Let us the Community take Steem Governance into our own Hands!
As you all have probably noticed, there is a lot of discussion about the powerdown, about the fork, about Steemit Inc. stake and about the future of Steem the blockchain. There are many smart people who already said a lot about this topic, so I will link to @jesta's post about the topic which I also resteemed. I want to focus on something related but different today.
There are smart people working on resolutions to this standoff and my voice would be not much more than a repeat of their points. I rather focus on the future of Steem, regardless of the outcome of this situation. Should Steemit Inc. make an abrupt exit, I want to make sure that Steem continues.
But how can we achieve this?
With the HF 20 disaster, I created the SteemCommunity organization on Github which currently has 18 members and 8 more invited. Many witnesses and developers expressed interest in a community that furthers Steem blockchain development. But it seems, interes was not enough, without clear goals, without a structure, no one person would step up and put work in. So the last days I made a plan on how to structure this organization. A great thanks to @inertia for pushing this with me!
We need to have a plan!
Before we all start slinging code and creating things, we should think about what we as a community want. For this I created the Planners Team with the task of creating a community roadmap. They should discuss the viability of new ideas and proposals and decide on if the community pursues them and with what priority.
We need to engage the community!
To not have the Planners be an ivory tower, we have the Communicators Team. They engage users, gather feedback and bring it to the Planners. And they communicate plans and discussions, keeping the general public updated with summaries of complicated and nuanced discussions. They are our link to everyone on Steem and an important role.
We need to keep track of our projects!
No one likes abandoned projects. And for Steem to be a community where everyone loves to contribute, we have to do the dirty work of keeping everything clean and tidy. For this there are the Houskeepers Team, who keep repositories up to date, remove orphaned code and issues and watch other forks like the steemit repos for changes, so that we always have an up to date organization.
But these roles have nothing to do with coding yet?
Yes. And that is the point of it. We should think about how we want Steem to be before we start going in a random direction. And this involves everyone. Developers who are able to contribute are rare. But we have many motivated users who can make plans, discuss proposals and engage our community. And many housekeeping tasks are easily learned and a huge help to the devs we will later find.
So, I am looking for motivated folks who want to step up and do something for Steem. Your contribution matters. And the community will thank you. I would love to have people like @smooth as Planners and people like @suesa as Communicators, @inertia already stepped up as a Housekeeper. But I rather have all of you think and discuss about who would fit a role. And what roles we would need that I missed so far.
Okay, but where will we end up? What is our goal?
It is not upon me to decide the future of Steem, so I will only mention a few ideas that popped up in discussions I witnessed:
- Create a Steem Improvement Proposal structure where the community can propose and discuss changes that can later be funded for development.
- Create a Development Fund for Steem, maybe in cooperation with initiatives like @utopian-io or the seeminly abandoned @steemtank.
- Find capable developers inside and outside of Steem and give them an opportunity to improve Steem.
- Increase transparency by making all discussion public, moving away from secret slacks into the blockchain and an open for all github organization.
- Give the small fish a voice by ensuring that everyone is informed about all proposals and changes so that more people can join the informed discussion.
- Make Steem the blockchain move away from Steemit Inc. as the sole driver of success and decouple steemit.com from Steem via a decentralized community.
The future of Steem depends on you!
I alone will not be able to accomplish this. I can code for the blockchain, have made pull requests to steemd and will make use of this. But I am not alone in Steem. There are many smart and dedicated people here. And we all want Steem to succeed.
If you are interested in participating, please tell me. I am available in the Steem Reform Discord, in the #ideas-and-suggestions channel and depending on demand will soon create a separate server for the community (This community is now in beta here and I will soon write a separate post about it). Should you be unsure if your skills are useful to the community, talk to me and I am sure that we find something :)
And as always, tell me if you have ideas on how to improve things, roles I have missed or problems with the way something is set up. This is not a one man show, I am just the person starting it.
Payout is send to steempeak.com, an alternative frontent that is a perfect replacement, should steemit.com shut down
Communication is important, I feel like more and more happens in the "top levels" (witnesses, developers), while the user base is sitting around and just watches in confusion. I like that proposal. Working together is, in my opinion, always the better option. And I think Utopian can help the blockchain thrive - in fact everyone can.
I worked with @ned for a while, mostly "Users" is all I ever said to him, he did not have time for it then...
ever since I've been attempting to understand what the Steem Network could really be, including what would be the next generation of the internet, which I know @ned is also interested in; but at that time, I did not understand he planned to "own it" as well ;-)
^^ THIS, and...
^^ THIS, too!
concerning your proposed structure... the "communicators" are facing a challenging task... evaluating community feedback and presenting proposed technical changes to a wider audience will be an uphill battle and I am not going to get my hopes up about this endeavour staying mostly constructive in nature.
But it does effin need a decentralized governance model around the codebase here and steemit inc has made clear that they do not really work for the platform as a whole but for their very own limited scope of interests in it.
Oh and that "communicator" thing... I think we can all agree stinc failed at that terribly, too... it certainly can't get any worse!
If there's anything I can do... let me know!
Communicators will be a big team that we may split into subteams. They will help filter out some of that negativity, until the negative people learn that they get ignored. Communicators will very likely be rewarded by the community with votes if they do their job well. And so I think this is a role many can fill and will have the motivation to fill. But we will certainly have problems and this structure is not the end all be all ;)
For now, finding the people who step up would be great. Stepping up yourself would be too. And discussing, spreading the word and talking about ideas is important.
Finding "Communicators" that actually understand all the myriad of issues involved, including how to code dapps...
@reggaemuffin we can talk soon. @surfyogi
@fraenk
U R A SMART MF
I like how you think.. and you are correct.
