An interview with @lukestokes via meet a whale ..episode 27

Hello Steemians, it's 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 episode's interview, I have the pleasure of bringing to you @lukestokes, a steemian who has a great passion for the Steem blockchain, a steemian who works tirelessly at the witness level by supporting various communities, as well 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.

Moreover, let's set some things straight first; A walk through my blog would indicate a gap in my content creation, steemit activities, most especially my interviews.

Within this period of absence, I have received complaints from reputable steemians urging me to keep up with the fantastic work and other beautiful steemians wanting to know why I haven't been conducting interviews.

Firstly, I realized the interviews had infact become an addiction to myself and others. 2ndly, I realized the importance of the interviews, most especially how it has helped newbies grow admirably.
The temporary pause is however due to my ongoing exam as I am a penultimate student in the department of English and there is a lot to focus on.

Despite the fact that exams are not yet over but almost, I decided to bring something beautiful to the the table once again. As said, what is what doing is what doing well

@jamesmovic - Who introduced you to steemit and what was your motive for joining?

@lukestokes - Two friends introduced me at almost the same time: @sean-king and @billbutler. They've known me for a while and new how much I'd love seeing a killer application for cryptocurrency user mass adoption. I had been trying so hard to get people more involved with cryptocurrency since early 2013 and I quickly recognized this as the site which could finally do it.

@jamesmovic - How many times do you think its appropriate for a newbie to post per day?

@lukestokes I don't set hard limits on stuff like that. I think everyone needs to figure out their own style, flow, and voice. They should do what makes them and their followers comfortable. For a while I was doing one post a day, but I can't always keep up with that. Sometimes I'll do more than one post a day, especially if I'm on my @lukes.random account.

@jamesmovic - What communities are you supporting and how?

@lukestokes - I support a number of communities, primarily through delegation from my witness account as you can see here:

I also work to stay engaged onchain with important community discussions.

@jamesmovic - Can you tell us why you decided to become a witness?

@lukestokes - Well, I put it off for about a year before deciding to do it. I had a lot of people tell me over and over again, "You should be a witness" and "How come you aren't a witness?" I put it off because, though I have been a programmer for decades, I've never been a huge fan of DevOps or server maintenance. Yes, I can do it, but it wasn't ever my passion. Eventually I decided to give it a shot to better represent the people who were asking me to become a witness and because I wanted to learn even more about DPOS and the STEEM ecosystem.

@jamesmovic - Can you tell us how your feel about it (witnessing) now?

@lukestokes - I'm honored that so many people support me and appreciate what I do to bring value here by explaining complicated things from cryptocurrency to STEEM in simple terms. As a programmer since 1996 and cryptocurrency and blockchain advocate and educator for more than 5 years, I understand more details than most but I've also been a blogger for about 14 years so I can communicate things fairly well also. I think it's important for witnesses to be social in order to better understand the needs of the social applications they are supporting on the STEEM blockchain.

@jamesmovic - What exactly does "voting for a witness" means to you,and do you think it is necessary for all steemians to vote, most especially for you?

@lukestokes - This post is my attempt at explaining what witness voting is all about: Steemit is Free, But Your Witness Vote Determines its Future. I do think it's valuable for users of the STEEM blockchain to understand how it works and that includes voting for witnesses. I do a monthly witness engagement report to remind people about witness voting. As for voting for me, I always say if there are 30 other witnesses who are providing more value than I am, please vote for them and let me know who they are so I can change my votes as well (if I agree). The people who vote for me, I think, like that I have business experience (I ran my own business for ten years before selling it this year to focus full-time on the cryptocurrency space), cryptocurrency experience, and blogging experience and I can help explain technical things in simple terms.

@jamesmovic - What are your thoughts on the possibiltiy of there being a new "Steem 2"?

@lukestokes - There have been a lot of concerns about Steemit competitors or applications built on other blockchains like EOS which may compete with Steemit, but I personally think it's a wonderful thing. I think we will thrive with an appropriate amount of healthy competition and the beauty of open source software is that we can learn from every new innovation and idea we're exposed to. This is why I think it's valuable to be directly involved in multiple projects in the blockchain space to get valuable insight on what is working best.

@jamesmovic - Is there anything you would like to say on your own, without me asking the question?

@lukestokes - I'm really excited about the future of STEEM, SMTs, Steemit, Busy, DLive, DTube, Steemmonsters, eSteem, and more. So many incredible blockchain-powered, decentralized applications being used by real people all over the world. It's often easy to get frustrated when fixes or features aren't rolling out as quickly as we want or we see low post rewards, low quality content, or people extracting wealth instead of creating value. It's easy to get discouraged and forget how this is one of the most used blockchains on the planet.

@jamesmovic - Any advice you would wish to give to my fellow steemians[ newbies] who are feeling dejected one way or the other due to low upvotes?

@lukestoke - First and foremost, I would ask everyone to understand why they are on Steemit to begin with. Are they here for "free money"? Do they even know where the rewards come from? Have they thought about value itself and where it comes from? I often tell people the story of the bitcoin pizza, the first cryptocurrency purchase ever. 10,000 BTC spent for a pizza. "Money" has value because we believe it has value and people are willing to trade goods and services for it. The only reason STEEM has value is because investors believe a story of value that STEEM creates. Upvotes and reward payouts are just a part of that story. Those who expect to extract more than they create have a misaligned understanding of value itself. It takes a long time to build a following and get good at consistently adding value.

I often send this post to new Steemit users who come to me for advice. I can only tell my story and suggest they follow the same example. I don't use bidbots. I don't self-vote. I add value to other conversations and build relationships. If there's a focus on rewards first, then there will be a misalignment of incentives which will create unmet expectations and lead to frustration.

@jamesmovic - What impression do you have about this interview and what do you feel about it?

@lukestokes - I enjoy sharing what has worked for me to help others understand more than just Steemit, but also STEEM (and why it's more valuable that Steemit) and cryptocurrency in general which creates the value we enjoy here (see understandingblockchainfreedom.com).

@jamesmovic -.thanks for your time and thanks for honoring my invitation

@lukestokes - You're welcome! Thanks for asking.

From @lukestokes:

If you haven't voted yet, please consider setting @lukestokes as your proxy voter. Otherwise, go vote for some STEEM Witnesses you respect who you believe will do what's in the best interest of the network. I hope that includes my witness, @lukestokes.mhth. If you're not sure who to vote for, take a look at some witnesses you respect and see who they are voting for via their account on steemd.com or steemdb.com. Some witnesses are very active behind the scenes supporting important projects, but not as active as bloggers, so keep that in mind when you vote. This should not be a popularity contest favoring those who are the best communicators (though communication as a witness is certainly important). It's meant to put in place the best people to support the STEEM blockchain. That includes multiple dimensions from technical expertise to economic theory to community building.

You can follow @timcliff's weekly Reports from the Witnesses post to know what witnesses are doing each week.

You can as well click on the image below to cast your vote

Thanks for reading. Till next time

**VOTE @yabapmatt @timcliff @pfunk @someguy123 @arcange @b0y2k @enginewitty @pjau @themarkymark @jatinhota @yuriks2000 @qurator @aggroed @good-karma @steemcommunity @neoxian @lukestokes.mhth @blockbrothers @adsactly-witness @timcliff @drakos @roelandp @reggaemuffin @felixxx @jackmiller @teamsteem @steemgigs as witness.