Community Service Announcement: You Control Steem. Vote for Witnesses.
I thought it would be a good time to remind everyone to check your Witness votes. Do you support HF17 (Steem Simplicity 0.17.0)? Do you oppose it? Use your Steem Power and vote for witnesses who support your views.
It's not hard. I even made a gif for you. You can vote for existing top witnesses or add in names directly.
Just go to https://steemit.com/~witnesses and get 'er done.
I won't tell you who to vote for because half the time I'm not even sure.
@abit answered my question recently that 17 of the witnesses need to agree in order for a hardfork to happen. Make sure your views are supported. As it gets closer to decision time, I'll also be adjusting my votes based on the arguments I see of those who support or oppose the upcoming changes and why.
This brings up another important point. Many people are complaining about @abit and @smooth's reward distribution experiment enforcement via downvotes (or, as regular users of Steemit.com call them, flags). And yet, @abit is currently the number 1 witness with @smooth.witness in position 19. If so many people are opposed to what they are doing, why are they still in the top 19? This leads me to think a number of things:
- Are those who are complaining even voting for witnesses? Are they calling for others to vote or unvote anyone as a witness or are they just being loud?
- Do those with influence here via Steem Power support the experiment which is why @abit and @smooth are still in the top 19?
- Do most members of this site even think about the witnesses and their influence on the future of this community, especially when a hardfork is about to be decided on?
And finally, the thought which prompted me to make this post...
- Will Dan (as @dan and @dantheman) remove his witness votes now that he's resigned and "will no longer vote" or are these votes locked in?
The future of Steemit is still up to those who hold Steem Power. Let's stay focused on that right now.
I have been called a "whale" by the downvoters who are foisting this poorly executed and divisive "experiment" upon us. This despite the fact that I have not even a 1/10th of the stake of the downvoters and I have been buying in and powering up while they cash out. I was never invited to any "whale" meeting to discuss how we should best vote, but I have been threatened with, and subjected to, retaliatory downvotes if I don't comply with their agenda.
And they are being PAID as witnesses. While I have been putting in 7 day weeks and 14 hour unpaid days actually reading and consciously voting and community building, they employ voting bots to blindly counteract my voting decisions. These are decisions that I determine (and use stake purchased with hard earned money) reward those who are also community building. And yes, I do vote for myself. Because I spent, out of pocket, thousands of dollars attending Steemfest (which most people took subsidies to attend). More recently I paid my way to Anarchapulco, to promote Steemit at Cryptopulco Day, while these PAID downvoters were nary to be seen.
You call me a whale, but don't invite me to your whale meetings. You take the money which I bring into the platform and cash out part of your huge stakes. Then bully me to follow your agenda?
I have removed my vote from witnesses who downvote.
Thank you so much for all that you have done and are doing to try and make this place better. Not only do you encourage people to create cool content, you are also spreading the word. Thank you! I really hope you are given back your right to vote on content you find valuable without having to worry that your vote may lead to the content creator being punished.
Respectful, as always.
As the only whale (by my definition, >= 800MVESTS) that is still actively voting with full weight, I wish you go on voting wisely as you have been doing, so I don't have to downvote. Better use my voting power elsewhere. What we're doing, is in the hope of wider reward distribution, to satisfy more users, but less concentration on a few authors. If you think it's threat, so be it.
To get the work done, I have been putting in 12+ hours a day manually (down) voting with zero return, while you can upvote to get some curation rewards, and sometime on your own contents to get author rewards. Please be aware, by voting for yourself, you're not taking money from my pocket, but from the public pool, or say, from other authors' pocket. Yes, it's your stake, you have the right to vote with it as you see fit.
I haven't been to steemfest, so haven't cost anyone's money. But I did donate a few bulks.
Also, same as @smooth said, your stake is more than 1/10 of mine, although it's less than 1/10 of the combination of mine and @smooth's. Just hope you can realize that you have the power. With greater power comes greater responsibility.
I have the chance to sell most of my stake around 3$, but I didn't do it, to give the market less sell pressure. I powered up the @adm account to help @steemcleaners. I converted a lot of my SBD to STEEM at around 15 cents, to help the pegging; when I got the STEEM from the conversion, I powered up most of them. I've never powered down my witness pay after July.
