Vote For Witnesses!

Hello there Steemians!

I hope you are all having a great time on this wonderful platform. In case you haven't heard, there is a contest hosted by @katrina-ariel, which will give you a chance to win SBDs for sharing at least one of the Witnesses you support on Steemit. Please go over there to participate right now!

https://steemit.com/contest/@katrina-ariel/get-your-witness-votes-in-for-a-chance-to-win-sbd

This is one of the most important duties you will have as a member of the overall Steem community. For those of you who do not know what Witnesses are or why they matter, please refer to this POST and a more recent POST here.

I like the way @rhondak put it in one of the posts mentioned above:

More than 300 lower-ranking witnesses compete for a position as backup witnesses for the Top 20, who make decisions by consensus on modifications to the code the blockchain operates on.

In short, if you want to see fundamental changes on the blockchain, you better start voting for those who will back those ideals. The flag wars you have witnessed (pun intended) are ways for us to treat the metaphoric symptoms of the diseases that run along the platform, and are not part of the solutions overall.

It is said that less than 27% of the Steemians vote for Witnesses. That is simply unacceptable!

I will admit, I have not utilized all of the 30 votes each Steemian is allowed to allocate to Witnesses. In fact, I have only used 13 of 30, and I am in no hurry to seek out those I feel will help the growth and stability of Steem.

You might say, "you don't even have that much SP! It doesn't matter!" It's true that I do not have a lot SP. However, when less than 50% even bother to participate in probably one of the most flexible democratic systems there is in existence, I think most people are severely underestimating the impact of their indifference/ignorance.

Remember, if you want to change the rules, you better support at least 20 Witnesses who share those views.

I want to spend some time to talk about the Witnesses I have chosen. You don't have to vote for them because I posted about them, but the following summary should give you an idea of what some of them stand for on this platform.

@someguy123
This man has done much dev work on STEEM and Litecoin. He is the CEO of Privex, Inc. A main Witness in the #MinnowSupportProject. The reason why I even became acquainted with Steemit. He even personally walked me through on how to be more productive on Steemit! There is too much to say about this guy without making a post itself.
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@Patrice
I call her the Matron Saint of @steemcleaners. I first read into her after reading about her tango with @dowha. She's also a key supporter in other projects such as @steemflagrewards, etc. Essentially, her team is the force behind the anti-spam, anti-plagiarism, and other anti-shady activities on Steemit.
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@fyrst-witness
Some know him as the man behind @booster. Some known him as the star of "shit coin" karyoke. @fyrstikken backs projects on Steemit. In fact, there is a recent one for those who are interested to take on the challenge. I casted my vote when he became one of the few whales to fight @haejin's massive self-vote abuse by sacrificing some of his profits and Witness vote from @ranchorelaxo.
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@themarkymark
The responsible bot owner of @buildawhale. He actively fights against abuses committed by users. You might even be aware of his latest plagiarism bust of @florian.art and promoted the real author, @nosoart, who was a victim of theft. I have followed @themarkymark's posts for some time. What prompted me to vote for him and actually following his feed was after reading his POST about a makeshift cold wallet for our money on Steemit.
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@nextgencrypto
Love him. Hate him. Everyone knows @berniesanders, one of the most outspoken Steemians on the platform. He calls a spade a spade, even if his words come across as rude, blunt, or even insulting. This is one man who is not afraid to flag. Rest assured, he cares about the platform and has said himself that he holds big dreams for STEEM. I voted for @nextgencrypto after he called out @jerrybanfield for his over-the-top bid bot push on a rather mediocre video.
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@sircork
I supported @sircork before he became partners with @rhondak. I stumbled across @youarehope and @steemstarnetwork when I was searching for topics to write about for @hendrix22's #TheGoodNews Gazette. The charity, @youarehope, has made differences in people's lives and the shows he hosts always contain valuable insights and opportunities for someone like me to chime in at no cost.

Be sure to check out steem.agency, a tool developed by @sircork to keep track of your potentially dead followers.
@rhondak mains the @thewritersblock initiative and is a fighter just like her partner. She advocates for quality contents on Steemit and offer resources for willing souls who wish to become good writers.
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@dragosroua
The architect behind steem.supply, a nifty little tool that tells you about your rewards on Steemit and does projections on your potential growth, so you can gauge your progress. He is involved with the community, with his latest effort being the #challenge30days.
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@yensesa
I recently voted for @yensesa after learning about the initiative to provide a less costly mean for Africans to exchange their cryptocurrency. In fact, I learned about this project on the very CONTEST I mentioned above. The Witness aims to provide a basic income for hardworking African content producers in order for them to be financially independent from corrupt government regimes. I believe in arming the people, in this case, financial independence, against corrupt parties.
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@qurator
A team project started by @scrooger and @gingerninja with @goldendawne as its face. It's a community of quality content producers that aim to organically curate good contents as well as utilizing their own @qustodian bot that offers visibility for a fee and a curation trail. They follow @steemcleaners' guidelines against abuse and have an internal team that handles those issues amongst their ranks. I first learned about this group through @davemccoy.
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@justyy
I didn't find @justyy. He found me! He is an active developer with many projects under his belt. You can check out his updates on his blog. He is also one of the few #cn Witnesses we have on the platform, an invaluable person for that community. Since I'm bilingual myself and consider myself a part of #cn, it was easy for me to cast my vote on a talented tech guy.
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@danielsaori
He is known for promoting engagement by rewarding those who have meaningful interactions on others' blogs. The latest project, @dustsweeper, he and @davemccoy reinforced my belief that I made a solid choice in Witnesses
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@steemcommunity
The team of @abh12345 and @paulag. Asher (@abh12345) is all about engagement in the community. As far as I can see, he almost always reply to you if you comment directly at him. He is a relatable character to me, especially after he shared stories of his own life. Trust me, he is active in many communities.
@paulag is known for her data analysis of the blockchain. She provides an objective view of what is happening in our ecosystem and community leaders can decide which course of actions they should take to ensure stability and growth of Steem overall.
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@emrebeyler
The very first Witness I voted for when I started. You probably know him from @abusereports, an often-complained service by serial spammers/abusers. Given how much ire it drew from the said demographic, I'd say he's done a great job! He also runs projects such as @tagbot and is an active gamer according to his blog posts.

That's was a brief, but long, summary of the Witnesses I support. Again, I urge everyone to go over to @katrina-ariel's contest post:

https://steemit.com/contest/@katrina-ariel/get-your-witness-votes-in-for-a-chance-to-win-sbd

Go and vote! Remember that there are no election cycles on Steemit. If you feel like the Witnesses you support no longer align with your views, you can change them as soon as you like.

If you have already voted, please considering contribute to the contest and/or tell others about the Witnesses you support!

Disclaimer: I wrote this for fun.