I’m going to call this a half rant/half trying to share information post.. as my DM’s have been interesting lately. So, please feel free to ignore it... but I feel it needs to be said.
Backstory.. feel free to skip
For anyone who doesn’t know, I’m on the current working group (or what’s left of it) of the @steemalliance group which is helping to build a community foundation.
This process started in January (yes JANUARY) and many individuals have been working pretty hard to keep it going and get it organized.
First a working group was elected (in an open discord server with a hundred people present) and then individuals who showed up later said this was not fair and needed to be a full election announced before hand.. which did make sense in some aspects. So, the then elected working group’s first task was to put on a communty election.. for a second working group.. while dealing with the chaos that ensued.
There were calls for transparency and accountability (which were a main priority from the start and why everything is open with full transcripts, which can be seen on the blog/in the server) and so the first working group worked very hard in a open to the public chat room to put on an election in that way, to ensure the community got to choose who they wanted for this task.
Well, an election happened and 12 people were selected to make up THE COMMUNITY’s WORKING GROUP.
Three of those people remain and have been carrying the weight for quite awhile.. where is that community accountability guys? 🤔 Where are those screaming for representation and a group they got to choose?
Oh well, let’s move on...
And here we are now, almost at the finish line...
Here we are, nearly 3mths later, finally to the stage where the community will choose a structure they feel is the most beneficial for the foundation (and therefore the community) and what are people focused on? OH MY GOD SOMEONE COLLABORATED!?! IT MUST BE RIGGED BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE THAT PERSON!?! 😱
Are we building a foundation guys or is this all just a popularity contest?
As I haven’t spent the last three months of my life working my ass off to do things openly, and fully transparent (which makes it more work) while trying to ensure the community’s voice was heard just for this to turn into some joke because people can’t get over themselves.
So in the same style I have done in this process from the beginning, I’ll answer some questions I’ve heard... honestly
Did you tell people to collaborate?
Why yes I did! Many, many, many times I told people to collaborate. On air in town hall meetings, in open chat rooms, in DMs and who knows where else over this whole process.
Why?
Because collaborating on ideas leads to better ideas. Working with other people helps to hash out problems to find solutions. Also, hell.. this is a community foundation.. wouldn’t it be swell if more of the community was working together to build it?
Also, because while working in this process I got a bit concerned.. as I was seeing some great ideas but not something that seemed to fully encompass what the community seemed to be asking for and most importantly, something that could be implemented.
What I did see were some great proposal ideas that complemented each other very well though.
So I told people over and over to work together?
Yes, I did that.. repeatedly! Finally some decided to go for it and yeah, I helped them.
A week or so before the final cut off, after hearing some were going to try to merge their proposals, I made a group chat. Each individual gave input on who they felt would work well for small initial group that would try to physically combine the proposals of a few of those involved. They were added and they discussed what aspects of the proposals worked together, what didn’t etc.
I gave my input mostly on “overview” stuff .. told them what I felt was most likely to be implemented or doable. Hell to be honest the two things that I actually gave the most input on or “suggested” they decided didn’t work for them 🤷🏻♀️. It’s not my proposal, but I did give input on some things.
I even said that if the community decided to choose the option, I would be willing to help them move forward with it. (I also said openly in the discord that I would do the same for any proposal that wanted it). Of course this does not mean a place in the foundation itself. As the specific proposal I’m named in (for transparency) is very clear that that would not be the case, rather the community would elect the board.
You guys wanna know the honest truth?
I actually had my own proposal typed up.. yep.
As I felt we were in the last inning and the community needed an option to combine the proposals, which I had not seen yet. A request that they had asked for many times. It’s why I was pushing collaboration so hard, and it just hadn’t happened yet.
So if someone else didn’t put forward the idea for it, I was going to submit my own, as a second option:
An option to combine some of the complimentary ideas put forward by the proposal teams so far. The goal being to build the best Community Foundation Possible. Because of this, there will be many unknowns and a team will be needed to help make this happen.
