Alright folks, I'm going to try to keep this one as simple & direct as possible, with hyperlinks to more in-depth discussions... because we need to cover a lot of ground.
There's going to be people reading this who have never used Hive yet, ones who have been here for years but never voted for a witness, and (I'm guessing) quite a few people who haven't voted for witnesses since the Justin Sun fiasco...
But more on that later....
The focus here is on Hive Witnesses. What they are, what role they play, how they are chosen, the current status of the "top 20" thus Hive as a platform, and a few simple calls to action.
Table of Contents
- What Are Witnesses
- The Current Status of the Top 20 - and thus Hive
- What, that witness is actually who?
- Calls to Action
- Finding Information on Witnesses
- A Moment of Clarification
- Recommended Witness List
- The Simple Option
What Are Witnesses?
Simply put, witnesses are the block producers on the Hive blockchain (like miners on BTC/XMR), except that governance isn't weighted by hashing power, but by the amount of stake (Hive Power) which approves of a particular witnesses.
The more HP voting for a witness, the higher they go in the rankings.
The top 20 are the consensus/governance witnesses.
Code is law, and those 20 decide the code.
Sure seems like it's important that we all carefully vote for witnesses, right?
Well, yes and no - because it's stake-weighted, folks with lots of HP (or $ to buy HP) get to vote a LOT more than you or I do.
There's multiple accounts on this blockchain with many millions of Hive Power.
That's a hefty vote.
Between my own and all that proxied to me, I vote for ~ 190,000 HP...
What's your vote worth?
To be clear, I'm not saying that the sum of little votes don't add up - quite the opposite. It's more that I'm emphasizing the gap in voting power here, thus just how important it is for little fish to come together if we're going to have an impact in a lake run whales.
The Current Status of Hive & The Top 20
How many of you have changed your witness votes since the hostile takeover of the Steem blockchain?
The community had a massive get out the vote campaign - focused on supporting the previous, actually community chosen, top 20.
We all came together, as a community, for the purposes of fending off a shared enemy in Justin Sun, Tron, and the newly purchased StInc, and we were able to hold them off for a while, before forking into HIVE.
In the 21 months since that happened, most of the top 20 have stayed in the Top 20.
Now, we're at a pretty pivotal moment for Hive, with a handful of whales, including two Top 20 witnesses, are abusing their power - maliciously down-voting content for political reasons, systematically driving multiple users to negative reputation, and gaslighting (publicly, with lies that are often later admitted to) those who call them out.
The handful of accounts that are mostly responsible for almost all of this down-voting are: curangel, ocdb / ocd-witness, altleft, azircon, acidyo, and smooth (mostly just on content about the problem), and newsflash in there occasionally as well.
Here are some posts about the topic - some with hundreds of comments:
- When Is a Censor Not A Censor? The Wider Implication of Downvote/Cancel Culture on Hive. by @ura-soul
- The War on Truth and Freedom: Removing Content From Trending Is Censorship & Curangel Curation Trail Used to Zero Out Popular Content by @jasonliberty
- Your Comments On The Cancel Culture And Zeroing of Viral Posts on Hive By Curangel. by @ura-soul
- 90/100 Posts on Trending are "Overrewarded posts" with no Downvotes(actually some have upvotes from the Downvoter Whales), when will they be Downvoted by the Downvoters hitting our community?(not advocating to DV) by @truthforce
- LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS DOWNVOTE BULLSHIT by @frot
- My Most Successful Post in Years (Promoting Hive) Was Just Downvoted by Curangel for Over $200 Right Before Payout by Me (>240 comments)
- After dedicating 5.5 years to Hive/Steem, I've been informed by KING ACIDYO that I added no value by Me (>290 comments)
- Blockchain Bullying - A New Low | Petty Tyrant’s True Colors Are Showing by @jasonliberty
- The HIVE FREEDOM PROXY: Over $1.7M Worth of Hive Witness Votes Available For Serious Free Speech Witnesses. by @ura-soul
What, that witness is actually who?
Now, as I mentioned before, there are two Top 20 witnesses who are leading the charge on this campaign:
First up is pharesim a top 20 witness, who happens to have started the curangel project. Curangel has thus far refused to address the activity, so it is unknown who is actually doing this downvoting - but I've heard rumors that azircon has the keys as well.
Next up is ocd-witness, another top 20, run by ocdb, which is run by acidyo. OCDB has also refused to make a statement about who is doing this down-voting, or why, but King Acid has said plenty... unfortunately most of it is outright lies and admitted "shit talking."
Calls To Action
The post is really starting to get long now, and I haven't even started in on the witness list itself... so I'll just lay out some quick, potential, calls to action right quick.
- Remove votes for witnesses whose actions, behavior, and political motives you don't support. For me, the big ones here were: ocd-witness, pharesim, smooth.witness (all explained up above) - I'm currently in the process of deciding how to categorize witnesses who support folks like this. I'm trying not to vote for any that do, but I don't know that I should really call them out in the same way.
- Remove your delegations & curation trail follows from ocdb and curangel. By lending them your stake, you are pretty explicitly supporting these activities.
- Vote for other witnesses! Some priorities to think about = folks not in the top 20, people who openly & clearly advocate for free speech, people who don't lash out like juveniles when questioned about their use of their power, etc.