I think this is exactly what we need, so that we are finally a decentralized community.
This makes me wonder; there's been a lot of talk about community already for a long time, but we're still relying on Steemit Inc. Is this because they have said that they are developing SMT's, Hivemind etc.? And these things that Steemit Inc is expected to deliver, is it correct to think of them as an base infrastructure that the so called 'community' can then create their dApps on top? But we don't really need to wait for Steemit Inc. to deliver the code, right? What's stopping it to do ourselves? If I got it right, that's actually what we're going to try to do with the SteemCommunity on Github.
As for myself, I don't know what kind of part I will play on this new mechanic, but regardless I will keep close eye on it, because I think this can be the thing we need when further decentralizing the blockchain and not rely on Steemit Inc. for the success of Steem.
In the past every time someone had an idea like this, the general response was something along the lines of "Yes, great idea, someone needs to do this. But I, I will trust in Steemit Inc. to do this. They have the stake, they should do this." and then Steemit Inc. said nope and the issue was forgotten.
So my hope is that now, when the fear of a Steemit Inc. powerdown and cash out is more real, there is more motivation for people to do something themselves and not rely on a magic godfather to solve all problems.
Even in this thread many appeal to Ned as the person who should or will do X and Y. Often times things that are not on their roadmap. And that makes the community lazy. So my goal is to give people hope and motivation to build something they can call their own.
@reggaemuffin I agree this timing is Genius!
JUST WHEN plans LONG in preparation have a plan and the excuse to be put into motion (steemit power down), there is created the ultimate SPARK for what really must be done ( Steem Community DAC).
I also think we can simply cut steemit account from a fork, OR create an entirely NEW BC, based on multiple others that have learned so many lessons, and give a full YEAR to airdrop across many other chains, to simply include those that would participate and contribute to a new internet, that creates a new way for a human being to exist, earn a living and contribute to a new global grass roots society, of and for, by individuals using the tools of liberty to secure their freedom and liberty.
GD, I do NOT SEE ENOUGH PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS!
Ned sensed right what was needed first and foremost at this point: the MVV. The SteemCommunity first needs to make explicit and agree on a Vision, a set of Values, a Mission.
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Which is why I started with a Planners role ;)
Err ... do you call "Planners" what I call "Leaders" or "Visionaries" ? :-)
OK ... but for me you can only "plan" after you have agreed on what you want to achieve, why and what are the rules you pledge to observe ... if that is part of "planning" for you, then fair enough! :-)
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Leaders and Visionaries are a sub-group of planners. Some think of the general direction, some formulate a concrete plan. But to be honest, formulating an MVV or some other visionary document needs people, so my first goal is getting these people on board :)
This is more of what we need going forward as there is far too much focus on Seem inc and what they are doing or not doing. Obviously it would be great if they could bring projects out successfully and in a timely manner but that doesn't look like it will happen and there is not much we can do about it.
What we can effect and i've seen a lot more of in the past months is community effort to organise and to create change by our selves. There have been the state of steem forums, the new onboarding tools, the rankings on the different app sites etc.... All of these are little steps but if we can keep making little steps eventually we will have covered a lot of distance.
My main gripe is the lack of communitcation we see from the top witnessess and steem inc as to what is happening and what is the plan moving forward so it's great to see that your proposal contains groups for housekeeping and communication. Communication is key for any group or organisation to be successful and it has been severely lacking since i have been on the site. I really feel that we would not be in this situation right now if there was more information and more communication from the people who are directly involved in the development of the blockchain.
Hopefully you can get more like minded people on board for your group and get the whole thing moving. I have no computer skills to join you but for any other side of it am willing to help out in whatever way i can. I want STEEM to have a big future but for that to happen we need to get certain things in place and the easiest way to do that is through a large group effort to improve it and push new development.
Exactly this!
If you want to help out, contact me on discord and we find you a non-computery role :)
At the forefront of thinking for real solutions once again @reggaemuffin. Well done, this is exactly what we will need going forward.
Yes!!! I've been looking for a way to be of service to this community as we find ways to evolve and take things to the next level. As a creative on the blockchain for the past year, I've been involved in the music, poetry, fiction, theatre, and visual arts communities and would LOVE to help those voices be heard moving forward. I'm devoted to this community and if I can help I very much want to. Thanks so much for this @reggaemuffin. I'll HYU in discord.
looks like some great ideas here @reggaemuffin .. maybe you will come and talk about them at the Witness Chat in The Ramble (formerly Steemit Ramble) on Wednesday Jan 23rd?
Have you been following the State of Steem forums? Some of your ideas may be able to tie in there as well.
@shadowspub
The current Rambling Radio Schedule can be found here
It's All About Community!
I have a few deadlines around that time and might or might not make it. But chat me up on discord and we can plan ahead :)
sounds like a plan
I know nothing of code, but transparency and democratization/decentralization are what one would think essential for something like STEEM/Steemit. I could understand how that can be scary (especially if STEEM is your baby), but those should be central values of the blockchain on which it floats or sinks (I'm not saying we should throw it into open sea and hope for the best, good rules built into the code are what one would think would prevent abuse, attract newcomers and prevent the sinkage).
The zero hour ninjamining and centralization are what made me lose some trust and confidence in this blockchain several months ago when I found out, and I know I'm not the only one (it takes but a Google search to see what people are saying). The worth of any (crypto)currency is measured by how much people trust it (STEEM has the added value of Steemit content creation, but I don't think this side of the value equation has lifted off yet).
Do not spook the hell of steemitinc is my recommendation, now they are keeping their steem in exchanges and not being utilized extensively for maybe newcomers and other dapps.