Witnesses are paid to produce blocks, to secure the network, it's nothing to do with voting on the website. There are server costs and man hours and skills required, need to be standby 24x7. If you think we don't worth your vote, it's your right.
By the way, if you want to "attend the whale meeting", please contact @ned.
You say: "respectful, as always"
Well then,
why assume that your decision as to whether a full power vote is wise or not is superior to mine? How do you know what criteria I use when I vote? Why would you think that your criteria are more enlightened than mine? They may be .... but they might not be too.
In the absence of any effort at all on your part to reach a reasoned mutual agreement with me on the wisest course of action for the steemit platform - downvoting makes it appear that you lack respect for my decisions on how to vote my stake. It is a bullying use of power to negate my will. It thus appears to me that you are in violation of the Non Aggression Principle and your actions would be judged immoral by those who seek voluntary interactions between individuals .
absolutely agree. a lot of people here (young people, I hope) seems not to see that how things are done do matters a lot. It matters also when you look at a future built by winning bullies.
Good point. If you know how it can be done better, please teach us. Or would you like to do it for us? Many thanks.
I should know what you are doing, in order to suggest other ways. If it is just a wargame, I don't think to have any hint for you to do it better. If the purpose is another one, I don't know which it is. (Well, I know what you and other gamers say about it, but words are just words, in the real world. Sorry.)
[Nesting]
This doesn't help..
I've explained the purpose above, quoted below:
Reasons in this post: https://steemit.com/steem/@abit/definition-of-a-whale-and-a-whale-like-group-and-the-math-behind
Thanks.
//Edit:
More info:
https://steemit.com/steem/@timcliff/the-whale-voting-experiment-explained-including-downvotes-from-abit
https://steemit.com/experiment/@timcliff/the-whale-no-vote-experiment-whale-participation-data
thx for your reply. I already had read those post and their comment threads. Still can't see the purpose. (Btw, I often wander, in my time on Steemit, why people assumes as true that a larger distribution of voting power is surely a good thing, in order to have the platform growing up. And that implementing that larger distrubution of vp by means of legit violence and power has positive effects and negligible consequences.)
[Nesting]
The ultimate purpose: A hope of more adoption, then, a hope of higher value of this platform (also my holdings)
I don't know either. So sometimes wanted to try something new.
Agree.
Fair.
You make your decision on how to vote your stake, I make my decision on mine.
The Buddha said things aren't as they appear, nor are they otherwise.
Bullying? Please, you can not see the value of this experiment, we understand that, everyone sees that, you denigrate the efforts of those participating because they didn't approach you personally, we understand that, it's ok, you simply want to be considered, like everyone else, that's what's ironic about this, you ignored the effort that abit expressed which is ENORMOUS, and called it bullying, but it's about considering people that don't have as much ridiculous wealth like you, don't make me laugh at the non aggression principle, WE ARE ON THE INTERNET, you realize that right? It appears like real life, buy it's only 1's and 0's.
Consider abit first, maybe he will consider you too.
Your attitude is best summed up by your user name :-)
Please be nice.
k, meh.
You have a lot more than 1/10 of my stake and anyway my bot hasn't been reacting to your votes in any way. I can't speak for others.
The voting page only allows to vote for people in the top 50 when i tried to enter another name in the box, it failed, several times. So i have 30 votes to use, so what did i do? Like many people will do, i just randomly selected 30 people. I am not a fan of voting anyhow, do i have to vote? Can i not vote? Would really love the option to turn of my voting rights, voting never makes anything right, the right people never get into power.
For example, i did not see your name on the top 50 list, but clearly, if i could of gave all my votes to one person it would be you. You have the right ethics, but we all know in life, it counts for very little and just like in life, here on Steem, its not what you know, its who you know.
Very easy to see why the system here is a train wreck and why the price of steem is going to hell. All the good , hard working, HONEST people are leaving because they know they cant beat the powerful whales with the bots.
Keep on trying to beat the system.
If they have never found a block you can't vote for them. You can't vote for just anyone they have to be running a node and at least have witnessed one block. If they have you should be able to vote for them.
