The Witness Voting Engagement Report - 2017-08-08

vm2904 (64) · 7 years ago (edited)

@lukestokes I immediately reviewed my witness list after your last article. Having understood the importance, I noticed that I had used only 8 slots out of my allotted 30 votes. Out of the 8, I am familiar with the work of 3-4 witnesses (including yourself) and know that they are consciously helping the Steemit platform growth. For the remaining, I seem to have voted impulsively - without knowing the significance of a witness responsibility. Will review that in coming weeks.
I hope the engagement by Senior Steemians with more Vests goes up day by day as a result of your report. Around 20% seems very low at the moment.

By the way - Is there anything more I can do to support your efforts - just having voted for witness seems so inadequate.

Regards,

$0.74

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I greatly appreciate your support and your regular, helpful comments. The blockchain rewards me well for the following I've built, so no worries there. :)

$0.00

vm2904 (64) · 7 years ago

LOL. I guess my offering to help a Senior Steemian was like a firefly trying to help a Halogen lamp. A dedicated Steemian like you deserves all the rewards from the blockchain (I know nothing about how that happens). I meant to offer that, if any legwork helps you for your efforts for Steemit community, I would be happy to support for that.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you. :)

$0.00

ionlysaymeep (50) · 7 years ago

meep

$0.00

felander (71) · 7 years ago

hey Luke,
thanks for this post
i had stumbled on voting for witnesses before and had done so since being involved in what you are writing on seemed logical
i will admit i chose a little at random but have put in a bit of time now and changed a few of my votes for people with better stats

But i had not realized that you were on there and had not read up on you either so i have remedied this and given you my vote for witness.

Use it wisely my friend :-)

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Excellent, thank you for your vote. If I ever don't use it wisely, remove your vote for me and vote for someone who does. :)

$0.00

steembusiness (69) · 7 years ago

I´ve honestly got to admit, that I just voted for very few witnesses yet. But as Steemit is growing pretty much these days I guess I have to get active and vote for some more reliable witnesses out there to keep everything running smoothly!
Thanks for reminding me @lukestokes!

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks for voting!

$0.00

steembusiness (69) · 7 years ago

You're welcome @lukestokes. I really like the Quality of your Posts and how simple you explain things. So definitely worth my vote ;)

$0.00

sc-steemit (64) · 7 years ago

Nice post @lukestokes and great topic to spin further on.

I find it interesting that there are many users with more than 100k VESTS that have voted (134,133 MV (35.4%)) than users with at least one post (100,395 MV (33%)).

Shows we have a few investors only that hasn't posted anything.

We also have a very few ones (134,302 MV (35%)) that hasn't posted or invested much, but that are still voting.

Going to follow your upcoming posts on the topic.

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

To be clear, the two filters I'm using are not combined or additive. Meaning, I'm just filtering for MV > 100,000 in one case and just filtering for posts >=1 in the other. I don't have a filter for posts and MV together, though that might be interesting to look at.

$0.00

sc-steemit (64) · 7 years ago

Sorry, I may have been unclear on my part :)

What I ment was that the first part where you filter for everyone MV > 100k we have a higher MV than when you filter for more than 1 post. Meaning we have many users with a high MV power that hasn't posted anything.

If a user has > 100k MV and hasn't posted they will not be visible in your second statement.

Or maybe I'm just thinking wrong here...

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

If a user has > 100k MV and hasn't posted they will not be visible in your second statement.

That's what I meant about the filters not being added together. The second statement is just about those who haven't posted. It doesn't also take into account their MV amount. That means an account can be in both groups.

$0.00

cryptogee (75) · 7 years ago

very, very useful update, thanks Luke. Especially the inactive witnesses, a couple of surprising names on that list by the way.

You've still got my vote, keep up the good work!

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you very much!

$0.00

teamturnerlive (50) · 7 years ago

Thanks @lukestokes for taking the time to make this post. It's important we support active Anna's engaged witnesses. I've upvoted this post and given you my witness vote. -dt

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you for both!

$0.12

denmarkguy (76) · 7 years ago

Thanks for the update-- I think using 100K vests as a base metric makes a lot of sense... I know in my very early days here, I didn't even know what a "witness" was, let alone did I vote for any... and I can't imagine I'd be alone in that.

So here's something I don't know: Do inactive witnesses eventually get removed from the list, or do they just stay there indefinitely, or till they... withdraw(?) themselves?

