Hello, world.
I'm a blockchain designer. I helped build the Steem blockchain. I left the company Steemit, Inc. in December 2018.
I'm simply another member of this community now. I've been quiet for quite a while. Now I'm going to break my silence; I have a few ideas I'd like to share.
Lots of people on the Steem platform seem to be upset. Mostly they're upset at other humans. Upset about who did what. Who said what. Who owns what, and what they can do with it.
I'm sad, more than upset.
As a blockchain designer, I see Steem's current situation as a design failure triggered by human failure. Humans will act like humans. A successful system will take human nature into account.
System design shouldn't allow human nature to cause a system failure. If this occurs, it's a bug in the design.
I'm sad, because too many humans are too busy being angry at other humans. I'm sad, because this grand experiment of a social media blockchain is running into some difficulties. I'm sad, because too few of us are putting on our blockchain designer hats, and truly trying to understand the design bugs that have brought us to this pass.
Greed. Anger. Envy. Sloth. Some blockchain users will act from these motivations. It's part of human nature. A blockchain system needs to be designed to work under these conditions.
So I've decided.
I've decided to learn from the successes and failures, strengths and weaknesses. The hardest part of being a blockchain designer is predicting how users will behave. A well-designed blockchain can harness all the parts of human nature, all the user interactions, all the darkness and the light. To build a machine that can change the world.
From 2016 to today, I and the whole Steem community have been gaining hard-won experience about how users on a social media blockchain will behave.
Steem started as an experiment. Overall, it was pretty successful. What should we do with our experience?
Let's create another experiment.
Let's build a brand-new blockchain.
It will try new ideas that cannot be implemented on Steem.
It will innovate on parts of Steem's design that cannot be changed.
It could end up quite different from Steem.
It might not be successful.
It definitely won't be perfect.
It probably won't do everything that Steem does.
It certainly won't be as polished as Steem right away.
It will certainly be interesting, if you're interested in blockchains.
In future posts, I'll get into the meat of designing and building. I've just now started writing code. Soon a new blockchain will say "Hello, world." If you want to be there when it does, follow me on Steem.
I welcome any comments or suggestions; simply reply to this post. Apologies in advance if I don't answer you directly. I'll probably be too busy coding to personally respond to everyone.
Welcome back. I am too disappointed and sold most of my STEEMs yesterday.
I'm glad to see you around! :-)
That's truly inspiring. Are you hoping to create a new social driven chain? If so I have some forward thinking (probably pipe dream) ideas on what that could look like.
Let's see where this goes ! Following with great interest...
How do you plan to keep us informed code-wise ? Everything will be on Github since day 1 ? Maybe do some Twitch streams from time to time if you don't mind. As a coder, I would love to see as much of the process as possible.
Wish you the best in your journey !
I second this
I suscribe your words @art.int , will follow this project too.
Most likely Github, but I probably won't post code until the architectural decisions are made, and a non-trivial amount of functionality's been implemented.
Cool, then I'm eagerly waiting on updates :D
How do you plan on taking these architectural decisions ? You already got the ideas and just need to implement them or are some "big" points still unclear ?
Anyway, have fun coding ! And if you feel like it once you've made some headway, live streaming some coding (and maybe some Q&A with people following the project) could be really nice. If you manage to build a little community even before the chain is launched, it would greatly improve its chance of success.
By the way, I made a little post about my thoughts on Steem DPoS and how to fix it to prevent any more hostile takeovers in the future. It's short, if you want to give it a read : https://steempeak.com/steemhostiletakeover/@art.int/my-thoughts-on-steem-dpos
We never know, that might be similar to what you're thinking of (in the case you're staying with DPoS of course).
Live development update. Cool!
I imagine you have seriously deliberated over the benefits of starting from scratch vs evolving Steem's design. I am curious to know why you think it would be preferable to start from scratch than to evolve the current design.
What design changes do you think would help resolve the current conundrum with TRON?
Starting fresh, without Steemit Inc or its stake. Wasn't that what the whole post was all about?
Those are not design changes but changes in the data stored on the blockchain. I think @theoretical was talking about design changes to the protocol.
The conundrum with Tron is mainly due to the ninjamined stake, it's origin, the discussions around it and the promises made about it.
Without such a big stake, there would be no problem.
@theoretical is analyzing and thinking about ideas to improve the system, with the experience and knowledge we have now. But for your specific question about the Tron conundrum, no design change is needed. Don't have to code around a non-existant problem.
I am not completely sure that is the case. If you have two networks, one worth much less than the other, then the network worth more may have incentive to subsume the other network. I think this is what's happening now. And the same thing could happen to any network, even bitcoin, if a large enough actor wanted to subsume it.
The escape from that seems to be to fork and start fresh, on a new chain without that malicious actor. That may be feasible for very well-established networks, and not so feasible for not-so-established networks.
In short, this attack vector doesn't seem well enough explored. It was usually assumed that an entity buying into a network would have the network's best interests, but this may not be the case if the entity's larger vested interests are in another, more powerful network (like another blockchain, or a corporation, or a government).
If Justin bought 70M normal Steem (instead of that ninja-mine), there would not be any problem.
Have you looked at his previous acquisitions? Like: Former Employees Sue Justin Sun and TRON Foundation, Alleging Workplace Hostilities
At this point I don't see this getting resolved other than a new chain (fork of steem). I hope to be wrong but I don't see it.
No need to start from scratch though. Just fix the obvious flaws in the newsteem chain and fork him out. Build a DEX.
Hope to get your input when our witnesses decide to show him the finger and leave. See you around.
I agree with @ew-and-patterns! I wish some witnesses agree with my Fork Proposal so that a better STEEM (or whatever it will be called) can be created.
Your airdrop proposal seems very selfish. If you get money for nothing, you cannot value it properly. Not really sure if that would be a good idea.
But I must admit, giving a small airdrop to the active community (let's say 1000 steem for every active steemian who owns more than 1000SP) would increase decentralization by a lot and it would be effortless.
