Similar to the Witnessses Exposed series that @clains used to do, the Reports from the Witnesses aims to provide the community with a summary of what all the witnesses have been up to. Every week, I plan to collect all of the reports from the individual witnesses and assemble them into a single aggregated report.

The details here are a summary (paraphrased by me), based on what I found in the individual reports. If you are interested in reading everything the witnesses have been up to - including many details that are left out of this summarized report, please click on the links to view their full reports.

Witnesses can continue posting their posts to the witness-category and/or witness-update tags, and I will assemble everything I find there. If I miss any reports, just let me know and I will correct it. If you have any issues with the summary that I wrote for your report, please let me know and I will do my best to address your concerns.

So without further ado, I bring you the third edition of 'Reports from the Witnesses'!

---

Reports from the Witnesses 2016-12-04

@jesta - Witness Position #5

• Helped @charlieshrem with the launch of geekinprison.com, a Reprint powered blog based on his activity on steemit.com.
• Reprint now supports pagination by default and author pages.
• Worked on new theme for designers and developers looking to get involved and understand how the data is organized in Reprint.
• steemdb.com is now on a much more powerful server.
• Progress on a steemdb <-> reprint integration has been started.
• Testing and upgrades of servers to 0.16.0.
• Worked with @arhag to update the get_ops_in_block patch updated for 0.16.0.
• Primary focus is on Reprint 's progress.
• Most efforts will be in finalizing the 0.16.0 steem nodes on all servers.
• Researching what it takes to build plugins directly for steemd.
• Discussed "burn-out".
• Believes 2017 is going to be a banner year for steem.
• Read the Full Report (12/02/2016)

@clayop - Witness Position #7

• Continued efforts on discussion about witness paramater policies, such as price feed discount and interest rates.
• Published ECON 101 For Witness series to provide firm knowledge-base for witnesses as well as all stakeholders.
• Discount rate is still 0%, and is considering to decrease below zero level, if STEEM price keeps increasing.
• Interest rate reduced it to 7.5% in order to 1) facilitate SBD conversion, and 2) decrease the network's burden.
• Witness node is updated to the latest v0.16.0.
• Backup node in v0.15.0 to cope with unexpected bug in the new version.
• Pegging SBD work is still going, and the profit is similar(around 10%). Will use a part of the profit to help a Korean community member who hacked 12 BTC from Bittrex.
• Read the Full Report (12/03/2016)

Previous Report:

• Decreased interest rate to 7% while discount rate kept at zero, given higher SBD price than the peg.
• Provided a summary of the discount and APR interest rate rules from the white paper.
• Will continue to convert SBD until reaching the break-even point.
• Read the Full Report (11/28/2016)

@smooth.witness - Witness Position #8

• Reduced feed discount from 8% to 3% in preparation for the upcoming hard fork.
• Reduced by SBD APR to from 8% to 6%.
• The fork will reduce conversion time from 7 days to 3 1/2 days, which reduces the risk of conversions.
• Provided guidance about reducing APR and price feed discount.
• Read the Full Report (12/03/2016)

Previous Report:

• Reduced feed discount from 12% to 8%.
• Reduced interest rate to 9%.
• Changes prevent SBD from becoming too strong and also provide incentives for debt reduction while ensuring that the cost and magnitude of those incentives do not become too great.
• Read the Full Report (11/28/2016)

@abit - Witness Position #11

• Upgraded witness nodes to new release (v0.16.0).
• Worked on code review.
• Reduced SBD interest rate (APR) from 12% to 8%, then to 5%.
• No change made on the price feed offset/bias (remain -0.1%).
• No change made on witness voting.
• Read the Full Report (12/02/2016)

@gtg - Witness Position #14

• Continuing tests with upcoming v0.16.0.
• Rsync service with blockchain is still serving data from v0.15.0. Will no longer be updated until switch to v0.16.0. Last block served is ~ 7110000.
• Reduced price feed adjustment to 3% (previously 8%).
• Have kept account_creation_fee at 50 STEEM which is currently worth ~ $9. Will opt to keep it in a range $5 - $10.
• Have kept SBD interest rate at 10%.
• Observed Real SBD value: $1.022.
• Observed STEEM value: $0.181.
• Observed "current_sbd_supply": "1272366.527 SBD".
• Observed "sbd_interest_rate": 1000.
• Observed "account_creation_fee": "40.000 STEEM".
• Read the Full Report (11/28/2016)