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Inactive witnesses (as far as I understand) get skipped over when the system picks the next witness to produce a block. They don't harm the system in any way, but the fact that they still have votes is an indicator of voter apathy. If, for example, some top witness started doing something bad for the network, we'd have to vote them out. If people are still voting for witnesses who aren't even active, there's a good chance they'd still be voting for that witness account, even if the community was trying to remove them from an active witness spot.

I don't think there's a way to mark an account as no longer being a witness once the update_witness command is run for that account. It's not a bad thing to be an inactive witness. I understand if some started the process and then later decided they have other priorities. No worries there, but we should all be removing votes for accounts that are not active and put those votes towards accounts that are active and working to move up the rankings to hopefully produce enough blocks to pay for their server costs and time.

$0.11

denmarkguy (76) · 7 years ago

Appreciate the info... fills in a few blanks.

Given what you're sharing here, it might be nice/useful (if possible) to extract and list a "last active" or "last block time" next to each witness' name when the "vote for witnesses" page displays. If one of the objectives is to get relative newcomers interested in voting... they perhaps we need to remove as many "tech-y layers" from the process as possible. I'd also submit that there needs to be a more concerted effort (perhaps among the active witnesses, themselves?) tp publicize that "voting for witnesses" isn't just something to "do once, and fuggetaboutit" but an ongoing process you need to re-visit now and then.

$0.51

https://steemd.com/witnesses

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Agreed! These pages help:

https://steemdb.com/witnesses

I've also asked @jesta to take the details on that steemdb page and include them on the individual account page where it says "Votes Cast" (example: https://steemdb.com/@lukestokes/witness click Votes Cast). That, I think, would be super helpful. Maybe even a popup if someone is voting for an inactive witness.

$0.00

beckerly (44) · 7 years ago (edited)

Not OP, but given the witness selection system's dependance on voting I would assume that, barring a witness' removal of themselves from consideration somehow, they would cease to be a witness whenever they no longer have one of the top number of votes.

But I've never seen this explicitly stated anywhere...

$0.02

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I think you're correct, I just don't think there's a way to actually remove the witness properties of an account once they are set.

$0.00

beckerly (44) · 7 years ago (edited)

Yeah, and upon further thought, I'm not even seeing how someone could remove such witness status from their own account, as I stated earlier might be possible. Perhaps that partially explains the number of Steemit employees, and such, on these listings.

Doesn't seem to be the best way to handle this issue long-term though. I must be missing something...

Which, coincidentally, is part of the reason so many people avoid voting in the first place - to avoid making a poor choice unintentionally. Even if you find some info. to inform your choice here, important particulars are still unable to be found, making the decision process somewhat murky...

$0.02

natewillisii (25) · 7 years ago

I wish I could upvote this 100 times. As a new user I find this to be super helpful as it is valuable actionable information. Also, I'm not certain if a lot of users are aware of the mobile apps. That may encourage more engagement for witness voting.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks for the encouragement! That's a good point about the mobile app. For new accounts who don't yet have much Steem Power, it may not matter as much as the accounts who have been here for some time.

$0.00

mikenevitt (62) · 7 years ago

Exactly how would someone like me know who's a witness I have heard of witness voting but I don't know who they are

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I provided a link in my post explaining witness voting, both at the top and the bottom. You can also use the menu on the far right of the Steemit interface to get to the Vote for Witnesses page.

$0.22

aedroberts (54) · 7 years ago

@lukestokes I have, so far, only voted 4 times; with 2 votes for members outside of the Top 50. Building relationships is a two-way course. Just because, a member has a high reputation, does not get an automatic nod from me. Far too many have built those reputations artificially.

I look for people who bring a total value to the entire Steemit community as evidenced by cogent and contributory posts. I have been here two weeks now and it can be challenging to discover whose who. That is a great deal of rabbit trails to explore and there is only so much time each day that I can devote to this site. Be well.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

To be here two weeks and already be voting for witnesses is a great think! Thanks for getting involved.

$0.00

pfunk (72) · 7 years ago

Interesting data. I'd like to see the data with the @steem, @steemit, @steemitblog accounts removed from being counted.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I worked on this report for too many hours last night and finally ran out of energy at around 12:30am. I realized the 18 accounts I excluded have 179,800 MV which would certainly skew the numbers quite a bit as far as MV available to vote. I was too dang tired to re-work all the numbers after removing those MV's. I may edit this post at some point to do that though.

