What does my HP have anything to do with free speech?
How you got it, for one thing. But I'll say no more about that because I haven't seen you profiteer since the bidbots mostly ended, so I'm trying to move on, and as @por500bolos says, am suggesting you use your HP to defend free speech that is being suppressed with flags. You aren't flagged anything like @por500bolos is, because the flags flown on his content are a substantial percentage of his stake. Anyway, you're well able to withstand flags and keep the tokens rolling in, unlike him and others here.
Just imagine if those flags were reducing your income to pennies, or even nothing at all, like they do to many people being censored on Hive. You'd be gone in a flash. That's censorship in action on Hive. Hive being your golden egg-laying goose (if, as you've stated, you're not part of the censorship ring paying minions to suppress speech here) you'd be wise to defend free speech, because that is all that keeps Hive tokens worth anything at all, and is the only thing that could make the price of your tokens rise, by attracting users and investment.
I don't blame you for being financially prudent, but I don't think you're being prudent allowing people to be flagged off the platform, because the community being here is the only thing that gives your tokens value at all. If you've been paying attention, censorship is increasing, and will continue to until Hive becomes intolerable to censors. That will be the end of your pipeline to money on Hive, unless you build a community strong enough to defend it.
Finally, I don't know you personally, and certainly have mistaken some things about you. I have been surprised not to be flagged by you, which is why I've bothered to mention these things to you at all. It's probably too late to reverse the trend sinking Hive into oblivion, but I won't give up on it until I have to. All that will take is KYC to go online, however, and I am confident that is coming regardless of who wins the coming election. Musk will be all for it, and so will Zuckerborg. They'll benefit from it, but it will destroy Hive.
Dollars aren't going to survive it anymore than Hive tokens will. A vibrant community of Hive creators could be enough to keep that KYC from destroying Hive, the internet, and the USA, by politically opposing that KYC.
Of course, that would take a lot of work, and it's easier just to sell the tokens before that rolls out and invest in something that will retain value during war and famine. We'll see, won't we?
I beg to differ. I’ve been hit with $400 flags and all my posts and my curation was flagged for over a year. I couldn’t even vote how I chose without those users getting downvoted to zero as a result.
I am not the police of this platform, that falls to Hive Watchers as they are the ones being paid for it. If you haven’t noticed I stopped selectively voting well over a year ago and only vote burn posts now. For a better part of a year I was forced to limit my votes to the stabilizer posts. There are 1.6 million other accounts you can also hold accountable for this none of which I assume are performing to your expectations. It’s been clear to me for a while I have little to no say regardless of how much HP I have.
It would probably be more accurate to say that "policing" is something you - or others - say you don't want to do. But that's how the witnesses are understood. As what else? If your stake makes you a player in the upper ranks of policing, there's nothing you can do about being seen as such. Either you are a high-ranking witness or you are not. If you are, expectations are placed on you. You can reject them, but then you would also have to give up your position as a witness. Why don't you do it? If you are not interested in policing, you could give up your position as a Witness. What's stopping you?
First off, I have countered more abuse than anyone, it was my thing for many years here. If you don't know that already, then you probably don't know me very well.
Second, being a witness has nothing to do with countering abuse or anything but protecting the blockchain, producing blocks, and auditing and approving code. Everything else is a bonus.
Don't be so vain. If you have countered abuse, and you have done it well, and what you've done can be held up to your highest possible standards, congratulations to you.
Nothing to say against keeping the blockchain and features functioning.
Of course being a witness has something to do with countering abuse, you just described yourself as a long-time abuse fighter. And as I said, there's absolutely nothing you can do about the fact that the users here perceive you that way, whether you like it or not. Especially since the functioning of a technique inevitably collides with the soft factors of interaction, as there is no collision-free space.
It is merely a verbally convenient separation between function and consequence of function that you are making here.
If you're tired of it, I understand, but don't sell me slogans.
I'm not, I'm merely explaining something you apparently are not aware of.
I'm not selling you slogans, the simple fact is a witness is not a do everything you feel like them doing job. A witness has a very specific job, abuse fighting, patting you on the back, making you feel good, hanging out drinking beers, writing posts about flowers in their garden, are not part of that job. Doing more than just protecting the blockchain and producing blocks is great, but that's not what a witness is, they are not the police you call when someone misbehaves. This is a common misconception about what witnesses are.
P.S. So if you want to keep your crypto income, but you don't want to do politics anymore because you're either tired of your job or don't really understand it yourself, you're not entitled to that crypto income. Of course, if your view is diluted by the fact that there are enough opportunists to keep you in your position, you are the only person who either gives in to the seduction that you are legitimately elected or you think that your political fatigue is a reason to give up your income.
I'm the only witness fighting abuse. You are barking up the wrong tree. But I still disagree "fighting abuse" is in the witness job description, I bet if you ask around they will all agree. You can probably just realize that when you notice none of them do.
Are you a technician? If so, you are someone who keeps the technology you are responsible for up and running with your expertise and the use of hardware and software.
You are paid to maintain a server that enables blockchain transactions. Okay.
So far, so good.
But what makes you a "witness"? What makes you a spokesperson for the blockchain?
Since when are technicians the politicians of a platform if they have not previously agreed that a certain interface should be established between them and the user community? Ergo, you are doing politics, because why am I voting for you or voting you out?
Should my judgement of your performance be based on the fact that you maintain a server that continues to facilitate transactions? Hardly.
Your performance is measured by the changes in the code. And since the code is inevitably related to issues such as the features that create an impact among the actors (all users of the blockchain), your issues are inevitably political in nature. So I'll say a third time: there's nothing you can do about it.
Otherwise, you could save yourself the whole Witness act, couldn't you? You could be a "technician" who keeps things running in the background, gets paid for it and that's it. But it's not like that, you all have to decide how the next hard fork will play out. So you're more than just technicians, you're politically active.
Logic dictates since you are politically active, you cannot resort to nothing. You have to take responsibility as a politician. If you don't want that, you cannot be a "witness". That's all I am saying.