Prologue - Steem as a technology
Steem is an amazing piece of work. Alone from a technology standpoint.
New technology always advances with time, and blockchain probably twice as fast, but Steem is still one of the most useful blockchain-projects. It has already been forked/copied multiple times, which displays how valuable the technology is.
While there are blockchains who might be newer or more advanced, this is not always an indicator for value - just take a look at Bitcoin and it's forks, or Ethereum & Litecoin. All of them older than Steem, but they still provide high usability & value.
However, the technology is also fertile ground for something which Steem is very unique in - bringing people together.
Chapter I - Technology for Communities
The truth is, Steem as a technology for building communities is completely unique and different, than, for example, building them in the "real world" or on non-blockchain entities like Facebook.
Steem's technology is of course not perfect yet. But it's working and has been working for a few years now!
It has empowered countless communities with the ability to reward its participators with real value. Not just simple virtual likes or hearts, but real tokens - worth a lot of money - called STEEM & SBD.
At the same time, it's a decentralised, trustless system, which is being controlled only by its users/stakeholders, instead of a single entity (as in Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.)
Chapter II - Decentralised System of Stakeholders
Each one of you reading this is part of this stakeholder group.
Some are bigger stakeholders (5k STEEM+; dolphins, orcas & whales) and some are smaller ones (plankton & minnows). All valuable for this ecosystem!
And as time goes on, the amount of middle-class stakeholders is growing more and more. Which is a good thing, as the future of this platform can be shaped by many stakeholders, rather than just a few big ones.
Now, I do believe big stakeholders, are also very important as they hold the most risk, so their decision is usually in-line with the success of Steem.
But regardless of the wallet size, everyone is able to participate in this system. And there are currently two ways:
- 1.) Voting for witnesses to secure the system
- 2.) Voting for distribution of the rewards pool
I'm quite sure that in the future, we will have more options, where stakeholders can come together to influence even more on Steem. But for now, we have these 2 possibilities.
And so far, only a fraction of us, the stakeholders, are voting for witnesses.
Chapter III - The Importance of Witness Voting
Before I go any further, if you don't know yet what witnesses are: they are the ones keeping this blockchain running, decisionmakers for new updates and are essentially guardians of your stake & property. (More detailed info)
Voting for witnesses plays a vital role, as you can select the ones (up to 30), who you believe will protect your stake (the STEEM & SBD you own) the best.
And the amazing thing about this system is, that voting is non-binding. If a witness is doing a good job for 2 months, but then starts to slack or you lost faith in that said witness, you're able to remove the vote in a matter of seconds.
However, as I mentioned before, not everybody is yet voting for witnesses. Based on my research, only 50% of stakeholders with more than 100 Steempower are currently utilizing their votes or have a proxy. (Proxy simply means that another account is voting for witnesses for them)
And without any Steempower threshold, the voting involvement is only at 5%!
Witnesses are also often times people who are working to provide much value to Steem. As there are only 20 witness spots (the rest are backup witnesses), this competitive environment results in everybody trying their best to bring as much value as possible.
And as a stakeholder, you are able to vote for those witnesses, whom you believe bring the most value AND/OR who are expressing what you want to see on Steem.
Chapter IV - Lack of Witness Voting Engagement
But why is it that only 50% of all 100+ Steempower stakeholders are utilizing their stake to vote (and only 5% of all existing accounts on Steem.?)
Well, I believe it's due to a lack of knowledge and urgency in that matter.
There is currently not a centralised place for knowledge about Steem, so new users don't really know about witnesses unless they are eager to learn about it themselves or see a periodic post explaining them.
However, this is what @steemonboarding is working on - creating this central hub to educate new users about Steem, because - take it from me: it's really not that simple to understand everything.
Now, to sum it up
Witnesses are crucial for Steem and voting for them, plays a vital role in the health and success of Steem and its ecosystem.
As I'm a Witness myself, my engagement with the whole witness topic is of course much higher, than the average user.
Over the coming weeks, I'm going to release a series of posts, explaining my own witness voting patterns and showcasing the witnesses I'm voting for, with the goal to share my knowledge with my fellow stakeholders.
