Steem Foundation Elections
Steem Foundation Elections
It is time for the Steem Foundation to hold its first round of Board of Directors elections.
The current Interim Board of Directors will have served our term at the end of November and it is time for us to pass on the torch to the new board.
Important!
Please remember this is a "Working Board", which means that all members must be active and hands-on to operate the Foundation. The Foundation does not have paid staff; the Board of Directors is the staff. Consider your availability and schedule before applying. Please remember this is a not-for-profit volunteer position that cannot be leveraged for any promotional means.
Term of Service
- 6 months minimum
Applications Due
- 10 Nov 2019, 11:59 PM EST
Nominations
- Candidates should be persons of high integrity, open mindedness and professionalism
- Candidates should be deeply familiar with the Steem ecosystem and have demonstrated their dedication to positively supporting the blockchain and its userbase
- A background in senior leadership roles in general and project management, accounting, human resources, process building, business development, organization and other relevant fields is desired
- Former board experience (on any board) is considered a bonus
- English language proficiency required to ensure smooth collaboration
Executive
- The Executive of the Board of Directors includes the roles of Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer and Secretary
- Directors who will undertake roles in the Executive must provide personal information including their full name, contact details and home address
- Roles in the Executive will be addressed and filled by the Board of Directors following the election of all board members in closed camera
How to Apply
- Fill out the Nomination Form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScIhRbJthdsBNp2pBDh3iiM0lUTromR3UFuYFhX6NQbrySZTg/viewform?usp=sf_link
- We will announce your nomination and post your provided biography upon approval
- Applicants may not be on the Steemcleaners blacklist
- The Interim Board reserves the right to reject under-qualified applicants with reason (reasons for rejections may include but aren't limited to failing due diligence or lack of experience)
- Please take due care in preparing your application
- You may NOT fill out an application for another person.
Voting
- DPoS-based voting with a cap at 250,000 SP to prevent dominance by a single account (this means that all accounts with over 250 SP will be treated as if they have only 250 SP; accounts with less than 250 SP will not be affected)
- Will be calculated similar to witness voting
- Proxy voting is not permitted
- Voting will be held on-chain in comments
- All users may partake in the vote
- Votes will be scrutinized and manipulation will be treated as fraud
- Fraud will negate the validity of the cast votes and potentially disqualify the candidate
FAQ/Common Questions
Q: Do Board Members receive any remuneration?
A: No, this is a volunteer position. No funds, upvotes, or financial benefits of any sort will be received for remuneration purposes.
Q: What executive positions are up for re-election?
A: All positions.
Q: Is the Steem Foundation owned/influenced by Steemit Inc?
A: No. The Steem Foundation is a standalone entity and is unrelated to Steemit Inc. Any sponsorship received or potential does not indicate ownership or influence in any way.
Q: Is the role of the Steem Foundation to manage Steemit Inc's holdings?
A: No. The Steem Foundation has nothing to do with Steemit Inc's holdings in any way.
Q: Does the Steem Foundation exist outside of the Steem ecosystem?
A: Yes, the Steem Foundation is a legal and registered organization.
Q: Is KYC required to be nominated?
A: No. KYC is only required for Executive roles that are determined at a later in-camera election.
Q: I am on the Steemcleaners blacklist. Can I nominate myself?
A: Your nomination will not be accepted. Please address your blacklisting prior to applying.
Q: Can members of the Interim Board and the previous Working Groups apply?
A: Yes, anyone may apply.
Q: What do you mean that fraud during voting may disqualify a candidate?
A: The Steem Foundation is a legal entity that is subject to government regulations and audits. Any sort of attempts at collusion, fraud or manipulation during the election phase will not be tolerated.
Please reply with any specific questions you would like answered and we will address them. Your constructive feedback is appreciated.
Interesting let's see how it goes it has already been rigged with the limit placed on the sp required for voting
the cap is being used to reduce the influence of the top stake holders.. which has been a major complaint in the past. Seems that people going to complain no matter what.
Exactly what would be gained by rigging the election of a group of people who are to work with ZERO return? Well other than they might be able to help the platform.
