RE: HF21: SPS and EIP Explained
The average user has been ignored and maligned to date
By whom? I certainly don't malign the average user and I would like to think I don't ignore either, though certainly it isn't possible to pay individual attention to all of thousands or tens of thousands (or possibly more) average users.
The winesses decided this.
No, witnesses have provided input to the developers to help decide what is included in the proposed release. Witnesses (and stakeholders) have not yet decided whether it will be approved/activated. If not then it will be back to the drawing board to come up with something else, or perhaps nothing will change.
Wouldn't the freedom/pumpkin vote negate your average non whale users even if they acted en masse? I would like to see the numbers on that.
In point of fact we don't even know if freedom/pumpkin supports this, because no one to my knowledge has discussed it with anyone known to be that person/account. It may be that freedom/pumpkin changes witness votes to oppose the fork.
BTW, there is no vote negation. Yes larger voters have greater weight, but all votes count. P/F only controls several percent of the total and can easily be overruled by the sum of many other votes, both large and small. Don't buy the idea that any vote is too small to count. If anything that rhetoric is a trick to discourage small stakeholders from participating which only further reduces their influence.
I certainly don't mean you when I say the average user has been ignored and maligned. I was referring to a generality that I have read on many an occasion where authors have been blamed for selling and putting downward pressure on the steem price. None of what I am saying is an attack on you for whom I have a great respect for. Those same writings where authors are generalised often seem to consider them almost a nuisance.
I tend not to believe the whole freedom/pumpkin ownership is a mystery but that's an entirely separate issue.
I am only going by my take on the below text.
Is the wording incorrect or ambiguous? Or did Steemit Inc decide off their own bat where the ten percent is coming from? It reads as if the witnesses proposed it. Which is the basis of my original point.
You are of course entitled to disagree and argue against it. But it remains. I do thank you of course for your alternate views on this but in this occasion I am unswayed.
I'd say ambiguous. Somewhat a desire to dodge responsibility perhaps, but that's also somewhat fair because as I stated earlier, the true decision makers are the stakeholders via witnesses as I will describe again below.
They asked for input and witnesses gave their views. The way the process works is:
It is also worth noting that the process has a relatively high hurdle in terms of voting to make a change. At least 17 of the top 20 witnesses (which are voted in at the time of a fork, not necessarily the same ones as now) need to approve the fork. So stakeholders who want to stop a fork need only replace 3 or 4 witnesses (I don't recall which) with new ones who agree.
Well who then?
I don't consider this maligning. It may be a true statement about the economics and market. This does not mean that any individual author is doing anything wrong, or even that all are. But this is may be more about how efficiently rewards are used to create value than the fact of them being paid at all. That doesn't make the problem go away though, and authors as much as anyone suffer from it (lower price -> lower rewards).
IMO people working on EIP, SPS, witnesses, and developers are all making a sincere efforts to improve Steem. If you think anyone is acting against the best interests of Steem overall you are entitled that view and IMO should absolutely call it out. I don't buy the view that adjusting rewards and mechanisms, even in a way that may (though I remain unconvinced) be negative for authors, is bad for Steem. Steem is more than just authors, but authors are surely part of Steem and worthy of respect, just not absolute deference to maximizing direct author rewards to the point of failing to make Steem the best it can be.
I do not think this. I think change is positive and has to be done. My original point is the apportionment of the funding.
I am not going to call out individuals but it is the perception of many day to day users that creators are ignored or considered almost a nuisance. You may consider this anecdotal, but as one of those creators in communication with many other creators, that is a perception that is held.
So this advisory discussion involved the witnesses proposing not to shoulder any of the burden of the 10%..?
The true decision may ultimately be the stakeholders but if an unpopular change gets in you know how long it may take to get it out.
There is a release undergoing testing. Which means the code base barring any major defects is almost complete.
It's too late at this point. This is reactive. I say be proactive and air concerns before it gets to this stage. The later a change is required in the dev cycle the more expensive that change become to implement.
Hence me airing my concern.
Some witnesses proposed no change to witness rewards including myself for the reasons already stated. To reiterate, witness rewards were already cut 80% in a previous adjustment, one which conducted a reasonable modeling of the minimum safe witness reward structure. The (soon) existence of the SPS does nothing to change that modeling nor does it change a reasonable assessment of the minimum safe witness reward structure. In fact, I would argue based on this sound logic, that if you think the shift from the reward pool of 10% is too high and it should only be 9%, instead of trying to make an unsupported reduction in witness rewards to make up the difference, SPS itself should just be reduced from 10% to 9%. But I personally do not see the need for that all, and I think SPS benefits more from that 10% increase than the rewards pool would benefit from not losing that last 1.5%.
