How Many Steemians Are NOT Voting for a Witness? I Found the Answer!

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I ran a version of the report again this morning but did not include the requirement for a single post. Here are the results:

Total accounts: 291,340
Accounts with a proxy: 3,531
Accounts with a witness vote: 7,870
Accounts with no witness vote: 279,899

That's not surprising to me that there are bot accounts with no posts which have proxies set. What is surprising is I lost 40 accounts somewhere as the math doesn't perfectly add up. :)

Begin time: 2017-08-01T13:59:50+00:00
End time: 2017-08-01T14:39:31+00:00

The report takes about 40 minutes to run, and that's with the full list of accounts already cached. If I'm going to run this weekly (which I think I am), I'll probably set it up on a server to automate parts of it. I also want to play around with some charts showing SP distribution and such. I'm also curious to know how many accounts are voting per witness in the top 20 and 50 along with the SP distribution of those voters. Super interesting stuff here. I love the blockchain! :)

$12.23

17 votes

robbieretard (48) · 7 years ago

You can reduce that by 1, so now 279,898 accounts with no witness vote.

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

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lucasgabd (55) · 7 years ago

decided that today was a good day to pick some more witness to vote.
had only around 4 votes.

just added @lukestokes.mhth , @ausbitbank and @jerrybanfield

use the power wisely dear friends
May the green monster be with you.

Lucas
Malabarize-se

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netuoso (70) · 7 years ago

Good statistics here @lukestokes. I might have to add you to my votes. In a witness too and been helping to host additional servers during these issues we've been having. Working on setting up a full node as we speak actually.

Sucks to have so many abstaining from voting just because they don't understand it.

$7.08

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I've been seeing the work you're putting in over on the steemit chat witness channel. Thank you!

$2.08

incrediblesnow (66) · 7 years ago

@lukestokes, please allow me to translate your content to Chinese in order to spread more to the community who did not fluent in english!
If you like my action please upvote me!
My post link here : https://steemit.com/cn/@incrediblesnow/steemit

$1.47

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Go for it! If you could also link to this post in your translated post, I would appreciate it.

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incrediblesnow (66) · 7 years ago

Yes sir, I have mentioned my content was translated from your post in my starting and I also post the link that link to your post! Thanks for allowing me to do so!

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summerskin (53) · 7 years ago

I have voted for witnesses and have 18 witness votes remaining, but I do not just want to randomly vote for people just to use up my votes. I saw that you can have someone more knowledgeable vote for you, but it seems it would erase all your previous votes. Is there a way to assign my last 18 votes by proxy without erasing the votes I have already submitted?

$1.46

15 votes

stellabelle (75) · 7 years ago

I have a few suggestions for witnesses......
@timcliff
@yunkzilla
@drakos
@clayop
@gtg
well, more if you're interested...

$1.52

5 votes

summerskin (53) · 7 years ago

Thank you so much. I've been following you since I joined, and have high confidence in your recommendations.

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stellabelle (75) · 7 years ago

there are more...

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summerskin (53) · 7 years ago

Great! I have 10 more votes, would you be able to give 10 more recommendations?

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@roelandp
@aggroed
@ausbitbank
@abit

stellabelle (75) · 7 years ago

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@good-karma
@pharesim
@roelandp
@pfunk
@klye
@roadscape
@teamsteem

stellabelle (75) · 7 years ago

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stellabelle (75) · 7 years ago

@blueorgy

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blueorgy (67) · 7 years ago (edited)

Thank You for recommending me 🤗 @stellabelle

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stellabelle (75) · 7 years ago

anytime.

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summerskin (53) · 7 years ago

I finally voted and have now used all my witness votes. Thanks for taking the time to help me.

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stellabelle (75) · 7 years ago

I am very glad to hear that....you might want to vote for @teamsteem because well, he's a bright light, and helps people, regular people.

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Show 1 more reply

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

You can also set someone up as your proxy, if you like.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Ah, but what is Yunk, anyway? Hehehe. As soon as you define it, the magic is gone. :)

Good list.

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scottsantens (62) · 7 years ago

I think it would be really helpful if a post like this included how exactly to go about voting for a witness.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Hello Scott. I did include it, but I made the text small. Maybe I should have made it big instead! Haha.

If you're not sure what a witness vote is, or why it's important, please see this post from a couple months ago: Steemit is Free, But Your Witness Vote Determines its Future.

$2.91

blueorgy (67) · 7 years ago

Voting for a Witness

Go to the witness voting page on SteemIt.com
Press upvote next to the witnesses you'd like to vote for...
For witnesses not in top 50 like myself
Scroll to the bottom of the page and locate the vote box (seen below with a vote for me 😉)
Input a witness username and hit vote.
Rejoice in self achievement!

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paprikachips (39) · 7 years ago

I agree, I didn't even know what a witness was. Still not sure that I do. Is it like a bitcoin node?

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kendewitt (56) · 7 years ago

It's like the Steem equivalent of a Bitcoin miner.

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vsf (39) · 7 years ago

Nice Comment!

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slavix (64) · 7 years ago

It is like a bitcoin pool that gets to "mine" more blocks, process transactions and get paid for it with newly created tokens.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Unfortunately, no. Using a proxy is an all or nothing approach. If you're voting, cool! No need for a proxy voter, in that case.

summerskin (53) · 7 years ago

Thank you for the reply; much appreciated!

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ilvstranger (51) · 7 years ago

So if i daily vote i should not use proxy? That, when i would sorted out and know to do it :-)

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

There's a difference between voting on posts and voting for witnesses. One is separate from the other. You can either vote for witnesses directly or you can select a proxy which your account will mirror and vote as they vote.

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ilvstranger (51) · 7 years ago

So, i voted for a witness (@teamsteem) and now you are the second one in https://steemit.com/~witnesses

Is that supposed to be enough?

I also upvote for @steemitboard when i see it in peoples comments (also followed you all).

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Upvoting a comment or post is different than giving a witness vote. See the article I link to in the original post for more information. You can vote for up to 30 witnesses, if you like. It's up to you.

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ilvstranger (51) · 7 years ago

thanks a lot

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sc-steemit (64) · 7 years ago

Great investigation @lukestokes!

I had not thought it would be as bad as this! Having a 7.5% share of users voting for at least one witness and the rest nothing is really really bad. If all the small guys and gals bundled together it would make a huge dent in the board of witnesses.

