There has been a lot of talk over the years about witness voting and how some accounts have too much control over who is in the witness ranks due to their very high stakes. Some might not know what witnesses do but if you were here for HF20 two weeks ago and still haven't found out, that is on you.
Now, there has been talk of introducing flags for witnesses to reduce their power but that is going to lead to more problems and unnecessary complication. It will also mean that the supporters of the top 20 can then flag the following 10 and make a large airgap to buffer themselves.
There has been talk about degrading the votes which means that over a period of time a voter must vote again to renew their voting choices. This will be a good thing to remove dead accounts and this should also be applied to disabled witnesses. If a witness has been disabled for 6 months, should it still be able to hold a top 50 position?
This post was from @scipio's last week but is a reminder of a piece I wrote some 5 months ago about changing witness voting procedures. In there are some other ideas that might trigger more ideas again so have a read if you have time.
In my view, there is already too much complication and misunderstanding with Steem but a simple approach to having a more community orientated witness selection is to reduce the number of votes. Five months ago I suggested 10.
I would now suggest 7.
The reason that 7 would be a suitable number is that it gives a 1/3 control of witnesses but not enough to have a 50% majority, and is a long way from a super majority. The concern voiced by @therealwolf on @scipio's is:
Having less witness votes increases the risk of people just going for the most popular witnesses. Meaning: you, @blocktrades are obviously someone who brings a lot of value and stability to Steem. So my vote for you is pretty much clear.
And the fact that I have 30 votes, means that I can also vote for some more experimental witnesses, who might not have proven themselves so much, but still need support.
source
and @blocktrades
But regardless of whether that's true or not, I think the important thing is to increase the security level of the system against an attacker who suddenly obtained a large stake (e.g. hacks an exchange that has a lot of steem). As far as I can tell, limiting it to 1/3 of the top 20 would dramatically increase the difficulty of such an attack (for example, all things being equal, the attacker would probably need twice as much stake to gain control of the chain). source
Chain security is a very important factor and if one account with large enough stake is able to choose the entire top 20, this means that there is risk for centralized governance and coercion. Not that there is coercion I know of, but on the new smoke.io platform one account controls 33% of the vested stake and since it is a Steem copy, the 30 votes means that 2 accounts control the entire top 20. That is a very large future risk.
Having 7 votes I think may increase the risk of people only voting for popular witnesses but, this doesn't have to be the case and if it is, it actually increases the larger staked players role in securing more of the top 20 as they are able to spread their large stakes (we will assume they understand witnesses) more wisely across the range and have it count. It means smaller players have more say and, larger players have more influence without having only a few control it all.
@gtg mentioned:
As a SP holder I want to have a choice to approve enough number of witnesses that protects security and reliability of the network so IMHO number of the voting slots needs to be at least 21. I would rather go for increasing 30 than decreasing it. source
The reason is that it means more of the top can be stabilized for security but, this is always a double edged sword since the promise of security is also the road to centralization. If a large stake player decided to buy in heavily and manipulate, there is very little anyone can do and they will be able to pad the top 20 and tuck them behind an insurmountable wall of security.
I think what we are trying to encourage here is security via decentralization and if the witness pool is able to be controlled by a small number of players, we run a very large risk of creating an identical system to that which we already have in the world. Where lobby and special interest groups are able to heavily influence the outcomes and directions and even those with significant stake or numbers can do nothing about it.
It is a relatively complex issue once we consider the ability to directly buy or influence witnesses. One doesn't even need to buy in directly to outvote the community, they just need to be able to convince a couple of large staked players to make a voting choice which likely reduces the cost dramatically. However, with less influencing votes, the number tat needs to be bribed in some way would increase making cost and complexity of organization much more difficult. A government, corporation or bank for example will have the capital to invest to buy in currently and control or heavily influence but if the witnesses and staked voters are more decentralized through reduction of influence, this reduces the likelihood of success.
@therealwolf mentioned that it would mean that he would have to be pickier with where he put his vote and in my opinion, this is a good thing. He also said that he would be less likely to be willing to support experimental witnesses and perhaps this is a good thing too. What this means is that if more stake stacks to secure the top 10-15 positions, the next 5 are likely to require less stake to get into the top 20 leaving real chance for witnesses to earn a position. And it would be earned as they would have to convince lower stake players to vote upon them instead of the top.
This puts a lot more responsibility and power on the small to mid-range active accounts who in time, will hopefully be key players in the decentralization process. At the moment there is little impetus to even learn who and what the witnesses really do as there is not much any individual of even medium stake or a group of smaller staked players can do about it. Empower them to have more say over the governance and more will learn. This has knock on effects for projects, innovation and SMTs without risking the key positions at the top.