Thank you Fubar, things are so complicated around here, its hard to know how most of it works, so many thanks for this info.
You earned(paid for it) your steem power the hard way and if you had a witness I would be voting for it!
Good point thank you for reminding me brother. I have adjusted my votes and dislodged abit from #1 spot.
A whale has spoken! :)
I haven't really taken sides either way, but I like to see people voting with their Steem Power on something that really matters (the witness spots!) instead of just complaining in post after post. We've had enough complaining. It's time for some building and moving forward, IMO.
Well said, each of us has an opportunity to decide who will be among the top witnesses. There is no need for whining, just take action if you want to change something.
ha! thanks!
How does one adjust their votes? I just tried to remove a vote from someone I had previously voted for as a witness, and it doesn't seem to allow for that.
You click the blue upvote icon next to the vote you want to remove. It should ask you to sign the transaction. Sign it and you will have unvoted the witness.
Great post ! Im on my way to change my witness votes ! Heres a list I included of who @ned votes for incase anyone want to know , my votes are very similar to his , check it out ! :
@ned votes for:
aizensou
anyx
bacchist
bitcoiner
busy.witness
chainsquad.com
charlieshrem
dragosroua
furion
fyrst-witness
good-karma
jesta
klye
krnel
picokernel
roelandp
someguy123
Great idea, thank you!
Yes , thanks ! I just updated and removed some , then added a few from @neds list that I wasnt allready voteing for , it made my decision much easier Lol ! 👍💙😊
Very cool, Thanks for sharing this
No problem!👍
For most users, the hard part isn't clicking the upvote button, the part that is made difficult is knowing what witnesses to choose. It isn't so hard to know witnesses and talk to them now, but hopefully this community would be too big for that some day. For the purpose of hardforks STEEM needs stake weighed voting polls that show exactly how everybody would vote. There doesn't need to be any rules for how we respond to the polls, it would just be a useful recorder of information, especially to see which witnesses plan to upgrade.
That's a great idea. For now, we'll have to go through whatever they've published. I think it's safe to assume if a witness hasn't come out against a hardfork proposal (either on Steemit or github) then they are going to implement it. I already know of a couple witnesses who have said they will not implement it in it's current form.
To see if a witness will "implement" the proposed hard fork, check https://steemd.com/witnesses, there is a "version" column. If you see one is "0.17.0", it means that one has upgraded (actions speak louder than words).
I took a look at that page, but must admit I don't understand much of what is there at all.
Very few witnesses are on version 0.17.0 though ...
Does anyone have a link to a post where the columns are explained?
I would like to understand 'Approval', '%', Miss', 'Reg fee', 'Feed', 'Bias', 'APR'
@pfunk has a post: https://steemit.com/steem/@pfunk/secrets-of-the-blogchain-a-guide-to-using-steemd-com
By the way there is another page: https://steemdb.com/witnesses , perhaps it's clearer?
Perfect example of how people can make a stand for what they believe while staying and being more active. Very good post.
Thanks. I tried to steer clear of making any specific "I believe" statements regarding the drama. Mainly because I have so many mixed feelings right now. I think the experiment is providing some much needed excitement about steemit as our votes have more power and yet I also agree with those who are upset with how it was executed and with other aspects of it. As for the hardfork, I want to see the whole blockchain move forward, and I feel we can learn more from mistakes or changes than we can from doing the same thing we've always been doing. So I'm currently leaning towards supporting the hardfork, but I also agree with those who have good reasons to ask for certain parts to be left out until they are further refined or clarified.
But I guess I can say, "I believe we should all care about who is a witness" so I hope that came through loud and clear. :)
For sure! It is the biggest power that any steemian without big power can have! I think this would actually change things.
Thanks for the reminder, I've added my witness votes for @abit and @smooth.witness to show my support for their experiment. Since it began, I have noticed my votes having noticeably more effect and my weekly curation rewards have almost doubled. Also it's so refreshing to see people actually getting rewarded for comments again. I'm a happy Steemian!