@pfunk - Witness Position #18

• Created a new witness application post describing activity, intentions, goals, and thoughts on being a witness.
• Read the Application

@klye - Witness Position #26

• Reminder to take your contacts out before you fall asleep in front of the computer.
• @steemcanada announced.
• Development of steem-roller.com (STEEM/SBD dice game) continues.
• steem.global faucet upped 900% since it started spreading STEEM.
• Read the Full Report (12/03/2016)

@bitcoiner - Witness Position #42

• Upgraded servers to the final 0.16.0 release.
• Started learning the steemd codebase. Have successfully gotten to the point of being able to make a code change to an API call, rebuild steemd, and relaunch steemd to test changes.
• Plan to continue spending time on the Steemit.com and Steem codebases.
• Plan to continue with @timcliff's wish list and trying to implement some of the items there.
• Plan to continue being active on Steemit, Steemit Chat, and GitHub.
• The price of STEEM has been going up, perhaps in anticipation of the economic changes.
• There have been many posts about spreading the word of Steemit to everyone outside, which is great for adoption.
• Read the Full Report (12/03/2016)

@bacchist - Witness Position #51

• Upgraded node to v0.16.0 in anticipation of Tuesday's hard fork.
• Excited for Robin Hood Whale to relaunch. Have taken on a handful of new curators and re-invented RHW with a new collective vision. Focusing more on tags and content categories will help the platform grow by nurturing the growth of communities around subjects and content types that have been missing or overlooked.
• No price feed discount.
• 10% APR on SBD Balances.
• 42 STEEM Account Creation Fee.
• Read the Full Report (12/03/2016)

Previous Report:

• Have been involved in the ongoing discussion among witnesses about the most effective strategy for witnesses to use when applying discounts to the price feed and adjusting the APR that SBD balances earn.
• Decided to lower SBD interest rate to 10% APR, due to the strength of SBD in the market.
• Concerned about the flaw in interest calculation that causes SBD holders lose the benefit of increased interest that they reasonably expect if the rate changes. Hopes that the flaw is fixed in future development.
• Discussed concept of Smallest Effective Discount (SED).
• Stances on SBD interest and discount rate are evolving.
• Witnesses should be extremely careful to avoid a heavy handed approach to discounts and should seek to make their interventions as minimal and temporary as possible.
• Read the Full Report (11/29/2016)

@dragosroua - Witness Position #52

• Updated the SBD interest rate from 10% to 8%.
• Updated witness node to version 0.16.0.rc3.
• Released the first version of the steem witness toolbox, a helper script for witnesses maintaining the Steem network.
• Moved the two Steem dedicated servers in a new location, but still haven't set them up yet. Waiting for a few missing pieces. Expect to have them configured and running by the end of the week.
• Looking forward to HardFork 16.
• Read the Full Report (11/28/2016)

@timcliff - Witness Position #64

• Upgraded for hardfork 16.
• Spent a lot of time discussing the appropriate price discount and SBD APR rates with @clayop, @smooth, @bacchist.
• Posted a Witness Parameters Guide with info on the SBD debt level and conversion rates - to help clarify the rules in the White Paper that became confusing after the "black swan prevention" changes were put in place.
• Update on @the.masses.
• Continued the "Reports from the Witnesses" series.
• Created a new Steemit Profile Page, to show users how to use the profile 'website' if they don't have an actual website.
• Posted an updated Steemit.com Development GitHub Issue Report.
• Continued to be involved with a lot of the GitHub discussions about feature additions and glitch reports.
• Summary of Witness Fund use.
• Price discount reduced from 8% to 5%.
• Registration fee set to 50 STEEM.
• SBD interest rate reduced from 12% down to 7%.
• Read the Full Report (12/03/2016)

---

Some Notes:

• Many witnesses do not report every week, and prefer to only report when they have updates.
• I recommend that you include communication as one of your criteria for evaluating witnesses, but keep in mind - it is not the only criteria. There are some witnesses that prefer to work "behind the scenes", and do not do much as far as reports.
• For witnesses that are not currently posting any reports, I would encourage you to provide the community with at least some insight into what you are currently working on :)
• Historic Reports from the Witnesses can be found here:
  https://steemit.com/created/reportsfromthewitnesses
• For help determining which witnesses to vote for, check out the:
  Witness Voting Guide

Remember to vote for witnesses here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses