When it comes to journeys in life, i like to talk of "peering a bit away from the norms and into deeper wells of knowledge". Now this path may be a haywire one but life in itself is beyond eating and drinking.
If you think starvation isn't delicious; try it!
Many times when i discuss steemit with steemian friends, they think i discuss "steemit" but the reality; "who i'm i to discuss steemit? Did i really read the roadmap or whitepaper?
The only thing i am really versed in though is "life" and "understanding humans" and it is from this very perspective that i teach/understand steemit concepts, principles and logic.
Steemit is simply an interface to an "expanse" filled with humans. Whether you want to call it crypto-space etc steemit is filled with humans and understanding the way steemit runs from this angle is key!
Back To The "Peering"
There is ton of exemplary steemians when it comes to "peering" and reason for mentioning them is so that we try to understand steemit as an avenue to grow as a person. "Learning is the ultimate "EARNING"!
Also remember this as you read along:
From day one, behavior was incorporated into the model for steem technology and we will tackle this even more in this post by talking of the #witness-category a bit.
Who Is @timcliff?
I have known @timcliff since my start on steemit as he would come to my aid many times in the comments.
If you didn't know the past/earlier on steemit; know that it was pretty rough! The current times are among the best times on steemit!
Though we (me & @timcliff) have never spoken in chat etc, i can say confidently that i have come to know him; as Tim cliff was always ready to help. That is who he is! It is proven.
His cores are firm and unshaken in the face of events. He has stayed gentle!
Tim Cliff Is A Steemit Witness!
But how did this happen you may ask? Yes, @timcliff knew nothing about crypto when he joined steemit. He did know about games though and all he brought with him upon deciding to join steemit, was excerpts of knowledge from the gaming-world, where there also existed an economy that involved trading digital tokens used in these games, for real cash value, from people in the real world!
Notice that when you tie learning about steemit/steem blockchain to life or the real world, it becomes way easier to understand the underlying concepts behind its model and @timcliff is clear evidence of this!
There is something more that @timcliff came to understand really quickly. The model behind steemit involves getting rewarded for adding "value" to the platform. This is something i always try to integrate into my discussion with several steemian friends.
Ofcourse "value" can take an endless ton of forms!
@timcliff fully understood this, so he didn't just stayed glued, to only the blogging aspect of steemit, he peered and sought after more beauty, from other aspects of the steem blockchain and things got clearer and here are some of the basic things he first learned:
"There is nothing scammy about steemit/steem!"
On the steem platform you simply get paid in steem token for adding real world value to people and an economy is formed were people are willing to exchange steem tokens for real money!
But as he peered deeper, he found more interesting facets, of how steemit is built to run on the basis of noble behavior. This became even clearer as he identified how steem witnesses worked and here is what he saw:
Witness are similar to miners as seen in other crypto-spaces; they producing and validate blocks but the big difference between a witness and miner is; miners are in competition to out-compute other miners by means of more sophisticated hardware etc to accomplish faster block production, while witnesses are competing for votes, which they attain based on merit as a result of the proven value that they have add to the steemit community!
You will notice that there is a behavior paradigm integrated even in the #witness-category and the witnesses who guard our blockchain have been deemed fit by the steemit community!
When i first got on steemit, Tim cliff was here during my tough times. He used to travel all the way to my rescue, in the comments! There many amazing qualities of this gentle man that was proven and made solid overtime and ofcourse one of these qualities is "peering" as this kept leading him into new knowledge!
He started as backup steem witness. Then he eventual became his own witness!
Can You/I Become A Steemit Witness?
Becoming a witness is technically hard, no doubt! Looking at the #witness-category, you will find alot of geeky things but if @timcliff did it with no background crypto-knowledge prior to joining steemit, then anyone can too! Several other steemians have proven this; people like @stellabelle, @merej99, @sykochica have gone from crypto-novice to crypto-princesses/queens.
Steemit is the gateway to everything crypto but you do have to "peer" a bit. I have done my share of peering and i tell you, that aspect of steemit is non-stop and is the fun part!
Becoming A Steemit Witness
Basically, it starts with loving steem technology and especially the steemit community and this is something that supersedes financial rewards and involves more of love; self-sacrifice; becoming the best version of yourself and carrying others on the same path; disrupting technology and changing the world for the better. This will move you to enthusiastically add value to the steemit platform.
Ofcourse, you will need to peer more into some technical details and here is a good start:
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@krnel/complete-witness-installation-guide
Next, when you feel you are ready, you may need to declare your intent to become a steemit witness, in a witness-proposal under #witness-category as seen in this full guide by @timcliff:
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@timcliff/witness-voting-guide
Then seek the help of the community and ofcourse other steemit witnesses and i am sure they will be willing to support you!
Bottomline, see steemit also as a space to grow as a person, into the best version of you and the best version of you, is a gift to humanity!
