Steemit's Got Issues!
Whales Cannot Decide Everything
Take 1

This will be the start of a series designed to open up discussion about common Steemit issues. I would like this discussion to include minnows as well as whales. Thus the title of our first discussion.

There are many issues to discuss...

I will warn you that if you are offended by cursing you will have to just get over it or find another post. Personally, I will curse if I feel strongly about something as I feel it conveys the weight of the issue. There are issues that others will feel strongly about as well and I've no issue with you cursing to convey a point. On that note, I strongly advise that this is a discussion, and is not intended as a place to pick fights or throw insults at those with differing opinions than your own. Users fighting senselessly on these posts will be flagged.

There are no clear rules on this site. There is a site ediquette that is left entirely up to us to either follow or not. That being said, there are many here on the site that try to enforce this etiquette even though they are not clear rules and are not in any way mandatory to follow.

My intention with this is to get the community (as many of us as possible) to actually voice their opinions about many of the issues that the site faces.

First, let me describe how I will be organizing this series.

Post Titles

1. The first part of each title will be "Steemit's Got Issues! Community Discussion".
2. The second part of the title will be what issue we are discussing in this post. For instance, today's topic is "Whales Cannot Decide Everything".
3. The third part of the title will show how far into that topic we have gotten. Meaning that most of these topics will require many more than one post to get to any type of resolution or potential consensus. So, As one post gets old I will re open that topic, with notes from the previous post on that topic in a fresh, new post. These notes will be similar to that of previous meeting minutes to get us started from a new place each time so we do not just keep saying the same things over and over. This will also help the issues not just get lost in feed forever.

Keeping the topics fresh, organized and preventing them from being lost in feed.

Most of these topics have been discussed and those discussions have been lost in feed and unless you specifically look for them you will not find them. In order to look for them you first have to know about the issue anyway, so that leaves many newbies and minnows out of the discussions from day one. Meaning that very few people were even able to add their two cents or see what was even being discussed. I will do my best to be sure that all sizes of fish in our community can find these posts and this is how:

1. As a post gets old (as mentioned above) I will be starting a new post with the highlights from the old one as a starting point for further discussion of the same topic.
2. By separating topics in different posts we can keep things topic specific and on track. Making each unique topic's discussion much more focused.
3. I will be using bots (future topic lol) to boost these posts as much as I can afford to in the beginning so that they will show up in hot and trending at least for their categories. This will make them as visible as i can make them so we can get as many fish to join, or at least read, these discussions.
4. I will ask all of you to please resteem any of these posts that touch on topics that you find important.
5. I will ask that everyone that wishes to be part of these discussions vote with what you can spare to make these posts more visible to the masses that make up our community.
6. I will provide links to previous posts on topic inside each new post for that topic.

Talk is cheap, this is how I intend to use the conclusions we, as a community, get to.

Ok, since there are no clear rules to govern most of these topics, what it has created is a lot of fighting back and forth about how to handle them. What I propose is that we, as a community, start coming together and create rules that can be agreed upon by the vast majority of users from minnow to whale. This can prevent the fighting and self dictated censorship that is happening on this site from some that have the power to do so and believe that their way is right, whether it is or not. We see many things here that seem to enforce "rules" that are really just self entitled policing. As a new user you are made to feel like that is something real when it was actually never decided on by the community. Rather a single person or small group has actually taken it upon themselves to dictate what is considered abuse and all other forms of policing you see here on steemit. My intention is to open these discussions to the many instead of allowing the few to dictate without our say.

1. If we, as a community happen to come to some type of agreement or consensus on a topic, my thought is to raise that topic to the proper channel. So if it is site functionality related I may bring what we have discussed up to @ned and his team personally. I'm sure his team is hit with so much that is single voice after single voice. After a certain point I think anyone would want to just start ignoring much of that. If we were able to appeal to them from a unified voice I believe it would speak louder and have much better chance of getting worthwhile response.
2. If the consensus is on a topic outside of the realm of what @ned and his team do, we could then decide together how to implement a strategy to see it through. Again, I don't want to dictate or be dictated to. It is imperative that our world community decide topics so that if they happen to be enforced there is something irrefutable behind that enforcement.
3. If we find that things that are being enforced currently are really not in line with how the community feels we can band together to be sure that is changed to something more fitting. No one can argue with a couple hundred thousand voices. :)

Ok, i'm sure I've left plenty out but that is of course the nature of discussion.
Onto the topic for today,
Whales Cannot Decide Everything

First, let me say that how to handle said consensuses we come up with can also be it's own topic and will likely need to be. Feel free to leave comments about that for further discussion on this post.

Ok, so most of what is considered etiquette here, that is also being enforced as rules, was decided upon by whales without the bulk of the community involved in the decision.

Now, while sp does determine voting power, it should in no way give a user (or small group of users) the right to dictate rules to us that have never actually been set as rules in the first place. That is just hierarchy rearing it's ugly head.

There are many things that of course need to be decided for our community to flourish, however they need to be decided from the ground up so that it is actually fair to all here.

No matter how much sp you have, you have a voice. That individual voice should be part of what is being decided on this platform.

The purpose of the topic today and this series in general is to give us all that voice and be sure it is heard.

I'm not diving into this one very deeply because it is pretty self explanatory.

If we do not decide how steemit is governed, on our own as a community, then we will be putting that power into the hands of the few. Currently that is the whales that have these discussions without us. Honestly, I feel that most of them are stand up people and would appreciate the input from the community as a whole anyway.

So, with all of that said...

Let's Get This Discussion Started!

Please leave your thoughts below.

Also, to avoid clutter and make it easier for us to get somewhere with this, if your opinion is directly in line with one that has already been stated in a comment below please simply upvote that persons comment rather than making a comment saying the same thing. This will make it so much easier to see how many of us think what about what.

Please use your best judgement in commenting as I intend for these discussions to be meaningful and be used to create much needed change throughout the platform.

I have a large list of issues to discuss already but if you feel the need to leave one in comment for future discussion please do.

Thank you, each and every one of you, for taking part in this discussion. I truly believe that you are all the beginning of a beautiful and inspiring change that is bound to sweep the platform and alter it for the better. :)
@michaeldavid