You would have to do it for accounts older than 6 months to avoid people creating separate accounts to get more money for free. And exclude powerups that happened after the announcement and 1 week prior to the announcement.
@ew-and-patterns I understand your point of view. It's just I don't envision a new chain that is neutral towards current steemians that don't care about the witness situation. Why would they benefit from deflation in the same proportion than users trying to save STEEM now? That would be the meaning of the airdrop.
If the attempted aidropping of 2 billion XLM via the keybase.io platform from the XLM/Stellar foundation taught me anything at all, it’s that people will go through with the most absurd, unbelievably complex attempts at scamming a system that you have ever seen, if it looks like there’s some sort of financial motivation for them involved in doing so. There’s a reason why that airdrop was called off after a mere 2 months...if you’re interested in reading about what a massive clusterfuck that was check keybase.io/spacedrop .
@mrd you can't scam an airdrop based on a map of existing users filtered by certain parameters. XLM/Stellar had different airdrops in place, some were scammed and some others not. For example, the one based on user map's were not (the airdrop for XRP users with non whale accounts, was not).
You can't abuse this kind of mapped airdrops:
Someone had over 1000 accounts on that thing. My mom and brother who had single accounts each ended up getting nothing. Such a shame
I want to build a new and better program. I want to do development.
Forking the Steem network is basically the opposite. It's running the same program on different data. Strictly an operational problem.
But it is posible to somehow "map" current "good" STEEM users and use that user map to onboard users to your new and better (non forked chain) program?
yes for onboarding not necessarily for airdropping, see my suggestions below
kudos to you, once a builder always a builder
Well I'm definitely following for this!
Please consider making the future blockchain more equalized for all people. If you choose to do something like the stake-weighted voting system, please consider doing a stake amount * stake length equation instead. This system allows people that cannot afford a large amount of stake to be "loyal" to the blockchain by staking for a longer duration in order to obtain equivocal influence in the chain.
i hope you're wrong, but we've both been around here long enough to know you're probably right. I don't think that will do very well for Steem's image though.
I think in this situation, that Justin Sun aka Tron should sell their Steem Stake thru a public auction. After Justin Sun bought the Ninja mine Stake and didn't even understood the Steem mechanics, community or agreements I think he should just admit it was a bad decision and try to sell the ninja stake in the best possible way.
He could advertise it that Steem becomes more decentralized by selling the Stake to private investors who believe in the new course of Steem.
I hope that we see something like this otherwise we have to deal with reckless dumping or another big investor with bad intentions.
I would like that, but I doubt he would do that.
Why should he not do it? He is in a weak position and has bad media.
He should try to promote his Stake as valuable as possible. How can he do it?
He should get in touch with the old Steem Dev Team and release SMTs. While that is happening he should auction of his stake to private investors with the slogan " Invest in the new course of Steem - more decentralized and powered by SMTs".
This way it would be a win-win situation where he can sell his stake to a reasonable price and we get SMTs, marketing and more decentrlaizitation.
...
lol
If nothing else I'm glad what's happened has inspired you to create something new. Good to see you're still around.
I am looking forward to see what you will deliver next! :)
It's awesome you came back, and this sounds like an amazing project - I fell in love with Steem which is why I set up Witness nodes. I like the idea of taking the best from Steem and enhancing it - I'll keep an eye on your project I'm no coder but if you need someone to run a server for your project hit me up.
Welcome "back"!
Welcome back!
I'm glad to see you here again! Your work and math design have inspired me to do my own research in the steem blockchain :)
Looking forward news from you.
Thanks! Just glanced at a few of your posts. I'm always happy to see community members explaining Steem math :)
Highly rEsteemed!
as for suggestions;
take a break... take a walk.
Relax and step off for a bit.
These "human" problems begin when folks believe they can control things.
disappearing behind the fog of future promises in Code is a Ned tactic...
Stick around and participate.
But this is just a suggestion.
Following with interest.
Steemcleaners are in :-)
Zoiks!
Sounds interesting. Count me in.
sounds interesting
I'm in! Welcome back.
How else can people get involved in this process?
Very excited to see what you manage to come up with. Following to stay tuned in.
Would love to know what you’re working on. I’ve heard a lot of good things about you and your work. I have some ideas.
I’m in.
theoretically, this might work. ^^
if you will need someone to click on it (if it will have clicky things) that is what i can do. coding, saying smart things about how it should work, investing something significant, unfortunately is something i can't do.
yes
posts have to stop earning rewards at some point because who is stopping me from powering down and powering up a sock puppet account to vote on the same post?
That's the same as self voting.. it takes 3 months to power down?
I like these ideas, generally.
1 - The system of votes should be the same, but by hiding the value of posts to the public, that forces people to be more selective in their votes. Not just voting for something because 20 people beat you to it.
2 - This is the by far best idea, instead of linking the value of a post to 'likes over 7 days', by shifting the rewards of a post to 'total rewards for that day / total votes for that day = rewards given to that post per vote received that day'. This way, a tutorial that might not have seen much attention in week 1 might still have value if a few hundred people give a thumbs up over the course of a year.
The point being, the platform has made all these choices that, because of human nature, actually harms the usefulness of the site and accessibility for new people without an audience.
Oh god
Amen
Welcome back... :) Old Chap ...
🎶 where you lead, I will follow🎶 - yeah, from Gilmore Girls
💫💫💫💫
Sweet!! I may have some ideas..
We could call it.. "The Oasis"
Maybe even a place to buidl something cool for @Splinterlands.. Especially with all of the new features coming!
Is the problem really that there aren't enough blockchains in the world? I would much rather work on making existing blockchains more functional.
If what you are building is successful, you will be cannibalizing existing steem, which ironically is what most are trying to prevent Justin Sun from doing. Yet you are being welcomed with open arms. Ironic.
This comment makes so much sense to me.
I want to see Steem continue to evolve and grow. Other blockchains made from scratch will be made, and should inspire healthy competition for new ideas. Competition can help all blockchains improve.
