One SImple Rule Change To Put The Power Where It Belongs, The Users Of The SP
With almost a half of a year under my belt, I have learned a lot about how steemit works. I realize I still have many things to learn in the future as well. But here are some observations of what I've been able to glean from my time here. These observations are meant to be constructive and helpful.
Most people seem to think there are set "rules" to follow, but there aren't many. As one witness told me recently, it is the person with the most SP that determines what is right. Is it any wonder why we have so much new user churn?
Are the bots good? Is self voting a bad thing? Should people delegate to bots that allow spam to be upvoted? Who determines spam? If bid bots aren't acceptable, why do the owners of the system (the whales with lots of SP) provide them with SP? And if bid bots are perfectly acceptable, then obviously the users of those bots should be allowed to use them to upvote "good" content. Yet many shun bot votes on both posts and comments.
So why are these issues even in dispute? Why do people get flagged for doing things that are supported by the whales that "own" the system? If someone uses bots to thrust them into trending, is it the user, the bot owner, or the delegator that should pay the penalty in the event it is "deemed" unacceptable? And who is charged with carrying out that penalty, is it the biggest bully?
Even when a cause is easily able to be judged as heroic (like the flagging wars led by @fulltimegeek), sadly most people still don't get involved. Just like in life, we have people here that complain about many things without ever doing anything.
A Simple Solution To Solve Many Problems
Background Analogy - Who Decides?
In the real world, some public companies rig their capital structure to give different voting value to the entrenched players at the expense of the little guy who really doesn't have much influence. They do this by the creation of different classes of common stock (like A shares and B shares). Everything is the same for each shareholder except the weight of the vote. It is not uncommon for the A shares to vote many multiples more than the B shares. The A guys can sell their large stakes (ie. monetize it, or get money for their shares), yet they still keep the say so over how things are controlled at the corporation.
As a financial market professional with 33 years of experience, I can assure you that this practice is a sign that the controllers want it both ways. They want to get the investors' capital, but they also want to maintain their overall control of the business entity. Many investors simply don't mind, and they give away their control and money to people that are happy to take it from them. But make no mistake, these corporations perpetually under-perform consistently.
Delegation Of Steem Power Should Also Transfer To Witness Voting
Just like with the stock market, steemit has people that want to have control, but also want the financial benefit that comes with the SP. There are many people that have large amounts of steem power that are not engaged in the day to day activity (absentee owners). They simply sell their votes to others and receive even more SP in the process. But they keep the voting power of their SP for witness votes, thus they still decide who makes the rules. Nice to have it both ways, huh?
So when it comes to who is voting for witnesses, the literally "silent majority" of SP holders wield massive weight. Is it any wonder what kind of witnesses these guys would want? What do you think would happen if the witnesses said, "no more bid-bots" or place heavier restrictions on the bot owners that reduce usage? Face it, the bot owners are the middlemen of the system. Most of the big top 20 witnesses exist to facilitate the idle owners' "vote selling" to the people that play the bots.
My Simple Proposal - The Account That Votes The SP Also Votes For Witnesses
What I would like to see is the people who "vote" the SP be the ones that also "vote" for the witnesses. This would force the people that really use the system daily to be the ones that make the rules. It would give the active users of the SP the democratic voice. It would also make the witness voters more aware of what is going on and pay attention to the current issues.
I have nothing against people lending out their SP. I have nothing against the bot owners that act as a middleman and collect a fee by providing a service to both buyers and sellers. I have nothing against people using the bots to make money since that is allowed in a free market system. In fact I have leased SP and used bots myself.
But what I would like to see engaged ownership. Right now ownership leases their SP, votes for the witnesses that will keep status quo, and then collects their big dividends in the form of more SP (ie disengaged). What I am proposing is that if that ownership gets "rented" to others through leases, then the witness voting rights should also go to those that leased it. In this way, the witness votes will be cast according to what serves the accounts "using the SP". That will put the people with the SP in the spot of having to 1) either engage the community or 2) change the way they delegate (or to whom). No longer would the market be flooded with SP for leases that go to the highest bidder, but instead those large SP holders would have to use it actively or in conjunction with others that will carry out their wishes.