$0.00

andybets (62) · 7 years ago

Thanks for this.

I'm looking at the witness votes data from the RPC server, and am unable to replicate the correct order of witnesses, I wondered whether you are able to explain the formula by which the witness scores/positions are determined?

I've tried assigning the sum of the vests from each voter, but that doesn't seem to be correct.

Any ideas would be great.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

You probably have to also factor in the proxy votes. I haven't yet tried to determine the order of the witnesses myself directly from the raw data yet.

$0.04

andybets (62) · 7 years ago

Ah thanks that's great! That could well explain the difference, I haven't been looking for proxy votes.

I've just voted for your witness - for the little my two accounts are worth!

$0.00

andybets (62) · 7 years ago

I've incorporated the proxy votes now, and the order is much more similar, see here:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemreports/steemreports-about-witness-voting-and-proxy-versus-direct-voting

Thanks again.

$0.00

danpaulson (62) · 7 years ago

Upvoted and set you up as my proxyvoter luke. Do me proud.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you! If I ever don't, please select someone who will.

$0.00

abit (70) · 7 years ago

databass 3500010180
proskynneo 2403253522
created 1730004336
safari 1500015009
goku1 855564655
imadev 445256469

I think these are steemit employees, or at least contractors.

mottler 4617011297
batel 1310388186
bob 1077657897
alice 954075907

These can be considered as dan's sock puppets. Or other dev's.

According to https://steemdb.com/accounts/vest, some data showed in this post is stale.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks @abit! I asked around in chat for all the Steemit employee accounts and currently have a list of 18. I'll add these to the list.

As to Dan's accounts, since he's no longer an employee and is voting on witnesses, I'm okay leaving them in there. The main reason to exclude Steemit employee accounts is because they are not currently voting for witnesses. I'm not sure if that's a company policy, but there was some talk in chat about it after Charlie Shem becoming the top witness because of their votes.

As to the stale data, I'll have to check with @arcange on how often STEEMSQL is updated. I can get this data myself directly from the blockchain, but it will take much longer to process.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Can you clarify which data is stale? STEEMSQL.com says this:

New transactions from the latest data blocks are injected in the database every 10 seconds.

$0.00

abit (70) · 7 years ago (edited)

Compare it with the link I provided, or steemwhales.com, you'll know. VESTS amount of some accounts are different. For example, @another

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

57.310 kV is quite a bit different than 414,009,397 V. :(

Well that's concerning. If the data in STEEMSQL can't be trusted, I'll have to pull it fresh from the blockchain myself. boo. Thanks @abit.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thankfully this was just a rare glitch. @arcange confirmed via chat:

hey, usually account table is updated every 10 minutes
last two days, SteemSQL was out of sync because invalid follow transactions were found in the blockchain.

@arcange was temporarily unavailable so it took longer than normal to get things fixed up, but it's all good now.

I'm glad to know the account data is usually reliable up to 10 minutes.

$0.00

world-travel-pro (76) · 7 years ago

Wow. That stuff sounds real complicated, I couldn't do what you guys do. I'm glad things are in good hands. I'm working hard on the content creation side. That too is easier said than done. I've been found to be a very valuable yet undervalued content creator. I have a highly unique lifestyle and knowledge base as well as perspective on the world. I've been living out of a backpack for the past 10 years as a budget traveler. With an English and finance background. I write quality travel advice, show parts of the world in a national geographic non-sugar coated way. I always get good reviews if my work gets seen. Lately it feels as if I've been drowning in a sea of minnows.

Several other newly joined and quickly recognized content creators have been feeling a similar way. You can check @diabolika for example. Other's have left the platform @justinchase for example. It's very unappealing to see our earnings drop off, while gaining a following of 99% other minnows who's up-votes are worth next to nothing. Who you know matters more than content in this new steemit environment. People have complained, I built it, I've succeeded, I have a 1000 followers. But they are mostly other minnows with 2 cent voting power so they are highly disappointed. My vote is only worth 4 cents at the moment. So like so many my vote too is basically worthless.

