Is The Voting System For Steem Witnesses Unbalanced & Unfairly Skewed/Biased? Simple Improvements Might Make a Big Difference Here.
I had a great conversation today with a few witnesses on Discord - thanks to those who participated, including @arcange, @sircork, @drakos and others. We discussed a variety of topics but one in particular caught my attention... The problem of the difficulty witnesses face in gaining votes and specifically, the unfair layout of the witness voting page.
Newsflash: There Are MORE Than 50 WITNESSES For STEEM!
If we look at the witness voting page in Steemit.com, we can see that there is a list of 50 witnesses and we can click on each of their names and place a vote for them. We are told that we have 30 votes, so we need to vote for 30 witnesses. It is no secret that many users have no clue about what witnesses do, why they should vote for them or why they have 30 votes. So it seems that many voters are simply semi-randomly choosing 30 out of the 50, without really making informed decisions. In other cases, voters might have some idea of who to vote for but not realise that there are actually more than 50 witnesses available to vote for because they only ever see 50 in the list.
Can you imagine a democratic vote where you can only see 30% of the candidates on the ballot sheet? What kind of bad democratic joke is that? And yet that is what we have on the Steemit witness voting page.
The top 19 witnesses receive payouts from the rewards pool of potentially more than half a million US Dollars annually each! So they have a huge advantage as compared to other witnesses when it comes to keeping themselves in the top positions. The fact that their huge earnings can directly translate into Steem Power which then adds weight to their own standing in the list of witnesses (since they vote for themselves) means that it is already very difficult for lower ranked witnesses to challenge them, but what chance does anyone have if they aren't even visible on the ballot paper?
Sadly, this is actually quite an accurate mirroring of the democratic process that passes for 'fair' in modern nations, whereby huge amounts of money are needed to run for election and once elected, huge amounts of money become accessible - so those who have been elected previously have an advantage over any one who wants to participate next time.
Low Voter Engagement
The financial situation is not the only similarity between the witness voting system and national democratic processes. In both cases, there is a low level of voting occurring - which often is due to voter apathy.. Which is a sad thing to say for both nations and Steem alike.
It was suggested that the overall level of voter engagement for witnesses on Steem is maybe only 20% (ish) of Steem users even vote for witnesses at all. There are numerous reasons why this is a problem for the platform, not least that it means that many Steemians are missing out on an opportunity to guide the platform's destiny to some extent, since Witnesses do have some level of ability to effect which code/policy changes are adopted when they are proposed. If most of the community is not participating in choosing the top witnesses, then their wishes are not being represented in the process of evolving the rules of the Steem eco-system.
Making Witness Votes Great (again)
How about we put some real passion into solving this problem? It was suggested to link to @drakos' witness listing page from the witness voting page in Steemit to make things more transparent and balanced, but I think that is not really good enough (not least because it is hardly fair if a democratic process itself relies on one of the candidates.... No disrespect to Drakos, but it would be like having a national election sponsored by one of the parties ;) )
I strongly think we need to have the witness voting page updated to include all registered witnesses and not just the top 50. Sadly though this has apparently not only already been suggested many times, but the code change required has already been added to Github, but it has not been accepted by Steemit Inc. - Is this true? I don't know, but I would like to know why it hasn't been actioned if the code is already available.
What do you think?
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
Vote @ura-soul for Steem Witness!
View My Witness Application Here
Upvoted for visibility, but disagree on "all registered witnesses". What do you mean - technically - by that? Everyone who has their signing key set to not-null?
Yes, I'm all for more informative page, maybe even increasing limit to 100 or 200, but no, not "all".
By the way, interesting thing to check about voters apathy: (I've noticed that on multiple occasion writing witness category posts). Check after payout how many people who voted on this post or even commented on it are actually voting for at least one witness ;-)
I have no problem with @Drakos' witness info page - it is perfectly usable and it's content promotes understanding of what witnesses are doing, since the stats that relate to them are laid bare. It really isn't a problem to paginate a long-ish list, amazon, ebay and most other major sites have no problems with lists that are massively longer. You can check out the way I have presented the data from the 90000(ish) active weekly voters on Steem at Steem Ocean for some basic examples of how large data sets of Steem accounts can be made more palatable. I haven't really even done much there yet, it's just getting started.
I haven't done much analysis on voter engagement, yeah, I will take a look at that in a few days! Thanks for your comment.
btw, we might also ask "how many top witnesses come and discuss witness related topics that have strong community interest?" (such as this one or the others posted about copyright and child pornography).. I actually only recall you participating and someguy123. Apathy has many forms it seems!
Top 20 Witnesses have the biggest responsibility due to the small time-delay between blocks.
And as a developer, there is the saying: Never change a running system
Having the same Witnesses in the top 20 (50) slots is unfair for the rest of the Witnesses, but the longer a Witness is in those spots - the more he has proven himself that he keeps his/her witness-node running smoothly.
And objectively - there is no reason to change the top 20 Witnesses as long as those are not f*cking up repetitively.
Now, regarding your argument that the Top 20 rewards are unfair:
The own Steempower plays most of the time only a tiny role in the witness ranking.
Just look at @jesta. 35K Steempower is only a tiny, tiny percent of the total MV.
Additionally, the biggest influencers on Steem aren't even running a Witness-node themselves (excluding @blocktrades) - at least afaik.
So that is a reason to ensure that the system that puts the top 20 in their position is agile enough to ensure that these important positions can be filled by the most appropriate accounts.
As a system analyst and architect, there is the saying: Systems must always adapt, since change is a constant ;)
Not necessarily, that is the whole point here, since the longer someone stays in that top spot, the more resources they have to use to solve any problems and possibly even just pay someone else to solve them. In some senses it just proves they have been in that top spot. Yes, they must have had reliable hardware online for a decent period of time and I am not saying that they are unreliable - I am just saying that being in the top 20 is about much more than just reliability and being outside of the top 20 does not mean you are less reliable. Many top 20 witnesses have a large number of missed blocks, for example.
Witnesses choose hard forks and the top 20, afaik, have the lion's share of the say - so saying that there is no reason to change them unless they (subjectively) fuck up, is like saying that there is no reason to change who runs a government unless they keep failing to turn up to work.. It is quite possible for their decisions or indecisions to go un-noticed for quite some time. Again, this is not a comment on any specific witness, It is an observation and understanding that relates to the system as a whole.
They are being paid a lot of money and i must be going somewhere. I'm sure they have projects to fund and bills to pay, but there is nothing stopping them from putting their money into second accounts and voting for themselves without you knowing and besides that, their hardware reliability comes with a high price that is beyond the reach of most witnesses (and this will only continue to become more noticeable as RAM requirements grow).
Do you know who actually controls the biggest influencing accounts?
I really don't see why there needs to be a list of top witnesses to choose from to begin with. Anyone I want to vote for I know the name of, and so I would simply put it in the field, much like tests in school worked before multiple choice tilted it all in a direction decided by people we don't know for some political agenda.
I do not want preselection by anybody. Election results are always dependent upon voter education and this place is no different.
That said, I still seem to understand too little about witnesses and the voting process myself, as I cannot seem to vote for the one guy I really would like to be more involved as a witness in helping to steer and maintain this place as a community-driven environment of actual people supporting each other (@chiefmappster)
Guess one needs to put himself up as a witness "candidate" first, right? Or why won't my vote go through?
His deeds prove his merit to me, and have done so over and over again since I joined so it's a no brainer for me. Until I find anyone else (beside you, who I CAN vote for apparently and who has proven his community-driven intention many times over as well, who I want to support in helping this place out), I will not vote for anyone on there just because they are on some list. Until I stumble upon them naturally, doing something worthwhile, like I have with you or with blocktrades who I see involved in many things I deem worthwhile up until this point.
It's either an election or it isn't. And I am sick and tired of the divide and conquer party games of pay to play and swaying people just so they give consent to their own long term disadvantage by being tricked into using some psychology-blackmagic-format like a voting list.
Though I NEVER do so, let me quote the ominous book: "You shall know them by their fruits."
All the rest is PR and dogmatic society bamboozlement. Voting for the sake of voting is always a terrible idea and gives consent to the lowest common denominator (or the one with the loudest stupidest voice or the fattest wallet to market himself), so I am not sure I want everybody to rush to vote as long as the list is in place as you have laid out here.
Voting is a statement of legitimization and support and should be entirely free of form and coercion, as well as the preconceived influence by others - especially on a digital platform like this where all limitations are completely artificial and arbitrary (because there is no actual NEED for those restrictions, technically).
I say, drop all names from that list, let people figure out who they like, not who is ALREADY liked. And then see who would actually have the competencies to run that position from amongst those most voted on (regardless of voting weight, but dependant on number of votes by provably authentic accounts).
Thanks for your heartfelt comment. I think the value of an unedited list is that those of us who want/need to learn about all the choices can do so without having to stumble into witness candidates by choice. Without having a central place for all witness candidates to be seen, we are left with the same problem of 'pay to play' being exacerbated, since those with the biggest wallets and ability to have their posts seen will be the ones who are best known as witnesses, while those with smaller budgets will not be seen at all. Not having any list would be like allowing small, independent political candidates in an election, but not having their name on the ballot papers - except there is an 'other' field you could write their name into if you happen to have heard of them. Ballot papers are a kind of advertising in and of themselves if they are honest and complete. The voter might not randomly choose a new candidate on the basis of the paper, but at least they can go and research the names they seen on it for next time.
