I Didn't Sign Up For This - Shutting Down My Witness And Seed Nodes

in steemit •  3 years ago  (edited)

When I signed up for Steemit, 5 months ago, I was mesmerized. Social media done right, you said? I'm in!

I didn't just dive in, though, I took one month in which I posted for 30 days every day, to calibrate my efforts and to understand the system. There were a few things I didn't get right, but their impact seemed small. Things like people complaining about how the whole system is imbalanced and so on. I didn't give too much weight to these voices and I continued my quest into Steem. I was lucky to be supported on many of my posts by some high profile members of the community, including @ned and @dan.

I started to play with the software and installed a few instances on a few machines. Then I applied for a witness. I was also stoked to receive my first witness vote from @ned himself. Others followed through, including witnesses like @smooth, and in a matter of weeks I found myself in the top 50 witnesses.

As a witness, I went beyond just supporting the network at a physical level and started two interactive 30 days challenges, supporting content creation and engagement. I even paid (symbolic amounts of 1SBD, it's true) from my own pocket to other authors, to encourage them. As a result, I think there were roughly 400 new articles over a two months period, with 15-20 authors being supported. All from a single person, not a guild.

When @gtg asked for seed nodes, I was quick in setting up a public one and submitting it for inclusion in the official seednodes.txt of the Steem release.

But as time passed by 2 very interesting things happened.

  1. The voices complaining about the imbalance of the Steem ecosystem became more and more articulated. Not louder, but clearer.

  2. The fight for resources - the draining of the reward pool drama - became more and more evident.

And now we're in plain war.

There Is No "Experiment" Going On On Steemit - It's Just A Gang War

I know many people are refraining from posting these days, until the "experiment" is over. For those of you reading for the first time, the so called "experiment" is just a pretext for a group of whales, @abit and @smooth being the more vocal, with an initial support form @nextgencrypto / @berniesanders, (who seems to have stopped who just downvoted the shit out of this post too) to downvote as they see fit. In plain English, to drive the rewards from the reward pool in the direction they find "correct", no matter what other previous voters think. Please stop for a while and ponder that: no matter what you voted, they came in and take out your vote.

It didn't start out of nothing, this war. It builded up for months, in the chat rooms, with frequent complaints that some members are making too much money ( @krnel being the usual suspect). These complaints eventually transformed in actions and whales downvoting other people content soon started to look for justification. And now, under the pretext that "no whale will vote, to see how the minnows and dolphins will play", the whole Steemit has become a mess.

It's very similar with being afraid to go outside on the streets because there's some drug cartel war going on. Or fleeing Aleppo because there is a war in Syria. And so on. In the so called "eperiement", it's not only the money that gets "counteracted", but the people reputation is hurt. Every downvote decreases reputation. With no reason other than "I'm doing it because I want it and I don't give a shit about you".

The Political Support Of Wars

When Obama was elected, he promised to end all wars of the US. He didn't. Yet, he was still liked and loved by a relevant majority.

When the "experiment" started, @ned, the CEO of Steemit, had nothing to say about it. Absolute silence. I'm sorry Ned Scott, the CEO of Steemit, you supported me here a lot and I'm grateful for that, but when people are slaying other people rewards arbitrarily and you have nothing to say about it, it means you're an accomplice. You may declare, at a political level, that you're all for the good people and for peace and transparency and community and long term shit and yet, if you're doing nothing, you're just supporting the war.

Just like Obama. You will still be liked and loved but people will get hurt because you supported this war, by doing nothing.

You still control the @steemit account. With just a fraction of that account you could counteract any subversive action in this ecosystem. I understand you keep that account specifically for this type of situations. Well, you have a situation. And you still don't use that power.

Actions speak louder than words.

I'm Not Supporting This

As a witness, currently in the 36th position, I validate transactions on the Steem network. As an operator of a seed node, I contribute to the health of the network. I didn't cast any downvote since I'm here. Not even one, for testing purposes, you can check this out in the blockchain. Although, from a purely algorithmic point of view I may understand why downvoting is still present in the system, in real life, in real people interaction, I find it useless and disempowering.

I find the modus operandi of the current Steemit ecosystem abusive and arbitrary. From the CEO down to the witnesses who are still supporting this war by keeping the downvoting whales among the witnesses - both in the top 19 positions - it's clear that this is the direction they want to go.

I find this in stark contrast with the values and principles for which I signed up: transparency, empowerment and prosperity.

At this moment is just polarization - driving people against other people - opacity and lies. That's the reason I'm stopping my witness and seed node.

Effective now.

