#community

Dear Community, Let Your Voice Be Heard | Top 20 Witness Communication

![let-your-voice-be-heard.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRf63uxa2TGcGCMELcpE1ngyQ4oWHiWT6vEtanZoSnXb7/let-your-voice-be-heard.jpg)
Many times throughout my time here on Steem I have heard about the frustration with the lack of communication between all community members, Steemit inc., and the witnesses. I feel efforts are being made to improve this daily, but I am still hearing a lot of frustration from the community itself. I have tried to do my best to help with this when I can, as have others, but I am not a top witnesses or anything more than a community member myself.. and even when I try to make posts to help explain or communicate, people want something "official".

Recently during a conversation in The Ramble Discord it was brought up that many felt there was not clear communication from the Top Witnesses themselves.

One example that was given was with the upcoming EIP changes now included in HF21. The @Steemitblog put out this post, where they explained the "community proposed changes" and also stated that it would not be something they were focusing on right now -

Right now our focus remains 100% on improving steemit.com, Communities, MIRA, finalizing the Steem Proposal System Hardfork (HF21 or the “SteemDAO”), and preparing to switch to SMTs. We do not have any plans to begin working on any code relating to these economic changes. But we do believe that this is a conversation worth having and one that we would be happy to participate in. Ultimately, the decision of when to begin work on these improvements, and in which hardfork to include them, will be up to the Steem community and the Witnesses they elect to approve Hardforks.

Then after push from witnesses (and stakeholders) the changes were suggested to be included in this hardfork itself. While there was a lot of discussion on these matters over the last few years, nothing was put on chain to explain the recent push to include them. This led to confusion from the community, and in my opinion furthered the "us vs them" and "secret room talks" narrative we have here.

While most witnesses I have spoken to felt the discussion had been had repeatedly, on chain as well, the community went from seeing Steemit inc saying it would NOT be included, to all of a sudden it being part of the deal.

Another simple case of fragmented communication that leads to unneeded frustration, contempt and drama.

Witnesses Are Representatives

The witnesses on Steem are elected officials who produce blocks as well as make decisions on the future of the chain itself. They are elected by stake based votes and to me they should be a representative of the community itself, or at least attempt to be - As they, along with Steemit Inc., are the leadership here.

If individuals are not happy with what they are doing they should first communicate this and then of course vote accordingly.

The issue I am hearing is that many feel that they don't know how to get a message to the witnesses, where to ask questions or to find the information. This is a core issue with steem in my opinion... sometimes it is just hard to find what you are looking for.

Clear Line Of Communication

During the recent discussion about this and how to prevent it going forward, it was suggested that the Top Witnesses elect a "representative" to post and speak on their behalf. That way the information was easy to find and all in one place.

I actually suggested this previously and was told that it was insane to think one person could speak on behalf of 20 independent witnesses. I believe this response is just based on confusion of what is being asked.. as all the community wants is to be kept in the loop and to BE HEARD.. this role would be nothing more than a "reporter" of sorts who relays information, even if the tops aren't saying all the same thing.

There is absolutely no reason why information cannot be gathered and the community informed of why decisions are being made.

When this topic was brought to me again and my response was "You need to go tell them what you want then. Get organized, make a post explaining what you want", I was told -

"I don't know where to post where the witnesses or even Steemit Inc will see it."

I honestly am not sure how to help with this. I have suggested a type of "Community Liaison" role to fill this gap between the Witnesses and or Steemit inc and the community itself and I still believe that doing so would solve so many issues, but I don't think that will happen anytime soon.

So all I can offer is a place to discuss, here on my blog.

Let Your Voice Be Heard

I don't know how to fix this problem, and can't speak for exactly what it is the community would like to see.. but I can offer a post that will be seen to share your thoughts, your wants, and your questions.

Do you have a suggestion for the witnesses to help better their communication with the community?
Do you have concerns you want them to know, and haven't been heard elsewhere?
Do you just have questions that you can't find the answers to about this hardfork or something else?

