I voted for you, but I think myself and many others fall into the category of #1 and #5. We don't know witnesses are for, for starters. The name itself is terrible. It describes nothing to me. What is being witnessed? The blockchain? No one would guess that. It sounds more like a cult like the Jehovah's Witnesses. Also, the I don't know how to vote or who to vote for comes into play. Even when some people ask to be voted as witnesses, they supply a link to do so. I am not aware of which site off the top of my head if I want to unvote someone, or vote for someone. I see you provided one in this post, but it is not obvious to the newbies at all. I still consider myself a newbie. Apparently, this a link right off the main steemit.com page but yet I am not aware of a hyperlink that would take me to it.
I also just am updating this reply after having looked at the witness voting page. I was voting for 4 people and don't even remember why. I voted for a few more based on your recommendations of seeing them around and them providing certain services I use or like. This still leaves me with over 20+ votes. How do I get a decent summary of where my measly votes belong? I only have 250 SP and a 56 reputation which I think still makes me worth very little here. Isn't there some summary page of people's purpose or something like that or do I have to read every person's witness page individually?
(resteemed and upvoted and not just because I want to win a contest)
Yeah, witness is a blockchain term that the average person (myself included when I got started) wouldn't connect to someone who runs a server for the blockchain. So it can be very confusing. And actually your vote means a lot. There are a lot of people who only have the meager 15 SP that Steemit Inc. provides when they join. So your vote means a lot to people like me. :)
And don't worry about using up all your votes. I'm sure as time goes on you'll find people you feel deserve them. That's what I'm doing, making them all count. I personally don't read everyone's witness application, but I follow them for a while to see what they're all about... or scroll back through their feed to see what they're providing to the community.
Thanks for the vote and resteem. As I mentioned before, it's much appreciated! :)
I know I briefly talked to you before about this in a different thread a few weeks back but I don't want to compete with anyone, but I would sure like to help out and earn some coin along the way. I've run servers forever. I'm a 25+ year IT veteran and am still doing it. I am in charge of the data network for an entire 2/3 of a U.S. State as a Network Manager.
I run a mining rig, but due to divorce and bad credit, lack the capital to run a witness server right now but that is something that I would love to do. I am so involved with stuff here that I find myself bored and run out of things to do. This is despite the fact that I know there are thousands of things I can do here and haven't discovered. One thing I know how to do is be a sysadmin though. I'd love to be in a situation making $10K+ a month maintaining a server. I'm basically bankrupt and that kind of money could change my life to the point of total repair.
If there are people out there that are mentors in this sort of things or looking for helpers, I'd appreciate it if anyone put me in touch with them. I've been on call 24x7x365 for so long that I don't know any different.