I have upgraded my nodes to Steem v0.18.0. Edit: Now on v0.18.1. This means my witness node will participate in the scheduled 17th and 18th hard forks happening tomorrow, Thursday March 30th at 15:00 UTC (11:00 AM Eastern US).
If you're not familiar with what is changing with the Steem network, read the changelogs here and here. There are a few changes that every user will notice, so get ready to learn a bit after tomorrow!
A big thanks to the Steemit Inc team for listening to the majority of the top-voted witnesses' opinions on two features: mitigating potential abuse with a fixed 7-day payout window and more notably, the divided reward pool. And thank you to those who participated in sharing your opinions, witnesses or not.
HF17
While Steem v0.17.0 was in its release candidacy phase it was becoming more clear that there were some witnesses that were very opposed to some of the changes in it. It became clear after a discussion with the top-voted witnesses that there needed to be a poll made so that our opinions could be collected and condensed into a broad-view to see where everybody was and what specific issues were heavily opposed. I coordinated this polling, and made and updated a spreadsheet to present the clearest view of where witnesses stood as a whole.
Ongoing tasks
I'm collaborating with @timcliff on updating the Steemit FAQ.
I continue to provide help, support, moderation, and perform other tasks as an admin on steemit.chat.
Using and testing Busy.org, submitting a few bug reports to their github along the way. If you haven't used it yet, give it a try!
I continue to work with Steemcleaners to minimize spam and scams on Steem.
Since my last update, I put some work into the Steemit wikipedia page and continue to maintain it from time to time.
Steem/Steemit Github issues for bugs or other issues when I see them. I'd really like to see the return of direct linking to Steemit, and at least 7 other people (on Github) agree! Paraphrasing @joseph: "I heard reddit+money and I was sold"
Funding
I donate 200 STEEM per week to Steemcleaners, 200 STEEM per week to @luzcypher for the Steemit Open Mic contest (join it!), and 100-200 STEEM per week as a bonus to people who share their original music with that contest.
I donated another $30 SBD to Busy.org to help fund their continued development. I'm increasingly convinced that our success lies in using Steem in multiple ways with multiple front ends, and having them all work on the same platform seamlessly.
Thoughts
With Dan leaving Steemit Inc and major plans ahead of us, it's a different era of Steem now. I believe this HF17+18 release is a good first step. I look forward to the better processes that Steem releases will have. I also look forward to Steem as an open and simple platform that will be more attractive to application developers who may not simply want to make another blogging-oriented site.
I'd like to hear your feedback and thoughts as well, so leave a comment if you like :)
I'm optimistic after seeing sneak's engagement with the community. It's great to know he's heading the backend team - his approach seems to be the ideal combination of realism (i.e. directing development for speed and efficiency) and idealism (i.e. open source principles). Though a brilliant developer (Steem wouldn't have existed without his contributions), I always felt Dan was too idealistic in many situations. Utopian, even (remember the hyperinflation?) I hope this continues - look forward to their announcement about the new development process. (Though not impressed by how long that post has been in the works...)
Now the goal has to be a quick-ish update to HF19 with a flatter reward curve and some bug fixes, hopefully by late-April. It's a significant enough feature to merit its own hardfork, one that must be rolled out before significant marketing efforts begin. We are much more likely to retain new powerers up who see a visible impact from their votes.
"We are much more likely to retain new powerers up who see a visible impact from their votes." - Couldn't agree more.
Thanks @pfunk for always debating your actions as a witness with the community, you are one of the most level-headed witnesses out there and I hope you remain as a top-19 witness for a very long time...
I do agree that this is a new era for Steem and for me the most important feature of this upgrade is the ability of third party apps to profit from their work .
Thank you @chitty.
The reward splitting is one of the long-view features that I was glad to see in the HF17 release.
I am pleased that you did not publicly mention that you are providing me with the intelligence necessary to take over this platform.
Wait. This isn't our private communication channel?! DENNIS!!!!!!!!!
I'm happy to hear that a way forward has been found. Stalling the changes was not helping Steemit. It's good that the witnesses are listened to. They are an under-appreciated asset of Steemit
I have my seatbelt on, and ready for the ride.
Just like a roller coaster, it's not over yet, by a long shot. Exciting times!
For Steem came a new era. And it is felt, when it is necessary to make cardinal decisions in spite of some exclamations of discontent. But practice has shown that changes ultimately go to the best. The stabilization of the STEEM course gives us great hope for a good future and the development of the platform. I fully support these processes. Thanks to everyone who takes part in them.