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there are a lot of commies in the world and they were bound to find steemit sooner or later, the cry about unfair rewards was getting louder and louder.

didn't you know each and every post should be deserving of the same value? it's like they've implemented a maximum wage in this place lol

Its more of a user experience issue rather than political ideology. It isn't about communism vs capitalism it's about daily active users, monthly active users, returning users, new user signups, the price of steem, month over month growth etc. Most proposals I see floating about are for narrowing the disparity but not outright equalization.

Steemit has massive growth and retention issues that can be linked to inequality in staked voting and rewards outcome. There is a real issue we have when new users figure out it's not how many votes you get but that you get a vote from 1 of 20 people. It's a huge turn off and kills the user experience. It's not about communism it's about creating something attractive to new users that will keep them engaged so the entire system can prosper.

A few days ago I had a similar conversation with @lukestokes and he was still into Steem "long term" and stuff. A day later, he comes with a post named "I feel foolish now" and he is waiting for the "I told you so" comments from people who warned him.

Sorry but I have the feeling that our potential conversation will go into the same direction. I may try to convince you that the bs they're feeding you with "growth issues" and stuff is just a false flag for maintaining control over some money made out of thin air, but you wouldn't believe me. And then, a day, a week or a month after that you will post something just like Luke. And then I will have to tell you: "I told you so".

So I decide not to have this conversation with you. :)


I'm not being fed any BS about bad growth numbers. People generally don't lie about how bad they are doing so your premise is just silly on face value. Beyond the premise being silly, I came to the conclusion myself. I can discern for myself from publicly available data that Steem has growth and retention issues.

The only BS being spread is that making Steem a more successful platform that will be attractive to new users and prosperous for its investors is somehow a communist ideology.

I'm not being fed any BS about bad growth numbers.

The bad growth number is a real problem. The fact that they are using it as a pretext for arbitrary splitting of the rewards pool, against other people vote, that's BS. That was the thing I was referring to.

It's not BS though. The domination of the reward pool by a few people is a real problem that costs users. If narrowing the disparity increases user retention and new user signups then that will be beneficial for everyone holding Steem.

Anyways, best of luck to you elsewhere and don't worry I won't hold it against you when you comeback in a month or two ;)

Coming from an ex-communist country, I have like a sixth sense created to detect this bs. It may take longer for other people to see it, though.

be careful that you aren't TOO SUCCESSFUL on steemit! otherwise you'll be targeted and you'll lose lol


Yeap. I know this kind of fun oh, so well. Been there, done that, no thanks.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK i'm getting annoyed. l've lost all my "idols" man you guys with your values. :)

I can't say anything, the last month was a loss after a loss for me, out of the top5 and out of the 200 hopes I have for this place I'm left with 2 :D

"Losing" krnel was sad, saying fare thee well to dan was even harder,

I respect you and you are the main reason for my writings, I hope you can be happy with the changes and the improvements you have given others, you have given us more then you can write about :) I wish things didn't break so easily that is what I mean, I was wondering where your witness went, but I thought I was just wrong about something.

I hope you don't give up and if you have just tell us where we can follow you back :) well 95% is not that bad :| It's too early for me to quit, thank you for being there to show people a good example and I hope I can read your book, in your memory I will finish the challenge 30 I was thinking of giving this place a year to see where it goes, but I might cut it even shorter.

HF17 Commentary - you might re-think, as everyone else who has actually read it has done.


I disagree.
While still being on vacation I have no much idea about latest drama but my guidelines regarding flags are still valid. Whether it's called an experiment or not.
TL;DR they have their right to use their SP as they will.
(btw IMO experiment was not needed).

"Every downvote decreases reputation"

That's not true.

There's a lot of misunderstanding and bad emotions around other people decisions. Maybe making few steps back to get wider and fresh perspective would help.

Nonetheless thank you for your service.

It's not bad emotion around other people decision. And I fully agree that everybody can do everything he/she wants with their SP. That doesn't mean I have to accept that.

Everybody can do everything he/she wants with an axe, for instance, but that doesn't mean I have to stay there to get slashed.

Thank you for being polite and supportive and good luck with everything you set up to do.

  ·  3 years ago Reveal Comment

Earth to @abit: what the fuck are you talking about, dude?

  ·  3 years ago Reveal Comment

Then what's the point of posting on Steemit? I could just continue to post on Medium or Facebook or Twitter.

Your major selling point is "blog and get paid". How can you take payment out of discussion every time it's becoming uncomfortable? You're acting with double standards. And that's what's lowering your credibility big time, as a platform, as a team and as a currency.


