Hey Hive community. I've met a lot of you online already but if we haven't, consider this an introduction. I came to Hive as a miner fairly early in its life. I created my account by mining on April 23rd 2016. Once I found out what Hive really was for, to enable and reward community-driven content and interaction on a blockchain platform, I was skeptical but very interested. I read the whitepaper outlining the model that Hive was taking to achieve this goal and most of my skepticism vanished. I was in.
I'm still in, moreso than before. A few people have made posts about being full-time in Hive and I can count myself among them. Here are some of the things I do to bring value to Hive and Hive.
Activity
I try to be a model Hiveian by commenting, curating, and actually reading/viewing/watching/listening to many of the unique posts we have here. I also participate and help users in over 30 channels on Hive.chat, where I also occasionally perform the role of moderator. You can also sometimes find me in Hivespeak and the Hive Talk Podcast discords.
I post. I was one of the first people on Hive to post topics on subjects other than Hive or cryptocurrency. If you go and scroll all the way down on my blog roll, you'll find my first post was a discussion topic about games and gaming. From the start my goal was to diversify the content on Hive, to make it a valuable platform that people outside the cryptocurrency sphere would want to join. Many others helped as well, and over time that goal has been partially achieved. I still think there is improvement to be made in onboarding people that might be turned off by some of the technical bits about rewards or the complexities of Hive.
Since then I have found the inspiration to share my own personal photography, and thoughts on various topics I'm interested in. It has unlocked something in me that was dormant. I've often had thoughts like doing a blog reviewing tacos or maybe a more eclectic set of topics but I imagined I would just be talking into a chasm and nobody would ever read them. And to get rewarded for sharing photography is unbelievably encouraging to push myself to learn and get better. I reinvested much of my post earnings back into content production: getting a modern DSLR camera and lenses, software, and a photo production-oriented monitor.
I've written a few guides to help people get up to speed with various aspects of Hive and Hive:
- [Guide] Hive Windows Mining in a Linux Virtual Machine
- How to login with your posting key (and why this is important)
- A Full Hive User's Guide to Hive Witnesses
- A User's Guide to the Different Hive Keys or Passwords
- Your Hive account is worth money! How to secure it with a new owner key to keep it yours forever (outdated, made before changes to Hive's permissions page)
- Hive Command Line Guide - A Learner's Guide to Using cli_wallet
- Secrets of the Blogchain: A Guide to Using Hived.com
Witness
As a witness I have stayed active. I've been running at least one Hive node since I first successfully compiled it back in April 2016. I keep my price feed up to date and have adjusted APR and other witness parameters as I think is needed. I have never missed a hardfork.
I've always tried to spur discussion of major changes to Hive, especially when I thought they didn't make any sense. Such changes include a scrapped proposal to give 25% of a post's rewards as a handout to its comments, which I believed would only encourage low quality comments, botting, and gaming that system. Another proposed change I thought was a bad idea was to give the miner block producer slot the same amount of Hive Power rewards as the backup slot. I also share feedback in chat, on Hive, and on github when I see it's necessary.
Why I want your approval vote
I want your vote, small medium or large, if you trust me and approve of what I do in the Hive ecosystem. I'd also like more stake in Hive, not only to have a higher powered vote but also to bring my account investment in line with my time invested. I want to see Hive grow and succeed, and do what I can to make it happen.
Thank you to all the Hiveians who already have an approval vote for me or voted for me in the past. Without you I wouldn't be making this post to get to the next level. The rewards from this post will be used to cover costs for my current local advertising in development.
Post updated to make it less STINCy.
Thanks for the info. Voted for your witness.
Thank you much @onceuponatime!
fuccckkkk
Great article! I vote and follow you , thumbs up!
ps. Totally agree with some of your points, we really need to increase the population on STEEM!
You've always come across as a hard working, helpful and trustworthy member of the community, and I've enjoyed our discussions in the photography channel. You have my vote!
Thank you for the kind words @movievertigo!
Can I ask that you, as I would like to see witnesses in general do, briefly describe where you stand socially and politically on a few issues of your own choice.
In my opinion, this gives a better understanding of the more personal motivations that could be driving a witness at some point in time.
I don't know if most political positions are super relevant for a witness on Steem. Specific important issues like censorship and freedom of speech certainly are though. I have been a free speech supporter since I was probably about 10 years old and able to grasp the concept. I also am against censorship. I think things like the US FCC banning certain words from radio broadcasts and nudity from TV is absurd. Equally absurd is admonishing children for using "bad" words.