Consensus is good to read, now off to learn the secrets of using the new system.
Thanks so much - you are really doing a lot for the success of steemit!
w00t!
Nice i look forward to the new changes that will come from this. I also can't wait on seeing what the ux team does and what new services show up with this update.
Apparently there is no UX team, it was a false flag someone correct me if I'm wrong..
In my experience, UX work takes time especially when it is started after product is out...
I am referring to this post https://steemit.com/steem-news/@fyrstikken/steemit-apparently-hiring-a-dedicated-ui-team-starting-next-week-changing-the-face-of-steemit-com
Steemit inc is adding a few UI enhancement here and there but it doesn't look like they have any intention to "change the face of steemit" as mentionned in fyrstikken's post.
I'm sure they would have made some kind of announcement if there was a new UI designer team.
I like the simplicity of steemit and the whiteness/cleaness of it but I think a lot could be improved to make a more attractive and sharper design. The site doesn't look polished, it looks like a prototype or something.
Yes I also recall @sneak mentioning that in his steemspeak hangout. Those things will take time, when you growing team. As for announcements, eager to see new marketing efforts ;)
Thank you for the clarity of this post. Stress-free reading!
It all sounds very exciting and exciting, the many innovations are interesting. The time will show how the innovations work
Thanks for the update.
What the mean "The upvote lockout limit has been increased from 1 minute to 12 hours."?
if after 12 hours, people can not upvote?
It means that in the last 12 hours of a post (when it is 6 days and 12 hours old), it can't be upvoted.
nice posts @pfunk thanks for sharing
Good job, congrats!
Is there any documentation about the arbitrary split of rewards? Should we just dig into the code or is there an easier way? I'm asking for a friend...
These two searches will give you a rough start:
https://github.com/steemit/steem/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=beneficiary
https://github.com/steemit/steem/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=beneficiaries
Thanks!
appreciate your efforts....^^
nice posts, congrats :-)
Excellent post. I'm very excited for tomorrow! :) and for Friday's anncounement from the Marketing Guy
Keep all the great work and thank you for your time and replies in steemprentice chat as well.
STEEM ON :)
Cant wait to test things out!
Thank yo so much :) @pfunk
Rock on man! Appreciate your generosity on the open mic, and it is good to see the work you put into everything else. You got my vote! Keep the Steem engine pumping!
What is HF? Sorry I am new to all this.
The website you are likely using, Steemit, runs on a blockchain database that anyone can access and interact with if they have an account. It's called Steem. Sometimes the network needs to do a "hard fork" to a new version, and because it is distributed, it requires the people running the network software to upgrade and all agree on the new version.
nice post :)
Thanks for the breakdown, learned a lot from this post, appreciate it @pfunk
Calm, cool, collected heads with a plan, able to cooperate with others, such individuals should be in our witness top 19. You seem to fit that description well pfunk. I see you do good things all the time.
Hi. We don't know one another, but I have seen you do great things for the community, you are certainly an active member. I appreciate especially what you do for the music community here, as I have been trying to get my musician brother to join.
Okay, the reason I'm here is that I have not seen anything that remotely addresses what is going on with the rewards today, and I'm hoping you'll be able to explain it. If not, perhaps you know someone who can? My post from yesterday was at sixteen dollars, and I woke up to it being sixteen cents. I posted a chapter today and considering who has voted on it, it would generally be around five or six dollars right now, but it's three cents. Can you shed any light on this? You must know that this has the potential to cause major catastrophes, especially if people don't know, as usual,what is going on.
Thank you for your time.
Hey, the notifications haven't been working perfectly lately so I missed this comment. If you haven't found it yet, see this post: https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitblog/important-notification
Ha, yes, I did come across many posts since then. It's okay, I missed a number of comments myself because of the notifications, and I tend to think you have more reason. Meaning I know you are a busy guy :)
👍
nice posts friend
Lol. I'd love to feel that optimistic, but watching my post from yesterday go from sixteen dollars to sixteen cents...if someone would please explain what the deal is, that would be great.
Actually, I've been meaning to catch up to you. The other day when you posted the pdf's for Allan Watts..I kid you not, I walked out of the room about ten minutes later and overheard my husband talking to a friend on the phone saying he was just listening to something from a fellow 'source player'-this is what he's dubbed truth seekers, or people who have woken up, enlightened people raising their frequency etc.- Allan Watts. It was definitely one of those double take moments. I even had to ask him to repeat it in case i misheard, LOL