An interview with @someguy123 via "meet a whale interview" episode 12

Hello Steemians, I bring to you another episode of my interview in which I get to ask some technical Steem questions and also bring you closer to your witnesses. For this week's interview, I bring to you @someguy123, A steemian who has a great passion for the Steem blockchain, a steemian who works tirelessly at the witness level, as well as a reputable witness. This episode promises to be educating, and interesting . Be sure to sit tight and grab a cup of coffee while reading through this great interview!

Meet @someguy123

Let's get started!!

@jamesmovic - Who introduced you to steemit?

@someguy123 - that's actually explained in my introductory post https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@someguy123/i-m-someguy123-a-well-known-developer-in-the-litecoin-community. Also, I wasn't sure about steem, but i was being an escrow for someone called frosty,he was doing a giveaway and needed a highly trusted person to act as escrow of the funds,but anyx and his friends (now the steemcleaners) flagged the giveaway post, as well as me. In the end, a lot of people still got their payout from it,but it was generally a failure.

"an escrow is someone with high reputation, to hold money for an event such as a trade, or giveaway"

@jamesmovic - what was your motive for staying?

@someguy123 - I heard dan talking about DNS on STEEM, so I decided to do it. https://steemit.com/steemit/@someguy123/steem-dns-your-username-dot-steem-dns-on-the-blockchain. and suddenly I got my first insane post $3.5kafter this, I was convinced to stay on and did many other projects, anonsteem is the oldest one that's still around.

DNS means DOMAIN NAME SERVER

@jamesmovic - you must be a guru in crypto

@someguy123 - well yes, prior to steem, I was responsible for many things in Litecoin,the semi-official block explorer. https://explorer.litecoin.net, I also created https://www.litevault.net (the number 1 result for litecoin web wallet) that's sadly been sold off now,and I still run the official discord server for Litecoin but yeah, the reason I stayed on was because my development efforts were finally being compensated. many of the things I ran for bitcoin and litecoin barely made anything at all. within a week of making things for STEEM, I had made more money than I had in the years of doing things for litecoin and bitcoin.

@jamesmovic - What special side projects are you working on the steem block chain I.E witnesses?

@someguy123 - there are many things in progress, right now I am focusing on experimenting with RPC node hardware @privex to ensure everything runs smoothly for people's projects

He is experimenting with the hardware( servers) for Full RPC nodes.

@jamesmovic - Can you briefly tell us who witnesses are, and why you think it's essential for all Steemians to cast their votes for you?

@someguy123 - in the most simplest definition, a witness is simply an account that produces blocks on the network . However many people believe that witnesses should have a "cause". They should be actively contributing to a project of some kind, whether that's development work like Jesta, or community work like Aggroed. The vast majority of witnesses make it clear on what they do to help the platform in some way.

Similar to minig = producing blocks on/for the blockchain

I think that I deserve votes as I'm responsible for many technical developments in STEEM, such as AnonSteem which is used by many and is even featured on the registration page of Steemit, as well as various tools used by witnesses such as steem-docker, steemfeed-js, steem-bash. I believe that my witness related guides are probably the most used by new witnesses, and a large portion of witnesses on the network use my tools.

@jamesmovic - I get frequent complains from new users trying to sign up but do not receive their verification emails... What do you think might be the cause, and is their any faster way of registering?

@someguy123 - The cause is quite simple: it costs Steemit Inc. to create new accounts, as such there's a lengthy manual verification process that can take 4 weeks or longer. there are several paid services available to create accounts instantly, such as my own, AnonSteem (https://anon.steem.network). If a person is still waiting for their verification, they can still use AnonSteem to speed up the process. AnonSteem will inform them if their username is already taken, so it doesn't hurt to try if they're still waiting for verification and are happy to pay for their account.

@jamesmovic - The first step hackers take is knowing the amount of money you have in your wallet... Is their any way Steemians could probably block others from viewing someone else's wallet?

@someguy123 - unfortunately not. Steem is an open block chain , all accounts have very clear balances that cannot be hidden. There is however a "savings" feature built into the wallet which allows you to lock away SBD and STEEM with a 3 day withdrawal period - this gives users time to notice that their account is hacked, and time to change their password and cancel the withdrawal, or begin account recovery.

Open blockchain, basically means that there are NO SECRETS, one it is on there, it is there for ever.

alternatively, a user can make multiple accounts simply for coin storage through AnonSteem or similar services. Exchanges can also be used, but one must be aware that exchanges can have their own risks, as we see exchanges being hacked, going bankrupt, or even being shutdown by a government.

The most important thing a user can do, is ensure that they never use their password to log into something. they should always use either their posting key (if they do not need to have their coins moved), or their active key if they need their coins moved.
If a user uses their password, the website can obtain the OWNER KEY. this key is capable of locking you out of your account, leaving you to deal with a lengthy recovery process.
If you use your active key or posting key, the website cannot lock you out of your account, but they can do things such as post, or move funds

@jamesmovic - OK... Which do you think is more beneficial, renting of steem power to grow... Or powering up every steem you get

@someguy123 - it depends on how often you post. If you're posting very often, renting steem power or using bid bots may offer better returns, but if you do not post very often it may be better to simply power up. similarly, if you are renting for curation rather than posting, you should be extremely active and careful with your votes. you're simply not going to get good returns with an automated service like Streemian

@jamesmovic - I get to ask this question in most of my interviews but I haven't been able to get a solid answer.. The question is on the complaints I get from newbies which is based on "bandwith" issue.... What do you think is the cause, and is their a way out?

