Top 50 Witness Rankings on Hive about to be Reshaped?
Exactly one year and three days ago hard fork 25 happened on Hive. That was a very good hard fork in hindsight, both through its upgrades and by the way it was prepared and executed.
About one of its upgrades I want to talk right now.
If you are active on Hive and have been a user for longer than a year, you might've remarked this popup on PeakD when you log in:
Something similar may appear on other interfaces, but I was reminded of the topic by the notification on PeakD.
What is this referring to?
Let's go directly to the source, as it was presented on @hive.io account:
witness and proposal votes by an account expire after one year if the account stops actively making governance-related votes
And their subsequent explanation:
This change was made to ensure that old votes from dormant accounts don't unduly impact governance decisions for Hive. It will enable Hive to find a new balance between incumbent block producers and new competitors for those positions.
Some things to take into consideration:
- this change was introduced 368 days ago. So there are 3 more days to the full year when effects will kick in.
- this update didn't work retroactively, as far as I remember, meaning that the countdown started from the time the hardfork happened, even if some accounts are long-time dormant; this means we might have many votes expire after three days, all at the same time. Correct me if I'm wrong, please!
- governance-related votes mean voting on witnesses, setting a proxy or voting on DHF proposals; if you've done any of that in the past year, you're good; exception: if you had a proxy set, your votes on witnesses or proposals are ignored - to fix the problem you have to either remove the proxy and set it again or to remove it and vote your own witnesses/proposals
The easiest way to handle this is to log into PeakD with all your accounts. If you get a 'Governance Votes Expiring Soon' notification in the bottom-right corner, then you should act and make a governance-related operation on Hive. There is a Witnesses button which you can use to go directly to manage your witness votes.
If you had set yourself as a proxy for your alt accounts, you still need to go to your alts and remove the proxy and set it again.
Will this one-time moment 3 days from now create havoc in the witness rankings? To be honest, I don't think so. Maybe in the mid-lower part of the hierarchy. But it's interesting to see how it'll play out.
Going forward, there shouldn't be any more such moments of potentially significant changes in the ranking, unless a whale becomes inactive, as votes will expire exactly 1 year after your last governance-related operation.
Thoughts about it?
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I've never been sure on whether or not this was implemented, looks like maybe it was.
Should be interesting.
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Yep, it was implemented. I ignored a couple of those notifications thinking they must be wrong. Then I realized I had set a proxy on that account and all my governance operations are done via one account. So I needed to set the proxy again, to reset the counter.
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Oh this is actually good I think. I mean, there are plenty of votes that never get reviewed but have a huge impact on the top ranking. I think it's actually best if these are reviewed from time to time. I'm thinking this is great!
!CTP
Of course! The change itself is very good for our governance and refreshing itself.
For newbies, what's the best advice on deciding who to vote for?
If you don't have time to research the witnesses, pick an account you trust, and vote for who they do.
As you spend time around the HiveVerse, you will bump into posts about witnesses, and what they do for the community. When you find one you like, vote for them, and that way, you slowly build your own witness votes.
@metzli gave you some good advice. Alternatively, you can also pick an account you trust and set it as a proxy. What it does, you do. Or rather your stake will count for your proxy's votes.
Although it positively iterated the governance which is key to political decentralization, I would strongly advocate for a much lower epoch when it comes to resetting the vote count.
The reason is that the one-year time frame is too much for the capitalist to manipulate. We can take the case of Binance staking the fund of its customer to support Justin Sun back in 2020.
So we need a more dynamic epoch or cycle to re-adjust the vote count in governance. The other argument in support of this would be to make it more fascinating and to command a more active and frequent participation from the users, in that case those who are more regular and active will remain in sync with the governance to partake. Those who are episodic viitors might not participate, and rightly so, in an ecosystem like Hive it should always be the active users who shape up the political governance.
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I believe there was a debate about how long this should be when it was proposed. 6 months was also proposed at the time.
I don't understand this vector of attack, regarding a capitalist that can manipulate the expiration of votes timeframe. They are more likely to be interested to come in and try to capture the consensus, but for that, we have another defense mechanism, the 30 days where newly powered up HIVE don't count for governance. How would they use a longer witness votes expiration time in their favor?
Regarding a better vote dynamic, I don't know what to say. In theory, it sounds good, but in practice, people only vote when they are being reminded of that, except for a small minority.
Ahh, thanks for reminding me about that second defense mechanism(30 days).
