Has anyone ever seen a witness do anything for the betterment of Steemit, if not... what's the point?
All I ever see is people begging for witness votes, but what do they actually do?
I thought say for example, that I want to either have the SBD (Steem Backed Dollar) either permanently pegged to the USD (United States Dollar), or removed, that we would have the witnesses vote on it, and take some action afterwards.
Instead, they are absolutely pointless, and just reap the rewards of earning more Steem than the rest of us, without actually doing shit.
Am I the only one who feels this way, or are you guys just as confused as to what a Steemit witness actually does for the overall community as well?
Because as of right now, they just remind me of regular politicians, of whom essentially only do things for themselves, and simply forget about those who actually put them in power to begin with.
Maintain security and reliability of the platform. Produce blocks. Sometimes they do some more with their user / investor hat on.
First, please read the Steem Whitepaper.
And that's exactly how it was.
Getting rid of SBD was considered, among other solutions, the consensus is that SBD stays.
That's the DPoS. Witnesses are the servants of the platform thus platform stakeholders. Adjust your votes. You are free to become one. Or just change the playground.
What if I tell you that there are no such thing as "Steemit witnesses"? ;-)
The platform is Steem, so those are Steem witnesses. :-)
Hmm, I really like your points, but why do we still need the Steem Dollar exactly, that point was unclear to me?
In ideal conditions it's preatty neat tool with great set features.
In current (far from ideal) conditions it plays role of "worth at least 1USD" token. It's going towards the peg, however it takes more time than most of us expected. (It's natural direction because the more it's worth the more USD are needed to keep it above the peg, so naturally, over time, all "excessive" demand would be satisfied).
Well, even now it's good to know that if you get 10SBD, it will be worth at least 10USD.
I do agree some time they just behave like traditional politicians who only see his own interest. especially when they are seeking for witness vote. They do care community but do little and showed a lot. I don't know how many witnesses raise voice against reward pool issues. Although there are few good choices available like @surpassinggoogle @dragosroua @ura-soul @neoxian etc, but i am talking about all of them majority want to include in top10. If we really want that these big guns will help to develop the community all we need to just raise our voice for the unjust. Our voice is our power. your article is great it will give food of though to common steemians. Thanks for sharing @tolkatore
Yeah, and I hope to see real change come to Steemit soon, with or without the witnesses.
it is impossible to have the Steem blockchain without the witnesses. They are what makes it happen.
So they run the servers, and how does changes to the platform happen exactly?
changes to the steem blockchain happen through hardforks... 17 of the top 20 witnesses have to agree before a hardfork change is accepted.
Let's hope so @tolkatore I am not against the witness, I am in favor of acttive witness who raise their voice against unjust issue like reward pool abusing, bot voting etc.
I hear ya, and hopefully something is done about it.
I think with blockchain technology we should actually do away with middleman altogether. We are able to vote on issues like "pegging SBD" to USD ourselves and don't really need someone else to communicate our wishes and same for politicians. We should just vote on issues and do away with the misinterpreting pricks in the middle ;P
I 100% agree, and sadly, I think the witnesses need to exist to maintain the blockchain nodes, but now that you mention it, I think we the people should have the first and last say as to what happens to the blockchain overall.
@timcliff often updates us on the activities of the witnesses every week to keep us abreast. You can check his blog for more info.
In my point of view I think it's just a few of them that are actually working . We have the likes of @gtg, @blockbrothers, @steemgigs owned by @surpassinggoogle, @dragosruoa , @teamsteem, and some other few witnesses .
I wonder what the rest are actually up to though.
But what are the ones you mentioned actually doing to better Steemit, that's the question?
I think they are trying to aid small account with good qualities to grow. Some help with resteems to aid visibilities of some posts
That is not their purpose, their purpose is to propose changes, or hear other complaints for change, put them up for vote, vote, then make the change or not make it depending on the outcome of the vote.
