Right now, a careful look at our top witnesses on the Steem blockchain will quickly reveal they are mostly developers. For the most part, the content they create and post to Steemit is based on technical pursuits and updates on the various projects they manage around the Steem ecosystem.

In fact, some of the witnesses are extremely quiet on the Steemit platform overall, and seem to be maintaining their witness spots based on "old guard status" and knowing the right people, rather than active campaigning and platform activity. They're the "incumbents," not that there is anything at all wrong with that.

There are even "dead witnesses" in the top 50, who have totally ghosted. This demonstrates that there is still __substantial__ room for increasing the competition for each witness position.

If witnesses are truly only there to secure the block-chain, and most stay focused on technical pursuits, how can they possibly keep up with the PR and campaigning needs of a position which will continuously engender more outside competition as price increases?

I find myself wondering, is all of our witnesses being technical currently a good thing, or a possible point of weakness not unlike a population lacking in genetic diversity? 

<center>![Diversity1.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmbLrtLUQTRA5yj2JjfeJVJgr7R7v1RvhVzHAkDJkKafoB/Diversity1.jpg)</center>

<center>*Appropriately minnow-themed.*</center>

Recent events have made it clear that a slice of the Steemit community places fairly high standards on the technical and platform knowledge of its witnesses. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think as Steemit gets larger and more mainstream, there is going to be room for other types of witnesses (such as brand ambassadors). Considering witnesses usually outsource their server management to a reliable datacenter anyway, the argument of needing direct technical skill to run a witness seems to be weakening.

It seems inevitable that, eventually, running a Steemit witness campaign will require at least a full-time PR effort or a dedicated team. There simply will not realistically be room for even highly talented developers who simply post an update every several months. It will be no different from any other set of elections, wherein technical or job skill are rarely deciding factors of who gets the job. Witnesses may very well become organizations, not unlike those that already sort-of are (such as the Busy.org witness.)

I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing, but it is an inevitability we should be expecting.

Personally, I think our main collective goal should be to propagate Steem and Steemit as widely as possible into the mainstream. If she'd take the job, I'd make Kim Kardashian the #1 witness. Why not? It's not like we have minimum term-limits.

<center>![Diversity2.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmeHitiunq4uGNbx3JaC2cdmTiABrnYCzEp7nFeLu4hsgw/Diversity2.jpg)</center>

<center>*Does this visual aid make my point?*</center>

I think, as a whole, the Steemit community is a little too anti-mainstream. Half of this website is cryptocurrency related, which is not exactly bringing in the "normies." A good portion of the rest of the site is anti-vaxx, anti-tax, anti-fiat anarchists. While they may have salient points, they also make Steemit look like some sort of miniature cryptocurrency-themed InfoWars rather than the new Facebook to Facebook's Myspace.

<center>![Diversity3.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmcd5A14Nsgw42jYyhiMzPXKWeas92t9uUWW3MqC7x44Gi/Diversity3.jpg)</center>

<center>*I hope this was being done ironically, but I don't care enough to check.*</center>

I realize there's a great deal of irony in me posting this, given the history of my recent postings comprising mostly defenses of radical free speech and Catalonian independence, but this does nothing to invalidate the points. I simply stick to my wheelhouse.

To make matters worse, there seems to be an aggressive culture developing around Steemit that will turn off exactly the type of initially-doofus posters we would expect to see come in from widespread popularity. We already had increasing levels of flagging over content disagreement, and now we have a Steemit Inc dev flagging posts (even first, intro posts) for incorrect tagging.

Could a stronger message to a newbie be sent that "they should gtfo" than having their reputation tanked on their introduction post for "tag spam" by an employee of the very platform they are posting to?

__*If you have any additions or errata for this post, please let me know! I will see that they are voted to the top of the comments, and will make the appropriate edits (if possible).*__

<center>![PAL Logo.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmRSmRyg4MdRdiKsWTMbfyiAG673K1yP65MoUTbCXGp9Xi/PAL%20Logo.gif)</center>

<center>[Join us at the Minnow Support Project! (click me)](http://minnowsupportproject.org/)
[We also have a Radio Station! (click me)](http://mspwaves.com/home/listen/)
[...and a 4800+ user Discord Chat Server! (click me)](https://discordapp.com/channels/319885228464406528/331564766495506433)</center>

<center>[Check out the Steemhouse Fiction Trail here!](https://steemit.com/@sft)</center>

*Sources: Google, TMZ, Youtube*
*Copyright: National Academy of Sciences, Popsugar, Alex Jones*

Note: Steemit deleted this post 1 time(s).