@someguy123 - the cause is simple: Steem naturally uses SP as an anti-spam method. Users with lower SP will be able to interact less with the platform than those with more. A while ago, this was found to be excaberated through a problem in the Steem code. Many of the bandwidth issues have been resolved through fixes to the Steem code.

In most cases it's related to your STEEM Power, if you do not have much SP, you will not be able to interact (comment, post, or even upvote) very often. Bandwidth is very dynamic and can vary on the time of day. During peak periods , users may find themselves more likely to experience bandwidth errors.

peak periods means When there is the most information being transferred, usually when there are the most users online, but not always the case.

Often the simplest solution is to go to the #help channel on steem.chat and ask for a delegation in relation to the bandwidth issue - in most cases a delegation as low as 5-10 SP can resolve the issues. As a user gains more SP, they will gain more bandwidth, and be less likely to experience issues.

@jamesmovic - Do you think voting on steemit is based solely on quality content or on recognition?

@someguy123 - it's a mixture of both. If you have quality content, but nobody sees it, then of course you aren't going to get votes. Similarly you can have thousands of followers, but put out awful content and earn very little. There are a few edge cases to this, but generally you need both to be successful

@jamesmovic - What advice would you give concerning the stagnant and low price of steem now ( sell or hold )

@someguy123 - I disagree with the idea that it's low, if anything it's held up better than many other coins. i'm certainly holding strong

@jamesmovic - What are your favorite projects to support on the block chain and why?

@someguy123 - I think that dtube has done a great job at adding a whole new paradigm to the Steem platform, it's offered a true decentralised video platform with monetisation without ads. I hope they keep improving it.

I'm also a big fan of @steemcenterwiki - ran by @wagnertamanaha . I created a wiki for Steem (https://www.steem.center) when I first started on steemit, and it had very little adoption. Wagner turned it into a pretty active platform by rewarding those who contribute to it. It'd be great if more people would contribute to them, whether financially through upvotes and donations, or through adding more content to the wiki.

@jamesmovic - What has been your greatest challenge since you joined the platform... And how was it overcomed?

@someguy123 - my greatest challenge was probably getting into the top 20 witnesses. It took me over a year, and I was in strong belief it'd never happen. I thought my contributions weren't important enough for that. When I first got into the top 20, I didn't last very long, I think within a week I was back down to around 30. But with a lot of work, I managed to secure my position there.

I overcame it through a lot of work, not all visible. Even when I'm not actively developing something, I'm still around in some form, whether that's helping people out in the witness channel on Steem.chat, or being involved in witness meetings in PAL (Minnow Support discord) and ADSactly. many of those in the top 20 support me massively, as I've helped them all the way from the bottom to the top. I think the top 20 list would look very different had I never gotten involved in Steem. I believe the only way I got to where I am, is through my endless hours spent helping others, rather than purposely trying to build myself through development projects etc. - though those probably have played a big part still

@jamesmovic - What advice would you give to newbies who feel dejected due to low upvote, and are on the verge of quitting?

@someguy123 - first, ask yourself - is your content good quality? are you posting frequently? what are you doing to promote yourself? if the first two are no, you have a problem. if you aren't making content that anyone wants to view, then of course you're not going to get good upvotes. Similarly, if you very rarely post, then why would anyone bother to follow you? if the last is "i'm not", or "not much", then you've got another problem. if you've got the content, and you're posting regularly, you still have to promote it somehow. use post promotion channels on steem.chat and PAL. make friends on Steem who enjoy your content, and if you have the money, use bid bots or rent SP. as your followers grow, you can worry less and less about promotion, and you can grow naturally, but in the beginning you have to do everything you can to get your content noticed (without spamming of course).

@jamesmovic - What's your take on this interview any support or advice you are willing to give to make it better?

@someguy123 sounds like a great interview...I'm not sure what advice to give at the moment.

Someguy123 has spoken on the need for all steemians to cast their votes for the witness of their choice. If you truly believe in @someguy dream, in making the community a better place, you can support him, and make his efforts count, by casting your vote for @someguy123. If you are doing this for the first time, all you need to do is to head down to the witness page,and follow the procedures written in the image below.

You can check out my previous interviews with @neoxian by clicking on the name. You can as well read my interview with@adsactly@noisy @D-pend @pharesim @ehiboss @ogoowinner @nnnarvaez @surfyogi @timcliff @papa-pepper, by scrolling to the bottom of my post with timcliff, and as well clicking on their names.

Below are the names of witnesses I'm currently voting for :

@pharesim @noisy.witness @someguy123 @castellano @neoxian @steemgigs @timcliff @lukestokes.mhth and @adsactly.withness. you can also give your support by casting your vote for those names.

Thank you all for taking your time to read through this interview, and also for voting for these witnesses. Till next time