My response is lengthy.  I've posted it here: https://steemit.com/steem/@aggroed/to-ned-re-roles

I think that steemit is at a stage now after HF20 where it needs to go into the new year 2019, with a clear understanding of ***expectations***. Tell the witnesses clearly what you (the company) expects of the witnesses, let the witness tell you (the company) what they expect from you. Provide each other the tools and the means to reach and understand the expectations, and provide a means of redress when expectations are not met.  By working with each other I am sure that both parties can come up with reasonable expectations of each other that will be able to meet a standards test. (were the expectations met)

This is an excellent step & this will make eventually leads to the "Escape Velocity" needed to reach the moon. While the Witness process aka Consortium creation in many blockchains are either in experimental stage or controlled by companies, we definitely have a  mechanism where the token holders can at-least have a say whether he is an exchange or a new user.

> right now is the pressing need for all Witnesses to actively develop and communicate reasonable code acceptance standards that will enable us to hold one another accountable. 

Few of us @reggaemuffin, @yuriks2000 @yehey & others  are working on a model & we have a living document  here :  https://hackmd.io/s/ByT1BuG5m Witnesses and communities can collaborate and share their ideas. That will help everyone to reach conclusions quicker than someone, say steemit inc trying to find all the information and put a logical order to it. 

From my end,  it will take a bit more time to reach even a draft format as I feel its essential to have a clear problem statement and collect information from all the stake holders.


For the sake of transparency, my personal intention is  also to submit a paper at the following IEEE https://www.comsnets.org/blockchain_workshop.html  regarding 

- Real world experiences from deployments of blockchain

- Innovative use cases which leverage blockchain

This will not only give the effort a formal approach but we (STEEM) will be noticed in the academic world as a very different blockchain ie decentralized.

I have a suggestion to work around some of the issues that I've seen over the last two plus years of being actively involved in this platform.  I've certainly gone through phases of love/hate with Steemit Inc and even many of the witnesses, but in the end I honestly feel that everyone simply wants this platform to succeed and is doing what they feel is best.  That being said I have a suggestion to all of the Witnesses and Steemit Inc:

Please change the way consensus is decided to remove the ability for any one account, no matter how large to have controlling interest in deciding consensus.  This isn't just me complaining or bitching about something that may be seen as FUD, I have an actual recommendation on how to do this and you can feel free to debate it here.  I think the rewards structures for witnesses needs to be changed from a top 20 plateau and then massive drop off that we currently have to a top 50 exponential curve.  Essentially what I'm saying here is the top witness (number 1) pay stays the same and then have a more rounded exponential curve going down to fifty and hopefully continue the smooth slope further outward.  This encourages competition and activity to keep working and moving forward instead of "just hitting the top twenty and staying there."  Furthermore I suggest changing consensus and the fact that blocks are predominately created by the top twenty to spread out over the top 50 spots as well.

If accounts have 30 votes and can massively influence the top twenty witness spots as is, why wouldn't we want a more balanced system that actually allows more than one or two massive accounts to have controlling decision making ability over who gets to decide consensus.  I love the platform and I'm not trying to spread FUD or misinformation here, but the facts remain that as it currently stands top twenty witnesses only need to pacify the interests of about 8 accounts to disregard the rest of the platform entirely.  I think increasing the amount of witnesses needed for consensus makes this system more fair and balanced and removes the possibility that one account could even possibly control the decision making process by requiring a super majority greater than thirty votes.

These are just my thoughts and hope they inspire some constructive conversation on how we can all work together to make the platform better.  It's not an attack and it's not a conspiracy theory, it's simply me sharing my perspective and I hope it comes across that way.  Much love everyone, and as a buddy of mine has said repeatedly in the past: 

"We all go to the same moon."

<blockquote>We have not evaluated these standards in sufficient depth and will refrain from doing so until we publish our own</blockquote>

@ned, you have a great idea but your proposal is wrong from start to end. Again, you really need a good CTO to take care of STINC's technical strategy!  You aren't attacking the root cause, HF20 was a disaster because you had nobody able to forecast it, which reveals lack of technical leadership. Your company needs an strong and competent CTO, one that you can respect and tell you: "No Ned".