3a. If the parts about researching & choosing witnesses seem like too much, there's a Simple Option down at the bottom. - Start exploring more of the 2nd layer projects on Hive, like #ProofofBrain, #SPKNetwork, #LEOFinance, the upcoming project from #informationwar / #deepdives, and more.
- Just have realistic expectations of Hive - while the tech side of Hive may be some of the best in existence, the inherent flaw of dPo$ means it can never live up to the dream. Don't worry, a handful of us are working on a new project, building off Hive's code, but with a fair launch, no buying/selling stake, and a whole bunch of other experimentation to keep moving this ball forward.
Finding Information About Witnesses
It's important that we practice informed consent, that we make conscious decisions, based on weighing the pros & cons, comparing the options.
While I do break down my own choices for witnesses (and recommendations from others) down below, I'm not asking you to blindly follow me, or anyone else.
This is a public blockchain, and you can see everything these witnesses are doing, and who supports them (and who they support.) Besides the obvious of just looking at their account(s)
Basics on Peakd
As usual, @peakd makes it easy as can be to find out who someone is voting for (or if they aren't voting), but I believe you have to hop over to hiveblocks.com to see who they are proxying their vote to, if they are.
All you have to do to see this info on peakd, is pick it from the interactions menu on someone's profile, or add "/witnesses" to the address of their blog.
For example: https://peakd.com/@kennyskitchen/witnesses
You can also find more information about witnesses in general, and specifically, at https://peakd.com/witnesses - and vote there as well.
Although, it isn't nearly as informative as:
Arcange's Awesome Tool
Big thanks to @arcange for creating such this awesome tool: https://hive.arcange.eu/witnesses/, and thanks to @truthforce for showing it to me!
With this tool, we can see how many accounts & how much stake is voting for each witness, movement (presumably last 24h or 7d), who their voters are, price feed, their links, and a TON more data.
Here is a peek, the current snapshot of the top 22:
Yes, I chose the top 22 for a reason - because #21 and #22 are both folks I would very much like to see up in the top 20
Why does it matter?
Through this, anyone can easily see who is supporting a witness, thus allowing for a much higher level of informed freedom of association.
If there is a witness that you actively don't support, and another witness you do is supporting them, then perhaps it's time to withdraw support there as well, or at least have a conversation with them (if possible.)
As @logiczombie put it so well...
The funny thing is that I actually have supported many of these witnesses who down-voted me over the years, either because I thought it was just a one-off thing, or because (as I mentioned before) I wasn't being dilligent enough with my votes for a while there.
Well, the emergency of Justin Sun taking over is long since passed, and I've been updating and shuffling my witness votes quite a lot over the last few months.
A Moment of Clarification
If you don't see any problem with any of the things discussed & linked to above, or just don't care at all about the governance, community, and life of Hive - that's just fine. This post isn't for you.
If you want to scream at me now and pretend that I'm a "crazy conspiracy theorist" and that there's definitely nothing to see, while simultaneously 100% down-voting this post - that's just fine too. This post isn't for you, it's just largely about you.
Recommended Witness List
I promised y'all a short post... and we're not really pulling that off... But it's important to hit all these points, because even this post barely scratches the surface. There are so many posts and comments sections to read, so much transaction history to look through, just to really know what's going on.
That said, here is a list of witnesses that I feel comfortable recommending. @Ura-soul recently put out this post looking for more free-speech witnesses to vote on, and besides his descriptions of people, I and others also left plenty there in the comments. For this section I'm just going to stick with a very simple list, starting at the highest rated folks:
- ausbitbank (#2)
- steempeak / peakd (#6)
- yabapmatt (#11)
- stoodkev (#17)
- quochuy (#19)
- someguy123 (#20)
- aggroed (#22)
- threespeak (#24)
- drakos (#29)
- timcliff (#32)
- apshamilton (#49/47)
- r0nd0n (#52/50)
- enginewitty (#55/53)
- disregardfiat (#57/54)
- ura-soul (#63/67)
- pizza.witness (#69/63)
- shmoogleosukami (#94/80)
Obviously, I'm voting for more than this - I have all 30 of my witness votes used, but these are the ones that seem like the strongest choices - some of my others I don't necessarily know enough about to recommend them, per se.
Please let me know if you've got a favorite freedom-focused witness, or many, that I missed!
The Simple Option
If you are someone who really doesn't care to dive into all of this, especially if you don't have all that much voting power anyway, you can also proxy your vote to someone else. Simply go to their blog page on peakd, click interaction, and you'll see the option to set them as your witness proxy.
Your HP is then lumped in with theirs, and anyone else proxying them, for witness votes.
Note, while this is similar to delegation, the two are separate. Delegation gives the use of your HP for voting on posts & comments, while proxying gives the use of your HP for voting on witnesses (and I believe proposals - but I may be wrong.)
If you would like to proxy your witness votes out, and are interested in supporting anarchists, free-speech-lovers, and a more decentralized Hive, you can proxy it to me. You can see my current votes up above, and I'm always open to adjusting as I find new information.
I wrote up a comment a day or two ago, the gist of my comment was now that everything is being suppressed on social media more and more and we see countries making laws agaagainst free speech we have to re evaluate who we think should represent this chain.
Downvotes in my view should only be used for spam/plagirizers/content theft/posts that are porn or graphic not marked with a NSFW/and people who are directly abusing others or calling for direct harm.
