Whom do you vote as your Witness & Why?
Hi friends,
The next Steem Hard Fork is just a couple of days away and all Witnesses must be over-busy in updating their nodes and checking the code. So, here I'm coming up with this question about Steem Witnesses. You can fearlessly answer it without bothering that any Witness will be watching you 😉.
70% of the top-20 Witnesses have already updated their Witness nodes to Version 0.20.2 and some others must be on their way to it and it will soon attain a super majority. So the success of Velocity Hard Fork seems a mere formality now.
But here I'm asking in general what do you see before voting up a Witness?
I've been here for over a year now on this blockchain but I'd confess that I still haven't looked into this topic with any seriousness. I know, my opinion as well as my vote-worth is still very insignificant to make any difference but still, I ought to know about these Witnesses' contribution to this blockchain.
Do you keep a track of all Witnesses' activities to equip you for a better decision-making in this regard?
I know this is not an easy question. With about 15,000 Witnesses how many of them would anyone evaluate? I haven't yet read the Witness Threads / Proposals of top 20 Witnesses. How can I imagine anything about other 15,000 candidates? And then to keep track of their regular Witness reports!
So then how should we go about it?
I've seen people easily vote a person as their Witness with whom they develop some friendly relationship or affinity and likability through interactions. Some people decide on the basis of whom his / her close friend is voting for and follow the same pattern (like giving a proxy vote).
In my country, politics is mostly caste based and election strategies are drafted on the caste equations of the electoral. People blindly vote for the candidate from their own caste. Similar thing also goes on here too though it may be in minority. But people will vote for a Witness from their own country (if there ain't many Witnesses from their country), people with similar ideologies easily support each other e.g. vegans will readily give their votes to Witnesses who are vegan; ladies will likely vote to female Witnesses, people from same language and cultural background will also vote one of their own as their Witness; etc.
Many Steemians decide on the basis of some dapp or tool they love and will vote for the Witness behind that tool or the one who have personally helped them with some problem they encountered over this platform.
But how many of us vote purely on the basis of their contribution for the growth of Steem ecosystem?
Frankly, I don't have time to evaluate all the Witnesses. The once I've voted were probably because of the image they created before me through their activities which I chanced upon while browsing other blogs.
Now, I'm not interested to check all candidature for Witnesses but I'd like to use the principle of elimination. I can decide against voting some Witnesses and vote up anyone from the remaining.
It would have been good if there was some sort of Wiki page, where all major allegations against Witnesses along with their responses to the allegations were compiled on one page. Also their contributions and related controversies can be compiled there itself. So we can know the popular opinion and publicly available info about any Witness on a single page. Today we only get to see Witness threads & reports that are actually written by Witness themselves. That is like a party manifesto. But if there was some Wiki page or Witness Bulletin, it would serve the role of mainstream media 😊.
Anyway, currently I'm thinking to formulate my list of elimination. So I'm mulling over the criteria for whom to eliminate. I understand that no Witness is infallible and we all make mistakes at times. But to start with, early next month:
I'm planning to "unvote" and "not to vote" following Witnesses:
Witnesses who do not update their nodes to latest version even a week after the HF.
Witnesses who are involved in running any bidbot or paid bots. (I fail to find any of these services running ethically. I've seen many people complaining about an unfair transaction with a bot without a proper and convincing explanation provided to them by the bot operator).
Witnesses who have developed some free tool for the community to use but don't maintain it regularly. If a tool is broken, it should be fixed immediately irrespective of it being a free service. If you can't maintain your tools, you better take them down.
Witnesses who support a niche (or special interest) community. (I believe a Witness should not be biased towards any community and should work equally for all here). If a Witness is supporting a niche community, it should be considered as his / her personal inclination and should not be boasted in their Witness proposal as community contribution.
Witnesses who are involved in multiple blockchains like a Block Producer for EOS. (This tells me that they don't have full faith in any of these blockchains and are not committed to one. I'd prefer a Witness who is totally devoted to Steem blockchain; esp. when I've a choice of 15000 Witnesses).
Witnesses who support the acts of above Witnesses.
Witnesses who do not put much effort in communicating about their work and stance in spite of their well-intended efforts.
Can you help me develop and modify this list?
What are the critical things you see or expect from your Witness and how do you verify it?