As the chair of the current working group I feel that this election needs an option to combine the ideas on the table and a committed, capable and invovled group of individuals to get it done.
I had included a list of many individuals who were writing proposals themselves, individuals from the first and the second working group as well as individuals who had just been actively involved in the process so far to act as a “steering group” to combine ideas and get things going, until a community elected board could be established.
So when I saw that there was a group who was willing to work together to combine ideas, heck yeah I fully supported it!
Doesn’t that make it rigged?
This one I seriously can’t wrap my head around. How does a group of people who were writing individual proposals, who then decide to collaborate, make it rigged?
You realize the community is deciding this election right? Rigged would imply that the winner was chosen from the start or that the election would be controlled somehow.
Soooooo how is that possible in this? As the vote will be made through an open community election done by a third party, with open audits available.
But you’re on the working group, who decides the election right?
The working group decides nothing, the community does. THE COMMUNITY will be voting in this election and will be choosing what structure they feel works best. Not me, or the working group. The group won’t even count the votes. It’s all done through dpoll.
Full audits will be available and everyone is encouraged to view them.
Also, everything the working group does and discussing can be seen in the server.. as there are no hidden rooms.
Considering my ethics, values and goals can openly be seen in this entire process. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I will continue to ensure the same transparency and fairness continues.
If you disagree with this and my ability to do so, say so.. publicly and let’s get it figured out.
To me it seems people have lost focus
To me it feels like emotions have gotten involved, egos and maybe too much focus on “winning” rather than actually building something for the community.
So, I’ll ask again...
Are we building a community foundation or is this all a popularity contest?
I have only one goal here, and that is to help this community build a foundation that not only benefits it but gives it a voice. Something that fills the gaps that so many have complained about and allows the community to take ownership with the support to get some shit done.
So if you are pissed off that people collaborated (and also noted that they wanted to collaborate with more people in the future), then maybe you need to take a look at what your main goal is.
Dear Community,
If you have found yourself wishing things were different here, wishing that good projects could get support, that the Steem blockchain was presented to the world better or if you are one of our passionate family members who thinks everything here sucks and the community has no say, Here’s your time to put up or shut up.
Register To Vote
And then...
Read The Proposals
Forget the people mentioned for a moment and read the damn proposals. As we are after the Structure of the foundation and there are some really great options on the table.
- What are the goals?
- Does it make sense?
- Is it beneficial to Steem?
- Do they have anything mentioned about accountability?
- Do they cover things you feel that are important?
- Does it say how leadership will be chosen? (If so maybe that name you don’t like doesn’t even matter 🤔)
- Does it seem like something that can actually be built?
If you aren’t sure, ask them. Ask them questions if you don’t understand, as that is the point of this process.
It’s now or never.
rant over.
I flag trash. You were upvoted by trash. Therefore, you are likely trash. Goodbye.
Thanks for all the work you've been doing. It's frustrating, but hopefully ultimately rewarding. Steem is such a diverse community that we'll never please everybody - but we can hope to get most of it right. Rant is overdue imo.
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Thank you. The reward will be the improvement to the Steem ecosystem as a whole and the community actually coming together to build something of this caliber.. I think that reward is worth all the pain and it’s why I’ve (as well as many others) have just been wading through on the 💩 to get it there.
Thank you, while rants are beneficial to me.. maybe not the best for the whole group as a whole. But I hope the true message comes through.. This is the community’s and we have to come together to build it.
Firstly, I’m a cynic. Anyone who has followed anything that I’ve said about the development of the steem blockchain and the operation of communities thereon knows that my opinion of humans in general is pretty low. So take the following in the relatively helpful spirit it’s intended.
Congratulations! You’ve discovered what everyone who has ever needed to do a team project in school experienced: people don’t want to do jack. Small-group elections are an excuse to make noises, point in random directions, and avoid accountability and responsibility. People will volunteer because volunteering as an action is cheap and easy, and it looks really good, but then they won’t act as they volunteered to do because – and I know this will come as a surprise – that might involve work.
