Hello my dear openmic-ers, as you might know already our fierceless leader @luzcypher made an announcement yesterday regarding the current financial situation of the @openmic, and the temporary changes he will have to implement in order to keep this musical train of ours on its rails.

The inspiration

I'm browsing through the comments section of @luzcypher's public annoucement, I saw the following comment, a simple yet powerful questioned asked with honest concern.

What else can we do to help?

I say this not because I don't love and respect @luzcypher, quite the opposite, but I refuse to sit on my hands and chug this whole thing to the old "such is life". I started to think, well, the truth is that this community has been supported by @pfunk almost since the beginning, but this does not mean that he would not appreciate us being creative about this whole thing, coming up with different ways to supplement his weekly donations. I've never spoken to @pfunk, but reading his interactions on this blockchain and knowing that he is a scammer hunter (many don't know this side of him, he does not sell himself well, and I say this with respect and love), I'm sure that his sense of merit and ethics would align with my own.

I reached out to @ausbitbank, who is not only one of the main supporters of the #openmic and the brains behind the development of the @openmic bot that supports our amazing creative community. Since I trust his judgement quite a bit, I wanted to make sure I had someone poke holes in my idea, he raised some concerns and I hope that I can address them in this little proposal of mine. This post, this idea is an invitation to brainstorm this whole thing with me, because I know that together(hence the graphic), we can fine tune this to be something that can work for everyone.

Without further delays, I present to you:

So lets break this down

Are you using Steemplus Already?

There is a possibility you are staring at my little graphic wondering how on earth do you set a beneficiary on a post. Fear not, that is what this first application is going to allow you to do. SteemPlus is my favorite Chrome extension for Steem and honestly I don't know if my smiles would be as intense without it. As you might guess from the name, it adds features to the platform that are not available to us otherwise.

To download it, you simply have to add the extension to your google chrome, authorize it safely via Steemconnect and your days of Steeming will receive a much needed improvement. I wont go into all the details and features of Steemplus because I would like for this post to not scare those who subscribe to the TLDR.

Step 1 - Making a post

This would be done in the exact way you have always done it. You simply write a post, it does not have to be @openmic related, it simply has to be one you would like to donate some funds to the @openmic with. For example, I tend to write a lot about #philosophy, I could simply select one or more of my weekly posts (I write a lot) to be posted with the @openmic account as a beneficiary. For the sake of of my little graph, I've written 10% donation to the @openmic , but the number could really be anything you feel comfortable doing.

As you can see this feature will be a new option right above the familiar POST button you nervously click every single day. By default when you use this option, 5% of the post gets donated to the @steem-plus team, and this if of course how they keep on developing this amazing application for us Steemians to use(I find this more than reasonable). The current post I'm writing will be set this way, to set an example of course, but also to show you how easy doing this is.

Step 2 - Add the right tag: #ilovetheopenmic

This would make it easier to for me and others who practitioners of gratitude to find your posts and give you some extra upvotes for being awesome. I would hope that many others would join me setting up their @ginabot to listen for this tag and join me rewarding the people who are willing to help us keep this community running at full steem(no typo here).

Because I want to be perfectly clear on this particular detail, this whole thing is voluntary. I'm not expecting anyone to do this if they don't feel comfortable with it or be upset with me if I happen not to find a post they have made with the #ilovetheopenmic. All I can say is that I will try my best to reward those who help us help people. I hope this makes perfect sense, but if for some reason it doesn't please let me know.

I will be checking the posts who add the tag #ilovetheopenmic to make sure that they actually have set the 10% donations on the post. I would be taking on this task, because I'm sure there will be a scammer or two who believes he/she can win some free upvotes pretending to be about the community and I simply won't let them trick people who mean well.

I will be leaving comments on the #ilovetheopenmic posts who have been verified to actually love the openmic so, if you feel uncomfortable not knowing if someone is being genuine. Look for the posts that I've vetted.

Step 3,4,5 - Collection and Payout

The posts with @openmic as a beneficiary would be collected and administrated by the team with all the checks and balances needed. The liquid SBD's would be used to purchase STEEM, and these funds would be paid out to the contestants in the very same way we have been running the contest for #85 weeks as of the writing of this post.

As you might know already, everything that happens on the blockchain is completely transparent thus making the usage of the funds collected public knowledge for anyone who would wish to audit payouts. I might be imposing more work for @ausbitbank but him being the witness who created the @openmic account and operates/devs for the community's benefit, he would probably be the one to make sure the funds are being converted and sent to @luzcypher so that they can be paid out to our weekly contestants.

Questions - Concerns - Closing Thoughts

I've given this quite a bit of thought since @luzcypher announced the payout reduction on his blog. Now I'm not saying that this is the only thing we can do, I'm saying that securing more support for the #openmic from benevolent whales, and attempting this little judo/ninja move is not mutually exclusive.

I would like to thank @aggroed for allowing me to address the audience last night on the Minnow Mayor Town Hall show and for donating 50 SBD to the @openmic. As someone who understands the value of community, he has been a long supporter of the musicians who participate of this blockchain through plenty of radio show's hosted by @msp-waves.

Am I worried we could have an increase in spam? Not really, since the process won't be automated, it will be Steemians rewarding Steemians for thinking of the community, any spammy scammy account will probably give up pretending to be good after noticing a lack in results.

In any case my friends, I'm putting this out there because I believe that even though our long time patron @pfunk is out of the top 20 for now, this does not mean we can't carry some of the weight ourselves while we wait for him to get back up there. It certainly does not mean we need to slow down, or even consider stopping. As I like to say quite often!!

LONG LIVE THE OPEN MIC

Let me know what you think...

Brainstorm this with me, if I'm missing something, if it can be improved or the whole idea should be scratched tell me all the reasons why you think so. I will be coming back to this post all day to have these conversations with you all.

Much love

Operation: We are The Open Mic