Meet Our Steem Witness With @guiltyparties. Episode 27

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Welcome to my interview and thanks for the honor @guiltyparties

How did you first hear about steemit and what made you decide to join?

I heard about Steem before it became Steemit, back from the original thread on Bitcointalk forums. I originally discarded it as a scam due to the issues with early mining. I joined after being proven otherwise. I brought the Guiltyparties brand over in 2017 with a small team of friends.

For steemians who don’t know much about witnesses, can you give a layman explanation of what it is that witnesses do?

A witness runs a server that processes blocks in order to form the blockchain. Each witness server streams the blockchain and signs the blocks that are applied to it. Witnesses set the price feed, agree on account creation fees, and “vote in” hardforks and patches by applying them to their servers (upgrading their code). A witness must run their server in a responsible and competent manner.

Witnessing on the Steem blockchain based on “proof of stake” – meaning, the amount of invested support (votes) – which is where most “witness projects” come from. Witnesses need to rally support for their nodes by demonstrating competency, contributing on GitHub, promoting investment, creating value-added projects, promoting STEEM, etc.

Being a witness takes a lot of time and energy, how do you keep a balance between this and other commitments?

Maintaining the server itself does not require much time. What it does take is a 24/7 commitment. Should the server go down (let’s say if there’s an unexpected issue at the datacenter) or should there be a patch that needs to be applied, I have to drop everything and ensure that happens.

The majority of projects that I support and the time that goes into those aren’t meant to be “witness projects” (aka projects created only for the purposes of receiving witness votes). I do end up talking about them like that to show that aside from the tech end of things, we add value in other ways.

I treat it with the same respect I’d give to a business venture. All it is is time management. I personally typically take weekends off to spend with family.

What can you say about the HF20?

HF20 had a lot of ambitious code and concepts that required some readjustment after the initial deployment. Everyone learned a lot of lessons during that time and unfortunately regular users and project owners alike were unfortunately inconvenienced during it. The purpose of the new changes and the Resource Credit system is to cut down on abuse, spam and to streamline the blockchain. Once we were able to finish replaying our witnesses and doing everything else we could to help the situation that developed, we hope we ended up with a better blockchain that is now ready for SMTs in the near future and other advents.

What drains the RC?

Overusing one's account, particularly through artificial means such as through poorly coded bots, will drain RCs. Manual curation and participating as a human being should not.

What aids the recharge of the RCs?

Powering up the account a bit to a level each individual is comfortable with and then using it sparingly will help keep the RCs recharged. If we all shift focus on promoting manual creation, we'll end up with a better Steem ecosystem and have RCs to spare. New users that find themselves at a loss should reach out to established users and witnesses for assistance. We're all on the same team here.

What is one thing that most people don’t know about you?

I dabbled on Steem prior to registering @guiltyparties. That’s why I know who’s who this well.

What makes you different other witnesses in the steem community?

To keep it short will answer this one just for myself, not for my team as a whole. I have over a decade of community management/leadership experience not just from the Guilty Parties project which launched in 2002 but a lot prior. Familiar with online projects that have massive, diverse userbases. None of the issues we see in the Steem ecosystem today are new to me.

What is the biggest challenge you have ever faced since you joined steemit?

Personally, getting used to GitHub and the workflow/buy-in process. Open source development and private projects are day and night.

As one of the witnesses what is your duty?

To fulfil all of the obligations I outlined earlier.

What is the biggest challenge the steem community must overcome before it goes widespread?

To be truly decentralised we need to look past Steemit Inc and take ownership of the blockchain. That notion that Steemit Inc must be held responsible for literally everything that exists and does not exist on the blockchain needs to give way.

The other end of this is we need to stop comparing ourselves to centralized social media projects like Facebook. We need to focus on what we are and what we want to be.

I know that you are always busy with your computer trying to help the community, apart from that, what are the other things do you enjoy doing?

Fishing, working on cars, metal detecting.

Where do you see the value of steem in the next 4-5 years along with the platform?

The Steem blockchain has already proven itself in terms of stability and ability to attract innovation. Should this pace continue, I definitely see the value of STEEM holding steady at $100 five years from now.

What can you say on the recent dip on steem?

Crypto is volatile, that’s just how it goes. That’s the nature of the beast.

What do you think is the possible best way to bring people to invest in steem?

The best way is to make sure Steem is hospitable to new investment. What I mean by that is to have the information, contacts, interaction, accessibility, structure, case studies, all available so when an investor looks at Steem they see a sure thing, not a gamble. People need to see the Steem blockchain for its possibilities, not for the Trending page of Steemit.

What’s the big plans you are working on to make steemit great?

Myself and a lot of other witnesses and stakeholders are working on marketing and promotion for Steem. You’ll see a lot of posts by various people, like @timcliff and @cryptoctopus, talking about marketing. There’s a lot of folks out there who have nothing to do with one another except that they want to see promote Steem. We’re all actively working on it alongside our normal projects. Watch the #ssmbd tag and other similar tags for updates.

Besides being invested in steem, what other crypto currencies do you fancy?

Scorum. Yeah that’s a copout. Look into it.

Some people have called crypto currency the internet 2.0 while other think it is just a hiccup in evolution, what are your thoughts on the future of crypto?

People are skeptical about everything until it becomes mainstream. Crypto has a lot of potential that hasn’t yet been realized but to become mainstream, it must be separated from the “scam” descriptor.

What will be the implications of government having a say in cryptocurrency world?

The same as the role of goverments having a say in the stock market.

If you could only vote for one witness (not yourself) who would it be and why?

@themarkymark

I pondered this question for a few days and that’s the answer without a doubt. You may as well rephrase that question to read “If only one witness could be trusted to run all of the top 20 servers (not yourself) who would it be and why?”.

He’s 100% dedicated, honest, competent and committed to technical excellence and the community.

In five sentences or less, tell steemians why you deserve their vote.

Pretty much everything my witness earns from signing blocks I put back into the community. I make free accounts for everyone, not just people with crypto to buy them with or existing ‘influencers’. I offer free delegation to excellent communities like @steembd with no strings attached. I spend a lot of my own time helping users recover accounts, improve their blogs and earnings, and generally have a better experience on Steem. If this is something you want more of in the Steem ecosystem, speak with your vote for myself and for others who give more than they take.

If you could have a privilege to change something about steemit, what would it be?

I can change whatever I want already if we’re talking from the technical standpoint. Everyone can. If we’re talking abstract, I’d like to see the “us vs them” attitude go out the window. It’s all just “us”, the decentralized ecosystem.

It is so awesome finally having a chat with you @guiltyparties

Thanks so much for creating time for meet our steemit witness. Have a wonderful day.

Thanks @dhavey