Unless Steem had become so fundamentally corrupted, that a person can convincingly prove Steem can never be redeemed to the state of an honest system, then I see no reason to start over with a clean slate. It still holds so much value to so many people who look beyond the fiscal frivolity.
How do you figure? Never heard the term healthy competition before? There have already been dozens of social media blockchains come and go, others based on ether tokens and so forth, they all fizzle out. So far this tiny little niche has no real competition.
Competition may have been what could have forced STINC to get their arses into gear and innovate. That's what a healthy business ecosystem is all about.
It's hardly comparable to somebody actively taking control of an existing entity and manipulating it to their will. Not sure where you're getting the comparison from, tbh
He's talking about building a better blockchain from scratch. One that doesn't have the same flaws that steem has. If he is able to do that successfully and pull users from steem to this new blockchain, existing steem will cease to exist. His better mousetrap will win and steem value goes bye bye.
Good for us.
That's what fair competition is... what's the problem? If it becomes better than Steem, then people would rightly go to the thing that is better.
To compare with Justin is bizarre... your only similarity is that people will leave? In the same way, I could leave the hospital either because I'm recovered... or dead.
Yes, so those that have invested (either time or money) in steem will lose their investment. Which is the majority of people here.
No, they'd just take their money, exchange it to the other currency (or anything else), and copy over their content (which can be saved with the click of a button).
You don't hear people on Twitter lamenting that they can't transfer over all their wasted time and effort on Facebook. It's just a normal, healthy process
That is not comparable. What do you think starts happening when only a couple whales start selling their steem for the token of this new blockchain? The price per coin goes down, and probably quickly. It will be a similar situation to rats fleeing a sinking ship. The last ones off get nothing.
Or steem will finally have competition in a good way and start to fix their problems and provide a better experience?
Pepsi and Coke both succeed but I doubt they would be on their A game if they had a monopoly.
I tend to think that if something better was coming around the corner...steem might be a bit more aggressive to keep their users happy.
You don't think so?
Fix with what? The development team quit. The SPS mostly funds witness related projects and the governance is locked in a stalemate with no end in sight.
Well if you believe that there is no end in sight, why would you begrudge someone coming along to make a new alternative?
Do you think he should offer to work for steemit with the conditions you just stated?
I'm aware that the development team quit, but
Hence....why I cheer people like @theoretical who are MAKING a way instead of sitting back, doing nothing.
No I would prefer that he put his time and efforts into building something that can benefit steem in some form.
Ah.. well, as one who has been here since 2016, and has intentionally invested over 2 years of that time building the platform by training newbies with the initial experience (and then having all those efforts erased by hardfork 20 and 21)...
Let me agree with you by saying, we all wish people could afford to have their efforts rewarded so the entire steem blockchain can benefit.
Let me disagree with you by saying reality is a lot harsher than what we wish and dream and hope it to be.
I look at your account and see you stopped posting over 2 years ago with this account; it seems like you probably understand when things become more of an ideal than a reality for the Steem community.
You have beautiful pictures in those posts by the way. It's too bad that so many people had to powerdown when steem's problems escalated but, it's understandable.
If you want to continue to use your time to help the platform, as you're suggesting for @theoretical, you should begin posting on your account again and share your creativity with the platform.
In your own words, "put your time and efforts into building something that can benefit steem in some form".
Most of the positive comments here are from active, involved Steemians who are interested in seeing what he will do. I think that says a lot.
Followed.
I support your experiment and look forward to participating.
Me sad too. =(
Thank u for giving me smile today. =)
Seems interesting.. Can't wait to see what your vision unfolds.
I'll try following for awhile, will all the updates be in the tag BLOCKCHAINDEV? Are you maybe thinking of making a community page/account to keep people posted/updated or strictly just your blog page? Will there be away for the not technical individuals to aprticipate easily once you get the chain done, or will it just be another place for bot battles?
A nice Social Chain would be a nice addition, steem block chain has shown that there is room and a place for the social side.
Suggestions:
Steem’s main problem is account creation... How will Dapps grow if they can't register new users?
Other Problem, Curation... Why someone who upvote after everyone will gain less or nothing? It's make everyone vote to same peoples forever...
Or Maybe you make a system where everyone who have stake gain without need upvote like others POS... And give the possibility to upvote someone decreasing a little of the reward he would be entitled to.
Ex:
'User A' have right to 1000 Token per day, if he upvote at 100% 'user B' he will receive 900 Token that day!
Problems it solves: Milks and spam(Maybe)...
But the main thing is the website, because the end user has to have a great experience...
I like your views and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter! ;)
Basically, this:
Mitigate the influence of "human nature" as much as possible, preferably zero potential influence.
Revisit the governance mechanism, more distributed, more decentralized.
The involvement of the communities around the world, no prejudice against any community.
See you around.
Downvoted because you just pretty much are a dick. No other reason. Just have a free bit of downvote to use.
lol
ha!
agree 100%
If you code the rules to be fixed, no updates are allowed, ever?
Good luck with making perfect software, without vulnerabilities or bugs, while the environment in which the software must run is changing all the time.
In PoW, miners volutarily update their machines with new software after improvement proposals.
In DPoS, block producers, representatives or witnesses update their machines with new software after improvement proposals have been approved by supermajority.
Softfork can alone do great things, SegWit is a clear example of that. Hard Fork should be harder to implement, imagine if bitcoin (POW) had 20 retarded witnesses playing god? HF should be extremely hard, not impossible, and should only allow changes in specific sections in the architecture of the blockchain. There are already suggestions on how to improve the governance, the model of 20 witnesses didn't work unless you want centralization, 20 is too low, and the voting mechanism for witnesses is broken. We don't need gods, we need a system that allows a better distribution of power, something better is clearly needed. The current governance system is like the UN, the opinion of 99% of countries don't matter as long as there is a small group of circle jerkers (security council) who decidse who gets what and when. If the distribution of power is not distributed enough then we will always have a centralized chain.
