Steem Debates

Thanks @pennsif for hosting such a great discussion. I like to exchange thoughts and ideas regarding the development of the Steem blockchain. That's why I once created the community Suggestions Club, where everyone can express their opinions.

So, in this post I'd like to share my thoughts on the issues raised by @pennsif, one of the few witnesses who keeps in constant contact with the community.

The Club system

Regarding the initiatives of the Steemit team, I encounter a lot of criticism and complaints. Like, the team imposes an overwhelming burden on the authors. It's a little strange to read this, because the Steemit team owns certain resources and only they can decide how to dispose of them. They set the rules by which someone is more likely to get their support. If someone doesn't like these rules, no one has to follow them. Steem is still a free environment where everyone can do what they like.

Any decision, initiative or idea has its own shortcomings or negative aspects. Despite this, I consider the introduction of the club system to be a brilliant decision, which allowed to grow dozens of accounts that can now support other authors at least a little. I am not of the "old" generation and joined after the great split, but I still have something to compare with. In the first months of my stay here, there were few active communities. I got the first active interaction in the WORLD OF XPILAR community, and I stayed there. Then I noticed that more than 90% of the votes I receive are not even worth 1 cent. I began to wonder why and realized that there are very few accounts that have at least 1000 SP. Obviously, the situation is completely different now.

Recently, in one of his posts, @remlaps noted that, judging by the blockchain data, he does not see the influence of the club system on the amount of pending power downs. I think he is right, and what I wrote above is also true. The fact is that the total number of SP accounts of bloggers is insignificant compared to the total SP of all other accounts. In my opinion, the club system is not designed to increase the price of STEEM, but to help build a community.

So what are the disadvantages of the club system?

• Additional burden for authors. Authors cannot withdraw all of their liquid rewards, which reduces their earnings. However, it should be noted that no one takes the earned rewards from the author, and if necessary, everyone can withdraw all their money through Power Down. And thanks to the high value of SBD, authors receive more rewards compared to competing blockchains, even participating in the club system.
• Limiting the possibility of using the wallet. STEEM is an exceptional cryptocurrency because it does not require any fees for transfers. Potentially, this token could become a great means of payment. However, most authors are wary of making any unnecessary STEEM transfers as it may affect their club status. I felt this especially acutely when I tried to conduct a lottery with the help of the @wox-helpfund account. Almost no one bought tickets, citing the above reason.
• The club system can be easily cheated. There are authors who stay in the club100 for a certain time, thereby attracting curators, and then withdraw all the money. Subsequently, such actions are repeated.

Advantages of the club system.

• Mass development of author accounts. There are more and more accounts whose votes are worth something, curation community accounts are developing. Interaction becomes more interesting, the community develops.
• A certain, probably quite insignificant, reduction in the selling pressure of the STEEM token.

Speaking for myself, I probably would never have had an account with 55,000 SP if it wasn't for the club system. Now I consider myself a tiny curator and can support the posts I like by giving at least 35 cents. Therefore, in my opinion, the club system should be preserved.

Is it possible to improve it? I have no brilliant suggestions here. Maybe you don't need to be tied to certain numbers 50, 75, 100. I think the author should be supported according to the quality of his content. And if he also does a Power Up, then this should be an additional factor that can add a few percent to the voting power.

Burnsteem25

A very controversial initiative. It is called to reduce the selling pressure of the STEEM token.

Disadvantages:

• Reduction in the number of authors' rewards.
• As in real life, additional taxes are always paid by the poorest sections of the population.

Advantages:

• Either way, the burned tokens will not be sold, so there will be no pressure on the price of STEEM.
• Voluntary initiative. To burn or not to burn is up to you.

This initiative is voluntary, so if you do not like it, you can simply not participate in it. In principle, this eliminates its shortcomings.