I like to hear about happy Steemians! We need more of those, me thinks. :)
I'd like to disagree to a point. Certainly people can vote for witnesses however they like, everyone has a right to vote as they see fit (and this includes voting on content, in either direction, IMO, but that's a digression).
However, the witness role is extremely important especially with a hard fork coming up. In my view people should vote on witnesses based on their job as witnesses (including, but not limited to, making sure they represent the views of the stakeholder with respect to hard fork decisions). Treating it as a popularity contest where you vote on witnesses (in either direction!) based on other things that you like or dislike about them, or on the basis of other things they are doing which you may like or dislike, is probably going to result in less effective witnessing and representation.
But again, anyone is free to vote as they see fit, and I encourage all to vote.
I agree with what you said. The primary responsibilities of the witness role include maintaining a reliable server, publishing a useful price feed, deciding on code changes, influencing interest rates, etc. To frame it as a popularity contest may not be fair though because, IMO, someone's decisions are a reflection of their character. If they have taken steps which harm others, as an example, then it's reasonable to consider they may take similar steps in the future with regards to their responsibilities as a witness. In a way, it's the age-old question: "Does the character of a politician matter?" I think it does, even more so because the weight of the actions of the witnesses on the platform are determined by their amount of Steem Power. As a witness, their Steem Power increases. I can see a valid reason to choose one witness over another (all else being equal) based on that alone with the thinking that one person will use their increase in Steem Power differently than another.
I won't get into what people perceive as "harm" here. Clearly that's open to wide speculation along various timescales with all kinds of different expectations (some healthy, some not).
What makes Steemit interesting is the social network aspect of the platform. Some witnesses do their thing and don't interact much at all with the community. I don't "know" many on the top 19 because of this. Others take risks with their posts and with their actions. I think there's room to reward either type, depending on an individual's preference for risk.
Mostly agree, but a couple of comments:
The increase in SP is not a particularly significant factor any more, post-HF16. Not only were the rewards reduced 80% but that SP is not vested for two years, only 13 weeks. Many witnesses do power down to pay expenses, support projects, and possibly earn a little bit of pay for their efforts. So, not only are you no longer voting on someone whose SP will be increased for (at least a good part of) the next two years, but it won't increase very much or very fast (due to increased rewards) and may not at all (if cashed out to pay for expenses, etc.)
Please consider the possibility that 'being invisible' and not doing anything that could offend someone could be a strategy (and arguably an abusive one, if you think witnesses should be involved) for getting voted and especially staying voted as witness. If you are already in, it can be smart (from a purely self-interest perspective) to not rock the boat, even to the extent that means never doing anything helpful.
But again, mostly agree.
Good thoughts, thanks @smooth.
I had an interesting experience today where I had three trending posts at once, along with (for a time) the number one trending post. In 9 months, that's never happened to me. It felt great! A certain individual used 3 powerful accounts to downvote them all right before the first was to payout (I think they actually removed a vote or two also). It was an interesting emotional experience. I chatted with them and they assured me it was nothing personal and just normal curation because they don't like 3 trending posts by the same author. That seemed quite subjective to me. Anyway, it was interesting, because even though I've mostly agreed with the "it's your SP, you can do what you want with it" mentality from an intellectual perspective, I was surprised how demotivating it was emotionally to watch rewards go away. For a moment, I thought the many votes, views, and comments meant the community valued what I had posted (and I think they did) and that I was about to be rewarded with a nice payout. To have one person, one OG Bad Whale, take that all away was discouraging and reminded me again how this system (in it's current form) is... kinda screwy. It's like, if I had provided less value to the community as to not trend so much or if had known about this one whale's preferences concerning a single author trending three times, I would have received more rewards than I did.
It reminded me, there's a difference between intellectually knowing something and then having an emotional experience around it. I wonder how things would be different if the whales experienced the same thing and how it might impact their actions. Sorry to ramble, just wanted to post this somewhere and didn't feel like doing a whole post about it. I also was curious of your thoughts on this, as you've also been doing a fair amount of downvoting as part of this process.
The whales have been 'downvoted' by the market. :) Maybe not exactly the same thing, but some of the same feelings likely exist.
