I agree that discussion of these kinds of matters can be improved dramatically, and many other points you make.
"... in my opinion not on Steem"
but not that one. Steem is a blockchain and provides excellent archival qualities unavailable on other media. We just need better mechanisms to hold discussions, and that is a failure of our front ends, not our blockchain.
"...we could have done the SPS and had a process where a scientific poll was created that asked something like whether or not we as creators would be willing to give up X% of our income for SPS."
This actually was undertaken on Steem, and a poll taken that disavowed any non-voluntary contributions. This was done on a post by @blocktrades some months ago, and I participated vigorously. Since there is no sticky mechanism, and but little use of the memo function to alert folks individual users think to, you apparently missed the post.
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Why not? I don't see any reasonable argument to not leverage a platform with magnitudes more users to have our debates. I know Steem is a blockchain and I understand it's archival qualities. Those aren't things I'm concerned about when it comes to this process. They're quite irrelevant. Steem and the community suffer from being insular. We sit on this platform when we should be having these discussions in a more public forum, in a place that is removed from the mechanics and politics of Steem. I suggest Reddit because I believe being open about the process would allow voices from say /r/cryptocurrency to join in on the debate. The Reddit community is MASSIVE and the Steem community is miniscule. We'd find more voices there of the regular kind of user we need to attract and convince that Steem, and the process by which it operates, is worth being a part of and transparent. Us debating amongst ourselves doesn't seem to have had the desired effect of creating a transparent process with heterodox voices or a system that works. So I think we need to go elsewhere.
That is my whole point. I follow Blocktrades. I also follow Tim Cliff, Agroged and some of the other top witnesses. I never saw said poll and I'm on here allllllll the time. I'm assuming you mean this thread? https://steempeak.com/blocktrades/@blocktrades/stake-weighted-poll-for-two-versions-of-steem-proposal-system
That is not a scientific poll or study. When I was developing my social network - full disclosure: we couldn't get enough seed funding to get it off the ground - we went through a rigorous process to launch a nationwide, scientific poll to determine our market and what our market wanted. It was designed to eliminate bias or leading questions and make respondents anonymous. The company that helped us conduct the poll then broke down everything in clear terms.
What I see in the post above is an indefensible process for deciding something like what we're seeing implemented now. This just reinforces what I'm talking about. This whole discussion is on several different accounts and "polling", if one could even call it that, is relegated to comments sections. It's pathetic. We need to have a public forum, that is centralized, that is scheduled that reinforces or rejects proposals based on evidence gathered by not only the forum but through follow up, scientifically conducted polls with all the data presented to the userbase, who also happen to be stakeholders.
I just cannot agree to this process as it stands.
I agree with you completely that these discussions are broken, but have to point out that Reddit has no financial interest in Steem, and while it may be a great marketing mechanism to discuss things there, the absence of stake from disputants would not forward the interests of stakeholders. Indeed, Reddit competes with Steem, and I am confident that subversive efforts would pollute the discussion. Basically, it is discussions between Steemers that are capable of making decisions for Steem, and Reddit neither has stake nor interest in growing Steem.
Why is that the case? People are capable of debating and arriving at sound conclusions that enable successful organization as a rule. There is a reason that on Steem these discussions do not do so. It isn't that Steemers are less competent than ordinary people. IMHO, it is because those with substantial stake are actively sabotaging any proposal that might reduce their ROI from profiteering. Disingenuous rhetoric and other means are employed by profiteers to prevent profiteering from being restricted so that the value they are extracting isn't restricted. Any value that is allowed to raise the price of Steem reflects their failure to extract it into their wallets. They use every trick in the book to prevent rational discussions and consensus from ending their profiteering.
As you point out from your personal experience, extremely rigorously scientific polls aren't particulary critical to success, and informal polling is often nominal. Despite the results of the poll there, whether rigorous or not, the results were ignored, and the profiteers used their stake to ensure that SPS funding wasn't voluntary. This is the problem Steem has, and that won't be solved with scientific rigor. The substantial stakeholders on Steem are all profiteers. This is because profiteering is in the code, allowing stake to extract rewards into the wallets of the stakeholders prevents capital gains, because it extracts the value of economic activity into the wallets of stakeholders before it increases the price of the investment vehicle.
For investors who depend on capital gains for their ROI, development is critical to increasing the value of the investment vehicle, and this is what differentiates investment from speculation. Profiteers extract the value of the business activity, and in manufacturing businesses for example, sell the industrial equipment to generate ROI, and this utterly destroys the value of the investment vehicle as well as the business. They don't care, because they've taken their profit and can just move on to the next business opportunity.
The industrial equipment of Steem is content creators, and they can't be sold. This creates a durable system where the production is extracted by stake manipulation of the rewards mechanism, and this has persisted for a longer time than simply selling the content creators would have enabled. However the price pressure on the token and disruption of the network have still dramatically harmed the business of Steem, and amongst the disruptive affects is the inability to successfully discuss the business, because any changes would diminish the ROI of the profiteers.
It is trivially easy to improve means of discussion and polling, and it is undertaken all the time. The active prevention of such discussion is why it isn't possible on Steem. I don't think this will matter for long, as EIP is going to halve the rewards paid out to creators (or worse), and the business of Steem is very likely to end, with profiteers moving on as they always do.
The problem is centralization, not decentralization, because stake is concentrated in 35 accounts that act disingenuously to maximize their ability to extract value from Steem. They do this via every means available to them, including rhetoric devoid of substance, and prevention of rational discussions. That's why my comments and posts are all flagged by one of the most substantial stakeholders on the platform, who participated in the original ninjamine and is amongst the most extractive profiteers.
Also, this iflagtrash bot is super annoying.
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It's easy to be annoyed by repetition, particularly when all it repeats is extortion threats. Le sigh.
Nonetheless, almost every comment and post I make is better proved by the flags and censorship than anything I say. I've come to appreciate his affirming with every flag and comment that I am factually correct. I'm not here for rewards, but engagement and criticism. So, I oppose censorship, and every time I discuss that, Bernie backs me up by censoring me =D
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I have essentially pointed this out to Tim Cliff as well. They get an objective benefit of higher profits AND development funds extracted without voluntarism while promising a hypothetical benefit into the future without demonstrating how in actuality this is supposed to take place.
It’s basically The Hamburgler.
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