I can support everything that @kushed said about the early days of Steem (before the site was even open and the entirety of the community was on the old Slack) and his tireless efforts to promote it. There is a reason he was, at one time the #1 voted witness, despite not being a huge whale.

I worked with @kushed and very much supported his critical efforts to promote Steem and bring users (when there were literally none). Many of you would not be here and would not have heard of Steem were it not for learning about it directly or indirectly as a result of his efforts.

I worked endlessely to try to convince people to keep him in the witness list on the basis of his contributions and tireless dedication to promote the platform (something we surely need given slow to non-existent growth), but despite my efforts, he was forced out (as was nextgencrypto). On merit and past and potential future contributions to Steem, both should be primary witnesses over several who are there now. (I'm not going to name names, but do your homework; it isn't hard to figure out, and if you can't figure out or find out what someone is doing to help Steem/it, isn't that alone evidence of a problem?)

I don't support and will not support any of these "investigations" and I believe they are bad for Steem/it, and some of the collateral damage shown both in this post and in @honeyscribe's post should make the reasons clear, though I also believe it is bad for the platform as a whole, apart from any impact on any individuals. I hope this is the last we see of this approach of people appointing themselves (or being hired) as 'Steemit Police', hounding people, and attacking our own over differences of opinion, though I fear it may not be.