I agree with you that there is an issue with how rewards appear to be 'taken away'. We've done a lot of brainstorming how to deal with that such as not showing the unpaid reward amount in the UI (if you go look it up yourself from the blockchain, that's on you, arguably), but nothing has gained widespread support including from the Steemit team who runs the web site.
FYI, my current downvoting bot places the downvote immediately after a whale vote so the reward doesn't increase, stay high for hours, and then be 'taken away' with a late downvote. The effect you see from my bot is just a smaller increase. Occasionally I do vote manually though (or the bot has glitches) so this doesn't always apply, but 99% of the time currently, it does. Of course, I have no control over Mr. OGBW or anyone else.
The way your bot works makes sense. This was a funny case because I had already received the downvotes from abit and yourself and figured the 277 votes and 131 comments meant the ~$59 potential was a real, valid, non-whale reward. Since it was my first time trending in the number one spot, I thought that was special also. When it got smacked down to $9 minutes before payout, I was certainly surprised. Same with the other two posts. The market is a nebulous force, but it's funny how we as individuals feel differently when actions are taken by another individual. The problem with hiding the potential payouts is a post might still be high up on the trending page and receive much less than other posts with a similar or even worse ranking. The more irrational the system of rewards appears, the more frustrated people will get with it. Then it starts to appear like a rigged lottery or a broken slot machine, one which only benefits the financially powerful. I think that perception may be more dangerous that many other negative perceptions as far as future adoption. Yes, hopefully Steem Power will distribute as whales power down, sell, and new whales are created. My concern, I guess, is with bad actors who aren't powering down and selling or they aren't doing so quickly.
Ideally everyone should vote for the witness that is the most reliable and technically sound. The reality is people will vote for an inferior witness if they know that the person behind it is also concerned about the social aspect of the network. Witness voting may also be influenced by those who feel they have been wronged and seek some form of retribution no matter how small. Witnesses need to be concerned with more than just the technical side of things. I think the role of witnesses really need to be looked at more, to make sure they are good for all parties concerned.
You are correct.
I think that at this point it is fair to respond to the various witnesses choices on whether they support HF 17 or not by voting, or unvoting, as a way of sending a message of how the members of the community feel about the witnesses decision. It's one of the benefits of being able to vote or upvote.
I agree with what you wrote, a decision on who should be a witness should't be a popularity contest but based on best interest for Steemit / Steem. It is getting tricky however if a witness is also a "whale" who forces or contributes to an Experiment the community didn't ask for.
The witness positions are based on election, changes proposed by big stakeholders should be executed after feedback from the community as well and not just forced on the community without a say.
Respectfully, please consider that what some call an 'experiment' is just those big stakeholders deciding how, or whether, to vote on content, and deciding to do somewhat differently than they did previously. That is their right, is it not? Do those stakeholders need to get permission or feedback 'from the community' in deciding how they want to vote their stake?
As you say these are tricky questions, and I don't mean to minimize that, only to offer a different perspective to consider.
Well written.
Thank you. This means quite a bit to me that you would say so. It's risky pointing out individuals like yourself in a post because it's so easy to be misunderstood. I'm glad you appreciate the content.
I can't believe this hasn't been brought up before. Great reminder, Luke! Also, I didn't know that Dan resigned, I think this is huge news. I hope they release a statement about the reasons for this to clear things up.
EDIT: Oh, wait, I just found the statement: https://steemit.com/steemit/@ned/my-announcement-march-15-2017
Yeah, there's been a lot of drama around here the last couple days. My last couple posts dig in a little deeper.
I've been out ever since we last spoke here, which was just a couple of days ago. To say that I missed a lot seems like such an understatement. I really have to catch up on everything.
I just read your recent posts, Luke. Thanks for that, it really caught me up quickly. Such a sad state of affairs, but we could only hope that there are positives down the line. @dan really seems like a great loss to the platform though.
You might be interested in this: Some thoughts on decentralizing Steem in the long run
Good stuff, thanks. I enjoyed reading through your discussion with smooth as well.
If you have any comments or questions, I'd like to hear them. I'll write more about this topic in the near future and it would be nice to have more point of views or things that needs to be explained better. Somehow I write best when I feel like I need to explain something or answer a question.