My understanding and thoughts regarding this ongoing witness battle

Since the recent top 20 witness battle has started, I have received many messages asking my actions and rationales behind them. Some also asked what Korean community thinks.

While I cannot say anything on behalf of the Korean community (people have different opinions), I believe that if I write up my understanding and thoughts it would be helpful for non-Korean Steemians so that they may find it easier to understand how many Korean steem users view these events.

  • This is the point of writing this long article in English (which I seldom do).

Let me clarify the terms first, as it seems that the same word is being used in many different ways across different articles.

  • "22.2 community": witnesses who has agreed to soft fork 22.2 and users who support 22.2

  • "Justin": Justin Sun, tron, Steem INC.

  • "sct community": Steemcoinpan (steem engine tribe) users, in particular users who proxied to @proxy.token.

I want to make it very clear before I start: I simply wanted to balance between 22.2 community and Justin so that neither side could fork (if they have super majority of top 20) before I hear from both sides regarding future roadmap - how to improve STEEM. My witness voting for tron puppets does NOT mean that I support them. Proxy.token's intention is the same and lots of other Korean users share similar opinion.


Several days after Justin bought Steem INC from Ned, I learned that there was a soft fork 22.2 that freezes Steem INC's accounts.

It was shocking that witnesses (and select few - according to the screenshot below, total 65) made the decision and executed with without any public discussion, and still claims that "this statement has been co-authored by the Steem community..."

Thoughts 1: So "Steem community" is 65 users who were invited to the private channel.

Thoughts 2: Wow, so it means that witnesses may freeze anyone's account, potentially including mine, without any notice? If they can do this to the biggest investor, they can simply ignore non-whale like me fairly easily. And who would like to invest large sum of money to Steem if his account may get frozen anytime?




Later, 22.2 community explained that it was a "preventive" measure because they have not heard from Justin ("there have been a lot of uncertainties around the company and its continued use of the assets it controls, ...") and it is a soft fork that is reversible.

Thoughts 3: so this action was based on mere assumptions, or "IF"s. Basically, witnesses took Justin's accounts in custody and saying that they may give back his accounts.

I read the replies, and most of them were supportive. And for non-supportive ones, I saw lots of hostility and ridicule towards them.

Thoughts 4: It seems that users like @tcpolymath and @rentmoney (who I "met" at Splinterlands games) already expressed similar concerns, so no need for me to repeat. And I may get attacked like below (see below for a sample - I do not know who they are but it seems pretty aggressive) , so why take risk.




I also learned that the reasons cited were (1) these stakes were ninja-mined and (2) there was an "agreement" or "promise" that Steem INC steem power (and steem) should be used in a specific way.

Later I asked @aggroed, one of the 22.2 witnesses that I still vote for, regarding this. His explanation was the following:

  1. There are other ninja-mined stakes, including freedom, blocktrades, etc.
  2. But Steem INC accounts were the only ones with "social contract" that Steem INC funds should be used in a certain way.

Thoughts 5: wait, "social contract" is not a legal term (see wikipedia) that can be used for a corporation. And are there any legal documents stating above?

So I asked aggroed about official, preferably legal document that shows such alleged obligations (he said he would come back to me). In the meanwhile, I consulted a US lawyer (NY state) and she was skeptical that "evidences" suggested in postings like Evidence of Steemit Inc making representations about use of ninja-mined stake and https://steem.com/2017roadmap.pdf could be used as legally binding evidence.


And Justin fired back with the same "sneak" attack and got his accounts back and set 20 puppet witnesses.

Thoughts 6: wait, can you use exchange fund to power up and cast witness votes? I haven't read all details when I make an account at Binance, but it is likely that they should not use the customer funds without explicit(written) consent.

  • I still do not know the legal details regarding this, but this issue is not primary unless these exchanges vote again.

And 22.2 community led a campaign asking for votes. These was even a case where they were clearly buying votes:

Thoughts 7: If I remember correctly, buying votes was blamed/condemned so far. Maybe from now on, selling/buying witness votes would be okay. It seems like a bad precedent.


When 5 of the 22.2 community witnesses made to top 20 again, @proxy.token (managed by SCT community) asked witnesses' opinions on Steem issues such as power-down period ([공지] @proxy.token 증인 투표 운영 방침(@proxy.token witness voting policy) before making votes.

No witness replied.

Not very surprising, as sct community used to be ignored and sometimes even faced hostile attacks, including downvotes and ridicules (Several members were even getting auto-downvoted no matter what just because "it was not written in English" or "no thumbnail" or "too much rewards").

I used to proxy to @proxy.token, but when I read this I cleared proxy and voted for 20 tron puppets and some witnesses that I support.

Thoughts 8: I expected that no attention will be given unless proxy.token actually shows that they may change the main witnesses. They would like to make decisions based on answers from witnesses, but if they do not vote first they won't get answers.

After 6 hours, proxy.token has learned and fired witness votes. Now 17 tron witnesses are top 20.


And suddenly SCT discord channel and the previous posting got popular.

SCT community (including myself) enjoyed talking to witnesses and other Steemians and I believe that it was very productive. In short,

  1. 22.2 witnesses asked to put enough non-tron top 20 witnesses (5 or more) to prevent hard-fork from Justin. SCT community agreed and made 7 non-tron witnesses top 20. [공지] @proxy.token 증인투표 추가.