My goal is not to end the bots or stop the process. My goal is to see the democratic process work by giving the power to make the rules to those that are using that power on a daily basis. In other words, absentee ownership is fine, just make sure the people that are using the voting power on a daily basis are the ones who set the rules of what works best.
This platform has many awesome design benefits, but this is one that I think should change. By letting the absent owners sell their economic interest but keep their ability to vote for witnesses, it has enabled people that have little to no idea what is happening on a daily basis to neglect the formation and development at a crucial stage in the evolution of Steemit at a critical time. Steemit will face many new competitors in the future and the sooner this fix happens the faster we can adapt to meet that competition.
Hey Dave - it's great that you're thinking about these things and posting about it to get the community involved, but I don't think this proposal would actually change anything if it were implemented.
Delegation is not really necessary for vote selling. It's convenient, yes, but that's about it. If your change was implemented I think the large SP holders would just dictate who their delegatees vote for as witnesses.
The SP holders have all of the power, and if they delegate to someone who doesn't vote as they want they can just delegate to someone else who does.
Additionally, they could just sell the votes themselves without delegating to someone else. They can either run a voting bot software using their own account, or sell their votes through a service like minnowbooster and smartsteem provide.
The witnesses can't just "say" these things, they would need to develop and adopt changes to the blockchain code in order to effect any changes. What changes do you think could be made that would accomplish this? What do you think would happen if the top witnesses did those things?
It seems to me that a lot of people here think they know how to fix everything. There's a lot of "if we just do X then everything will be better". It's great that people are thinking about these issues and coming up with ideas to improve things, but pretty much every proposal I've seen would most likely end up with the same "problems" we see now, just dressed up
a little differently.
My take on the whole thing is that most of the problems that exist on Steem just stem from basic human nature and they exist pretty much everywhere. Is witness voting really that different than regular politics? It's all controlled by the wealthy who like to maintain the status quo. Bitcoin and other cryptos and most other systems on the planet are all the same.
Steem is not going to fix these things. So rather than trying to fix problems that are probably un-fixable, my thinking is to try to work with human nature rather than fight it and make the Steem platform the best it can be within those constraints.
This comment is already getting rather long, but I have a post in the works that is focused on this topic, and hopefully will explain how I think vote selling by passive investors can actually be a good and healthy thing for Steem.
I have a problem with human nature arguments, basically because the economic, political and social environment have a profound impact on what is deemed to be 'acceptable' levels of self-interest.
As I see it, late-capitalism encourages a particular form of self-interested behavior: the pursuit of capital gain, and this has 'evolved/ regressed' (depending on how you see it) to have fewer rules which dictate the movement of capital and fewer restrictions on the ability of the those with capital to move it about in order to maximise their ROI.
Crypto currency and steemit (possibly especially) just provide greater opportunities for people that have already been encouraged to pursue the self interested pursuit of capital accumulation to carry on doing so, but they offer much greater potential returns (at more risk) over a shorter time. Obviously the more capital people already have, the more able they are to become empowered on steemit, and win over the witnesses.
OK - this is probably stating the obvious.. what I'm trying to say is that steemit as it is doesn't just allow 'selfish human nature' to carry on doing: our capitalist system encourages a particular manifestation of selfishness (making no value judgement here) and steemit amplifies it.
It's maybe this amplification factor that makes people so mad: you don't see this selfish-propensity of humanity (I won't call it human nature) in such a raw form in ordinary life - but, once again, it is the structure of steemit as it is, located in the capitalist system as it is in this particular historical moment, that has allowed this to happen - bid bot use is not down to 'human nature' it's down to this transhuman conflation located in a postmodern capitalist political economy which encourages individuals to pursue self interest with more freedom and fewer restrictions than in any other domain on the planet, real or hyperreal.
Bizarrely however, because everything's a lot more complex than that people like @davemccoy also join steemit, as do lots of other like minded people and start raging against it (it seems dialectical).
I'll look forward to that post.... but please don't fall back on 'human nature' arguments! Humans have the capacity to do many things - be selfish, be altruistic, even to question the nature of the self and to transcend it.
Also, we're way beyond 'human nature' here anyway, many of the 'users' aren't actually human!
As to your 'how do we fix it question' VERY GOOD QUESTION. Too long to comment on in-depth, suffice to say, I understand what you are saying about the complexities of making changes.
