So I've been thinking about this for a little while. It's kind of crazy that many in the community here on Steemit are very confused and very frustrated about the upcoming changes. In case you haven't heard, one of the main talking points about the changes coming this Tuesday is in regards to voting, and vote power. 

Here's a basic breakdown of voting in case you really don't understand it, like I did until I read a ton of posts.

## Voting information and your voting power

It basically boils down to this (as I understand it). Currently voting on Steemit is geared towards about 20 votes per day. Your voting power diminishes slightly every time you vote. You start at 100% voting power, and every vote you cast diminishes that power a bit, but over a set time period that power automatically regenerates. Wondering what your voting power is at? Check out this amazing tool to see, it's called Steemd. Just go to www.steemd.com/@(insert your Steemit username here) and a page will pop up with all your Steemit stats, including who you voted for, who voted for you, comments, voting power, etc. You will see your current voting power in the left hand side box, the 16th line down from the top. 

## The current state and the coming change

So now that you (hopefully) understand a bit more about how voting and voting power works, lets talk about the current situation and the coming changes. Currently, as was stated, voting power is geared towards about 20 votes per day to get your voting power all used up. The coming change will drop that 20 votes per day to use up your voting power down to 5 votes per day. What this means on the face of it is that after you cast just five votes, your remaining votes will be basically useless, they wont generate any rewards for the one you vote for. 

## Why this change is scary to many

For many minnows, this, again on the face of it, seems like it wont make much difference. If your vote doesn't generate any income for those you vote for, and if you don't get any whale votes on your posts anyhow, then what does it matter? Well, for those who do receive whale votes on their posts, this is scary because if a whale can only vote 5 times a day, how likely is it that they will see and vote for your post before their voting power is all used up? It's 4 times less likely, and that sucks. 

## You may have noticed the vote power slider

So here's what I think is where this new change potentially actually will be ok. If users are able to adjust their voting power on a per vote basis, which we now are, then all a whale has to do is adjust their voting power down to a percentage where each vote they cast is still worth the same amount as it was before. Let's break it down: The current situation is 20 votes at 100%, the change will be 5 votes at 100%, but now you can adjust your vote power, so if you adjust your vote power to 50% per vote, you can cast 10 powerful votes to use up your voting power. Alternatively you could cast 20 votes at 25% per vote, and unless my maths are terrible (which they are, so please feel free to correct me) that should equal out to the same voting power as 20 100% votes under the current situation. Am  I on or way off about this? As a side note, this question in itself is exactly why so many people are upset about this change, we should not have to ask this, it should be clear.

## Why I think this change could be very good for minnows

Let's think about this for a second. We can now control our voting power on a per vote basis. Currently we haven't seen a change in voting trends because we are still under the same 20 vote goal. However, once we switch to the 5 vote goal, and again, correct me if I am off on this, but once we switch to the 5 vote goal, a minnow's 100% vote will count for 4 times more than it would have currently. What that means for minnows is that they might start to actually make a difference, if they choose to. 

With this change, minnows could choose to be much more selective in who they choose to vote for, and they would have some incentive, because if their votes now count for something they might start making some curation rewards. Minnows, if they are understand this new change, could potentially start making a difference by being very selective and only casting 5 full power votes per day for content they really think is worth it. 

## It might backfire

Like I stated a few times, I may be completely off on all of this, but I also have thought of a way this could completely backfire as well. People may initially not understand what is happening, that has a tendency to turn people off. If it's too complicated it might be intimidating to possible new users, it might be too confusing for them to bother with. 

Well, those are my thoughts. I put this post together as much to ask questions and gain some info as I did to put my thoughts out there, so please please feel free to correct, comment, inform me etc. I really want to hear your comments, especially if you understand this new change. 

Hope you enjoyed my thoughts, and I look forward to hearing yours.

Dexter