Damn it.
I didn't want to get into the Decentralised Hive Fund discussion at all. Yet here I am .
For those that don't know what the DHF is:
The Decentralized Hive Fund (DHF) is an on chain decentralized autonomous system that allows users to submit proposals for funding and vote on which proposals should be funded.
There is an FAQ link available there also.
There is also a lower limit of support required in order to be funded (and stay funded) called the Return Proposal. This ensure that a funded application has enough staked support in order to get funded in the first place. Staked support isn't how many people support, but how much stake the supporting people have on the blockchain. This is not a 1 person 1 vote democracy, this is a Proof of Stake platform, with staking HIVE giving weighted powers of governance on the blockchain, as well as the benefits of up and down voting for curation.
Reminder: Curation is a "yes" and a "no" process.
Anyway, without going into too many specifics, the higher the return proposal is (which is also voted by those with stake), the harder it is to get an application funded, because it requires attracting more voting stake for it.
centralised. But, is it really?The current vote support requirements is around 36.5 million. That sounds like a hell of a lot, doesn't it? And then when @blocktrades voted the return proposal and pushed it up over 60 million and defunded all of the projects bar one, it made the fund look
That is how much Hive there is vested (staked) on the platform. That means that around 150 million HIVE POWER isn't voting for the return proposal currently. And, after BT voted, there was still 120 million not voting for the return proposal. This means that if in a hypothetical where all of that HIVE POWER was engaged on the platform, it could easily outvote BT. I am not saying that outvoting BT is what is wanted, it is just to illustrate that even with the largest stakeholder by far on Hive, it is possible to overrule him.
And then there is this.
That is how much Liquid HIVE there is that isn't staked. This is in wallets as liquid, but mostly, it is held on exchanges. The number one current holder of HIVE is...
Previously Upbit.
Would be a shame if they lost their keys.
That is 137 million (or about half) of all the liquid HIVE in one wallet. But my point of showing this is that the HIVE on those exchanges is user HIVE that isn't staked, and therefore not governing anything on the blockchain. It could of course come back and make a difference if the owners chose to, but that is not what is currently happening.
Back to the DHF
My point of this post is firstly to remind people that Hive has a fund that can help with development, but also that it requires more than a vote. I believe that any of the funded projects there should have regular and clear updates, outlining the timelines, what has been accomplished, expectations, hurdles and any other project related information that is required for people to decide whether to keep funding or not. This shouldn't be delivered consistently, whether it be for a community project, or an individual developer who is working on some aspect of the Hive code. There should be a high level of transparency on what exactly is being paid for and when expected delivery is to take place.
There should be accounting, and accountability.
Sounds like work.
It is work!
Anyone who is interested should be able to easily find the latest information on the proposal and, any historical information that might be pertinent to add or remove support. The default position should be "not to support" a proposal, no matter who is making it. And then, once the various criteria are met, then support can be added. At any point that criteria isn't being met, then the default position should be to remove support.
Perhaps @peakd could on their interface help with this by adding a "project notes" section where simple updates at least can be viewed reverse chronologically with the latest update showing directly on the proposal with a link to the full list.
At the very least, each proposal should have a repository of project documentation that shows the evolution of the project and has transparency on what is actually happening in terms of meeting goals. Some of the developers are getting well above a daily dev salary, even though it might be on par with hourly rate. The difference from a business doing it and on Hive, they aren't accounting for it, they aren't tracking their hours, they aren't meeting with a supervisor to keep them on track and on time, they aren't a business. A dev salary and what a company charges hourly, are two different things.
It is strange that the Hive blockchain is all about transparency of activity, yet we have a brilliant development fund but require no transparency of activity at all. But, the transparency isn't just to keep people interested in where the money is going satisfied, it is also to create some excitement around the development that is taking place. People used to get excited about an upcoming hardfork and talk about it for months prior, yet I don't even know if one is planned now, let alone what is included and what to expect. Having visibility and discussion At the community level helps people like me feel engaged with the platform and the development direction, as well as helps me plan my future as an owner, operator, contributor, participant.
I think people are looing at the recent activity around the fund in the wrong way. Instead of questioning the decentralisation of it, people should be questioning why more people aren't engaged with it, and why there is no transparency from the projects or devs who are funded. It shouldn't be a political game played in Discord, it should be an open process of discussion and information flow directly on the platform itself. And I think that even if the community doesn't demand it right now, the funded proposals should be taking responsibility and creating that transparency in the interest of good faith, for now and in the future.