Mhhmm, guess you are right, the wallet factor would remain even without a 'centralized' list.
I need to research this more before I waste more of your time, as in how people get on that ballot to begin with. Guess I will talk to my favorite directly and ask whether he would WANT to be on there and if so, how the community supporting him can help him do that.
Thanks for your reply to my somewhat overemotional comment - (money-influenced) politics remains one of my least favorite topics of our era and I get frustrated with it rather quickly. Happy you are voteable at least, will dig to find the others that I want to support on the ballot, as long as that current way of handling it stands.
You are welcome - poly-ticks is absolutely a problem and not a solution!
I agree with your principles, but the candidates have to be made known somewhere, in a list ,of some kind, @drakos page does that best of breed right now.
Thanks, will check it out!
I have been in a battle with politics for a long time, because weight of influence and required competency seldomly have much to do with one another. so we end up having lawyers decide about agriculture, and bankers decide about family matters.
Will have to dig more to know the basics of the status-quo on Steemit to make any proper suggestions that are workable in the current environment on steemit. cheers!
It was a very enlightening discussion and with the tools, steemit links of witness reports and what they do and how the vestments of the voters affect the ranking of witnesses.
It is sad to know that most people don't even vote for witness and as high as 80% don't vote for witness.
It is a combination of not knowing who and what the specific witnesses do or even as basic as what a witness do at all.
Then there is the feeling of intimidation that one feels as you look at most of the witnesses reputation rating of usual at the high 60's and you look at your starting out reputation of lower than 45 and think they are gods.
Witnesses that has communities do a little better as they have community leaders pushing new people to vote for them. This is very important especially if you are not in the list of the top 50.
I admit when I first joined the platform I only knew about @steemgigs which is the the witness of @surpassinggoogle.
The rest of my votes I just clicked on the names in the top 50 without even knowing what they do.
Took me a couple of months before I even started reading and interacting with other witnesses.
I know fully utilize my witness votes and support people who have similiar causes as mine.
It is really important to educate and remind people the need to vote for witnesses.
Honestly it is not a good feeling to know but the vote of all the Minnows matters not. It is a waste of time to look into all the witnesses and what they do because only a few people control who is a top witness. The rest of us is like sand on a beach where everyone is looking for gold we matter not!If you have less than 500 k sp you dont matter here.
There is clearly a common theme here where users feel that they have difficulty accessing information about the witnesses in a way they find useful. How about something like this:
In addition to an enhanced list on the witness voting page that gives the technical data for each witness, we have a small avatar thumbnail that links to their profile, plus the link to their original witness application post AND a link to their latest witness update post(including a field that shows the date that the last update was published). This gives a well rounded overview of them for those who want to learn more and will not require any work from the witnesses since they should already be putting out updates anyway. The witnesses who are active and who are engaging the community will thus get recognition for that and voters will be able to hear from them, instead of guessing.
That is an awesome Idea and some that Steem Inc should implement when someone goes to the witness voting page.
Most people are lazy including me and the only reason why I researched on the witnesses was to help out a friend who was researching what the top 20 witnesses did.
It would be great to have their latest witness update and the tech data would be very helpful.
I was looking at https://steemian.info/witnesses and checking the number of votes of some of the witnesses and surprised on how low some are even if the communities they have are so large/ Although we all know that vestments are the kingmakers though.
This must become a joint project of the witnesses.
I'm glad you put this out here. I first encountered this issue when trying to vote @steemgigs for witness. I think the first time, I left thinking the name is not available. I don't even understand how Steemit Inc arrived at that decision of keeping only the top 50 on the witness voting page - it's quite bad. I didn't know how to reachout to anyone on this issue as am still comparatively new on the platform.
This is exactly the same issue we have when it comes to elections here. Those already in office, use the state money and influence to run excessive campaign and put their name in everyone's mouth that 80% of the populace do not even know that there are other candidates.
I suggest either the system becomes unfair to every witness by removing all the names from the list and we'll have to search everyone's name or it becomes fair by listing all the names of witness. I know the name might be pretty much but it's okay as long as people see that next page button which tells them that there are more names. I hope this post gets to appropriate quarters and something is done about it.