Glad to see you still around @theoretical - I think you should consider speaking with @aggroed - we the Steem Engine have been building some great stuff for the Steem community. Nothing of the scale of a new blockchain, but efforts to make this place better. I don't speak for anyone else, but there might be some opportunities to align with one another group of individuals and see if there is some overlap with what you are doing.
I don't trust @aggroed. He seemed to flounder a bit much as to whether he was #teamjustin more than my liking.
I prefer placing my confidence in people whose character judgements are sound.
What is he floundering about? Serious question.
Prior to the hostile takeover, Aggroed spent time defending Justin's tweets on the token swap for starters.
He's flip flopped and that rubs me the wrong way considering how readily available and plentiful the information is to make reasonable assertions concerning the man's character as suspect.
At the least, see this as a lack of decisiveness but could be indicative of an integrity issue.
He also partnered w Jerry Banfield back in the day which you may recall so doesn't seem to be a complete one off scenario.
As station manager of MSP Waves, I listen to every show that is broadcast, which means I hear aggroed talk for 4 hrs every week at minimum (2 different 2 hr shows + any extra stuff like town halls). His words have said this entire time that he's trying to find a mutually beneficial path forward, which seems more reasonable to me than the zealous-out-for-blood attitude I see elsewhere. His actions have included running the SF 22.2, which was decisive but foolhardy IMO.
Trying to be reasonable at a time when we need reason to prevail isn't a fault, it's what's needed. But to people blinded by the circumstances and out for revenge I can see how it's perceived. I'm not going to blindly accept any of his conclusions, and will likely give him shit as I often do, but I'm very aware of the intentions behind his approach and am glad we have someone like that on our side.
big plans, good luck, following for updates
High profile steemians seem to know & trust you which makes me excited about what you will do for the steem community.
I'll be following your update as well.
It's so wonderful to see you writing now. I still remember meeting you in 2016, and still have the video interview i did (which Ned forced me to remove from YouTube.)
I agree with everything you said. Greed, envy, sloth, anger and I will add an addiitonal one: revenge. The revenge part that is mixed with bots and downvoting was particularly damaging to the platform.
I have a lot to say about how social platforms should be run. Firstly ,they should be designed, iterated on and built by social people who understand social needs. so whatever you are building now, I would advise you to consult and partner with people who are not only smart, but who are highly social creatures, too. They know what works and what doesn't and they should be in the position to help guide the design.
Building systems in isolation or just with some vague notion of "normal social people" is misguided. I have spent a lot of time thinking about why Steem didn't reach the success it should have and I want to stress to you the importance of the following things:
Please also consider the fact that no matter how good your coding is, if you embark on this new project without social media experts on your team, your results will be mediocre. Existing social media experts can translate your ideas to normal people. This means, you need a well-organized social media team (twitter, instagram, facebook, youtube) right out of the gate, with regular updates to a Medium account as well.
I would also add that choosing the right people is what is needed more than anything. We all realize Ned was a snake. I knew this from the first moment I interviewed him. There was something fishy about the way he dodged my questions. He seemed slippery, fake and elusive. And this was in 2016.
I am excited about your new project, but I want to stress my points above. I have some ideas about this because I have been experimenting (just as a user) with many different designs myself. There is one project that I hope you have the time to interact with because it's a successful project that was inspired by Steem. It's called Newlife.ai. They currently have about 20,000 users. I use it daily because I enjoy it and it's creative.
I hope that you take the time to understand how it works. You should also realize that the referral system they have works very well too, and it's all determined by an algorithm, a community-run algorithm, and they have very innovative aspects like UCI (Universal Creator Income) which is coming. It is of course not perfect, but it's highly addictive, was started some years ago, and it also is a superior experience because they have perfected some aspects of social media. It's very much worth studying. NOthing is perfect, but if we learn what works for humans and what doesn't, then we can be smarter about what to build in the future.
I am glad to see you writing here because I remember thinking how bright a mind you have. I still have that video I think it's in private mode bc Ned forced me to remove it from Youtube. I want to show it to you sometime, maybe privately, as I am not sure you ever saw it.
More than anything, I am so happy to read this from you. Don't stop sharing with us.
Ned made you take down an interview? What the heck?
he said it was putting dan and theoretical "at risk". I pleaded to know what part to edit out, as I had gotten permission from both dan and theoretical when i filmed them. Ned just pushed me aside and was basically threatening me to remove it from youtube.
Well, shucks... what a guy. At least he is out of the picture now except for trying to save face/hair. Alas, so long @ned... thanks for all the ... riffs? Anyways, I saw your video on the 'Whale'... nice content :)
Us? Us? You are so 2017.
!dramatoken
You've got DRAMA. You are going to be a Whale!
To view or trade
DRAMAgo to steem-engine.com.I am no coder, the only point I would be cautious of is #4, prefer direct login with keys would possibly be easier to control.
Hopefully a consensus will be reached one way or another for all members.
Re-upload it again.
ok.
Really interested in seeing that YouTube also!
Feel free to tag me if you post it here :)
I love those moments when people pick up on something seemingly minor and state the bloody obvious! I'd completely missed that but you're damned right.
There are some great ponts in here. There needs to be a balance between social and code, not just social influence, but based on the pure lack of social success for Steem I do understand your emphasis.
I'm interested in the future if this project for sure!
Oh and free accounts are table stakes for any social media platform
In this flow of anger and revenge, it is a treasure to find a well explained post like yours. I have joined Steemit for content when the rumors of TRON acquisition were ongoing, but since the acquisition all has been name calling and negativity as it seemed positive and constructive posts became invisible. My quest now is to find them. Because finding them will fuel my enthusiasm to put real content on the chain as well. Thanks for keeping the flame alive!
screw that clown, upload again please :)
uploading to 3speak might be good.
Fantastic seeing your post today and very excited to see what you have in mind moving forward. Looking forward to the next updates. You should join us in the slack. :)
That's certainly not a small undertaking. This entire recent brouhaha has led me to think that whatever happens next will be done to fix some of the technical and social issues that are causing us problems right now, so I wish you well! I am definitely interested in seeing what you're able to come up with. I, like most of us, just want a place to be able to share, engage, and enjoy social company without an excess of politics.
