Hi fellow Hiveians,

Today I wanted to talk about the importance of participating in the governance of Hive!

Periodic Review

Every so often we need to take a little bit of a review!

One of the really interesting and fascinating things about the Hive blockchain is the governance structure. We have a really incredible opportunity to expand and show the merits of the decentralized model! Yes we are not as decentralized as one would like, given Blocktrades commands so much stake and continues to grow constantly, but overall we are far more decentralized than other platforms try to say they are.

With that type of platform, one of the good things that comes with it is governance votes. We are able to affect the governance of the chain in ways that is pretty open in terms of affecting how things go. Sure there are a focused group of "elites", or whales, one could call them, that could collectively do a whole lot of stuff but at the same time, there is a considerable amount of stake in other accounts such as dolphins and orcas. There is for sure power in the people!

With this type of ability to affect and improve governance, one of the most important things is to exercise it! As our stake grows for those of us on the platform that enjoy it and participate quite a bit, it's important that we keep a periodic eye on the various sections of governance so we can keep a pulse on the situation. I try to do that once a month or so, sometimes more, sometimes less.

The recent peruse of the governance I did was interesting because I saw new proposals that I don't really love, but the improvements on the PeakD front end are great, in that it shows how much HBD was spent on the proposal, how much is left and what the daily pay is. I think those are just the small details that some people miss out on, but are critically important to understand where the funds of the platform are going!

There are of course also witness votes and that whole area. One of the things that I did last year, around the time of the HBD interest rates being cut, is focused my witness votes on ONLY the people who are at 20% signal for the interest rate. I've held that same belief this whole time, and I will keep an eye on it monthly to make sure that the ones I am supporting are the ones who are still advocating for a 20% interest rate on the HBD.

I also try to make sure to spread the love around with the witness votes. I've got a few core votes I very reluctantly change, or never change, but there are a number of other votes that I've got that I try to focus my attention as far down on the witness list as I can. I try to give those new witnesses some love and boost them up in the rankings! I think that's an important thing to do for sure because it's often hard for these new witnesses to get rolling. I certainly don't have people dropping in my posts advertising their new witness.

I think that more people, if they aren't already doing it, need to make sure to visit the witness and proposals pages to stay ontop of it!

I will say though, if you don't find you have the time or the interest PLEASE set me as your witness/governance proxy! :D You can take a look at my witness votes and proposal votes, but I am very hopeful that folks who don't find the time to participate, can at least delegate the responsibility to me since I am regularly active on it!

What about you, have you been taking a look periodically at the witnesses and proposals? If not, why? Let me know in the comments!

^-CmplXty. _{Real human written content, never AI. All pictures are mine unless otherwise stated}

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