Their are too few dolphins and whales with too many minnow mouths to feed. Many quality content makers like myself have come in during the last few months and have a lot to offer. We are feeling drowned out and in competition for attention of the few, who's up-vote is worth more than a quarter. It's quite a lousy feeling like we are working for scraps compared to those who entered the platform a year ago when the getting was good. Hope this message can mean something to somebody. With great respect. Dan Gardner "World Travel Pro"

$0.71

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

For much of my time here most votes were worthless (including my own). It was not uncommon to see great posts with many votes have a $0.00 payout. It's all a matter of expectations (which change and get re-anchored at a surprisingly fast pace). If authors are leaving because they are only making $0.10, where are they going? Back to Facebook, Medium, Reddit, and Twitter where they make $0?

I hear and understand your frustration. I know it all too well because it's exactly what I went through a year ago as I watched others complain and leave. Now look at my wallet to see if it was a good idea for me to stay and keep blogging.

If you're looking for some encouragement, scroll all the way back to my earliest posts where I tackled some of this (one addresses the true currency of Steemit is relationships). Who you know is exactly what matters, just like in real life. We are a social species, and it pays to be friends with people who have wealth because money is a certificate of appreciation. It means someone else gave them a token of value, something they earned via work away from their family, in order to appreciate the work done for them.

I wish you luck here because that's also what it takes: random chance.

$0.00

world-travel-pro (76) · 7 years ago

Thank you so much for the detailed response. I understand all that you have said including the value in relationships and more. Thank you for giving me insight into what it was like to be on steemit a year ago. I like many minnows have no idea.

I can answer your question where would the writer and content creator go other than steemit. For me, I would go to the beach. I would hang out with friends, I would travel and enjoy my life more. Then I would go back to Korea next year and work teaching English.

I came to this platform to share my experiences and knowledge, make friends, and try to help support my non-local life with a source of income from my computer. Thanks to your 5 dollar up-vote. That is so significant for me I can't even tell you. Besides the money it is hope. If you could up-vote me once a week, that would change my attitude and life on here forever. No joke!

I am now feeling it is possible to succeed on here financially speaking. To see some people high up in the system making 20-30 thousand dollars a month, when I can't pull in 50 cents a day some times. Makes think something just isn't right here. And it's not, siting your "only 7.5% of active accounts are voting." article. But that's all right we have great people like yourselves high up in the system working to improve the platform in every way. For that I feel motivated and will keep on keeping on.

On a further note I sincerely understand the value of making relationships with those who have money and pull. Just like in real life. When I was teaching English in Korea. I worked for the vice-president of Samsung. He'd take me out to fancy restaurants and put a 100 dollars in my pocket just to show his appreciation of my companionship.

After saying that the confusion for me, was that before I entered this arena I did some research which was mostly about if you build it they will come. If you post interesting useful stuff and keep at it you will succeed. We'll reaching out to you here and now along with your sound advice is evidence itself that building ties and relationships here is just as important as the travel advice and interesting content I create.

Thanks again for your very kind and informative response. Growing pains can be confusing, like where you were a year ago on here. I'm obviously working things out myself. You're insights have been greatly appreciated. I'll be in touch. -Dan

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I'm glad they were helpful!

For me, I would go to the beach. I would hang out with friends, I would travel and enjoy my life more.

That sounds pretty good! Maybe you should be doing that. What's wrong with enjoying your life more? For me, I'd still be doing this as I really do enjoy it. I don't post just for the rewards (see this example from 4 months ago). If you are interested in making money on Steemit, maybe this post will help: Last Week I Made $1,500 Worth of Cryptocurrency Blogging on Steemit. Here's How.

Either way, find your groove, find what works for you, and have fun. If you're not enjoying it, spend time doing things you enjoy instead.

tip! 5 hide

$0.00

Show 1 more reply

adjs20 (64) · 7 years ago (edited)

@abit hi,
My name is Adi @adjs20 , I'll appreciate if you can help a little and upvote for my posts at @adjs20
It will help me a lot.
I've voted you as a witness as well.
Thanks in advance.

$0.00

gnimeets (50) · 7 years ago (edited)

I had a little idea. Witness's get extra vests right? Can they be redistributed?

You can guess where I am going with this. You want people to vote for witness's..make it profitable for them. Give cash back or something similar for voting for a witness. 10% of the vests maybe.

EDIT: vests earned from your vote. Not the entire pool.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Some due this, but it's essentially vote buying, and I'm not personally a fan of it. That's how you get oligarchies.