Transparency is great, and it’s something that I have advocated for in a radical way all over the place. But before transparency can occur, action has to be taken. And with something like this, voting is not that action.
Probably what needed to happen was a small group of like-minded, self-selected people got together with a specific goal in mind and started marching off, motivated, to do that. Along the way, they could pick up like-minded people who want to help out, delegate parts of the work to people who are interested in doing so, maintain responsibility so that when those people washed out (which is common) someone else would be doing the heavy lifting, and now, three months in, you would have something material to show for it.
Democracy is great but until you have a population large enough so that the self-selected agents of change within it actually have a population that won’t fit into a Toyota, it’s a lot of wheel spinning with absolutely no payoff.
Sometimes you need a little benevolent despotism to jumpstart just getting things done before you hand it off to an interested community.
Can you tell I’ve dealt with people online for many decades now? This is not the first time this particular failure mode has been seen.
It is immensely frustrating to dig yourself into one of these things and watch as it spins around in circles with no real plan – or too many plans – and no execution. I know! It sucks. If you get really lucky, the actual voting will bring together people who are interested in executing whatever they voted for. The flipside is that the people who didn’t vote for it won’t have skin in the game and will have some motivation not to help out at all.
This is why marching orders are often far more valuable than proposals early in a project.
Good luck, here’s a shovel, I hope you can dig out of the hole, and moreover get what you want.
I cannot agree more with your statement. I also agree that how this was done from the start set it up to be difficult to make happen, and we have been fighting an up hill battle due to decisions made (not by us) in the beginning.
While there are many who are just there to criticize it (no matter what it does) there is a large group of individuals who have been involved from the beginning and will push it to get done.. it’s just so much messier than it needs to be 😂 which is only a tad frustrating.
Thank you for your comment, you are spot on.
Well – and here's the reminder that you may not be getting from other sources:
You don't have to keep digging in the same hole.
Set yourself a deadline for seeing action. "If I don't see something that actually is real movement forward by [arbitrarily short timeframe here], I'll go do something else."
This is the thing that keeps me from getting mired in things that are just not going to happen. It is easy to keep making excuses to stay with a project that you believe in. If the aim is good, you'll tell yourself, it's okay that it's not moving forward right now – I have faith that everything will turn out in the future because it's a good thing. That's almost never how it turns out.
So you have to push yourself, you have to put yourself in a position to be evaluating what you are engaged in, and the timeline has to be short enough that you're not just treading water until the next deadline comes by so you can convince yourself that things are going all right. Two weeks, a month – these the kind of horizons that really keep you trying to be honest with yourself.
And if you bail? That's fine. Nothing keeps you from grabbing a handful of like-minded people who want to work, which should be relatively clear at this point, going off and then actually doing something, doing it right from the ground up.
If you want to get stuff done, get stuff done. Find people who want to do things and go do them.
This is a real problem in a lot of online communities which have come together in order to drive some goal, but "some goal" is literally that – not a plan of action, not a proven project, but just a generalized, nebulous, "this would be better if" sort of thing. Everybody loves puppies, hates war, and wants things to be better.
Figuring out what the work is and communicating that so that people who are really interested in doing the work jump on board and people who aren't interested in doing the work but look forward to the achievement can stand by the side of the track and wave as you go by saves so much trouble. It literally is the difference between getting stuff done and people talking about getting stuff done.
So set your time horizon. Figure out something explicitly achievable that must happen within that time horizon. Then hold yourself to that decision. If it happens – great. Set another time horizon, pick another explicit action, and repeat. And don't be afraid to bail if it doesn't happen.
You only get so many hours of consciousness in a lifetime. It seems a terrible shame to throw so much around so wastefully when there's stuff to be done.
That's the way I think about it but as I understand it, opinions can differ.
Rarely do you run into a comment on Steemit that deals with topics of political nature like this that isnt filled with favor seeking, conformist, politically motivated bullshit.