Economic issues are also relevant. On Steem, people's token balances and thus stake-based influence should be considered immutable. Dan had an idea once to make it possible to automatically void another's stake with your own, which I thought was a bad idea and would have fought it had it gone any further than idea stage.
Furthermore I think that a recent increase and then decrease of the witness-set SBD APR% variable was a bit of a bait-and-switch, because the APR% went from 10% to 15% in order to increase SBD demand, but was then reduced to 9% in less than a month. This wasn't done with any malice or intention on scamming SBD holders, but I still think it is cause for concern. I participated in this to some extent, and learned from it. For as long as the current system is in place, I don't think I'll ever decrease the APR% more than once in 30 days. I will take opportunities to lobby for a better system that accumulates interest at the current rate throughout a 30 day payment period, rather than paying SBD interest at the current network rate, even if it's less than it was for the other 29 days of the period.
I have much to learn from you
Thank you for answering!
You're welcome, thanks for the question.
Good Job!! Thanks for the work you give us!!
You're welcome
Pfunk for president :P
The question is... president of what? :O
The candy kingdom of course. Resteemed. Hope to see you back in the top 19 soon.
And I shall appoint you the Secretary of Chocolate. Wait what's a president doing in a kingdom anyway? :P Thanks!
Good question hahaha.. you got me ;)
He's making the candy kingdom great again...."bigly".
You have my vote sir.
Hey, @pfunk,
THANK YOU for all that you do!
You are followed, upvoted, and have my approval as witness... ;)
STEEM ON! :) :) :)
Thank you very much @creatr
Thanks for all of your hard work @pfunk !
You are welcome @dailybitcoinnews :)
For a newbie, this really covered a lot, happy to vote for you
I appreciate that. Welcome to Steemit!
Good Post!Thank you)
Thanks @favorit
Thanks so much for your support with Open Mic @pfunk.
It's good to see all the other things you're involved with on Steemit.
You have my vote as a witness for sure.
I can't take much credit. You do all the heavy lifting. Thank you very much for your approval!
The community is having fun with the project and that's the coolest thing about it. Your support is much appreciated by everyone.
You did well to post this. I have voted for you many times as a PHOTOGRAPHER and a mighty fine one at that! I had no idea though of your other contributions! I well head over now and vote you in as a witness!
@kus-knee (The Old Dog)
Oh my, I've never had anyone bite me as a witness. This will be interesting! :P
Thank you!
:) Edited!
Hey @pfunk, you have had and always will have my vote as one of my witness,s ! So let,s now Steem On and Up all together )
Thank you very much @gomeravibz
@pfunk you're a certified badass who puts your money and time where your mouth is, which is why you've had my vote for quite a while. Well done and much appreciated, as always. As a musician in the community, of course I also really appreciate your support of OpenMic, but you already know that. Thanks again for everything.
Thank you Jessamyn :)
👍
got my vote!! (see my page..thanks) Yankee-statman
Thank you @yankee-statman
Thanks for sharing! Very good post, very interesting .. @pfunk Followed and upvoted! I'm new to Steemit, I invite you to visit my post, upvoted and follow me @Sandra16 Help me?
Thank you @sandra16
@pfunk, steem on dude. You got my vote.
Thank you @runridefly. Steem on!
I gave you my (small :) vote a while ago, because I trust you and appreciate all that you are doing for this community.
I appreciate it @nelyp. Having approval from many individual real people is rewarding for its own sake, no matter their stake.
You have my vote dude, in fact you have had it for ages. Great fan of the work you do for steemit and your blog posts too!
Thank you very much @meesterboom, I'm a fan of your work as well. Actually whenever I see your food/pepper posts I start salivating like a pavlovian dog. :P
Cheers man, that's exactly the effect I am trying for!!
Resteemed for ya brotha
I appreciate that @stealthtrader! Thank you
You've definitely got my vote @pfunk, truly thank you for all your contributions to this wonderful Steemit community, I hope you become witness indeed. I'm going to check our your gaming post right now, I just posted a gaming article just now as I came across yours. The diversity and intricacy of content in Steemit is growing more vast and is going to be an enticing factor for more users in the near future. Best of success to you as a future witness, Upvoted!
Thank you @verbal-d! Diverse and niche stuff is definitely valuable to the growth of Steem. Websites will usually stagnate if the culture becomes a singular clique.
