Lately, I haven't been staying on top of who's doing what for the Steem community. So I have decided to remove all my witness votes and am getting a fresh start.
What do I want in a witness?
- Someone who is actively engaged in discussions about how to better the platform.
- Adding value to the Steem ecosystem.
- Using the lion's share of their witness earnings to fund Steem-related projects.
- Keeping their servers updated and not missing blocks.
I'd like you to consider my witness @lukestokes.mhth
I just posted about witness voting and proxying, and you can read my witness post here which I published last night. Yes, I'm a new witness, but I've been active on Steemit for almost a year now and would love to take on more responsibility as an influential witness. Thanks for considering me!
I think the dawning of EOS by @dantheman is making us all take governance more seriously. I wrote an article on Bitshares Governance here as well. Already voted on Luke as a witness. Also, you can proxy votes to someone whom you trust if you don't feel like keeping up with the politics.
I agree. I think EOS is going to change a lot of things.
I'll take a look, thanks.
Dude, I didn't know you were a witness... voting now!
Thank you! I'm trying to find the balance between putting myself out there for people to find me and directly campaigning for votes. I'm only on witness day two, and still figuring out what makes sense.
I wish you luck my friend, you will have my vote; will support you as I have huge respect for your dedication to Steem, you are part of the furniture here now, hehe.
Thank you my friend! I'm excited to find we made it into the top 50!
Yeah you moved in on the top 50 fast, grats. I'm going to vote you with @steemsports and @steemvoter and see if I can push you higher. I'm trying to get back into the top 30. My best was 26 or 27 at some point.
Thank you! :) I'm pretty excited about how this has gone so far.
I'll have a look as well.
Thanks @merej99!
I didn't know you are a witness! I just checked out your witness post and voted for you!
Thank you, Brian! Yeah, this is new for me as of two days ago.
How do you do it Luke? That is all I want to know. HOW DO YOU DO IT?
LOL You seem to get tons of stuff done!
I want to eventually be a witness but I feel that I will have to build a lot more credibility in the community before it becomes viable. Right now I'm just a guy with undiagnosed ADHD over here in Arizona!
Hah! Thanks man. The biggest challenge for me right now is getting excited about putting in 8 hours a day at my company. I'd love to do crypto-related stuff all the time, but I've got a team and thousands of customers relying on us every day.
Sorry to hear about the ADHD. I know in many ways I've won the genetic lottery so I'm trying to do as much as I can with what I have. Good luck!
Yeah I know the feeling. I have a resell business that isn't all that exciting sometimes but it makes more sense for me to spend time at that then to work on crypto stuff all day.
Crypto is magnetic. We all see it is the future and it can be a rocket ship that other investments aren't.
The witnesses I support and would suggest is @timcliff and @pfunk. I've taken the time to get to know them and feel they will be around and continue to add value to the ecosystem.
I'd point you to @timcliff's regular witness updates to the community if you need some validation. A witness taking time to create a semi-regular report of activities, upcoming features, discussions and so on both validates and proves his worth to the community. @timcliff does this consistently.
I also strongly support @timcliff
I definitely support @timcliff and @pfunk as well. They've been very active community members and have put in an amazing amount of time and effort.
smooth
pfunk
riverhead
roadscape
arhag
liondani
furion
blocktrades
timcliff
roelandp
Why?
Because all indications say they are reliable and will be around for a long time, will do everything they can to support the network and have contributed a lot of their own free time and money to the community in various ways.
Solid points, thanks for the list.
Thanks for the suggestions! I'm going to vote for some of the ones I haven't been able to vote for yet.
Thanks for doing this. I hope you set an example that others follow. Resteemed.
Good idea, maybe I'll do the same and re-evaluate my votes. I look for voices of reason who have been around consistently, can take decisions with a long-term view and without personal agenda.
I won't leave any names, as there are too few who meet this criteria right now, so I try to fill in with 30 votes. I also tend to vote for undervalued witnesses who have been overlooked due to their lack of political skills in promoting their campaign etc. As there are more such witnesses, I'll start unvoting for higher ranked witnesses whom I first voted for when they were well off the top 50. Also, non-developers, as currently things are heavily skewed towards them (rightfully so, of course). In the future I'd also vote for teams and groups rather than individuals, as they are inherently (but not necessarily) more likely to take a reasoned decision.
Great points to keep in mind, thanks!
I disagree with this..... The lion's share of their witness earnings should go to to the witness.... to keep them motivated for the work involved in paying hydro fees, server fees, internet fees. Time spent to update their witness node.. to keep the node secure and up to date with all software, etc. For the witness to update again for good hardkforks, talk to the community, etc.
Funding steem-related projects needs to come from upvotes and raising funds from the community itself. That's regular people. Not witnesses. New steem is created everyday and as curators, we can spend that newly created steem towards steem-related projects (like eSteem) for example, who has been making a lot of decent money from his latest posts, which is only fair, for the work he put into it.
On another note, I like the idea of re-evaluating your witness votes. That is something we should all do a few times a year. :)
I formed that expectation back when witness pay was much higher (might've been HF13 or so when that changed?). There was a time when each witness was making $250k/year. It may be time to reevaluate that bullet point.
