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About two weeks ago we proposed Steem Equality 0.19.0 here and have received a lot of support. We’ve had some great conversations with the community. At this point we believe we’ve reached consensus on the proposed changes and are going forward to implement the proposal. We would like to thank everybody that took the time to be a part of that discussion. It was an overwhelmingly positive experience, even from our critics, and we look forward to continued communication with the community.

There was one small technical detail that we left up for discussion. That was the scaling factor on how much to increase the voting impact. We have chosen to increase it by 4 times. This is the smaller end of the proposed range and it is by far the most supported value. We believe a change is needed, but do not want it to be too drastic. If it turns out this is too much, we can lower the default vote weight on Steemit.com to compensate and bring votes back to where they are today. We can then revert the change in a later hardfork.

The Proposal Process

This is the first time we have tried this proposal process and we are learning as we go. This was a solid first step to establish a process.

One lesson learned was the desire for explanation on the motivation for the changes. Those Steemians following witness discussions understood where these changes were coming from, but not everybody has the time to keep up to date on the ins and outs of the blockchain. Going forward we are going to do a better job of explaining the context and motivation of the changes to help give everybody the context they need to understand the proposal.

Another request was to include more technical details. In future proposals we will continue to have have a high level overview of the changes as we did for Steem Equality. Following that we will have a technical description and analysis for those that are interested. Our goal is to provide the necessary information to all users and to promote accurate discussion of the proposed changes.

Witnesses: Guardians of the Gal^H^H^HBlockchain

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Witnesses are paid positions by the mechanics of the blockchain. Their job is to create the blocks that comprise the blockchain. In addition, they are to ensure that the underlying ruleset—the code for steemd—is robustly engineered, cryptographically sound, and is not fraudulent. (And, of course, to maintain the 24/7 operation of their blockchain nodes.)

Our goal with these proposals is not to have a discussion about which of the features should or should not go in, but whether or not these features represent a security risk or existential threat to the blockchain, most specifically to property rights. While witnesses do have the ability to refuse upgrading their node, the hardfork 'vote' was intended as coordination mechanism rather than a democratic one. We expect that once a release is made, assuming it is robust, secure, and trustworthy, that all witnesses upgrade. The disclaimer to this expectation is that we are not above reproach for the changes we propose and if a change results in a negative outcome we are not above reverting it in a later release.

If a proposed change poses a threat to the blockchain, we not only ask, but expect, witnesses to speak up against the change before implementation. It is our responsibility at Steemit to do thorough research on potential changes and present them to the community in a clear, concise, and coherent manner. That being said, we are listening to community feedback and suggestions. Simply because a suggestion does not make it in this release does not mean that we have written it off. The linear reward curve started primarily as a community suggestion that we agreed with after research.

We are also committed to proposing changes in smaller quantities than in the past. This has multiple benefits. The first is that it isolates changes. Steem is an ecosystem and one small change can ripple through the entire environment. Along with this is the ease at which changes can be reviewed. This includes the proposal itself but also the implementation. Fewer changes results in less code which is easier to review and audit. Less code also means shorter turnaround on the delivery of a release. Our goal is to have smaller, more targeted releases, at a faster rate than we have had in the past. Changing fewer systems at a time means that we can observe recent changes to one system while developing changes to another exclusive system.

In an early draft of Steem Equality there were three or four other changes that were a part of a larger feature set. Because it did not directly affect the curve change we decided to remove it from this release. It may return in another proposal at some point, but we want to address one thing at a time. By the time we get around to that feature set it may not be needed. Including too much at a time causes bloat and unintended side effects that we want to avoid.

The Next Steps

We are currently finalizing a 0.18.3 maintenance release. After that we will work on 0.19.0. Work on the 0.20.0 proposal is already underway and we are excited to share that with you all soon.

Until next time, Steem On!

• @vandeberg and the Steem Blockchain Devs