  2. SCT community asked Steem Foundation to present future roadmap/plan for Steem in 3 days, and aggroed and shadowspub(current chair of the Foundation) said they would.


5 hours ago, Justin showed up at SCT discord channel. He confirmed "real Justin" by tweeting:



While we wanted to have constructive discussion, it did not go well. Justin repeated the same thing (I bought steem with my hard earned money, I do not like to see someone's assets get frozen, I agree with what proxy.token suggested) but didn't have a chance to say something about his future plans, as some users from 22.2 community were too emotional and overly aggressive.

Thoughts 9: Calling the other party "liar" after each dialogue didn't help the conversation get going. Maybe we should get one representative from each side and let them debate how they will improve STEEM.


Almost there. It went a lot longer than I had thought.

So ... My final thoughts:

  1. It seems that it would be quite difficult to reach an agreement. Both sides (22.2 community and Justin) got emotional and cannot trust each other at this point.

  2. Justin cannot dump STEEM and take profit: even if he could power down all of his steem power, there's no way that he could sell them without destroying STEEM price and sell STEEM at a very low price since he got too many.

  3. I do not see clear path for the future - so what if Justin leaves or forfeits? STEEM was slowly dying before Justin, and I expected this STEEM INC deal would be a positive catalyst - but it seems that this is not going well, and I don't know what or how we may change the situation. I will wait for the STEEM foundation to present its roadmap.

  4. For now, I am leaning towards 22.2 community after reading @Justinsunsteemit witness voting policy - Justin, you don't use "fuck" multiple times if you want serious answers. While some of 22.2 community also lack manners, I believe that I can find people who are ready to work out a solution in a civil way.

  5. I am now worried about potential repercussion: obviously I was not an ardent supporter of the 22.2, and I belong to a minority group (Korean). Isn't it possible that some people from 22.2 community attack me (downvoting, etc) or even freeze my account?


I would like to thank @proxy.token, @aggroed, @kopasi, @jayplayco, @stoodkev, @thecryptodrive, @dakeshi, @roelandp, @therealwolf, @dalz, @themarkymark, @steempress, and SCT community members for joining the SCT discord conversation, providing information, and sharing your opinions.

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It was shocking that witnesses (and select few - according to the screenshot below, total 65) made the decision and executed with without any public discussion, and still claims that "this statement has been co-authored by the Steem community..."

I think that the witnesses involved at least represent many more than the 65, as they are voted upon by the community.

The SCT community is very small (300 posters?), but I think it is the third highest by payout due to the amount of stake held in that small group. Yes, stake is your voice and the proxy token is using the stake available. However, that 65 witnesses and select few also are generally highly staked users also and have been involved with the Steem community for a very long time - which is why they have the community support of many thousands of votes.

This is a complex issue of course, but I think that Steem has to be decentralized at the governance level, and Tron do not seem to actually want that, they want either their puppet witnesses or - puppet witnesses that they will use the Steemit Inc stake to control. Either way, it is a risk.

I really hope that at least some good can come of this, but I fear that it is going to come down to a small group of people trying to make as much money as they can, at the future cost to many thousands of users.

Anyway, at least people are actually talking and getting interested in what is important on Steem, rather than focusing on the rewards like normal.

I think you raised valid points. Thank you for sharing your opinion and providing relative information.

and cannot agree more on the last part - now we are really talking about how to improve steem, instead of how to divide limited/fixed reward pool.

and cannot agree more on the last part - now we are really talking about how to improve steem, instead of how to divide limited/fixed reward pool.

It has been a long time coming, but I think we as a community are actually seeing that there is a lot more value in this place than what comes out of the Steem reward pool. I am looking forward to SMTs - they were so close... :D

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we could argue about that stake, and maybe he did not know what Ned and steemit were saying for 4 years, but if there was a reason for soft fork i would say it is Tron foundation public posts about steem swapping for tron smart token and steem blockchain migrating to tron blockchain. that looks like imminent threat to the blockchain. this was their weekly report just few hours before the Soft fork
tron staitment.jpg

I know downvotes were abused sometimes, and i really don't know what was downvoted in your community (not because i don't like you, it is just because i don't understand) but i would like to know how you look at for example i post a blurry mobile phone photo and write "this is great" and get 100 steem for that, you see that as milking the system or is it ok to you?

you probably heard by now that 3 days powerdown would not work on steem because how RC, Steem Power, reward sistem works, and as we seen it would give exchanges an easy way to manipulate witnesses. Power up, do a Hard Fork, Power down and play stupid because they would have its stake in 3 days.

"And suddenly SCT discord channel and the previous posting got popular." justin also did not contact or answered anyones call until his stake was Soft forked :D

Isn't it possible that some people from 22.2 community attack me (downvoting, etc) or even freeze my account?

i really don't think so, as i see no one downvoted this post, also you need 17 people to be ok with freezing someone's account, and i am sure it would never happen. there were some "epic" whale wars, with a lot of downvoting, spam, hate words and no one even suggested it.
Also you know that witnesses can run in the code whatever they want if 17 of them agree on it. that is why is kinda important to vote on people you trust, especially if you have a chunk of steem. And from what i know, this 20 that were in top 20 are not all really getting along in normal situations (i could be wrong, it's not some inside info, just what i gathered)

Thank you for your input.

