Reality Check - Is It Just Me??
Trying to stay positive here, but I'm growing increasingly uncomfortable with cliques of Steemians pooling with even smaller cliques of Steemians to "represent a global community" after Steemit Inc.'s power down.
Am I alone in this?
With all due respect, I don't buy that it's purely in the spirit of decentralization because of the nature of how these groups are forming.
As well-intentioned as they may be for some, it simply doesn't sit well with me at all.
Influencers are getting more influence, and the rest of us will have less. That's no bueno for a blockchain where witnesses already have most of the reigns.
I'm not complaining. No conspiracy theories here.
I love honest ambition, but perhaps it should be through use of our Steem Power, not mixed with politics and super-biased elected representation of those in the know.
For example, should a total of 1,582 votes made by a small niche of people in a 12-hour window for a global community "election" determine who represents said community? It's great in principle, but it feels like going through the motions without much time for the larger community to weigh in.
There's another group that requires 5,000 SP to be a part of their conglomeration pool to try to match whale power. Centralizing to decentralize cancels out in my book.
I won't go into much detail, but my gut tells me this trend is not so good for the long-term. It creates bias and hierarchies we don't need any more of.
I want decentralization and a blockchain to be handled by developers who build and run witness nodes, not social change committees or Steem Power unions trying to help, influence, or potentially control things.
I'll also vent that people royally kissing ass left and right to work their way up relatively thin "ranks" is also not going to set us up with the right type of leadership.
It just doesn't feel like the vision I came to appreciate since I signed up a year and a half ago. It feels totally against the spirit of decentralization.
While some people are afraid to speak their mind because of centralized politics and fear of lost voting support by influencers (SURPRISE), I'll never sell myself out and play pretend. Honesty over everything. If anyone needs to vent here for better or worse, please feel free. I'll appreciate any opinion on the matter.
Please correct me if and where you think I'm wrong. This is just my opinion, but along with STINC uncertainty, it's strong enough to keep me from booking my trip to the Steem Creator's Conference and making a sizable investment in SP.
As someone who isn’t kissing ass and instead is busting ass to ensure the community is represented.. I would say this post tells me we have failed a bit at communicating, so thank you for helping me realize that.
The vote you speak of is for an election committee.. they aren’t representing the community as a whole.. they are there to run a discord server, make posts, gather proposals of the design of the structure of this future foundation idea and present them to the whole community for voting.. on chain. They will have to come up with the fairest way to do this and the details.. but it will be weeks, and lots and lots of help to get it seen so as much of the community can vote on how they want the foundation to look. (Dtube had some great ideas on this).
After we know how the structure will look.. then filling those vital positions will come into play.. and they need to be qualified candidates.. not popular people.. otherwise it won’t work. The idea was always to have the community have a say in what is funded as well.. and that is where the “representation” will be important.. because what is funded effects us all. I would love to see reps from every community some how make up a voting committee or something.. but that is up to the community in the voting phase of proposals.
This current elected group goes away after proposal has been voted, as it was never designed to be a representation of the community, rather an organizational team to get this thing going, that’s it.
The foundation is not a governance of Steem.. its a foundation.. to help fund improvements.
There is a reason every thing is fully open, and always will be.. the goal is not a clique crew, the goal is to give the people a say and the ability to fund crowdsourced projects that help Steem.. like developments, marketing, etc etc etc.
Couldn’t get more for the people by the people.. even though with the chaos right now, I know it’s hard to see.
Great post, I agree.. clique community’s are nice as they become a bit like “home”.. but this chain and this community is one.. and we need to be open and working together. ❤️
I'm 99% half asleep now (if that even makes sense), but I'd like to placeholder a response for now.
A. When it comes to ass kissing, you are the LAST person on the Steem planet that comes to mind. You're essentially a self-motivated/selfless Steemit Navy SEAL, dropped into war zones with a unique talent to keep things cool and organized, so the utmost respect there.
B. IOU on the rest tomorrow. Thank you for catching this and your great response.
Agreed @llfarms from what I've seen does an amazing job of retaining the vision of the big blockchain picture. I've been watching the alliance movement from the sidelines as I know it will be a bumpy and winding road but I also feel confident that ll and aggroed along with a few others have the interests of the many not just the few as their objective.
At the same time though I align with the sentiments that the ass kissing here is beyond annoying and that there can never be too much emphasis put into communication and collaboration in regards to reform of the blockchain. The risk of rushing this process through is creation of factions and that is the antithesis of an alliance.
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Excellent. Totally agree with your observation.
This is not good for Steem.
Upvoted and Resteemed for better visibility.
Wow, thank you! I was hesitant to launch this, but it's been eating at me and I needed to vent just once to see what came out of it. Glad to be associated with a wise Steemian here right off the bat. This makes me feel much better than the island I felt I was on as I've been watching this stuff unfold.
I'm sure you're not alone, but don't worry too much because this stuff will not live long anyway.
dont you think this could get much worse when communities come into play?
