I hate the idea of begging for help--I'd rather people supported what felt right to them--but the truth is, both these could really use some love. TWB isn't just for people who already are experienced writers. We workshop and offer support to those who are new to writing also. We don't currently have the resources for the most desperate ESL people--those who rely on Google Translate or struggle to make themselves understood without tools--they are sent to other platforms that try to offer support for that. But we hope eventually to expand if we can get people to volunteer for it. We already workshop fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and songwriting in English. We have one language-specific workshop--in Dutch--and our experienced team has worked on fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in Dutch as well. We'd like to help increase the quality of posts on Steem so the world at large can start looking at the platform as a place to find quality writing of any genre. We're working to increase our social media presence also and we've actually gotten a number of writers in from off platform who are now working to help build Steem as well.
We're also working to go beyond that--to establish a publishing house and publish ebooks with quality authors whose work could bring views back to the platform in the form of readers looking for those stories and poems and articles we publish here.
Please consider dropping by our Discord server and seeing what we do. We'd love to have you, regardless of whether you want to provide other support than your presence.
As for @tarc, every penny counts. Supporting that is what has made Steem real for many of us. Seeing the difference we could make in the lives of animals has only increased our drive to help build Steem and add value to the platform. It's not just social media. It's something tangible when it can save a life by paying a vet bill or buying a bag of dog food.
As for the witness stuff, I am grateful to all the witnesses with functional servers that don't miss blocks who keep the block chain running. I know there is a big investment in servers, be it hardware or renting space elsewhere, as well as the work to make sure everything is updated and working smoothly. I'd only be concerned about having people remove votes from someone who isn't actually managing the witness job anymore. I am sure some out there are struggling because of the needed increase in server sizes recently.