Disagreements on rewards or downvoting something you dont like shouldnt have a place on here and shouldn't be tolerated. This chain is over 5 years old and it's time we really look at the message we are sending to the outside world when they see how this chain runs. If people see a bunch of content that looks like Instagram spam and twitter circle jerking earning 200 to 500 usd, but political posts are zeroed out, then what does that say about this place? It isnt a place for inclusiveness is what it says.
Social media across the board has given their algorithms an update to funnel views directly to Fox CNN MSNBC ABC in the USA, and in other countries youtube's similarly giving huge corporations all of the views. We cant afford to lose anymore views and it has to be talked about. Our YouTube channel used to get hundreds of views per video and now it's like 10 to 20. Many big alternative news YouTubers and social media lost over 90 percent of incoming recommended views because youthbe and Facebook and google change algorithms to give to corporate press. The corporate press lies us into wars and causes great damage to humans.
2022 and forward is only going to get worse in terms of suppression of content. We on Hive have votes though based on stake power.
Choose whose side you are on, a few millionaires who are in the top 20 who will cuss you out and downvote you if you disagree, or people who will not suppress your content and actually champion your rights to be seen and heard.
I'm not really involved in this whole thing, but I want to leave this comment here with my thoughts. I want a blockchain I can point at and say there isnt ideological suppression happening here, not one controlled by a few millionaires who decide if you get to earn or not.
I can't put my Hive witness vote on anyone with Steem in their name. Seems really hypocritical and new witnesses should have been started from that crew. The rest, I'll look into and thanks for including me on the list. @someguy123 will have my vote forever already due to an incident in the past he remedied and fixed promptly. Great post tho, well done.
Thanks for the kind words, and your vote :)
No worries! @@@minismallholding recommended you and that's good enough for me!
Ya, that is an interesting one... I wonder if @peakd ever plans on changing their witness node to an account with a different name?
we've talked about it. Not sure if it's worth all the hassle involved with doing it.
Following on from Truthforce's comment.. I just want to add that while many people have no clue of the extent of the corruption and manipulation that is present via mainstream media sources and by extension also the bigger internet sources - the reality is that everything possible (short of mass executions of dissenters) is being done to try to silence any commentary that gains traction which contradicts the lies being sold by the corporatocracies on this planet.
We have an issue, then, on Hive - where many people know that all of this is occurring, but many do not. Many here have had personal experience from both inside and outside of the mind control systems on this planet and they want to fix the Earth to create a more honest, free and happy future for us. However, many seem to have no idea this is transpiring and of course some here - just based on statistics - will be part of the group who are actively trying hard to get everyone to deny reality in order to cover up their crimes against humanity.
There really is a war on for your mind and it is longstanding and has been heavily funded for many generations. The situation is very much like the movie 'The Matrix', where just about anyone can get caught up in the matrix of false reality they were fed from birth and then fail to see or care about what is right in front of their eyes.
All of this means we have a difficult situation where mass downvoting to suppress the spread of information online can be hand waved away as just 'disagreements on rewards' and any attempt to argue against this can be just said to be 'the greed of terrible people' etc.
Equally, downvoting that isn't specifically to suppress information can end up looking like it is being done for that purpose and this adds fuel to the fire.
All along I have been asking for restraint and care when downvoting for ideological reasons because it can cause so many problems that can usually be solved in a more intelligent, social and friendly way - e.g. through conversation. In all cases that we are protesting here, there was zero attempt at any conversation or friendliness - no quiet word to say that there is an issue and maybe we can sort it out by agreeing x/y/z or having a friendly public debate on key issues. Instead it was just full on assault, over and over - mixed in with sneering ridicule, scorn and lies. This is all I personally need to know to have a good sense of what is occurring and it is not healthy at all.
Just like the people facing off against the cops in so many cities of the world - the cops are fighting for a paycheque but the people are fighting for freedom and their future. So obviously, those seeking freedom are not really going to give up. One way or another we will find workable solutions here. Despite what anyone might think, I personally just want the situation to resolve as painlessly as possible for all and I genuinely want to help Hive to grow to be the best it can be in all ways - so there is really no need for drama - yet here we are, dealing with drama that it was not possible to avoid without leaving the entire network, which is exactly what some of the downvoters have told me personally to do! Without a shred of evidence or even explanation as to why they are right.. This is simply bullying that in most cases this would not be tolerated - yet, due to the stake weighting and lack of community uproar, it continues on. In a sense it is understandable, in this climate, that there isn't much of a community response as yet, since the atmosphere is not really one that a lot of people would want to defend or improve! However, I still hold a high vision for the future of Hive and I still intend to do everything possible to bring it to manifestation.
If you personally care about real community spirit, the truth coming to light, healthy change for Earth and the creation of a better world, then please consider listening to Kenny's info above and do what you can to help resolve this issue - whether it be through social negotiation, changing witness votes, delegating to relevant parties or through whatever other creative solution you are excited to explore!
Wishing you well,
Ura-Soul
I cannot take this seriously. I also find it difficult to bite my tongue on this one as well. The ridiculousness of such lines. Is this supposed to be an election for a new god? If we do what Kenny says, the world will be fixed... ?
