My Steem Super Stars: Interview with @sircork Part 3

Just, what is a Steemit Witness...

@Hopehuggs: That's good advice. Our final question. We already alluded to is can you describe what a witness is? Like you would to a 6 year old...

@Sircork: Yeah. Witness is a terrible word for it. First of all, let's just clarify, from the very beginning, the word witnesses was written in the white paper that describes this whole system when it was created. Really what we are would be more like maintenance engineers.

@HopeHuggs: That makes it a lot easier.

@SirCork: So to simplify it a little bit. The blockchain, I've mentioned many times is a database where information is stored. It does not live on a single computer. It lives on 100s of computers distributed around the world operated by individuals like myself or small groups of individuals or even companies.

Anyone can turn on one of these physical Linux machines in a cloud somewhere and turn it one. You install the free software, which now makes you a participant in a round robin process of each bit of information that gets stuck inside the database. And that round robin process is such that we validate the information on these servers.

The software is responsible for setting some pricing averages for the currency, which is done through aggregate information from exchanges and settings and parameters we set in our configuration as witness server operators.

So we help to set the price standards and publish the price feeds for the cryptocurrency. Then, we also are responsible for maintaining the data, For everything, for all time, for eternity.

So we work as a decentralized network of servers. Each node is independent. If my computer shuts down tomorrow, the blockchain will keep going from the other 300 witness servers.

If one of them goes down, I won't notice it. My machine will keep up. So we're all running like a mirror of the thing, like a copy. And then in order, somebody has to catch the data coming in from somebody making a post or a comment or whatever. We can't all do it at once. So there's a round-robin process where one guy does it then the next guy does it the next guy does it, the next guy does it, the next guy does it, the next guy does it. Then it circles back and starts over again. Through all hundreds of us.

As we're ranked towards the top, we get more opportunities to catch these blocks of data and be responsible for inserting them into the master, which is then copied to everyone else.

We get paid in a small tiny amount of percentage of a coin of a steem for that. So, there's a way that that's done in a fair way. Who gets paid the most is the person who does the most work, is the person who is promoted to that top spot by votes from the user community.

So witnesses are not elected. Anyone can choose to become a witness and turn on the machine, but once they have done so, they enter a race to the top for the most block processing time to earn the most money as a processor. So, the way that works. The users choose us and they vote for us.

They have thirty votes each they can use, give, take away, do whatever they want with. They're not disposable votes. That's a permanent vote. I'd have 30 of them. I can give one to you. Take it away tomorrow and give it to someone else and then give it back to you again.

Whatever I wanna do, but I have 30 votes to distribute and with those votes, I pick witnesses that I think deserve to be paid the most because they contribute the most, back to the communities. So, the people that are in our top 20 need decision makers of the blockchain to decide if a new copy of the blockchain software will be released or implemented.

The top 20 have to accept it. If they do, the rest of us are responsible for that upgrade. So, 20 independent operators all over the world will look at a new piece of code for the blockchain that's another responsibility witnesses have. Decide if its solid, if it's the right thing to do with the code. They will implement and a new change then occurs in the system.

As a result, the rest of us, in the witness community, will follow suit and install that patch. Those 20 people all do major projects like mine, like the radio stations, and the charity that I've created. Some of them operate projects that serve hundreds of thousands of users in the community. Some of them are the very websites I mentioned earlier that I go to and use.

@HopeHuggs: Is there anything else you like to add to the end?

@Sircork: No. I think that's wonderful. I've probably talked far too long and we ran out of time. So, thank you so much for this opportunity to share what I know about Steem and my passion for this amazing vibrant community and this amazingly intelligently designed cryptocurrency, which more people should investigate. I think it's gonna be huge. It's already pretty darn big. So, thanks for the opportunity to talk.

The YouAreHOPE and Steem Star Network Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/xBVBYdY

SBD proceedings from this post are going to be donated to @YouAreHOPE

Here is part 1 in case you missed it: My Steem Super Stars: Interview with @sircork Part 1

Part 2 is here: My Steem Super Stars: Interview with @sircork Part 2

or here is the interview in its entirity on DSound: Audio interview with @sircork

How to vote for @sircork

https://steemit.com/~witnesses

My Steem Super Stars so far...

@booster916
@bitdollar
@olegw
@valorforfreedom
@nainaztengra
@sircork

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