Chapter V - Your Vote Matters
Before actually writing this post, I had the title in my head for weeks. Because the truth is:
Your vote/voice really matters!
This is a statement I honestly believe in. Each one of us is able to bring the change into the world and into Steem, that we want to see. And the first step can be as small/big as making a witness vote.
If you're scrolling through my blog-posts (with resteems hidden), you should be able to see that I'm not only spitting fancy words, or just talking the talk, but I'm actually walking the walk.
In recent months, I've focused on letting my work & engagement speak for itself.
And I believe now is a good time to let you know that your witness vote matters and if you believe that my work and the projects I've been working on are valuable for Steem, then the best way to show this is with a witness vote.
Chapter VI - How to Vote
Now, I'm fully aware that it's not that easy to vote for witnesses in general, especially if you've never done it before.
That's why I build a complete voting solution on my recently updated website (therealwolf.me), which makes voting as easy as counting to 5.
Guide
If you've read some of my previous posts, you know that I love GIFs, so to get started, here is the complete workflow in action:
And here are the detailed steps:
0.) Go to https://therealwolf.me/vote
1.) Enter your Steem account
2.) Choose either vote or proxy¹
3.) (Optional) If you've already voted for 30 witnesses, you can decide to unvote somebody else²
4.) Choose your preferred vote method³
5.) Finish the vote(s)
¹ Proxy means that you're redirecting all of your accounts witness-voting power to said an account. (non-binding, can be revoked at any time, but not yet supported directly via my tool.)
² Don't feel forced to remove a witness. Only if you believe that the new witness is more suitable. For example, somebody who has been deactivated/inactive for a longer period of time.
³ All of them are secure. I personally prefer Steem Keychain & SteemConnect.
And that's it. If you've done these steps, feel free to let me know in the comments below and I'll make sure to show my gratitude.
Fun fact: The tool can even be used to vote for other witnesses besides my own. For example https://therealwolf.me/vote?witness=blocktrades&account=therealwolf
If you're a witness, you're more than welcome to use it.
Epilogue
Usually, when writing these kinds of posts, in the end, I'm already out of words.
However, this time, as it's my first long post in 2019, I want to put the focus on the coming 12 months.
I don't want to sound like a motivational preacher - not at all, I simply believe in the power of positivity.
Without positivity, I wouldn't be, where I am right now. The bear market could have easily crushed my work ethic, but I decided to force myself on positive thinking => high work ethic.
And I wish each one of you the same. If there is anything I can help you with, feel free to message me. You'll find my contact details on my newly updated website: therealwolf.me.
If you haven't checked it out, please feel free to do so. (Especially the witness schedule tool is worth a look. :P
Now with that said:
Let's make 2019 a better year to remember than 2018!
All the best,
Wolf
amazing project, which is going to attract and onboard (new) users to Steem.100% of this post's rewards are going to @steemonboarding, via beneficiaries, to support the development of their
Do you believe that my work is valuable for Steem? Then please vote for me as witness.
Your vote does not matter. The only vote that matters is the vote of @freedom.
Yes, it does. You have almost 1.25 GV. This is enough to put witness to rank ~160 (full) and ~127 (active) with just one vote.
It would have matter. But almost all the SP is delegated.
Delegations don't count for witness vote.
It's true that freedoms vote is powerful. But your vote is important as well! I still remember the shoutout for @helpie you did, which was amazing.
This was a very thorough post and I appreciate you going deep in the nature of decentralization within our Blockchain and assessing it's intrínsec value while explaining other people the differences with centralized platforms
We still have a lot to go but for the first time in forever I feel like a big group of influential people (within the platform, whether it may be witnesses, highly staked users, top followed steemians etc) are working towards the same goal and it seems that proper decentralization is coming soon by whales selling some Steem but the market buying it back.
Thanks so much for the beneficiary rewards! @coruscate and I will make sure to put good use to them with the @steemonboarding team!
Really appreciate your comment!