I actually have thought a lot as I've said a few times and I did read your post yesterday, I'm still not sure what will happen, It seems like we have already forked :D but only time will tell. They don't seem to be up to change it or to listen to the community. I'm almost 80% against the HF, it can turn out good but who knows, I'm not sure as I've said. Depends on the people, if everybody starts gaming the flood gates and just posts twitter style messages with one picture and a paragraph for 2-3-4$ :|

There's no magic bullet by the way, and nobody in this world is a social platform expert. Throw blockchain into the mix, and it's a rather different beast. There's no point "blaming" others for what they're doing. Situation's not a simple as it seems, although it's true that Steemit Inc needs to step up their communication.

The coin is what you make of it.

Please, pretty please, don't try to sell me this. I appreciate your posts and your line of thinking and I don't see any reason why you should insult my intelligence or put in my mouth words I've never spoken.

I'm not saying anything abut blockchain. I'm saying stuff about values. They're independent of any technology. We could have built a social media platform with sticks and stones and still values would have been fundamental to all this.

The tech behind Steemit is great, but the people are disappointing, to say the least. From where I am right now, it looks like a very elaborate scam, and nobody from Steemit INC has yet stepped up to tell me otherwise. Or, even better, to prove me otherwise.

I repeat: I used to be a witness and run a seed node. I wasn't incidentally here, you know? I didn't blog for $0.1 per post and got frustrated when I didn't have rewards anymore. I've been right in the middle of all this for the past 5 months.

What I do agree with, though, is that

The coin is what you make of it.

That's why I'm choosing to do something different with all my time, skills and gear I put to work for Steemit so far.

I don't see how that's insulting anyone's intelligence. All I'm saying is basically "shit happens", anyway, I've crossed it as I can see how it can be misinterpreted - sorry for that.

Anyways, I wish that you'd choose to stay.

we all do but we have to fix our "garden"


It's almost like a stake-weighted society isn't the best model... Who could have seen that coming?

< /snark>

Or at least a stake-weighted society that systematically amplifies the influence of the highest stakeholders.

  ·  3 years ago (edited)

Sorry to hear you are fed up with the way things are going and decided to shut it down man. :/

You can always disable your witness too so the network doesn't lag when you are supposed to be producing blocks:

update_witness "dragosroua" "http://witnessurl.org" "STM1111111111111111111111111111111114T1Anm" {"account_creation_fee": "42.000 STEEM","maximum_block_size": 65536,"sbd_interest_rate": 2000} true

^ this command will tell the network you are done producing blocks and sign your witness off. if you still have a cli_wallet running somewhere and you can import your active key for your account into it will help us all out. :)

Good luck to you sir, I'm sorry to hear you are out of the witness game with a bad taste in your mouth.


Are you sure it shouldn't be false instead of true as the last argument of the command?

Nevertheless, I'm not gonna do this. I leave it up to the network to deal with it, mirroring the behavior which generated all this. If top witnesses like @abit and @smooth are playing around with other people votes without any sign of concern or communication, I see no reason to support this in any way. I'm not feeling good while acting like this, but I know that in just a few hours I will reach the limit where the network will just invalidate my witness for too many missed blocks.

If you did do it, true is the correct value.

  ·  3 years ago (edited)Reveal Comment
  ·  3 years ago (edited)

No "s around the key.

Friend Dragos,

This is the worst news I've seen all day. You've been a good friend, a solid witness, and a great contributor to my Steemit experience. You've taught me things that are likely to "stick." In other words, I appreciate you, man!

And so I'm disappointed to hear that you're considering "pulling the plug" both literally and figuratively. I hope you'll reconsider. This community, should it continue and prosper, could really use your ongoing influence.

Meanwhile, please accept my hearty "Thank You" for all you've done, both for the community and for your lessons and challenges here. I wish you well in all that you do, and would like to stay in touch - preferably here on Steemit, but if not, I would like to at least hear how your Hubcoin project prospers as time goes on.

Summary; Please reconsider, and nevertheless, thanks again!



Thank you, really appreciate our interaction here and all your support.

At the moment, I simply don't want to associate my image and my work (as a witness supporting a network) with something that I consider fishy and against the initial values which got me here.


Understood. Peace to you as well, friend! :)

  ·  3 years ago (edited)

So.. I'm putting you down as a 'no' then :)

[imgage reference]

There is no experiment, people. You're being played. Some people are playing with your mind, nicknaming abuse as "the experiment". I'm simply not buying this.

That doesn't mean you can't. It's a free world.

I am strongly in favor of what they are doing.

And your rewards are strongly showing it. QED :)

  ·  3 years ago (edited)

not everything is about rewards.

Agree. Generally speaking, not everything is abut rewards. In the Steemit universe, though, everything is revolving around the reward pool. That's why it became so toxic.