When we look at the Government for what it is, we're tempted to call for a revolution, change relatively quickly. The transition to a society that is truly free is not going to happen overnight, nor should be. Obviously, this is a process of evolution, not revolution. As we have seen in the past, the revolution without a change in paradigm has produced more of the same things. In some places, the revolution will be necessary. Hopefully, they will be supported by policies to avoid turmoil, violence and the formation of a new Government. The core of the message of freedom not just to clear all the Government, but to remove the all the tolerance because it ruled. With the speed of a fast information, the shift from the paradigm of statistics can occur relatively quickly, but build a new society will take years, if not decades or even centuries. The shift will not be smooth. Governments around the world were already hard pressed with the revolt, censor vital information, and silence activists with incarceration. In some places, it will be worse than the other. In some places, will be faster than others. When we look at how people in other areas benefit from embracing the message of freedom, there will be effects that flow. There may be a revolution in this global process, but this is far bigger than any revolution. The transition to a free society, which started deliberately by a critical mass of people, would be the evolutionary turning point that is bigger than anything that can be called a revolution. Obviously, we're capable of a lot more than we accomplish as a species, but to reach the potential we need a dramatic change in thinking. The only useful revolution is a revolution with a fundamental change in the paradigm. The new paradigm will insist on nonviolence, and thus the removal of the Government. Anything less than that will only generate a new dispute about how or who use force against the Government. Understand freedom leads to more than just a slight preference for violence and coercion. This creates a passion for Justice is based on the principles of absolute. If we do not resist any violation of freedom, we might also recognize that freedom is not important, and we prefer to live like slaves.
Thanks for this @aura-soul
Im vote you Witnes
Thankyou - yes, evolution is the way, while revolution just has us going round in circle. Thanks for your comment.
it is true that the Revolution is a rapidly changing social and cultural change that concerns the foundations or subjects of people's lives. In the revolution, the changes that occur can be planned or unplanned in advance and can be run without violence or through violence. we will not continue to live in violence or evolution, let's build together, thanks to you great people @ura-soul
The transitition COULD change overnight!
.......Disaster
.....RESET
That is not impossible, but even in disasters the trees will continue to grow as their seeds were programmed.
I agree with you @ura-soul nothing is impossible in this world, if we try and want to do it.
hope you are always successful @ura-soul
I was addressing your comment @dreamzar "The transition to a society that is truly free is not going to happen overnight, nor should be" Yes I do agree that it should not be. My point is that our lifestyle could change overnight. It's happening every day now in many households. The vast majority of households today live from paycheck to paycheck and don't do any prepping. Could a event cause a country or large group of people change overnight? I think so. Now what they change into SHOULD be topic of the day
I completely agree, when I was to vote I had to search for 4 out of 5 witness I wanted to vote for.
The voting page is not what it should be and I would also like to be able to get small intro of the candidates by howering over their name in the voting list or pressing a button next to it.
I don't have the willpower or energy to read all the candidates profile and go back and forth just to make an informed decition. So I only voted for 5 witnesses this time and when I find the next one I find worthy I will give them a vote.
It's super important to vote and make your voice heard but as you said it's hard to make an informed decition when you are new to steemit.
Maybe a pop-up should appear every now and then informing you about it or maybe we need to discuss it more.
Any how I really enjoyed your post 😊
agree sir with you
newbie here. i have to say, honestly, when looking at the witness selection page, i understood that having and choosing the witnesses are an important part of the process, but the sheer amount of choices are overwhelming as it is, and the argument youve laid out is also very concerning. I haven't made my selections yet, but part of me feels that the outcome is already fixed...
i still havent gotten over the fact tht there are bots allowed, and multiple accounts...
I'm interested to read this today. I have been here since June 2017. I voted for a few witnesses when I got here and never looked again. Recently I went to look at what I have done and added some votes and removed some.
I seriously have no idea what a witness does beyond "making steemit work." I'm all for that, glad they get paid for their efforts, and I'm glad to support them if I can.
What struck me when I got to the witness page was that I have never even seen the names of many of them - never seen posts - never seen anyone else post about them. This was a big surprise. I expected to see mostly people I know had have to make difficult choices. Instead I saw only a few I know and voted for them and made a few write in votes for others.
I'm posting on steemit constantly and feel like I get around pretty widely. If I am not seeing the witnesses so that they make an impression on me - neither are any of the other minnows.
Yes, the top witnesses gained their position early on and now don't seem to interact much publicly.
The new design I have proposed for the witness voting page will help address this by showing a link to the latest witness update post from each account: https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@ura-soul/suggestion-improved-witness-voting-page-for-steemit-com
ok - I will put this on my list to look at. Thank for helping us little guys figure out what to do :)
This is the Internet, it would not be hard to show all witnesses.
HUmmm HUH.....Steemit! Worlds first fully transparent multi-million dollar business