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.
đź› 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.
Image created by irisworld
My actual name is Pete. This is why I have the username dickturpin
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