Justin made many confusing and sometimes conflictng comments, which shows that he does not know much of steem blockchain. And your blue screenshot is certainly one of them.

I think the part you quoted were not consistently argued from Justin, and I did not put much weight on such comment unless something concrete happens.

And I also think that it is okay to miss technical details - there are engineers for that. For example, it was not only Justin who did not know the detail. Lots of 22.2 community argued that powerdown period cannot be reduced below 7 days due to the reward system, but steemit engineer said that technically it is 5 days due to RC system. I don't think such details matter as long as we can reach an agreement to shorten powerdown period, for example.

And for the last part... of course this post is not likely be downvoted at this time when lots of 22.2 community want support from me and korean community. But I am not sure about what would happen when 22.2 community takes control and freeze Justin's accounts and get full power to do whatever they want. I would not be surprised to see lots of attacks against non 22.2 supporters, when I see such aggressive and sometime hostile/rude attitude already.

As someone that has endured a significant barrage of flags, while I don't recommend it, the fact is that when we stand for something, sometimes we get in the way of others and are abused for it.

I hope you don't get flagged, particularly not as was I, but reckon you'll survive it if you are, as I did. Nothing worth doing is ever easy.

I agree that downvoting has been a vector for abuse and censorship. Solutions to the problem are necessarily limitations on downvotes, rather than complete abolition of flags. I agree the problem will need discussion and rectification - but only if Steem actually survives, which I don't think it will.

In fact, it is presently the wholly owned possession of Tron, and any illusion that stake nominal to elect consensus witnesses without Tron's approval is all that prevents folks from recognizing Tron's exclusive control and possession of Steem.

Thanks!

You're right about forking. It's been done before, and will be done again. Why not right now?

I like the proposals for witness changes, but not regarding downvotes. 'Major' witnesses is not well defined for me. Also, having the witnesses authorize every downvote isn't gonna work. I agree that something needed to be done about flags. Not sure it still does, but that's something I'll be happy to consider more going forward.

That's an interesting powerdown schedule, and I might like it. Not sure yet though.

Thanks!

i seen at least 4-5 posts by official tron foundation sources in 10 days. we can say that it was a marketing plan, so they had no idea what they bought and that what they were saying was the initial plan, but they could have inform the marketing people and say, we are not doing this stop posting that. that for me looks like a threat to the steem blockchain.

And if something concrete happens it is to late. because more concrete would be a token swap. from the talks that i heard i am 100% sure that if they thought that they have hard fork for 1-3 day powerdown ready they would implement it the first day when they used exchanges to take over steem. and i think that was the plan but they did not plan that steemit inc developers would quit and left them with no devs to code it that quick.

a lot of the witnesses are not running the code with soft fork.

i can't guarantee you that no one will downvote you but i am 100% sure that there are no 17 people that would agree to lock your coin.

And suddenly SCT discord channel and the previous posting got popular." justin also did not contact or answered anyones call until his stake was Soft forked :D

Perfect point. 👌
Just as this post by @glory7 makes me more hopeful that the Korean community is acting in good faith to bring all parties to the table, that's the same motivation I believe our witnesses had when utilizing the soft fork.

Thanks for going into detail, mate. Some of the rhetoric on both sides has been unnecessarily inflammatory.
I'd like to see us pull together, with or without Justin; roll out SMTs; and run all sorts of experiments with upvotes/downvotes and staking periods.

haven't talked you for a while - glad to see your comment.

I agree with you that this is a nice time to run experiments and test policies recommended by various communities.

I think especially new accounts should have less Influence on Witnesses if they recently powered up big amounts of SP. Also there should be a hardcap that only allows to have a maximum of 10% of influence in the community no matter how much SP one has.

Also there should be a hardcap that only allows to have a maximum of 10% of influence in the community no matter how much SP one has.

I support this. but it is a bit tricky. This will ensure even more decentralization but opens room for a large stakeholder to split stake between accounts to achieve the same thing we're trying to prevent. Would be interesting to give this more thought though.

I recently wrote a post about a formula im developing. Its far from finished and just a rough idea (dont even know if it works that way with Steem), but i think this could be interesting:

https://steempeak.com/steem/@remotehorst23/steem-blockchain-has-a-major-problem-and-maybe-the-solution-is-pretty-easy

i will take a look at it in the morning. Thank you

What about a timed/delayed power up time (2-14 days)? So if something happens like this again, we can reach out to those users (exchanges) before they vote in the sock puppets/take over the chain.

Thanks for your Question!

I think, delayed power uptime would only solve this problem for exchanges, but we need to expect that this can also happen from individuals and also if they split the votepower on many accounts this probably would be under the radar.

Voters either need to be identified or trusted. I would prefer the latter.

Ya, it seems once it gets down into many smaller accounts this would definitely be harder to track unless the voting behavior was identical/unanimous and same times etc.

Thank you for sharing this opinion.

