I find this movement to be more worrisome than the power-down. Ned had an opportunity to realize that he was overreacting to something that wasn't especially important, and failed. That's a problem. But now all the top witnesses have the same opportunity, and are failing again, and once again escalating a situation that nobody ever needed to care about.
The complete success of Nordberg's troll of the whole Steem ecosystem, in which you are all collaborating, is ridiculous.
I'll try explaining this in a hypothetical scenario:
Imagine a week ago, all the witnesses had to do was click a little thumbs-down reaction when this pull request was first announced in the chat, or whatever system they use to privately communicate.
But in this scenario, they didn't. Instead, some stated they were neutral to the topic.
This neutral position became a debate about the merits of adopting "different alternatives." The debate became a credible threat over the course of 24 hours. This spooked certain people into a panic. Then there were powerdowns.
In this scenario, I fail to see how Ned had an opportunity to realize anything tangible one way or the other. Was this really the pull request or was it just a simplified version with only the teeth left in so people could see it means business?
On the other end, something had to deescalate, so that's why you're now seeing it all plastered on the blockchain ... if this hypothetical scenario is true.
I fail to see how this is the case. The existence of the shoddy pull request and not-so-secret private discussion make it less likely there's a secret competent cabal waiting to surprise fork out Steemit Inc., not more. Up until this point there was always the possibility that someone was doing that in the background and no one knew. Now there pretty much isn't.
Taking a major action in that scenario, especially one that had minimal immediate effect, is pretty much the definition of over-reacting, then, no?
Top witnesses making unsubtle implications of getting together and launching an independent fork in an attempt to force Steemit to do what they want with its stake isn't exactly de-escalation.
They've put Ned into a position where stopping the power-down would be acknowledging that the witnesses have a right to a say in how Steemit Inc. uses its funds. As a corporate officer he can't do that; it's malfeasance. The only way out of this now is for them to back down.
That's what most of them are doing.
I guess I don't see how @ned / Steemit, Inc is overreacting when @thecryptodrive here is openly acknowledging that "60+ stakeholders, witnesses and dapp owners decided to move to a private chat {...} Therein discussions were held over various solutions such as forking the existing chain to freeze Steemit's accounts...." (my emphasis added but other than that, straight from the horse's mouth). We aren't talking about @ned / Steemit, Inc starting a powerdown solely in reaction to the github pull request. Actual top witnesses actually talked about doing this! And are actually admitting it in one breath while asking for the powerdown to stop in the next breath!
It was an overreaction because the technological ability to do that wasn't in the PR. If the witnesses wanted to decide that as a solution I suppose they could have, but 60+ people somehow getting a hardfork written, tested, and implemented without anyone ever telling Ned about it is a pipe dream.
The idea that they might have intentionally implemented an untested hardfork for any purpose is itself scarier than anything Ned has done.
Only one person issued the code and discussion ensued after that, the power down fuelled discussions even further.
Presumably that discussion did not include "let's implement untested code that is at best 5% finished." Someone would have had to do those things before a fork became remotely practical.
A fork is not anywhere near decided on and is just an idea being thrown around and voiced more so by some than others.
No one suggested that it was. You don't seem to be following the topic of this subthread.
It did not.
100%, you're right on here. It was I got fired butthurt, the employee that yells some stuff as they're being escorted out by security.
The more important thing here is how the discontented saw the viability of the moment.
Ned actually left the slightly more open format discussion Slack he created which had somewhere between 100 and 150 members, of which I was one for about 6 months, if memory serves me. So just for the record he started to withdraw.
How are top witness failing again?
Well, downvoting honest discussion is a good example.
not a top witness
Well at least there's something to be glad about.
"Sorry, I was mistaken" works well too