Let's get to know @rival, A New Dutch Based Witness

We often heard about term “witness” but we never actually understand what is a witness, or its function in general. There are so many articles written about voting for witness, but majority of them are too practical. Today, I am presenting you another way of understanding what is a witness, and their role around steemit. This time, We're not only going to see @rival as a witness, also, we’ll get to know him as a friend.

Without further ado, let’s get to know him

Can you tell us more about yourself and the reason you’re becoming a witness?
My name is Rival, I live in a Netherland with my girlfriend, 2 lovely children and a parrot called “nemo”. I’ve been on steemit for about 119 days and believing that it could grow big in the future.

I come from an IT background but I’ve just known cryptocurrency about 5 months ago. I purchased some bitcoin and I did beginner mistakes. However that doesn’t discourage me to invest on cryptocurrency. It is truly fascinating and I have big hope that it could fund my family trip to United states by 2019. I want to make the trip as an unforgettable experience for my family. I have a financial goal in mind, and that I want to be transparent about that.

I am still a minnow myself but I want to contribute to the community with my unique ideas. For example, I launched steemvember. The idea is mainly encouraging user to contribute more to steemit through increasing its value by either stocking up steem or even powering up for a month.

What is a witness to you?
In the simplest understanding, being a witness, means I have to contribute in making sure the blockchain and the network keeps running smoothly. So, we can provide users nice experience while steem-ing. There are sort of rank for witness and the higher it is, the more responsibilities they will have. So far, I am still in my 12 days, I haven’t missed any blocks and I hope to keep it this way, with my installations. To know more about it, you can check out my blog posts.

Was it difficult setting up to be a witness? What kind of difficulties do you have?
Yes, it was difficult. Especially, for me who has a little knowledge about Linux. It was like, I am flying a helicopter while I normally fly in a jet plane- it’s completely different. However, with the help from wonderful community on steemit, I’ve managed to understand and finally, setting up my witness node.

What kind of advice will you give to our fellow new users (red: minnow)?
I think the first thing a new user should do is to engage more on people’s post by writing comments and actively reading. It can be frustrating, if you create post which you spend doing 3 hours but only get like 0.001 cents. Thus, engaging more with the community, is one of a great idea to excel in the platform.

What are your plans for your contributions to steemit in general?

I honestly don’t have specific plans yet because I am relatively new as a witness. However, I want to contribute in areas where is possible for me. I also hope in the future I can attend meet up and give advice if needed. For now, I am a part of the lion legions, it’s a group on discord for dutch community. So, if you’re from Netherland or Dutch speaking country, feel free to join us.

For a final note, do you have some other messages to our fellow steemian?
If you’re new, I’d truly suggest to engage with the community first. And one thing I’d like the world to know. As a proud father, I’d like to tell that my daughter has also contribute creating an art for steemfest2 in Lisbon. Her creation would be displayed at steemfest art festival. I’d also like to thank to @roelandp for making that happen and I wish to meet him personally soon.

Thank you for sparing your time
You’re welcome !

_{Made by : @carlschrijft}

So everyone, consider putting @rival in your voting list and let’s help each other creating a great steemit community. You can check his witness story and the art created by his daughter below

• Art for Steemfest2
• #steemvember
• New Witness on The Block

Brought to you by The lions legion

_{Made by : @carlschrijft}