Voting for witnesses, IMO, should be motivated by your desire to have a secure, efficient Steemit system for the long term, not just for short term rewards.

But who knows, maybe this will change and people will pool their resources together much like a mining pool in proof of work systems and then share the rewards among the group. The witness still has to run the server and continue with other efforts to earn their position though.

$1.63

3 votes

gnimeets (50) · 7 years ago

It is vote buying. But if it was a simple kickback everyone recieved then that in itself would raise massive awareness. Probably lead to sheep mentality though. People will just pick whoever is popular regardless of the actual use.

It's a tough one because the witness system is hard for people to care about. The majority of the smaller accounts are not investors and will never think like one. This will only get worse as time goes on.

Maybe instead of considering it buying votes. Consider it raising awareness through monetary gain.

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

The smaller accounts don't really impact the witness selection at all. If they have few VESTs, they have little influence on who is an active witness. I do think it's important to educate them for if/when their account does grow in value, but to me the risks of a wealthy whale who may not be a good actor for the network buying up votes is not worth the benefit of more people voting.

$0.15

gnimeets (50) · 7 years ago

Oh although it is obvious now that you say it, I should have realized that myself. I guess I don't have any better solution than yours then. Education and awareness it is!

$0.00

cloh76 (66) · 7 years ago

Good analysis. Hopefully there will be an uptick in the number of voters

$0.00

shihabieee (8) · 7 years ago

thanks for sharing .......

@shihabieee

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Advice: If you want to do well here and build a following, don't just leave simple comments all over the place. Provide some value or people may see your comments as spam.

$0.03

drpuffnstuff (60) · 7 years ago

Nice. That is a big set of stats good to see the difference between active users and people who have 0 posts. And yes we need to get some of the higher vesting people who haven't voted to do so knowledgeably.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

It would certainly help if they voted up some newer witnesses who are providing value and looking to get attention.

$0.03

blueorgy (67) · 7 years ago

I do like seeing that active voter percentage rise but it's defiantly not high enough! Also like most witnesses we all hate seeing those wasted votes on inactive witnesses, there is plenty of us oh could defiantly use those votes! So a shameless plug for myself as witness I have to make 😎 Vote for active witnesses people! Unapprove those inactive and vote @lukestokes.mhth and if you happen to have another spot... vote @blueorgy 😉 But before you even do that go and check out those who are active and represent what you believe in , your vote makes a difference 💪

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

defiantly not high enough!

I love fun typos. :)

Keep rocking it and adding value, @blueorgy.

$0.00

blueorgy (67) · 7 years ago

Defiantly _{|dəˈfīəntlē|}
adverb
in a manner that shows open resistance or bold disobedience: he defiantly refused to accept any government money | folding her arms, she stood defiantly.

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Hah! I really thought you meant to type "definitely."

Defiantly it is then! :)

$0.00

blueorgy (67) · 7 years ago

Its a typo I rolled with haha 😂 why not?! I frequently have typos due to my fingers not keeping up with my brain... and trust me I type very very fast 💨 I'm just insane I guess 😉

$0.00

karencarrens (58) · 7 years ago

I'm definitely making sure I vote for you and @blueorgy. I've been on for long enough to see how much you both care for the success of our community.

$0.00

nzfxtrader (52) · 7 years ago

I still don't fully get what a Witness is and why I should be voting - can you point me to some easy-to-read material on the subject? Thanks

$0.00

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I linked to the post twice, both in the beginning of the post and the end. It was bold surrounded by divider lines.

I'm not sure what else I can do beyond that...

$0.27

3 votes

nzfxtrader (52) · 7 years ago

Sorry I totally missed them... will re-read! thanks

$0.00

alidervash (44) · 7 years ago

Here have somany good things every one share his own experncies and also projects with there full of trust and honsety some time some option is not work it main not mistake of those share with that an problem in all internet project some very good succcess full some after after some run away what he share s some thing project to day what come out tommrow no buddy know we must trust on each try go through the promotion are prelaunches not to words investing i if we spending hours and working hard online they why should we invest even an single usd so take advantages of the promotions are prelaunches and we sharing experinces it is not to cause to join steemit are any forum we need money forliving so this our wholetime job with sharing expernices we need help each other to earn some thing for living thank you.

$0.00

luiszuritam (44) · 7 years ago

$0.00

Reveal Comment