I'm an active Witness and are also a very strong writer about how important it is to make a vote. I write constantly about the issues about dead witnesses as well as inactive witnesses.

I recently started up my project "Project Minnow Witness" to let everyone that wishes to use me as a Proxy for voting on the new and upcoming witnesses that still does a very good job. My criteria may be strict, but they are just.

Some posts I've been writing about the situation of witnesses in the past:

$1.39

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Excellent work, thank you for spreading the word! I've noticed you've been doing some great stuff, and I love that you're so helpful for those getting into Gridcoin. I may have to change something up in my voting to find a spot for you! :)

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sc-steemit (64) · 7 years ago

I do what I can with the shares I got :)

Any support is greatly appreciated, but fully voluntary. I would never beg for votes. If you or anyone finds what I do good, then I'm happy. A vote is great support for me and helps me do even more good work however (^.^)

$2.06

7 votes

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

That's the exact reason I'll be looking for a spot for you. Begging for votes means you're not doing enough to get noticed on your own, IMO.

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sadekj (58) · 7 years ago

Thanks for your efforts @sc-steemit.
1- I have voted for as a witness.
2- Do you have a post about active witnesses that are not in top 50?

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sc-steemit (64) · 7 years ago

The witnesses I mention at the bottom of this is the ones I've picked as good active witnesses.
https://steemit.com/minnowwitness/@sc-steemit/starting-up-project-minnow-witness-current-report-end-of-july

I regard a good active witness a person that looks after and takes care of the technical things of having to make sure it runs well and gets updated. I'm not basing them on how many articles they do, what side projects they do or how many followers they have.

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sadekj (58) · 7 years ago (edited)

Thanks. I will check them out.

I regard a good active witness a person that looks after and takes care of the technical things of having to make sure it runs well and gets updated. I'm not basing them on how many articles they do, what side projects they do or how many followers they have.

I agree, but I would like it if the witness has a good relationship with the community too. It is especially important that he/she listens to the needs and suggestions they have.

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sc-steemit (64) · 7 years ago (edited)

Naturally is having an ear to the ground ans listening in on what the community speaks and buzzes about.

This is what I expect if a minnow witness. A fulltime top 25 witness i expect a but more on though

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davebrewer (59) · 7 years ago

Low voting percentage is lower than I would have guessed.

But stepping back from a practical perspective - do we have any evidence that lack of voting is in any way corrupting or impacting the witness pool?

Are there known bad actors that we should care about trying to get out?

How would we find about known bad actors that need to be out?

I vote when I see someone making specially good efforts to try to advance the best interests of the community.

So I'll go and vote for @lukestokes

But not sure how it really matters or what impact my vote will have.

Just doing it to be a "good citizen"

STEEM On!!
DaveB

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks David. At the moment, when the community is (somewhat) in agreement about things, it's not really a big deal. Even then, what really matters is how the accounts with the most Steem Power vote. When it comes to blockchain governance, having it built in is really nice. Other cryptocurrencies have run into big problems with miners battling users battling other corporate interests. It can get nasty. One of the things I love about DPOS (Delegated Proof of Stake, the system Steem uses, unlike POW-proof of work) is that we have this voting system built in. If there was a conflict, however, we'd need to make sure we actually use it. There have been conflicts before. One hardfork proposted by Steemit, Inc as an example, never went live. The witnesses rejected it.

So yeah, it's important and can be difficult to keep up with. Thanks for being a good citizen. :)

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michellecarter (61) · 7 years ago

Wow not that many people voting for witnesses then.
Thanks for the information and great to see a photo of you. You can tell a lot by seeing someone's eyes! You have integrity! & also my 27th vote!!

I think the Steemit is very confusing for many people and must be even harder if English isn't your 1st language.
With all those inactive accounts, do they stay open indefinitely? I get the absolute basics about the blockchain only, so isn't having lots of inactive accounts kind of wasting space or blocking it up?
I love that you 'want to help create a world we all want to live in', me too. What I loved when I was finding out about steemit was that like minded people could connect and do good in the world. It seems very spread out though and many whose focus is just to make money!
Thanks for all your hard work.

$0.80

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you for your support!

Yes, Steemit is a bit confusing and the learning curve is steep, but I think it's worth it. As for inactive accounts, it's similar to generating bitcoin addresses. They don't really take up space, they just exist. Now useless spam on the network... now that's a different story.

Thank you for your encouragement. :)

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michellecarter (61) · 7 years ago

You're welcome!

Thanks for your reply and answer. May the useless spam be reduced!

Blessings! :)

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dadview (59) · 7 years ago

I missed this post when I was out camping.
I think that it is a bit overwhelming for new members. Unless you read the white pages there isn't a lot that directs you to vote for a witness.
I am still creating my criteria and am planning a post on how I choose. I am enjoying reading all the recommendations for witnesses by others on this post.
It is something very unique to steemit and users of other social media apps will require education if we expect them to assign a proxy or vote for themselves.

On a positive note, it is probably a good thing that users are not just throwing their votes out blindly to witnesses that they know nothing about or even what their role is. It would be interesting to know more details on the 8k members who have voted compared to the 105k who haven't (number of posts, date joined, SP, ect)

![image](

)

Darryl (@dadview) resides in Canada.

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Yeah, I do plan to break it down much further. I just need to find the time to mess with the code. Also, it takes a long time to run (an hour or so depending on how I slice the data), so I'll have to think through how I want to do it. These things go in sprints. I get all fired up and work for hours without sleep, and then I let it sit for a bit and come back to it later. Maybe tomorrow I'll hack some more. :)

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blueorgy (67) · 7 years ago

Excellent Post, I believe in the very near future there will be a lot more witness voting activity. I think in the past month or so we've seen it increase quite a bit. The more competition for witnesses the better, it will drive witnesses to over perform like @lukestokes 😉. After you're done voting for him if you happen to have a second vote readily available I'm here 😎 To occupy that.

Setting a voting proxy is also a great way to start if you haven't voted before. Sadly Luke doesn't vote me as witness 😛 Awww but before you get all upset lol his current list of witness votes are all incredible witnesses and steemians in general, so it'd be tough to get on that list, to say the least!

Get To Voting People!

Let's turn that 7% into 17% by nights end!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Let's turn that 7% into 17% by nights end!