Before embarking upon your new social site, please watch this. It's important:
Nice.
Creativity dear so great to see
So, refreshing to hear someone focus on the system and not the people. I need to do a better job of this as well.
I'd be curious to hear your view of what exactly broke down.
Looking forward to updates on your project.
Looking forward to what an agile mind can conceive, a passionate person can create, and a hard worker can make happen.
Thanks!
You are probably coding so you read this, but if you, well I kinna have a what to seem an unexplore idea, I did my share of 'hello worlds' but on the Tron side. Anyways, build it and them will come ...or not, but if I can help or something, let me know 😉👍
As one that understands the theological construct known as total depravity that pertains to humans, I can relate to the problems that people are apt to bring to a system.
I will add that I also have been considering a new vision of Steem (not merely a fork) and would be happy to collaborate. Think I already have a solution for front end media storage so let me know if you would like to work together.
Sign me up!
I feel the same for a year for now at least. Now steemit is more like a old 90s style forum than a viable content product from 2020s. Devs are made product for themselves, not hearing any user feedback.
We should do more on witness promotion logic. More on reward side. More on content range and visibility algorithms. Onboarding is a shitty mess that simply does not work. And lets dont forget about apps and their creators.
I'm data analyst with 5 years of experience. I've built a lot of motivation/KPI systems - it's like think about real people down the line and how they will try to game the system to earn more and how you could be one step ahead. How we could develop our product based on real users actions data. Also have a DB and backend experience.
You could find me here
https://twitter.com/br0nevik
I am not convinced its failed but a start to something really great that we can all be proud of being a part of. I think it is about touching as many lives as possible not to say there isn't going to be bumps in the road. Many times greed kicks in and vision deteriorates. Guess the key is to not have that happen.
When change inspires someone to do something better I think it's a good thing. I can completely understand why this has saddened you. I am sad to see the ugliness that is transpiring. Yet you can still see those that are willing to keep moving forward for no other reason than to not give up.
I look forward to see this come to life. Wish I knew more to help out :)
I'm very interested. We need to learn from past mistakes if we hope not to repeat them.
Can u do a hard fork from steem so we all can have tokens to start?
What other system do you propose then ?
We can now see that with a stake-based voting system, the majority rules. It is just unfortunate, that this majority was bought by one individual, under the table. I still believe 'the market' would have solved this - there are just not enough players involved right now.
Yep. Mob rule, rich elite rule, "Foundation" rule... it's all crap. Especially when you zoom out and realize that is the underlying foundation of the entire world's socio-politico-economic structure. A few thousand people have the money and "power" that gives them all the bombs, tanks, jets, subs, soldiers, agencies, schools, and news outlets they need to effectively control the other 9 billion people (and untold quadrillions of plants & animals.) Hence why so many of the folks in crypto and on Steem are anarchists (literally means "no rulers.")
Nobody should rule over anybody, and one of the cores of philosophies/tools like Unitive/Restorative Justive & consensus-based decision making. The way the term is used in the crypto/blockchain-sphere is very different from the way it is in group facilitation, and of course the Rainbow Gathering.
You can follow @LarkenRose here on Steem
Show me the code.
Unfortunately, I haven't quite figured out how to read the underlying code to the reality we physically exist in. Any tips?
idk wtf you are on about, but I was talking about blockchain / governance.
Welcome back, let's get to work. How can I help?
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I'm in!I'm out.
Interesting, i would be interested. How would it be different from all the upcomers like voice, uptrennd. lbry, etc... etc... regardless, looking forward to what you come up with.
Hello @theoretical, it's been a while, it's wonderful to have you back. I eagerly await whatever you are cooking up, and will be following, supporting and offering my thoughts along the way.
I have observed Steem closely since 2016, and have some thoughts on what Steem did well, what can be improved, and what needs to be dropped.
Steemit Inc. has spent years chasing scalability despite the tiny, tiny audience for Steem, it's been a constant rabbit hole that has got in the way of actually improving the social features. My first thought is blockchain social should be built on a Layer 2 solution. All data need not be clog up a blockchain, that is just not a sensible or feasible approach for something that may scale into the hundreds of millions. Instead, build a Layer 2 solution on an established chain like ethereum or EOS. There's some great tech available for ethereum like ZK/Optimistic rollups. The main motivation is actually to leverage the formidable network effects of these established chains, perhaps even make it cross-chain. I know you're building a brand new blockchain, and that's fine, just sharing my thoughts. Regarding fees - see below. Governance can be achieved by community leaders (more on this later, will tie into a community-centric approach).
Privacy. Whilst the open and public social network has some appeal, for most of the world, privacy is a very important and fundemantal right. It's essential for all parts of the social network to offer privacy controls.
Ditch the inflation-funding rewards. This one's crucial. I believe inflation funding on a common rewards pool is a major contributor to Steem's failure. Firstly, the economics are broken, the tokens are regularly dumped, leading to Steem being a strong degenerator type asset which is in perpetual decline save for the few euphoric altcoin pumps-and-dumps. The other, more insiduous drawback is people view the reward pool as a public property that is waiting to be abused for selfish gain, in various ways. In a way, it reflects some of the downsides of unfettered communism combined with unfettered liberty - the worst of both worlds. This has led to a lot of toxicity and abuse on Steem. Finally, most people are on social media to create social capital, not financial rewards, so the rewards has never drawn a substantial audience anyway.
Instead, replace it with a decentralized advertising and gamification model. We have seen some experiments by BAT and Voice on this front. The general idea is - anyone can create content, and there are ways to pay to achieve visibility. For example, if there's a celebrity content creator, there'll be people who would want their comments/contents to be high up - they can pay for it. The content creator will receive a large share of the advertising revenue. Another possibility is advertising on a certain community. I realize this is pretty vague, but I believe the revenue model must be attention economy-driven, rather than inflation-funded. And yes, the smart contract will take a miniscule cut that'll go towards paying for maintenance of Layer 2, development and Layer 1 fees. Of course, the same structure can also be used for a native blockchain solution like the one you're building.