I'll rewrite that sentence since it seems it's unclear. That's the top cap.
Qualification holds no nearing at all on a persons loyalty to the Steemit platform or the Steem Eco system. These requirement serve to restrict who can apply.
How many users have a Steem Power of 250,000 Steem Power?
How many of those accounts are owned by the same people?
How many accounts can one person use to vote with?
How will you know if an account is a second account or a genuine first?
Why is participation restricted to those not on a blacklist by Steem cleaners?
And will you hold a position of devils advocate. (so far overlooked)
Please define "manipulation"
huh? the 250k SP cap is on the voters, not the applicants, hence capping whale power.
Tho I like the "devil's advocate" position ;-)
Yup. It means it would take more than one or two votes to a selection to get that selection to the top. What I was hinting at is, that, with a 250 cap. There are organised groups out there with the ability to control the result with a cap as high as 250K.
For anyone else reading this reply
The system runs on DPOS yes I know all of this. I do not debate that ever. If you would liek to debate it, Tag me. I'm game.
oh ok, you'd like the cap lower? Low enough to be almost one user one vote ;-)
But then again, out would come an army of alts. I'm not going down this rabbit hole today.
My assumption is that splitting one's SP into multiple accounts has long been undertaken, with the intention of doing exactly what is obviously possible in this vote: to deploy substantial stake to financially manipulate DPoS mechanisms by splitting it across accounts that do not reveal mutual association.
This has long enabled self voting by obfuscating ownership of SP such that votes from accounts all owned by a single user appear to be from multiple parties. The executive of the Steemalliance will be subject to this ploy.
There appears to be no oracular method to divine ownership of SP at this time, and thus no means of countering this vector for potential fraud. Some substantial stakeholders have thousands of accounts, perhaps tens of thousands. Let me know if you come up with a means of preventing such financial manipulation, but it appears there is no mechanism potential presently of securing DPoS as effected on Steem from this fraud.
I believe there is a way to reduce the ability for manipulation while still providing a means for investment.
It would mean to change things that power does not want to change. To say one single thing is to invite failure there is a combination of factors to be considered for each step.. I am sure you are aware of that though.
I didn't mention the word failure. However, I concede that is the obvious conclusion from the extant DPoS code that enables the 250k cap to be so easily circumvented, and voting fraud to be paid for with wrinkled bags of unmarked bills exchanged in parking lots.
I have proposed the Huey Long algorithm to end the extraction of rewards by substantially staked users into their wallets, to resounding silence. Gamblers don't want to prevent the possibility of a massive payout, despite it's guarantee of profiteering, and profiteers prefer to pile up more and more tokens worth less and less, despite the actual ROI from capital gains being vastly more financially rewarding.
The Huey Long algorithm is not effective at affecting this kind of vote, as electing board members is not directly profitable, and thus requires a different mechanism to protect it. What mechanism(s) do you have in mind?
We don't honestly believe that someone will go to this extend for the privilege of volunteering on a Board where the experience of volunteering and building the Foundation is the only reward. No remuneration, either through votes or through funds of any kind, is to be gotten through this engagement.
The Steem Foundation is a registered non-profit and anyone interested in it for personal profit should look elsewhere. It's brand new and not one of those Foundations we see on the news with million dollar galas. It's existence is solely meant for the universal benefit of the Steem ecosystem and blockchain.
I can certainly agree with you that no one would pay to volunteer - unless substantial opportunities to profit through other means are potential from the position. Given the influence these positions are going to have over lots of aspects of the blockchain, I hope, there does seem to be substantial potential to influence mechanisms that could be highly remunerative.
We want it to be 'solely meant for the universal benefit of the Steem ecosystem and blockchain', but there are demonstrably folks hereabouts that have no concern for anything but their money. I do hope that the foundation is able to exclude such, but I note that is a faint hope if examples of well funded foundations handling fiat are not more ripe for corruption than Steem's foundation.
I am confident that folks with pecuniary interest will be carefully examining these positions for any potential to profit from them. Assuming no one will seek to do so isn't reasonable. I may be cynical and paranoid, but not without reason. I hope I am less cynical and paranoid than you.
