Open Letter to Ned/Steemit
Ned/Steemit,
A lot has happened in the past seven days. I'm sure by now most of the community is aware by now of the fact Steemit, Inc. started a large power down in reaction to a perceived threat of a hardfork that could potentially remove or freeze the balances of Steemit Inc's accounts.
Many of the witnesses, stakeholders, and members of the community are very concerned over what is happening.
In terms of Steemit powering down all of their stake and hiding it from view - we feel very strongly that this is heading in the complete opposite direction of where things should go. We would like to see more trust and more transparency (not less).
A hardfork that would potentially affect the security of Steemit's accounts could only go through with support from a sufficient number (17/21) of the top witnesses.
I would like to make a commitment to you:
If Steemit, Inc. stops the full power downs of all of their accounts and returns them to their normal power down rate prior to the first disbursement of the current power down cycle, I personally commit to you (on chain) as a witness that I will not implement, support, or condone any hardfork that affects the balances, keys, or security of any of Steemit's accounts on the current chain.
I know many other witnesses feel the same way, and will be making similar statements. I encourage all other witnesses to express their views and make similar commitments.
[Edit] Just to be clear, the wording I used is not intended to imply I would fork if the power down continues. This is not a "do this or I will x" type of statement. I have not, nor have I ever, made any statements indicating that I am in support of a fork of the main chain, nor have I ever implied that if a set of demands weren't met that I would do such a thing.
Note: This commitment does still allow any stakeholders / witnesses who may want to go off and form their own chain (as a fork of Steem) in a way that doesn't disrupt the current chain the option to do so.
It is our hope that with sufficient demonstration from the witnesses that your funds are safe here, that you will no longer feel the need to hide them from view.
The thing I find frustrating about all this is, let's say you get everything you want. By some miracle, Ned throws in the towel and decides to just voluntarily hand over the keys, basically.
No mess. No problems. Great.
Now the you are in charge of the keys and direction of the platform. But I have not seen any plan after that, e.g.:
These are just a few of the things that are bugging me about this ordeal so far.
I'm going to respond narrowly only to this point. Nothing I write should be construed as responsive to any other portion of your reply and is not intended that way:
That alone should be a significant improvement to the status quo. You speak of 'developing the blockchain' but that for the most part has not been happening for the better part of two years, nor the (steemit.com flagship/reference web site), etc. Roadmaps have repeatedly failed and resulted in few or no significant deliverables. Blockchain releases have been few and far between with few substantial changes (often little more than parameter or formula changes), and have been late and buggy.
In the case of an emergency there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind there are developers within the community (and who can be hired by people within the community) who can address the problems, just as there are for every single other blockchain (few of which ever fail or have failed and are not fixed). Likewise in the case of exploits which are reported or 'stress tested' by external parties (which has happened a couple of times this year) I still have no doubt that interested and capable community members are up to the task of accepting these reports and acting upon them.
There is plenty of precedent (i.e. hundreds or thousands of blockchains) which do not have a Daddy Steemit cashing out hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to add basically no value beyond some some sort of sense of warmth and protection that everything is being taken care of to people such as yourself who seem to want this.
Again, I am not responding to any other part of your post nor suggesting that this be done. I am solely disagreeing with your claim that there needs to be a plan for such a thing to end up being a benefit to the future prospects of Steem, if it actually happened. There are other reason why it might not turn out well or might not be desired. But it takes a lot to balance out 800K STEEM per month selling pressure if one is to be purely utilitarian about it.
I'll get narrow too because this one is pretty glaring, in my opinion:
If it weren't for the fast action of Steemit, Inc. during the latest blockchain halts, there would have been much more disruption.
No matter how experienced a hired team would have been, I believe that team would not have had a solution in time to avoid being delisted from exchanges. Would they get up to speed eventually? Sure, I don't see why not. But I do not understand why all of a sudden we must eject the only team known that's capable of pulling it off in favor of: no plan what-so-ever.
You might argue that Steemit, Inc. created the conditions that lead to these halts. That doesn't change the lack of a plan for yanking development from the only team that's currently established.
What's so important? Why the urgency, apart from the powerdown schedule?
Disruption does happen, yes. I've never claimed there may not be some. However, I would point alternately to the HF20 rollout which also resulted in severe disruption caused by the poor work of the Steemit team.
