All communication that takes place with exchanges is going to remain private. It is understandable that you are asking about it, but I am just letting you know how it is and not to expect a response.
Their team is not incompetent. You should not assume that just because conversations are not being made public that conversations are not taking place.
I hate to say it, but when you have people asking for answers for literally months, and get literally zero responses or feedback, one tends to assume either incompetence or bad news. It would be nice to be proven wrong, rather than simply being told they are not incompetent. Personally, I don't go anywhere near Poloniex and haven't for about a year, because they don't give any explanations about why they just up and halt all Steem transactions. It's well and good to say that all of these conversations remain private, but frankly we don't even know they are happening. I'm really glad I got out of Poloniex and HitBTC when I did, because zero communication in the crypto world usually means you just lost all your coins.
Hey man tell @ned thanks for making more posts and for coming into voice chat discord with @mughat and for talking and responding to people on His SMT telegram group, (like how i had to get a response from him to dispell FUD article from "icoexaminer" "fake news site saying ned was leaving steemit, and made a post about it showing him confirming chat hes not leaving)
and so yeah its importanmt we hear from ned right now with the price this low
the price is the most important thing sometimes, sorry its true though, i wish it wasnt but people just care about their investment and if the truth is that steem just needs some new upgrades and THE the market will react and steem price will grow... WELL we NEED to hear that frpom ned, i KNOW he cant speculate on the price but i think itd be reassuring from SOMEONE to explain all the reasons why steem COULD be worth very high as a cryptocurrency I think THAt would be responsible and prudent, because to not reassure users is a lil risky.... letting them have to just deal with low price on their own and come to terms iwth it on thri OWN is risky... some cant handle it and will panmic powerdown and sell... especially after ned powers downm.. because peopel dont know the difference between a sell and a power down and that they are completely different and powering down doenst mean at all someone will sell.....ned is just using that steem for othe rprojects like @brixtongg some im guessing music project? Anyway music SMT sounds cool and anyway, i am SURE the projects neds powering down to fund are going to HELP steem, but people NEED to know that!
I know ned cant talk about secret new projects but his wallet is public so he should write a post explaining how the icoexaminer article claiming he is leaving, is all fud and wrong......i know it sucks ned has to make refrebnce to a new secrety project but he can just at least ensure people that hes not trying to sell his stake and its DEFINITELY not HALF of his stake as the fake news article on icoexaminer claims
anyway thanks fopr the constant engagement with the users man!
u came from the users as an organic DEDICATED user and we love that about you tim!
Hiring from "within" like you and Inertia were some of the best decisions ned made in terms of hiring that I know about :)
Ned would not be able to make any public statements that could affect the price without running a serious risk of committing a crime. Given his position, it would likely be seen as market manipulation.
Regarding his power-down he did make a reply here:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@whatageek/hey-ned-can-you-please-comment-about-the-power-down