Ladies of Steemit, Volume 6 | Can I Get a Witness?
Get to know the Lady Witnesses of Steemit
The Ladies of Steemit curation initiative exists to showcase the diversity of females and femme-identifying voices on the blockchain. A blockchain that wouldn't be possible without the hard work and technical prowess of its active creators: Steemit Witnesses.
At the risk of over-simplifying the direct activities of Steemit Witnesses, we've compiled a list of facts to get you acquainted with the position:
A Steemit Witness is a person running a computer (system) that creates blocks for the Steemit blockchain, among other blockchain responsibilities like: Keep a block-producing Steem node running 24/7, provide an ongoing Steem price feed, etc. source
Witnesses are subject to voted appointance, and their rank determines the number of blocks they're tasked to produce. For example: the top 19 witnesses produce the majority of blocks.
Each Steemit account holder has thirty witness votes and chooses their witnesses entirely by their own judgment.
Witnesses are rewarded 1 STEEM Power per block they create, meaning the top 19 witness have the capacity to earnapproximatelyy 1,400 SP daily. source
In addition to creating blocks, many witnesses engage in community development, technological innovation, and platform improvement activities. This may contribute to a rise in popularity and trust, resulting in more awareness and votes.
There are currently 400 Witnesses and 318 of them are active/enabled.
There are only 2 confirmed female witnesses.
Without further ado, we're proud to showcase the two female Steemit Witnesses.
@patrice
is a Steemit Warrior fighting the war on spam, trash, abuse, and plagiarization! She is the creator of @spaminator, which she states "deals with spam differently than other resources in a way for everyone in the community to voice their opinion on what spam is and how it should be dealt with."source She's also a founding member of @steemcleaners, a tool for reporting and handling abuse.
In her own words:
Someone asked me why I want to be a witness... For me it isn't about being a witness, it is how I can make a bigger difference in the community by becoming a witness. I want to work with the already great group of witnesses we have and initiatives on Steemit to pool resources to not only fight abuse but support new members.
Active Witness Rank: 47
Learn more about @patrice in her Witness Application and in @stellabelle's endorsement post.
One of her most recent exemplary posts:
Replay: Trash Talk with @patrice 02/13/2017
Though this post is out of payout period, you can join @patrice every Tuesday night on the SteemStar Network at Midnight UTC, 7pm EST
Trash Talk with @patrice gives you the opportunity to ask questions about @steemcleaners and @spaminator. You'll get an inside look at how the group deals with specific abuse issues and my personal views.
Read the full post here.
@crimsonclad
is an insanely talented photographer and Witness project partner alongside @followbtcnews, running a top-30 Witness. Their Witness activities generously contribute to the @minnowsupport project, which is "designed to form a community around new Steemit users to help them grow, find support, and as an avenue toward financial success."source
Active Witness Rank: 23
Learn more about the Witness run by @crimsonclad and @followbtcnews in their Witness Application.
One of their recent witness posts:
FollowBTCNews Witness Update: Super Powered Upgrades for RPC Node, Witness, and Steem.Chat Servers
Hopefully I've grabbed your attention and gotten the important points of this post across for those of you who are already thinking, "TL;DR." If you're wanting some more information, keep reading to find out more about the upgrades @crimsonclad and I have applied to the full public RPC node, Steemit.chat, and witness servers that have gone live this week. Full STEEM ahead!
Read the full post.
One of @crimsonclad's personally exemplary posts:
West Coast Snow and Sunlit Trees — A Few Days to Look at the World Differently
Where I am, snow is one of those things that happens nearly far: it dusts the trees in the distance, highlights the swells and jags of the mountains and creates a perfect, velvety texture as if I were to stretch my arm forever, run the back of my hand against the nap, and ruffle nature itself. Snow is for winter, snow is for the high peaks, snow is NOT for our city proper. It's just not the norm for us, and certainly, not for too many days in a row or too deep. However... what's normal these days, anyhow?
Read the full post.
Photo from Unsplash
The female community has two powerful and productive representatives in the Witness leadership pool... but why not more?
At first glance, a Steemit Witness may seem not much more than a person running a technical system to build and maintain the blockchain. That is a difficult endeavor and not to be scoffed at! But, because Witnesses achieve their rank (and therefore the amount of blocks they are tasked with creating) by community vote, the political element changes the landscape.