I have a lot of goodwill for @blocktrades, not because he is a whale that has been around since the start, but because of the professional way he has always engaged with people, including the ones he probably doesn't like that much. He has often taken the time to be part of large discussions and shown support for a lot of small discussions too. His short-lived move on the DHF doesn't fill me with fear, but I hope it fills the projects there with some to the point that they up their game and start working like an actual project, holding themselves accountable to a transparent standard and timeline. I also hope it wakes up some of the people who have stake and are interested in the future of Hive, and gets them active in its governance mechanisms.
This is my rant for today.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using INLEO
Yes, very well put. The transparency that we have for everything else on the Blockchain just seems to be missing when it comes to visibility of work, plans and goals for funded projects.
You usually only start to get a hint of what's happening with them when they have lost it are close to losing their funding!
Exactly. They should be accounting from the start, not when they are finally questioned.
Totally because by then most of the ones being questioned get found out!
Well put. I recently in the last couple months took away my previous support for a few projects that I felt were not getting proper support. I won't name them here so as not to detract from them. I did actually like a couple of them. One of them was a front end app that I felt was lacking in proper development and support. They had rolled out changes in what appeared to be a completely un-tested and un-validated method, breaking web functionality for most users beyond basic viewing.
As a past IT professional, this was not the type of paid development resources I was used to seeing, nor was the followup break/fix handled with any sense of urgency, simply comments like "it works in the app, have you tried that instead of web browser". Well, my answer was no. the work I am doing to manage a group is much more time efficient on the computer and web interface. They are welcome to continue their hobby of playing with code, but that level of non-diligence and attitude is not suitable for a production front-end (nor any app imho). Hence, I "fired" them by removing my DHF vote and also removing my 4 figure delegation. I won't go so petty as to downvote them or publicly chastise them, as I believe their founders had good intent and actually liked their interface for a few things. It was a shame to see the sloppy development put an end to my use of it.
Totally agree more transparency is needed here. Not nitpicky, but at least some targets and key milestones of what done in past and what planned for future. As you state, this is a paid effort, not a developer charity and they should act like it.
Just a note, those are in the small minority. The vast majority of dev's are doing a great job I think, and a shame to see the laggards tarnishing those active folks reputation, and causing the need for extra efforts. Kudo's to those that are working hard to improve our platform and keep it running! I certainly want to see their rewards continue to increase and be funded.
There is little professionalism in the development. I think it was okay back in the Steem days, but there should be the expectation of a bit more polish now.
I agree, but they need to have transparency too. This is a community, so there should be some level of community outreach. It is the same with the witnesses - they should be more engaged as humans with the community. Otherwise we may as well just run 20 witness nodes by the same person. What is the difference?
An easy question to answer. But that is my point, without the people showing their faces/positions and being part of the discussions, they are all the same.
alpha.ecency.com is the test site for Ecency and we can always use knowledgeable testors before doing releases. I assume other front ends have something similar.
That is a great example of how proper development and testing should work, but still requires a proper procedure to utilize effectively.
An alternate site for folks to bang upon and to test all functionality works before releasing to the masses. I know just enough to realize that this is not going to catch everything, but should certainly catch the vast majority of larger issues.
The other critical portion is having a backout and/or rollback plan. If significant workflows/functions are not working in a new release within a reasonable timeframe, someone needs to pull the plug and revert back to older versions known to be stable and working until they are fixed and then try again...
Your devotion and hard work supporting the Ecency project and helping others utilize it (including myself) are commendable.
Website migration Ecency did was a major change. They completely rewrote the entire codebase in three months and after release there were undetected glitches. We had to suggest people use a rollback site while devs worked it all out.
It would be interesting to hear what his reasoning was for the vote on the return proposal and then the sudden reversal on it. I've never interacted with BT, so I don't want to assume anything, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It also seems kind of shady at face value. I'd love some clarity on it. When this whole thing happened, "centralization" wasn't even the first or fifth thing that came to mind for me. Especially after I looked at how close some of the proposals were to still making the cut. They weren't that fart off, it could have easily been doable for them.
I think it was in response to the Leo proposal getting funded.
I always have had mixed feelings over the stakes those exchanges end up with and could use in a big way. Remember the Tron takeover and witness revolution?
One one hand, a big investment of time and money and attention has to be put in place in order to set up as an exchange and this is an essential service for people and large groups dealing financially with the blockchain. On the other hand,it seems like the banks having the biggest say in the financial laws which is not fantastic in the real world.
