RE: Witness Controlling Power, Witness Proxies, and Witness Voting
I want to add to this conversation the "proxies" in and of themselves are not "bad", but the potential to abuse it is a reality, as you are documenting and opening a discussion about here.
I have been a witness for many months. I have about 15 people who choose to use me as their proxy. We discussed it in each case, and since they believe in ME and my principles and expectations for the chain and for the community, they chose me to help them manage their witness votes on their behalf.
The one proxy I do have in my roster of proxy voters that could be called into question is my account for my block chain based worldwide humanitarian aid foundation called YouAreHOPE, but i do not hide the fact that I operate and own that account and I proxy to myself, because Id pick the same witnesses to vote for on both accounts anyway, and I'm busy as hell as it is, running a non-steem company I own, being a witness, a community leader and the founder of the worlds first worldwide steem community and steem blockchain only based charity.
So let's be sure folks know proxying is not what you are calling out here, but rather, proxy rings of linked accounts that then cause unbalanced outcomes in witness ranking.
Further, you are right. My chances of making top 50 or top 20 are seriously nearly impossible, even with thousands of minnow votes. I currently have just under 200 votes, and while that is respectable, it would take me years for them to add up to much, because they are predominately tiny new members who respect what I'm doing, but have no real steem power or vests behind their votes and likely most never will to be brutally honest. I love all of them and am grateful they believe in me and my ethics, principles and accountable nature.
So yeah, proxies != bad in general.
Also, you used the word control a lot above. I have to ask what you mean. Witnesses do not really control much but the price feeds, interest rates and adoption of new hardforks, which witnesses have demonstrated they do not do blindly such as when they all refused to adopt HF16 last year until it was revised to be better for steem and the community.
And if we did control things, the goal would naturally always be to make steem more valuable, wouldn't it, barring some scenario where bad actors bent on ruining steem economy came in with some sort of hostile intent but even then, they would have to have the money in, to get the "control" you speak of, and would be self defeating to destroy their own large investment.
SO I would ask, other than to show how it all connects, what opinion are you trying to convey here. What outcome do you think this predicates. I am not suggesting i agree or disagree in advance with your intention or beliefs, only seeking to understand your points here in their entirety.
Thanks Paula, you do some really sophisticated analysis. Help me understand what you are telling us here.
Thanks!
@SirCork
Founder: @YouAreHOPE
Steem Top 100 witness
the word 'control' comes from the centralized corporate world we live in. In company law, a controlling vote is a vote of 51 % or more. Appointing a 'proxy' is also a feature of the corporate world I do not believe steemit and the blockchain want to be like the 'corporate world'. I believe that it wants a more decentralized operation. I think this analysis shows that we are not as decentralized as we think, and we still have some work to do.
Unfortunately it is possible for people to be in 'control' and have no other agenda but their own, or not to be aligned with the feelings and wants of the community. What one person things adds values, is not always the right and long term action to take.
Steemit has this huge opportunity, but the opportunity is in the hands of each and everyone here on steemit. I hope this posts shows the importance for each of us to get voting when it comes to witnesses
yeah I understand what the words mean. But what do you think witnesses actually "control" was really what I meant by my question?
witnesses control the forks, hence what gets implement here on steemit, is this not the case?
There is also a substantial financial reward for being in the top 20. Whos gets this can be controlled by the majority vesting shares
These are truths. And good points. My point was that they dont write the forks though, they just agree to them or not. Its been rare they didnt agree but it did happen at least twice, the last time being HF16 as I hear it told.
The rewards are a thing though, for sure, and you can walk into the place tomorrow with substantial money and buy all the top 20 slots if you want to dump that much SP into the takeover, so you have solid points there.
I just checked and on pure voter count alone, Id be literally 20 positions higher, because so many people vote for me, but they are all tiny minnows mostly, so despite having more voters than MANY above me on the list, based on my project which people love, I can't get up there, because the whales barely know who I am --- or feel threatened maybe?
Well @sircork you are now one minnow vote up.
Anyone in the top 20 that get relegated down will feel it $$$. Unfortunately where there is money there is motive. Personally I would like to see the payments for witnesses changed. But that is for a different post :-)
Thank you! You may already know my project is a charity - the first of its kind, based on steem alone and the community here, to be the worlds first block chain transparent, crypto driven worldwide humanitarian aid foundation. I appreciate you and your work and your support. You know from our previous encounters and history, the purity and future of this platform and the good we can do are of paramount importance to me. I cannot stand the dirty tactics, and deals that go on here, and that doesn't make me popular with the big fish, but I'd rather be right and nobody, than dirty and somebody.
you should pop over to our server one day, we have #social-investments and @papilloncharity, I think you would get on very well.
https://discord.gg/kGFYXx
Im in it already but never have spoken there much, after I came in. Im in so many, its hard to cover all the ground. I am VERY interested in talking to both of those groups though! Thank you!