First of all, I want to point out that if you set me as a proxy, your witness votes will all be reset. If you have already voted for witnesses, even if it's just one, you will no longer vote for them directly if you set a proxy.
I just want to make sure nobody just tests this functionality only to find out they now have to turn it off and vote for all of their intended witnesses again.
What is a proxy anyway?
In this context, a proxy is a person who votes on behalf of another person. There are many reasons to use a proxy for witness voting. The most important reason is to delegate the job to someone who is more informed. But there are other utilities as well. It comes in handy when a person has multiple accounts.
What is the main issue?
In traditional voting, there's this thing called "one issue voters." That's where a person who votes evaluates each candidate on a single issue.
I'll just state that my "one issue" is: Keep STEEM POWER from being undermined. Or, to put it positively: Ensure STEEM POWER is valuable and influential.
I am not a "one issue voter" but if you are, that is one of my biggest reasons to vote for a given witness.
Another basis I use is: Pro Steemit, Inc. I don't mean that Steemit, Inc. supports them by voting for their witness. I also don't mean blindly supporting whatever Steemit, Inc. says. I just mean that Steemit, Inc. is moving in the right direction (generally) and I want witnesses who recognize that.
Non-issues
Some of things that I do not consider:
- Missed blocks - Specifically, I'm not using missed blocks as criteria like, "You miss one block, you're out." It's not even a tie-breaker.
- SBD Discount - This matters a little more, but it's still not enough to even represent a tie-breaker. If I am to consider a witness by SBD Discount, the main factor is that they have a policy and not so much what the policy is.
- Drama de jour - Involvement in the daily/weekly drama, insults, and banter. I don't care. It's not a direct factor.
Are "issues" a factor at all?
It could be asserted that witness shouldn't be involved in issues.
Witness currently provide seed nodes, sign blocks, and price feeds. For the most part, this is all witnesses currently do. If a witness is for or against the direction of the platform, there isn't anything they can realistically do. If a lone witness rejects a hardfork, it will still get adopted.
But I think we can make this a factor. At least, I hope we can.
What about side projects?
Witnesses used to have something of a mandate for side projects, before Hard Fork 16. But this mandate is less of an emphasis under the new economics. This does not diminish the value of those projects in any way. If anything, it shows the amount of sweat equity they are willing to pour into the platform.
But having active side projects is apparently less of a qualifier these days.
OK, @inertia, why do you vote for @[fill in the blank]?
I'll just go over each one based on the order I'm currently seeing on ~witnesses. I'm giving my rationale based on memory rather than researching what they stand for. For me, I think it's important to be able to know who I'm voting for just by looking at their name.
And if I get some facts wrong, I apologize, but this is my process. If I'm wrong, it's because that's the impression I have. And I think that's useful if I were to hold proxy votes.
Also if there's someone I should not be voting for, I want to at least document why I voted for them before I remove my vote.
- @abit - I have heard rumors of whitehats in the past with this witness and I am a big time supporter of authorized, informative whitehats. He is personally involved in building the #cn (Chinese) STEEM community.
- @jesta - Hugely important for bootstrapping the infrastructure, especially for developers. Designed a kickass blockchain explorer.
- @roelandp - I didn't go to STEEMfest, but I heard some great things. I'm most impressed by the number of great tools and enthusiasm from this witness.
- @roadscape - The
steemd.comguy. That's really all you need to know. - @gtg - I can't say enough good things about this witness. He's helping other witnesses get up and running. He's helping developers wrap their heads around the platform. And I heard that he's involved in the official node rollout.
- @charlieshrem - Haven't noticed much going on with this witness. I know he's famous and stuff.
- @pfunk - He's knowledgeable, well spoken, and reaches out to the community.
- @good-karma - Great app developer.
- @anyx - You want to get rid of plagiarism? Because this is how you get rid of plagiarism.
- @riverhead - Admin of steemit.chat or something.
- @smooth.witness - Not sure.
- @chainsquad.com - This is xeroc's witness. Need I say more?
- @pharesim - Direct. Opinionated. Knowledgable. Everything you need in a witness.
- @klye - Big cry baby. Very dedicated to the platform.
- @complexring - Not sure.
- @someguy123 - Deep into crypto and the infrastructure.
- @busy.witness - If you're into busy.org, this is their witness.
- @bacchist - Keen eye for detail in marketing and the platform.
- @bitcoiner - Creating great web tools and even interesting pull requests for steemit.com.
- @furion - The one behind SteemData and other great projects.
- @boatymcboatface - Just a TWAIN vote (The Witness with An Interesting Name). That's about all we really know.
- @picokernel - Probably knows more about blockchain technology than anyone else on this list.
- @fyrst-witness - Scary vikings are people too.
- @masteryoda - Software developer, great reports, not blogging lately.
- @proctologic - Mostly harmless.
- @teamsteem - Quiet but enthusiastic.
- @codydeeds - I voted for him because he was setting up his witness in SteemSpeak and needed some technical help.
- @bitcoinparadise - Very clever guy, also very well spoken.
In the past, my policy is to only vote for witnesses I've interacted with. But clearly, I haven't interacted with every single one of them. I still think it's a good policy to strive for.
I also went back and looked more closely at this list to see how up-to-date they are. Turns out I have a bit of work to do.
One thing you will notice from the above list is that I do not outline their specific stance on protecting the influence of STEEM POWER. That will take some actual research. This list is a starting point.
As I said, I wanted to document the current list so that we can look back and know why it changes.
How to set me as your witness proxy.
Browse to https://steemit.com/~witnesses and scroll to the very bottom. You can choose me as your proxy by typing inertia and clicking Set Proxy. Doing so authorizes that I may vote for witnesses on your behalf. Remember, this will reset your current witness selection.