Let's make it happen! :)

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marcusorlyius (44) · 7 years ago

I had used all my votes previously but I recently removed them all. I'm now only going to vote for witnesses that advocate for a far more fair distribution of power and an increase in the number of witnesses as the wealthy have far too much power on this site. So far, I haven't found anyone worthy of voting for.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

far more fair distribution of power

How do you define power? Do you mean decisions about code changes and hard forks? Do you mean Steem Power? If SP, what do you suggest? Should we be able to take SP from some accounts and give it to others or should we just change how new Steem Power is created to favor small accounts? If we favor small accounts, what's to prevent Sybil Attacks where one person can create a bunch of small accounts and take more of the reward pool than they should (especially with self-upvoting)? We've already seen this abuse with the flattened reward curve.

an increase in the number of witnesses

Do you mean the top 20 should be increased? If so, why? The role they serve is to secure the blockchain and create new blocks. Adding more is not needed for the protocol to function any better. Do you suggest the reward given to the top witnesses should be decreased? If so, some projects they fund might lose funding as it will become to expensive to maintain full API nodes and such. I'm not saying this isn't a bad idea, and maybe the rewards should decrease, I just want to make sure we consider the risks. If few people want to be full-time witnesses (it is a 24-hour a day on call job), then the entire Steem platform could have some systemic risks and instability.

the wealthy have far too much power on this site

Again, what do you mean by power? Do you mean in terms of flagging or determining who gets rewards and who doesn't because of their Steem Power votes on posts?

I don't think the world will ever be full egalitarian. Every attempt at it that I've seen throughout history has lead to violence and even poverty. Using stores of value as a way to influence systems is a much better approach than violence, IMO. It's also open to anyone who is willing to dedicate themselves to earning wealth. I see a dollar bill as a certificate of appreciation (to quote Rabbi Daniel Lapin) because you can only get one if you provide value to someone else.

At least, that's how it's supposed to work. Fiat currency controlled by central bankers and governments kind of screws that up.

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dodders007 (55) · 7 years ago

It will be interesting to see if the stats have changed following your post here!?

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Based on the interest and the benefit it can give to the community, I think I'll turn this into a regular weekly report and start tweaking it a bit to show some other interesting stats as far as steem power distribution in the votes.

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charlesarthuriii (43) · 7 years ago

thank you for the information. I only registered yesterday but I had no idea about witnesses at all. But that is why I came here, to learn. I made you my proxy for the time being. Please don't let me down I didn't vote for one of the top people because I don't want steem to be ruled by a few powerful people that decide to make this their cash cow. Thanks again.

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12 votes

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

You're welcome and thanks for trusting me with your proxy vote. I try to vote for those who think long-term and have the best interests of the entire network in mind. I'm not perfect, but I do the best I can with the information I have.

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stonesteem (47) · 7 years ago

Very astounding chart. You'd think that list of people making money would at least vote. I have to check whether I've voted for you yet. I will check in a few minutes. I have three votes left!

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13 votes

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks for considering me! :)

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bullshark (47) · 7 years ago

I voted for @sc-steemit as a witness then quickly realised it would be a full time job trying to figure out who to vote/un-vote as witnesses so I give @sc-steemit my proxy vote seen as they do a lot of research on who the best witnesses are.

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sc-steemit (64) · 7 years ago

Thank you for your support @bullskark!

I'm writing much about the need to vote for witnesses and to make sure they are doing a good job. As well as making sure they are not inactive so you're not waiting your vote for something that doesn't do anything.

I've started up a project to support new and upcoming witnesses with Project Minnow Witness.
Starting up "Project Minnow Witness"; Current Report End of July

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blockchainevo (46) · 7 years ago

I voted for you, timcliff, and gtg. Thanks for being witnesses.

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5 votes

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you!

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orionschariot (57) · 7 years ago

Glad you posted this. I had already voted and thought I had assigned a proxy, which I hadn't. Fixed that. Keep up the great work!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you! That's interesting, because I see the unvote and the proxy to @lukestokes.mhth (which I have proxied to @lukestokes). Since @lukestokes also votes for @lukestokes.mhth as a witness then I guess that should work and I should still have your vote. At least, I hope I do. :)

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bbrewer (58) · 7 years ago (edited)

Hey @lukestokes just voted for you. I would have done it sooner had I known you were there. I need to pay closer attention. Thanks for all you do. I definitely get good vibes from everything I have seen you post here and on Telegram.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your vote.

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bbrewer (58) · 7 years ago

My pleasure!

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intelliguy (68) · 7 years ago

Great post... I'm not surprised by the numbers at all.

However, does that mean only only 7.5% of all users here care how the platform gets powered, or have bothered to take the time to learn about it?

Probably yes... and that's not the fault of the users really.

If you came over from Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit, generally a user is just that... someone who uses a system. Users are never in charge of finding out how things work in the backend, nor voting for how the system is run.

So if we're going to up that 7.5% number, we have a lot of work to do..

There could also be a benefit (maybe a penalty) for not voting a witness. Maybe your earned reward is less by 2% if you don't vote for a witness, which goes to a collaborative marketing fund.

Or, you gain an extra 2% in rewards, for voting for a witness.

Instead of a moral or social reason to vote for a witness... if there are monetary advantages or disadvantages, we could expect that 7.5% to grow to at least double that, maybe even triple that (which would be really good for the system).

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Interesting idea. I'm cautious about using extrinsic motivators such as financial rewards. Hopefully we can take the education route instead and people will be intrinsically motivated to vote. Also, if financial rewards are involved we might see more vote buying which probably isn't the best way to determine who the best witnesses are.

I agree, it takes work to figure out who to vote for. But it's also a good thing to do to protect your account and investment.

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sadekj (58) · 7 years ago

1- Thank you @lukestokes. This was very useful. Please, post it regularly and improve it along the way. The more indicators we have about the status of steem, the better.

2- Can you please also find out the % by steem power ? @dan has argued that the % would be higher.

3- The % of voting users are worrying. It seems that Vitalik has a valid point.

4- Another worrying number is the number of inactive users. More details are needed here?

5- I have discovered the importance of voting about a month ago, thanks to @timcliff. I have been watching witnesses since then and voting.

6- I have been following you. I like your posts, but I did not know you were a witness. I will check your activity as a witness. If I see that you are as good a witness as you are a blogger, I will vote for you.

lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Great ideas, thank you!

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teamsteem (74) · 7 years ago

I always wanted to know that information. What would be even more interesting is the % of stake that is voting. I'm not sure how it could be calculated. I guess all MV supporting witness should be added...