Unfortunately, that will reduce the ecosystem as a concept of circulation of capitalists, even though crypto and web 3.0 is constantly producing a new middle class community, but if the people do not partake in governance, political decentralization will remain hypothetical.
By and large, the crypto community thinks of crypto as another commodity. That's the problem. Crypto is different not just in how it operates, it is also different in its governance, and unless people realize their civil responsibility (weighted with stake), the political decentralization will continue to be a myth. If the larger mass does not partake and create that void, it is bound to be occupied by the bourgeoise.
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I wonder if something a little more drastic could teach people to use their governance power more. Like reducing your rewards share if you don't vote for a set amount of time. But this probably means extensive code changes.
I've seen the opposite approach being taken in other places: reward more those who vote on governance.
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Thanks for the information here .... did not know all that was going on! Saw it on Listnerds...
Thanks for dropping by.
Congratulations @gadrian!
You raised your level and are now a Minnow!
Check out the last post from @hivebuzz:
Support the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!
Good that you brought this to our attention. Expiring the votes seems a good move to me.
Yep, that was one of the good decisions taken with HF25.
Thanks for bringing attention to this.
I will have to check and see how my votes are handled.
I am still learning about Hive so I get a lot out your posts.
!CTP
There's a lot to learn too. And many layers many never get to, including me.
Really good information, Adrian. I was not aware of the one-year expiration of an inactive account's vote. I think that is a great way to keep things fresh and above board.
Thanks for sharing this.
Normally, this shouldn't affect active users who cast a vote on a witness or proposal every now and then. But if they don't vote, or if have set a proxy for a long time to handle these things for them, or if they don't do governance actions on their alt accounts, they will be affected.
Happy to see this change coming into effect.
Always a healthy system when those in power make decisions that ensure governance continues to evolve with the people they represent.
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Glad to see it happen as well. I remember this was a change proposed for a long time. Either in this form or as a decay.
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I do hope for some disruptions to happen in top20 but I can't give names here :)
Yeah, it is sort of a Top 20 club there. Hard to get in. But many of them are there because they fill a role and they earned that place.
offtopic: Pe LN cate mail-uri trimiti de obicei? Cu ultima incercare am trimis 1500 cu 3 zile in urma, doar ca la sent imi apar doar 1038.
Eu trimit zilnic la ce imi ofera membership-ul, adica 3000 de recipienti, gratuit (adica inclus in pret), la care se adauga referintele directe. N-am avut probleme sa trimita la mai putini de atat pana acum.
Dar banuiesc care e problema la tine. Esti free, si nu poti sa trimiti decat la membrii free. Si banuiesc ca atatia membrii free activi sunt pe LN.
Ieri inainte sa trimit ultimul mail, am facut upgrade la premium si am primit bonus 1000 de mail la care am mai adaugat eu 1000, deci trebuiau sa fie trimise 2000, se pare ca tot cam la 1030-1038 ajung, ce trimit in plus le irosesc degeaba.
Da. Mi s-a intamplat si mie la inceput cand foloseam si MAIL-uri ca sa trimit la mai multi. Dar nu trimitea decat la ce imi oferea membership-ul inclus + referinte. Asa ca pierdeam MAIL-urile alea. Am trimis de cateva ori pana m-am prins. Asa ca eu le strang si imi cumpar un solo mail cand fac minim 15000. Trimite la toata baza de date si e validat automat.
PS: Felicitari pt. upgrade! :)
Am inteles ca nu se pierd mailurile, mi-a raspuns Blain pe Discord dimineata:
Multzam pentru felicitari 😁 N-am facut upgrade mai mare pentru ca inca nu am material pentru atatea mailuri, o iau mai usor "pas cu pas" 😆
Mie imi dispareau MAIL-urile din cont. Poate au rezolvat intre timp. Oricum pt. mine 3000 e mai mult decat suficient si solo mailurile sunt mai importante.
This is definitely a step in the right direction. Inactive accounts shouldn't have an impact on governance. Some interesting points and discussions between yourself and milaan. Perhaps setting up some form of reward for regularly updating your witness votes may be even better.
!CTP
That's the point of my post from today. :)
I remember it coming out last year and do we know the exact date I should be renewing my votes? It would be a good time to look at my existing votes too.
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Thanks for the question! Didn't know about it, but made me look. It seems there is a way. You can look at hiveblocks.com/@jfang003 to see when your governance votes expire (the picture below is for mine):
Thanks for the info.
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You're welcome.