I realize yourself, kenny, and a couple others don't enjoy criticism much, but, is the sensationalism really necessary? Your entire speech is riddled with it but that line especially iced the cake. Are you maybe simply unaware of the fact some people on this planet see right through that kind of stuff offering them no choice but to write it all off as total bunk? That approach comes across as being incredibly dishonest and fake.
I won't discount the fact several of those witnesses are damn good people and have done some damn good things, so I won't let this zany approach of promoting them change my mind about them or impact how I feel about them personally, but damn, if I was on that list, personally I would not want to be involved in this awkward campaign. I feel bad for the people being thrown under the bus. I feel bad for those who didn't make the cut yet I know damn well they're good people as well. You say you stand up for the spirit of the community. On the surface that's all shiny and sweet. Look around though. The reality of the situation is, as far as I can tell, a couple of you got downvoted, which means you're not making as much money as you think you deserve, so for selfish reasons you're attempting to create a massive rift, working to divide the community, so you can have your way.
I don't always agree with every action of those I sometimes agree with or support. I personally don't take sides on issues. If I disagree with you that does not automatically mean I agree with all those you despise, all the time. You think it's wrong if people vote based on ideals. So therefore, based on your own logic, you'd think I'd be making the wrong choice if I followed your advice and removed or added votes for certain individuals, because if I did that, that decision would have been based on your ideals.
Maybe rethink your approach. And please don't come at me with some ridiculous rebuttal. I don't have time to listen to your spin today. That is all. Some food for thought and an honest perspective coming from someone who sees no need to impress anyone or fit in with anything.
It may be hard to understand in a world that is so cynical and heartless, but many people have dedicated a lot of their time to actually taking action to improving life on Earth. It's obviously a big topic and not one you are going to grasp through cynical lenses and reading a tiny fraction of people's life story in a few paragraphs in a small subset of their Hive posts. You clearly don't accept really anything that Kenny and I share in posts as being valid or real, so obviously you are going to see such statements of intent in the way that you are.
If you took the time to actually understand why I said what I said then you might be able to align more to the meaning. Ultimately, it makes no difference to me whether people think I am talking 'bunk' or not. The proof is in the pudding and the oven is on.
You're using the same tactics the big media corporations and political parties use to get their way. Just because I don't see the world through your eyes does not mean I'm heartless and somehow can't see the world for what it is. I know bullshit when I see it. And there's no need to make this about ME. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Get it right.
I didn't say you were heartless, I said you are experiencing a world that is quite heartless and has normalised it in many ways. In truth, I feel that almost everyone has some degree of heartlessness in them, but I am not judging that to be the case in you as I do not know you.
None the less, we clearly do not see things through the same eyes.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, yes - this pudding is still being prepared in a form that you can consume.
Ditch the sensationalism. Get real. Refine your approach. Work towards bringing people together rather than creating a rift. Realize those who agree are already with you on this by default. They're not the ones you need to impress. That's something I tried to explain to you months ago under one of your covid posts, where you had insulted someone with a brutally disgusting attitude for simply not thinking the way you think and I left that instance thinking you were attempting to make me look like an idiot as well. That day you also couldn't understand why it would be wrong for a man to be happy and smiling after finding out my father had a blood clot. I know you don't know me but those are some of my most recent memories of you. Kenny here has me on mute after I called him out on some bs and I got to see his true colors that day. I didn't come here bitter about these things and certainly don't hold a grudge. I'd like to think I'm better than that. But maybe those events did show me something else about you guys so when I read this bunk about making the world a better place, I just see the face of Jim Jones, and don't trust it. You folks talk a big game but my experience dictates you don't practice what you preach. Like it or not, after much thought, that's how I feel about all this.
And do you know what led me here to you folks and this little show you're putting on? I had been gone for nearly four months, completely offline, nearly off grid. Came back, started sifting through notifications and mentions, checking in on what I missed. Low and behold I find out I'm being thrown under the bus too, by someone tied to this group and even mentioned in the post above. Total fucking low blow and I wasn't even here to defend myself. To top it off I haven't even done anything wrong. It boils down to small town mentality some of you folks have around here. Gawking over the fence. They see someone supporting my work, they don't like that someone, so they paint me as a villain too. And it's not the first time. And it's sickening. Low. Disgusting. And I don't see how any of this makes the world a better place. Sounds more like a world that doesn't involve me.
In the post above Kenny says something like, "I'm not sure what to label those people who support these monsters." Sure I'm paraphrasing. But I can already see where this is going, based on experience, some of the people involved, and so on. Soon enough there will be several more names added to your hit list because they don't think how you think or didn't do what you wanted them to do. That's my guess anyway. You folks will double down on creating this rift, all while posing as the good guys, which I'm not buying.
Anyway. I'm outta here.
Ok, I recall parts of the conversation now. I would need to re-read the text you are referring to, but I know for sure that your characterisation of me as 'couldn't understand why it would be wrong for a man to be happy and smiling after finding out my father had a blood clot' is not true. I seem to recall agreeing with you that such a position would be heartless.
I don't know who or what you are referring to with regards to being thrown under the bus by someone mentioned above. I don't know more than a small percentage of the people listed here and I certainly don't track their comments enough to know what you are talking about. People say things that are heartless, I do what I can to help to heal, balance and evolve that specific problem - whether you understand that or not doesn't change that it is the case. Most people are not doing anything to resolve this issue. I can't be held responsible for other people's actions - only my own. I am more than happy to take responsibility for anything I have said or done.
