If you care about decentralization and the Steem blockchain, you should only vote for witnesses that are controlled by INDIVIDUALS. That will guarantee that we have redundancy in the network. This will help prevent outages or malicious attacks by centralized organizations.
If you have never voted for community witnesses in the past, NOW is the best time to do it. They need all the help that they can get.
If you do not want to do any research and just want to help, I suggest proxying your witness votes to @ausbitbank by clicking on the following SteemConnect link:
https://beta.steemconnect.com/sign/account-witness-proxy?proxy=ausbitbank&approve=1
ps. Here's an EXCELLENT cointelegraph article explaining the current situation:
Steem Community Stands Its Ground Amid Tron Takeover
What is the solution moving forward???
I don't understand what exactly the witnesses are proposing moving forward. Steem could not continue the way it was going. It would not have last, it can't even afford developers or Steemit staff. Selling Steem wasn't even on the table as there wasn't any floor, so what exactly are you guys proposing??
This is primarily about decentralization. Our main goal is to always have 20 top witnesses that are all different people. That is the foundation of this blockchain and what makes it secured. If one entity was in charge of all 20 slots then they could do whatever they want and change the rules of the "game" at any time. For example, you could go to sleep one night and wake up the next day to find out that TRON inflated the steem token by 10000% if they wanted to. They could also censor anyone on the blockchain.
Solution: DECENTRALIZE - DECENTRALIZE - DECENTRALIZE
You definitely make some excellent points and I agree that it wasn't the best approach by Justin to run Steem on Steem blockchain via sockpuppet account he can control. It wasn't the best approach to call witnesses hackers on social media as well but after the move by witnesses to nullify his stake via softfork, I can't really blame him. We have to remember, that a financial transaction took place, Ned Scott sold and Justin Sun bought, witnesses should be taken up the details of that transaction with Ned Scott and should not have taken the measure they took.
This is the harsh reality of takeover, we must respect capital investment, the only time we can intervene is base on the terms of the agreement upon sale of the property. I wrote a post about this, even when countries go bankrupt and the IMF takes over, people who work the lifetime in public service lose everything. I understand the frustration of many as they see they voice and demands would not be heard but a lot of this had to be taken into consideration when Ned Scott decide to sell, that just the reality
I feel the best approach especially someone of your rank within the community should focus more on brokering a deal between the community and Justin Sun. Steem could not continue on the path it was going, each time we thought it was the floor, we were not disappointed. Even the utopian project run by several of the same witnesses could not even secure funding to continue developing as Steem token price could not support. The only relief for the last two years has been the occasional SBD pump, of which only a few were able to catch, so it could not be business as usual.
Steem needs the investment, lets try to broker a deal with Justin Sun, that ensure developers can get paid and witnesses can sell their reward to maintain their servers.
If no Justin Sun, what the next solution because it cannot be business as usual prior to the announcement, Steem was sinking.
This is factually incorrect. They could have nullified it, sending it to @null, but that is not what they did. Please do not repeat inaccurate misinformation. They set it so that it could not vote for witnesses, be sold, or transferred.
Which is what the witnesses did. Tron had purchased the founder's stake, which has never been used to vote for witnesses, and has consistently been claimed by Stinc, @ned, and @dantheman, to be earmarked for development, and used for that purpose since Steem began.
Tron began publishing articles stating Steem was going to 'migrate' onto Tron, Steem was going to be exchanged for a new token, and if stakeholders didn't undertake the exchange in a timely manner, they could lose all their money. Things like that indicated that Tron was going to do things with that stake like simply take over Steem.
Which is exactly what Tron did. All of Tron's 'witnesses' are just bots on one box. If anything happens to that box, wherever it is, the blockchain could crash, or worse. For days now I have watched the price feeds from the Tron puppets and our consensus witnesses. The real witnesses are updating the price feed, which is damn important. The Tron witnesses haven't yet since they were imposed.
Tron does not have the expertise to control Steem and keep the blockchain working, and Justin Sun has stated 'I just want to sell my Steem for profit.' Since he has ~100M Steem to sell, what do you think him dumping Steem on the market would do to the price?
Don't defend Sun or Tron in this matter. His actions have been despicable, and that's without even mentioning convincing exchanges to steal their customer's money and use it to vote for Tron.
So you saying I just bought 70 million worth of Steem and I can't vote for witnesses, can't transfer it, can't sell it and basically have it sitting on account at the discretion of witnesses??? What communist shithole is this???
Y'all fail to realize your criticism is with the terms of the sale between Ned Scott and if Ned explicitly mention that to Justin Sun and he went against that terms of sale then he did not honor the agreement.
This is capitalism, there was a financial transaction even countries go through this, people lose everything. The way things used to happen is often left in the past when the IMF takes over.