Other witnesses proposed to shift some witness rewards, but ultimately a majority if not supermajority of witnesses were not in favor of that, and not doing so is what the developers (who are also large stakeholders themselves) decided to code.
You are free to view this as unfair self-enrichment or some such, which seems to be the undercurrent of what you are implying even if you don't come out and say it, but I don't. I sincerely believe that nearly if not literally everyone involved on all sides of these issues wants the best for Steem and very few if any witnesses are strongly motivated to maximize their witness rewards beyond what is truly necessary and responsible as a system design. In truth, it just isn't a lot of money for most who are successful investors, business owners, well-paid developers, etc. to even justify the hassles involved, including debates like this one, so we are all must be far more motivated to help make Steem a success, or if not most of us would probably just frankly quit.
In the end, as I said, stakeholders will decide.
These exact same concerns were aired several months ago when the SPS was first proposed and developed its funding was discussed. There is very little being brought up now that wasn't already brought up then.
Then, just as now, some suggested that some witness rewards be shifted to cover the cost, and some suggested that witness rewards not be shifted. Some suggested that reward pool be shift, some suggested that SPS be funded only by donations.
What happened more recently is that witnesses and developers had a discussion, considering all of the views that were aired several months ago and since about whether and how SPS should be funded, and the informal consensus that came out discussion was for the 65/15/10/10 split. Ultimately the stakeholders will decide.
I see this and I think. Aren't we all stakeholders? Shouldn't a discussion have at least been considered over all stakeholders and not just a subset. There are many ways to do this now.
Shouldn't all stakeholders have an input earlier in the cycle to avoid costly decisions having to be made?
A proposal could have been made to all stakeholders. A for and against. But there wasn't. Do the views of non developer, non witness stakeholders not count. Or do they count at a later stage when the code has been written and as I said before it becomes far more expensive to change.
For the record then, I imply nothing. I view it as unfair and maintain it my right to do so.
Is this discussion onerous to you, a hassle? Then let us agree to disagree. I am happy to move on. I have stated what I think which I believe I am free to do. You have stated what you think which is indeed also your right.
Yes and yes, and that has been the case, starting several months ago when the SPS was proposed and discussed, and in numerous ongoing discussions since. So, if you are asking whether input from non-witnesses and developers is a part of this process and is directly considered, then I would say yes. If you are suggesting that all stakeholders and platform users are directly and personally involved with the development and collaborative discussions supporting development on a day to day basis, I would say no, that is not practical (and indeed is the very reason why Steem, and most current DPoS blockchains, was designed with a modestly-sized witness set: there is a limit to the number of people who can constructively have personal involvement in such a process without everything becoming too unwieldy; at a technical level it would work to have not a top 20 but a top 200 or even more, but from a practical standpoint when the network is seen as something evolving, that is impractical).
It isn't extreme, but it is still a meaningful added time commitment for those witnesses who choose to engage personally in these discussions with the community (this particular one only being an example, I'm not calling it out as a specific concern). Those that don't are criticized for being out of touch and not engaging. I can understand and see the merits of both approaches, particularly when witnesses are being paid about as much as a fast food worker (or maybe, given that the Steem price has recovered a bit recently, a fast food manager), before expenses, and then are accused of using their position to do "unfair" things to in order to protect their pay check.
That is exactly what is being done. The process of on-chain governance allows all stakeholders to have a say for or against approval/activation of forks.
Disagree, as stated above. A wide range of views from non-developers and non-witnesses have absolutely been heard and taken into account earlier in the process starting months ago, including on the matter of how and how much (and if) SPS should be funded. Ultimately witnesses and developers make a practical call to distill that down to what concrete implementation they think is best for Steem. They/we may well get some things wrong but we consider all sorts of input and do our best.
Ah, I see now.
You think I am accusing the witnesses, ergo yourself.
I am not going to retread everything I have said but...
I will say that yes, I believe it is unfair. I do not believe that adequate input from non-witnesses and developers has been sought.
I believe that in this case, there is too much bias, conscious or unconscious on the parties involved to make the decision to not include themselves fair.
I am not alone as you have stated.
I am happy to end it here.
I honestly appreciate the feedback and input
Yes, and it was never a case. I would really appreciate a system in which we have a fixed maximum percentage for any budget line minus the part outvoted by all the stakeholders.
Like for example max 2% for witnesses, but if 50% of all stakeholders have voted for "minus" it would be 1% only.
A huge amount of computing power is spent to decide that this particular meme will get a few cents more that another meme. Some part of this computing power surely could be reallocated to allow all the stakeholders have a say on the global parameters too.