Let's Find the Person Behind the Computer

I know many users don't know what witnesses do for us, nor who they all are. Sometimes all we see of witnesses are a name on a list (which I'm not saying is bad, they have things their doing that we don't see.) So I want to give you a better idea of who some of our witnesses are, beyond just what they do.

Just a Little on What Witnesses Do

Without getting too technical, Witnesses are the people who run the computers that keep Steemit functioning (i.e. the Witness runs the Witness node/computer.) We've all heard the term decentralized with regards to Steemit, this is achieved by having the Steemit blockchain run on all their computers and constantly synced up. Think of when you upvote something, you see the little circle spin showing that your upvote is processing. When you click upvote, one of the witnesses computers is actually receiving your vote, updating the payout and total vote count, updates the 'block' (in the blockchain), and tells all the other witness computer that this upvote has been 'applied.' All the witnesses then have to sync up with this new 'vote' and move to the next job. Essentially everything we do on here is processed and applied by one of the witnesses computers. In some sense you can think of witnesses being "the backbone and defenders of the blockchain."

[Note: There are other functions that witness do beyond this, but that is better served in a separate post.]

Who is Proctologic?

First let me start by saying that I've been friends with Proctologic for a number of weeks now. He's almost always in Steemspeak where I got to know him a lot better, see a live stream or his work-space, see videos of him burning out with this car, and more which led to truly like him as a human being.

To get a better idea of the person behind the computer, I created a list of questions which Proctologic graciously answered for me.

Q: Why do you want to be a Steemit witness?
A: My main focus is to help the Steemit network as a whole. I'm passionate about using my technical knowledge to not only process blocks on the blockchain, but helping every user whether minnow or whale, to be happy and ideally succeed in life and Steemit.

Q:What do you do for fun outside of the blockchain?
A: I love repairing old American cars, bringing them back to life. I also love doing burnouts with my cars, getting such a rush from the generating all that power and then just blasting off! Here's a video I took while having some fun some weeks back:

Another hobby of mine is making art out of discarded fabrics and wood. Here an example of what I've done:

Q: What do you enjoy the most about being a Steemit Witness?
A: It's quite exciting to be a part of a growing network that I can also believe in! Often with projects like Steemit, it takes some luck to be in the right place at the right time, and in this case, I luckily was. Imagine what it would have been like to be an early adopter of Bitcoin when it cost 10,000 btc to buy a pizza (1 Bitcoin currently is about $600.) So, in short, I'm thrilled to be a part of something both as unique as Steemit as well as to be an early participant where I can watch it grow.

Q: What is your favorite color?
A: White, because it goes with anything.

Q:Do you have pets?
I have a dog named Nero that's a breed called Phalene, which is the drop eared version of a Papillion. Here's one of my favorite picture of Nero:

Q: What are some of the biggest changes in Steemit in your eyes? Why?
A: The voting system has seem some of the largest and most frequent changes. Just like many online games need periodic 'balancing' updates, the voting system is somewhat similar. There is a constant battle between using voting as imagined by the founders to effectively curate and monetarily reward those authors and those who try to 'maximize their own earnings' by finding flaws to exploit. (Which isn't against the rules, just frowned upon by some.)

For example, before the 30 minute curation penalty, where was a huge motivator to have a bot be the first to vote on a post a second after it's created as well as leave a generic comment. Since being the first to vote (at that time) provided maximized curation rewards, it only made sense to get the votes in asap. A problem with this is that there is no way to digest a post in just a second or two. We want people actually reading/digesting content, not just upvoting for pure profit. This is what lead to the linear 30 minute curation penalty that we have today. The voting system continues to evolve are various exploits and/or organic issues arise and I expect that to continue for some time.

Q:How did you get your online name?
A: I'm the type of person who likes to be a little provocative in general. A while back I ran across another username of Proctologist which I tweaked a little to keep the 'impact' but personalize it for me. Hence Proctologic was born.

Q:What are your hopes for yourself in the future?
A: I really want to be cured from my depression, which has been a constant struggle. I hope to be able to live a normal life and hopefully one day even have a family.

Q:What are your hopes for Steemit in the future?
A: I want to see Steemit become so big that it dwarfs Facebook, Reddit and Twitter combined! Behold the power of the blockchain!

[NOTE: With English not being Proctologic's native language (he lives in Stockholm, Sweden) I have reworded some of his original answers to ease readability while keeping the meaning itself intact.]