Thanks for the reply. I am hoping that someone will confirm whether what I was told is true but if it is I still find it odd. In my mind the witnesses should be responsible to or influenced by (in terms of witness votes) equally by all users. It surely shouldn't be the case where a single whale witness vote has 1000 times more weight than a minnow. Witnesses already have a lot of power of the network and the idea that they can just keep voting themselves in doesn't sound right to me.