I agree that there is a need to harmonise, depolarise and connect people together in a balanced way. That takes intent on both 'sides' in order to achieve. It is absolutely what needs to happen in all problematic social situations. Even knowing this, we have survival strategies and fight/flight conditioning that can be triggered and draw us into conflicts that do not serve us. The topic of information control during COVID is hugely triggering in this regard. There are people who don't accept it is happening or who actively further the suppression - it is totally understandable that to people who view this suppression as preventing lives being saved, the people involved are dangerous. Just like the other way around, people who do the suppression seem to think that the people they are suppressing are dangerous.
Ultimately, arguing over it doesn't help solve the problem.
Yeah, it's kind of hard to reason with someone who just says, " I downvote anything mentioning downvotes." It's only comply or else, which isn't going to cut it.
I wasn't even thinking of that when I wrote the above, but yes, that's another example. It's like a politician saying "I represent your interests, but if I hear you talking about taxation issues I'm going to raise taxes". lol
Taxes will be raised until morale inproves!
seems reasonable - taxes, like downvotes, serve the community - it follows that obviously joy will not be far behind.
An Almond Joy some might say!
Suggestions:
I feel somewhat caught in the middle of this thing as I have people I would consider friends on both sides but vehemently oppose ideological downvotes. The question I feel they must ask themselves is what incentive is their behavior providing the current legacy social media's censorship / deplatform targets to join Hive if they exhibit similar conduct as those censors.
My contention is our target demographic tends to not be left oriented on the political compass and thus their behavior is not conducive to onboarding said users. Take it with a grain as of course I am biased but then again we all are to some extent.
Anyways, Kenny I appreciate your post and stance for freedom of speech. Hopefully these stakeholders will eventually come around. 🙏
Hmmm, but aren't most upvotes received because the user agrees or the content/author speaks to them in a certain way? Upvotes are mostly ideological, so opposing that reasoning for downvotes is a hard sell.
I too am more in the middle. I don't think removing downvotes is the answer, but 1-5 users removing the will of 600 isn't going to cut it for long either.
Honestly, if the user isn't upvoting himself, then the rewards shouldn't be in question. I'd say the only time earnings should be questioned is if a large vote under control of the author is used on their own content. Just my opinion, of course.
I think my view may be not so common but I think it would be good to upvote a well formulated argument even if you may disagree with the conclusion.
Of course, ultimately value is subjective but think arguments can be made as to what kind of moderation is in line with our shared objective of growing the platform.
But hell what do I know 🤷♂️
In my opinion, an individual disagreeing with an author's conclusion should be free to downvote. However, if they do find said author's argument to be well-formulated, the downvote should probably be a 0% downvote, so as to establish disagreement without hampering the author's earnings.
I'm down with that!
Oh also I used to be an ardent non-self upvoter. Ask @whatsup and she would probably be able to tell you.
I eventually conceded on that view and do believe users can curate their own content both up and down to what value the user feels is reasonable for their contribution (ideally imho). You may wonder "Who would downvote their own content?" But believe I've seen it and was actually moved to do it maybe once.
It was @kyle that I saw downvote his own meme which I had never seen before.
Self votes (within reason) I think are a positive thing, but I am so over the rewards disagreement group, I just can't.
Do you know the movie War Games? If not my next lines will be meaningless.
Thermal Nuclear War
Tic-Tac-Toe
Or downvote conversations..
Things no one can win.
I get the new people trying to grasp it, but those who are going on 5 years... Carry on boys! :)
I only voted for your comment because it was a self vote, even though we're not the same person. I get half. I agree with how lame it is talking about downvotes. But again, that's not why I voted. I just think it's humorous to push a button and give myself money sometimes. Thanks for being a good sport. Taking more than half though. That's just being greedy.
Funny thing I accidentally upvoted my own stuff today, from the leofinance front page, it has to do with how notifications are shown. I panicked
OMG the REEEEwards police are going to get me. That's not making a fun site.
Good to see you funny guy! :)
Excessive self voting with intent to dump is typically frowned upon. I know I personally don't approve of that, especially nowadays when one gets half regardless. When self voting spirals out of control, like we've seen in the past, it's not a fun site, or sight. Thousands of people sit there with nothing and have to watch several others with fat wallets congratulate themselves all day on a job well done. Think back to the most excessive form of self voting of all time; vote buying. That was a disaster. It was so hard to be funny back then...
Acidyo downvoted an ocdb post with both accounts, because it was sitting in trending too long just yesterday, I believe.
Proving the accuracy of many so called 'coincidence theories' is fairly easy and self evident to those who research them. When it comes to COVID, there is a long record of people such as myself being proven correct by all sorts of data and science, but this makes no difference to the big downvoters - they have absolutely no intention of addressing the actual details and have made this abundantly and overtly crystal clear.
Ohh.. the crazy 'anti vaxxers'.. Tell that to Austria.
Thanks for your vote of confidence. Love the anarchist/libertarian bent here as well. Most of what I do is trying to build out second layer technology so we can worry less about the base layer voting, if there has to be a government it should be as close as possible to those it governs... and of course any second layer tech that works here will work on any other dPoS chains as well. :)
Just so you know, despite you having a rep of 69, your comment was muted for me in PeakD for 'low reputation'. Ah, the irony!