Consider voting for @timcliff's witness or other witnesses here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
To listen to the words of @timcliff on #beyondbitcoin hangout's here:
Your Boy Terry
JOIN ME
Let's form one strong beautiful empire of steemians who truly love one another!
Discord - TheAmazingTeam
or
Wow, thank you so much! This is a very touching article :) I completely agree with the sentiment of your post. When I first joined there were tons of people complaining about how unfair the rewards were, and you only got votes if you were friends with the whales. The top witness positions were supposedly even worse. Everybody made it seem like the whole site was rigged. I didn't know any whales, or anyone in the community for that matter (other than my brother who recruited me) when I first joined. I had very little crypto experience too. (I had used BTC to play an online casino game before, but that was pretty much it.) I spent my first 6 months here posting and getting to know people, all with very little rewards. It even got to the point that most of my friends were making fun of me for spending so much time on 'that website', when I wasn't making any money for it. I knew the value that the platform offered though, and that there was so much potential here if people were willing to put in the effort. Finding ways to add value was really the key. After almost a year of being here now, I am very proud to say that I now receive regular high payouts on my post and I have managed to be voted in as one of the top witnesses. I truly consider it an honor, and will always remember looking back to the time that I joined and it was exciting to get a few upvotes and even a dollar on one of my posts. I hope that my story can be one of inspiration to new people joining the platform, that it really is possible to become successful here if you find your own unique way to add value to the platform, and take the time to build relationships and make the community/platform better.
Your story or better said your way on Steemit is really impressive and I guess @surpassinggoogle could not have done a better job to honor it!
In my opinion you are really someone to look up being new to "this website" 😉 Not just because of your success story but the value you add to this project and Community. You didn't give up, stayed on steemit as you believed in it and got proven right.
You are really someone who's taking the time to contribute to the Community and deserve to be a witness for sure! Your reply on this post just shows this once again.
Thanks for being on Steemit @timcliff!
Thanks @speedygonzalez :)
No need to thank me 😉 You've earned this appreciation and you may just enjoy the fruits of your hard work in the past. Keep on steeming like you do please 😊
Well said, @timcliff
You too have helped me to understand voting through steem.chat.
Thank you.
Great post. @surpassinggoogle
tHANK YOU
You're welcome, @surpassinggoogle
You are a good witnesess!
Thanks :)
You have given a lot contribution for this community, also you give much valuable and useful information for steemian. Nice! :)
Thanks :)
Yes, thank you so much, @surpassinggoogle for this very well written piece about @timcliff. My upbringing in life and one of my values is to celebrate people who add value to any organisation/community they belong to. As if you are in my mind. Believe it or not, I have written down names of witnesses (I don't care whether they know me), that I would want my followers/teammates and I to begin to celebrate week after week, based on the contribution that they have made in the steemit community. A lot of Steemians are running after those who have money. On the contrary, I praise and look for ways to celebrate those who have and are still contributing to this great community. Well done!!!
You vision has been clear from the onset. You have that really, to be clear and if or when we chat, you will understand how i mean it. Understanding life may be what have put us both in the same place mind-wise. I wrote this days back:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@surpassinggoogle/what-was-i-doing-when-i-was-15-what-is-theprophet0-doing-at-15-a-stunning-source-of-inspiration-for-every-steemit-user
Oh my goodness! What an inspiring post you wrote! How come I missed it? An excerpt of the post ,
''A major reason for doing all this was because i was a fan of a dreamer and i was dreamer too. I was a boy and i needed to be a solid rock for another boy.''Hmm...
You have missed many of my posts really. Recently, i have been using my post to talk!
You can read this one too: https://steemit.com/steemit/@surpassinggoogle/rewardpoolrape-is-an-illusionary-word-nothing-like-that-existed-on-steemit-why-the-trending-steemit-posts-are-really-trending
When we chat you will get the gist!
Thank you. Glad that you understand my person. Yes, we can chat when you have time. I'll go read your blog post now.
Wow thanks @surpassinggoogle for this amazing post and the info you gave.Your post are motivational especially for the newbies here.
You are welcome!
@timcliff is one i voted for witness. :-)
Great
I've been following @timcliff, and he's one of the three witness I've voted,
I know very little about steemit witness, and I hope to learn more, by that this post was really helpful,
I wish to learn about steemit witness from technical perspective as well, and also I wish to know more steemit witness and give them a vote as I know them better :)
Also, I wish to become a steemit witness if it's suitable for me, and hopefully I will get there one day :)
Great! You will get there!
This is an inspiration to me. Thanks
Glad about that
All hail @timcliff! :D
@sykochica, you are always there to help too. I've seen you show up many times in my post to 'rescue me'. Thank you. Yesterday, I listened to part of your voice recorded steemtrail podcast. It was quite interesting.
Thank you! I'm more than happy to help out my fellow Steemians.