Wise words and you're most indeed welcome
Shut up and take my vote! =)
PS you've had in for ages.... but still
Thanks Putin! ... err Serej ;)
You can't just blow my cover like that man =)
@pfunk, I believe you are one of the first witnesses I've voted for because of your participation in the community. I cannot believe how much time you spend in chat! Where do you find the time to do everything you do?
Perhaps if you see this and have the time, you could direct me to some good links to information on the difference between CPU and GPU mining? There is so much to learn, but I am determined to understand and perhaps one day begin mining as well. It seems to be the wave of the now and future.
Thank you very much Meredith! As someone with a few CPUs and GPUs, most of them idle right now, I can say it's a total waste of time and electricity, most of the time. :P The short answer to why GPUs are faster is that they are designed for parallel operations, and CPUs are designed for serial ones. This old article on the Bitcoin wiki summarizes it. Ignore the stuff about AMD vs. Nvidia, it's not necessarily the case anymore.
Thank you @pfunk. The wiki sounds like a great starting point. I appreciate you taking the time :)
Upvoted for you for your witness. Good work and keep it up! :)
Thanks @thebatmanbiker!
Good job you doing up here. You have my vote for witness. Keep steeming.
Thank you @oldtimer. Will do!
good!!!
I'm a little late to the party....I wasn't sure what all this voting was about - I get it now. You have my vote - one, because I come across your replies and see your presence and encouraging remarks and two, because I like how you presented in this post. I wasn't aware you were the man behind the curtain on so many projects.
One question I do have, if you have a moment, is how to organize certain posts that contain helpful guides. Do most bookmark them in their browser or is there another way within steemit that I am not aware of? Thanks.
Thank you very much @countrygirl! I'm not the only man behind these things. Many people contribute to everything on Steemit.
Regarding helpful posts, the new Welcome page has some good info and tips, including links to some posts. You can access it by clicking the shutter icon in the upper right on a steemit.com page, it's the 4th link down.
Nice. Thank you! I see the link.
Who would I make a suggestion to about followers and those following? I would like to see those alphabetized so I can find people quicker. ??
Well, I go to my secret safe to take my active key and vote for you!
I think you are one of the most deeply involved in this platform people.
I appreciate the effort! Thank you @boddhisattva.
Very useful information, thank you. Voted for you as witness.
Thank you for the vote @technovedanta :)
This post has been linked to from another place on Steem.
Learn more about and upvote to support linkback bot v0.5. Flag this comment if you don't want the bot to continue posting linkbacks for your posts.
Built by @ontofractal
You've still got my vote, thanks for everything you do for the community :)
Thank you @ausbitbank!
Hi! I am new here. please follow me, I know nothing. You seem great tho and congrats.
Hi there! I've been meaning to check out your page as my brother is a super talented musician who I am encouraging to get on here. I've posted a couple of his originals on my page along with others and @luzcypher has been really encouraging. I started just under two weeks ago, and it's a fantastic place. I believe in where it's going. Ironically, I only recently learned about witnesses and what they do, I had no idea you were one until I got on your page just now. I just new you were a huge part of the music incentive here and I've seen a lot of great comments about you. It's excellent that you're a witness. I think it's important that those who do what you do are really involved with the community. So absolutely, you have my vote! I would love it if you could recommend other witnesses for me to check out. I have been doing some research when I can, but it would be much easier if they were all similar to you, ha! I'm self-governing and all about being free, so it' a no-brainer.
If you get a chance-and really you'll want to, it's an awesome song to start a Saturday on-- click on the link and check out my brother ;) https://steemit.com/funny/@dreemit/lazy-day-blues Going to vote for you now.
Voted for you in the witness page. Thank you for all you do.
You are welcome, and thanks!
I voted for your witness to.
Thank you!
Thank you
yes thanks a lot will follow as well have a nice day
"Your voice is worth something" is a great tag line. Thanks for all that you do.
I found the witness page and voted for you yesterday. :-)
@pfunk - I have just started voting for witnesses today. I am fairly new and still learning, but a few members have stood out for being active supporters in the Steemit Community. You are one of them. I am happy to return that support for you as a witness.
thank you sirk,
I've voted for you as a witness
Thanks for nurturing the community. You have my full support back.
I have voted for you as my witness. Thank you for your support @pfunk
Helping in curbing abuse? Ah...you got my vote! :)
Very nice,,,
My profile
https://steemit.com/@atcexperts
My blog
The most effective method to Achieve Perfect Focus.
Follow me and vote for my blog
keep in touch
Excelent
Thanks for the help in Forums. You were my first witness vote. Thanks again.
you got my vote
Good like