So, I've seen on Steemd recently and many here know about it since last few days that the next hardfork is scheduled for Tue, 13 Sep 2016 15:00:00 UTC, approx 30 hours from now. There are a few major changes and I have a few major questions, so it's appropriate to create this post. Oh, by the way, those who don't know what a hardfork is, don't worry, we are in the same boat. But understand this, there are some major changes incoming which you may or may not like..

So I will just go on and copy @klye's image of previous steemit hardfork post. 

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Major Changes

1. Time locked Savings account

A user can now place their savings in a time locked savings account. Savings in sense of STEEM and STEEM DOLLARS users hold in their account. This is a step toward reduction of the effect in exigency ridden situations where users' accounts can be stolen or compromised. If you reduce the liquidity in your account (steem and steem dollars), the affect can be minimized. That's a good idea with only one thing to keep in mind, the funds can be withdrawn from the time locked accounts with a delay of 3 days. I think that's not a big issue if the security can be increased with this feature. I wonder, what will happen in case where those time locked saving accounts get compromised. Just a thought.

Although there isn't much information about how this feature will work and how the interest calculation will be done on those time locked saving accounts.

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2. Vote Balancing

This one is going to impact the most. Till now, I was under the impression that we hold a total of 20 votes per day limit, where our voting power distributed equally for each vote. Well, that is for me. For other's I've heard that while voting, they are presented with a scrolling bar to decide how much power they want to dedicate for the vote (from 0.1% to 100%, plus the affect will be according to their Steem Power, which everyone knows I guess).

Now what release notes says is that up until now they were allowing 40 votes per day. I am confused about this but oh well, now it doesn't matter because its going to be changed any way. So according to the release notes, voting will be re-balanced from 40 votes per day to 5 votes per day. Now that's a major one.

Which means, users like me who don't see scroll bar while voting, will have 5 votes per day, and their 100% voting power will be distributed equally in those 5 votes. According to the release notes, this change is to make sure that voting power can be used properly and number of nodes, which are technically lost potential if they stay at 100% voting power, can be reduced. They stated that many whales vote regularly while others barely use their 20 votes per day quota.

And I'm yet to properly understand below line written in the release notes:

" This should lead to rewards being spread out due to the lack of consensus among whales as to what defines quality content. "

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3. Steem Dollar Stability

As of now, according to release note, steem dollars are less than 2% of total market cap. 

Steem Dollar Market Cap

Once they reach 2%, the reward mechanism will be changed a little and author will be rewarded with STEEM instead of steem dollars. This shouldn't be a problem as STEEM is also liquid which can either be used to power up or transfer. And when it reached 3.5% the reward mechanism will be like below

 25% Steem Dollars, 25% Steem, and 50% Steem Power. 

There is another paragraph explaining what will happen in case where it reaches 10%, but I didn't quite understand. Although I'm still trying my best to understand, and if anyone knows, please help to elaborate that. It'd be of much help.

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A few other worth mentioning which gave me a little knowledge

- NULL account, remember when you promote a post and pay 1 SBD as fees (or accordingly) ? Well, that goes directly into null account, which is not accessible by anyone. And it gets cleared on every block a witness generate or mined by a miner (not sure here), but there is another variable which keeps track of the total. Well, I didn't know that null accounts are actually null, I mean it can't be accessed by anyone, not even the founders(?). 

- Decline Voting Rights, where an account can choose to opt out from voting rights, with a 30 days delay. This includes Witnesses as well. That doesn't seem valid for every account, but some special accounts which do not require voting rights. Although once done, voting rights can not be regained.

- Witness Block Production

A Witness is the node which validates the timestamps and signatures by including them in the block (a block is, a comment, a post, an upvote, a flag, any activity a user does on this site). There is current a pool of 100 witnesses from which 21 witnesses are selected based on votes at the beginning of block production round. That's it to understand what a witness is. It another way of earning steem, after Mining that is..

So if a witness fails to produce a block in 24 hour, it will be removed from the pool and will no longer be considered for the block production round. Well, this is important for those who are witnesses.

- Posts can be edited till second round of payout (4 weeks). As you know, first payout time varies according to the votes and comments you have received on it. Till now, I have seen my payout for a post lengthening from 24 hours to 48 hours or more.

So that it.. There are a few others which are more related to the developers, which I thought I shouldn't include here. What are your thoughts about this ? Also, I'm no expert on this, I'm just a noob with curiosity. :)