We had an interesting conversation during @sircork's Steemitizens of Steemit show yesterday about inactive Witnesses. When I first started on the platform, I tried to learn everything I could about its structure and rules, both written and unwritten. I came across this post from @jerrybanfield about the importance of Witness voting, specifically how and why to set a proxy. The statistics are dismal:
"... current participation in witness voting is very low with only about 15,000 accounts out of over 387,000 making even one vote equal to about 3.6% participation."
"Out of the few hundred accounts with over $50,000 in Steem Power, only about 22% are making any votes for witness ..."
"Out of the top 25 accounts worth at least $700,000, most including the founder and CEO of Steemit Inc @ned, are not making any votes for witness while only @roadscape, @freedom via @pumpkin proxy and @thejohalfiles are actually using all 30 votes."
"The majority of active witness voters are not using all 30 witness voting spots meaning that if participation by amount of votes is multiplied by amount of users voting, our total witness voting participation by amount of votes and users voting is near 0% when not accounting for Steem Power. When we consider Steem Power, no witness has more than 18% approval today which most of that being from a few large votes."
Note that the post was written six months ago, the number of accounts on Steemit has more than doubled since then, and both Witness standing and participation have since changed.
Later in the day, I was buried under a million things to do - pretty typical, as many of you know - but saw a post by @enginewitty titled Frustrating Witness Update, which addressed some of this issue.
The current blocks being hashed are around 20,829,000, which will be a higher number by the time I finish writing this and even higher by the time you read it.
You can see the entire list of Witnesses here. Of the 400 listed Witnesses, only 121 are shown as active. Many Witnesses have been upgrading the RAM on their servers recently, but let's say for the sake of nice round numbers that 29 of those shown as inactive are just offline upgrading - that still means that only 37.5% of the Witnesses listed are active! So when I hear someone complain about Steemit being slow, and I see that they aren't voting for Witnesses ... well that's just fucking stupid. They not only want a Lambo, they want someone else to buy it for them.
Thanks to @drakos for this invaluable tool.
"Decentralization" is just a useless buzz-word without participation. Otherwise you end up with the wealthy who care throwing their weight around and the poor who care throwing their hands up in desperation. It becomes an oligarchy at best and fascism at worst. I don't begrudge those who joined early and/or are heavily invested in the platform, but I cannot stress enough how important it is to vote for good Witnesses who care about actively contributing to the platform, and ideally who are approachable with questions and concerns.
For instance, I like @gmuxx but saw his status as inactive the other day. I sent him a DM on Discord because I wanted to cast a vote for him, and he said he's no longer serving as a Witness. It was more important to me that he was willing to discuss it with me, and even better that he responded right away. I know the Witnesses are busy, so I wasn't expecting that. But that's precisely why he will get my vote if and when he decides to do it again. I also appreciate some of the top Witnesses' contributions, but the total vests (vote weight) of their voters makes their positions at the top secure, and I will re-evaluate my votes if that changes.
I don't recommend setting a proxy, because apparently some are voting for inactive Witnesses deliberately just to prevent others from moving up the list. To those users: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??? That's straight-up market manipulation, and you're not just hurting the minnows and dolphins actually trying to churn out good content that gets seen (ya, don't get me started on the shit-show that is "Trending"), you're hurting the long-term value of the platform as a whole.
If I have to pander to your short-sighted greed, that's your money they're fucking with! I spend an hour or so every single day making sure my Witness votes aren't wasted. Some of you should at least fuck off that stupid fucking meme you're making and spend that time on something productive. If you have to set a proxy, I can recommend a very short list of users who I know aren't playing games just to prevent any threat to their market dominance.
If you ever expect to see Steemit out of Beta, and more generally see the platform grow (and therefore see your Wallet grow, because we are all still pretty much on the ground floor), you will do your due diligence to make that happen. I have a couple of suggestions for a future hard-fork, and admittedly I know (and care to know) very little about Steemit's
Set an expiration time for Witness votes. I'm sure smarter people than I can figure out a practical duration, but this would eliminate inactive accounts' votes still counting and would increase the incentive for active users to both make sure their votes count and make sure new users we onboard understand the importance of Witness voting. One month? Three? Whatever. I don't see any downside to this and potentially a huge upside.
Make each Witness vote carry equal weight. You want to upvote your own comment on some shit meme for $500? Fine. You're a bloody shit-stain, but that's your prerogative. You want to throw 25 Megavests at an inactive witness just to prevent someone else from moving up? Ya, you're rigging the game because the system is structured to let you do so. If you sort the list by number of votes, the top 50 shifts around a bit but 11 of those are inactive. That's on us, folks. This seems like a reasonable solution.
I care about this platform, many of its users and communities, and the good we do in the world using it. I want to see it grow and attract more unique and valuable contributors. Please be a part of the solution.
I will leave you with one of my favorite parables, which you may have heard before:
A scorpion is walking along the bank of a river, seeking to cross, and happens upon a frog. The scorpion asks the frog for a ride across the river. "How do I know you won't sting me?" asks the frog. "If I sting you, we'll both drown," says the scorpion. Satisfied, the frog begins to cross the river with the scorpion on its back. But halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog. With its dying breath, the frog gasps, "Why?" Replies the scorpion, "I couldn't help it. It's my nature."
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