It's really been a long time since I wrote a Witness Update. Thank you @lukestokes for kicking my ass and reminding that, even if you work a lot behind the scenes, people want to know more about the witnesses as productive and trustworthy people.
I think a lot of people know me on the platform, either by having exchanged comments with me, during my appearances at the different forums organized on Discord or even by meeting me personally at SteemFest or meetups in which I participated.
However, this is probably not the case for everyone and it may be hard for some to dig the blockchain to find my previous posts about my work as a witness.
TL;DR
- I’m a witness on the Steem blockchain for more than 2 years now, with a performant and reliable nodes infrastructure.
- As a developper, I created several apps and tools on top of Steem, among them SteemSQL, SteemitBoard, Steem Ranking, SteemToolbar
- As a human, I do my best to support all users (especially newcomers) and try to interact as many as I can, both online and in the “real” world (hence my presence at SteemFest and several Steem meetups in different countries).
- I’m
addictedcommitted to the Steem ecosystem (social and technical) - IMHO, this post is worth reading if you really want to know more about me ;)
Here is a non-exhaustive summary of all the work I've done so far for the Steem community.
First steps on the Steem blockchain
As a developper, I have a solid C++ and .NET background. Therefore started my journey on the Steem blockchain by creating a .NET library. My goal was to make the Steem API accessible to the widest audience.
At this time, mining was still existing on the Steem blockchain and I wanted to know whether it was profitable to mine STEEM or not, and therefore needed an analytical tools to do so.
That’s why few days later I initiated the SteemSQL project, a public SQL Server database with all the blockchain data.
SteemSQL allowed me to be one of the first to be able to provide detailed statistics and some in depth analysis of the blockchain activity. Once again, my goal was to provide an easy way for people to use the Steem blockchain data, even for non-technical users.
SteemSQL quickly became very popular and more and more people and projects started to use it for their services or to collect information on Steemit's activity. As a result, the server undergoes a first infrastructure upgrade to a more efficient infrastructure in order to be able to cope with the growing number of requests made by users. As second major upgrade was required lately because of the ever growing amount of data collected from the blockchain.
I also have to adapt SteemSQL to the changes generated by the many HF that have since occurred. Add to this the regular performance monitoring of the infrastructure, and you get a lot of maintenance work.
To serve and to protect
Few days after launching SteemSQL, I introduced myself as a witness.
One of the main witness work is to secure the blockchain by safely producing and signing blocks. Of course, I run several Witness and Seed nodes which were several times updated to the latest version, especially when Steemit inc published security patches.
My nodes have been running smoothly and I only missed a few blocks when one of my node crashed unexpectedly.
But the Steem blockchain is not a blockchain like the others because it has a very important social facet. So I quickly wanted to extend my role of "securing the blockchain" to this facet as well, both at the technical level (by monitoring attacks attempts) than at the social level by regularly reporting scams and phishing attempts.
Fighting scammers is an exhausting and endless task. I think that many of you had to receive one of my warning bot notification to inform you of a scam attempt in one of the comments you received. In total, I published warning posts on no less than 39 different scam attempts and sent out thousands notifications.
This scam fight is also a collective work done with the @steemcleaner team (@anyx, @ fubar-bdhr, @guiltyparties, @logic, @patrice, @pfunk, @pjau), but also with other people who have joined this initiative and are working behind the scenes to protect the platform and its users: @naturicia, @bullionstackers, @crokkon, … (I'm sure I've forgotten some, please forgive me).
Many of you have also regularly informed me of the new scam you are discovering. It is truly a precious help!
Fortunately, with the HF20 (although it had a catastrophic impact at its very beginnings), the number of scams dropped sharply and so I was able to allocate more time to more fun projects.
Bringing gamification to Steem
My next big project after SteemSQL was about adding some fun to the Steem’s user experience with the creation of SteemitBoard and its Chrome Extension which allows you to quick jump to your board or any other user’s board.
With SteemitBoard came new concepts like the dreaded dead fish and the appreciated red fish. Moreover, the app’s website has already undergone a first facelift few months ago.
With the SteemitBoard project, I added entertainment around differents events like Valentine’s day, Easter, Halloween, Saint Nicholas’ day or Christmas ... to name a few.
The 2018 World Cup Contest
One of the most fun event was the 2018 World Cup Contest which allowed us to distribute 1766 SBD to thousands participants thanks to @good-karma, @lukestokes, @roelandp, @drakos, @stoodkev, @yabapmatt, the @steemitboard team and myself who were sponsoring the contest.
