Witness update #1 - Early steps and the witness blocks challenge

Empowering Curators, Community Leaders, and Minnows. Valuing engagement and positive interactions.

In this update:

  • Our initial thoughts and some data as a new witness, fresh on the block
  • The Witness Blocks Challenge by @guiltyparties

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Welcome to the 2nd post from @steemcommunity.

If you are visiting our page for the first time and would like to find out more about our project, please take a look at our initial contribution:

Introducing @steemcommunity - A Witness Project by @abh12345 and @paulag

We would like to begin by sincerely thanking everyone for the early support that we have had via comments and votes for our witness.

The first block was mined on the 31st March 2018 by @steemcommunity, and we currently stand at rank #95, which is more than we ever expected as a new witness.

The statistics produced by @arcange for the initial post were just amazing to see:

Thank you all very much for your support!

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Witness blocks challenge

This initiative by @guiltyparties gives witnesses a good chance to show their kindness and transparency and we have @jackmiller to thank for the nomination. The criteria set is:

  • Do something useful for others (i.e. free delegation, account creation for others, etc.) with your witness blocks
  • Write a post about it
  • Tag it with #witness-blocks
  • Nominate a witness

As @steemcommunity is a new witness, the account is relatively small and so the focus will be on our personal accounts (@abh12345 and @paulag). But first, a short section on witness costs.

The witness account has currently mined 21 blocks since the 31st March, at an average of 2 blocks per day. At the current price of STEEM, this will give us around 60 blocks a month, at $1.8/STEEM - $108, which $2 short of the current server costs.

The server costs are likely to increase as we add redundancy and other hardware as required, but at present we are looking at break-even here.

Delegated Steem Power

This is something we have both being doing for a while now. And while we could choose to delegate for profit, those in most need of this support do not have the financial set-up to pay.

The decisions to delegate are based around trying to empower the most engaged, community building Steemians, so that they can then 'pay it forward' to those they see doing positive actions in our network. We do not ask for STEEM or upvotes in return - engagement is what we look out for.

@paulag's delegations


@abh12345's delegations


The engagement levels of many of these 'user' accounts can be viewed on @abh12345's weekly Engagement League post.

These numbers work both ways as the delegator can perform a checkup on activity, and the delegatee can assess how well they are involving themselves in the community from week to week.

It is likely that in the future, this data gathering will be offered out to communities that wish to check how well their members/delegatee's are engaging.

In total, we currently have over 6000 Steem Power on loan to communities and individuals. The most recent delegation being to @curie, who we see a solid witness to support. They recently issued 'A call for Delegation', and we answered.

In summary, our witness blocks are going towards server costs, but our personal accounts have been, and will continue to support good people and good projects.

Thank you @guiltyparties for this opportunity

We would like to nominate new witness @danielsaori for this challenge!

Thank you for your time today,

Asher and Paula.

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Useful links

Steemitguide: What is a Exactly is a STEEM Witness and why every User should Vote

Seriously, what is a STEEM witness? Why should I care? How do I become one? (Answer)

SteemitBC on Discord: https://discord.gg/J7TCJT6

Where to vote: https://steemit.com/~witnesses

How to vote for @steemcommunity

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@steemcommunity

Asher @abh12345 and Paula @paulag

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Good work. Sorry I missed this earlier and now it's past payout. Just want to encourage you guys and good to see you're interacting with 2 of my other favourite witnesses @jackmiller and @guiltyparties

Thanks man! Sorry we are a bit late on the reply here!

Let's support @steemcommunity as a witness, I've chosen it, what are you waiting for?

i would like to bring you witness to my w/(h) ea L/L (t/h) D https://steemit.com/g0fig/@xubrnt/ned-steemit

Congratulation to your great witness start! You are making an awesome team.

Thanks for the nomination. I've just got my system up and running and I'm preparing my announcement post. I'm still to produce my first block, but I read the instructions from @guiltyparties and it is not an issue for me to participate in this challenge.

I will try to get my "Witness-blocks challenge" post out in early next week.

Thank you very much!

I hope you don't mind the nomination, i think it's a good opportunity for you to tell people about all the good work you've been doing.

Looking forward to your post, cheers!

No, not at all. It will be a good thing to push me to take action. :)
Just have to find a suitable candidate to pass it on to.

Good :)

And yes, maybe a top 5 witness? :P

Happy if I can find one in Top 50. :)

Thanks for participating in the challenge! Just noticed it, been swamped with all the phishing and other stuff going on here and must've missed the mention.

No worries, a good initiative from yourselves this :)

I whish you a great sucess with your new chalenge to be a witness.
I already vote and please continue your excelent work supporting minows and curators

Thank you @pataty69, we will do our best :)

When you announced that two of the most engaged people in the platform was going to join forces and be a witness it was a no-brainer because communities are very important in Steemit.

It is the driving force to keeping people engaged and talking in Steem.

So I will continue to root for you and ask people who have an extra witness vote to consider you.