Top-tier witness garner votes, i.e. popularity, in a variety of ways. A major factor: community investment.
The lady witnesses featured above have either created or are major contributors to initiatives in existence to better this platform. Witness spend their time, power, and connections on projects that fight abuse and plagiarism, improve post visibility and earnings for minnows, provide outreach and education beyond the platform, and host community-building events like @SteemFest.@roelandp
Ladies of Steemit, we want to encourage you to learn about what it means to be a Witness, what Witnesses do (in detail), and how to become a Witness. Being a Steemit Witness is being a Steemit community leader and servant. Just imagine what the women, females, and femme-identifying indvidiuals on this platform could do with the influence and dedication that makes a Steemit Witness.
Further reading on Steemit Witnesses:
This is a short list of articles that are unfortunately all out of payout period. They are detailed, deemably accurate, and comprehensive.
Seriously, what is a STEEM witness? Why should I care? How do I become one? (Answer), by @someguy123
What Are Steem Witnesses And Why You Should Support Them!, by @teamsteem
🔵What Do Our Top 20 Witnesses Actually Do? (Complete Overview Written In A Way So That Everyone Can Understand)🔵, by @ashleykalila
The Ladies of Steemit initiative would like to personally thank the #SteemSugars community, @battleaxe, and @princessmewmew for their support of our learning about Steemit Witnesses and for their perspective on gender representation in Steemit community leadership.
Have you ever considered being a Steemit Witness? Or, is this your first time reading about what a Steemit Witness does?
Share with us in the comments below - we are excited to learn about women-run and collaborative initiatives on the blockchain and support the development of female Witnesses.
Thank you for joining us in celebrating the Ladies of Steemit!
The #LadiesofSteemit curation initiative aims to curate the best female content on the platform and that can come from accounts of any size, age, subject-matter, and engagement level. To females/femmes/feminine voices making an investment in Steemit and its community growth, we salute you.
Learn more about the Ladies of Steemit in our Proper Introduction published February 2018.
Our numbers are growing exponentially and we're on a mission to highlight the unique voices emerging every day. Do you have a Lady of Steemit you think deserves a mention?
Nominate your gals for the Ladies of Steemit curation!
Upvote this post and drop a link to an exemplary post by a feminine voice in the comments below. We are delighted to review and consider each entry. We primarily follow EVERY. SINGLE. LADY. we come across on Steemit and resteem as many quality posts as we can each week. Use the tag #LadiesofSteemit on your posts you'd like considered for a feature or that you feel would benefit the female community of Steemit.
You can also find more Ladies of Steemit hanging out in #SteemSugars and #TeamGirlPowa !
The Ladies of Steemit Library
Our newest initiative:
Check out the first post culminating headlines from February 2018.
Disclaimer: There are no gender police here. If you in any way identify with some semblance of your own meaning of femininity, you're qualified! We by no means intend to exclude, alienate, or discourage the participation of men, but are committed to the Ladies of Steemit as our sole focus at this time!
Should you feel a person was featured in error, say we have misjudged a man/guy/masculine-identifying individual OR spammer pretending to be a woman, please use your best judgment and alert us politely in the comments or on Discord: @ameliabartlett / @ladiesofsteemit. We will be discreet and delicate in our handling of misprints!
See you next Wednesday!
Proud member of
VERY few lady witnesses out there! That's what I was talking about in reference to the male domination of the Steemit platform. Glad you are bringing this to light :)
True that, Patrice is the only solo one.......... the mechanisms of this place are akin to a hot dog factory
Oh yeah and @enginewitty is one stellar witness...Most Steemians don't even vote to begin with so it is up to us on how the game board is arranged ;)
BWahahahahaha a hot dog factory? Crakn me up
Thank you @enginewitty. Even though I'm not in the market to be a witness, I hope this post inspires a lady who might be!
Thanks very much for reaching out and including me; it means a lot to be recognized for good work. And thank you for such a thorough, well researched, well written explanation of witnessing and projects in general! I tend to be a polarizing figure around these parts...