Believe it or not, but it was totally unprepared. Just one week before the start of the World Cup, I woke up one morning with the idea of organizing the competition. I asked my team if they wanted to follow me in this crazy idea, crazy because everything has to be done: collect funds for reward, create graphics, define the rules and adapt @steemitboard to handle them. They all said "let's go", so did I.
OMG, that was exhausting! I found myself watching all the World Cup matches and process results four times a day, distribute awards, update the contest ranking, etc… Moreover, before embarking on this project, I completely forgot that the World Cup was going to last a month.
Stupid me! I can say I (myself) it partly fucked half of my holidays ;)
But the reward for all this efforts came with the many comments I received on the quality of the contest, the quality of the graphics and the fact that many of the participants, who usually were not interested in football at all, took the game and had fun.
Add to this that the first prize allowed the winner to help his mother get surgery, then you will find me ready to repeat the adventure!
SteemFest - SteemFest² - SteemFest³ and even GolosFest
As mentioned before, the social part is what makes the Steem blockchain different from any other blockchains. That's why I also consider it important to meet the people I interact with on a regular basis.
And what better opportunity to meet them, if not going to SteemFest. I even went to GolosFest in Moscow with @roelandp an @sneak. This was an amazing experience even if none of us was speaking Russian. They all were very welcoming and curious as we shared our Steem experience.
I also went to several meetups in France, Germany and Netherlands
The experience accumulated with the first two editions of SteemFest and in Moscow encouraged me to go even further in this idea of reinforcing the notions of community around the blockchain.
For the last SteemFest edition in Kraków, I wanted in to incentivize meetings between participants, especially for the newcomers. Therefore I created the SteemitBoard Meet The Stemians Contest.
This time, it was prepared well in advance, but it did not require less work. Oncee again, I had to find sponsors (and collected 2333 STEEM shared among all participants thanks to the fabulous @ausbitbank, @blocktrades, @reggaemuffin, @cervantes, @lukestokes, @roelandp and @teamsteem), create graphics, adapt SteemitBoard, ensure everything is running smooth on d-day (and after), etc...
And once again, it was exhausting but worth doing it! I got so many positive feedback from the people attending SteemFest³, telling me how much the scan/talk 2 minutes/scan rule was such an ice-breaker and enabled them to really meet more people.
This positive vibes went even further when several of the contest winners (@gtg, @suesa, @abh12345 and me) decided to give our contest prize to support either the @t-r-f funds or the @rutablockchain project.
THIS is why I'm so committed to the Steem ecosystem: you can really feel that notions like “sharing”, “caring” and "community" makes sense. There are some gems among people who are part of it and they are an example for us to follow.
Other things I did or still do for Steem
I created the Steem Toolbar, which has been updated to support the new Resource Credit introduced with HF20. Steem Toolbar is a Google Chrome extension that helps you keep an eye on key indicators like Voting Power and STEEM/SBD exchange rate and allows you to permanently monitor these values while browsing various Steem front-end website.
I revived the Witness work real-time visualization tool that helps witnesses know when they will sign a block.
I am publishing a daily hit-parade dedicated to beginners in order to help them and to put the spotlight on new emerging authors.
With @heimindanger, we decided to revive steemwhales.com by switching it to the SteemitBoard Ranking in order to allow people to compare each others and view how they perform on the blockchain. More features to come on this project soon.
What’s next
I have been working like crazy (close to 24x7) for my out-of-chain business since December. A big infrastructure migration project, involving several sites. I didn't even have time to do what was planned for my existing and new Steem projects like SteemFlux, which I introduced at SteemFest³
This work is completed, so I can now again allocate more time for the Steem platform:
- I'm going to unveil projects I've worked on for a long time, but for which I have not yet taken the time to write.
- SteemFlux should be made official next month.
- I’m preparing new contests for SteemitBoard
- ...
I will stop this (very long) post here. I have so many idea I would like to develop… I really wish days would be 48 hours.
Thank you
Finally, let me express my gratitude to everyone who support me as a witness. Thank you for your vote and for your trust! I see it as a clear appreciation of my work.
Thanks also to all those of you who follow me and regularly upvote my posts. There are more than 15500 following me and I consider it an encouragement to continue the work I do for the community.
I am currently ranked #39 in the witness list. If you believe my work makes me deserve a better rank, vote for me as a witness!
Thank you all for your support!
I have already voted for your witness @arcange with my 3 blogs and really appreciate all your work. I refer people to your daily steem stats post often and read it at least weekly to see what is going on in this nuthouse. People have all kinds of misinformation about the stats here and you set them straight.
