The Steem blockchain and Steemit by extension is a wonderful experiment. That doesn't mean it is still not a large and growing collection of humans (and yes it's fair share of bots). As such it is going to have the same problems we all have with human nature. We all think differently, we all have our own beliefs. Generally this is not a bad thing, but there are times this does not work out well.

There are enough new people that I want to talk about some of what I perceive as blemishes on the steemit platform and how you as an individual might be able to approach them. I am basically sharing with you my plan of how I plan to approach them. I also will introduce new people to how to vote for witnesses, what witnesses do, etc.

The down vote (aka flag) can be a blemish on this platform. Many people see it as the opposite of the up vote. Technically in pure terms of code it is. Psychologically and what it does are not necessarily equal. It is currently a necessary TOOL due to the fact our platform is decentralized, and there is no police force that can monitor this place (this is a very good thing). That means policing this place is on us the community. The flag was initially intended for countering spam, abuse, and plagiarism. For these purposes it is indeed very much needed and I've seen the difference it can make on this place being pleasant. At some point they added disagreement over rewards. I personally believe this wording was a mistake. That totally opened the door for "A post about my neighborhood? I don't want anyone knowing about my neighborhood... it's not worth that $2 it is making... DOWNVOTE... great now it's worth $0 and POSSIBLY hidden". Yet that is not censorship. (yes, I am being sarcastic) It's still on the blockchain, yet it can make no money EVEN though there were people that WERE interested and wanted to support it. Depending upon the reputation system it may also be grayed out and hidden and thus receive much fewer views. Why? Some "Jerk" decided that their opinion of what people should be able to be interested in is all that matters. Yes, I used the term jerk because I am not pointing out specific people. This is a term I personally will not use directly to a person as I do try to keep it civil.

This is a problem with steem. It is one of the blemishes on an otherwise beautiful skin. So far it has only been accompanied by one additional blemish which @schattenjaeger wrote about yesterday and I did as well. Self voting your own comments and intentionally draining the reward pool for your own gain. I'm not going to do more than mention that one here. If you wish to know more then I recommend reading my post from yesterday where I also link to @schattenjaeger's.

My personal code of conduct

I am going to try to explain my personal approach to steemit. I am an individual and I respect all of you for being an individual so I do not expect you to do what I do. Unless you want to. I mainly am explaining it as it is relevant when I get to my discussion on witnesses (no, I am not running as a witness though I've been asked to).

• Revel in the freedom and uncensored nature of steemit. Respect the right or other people to be interested in things I am not. Do not interfere with their choices of topics, payment on those topics, etc.
• Be civil. I believe this is important. If someone starts calling me names, implying I am an idiot or otherwise ad hominem attacking me I try VERY HARD (yes, sometimes it is difficult) not to stoop to their level. If I fail and do that then ultimately they succeeded as they distracted from the topic, and they made me become someone I do not want to be.
• I will down vote only spam, abuse, and plagiarism. I will NOT be down voting on disagreement about rewards.
• If I see people exploiting the system or attacking and harming the steemit community in some way I will speak to them and TRY to persuade them as to why I think it is a bad idea. They very well may not agree. Sometimes surprisingly they do, and they say something along the lines of "I'd never thought about it that way".
• I will not speak of steemit as our private country club. As far as I'm concerned everyone is welcome, they just need to keep in mind that if they are hostile they likely won't fair well. If they only think of themselves and not the community they may not fair well. My goal is 100% user retention. Yes, this is unrealistic but still my goal. Jerks can hopefully change their ways. This is me perhaps being overly optimistic.
• I will do my best to try to keep an open mind, for even I could be the Jerk and not realize it. None of us are perfect, and we all make mistakes. In fact, most of us likely make more mistakes than we're willing to admit.
• I will do my best to keep steemit a growing, inclusive, and welcoming environment.
• From this point forward if people down vote based on anything other than plagiarism, spam, abuse, or combating exploitation then I will not follow them, and I will not vote for them as witness. I will not support actions that are based purely on opinion with no thought of the rights of other people to assemble, discuss the things they want, and be rewarded by those who have like minded interests.
• If a post has blatant imagery as the first image that is pornography, extreme violence (such as a murder scene), etc or is an otherwise ADULT or preferential type of post then one of it's tags should be NSFW. I will not censor such posts and they should be allowed here. Yet, they should not be shoved in people's faces that do not want to see them. We also do have some children and teens here. If it is tagged as NSFW you are free to post what you want (use your brain, this does not include things like pedophillia). such things if not tagged and forced upon people will be flagged, and not just by me. Your posts can still be quite lucrative with the NSFW tag. People still look at them and some people intentionally regularly check that tag.

Witnesses

Witnesses are important, but most people don't know about them. The steem blockchain is decentralized. It is spread out across computer nodes that are operated by witnesses. Anyone can become a witness provided they can create and operate a node that can keep the steem blockchain going.

You would think this centralizes power in the witnesses. It does not. They do not have special moderator abilities on steem. They are just users like you and I. They do however, provide a service. They also can work with other witnesses and steemit inc. to implement new code changes.

They are the closest thing to a senator, congressman, representative, etc that we have in the steem ecosystem.

However, unlike political representatives they have no term limits. You can vote them into a position of reward or remove them instantly depending upon votes. If you like how a person who is working on being a witness is behaving and you believe it is a benefit to steem as a whole then you should vote for them as a witness. Yes, I will explain how to do this. That is actually a big part of why I wrote this post.

The thing about witnesses is that the top 19 are the ACTIVE nodes. They actually receive a decent reward in steem every week for operating their node. This means witnesses really would like to be in the top 19 if they can be. Your vote matters.

There are many more witnesses than 19. The rest are backups so if one of those nodes goes down another will fill the spot.

You will see people campaigning for witness.

If you don't want to vote for witnesses but you do think it is important. There is a proxy feature. If there is someone in the community you trust and agree with their values and choices then you can designate them as a proxy. If you do this the people they vote for, or remove votes from will be mirrored by your own account. If you agree with my code of conduct above and do not want to vote for example then you could set me as your proxy. I think it is far better if you do the voting yourself, but if you're concerned you may forget, or you just don't want to then a proxy is an option. It does not have to be me. In fact unless you believe in my choices it shouldn't be me.

At this point here is how to vote for witnesses

First click on the menu to the right of your avatar

Second in the menu that pops up click on Vote for Witnesses

Vote for your witnesses and set proxies. There are several things here.

The top 50 will show in the list at the top, yet this is not all of them and new witnesses most likely will not be in this list.

(Please note if I am not voting for a witness here that is worthy, I likely don't know enough about them at the time, others I may not vote for because I've watched their actions in the past. Many of them though such as @good-karma I just don't know enough about)

Further down you have the ability to put a name in to vote for. I still have @dantheman in there and I will be removing him as I do not believe he is running a witness node any longer and he has ceased most of his activities here since moving onto EOS.

The last section is where you'd set a proxy if you simply want your votes to follow the votes of some other user.

Conclusion

If you ever see me supporting someone as a witness or as a follower and you can show me where they have been down voting purely based upon opinion and potentially damaging the community then point it out. I am not omniscient. I can't be everywhere and see everything. I will not be following or supporting such activities from this point forward.