While I've saved my Steemit account for my art and my expression and my writing, my presence both on and off the chain is reserved for anyone who may need me. I take witnessing to heart; I am a community liaison, a programmer, an administrator, a designer... but I'm also a creative, an investor, and an end user. Twelve plus hours a day, if you need something, I will be around on Steemit chat or on Discord to do my best to help you grow and learn, because it's likely you will pass that on, rippling outwards. This, combined with reliable hardware and ambitious projects, is how I'm going to help and grow STEEM, and the people who are integral to Steemit. I just happen to be female as well ;)
Also, @Patrice always makes me feel like I should be at it 29 hours a day, like she is 😍
As usual with this series, this is excellent work.
I so wish I had the hardware to pull this off!
Do you have a source or any further information about the 2 women who are witnesses? I ask because I just published this post yesterday about the gender imbalance on this site and the myth that women somehow have an advantage here, and that would be a great statistic to put in there.
Come to discord. Patrice is on steemsugars and crimmy is everywhere lol
what is steemsugars? I'm only the steemcleaners and minnowsupport chats?
Hey Mallory, click through the links in their feature above. I've featured their profiles, their witness application, and their most recent post (witness related or otherwise). Beyond that, definitely head to the #TeamGirlPowa + #SteemSugars discords to chat them up!
Sorry, the way I phrased that was confusing. I did see their profiles and check them out--I just meant how we know that only 2 are female, if there was a study, did someone go through and manually check profiles, etc. When I did my study looking at follower and posting rewards counts I had to manually go through and check profiles one by one so I'm wondering if someone else has already done that work.
Yes, in short - I checked every single witness profile for possible gender identification. I also spoke with trusted sources and a couple witnesses who are familiar with the community to triple-check that the two I identified were legit + the only two.
@limabeing has a point, that hiding your identity for any number of reasons would take you out of consideration for Ladies of Steemit, simply because I don't know you're a lady. And, I'd never want to "expose" someone whose gender is their business.
Also, I forgot to say it sooner--THANK YOU for this awesome post! I hope you find some witnesses to help turn the tide.
Yeah thats why we always say "self identified" .we always meant to do that work but its very time consuming.. i bow to your dedication. Trutch be told i have my suspicion that one witness is afab but they present male and dont say otherwise so that doesnt count imo. It is possible that a witness is hiding their gender in order to aqcuire an bit of make privilige through the default assumption that if they dont present female, they are male. But all of that still highlights the fact that even on our great freedom steemit, we have male privilege in thd power seat. Of course there are female identifies whales that have sway and $$$ power.. was planning on making a survey but ffs too much work .. not enough time.
Thanks girl. Think about it yourself! There's a link in this post that gives a detail roadmap to becoming a witness.
I definitely am but its not gonna be for a year or so. It will be a team but i wanna get the hardware and do it myself rather than renting the server...
Actually, don't need hardware...
Is there a way to do it without already having hardware in which I could at least break even (if not make a profit), though?
Might take you a little while to start breaking even but yes, there is a way without housing your own equipment. Find me on discord and we can chat more. Same name over there.
Hell yeah sisters!! I could tell it was heavily male dominated but had no idea HOW dominated it was. I've been djing for almost 20 years and I'm still shocked by how few women are in that space.... I sometimes feel like things have evened out and then when I actually look around I'm so shocked still. We have a long way to go to get the other half of human brains into creative tech <3
I had no idea either of these two ladies were witnesses. I've voted for them both now (and @followbtcnews). Both @patrice and @crimsonclad have helped me at various points, Crim in particular pretty much spent a heap of time with me explaining how the whole post rewards system works because I just wasn't getting it. Thanks to you both, you legends!!
thanks for the shout out! it's a confusing system and we don't explain it well, so it's not like you're the only one with these questions :3
I don't feel comfortable telling people I'm a witness while I'm helping them or interacting with them unless they explicitly ask. I just trust that the people that need to know will find out organically at some point, and if they believe in how we approach things, choose to support that. Kind of like what just happened here~ the universe works! 🖤
Loved your post! It really explain what a witness is and how it all works to new user, with a feminine touch!
I love you.
💓
Love this!
It’s great to have these amazing content providers featured in one place. I wasn’t following most of them and now i am! Thank you 👍
More female touch is the only thing we need in Steemit...
FD.