That's because that member is on your mute list, as of this writing.
oh, haha.. I have no idea why.. maybe I had a moment of absolute love for fiat money. thanks for the tip
Mhm.
As it turned out I had muted you at some point in the past.. I do not recall why, did you play a lot of country music or something? lol
I likely chimed in to a post about 5G not being an ionizing radiation... being an ex nuclear engineer.
haha.. well, if there's one thing that the Simpsons taught me - aside from the warning about 911, Donald Trump's presidency and all the other things.. It's that nuclear engineers are a solid source of sage advice :)
Agreed. I'm going to check who I'm voting for and get you on my vote. It's not much. I got maybe 1.5k hp across 3 accounts.
Thanks so much for writing this powerful post, Kenny.
Many a downtrodden H1V3R that toil to create conscious
and quality works appreciate these various calls to action!
I'd say at the very least that you(everyone) demand the witnesses you support to clearly state their position on all the relevent topics covered in the description for Hive.
On Steemit I used to see witness campaigns quite often, but that isn't happening anymore. The witnesses seem to have become complacent and the devs have yet to address further decentralization of the blockchain.
Why is that? I'm not fully sure, but would love to hear it from the witnesses mouths themselves. We need more competition for these positions or we are just mimicking a flawed system we don't support in the physical world.
It's time to shuffle the deck!
Very true. I haven't seen any witness campaigns recently. Would be good to have them again.
Apparently vote decay starts in 6 months.
What's vote decay?
Are you on discord? There was something I want to talk about for the VYB and POB stuff. If so, what's your username?
Thanks!
My main account name: scholaris. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have or forward you to the people that have the answers.
I need the numbers as well. Would look like
Scholaris#7468
oh yes! apologies. It's scholaris#7274
scholaris#7274
He is a friend of mine :)
It's where witness votes are cleared after one year of inactivity in the witness section. It starts over with each change made within that year though.
Thank you very much for the verification.
Not 100 percent sure. Maybe inactive peoples votes go away after a set amount of time?
Yeah. If you haven't voted for a witness for a period of one year, your votes for witnesses are wiped. If a large stakeholder passes away for instance and the keys weren't in the will, those witnesses, after one year or less depending on when that account was actively engaging in witness voting, they'll no longer benefit from that dormant stake. Same with small stakeholders. Fair and equal treatment across the board.
tagging @scholaris.pob since you asked.
Wow thanks. I appreciate the information.
nods Mhm. Anytime.
It's not implemented yet. Will be implemented in the next Hardfork. It means witness vote will expire in 1 year and you must renew it at that time. Currently they don't expire
Thanks for the timeline on implementation!
Fantasticly written post highlighting what witnesses represent, the power they have and a very clear perspective on the current governance model.
You are touching on many points in this post and really highlighting them clearly.
As i see it the challenge we have is how to govern a system with many diverging interests. As Hive/Steem was originally envisioned, moderation was intended to be somehow built into the base layer using economic and social incentives. Downvotes were added but its not clear if they actually are useful. They are clearly being used by some influential accounts to shape Hive in their view of the world. I don't know what the answer is but i would ask one thing
Stick with the Hive ecosystem to find a solution
Different witnesses could be the answer, i am not even going to begin to list my grievances as this post is long enough but they have also done a lot of good. We are in a good place on Hive but there is obviously work to do. Maybe a regular election cycle or campaign season for witnesses would help. There is not enough rotation at the top. When we see the top 20 competing for their places and seeking support we will be in a good place and i hope Hive can be a home for people with lots of different beliefs and philosophies
Thanks for the inadvertent (as in, someone I follow reblogged your post) reminder. I actually haven't checked my witness votes in a couple of months and have just tweaked them a bit...
While I don't talk much about politics here on Hive (or on any social media these days), I'm a libertarian (small L because the Libertarian Party, especially in New Hampshire, has strayed very far from what my freedom loving husband and I fell in love with back in the 90s, to the point we both ran for NH State Rep on the Libertarian ticket many moons ago... but I digress). And after watching everything go down with JS back on our legacy chain, these are the 30 people/teams I trust the most to keep our blockchain home safe from those who would abuse/destroy it. YMMV, obvs.
Reason:
Your sarcasm needs to be improved or dropped altogether:
hardy har har...
Yep, I told you when I muted you, because you were wasting my time with nonsensical ramblings and taking my content personally, even though I have no idea who the hell you are.
Thread #1: https://peakd.com/hive-120078/@nonameslefttouse/re-kennyskitchen-qxhm77
Thread #2: https://peakd.com/hive-110786/@nonameslefttouse/re-kennyskitchen-qxlwyq
I'll repeat my last two messages to you, from those earlier interactions.
Yes. This is how you treat me. Call what I was attempting to explain "nonsensical ramblings", call me names, attempt to make me look like an idiot, yadda yadda yadda.
I did not take your content personally.
You just ratted yourself out. For me it was all in the past and saw no need to link to that conversation. Even at the time I said it wasn't even a big deal but simply couldn't figure out why you had such a problem admitting to boasting about something and taking all the credit for something you had very little to do with. So whatever. Enjoy your attempt at making yourself appear perfect, once again, and failing miserably. Not long ago, under this post, I briefly touched on that incident while speaking with urasoul. Also said I speak on things with confidence knowing the chain backs me up. So thanks for doing the work and digging up those links. It's truly appreciated.
