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