That entirely contradicts my experience with exchanges on coins with technical issues. They are very willing to accept that fixing these problems can take time and are not anxious at all to abruptly delist. In fact, doing so creates more work an hassles for them (due to the need to eventually return customer's deposited coins if at all possible). Their strong preference in my experience is that the blockchain gets fixed even if after some delay.
To me, your argument about "we need a plan" is portraying things as if the existing process is an exotic and highly fine-tuned competition race car and we need a plan to replace it with a comparable race car. In fact the reality is more like a broken-down jalopy that barely runs and bleeds money. We can dump the jalopy and head to the car dealer with reasonable confidence of obtaining replacement transportation, likely better at a far lower cost.
The power down is a valid point, but apart from that, I would not argue for urgency, I would argue that there has been no urgency and the problem has festered and only gotten worse on most dimensions for the better part of 2-3 years. We can dismiss urgency to an extent, but also dismiss holding change hostage by creating impossible barriers to it such as expecting or demanding that there be no disruption, or suggesting that only the existing team is sufficiently competent or acceptable as you do above, a model which I absolutely reject.
Change is absolutely disruptive, and may result in problems, potentially significant ones, but slowly bleeding to death is not preferable, and will cause problems, most certainly.
BTW, if only the Steemit team is "capable of having a solution in time" as you claim above, as I reject, then what happens if that Steemit team is affected by: further layoffs, personal health, accident, management mistakes, career decisions to move on, etc.? Even if one believed your view that the Steemit team is irreplaceable, that only introduces more urgency for a process to replace it (due to low "bus factor").
A community-based open development model, while perhaps chaotic and uncertain, is also far more robust to the mistakes or mishaps of a handful of individuals operating under a single hierarchy (with an atrociously bad track record).
The car analogy is great. I would say it's more like you have a working vehicle. You're unhappy with it. It has problems that need to be addressed as soon as possible. Grand Solution: lets pull over, put it in park, leave the engine running, unbuckle, and get out of the vehicle. And that's it. That's the entire plan. Done. I guess we'll walk from now on. But you know the engine is running, so everything is ok.
I didn't say that. I even said, "Would [the replacements] get up to speed eventually? Sure, I don't see why not." It's almost like you're saying that there can only ever be one or zero development teams. I don't get that at all.
What model? Oh, you mean the one that gets hired after the problems are discovered. Got it. So that team, the one that doesn't exist until after the previous team is fired, is robust because why?
I do get that one development team is easier to deal with. Add an independent team and complexity mushrooms. But that should be our goal, not planned abandonment, then hope for the best.
I also get that maybe you witnesses aren't cut out for this idea. Maybe all you should do is decide which hardfork from which team should be implemented and that's it. Maybe we expect too much from all'y'all.
You seem to expect some sort of model with two independent teams.
First of all your comment about "complexity mushrooms" ought to doom the idea right there. Added complexity = risk and often leads directly to failure (particularly when one anticipates "mushrooming", especially when it comes to blockchains and even software in general.
Second is the fact that there is no viable funding for the idea. You are expecting other stakeholders on the blockchain to not only accept that Steemit is extracting hundreds of thousands of dollars per month from the blockchain and giving little back (save for one blockchain resuscitation four months ago) and then, at the same time, pay even more for a second team which would likely not actually be able to do anything because the first team would refuse to work with it (as it has largely refused cooperation with other outside development efforts, has specifically expressed a desire to keep all of the work in house, and has threatened witnesses supporting unauthorized work with being voted out).
Third, there is no viable path given historical experience with Steemit's largely-closed development process for such a second team to integrate or even particularly interact in any manner (even if, hypothetically, the mushroomed complexity of doing so could be managed, a tall order).
A precondition to any sort of second team getting off the ground is to get the first, obstructionist team, out of the way or convince it to significantly alter its methods to be far more open to shared, collaborative development. The latter has been requested numerous times (including, but not only, by me), only to be repeatedly rejected.
In short, your envisioned "safer" model, just makes no sense at all, and to the extent it involves "mushrooming complexity", most likely isn't even any safer. I still can't decide if you are this unrealistic or are just trying to obstruct any change to the status quo.
Yep, I pretty much agree with the particulars of what you just wrote. Either two parallel teams (hard) or one team basically replacing another (less hard). Or something even more clever.
In fact, what you outlined above is not a bad set of criteria for the kinds of goals and opportunities I hope can be explored, moving forward. They're not all insurmountable obstacles, after all.
Something other than, "Hire people when we get in trouble."
On the other hand, if the entire plan is "Phase 1: Stop powering down and selling 800k STEEM per month," that amounts to, "Phase 1: Collect Underpants."
Please read carefully. I did not say that was the entire plan. I said that plan alone would be a significant improvement to the status quo.
For the umpteenth time there have been numerous plans which involve various forms of community governance and that, in turn, clearly involves more than "hire people when we get into trouble" although that too could be part of what happens under such a model. In particular, it involves attracting, building, and supporting a team (how tightly or loosly coupled that team might be is TBD, though both can certainly work) as quickly as possible which, unlike the current one, will actually be accountable to stakeholders (or, indeed, to anyone at all).
One can not entirely rule out an "orderly" path from here to there via radical reform of the processes and policies if the incumbent team, but experience gives reason only to be hopeful, not optimistic. Failing that, the precondition to building a replacement team is ejecting the current one, which has been both obstructionist and ineffective. Yes, that may involve disruption, as an unavoidable cost. I do not seek such disruption but I also do not seek to avoid the unavoidable.
I think you're still missing the point @inertia .
There will be a standby team always , not one that will be organized when a problem is found.
Basically a community of devs, -whether part of them be witnesses or not- , that are always at the ready, checking the blockchain , making sure things are good.
What happens when steemit inc sells off all their steem?
Do they move on?
800k steem, now increased to whatever their full powerdown is worth, is a death sentence tocthe steem price.
More so if traders get wind of whats happening .no one will invest in it, no one will buy it.
There are a lot of things here that are way out of line and off topic. Where have I ever asked for keys? Where have I even made any requests in terms of "everything I want". Frankly, whatever it is you are proposing that I am pushing for here is so far off from where I am at that I don't even really know what to say.
To simplify my point to the most distilled form: What was your plan if your heist had worked?
That's the thing. I personally (as a stakeholder and witness) have had no plans of a heist.
Never ever fork peoples stake away. And never suggest it in any way shape or form. This kind of behaviour is a violation of property rights and will scare away potential future stake holders.
I would ask you to look at the fact that I haven't forked (even though I didn't "get what I wanted" as some would say) as an indication that I am not going to toy around with these things. I do though still reserve the right as a witness to adopt any hardfork that I truly believe is in the best interest of the stakeholders and platform, and in absolutely extreme situations - that might include freezing somebody's account.
Here is one example to think about - if an exchange has more than enough STEEM on it to be able to single-handy take over all of the top 20 witness votes and they get hacked by a malicious actor who wants to destroy Steem - I would seriously consider it in that case. You can start to get less black and white - let's say that Steemit, Inc. somehow got "taken over" (not hacked) by a group of people that wanted to adopt a hardfork that would somehow screw over all the other stakeholders. Again, I might seriously consider it in that case too. Where does the line get drawn?
Honestly, it is a really difficult question. And a serious one too. Part of me would love to just take a simple "I will never do it" stance, but honestly - I feel that it would be irresponsible to do so. I take my job very seriously, and I reserve the right to use whatever tools exist in my tool-belt if I deem them necessary to do what is best for the Steem stakeholders.
The point is, it is not always black and white, and I am not going to make an on-chain commitment to never consider using it as a tool. I am also not going to cloud up a post which had a specific intention (to ensure Steemit that their funds were safe if they didn't power down) with a long drawn out explanation of when I found it appropriate to use this type of hardfork as a tool.
Holy shit guys. Too bad you're discussing this in another slack, I have the strong urge to clean up my witness votes to stop supporting everyone involved in this blackmailing.
Do as we say or we hardfork you out. Seems like the perceived power got to some peoples' heads. You realize that this attitude is what led to the power down in the first place?
I'm far from happy about the performance and behaviour of stinc, but anyone considering this option seriously is way below. Witnesses secure the chain, they don't fuck around with it. If you need that power, move over to EOS.