And my comment here about your sarcasm fail, it was just meant to be lighthearted. Surely deep down you must know you don't really practice what you preach, since you truly don't, and even provided evidence. So for that I say, Thank you.
Have a good one, Kenny.
Words that could only be spoken by someone who's never met me, or read my blog. Very little is covered as much as my own trauma, processing, laying out my mistakes, and how not perfect I am.
I am, and I always do :-)
Actions speak louder than words, man. If what you say about yourself is true, you'd see no need to be defending yourself, you wouldn't see the need to prop yourself up like you just did and create this wholesome image of yourself like that. You might look a little closer at that day, see where you went wrong, maybe offer an apology which wouldn't be necessary but is something people do in those situations after making mistakes. Things like that.
I don't hold a grudge. It's whatever. Hopefully you can take a joke someday.
I don't normally upvote you, because of your views on food I appreciate and feel you have not only attacked people who like beef but for no reason aside from personal clout for a PR campaign in a green earth movement.
I will support this kind of content though.
I would challenge you to take another look at the one situation where someone made those claims, and the full context of the conversation (not just the claims he was shouting everywhere he could) and what came before it.
You'll also notice that you can find that post by scrolling through my feed as well as his, because I am always happy to have a back & forth, especially when someone makes claims about me :-)
I have supported the content of multiple people on (and posting about) carnivore and keto diets, and I still do.
If I only supported people who I agreed with about everything, I would only vote on... maybe 1 or 2, maybe 3 other people posting on Hive - rather than hundreds.
Cool as long as you are open to debate i wont take others opinions into account. I try to maintain a neutral bias with controversial people and can easily give you benefit of the doubt in these cases.
I just hope your intentions are genuine is all i could say.
Though there are a few two-faced types in this group posing as the saviors of humanity and all things Hive while the double standards run rampant, I'd say, based on experience, Kenny is by far one of the biggest hypocrites.
lol I know a thing or 2 that the public doesnt, and yeah if you know what i know, hypocrite would be an understatement.
I just like to reach across the isle and see what kind of response I get while treading neutral ground in ordeals like the looming downvote war. I call it a downvote war, but if that's not what is coming, then I don't know how to define this internet drama.
It's ridiculous, and boring. Classic case of politics. Everyone pretends to be awesome for the cameras...
No me, i am a self glorified Satanist who doesnt give a single fuck. I was here for the liberty and sovereignty of wealth but better opportunities exist on competitive services to hive since the rhetoric has dissolved into bias and non conclusive debate.
Well of course all people can do is talk in circles. Politics gonna politic.
Do share - I'd love to know what stories are being told about me, or what flaws of mine I haven't already published on the chain?
Anything I know is on chain. I am not going to proliferate drama because it's not going to make either of is look good and I just wanted to support your freedom of expression is originally why I came here
😊👍
Thank you for supporting us witnesses.
My pleasure!
As it happens, I am voting for your witness.
Care to give your sales pitch for your witness, for myself and those looking?
Of course. As witness I defend both network stability(obviously) ans free speech. My main profile is my main personal Witness getting votes from people who trust me enough to support my ascension to the Top100 witnesses. I believe most of my electors happen to know me from the Steemworld adaptation I made for Hive named Hivetasks(name suggested by one of the @dbuzz admins).
My secondary witness, @perfilbrasil exist mostly to promote Brazilian content and creators on this platform, like giving a 1 cent upvote to every content written in Portuguese.
Again, thank you for your support.
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the person sharing the post on Twitter as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com.
I was wondering what 'the dream' was and so decided click on it. lol
<3 thankyou for sharing
HIVE!D
A DAWNing of a new Day ✌️😎🥓👍
Didn’t you started powerdown. Meaning you don’t plan to have any stake or any vested interest in betterment of hive. Why would I believe or hear anything you have to say? You have no vested interest in hive.
Oh Kenny, on your list there are a few witnesses that I really want to get into top 20. So if you are even remotely successful in moving the needle you will be of big help to me personally.
Thanks in advance!!
Both Pharesim and OCD have powerdowns active, but I know you aren't interested in balanced and reasoned conversations, so I'll just point that out and move on.
No I am, and I will answer it. Because you are clueless on blockchain projects. So it is my responsibility to educate NOT you, but others on blockchain, so that you can't misinform them.
They both run curation project which requires them to share the curation income to delegators. They therefore will always stay on PD.
Pharesim in an individual and he hold 1M HP. An amount you don't even dream of keeping powered up. So please, stop talking about nonsense and things that you don't really understand. You worse, TRYING to spin.
That is pharesim HP all delegated to curangel. Happy? What are you going to do about it? Buy 1 Million hive and power up? LOL.
@kennyskitchen First, I’m not one for self-gratification, but then again, I’m usually late to the party - so I was very proud to see that I was the first to reblog this post, or at least I think I was - if not, please disregard :)
Ok. Next I want to follow up on the question above. I’m curious about this too, but just curious.
I do remember reading in one of your recent posts that you’re planning to leave. I like what you stand for and I would really hope to be able to stay here since I’m kind of attached to the content I have been and will continue to be posting. While I’m curious your response to this question, I don’t at this time see you as someone who’s acting with dubious intentions. If there is a new project coming up, is it fair to assume you don’t have interests still here? At the start of this post I thought maybe you’d changed your mind and decided to fight to fix what you see as wrong from within, which I though was really hopeful.
