I surely don't. but I'm sure we can ask witnesses that we go to shows with and Witness chats with!
any idea @enginewitty? @guiltyparties? @jackmiller? @crimsonclad? let's see if they know - or even if they know who is currently voting against this? I'd love to support those who are supporting us!
If i don't have open votes for them - i'll make room.
I'm going to start this statement with a universal Steem truth that we've all been very poor at remembering: There is no one size fits all set of numbers. We all have begun painting with the same brush we rail against being painted with.
This is an opportunity to write some stuff, so I thank you for asking my opinion. You've pinged me and I think I'm feeling really kicked today, as a human and as a steemian. It's my job to respond. Don't take it as a direct response or accusations leveled at you, but rather the best explanation of the situation we're in that I can currently muster as an individual. There are some responses in this thread bordering on vitriolic, and though my knee jerk reaction is to yell "NO, not everyone is that way, witness or user" and I find a lot of the responses in both directions egregious, I'm coming to at least answer you in a timely fashion because that's the respectful thing do to. I fully understand why people feel all of the range of emotions that they do. I understand that as someone who started as a minnow and earned and bought all her steem, who's never powered down, who's never sold steem, who delegates to non-returning things even though growing myself might give me a chance to do more down the road. I learned how to build steemd and run a server and build scripts and tools and how to explain those things to others so they don't have to because they're not interested in the same things as me.
I am caught quite directly in the middle of the two "sides" that a lot of communication, top down and bottom up, is stratifying into a class war. I am the steem everyman, fighting to find time to post and pouring my best work and soul onto the chain and hoping to grow organically, and a special circle-jerk snowflake evil cabal secret society greedy centralized shill. So let's put down the classes we're bludgeoning each other with here and have a real discussion.
I will candidly say that witnessing here has gone from a fun and exciting learning opportunity to a job I take seriously with all my heart that has opened me up, voluntarily, to things approaching outright hatred from people who don't give me the same chance they demand. I see behaviour that as a small account makes me angry and has me feeling unheard, because honestly, a lot of our whales totally suck. I'm not virtue signalling with my experience above, but it is a truth and a lovely testament that a transparent chain bears. I hear where people are coming from.
I have spent actual hours probably now bordering on real days worth of time looking at this, talking to people directly, discussing it in communities, making my personal wants and needs known and navigating a populace that is hell bent on creating a bi-partisan us/them conflict over something that is contentious. My comments are on chain. They're been in the ramble, on shows, broadcast out to anyone who will listen. So a part of me bristles when I get painted with that brush again... not listening, not talking, not caring, not available... just like everyone in this thread bristles at getting painted with one by people who don't listen to them or care to consider them and their feelings of earnings. I understand you.
Here is the best summary I can give you of why this is a thing that has come up, how I currently feel, what I need to do. I imagine NEITHER side will be happy with it, but it won't change until I find more compelling reason to, and part of that is testing and part of that is hearing other people's plans on how they're going to pitch in because this is going to take A L L of us. I message people when they unvote us with much the same caveat: I can't promise to change what we're doing, but I can try to explain it on your way out the door. But right now, right here, I personally am putting my foot down on one thing; we live and die by the sword. Pumpkin doesn't whisper in our ear. We don't have magical bags of money being dropped on us by anyone. Steem pays our witness server costs, our tool costs, and our script costs. Other than that, this month is the first time in a while that I earned my own cut. 2k steem! I'm stoked. That's so much compared to almost every other user on the platform! That's $800. Holy shit. And yet.... none of it has left the platform, ever. And when I look at the hours of time I put in every day, even being generous and trimming out a ton of stuff as "normal user activity"....I'm not even making minimum wage. If you average that out over the months where there wasn't enough left over to split between the two of us, it's a dollar or less... and that's still more than some users! And yet- this is not rich. This is not a consolidation of power. I want to be very clear that the one brush I refuse to be painted with is the hateful "gilded handshake" that I see brandished in other comments here and all over the platform. I have no doubt there are activities where it happens. But, no one size fits all.