Now is the time to make them heard, and I will ensure they are seen. Make a comment below.

- If there are questions asked that I have seen answered by the witnesses previously, I will try to provide a link.

Please let's try to make constructive comments that could actually provide a solution. I understand the frustration and welcome the community explaining their frustrations.. but I also believe that vulgar raging never really leads to much. Let your frustration be known, but let's have mutual respect.
I will promote this post to try to get it seen by as many as possible so that the community itself feels like it has a place to communicate.

### My Goal My only goal is to help find a solution - by connecting people in one place to have a discussion on how to improve this. I feel much of the frustration and division from the upcoming hardfork (as well as soooo many things in the past) could have been easily avoided (or at least lessened) but open and clear communication.

It's true that not every user cares about this, but there are enough that seem to that I felt the need to try to help in some way. This is what I can do at the moment, it's not much.. but maybe it's a start.

**Share your thoughts, suggestions, ideas, and lets work together to move forward in a positive direction. As this blockchain is special due to the community here, and we can accomplish way more by working together then being divided.**

Much Love and Steem On,

Justine

_{[Image Source](http://www.voicecommunications.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/let-your-voice-be-heard.jpg)}

Comments · 16

@paul.atreides(54)· 2591d
I have heard there is discussion about having the POCKET token (Steemit’s historic first token) balance show up in your Steem wallet. Where are we at with that?

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@bashadow(70)· 2592d

"I don't know where to post where the witnesses or even Steemit Inc will see it."

Then people need to know the name of this witness so they can unvote the individual. If Steemit can pin a winner from "Open Mike" and PIN other post to the top of the feed, I have no doubt that @andrarchy would have any objection at all to pinning a progress report to the top of the feed page.

In fact you should ask @andrarchy to pin this post to the top, I do not often check the trending page but felt like it today.

HF21 has been in the hands of the witness for one month, no progress report, no clues as to what is working, what is not working, or even what their thoughts are on it at all.
@denise.menya(42)· 2592d
Hello, I'm new on Steem What is a witness? Can anyone be a witness? Thanks
@arcange(79)· 2593d
Congratulations @justineh! Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following categories:
- Comments - Ranked 7 with 52 comments
- Pending payout - Ranked 3 with $ 152,54
@steemit87(41)· 2593d
Great post
@prameshtyagi(71)· 2593d
It is not in the interest of blockchain decentralization to have coordinated communication away from steem blockchain itself. Therefore, any communication among witnesses should happen on blockchain.
@aaronhawk(57)· 2594d
Thank you Justine for putting this out! This is indeed a problem we need to solve. I do have an idea tho.

The devs could implement a Witness tab where the current witnesses are displayed. On this tab they can post about the current things and what's going on with this Blockchain. They also could add polls and other useful things to ask the community things about how we should progress with this chain.
@nokodemion(59)· 2594d
Great post!!!

Nothing more to add, as to demand the implementation of the SPS.

No EIP, the SPS is what is needed badly.

And let them create a proposal in the SPS for the EIP changes.
@steemitboard(66)· 2594d
Congratulations @justineh! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You received more than 10000 upvotes. Your next target is to reach 15000 upvotes.

_{You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking} _{If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP}

Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!
@improv(73)· 2594d
Great! I'd like three things:
1. I've changed my votes to represent my perspective as best as I can, but there seems to be intentional obfuscation when it comes to witness opinions on relevant issues. I'd like to see an "official" post, from you, perhaps, after talking to each of the top thirty witnesses (because we need alternatives if we're not going to vote for a top twenty witness) on those topics.
2. I'd like real information about the expected impact on author and curation rewards of EIP. When asking people like @markymark, I've only gotten answers that it can't be answered, because the intention of EIP is to change behavior, so it'll be different because behavior changes. But that shouldn't be how we make big changes. We should collect as much data as possible, and at least provide a few scenarios to compare. I propose that we see an analysis that assumes behavior will not change. The biggest impact, I think, will be the rewards curve but I don't really know. Will a post that gets 2 steem in today's environment, author and curator rewards combined, get 0.5 based on that number of rshares? Will it get 1.5? Will it get 0.05? I have not seen this analysis.
3. I think most humans using Steem are having a positive impact on the Steem environment. There are a few bad apples spoiling the bunch, and they have a lot of accounts. I think EIP misses their needs pretty dramatically. If EIP is going to go through as proposed, something needs to be done to protect them. There needs to be a way to upvote a comment you like that isn't IMPORTANT you just want to show your approval and give it a few pennies without "wasting" your VP because you're not voting on a viral meme. I propose a whitelist of users who will find their little votes matched by 🐋 votes up to its expected value in pre-EIP. That way, the positive, human behavior won't disappear.
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@promobot(61)· 2594d
@steemium purchased a 54.85% vote from @promobot on this post.

*If you disagree with the reward or content of this post you can purchase a reversal of this vote by using our curation interface http://promovotes.com
@clixmoney(78)· 2594d
Maybe they just can create audio shows where they reply to every single question, or at least most of them. When we have shows with witnesses usually they don't reply to all questions. A lot of steemians stay ignored. I was listening in so many shows, asking questions, seeing how others ask them, but mostly everybody talk about his thing and what they are doing. The feedback is really important, witness should be in touch with people.

Also, I would like to see who are voting on witnesses. It was never discussed anywere I guess, but if we see everything happening on the blockchain, how we can see who are choosing those witnesses ? Is there a tool for that ?

I mean maybe those who are choosing witnesses, are not active anymore, are they counted as votes ? It's really interesting to see the active steemians who vote on particular witness.
@kreesher(48)· 2594d
I would love to know a simple thing. Why are those communications happening on discord and not in the steemit platform itself?

What is missing on steemit that make everyone feel more inclined to use other platforms like discord to engage with the community and have great talks?
@steemium(62)· 2594d
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@goldmatters(75)· 2594d
I would like to know if there has been any discussion or thought around a more developed “burn steem” program.

There has to be a way to include some type of gamification to incentivize people to burn steem in order to gain something... like SMTS for example as @aggroed has suggested.

With inflation seemingly outpacing growth, I cannot envision STEEM gaining more value with consistent selling pressure such as the programmatic sell by steemit inc. I fully understand the selling is necessary to fund operations at this stage in the game.

but

If a new and improved burn steem program could be implemented this would raise the price of steem and steemit inc would require a smaller quantity of steem selling thus reducing pressure on the price, creating a virtuous circle.

It is very common for publicly traded companies to buy back shares and it seems with all the development and resources here on steem that a system to gamify burning steem to gain something else is completely possible.

Much like you ‘burn’ @steemmonsters to gain DEC (dark energy crystals), I envision some sort of similar system on steem to improve economics and incentivize folks to actually hodl some steem or steem power.

Is there anyone working on the economic fundamentals of steem?

My question Justine, is there any sort of economic advisor consulting or involved on the blockchain level for steemit inc or are they open to anything like that?

From my understanding steemit inc is strictly made up of devs and engineers, but what about the economics\gamification side?

It’s difficult to envision a case for steem bullishness if we are caught in and endless loop of inflation without incentive to hold the coin.

^all to be taken in context from a concerned stakeholder who <3’s this place :)
@whatsup(76)· 2594d
I would love to see witnesses provide a position post before each hardfork where they explain what they are for, whether or not they want to accept changes and why.

However the issue is the top 20 rarely need the community vote and they know it. They don't answer to the community and they know it.

Also many perceive that they will lose votes (that matter) if they take unpopular positions.

I give you kudos for trying to help, but I'm not sure what would motivate them to communicate since there are no consequences of not communicating.