Interview with @good-karma eSteemed developer and #4 witness: Witness awareness series





A steemit witness is not someone who happened to see a crime in progress, they are a community delegated blockchain steward responsible for block verification. This particular blog is going to pass through one of their nodes before becoming a permanent fixture on the blockchain. If the block was missed, an error appears and you have to re-submit any action (upvote, edit, follow, etc.). Once a witness misses a block, the block goes to the next witness in the queue who likely verifies correctly and gets rewarded roughly 1 SP.
Since the inception of Steemit, the size of the blockchain has gotten quite bloated and witnesses have to keep modifying their servers to handle the increasing users and data influx. It is a time consuming responsibility and running a server is only a small part of the job. It takes so much more to be a member of the top 50 witnesses.
I have had the opportunity to interview multiple witnesses from various walks of life to see what makes them tick, and why they are so passionate about steemit. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, read more about witnesses HERE.
The steemit witnesses are constantly evolving and changing positions based on their weighted votes assigned by the steemit community. New witnesses are continually starting up new nodes for the opportunity to help maintain the blockchain and be rewarded for their efforts.

One of these veterans is @good-karma, and he has been busy developing eSteem for quite some time and happens to be in the #4 spot currently.






Necro-small.jpgHi good-karma, thanks for doing this interview. Lets start off by telling the world a little bit about yourself.

googkarmasmall.pngHey, thank you for having me! Well, my name is Feruz aka good-karma. I am founder and lead developer of eSteem project which is first application built on top of Steem after steemit.

Necro-small.jpgHow long have you been a witness, and what made you decide to take on the responsibility of being a blockchain steward?

googkarmasmall.pngI believe it is almost 1 year now when I started witness nodes, right after I have started eSteem project I have decided to provide reliable nodes, support the platform that I am building application for. It took 6 months of this last year to reach top 20 spot which I am thankful to all supporters and voters to put their trust on me.

Necro-small.jpgYou are currently the #4 witness, but for a while were at the #1 spot. Does this fluctuation impact the amount of blocks that you are required to verify?

googkarmasmall.pngTop 20 produces same amount of blocks everyday.

Necro-small.jpgWitnesses come in many flavors, and you are an esteemed developer (pun intended). How much time do you dedicate your steemit software development and other various steemit activities (node maintenance, posting content, etc.)?

googkarmasmall.pngMost of my time in a day goes to check witness nodes, development of eSteem and couple other projects as well as catch up with community and write something useful.

Necro-small.jpgFor those who are unfamiliar with some of the steemit interaction tools that you have developed, what are they, and what exactly do they do?

googkarmasmall.pngBesides eSteem, there is SteemFest mobile application developed with collaboration Roeland and Cass to help event attendees with information and location of each sessions. SteemPoll is another application to help bootstrap projects and get decision of the crowd on projects. Idea is to have embedding polls on top of Steem, it is still early stages and being developed whenever got extra time after other projects.

Necro-small.jpgSteemFest is coming and you are obviously going to be in attendance. What are your plans for the big event?

googkarmasmall.pngAs usual, SteemFest mobile application will be updated once we have everything set up and ready. There are few surprises that will be announced during event. Eagerly waiting to meet Steemians from all over the world!

Necro-small.jpgHF19 has had some mixed reviews within the community. What are some changes you would like to see in the next hard fork?

googkarmasmall.pngChanges on HF20 being discussed in various channels, posts. So far I like the path we are taking and easy registration and onboarding solution will help eSteem quite a lot in terms of being able to market app to mainstream.

Necro-small.jpgVoting for witnesses is an important responsibility. Why do you feel that steemians should vote for you as a witness?

googkarmasmall.pngWitnesses play important role for direction platform is moving and helping to keep network stable. And your vote always helps to elect trustworthy people that know how system works and can contribute in some ways to growth of the platform.

voteforwitnesses.jpg

OK, so now that you know what these wonderful witnesses do for our community, the least you can do it vote for them. Dead witnesses verify no blocks, so cast your votes and make sure our blocks get verified and not dropped.

First, point your browser to https://steemit.com/~witnesses

Vote away, using your best judgement. If you want to know more about a Witness, be sure to visit their Witness feed. You can always add in a witness who is not in the top 50, or you can choose your favorite witness (or other steemian) as a proxy and delegate your votes too!

Don't forget to check out @good-karma's witness thread. Also feel free to check out esteem to check out @good-karma's steemit interface

Previous Interview threads

@ausbitbank
@aggroed
@theprophet0
@neoxian
@someguy123
@timcliff
@dragosroua
@followbtcnews
@reggaemuffin

Upcoming Interview threads

@gtg

You can verify how well these witnesses are doing their job of verifying blocks a couple of different ways and this may also factor into voting choices.
Stats on Witness activity are available at
Steemd & Steemdb

Thanks to the PALNet and MinnowSupport project

The PALnet and MinnowSupport project is one of the fastest growing Steemit social groups supported by @aggroed @ausbitbank @theprophet0 @neoxian @someguy123 @thecryptodrive @teamsteem, & @followbtcnews. We have over 5000 members dedicated to helping each other grow into dolphins and eventually whales, and are fueled by member delegations. @crimsonclad has been working her tail off creating a new website for the MSP and PALnet members.

Grand total of more than 120,000 SP to help upvote minnows!

Check out @crimsonclad's beautiful new MSP site at http://minnowsupportproject.org/ and please join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/HYj4yvw

Minnow Support Project: Problem Statement, Vision Statement, Mission Statement, and Plan to help you grom from Minnow to Whale with friends in record time


Image courtesy of @justcallmemyth

Imgur
thanks to @kristyglas for the line breaks, find more here

If you are a witness and would like to be interviewed, you can find me in the PALnet discord chat or steemit.chat

Check out some of my previous posts if you like what you've read

Witness Awareness Series: Interviews with various witnesses
Interview with @reggaemuffin
Interview with @followbtcnews
Interview with @dragorsoua
Interview with @timcliff
Interview with @someguy123
Interview with @neoxian
Interviews with @aggroed, @theprophet0, and @ausbitbank

Most Recent Post

The many flavors of Witnesses: crypto-anarchist, entrepreneur, developer, community advocate

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Very informative.

This post has received a 3.13 % upvote from @drotto thanks to: @banjo.

Good-karma did an amazing jobs as developer, witness and this community. One worthy witness vote. Pls vote him.

Agreed, those working hard to promote the growth of the comnunity deserve our votes

-Excellent post thanks for sharing ! @necrophagist
I am a new steemians, maybe i should study first with you, regards know me

Welcome aboard, I have many interviews to share with the various witnesses, just follow the links

I've been intrigued by @good-karma's success. Now I learned more about him thanks to this interview. Although I'm not a fan of smartphones and tablets (I'm part of the PC Master Race 😉), I'm sure lots of users appreciate eSteem and are thankful it was developed.

Yeah, it's a great app and he has put lots of work into it :)

Thanks for doing these interviews @necrophagist! Most of us know @good-karma because of the amazing job he's done with eSteem. I can't even imagine functioning in Steemit without his app. Glad to know that there are others apps I need to either check out or look forward to in the future.

Youre welcome. We have so much to attribute to our great witnesses. Happy to help spread the word

welcome @safamostaafa to Steemit ! . I hope you enjoy your time here, its a great community :) Nice post, i will follow your account, please follow me !

Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by necrophagist from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

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