Oh, okay. If thats the case then maybe they are not doing enough just as you said. But its a big community, implementation of ideas might take time
Well, they need to show us something, and if it takes time then so be it.
Actually when you read their updates you will get to know. They keeps the nodes running (whatever that means) and to do that , you need some funds which they donout of their own pockets.
I might not have all the details there but somehow I think they are the reason why steemit is here and standing, else there will be no steemit.
Well that's fine, but now they have to make the platform better, so that even more people will use it.
I think you are judging ALL the witnesses based on the actions of the top 50.
Have you visited @timcliff's blog recently?
Or @yehey's discord?
There no single day @utopian-io doesn't make a contribution
@mahdiyari is always improving steemauto, @themarkymark is tirelessly checkmating spammers/scammers, @sircork is doing big things in charity..... c'mon, I could go on and on.
In fact I recently wrote a post about witnesses, check them out and you will change your opinion.
https://steemit.com/witness/@ulqu3/steemit-witnesses-i-voted-for-and-why
I do agree there are many lazy witnesses, but we must not allow them hide the food efforts of others.
They aren't Steemit police, they are supposed to be legislators, who enact change that needs to be made to the entire system... which is something I don't see any of them doing.
actually the witnesses aren't the legislators ... they job is to witness and verify the transactions that make up the blockchain ...we look to them to be contributors to the community but it's not a job requirement
So Ned and company are the only ones who make change?
I think you need to take the time to listen to the recording of @shadowpub's witness chat this past Saturday ... https://steemit.com/witness-category/@shadowspub/another-successful-witness-chat There is discussion on there how changes get made on the blockchain.
You'll learn a lot more about witnesses and what they do listening to the other two chats as well ... you can find the recordings through this link ... https://steemit.com/witness/@shadowspub/everyone-is-welcome-to-the-witness-chat-on-saturday-in-the-steemit-ramble-discord
A witness job is to secure the network, produce blocks, and provide a price feed. Witnesses have the power to approve or deny changes to the network and should have the knowledge to make that decision intelligently and not blindly. Unfortunatley Steemit Inc are the only ones who make hard forks, so there isn't a lot of choices to be made, although a hard fork has been declined by witnesses in the past.
Many witnesses do more, many do less, some aren't even present and just collect the rewards.
The ones that do more are very passionate about STEEM as a platform and a currency. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes no one sees.
Unfortunately, many see witnessing as another way to generate a revenue stream and treat it as such. This encourages users to become witnesses without the technical competence required by a witness or the passion to make Steem better.
There is no doubt a witness is a politician, and needs to campaign as such to get anywhere, but there comes a point that only one vote matters as it controls who makes it past a certain point.
Hopefully the voting system and node runners on EOS will run better, because this system seems kind of broken.
Seems you have more hope on EOS. Do you care to shed more light on it, maybe i might check it up along the line
yes, I'm just as confused as you are about what they do (the steemit witness) for us who are still beginners.
I really have not felt what they give to me that I have given my voice to them as a steemit witness.
Thank's for sharing @tolkatore
And what have you voiced exactly?
Maybe he was able to chat them up on discord or something because they are hard to get to
I agree with you that our voice is our vote. Steemit gives us the opportunity to value our voice and time but others community don't give any witness just waste our time. Here big steemians helps the small like a family. I'm proud to be a member of steemit.
Up-voting someones content is not a witness job, that's a vote bots job, a witness should be putting changes to better Steemit up for voting.
Well i don't really know but @surpassinggoogle is really trying with his steemgigs and @teardrops. And this new @ulogs he just started is giving alot of awareness to people. Also @dimimp is trying to with is steemjet initiative. I think he also gave out steem to people and even delegated steem power
Creating all these other things, pulling people from Steemit is definitely not the answer, but to each their own I guess.
Steemit witness should spread vote equally to the community, we need the attention of our witness.
I've got attention just like @surpassinggoogle and @neoxian :-)
They need to actually make change happen, which I have yet to see.