Newbies, are you using your Witness votes?

I seem to be writing more and more about things related to the STEEM blockchain than the topics I usually do and this one is no exception.

Witness voting is the last thing that any new Steemian pays any attention too and as a gamer/blogger/investor your stake will likely to be small and your subsequent influence as a witness voter the same.

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Witnesses run the blockchain and make sure everything run smoothly, and they get paid in STEEM for doing it.

You can vote or see which witnesses are top of the charts here

In more recent times many operate at a loss and so if you see them powering down, don’t think badly about them. The money must come from somewhere to run all the hardware etc, and this is one way they can pay for it.

There’s a top 100 witnesses list and from what I gather the ones in the top ten do quite well in terms of STEEM. How about the ones outside the ten, the ones in the bottom half of the one hundred, or even the ones outside the top one hundred?

A few have dropped out in the last few months, likely because it’s costing them an arm and a leg to run the nodes.

What I would like to know particularly from the lower half is what effect an Orca has if it dropped one of you? How about a Dolphin? Is the effect noticeable?

To everyone else especially the smaller fish, are you using your witness votes? If not, which ones would you vote for?

If you don’t know the answer to the last question then consider it politics.

When there’s an election, some candidates knock on your door and ask you to pledge their support. There might be several candidates but who are you going to vote for? All votes have the same weight in this scenario.

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@roelandp is currently asking people if they would attend SteemFest 4 if it was to exist. Considering the last one was in November 2018, he's thinking waaaayyy. ahead!

In the STEEM world, not everyone is equal. The more STEEM you possess, the weightier your vote but witnesses will take the smaller votes as well as the bigger ones. They love the bigger ones more and for good reason.

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@mahdiyari runs the excellent auto-voter that almost everyone seems to use, he is definitely worthy of my vote for providing this great FREE tool for everyone

Consider what ethics each witness possesses before you give them your vote.

Are they hosting events such as Steemfest (@roelandp) or providing useful services like SteemAuto (@mahdiyari), lending a helping hand to newbies as a reward for writing outstanding content (@curie) or maybe providing a dApp like eSteem Surfer (@good-karma)?

You may meet witnesses as events such as SteemFest, and then it can get a little personal.

Did they talk to me, did they just pretend to be interested in what I had to say or was it genuine, or did they just walk past me looking like a grumpy bear?

You can get a feel of what some of them are like in their blogging. Do they respond to comments or is the communication all one-way?

@good-karma's baby is eSteem Surfer which is an alternative dApp to Steemit. You can download the app here, and they may just vote your post for using it. Beware, they do take a 10% cut of your rewards.

I would say to you, have a good look at what the top thirty witnesses are doing before you give them your vote. There are many more outside this group who are doing things that are good for STEEM and don’t get a lot of attention.

The top 20 witnesses list can be quite volatile. People remove witnesses perhaps because they are not active enough or they feel the direction or opinion they are taking is against their principles, or maybe they have simply pissed them off for one reason or another.

Use your own instincts and judgement and don’t follow the crowd. Because @blah.de.blah is the number one witness, doesn’t mean he/she deserves your vote.

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@curie give huge upvotes mostly to newbies or accounts that earn little in rewards. Don't attempt to try and bait them as they will find you. If you do create great stuff, then expect visits from @curie. Even I still get one occasionally!

Use your 30 votes and ensure the ones you vote for keep to the principles they had when you voted for them.

If they don’t, take away the vote and choose someone who does.