Many people were nervous that the Korean community is confused. Some of them were saying ignorant things. This post demonstrates a clear understanding of the situation as I see it.

I am now worried about potential repercussion: obviously I was not an ardent supporter of the 22.2, and I belong to a minority group (Korean). Isn't it possible that some people from 22.2 community attack me (downvoting, etc) or even freeze my account?

I was excited when I found Steem was bought out but I wish it was anyone besides Justin Sun (you mentioned his rude attitude behaviour), he is infamous for this crude attitude (Actually, the blockchain is like the wild west and Justin is a wild cowboy). I didn't know about 22.2 until after they did it, but I realized after it was done, they needed support. I was very upset the exchanges got involved (that is definitely a legal issue, those exchanges are registered in a country with the law).

I see the issue with the Steemit Steem as whether it is custodial trust (Steemit is the manager) or private property (their decision). I tend to think investing in the blockchain is dangerous because of poor regulation (there is no global authority). Possession is the most important. The reputation of Steem was irreversibly harmed by the actions of the witnesses and then harmed again by Justin.

I am also nervous about the potential of being attacked again and again. However, this threat is the nature of the Steem blockchain. We are all nervous about it moving forward. I will change a lot of my witness votes after this is done.

And 22.2 community led a campaign asking for votes. These was even a case where they were clearly buying votes: CALL TO ACTION! EARN UPVOTES TO VOTE FOR WITNESSES

Actually this really shocked me. Your perspective on this issue is really interesting for me. I thought of it as an event or mission. I never thought to buy witness votes was an issue.

It is ironic, I read the 4 SCT points. The only one I am strongly against is the removal of downvoting. I downvote all the time when posts are flagged for breaking rules such as the purchase of votes or really rude or stealing and lying (Don't worry I do not downvote the Korean community). It's sad I don't realize buying witness votes is a much more serious threat than buying upvotes.

I will forward your opinion on that to my friends in the SFR downvote community and ask them to condemn it as an extremely serious action.

I hope there is a good solution, too.

thank you very much for the reply. I am actually neutral about buying votes, but I found it uncomfortable when someone blames others for vote selling and he himself does it "when necessary".

I agree on the neutrality of buying votes. One should definitely not be compelled to upvote or downvote. Also exchanging a post-vote (inflation reward) for Steem is a financial transaction for the people doing it. It only becomes moral when thinking about the reward pool as some kind of altruistic thing (belief more than ethic).

"When necessary" is really interesting. It is a political propaganda tool. Need or panic can lead to irrational and morally compromising decisions. For example in Korea, there is a serious Corona Virus outbreak. Businesses can choose to remain open because the economy is really important. Churches are asked to close (modern society turns away from God in times of need). Outdoor political protest can get a special fine (yikes!), outdoor community and sports events are cancelled. However, amusement parks are open to visitors.

Compromising and deciding on morals and ethics is part of being in a community. Very few humans are consistant and logical.

곰돌이가 @glory7님의 소중한 댓글에 $0.029을 보팅해서 $0.013을 살려드리고 가요. 곰돌이가 지금까지 총 7552번 $99.991을 보팅해서 $102.102을 구했습니다. @gomdory 곰도뤼~

I don't think the voting for witnesses was buying votes, as they were not told who to vote on specifically, just to vote. Obviously, who they "should" vote on was implied - but not an explicit mandatory condition. Jerry Banfield sold votes for witness votes, so did frystikken i think back in the day.

I see these types of posts as a call to action, in the same way that Dan has done it to get support for exchange listings and blockchain competitions many times earlier.

I don't think the voting for witnesses was buying votes, as they were not told who to vote on specifically, just to vote. Obviously, who they "should" vote on was implied

Phew! I thought I had lost my moral compass (honestly). Thanks for helping me to find it.

You are right on a closer look, this is more like a 'rock the vote' campaign. It does need to be kept in check. And yeah, it was implied.

However I do wonder, would you get an upvote if you voted Tron Sock Puppet 1~20 and screen shoot that (balls of steel :)

In many countries, people are paid to donate blood or given free stuff and volunteer hours. Is this unethical to sell your body elementals? In the case of upvotes for steem that is like a financial exchange and the downvote is only annoying because it reduces the value of the exchange.

EDIT:

MAKE SURE YOU ARE NOT VOTING FOR SOCK PUPPET ACCOUNTS!

yeah strongly implied is mildly putting it.

It was very clear and explicit that the author told who to vote and who not to vote. Either proxy him or vote the list he wrote. Let me quote:

Prove your votes below to earn a nice sized upvote from me!

Either PROXY ME https://beta.steemconnect.com/sign/account-witness-proxy?proxy=theycallmedan&approve=1

Or VOTE HERE: https://steemitwallet.com/~witnesses VOTE FOR 22-42 at a minimum, we need to vote for the same witnesses to maximize our votes! USE ALL 30 OF YOUR VOTES!

MAKE SURE YOU ARE NOT VOTING FOR SOCK PUPPET ACCOUNTS!

VOTE FOR 22-42 at a minimum, we need to vote for the same witnesses to maximize our votes! USE ALL 30 OF YOUR VOTES!