Very good reply @revisesociology. There isn't much I can add to it, I just wanted to let you know I read it and appreciate you taking the time to write out such in-depth thoughts! :)
Hey thanks, it's good to think these things through!
Karl.
Matt, thank you very much for the lengthy and well thought out reply. You earn respect in my book for being a witness that is willing to put your views out in the open. I do understand your point about the fact that the large holders can just change methods, so no real difference will exist for long as they would have a workaround. I had not thought of that, so thank you for pointing it out. I do think it might have an effect on the margin, I'll discuss later below.
To answer this question:
I would say that the witnesses would lose their votes from the guys with the SP. So what we would end up with would be new witnesses that support the needs of the large owners.
About your point about people saying if we do "x" and then that will fix it, the point is completely taken. I realize that this is a very complex situation and my point about this being a simple solution trivializes the many things that would have to change to make it happen. I should've said a "simple concept", but it is certainly more complex with the implementation.
As far as why I think the concept has some merit (maybe not as much as I originally thought, as you described ways they could get around this), is because it would affect things at the margin. For instance, there are many votes that are cast everyday from thousands of people that never even log on. If they aren't logging on, then they probably aren't updating their witness votes. So the status quo becomes even more entrenched as their votes remain the same day after day no matter what the issues are.
Also at the margin I think there would be a some change in the willingness to delegate their power. Right now some just delegate out to the highest bidder, which requires no thought or effort to learn the issues. At least if they lost their witness voting power along with the leases, then they would have to choose from a pool of people that agree with them and the things they want done (ie they become more informed and less passive).
And finally I 100% agree with you that this system mirrors what happens in life. Fair or unfair, you are exactly right when you mention that power gets concentrated at the top. And just like in real life, it is something that we must all realize as a fact. I admire that you have chosen to take a constructive approach and work within the parameters of what "can be done" as opposed to what "would be nice to do". You are right about human nature and I agree completely that working to make the platform better is a good thing to do, as opposed to fighting everything that is wrong at every turn.
I would differ in one way from you though, and that is in thinking the problems that we all see are "un-fixable". I think they are very fixable, but only with all stakeholders at the table. If the people that have such a large share of ownership realized they have a problem, then maybe one day they will sit down and properly deal with that problem. That is what I hold out hope for.
Frankly they are the ones with the biggest stakes in this venture, if it succeeds or fails it will impact them the most. What I am suggesting is that they see the problem before it becomes "un-fixable" and irreversible. As with any market, people seem to be able to spot the problems easily in hindsight. What I'm attempting to do is bring up a way to keep the ownership in tune with the users and managers of the system before these issues become "un-fixable".
But just like the owners have the right to make the platform what they want it to be, the users also get to choose whether they want to use this platform or not. I have seen firsthand a "churn rate" here on steemit that would cause many executives to lose their jobs in the real world. And this kind of churn rate does not bode well for the future (if the status quo remains). I (and many like me that care) am trying to come up with a constructive ideas to make the system work better. There are many wonderful things about steemit, including you. I wish more witnesses would engage the community and try to understand how the "everyday user" thinks so they can adjust where and when needed.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post, to address the issues, and to engage me (and by extension others). You have shown yourself to care about the community and I have seen many times that you are there to support us. I appreciate both of these things very much.
Hey Dave. You know I support you fully with this. I have nothing against bot owners, users, or individuals that choose to grow organically. There are many flavors of ice cream. Or should I say cookies since I wrote a yummy post on the yummy chocolate chip cookie the other day.
I do support us redfishes and minnows, to all vote for witnesses that are active on the platform in some way or another.
The individuals with SP “influence” don’t necessarily have to be engagers but at least show some life on this platform. An absentee owner has great property managers to manage their property, but when the real estate worth drops in value (low demand), well, it’s time for new property managers.
Sooner or later, as with technology, the early adopters become a fad and new life takes over. Communities pulling together could breathe new life into Steemit.
I agree very much with you @beeyou about showing some life on the platform. That's why I am saying that it creates a problem when the owners just delegate their vote and visit the mailbox for their checks (but still decide who the witnesses are). They really don't have any clue what the attrition rate is, what people are saying, and whether any of the arguments have validity... After all this place changes so fast, what happened 2 weeks ago is even ancient history in many cases.