The first mistake is ask each witness to publish their own standard. There are tens of witnesses so we can expect to have tens of proposed standards. The second mistake is to suppose that your dev team will be able to follow all or even a few of the standards, when they are likely to overlap. The third mistake is to assume that witnesses have enough technical skills and incentive to spend a fair amount of time creating, maintaining and assessing their standards.

This is the right thing to do IMHO:
1. Release your own draft standard
2. Ask witnesses for feedback (within a timeframe)
3. Improve your standards (within a timeframe)
4. Publish the official standard (on an scheduled date)
5. Start working on HF21
6. Repeat on every HF

Just my 2c.

Glad to hear that standards and a need for conservative development are taking root.  I also like the fact that stakeholders are reminded that their witness votes really matter in this ecosystem.  It's one of the reasons I like Steem.  Stewards of the Steem chain can be held directly accountable for bad decisions and they're more distributed than the likes of Facebook.  

As the network grows, is there the possibility that the number of top witnesses can increase for more representation on the network or will it always remain at 21?  Does it even matter?  Just curious.

Tick tock,...

Interesting read @steemitblog, thanks for sharing this Ned Scott.  I will try and assimilate all this...

Cheers!

/FF

I'm glad this discussion on the roles of the parties involved in the blockchain has been stirred.

Maybe it should have been earlier?

I was reading interesting discussion in [a post](https://steemit.com/buysteem/@berniesanders/upvote-your-own-content) by @berniesanders earlies regarding attracting new investors to Steem. Also, read [a post](https://steemit.com/steem/@whatsup/we-have-35-whales-285-orcas-1788-dolpins-and-8823-minnows) by @whatsup regarding current state of active users and their stakes. Since I see an arrow "proposing ideas" by users to Steemit Inc, I would like to share the following idea. 

***Steemit Inc backed SP delegation contracts to all or new liquid Steem holders to attract crypto hodlers during bear markets.*** One of the reasons new investors don't easily get into Steem is they can't easily withdraw their assets due to 3 months wait of power down. 

Steemit Inc is the largest stakeholder and doesn't use its SP. What I propose is to delegate SP to those who buy Steem and hold as liquid in the accounts matching the amounts of liquid Steem they hold for a very small symbolic fee. This will give investors an option to withdraw anytime. SP will be undelegated the moment they withdraw. This will attract crypto hodlers to park their assets in Steem, earn while they hodl, and get to know Steem. Once they get to know Steem from within they may end up powering up down the road.

This may sound like a dumb idea. If so just ignore. Just trying to think outside the box.

@steemitblog @ned You guys have to Answer never happen in last 2 year of my steemit carrier  why my post payout sudden dissappear for example my post pending payout was 76$ and only 1 minute was left in payout sudden it become 55$ and curation 10$ so i got 45$ where 20$ gone ? my all friends also facing the same issue is there any one who can answer this question ??

Why doesn't the Steemit blog have a profile icon?

These crypto lunatics commenting know nothing...

I don't understand why so many are holding steemit inc accountable so much.  STEEM is a decentralized blockchain and no one entity or person is responsible.  As a steem holder, thank you for this statement.  As a steem witness I also need to take responsibility and we are putting steps in place now so we can add more value and better standards. announcement coming soon from @steemcommunity witness

It's very important news for us
We must follow all the advances that occur and the challenges
Thank you for the wonderful effort

A lot of what you have discussed here is very hard to understand for me as a non-developer. But as someone who has been here for the last 9 months, I can surely say that people behind steem are working hard to make it far better.

No, it's predominantly owned by StInc. STEEM is the furthest cryptocurrency from decentralisation. It's probably more centralised than some of the fiat currencies.

If StInc continues to screw up, I guarantee there will be a hard-fork of Steem away from StInc initiated by the frustrated crowds. Mark my words.

Posted using [Partiko Android](https://steemit.com/@partiko-android)

Publishing standards is a terrific start. Thank you. 

I would like to see those standards published in a place that is not a blog entry where it can be forgotten days or weeks later. 

