So, recently pharesim and engrave have written controversial posts on chain about me, my actions, and my communication with them. I’m replying publicly and transparently to them here. Please find a brief timeline and thoughts regarding said timeline.
Matt wrote a proposal and it was close to passing, but it didn’t have enough votes to pass. Matt is not terribly political. After 2 days of the 180 total days of falling short of passing the return proposal I decided that I would engage.
I didn’t ask Matt or talk to him about it. I just started asking people to vote for the proposal. My process was to look at people voting the return and people voting other proposals that were not voting for the Splinterlands proposal and ask them to vote for the splinterlands proposal and unvote the return proposal. My goal was to get the splinterlands proposal passing. My general message was brief, to the point, and one of the following:
A. “Hey XXX, please vote for the splinterlands proposal”
B. “Hey XXX, please unvote the return proposal”
C. “Hey XXX, please vote the splinterlands proposal and unvote the return proposal”
My efforts were successful and after 24 hours of asking people to vote for the proposal it finally started passing. Thanks to all the lovely people supporting splinterlands. We’ve been through a lot and I’m grateful for those that have stuck with us through the longest bear I’ve endured in crypto.
pharesim sees that splinterlands is above the return proposal and votes to increase the return proposal and thus block splinterlands from getting these funds. pharesim has a number of ways he could have chosen to share his concerns with the proposal like messaging us privately, posting on the original proposal, or posting publicly. Those are constructive ways to engage the post. He instead chose to vote the return proposal after the splinterlands proposal was passing. That’s less constructive and seems actively hostile.
I noticed the new large vote on the return proposal and informed players that pharesim was upvoting the return and the timing made it seem as if he was specifically attempting to block splinterlands from getting funding from the dao. His DMs would later confirm that.
Players on their own accord without any cajoling from me went and unvoted pharesim’s witness. As a result of these unvotes pharesim’s witness was reduced to position 20.
Pharesim’s witness is now low enough I can upvote witness 21 and 22 to move pharesim out of the top 20. I vote both those witnesses to purposefully reposition pharesim.
I noticed that pharesim’s position was actually low enough and position 21 and 22 were high enough such that votes with accounts I control can change the position of pharesim from 20 to 22. I did this by voting for engrave and mahdiyari.
pharesim wrote a post from his perspective about these events. I think it avoids accountability of his choices. I think the post is a prime example of reasons I don’t vote for him. As far as I can tell pharesim made a bad decision of non-constructively blocking the splinterlands proposal by upvoting the return proposal without first having a constructive discussion of his concerns regarding the proposal on chain or through private messages. His non-constructive (bordering on hostile) decisions cost him votes. That’s part of being a witness. There are better ways to handle proposal concerns and better ways he can handle interpersonal challenges than what he wrote.
In his post he’s claiming I’m forcing him to do something. Engrave doesn’t seem to appreciate the timeline of events or understand the definition of force. I already voted his witness. That decision wasn’t predicated on his vote for the splinterlands proposal. I informed him of the vote and requested that he vote for the splinterlands proposal and unvote the return proposal. It was a stronger ask than some of the other asks I've made, but it's in the same vein as every request that I make. "Please vote for this thing I'm canvasing for." I also mix it up to "I'm requesting that you vote for X." If he didn’t want to vote for it a simple “I don’t support it” would have sufficed, but instead he went on chain and declared erroneously that I was “forcing him to vote for Splinterlands.” This is also a demonstration of poor choice of witness behavior and actions. There are lots of constructive ways to air his concerns or grievances. The post he wrote isn’t a good example of one of those ways.
I haven't spoken to him, but presumably smooth was swayed by the post by engrave and or pharesim to vote for the return proposal and now Splinterlands is 4M votes from passing
Smooth, I'm not sure what part of this made you vote the return proposal, but here's my response and I'm requesting that you remove your vote from the return proposal and allow the splinterlands proposal to be funded. Here's hoping this letter clarifies my actions in light of how they were described.
Ultimately, what I want is for this chain to grow.
At the top of that are witnesses who are pro-business, welcoming to hivians, who allow a large range of discussion, and focus on growing this overall ecosystem.
At this particular moment I would like the splinterlands proposal to pass. I think splinterlands as a business and hive as a chain are both better off if the splinterlands proposal passes and in general I'm requesting that people remove votes from the return proposal and add votes to the splinterlands proposal so the funding is available. If YOU are reading this and have votes to spare I'm publicly requesting that you support us.
peakd.com/proposals to find the ones in question.
A healthy splinterlands also leads to a healthy hive-engine, which is an anchor for many projects on here. The two projects are symbiotic and even though there's not actual financial exchange between them growing splinterlands is good for hive-engine, and hive-engine is good for all the apps in the the overall ecosystem.
Getting pulled back into this reminds me of some of the reasons I stopped witnessing, but also some of my greivances with current witnesses who I think lack the skills and intention necessary to grow the hive ecosystem for everyone, help attract and retain new users, and make this a non-toxic, professional, business-friendly chain. Here's hoping these publicly transparent exchanges can help shape and determine how people on chain welcome and support businesses that choose to build and grow on hive.
I hope this clarifies my thoughts and actions and thank you to those who support me personally, splinterlands, invennium, hive-engine, and many thanks to the many hivians who act professionally to grow the chain, retain engaged users, welcome new minnows, and make this chain a welcome place for creating a business.
Cheers,
Dr. Blair Jesse Ellyn Reich
Aka aggroed