I do love your analogy about absentee owners that have their property managed. You would think they would get new property managers. The problem that analogy brings up is that it will mean a lot of pain to the people that we care about (like Asher). Because unfortunately that is true and will happen if the price of steem drops low enough. If they could solve the problem before steem drops below a $1 that would be better for many, but unfortunately many are not even in tune enough to realize it is a possibility.
I do agree with you also about the early adopters eventually cashing out, and I also agree that communities will sprout up over time. The real variable that I am following is what price it will take to change things (ie how low it will have to go). But if the whales can encourage the communities to develop more like @curie @helpie @newbieresteemday @qurator @ifc @cryptoempire etc... then maybe those support groups will sprout up and make the churn much much less. I do think the social aspect is what keeps me here and I hope over time it gets stronger and our bonds become even deeper and spread out to give this place some really strong roots.
More like anything after 24 hrs is old news. 🙂
Thanks for the comment Dave. I definitely don’t want a plunge in value before change of any nature would be in effect.
I do also agree with Matt’s comment above. Many of the issues are due to human nature, greed being prevalent of all. I do feel that many on here blame bidbots as the culprit of human greed. My thoughts are, bidbots are the businesses that see a divide on here and have a service to offer. Kind of like banks in the real world. Banks (bidbots) lend out money or credit to the poor (redfishes/minnows), we use it to buy real estate (increase SP) and they earn interest. It becomes an issue when there is “abuse” and there are greedy users not happy with a small home but want a mansion of their own. Plus they then invite their friends over to party (circle-voting).
How does this basic human nature get fixed? Eliminating bidbots won’t stop the circle votings activities that many don’t address because it’s not as obvious. The gap in wealth will still exist.
As with the SP influence, Steemit Inc would have to change the electoral system. In its current system, stakeholder wealth(ones that hold the most SP) is the determinant for the witnesses that stay on top. We have a constitutional monarchy system in effect. I do think those that believe this is a democratic platform is disillusioned. Just because the governing group is not here to oversee, doesn’t mean they dont set the rules or path for us all to follow. We try to work with the system until a hardfork comes out, but then again, hard fork require consensus amongst witnesses. And these witnesses are supported by a handful of powerful stakeholders. So issue kinda comes back full circle where it is not a democratic platform.
Edited, per Wiki:
Political scientist Vernon Bogdanor paraphrasing Thomas Macaulay, has defined a constitutional monarch as "a sovereign who reigns but does not rule”
Very insightful reply @beeyou! I don't have anything to add, it is very well stated! :)
Great comment and deserves a full upvote! :D
I have never thought of myself as a dummy but since getting here to steemit i find myself scratching my head and wondering "what the hell is that" As much as i try to understand the witnesses and the blockchain i don't really get it. Anybody else out there just nodding your head and going oh sure yeah cool got it uh huh ok... and then posting something and you just keep going thinking you'll figure it out someday? One of the biggest drawbacks for me is having to write about it. It takes too long for me to write about things i could have a conversation about in a few minutes. Well that's wishful thinking on my part. For one thing i think way too fast and write too slow and by the time i get this far in a post i'm over it. Whatever i started writing about initially that train has left the station. This is a completely different topic here on steemit that i feel strongly about and anyone out there who is an artist or photographer who's been forced to write might relate too
Well there ya go, a perfect example of what happens when i write. I should probably delete this so the literary police don't execute me
haha... I love this quote @rossfletcher
That is definitely true for me many times! :P
And yes there are so many different aspects of this puzzle that staying on top of it all becomes quite the task for sure!
Thanks for commenting and for the honesty :)
I read your posts and learn a lot. Thank you!
Truth? I'm a lot happier just hanging around the photo/art posts. It would be something else altogether to have a real influence here. Now that doesn't mean we all don't have a voice... but... Haha $$$
haha.... I like the photo and art posts too... I haven't seen many in quite awhile because I have been so busy, but I really like some of the artist and I love seeing amazing creativity!
Great suggestion @davemccoy. Your comparison with A & B class shares is very apt. A lot of the "problematic" activities on Steem are just human nature. Its far better than the current Web 2.0 model of Facebook etc where huge companies that once implemented a good idea now profit massively from sucking users data to serve annoying ads to them..
But there is always room for improvement.