  ·  3 years ago (edited)

That is a mischaracterization IMO. I have made many posts pushing for a change along these lines, and there has not really been a measurable change in my payouts based on the experiment. (I had a $90 payout from a post right before it started..) I have had most of my posts downvoted this week too, just like everyone else. My support for the experiment has nothing to do with my rewards.

You have right now a $40 payout pending on one of your posts. Just saying. Where's the mischaracterization here?

I remember the days where you would see this kind of statements on the chat for much less than that:

"@smooth, we have to take care of this @krnl situation, this is going out of hands".

And, diligently, @smooth countervoted until the reward got low.

How long until you become a target?

  ·  3 years ago (edited)

You are implying a connection that is not there. I do not support the experiment because of anything related to my rewards. I would be fine if it got downvoted, and I would still support the experiment. I support the experiment because I believe very strongly that empowering the regular users is necessary for the platform to advance. If the voting and rewards continue to be a game decided only among a handful of 50 or so users, with the rest of the community feeling powerless - the site will never scale.

Good luck with that.

We are actively working on solutions to politics that are stressing out users. One of my first posts was about Flags. Going votes for flags is one way to deal with it, but I would prefer to take care of problems at the root. Ive always appreciated your posts and contributions. I hope you'll stay close

Thanks for finding the time to comment, @ned, appreciate it. Also, I thank you again for all your support during my involvement in this project.

As for "politics that are stressing out users" I honestly think you're in denial here. There are no stressed out users here. There is a fucking Fukushima-sized meltdown! And the radioactivity is spreading like a virus.

You started this project almost a year ago and you launched it publicly in July last year. That gives around 8 months of being on the market. If at the end of 8 months all you have is an average of only 5000 users daily, then your business simply doesn't exist.We're talking about a market in which the top player has more than a billion users. A billion! And you have 5000. If I want, I can gather 5000 people and I'm a single person, with no dev team, no tech, and certainly not $17 mils in capitalization. As a matter of fact, I actually have 5000 friends on Facebook, and a bit over 6k followers on Twitter. I'm giving you these numbers with the honest intention for you to wake up and to realize where you are. Like, really.

Your business is 95% people and 5% code. And you're keep acting like it's the other way around. Keep trying to find another distribution algorithm. Soon there will be no people here to distribute the rewards to, other than the initial circle of friends.

I'm not deciding to stop my support for this network on a whim, not after all the time I invested here. This project spiraled down so low that I simply find it ridiculous to have my name (which is not even some big name, I'm well aware of that) associated with it. It's filled with negativity, with lack of respect, with self-entitlement. Who wants to consume that? Who wants to be part of a project like that?

It's not too late to change things around here, if you really want. But with every day that passes, it's more and more difficult.

Wishing you all the best!

'You started this project almost a year ago and you launched it publicly in July last year. That gives around 8 months of being on the market. If at the end of 8 months all you have is an average of only 5000 users daily, then your business simply doesn't exist' You are absolutely right. However, during most of that time the 'Flag only for plagiarism' norm was largely in effect. You yourself said that what you call abusive downvotes only started a couple of months ago. So clearly there is more to the issue. We agree on the observed problems, even to a large extent on their severity, even if not necessariy on the precise causes

Interesting observation

Down-votes are like fines. A down vote is brutally negative and should be reserved for blatantly negative posts and spam. Using it on someone's post that is not brutally objectionable would amount to issuing a fine at a dinner party.


  ·  3 years ago (edited)

Once upon a time I played a game with a friend, it was warhammer or alike, I can't remember. We were in the same house, two different room, same net. We just played it for the fun of it. So I thought. He always won. A day I discovered why: he was cheating.
It was just a game, no money, and yet he liked so much the idea of being the winner, that he decided to cheat. I couldn't understand: where's the fun? I believe the fun it's to win complying to the common rules.
Now think about it when there are money involved. People get stupid. They act strategically to gain money, beyond any other meaning in replying, resteeming, upvoting and so on. It's human being at his/her “best” (sarcasm).

Totally agree with that. I see more and more this platform focusing on a scarcity mindset of "not having enough" and that will eventually put it down. Unfortunately.

As for cheating, I have an even funnier experience, at an ultramarathon of 48 hours, which was ran across a 1 km lap, around the end of it we discovered that one of the runners was cutting the laps when nobody was seeing him. After 40 hours of running, he was still thinking to do this. Hilarious and sad, at the same time :)

I'll be sorry to see you go. You have made this platform a better place, so I'll miss your writing, and your creative ideas to encourage user engagement in an affirmative way. Thank you for the contributions that you have made.

I'm still neutral on the experiment, but I agree fully with many of the other sentiments that you express in this article, so I can understand your decision. I wish you well.