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I'll be playing around with the numbers more over time to include some VEST-based evaluations.

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kafkanarchy84 (74) · 7 years ago

Resteemed. Thank you for posts like these. This is the kind of stuff I am not cut out to do on the platform, and I really appreciate the service to the platform, and the rigor that went into digging up and polishing this valuable nug of info. Cheers!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you!

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bi5h0p (55) · 7 years ago

Awesome post! I'm actually a little bit surprised by the small amount of participation when it comes to voting on Witnesses. It's a very important part of the SteemIt experience, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe we all need to do a better job of raising awareness on this issue. I figured Steemians were more civic-minded people - but I guess not?

Upvoted and Resteemed.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

It's an educational challenge, I think. Many have no idea what witnesses are or what they do. I linked to my post explaining it, but I think many missed that link since I put it in small text. So yeah, we've got our work cut out for us!

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igster (63) · 7 years ago (edited)

"Out of over 100k active accounts, only around 8k are currently voting for a witness."

Can you calculate how much Steem Power is hold by these two parties? Will the ratio be same but switched? If yes, the 100k really don't need to bother to hassle with their passwords etc.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I'll be making improvements to the report in future versions which I hope will include SP distribution data and maybe even some graphs. Follow for updates. :)

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igster (63) · 7 years ago

Great, it's important to have data available on these things so a big thank you!

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brianphobos (70) · 7 years ago

Yeah a lot of people don't know what witnesses are and are confused about the voting. Don't worry I have already voted for you!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I agree, many don't know what it is or why they should care. I'll keep sharing this post until more understand! :)

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brianphobos (70) · 7 years ago

Great idea! Keep sharing and promoting!

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heymattsokol (68) · 7 years ago

That's a much lower percent of users than I would expect. I guess voting on witnesses is pretty advanced Steem stuff, you'd have to really care about learning and being super involved here before you start to understand that.

And if you find blockchain confusing, that could be another roadblock for some people who think it's harder than it is, maybe.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Yeah, it's not first day, simple stuff. But, I think, with enough education we can get people up to speed eventually with out this thing works. I've been here a year, trying to learn every day, and I'm still figuring things out constantly. :)

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malicered (63) · 7 years ago (edited)

I think that this is a very interesting kind of problem. I think a lot of those active accounts choose not to vote for witness for a purpose. I think that if witnesses want more votes, they'll need to find a way to engage those users and earn those votes.

Personally, I only upvote for a handful of witnesses and that's because they've earned my vote on a personal level. @someguy123, @ausbitbank, @aggrooed, @teamsteem, @klye, I've talked to these people personally, and have worked with them personally. So when a witness gets a vote from me, that's because they've done something in my eyes that deemed them vote worthy, or if I feel that they really are doing something good for the community.

That's how I vote for witnesses anyway. But I'm just a tiny minnow.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I think that's a great approach! Thanks for voting.

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zeidlitwhips (51) · 7 years ago

Hey @lukestokes, how do I set up a proxy and how does it function? I'm new to steemit and I've voted for around 20 Witnesses but I don't know how it really works

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

If you voted for witnesses already, you don't need to set a proxy. You can find out more in this post I linked to (using small text) in the OP.

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zeidlitwhips (51) · 7 years ago

Ok thanks for that and I'll go vote for you shortly, got quiet busy after I commented. Cheers

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zeidlitwhips (51) · 7 years ago

I tried to vote for you it said account doesn't exist, my bad I read in a hurry. I like giving a vote to those who really make a difference and are always advising about something on Steemit which we don't know.... I speak as a newbie whose here for the long run and will continue investigating whatever I get on Steemit. Cheers for the great intuitive posts

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zeidlitwhips (51) · 7 years ago

The mistake I did is I only put @lukestokes didn't put the full name as said on your wall 👉 @lukestokes.mhth . Check in few minutes it will be done. Sorry for the many replies

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

No worries, glad you got it figured. Thank you for your vote!

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zeidlitwhips (51) · 7 years ago

Always welcome mate 👍

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apple64 (5) · 7 years ago

I will research more about this! Thanks for the info

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lordmp27 (43) · 7 years ago

I do voting for witness, but i dont know what is the meaning, ;)

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Please see this post I linked to for more information.

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ehujra (61) · 7 years ago

Very informative stuff , need sreemers to educate about it , let me resteem it

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sureshgajera (34) · 7 years ago

Nice post

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inzeen (35) · 7 years ago

Thank you for your attention regarding this. Keep up the great work.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

You're welcome, and I will!

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denmarkguy (76) · 7 years ago

Wow, those are some interesting numbers... I really appreciate you taking the time to crank this out.

7.5% looks a bit alarming, but I bet if you re-run this with a more generous interpretation of what an "active" member is... 25 posts? 50 posts? Even 100 posts as someone else suggested, that number will climb considerably.

I know I didn't start voting for witnesses till (a) I had at least a basic understanding of what witnesses DO (b) had a basic understanding of how Steemit works and (c) only woted for witnesses who seemed "visible" and actively engaged in the community. Which leaves me 6 months into the game having cast 20 of my 30 votes.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I ran the 100 posts numbers right before going to bed. Here they are:

Total accounts: 291340
Inactive Accounts: 278390
Accounts with a Proxy: 260
Accounts with a witness vote: 4084
Accounts with no witness vote: 8466

Almost 50% participation!

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byfive (40) · 7 years ago

Really interesting

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appledeguzman (41) · 7 years ago

im not getting it... i think i need someone who can explain it to me in a simplier words...so i can help on whatever its purpose... i think its for the better and for the future of steem.... so we should help each other....

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

You may have missed it, but this post I linked to should help explain what witnesses do.

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rawpride (62) · 7 years ago

I vote for a couple, but I need to use more votes

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kidemagine (43) · 7 years ago

This is sad.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

It's an opportunity for more education.

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dlina-v-metrah (57) · 7 years ago

I do not vote for the witnesses yet, because I have not quite figured out what exactly they should do and for whom it is wiser to vote.

But I'm trying to figure it out.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I hope this post I linked to will be helpful.

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jimbobbill (62) · 7 years ago

I still don't see why the power of a witness vote is dependent on the amount of Steem Power and I've yet to have the rational explained to me. How can it be fair that the votes of the 105,000 users who have not voted would probably be worth less than the votes of the 100 users you listed (if they had voted)? I understand why SP would influence voting power/rewards but witness votes?