I'm glad you get the comparison and I agree with you about it being better than facebook, etc... And yes of course, there is always room for improvement ;) Going to read your last two blogs right now! :)
WOW! I knew that when it came to Witnesses, that that was when things became political. However, I never realized that it was THIS political.(or currupt, dare I) I guess I just spend so much time putting on my contest and talking to people who are new and those who participate in my games to dig in too deep. Truthfully, knowing that this is what happens, is pretty disturbing. I was always thinking so far that steemit was so much different then the world out here. But it does seem like the more I do learn the more similar it appears. 😖.
From day 1 I have told newbies "welcome to thunder dome " . In my opinion steemit is kill or be killed. Plankton is nothing more than whale food. The quicker you grow the sooner you can start feeding off the others.
It's never going to end, is it? There's always going to be something else to find out about. Some other cause to get behind or champion.
I didn't know this was an issue. At least I don't think I did. Maybe peripherally. If I'm understanding you, when someone delegates their SP, they still get to vote for witnesses at the full weight of their SP, even though they no longer can use the full weight of their SP to curate?
So, they're not actively participating on Steemit, but they're reaping the rewards of delegation and still full weight witness voting.
As I said, it's never going to end. :)
Looks like you've got some upper SP upvotes here, so I guess that means there some consensus to what you said, but so far, they're not commenting.
Yes you understood it correctly... They get their cake (money from leasing out their SP) and they also get to eat it too (they get to choose who is in power by voting for the witnesses).
lol on the point about people commenting... The bigger they are, the less likely they will be to comment on this. Yes the ones that have some intestinal fortitude will upvote like the ones you see (I count 3 witnesses), but most will just ignore. The majority doesn't want the gravy train to stop (even if they know the train is bound to derail by pushing it so hard when the engine needs fixed).
And lol on me finding another issue to focus on, you are usually far ahead of me on what is going on! I'm honored to beat you to the punch on this one :P
Bound to happen, but now that you're "speaking to witnesses" it's bound to happen more:. :) Witness whisperer? Is that a thing?
There just aren't any tangible consequences for anyone with high SP doing anything here. Zero. Nada. Zilcho. Other than their own sumo wrestling matches. I don't know how I'm ever going to get that much SP (sell my house maybe and buy STEEM when it dips back below $1?), but man. I know there's a need to protect the investment. I get that. I'd want that, too. But wow. I'm shaking my head.
I think it is impossible for me and you to get that much steem unless the price drops back to where it sat a year ago ($0.16)... Even then I don't suggest you sell your house, because just like the saying says "you can't eat gold", if you did that "you can't sleep in steem". I know you have a large family (we discussed that a few weeks back), but somehow I don't think you would want to be the roving grandpa.
And I believe you get my point:
To that I will say that when something is too easy, then people should be afraid. Since consequences don't seem to be coming incrementally, the bottom line could be a massive exit all at one time. Which from my personal perspective is not a bad thing. But I would feel horrible for the few large guys I know that would be really hurting.
And that's funny about witness whisperer... That would be great if it ever happened, but like you said the guys with the SP are busy at the sumo wrestling matches and have no idea we even exist!
Well, no worries. My wife would never permit it. Especially if STEEM tanked like that.
Large family is relative. We have two sons, two daughter-in-laws and one granddaughter. Only the youngest, his wife and baby currently live with us. I'd like to have had more kids and thus more chances to be a grandpa, but that wasn't to be.
I'm getting to the point where I feel like there needs to be someway to co-exist, where everyone gets their needs met, at least to a reasonable degree. I don't know what that is. I don't know if it's possible. It may very well not be. However, people keep wanting others to stop doing this or quit doing that for the sake of the community and the platform and its not been enough. So, somehow, there needs to be some kind of incentive. Why can't there be something like that, instead of only a stacked deck on one hand and one card in the other? :)
lol... I'm glad your wife would keep you from going full whale!
I agree with you point about finding a "solution" to solve the problems and then everyone could live in harmony. I actually spend quite a bit of time trying to analyze this exact topic. Unfortunately (for some) I think the developers built a system where it paid handsomely to be early, and the only way to dislodge them would be a complete breakdown in price.