Gamification. Tying into the above, it's important to gamify the social network. There's a lot of inspiration that can be taken from free-to-play games. There's a great body of evidence to suggest that people will pay if they are engaged. I believe this type of tokenisation and gamification is the only USP for blockchain-based social networks for the masses.
Community-based system. Communities has been great for Steem, but at this time it's clear to see it's a fix on top of a problem. I'd like to see a social network that treats Communities natively. Of course, it should be people centric as well, but Communities should be factored into the fundamental design of the system, including the advertising platform. There are many ideas to expand on Communities, including robust but decentralized moderation controls, gamification options, etc.
As you can probably tell, having been on Steem so long I have plenty of experience and thoughts. If you have any questions, please feel free, I'd be happy to help. I'm available @liberosist#8254 on Discord for a more private venue. I'll be following your project closely, look forward to it!
PS: Although I'm not a developer, if there was any way to actively contribute to this project, I'd be glad to.
And,
Well stated.
Sounds like you're well and truly over this experiment =o
Yes and no. I still want Steem to succeed, and some of the observations above can be added to Steem. As it currently stands, yeah.
Sick.
corona virus?
As a matter of fact, there has now been a case in my home town, soooo. Rip.
We had some gud times tho, to be tbh.
I appreciate your post and I fully agree with the below sentence..
I am following and I will be around whenever you need an extra opinion or suggestion.
If you are a Blockchain designer why not start with correct-by design proofs? This is what "blockchain designer" usually do. They proof liveness and safety. Then they come with a collusion resistant game mechanism for DAO decision making like a prediction-market/futarchy-implementation. ... basically the Steem community has confused wild gut feeling based experimentation with actual distributed consensus design, game theory and crypto economics aka "blockchain design" 🙌.
good luck
Go for it!
A few things to keep in mind:
Here's an example of a clear misconception:
yes. this proves that theoretical didn't estimate human greed correctly. We all know what happened. Humans will do anything to sell anything, and the people at the top will gradually be corrupted.
We need to take this into account when iterating a new system. Getting it right may be actually pretty damn complicated.
well that's why i said social people need to be involved in the design. Genius types rarely have a grasp of how dirty humans can be.
It's why I really emphasize to listen to people like @whatsup and you.
I'm generally a pretty big fan of Dan Larimer's ideas, but even as he's now going for a new social attempt with Voice, he might be missing the human touch.
Mass adoption is everything. Easy onboarding, mobile apps and a simple system is key.
definately interested to be part of this @theoretial, especially if this is going to be a social media crypto;
Some thoughts:
need to have:
good to have:
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funny story.
investers invested lots of money into Steem blockchain.
u got paid enough during the development.
now u propose to discard the Steem blockchain and start a new blockchain which u will be paid during the development and investers will again invest for your salary.
ha ha ha.
good story.
As the owner of a real-world business that may have to rebrand to a name without "Steem" in it over this Tron mess, I am very interested in what you propose here. Will be following your posts.
Welcome back, count me in
It is my belief that there was an ”aggressive technological solution” to the censorship applied by the witnesses against the accounts that were blacklisted. Instead of exploring this possibility... other, more objectionable avenues were used.
Am I on the right track about an ”aggressive technological solution?” Or do you consider a stealth deploy valid? Or is it all beside the point?
100% this.
I'm interested in this from a development / programming / theoretical (pun intended) point if view. I'm around since October 2016, running a witness node and writing a small dApp (never made it to top 20). Wrote a lot of stuff about blockchain governance back in the day, could be a bit daunting to find it in the 10.000 posts that I left in this blockchain.
For now I'm just observing and expressing my interest in participating in initial discussions, if you think I can be of any help, of course.
I've been here almost from the start of the experiment.
I want to be there with you again. You are being followed :)
!BEER
View or trade
BEER.Hey @theoretical, here is a little bit of
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I think the boat as sailed mate. The days of starting blockchains from scratch are behind us. Sure you can do it if you want, but nobody will use it. That’s just the cold reality.
I think Steem is worth sticking with and fighting for. I’ve also invested too much money here to simply wave it off as a “failed experiment”.
Sounds good though.
Show us that Steem Classic ;)
Following with interest.
Wishlist
social stake more than financial stake
No bots gaming the system
No Neds or Justins
Wishing you luck
If one of the problems that you want to address is overvalued votes (upvote and/or downvote), you may wish to explore the concept of a 2nd price auction.
If coupled with a super-linear rewards curve (to discourage stake-splitting), I suspect that it would add friction that could encourage voters to regulate their own votes in order to avoid wasting their voting power.
Oh my God, what a breath of fresh air.
I agree with you that we take in conclusions of the experiment, and rework a real social blockchain from scratch. And I actually came to the same conclusion more than a year ago, and did my own stuff for DTube. You will surely find this article interesting.
Also, do you have a github repo for your new project?
Hi, circumstances have changed. Delegations belong to Justin Sun now, not the community.
I disagree. Even though I realize that rules are basically off, I don't see why I should do that and destroy a trust cycle that has been going for 2 years + for dtube and its delegation.
http://www.steemreports.com/outgoing-votes-info/?account=dtube&days=31
And it will remain that way. If you want to talk more about it come on discord.gg/dtube and chat me private.
dtube has lost a lot of trust already by allowing posting on Steemit copypasta of not own YT videos and rewarding it.
Integrating with 3rd parties platforms has always been part of dtube's plan. Next version will showcase why better, hope you will give it a look when it releases.
The YT videos that we upvote are all original content from the community btw.
There have been dozens of accounts that have used someone else's videos without specifying that the videos are not theirs. They are not owners of these YT vidoes/channels.
Examples maybe? I can rectify it if it's really the case
Examples maybe?
I can rectify it if
It's really the case
- heimindanger
I'm a bot. I detect haiku.
