I'm glad people are finally talking about how scammy certain proposals are and how witnesses milk an INSANE amount of HBD or HIVE for little work.
Are there some proposals that pay people a fair amount of work for the serviced rendered? Probably. However, when you determine if a system is "scammy" you look at the entire system and calculate what is being scammed. You can't just say, "well the system works sometimes, so it's okay if some people abuse it."
Let's say you discover a major money laundering operation in your local parks department. Two obvious questions you will as yourself is "are other people money laundering" and "does this system need to be changed to make crimes more difficult." Systems analyzers rarely ask themselves "will talking about abuse hurt the system" unless it's a complete scam.
I believe a DAO/proposal system is a generally good idea. The Hive Blockchain relies on developers and coders making tools and Dapps. It makes sense to creat reward pools for large scale Hive projects. NOTHING IS INHERENTLY WRONG WITH A DAO THAT REWARDS PROPOSALS. That being said, its a highly abuseable system without proper oversight.
The million dollar question is "should we create a new decentralized DAO or fix the current one". Personally, I'd be happy with either option. Obviously fixing the current system is easier. Im' sure there are hard working Witnesses who are not happy with bottom feeders who scam the DAO.
There is only so much a non-witness can do about the Proposal system: Which is why I am big on the idea of a completely new DAO/proposal that any user can apply for. We could create a much stricter system which requires complex update forms for every X amount of payment a proposer gets from the DAO.
It would actually be really easy to code a more strict proposal system. Forms for updates and voting on progress is insanely easy to code. It would take all of a day to set up. It would have no effect on current proposals. Legitimate proposals would instantly make more money.
Why should I even care about the witness proposal system?
A. People are making INSANE amounts of $$$ off proposals and if they don't do actual work: Then this could be an insanely unfair dumping to the Hive market.
B. I've seen some wonderful proposals be denied because "the DAO can't afford that." Clearly hard working witness devs and coders are being denied income because the whole system is too easy to exploit.
Making the witness proposal system more strict would be a 360 win for hard working witnesses AND non witnesses {because this would protect against Hive dumping}. The system would be easy to fix from a coding perspective and would NOT be a huge, complex overhaul. It would be a simple, easy fix.
If witnesses will not fix the old DAO/proposal system I believe we should create our own DAO. This wouldn't be as difficult as one would think. We could do so with voting and buying hive. It would just be a matter of getting support and creating a profit model. I believe people would gladly support a proposal system for ANY developer or coder on Hive {instead of just witnesses}.
Thanks for reading. Please comment constructive criticism down below with what YOU think about the current DAO/proposal system.