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Choosing a Proxy for the SPS/Steem.DAO

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@therealwolf
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HF21 brought multiple changes to Steem. One of those is an important new feature, called the Steem Proposal System (SPS) or Steem.DAO (@steem.dao).


steemproposals.com


SPS is a tool for decentralised funding, where everybody can create proposals, which consist of a plan, a time period and a total amount of required funding. (More detailed explanation here)

If a proposal is approved by enough stakeholders, so that it is above a certain threshold it will be paid out until the time period has been reached, unless stakeholders decide to un-approve it.

This "threshold" is actually another proposal, called 'return proposal' by @gtg. This proposal will return all daily created payouts back to the @steem.dao account, to prevent bad proposals from leeching funds away.

Bad Example: paying 170,000 SBD worth over 800,000 STEEM for legal battles suing big social media over 2 years? Interesting idea and I guess important generally, but way too expensive and it doesn't directly support Steem.

Good Example: paying 3,000 SBD in a time period of 1 month for a feature on the Steem blockchain.

Are you still following me? Good!

So, the problem here is though, that it's quite difficult to bring proposals above the threshold (again, it's good to block bad proposals), but expecting all stakeholders to take a daily look at the proposal system, will probably not really work out.

But here is the good news: The proxy system, introduced for witness voting, works for SPS voting as well

What does this mean? Well, as you might know, you can vote for witnesses, who are running the Steem blockchain (I'm a witness as well).

Voting for witnesses (esp. the good ones) is very important, as they secure the chain. On HF21, the chain chalted due to a bug and the witnesses were the ones, restarting it and making sure that all funds were SAFU.

But, many people aren't voting for witnesses, or not often enough. Why is that? It takes time and effort to look at every potential witness and that's not something everybody wants to do or feels comfortable doing.

And that's why we have the proxy system.

Witness Voting Example:

  • Alice has 1,000 SP.
  • Bob is a witness.
  • John is a veteran steemian, community leader and actively voting for witnesses, incl. Bob.
  • Alice wants to vote for witnesses but isn't sure which one to vote for.
  • She trusts John and is deciding to choose him as her proxy.
  • Once she's done that, John has 1,000 more Steempower to give away in witness voting (not post voting), until Alice decides to revoke the proxy.

And the same example works for proposals:

  • Alice has 1,000 SP.

  • Bob is a developer and has created a proposal.

  • John is a veteran steemian, community leader and actively voting for proposals, incl. the one from Bob.

  • Alice wants to vote for proposals but isn't sure which one to vote for.

  • She trusts John and is deciding to choose him as her proxy.

  • Once she's done that, John has 1,000 more Steempower to give away in proposal voting (not post voting), until Alice decides to revoke the proxy.

IMPORTANT: There is one available proxy slot. If Alice has selected John as a proxy, specifically for witness voting, John will also be able to use the SP of Alice for proposal voting

What you can do now, is to either decide you want to vote on proposals on your own. Or you can choose a proxy, that is voting for witnesses & proposals for you.

And If you'd like, you can choose me as a proxy. I'm a top 20 consensus witness, experienced developer and am going to make sure your witness & proposal votes are going to be used in the right way.

The whole procedure is very simple and fast.

1.) Click on this link, which will redirect you to my website.

2.) Enter your account-name

3.) Make sure Set Proxy is selected

4.) Choose your voting method. Steem Keychain is the easiest one.

5.) Finish the procedure by clicking on the big, purple button.

If there are any problems and questions, please let me know.


The main reason I think setting a proxy can be a good thing to do is that we're able to be more agile in our decision making. One important thing we've learned from witness voting: the amount of voting compared to the total tokens/stake is quite low.

If we want to bring real change to Steem, we have to be agile, quick and secure in our proposal voting. And well, I really think proxy voting can help.

And it doesn't matter whether you choose me or another great Steemian as proxy. For example: @theycallmedan, @aggroed, @yabapmatt or somebody else.

You can do this through my website as well, simply replace STEEM_ACCOUNT_NAME: https://therealwolf.me/vote?for=STEEM_ACCOUNT_NAME&action=proxy

Wolf

PS: I've added a few benefactors to this post, which means part of the author rewards goes to the accounts below.