Thank you :)

I agree that this "experiment" is having a negative impact. I will assume the best of those who are conducting it and assume they are conducting it for a logical and mathematical reason. Perhaps it is a reason I don't fully understand. That being said, the "experiment" is leaving out a huge factor (perhaps the biggest on a social media platform): human emotion.

You can use logic and math to explain all day long why the experiment is good for someone whose post just went from $1 to $.40 but that won't help how they feel emotionally when they see a flag or see their rewards drop. After all, I am guessing that for many people, the reward matters very little (it's $1!). It was the feeling generated by receiving a bigger vote than usual that was the true reward. It was the feeling that "you like me! you really really like me!" All of the good feelings are taken away by one significant flag.

How do you measure "loss of good feelings" in an experiment? For many experiments, silly factors like those would be tossed out... but this is a social platform. Feelings matter. I would argue they matter quite a bit.

Do you think you could have more of a positive impact by remaining a witness? I honestly don't know much about it so forgive me if that was a silly question.

First, there is no experiment. This is just a cover up. I know this is a blunt approach, but based on my observations in the platform and in the chat, I can say that "the experiment" is just another term for a situation the people behind this would like to see unfolding on a daily basis. They consider they have an edge and they should use it in order to rebalance whatever they think it needs rebalancing, against other people choices.

Thanks for the question, but I can't think of a way to make a positive impact as witness, if being a witness means validating transactions that I don't actually agree with. It's a very conflicting position for me, in the first place, and second, I don't want to be publicly associated anymore with this level of confusion.

I deliberately used the term "confusion" although I think it can be anything on a larger scale between incompetency (at all levels) and just plain scamming. But I'd stick with "confusion" for now.

I now understand and respect the integrity it takes to refuse to go along with something you don't agree with.

I truly hope this ends as fast as possible. It seems to be having a very negative impact on community members.

We'll see. Good luck with whatever you set up to do!

i think your issue is DPoS ;)
you seem to want a trully fair system 1:1

in any other model, u'll have to face and accept this type of behaviour from whales that has more power than you and thinking differently.

i'd lke to mention that some minnow actually appreciate the results of this 'experiment'

My problem is not DPoS, in a truly DPoS system there won't be any arbitrary tilting of the reward pool, or lack of communication, or lack of respect. It's not the code, it's the behavior.

Like I said to @ned in a comment here, this business is 95% people and 5% code. If you can't get people on board and if you can't make them stick with your product, then all the code you write is in vain. And the last few months were very uninviting for people around here.

what's the difference in our DPoS and the "truly DPoS" system you're describing ? I mean don't you think the problem is inherent in the design system itself ?

Truly DPoS meaning that every vote requires some active stake, not just what you have in your account. I made a proposal in an article a couple of weeks ago, to combine in a vote tipping and rshares from the reward pool. That's my understanding of PoS.

This war started last year in August with one person, playing god and attacking people instead of leading, ned supported him and even paid a consultation fee, he is very definately in bed with these guys as is smooth. Maybe his vision for steemit is not what we all thought. I find the authors he support immature and vindictive, I sometimes wonder if they even have enough intelligence to read content and actually understand what they read, based on their norrow minded comments. I have been watching the interaction in chatrooms for months, very interesting how the poison has spread.

I left the chatroom about 3 weeks ago, simply couldn't breathe there.

I only watch and learn, the politics on this platform leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I love the value I gain from some articles and that the only reason for me still being here.

  ·  3 years ago (edited)

Buddy. Im a yuge fan of yours. Here and on twitter. Humbly hope you get a breath, take a break, do what you need to do. But hope to be able to continue following your one of a kind way. I can see how you feel. But only one year old is this steem. I remember being offered Bitcoin for $4.00 at Occupy Chicago. A LOT of drama has happened since then. We are living in exciting times, but the best is to come for all the crypto cousins. Be in touch. Be well. Here was my lil pep post this morning: https://steemit.com/steemit/@jacobts/we-stand-on-the-edge-of-a-new-frontier


Thanks, mate, we'll definitely be in touch, somehow. Steemit is not the beginning nor the end of the world.

Right on. Respect.

what I find the most hurtful about this experiment is the lack of communication. Nobody knew why it started, when it did and nobody knows when it will end. Instead of reading articles from my favourite poeple here I see a mass of memes.

I really don´t get memes most of the time. When I were to come across steemit today I would not sign up. This really makes me sad.

I am very sorry you are discouraged by this.

I'm not discouraged, maybe a bit disappointed.

Anyway, when a war starts, that's the whole thing about it: you don't have to know when it starts, why it starts and when it ends, until you reach absolute submission.