Honestly, when I started to write on the post, @steemonboarding came instantly to my mind. I wouldn't have expected it and I realized it more while writing it (and while doing the research), but it's actually what we really need. Having a better central knowledge hub for new Steemians.
I still remember when I was new on Steem, how difficult it was to find information. I mean, it's still difficult. People probably still read old posts or watch old videos, with outdated information.
So I'm very excited of your project and love to support it. If there is anything I can help you with, which is inside my spare time, just let me know!
Good information @therealwolf. Thank you for impacting this community. Meanwhile, how do we set beneficiary rewards for accounts o the Steem blockchain?
voted
Appreciate it!
Steem is perfect technology
Thank You for the education. I read through all of the information, including that on your site. You've got my vote.
Hi @therealwolf
I was sure you were on my list, this time you do
Like what you do, thank you for that
Let's make a good STEEMIT year 2019
Re-steemed
Thank you for resteeming @xpilar.
All the best.
Cheers!
thank you
voting
정말로 감사드립니다! Very much appreciate the vote!
I've used up all my witness votes with several more people I wish I could vote for. We really have an amazing pool of witnesses here.
That's the spirit!
I don’t think I would quit my job if steem moons, but I can totally seeing myself putting serious effort into this community 10 hours a day... that would be amazing... the price of steem would have to be around $3-$5 and I believe the STU price will be high enough to legit give me some decent money
Doing my best to get us there! Don't forget to use a few more of your witness votes - only 10% so far used :)
Other than yourself, is there anyone who you’d recommend I vote for ?
Thanks for contacting me and explaining me what you have been doing for the platform. Just casted my witness vote for you. Keep up the good job and Steem on ;)
Appreciate it! :)
There is so much to respond to here. I have to dive in somewhere. I don't vote for 30 witnesses, but I do vote for those who at any given time I feel are present and working for Steem.
I am okay if they work for other chains also, as we don't know who these people are or what else they do.
So many excellent topics in one post, my response feels scattered.
Hey
<p dir="auto">I checked your numbers and they look right. Not great is it! <blockquote> <p dir="auto">But why is it that only 50% of all 100+ Steempower stakeholders are utilizing their stake to vote <p dir="auto">When I have reported on this in the past, people (and witnesses) have suggested that a number of the larger account holders not voting for witnesses are steemit inc staff. <p dir="auto">I think that is mostly true, and also think that it is to remain anon - perhaps some of the accounts are owned by the same person, and voting for witnesses gives clues as to who? <p dir="auto">There are 51, 100k+ SP accounts not voting, the first 10 look heavily Steemit inc related: <pre><code>steemit 44815175.295268215 misterdelegation 18861430.417451687 steem 11337543.932499312 mottler 2298006.564810622 databass 1742046.0669989681 jamesc 1598258.1460906162 proskynneo 1046961.4729154522 roadscape 975608.139112223 val-b 819887.2201164288 jamesc1 818650.37279676518 <h1> <p dir="auto">Happy New Year Wolf, good luck for 2019!Happy New Year Asher! Yeah, many of Steemit Incs related accounts aren't voting. Which is good on the hand one, but also not a reduced risk for blockchain security.
Perhaps they would come into play if there was ever an issue?
It's good for the community that they aren't voting for content, unless you were one of the lucky receivers :D
Just voted for you!
Appreciate it!
would've voted it higher if half the post wasn't about your witness
No problem, acid! Appreciate the upvote nevertheless :)
<p dir="auto">I was quite shocked after my research in the voting patterns and the realization that only 50% of accounts over 100 Steempower and 5% in total are voting for witnesses. <p dir="auto">So that's why I thought it's good to put a spotlight on witnesses in general and, of course, also on myself as witness. <p dir="auto">If someone decides against voting for me, that's totally fine, as long as the person knows about it :) <p dir="auto">Oh and if you want to do the queries yourself via STEEMSQL (I filtered out the >= 100 Steempower accounts afterwards): <pre><code>SELECT name, CONVERT(FLOAT, LEFT(vesting_shares, LEN(vesting_shares)-6)) as vests FROM accounts WHERE proxy = '' AND witnesses_voted_for = 0; # Voting SELECT name, CONVERT(FLOAT, LEFT(vesting_shares, LEN(vesting_shares)-6)) as vests FROM accounts # Not votingYeah I realize that not many vote for witnesses but still a lot more do than on other DPOS blockchains. I was just disappointed thinking this post was for once not going to be about you. No offense, I just think people should start doing more for others than always having themselves in mind, especially users who have already been rewarded/have earned a lot of stake and would want it to grow in value than to make sure they maximize all possible income sources.