I definitely agree that there has to be a business accountability and it is communication and transparency that will enable smaller stake holders to contribute and help with the diligence.
So happy for what BT has done and how he has involved himself in our community but I do worry.
I think there is a safety mechanism in the chain now to deal with this. If they powered up (it is currently liquid of course), they don't have witness voting privileges for 30 days I believe. Plenty of time to make some more changes.
BT is the biggest holder here, which also means he has the most to lose directly from problems. Stake comes with risk also.
True! They have always been forthcoming with their updates when I was watching but I couldn't help but wonder. Awesome we have a little safety built in now.
Well that was interesting, I wish that there was some statement from block trades about this move, though there might have been some communication behind the scenes that is not visible to community. Hopefully this leads to improved visibility of the funded projects and the benefits they deliver.
There was probably communication behind the scenes, but I think that more of it should be on chain.
Great post. Ecency will be writing a new proposal next month and will continue to make an effort to be transparent and give the data that people want to see
I like Ecency, the features are really close to PeakD and for small account there is a nice feature where one can accumulate Ecency points then use them to get a 200+ HP delegation for a month. Love that feature! I will definitely be supporting your proposal though I am a tiny fish still :)
I haven't used Ecency much and not for a long time. I think I should use it a bit more to see the differences :)
By default more is shown in the notifications, which you can filter by various things including Favorites which I use quite a bit. There's is also Discover feature that I like. I
Please ask anytime you have a question or are looking for a feature you can't easily find!
Thank you! I agree with you and love the way Ecency supports new users.
Have you joined the Ecency Help Community? You might find the info there useful.
I really hope so. The data is good to see and hopefully, the develop adds value to the ecosystem :)
Hopefully the new Ecency Proposal will set an example of how a proposal should be written.
And hopefully there will be plenty of follow-up :)
Ideas of what is expected are always welcome.
Ecency is the best Project on Hive. I will continue to support Ecency with all my Hive Power.
You are very much appreciated! Curators appreciate the additional VP that your delegation gives us for voting on Ecency posts. And I hope you enjoy the Points and Hive you earn each day in return. ♥️
I have no notes.
Or maybe I can note that this is the first time I haven't had notes.
Yeah that's the ticket.
:D
It sorts of reminds me of a government. Like, since a government isn't an enterprise, no one is looking to cut expenses and often tends to buy overpriced work, in short, waste money. Since Hive doesn't have "an owner", the sense of property or care with the expenses seems to dilute and one has to build it oneself. That or hire an external who makes audits, like some country did.
One of the challenges and strengths of distributed networks isn't that it has no owner, but that it has many owners. It takes longer to create in decentralized environments, but the solutions are more robust.
Well-ranted.
It is important to have good transparency and accountability on this stuff
I don't know why you're doing this, but we'll have an idea soon. Is there any explanation? One of the users said it was for security purposes. It could be, why not.
The return of most of the funded projects should be at the desired level. Some projects are really important. I hope important projects will continue.
@blocktrades' vote weight, like you said, makes the DHF looked centralised. Though I hope they use it to vote for good proposals that will help the platform. It's highly unlikely the 137M+ hive on CEX will be brought to hive and used for DHF votes.
I understand your point in this post
What about that?
Wot no more Hive Sucre, sad face, NOT!
It sounds like you are talking from inside my brain.
Transparency and clear proposal budgets, with targets and consistent update post of progression of a funded project…. That this is not the norm seems shocking to me.
It the basics of the basics.
I must admit I wish BT left his return vote.
I would have liked to see all projects need to start rallying for support. Engaging with users and clearly demonstrating what value they will create for Hive to receive this funding.
The way it has been is just too ‘hey ho’
Competition, checks and balances, open discussions, requirements post funding, delivered metics shared regularly are all needed realities.
The lack of these things seems absurd for a decentralized ‘community run’ chain.
Thank you for squeaking about the DHF even though you were hesitant.
We need many more squeakers round these parts!
🤓
!PIZZA
$PIZZA slices delivered:
(9/10) @danzocal tipped @tarazkp
What does it meant, no more upcoming hive project or no more progress and innovation in our blockchain. Project means marketing, and marketing attract new users. Could be it a web 3 game like decentraland or farming game like Farmville 3 on the blockchain (love it).
I am still learning here and it's great that I read this and the comments.