"A Great Lakes Initiative": Week 2 Report + Choosing Witnesses.
Progress of The Great Lakes Initiative(GLI for simplification):
Howdy Steemians! Ange here once again with the (GLI) report followed by a brief discussion about choosing Witnesses. For the GLI there is not much new, we still have no takers for our classes but on the upside, we're getting a bit more interactions between our users and seems we might just have gotten a new user too so, Yay!
Uganda, Lake Victoria - by 4665562 - Pixabay.com, CCO
Steem Basic Income Prize:
Once again this prize goes to @bmotives. But seeing nobody else is really interested in this prize, this week was probably the last time it was up for grabs.
But congrats once again to @bmotives with his superb post! Loved the message and the formatting too. I will be gifting him with another Sbi share later on.
If you have any suggestions to help improve this initiative feel free to communicate your advice in the comment section or join us in our discord.
Witnesses - Who are they, Why and How:
Ok, Check - by janjf93 - Pixabay.com, CCO
A witness runs a server that produces blocks(includes transfers, upvotes, comments etc), sets the price feeds of SBD/STEEM for the network and if a Hardfork is in the works, it can not be approved without the go-ahead of at least 17 of the top witnesses.
All of that meaning that without witnesses the STEEM blockchain might fall apart.
For a more detailed explanation of witnesses and their responsibilities you can read this article by @someguy123.
Why:
Witnesses get paid through how many votes they get. But since being a witness comes with many expenses they rarely break even, unless they are part of the top 20. So a vote to your favorite steemian/witness always goes a long way no matter how little you think it contributes.
Also remember that no matter their rank, just like the rest of us, all witnesses need each other to succeed if the blockchain is to operate smoothly. So vote according to whom you feel works the hardest for the betterment of our blockchain, whether it is through the technological aspects or the community driven aspects.
How:
Just like most things on this platform it's free, takes a minimum amount of time and is easy to do.
For the full list of witnesses just go to steemian.info/witnesses and select your witness. After this you will have to confirm through steemconnect and you're done.
If you feel like you're not yet ready to cast your vote, you can choose a proxy who will basically choose in your place. To do that just go here and insert his/her name in the bar at the bottom of the page.(if using a phone)
Note: You can switch up your witnesses whenever you want, so if you're afraid to cast because you could choose the wrong witness, you can rest easy by knowing it's not permanent.
My Recent Witnesses:
This is no way to sway anyone's mind as to whom they should select, but these witnesses have recently resonated with me in some way and I feel like maybe some of you could relate.
@yensesa: I first came across them last week while interacting on @katrina-ariel's post which is about ...choosing witnesses.
I love their mission! They have created the first steem exchanger via mobile money in Ghana and they plan on progressively extending it to the rest of our continent. Can't wait!
Also once established, they plan on starting a basic income system of a 5$ upvote per day for Africans as long as the content is good, has good quality and is not plagiarised.
Wish them fortune all their endeavours!!
@danielsaori by @danielsaori and @davemccoy: These are champions for minnows! From the steemitcommentchallenge to dustsweeper these guys are always looking out for us. Speaking of dustsweeper, you guys should check it out, I've tried it out and I think it's a great project that we minnows could really benefit from.
Also Saturday I got to listen on @shadowspub's podcast(witness chat) to which quite a few witnesses came and discussed various topics.(the full recording can be found within the post) And from listening to their conversations, here are some that peaked my interest and that I added to my list:
@steemcommunity by @abh12345 and @paulag: @abh12345 was there to rep them, I liked their vision and the way they plan on helping out minnows through engagement and positive interactions. Also you guys should check out @abh12345's post in which he talks about how to maximize profits with your votes. Looks promising, just started following him and I intend to try it out.
Here's their "introduceyourself".
@followbtcnews by @followbtcnews and @crimsonclad: I'm sure you guys know them or have at least seen them around as they are active in many communities and have started many projects such as steemtipper among others.
Except the obvious incredible results they have yielded, the other reason I voted for them was because just like most of us they started out as minnows, with 0 SP, 0 STEEM and now after only 1 year they are #19 on the witness list. Shows that through dedication and perseverance we can all make it! Plus I also liked their live and let live attitude.lol
I'll leave it at that for now, hope y'all research and pick your witnesses. Also wish y'all a blessed week and until next time, PEACE!!
Thanks a lot @ange.nkuru for a lot of efforts you put in #greatlakes initiative. We are growing and it will be better I believe!
Cheers @bmotives, it's all due to all our efforts as a group and yes, yes we shall soon rise to the top :)
Great selection of witnesses, I love to see people talking about them and its nice to see you leading the way here! I'm happy you like @dustsweeper too, we are really thrilled with the reception and the fact that we can help others! :)
Thanks for the feedback @davemccoy, it really means a lot. And you should be thrilled its a great project and I will be looking forward to your future ones too. :)
It is always good to help others begin to use our platform, as long as the effort is led by people of principle and vision. Foster and guard against a culture of limiting individuals' editiorial freedom, and avoid automatically upvoting every member regardless of quality. Good luck.
Cheers for the support @trumanity.
Do you mean censorship? Coz I'm definitely against that! And as for your last point I totally agree. Its been really hard sometimes but yeah I'm learning to be the bad guy and to not let biases affect me. Turns out it's really hard curating.lol
Cheers for passing by :)
Man, I wasn't thinking direct and willful censorship, more a psychology of the crowd - people assess what is required to be rewarded and then act accordingly. It makes sense from a business point of view, but ideally - journalism, the arts, contention and debate, ought not to be swayed too heavily by business incentives - rather by strength of argument, aesthetics, and so on. I think it is an error to assume that the objectives and opinions of the crowd (by this I mean the powerful accounts in a collective) and the broader readership - the actual public who will make or break the platform, are in sync. People tend then to create content to please the goose that's laying their egg for them. This will eventually result in a downgrade of quality, though in the short term users will reap rewards. Something like a pyramid. But yes, active cnesorship can creep in too. Seeing these regional teams rise up is interesting and may be good, but one has to wonder how much of it is pyramid in nature. I avoid using tags that do not describe the content of my post, hence I never get into all this stuff.
I see what you mean and that's a valid point that I haven't thought enough about. Tho to be fair I think content dilution was bound to happen the very second we decided to blog for $(no matter how small).
On the other hand, one thing I've been thinking about a lot is what is and how do you determine good content and make it stick without it being another form of censorship. Also would the ones always on trending abide? This one is still too confusing for me.
But yeah I also see and sometimes wonder about certain movements with pyramid like structures and how they will affect us in the long run. Guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens from here.
Hey I saw your witness vote. Thanks for taking the time to research and vote. We need more awareness about the witnesses job.
I agree with you, most newbies tend to think it doesn't concern them(I used to) when it concerns all of us. Yeah I did vote for you, I like your goals and what you're fighting for and I wish you fortune with all of them. Cheers for passing by @cryptohazard :)
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by ange.nkuru from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.