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Those with the most Steem Power have the most invest in the platform and have the most to lose if bad decisions are made. It's based on game theory dynamics and Sybil Attack concerns. We can't just go by numbers as one person can create thousands of accounts.

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jimbobbill (62) · 7 years ago

Fair enough but there must be a way of preventing sybil attacks other than by making it pointless for 99% of people on Steemit to vote. This whole platform is completely run and controlled by a tiny minority. This is of course by design and it is also the way the world works (by design) and it's shit. You seem to want to encourage voting for witnesses but if any user looks into how it works they can only come to the conclusion that their vote is really worthless unless they are voting for one of the top 1% of Steempower holders.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Do you have an abundance mentality or a scarcity mentality?

Was it pointless for me to vote for a witness a year ago when I first joined Steemit and have very little Steem Power? I'd argue it was not, because after a year of blogging here and consistently providing value and powering up almost all of those rewards, now my account does have some influence and my vote does matter.

You say "there must be a way" but how do you know? One of the things which frustrate me a bit is when people complain about something they don't like but don't offer solutions. I've watched witnesses rise and fall and change positions. Voting does matter, even if it's just a signal from a minnow to others about who they should be supporting. Same goes for voting on posts. It communicates the intentions of the community which those who have more voting power due to their own investments can respond to.

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jimbobbill (62) · 7 years ago

Do you have an abundance mentality or a scarcity mentality?

I personally think that whether I have an abundance or scarcity mentality (who comes up with these terms?) is irrelavant when it comes to Steemit.

Was it pointless for me to vote for a witness a year ago when I first joined Steemit and have very little Steem Power? I'd argue it was not, because after a year of blogging here and consistently providing value and powering up almost all of those rewards, now my account does have some influence and my vote does matter.

Yes it was pointless voting for a witness a year ago and there is only slightly more point now. Unless the whales or those who developed/run/code Steemit who own the majority of Steem Power want a witness elected they won't be elected.

Your account now has some influence but no matter how hard you work or how many posts you make you will never reach the levels of Steem power of the top 1%, unless you buy it.

You say "there must be a way" but how do you know? One of the things which frustrate me a bit is when people complain about something they don't like but don't offer solutions.

The solution is obvious, give everyone the same voting power but put things into place that will prevent the votes from being abused or for a sybil attack to take place.

I've watched witnesses rise and fall and change positions. Voting does matter, even if it's just a signal from a minnow to others about who they should be supporting.

So we seem to have a platform where the biggest SP holders act as a representitve of sorts for lower SP holders but they don't actully have to represent their views and can in fact vote for whatever witness benefits them most even at the expense of the majority of users.

My point is that this site was designed this way for a reason. To keep the power in the hands of the few and give the illusion of power to the little fish, minnows and dolphins. "If you work hard and keep producing good content you too could have a million SP"

I have a problem with this because I have a problem with the world and this is how the world works. What are the solutions to the world's problems? I have some ideas but they have as much chance of being implemented in the real world as the do on Steemit in my opinion.

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azfix (65) · 7 years ago

I always encourage people to vote but if they are not sure I encourage them to make me a proxy.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Sounds reasonable. :)

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dune69 (64) · 7 years ago

I have only voted for witnesses that have impressed me on the site .. With either informative posts, projects to help the site or the ones i have interacted with through posts.
Its not only minnows that have to impress to get anywhere ..

I'm not for voting for a witness just because they are on the list

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Sounds like a good plan.

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gtg (70) · 7 years ago

We Have 7.5% Witness Voting Engagement.

That's so sad. Voter turnout rate is a metrics that tells if we are mature community or not.
Seems like we are not there yet.

Please vote for witnesses, your vote does matter

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

It'll take some time, but I think we can educate people on how this works and why it's important.

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woz.software (55) · 7 years ago

I have a witness vote in place but only because I mainly look through the dev and crypto areas on steem and found out about witness votes that way.

I think when you sign up there should be a quick TLDR overview of the platform.

I am sure there are many that sign up seeing a reddit that you can get paid and do not dig deeper than that :)

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Yeah, I agree. It's a knowledge gap problem.

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gabriellasam (44) · 7 years ago

thanks for reminding. Have made you my proxy. Is that ok with you?

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

For sure! Thank you.

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fajri (43) · 7 years ago

Info is very useful, because I just joined steemit @lukestokes

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hlamyothet (50) · 7 years ago

I have voted for you can voted my comment please. Thank you dear in advence.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Sorry, I don't trade votes. I upvote comments which I feel provide value.

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lichtblick (78) · 7 years ago

Resteemed :-)

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks :)

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lexiconical (72) · 7 years ago

Did you happen to look at what percentage of total Steem Power/Vests is voting for witnesses? I assume it's a lot higher than the number of accounts, as wealthy accounts are much more likely to be engaged?

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

That's probably true and I will be playing with the report in the future to add improvements like that.

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awaismuneeb1 (31) · 7 years ago

Please follow Upvote or promote my account in this steemit, i really need it. Hopefully not ignored. Thanks , hope you easy sustenance
i upvote u and follow u also

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

You have a 12 reputation right now. That might be because you're asking people to give you something just because. That's like spam. Hopefully this post will help you change your tactics.

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louisnelza (46) · 7 years ago (edited)

This is a very low engagement rate. I bet a lot of people registered for Steemit like I did and have completely forgotten about their registration.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Yeah, many dead accounts for sure.

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lakshmi (58) · 7 years ago

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I don't spend much time on steemit but really like the platform and want to participate in a constructive way.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Excellent!

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gnimeets (50) · 7 years ago

I was literally just thinking this after reading Vitaliks last post, can I delegate my witness votes like people delegate steam. Low and behold the very first post on the top of my homepage is this. I would be delighted to deligate my witness votes to you luke :)
Vitaliks reply to dan -
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/6qm0y2/is_the_ethereum_team_defending_their_ground/dkzoj5t/

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Nice! And thanks for that link, I hadn't read that reply. Good stuff.

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gnimeets (50) · 7 years ago

Now if you could tell me how to delegate my witness votes..I could always check myself but u gotta earn it lol

(I'm just lazy)

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

No problem. :)

Just got to https://steemit.com/~witnesses (it's in the menu on the far right) and use this input box:

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gnimeets (50) · 7 years ago

Thanks bud, done and dusted.