With all of that out of the way, here's the closest I can be to concise and it differs not at all from any of the other places I've said it. I'm not anti EIP; I'm Anti-EIP right now. I want a funded SPS and a downvote pool, and I'm not happy that a HF that I fully supported got a tacked on addition that doesn't allow us to properly separate implementation of these things. Jeff and I don't have a perfect consensus between us, and that is tough, because Jeff is crushed that people who should be getting paid aren't and that there should be a reason to get voting again because that's the ONLY thing that fixes distribution, and when looking at those inequities is tentatively pro-EIP. He's not wrong. It's going to be difficult for us to formulate a fair stance on the HF even between us. No matter what we do, we have supporters in both camps. People on both sides will accuse us of "caving" to the other. And no matter which way we choose, we likely will lose a voter big enough to drop us out of consensus. That's DPoS, baby. In some ways, it's the most fair thing in the world. I can't sit here crying because people are mean to me and also because we could basically lose one vote from any number of people who aren't pumpkin and drop out of consensus. If that happens, we reduce what we offer until we aren't $500+ each out pocket each month and keep on keeping on. I don't have a "salary" to lose.
The more people I talk to, big and small, the more I realize that the EIP change is likely needed in some form, but also that it's the last thing we need right now. Retention, onboarding, engagement- we try to blame the rewards for these things, but there is nothing we're doing currently that is improving these things. The EIP will do nothing about them, either way. And even if it did do anything, good or bad, price action of Steem basically nullifies that; here we are, looking at the pointing fingers, pointing more and more, and missing out on that heavenly (enlightening) glow of the moon in the sky. The problems that we have that we are solely ascribing to "FUCK YOU GOT MINE (author/witness) REWARDS" are partially caused by the fact that we think the rewards are what is causing them. The lack of self awareness for what makes for a strong blockchain and a strong coin is insane. These debates are literally the WORLD within Steem, and yet, the world is literally forgetting Steem exists. Feeling that the EIP is a fuck you to little guys misses out on some of behaviors the EIP could potentially encourage that we simply cannot achieve any other way, and pretending like the EIP can magically account for human behavior in every way perfectly is completely fucking naive. The math in this post is too simple: one size fits all. Imagining the EIP as a magic bullet is too simple: one size fits all. Imagining the EIP will destroy the platform is too simple: one size fits all. Either stance places every emphasis on the money, and if we can't fix that part, then Steem will never rise. Some people would change with the EIP, and find different routes to success, even small. Some people would change with the EIP and get crushed and give up. BOTH OF THESE THINGS ARE HAPPENING RIGHT NOW ALREADY, WITHOUT THE EIP. IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN EITHER WAY UNTIL WE ALL WORK TOGETHER.
I can't tell you what you want to hear to try to play all sides and sway the voice of the people as a Robin Hood figure- which is that without a doubt I will vote no. I can't tell you that I will without a doubt vote yes, even to try to "keep some big votes"... because the entity that many believe is slipping dollar bills in my pocket quite frankly knows nothing about my existence other than that I and my partner are great witnesses and heavily contribute to the security of the Steem blockchain (and maybe not even that ¯(ツ)/¯ )
This is a monumental wall of text that may not be called for. I can tell you that right now, it's all moot until my testnet node syncs up and I start playing with testnet condenser and we get a chance to have the testnet HF a few times. I can tell you thank you for allowing me to have a moment here to have a rant, at small accounts, at big whales, at witnesses of all sizes, and at myself, because some days I just want to sing or paint or take pictures and share them with the world and I traded that for this whole witness thing. And thank you for caring what I think (or maybe forcing me to answer you and grill me, I don't know the intent but both are fine- that's the job). I am hoping that I can keep thanking you for trying to bring people together in debate and discussion and disagreement while recognizing them as individuals who need much much more than one size, regardless of the size they might be.
Did I just read something that caught my attention in this very emotional comment:
ref:
So glad you said it and not me, for when I say it so bluntly I get a guaranteed chewing for it.
As with any business venture, the people running the show are the ones who call the shots.
Here those people are chosen by "the people" and hence no matter what anyone wants to yell about, the person responsible for ones actions is the person one sees in the mirror every morning!
Voted in "Governance" is the responsibility of ALL voters when it comes to a business venture, let alone an entire economy such as Steem.
With all the talk about "anti establishment" one would have hoped to see a difference between human behaviour in "real life" i.e. voting in national elections, for those who shall govern and manage the economy etc etc etc. and that of what we can see in our governance and management of our economy etc etc etc.
Won't go into a ramble, just had to react to this as it literally caught my eye and all I can say, no matter what you may have been thinking when you wrote it is:
HEAR HEAR!