It is wonderful that Steemit Inc believes that witnesses should publish their verification of code, however pushing that responsibility to the witnesses may not be the answer. I don't feel that many users realize or understand if the verification is actually done properly. Steemit Inc really needs to have check boxes of their own and audits to verify if witnesses have done an acceptable job in verifying/testing code. 

To put is simply, you wouldn't put a fireman, bus driver, mechanic, grade school teacher, nurse, salesperson, construction worker, etc. in charge of and to verify a person is actually testing software properly. Then why are you asking us as voters for witnesses to do the same?

Another way to put it is when you have users select the witnesses by how well they tested the code is like employing accountants to inspect building construction ensure that they meet acceptable quality building standards. They are not going to know if the job was done correctly or not. if you want someone to do the inspection, you get the qualified people in place. Don't give the job to people that have no idea how to do it. The reality is that users will vote witnesses by how well they present themselves as if they did something regardless if they actually did the work. If they can make their presentation believable, then that is all that is needed to get votes. It would be like the accountant inspecting a building and beautiful sheet rock and paint covering up serious structural, plumbing, and electrical issues. The accountant would look at it and think a great job was done, but a year later the roof falls in, there is an electrical fire, or flooding happens.  

### Get the right people to verify that the witnesses have done the job properly.

For ease of evaluation of witnesses, will there be a core standard that all (esp top 20) must adopt? If each witness has vastly different ideas, it makes it near impossible to track.

I like the suggestion to get more transparency from witnesses on what they do and what their  standards are. We as voters should only select   witnesses who actively participate in the development of the Steem blockchain. It should be the goal for witnesses to compete for the top 21 spots by showing the community what they are doing and how they add value. That way votes will shift very quickly to witnesses that do more than just the minimum of running a node.

Posted using [Partiko Android](https://steemit.com/@partiko-android)

This is good news.  It is important to learn from mistakes and move forward to a higher level.  There were issues with hard fork 20 and we all have responsibility for what took place.  It appears all were complacent with how things were going.

Since that time, I stressed it is crucial for the users to do their best to understand what the Witnesses are doing and to vote accordingly.  We are the ones who allow them to be in the position they are.   The community, myself included, did not take monitoring what the Witnesses were doing serious enough.

It is good if standards are set and protocols established.  This will allow the community members to have a barometer which to judge the Witnesses.  Since many of us are not techies, delving into that arena can be difficult.  Spelling out the expectations and standards of conduct would go a long way for all.

It would be nice if Steemit Inc. first put forth a statement on what they believe Steem *is*. Is Steem's future as a social media blockchain, a business-support blockchain, a tokenization-platform blockchain, some hybrid of the three? Development standards ought to be different for those different options of which direction we're headed in, and one thing HF20 has made very clear is that we don't have a clear, public notion of what that direction is. I feel like having that discussion first would be a good idea.

I tend to deduce from the lack of enthusiasm for building a quality user experience that Steemit Inc. doesn't particularly value the direct social media component at this time, despite it being used as the proof-of-concept. But I could easily be wrong about that, and it would be nice to have it spelled out directly.

[<img src="https://i.imgur.com/Y37Y104.png">](http://www.steemreports.com/witness-voters/)

Because we don't know if @pumpkin / @freedom is owned by Steemit, there was considerable pressure for witnesses to go along with Steemit Inc and this hardfork. 

This has been the case for many HF now. The majority of the top witness would drop out of top 20 if they were to lose @pumpkin's vote.  @pumpkin's influence goes beyond the top 20 witnesses. 

@blocktrades also has a substantial influence on the witness ranking. He only votes for 5 witnesses at the moment.  @blocktrades' proximity to Steemit Inc also creates pressure for top witnesses to get in line with Steemit Inc. 

These pressures, although not ultimate factors, have created with this HF and in the past, situations where there are high risks to go against Steemit Inc's HF (and potentially lose @pumpkin or @blocktrades' vote) with very low possibility of reward, (delaying, stopping an hardfork **while proving it was justified**). 

This is one aspect of Steem which would benefit from more public exposure.

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# [I unvoted all top 20 witnesses in protest of how HF20 went](https://steemit.com/@wizardave/i-unvoted-all-top-20-witnesses-in-protest-of-how-hf20-went)