Just to make it clear, I am not blackmailing here. I am not issuing any type of threat that I would support a hardfork if they don't cancel their power down. I have never come out in support of a hardfork that would impact the current chain, nor have I implied that if Steemit doesn't comply with some list of demands that I would do so.
It is not blackmail.. It is just an offer they cannot refuse..
_
Why not?
Not only can it be refused but I fully expect it to be refused. Of course I may be surprised, but IMO "an offer they cannot refuse" is extremely distant from reality.
_
Your formulation starting with a condition gives that impression, thanks for clarifying.
Compare it to how @lukestokes worded it:
As I'm sure you and certain other witnesses as @lukestokes etc. will NOT
I set you @pharesim as my witness proxy !
Se also my related committment:
https://steemit.com/deutsch/@diana.feuerberg/mein-kurzes-aber-klares-statement-zum-powerdown-vom-steemit-account-und-dem-angedrohten-hardfork
Hugs
Diana
Thanks for the trust you put in me!
Just added this:
[Edit] Just to be clear, the wording I used is not intended to imply I would fork if the power down continues. This is not a "do this or I will x" type of statement. I have not, nor have I ever, made any statements indicating that I am in support of a fork of the main chain, nor have I ever implied that if a set of demands weren't met that I would do such a thing.
I have gained a great deal of respect for you witnesses. I still must point out that simply by making a demand you are leaving the threat 'on the table' if the demand isn't met.
It's extortion. Please stahp.
The “threat” of any witness applying any fork is always there. As a witness, I can choose to support or not support any changes I want. (Whether I will stay voted in is another matter, but unrelated to what we are talking about now.)
I am not going to make a blanket statement that restrains me from ever considering changes such as this in the future. I am not a witness who will never fork out someone’s stake. If there are extreme circumstances, I might consider it as an absolute last resort.
I have never indicated that the current situation is even close enough to an “extreme last resort” situation that I would ever do such a thing. In fact, I have indicated the exact opposite.
There is nothing in my post saying that there will be any type of consequences if the power down doesn’t stop. I am not making any type of threat that there will be consequences. There is no extortion or blackmail there.
What I have done is stated that if Steemit is willing to “give up” something on their side (powering down), I am willing to “give up” something on mine (my freedom as a witness to move forward with any type of hardfork on the main chain that I deem appropriate).
Again, I want to stress that even if they don’t give up something on their side, and I reserve my freedom to choose what changes to support - that does not imply that I will use that freedom to make any particular choice.
As we are discussing these matters elsewhere, I but thank you for the courtesy of your civil, forthright reply here, and defer our conversation there.
Thanks!
Well, the fact that you can't see the obvious contradiction right there in the body of your main post is frankly worrisome.
The “threat” of any witness applying any fork is always there. As a witness, I can choose to support or not support any changes I want. (Whether I will stay voted in is another matter, but unrelated to what we are talking about now.)
I am not going to make a blanket statement that restrains me from ever considering changes such as this in the future. I am not a witness who will never fork out someone’s stake. If there are extreme circumstances, I might consider it as an absolute last resort.
I have never indicated that the current situation is even close enough to an “extreme last resort” situation that I would ever do such a thing. In fact, I have indicated the exact opposite.
There is nothing in my post saying that there will be any type of consequences if the power down doesn’t stop. I am not making any type of threat that there will be consequences. There is no extortion or blackmail there.
What I have done is stated that if Steemit is willing to “give up” something on their side (powering down), I am willing to “give up” something on mine (my freedom as a witness to move forward with any type of hardfork on the main chain that I deem appropriate).
Again, I want to stress that even if they don’t give up something on their side, and I reserve my freedom to choose what changes to support - that does not imply that I will use that freedom to make any particular choice.
I don’t blackmail. You can approve me! :)
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@ats-david/open-letter-to-stinc-and-everyone-else
I agree with you. Whatever someone is doing, the chain should never be forked. This is rule number one for blockchain.
I am against hardforking for taking stakes from Steemit inc or anyone else for that matter. It would put Steem in a very bad light.
Yep, it would destroy the integrity of STEEM as a unit of value.