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deirdyweirdy (61) · 7 years ago

A much-needed post I think considering the number of commenters who seem unaware of the importance of witnesses. I had already voted for 7 and I do keep an eye on Witstats to make sure they're working effectively. I have given you my 8th vote.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you!

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amedeo (53) · 7 years ago

That's very true, man! Keep going! I am following you!

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kanggary (51) · 7 years ago

I will vote for you.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you! Every vote matters to me.

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foxkoit (70) · 7 years ago

I never got votes there, so I do not take part, I just do not want to give free votes...
vote this vote that ... but me..who give me vote. I hope you all have fun.

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netuoso (70) · 7 years ago

That seems rather selfish when it is the witnesses that help make Steem functional at all. And we pay out of pocket to run the servers that you benefit from.

It isn't always about "who will vote for me??". Voting for a witness doesn't remove anything from you but a witness vote slot. You are essentially just saying "I don't know much about it so I am going to just let the founders and IN crowd maintain control"

It takes users like you and all these non voters to make a difference.

I'm a witness and your sentiment about it makes me a little disappointed. But to each their own I imagine.

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foxkoit (70) · 7 years ago

Ah :)) But did you think why I make this comment here :)) I know how this works... I like steemit. :)))

How is your day ? It is very windy today, and in the clouds, there is little sun.

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ahmadzaki (38) · 7 years ago

Thank you, the information is very important and useful to me,i have voted for @lukestokes.mhth

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you for your vote! I really do appreciate it.

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allfabeta (67) · 7 years ago

I don worry about how many people voted for witnesses.

I DO WORRY we have 2/3 inactive accounts. So, when I see a statistic about steemit has 300+k users, I would divide this numbers on 3

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Yeah, there are a lot of bot accounts and early miner accounts that have never posted. That's something I've always kept in mind since day 1.

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quinneaker (74) · 7 years ago

This topic is so important yet, few are really talking about it and as your stats show doing anything about it either.
This is a well done post and something we need more attention to!
I featured this post as a must read in my new Episode to try and promote this knowledge.
Keep up the great work!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you. I will be doing a weekly version of it. You can see the latest stats here: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lukestokes/the-witness-voting-engagement-report-2017-08-08

quinneaker (74) · 7 years ago

Oh great!
I will be sure to check that out and highlight it again at some point!
Keep up the great work!

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heroic15397 (62) · 7 years ago

I would consider it normal that an account with less than, let's say, 100 posts would not have voted for any witness yet. So I think 7.5% of engagement is a good result to a pessimistic inquiry.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Here you go! It's almost 50% participation when looked at this way:

Total accounts: 291340
Inactive Accounts: 278390
Accounts with a Proxy: 260
Accounts with a witness vote: 4084
Accounts with no witness vote: 8466

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7 votes

heroic15397 (62) · 7 years ago

Great news!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

That's a good way to look at it. You got me curious... I'm running it again with a cut off of > 100 posts, just to see how the numbers might change. I think 100 posts is quite a bit, but I guess that would be a fully active account (or at least one that was active at some point in the last year or so).

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stackin (78) · 7 years ago

I voted :)

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks :)

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abupasi.alachy (60) · 7 years ago

Posts that attract friends from me @abupasi.alachy hopefully we become best friends

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poocut (45) · 7 years ago

i have voted for @lukestokes.mhth, I hope your ranking increases !!!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you!

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sabrin514 (45) · 7 years ago

Thanks for posting this. I am new to Steemit and am still confused as to the difference between a witness and a regular user is. Can anyone please explain this in simple terms or refer me someplace to learn? Thanks!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Please see the link in my post. Steemit is Free, But Your Witness Vote Determines its Future and read the Steemit FAQ I link to from there.

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jankasparec (68) · 7 years ago

Upvoted. Thanks for educating me Luke! I wanna set you up as witness, can you guide me please? (facebook?). I'm real busy to go into studying but I'd love to support you because I trust you @lukestokes. Cheers bro

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks Jan!

Just visit https://steemit.com/~witnesses and then click on the up arrow next to @lukestokes.mhth

You'll then be asked for your active password. Hopefully you have that saved in a password manager. You can view all your account passwords here: https://steemit.com/@jankasparec/permissions

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handofzara (62) · 7 years ago

Ok, not really sure what this about, or how it really effects steemit. Sadly, sometimes I feel like a real luddite. I do understand that somehow the witness is involved in the block chain. Does that mean that you are running a portion of the block chain with some gaming equipment (see how much I do not know)? I am not trying to be sarcastic, just trying to understand. Anyway I do understand politics, I understand that if you don't vote don't complain. With that in mind you get another vote for witness.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I linked to this post in my original post (Steemit is Free, But Your Witness Vote Determines its Future) which should hopefully explain things a bit. Does that help?

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kichen (50) · 7 years ago

Holy cow this is a lot of work for you to do. Glad your getting it automated. Bots have been driving me nuts on here. I understand some of the more complex bots, but simple commenting bots are the worst.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

The humans that act like bots are quite annoying as well.

"Hi! Upvoted! Vote for me please?"

Ugh.

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sumatranate (64) · 7 years ago

@lukestokes, I understand the need to vote for witnesses. Without strong leadership it is hard to keep the Steemit movement going.

However, I do not feel that posts from witnesses alway give me a great idea of what issues are most important to those people.

Do you have any suggestions or resources on how to find out the issues that witnesses care about most?

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

That's a really great question and unfortunately it's not so easy to answer. It took me a while to get to know people on Steemit and in the chat and understand where they are coming from. Right now, other than just spending time building relationships, one of the best ways is to follow @timcliff and keep and eye for his weekly Witness Update report.

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ilvstranger (51) · 7 years ago (edited)

If i would understand how all things works here, i will try them. But i gathered so much information for now and don't know where to begin.
When i hear of bots, it sounds that is not ok. But seen that a lot of bots helps in growing corectly.

Also, regarding witness, i know i vote all witnesses i saw till now (something with steemwitness... ) because the message in it. Went to that witness user, saw their content and thought is a good thing. So voted them always.
But in my latest articles, i had only some bots i think that said they upvoted me... Uhm... so confusing for now.

Anyway, i voted you, resteemed and follow.

How do i set you as proxy and whats the procedure after that? Thanks
...
later edit: i found witness page and voted you also there...

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you. You can set proxies on the same page you vote for witnesses. If you do one, it takes the place of the other.