Oh nice!! I loved that episode! Glad you've enjoyed to far. Tomorrow we'll be recording the next one with jphenderson / theWalrus with the whaleshares project. :D
3pm (8pm GMT) on our Steemit Talk Discord Server if you feel like joining. :)
You are welcome, @sykochica! I know . I did really enjoy listening to the episode. It would really be interesting for me to be part of the next episode. I have really been having trouble connecting with steem speak. Anyway, I will keep trying. Thanks for the invitation.
Love to see you at the recording! :D
Heh, strange on the SteemSpeak issue. It usually works pretty flawlessly. I just put up a post on discord this morning with a link to their channel that doesn't expire..in case that was the issue. Hard to say.
We do have a separate server that may not do the same thing.
@sykochica help me by the hand!
Hehe..I tried to get your Steem Lab discord some extra traffic in this post.
I'm always down to help..just had so little time lately to get around to everybody while still being able to sleep. lol
Yes, same here. I dont have any space in an entire day, it is overwhelming and i just resigned. I will check the post. Thank you a lot! I wonder how i can organize steemlab, it is going so out of my control and steemgigs gosh, that one is growing too fast, it is a joy to watch but i don't know how to organize it. Have a team though but the truth is i am still lost! We will talk soon!
Oh, I can soooooo relate. I've had a somewhat hard time getting to everything this last month between all the comments, private messages, new job, posts, podcast, the periodic 1-on-1 mentoring, lol.
Yea, we should definitely chat. Are you able to go to the Steemit Steemy Summer gathering next weekend?
First this one was very sweet:
Finally, I have to tell you about Steemlab Discord Server. This was started by one of the nicest, most caring, top notch steemians called @surpassinggoogle. (You're boy Terry! :D) He's done nothing but try to help others, spread happyness and be a very welcoming place for new people. This server also houses a couple of the projects he started called UnmeanStweets and Steem-Gigs!
Second; i will gist on you on steemy summer, basically, USA doesn't seem to like bitcoin thingy.
But who knows lisbon may happen. Wonder if you will be there but if you will be there, lisbon may happen!
The channel, i wish i could set up voice things. It is faster cos these days i chat with alot of steemians on steemit.chat on the same topic. voice would have helped. I wish i could set that up!
Wow! That is so good to know, which means it is in her nature to help. I am like that too, so that makes @sykochica and I.
Hehe, very much. It's what I do. :)
To validate my claim that @sykochica is a helper, this was one occassion where you came to my rescue with your wings of love like the ones I see in your profile picture.
This was the post, where I was so upset that a fellow Steemian downvoted me maliciously, https://steemit.com/steemit/@maryfavour/who-do-i-report-an-unecessary-downvote-to . Sykochica came to my rescue.
Hehe..I remember that. :)
I know the 'shock' of flaggers like that...love helping the good people just rise about those types. :)
All hail @sykochica!
I'll second that! I've learned a lot from him, that's for sure!
I third that!
Great post! Truly inspirational, and now i will also start looking into becoming a witness myself!
Thanks for the resources, the knowledge and the inspiration!
"There is nothing scammy about steemit/steem!"
On the steem platform you simply get paid in steem token for adding real world value to people and an economy is formed were people are willing to exchange steem tokens for real money!
I've given this some thought lately; the value of the Steem tokens (if you ask me) is stil derived off of future useage like for instance marketing on the Steemit platform. Steem is by no means a scam, but Steem tokens are stil not used in a corporate way yet. So until we reach this phase, the value of the Steem tokens can go any direction!
Thanks for the resources, the knowledge and the inspiration! Great post!!!..
thanks for sharing
You are welcome!
Very impressive. I upvoted your post dear.
Terry, thanks for writing that up and introducing me to another aspect of Steemit (and a little bit of the history), super cool!
Thank you so much for the shout out! I've still got so much to learn about crypto but I'm getting there and I can thank Steemit for that! You're pretty awesome too, @surpassinggoogle - do you have a target date to become a witness?
Wallet spam is not cool.
Oh i am sorry @demotruk. I want mostly had enthusiasts of steemgigs on my list and i added a few others. Is it okay to stick to only followers of steemgigs or will it be considered spamming too?
I don't know. I don't think it's clear that people following @steemgigs necessarily want an alert as you might get from receiving money in your wallet.
Thank you Demotruk. I will work on it a next time. This was an important update for steemians who follow steemgigs as it had to do with joint compilation and a new tagging systems that will help us compile upcoming steemgigs as it goes out of hand and we won't be able to control it manually anymore. This is only for now at the early stages as all compilation is manual! although i did include a few other steemian friends who can potential help me with the technical part of handling growth.
Thank you for your good post. I am very pleased to read good posts in feeds.
Knowing @timcliff personally, I can attest to everything you have said in your post. Upvoted!