Well... technically it doesn't say who to vote on. it says to maximize the votes, we need to vote for the same, but not who the same were and the 22-42 would have been changing. The proxy is a choice to make. Either way, I think the person would have got votes.

MAKE SURE YOU ARE NOT VOTING FOR SOCK PUPPET ACCOUNTS!

Are they not sockpuppets that threaten the decentralization of the chain, something that nearly every user on the platform disagrees with?

And speaking of the disagreement. If you and others did disagree with this particular call to action and the votes that were handed out, you would have been able to null the votes through downvoting for disagreement of rewards. That is what they are for.

I do not see this is votebuying as it was completely opt-in - it is definitely a call to action though and like I said, @theycallmedan and others have used this many times before to gather support for community benefits. No one complains if it is to get a listing on an exchange, but it is a problem to defend a dPOS chain from centralization?

It seems that you view this in a very different way. If you think that asking for proxy in exchange of vote ( "Prove your votes below to earn a nice sized upvote from me! Either PROXY ME ..." ) is okay ("choice to make"?), well, I guess we don't need to talk about this anymore.

Thank you @glory7 ...

"This is the point of writing this long article in English (which I seldom do)."

... for this, as it is likely the reason I am not familiar with your account. Reading through various posts today on the "war" we find our Steem blockchain in, I found a link to this post.

Glad I did!

I appreciate your "middle of the road" presentation here. Similar to mine, although I am on the other side of the world from you. I have created a link to it, in my post. I hope you will not mind. Who knows, perhaps it will bring you some additional "eyes" to your very sensible and well thought out positions.

Thank you for writing this! For the sake of us all, I hope wiser heads and calmer tones prevail over the coming days, in the attempt to reach a mutually beneficial conclusion to the hostilities.

well decentralization is the key needed for success on the steem blockchain,and i also advice that all the witnesses must come together and unite with each other to keep the steem blockchain growing....@glory7

Posted via Steemleo

At this point, I am not sure whether steem was decentralized before. Almost all top 20 witnesses were determined by freedom and blocktrades' votes, and most of them stayed as top 20 no matter what they have done.

This recent controversy at least allow users like me to figure out who are the witnesses with the ability and power to move forward.

One correction here: @blocktrades has not voted any witnesses for a long time and only voted less than 10 (4 or 5 only if I remember well, but could also have been 7).

Blocktrades voted now on several more witnesses to help take back the top20.

Thanks for clarifying that.

thank you for the clarification.

Please keep supporting decentralize steem blockchain and steemit users building investing from 4 years and think about why you supporting a person who even not respect steem community

Did you even read what we wrote?

곰돌이가 @menerva님의 소중한 댓글에 $0.029을 보팅해서 $0.013을 살려드리고 가요. 곰돌이가 지금까지 총 7544번 $99.722을 보팅해서 $102.035을 구했습니다. @gomdory 곰도뤼~

Does anyone have the original post from Justin's witness voting policy post? Looks like he edited it.

Never mind, I found a link with the original message. If Justin uses all of that stake to vote witnesses, wouldn't this become a security?

I don't think anyone may answer that question. Not sure whether you meant Howey test or something like that, but it was still on debate for most cryptos.

Hi @glory7!

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휴. 수능때 예문 독해한것보다 신중하고 집중해서 보았습니다. 잘봤습니다.

수능이라.. 거의 20년 전인가요...

Glad you are not being too quick to jump on either side of this, I do have some thoughts about your thoughts though.

Thoughts 5: wait, "social contract" is not a legal term (see wikipedia) that can be used for a corporation. And are there any legal documents stating above?

Does it really matter whether or not this was a legally binding statement? Its not like the witnesses are legally required to recognize the ninja-mined funds.

Both of these things are essentially social contracts.

The reason for their freezing was that Ned and steem INC sold differently than they had promised.
So, it is important that the promise is legal.
Other ninja minors don't freeze because they haven't promised.

Why is it inportant that the promise was legal? That's what I am not understanding here. If the promise was legal then the correct action would be taking them to court.

Ned made a social obligation to the steem community to use the ninja mined funds for development reasons. As long as that contract is broken, whether it was legally binding or not, I dont see why the witnesses have any obligation to recognize the ninja mined funds.

Basically there is no legal defence or offence for anything going on here atm. Justin is free to use his steem for what ever reasons he pleases, and the witnesses are free to block his steem for what ever reason they wish. Its all just people deciding whether or not to hold up their own end of the "social contracts".

Thank you for your input.

The term "social contract" is being used in very different meanings, so making a clear definition is important first step.

For example, some 22.2 community asked Justin to sue Ned. To do that, you need legal evidence, not "social contract" - it is basically hearsay at best.

And if it is not legal or official, I found it not very convincing that the new buyer should succeed such "social contract".

Judging from what I have read so far, the "evidence" suggested by 22.2 community seems to be mere roadmap/plan for several years ago or personal statements on the web, which is far from any legally binding evidence. At best, Ned or Dan who made statememts may be responsible.

I don't find the term social contract useful, and don't recall why you began using it. Regardless of it's etymology, what does matter is what these assertions by community members mean in reality to Steem.