Its refreshing....
I just want to add one thing that i think you kind of missed:
This was never a waste of time for her nor will it ever be regardless of the outcome..
She became a "Steemhold" name because of this..
Ive known her when she was a sweet girl posting pics of chickens on Steemit, now shes one of the biggest influencers on Steemit and a hardass that wont take any advice or criticism.
Im not saying that she is running this show for that reason,if she did do it for clout then im not half as good at judging character as i think i am, im just saying that she profited greatly from this endevour. Dont think for one moment that the foundation, even if it fails miserably, (which i think it will unless Ned gives them a million SP) isnt a win for everyone involved and a huge win for LL.
Thats what politics is. It doesnt matter if a project succeeds or fails, is it smart or stupid, what matters is the points that you count at the end.
Great post. I registered to Vote and Love The Merger !
It would be my choice as well except for the must be US based part.
Soooooo...you seem frustrated...
🤪
Seriously though, rants are totally fine. You’ve been busting your ass to try to make things flow here. Anyone who pays an ounce of attention or who follows anything on discord can see that.
I for one thank you for not only all you have done to help me personally but to help this become a better platform.
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😜
I appreciate it, thanks.
I’m not asking for acknowledgement but you know, I wish we could focus on the goal 😄 and not “winning”.. if we are going to build this thing we have to come together.
Fine. I take back any cred I threw your way.
Organizing where to go grab a beer and a bite with friends is insanely difficult. Deciding on what movie to watch with my wife is torture. I would expect almost no smooth sailing on what you guys are attempting to accomplish. If you can take solace in anything, know that you guys will eventually square it up and get it figured out...but I do not envy you guys at all right now.
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Thanks for your valuable support in getting this process to the point where it is. It would be great to give voters a final possibility to ask questions in some life format. The final result should give Steemians all over the world the possibility to shape ‚their‘ foundation.This should NOT be a popularity contest. Thanks once more for the fair way of organising this process 👍
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Thank you, that means a lot from you.
Great idea about the live questions, it’s something I wondered about but just hadn’t gotten there yet.
Maybe the 9th? Day before election starts?
I completely agree and hope individuals really see the goal here, as this is the community’s foundation.. we just have to come together to build it first.
You’re welcome. I assume there will be some tactical games. So, I‘d propose two ‚shows‘ one before the voting starts, the other near the end.
I think there are even possibilities to combine US-centric centralised proposals (the Merger) and Global decentralised ones (DeCentraSteem). Sometimes it’s best to follow two pathways in the beginning and then merge the best findings.
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Yep, great idea. I just brought it up in the WG, we just need to figure out times and ensure the proposal teams can make it.
We will figure it out and then ask in general to make sure times work for you guys.
As far as the proposals: I truly feel there are some great options on the table and many could work together/combine. Because as I’ve said many times, it’s not suppose to be a competition.. rather the goal is to build the best community foundation possible.
Great to have a do-er like you and several others in place !
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i missed the drama, kinda happy i did.
most of interesting ideas in life are fucked up by people being, well, people.
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Sorry I haven’t been following much.
I am curious how any of the proposals will be implemented and/or funded if they are approved? What are the chances of implementation and/or funding if approved?
I guess that depends on what is chosen. They will have to be implemented by someone, and I assume those making the proposals have something in mind and are hopefully sharing that. Many have, some aren’t as clear so that may need to be asked on their proposals.
On the last townhall, it was offered that contacts and information would be shared by Steemit Inc. to get the legalities figured out and many times they have committed to funding a foundation... but we probably need to show them we can even come up with an idea first before they donate money to make it happen.
To some extent, it does seem like just a pissing contest over who gets to run the show.
Community seems to be a difficult word for a lot of people to grasp in these times of "me first, and to hell with you".
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I love your rants. Hey, sooo much admiration and respect from humble me. Hope this small offering outweighs the Muppet abuse.
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