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karenb54 (73) · 7 years ago

I've just voted for you :)

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

SHAWEET! Thanks. :)

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karenb54 (73) · 7 years ago

You are welcome:)

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stellabelle (75) · 7 years ago

this was fascinating and something I wanted to know as well. Great work!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks @stellabelle! Really glad you found them as useful as I did.

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rtdcs (63) · 7 years ago

Thanks for sharing this information my friend!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

You're welcome!

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allmonitors (74) · 7 years ago

Great initiative in pulling out those stats.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I think it'll be a really useful thing for us all to keep a regular eye on. It's one thing to vote for witnesses once, but quite another to keep up with all the politics involved and ensure those votes remain in the best interests of the network over time.

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emble (50) · 7 years ago

I voted for you. I would look for witnesses that will have an open ear to hear the community's problems and solutions. So far I didn't see any board for that. I don't see a bright future for steemit, as written in my post https://steemit.com/steemit/@emble/will-steem-succeed-or-commit-suicide

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polem (40) · 7 years ago

Very important, the information is very useful, thanks @lukestokes

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polem (40) · 7 years ago

i have voted for @lukestokes

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jimbobbill (62) · 7 years ago

And if the people who created Steemit want Luke to be a witness he will. Your vote will have absolutley nothing to do with it.

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animal-shelter (78) · 7 years ago

Hello:) You have our with squirell CryptoNut Zappl vote for a Witness:) Good luck to you!

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arcange (73) · 7 years ago

Congratulations @lukestokes!
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:

Comments - Ranked 3 with 186 comments

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robbieretard (48) · 7 years ago

Until I read this post I was not voting for any witnesses but this post has changed all that.

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guttormf (47) · 7 years ago (edited)

Thanks for this @lukestokes! You invite us to use you as proxy. Could you say why? In which direction do you want Steem to go? Why are you voting for who? There were so many comments here that I didn't manage to go through them all, but I from what I saw it hasn't been answered already.

Also, why don't you just put the code on Github anyway?

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Hello. You can view my Witness Introduction post here:

Vote Luke Stokes for Witness as lukestokes.mhth!

The witness update posts on my blog also go into more details as to what I've been doing to benefit the community .

This post also explains a bit more about why voting and proxy voting is important:

Steemit is Free, But Your Witness Vote Determines its Future

I vote for Witnesses who I think are acting in the best interests of the network and who I've had positive interactions with.

As to Github, I've published some of my code here but I haven't updated it in a long time. The code I'm using locally is out of sync quite a bit with the github code. I'm hesitant to put it out there for everyone because it puts a lot of strain on the API nodes which are already experiencing quite a bit of load. If we had more healthy API nodes up and running, I'd feel more comfortable about it. This is being actively discussed in the witness channel in steemit.chat.

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jerrybanfield (74) · 7 years ago

Outstanding work researching this because it helps a lot to see what our participation level is! Fortunately it seems the voting percentage is much higher among those with more invested say the top 1000 in Steem Power and especially the top 250.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks Jerry. Yes, I plan to improve this report to evaluate things in terms of Steem Power holders and how much influence the non-voters could have if they came together and voted.

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jerrybanfield (74) · 7 years ago

Excellent I will be happy to see that information in a new post!

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steemitboard (66) · 7 years ago

Congratulations @lukestokes! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Award for the number of comments

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

By upvoting this notification, you can help all Steemit users. Learn how here!

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paulanthony (45) · 7 years ago

done

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jrandolph (48) · 7 years ago (edited)

Thank you, I did not even know about voting till now. Vote cast for you.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Excellent! I'm glad I could help send some useful information your way.

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macchiata (70) · 7 years ago

I have actually still learning the importance and task of a witness but I do put you on my witness vote. I simply wish new users would understand the importance of voting for a witness in this community.

cheers! :-)

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thank you!

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vm2904 (64) · 7 years ago

@lukestokes -Stumbled upon this post while preparing my blog today (was just trying to get an idea of engagement on steemit) and the search threw up this post. Looks like I had missed this one. I have already voted for witnesses (including your lukestokes.mhth witness account) So I am proud to be a part of the 7.5% steemians who have done so. However, my witness voting is limited to those with whom I have had a bit of an interaction. My knowledge of what may be best for Steemit as a whole also is limited though every day I am learning more. Therefore, perhaps witness proxy with someone knowledgeable like you may make sense till I learn more. Thanks for the idea and the informative report.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Glad you found it useful! :)

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elaine54 (53) · 7 years ago

Well Im relieved to be able to say that I'm one of the7,233. However I have only voted for 4 or 5 whose blog and attitude had impressed me. Checked a couple of others but chose not to vote for them. I actually assumed that there was a 'vote before' date and had forgotten about it.

Anyway, i see the vote goes on, so I'll be checking out Stellabelle's recommendations later. Enjoyed her video interview last night. :-)
Meanwhile, if anybody can tell me how or if we can still claim interest on steem power or dollars, they will have my vote for life... Ive run a search and checked into the chatroom, but the only info seems to be from last year.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

I'll take that vote for life! Hahah...

Currently, no there is no interest on SBD. That's a witness controlled setting which you can view here under APR: https://steemd.com/witnesses If enough witnesses adjust that (I forget what the actual number of the top 20 need to be), it will kick in. Some are considering adding it back in.

As to Steem Power giving interest, yes, that happens but it's more like "share dilution protection" than interest. It's a bit confusing and took me a while to figure out, but when you have Steem Power, you actually have "VESTS" as far as the blockchain is concerned. The ratio of VESTS to Steem Power changes over time, meaning you get more Steem Power as as blocks are produced, VEST holders get some of the newly created value. Since Steem Power can be converted to liquid STEEM, 1,000,000 VESTS today will convert to 484.256 STEEM. In the future it will convert into even more STEEM. So it's not really interest as much as the value of liquid STEEM is being decreased via inflation but those who hold Steem Power (VESTS) are protected from that inflation. That rate of protection (if you want, you can call it "interest" but it's helpful to know the difference) is currently around 6.2% according to https://steemdb.com/

I hope that helps answer your question!

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elaine54 (53) · 7 years ago

Thanks for that. I can just about get my head around that. And when himself comes home to find Ive spent his bitcoin on steem, it will help me justify his loss ;-) you have my vote for life. Did I mention I was 103 last month?

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Thanks for your vote! Not sure what you mean by 103?

