After having some issues while upgrading my witness to HF19, and missing 11 blocks while doing so, I finally got it up and running. I used @someguy123's Steem-in-a-box to upgrade my witness, and I recommend using his Steem-in-a-box for people who are trying to set up witness nodes!
HF19 will take place tomorrow at 15:00:00 UTC and it will bring one 'YUGE' change to STEEM/Steemit, right away. That change is a change in the votes and rewards system. I'll let the @steemitblog do the explanation as they sort of explain it in laymans terms, for everyone to understand.
The changes to the impact of a 100% vote are more material. A 100% vote will be 4 times more powerful once HF19 is completed. As it stands now a single 100% vote uses only 0.5% of your remaining voting power (voting power regenerates fully over a 5 day period). That means real users would need to vote 40 times a day at full power to use most of their voting power. This leaves users who are less active unable to fully leverage their voting power. After this change, a single 100% vote will use 2% of your remaining voting power, meaning that 10 full-power votes a day will now be enough to leverage the majority of your daily voting power.
Users can continue to simply upvote-at-will because a vote only consumes a percentage of the remaining voting power, not the total. Imagine “voting power” as a swimming pool that is constantly being refilled by the rain. Every time you upvote you reduce the amount of water (in this case “voting power”) from the pool by a percentage (i.e. it’s not like you are constantly removing 500 gallons from the lake). The next time you vote you are removing another percentage from an already diminished supply.
That means there are still no limits on how much you can vote. The more you vote the more you incrementally decrease the amount of voting power you have (the water in the pool). To get a better sense of how powerful your votes are and the rate at which that power diminishes simply observe how much your full power upvotes increase the rewards of content creators and you should get an intuitive sense of how the algorithm works.
Witness Update
As you can see, I am currently in 49th place, I'd like to thank everyone who votes for me and I'd like to encourage Steemians who are not voting for me currently, to consider voting for me. This week, I received a lot of witness votes from minnows (thanks, minnows!) and I'd like to send thank-you's to @synesthesia, @timsaid, @aggroed, and others for the shout outs in your blogs!
And, I am very grateful to be in the position I am, I am currently signing about 25+ blocks a day! My witness parameters have not been changed since my last update, last week. And, since last week, I have hit a big accomplishment.. for the second time, I have hit the 6000+ SP mark and I am one follower away from hitting 700! In the mean time, while I have SP delegated to me, I am curating quality content, if you think you have some good quality content, please DM me it on Discord (@theprophet0) or on Steemit.chat (@theprophet0) and I'd be more than happy to check it out!
Also, many witnesses are leaning one side or another on this hard fork, but I'd like to clarify that I am undecided. I will just let time tell!
P.S. - Expect an announcement blog for a free plane ticket to STEEMFest2 to be released tomorrow or Wednesday!
How to Vote For @theprophet0 STEEM Witness
1. Click Here
2. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page and click on the little upvote button next to my name, @theprophet0 - I am in 50th place.
3. You will be asked to authenticate with your active key, the main key may work also. Once you have done that, you just voted for theprophet0 witness! Wohoo, Thanks!
Please also consider voting @aggroed, @mckenziegary, and @rondonson for a STEEM witness!
Lastly, if you need help with anything with STEEM/Steemit, this game, or PeerPlays or have any questions, feel free to direct message me on Discord @theprophet0, Steemit.chat @theprophet0 or in the #help channel, or for PeerPlays, stop by here: https://t.me/PeerplaysHelp - I hope you guys feel I am deserving enough of a witness vote, thank you!