Its an experiment... Don't take it serious... It will not last.
I little bit patient so we come ASAP to the right conclusions . You can understand it could be not a one day experiment.

Waiting for @abit and @smooth to confirm and tell us when they will stop.

Thanks for your encouraging words and wishing you all the best.

I stick to my decision and to my conclusions: this is not an experiment, this is a modus operandi and it will continue, in various forms.

There's nothing implicitly and inherently wrong with that, it's just that my choice is to stop supporting this system as a witness and a seed node operator.

I'm disappointed to still see you promoting the "down vote is theft" line. I was going to unvote you due to your previous posts on this position before, but have now, though obviously it doesn't matter much if you're stopping witnessing (and there's the fact of my small SP 😅).

It's bizarre, you're directly asking Ned to intervene in a dispute among members with the @steemit account! From what I see the leadership aims to stay out of squabbles. The system is continuing as it is designed to, while that design changes slightly with each hardfork. Other social media sites have moderators who step in, we do not and should oppose any move in that direction.

So because of this, I welcome your announcement and wish you the best.

Thanks for the wishes.

It's funny how people always choose what to extract from what they're experiencing, based on their preconceptions. You clearly have a chord that was touched when I posted about downvoring being theft the other day and you chose to stick with it. In this announcement I'm saying that I'm not supporting a system which promotes arbitrary tilting of the rewards through a so-called experiment and which promotes abuse. Abuse through lack of communication, mostly. That's very different. And yet, you chose to see what you wanted to see.

The evolution of this platform from a place where downvoting wasn't even considered an option for determining the rewards and which was used to control spam, to a place where there's just random flagging over who's getting what, well, that should give you some clues about the direction of this project. You may of course choose again to follow that direction. I just chose not to.

There are so many other opportunities out there. I'm grateful for the experience, I learned a lot and I'm not ragequiting. Just witnessing human nature in all its (sometimes) ugliness. In this case the ugliness coming from greed.

I would counter that what is most visible in a statement is what is interesting to the reader. That's not such a strange thought. Your point was clearly restated here and didn't take much reading into if you are fair:


I'm not sure what preconceptions you're referring to and I think my position is clear and unambiguous.


I choose to stick around and influence the direction. It's obvious that for you it has become intolerable at this point. It may do so for me too, I can easily see that happening, and I don't criticize you for that, especially considering the length of time you've put in and what you've seen.

Peace! :)

Hey Dragos, sorry to hear you're thinking about withdrawing from this project. If the cost of the witness servers is not too much maybe you can still keep them for a while.

I know Dan leaving is going to be rough. His coding genius will be missed but the foundation has his fingerprint and it can easily be taken forward I think.
I met @sneak at @steemfest in AMS last year. He is a capable guy and right now, I'm just waiting to see where the experiment goes.
Anyhow, I'd hate to see you go after all the effort you've put into this and me personally, even though I don't hold too much Steem I'm not looking for an exit. Not yet.

The cost of the servers is an important variable, both in terms of money and time. Because Steem lost its value, the cost increased. I can still cover the costs but I think it will be wiser to get out now. There are many other opportunities in the crypto world. I did put a lot of effort and I learned a lot during those 5 months.

As for what's going on, my perception is that it's turning into a very elaborate scam. It may be because I've seen many, many things and I can identify the patterns before other people do, or it may be just my imagination. But as long as nobody does anything that will invalidate that perception of mine, for me, that's the truth.

Let's have a 2 minute chat over the phone or Skype if you have the time. I followed you on Twitter we can exchange ph. nos or IM usernames there. I'm curious of the whole picture and actions and want to get calibrated.


Same here, but I support and understand where Dragos is coming from. This experiment could have been fun for a day, Purge away, but this is as bad as I expected it to be and I was joking. Well the joke is on us then :D

Cheers mate I suppose there will be new authors with the past ones getting trashed. Communism in it's finest, forget everything look at the rewards :|

are you leaving steemit?

95% yes.

Please no!!!! @dragosroua - you are one of the greatest guys here - I get your points above especially from your background from an ex communist state but please stay, we need people like you!

He he :) Let' not get melodramatic here, it's just a business decision: don't want to support a network which is acting against the values which brought me here, that's all. I appreciate your concern, though :)

I am not melodramatic but if I go for a thing than 100% - appreciate your decision - for me it is just not a business (yet) - thanks for replying mate

I think that the powering down of whales will resolve this issue of rewards. I think that the current problems we are facing will pass

I understand your feelings and I'm hoping you reconsider and let the dust settle. I will not recant my witness vote for you at this time because I think your contributions to the community are important and we need that more than ever.

Thanks for your support, appreciate it. Wishing you all the best.