The move to 7 witness votes would likely leave much of the top 20 in similar positions as they have projects, services, business and developments that support their position but, it would create some dynamic play in the next positions where witnesses must more actively prove themselves to the community. Those that are able to do so are also likely to get a shift or two of larger stake accounts to bump the tail of the top 20 around. What this could mean is that while there are highly stable and professional witnesses in the 1-15ish slots, there is a process of succession planning if for whatever reason they choose to disable.
I also means that those in the top 20 are in somewhat riskier positions and must prove themselves often enough to maintain their stability. What we don't want to create in the witness selection is the idea that it is a job for life where complacency and group norms based on relationship considerations seep in to undermine the very decentralization and stability it offers that we seek.
What is fantastic about this community is that even though there are different perspectives and disagreements, conversations can still be had and those who are consistently involved are able to continually develop their views and actions. As I see it, the more we can sort out in this foundational stages of the platform, the healthier the platform can be in the future and decentralization and distribution of stake is part of the security mechanism and the value structure in Steem.
The more interest the blockchain gets, the more it becomes a target of malicious players. Having engaged, knowledgeable and staked users will go a long way to making sure that the witnesses are in the right positions while allowing for dynamic changes as attitudes and the needs from the blockchain change. The blockchain ecosystem is going to move heavily over the next few years and we have to be able to move with it at the very least. However, what we should be aiming to do is to lead some of the shifts. This requires environmental sensitivity, not complacency and security in what we already have.
The discussions and negotiations on governance should never stop here as there is no perfect system. We do know some things that don't work though and we can see the results of them in centralized state controls, stockmarkets and the majority of people in this world that struggle needlessly. If we can't do better as a community, who's task is it?
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
What about being able to weight witness votes out of that top 7/21/30 whatever the magical number is. "I like this witness a lot, so I'll vote them with x vests." (Perhpas more than 1 vote, as it stands now) - I like this witness more than this other one, so it gets less vests.
That, or a preferential system, that then aligns your vote power in vests for that witness with your stake.
Vote 1 x for witness 45% of your vests
Vote 2x for witness 15% of your vests
Vote 4x for witness 2.5% of your vests
I'm to tired too work out the arithmetic, but I'm sure someone much smarter could work it out.
Maybe even a witness power slider bar that lets you adjust how many of your vests approve that person's witnessing activities...
Even if some people do just vote the top 7/10 witnesses, they'll likely be the lower staked ones who aren't really sure what witnesses are about anyway. So it shouldn't have too much impact, particularly as, like you say, it leaves more space for the popular votes by the bulk of users. I like this idea better than all votes being equal, because it leaves scope for election choices by both those who have a lot of stake monetarily (and possibly a good understanding of how things work) and those with stake in the longevity of steemit, but who can't afford to invest lots.
However, things are never that simple and @sirknight makes a good point in that we risk the lower ranked and new witnesses not getting a foot in the door for being unproven. It's a shame we have to worry about human nature and the risks associated with it.
I definitely feel that inactive witnesses should be dropped out completely after a certain period of inactivity. It's frustrating that we're seeing a list that has so many inactives when there are active ones off the bottom who should be visable.
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The lower ranks might have more opportunity if people stack on the top points because then they only need to convince a few highly staked individuals for a chance to get bumped up heavily. If the large staked players were playing well, they might vote all 7 but have 1-2 votes more dynamic in nature.
In a more-mature system I would heartily agree. My concern about it in the current state of Steem is that I'm not sure stopping a hostile takeover is actually a good idea. I don't think the "hacker steals a lot of Steem and powers it up" scenario is very realistic, but the idea of someone buying several million dollars worth of Steem and becoming a major player is. And while that is a little scary, I'd need some convincing that it would necessarily be worse than the status quo.
I am not concerned of the hackers doing this but, what does concern me is that it is relatively cheap to do at the moment for a corporation/government if it ever got to a point they felt it was worth it. The reason is that once that point comes, it is already too late because it can be done before the rules will change. I would say that anyone buying in very heavily to control a decentalized system is going to be negative for the platform in the long run although, it could turn it into youtube or facebook faster.
Agreed tc.
If someone wants to come along with $5m and buy themselves a seat in the top 20 - I'll throw them a vote myself.
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This is rather interesting as I had considered another approach. I would think that raising the Top 20 to 40 would improve distribution and security. While this increase could lead to less consensus, it could lead to more involvement of the witnesses which I would say is needed. In order to ensure more governance, I would say that sub-committees among these witnesses are created to establish governance of certain factors like security, development, economy, treasury, etc. However, as you mention, the great things about this system is that we could propose and work through the best approach that leads to the best interests of the community in the long term.