During the last 4 years, that stake has been stated to not be applicable to governance, and it has not been. I has been claimed to be earmarked for development, and it has been. Investors plunked down money to buy Steem based on these facts.

If those investors now are harmed because the corporation that made these statements and took these actions has completely renounced those policies, then I reckon they have a cause for action to hold Stinc's owner(s) accountable for that harm.

Certainly those whose funds have been seized by exchanges and used to govern the Steem blockchain have cause to seek remedy at law.

It is notable that the language we use on our posts and comments isn't necessary defined the same in those environments as it is in court. Neither are certain terms useful in certain contexts, like 'social contract' in a court of law.

Whether or not @ned, @justinsunsteemit,@dantheman, or @steemit have made social, or other contracts, via their written statements really isn't something we can settle here. What we can be sure of is that if we don't restore community consensus to Steem we'll lose Steem altogether, and those questions will be settled by those injured parties, or litigated instead, to answer them.

I don't think breaking laws should be the tipping point here. Nobody is threatening to break the law against Justin.

Its just internal politics, nobody here is any more then socially obligated to do anything with their power. Whether thats installing a sockpuppet army, or choosing to ignore somebodies dirty money.

It sucks that Justin is facing the fall out from this, and he should absolutely be taking Ned into court. But still, if the new leader is not going to follow through with the promises of the old, then its just dirty money at this point and I don't see why the community should be obligated to accept it.

Thank you for the rational, succinct and very level headed perspective of what's really going on. I to need to hear what everyone(campaigning for leadership positions) is for rather than what they are against before I decide how to use my votes.

I'm realistic like you and do not expect to get everything I want, but need to see some compromise from all sides. Steemit has many issue's that need fixing and it's time those fixes happen. Not campaign promises either. Cold hard ideas that can happen soon, with a clear plan to institute them.

I hope to see a change in tone as well. Some of the language and attitude is uncalled for and is creating more harm than good to put it nicely.

Thank you for your input. I hope we may use this opportunity to move steem in a better way. Previously it was slowly dying with no changes.

You seem to be trying to stay objective about the situation. It’s understandable to want to hear from both sides.

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Yes, I do. I think this is a rare opportunity to discuss how to make STEEM better.

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현 상황을 잘 정리해 주셨네요. 감사합니다.

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트아님께서 올려주신 제안을 바탕으로 다음 논의를 진행해볼까 합니다.

I appreciate your reason and careful consideration of these matters. Something that I have long noted is the ability of the founder's stake to assume instant governance of Steem at the sole option of it's hodler. Steem has only ever been as decentralized as the holder of that stake has allowed, and when Tron acquired it, that decentralization was undeniably threatened.

Frankly, I'm quite surprised @ned didn't do this long ago.

Many do not understand that all Steem was mined into existence, and all subsequent rewards have just been inflation on that original stake. There isn't really any stake that isn't ninjamined at it's outset, so ppl crying now about that genesis of Steem are wasting their time and our attention. The issue is that Stinc and it's founders repeatedly stated that stake would not be used for governance, which it never has been until it was sold, and was earmarked for supporting development, for which it has been used historically (whether you think it was used well for that or not).

Now Sun says he just wants to sell it and profit.

He has used it to completely centralize governance of the blockchain - colluding with exchanges, potentially criminally (IANAL).

I was happy originally to see Sun and Tron in the position of our potential booster, but now I strongly oppose Sun's actions, because he has much degraded the security of the blockchain, and essentially ended the competent development of Steem by causing Stinc's employees to resign.

His statements have inspired no confidence he has any reasonable plans to improve Steem or it's community, and have on the contrary more than once conveyed plans to pretty much destroy it. I'd really like to see him off our governance mechanism and reduced to merely a stakeholder, but the nature of his stake makes that impossible without restricting it's applicability to governance mechanisms.

Regarding the reduction of powerdown to less than payout time, elimination of downvotes, and other issues, I submit that those are far secondary to the essential decentralization of Steem, and that the proposals I've seen will actually break Steem, preventing spam prevention, bot discouragement, and more, as well as deranging payouts, and making all users far more vulnerable to hackers. I have had my account hacked, lost a significant amount of Steem (for me) that was liquid, and only managed to keep what was powered up because of the extended powerdown time that prevented the hacker from taking it.

While I am open to discussing any and all aspects of Steem, it's governance, and features like downvotes and more, I don't see any point in wrangling over such details while the corpse of Steem is cooking over a fire. If Sun retains control of governance, I don't care about powerdown times, downvotes, or hackers.

Accordingly, I hope you decide to defend the Steem blockchain with your witness votes instead of contributing to it's present demise by surrendering governance to one individual with no higher calling than the profit motive that I can see. When you do, I'll care about the lesser matters aforementioned. Until then, I don't see any purpose in any discussions regarding Steem at all.

If it's kill, I'll let it die. Your witness votes are adding weight to the injuries killing it, which I recommend you change. If you do, and the community manages to bring it back to life as a decentralized blockchain, then Steem governance and other issues are relevant again.

For now, I'm posting because it's still here. I don't have any confidence it will be tomorrow. Insofar as you may act to keep Steem up and working, I ask you do.

Thanks!

Thank you very much for your long reply. I think what you wrote summarizes opinion of the 22.2 community in a civil, coherent way.