I'm honestly not sure what you mean with for once not about you. You do realize that 90% of my posts are about Steem, right?
And most of the work I've been doing full-time as a developer has been for the greater good for Steem. I'm actually brainstorming about another project that I want to work on - again .. for Steem.
I can totally understand that this post might have been a bit too direct for your taste - and I'm sorry about that. But if I'd be trying to maximize my income, I wouldn't work on open-source projects for the community, but build myself a gambling application or another project which has it's focus on ROI.
Steem Apps has server-costs, database-costs and a lot of time-costs and generates a ROI which is laughable.
And for your interest, I earn a lot, because I work a lot. 7 days a week, only on Steem. Is it crazy? Probably. But it's damn worth it.
Also since I went there, I'd much rather see you in the top 20 and hope you continue to create tools for Steem like you have lately than some others that are hogging up those spots now with what little they've shown for it.
So we all agree on the fact that, 'Bid Bots shouldn't be here'? or should use bots only for promotion purposes? But again with promotion purpose you get most of the reward pool. And again if you use the bots or not, you can't deny the fact that most of the share from the reward pool is taken by those who have huge SP, and yeah some are scratching one another's back.
He is definitely on the list of my witness vote.But I appreciate @therealwolf for his contributions to Steem blockchain.
Your posts are about steem - yes, at the same time you grab rewards from the reward pool. Many times by buying your own bot votes to trend, this is obviously a win win for you since your bid bot takes a cut out of all purchases.
It doesn't really matter what my taste is, I'm just giving my opinion. You can ignore it and think I'm talking out of my ass or maybe understand where I'm coming from.
Let's say you get top 20 witness, smartsteem continues to reap in the rewards it does and on top of that you're also posting. There's no guarantee for Steem that next time it pumps a little you won't pull a jerrybanfield and power everything down and continue to leech off of it.
I'm not saying it's wrong to try and get rewards from most sources on Steem, I just don't want to happen what happened after beginning of 2018 again. Where the majority who "tried, talked and cheated" their way to a lot of Steem will just go dark right after next pump cause "they got what they wanted out of it" and as you say maybe move over to another blockchain to start something that gives them more ROI with the investment you may or may not have gotten from Steem for relatively little work - such as bid bot income.
Again, I'm just generalizing and it's not directly directed at you. I don't know you, you could turn out to be the best Steemian ever and stay with the platform for another two decades. I just don't think the rewardpool should be concentrated to a few users too much, especially if they have not put skin in the game other than their time.
Other than that I think you're one of the "bid bot" owners who has done a lot more for Steem than many of the other ones have, that's why I'm still voting you as witness. We should just be careful in general who we trust with the rewardpool in the long run.
As you are pretty Big Steem Stake Holder and I see some engagement from your side I voted for you.
Appreciate it!
Hi @therealwolf, thanks for the memo.
I have just voted for you as my 9th witness vote.
I started voting for witnesses only after reading one of the articles like yours here. I know I can just go to https://steemit.com/~witnesses and click away 30 witnesses at random. But then that wouldn't serve the purpose, right? Before voting, I wanted to get to know the witnesses and their contributions to the community. That process takes time because there is no central place I can go to and find out the contributions of all the witnesses to the community and from there choose the witnesses I want to vote for. Perhaps the current witnesses could come up with a website with complete and up to date information on all the witnesses, instead of individually publishing article and sending memos to the steemians canvassing for votes.
I'm glad that my post could be of help and I appreciate the vote!
And I agree, there needs to be a more central place for info.