Thank you mav that's very good of you! cheers!

The early stages I see great progress, all this means to steemit users all over the world, they will know how to work witness in empowering them, I am proud to be involved in this noble project with people who are very concerned about this community, unbelievable this growth, but here is the reality, something that starts well the results will be good too, @paulag and @abh12345 many people will support you both, I am the ultimate.

Thanks @mrday, great to have your support and assistance! :D

Good to see that the project climbed already to number 95!
Could you please create a banner about the witness project, so that we add these to our postings once in a while. I think that you will be surprised how many of us, will add the banner!
Eternal thanks for the free delegation. I hope that you like the way that I am using it! Nothing wrong with checking occasionally if the delegation is used in a correct manner!

#95 is a great start!

We'll have a think about a banner, sometimes they look a bit too much like advertising/spam.

No worries on your delegation usage, I may have a more detailed look from time to time but 'League 2' tells me your vote goes far and wide.

Cheers!

Keep on going guys!

Slow and steady comes somewhere in the race :D

Cheers, we shall!

I really like the sound of this challenge @steemcommunity. It seems like a great way to get to know some witnesses better. It's a shame it's not required of all witnesses but then I suppose we wouldn't be decentralised.

Hopefully it will help us make more informed decisions about witnesses. Even one who doesn't respond after being tagged will tell us something!

Congratulations on getting into the top 100 so quickly. I hope you make it into the top 50 soon as well. It's a refreshing thing you're doing.

Thank you, as always, for the delegation and for the leagues which make it even more fun to keep engaging than it already is.

I hope this post gets seen by lots of people who have yet to come across you who will also love what you do here! 😍

Thank you for your kind words of support @gillianpearce!

I agree that it would be nice for as many witnesses as possible to get involved, and I hope our nomination follows suit as he is doing some great things here.

I'm glad the leagues are bringing a bit of fun and inspiring engagement :D

The update of what's going on with the witness is appreciated. It's good to hear that things are underway and that the blocks are being mined. It's also good to hear that you're nearly making a monthly amount to cover expenses. That in and of itself is pretty cool right out of the chute.

I just got through reading the update from the steemitblog about scalability where they mentioned what they've been working to lighten the current hardware requirements for running witness/full nodes. I imagine you've seen the post by now. I know that doesn't help with what you need in the moment, but maybe it will actually reduce costs when appbase and the rest is implemented.

Hard to tell when this is all supposed to go down. It always seems imminent, but hardly ever is.

All in all, a good showing. I'll be expecting to hear more from you in the coming weeks and months.

Good luck!

Thanks!

I actually didn't think we'd be close to covering costs to start with, so it's a real bonus we are pretty much there with this :D

I did read the post but do think costs may go up before they come down, we shall see.

Pretty happy with things thus far though, thanks for your support!

Awesome to see that you're already implementing changes to better the steemiverse! Keep it up, much love <3 <3 <3

and we will keep doing so @amymya

It’s great to see all the support for you.
We can never have too many witnesses that actually care about the community ;0)

loads done so much more to do. Thank you for the support @simplymike

You’re welcome, @paulag.
Thanks for caring :0)

It sure is, thank you! :D

@abh12345 you put me to shame with all your delegations.... I dont want to have to complete with my witness partner, but there is this little streak in me that is saying 'no way... I cant let him get away with giving more than me'

:D

Percentage-wise, you give out more, so you can have that one :)

I pay 40 STEEM a month for 4000 SP which I give out, anyone else on Steemit doing that?!

oh cheers, but that might not be enough, maybe I will spend 80 lol

Go for it partner! :D

ha ha, I will wait till my earnings are up a little - I think I have given out more than I earned this month

I never realized you were a witness- I'll go and vote for you! (steemcommunity, correct?)

...if you want to read some light hearted moments of my first time to Ireland..

https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/i-haven-t-got-a-title-ireland-trip-part-3

Correct :D

Nice title haha

👍, cool, done.

I just read your post, i am from ireland :-)

I am glad to see your witness and encouraged to see the chosen delegations. Good luck with @steemcommunity. I have voted you 3 for witness. :)

Thank you for your support @wandrnrose7 :D

Just voted witness for @steemcommunity

Thank you @ jyoti-thelight :D

Hello there, I read about you in @mariannewest post and though Im still not very sure what witnesses and witness block, I really admire that you give delegations for free and helps the community. Im still barely 2 months old on steemit so I pretty much dont know anything but wishing you all the luck!! And lets go forward!!

Hi @fleurinna

Thank you very much for taking the time to come and visit, we see delegations to community members as a great way to encourage engagement and retention and are happy to do this :)

have done it, upvote for @steemitcommunity as witness. good luck @paulag and @abh12345

Thank you!

i am support @steemcommunity as a witness.

Thank you!

i would like to bring you witness to my w/(h) ea L/L (t/h) D https://steemit.com/g0fig/@xubrnt/ned-steemit

good post you,vote back me @arisviyo

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