With the sudden resignation of @dan is this the right time to consider the governance methods employed on Steemit? How does it even work right now? I understand that requests can be made and discussed via github, but doesn't that have the downside of becoming an overly loud chamber filled with lots of talking but no clear path to action? And how do we decide what's most efficient for the life and success of the network?

These are questions that have Steemians posting day and night. There is no shortage of suggestions about what direction we should take or how we should deal with comment reward pools versus general rewards pools, etc. It's all very exciting, in a building-a-social-network kind of way, but it isn't very clear and sometimes it feels like it can be hard to feel like there is strong leadership guiding this experiment.

But does it have to be this way? There has to be a better way to incentivize ourselves to continue building out this social experiment. There are products currently pursuing this exact goal of incentivized infrastructure that encourages positive feedback loops to sustain growth: Dash and Pivx.

What's So Special About These Two?

My maxim is No leaders, just leadership.

What makes these two products resonate with me is there attention to leadership. They both have decided that a well-defined path to consensus is integral to the health and success of an organization. Anyone can submit a proposal, anyone can submit their opinion on any of the forums and have lively conversation about the pro's and cons of any given idea. This is encouraged. But when it comes time to vote and make decisions, there is a clearly defined segment of the population that is responsible for this. And this clarity may be the secret for the current bull run being experienced by Dash and, to a lesser but still impressive extent, Pivx.

Masternodes.

Dash's use of masternodes makes a world of difference. Just ask anyone involved in the BTC blocksize debate. Dash's governance methodology was able to return full consensus on the issue within 24 hours on an issue that Bitcoin has yet to overcome.

Essentially, masternodes can be launched by anyone who is willing to accumulate 1000 Dash, and their existence allows for features like instantsend and privatesend and will be integral in supporting Evolution later this year when it launches. Unlike Bitcoin these masternodes are paid for the services they render, and this incentive encourages the infrastructure to thrive.

However, there is one concern that seems to be commonly voiced around the interwebs: masternode consolidation. The scenario goes something (approximately) like this: Someone comes along and drops millions of dollars to acquire a significant portion of the active masternodes. If it's for nefarious purposes, they could short Dash elsewhere and then crash the network themselves.

While this isn't an impossible scenario, the prohibitive cost makes it unlikely. Still, it's an issue that was enough to birth a fork known as Pivx.

As a fork of Dash, Pivx has all the same features and really only one major difference. It was designed to prevent the consolidation of masternodes.

It's too early to tell if masternode consolidation may be a real or imagined problem but it is a worthy concern to consider.

What Does This Have to do With Steemit?

If you've been on Steemit for more than a few hours then you've seen the posts about Whales: what they eat, their mortal enemies, their experiments and their drama with the rest of the Steemit ocean. When it comes to who runs things around the Platform, everyone knows that it's... well, who is it exactly? Whales, I guess.

But which ones, and who's voice carries more weight and are proposals for changes to the blockchain influenced by Steempower or some other mechanism?

This is where we can stand to learn a thing or two from Dash and Pivx.

Let's imagine this scenario (and this isn't the first time this has been suggested in recent days):

• Steemit finds a way to create an investor tier of membership. While masternodes may not be the appropriate vehicle for Steemit, the concept sure is, and by having this tier incentivized properly (i.e., voting rights on proposals) we could create a clear path to consensus. For voting proposals, this would eliminate the bottleneck of dialogue that, while needed, can often gum up the works.
• This investor product is made up of X Steempower and grants one vote. This is where I fear that investor accts could become consolidated and thus vulnerable, but this is also where I feel that Pivx could step in. Read their solution to the issue Here. The see-saw mechanism they employ redistributes block rewards between masternodes and staking nodes, depending on the amount of either. It creates a natural disincentive to hoard masternodes.
  In this scenario, Steemit would then have a voting class of users/investors that have a self-interest in whatever would best grow the network, as it would be directly related to their investment's destiny.

Isn't it About Decentralization?

I feel that the accomplishments of Dash and Pivx in creating a fascinating governance methodology should not be ignored, rather harnessed to inspire us here on Steemit to figure out what might work for us.

For example, in the same way that you have to "earn" your voting slider by reaching a minimum threshold of SP, couldn't we add another threshold for proposal voting? It could be as easy as creating a proposals pending tab that's accessible to every Steemian so that everyone can see what's on the docket for discussion or voting, and if you have X amount of Steempower you can then vote on these proposals using your super-cool investor level voting power. As a consensus building mechanism for the investor class, we wouldn't even need to have rewards tied to this.

Fun Note

I was trawling dashpay reddit yesterday and noticed that one of my posts about Dash had been put up! At first I thought how weird it was that someone else posted a similarly titled article, but then I realized it was mine!

But when I went to the comments, I was even more surprised at what I saw:

Since I write exclusively on Steemit, I don't didn't even have a login to respond so I quickly made one and, go figure, no one was fighting over the username prufarchy ;)

I had to give a shoutout to my favorite ham-sandwich-slinging Steemit Star @stellabelle and of course, I had to invite Amanda to Steemit.

What are your thoughts about the current Governance Methodology on Steemit, and do you feel that it works? Leave a comment below and join the discussion