I agree with some, I disagree with some, and I am neutral to some, like in most cases. I would like to think more and discuss further before making the next move.

In the meanwhile, hope you enjoy - Steem on.

I would like to point out that my initial response to the Soft Fork executed by the witnesses, 22.2, was to state they should revert to 22.1 and, I quote, 'give the man his money back.'

Thanks!

Now Sun says he just wants to sell it and profit.

With all the plans they thought they'd achieve for steem as written on their post? Not likely he'd want to dump. He's not that stupid. But of course, as an investor, and like steemit inc had done many times in the past, he'd sell off some to take profit. This is based on his understanding that he bought a company for the sake of developing it for profit in the long run. Steem price prospering means the whole chain prospering. Justin didn't spend $50M to give his steem away. No one would agree to that.

He has used it to completely centralize governance of the blockchain - colluding with exchanges, potentially criminally (IANAL).

Because our witnesses froze his stake.
We really should stop using this as a premise for justifying whatever is going on here now. We froze a businessman's stake out of impulse, without a conversation and we pushed him to react. Whatever he did, we made it happen.

Well, we are entitled to have different views on this subject, and i respect that we could voice our opinions without any hostility. After reading this post, I fully support @glory7's views and decision in this matter.
Steem on, man.

"Not likely he'd want to dump."

Regardless of our thoughts on that, I personally heard him make that statement in a recording of his conversation with the witnesses. It doesn't matter what I think about it. It's his statement, and I acknowledge the fact that he has sole agency over his investment decisions, over which I have no influence whatsoever.

It doesn't matter why he exercises sole control over Steem. It's just a fact he does. Steem is his personal possession in fact at present, and that's the reality that will continue to exist until and unless he and the exchanges execute code that prevents them from exercising governance. Further, code needs to be executed that prevents such hodlings from executing governance, which I find extremely unlikely anytime soon.

Any ability of @proxy.token or other community members to broker that possession potential to Tron is just as illusory as the decentralization of Steem has always been. The fact is that Tron has nominal stake to completely exercise sole governance of the blockchain presently.

The fact is that Steem is not now decentralized, and has only ever been allowed to appear decentralized by those with the stake to completely control it. It may have been an unsuccessful attempt to deploy DPoS to create a decentralized platform.

We can attempt to make a new platform that might succeed, or to attempt to make Steem successful, but presently it is not successful, and it's value is now only derived from the confidence the market has in it's owner.

Personally, I await the fork. I believe Steem is done.

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To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:

Use your witness votes and get the Community Badge
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!

And 22.2 community led a campaign asking for votes. These was even a case where they were clearly buying votes:
CALL TO ACTION! EARN UPVOTES TO VOTE FOR WITNESSES
Thoughts 7: If I remember correctly, buying votes was blamed/condemned so far. Maybe from now on, selling/buying witness votes would be okay. It seems like a bad precedent.

Haha you are right, i think thats really funny 😂😂

I now an User/social association which was flagged by ocd, for bid bot votes (he didn't even buy them himself). He leaved steem only because of this.

Now this hypocrites are doing the same shit (again and again).

Informative article, thanks for your work.

Thank you for your input, and glad to hear that this article was informative.

I also have some friends who left after ocd downvoting... sad.

Thanks for sharing your point of view. I want to listen to the Korean community. But I don't think the first two @proxy.token requests are good for the future of Steem.

What many Steemians from East and West seem to forget when they propose improvements is that it's a miracle that Steem works at all. Rewarding users for posting would degenerate into an orgy of spam, plagiarism and bribery, unless there are strict countermeasures in place. I've been downvoted by a witness for using a tag, I was shocked, but we worked out a compromise and I support him now. Maybe there could be a more organized way to appeal downvotes. But downvotes are essential to discourage abuse.

Why would we give voting power to people who could cash out within a week or a month? The 13-week lockup period should have prevented a financial attack from exchanges, but we were wrong to expect them to be rational. I might have considered supporting a change to 4 weeks if it wasn't going to help parties who supported a hostile takeover.

Thank you for your input. I think it is difficult to find agreements on how downvoting and steem powerdown should work, but I hope we can find a way to compromise.

Congratulations @glory7!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:

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I was waiting for a post like this, thanks for the information and well written post! Resteemed. I hope all the guys up there will one day understand the value of content creators and respect people more than their benefits. They never heard us. They never listened to us, but now they ask for our votes! I wont say anything about any side until everything becomes clear. But I really liked what you wrote, wisely! But one thing I also would mention is: what exactly developers of Steemit were doing from 2017 to 2020 which we have never seen any new features in steemit.com , they could work on something to add some features to this website, but when everything was the same from first year till now, but maybe some minor changes which was not a big surprise compare to Steempeack which has more features.

Thank you for the reply and resteem. I have felt the same, in particular:

They never heard us. They never listened to us, but now they ask for our votes!
what exactly developers of Steemit were doing from 2017 to 2020 which we have never seen any new features in steemit.com

Thank you for writing, @glory7. You have indeed given this a lot of thought and i think we need more of this positive and solution-seeking attitude to get from where we are now.