It would be great if you could make a post stating your views.
i will go over all my thoughts shared in various channels and will try to come up with a more extensive version. The gist will be something like: Imho, every stakeholder, steemuser, want steem to succeed, so let's work to fix what's wrong, together! we are one, we are many.
Short and simple but truthful answer
Hold up, stinc powering down increases regular users sp 'interest', that 15% goes farther with their gaping maw closed.
It also takes their gaping pie hole out of the reward pool, increasing the average user's take from the pool.
Them dumping on the market increases the opportunities for true beliebers to acquire stake at bargain prices, ie, more than three steem per usd.
If we could get the top 70 accounts to join with them, we could bring back the n2 and let the design work as intended.
Im having a hard time finding negatives here, Tim.
Can you see how there being a large enough balance to potentially single-handedly change the entire list of top witnesses being under the control of a single entity but concealed from view may be a concern?
Its not like that now?
I dont see how it changes anything, in that respect, we dont know who pumpkin/freedom is, either.
It does up the chances of a hack, or lost keys, permanantly removing stake that knowingly broke proof of brain, and purposely kneecapped adoption, in favor of lining their own pockets?
It removes a degree of transparency
Yes.
Any forks would need to be rolled back/occur before they can get their stake reembedded, if that is the intent.
Maybe they take what is their's and leave the community to sink or swim.
Maybe they stop hindering us to line their own pockets?
Maybe they work to maximize the coin.
Time, and the blockchain, will tell.
Also, what about this - say a few months from now someone wants to do an airdrop of tokens to all Steem token holders, but they want to exclude Steemit, Inc. from the airdrop.
I guess the exchanges would likely collect for their customers?
They could exclude any accounts they wanted to, yes?
Including exchanges.
No keys, no airdrop.
It shouldnt be too hard to spot the newly powered up accounts that all vote the same witnesses, either.
That is assuming that they keep funds on exchanges, and don’t move them to other hidden accounts on chain
Rolling back the chain to an earlier point in time can be extremely damaging to a lot of users and stakeholders.
It would be a headache, a customer service quagmire, but if folks wanted to try, who am i to stop them?
I dont think a fork is viable until the memory requirements drop one more time.
Commercial grade hardware is still required, yes?
I'm thinking that given these 'requests' to maintain Stinc's stake visibly, I'm surprised current witnesses remain witnesses.
It will certainly make it less secure to be a top witness, when the stake requisite to voting in a top witness is no longer visibly held by one account.
I reckon the threat to fork out Stinc's stake has made it impossible for a corporate officer with fiduciary duties to leave that asset in a vulnerable position. I don't think that legally @ned has any other option.
I reckon useful witnesses will turn to finding ways to actually secure the blockchain, rather than threatening to not do so if they don't get what they want, and working to improve it for the benefit of the folks that vote for them.
Make any sense?
Stinc's stake would disappear on the new fork, but still be intact on the original fork, provided they spin up enough witnesses to keep it running.
A fork robs stinc of nothing that is their's, it just moves the community forward without them.
I know you know better. A fork does a lot more than that. I'm not going to exhaustively list the new challenges forking will create, but am utterly confident that you are competent to do so with but a few moment's thought.
Since Stinc may have sold to Samsung already, this may be completely irrelevant anyway.
I've learned to believe things once they happen when we are talking about stinc.
Yes, forking could wreck us, it could also set us free.
I suggest a reasoned approach, the next gotchya needs to be fully ready to launch.
I still think we need one more reduction in hardware requirements before a fork is viable, but once we get that, all bets are off.
I have never done this
As we are engaging on these matters elsewhere, I will defer our conversation there.
Thanks!
The extremely obvious difference is that Freedom is currently voting for all of the main characters in the stop the power down movement.
And is the main proponent of proof of wallet.
Interesting times,...
I translated this post into Korean.
https://steemit.com/open-letter/@ayogom/2nidut
@timcliff,
This is my statement:
I am a minnow but I will only keep witnesses who would not use our faith on them to do bad things on this chain!
So I selected you as one of my witness and now I am looking forward others who worthy to be there!
Cheers~
Great initiative bro!
Hardforking to "occupy" someones account is against all values that blockchains represent.
(I understand what you said in your edited paragraph, but only even mentioning such a fork is not a good sign to the people)
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I respect that view and would only consider it under the most extreme of circumstances.