Vote your Witness here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
Check Witness node status data here:
https://steemd.com/witnesses
Dear @xyzashu, we have 30 witness to vote, but except @steem-bounty i would like to understand what they are going to do for us. If you do not invest some SP to them, nobody care about you, of course i voted 30 from the first hundreds and they even do not care who i am and if i voted or not for them, so i told you, except @steem-bounty, all the others looks for me the same shit
It would be great if we had a comprehensive list of all the witnesses and could match our votes with the people who's aims suit us best. Sadly this is not to be the case. Like most politics it comes down to who you know.
I have voted for thirty witnesses as there is a principle about voting in my country since so many of its citizens have died over the years to attain that right for us. Most of mine are in the top hundred that i have come across since joining and then their are a handful with whom i have had personal experience and like what they stand for or what they are involved in.
For most of the smaller users on here we have no interaction with the whales and don't have a proper understanding of how the technology operates so it will be very hard for us to vote on that basis. End of the day it will probably come down to who we like the best.
I think only a few witnesses are worth our witness votes. Many are just grind their own axes here.
BTW @xaero1 has upvoted your post. Does he upvotes after sending money or does he upvote manually, selecting post randomly? Do you have any information?
Hmm, you have got a point! We need to find out those few gems.
Regarding @xaero1, I don't know if it upvotes manually too. On my posts it's a paid-for upvote as this account sales its vote to the @smartsteem vote-selling service.
Oh I see! How much you had to pay to get upvotes from him and smartsteem? Was is profitable?
Well, can't say anything for sure, it's really a risky bet. Although @smartsteem commits a 10% RoI but it's on today's market rates. Dunno what I'll get after 7 days period ...at the time of post pay-out. It all depends on market price fluctuations ...and there is also a probability for downvotes which can wipe out partial or all of the potential payout on this post.
For record, I got this $15.05 upvote from @xaero1 by paying a sum of 15 Steem. The post was perhaps upvoted after 7 or 8 minutes of publishing. So also deduct about 6% - 6.5% of curation amount from that amount to arrive at the net amount I'll receive. Hope you can calculate it better than me.
Thank you for being here for me, so I can be here for you.
Enjoy your day and stay creative!
Botty loves you. <3
https://steemit.com/contest/@itstime/5-steem-giveaway-which-witness-do-you-vote-for-and-why
I use SteemWorld.org to check out the activities of witnesses. I want to know what their priorities are, whether they share the same ethics as I have and if they're using their wealth to either build up or crush new and smaller community members. I don't believe anyone should be down-voted for anything but criminal offenses - threatening, violence, trafficking - and for a whale or delegate to downvote with 100% vote power in response to a statement he disagrees with is unethical in my view. If he wants to teach a lesson, let him write a rebuttal like a thinking man, rather than use a heavy hammer to beat another into silence or submission...or leaving the platform. I also look at how well the nodes have been running. If they've been down for a high number of day, I am likely to withhold my vote, but may be lenient toward new witnesses, who still need time to get everything setup. There's a Witness Report for this somewhere. I didn't keep the link. Sorry about that. Then I check to see their involvement in community development projects. I don't take all community work at face value, some are actually more parasitic than helpful to the small and new members. Lastly, I watch THEM. They like to talk among themselves and when they do, they show their true colors. I pay attention. I've seen antagonism: for instance a witness of high rank left a comment on a 'fragile' member's page, asking if she forgot to take her medication. The statement wasn't made in response to anything said to him directly. The member he insulted flew into a rage and shortly had her account banned. Needless to say, I will not be voting for that witness. I don't vote for down-vote operators either. There's a mechanism in the ToS for addressing legitimate plagiarism complaints from copyright owners. Sending out the bots to punish people for failing to use the correct markup language is breaching the terms of service. Lastly any witness or member that thinks their wealth entitles them to a right to be cruel doesn't get my vote.
I like your points of witness involvement in running Bidbot and multiple blockchain. I want to update some minor points from my side linked to bidbot like
Well, I've no objection for Witnesses earning profits through fair business means. I don't mind if they can get involved in any business activity but it shouldn't be detrimental for the Steem ecosystem, that's what I'm concerned for.
nice (:
Aggroed. Solid participatory and innovator.
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Yes, agreed! However I was disappointed with irregular returns by his bidbot and no answer from him despite multiple complaints about it by me. Finally, I had to undelegate that bidbot.
Despite of it, I'm voting for him as a Witness because of his different counter-perspectives on things that's in a minority in top 20 Witnesses. I do want some food for discussion among the top witnesses and he is perfect for it, imo.
i agree
Every time I have a different post, I like it
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