This chain has always been hostile to new members and I have lost a lot of friends I invited over because someone flagged their account for something they were totally ignorant about, just like how they froze Justin's stake without trying to explain in details what that stake was meant for.

The fact that a small group of witnesses could in effect freeze another stakeholder's accounts without dialogue, and then decide to turn the entire community against him in a bid to justify their action is very sad. We cannot preach decentralization when the top witnesses can act in a completely centralized manner without any opinion from the entire community.

Sadly, the protests against such an action are in the minority because of the influence these witnesses command.

The fact that we run a decentralized chain where contracts and deeds can be sealed through code, but we choose instead to act in bad faith by taking ned's word for it, and then bullying and punishing an investor for our mistake says a lot about what we do here. This seems to me like a move to protect the selfish interests of the witnesses than to protect the chain.

Steemit inc. under Justin would have likely brought positive contributions to marketing this chain, beyond what ned was able to achieve. But I guess we will never get to find out if this drags on any longer than it already is.

The way it seems now, both sides would have to meet at the middle to negotiate terms. One side cannot win it all here. They would have to accept a admit a few defeat to achieve a greater win-win.

As always, it's good to read from you. Resteemed.
From: @pangoli

We should try to find win-win situation - I and lots of people are trying to find a way but so far it's not been very successful.

Looks really hard to achieve it from what I see. But not impossible.
While Tron team so far have been willing to back down if the witnesses let the exchanges go, some of our witnesses have not displayed any sign that they are eager to negotiate with them.

Keep up the good work, Glory. Thank you for being understanding.

image.png

Set you as my proxy on the @pangoli account. I do not have all the time and resource to follow this, but from what I've known about you now, I believe you'd make good decisions.

Thank you very much! I feel honored.

In case I feel like I am not going to be a worth proxy, I will let you know.

Alright, thank you

Thanks a lot for explaining your perspective.

And 22.2 community led a campaign asking for votes. These was even a case where they were clearly buying votes: CALL TO ACTION! EARN UPVOTES TO VOTE FOR WITNESSES

@theycallmedan was just trying to get people off their butts to vote on community witnesses. He is not a witness himself. A bit rash an action, admittedly, because of the long-term implications of this. I've never seen a witness offer money for votes, though.

I am now worried about potential repercussion: obviously I was not an ardent supporter of the 22.2, and I belong to a minority group (Korean). Isn't it possible that some people from 22.2 community attack me (downvoting, etc) or even freeze my account?

I don't think so.

Btw, do you know any Korean baduk players in the community?

Baduk(Go)? I do not know any, but I haven't asked - so my guess is that there are some and I don't know yet.

For example, I used to be a baduk player too.

Oh, I've played the game for 28 years. There is a club in our city that meets regularly. Did you play in tournaments?

oh wow. you must be really good. I played competitively when I was young- like 7 - and I was asked to be a pupil of a pro player and I stopped playing baduk after that (except playing with friends sometimes) as I didn't want to be a pro player.

going back to your question, I do not play in tournaments. which city do you live in?

Lahti, Finland (pop. ca. 120,000). Our club is quite small. 2-4 regulars.

Hi @glory7,

I agree with you and as you pointed out, a lock so neither can create another fork is what I think is best atm as well. Justin Sun stake should of never been forked. There's no legal proof shown to date that suggest his stake isn't his to do with as he pleases. The witnesses fired the first shot and Justin Sun responded.

The man spent millions and has multiple resources at hand that STEEM(it) could of benefited from. The witnesses waited a handful of days after the AMA and then forked JS stake, that's not a long time to wait for a person who just invested millions into the STEEM coin.

Issues: Steemit potentially moving to TRON.
So what, Just Sun bought it and he can do what he wants with it. Steemit isn't STEEM.

Issue: Just Sun potential token Swap.
So what, anyone can offer a token swap. Its up to the community to accept or decline... Some will and some won't.

Issue: Ninja Mined Stake
Its been in ecosystem since the start. If the witnesses wanted to fork it, they should of done it long ago. To fork only the ninja mined stake from one specific person who just spent millions on it is a shitty thing to do.

Issue: Exchanges get envolved, this is obviously not good for a multitude of reasons and should not of been done under any circumstances.

Conclusion: I think this all could of been avoiding and the soft fork of JS ninja mined stake was premature. I have my fingers crossed the situation works out for the best, for everyone envolved.

Thank you for the reply. Yes, I do hope that we can somehow work this out and focus on improving steem, but things are not going smooth for now.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I read some of the comments and I don't feel I need/have something to add to what has been said, but I appreciated your post which tried to look at the 'stalemate' objectively, and wanted to say that :-)


My wish is that we find ways to never exclude people from discussions, and especially with the Korean community we would have to find a way. One thing that would be great is one or two people who speak both Korean and English perfectly that would be the 'gateway' to the Korean community and be invited in discussions, even if they are held in private. I've always been promoting the topic of languages/translations on Steem, working for davinci and Travis from the Korean community when the Steem Foundation was a 'big topic' on Steem. Still, it remains a point of attention we need to work on :-)

DM me if you ever want to chat about it, I have a Discord where I and Travis 'collected' some translators from different languages :D It's not active now but who knows if we can revive or even grow it.

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