How can we monitor what witnesses are doing? And what does actually indicates whether they are doing a good job or not?
Currently, the best way to do that is to read through blogs, which is of course a time-intensive task. That's why I have my website: therealwolf.me
Great article. Gained in depth information. A central knowledge hub is must for knowledge of steem.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a witness proxy?
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You're putting your trust in the proxy but the staked power is probably better used.
Totally agreed by your statements here. It recently occured to me that people don't vote just because they don't know who are the witnesses and what is their role.
Basically if a normal person outside of blockchain or crypto comes to steemit, they will freak out of the fact that there are so many things you have to learn. But if we can keep pushing the basic education and the importance of voting for witnesses, that may play out well over time.
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I actually thought about that yesterday. It should be the job of Steem to make it as easy as possible to learn about voting, otherwise, how can we make sure the blockchain is protected?
Totally agreed. I guess it takes some time to figure how to create an educational system that will work properly but it can only be done by trial and error.
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Hi @therealwolf, thanks for the work you have done for steem until now. I hope you continue to deliver quality work. I was reading about Witnesses, and in my post @ddrfr33k mentioned a couple of names including yours. After reading your post, I decided give one of my witness votes to you. This was my post btw: https://steemit.com/steemit/@lion200/which-witness-to-vote-for-e1vgf6ar
Keep up the good work. Hope your contributions will increase the visibility of Steem even better to a greater audience. Thanks again.
Yes, I really believe in all the descriptions.
If after we choose you as a witness, do I get an upvote from you ?
Please answer a simple question from me ,,,, 🙏
Haha, you'll get an upvote for asking tha question. But in general, no. Witnesses are voted based on their value for the blockchain.
No, I never asked for a vote, but I asked, did the witness not support the person who chose him ? .
Hhhh I know the witness function properly, hhhh ( fixed tax from voters hhhhh) are you just choosing a witness without reciprocity ????
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By reading your article you have raised my self-esteem in the steemit community again brother because no one votes for my work will be because I'm a beginner and I'm not good for this. THANK YOU YOU ARE THE BEST IN YOUR JOB GREETINGS FROM MY FINISHED VENEZUELA!
Thanks for sharing it!
I will follow the Steps!
Well done
I really love you as a witness .just going to vote you 😍😍😍
Appreciate it!
Thanks for making this a post on the importance of decentralisation with a real simple but important call-to-action at the end. Vote cast!
Together with @bigtom13 @bluerobo @imacryptorick @pennsif @rycharde @starkerz and @shadowspub we're just setting up a method to use votes for decentralised strategy-building within Steem-community.
Would be great to have you in this discussion as well. It's happening in the organisation working group of the SOS discord. Here's an introduction post and today we'll have a first call to action.
https://steemit.com/steem/@impactn/from-sos-forum-to-sos-action
You just earned my vote. Nice post.
Hey @theRealWolf do you still use Discord often? I sent you a message and would appreciate your input on an open-source knowledge-networking platform I am building on Steem.
Yes of course. Just send me a message, so I know who you are and I'll read through it.
Great! I just did on Discord I'm at @Marhalish
Where did you get data about number of voters?
Steemian.info show ~400,000 witness voters.
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I used STEEMSQL - let me know if I made a mistake.
<pre><code>SELECT name, CONVERT(FLOAT, LEFT(vesting_shares, LEN(vesting_shares)-6)) as vests FROM accounts WHERE proxy = '' AND witnesses_voted_for = 0; # Voting SELECT name, CONVERT(FLOAT, LEFT(vesting_shares, LEN(vesting_shares)-6)) as vests FROM accounts # Not voting <p dir="auto">(I filtered out the vesting_shares afterwards)Error is probably on Steemian.info than. (I don't see any mistake here)
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correct
Each Witness should have a Trading Card version as part of an onboarding campaign ;)
I visited your website and ran through your projects @therealwolf and I like the Portfolio Tracker and your initiative with @steemtank. 😊
Possible Glitch?
I am not sure why this is happening, but if I click on the link to SteemTank from your website, the link doesn't work. But if I type it in without clicking on your website it works.