Also if you get a chance, please let me know if you are going to stick around as a witness. I want to vote for you but won't if you truly don't want to do it anymore.

Nope, shutting down my witness wasn't a blackmail kind of act. I thought this through for many weeks.

I won't stay around as a witness because I don't want to sign transactions that are contradicting my values, propagating abuse and potential scam.

I now understand. I certainly did not think you were shutting down as blackmail. I wanted to vote for you to show support but then realized that might be the exact opposite of what you need. So I will just say "I support you!" and thanks.

This proposal by @timcliff could bring this 'war' to an end: https://steemit.com/steem/@timcliff/whales-can-the-community-buy-out-a-portion-of-your-influence

If whales can't use more than 250MV of SP (witnesses should set this number) on a vote there's no need to downvote the whales anymore.

This is blackmailing. They're bullying you until you are forced to buy something from them just so they're stopping. I don't want to be part of this.

like timcliff himself has previously stated, "wars are good for the folks who are selling the ammunition".


get ready for the whale boot lickers to come and justify

I don't see it that way.
This so called experiment has some possible effects as well. Many dolphins see their votes make a difference now that the whales don't vote anymore. Many new users can earn a few cents on a post now without being lucky that a whale found their post. This attracts new users.

On the other hand, I agree with you that this experiment/war must stop as soon as possible. We all hate to be downvoted and as you said, many people are refraining from posting now. This can't be good of course. The proposal by @timcliff could stop this and fix the problem with the whales having to much influence as well.

Good luck with that.

this would just end with multiple accounts. you cant fix system this way. also i dont think its fair for people who got stake in STEEM to have power, and now their tokens wouldnt work.

STEEMs price is down to all time low, if you want to have a stake - buy the SP

I am sorry to see you go my friend, I have valued your involvement in this community.

Thanks and good luck :)

I really dislike this drama too. Mentioned you in my latest post!

HF17 Commentary - you might enjoy reading this. It explains the toxicity of HF17.

"no matter what you voted, they came in and take out your vote."

No, they are taking out other whale votes. I guess that statement makes sense if you are addressing whales.

"the whole Steemit has become a mess."

Actually it's been better. I've really enjoyed my small stake being able to affect more. It's been an interesting experiment that shows how a more equal distribution of voting power would work.

"you have nothing to say about it, it means you're an accomplice."

What do you really expect him to do? Should he start arbitrarily punishing specific whales? Should he do that by just denouncing them or should he use the resources of Steemit Inc? Staying out of it could be wise.

In any war there are losers and winners. If you're on the so called "right side" you see benefits. That's how it was with wars like forever.

What you choose to forget in relationship with "my stake is bigger" is that somebody else expressed a choice before you and that choice is invalidated so you can have a bigger stake. That's abuse. That's how communism works. Believe me, I was born in a communist country. I know how this works.

As for @ned not taking a position is just sad. He is so young and already exploding his chances to be remembered well in the crypto world. Maybe he will pocket some millions now, but nobody will ever believe him later.

How would you address the problem steem has with how rewards are attributed? The current system appears to be broken. Would you agree there are major user retention issues that can be tied to how a massive disparity in stake effects the reward pool?

I made a few proposals and I was arrogantly dismissed by people in the Steem team. Specifically @abit who commented how "surprised" he is that I'm even a developer. How could I propose such nonsense... He eventually apologized but it was clear that he wasn't into brainstorming but following another agenda.

  ·  3 years ago (edited)

'somebody else expressed a choice before you and that choice is invalidated' This is utter nonsense. Everyone get a vote regardless of the order. If I were to downvote first but you thought the post is good and place an upvote after mine, are you 'invaliding my vote'? No! You are expressing your view and your right to vote as a stakeholder. There is no war here, only voting. Expressing views peacefully, via a blockchain is the opposite of war. Your overheated rhetoric equating voting on a blockchain with people killing each other and sometimes worse, is absurd and offensive.

I'm not gonna have this conversation with you. Based on hundreds of hours I spent watching interactions on the chat, I can clearly see where this going and I'm not going there.

Wishing you all the best.


that's what I thought from the beginning - but only as a conjecture. And still I have not enough informations.
btw, one of the gangs seemed to have stopped the fight, as I read 2 days ago:
But Dan's resignation changed something, obviously.

Nope, they didn't stop, I still had flags from @abit and @smooth yesterday, after the comment in your screenshot. Anyway, too much unfair behavior going on, at all higher levels.

"... transparency, empowerment and prosperity."

WAS that really their core values?

That's what I understood. If I misunderstood it, my mistake. Either way, I'm not supporting this anymore.