I say unfortunately for some because many would hate to see the price back in the $0.16 range. And frankly I feel bad for many of them (and not at all bad for most of them). That would be what I call a "reset" and it happens all the time in other markets. Once a reset happened, then we would have "new" whales emerge and those whales hopefully learned from the mistakes of Version 1.
I think we have come in at an interesting time, we came right at the beginning of the "bubble phase" of bitcoin... That's why the price shot from $0.16 up to $12 sbds and $8 steem.... Everyone thought wow this is great. For many weeks and months the price barely moved, then all the sudden you had a multi-thousand % move and it all the sudden seemed easy.
I hope all this discussion and dialogue help to "get through" to the people that matter. Many have figured out that their could be improvements, now if the people in charge take the time to listen, then maybe the price won't need to reset.
I hope I don't make this sound negative though... I am still very positive that the system will correct itself one way or another... I'm doing my best to point out what I see as solutions, but the bottom line is I am still super small and not relevant at all to most people.
Actually, you've been sounding anything but negative. I've seen negative on posts on Steemit, and this is far from it. It usually consists of a lot of swearing, name calling and repeated references to how useless and doomed STEEM and Steemit is. They all have issues, but few of them actually offer solutions or any hope, so it makes me wonder:
a) why are they still here—misery loves company?
b) who raised them—a drunken sailor?
c) if they know the problems, why don't they fix them—because they don't want to, or they can't, or they don't really care?
So, no. It's actually nice to see a grown up talk about grown up things in grown up ways. When I run into these tirades, I wonder if this is how they solve their issues in real life? Since most of them are anonymous, I just imagine males somewhere between the ages of 15-35, down in the basement of their parents house, flaming each other. It's kind of humorous, but sad, too. They can't really be the ones with such influence here, can they?
I hold your same hope, that somehow, someway, someone will make what they consider to be a sacrifice (which will end up being a bounty instead), and the first mighty domino will fall and it will sweep out and one by one things will change. I'd much rather it be from us then something forced on us, like a bottoming out of STEEM or another code change.
I really don't know the folks you're referring to that you would hate to see affected by such a thing, so I don't know if I should feel sorry for them or not.
I choose B... lol
Very good points Glen! I'm glad I don't sound negative to you because I'm not... I actually find this very fascinating and I am encouraged very much by whichever way it plays out. Personally I would be better if it tanks back to $0.16 so then I could sink some of my fiat in. But as I said earlier, there are some I would feel bad for if it ever fell that low.
The good thing is that I don't get to "determine" what happens, I just get to react to what does happen. So I keep my eyes open and I will see just which way this goes.
I hope you have a good rest of your weekend Glen, and congrats for setting the modern day record in Asher's League of Excellence!
Just to add to your content @davemccoy, here is a link about the vote distribution of the Witnesses.
http://www.steemreports.com/witness-voters/
People talk about how bid bots affect the platform, but it's pretty evident why that is since the biggest weight of those votes came from the idle guy, @freedom, who's just selling votes.
Look at @fulltimegeek's war. Look at his prime target's Witness support. No wonder they just stay put since the target in question has huge weight behind the top 20.
Awesome! I love this kinda info @enforcer48! Thank you and yes I'm glad people like you see it too... The more we can shed some sunshine on the situation, the quicker we can maybe bring attention to it and maybe help to make some changes.
And yes I see that about FTG... I can't believe he didn't get support for what he tried to do... It was a bit disheartening on that front. But on the other hand, we did find out some very valuable information on what is the truth about how people collectively think. That in and of itself is important in identifying problems.
Oh man you are singing to the choir. I have thought exactly what you describe here.
thank you @sequentialvibe! I appreciate knowing that we think alike here. I wasn't sure if I stated it properly, but hopefully some get the idea of "having cake and eat it too" aspect behind this.
I propose that we introduce a PIRACY code into the block chain that links a random newbie to a random whale and gives them the ability to use the whales power intermittently. I think that would really spice things up a bit.
I love it... it would be the best way to get that SP moving in the right direction... I am going to enter Asher's contest, and frankly that is a helluva idea.... you figure out how to do it, and you have a partner to do it with DDC ;)
Coding is a bit over my head unfortunately.
Thanks @qurator! I finally got my voting power back and upped my vote to over a $0.10 on autovote through steemauto to support you guys. I didn't like falling to the tier 0 level because I do support what you have done for all of us! :)