Hi Steemit!
It's been a while since I did my last witness update. While not for a lack of participation, just been busy building and working on projects.
Witness Hardware
I currently run three witness nodes, two in the United States and one in Canada. They are monitored by remote servers and controlled with a kill-switch.
I also run two auxiliary servers that handle the price feed and kill-switch.
Full Nodes
I haven't mentioned it in my previous witness posts, but feel I should mention it here. I currently manage five full nodes, three in a cluster https://rpc.buildteam.io and two private full nodes.
If you haven't tried the public full node, it is 
Benchmark
https://rpc.buildteam.io/ 0:00:02.580627
https://rpc.steemviz.com/ 0:00:49.912529
https://steemd.minnowsupportproject.org/ 0:01:39.423780
https://steemd.privex.io/ 0:02:53.363142
What have I been doing?
blacklist which is growing at an alarming pace. Currently, over 1,000 users on the list, all researched and verified personally by me. You can find the complete list here.I have been busy, real busy. I currently spend 8 - 16 hours/day using Steem and doing Steem related projects. One project I am most active on is identifying and shutting down spammers and plagiarists. I frequently put out updates of the @buildawhale
Since my last witness update, I have uncovered a few large spam networks some I have made public.
- How to make $175,000 a year posting YouTube videos
- 128 Account Spam Network Lobotomized
- Steemit creates accounts for spammers... and nobody else?
Many are reported to SteemCleaners and private abuse channels.
My witness
I am currently back in the top 50 (barely), it hasn't been easy and I appreciate everyone who has supported me. I am still very active in multiple witness channels and help a lot of other witnesses both publicly and privately.
Other stuff
I recently wrote a post titled Don't get hacked - How to be smart! to help raise awareness of the increased amount of phishing going on currently and how to prevent losing your account. I suggest reading it if you feel you may be at risk.
I was recently pulled into The Steemit Name Challenge if you want to see my response.
I started a Python developer tips series where I share tips for Python users that I hope to do on a regular basis. So far I have four issues out if you want to check them out. If there is something you found useful, please give a shout out and let me know.
Python Tips Series
I am always accessible via Steem.chat, Slack, and Discord.
If you don't vote for me as witness, I'd love to know why. If you don't know much about me, have a look at my post that talks about who I am and what I am about.
Why you should vote me as witness
Witness & Administrator of four full nodes
My recent popular posts
STEEM, STEEM Power, Vests, and Steem Dollars. wtf is this shit?
The truth and lies about 25% curation, why what you know is FAKE NEWS
WTF is a hardware wallet, and why should you have one?
GINABOT - The Secret to your Sanity on Steemit
How to calculate post rewards
Use SSH all the time? Time for a big boy SSH Client
How to change your recovery account
How curation rewards work and how to be a kick ass curator
Markdown 101 - How to make kick ass posts on Steemit
Work ON your business, not in your business! - How to succeed as a small business
You are not entitled to an audience, you need to earn it!
How to properly setup SSH Key Authentication - If you are logging into your server with root, you are doing it wrong!
Building a Portable Game Console
Wow that is a large number of nodes that you are running.
Currently bot owners has been under fire from several notable people and has a growing number of calls to unvote those with bots or delegating SP to bots.
I still maintain my witness votes to you and some of the others because I see that you are doing something to fight abuse.
I recently made a massive post on the importance of witness voting and has garnered a lot of views especially from Redfishes like me.
Steemworld.org gives the following:
When clicking the link you include I get:
Right now it cannot be used for steemworld but it is currently in replay that will resolve that.
The web page error is normal for a full node as you didn’t do a proper request.
Thank you for your answer. I need to learn how to do a proper RPC request, here I've just stupidly clicked on the link in your post ...
Do you know why Steemit has been unstable these last few days and showing server errors? Is it the progressive implementation of hivemind?
Because they are frequently updated with an unknown amount of testing.
So they do all of this all online instead of debugging before the launch? Wew!
No one really knows what they do as they are quite secretive, but it does seem like production is their dev environment or minimum staging.
Hello themarkymark,
Glad to see this valuable info about you and all the great service and benefit you bring to Steemit.
Now, I know that I need to vote for you as a witness.
Nice meeting you. Much continual success to you.
Thanks
this is goodnews for all
I have not chosen a single witness, because I do not know how to vote, because I am still very new in steemit.
Your guidance I really need.
thank you
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@someguy123/seriously-what-is-a-witness-why-should-i-care-how-do-i-become-one-answer
Thanks for information
You are going to get a vote from me....can you give me a few others in the top 50 that you would advise?
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@heyimsnuffles/make-steemit-great-again-who-should-i-give-my-30-witness-votes-to
You are doing really good job.
I noticed it many times that steemit getting slow while other websites opens quickly as the same time. I have no technical knowledge. Why steem platform have become so slow these days?
It is because the nodes are slow and some of the technical issues on how the blockchain works. If it was stored in a traditional database it would be quick.
Has technical issue sorted out or is the problem is not yet solved? Is this problem not connected with the low price of steem and big whales' power down ? Please specify.
Great post
Thanks for your time and effort, @themarkymark.
This is what we need MOST from you. I am also trying to help in the littlest way by flagging spammy posts. I hope that does something good though. 🤣
I must commend you on the sacrifices you make to ensure that the Steemosphere is completely cleansed of wolves, else the blockchain might get torn down one day. Spending about 8-16 hours daily to bring up meaningful innovations here is something really good and great,
Keep up the good works @themarkymark
Nice to have you in the top 50. I wish to support you from now on in your witness ranking because I can see what you are trying to do.
Please continue trying to communicate your minds and thought to your fans. Thanks
I am going to give my witness vote you for that! 😃
I like so many of the things that you do as witness. I don't like the bid-bot business. I understand that, early on, it was a way to show that people valued Steem and SBD -- being willing to trade them for something of value (votes). But I am exhausted by the bid-bots and what they are doing to people here.
The minnows feel like they have to buy votes to be seen. Even some orcas that I have respected, and who contribute to the platform, are stacking votes from bid-bots, to stay visible and seem relevant. I know that the bid-bots are not the only issue here, but they are a huge one. It's not about the trending page, for me. It's about what effect they are having down through the system.
I'm not deadset against voting for you as a witness - you do so manygreat things here. I would be interested in more transparency about the economics of your bot system, as a way to better understand the economics of all the bid-bots. Are they really so lucrative that folks running them can't let them go? Are they really worth more in Present Value than any Future Value of Steem? Thanks for a post that encouraged feedback.