...for cynical and paranoid, read 'life experienced', and not naive
If anyone tries to use a whole bunch of the accounts to vote for themselves they will be disqualified. This isn't the WG elections, this is for a real entity. You can't be blacklisted because you can't have committed fraud or be of the type of character to commit fraud. Would you want someone running a non-profit who has a history of fraud? I don't think so. The cap is so a single whale can't dominate the decision-making.
By what mechanism do you propose ascertaining a user with thousands of accounts is splitting their SP amongst those accounts to surpass the 250k limit?
They can't possibly split. If I have a whale account and I want to split that I have to power down. Each power down takes 13 weeks, with 1 week per installment. I simply won't have the chance to do this. The election is in a few weeks. At best anyone attempting will have a shot at a couple small accounts. It's honestly a waste of time for them to attempt this. It would be a better use of their time to write a nice bio and set of reasons for them to be elected.
Ok, accounts with substantial VP would need to powerdown to split that VP, so if they voted with SP they would need to powerdown before delegating or transferring that SP to another account. Please confirm my grasp of the matter.
I note that accounts with more than 3.25M Steem would get the cap each week if they powered down. This would be pretty obvious, so I suspect that double voting SP would be difficult to do cryptically. I'm pretty confident that users with thousands of accounts will be voting with multiple accounts, but that is a separate issue.
Also, there are folks that would prefer to be the power behind the throne, and may not necessarily stand for election themselves.
Thanks!
Yes. There's approximately 100 accounts with over 250k SP right now which isn't all that many. There are a few that we know of that do have a split stake, such as those who have a business/curation account, but we'll deal with that closer to voting time.
BitShares has 6 accounts that stopped entire production and development of blockchain. Voting CAP is a must!
Voting for blockchain..... "Directors"?
Let me guess, this is your latest step toward decentralization?
"The Steem Foundation is a legal entity that is subject to government regulations and audits."
You people are a fuckin' JOKE. A complete joke. It would be funny if it wasn't so awful, and you weren't messing with so many people's lives. Completely pathetic!
DPOS is a technology that needs to fit in legal system - sooner or later. BitShares, EOS, Steem - all have the same issues. How to preserve technology and support to its users with all the regulations and compliants that needs to be achieved.
We seen over the past years that giving people unlimited power such dpos consensus has ultimately brings entire system to destruction and puts it in oblivion without return.
Original founder of the Graphene, Daniel Larimer himself said in early days "even dpos will demand a certain dose of centralization"... so he predicted shitshow before he even started it.
As far as im concerned, this every dpos needs. A certain set of rules, enforced by FEW that will STAKE up their NECKS for the technology to live longer. Hence KYC is only applied on them and nothing else change in tech apart from less RIGGING possibilities, i dont see any realistic concern apart from participants who enjoy rigging it (taking advantage and reducing that "fair" level of game for everyone).
Chee®s
The Foundation isn't a part of the blockchain. It has zero influence on the blockchain itself. It is an entity for promoting, supporting and marketing the Steem ecosystem in its entirety.
Very excited to see this in action.
@tipu curate
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Awesome News! weldone.
Very interesting. First I've heard of this, but it's definitely sonething I'll look in to.
How do you propose to detect fraudulent votes? An account with 250k might vote, and then delegate or transfer that SP to another account and be able to vote again. What about folks selling their votes? Will that be considered fraud? If so, how do you propose detecting such fraud?
Thanks!
Edit: I also regard your exclusion of those blacklisted as unacceptable. There are many, many folks that have run afoul of the users running blacklists for reasons unrelated to fraud. Personal antipathy is rampant, and is not an acceptable reason to exclude folks from standing for election.
Folks that have been blacklisted for fraud will certainly have their history on the blockchain examined by voters prior to election. There is no reason to exclude them unless you fear that supporters of fraud possess nominal SP to elect them to office.
If that is the case, Steemalliance is already doomed anyway.