I think the reward structure could do with a slight review to spread a little more of the blocks further down the list. I am not sure of building too much structure into it though.
not to sound too centralized here but in the last week I have even been toying with the idea of a "sallary cap" of sorts that would put a limit on how much can come from a certain person nad if you can tie 50 accounts to the same person and prove it then only one account counts . Like freedom/ pumpkin for instance. A single person should not control all of the top 20 witness spots.
Also you should have to be somewhat engaged with the community. If you don't post then your vote will deteriorate as you are a dead account
The salary cap idea has been tossed around for a long time but it is way too hard to implement and it will be subject to a lot of policing and argument. The vote deterioration on witnesses is pretty simple. What it could be is that one would have to reset one of the votes in say a 6 month period to restart the counter. It would likely encourage a little more action or thought.
I still have a few votes to make and I've been better over 2 years. I find choosing 30 difficult as i dont know enough about these members as yet.
It is very difficult to know enough I think. I once asked a dev friend to help me build a site that witnesses could have some kind of standardized explanation of themselves and what they do but the dev had another large project just starting and it now takes up their time. I might try again sometime.
That would be very helpful for members like me. A bio would help us make our choices a little easier :)
Hmmmm. Don't know mate. I thought the witnesses were meant to be working to together. 7 votes only - expect 3 different factions to arise - either working against each other or colluding.
I think the idea of decaying voting power is good.
As far as someone hacking an exchange to then powerup and vote in their own witnesses.... well I suppose they might - but wouldn't they be more likely want to keep a low profile, remain liquid and sell as fast as they can?
My thoughts are that the current system does work well. Good actors are brought into the 20 and bad actors are removed. 30 votes is tough - but fair for all.
Finally I agree with the point about the other witnesses and giving them a go. It is not just about the 20 it is also about the 100+ backup servers and the rate by which they are remunerated.
Cheers.
SirKnight.
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If for example there were 3 factions, they all need to agree on hardforks. That makes hardforks smaller (they won't be able to push mass amounts in one) and much better checked for inconsistencies most likely.
I don't think the factions would necessarily develop in that way but there would be camps. Super majority would still have a place which means at least two camps have to agree.
THe low profile would only be in the initial stages but even then, does anyone really know who Freedom is?
These are all with over a million own SP (first 3 are steem)
How many need to be bribed to hold the entire top 20 with ease and become essentially unassailable? I am not saying they would but everyone has a price. with 7 votes they would need to buy more votes and convince a more diverse range of people.
At this stage, if the need arose SteemInc could step in and elect all the witnesses under both methods anyway. I will leave the conversation now, as the more I think about it, the more I think we should extend the voting out to 50 as EOS is looking to do. I would say that in time whale steem holdings will become more dilluted and the backup witnesses will become more important - so more votes is more decentralised.
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Once this happens it immediately becomes centralized. In time it might be better to have more votes but at the moment it is a risk. You mentioned to TC a person with 5 million buying a position, with 15 million they have all positions.
Doesn't work this way T. Someone buys up 15 million Steem - price goes up. Meaning Witness earnings go up, more Steem gets staked by exchanges etc to retained witness position. 15M steem is a little over 5% of all Steem. Sure it is going to help a great deal - but they will still need to make friends.
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It is the number of friends they need to make that is the difference. With a couple of the right friends, all positions are locked firm.
Not 20 positions though. And thinking logically - why would anyone invest 15M in Steem to ruin it? They could build and operate their own Steem blockchain.
I see that you have a level of passion for this issue T - for me it is just something trivial some of the whales moan about.
At its core - the witness voting system is fair and will work well. It may just take a few years for more dolphins and whales to come along to reach potential. IMO.
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What does surprise is me how little @gtg trusts the other people with SP to be able to vote good witnesses to power.
I also support change to the current system, since I've heard multiple times that there's only one account, freedom, deciding who gets to be top witness and who doesn't. That's a state that is not desired in a public, decentralized blockchain.
I don't think he distrusts others but trusts himself. However, this is steem and the way people use their SP isn't always in the best interest of the platform. Freedom has a large effect on the order but most will stay in the top 20 even if they lost that vote.
Perhaps not consciously but what other reason could there be? In the end it comes to the thought "Can I trust that in the end, there are other people with enough SP and good morals to make sure Steem will have good top witnesses"
Either one has that trust in itself or they don't. Perhaps decreasing witness voting slots would encourage current high SP holders to actually care who they give Steem via upvoting rather than just selling them for the highest bidders...
