, but it seems like he's exaggerating a bit. Sure, the government do control to some extent and yes sometimes it goes bad, but South Korea is one of the most successful democratic revolutions in modern history.

No democracy will survive in the long term. Mark my words.

I agree.

No 'ocrocy' or 'ism' will survive in the long term, so your words, while marked, aren't all that profound or new.

Uhm, 70 years in Middle Europe and a few decades more in the US, if I'm not mistaken.
How long is "long term" to you?

now we're going off topic but yea, sometimes it goes real bad :)

Keyword, "revolution" - hyperbole or not...

Rewarding the witnesses more fairly would be great!

There was an idea of mine posted a while ago that could reap non-top 20 witnesses some transmission fees. A link to it is included below for your reading pleasure.

https://steemit.com/steem/@novacadian/a-decentralized-capcha-annonymous-proof-of-brain-verification

As long as top 20 Witnesses are invited or participate in such a back room discussion, I'm okay with it. But shouldn't these discussions be in public domain?

I live in a democratic country and all the activities, debates and discussions happening in the Parliament is broadcast live to the general public. We ought to know what role our delegates are playing there.

I agree, want to know the position of our "chain-leaders"

We should know and publicly aware I guess. That will be perfect place for us to understand more about the blockchain.

Their most common excuse for a secret not-secret room is "security issues" or "too much noise from so many witnesses" - on an open source piece of code, they then will claim should be read and tested by all witnesses

The hypocrisy is strong.

secrets make people feel powerful

Correct.

As you observe the flaggings on my other comments herein, and the responses to the above, mostly in favor, ask yourself the following about ALL of it.

Cui bono? "Who benefits"

Or conversely, what have I, a formerly rep 64.5 now 62 thanks to @ned's tantrum and 100% waste of his stake on a person he himself in the same thread as much as called insignificant, got to lose?

What does he have to gain by censorship and suppression of such as the likes of me, and what have I got to gain by speaking out truths known to so many already?

Cui bono, indeed.

They are afraid the truth might get out.

Think one small being can't change things for larger one? Try to sleep in a room with a single buzzing fly.

What do I have to gain? Heh perhaps a more global awareness of how this place is really configured. What do I have to lose? Not a single thing.

What does the dictator and his regime have to lose if a population becomes self aware?

everything the regime formerly had an iron grip on

Do you think it's coincidence the recent habit of pinning steemit blog posts to the top of the site for days, suddenly ceased for this post only hours after it's publication?

Cui bono.

Can you link me to Ned's tantrum. I don't think I will be able to comment more after this as I am running out of RC (I'm tiny). but I think you have raised some very cogent points on this thread. I'm going to have to hang in discord for a while :P

It's a yawnfest, don't bother. If you've seen one child have a tantrum, you've seen them all.

And now the banner is back. Either they are hiding it, then responding to the call out above to discredit by restoring it? Or they simply cannot code a sticky link bar consistently. Either one works for me. :)

wow. usually i struggle with large walls of text, and lose focus, but this... this just read so well, i couldnt look away XD

This is just way off the post subject but I will leave here a comment that should be taken as a joke.
We have to consider the 3 kinds of democracy, police democracy (i.e. Singapore, South Korea), military democracy (i.e. Indonesia and North Korea) and terrorist-imperialist democracy ( i.e. US, Russia, Europe and China).
That's the actual freedom of choice

You aren't wrong, and it's not as funny as you and I both wish it was. ;)

I scream at the sky near every day at this fact. Is that odd?! lol

LOL welcome to the internet, reenacting real life, and to think I was sold this whole shit show as something different hey!!!!!!!!11

The internet is a connected set of humans, each one believed by each one to be better than the last...

By said logic my number at 60 is better than yours at 59? though in reality I know better, as you are one of the "few" steemians I trust...................

Well I mean, yesterday it was 64.5 but then a person operating the internet under the influence of mind altering ego, crashed into my profile, with reckless and unfettered out-of-control mania. So there's that.

But rep doesn't matter anyway. Such metrics are absolutely unreliable, absolutely.

Who did that?

Some random, barely present on the chain user kid, named "Ned"...

@ned is a confused 30 year old wanker, so sort of ish take it as a compliment, wankers will be wankers and ned is a "WANKER"

Thank you... I don't have to comment now, I couldn't said it any more eloquently!!! By the way, I DO know what other platform works just like this!

Steem has still long way to go, this HF20 was proof of that. We should not be afraid to bring issues to light as serious investors will do their research and find them anyway. One hot topic clearly is how the core of Steem works.

The discussion between witnesses and Steemit Inc should be as open as possible, how else we could call Steem decentralized with a straight face with dignity. Can't we have a discord channel, for example in Steemdevs, where witnesses + Steemit inc only can send messages but everyone could read them? And use that as a main communication channel so no one can complain? @ned

I'm sure we can do better, else sircork wouldn't be complaining in this manner.

Trust but verify, steemdevs is owned by one of the most corrupted and unliked witnesses in the list. not an "open harbor" at all. It may be a good place for a dev hangout, but it's not a good place for "politics" to occur.

how else we could call Steem decentralized with a straight face with dignity

Currently we cannot. A little conscientious digging and research quickly illuminates how all roads lead to Rome...

If I elaborated, even with documentation, I'd be summarily dismissed and marginalized even as is already underway. The only consolation is that despite high-profile detractors deflecting, defending and throwing shade, the truth of our centralization and the short list of names and "companies" behind it is spreading at a grassroots level.

The question remains, that in the days of bread and circuses, will the population turn off the game long enough to watch, spread or care about the news.

Who is behind the curtains in Oz? Thinking people have already done the research, connected the dots and know.

But what can be done? THAT ... remains to be seen ;)

Nothing more to say! You said a lot! LOL
I agree in what you said and that's it! (^_^)

THANK YOU, YES STEEMIT activity on the blockchain has stabilized

@sircork and the "great steemit conspiracy"

I had such a chuckle, but then, when I read this shit I always do.

You've been drawn to this sort of thing since we met last winter. :) You seem to enjoy a show. Everyone does. And this is certainly a circus, Lan, most assuredly it is. The question though, is who are the suckers Mr. Barnum was referring too? Oh yes, it was the audience, not the entertainers...

Is STEEM a parliamentary constitutional monarchy?
The way the UK was until the 19th century?

I was thinking that it was corporatist dystopic actually. There is set of pseudo-benign dictators at the top - the Japanese/Korean zaibatsu/chaebol model with the German SA hovering in the background