In the interest of fairness and open government, I call upon you to rescind the ineligibility of blacklisted accounts from standing for election. Otherwise you face the prospect of what has long been apparent in American electoral politics: all candidates eligible for election are those captive to powers behind the scenes, none of whom will undertake their office with integrity.
If a whale wanted to split their stake they'd have to power down. With the current divestment schedule, that's not possible or likely to happen in time to make a difference in the elections. It is highly unlikely someone would go to those extremes.
All votes will be scrutinized. If the anti-abuse community can find most scam rings then voting fraud attempts will be found just as easily. The penalty is pretty serious and its best to not even attempt any sort of dishonesty.
Users who are blacklisted should apply for an appeal if they want to participate. That's why only the Steemcleaners blacklist is used. It's a blacklist with due process and any person who isn't on it for fraud or something equally serious such as theft through hacking will have a chance (for example, someone who is on for a failed verification, which they can easily resolve within minutes). At the end of the day this is a legal entity and the persons elected must be trustworthy. Someone who was caught for identity theft, for example, is not the right person to represent Steem. I seriously doubt this will come up and if it does then we'll inform the public.
While I agree most voters will look into who they're voting for, we can't expect every voter to spend days going over every transaction of a candidate, particularly if they don't know them well.
This isn't a paid role and it can't be used for any sort of self-promotion or personal profit. I expect we'll see dedicated persons who are genuinely interested in Steem applying for it.
I know we'll see plenty of good folks that want to be as useful as can be to Steem seeking these positions. I fear we'll also see, as we do IRL, minions, easily influenced but well meaning folks, and outright profiteers put forward and, due to the Sybilline potential of botnets, nefarious characters seeking to put them in positions they believe will profit them.
I'm far less concerned about an account blacklisted for malicious acts directly seeking these positions than I am those folks using accounts that are not known to be associated with them to do so, or, what I consider most likely from how these things are done in the real world, simply backing someone they can count on for the position.
There seems to be little that can be done about that IRL, and it doesn't seem any easier on Steem. I don't expect many folks blacklisted by Steemcleaners to seek these positions, but I hope if any do the folks running the election carefully consider all relevant matters before deciding one way or another whether they can stand for election. I am absolutely sure the folks I know that are filling those positions now are very dedicated, diligent, and thoughtful people, and if they're handling it, they'll exceed my expectations.
They always do.
Thanks!
Couldn't have said it better myself. I 100% agree with you.
Even if we could negate vote fraud, which is impossible in a decentralized and mostly anonymous financial network, what's next? A budget (ever-increasing, of course) for the council? Taxation (also ever-increasing) to pay for the budget? Welfare and universal income?
Once you have formal institutions with budgets to spend the administrators of the institutions discover they can get kickbacks, and then the budgets grow and grow. I hope it doesn't happen on Steem, but it's a faint hope.
I have actually proposed something similar to a universal income, in the Huey Long algorithm. It's just recognizing that non-bot posts that aren't spam or a scam of some kind deserve something, and no post deserves hundreds of Steem now that we pay 10% as a tax to support developers. Huey Long proposed back in the Great Depression that no one be paid less than 3% of the median income, and no one be paid more than 300% of the median.
I reckon applying that algorithm to Steem author rewards encourages newbs, who can actually get nothing today on posts, and eliminates financially manipulating the rewards mechanism by stake weighting, since 300% of the median post payout isn't enough to make it worth stealing. It makes a lot more sense on Steem than it does IRL TBQH. The median payout is around .06 SBD presently and thrice that just isn't worth the effort to setup circle jerks, buy botvotes, or self vote, which drives folks seeking return on investment to push up the price of Steem to attain capital gains for their ROI, which is good for everyone.
No. None of those will ever happen and it's completely absurd to think that anyone here will ever allow them to happen. We're here to build a good Steem Foundation for the benefit of the community, not run some insane socialist state.
Do you mean 250000 SP or 250 SP?
Thank you for bringing this up. It reverted the last time I edited the document via the Steemit frontend which currently has a minor glitch that reverts edits before they're accepted. The number is 250000 SP.