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elaine54 (53) · 7 years ago

Haha... yes, I didn't think. There are so many numbers on this site that you were momentarily struggling like a minnow to work out what on earth that one was about and how it was calculated! But I was talking about age... years ;-)

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drpuffnstuff (60) · 7 years ago

Nice, I've always wondered. I also wonder how much vesting power is voting compared to the vesting power not voting (excluding steemit accounts).. how much stake does that 7.5% hold. Thanks for the stats. Puts it into perspective!

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

That's a good question. It might be interesting to see how much influence the "non-voters" have compared to those who have already voted. Might be a good thing to add to a future update of this report code. :)

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jyezie (61) · 7 years ago

what sucks is that DPOS is our secuirty model but Steemit Inc. doesn't actively promote voting. It's like no one care. It took me forever to get back to what the witnesses really are.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

Yeah, but the security model is pretty tight right now. I don't see a reason to sound the alarm or anything. Blocks are being actively produced and the chain is secure.

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jyezie (61) · 7 years ago

No, I really don't think. If anything bad happen, a solution should be voted... but by who since the majority (of SP) doesn't do anything.

The problem with DPOS is voter apathy, but they don't even know they are supposed to vote. How do you want them to monitor anything? Witnesses could censor some users we wouldn't even know.

Btw, in the top list of witnesses, some of them are greyed but the votes are still there.

I don't call that a tight (realistic) security model.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

How many active, backup witnesses would you be happy with? 50? 100? 300? At what point are there not enough so that if a witness (or a group of them) started doing something against the best interests of the network (remember, they have self-interested reasons to be a good actor and continue getting paid), we'd have a security problem?

Witnesses could censor some users we wouldn't even know.

What makes you say that? If I try to post this comment and it doesn't post, you don't think I'd raise hell about that? If I exposed censorship by a witness, It would become a top trending post, and we could explore the blockchain and steemit logs to figure out what happened and which witness excluded my transaction from their block.

I'm all for being concerned about potential weaknesses in a security model, but if they've never happened and the chances of them happening are almost none and if they did happen would be easy to recover from (i.e. removing votes for a bad-acting witness), well... it starts to sound like irrational concerns.

I do think votes for witnesses who aren't doing much is a sign that some don't vote effectively. I plan to make time to run this report regularly to hopefully change that and bring more attention to voting.

Still though, claiming the current level of voting introduces a systemic risk... I'm just not seeing that right now. For me, the top 20 witnesses are (and have been) solid. The next 50+ backup witnesses (minus a handful) are ready to step in if needed as well.

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jyezie (61) · 7 years ago

hmm I guess my level of paranoia is higher than yours (sorry, work related).

I admit I have not the slightest idea what is the perfect number of witnesses. 20 seems a little to short to secure +200.000 Steemians. But I might be way wrong on that. Bitshares uses 100, which seems a lot when you have to vote for them. Security trade of.

Concerning censorship, you might think there is an issue and check the blockchain, what about the average user? Would he or she make a post to complain? Well there are not enough readers here so it would go unnoticed (specially if the censorship is spread accross different witnesses).

OK I need to quote you on that paragraph:

I'm all for being concerned about potential weaknesses in a security model, but if they've never happened

This doesn't mean anything. Actually if in security you prefer to have found something than nothing. We assume no system is impenetrable so for me this is not really an argument.

the chances of them happening are almost none

I am uncomfortable with this one (you know like in the wild case where wikileaks publishes on Steemit and some governments want it shut down). Care to detail what you mean? I think I get the idea but it's nice to read other people arguments.

and if they did happen would be easy to recover from

Forgetting edge cases, I will agree with you on that one. Most of the time it should be easy to recover from bad behaviour I think.

For conclusion, my great concern is that Steemit Inc is too much trusted and to counter it people should be aware of witness, voting and other way to access Steem blockchain(busy is awesome).

sorry for the long post btw.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago (edited)

The number on Steemit isn't 20. It's 20 primary witnesses with many, many backup witnesses who are rotated in every 21'st block. We have a lot of backup witnesses and we will have more as more are joining up often. I think we have more than 100 right now, if you include all the backup witnesses, right?

(specially if the censorship is spread accross different witnesses).

Yes, if witnesses colluded together, that would be the biggest risk. Again though, it would be noticed if someone keeps trying to post and can't. If they don't get all the witnesses to agree, eventually a witness will sign a block with their transaction (I know I will, as an example). And, as always, those witnesses could be voted off at any time (unlike PoW miners).

We assume no system is impenetrable

That is the right assumption, for sure. But it doesn't mean you think superman is going to show up tomorrow and hack your servers. You take rational precautions based on perceived threats, known and unknown that are plausible within reality and try to mitigate black swan events as best you can (I just recently finished The Black Swan, good book).

And how would governments shut down Steemit? They could try and that might push the STEEM blockchain to the dark web, but I imagine it would live on.

The context for my "almost none" statement had to do with witnesses directly shooting themselves in the foot by attempting to censor transactions against the wishes of the community. Unless the entire community agreed to it, in which case it wouldn't be considered consensus, but a hard fork.

my great concern is that Steemit Inc is too much trusted

That's certainly a valid concern, but as you said, we have busy.org and chainbb.com and any other front end someone might want to put up tomorrow if they so choose. Now that code is actually open source, I have less concerns about Steemit, Inc now than I did in the past.

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jyezie (61) · 7 years ago

The witnesses that matter are the top 20. For example, with the last update, Steemit Inc mainly urged the top witnesses to update. I am one of the 15000 witnesses (with my account @cryptohazard) and I produce a block every 4 day.

I don't like how at the same time we say:

if a witness behave bad, we instantly vote him or her out

But don't do much to fight voters apathy. I am really wondering how quick that will be if a witness is, say, hacked and need to be kicked out. I have doubt on that one.

Also I recall you need 2/3 of the top witnesses to take over the system or to fix.

Seeing the potential of cryptocurrencies, you bet governments would try something (if they are not already). If they say it is illegal to keep some, what would you do? (I am sure I can guess the answer ^^).

I need to read the black swan book. Keep hearing about it.

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god-is-love (56) · 7 years ago

Only 7.5% witness voting engagement! Very small number.

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lukestokes (75) · 7 years ago

It is, but there's little education out there for new users as to what witnesses are or do, so most probably don't know anything about it. They just create an account, post some stuff, and never worry about anything else.

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fatboy (51) · 7 years ago

Hi Luke! I will vote you for witness! Cheers!

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