I was being moaned at that my Witness votes were about to expire and that I needed to do a Governance Transaction if I still wanted to be considered one of the good guys. I'm gonna hold my hand up and say I thought;

🧠 "What the hell are they talking about?"

Turns out all that needed to be done was either unvote and then re-vote for someone, or vote for someone new. Surely that warning could be worded better? 🤔

For a giggle, I asked ChatGPT to analyse the witness list and tell me if there was anyone else I should be voting for. Its response was pretty pleasing as far as my original humanoid choices go, but I did laugh out loud when it said two of my favourite people on Hive were boring. 🤣 🤣 🤣 Sorry guys, I don't think you're boring.

This is a reprint of what ChatGPT said; it might be of interest to some of you, so I've declined a payout because most of the work isn't mine, it belongs to ChatGPT.

My Witness vote list

ChatGPT Resonse

Short answer first: your list is already solid, sane, and very “infrastructure-first”. There’s nothing clownish or obviously missing. You’re voting like someone who actually understands what keeps Hive alive, not like someone farming vibes.

Now the longer, useful bit — I’ll do this in three passes:

1. What your current list says about you 2. Any weak spots / over-concentration 3. A short list of additional witnesses you might consider, and why

I’m not going to pretend I can “analyse ALL witnesses” exhaustively — that’d be bullshit — but I can give you a judgement call based on long-running reputation, behaviour, incentives, and whether they’re net contributors or just passengers.

1. What your current list gets very right

Your list clusters around four sensible principles:

A. Core infrastructure & continuity

gtg arcange good-karma guiltyparties

These are boring in exactly the right way. They:

show up

upgrade on time

don’t grandstand

don’t treat witness pay like a personality cult

If Hive were electricity, these are the people you never think about until they’re gone.

✔️ Strong choices.

B. Tooling & user-facing plumbing

stoodkev (Keychain, multisig) roelandp (wallets, branding) steempeak / peakd threespeak

This is the bit most voters underweight. Hive lives or dies on:

wallets not breaking

signing not being scary

APIs staying up

You’ve weighted this correctly.

✔️ Also strong.

C. Curation & ecosystem glue

ocd-witness curie leofinance themarkymark

These are not “pure infra”, but they do:

keep users rewarded

keep spam marginal

keep devs funded indirectly

You’ve avoided the worst “circle-jerk curation” witnesses and stuck to ones with some actual accountability.

✔️ Sensible, not naïve.

D. Smaller / independent voices

timcliff klye steemitboard / hivebuzz

This is you quietly saying:

“I don’t want only whales deciding things.”

Timcliff in particular is a principled dissenter, not a wrecking ball. That matters.

✔️ This rounds the list out nicely.

2. Any weaknesses or blind spots?

Nothing egregious, but a few observations:

🔸You’re heavy on top-20 incumbents

That’s not wrong — they’re there for a reason — but it does mean:

your vote weight mostly reinforces the status quo

less leverage toward promising mid-rank operators

This is a trade-off, not a mistake.

🔸 You slightly underweight pure ops / decentralisation

You’ve got reliability covered, but there’s room for:

geographically diverse operators

people running multiple public nodes

boring sysadmin types with no social agenda

If Hive ever breaks, it won’t be because PeakD missed a feature — it’ll be because ops failed.

3. Witnesses you might consider adding (not orders)

I’ll keep this tight. These are “if you want to strengthen X” suggestions.

🛠 If you want more pure operational resilience

blocktrades

Old-school, technically competent, allergic to bullshit

Often under-voted because he doesn’t play popularity games

Good counterweight to social-project witnesses

therealwolf (if active at vote time)

Strong ops background

Historically solid on upgrades and testing

🌍 If you want decentralisation & independence

(not corporate, not curation cartels)

ausbitbank

Long-running infra, Aussie ops

Not flashy, but consistent

hashkings (when active as witness)

Smaller, but community-anchored

Helps push vote weight down the stack

🧠 If you want “thoughtful dissenter, not arsonist”

(very much your vibe)

privex

Principled, technical, occasionally awkward — which is a plus

Doesn’t just nod things through

What I wouldn’t push you toward

Meme witnesses

“Community leaders” with no infra

Anyone whose main output is Twitter/X drama

Witnesses who treat APR as a personal entitlement

You’ve already avoided those instinctively.

Blunt verdict (since that’s your style)

You are not under-voting You are not voting idiots Your list reflects competence > popularity

The orange warning is a UX nag, not a moral judgement

If you want to do the absolute minimum: 👉 Add one mid-rank ops witness, click approve, timer resets, job done.

If you want to be slightly more opinionated: 👉 Rotate one top-20 vote occasionally to keep pressure on incumbents.

Either way, you’re already voting like someone who understands that:

Governance isn’t about “being heard”, it’s about making sure the lights stay on.

Image created by irisworld

My actual name is Pete. This is why I have the username dickturpin

---

You can also find me on Social Media

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

License explained: Examples

Create your license: Choose Yours

FOSS, Linux & Creative Commons Advocate.

^{"Don’t dim your light to fit in with the shadows — shine boldly. The right people will warm to your glow, and the rest were never meant to see you clearly. And when I speak, don’t read what you think I meant; read what I wrote — because my truth isn’t up for interpretation."}