Very interesting idea to remove them and hear from the community. There are certainly some very deserving individuals. One person to look into is the young 15 year old BOSS. @theprophet0 He is going to get a Steemit tattoo if he climbs high enough in the ranks!
Thanks for the input!
Thank you so much for the shout out, @brianphobos, I am really glad I found this post, wish Steemit would implement a mention notification feature!
Much love!
No prob man!
Im not sure if your questioning yourself, or looking for advice.. i say that because sometimes I have to broadcast a question out loud prioe to answering it. But if your looking for someone to give you their advice I'll definitely do so, jesta, jesta seems to me to be someone who likes to see the community doing right be its users, good-karma very proactive, dedicates a lot of time to steem and the esteem app which i reviewed is awesome the work the guy put into it shows he cares about this place, blocktrades is awesome and supportive, and bitcoiner those are my opinion but if i were to vote again those would be it. Good luck.
I'm definitely looking for advice. Appreciate your thoughts!
Any time.
Good question. I vote for people I think are essential to the system in some way. However, many of them are developers or tech people. Since I don't know a lick about programming, I rely to some degree on others to tell me who is working hard. Hope you get some useful answers here.
Do you have some suggestions who you think, beyond any shadow of doubt, deserve a vote?
You can check my voting slate if you want. But I imagine there are others who understand the needs and dynamics better than I do.
@cervantes is supporting spanish community, I believe it is validating unseen people in this ecosystem and giving us the opportunity to enjoy the interactions and learning.
@timcliff , @aggroed , @pfunk , @abit , @furion , @good-karma and @jesta would get 2 votes each from me if i could.
Gotta throw my own name in there too :P
Yes, I think you've got most of the important ones there... :)
I'm very familiar with the others, but can you tell me why you have aggroed on that list? The only communication I've had with him was when he was essentially calling me an idiot for buying Steem at $0.10 or $0.15. He was confident it was going to $0.01.
With that said, that doesn't disqualify him from a witness vote. I'm curious what he's doing for the community.
He's the underdog out of the list as a new witness, and I think some of his attitudes and viewpoints would be good to bring to the table.
He has less technical experience but is gaining a large following amongst new users and isn't afraid to voice unpopular opinions (as you saw, but I do think he could've been less harsh about it).
I really should've added gtg to the list as well
I recommend @furion, @timcliff, @klye, and @jesta. All are must follows and have done outstanding work for SteemIt in my view.
I have been voting for some witnesses, not many as I am only voting for those who I think are really providing value for Steem.
I would like to mention two of them.
@good-karma: because he is the developer begind eSteem. I don't like too much its tool but currently it is the only one working as a pseudo-native Android/iOS app.
@jesta: because of the awesome steemstats tool :)
I think I'm going to do this too. I was approached by @aggroed who informed me that @picokernel did not upgrade to the new HF and is getting out of the game. Made me feel bad for not reviewing my votes after the HF (though I did before).
So yea, serve this post with a side of @lukestokes' Steemit is Free, But Your Witness Vote Determines its Future!
Great idea @shenanigator - I may follow suit this weekend.
@pfunk
@raymonjohnstone
@timcliff
@thecryptofiend
@fyrstikken
@steevc
Because they are consistent, brialliant and are ACTIVELY involved in the development of this platform.
No @good-karma ?
@good-karma too
Although I don't follow all witnesses to compare the quality of their contribution, I have found @timcliff to be consistently awesome.
lukestokes just became a witness. I think he's going to bring a lot to it.
@aggroed has my vote! I have only been on site 3 weeks, but have seen what I think are consistently good article and posts . he has been friendly and courteous . and I think he would pour his heart and soul into it.
namste!
Good idea
Cool :)
I was thinking of doing the same now that I understand more than I did before. I'm going to keep checking back to see the responses. 😊
I am planning to post something like this. I still have 5 votes remaining. Looking for deserving individuals.
Happy Steeming!
I like this, I think I may follow your example.
Cg
I have also removed them, I voted for 5-6 witnesses in total. Just do a little research who you think deserves your vote.
HI, a witness vote will mean a lot to me, I value all votes and have been loyal to this community since June 2016, I'm the first witness and still the only witness in Africa for geo-diversity, my witness server and seed located in South Africa is rock solid, having missed only 101 blocks in 8 months of running, my highest witness position was 26, I lost a little ground because I haven't been promoting myself much lately.
I run the Steemvoter.com, @steemsports which I plan to turn into a global sports publishing platform with its own front-end like busy.org, I am on Skype with a potential developer as we speak.
In the past I crowdfunded billboard advertising for Steem, when the price allowed it, placing a Steemit billboard in three continents.
You can see my latest post about my past, present and future here:
https://steemit.com/steem/@thecryptodrive/something-big-is-coming
Note also I am a neutral witness, I have no affiliation with Steemit Inc and have no problem standing up for the people. I believe in creating business on Steem and creating employment for developers and writers.
I hope you will consider voting my witness.
If the offer is still on the table, have a look at what I've been doing since I reactivated my witness node: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@dragosroua/2rfc2k-witness-update-dragosroua
Appreciate your approach to witness voting, regardless of you voting for me or not, I think more Steemians should be conscious about their witness choices.