Steem is a blockchain, decentralization is something we should strive for. One account having enough power to decide who gets to be top witness and who not is something that will drive people away from the platform, the ones with serious money, who we sorely need here to drive adoption. Those people look at the fundamentals.
I'm still in favor of limiting witness voting spots, 7 could be a bit extreme, even though I'd want to see that happen, yet I'd settle for 10.
But I have to say, this early, with a lot of development going on and need for many hardforks, perhaps this isn't the right time to start bringing more politics to the system. Once Steem matures a bit more, in a few years, it could be time to start discussing seriously about this.
That's my 5 cents
yeah it is early which is why there has to be some protections in place. If there is a 5 billion in Steem cap, it makes it much more expensive to buy witnesses later. Thanks for taking the time and thought here :)
No problem, it's good to see these ideas being brought up and that some are thinking how we can improve the foundational aspects of how Steem operates. The more discussion that happens, the better.
Actually it's the other way around, that's why:
Problem is not with those who has high stake that are voting, but with all those who has their stake and are not voting.
When you take a look at number of people voting: highest voted (number of votes) witness (not me) has ONLY 16k votes. Top10 has less than 9k, Top20 less than 7k, and Top30 barely 5k.
16k voters can hold super majority of SP behind them though, I believe the plankton feel like they have no effect on top witness positions, I got close to 6k SP and even I feel like that.
Limiting votes to 7 or so would get people a lot more involved because they can really have an effect, this would ensure more competition for these witness spots and more value would be gotten from these witnesses that are able to get these positions since they would have to fight for their positions.
But those are my thoughts at this moment and could be wrong.
What if someone with a big stake distributes it between 3 accounts. That way he can do 21 votes. He would need much more stake that is true though.
They would need a lot more because it is stake based. people can do that but it doesn't change much.
The distribution now is still pretty bad. Maybe Steemit who owns like 1/5 of the total supply should give out some stake haha
Good idea
Vote renewal and an undivisible odd number of witnesses would make sense. I hear your argument for 7. Thanks @tarazkp
While I don’t think 7 are enough. Could 30 are way too much? It could create a very profitable farming source for someone who has enough SP to control who will even make it into the top 10 let alone the top 50. What is there to stop them from saying running 30 witness accounts themselves? At that point, comes how cheap per witness can you run it per month and is that profitable. Then it is simply a time thing running it for 5 to 10 years.
They would have more than enough voting power at that point to run an information war on trending that they are our savors and if you just proxy your witness votes to them why every month you would get x amount of upvotes in value based on your rshares to their cause. They could even start their own Dapps fund it with upvotes and offer higher votes if you have a proxy to them.
Let’s face it there are a lot of investor accounts on steemit who would sell anything for the right price even more so if they are profiting from it in the form of more coins (short term thinking). If they want to stay invested for 10 years it does not matter for a while what the current price is. All that will matter to them is how much they can amasses for next 5 to 8 years.
I went from having 30 witnesses before HF20 down to just 15. That to me is a more manageable number. It allows enough control without a single account dictating everything. Everyone is different that just a personal choice I've made.
While it does mean a single person can buy into the top 20 cheaper than it is currently. That can already, in theory, be done with the amount of liquid Steem out there. Besides even in times like these where there very few options to even buy Steem from someone. With enough wealth, and connections they can just make the trades without an exchange.
Add that into current situation where there are massive accounts that have never said a thing on the blockchain that vote. That no one even knows anything about them outside of what I can only assume are a couple of people at best.
Most people have their price point they are willing to sell Steem at. Maybe they will never admit it but the higher it goes the more sellers you are going to have. Same goes if the price takes a massive dump. People panic and want to sell out as it's not working for them either.
Either way, we have to think long term what is the best number of witness. Perhaps I’m wrong and there something built in that somehow stops a single person from just setting up a bunch of accounts and running them as a witness. I think that asking a lot for what goes on already on Steemit.
Would be interesting if someone with the skillset to run what happens if everyone had only 15 witness and all those people kept their highest ranked witness. Would we have a situation where $1 million buy-ins would get you into the top 20?
Frankly, there are just too many unknowns. While 30 are not ideal as it stands I don’t see why it needs to be changed one way or another. It has kept the blockchain running more or less as it is. While we don’t always agree we seem to be moving forward even if it seems at a snail pace. As it stands it is just not very economical either to buy into the top 10 let alone 20 witnesses. Unless you were a company that was already profiting other ways off the blockchain; such as, using upvotes to fund payroll along with accepting Steem as payment to further fund development in that way.
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