Fellow Steemians.
The witnesses are of utmost importance for Steemit's growth and functionality and in this article I'll give you the reasons for why I'm voting for 
I wrote this article due to the inspiration I got from 
in his:
"5 reasons why I'm voting for Jerry Banfield as a witness" article.
I also recommend that you read:
"A Full Steemit User's Guide to Steem Witnesses" by 
- [The following text is taken straight from the article above.]
Witnesses are generally voted for because they are trusted members of the community, positively contribute to Steem and Steemit in many ways, are qualified and experienced in administration of servers, and are experienced in cryptocurrency networks and software. Witnesses are expected to keep a block-producing Steem node running 24/7/365.25. They are also expected to provide an ongoing price feed of the value of STEEM tokens in U.S. dollars, set the mininum Steem Power deposit to create an account, set the APR% for the Steem Dollar interest rate, and in the future might set additional network variables. Witnesses are also strongly encouraged to run a seed-node to provide the blockchain to syncing clients.
How And Why I Vote For Witnesses.
At the time I'm writing this, I vote for 7 out of 30 witnesses. When I first learned about witnesses I blindly voted for a bunch of witnesses and I didn't do much research or anything. I just voted for a bunch of people and thought that I'd done "my part" so to speak.
Luckily, I removed most of my witness votes and started to vote using a total different approach. I do believe that I might have missed a handful of witnesses to vote for by doing this, but I prefer to vote manually for the people I believe are giving me something back. - My vote is worth something, no matter how skinny or fat my wallet is. It doesn't matter how much Steem Power, Reputation or Followers I have. The payouts of my articles doesn't matter either. - My vote is worth something... And so is yours.
It doesn't mean that I agree on everything a witness say or do if I vote for them. - It means that I support them because I believe they are and will do great things for the whole community. In one way or another.
I also don't vote for witnesses in some sort of attempt to get support myself, even though this is a rather common approach. I am trying to look at this from a bigger picture.
- Who gives the most and why should I vote for that specific person?
I don't claim myself to be an expert and this is my own approach. I recommend others to vote for witnesses they personally believe will do good and not vote on people others are telling them to vote for.
That being said, I do recommend that you read
This is 's witness thread:
Steemit.com! Post! Vote! Have fun! And Get Paid For It!
teamsteem is the ultimate witness to vote for in my opinion. At the time I'm writing this teamsteem is Witness #36 and he has been a witness since September 2016*.
*Witness date is taken from:
What Are Steem Witnesses And Why You Should Support Them!
teamsteem wrote this article 5 months ago and just like with all of his other contributions he shares knowledge, ideas, thoughts and facts well-together in an easy-to-read format.
Many of you might know teamsteem as the author who've climbed the Reputation-ladder to become an Author who've reached a Reputation Score of 70.8 and contribute weekly with articles which is a length of an entire book.
[Image of teamsteem's recent articles.]
This is actually one the reasons I vote for teamsteem even though this is just the "tip of the iceberg" so to speak. He could easily publish shorter articles and produce less quality to rake in tons of rewards like many other established Steemians, but teamsteem is different.
As you can see, teamsteem's articles generates tons of traction. 1000+ votes on most of his articles and hundreds of comments. He himself replies to a bunch of comments and he encourage, inspire and motivate his audience and readers with well-thought words and nicely written replies.
You can easily see that teamsteem is putting in tons of effort and endless of hours into his contributions. From articles to comments. - I have no records of this to be true, but this guy seems to practically spend 20 hours per day on Steemit.
He also votes on an insane amount of articles each day. He votes manually on content being carefully selected by himself and that's obviously the reason for me to have joined his curation trail on streemian too.
As a huge fan of 
Note:
If you look at my voting power right now you'll see that I've been drained and I'm slowly getting my VP back. However, this is not due to my own voting or due to the curation trails. - This is due to a recent hacker attempt or an issue which I haven't been able to fully localize yet. More information about that here.
If teamsteem ever have given you an upvote you've probably noticed that you got a low percentage vote. This is his common approach. He upvotes most content with anything between 1% and 5% and carefully spread other votes and percentages on content he himself believes deserves more than others. Or on authors he believe is worth more rewards due to their efforts, their unique writing style or the amount of work they put in.
I have got a couple of mid/high percentage votes myself but most of the votes I've got have been at a low percentage. That being said, when I first started to get support from teamsteem I asked myself this:
Why does he not upvote me with more of his powers like so many other Steemians would do?
However, I quickly realized that teamsteem's approach is without a doubt extremely well-thought and executed perfectly. He spreads the wealth and instead of voting on just a handful of authors per day he encourage and motivate tons of authors using the same amount of power.
As a Steemian who've been a member for 17 months I can totally understand that people would love to get a bunch of 100% votes from dolphins and whales so they could laugh all the way to the bank. - I know and understand this because I've basically done the same thing in the past.
However, despite the fact that you want to be successful and earn tons of money...
What do you believe would benefit the community the most?
You getting 15 whale/dolphin votes and reap tons of rewards yourself, or to spread those rewards amongst a wide-range of authors?
- Most of you would say the latter and I couldn't agree with you more!
teamsteem is a perfect example of this being a superb way to encourage and motivate up and coming authors, to support hardworking authors, new or old, and to inspire others around him.
It shouldn't come as a surprise by now, but teamsteem is obviously involved in MSP too!
MSP = Minnow Support Project.
You can also find this information on the website: http://minnowsupportproject.org
That being said, I'm definitely not alone. A bunch of people love this guy. And everything I've said so far is all reasons for me to vote for teamsteem as a witness.
teamsteem does not only spread his upvotes across the platform and shares extremely well-written articles. He also provides superb knowledge and teach his fellow Steemians literally everything you need to know about Steemit.
This video for instance is a perfect example of what I'm talking about:
The video is taken directly from his "The Ultimate Steem Guide!".
So even though
This article is first of all to explain why I vote for him as a witness, but it also acts as a kind of "thank you" and a "tribute" of sorts.
I still remember the first time teamsteem replied to one of my articles and told me that I did a great job. Later on, months later, he also replied to an article and told me this:
And to tell you the truth, this meant literally the world to me.
I have always strived to pave the way for others and I have always tried to motivate, encourage and inspire those around me... Much like teamsteem does himself. And to get this kind of recognition from teamsteem is such an awesome feeling.
I obviously responded to these things and he replied once again with this:
You see, 
Now, I know that teamsteem is something of a fan of Dan Larimer too, so him and I have that in common. But teamsteem have never been aware of the fact that I've been a fan of him. - And when I receive a comment like this, it really blows my mind. In a good way obviously.
I have never considered myself to be a blogger. I have never thought that my writing skills are good enough to get recognition or to be truly appreciated by native English speakers. Especially as I'm from Sweden and English is my second language.
However, both Dan and teamsteem have proved me wrong. They both have given me evidence which shows that what I thought or believed was not the truth. Both recognized my attempts and both could see the effort I put in.. And for that, I'll always be grateful.
We need more teamsteem in our lives and to vote for him as a witness is the first thing we should do. In my opinion. However, I don't recommend or want anyone to vote for teamsteem or any other witnesses because of what I have written in this article. - However, I definitely recommend that people take teamsteem into consideration when it comes to witness voting. Keep him in mind, just like I did. He deserves it and so do you.
