What is a Witness?

Witnesses are the elected leaders of the community. They are ambassadors for the project, and many of them work on things to improve the value of the platform.

Witnesses are tasked with validating and producing the blocks for the blockchain, which ensures everything in the network operates smoothly and correctly. Every three seconds one of the witnesses assemble all of the transactions that have occurred (such as posts, comments, votes, HIVE/HBD transfers) into a "block" and then they store all that information in the distributed database network called the "blockchain".

Witnesses are also responsible for maintaining an accurate and up-to-date price feed, as well as deciding on several important blockchain parameters. Witnesses control the cost for websites to create new accounts, and decide how much interest to pay for holding HBD. Many witnesses also host a public 'seed' node that other witnesses and the rest of the community can use to interact with the blockchain.

For more information on what witnesses do, and how to select good witnesses - check out this Witness Voting Guide!

Who is @timcliff?

I'm 33 years old, and I live in New Brighton, MN. I am happily married to @artist1989 =)

I have a Bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Minnesota. I have ten years of experience in professional software development, working for a "Software-as-a-Service" company that develops applications for the energy industry. I spent most of my career as a software developer, and now I work as a Data Engineer consultant.

If you want to learn more about me, you can check out my "reintroduceyourself" post!

How is @timcliff Involved?

• I have been a Steem witness since Oct 7, 2016, and transitioned to Hive when the Hive blockchain launched on March 20, 2020.
• I am actively posting, commenting, curating/voting, and resteeming good content.
• I helped to organize all of the community's ideas into the original Steemit Wish List back when we were trying to pentition Steemit, Inc. for change.
• I worked with @bitcoiner to create the condenser Quick Start Guide (formally the "Welcome Page") to provide new users the information they need to get started after signing up for a new account.
• I am heavily involved in discussions on how to improve the platform and whether to accept hardforks.
• I review activity in the Hive GitHub repository and frequently comment and make suggestions. I also submit pull requests with various enhancements and glitch fixes.
• I ran an experiment called @the.masses to see what would happen if everyone in the community had access to the private posting key of an account.
• I worked with @pfunk and several members of the community to submit pull request 1352 to add over a hundred new questions/answers to the condenser FAQ page.
• I submited periodic Development Updates - GitHub Report posts to let the community know what the dev team has been up to in GitHub.
• I created a weekly Reports from the Witnesses post that provides the community a summary of all the witness update posts from the past week.
• I attended the Beyond Bitcoin Show to talk about the Steem/Steemit platform, and experience a witness.
• I created Instructions for Installing a condenser Instance (for Developers).
• I have hosted several bounties and contests to reward the community for participating and being involved.
• I submit witness reports to the community to let everyone know what I'm up to.

What are @timcliff's Views on Hive Topics?

• Everything you need to know about potential payouts and flagging
• Updated thoughts on 'the whale experiment'
• SBD Debt Reduction - A Fiscally Conservative View
• Whales - Can the community buy out a portion of your influence?
• Proposal for three new communities to spur growth, increase user retention, and incentive investment: Witch Hunters, Flag Wars, and Trolls (Humor)
• Why The STEEM Bubble Was an Investment Round and Not a Product Launch (post from @dan-atstarlite)
• Do you want to be a BETA Tester? [A New Recruitment Model]
• Steemit's Biggest Investment Problem - The Cost/Benefit Analysis Reward Curve
• No. You do not own Steemit, Inc.
• The Battle of Upvote Weights
• Attention Sharks - There is blood in the water. Are you ready to invest?

Server Architecture

I run a primary witness server as well as a backup server, that both run 24/7/365. I have an automated script that runs to detect if my primary server starts missing blocks, and if it detects that the node is failing it automatically switches over to the backup server. I do periodic maintenance on the servers, but I only work on a server when the other one is running as the active node.

Server Specs:

• Operating System: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
• Processor: AMD 3.1 GHz, 6 cores
• RAM: 32 GB DDR3
• Hard Drive: 3 TB

Security:

• Remote Hosting
• SSH keys to login
• Password authentication disabled
• Root login disabled

Interested in Becoming a Witness?

If you are interested in becoming a witness, check out this guide from @bitcalm. It is a great resource, and provides pretty much all the info you need to get a witness node up and running! You may also be interested in learning how much witnesses make per block. The information in the posts may be slightly out of date, but they are still fairly accurate, and at least a great place to start.

Voting

If you think I will make a great witness, please vote for me here:
https://peakd.com/me/witnesses
Or via the cli_wallet: vote_for_witness youraccount timcliff true true

Thanks

Thank you for taking the time to read my witness application post!