P.S. Our family @chrisrice @emaferice @zaclucasrice provides you with witness votes via @blockbrothers proxy.
Okay. I need to check who am I voting for and see how they have been doing and do some more research.
Cierto su funcionalidad para steemt se esta apoderando en la nueva tecnología del valor en internet, el mayor valor es la descentralización.
Disculpa, todavía no entiendo como figuran los testigos.
Despite being one of those that has yet to cast all 30 votes, one I did cast was for you as you have demonstrated through your actions that action and leveraging the community is what will bring value to the ecosystem. I can vouch for it ever since I started voting when Hard Fork 20 was a challenge that required the work of witnesses to engage actively to resolve consensus. One of the few who was actively communicating was yourself and also providing longer term suggestions to ensure the sustainability of the protocol that continues to be debated today with Steemit Inc’s situation. I appreciate that and that is why you have my vote.
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Amazing to consider if those who have not voted yet start voting we could see an impressive shift in power, not that I’m suggesting that it should happen per say. Potentially we could help push someone deserving up without taking away any votes from currently voted witnesses, avoid that stirring of the pot 😉
Might need to start plugging the idea in my vlogs for you guys! Still holding the dream of being a witness myself, one day 🤞 got a lot to learn! I doubt I could challenge the top50 but if it was able to pay for itself that would be good enough for me 💪
Thank You for all the support my friend 🙏
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But we are just planktons, our votes are too small to matter at all.I already voted for you @therealwolf as my Witness, and I proxied to 3 plankton accounts.
I always read your post. Very informative.
Really appreciate it!
What a wanker wolf, lost any credibility you almost had by turning this into your desperate politically motivated climb to the top 20...i saw your replies to you being called out for this and must say you're indeed a politician.. I'm done shitting now though so I'm not giving you anymore time then the toilet allotment I can always find for you...FRAUD PHONY FAKE
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Dear nice info upvote added,Keep it up :)
@ned is an absent leader. I think you (@therealwolf) should be the new face of Steem.
Steem is missing a strong leader and promoter. This is the ONLY reason why Tron is ever talked about. Their leader, Justin Sun, is an amazing promoter.
Now, in regards to voting...I went ahead and made my life easier.
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:Congratulations @therealwolf!
Thank you for the gif @therealwolf. It is very easy indeed.
Done voting and good luck!
I believe everything is about demand and supply, is the product or service is so desired by users. Supply represents how much the market can offer and steemit is only knowing by some and not the massive, if we change this view and open up maybe steemit post will have more value.
I still have witness votes left though all the ones I have casted I have done with care and attending as nany pannels as possible, above all I try to be reachable and around. I always was a slow poster but I am usually at hand on discord
I decided to vote for @therealwolf even before publication of this post, I made this decision a few days ago after learning more about @therealwolf and his contribution to steemit.
Good Luck!
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Appreciate it!
Nice
This post has been included in today's SOS Daily News - a digest of all you need to know about the State of Steem.
Editor of the The State of Steem SoS Daily News.
Promoter of The State of Steem SoS Weekly Forums.
Editor of the weekly listing of steem radio shows, podcasts & social broadcasts.
Founder of the A Dollar A Day charitable giving project.
As you said, i had really no idea about witness and witness voting!
And i'm in Steemit from 1 year! Despite i didn't use it a lot!
Thank you for this post!
I will go deeper in that.. :)
But if you are keeping like this, you'll have my vote for sure! :)
P.s. For now i voted for you.. Just because you let me know about it, you deserve that! :)
excelente articulo
I'm brand new here, but are you trying to say even I can vote? I don't think I own enough steempower to do so, but thanks to this post I have learned more about the voting system.
I eagerly look forward to your coming posts in this series!
You can always vote for witnesses!
Sweet, I will definately look into this more now that I know I matter (a bit).
Thanks for the reply!
Alright.. I'll give you a shot.
Votes matter!!! Please participate in a community vote on a joint strategy for Steem. https://busy.org/@impactn/where-to-go-setting-up-a-strategy-for-the-future-of-steem-test-stage-1