Your warnings are HIGHLY appreciated. It's hard for someone like me who is not too up on things to realize scams are scams when I see them.
And steemitboard is so helpful! It keeps me on track and gives me a boost when I accomplish something to update the board.
And I am so grateful for your votes on my posts. I think Raphael trails you and I am letting you know it would be better to reverse that order. Over time, Raphael would get better sp rewards by following arcange. I have an old post about this and some smart people commented to tell me I am correct.
One Tip to Improve Your Curation Trail
And yes - I am glad to see a witness post every few weeks at least, but you have my votes anyway :)
Your work is highly appreciated,
@blockbrothers are the creators of Steemify a notification app for your Steemit account for iOS.
Get it Here:
Thank you guys!
You truly deserve all the witness votes you can get @arcange! I was so happy to meet you at SteemFest and to be able to welcome you at the Dutchies Meet-Up we had in 'my' town in The Netherlands. You're clearly super passionate about all things Steem.
I appreciate witnesses doing these posts! Hope many votes will come in :D
Thank you @soyrosa. Meeting you was my pleasure too.
You are also doing an amazing work at promoting the Steem blockchain!
I looking forward forward for the next meetup/steemfest. Maybe in Aachen with @detlev ... ;)
Hehehe - yes, I think Aachen would be an amazing location for our next Meet-up ;-) Cheers!
Thank you for all your work around Steem @arcange - one of the good guys for sure!
Thank you @abh12345! Me blush =)
You know When things are Made with a steemhart, so looking forward to February and the New projects, untill we meet again,
Thank you for now
Britt
Dear @brittandjosie, it was my pleasure to meet you in Rotterdam!
Can't wait to see you again at the next SteemFest edition (as promised ;) or even sooner at another dutch meetup.
The pleasure was all mind, Steemfest 3 is on the to do list but i hope to see you sooner, and keep up the great work
I don't know what we would do without SteemSQL.
I wonder the same thing ;)
You've showed up on my feed on more than a few occasions. After going through my witness votes and removing a couple inactives, I decided it would be prudent to vote for witnesses who are contributing, and you're one of 'em!
Thank you for your unfailing support @ddrfr33k, really appreciated! 🙏
I try. Now I've just gotta figure out how to export my author and curation rewards from the past year into a CSV for reporting on my taxes. It's probably a real simple SteemSQL query, but finding a tool already created that does it has eluded me...
This is a great post, packed neatly with so much useful information and an insight into what goes on in the background, I often say that: most people never truely appreciate the amount of work and effort that people put in to online projects, the work you do is remarkable, I appreciate all your great contributions on Steemit. Thanks for the updates and making Steemit what it is.
Thank you @paulnulty =)
I really enjoyed reading your post. I won't mention anything in particular and I hope you don't mind. You do a lot for this community.
All the Best!
Thank you for for your support and kind words @donatello, really appreciated!
This post contained some typos in its mentions that have been corrected in less than a day. Thank you for your quick edit !
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Hi arrange, it was good to read about your achievements, thank you. I really appreciate your work and appreciate your help on Steemit. I have been thinking of you because I have a question to ask and wasn't sure how to contact you.
I have someone called moyse55 who has tried to make a comment on a post yesterday but is not coming through. It reminds of a pisher so I have left it not knowing what to do.
Thank you @angiemitchell.
The best way to contact me is via steem.chat or on Discord (same name)
I do not see any post or comment from this account on the blockchain.
Interesting arrange because the faint printing is still sitting on the bottom of the comments section. I will continue to leave it alone. Thanks for the contact information.
I like very much your work that you do, I have always liked everything that you do in steemit, and you being one of the witnesses of the brockhain, I appreciate you very much, I hope that this and all your publications can have many votes because you really deserve it. Greetings and keeps growing.
Thank you @victorrojas4. Feel free to turn your words into action with a witness vote ;)
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thanks you for making steem more interesting than before
Hi @arcange!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 7.865 which ranks you at #37 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has not changed in the last three days.
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 191 contributions, your post is ranked at #1. Congratulations!
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Awesome, I'm really glad some of the witnesses are deciding to do updates posts like this again and not just something like my node is running with back-up, 0 blocks missed, yeah . . . vote for me for witness.
I'm so glad Steem Whales is up and running again. One request I have is can you make it to where when I check my account it shows the graph from steem whales of my growing SBD, Steem, and Steem Power. I loved watching all this grow when I was first starting out and have greatly missed this ever since steemwhales quit updating.
Fingers crossed it's a relatively easy upgrade to make.
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Very cool.