Oh wow ! I just finished up dateing my witnesses and added you and removed smooth and abit along with a bunch more and changed some ! I think more people need to start taking a look at who they are voteing for as well , most like me didnt even think of that with all thats going on ! And how who they are voteing for could make a difference ! Hope you reconsider ! 😉👍

Unfortunatley many of the high paid authors are now finding it harder to get the same engagement before the war/experiment, and this stops them from earning and posting. I have read some complains. Yesterday I read this, so it got me thinking.
Just to clarify. With the downvotes that were cast no reputation was lowered. Only if a post received a negative payout his reputation is at stake.

:)) It's just a war and reputation IS hurt. I had 71.6 2 days ago, now it's 71.5, because I got downvotes from @abit and @smooth, and no negative payout. It's sad and depressing.

  ·  3 years ago (edited)

You are incorrect. No negative payout, no reputation harm. Furthermore, your reputation is higher than both mine and abit's, which means our downvots have no effect whatsoever on your reputation. That is an absolute unequivical fact according to the code! Please stop spreading misinformation, and perhaps take a little time to look objectively at what is going on and not just reacting to it emotionally and on the basis of an incorrect understanding of the system..

I'm not reacting emotionally although the entire setup of Steem is highly emotional, as @abit admitted on one of his comments on my posts: "Sorry, I was emotional". As always, you pick just one side of the facts, the one that may suit you, build your case on it and ignore everything else. I'm not falling for this, @smooth. I've seen it too many times.

You don't give any answer to the questions: who put you in charge of this? Why are you leveling rewards? What is the correct and incorrect level of a reward? Why are you counteracting arbitrarily other whales votes?

I'm not emotional at all, I'm just choosing not to be part of something that I consider incorrect.

Good luck with whatever you want to do here.

I am voting my stake in the manner that I consider best

  ·  3 years ago Reveal Comment

Screenshot taken. Keep doing this. I'm having a ball.


  ·  3 years ago Reveal Comment

I have 6 times more SP than you do and I have not gotten one single flag. I vote 70% and 90% on the slider. I am all for this. My curation rewards are up 10 times over. This is a positive!

On the other hand I do see people saying they want to quit posting. I for one have been scared of being flagged if I post. I don't think my posts earn enough to get flagged.

I hope you stay! Stop for now and see if it will stop. It is supposed to be temporary. Man, communications suck here.

Like I said, in any war there are losers and winners. The fact that you're not getting flags says a lot. Because it's not about how much a post is making, but just arbitrary splitting the rewards without any predictability. You just "happen" to be on the right side now and you're ok with that. But that doesn't mean tomorrow you'll still be on the right side.

I don't think it's temporary. With HF17 and SP delegation there will be even more flagging.

Really sorry to hear that. I also received my fair amount of flags, but I have not noticed any decline in my reputation. I even asked somewhere how the downvotes affect​ the reputation system and got theresponse​e that it goes down only after a negative payout.
Too much confusion around here.

Your solution of using the @steemit account to arbitrarily vote on posts that have been downvoted is not a solution. It's a bad idea altogether.

It's not a solution. It's a suggestion. The mere fact that such a huge stake exists is also a problem per se, but that's another story.

So it's sayonara to Fraggle Rock. I still find it amusing so I will stick around. Turning Ned & Dan into deities has not helped the Platform. When they are revealed as mere motals it does seem to hurt the masses. Good luck where ever life takes you. I will keep an eye out for you on the Interwebs.

:) cheers, mate!

If you don't like the direction the platform is going, buy more steem and power up and join the fight. If you don't care ...

  1. I cared.
  2. I'm not here to fight.
  3. The recent developments are making SP irrelevant: what point is to become a whale if your vote will be arbitrarily negated?

Sorry for you

Why are you sorry for me?

Sorry for your hurt.

I'm not hurt. A bit disappointed, maybe, but I bet it's not the first time, nor the last time, I'm going to be disappointed. The "good side" is that I learned a lot.


Sad to see you go, @dragosroua
Should I go back to Medium?

Let's not get melodramatic. I stoped my witness and seed node because I don't want to be part of the experiment and because the network is way too erratic for my taste.

If and when things will change, I see no reason not to support the network again. Meanwhile, I won't go on Medium, but I'll keep writing on my own blog.

Just building on your own melodrama 😊 @dragosroua

I'm not being melodramatic, just making a point.

Still your fan, @dragosroua
Appreciate what you are doing.

Thanks, appreciate your approach as well :)

This was an interesting read and it made me rethink my present, still positive faith in steemit.
Sorry to hear about stopping your witness .
It's an egocentric macho mess here indeed. I am an amateur and don't get it. I don't know what's right or wrong. What to do ?

Do what you feel is good for you. It's a crazy world, isn't it?