Perhaps for important matters of function, governance etc it might be useful to have some sort of polling system built into Steemit?
There is such a system. Stakeholders elect witnesses who decide what software to run, which in turn implements the rules of the system. We are somewhat limited by the software license which prohibits using modifications not authorized by Steemit Inc. In effect this means witnesses can refuse to adopt new versions created by Steemit Inc (retaining the previous rules), but can't adopt any different version (unless, possibly, if completely reimplemented).
In practice Steemit Inc. owns an absolute majority of the stake which means it can replace the witnesses as long as that remains the case.
I was thinking of a system that polls all the users. Witnesses already have a huge amount of power in the system given their huge earnings.
How do the earnings convey power when in order to receive the earnings one must be voted in by stakeholders? The power lies with the voters. None of the witnesses has enough SP to get there or stay there without votes from many others, and certainly not from witness earnings alone.
I understand what you are saying but that does not negate the fact that as a witness one can have a huge amount of STEEM/SP which gives you a much more powerful voice than the average person on Steemit but you are correct they are elected.
I am one of the people that actively elects people to be witnesses. I don't have much SP but I feel it is my duty to at least vote for people whom I perceive to be doing a good job even some who I disagree with sometimes:)
What I was taking about is giving everyone a say in major issues - not every issue but major things like for example the 30 day limit on payouts/upvotes. This could be tied into the wallet and linked to SP to reduce the Sybil issue.
It wouldn't be a perfect solution but it might give people at least a feeling that they have a say in what goes on.
@thecryptofiend, I agree with your idea of polling. I'm not sure it should be binding or you run into issues with what to do when participation is low (which it almost always is in these systems).
If only 3% of the SP votes at all, do you ignore the vote, or let 1.5% of SP make an important decision for everyone, or do you fail to make important decisions at all because the participation is too low? Voter's can also make contradictory decisions, especially with low participation (different subsets vote on different issues). Then what?
But the opportunity for stakeholders to at least express a view in a secure way is a good idea, and witnesses who acted against the unambiguously expressed interests of a significant portion of the stakeholders would do so at their peril.