WITNESS UPDATE
My server is up and running, no problems.
Will include full details of the SP rewards in my next update and after that shall include updates regularly on all updates.
Basically I need to schedule my updates with our good old friend 'Gina' on Discord and add up what all we have raised via posts on our walls, so that I can unify everything into one post rather than multiple posts on the same topic.
UPDATE ON MY ACTIVITIES:
Many of us have read or heard of the fact that when a Witness resigns or just shuts down their server that the current voting system in place doesn't reset the votes for that server.
Some may think that this doesn't play a role in things, so I shall simply state two basic facts that justify the need for it:
In every democratic society when a person resigns, that is it. If they want to get back into office they need to get re-elected from scratch. No where in this world do votes from previous election campaigns count for a new election campaign that person may have in future.
Even though their servers are disabled (DEAD), by them being listed on the Witness list, this makes the job for active witnesses a lot more frustrating having to get votes in order to climb up the list which is overly full with dead/disabled witnesses. Literally campaigning 'against' former representatives who resigned of their own free will or whatever other reasons they may have had.
So, what I have been doing lately and shall keep doing is trying to get in touch with people who are owners of these deactivated servers, who have resigned with a letter/message.
Hi,
I am contacting you in reference to your disabled Witness server. As a fellow Steemian and as a current active Witness who understands that once you resign and shut down your Witness server that your official obligations as a Witness have all been erased.
I understand that you have no contracted obligation to do anything in reference to your former Witness server, but as you know the ‘Gods of Steemit” as I like to call them, have not done their jobs in that the votes for your server get reset/erased after your resignation as such.
It seems that it is up to each and every one of us as Witnesses to clean this mess up.
I have no right to ask you to do anything, but I can as a fellow Steemian make a proactive suggestion as to how you can positively and constructively contribute to the fair and equal democracy that we all so desire to see here.
On the website www.steemian.info/witnesses with one click you can get a list of all the people who voted for you.
It seems that “a post” isn’t enough to gain the attention of these voters, because if it was they would have already reallocated their votes to active witnesses out there. So it seems that the only other solution is to directly contact them via Discord and Steemchat as your voters and to inform them that you have resigned as a Witness and that they should vote for someone else.
I know, this may seem like one heck of a task, however, it is yet another thing that you as a Steemian can do to help achieve all the goals that you believed in when you set your Witness server up and once again further contribute to the democratization of our system here.
I apologize for taking so much of your time up with this message, please do not take this the wrong way, as all I am doing is politely asking you to consider this for the good of our platform, our blockchain and the entire endeavour.
Thank you for your time,
Yours sincerely
Jack Miller (@jackmiller, Witness)
I have also been contacting some of the voters that I have seen/noticed, informing them of the fact that they have a vote that is for a former witness.
Although this type of communication may be considered by some to be "spam" or whatever else, I am sure that in this case my unorthodox usage of communication channels can be understood to be a necessity, as there is no other means of fixing these issues.
I shall continue on with this endeavour, no matter what anyone may think. I don't really care for any "labels" that some may throw my way, as long as they aren't literally attached to mortar shells.
WHY?
Well if the "Gods of Steemit" as I call them are not willing to do anything about this, for whatever reasons, then it is left up to us Steemians to fix it and although this may seem unnecessary with all the technology out there, we do not have any other option than to do it manually.
I'm not going to sit around and "complain" about the issues we have, I shall take action, even at the risk of being verbally attacked or scorned for it.
Jack