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What is a witness?

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I will make this and simple and interesting as possible, because when I first wrote on witnesses some months ago, I had no idea how complicated the definition of a witness was until I went through the research article about three times over.

Being a witness is not a joke and before I begin to make it sound like the calculation for the amount needed to blow up a solar system(I have no idea what I just said), I will give an understandable definition of it in my on words.

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A witness is the person who makes your transactions even happen in the first place, he/she is the reason why this system still works. If you still don't get that, I will understand, took me a while too to understand.

Imagine you have a car that has to be maintained every three months or at a certain mileage, well a witness can be likened to the mechanic who maintains and keeps your car in optimal state.

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I will spare you the talks of nodes and blocks and all that and like I said, make it easy to understand.

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Dissecting the complexity of witnesses

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Okay, this is the part where I tell you that everyone can become witnesses, if you understand the science/tech stuff behind it, and you are willing to work hard.

Of course they get paid as I am sure you are wondering, but the stress involved deserves them getting a higher pay.

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If you are also wondering why you need a witness around, think of it this way: To get governance, you need to elect office holders, so to get excellent service here, you need to vote for amazing witnesses.

The beauty of this is that you can vote/un-vote a witness at anytime depending on your level of satisfaction with such a witness.

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By rating and satisfaction I do not mean how many times they chat with you or answer your messages and all that because they are super busy people or they look that way and an idle witness is not a good sign, trust me.

That does not mean they might not eventually answer you or chat with you, but it should not be a basis for your judgement, rather their input to the development of the community should be placed first.

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Now that I have told us that anyone but not everyone can become witness, let us talk about the business at hand.

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Being an @ausbitbank and @steemgigs (Bit/Gigs)supporter

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This does mean I do not support other witnesses, I already have 26 witnesses out of the 30 maximum on my witness vote list, whom I have either interacted or observed their performance satisfactorily, but I decided to speak on these two individuals whom I felt like giving my support to.

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Below is a snapshot and written list of witnesses I vote for:

@abit, @aggroed, @arcange, @ausbitbank, @blocktrades, @boatymcboatface, @busy.witness, @clayop, @curie, @furion, @fyrst-witness, @good-karma, @gtg, @jesta, @joseph, @lukestokes.mhth, @neoxian, @nextgencrypto, @pfunk, @roelandp, @smooth.witness, @steemgigs, @teamsteem, @theprophet0, @timcliff, @xeldal

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Let us talk in "BIT"s

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@ausbitbank is a good/bad guy to most, well to me he is that dude I perpetually get intrigued by his beard, lol.

I must be sincere, my first encounter with him was through a post I wrote and @arcange mentioned him and voila he appeared and left a comment. I was amazed, since then I started monitoring (well not in the stalking way), his progress.

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He has been going above and beyond for the community and well got a lot of evil nicks doing his job, which of course only fueled his drive the more.

He went ahead to lend support to the minnowsupport project by @aggroed and has been supporting it since then.

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I must admit, I took one look at his blog and got scared by his avatar, but I realized there was more to him than that in due time, he had this way of doing his duty and not even complaining about it.

As a minnow myself, I know I can be annoying even to myself and I err a lot, he is among the few people who knows how to be blunt and tell you the truth without compromise.

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He can found lurking in the Peace Abundance Liberty network on discord, the Steemit In Nigeria group on discord among others

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Scammers and spammers tremble at the mention of @ausbitbank, and he leaves no stone un-turned in doing his duty. He is the villain to the villains and a hero to the heroes of this ecosystem.

Don't get me wrong, I have gotten his dark side before and he still showed me his good side, all in all, he got my vote.

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What about our GIGS

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When we have a challenge, the first thing we think is the # steemgigs tag. At least I am very sure that tag is fast becoming a trend of it's own, but sadly, I am not here to talk about the tag, I am here to talk about the brain behind the tag.

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He is a fairly new, but amazing witness and he has been making waves. Before this,he was a simple, quiet and nice guy who simply liked mentoring the next generation of stars on this platform.

I remember a time when I felt clueless on this platform and he actually helped me find my feet (well, him and a host of others, but the point is he was among).

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Back then he was not @steemgigs to me, he was simply a friend if mine who had a different name and someone whom I always tried in vain to admit he laughed at my jokes, although I cannot remember cracking any that was funny or maybe he laughed and never admitted.

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He is the patient type, always willing to answer people especially minnows, and he never complains about it.

I must admit, he is among the few people I have never successfully annoyed or maybe I did and he simply shrugged it away, perhaps I will find that out some day.

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He is also amazing and deserves your votes.

I was not paid to do this, I am only doing my steemit duties as should you. Do not hesitate to vote your witness(es) today. You can vote for your witness here

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Edit: Since @steemgigs is outside the top 50 witnesses, here is how to vote for him: go to the witness page and scroll down to the place where you'll see if you want to vote for someone outside the top 50, please click here. Search steemgigs and it will pop-up

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I am a Bit/Gigs voter, are you? Vote today

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Leave your thoughts and comments

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Image was gotten from pixabay

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Thanks to @elyaque for the badge and @son-of-satire for the generic footer

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