Well, It's almost been 2 weeks and there have been some pretty great developments. I wanted to share what I've been up to as a Witness and summarize some of what's been going on.
Total Votes
I reached my 200th vote yesterday. That's more total votes than some of the witnesses above me. I've been here for about 13 days in earnest so that's a great showing. You'll notice some prominent legends in the list of voters. I've been fortunate to have some wonderful support from excellent people on here and am stoked to be building the blockchain!
Witness position
The way witnessing works is that the top 20 accounts witness all the blocks and a backup witness is incorporated in the last spot. There is a new block every 3 seconds. So, the top accounts are witnessing about 1400 a day. Backups have a range. The position and number of blocks witnessed is based on the steem power of the voters and the steem power of the proxies they represent. While I'm doing awesome so far I'm still short a few GigaVests to put me in the top 49 where there is some revenue sharing from the higher witnesses. Many of these accounts have received a vote from @dan, or @pumpkin who represents @freedom for 5-15GV. It's close to handpicking the top 49 (though you can't really handpick the top 20 even with a big vote like that), and so far I'm not in that elusive club. That may be a result of my satire earlier during the infinite inflation...
Here's hoping my level of activity will earn me some more big ups.
150 blocks
I'm now witnessing about 20 blocks a day with my current vesting power that people have voted to me. Each block awards 0.89 to backup witnesses (those outside the top 20) steem and that's hard wired into each HF. So, next HF might be totally different, but as of today I earn 0.89 steem x 20 blocks. Each one of those is worth ~2USD. So, the witness is earning approximately $36 dollars a day. I'm trying to plow that back into helping minnows grow with the Minnow Support Project.
Minnow Support Project
The MSP was born out of getting great exposure because a few follower-whales resteemed some of my posts and I suddenly had a huge audience. Recognizing the advantage of that I turned around and created a contest to support minnows get resteems from larger accounts. Contestants put links to their posts in teh comments. They get upvoted by peers and the winner catches resteems and liquid post rewards. So far there have been 3 winners over three weeks and about 400 SBDs or 800USDs have been awarded to first place, second place, and runner up. Additionally, winners have reported seeing their follower count and average post rewards increase as a result of winning the contest, which is exactly the result I was looking for.
MSP discord
I've created a Discord channel called the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network, aka PAL or PALnet. It hosts the MSP. We currently have just shy of 200 members in there after 36 hours of being a thing. It's completely open to the public. There are no requirements. It's a way to help minnows and new steemers figure out the ropes. Me, @ausbitbank, @canadian-coconut, and @teamsteem have complete moderator control in the room.
I've created a few tiers in there.
New- Anyone is welcome
Registered- There are 2 bots in there . Banjo and Minnowsupport. Folks can use them to upvote content with a simple command and get their content exposure to the community for further resteems etc.
Member- As part of training to get out of minnow and into dolphin members are required to have steemvoter and streemian. Minnows are required to have 100% upvotes on the @minnowsupport account. ON streemian they have to follow the trail of @minnowsupport but they can choose any percent.
Greeter- People that write a post about their experience and pledge to help others that come can become greeters. You can go to tthem for help with the system.
Future roles- Additional bots with higher steem power will be introduced in the coming weeks. People that have achieved greeter status can apply to have curation authority over them with a post, a small community service project, and a pledge not to upvote shitposts.
Avoiding shit content
While it's possible the lowest tier bot will upvote shit content the fact that it all has to be publicly displayed is a deterrent. Also the minimum bot will be manually kept at a low SP so taht abuse has minimal impact on the system and is just part of the learning experience.
Steemfest
@theprophet0 is a 15 year old kid and witness who needed money to get to steemfest. Posts I created had liquid rewards sent to him. As a result we were able to raise roughly 600 SBD and send him enough money to get there. After raising additional monies we worked to put together 2 more contest. @theprophet0 is spear heading one now that's open to everyone called @steemfestdreams. MSP will spearhead one a week from today that's only open to Minnows. By the end of the month my actions will have coordinated at least 3 trips to steemfest for deserving Steemians.
Here's the announcement for the MSP contest that starts in 1 week- https://steemit.com/minnowsupportproject/@aggroed/minnow-support-project-announcement-steemfest-minnow-all-expense-paid-trip-to-steemfest-courtesy-of-the-minnow-support-project
Overall
I'm 2 weeks in, have 150 blocks, 1500 followers (closing in on top 75 most followed authors), have a public discord channel and group meant to support minnow growth with just under 200 people in under 36 hours, and by the end of the month have gotten 3 people funding to Steemfest. Feeling pretty good. If you like these actions and you support my values of Peace, Abundance, and Liberty please upvote, resteem, follow, and vote for me as a witness.
Adding you to my witness list! Enjoy the Discord room as well!
Thanks!
Spoke with @aggroed on discord this morning total Steem legend and a overall seems like a great person! We're extremely lucky to have you as a part of the SteemIt/Steem community @aggroed!!!
@aggroed is one of the coolest dudes on Steemit.
I've been on discord all morning and thanks to him the other Steemians who really care about the minnows I now feel empowered to go on and one day swim with the big fish. (man that sounds shit) but I really mean it.
Vote for @aggroed he's the man!
Well done! You have my full support 😊
Thanks Fist! You're a great addition to the Discord MSP community and I'm grateful for your leadership!
I'm happy to be of help 😊
Hey. This is a really good result.. especially with the discord. Am a part of discord chat.
It's really fun. And helpful. Like @readmore sent me some help.. ( thanks bro). Anyone is welcome..
@aggroed A LEGEND IN THE MAKING!!!!
A legend already 😉
:)
Appreciate all you are doing @aggroed, when I get back into the states I'll be hopping on the discord channel asap! You'll be getting my witness vote as well, definitely want to support you in my small way, only right for what you are doing for the community! Thanks again!
Thanks Boss!
Glad to do my part to help such an awesome mentor!
Sorry I am so limited ,and tech challenged....
But getting better thanks to all the great people who are sharing tips,and great content!
Just wish I could be more help.
Namaste to all of you and keep up the great work!
It looks like your vote trend is strongly positive. Good luck, you have my vote.
Thanks Lexi!
Yeah well that too, do not forget me one more :)
I won't if you come join us in Discord!
voting you up now bro, been meaning to do that. I love all the initiatives you got going on man, steem on bro.
I just made it to discord last night and poked around some. I will definitely check out your channel. Keep up the good work.
That's great!
Amazing progress. Keep up whit the great work. Upvoted and resteemed.
Not bad for 14 days right?
Right :). I also voted you for witness. Hope you get what you want, because you deserve it.
Thanks! Tryin' hard!
nice post..
Amazing achievements, @aggroed. Love your discord channel. You have my support.
Thanks for all that you do here, I voted you for witness, keep up the good work!
Well done! :)