But communities will not affect the whole blockchain. They will have their own rules and you'll be free to join them or not. Here we have a small group of people representing the future of millions of users. We don't even know from which countries they are.
true but a lot of people will probably "disapear" in their chosen community which brings more influence to the already big influencers.
But this is probably comparing apples to lemons.
While I am a bit worried about steem, but this has pretty much always been the case, I think we will get through this as well somehow
Right on the money! I forgot to mention this above and am glad you covered this huge point.
It sounds great to have "communities", but the mechanics and structure have very little appeal to me. I love Steemit as one global community. We're strong that way.
I won't be going out of my way to engage in any feudal guild systems that have politics and censorship, unless it's a special niche I can meet others through... and as long as I don't have to pledge their fraternity or be overwhelmed with rules.
Github overview link for others: https://github.com/steemit/hivemind/blob/master/docs/communities.md
@oldtimer's point above was perfect. We at least have the choice to engage in those on the bright side.
Yeah, it's becoming more centralised and more corporate ethics are coming to the fore almost every day. At least with a traditional company on a stock market you can have some input at an AGM, here it's all back room negotiations that I'll never be privy to.
It seemed like such a good idea when I joined but it's turned out to be mostly based on bullshit (SMT's anyone) and it's still in a beta form that new users find so unworkable that most of them just leave.
I'm just about over it too, they can take their bat and ball home and keep them for themselves.
These 2 groups don't have any significa t power anyway!
Also I'd rather community groups like this rather than anonymous lone whales dictating things.
And there are those who would argue there are cliques within the top witnesses too.
Although those elections were very rushed - at least there was an ide ldentity verification process!
Recognising so many of the people involved from discord and SF3 makes me a bit more comfortable with the whole process too.
Good points. Time will tell. I'm open-minded and hoping for the best, just want blockchain-wide checks and balances to stay somewhat in order here. While my SP stake isn't significant, I'm emotionally tied in here pretty good to feel uneasy about the (potentially wrong) thought of people pooling up to redirect things without me having much say outside of a vote or comment from the peanut gallery here and there.
IMO, it's a good step towards organizing a landing point for people outside the community to communicate with people in Steem.
Evidently the past 2 years of decentralization has only done harm to Steem. We've completely missed the opportunity to cash in on the media hype during the Bitcoin boom.. We missed the opportunity to get ICO's to advertise and build brand awareness within the Steem Community.. We failed to get tech even crypto companies to communicate in Steem (Medium.com is the de-facto blogging platform for 90% of all crypto projects and companies).
The #Steemcouncil has no power over the everyday users. The same way the "centralized" Bitcoin GitHub repo has no power over the everyday Bitcoin users. The philosophy of decentralization of authority should mean that no one can stop people from banding together if that means they can do something better together.
At least that's what i think. If you and me don't agree to #Steemcouncil, we can just ignore them.. It's not like they're gonna start levy tax on us lol...
Nice grounded perspective shared here. Thanks for taking the time to share your views. The way you spelled out the last 2 years also sounds rough in hindsight, but was decentralization truly the culprit or possibly partially that the space wasn't mature enough yet.
Did you say taxes? ::poof::
While I can totally understand this point of view.
There is a real concern about having one development team with a shaky track record. I am for a group which will be community organized. (messy is okay, we haven't done this before) That would have at least some funds to work on projects or support projects at the very least. That is my hope anyway.
That being said, I can also see it from this point of view as well.
Thanks for your respectful reply and other views. I hear you. If the committees/teams had 11 of you, my lips might be sealed.
One question - would the projects that may be worked on be more in the realm of apps or social projects? I may not understand the entire Steem chain well, but any development outside of STINC wouldn't really become active/universal unless it was integrated in STINC's larger HF if witnesses made the switch, right?
Yeah, I am not sure I will get this terminology perfect. But before code gets dropped it has to be merged in magical ways I don't fully understand with any changes SteemIt, Inc. makes.
@timcliff and at least one other have had their code accepted though.
If the foundation is going to be a non-profit, I have reasons to believe it will take a long time to get it set up. Much can happen and it could at some point be open to other fund-raising attempts.
As you can probably tell I have some mixed feelings about the entire thing myself, but in line with the social and economic experiment that Steem is, I think it is good to play around with ideas of how to move forward.
My last point... voluntary organization is not the same thing mandatory leadership. So, far we have been herding cats. :)
If we could only know what the future Will bring ,........
Wait, you don't have a crystal ball? They're on Amazon.
Can i pay with steem at Amazon ? I want one you need to rub, oh f#@§\ thats the bottle with a jeanie
She might do the trick
This is in part why I powered down 99%, the issues were so strong that I decided not to quit,but protect what was gained in a better time. As who knows how far it will progress and how much they will ruin a good thing. I am building again but until they fix it fairly, smartly and stop monkeying around with the set protocols so all can build accordingly, why risk past efforts.
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