Hello my friend!
I have mixed feelings of the new HF. In some ways it was just an awful PR nightmare and in other ways it shows what the strengths and weaknesses are here. One of the biggest weaknesses I saw was just a sheer abysmal testing and vetting of the data before forking the platform. One of the biggest, most important things a developer does is run a mirror image test platform! It may be difficult to do to full scale but they can at least create one with a good representation of users with varying degrees of power, reputation and the like. This was obviously not the case in these developers minds.
The fork also highlighted how few people were truly involved in the process. As users we typically think that all of the witnesses have a say. I think a lot of people thought the same but alas it is not the case. Who truly has a say? I’m not sure but the witnesses that are the biggest stakes are the top 20 folks. This information led me to do what some others have done and changed our witness votes. I originally voted for several of the top 20 witnesses. I have since removed all votes from them and instead voted for witnesses in the bottom 100 until I ran out of votes. These new people are the future of the platform; some newer witnesses like @fulltimegeek are racing to the top 50; he started his node a week ago I think and he’s already at 70 last I checked because he engages with the community, he’s smart and is willing to work.
The benefits of the fork are that it cleaned up a lot of those obnoxious bots yes but it also connected more people on messaging platforms. We are all part of unique little communities here on Steemit and most of us talk only here. Since we couldn’t comment but once a day or so that comment was often used to complain and drop info for discord or telegram for us to connect offline. It would be a big loss for us here if folks like yourself stopped using the platform. It also is paving the way for future innovations here on the platform such as SMT’s which I know next to nothing about but most are excited about them. Lastly as I eluded to earlier it has led new people to dip their feet into the waters of becoming a witness. Since the fork I have seen 3 fresh witness nodes go online because people want to become more apart of the process and hope to help the platform avoid another awful failure that we just recently went through.
My opinion: this place has its troubles for sure, you can get caught up in the riff raff of negativity if you want but this place has much more to offer than others do. We have excellent communities here that other platforms don’t; we can make a little bit of money doing this and we can’t forget what drew so many of us here in the first place: to learn about the technology of the future that is blockchain. I will ride this out; I am comfortable with my position and am gaining friends, learning about all kinds of stuff daily and I earn a little bit of crypto in the process. Pretty good deal if you ask me!
Cheers.
I am viewing from the other POV. I'm very much involved in the Chinese community, helping them to grow the community since I mostly blog in Chinese. What I noticed during this fork is, idiots who are so selfish that they've delegated 95% of their SP for the bots to collect profit, and they rather suffered with low RC. Hence, do we still support this kind of people? So far I have seen problem, but these problem exist due to users action.
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Yes that's a waste of resources in my opinion! I dislike bots very much but they can do what they want if we want to make the platform inviting for everyone.
hi @davidke20
Those kind of people surely we should not support.
But what about those who actually delegate SP to others? I'm not the only one who used to delegate almost all my SP to several bloggers, trying to help them build exposure. HF kind of forced me to cancel all those delegations.
Of course I understand that there is no "golden solution" to this problem. Just sayin`
My biggest concern regarding RC is the fact, that new users may not even know what RC is and how to check it.
Yours
Piotr
Not here for the money, but the rewards don't hurt :-D!
I am not here strictly for the money but it makes it easier to stick with it when there is some incentive behind it. I am here to learn what I can about the technological future. I was not expecting to be involved with great communities that are here. Since I've discovered these communities it has further cemented my place here.
I love to see how responsive you are @cmplxty
Steemit need more people like you buddy :)
enjoy your weekend
Yours, Piotr
Great to hear from you @hotsauceislethal :)
Indeed rewards do not hurt :D
Yours, Piotr
Hi @cmplxty
This is like the best comment ever. I appreciate your time and big thx for sharing your view with all of us.
I see that we're pretty much on the same page with our experiences regarding HF20.
Always great to hear such a words. Thx :) Vice versa my friend.
Im not very familiar with witness program. Would you mind telling me what's their responsibilities and benefits? What do they do and how are they rewarder? any idea?
Yours
Piotr
The witness role is to run the blockchain here. The top 20 witnesses get paid 7000 Steem per month for their role. These 20 witnesses also validate the most blocks that are produced. The other witnesses get less blocks but still validate some, the number I don’t know.
When we do a fork like we just did the majority of the witnesses need to also update their version to ensure continuity. If 15 witnesses update their node but 5 don’t then that creates a problem and a separate chain gets created. I don’t know if you’ve seen the ethereum split; there is now Ethereum and Ethereum classic. This is because they tried to fork but a bunch of people said no so it divides the chain.
The new witnesses get to add their node to the chain to ensure continuity but also learn more about the programming. What I’ve heard is the scripting here is not intuitive at all and difficult for developers to get used to. I don’t script so I can’t say if that’s true or not but the more people that add a witness node the better. The top 20 witnesses have mostly been there for so long that lots of the users who voted for them have probably quit so they aren’t necessarily the best to run it, they are just staying there by default almost. This is why I’ve removed my vote for the top 30 witnesses and voted for those I know or are in the bottom 70-100. The new witnesses are who are going to improve this place in my opinion, not necessarily the current top 20.
Thank you @cmplxty for another amazing and valuable comment.
I appreciate your never ending support a lot. I mean it.
Yours, Piotr