The free speech aspect is why I chose to set roots here, like two weeks ago. Your first post about this made my heart sink. I had just found a home for safe and protected free speech, and then that. I tried to rationalize it in my mind. I’m posting about making fermented drinks and ruck marching and magick. No one cares, nor will there likely ever be a reason someone should want to silence me aggressively, don’t rock the boat. These witnesses are probably just trying to protect the mainstream viability of the platform, since maybe most people don’t want to here or see things that defy the asshole narrative that’s being crammed down everyone’s throats… woo woo woo. So for a moment I have to admit, I was going to let this shake out however the hell without getting involved, but then it clicked.
See, for that post and each one since, I’ve typed and deleted at least three long responses. I never posted one though, because I didn’t want voicing my support to cost me the support of others. The opportunity to make money for my posts (and the fear of damaging that potential) was almost enough to keep me silent - particularly because I tend to post pretty benign shit - but in truth like I said, the biggest appeal when I came here was the ability for people to speak freely. My content isn’t under attack now, but if I stay silent while yours is, there will be no one to help when it comes for me, and while I don’t post anything controversial or counter-fuckery, I love basking in the brilliant work of others such as yourself that does exactly that. So I have every reason to stand in support.
I’ve proxied my votes to you for this account and my six little broke ass communities. They have no accrued value at this time, but I am in vehement opposition to censorship. So thank you. I’m going to go back to lurking and posting my benign shit now :)
Safety in numbers. Theres a lot more people just like you. I myself started bringing up these issues earlier this year and didnt talk about it too much before. It is the elephant in the roon.
The main question is this:
Is the Ethos of Hive people getting along and earning crypto for posting content, or is it the whim of a few millionaires who get to decide if you earn or not. I sincerely hope we can all move forward and ideological downvoting comes to an end and we can just focus on growing the chain.
I’m on board! I don’t care nearly as much about profiting from my content as I do about sharing it and getting conversations started. And I care less about both of those things than I do about protecting free speech and information, so really I’m disappointed in myself for having ever questioned it, but I’m going to give myself a hug, say “It’s ok buddy, you’re here now, so don’t beat yourself up,” and I’m going to say “be damned” to anyone who chooses to stop socializing with me because I take a stand for free speech. You push a man of peace too deep into a corner, and you knight him into a man of action. This is bigger than Hive.
Thanks for your response and encouragement :)
🧙♂️ Ksapa hwo!
That's a very respectable position. I hope current events helps those who were complacent in the past to come to a similar revelation.
Of course, it makes perfect sense.. The accounts you are connected to have valid reasons to power down and those you dont't like do not and are traitors to Hive. It's a perfectly rational position to take, yes. Clearly there are rules about powering down that are never spoken about or written down - which you are enforcing through verbal slurs, again - it's all totally rational. The fact that 12 out of the 20 top ten witnesses are currently powering down is only evidence that they are traitors to Hive who are trying to destroy Hive, yes.
Wow, what I am I thinking - even daring to think for myself here.. I don't have 1M HP, how could I even imagine to have the audacity to verbalise cognitive processes.. I am ashamed.
I am not connected to any of the account you mentioned
Do I use a bigger font? Will that help?
You ask for an explanation. I GAVE you an explanation. What is your problem?
You are friends with Pharesim and run Curangel together, so yes, you are connected to Pharesim. But even if you had never met him and had never worked with Curangel or anyone else I mentioned, it makes no difference to my point. My obvious point being that you are trying to diminish the character of people based on nonsensical metrics that you are selectively applying in order to try to bolster a position that no-one but you takes seriously. You are essentially saying that anyone who powers down is anti Hive. You have no clue what they are going to use the money for - they might be literally spending it on Hive marketing, as people have done before - or paying for servers or even employees to work on Hive projects. It is you who seems to have no clue about so many things that I am at a loss to explain it.
And what are YOU doing?
I don't have any metric.
I am NOT a witness. What I say doesn't matter. I am just a stakeholder like yourself. Anything I say is my opinion and mine only. A am entitled to MY opinion.
My last word on the subject.
I think they will appreciate that sort of libel being published on the chain.
I was clearly being sarcastic.
Sarcasm isnt real.
Are they not powering down? The claim usually has to be false to be considered grounds for libel. Just opining negatively about someone isn't enough to get to court even if you technically could file a frivolous case.
I assume that the "libel" being spoken about was calling them traitors to Hive, sarcastically.
Power leads people to feeling better than others and it always leads to corruption. When someone thinks they're literally a better person and stops treating others as humans, but as subjects, it's a problem. Thanks for the reminder on this, I haven't updated my witnesses since much earlier this year!
Oh the irony coming from the asshole selfvoting themselves 96% of the time.
You're the one trolling me on every page, and screenshotting just a week where I was busy and not reading things is definitely pretty weird, point to my last week, why don't you?
I pulled history for 365 days, was still around 70% self vote.
"around 70"
look, marky, I took your criticism and acted on it. the continued bullying is just weird and it's honestly not going to change anything. I understood your point and all you're doing is continuing to troll me and act weird about it all over the place. Feel free to downvote me but replying to me and harassing me in random threads is childish and creepy.
Could you please share a link of that if you have the time?
Ur being nuked on frot?