I love this piece, and agree emphatically. Thanks for giving some inside scoops above and below. In the last 4 months or so since I joined, I actually have moved from one stage to the next. I was excited and optimistic, which led to being a discouraged minnow as I saw little interest in my articles. I then became attracted to FUD articles, and went into a holding pattern period of a few months where I stopped posting, but came back every few days to see what articles had posted. In this time, I didn't even curate or regularly vote. Now, I am back writing a few articles and hit my first major one yesterday which put me over 50. :) So why the change? I can say, without hesitation, that it were the witnesses that kept me going. I voted for my first witness a week or two ago @timcliff , and follow them to see what is going on. There is a passion and belief that is unshakable, and encourages the growth of the platform. I think it is important that, in the future, the witnesses have some sort of voice that users can be aware of. Maybe a newsfeed or something that is different than regular articles. The reason is because new users will immediately become aware of the leaders of this growing community, and what initiatives are being created to improve the site, and what challenges are acknowledged and fixed. A witness channel or feed or section will bring a level of transparency that is already there, but not visible. That way when FUDDERs start their doomsaying, it will be easy for just about anyone to point to a feed that answers the concern. In fact, it just might prevent the FUDding in the first place.