Just one of recent ones... Check up comment section.
https://steemit.com/dtube/@teamhumble/qbyo3n43sia
@dtube has not voted on this content ...
Luckily did not. User farmed the curation from other Steemians who thought that the content was created by the user.
That't not the point though. The point is that dtube allows such content.
Next version has a 'Original Content' checkbox on the upload. I will also allow users to decline rewards on steem.
I don't see any issue with allowing people to post other people's videos. Ever heard of the concept of 'sharing' ?
I don't seem that you understand how Steemit works. This is not Twitter or Facebook. Users are rewarded here for posting original content.
You seem to refuse to acknowledge that posting someone's video on Steemit without stating the authorship is spam and. This is not sharing but attempt to deceive the community.
Also any content that is stated that is shared need to have significant original content added to it.
Also, I do not see those hundreds of dtube spam accounts that use your so-called "sharing" selecting to decline payouts on these posts.
That means that dtube allows them to spam with someone else's content in order to attempt to fish and farm rewards from non dlike realated curators/Steemians.
First, it's not steemit, it's steem.
Second, there are no rules here. I can post whatever shit I want to answer your shitty comment.
I can post a meme I didnt do.
Why shouldn't my users by able to do the same with video?
Who made those rules? Why aren't they coded in the chain?
I don't see any issue with sharing. You don't seem to have any issue with DLike and that's 100% what they do.
Feel free to downvote people doing it, that's the real rule.
https://steemit.com/faq.html
That's not inside the code of the chain. And SteemIt != STEEM
Then block dtube from auto posting into Steemit...
YT plagiarism
https://steemit.com/hive-196037/@survival-skills/c85qbhzgpbp
https://steemit.com/hive-196037/@survival-skills/p09qm8h55fq
https://steemit.com/hive-196037/@survival-skills/g8v2422dnjb
https://steemit.com/hive-196037/@survival-skills/d12u1kj4doi
This might be worth looking into
https://github.com/dtube/dtube/issues/137
No Github repo just yet.
Thanks for the link. Really interesting curation algorithm. I'll have to learn a bit more about DTube :)
I have a suggestion @theoretical, (and I was also an very active user that went quiet...and more than any other emotion, I feel sad too. So sad. Lots of potential, squandered for all the reasons you listed)
But .. onto my suggestion. I have no idea if this could work or not, but I've suggested it for steem before and ... well... LOL maybe you can/will use it!
I kinda love how discord let's everyone use it for free, but then for extra features, lets people pay to upgrade .
As for steem,I understood why it was necessary to introduce RC's into hardfork 20 - but it was such a harsh and jarring jump...it killed the FUN of commenting and socializing. Especially for all the energetic, new accounts that brought all their "new, starry eyed" contagious personalities. We lost so much when we lost them.
I wonder if having other cool "paid for" upgraded features would lure people to invest for fun reasons...instead of making them feel "punished" for not spending more money.
I've played phone games before that I swore i wouldn't pay for - but I had so much fun playing...it became easy for me to pay for the in-app upgrades over time.
I think if you give people options, and show them what they're missing out on...over time, more people would "spend" their earnings/investments on upgrades and special features
Plus...it creates that sense of healthy competition too. Wanting to 'level up' with their friends... Showing off their new upgrades to the community... Etc.
This way people who are new can still enjoy the basic interactions in a relatively unlimited way because the more powerful accounts pay extra for extra features.
There are more ideas that can kinda spin off of that, but I've written long enough lol so..if you like it, take it and run with it :)
Really interested to see what you develop!
Take that sadness and turn it into the power to make something new, different, and worthwhile!
Following you :)
I'll be glad to be a part of the freshest user of a new blockchain. How great it feels like to be a pioneer user. Let's set the ball rolling...🎼🎺🎷
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Excited to hear from you. I would like to be a part of the new chain.
Sounds like a great idea to build off of the experience and interactions from Steem - incorporate the Human factor. I would concur with @stellabelle's comments. Especially in moving the concept to more of a social-media platform and having that social-media expert aligned and integrated. Take for instance chat - I think it should be on the list of integrated features. Hopping off to Discord moves the conversation to Discord - it should stay on the platform. I've started a few sites/communities and made a conscious effort to refrain from sparking up a Discord server. Also, embrace the different form factors that bring different perspectives, long form, Appics images and its Instagram like format... the list goes on.
Sounds like it could be fun. Keep us all posted. I love Steem and will be around on it for as long as it runs. I also like to see innovation and wonder what the "next" Steem will look like.
yes agreed. In 2016 many of us asked for the chat function. And the developers didn't get it. It was a huge mistake not to have private messaging, and a huge mistake not to build good mobile apps.
Congratulations @theoretical!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following categories:
Steem and DPOS still can be fixed, here are some ideas: https://steempeak.com/hive-111111/@vikisecrets/7-ways-to-fix-steem-s-delegated-proof-of-stake-dpos-system
That sounds interesting, I wish you good luck.
let's think that we have made new steem classic but then what? who will list our new steem classic coin ? if you have any idea then please share.
I know to appreciate your engagement, it's a good thing to work together directly with Users on this platform.
Hey, nice to meet you :^)
I love how you've decided to skip the nonsense and go straight into working on fixes. I always thought that, while I love Steem, it might fail. I never considered Steem to be the "permanent" future, it was an experiment. An experiment we could learn from. Nice to see you have similar opinions!
Do you have a Discord? I'd love to talk with you about this some more :^)
I found your post via @taskmaster4450
Welcome ( back )! This sounds exciting.
I will keep an eye on your upcoming blog posts. Looking forward to following the process.
I'm happy to find this kind of write up(s), countering the negativity, anger, fear. The latter almost made me leave the platform. Now, after a short break, I'm feeling a lot better.
Thank you :>)
Innovation is something that matters. We need a new visions, new steps, new features not something polished and perfect. If we can make something unique and useful at the same time than we can say that we have succeed. The we can polish it and make it perfect or build)
Will try to look after your project.