Overall, I think Burnsteem25 is underpowered due to the limited number of participants. Those with really large amounts of STEEM passing through their hands will never burn anything. I think that Burnsteem25 can be replaced or supplemented by some other initiative. I even had an idea, I wrote a whole presentation about it and sent @moecki a proposal to implement it (sorry @moecki 😁). Then I realized that it would probably take him a lifetime to realize my idea, and it is not known whether it would work 🤨.

In short, it is worth discussing separately the ideas for supplementing or replacing Burnsteem25.

Engagement Challenges

Engagement Challenges are simply contests. They are not bad or good in themselves. The platform needs something as big as Engagement Challenges, but…

The prospect of being upvoted by SC01/02 is driving more and more people to participate in Engagement Challenges. They need to write essays on a certain topic according to a pre-made plan. In my opinion, the value and interest of such posts is significantly inferior to an ordinary post written by a blogger from the heart, about events or phenomena that concern him at this very moment, about certain experiences, about some of his personal impressions.

On days when I'm curating, I look for posts like this first, but I only come across titles that start with SEC-S18-W1... It would be nice if there was at least a week long break between seasons. I would like to see how this affects the content that the authors will create. Will it get better or worse?

Newcomers Achievements

As @the-gorilla recently showed, there are more and more ways to create convincing but fake Achievements 1. This is a big problem. Greeters do a lot of hard work, but too often it's impossible to confirm that a person is real.

One of the benefits of blockchain is the right to anonymity. Also, it is not forbidden to create many accounts here. So why do we want people to verify their identity? It's all about justice. We don't want to support scammers.

Fraudsters are looking for easy money, so they will always look for ways to steal content or generate it with AI. Therefore, in my opinion, cheaters should be searched for in other ways, and Achievement 1 should be left as a voluntary alternative. In principle, it is, only some communities require the mandatory presence of a verified Achievement 1.

Community Curators

I think this is another great initiative. If I wasn't a curator, I would never have gotten to know the platform so deeply, I would have always stayed within my narrow circle of friends. Curation encourages me to read, read a lot. I discover more and more good authors.

Can this initiative be improved? The only thing I didn't like was the tied hands. There were many rules. Sometimes I found interesting posts, but I couldn't support them because the authors were not in the clubs. That is, I could make an exception, it is allowed, but I tried not to abuse these exceptions.

Starting from June, all rules have been canceled. Any posts that are not plagiarized or AI generated can be voted on. I think this is the best approach. At the same time, authors who support the club system and burning should be additionally rewarded by voting for them with a higher percentage of power.

Steem Reps

I am a Steem representative. Without further ado, I'll say that I'm trying to do something useful for Steem, but it's not enough. Steem needs:

• developers
• investors
• promoters
• strong and active community.

Since I can't be a developer, and now I can't be an investor (and probably never will be), I decided to focus on what I can do. I actively interact with the community and promote Steem.

Speaking of the Steem Representatives initiative in general, I think we lack leadership. Something that @pennsif is trying to do. We should outline the most priority areas of activity, divide among ourselves who wants to do what, and do it systematically. But this is theoretical. I have no idea how to put it into practice.

Anything else?

Yes. All the initiatives discussed above do not solve the main needs of the blockchain - attracting developers and investors. As a community, we need to do it ourselves.

Cryptocurrency projects tend to attract investment and developers at the dawn of their existence. This is followed by attenuation, so to speak. At this stage, it is difficult to attract new interested people.

If we talk about developers, then it is worth acting like DIP. It is necessary to determine what is a priority for the blockchain right now, what can bring the most benefit. Then allocate a budget for its implementation. Receive applications from those willing to do it. Pay after the job is done.

But who will do it? I think the Steemit team would prefer to stay away, but we don't have any more interested big players right now.

To attract investors, you need to get the word out about Steem. Currently, it is impossible to find new relevant information about Steem on the Internet. Perhaps we need to write a press release in which to show investors the advantages of investing in Steem, collect a budget and order paid placement of the press release on relevant sites.

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I should wrap it up because the post is already too long to read, even though I only gave my thoughts briefly 😀. I look forward to your posts with thoughts on this topic.