The best part of the Scorum community is that we are a community. We can come together and talk about issues to better understand each other and grow our community. While we won't always agree, having these types of conversations in a civilized manner helps us all understand each other better and navigate past difficult situations. Today, I'd like to talk about witness vote buying.

I would love for you to read below and add to this conversation in the comment section. Also, please read the entire piece before commenting. This is not targeting any of our wonderful witness groups here on Scorum, but meant to help us all understand this better and come to an agreement if possible.

As Scorum CEO Vlad Artemyev stated in my recent interview with him, witnesses are a very important part of the Scorum ecosystem. "The whole system doesn't work without them," Vlad says. Because they play an important role, they also are rewarded for playing that role, meaning for top witnesses, financial gains are possible.

As I've learned first-hand, being part of a witness group, as I am with TeamGood, is competitive and a lot of hard work. While every one of us (here on Scorum) are part of a team and trying to help Scorum succeed, getting to and maintaining a spot in the top-20 witnesses is difficult and important for each witness group. We can't just rely on getting random votes, we have to promote our witness, give back to the community, and find ways to gain support from members of the community.

There is a fine line that I personally believe needs to be drawn, and my team members also agree with me, between promoting, networking, and sharing information and vote buying.

What is Witness Vote Buying

Essentially, witness vote buying is when a witness offers you something in direct exchange for your vote. So if I promise that everyone who votes for TeamGood gets a cuddly ferret, that would be an attempt to buy your vote. If I say that anyone who votes for TeamGood gets votes in return on your posts, that's an attempt to buy your vote. If I say that anyone who votes for TeamGood will get a warm and fuzzy feeling for supporting a witness that is trying to make Scorum a better place, that's just good shameless promotion that won't work, but it isn't vote buying.

Why are You Talking About This?

We all make mistakes and all unintentionally cross lines. Several days ago, I accused someone of something in a private chat and I was wrong. I apologized, they accepted, and I learned from my mistake. Making mistakes is human, and I think we all deserve a chance to learn from them.

This weekend, there were several witness groups, which I support and trust, come close to or cross the line between promoting their witness and attempting to buy votes. I do not believe this was their intention. After reaching out to them, both graciously made edits to their posts to avoid crossing this line. They could've said, "screw you, we're still doing this," but they listened and decided to clear up any confusion. This is a great sign for the community and I was inspired by their decisions.

But Mikey, What's Wrong with Buying Votes?

No one has asked me this question, but it's a fair question to ask. Just like in a political election, witnesses represent you and represent the entire community. Buying influence can be done on the platform by purchasing and powering up SCR to SP, but those who represent the community as a whole should be elected fairly by the community. The system isn't completely fair because my vote is worth more than someone who is just getting started, but vote buying is taking an unfair shortcut that puts other groups at a disadvantage. This is a fight we've seen play out on Steemit.

Witness groups can host poker tournaments, give away SCR, host writing contests, catch scammers, and more to show their appreciation to their community and dedication to the platform, but making these efforts only accessible to their voters is in my belief buying votes.

Then again, this is just my personal opinion, which my witness group and several other witness groups share as well. But what do you think? Please comment below.

Again, thank you to all of the witness groups doing an amazing job here on Scorum. We are in this together.