You know what surprise me here, the amount of people who brag about just how evil socialism and communism is and how great capitalism is but now we have a capital investment and they trying to defend the action as the excuse of a community. You take this to any court in the US and they ask you what was the terms of the sale between both parties and if Justin Sun was left to do as he wish, then you at the mercy of Justin Sun with the way he wants to move forward
That's basically right, but there was an alternative other than freezing that stake and, if one is going to quote using the legal system route, would have been for the witnesses or someone representing the witnesses to file in court asking for an injunction and freeze upon the money in question until they could prepare and file their legal argument(s) that the sale violated terms set between the owner and the those on the platform.
Justin could have just as easily filed against the witnesses in a court of law when they froze his stake because it is illegal to freeze someone else's stake, he could have done it with the right legal team that kept it narrowly focused on that point and that if the witnesses/platform had a beef they should file their own counter claim.
So the big question is really: Why is no one going the legal route to settle this?
Basically because everyone involved has been operating under the laws required regardless if you are talking about this platform or things pertaining to the rules and operations of the Tron platform. They ("everyone involved") are under some mistaken ill conceived notion that because the block chains are some new frontier they all get to ride around making up the rules, and they don't care who gets run over by all the horses, buggies and wagons. They don't want the scrutiny that's going to come down on them if they involve the legal system as they could all find themselves being slapped upside their heads.
That's pretty much the scope of it. In that regard it's sort of nonsensical to be arguing the what of's of the legalities involved when no one has taken them seriously before and from the looks of things aren't going to move forward doing it either.
Just my frank assessment of it all.
I don't disagree with you at all. I posted my opinion of the soft fork that day and here quote from that post:
Thanks!
One that respects the rights of investors to depend on the representations of people selling things. While you may prefer one in which anybody can say anything about whatever they're selling and no mechanism to protect investors from lies and fraud exists, I don't actually think that is the case.
You'd have nothing if you lived somewhere that failed to protect buyers from fraud and theft.
There'd be no law but force. Your only recourse against people that sold you some product that did not provide the benefits they claimed, or contained some harm they told you it didn't, would be limited to violence.
Is that the world you want?
It's hard to see what a compromise would look like. Steem wants the contract with Ned about the use of the STINC stake honoured, and Sun wants to be able to sell that stake at any point of his choosing. These two lines in the sand don't share any overlap.
Maybe a compromise (if coding it is feasible) is for us (steem) to lock up a proportion (25%?) of the STINC stake for a set period of time (1 or 2 years?) to be used for growing the blockchain value. After that point all the stake is available for Sun to withdraw at his pleasing. Sun is ultimately going to get the latter with the help of the exchanges by the looks of it, so it makes sense to give him that ability while still working to grow the value of his investment.
When the IMF takes over a distress country, the people of the country is often the last in the negotiation. Steemit INC and Ned Scott was running a financially saddle and struggling company. I come in with the capital and I have to let my money sit on an account at the mercy of witnesses who themselves have to cash out every month to cover bills and taxes.
You guys need to take up these concerns with Ned Scott, what was the terms of the sale? This is the way capitalism works, when there is a capital investment and I am now the majority shareholder, I dictate how things move going forward.
The IMF doesn't take over a country, it loans countries money to stabilize their currencies. This isn't just done to safeguard the well being of the international money markets but also out of consideration of what a collapsing economy's effect would have upon the people in that country and abroad depending upon the countries manufacturing capabilities and how that would effect the global economy. It also isn't done by one man's consensus but several members of a board in consensus from various other countries. Every country commits to contribute a quota of monetary funds dependent upon the economic size of each country, those countries aren't allowed to loan out more than their quota so if their quota is maxed out they have to try and convince countries who quota's aren't maxed out a compelling reason they should help stabilize another countries economy. Some may have more of a reason to be concerned about the economic well being of another country dependent upon how much they are intertwined with that countries economic input and output to their own country. That country could have already tried to help the other country but maybe things such as corruption among government officials are seen as a cause as to why it's not helping. Ultimately though when they come together at the IMF to make these request the issues are resolved among a consensus of individuals and not just one person from one of the countries whose losses stand at a greater risk if the country they are requesting money for fails. This gives everyone the opportunity to look at the risk factors and contemplate the movements/actions/requirements that must be met moving forward.
Yes however by will not decentralize by giving back the power back to the guy who has been controlling the witnesses from the beginning.
That's a great idea. The crucial point is that the votes must be concentrated on our guys in the top 50 only for now. That's how we get as many witnesses into the top 20 as possible.
Only if ur naive...
For the last 2 days we are in this position,so nothing dramatic happened...but you don't know...
Proxy-token keeps our side in balance, hopping to get same shit that JS wants...
Bottom line...there is no real balance..you just don't know!
Have you really done the math? It looks like the community votes are still sub-optimally distributed.
I'd like to point out that initially @proxy.token could only barely tilt the balance toward Justin Sun. I think it's possible to deprive @proxy.token their linchpin position or at least I have no definite numbers to indicate otherwise.
That's because there is a Deal in the middle...Proxy-token holds it...go check who votes for who...you will see that....there is Soo much talk everywhere...join Discord...
