I have been on the block chain now for right at 6 months still a new fish by all aspects but steemit ages you like it is dog years on steroids. You gotta get tough or die right? Not necessarily. They call us minnows and plankton for a reason, because there are thousands and thousands of us. When we are alone we are nothing more than whale food but together we can be something more, something great. We as one like mind can stop being the "crabs in a bucket" as the steemit whitepapers call us and we can rise up and achieve what we came here to do. To be a successful community and make some money here doing what we love. I have only a handful of witnesses that I have personal experience with and that is how I do my votes. I base it on the merits of how I have been treated by them and how they are all the time. Not just when they want something from you. First off I would like to address the crabs in a bucket analogy i spoke of earlier in case some are not aware of what that is.

Crabs in a bucket

I was made aware a couple months ago that this is actually a phrase used in the steemit white papers. What it means is that we are all crabs in a bucket and as one of us starts to crawl out and make it big the other crabs will grab hold and drag him back into the bucket. Pretty shitty way of viewing your users right? Yep.

The good ones

Well these witnesses are not that way. They strive to make the community better and give us a home. A place to laugh and smile and a helping hand up instead of a cold claw to pull you back down. Don't take my word for it though, I encourage you to go and get to know them yourself before casting your vote. You will not be disappointed I can promise you.

Hive account@comedyopenmic My personal favorite. I have recently got to have a backstage pass and be a guest judge for them last week after being a long time contestant in their weekly contest and I must say I was blown away. They are better than I could have ever imagined. Truly great folks. They are a community of people working together to be one witness so there are a lot of checks and balances that go on internally so it is not just one guy that goes off the deep end one day.

Click To Vote @ComedyOpenMic For Witness And Disrupt The Steem Blockchain With Laughter!

Hive account@steemcommunity which is a group effort by Hive account@paulag and Hive account@abh12345. Again I like the checks and balances of it having more than one person and also these 2 are always putting on the curation leagues and helping out newbies any time they can. Really good people.