Definitely following. I look forward to seeing the fruits of your labour.
This sounds like a great and promising news. I'm a relative newcomer here, only abut a year on Steemit, but with all frustrating stuff about it, I grew to like this place. And mostly for the great curation communities of various types that make quality stuff visible. Here, unlike on most social network I experienced, I can actually find a great variety of stuff that are genuinely interesting and often well written, well drawn, photographed or photoshopped with some individuality. If there will be something like that - but even better, and resilient to human induced crisis and misuse - what a great virtual life this will be. :) Good luck.
full power to you my friend! I look forward to seeing what you get up to...
Permanent staking, which has neven been experimented.
Eventually, "permanent staking" just becomes "key trading."
What if owner keys cannot be changed?
hello @theoretical,
I have never seen you before probably it was because I was only more active since you left.
But I too, see a great flaw in certain designs that is fueled by human emotions; and at the same time, I still feel great potential of the steem blockchain of what it can achieve.
So far you mentioned a lot about the negative side of the impact; but there are also a lot of positive impact from just being human on the blockchain. And as you have mentioned, we need both side of the balance to create a less partial system that could both enhance the positive impact and reduce negative impact with more equal strengths for all levels of users (steemians)
If there's going to be another chain coming, I will definitely hop on; however if there's a way to save steem and improve it, I would love to have that happen too. Because the whole world needs a lot of help among one another in the power of the blockchain.
So much has yet to be tapped from just STEEM itself.
That being said, I have found some really good pointers that we can learn from publish0x, that maybe, JUST maybe, curb a little on the green side and on the earnest side.
Plus, enabling people to have more freedom in the real world, while still staying connected on the blockchain.
Always love to bounce ideas.
Best regards
@littlenewthings
ps: I wanted to experiment this account for some automated peer-to-peer; however I have zero knowledge for blockchain (although I am an old version .NET developer). If you do not mind taking on a student and have the patience in the world to teach an old lady to catch up in the new development, I can be found in discord.
The timing couldn’t be better.
Hello @theoretical!
I really love your idea of seeing beyond the current blockchain possibilities of tweaking things! I observed last weeks very carefully and I have got an idea to radically change the game. I'm not a programmist so I have no idea about the possibility of implementing this but I see potential in making blockchain adaptative to its environment. The environment of blockchain is a token price, amount of users, the activity of users, a level of decentralization (probably Gini index?), basically anything that impacts chain while being changed. Let me give you an example.
When the token price goes down an algorithm makes it more profitable to hold for users. Or when there are more very powerful, wealthy actors on the stage, the voting power coming from SP would dropdown. This would require adding some non-SP factor for voting power, and I believe it would make the whole network more resilient against hostile takeovers. I've got a few more ideas in my pocket but this format is non-favorable one for it. Also, I would love to get in touch and explain it in more detail if you would be interested in this idea. Thank your for your time and effort to make this space better. Cheers!
Hi @theoretical, as you like system design, here's an additional idea:
When Powering Up you can directly upvote and influence the rewards structure with your stake, this incentivizes people to participate and engage with content on the platform. (as it is now on Steem)
But, Powering Up should not directly lead to a full stake-weighted vote for governance purposes (voting for witnesses). How about people would gradually earn witness voting rights over time? For example 1/13 of the total voting rights per week? Maybe even slower? (a proposed idea to mitigate the potential risk of a abrupt hostile takeover)
I suggest you involve a psychotherapist in this design process, if you haven't already. It's important to know what your strengths are and where they end.
Hello, i'm start same initiative like 2 years ago. But from russian community. That way was created VIZ. You can read about it in my posts on english:
There is no so much info in English, there is Cookbook in Russian: https://github.com/vizplus/viz-cookbook and whitepaper vision from one participant: https://github.com/vizplus/whitepaper/blob/master/ru/contents.md
Main github: https://github.com/VIZ-Blockchain
Most activity on Telegram @viz_world
There's no way i'm ever going to use another social media blockchain platform again, no matter how fancy and perfect it is. This one still works for me!! If it goes away I guess I will quit blogging.
"System design shouldn't allow human nature to cause a system failure. If this occurs, it's a bug in the design."
Thank you, @theoretical, have been saying this myself and then people get angry that I'm not getting angry at the "right" targets.
I've been following and analysing the Steem blockchain for almost 3 years. Mainly it has been the economic structure, which is surprisingly resilient and stable. The mixture of the dual-currencies, the reward pool and the way it responds to rshares activity works well. If there is something I would add to this macro-economic level, it is some feedback between the coin-creation rate and the amount of unvested STEEM. Pouring more coins into a saturated economy has damaged its price. Just as the reward pool responds to activity, so the coin-creation rate should respond to liquidity.
I have plenty more, but not sure if comments is the right place. Maybe I'll put them in a post. If you need a few "devil's advocates" to brainstorm ideas, then get in touch.
The ideas come before the code.
Dear @theoretical. My comment / suggestion is to adopt a Matrix-8 governance system. I may have mentioned this (or mentioned you in a post) elswhere. If so please excuse duplication.
This post by John Huckel, designer of the Matrix-8 Platform, will hopefully begin to give you an idea of it's potential: https://steempeak.com/hive-153630/@matrix-8/welcome-to-new-age-dapps-a-solution-to-what-ails-us
Also my post of today: https://steempeak.com/hive-114105/@atma.love/reclaiming-our-sovereignty-during-these-chaotic-times
Your feedback would be very much appreciated.
Namaste
Atma
Who am i?
I feel the same way but when I look around the world anymore at human behaviors, the steem blockchain does a beautiful job of reflecting how the human psyche and group consciousness works. In my opinion in so many ways Humans are like babies in this hyper connected world. We have to learn how to interact with a whole different reality while under going extreme stress such as improper resource management on all social levels that is causing undue strife(not to mention the relentless propaganda)
I do see a brighter future for steem but not as everything is in flux in the real world.
I appreciate you sharing your experiences building steem and all your work doing as much!