I know the proxy.token stuff. What I'm saying is that when they first voted, they only voted on Justin Sun's puppets and it was that that point when Sun barely controlled the chain. I think what we must do is optimize our votes.
When I told people we should fight in the first place, I was told exactly the same as you're telling me now. Those people were wrong. The fight has really paid off.
Yesss!!! Some people were confused and voted for them - the best way I described it was to vote for people with pictures only as Tron’s sock puppets have no pictures. 👍👍
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Having a 72 next to you name it was implying that you have Steem experience!
Reading what you said... means,you have no idea about..
It's not confusion. There's a machiavellian plot to hold Steem hostage by a community seeking to force the witnesses to accede to their demands. It's like playing chicken with a freight train. No matter how good an idea it seems at the time, it isn't a good idea.
Once you're off the tracks you can get as drunk as you want. Proxy.token is risking the blockchain for personal gain. I've recommended they stop, but no one listens to me.
Glad to see you posting again
Good to see you back!
Posted using Partiko iOS
thanks :) ... I've just been quiet.
#savesteem #gohometronyourdrunk
Posted using Partiko iOS
Its wonderful to see you again.
Forgive my ignorance, I will share how i am seeing things and would appreciate your feedback especially if you disagree with it.
I am starting the think we only have had the appearance of a decentralized platform, to the point that i am beginning to doubt that the old top twenty are interested in Steem Steemit going viral. They making decisions that make it even less desirable, such as the EIP and free flags with the stated aim of normalizing flags.
Your take on things is valuable
Precisely.
Since EIP, the bots have been destroyed, and that's a good thing. I didn't think it would work, and railed volubly and incessantly against it, but then it worked, and I shut up about it.
Yes, I was not a fan of bid bots and not a fan of renting delegations ether.
One of the most common arguments against bid bots was the Trending page. This is just plain silly, the thing to do would have been to change the metric being used too actual post views and engagement, so the response was to break the views counter.
They could have also taken care of the problem by changing the code, breaking the links to offending accounts as they have demonstrated on a number of accounts. Alarmingly accounts are attacked for differences of opinion or challenging the official narrative or challenging existing abuse in the platform.
To do that we would need to dispense with any ambiguity and develop a well defined code of conduct. This is unattractive to some because it would end the game of abusing someone with flags until a negative response is achieved and then blame the negative response for the abuse.
We do not need the ability to flag.
We only need the ability to flag as much as we need the ability to upvote. Both are speech.
I do not disagree that strong rules are necessary to strong societies. I would prefer that such rules originate in communities, rather than be imposed globally by overlords.
Thanks!
Agreed totally.
But the overlords did force their own opinion without consent or consultation.
I am sure you have seen the pre existing disclaimer in the 'About Steemit' document.
I get the impression that this just another case of the overlords employing the strategy of 'tell a lie big enough and loud enough....'
Both are actions not speech, one action will be of benefit and the other by design will inflict harm to a greater or lesser extent. If you disagree with people it is more appropriate to use actual speech just as we are doing.
Flags are free because it benefits the existing overlords by transferring the bulk of any benefit to them. Its part of their EIP its not designed to improve our economic circumstances it improves theirs.
We do not need flags to manage behavior on this platform and if you have an argument that demonstrates otherwise I want to hear it please. Humble pie does not taste so bad when I conciser my potential growth : )
Overlords do force their opinions. That's what they do. I'm agin' 'em.
In the sense I mean speech, dance is speech. Computer code is speech. Dance is also action, and code is also a thing, but both are also expression of human communications, and this is what I mean by speech in this context.
I strongly opposed EIP prior to it's implementation, and was certain that massive flagging by notorious flaggots was going to eventuate. I actually suspected that the free flags were a concession to one particular flaggot with massive ninjamined stake that has previously flagged me hard.
But that didn't happen, and I was blindsided by the end of the bidbots that resulted directly from the free flag system. I consider that an absolute necessity and that was absolutely only made possible by the free flags.
Since the bots directly profited the delegators of their stake - whales - that result directly contradicts your theory that EIP benefits whales more than plebs like us.
Plagiarism, spam, and more such detriments to society on Steem are also only controllable by flags. I am unaware of any other mechanism besides direct censorship itself of managing those behaviours.
Can you suggest alternatives?
Its all code we don't need free flags to remove undesirable conduct, we just need consensus
I know that sound dogmatic but I remain open to being shot down in flames : )
Do you personally believe that? Cause...I don't feel well...could be the air..cou..l..d
Yes, I do believe that. Especially if a minnow buys a lot of STEEM and powers up. You don't know who might be a ninja whale.
Ohhh...that could be a problem for the Witnesses...let's kill him already...😎 joking..sorry bro,I'm having a bad day!
By the way...you can't become a ninja whale by paying a lot for it...it's not ninja anymore...
sup dude get in contact with me sometime would ye?