Meet Our Hive Witnesses: Special Edition #11 Featuring Botlord

As we all know, witnesses are the backbone of the Hive platform, the unsung heroes who ensure everything runs smoothly. They operate critical nodes that keep the platform alive and thriving. Without witnesses, Hive wouldn’t exist, and without us, there would be no content to share and engage with, which is why we need to get familiar with who our witnesses are.

That's why I've created this special edition of "Meet Our Hive Witnesses."
This interview series aims to connect with our witnesses, giving you a closer look at the people who keep Hive running. We’ll dive into their work, motivations, and insights through a series of thoughtful questions.

It is the eleventh edition of Meet Our Hive Witnesses Interview and before I continue with the introduction of the next witness that has honoured us to be interviewed, I'd like to say that, as a Hive user who want to see this platform continue to grow and flourish, we all have 30 votes to cast for any Hive witness of our choice and I will say this is the most important 30 votes you will ever cast on this platform for any witnesses that you deem it fit.

This week, I am honoured to spotlight @botlord A passionate Hive witness and lifelong tech enthusiast who finds joy in the backbone work that keeps Hive alive. From running nodes across the globe to developing tools like @indeedly and the Hive earnings tracker, he blends technical expertise with community spirit. His journey began back on Steem and has grown into a deep commitment to Hive’s decentralization and resilience. He champions user retention, stable infrastructure, and the need for cleaner witness voting practices. With a heart for development and a mind for systems, @botlord is one of Hive’s quietly powerful builders. Get ready to meet the nerd who’s helping keep Hive running...one block at a time.

Welcome to my interview, it is a great honour to have you here on the show this week @botlord

Thanks, below are the answers:botlord
@botlord

1 What motivated you to become a Hive witness, and how long have you been serving in that role?

@botlord Exploring the technical side of it, and taking part of the actual producing of blocks on the blockchain. I’m a bit of a nerd to be honest. Well, not just a bit perhaps, and I’ve set up different nodes and blockchain systems in the meantime. My first witness was even still on the Steem blockchain, but due to personal circumstances, I didn’t have the time anymore. Now last year, I started witnessing on Hive again, and I’m now running a Hive-Engine witness, a VSC node, and a Hive Witness.

2 What do you believe is the core responsibility of a Hive witness, and how do you personally fulfill it?

@botlord The responsibility of a Hive Witness is to guard the decentralization and stability of the Hive ecosystem as much as possible, and when needed make the required choices for the better of the community. I’m doing this by keeping my witness nodes (all under the account @botlord) running as stable as possible, and by having them (they are on different machines) in seperate locations in the world.

3 Can you explain how your witness node is set up and what infrastructure you use to keep it running securely and reliably?

@botlord My Hive witness is running on a AMD Ryzen PRO 3600 with 32Gb of RAM and 2Tb of diskspace and the latest stable Ubuntu version on it. For security and reliability I use the typical Linux tools as many sysadmins will know them.

4 What challenges have you encountered as a witness, and how have you worked to overcome them?

@botlord Time was mainly the most blocking issue. I had to abandon my first witness due to time issues (on Steem still), and now I had been working on getting my Hive Witness running last year as well, but again, due to time it never finished. In the meantime, my oldest children have finished their studies, leaving more time on the table for me.

5 What specific contributions have you made to the Hive ecosystem outside of maintaining your node?

@botlord I’ve been writing several tools and tipping bots, such as the @indeedly and the @hope bot, or the https://hiveearnings.botlord.eu/ tool (currently offline for maintenance and upgrade) and we’re working on the MMB system. I’m also active as developer in other communities such as BBH & Alive, and work with Team Mithril.

6 In your opinion, what differentiates a great witness from an average one on Hive?

@botlord Security and reliability to start with, but community feeling the most.

7 How do you engage with the Hive community, and what should users know about the importance of witness voting?

@botlord I try to engage with the community through the communities I work with, such as BBH & Alive, I’m also as active as possibly myself, through almost daily posting, tipping, replying/commenting.
The importance of witness voting? Well… the biggest difference between commercial social media platforms and Hive, a decentralized platform, is the fact that there is no company running the infrastructure. There is no Meta or X to keep your platform going, and making sure that you can post, comment and earn. On the Hive platform, all this is done by people like you and me, running their witnesses. This means that those people are putting money, gear, knowledge and time into it, and they provide you with the means to continue enjoying Hive. This is why you need to vote for your favorite and trusted Hive witnesses.

8 What are your top priorities or goals for Hive’s future, and how are you helping achieve them?

@botlord I think Hive needs to grow, but also needs to be safeguarded from explosive growth down bad alleys. Also, just growth is not enough, we need more user retention as well. During my Humpday Hive Hangout interview, this was one of the topics that were discussed, and @godfish came with some good suggestions, which I’ve immediately used to work on some new apps, which I hope to be able to show soon.

9 Do you support any particular proposals or improvements on Hive? If so, why are they important to you?

@botlord Yes I do, I support @Ecency and @PeakD, because good interfaces make the difference in user experience, and especially for newcomers on the Hive blockchain that is VERY important, and often the reason why they come in and leave again right away. There are also a lot of other “smaller” tools that I support, because I believe they are very useful and have a great place in the Hive Ecosystem, such as (but definitely not limited to) Hive Keychain.

10 What do you think Hive witnesses should do better collectively to improve the blockchain?

@botlord We need to make sure, as Hive Witnesses, but for everyone on the Hive blockchain, that we don’t start polarizing, making it us and them, creating opposing groups. We are all here for Hive, for the community, we need to keep that in mind. Witnesses and users alike. Not meaning to say that there should never be disagreement, on the contrary, different ideas are what brings progress, but always with respect.

11 How transparent are you with your operations, and where can users track your performance or contributions?

@botlord I try to be as transparent as possible with everything. My accounts (personal @borniet, witness @botlord) can be viewed using the available tools.

12.What do you wish more Hive users understood about how witnesses work or what witnesses do?

@botlord The importance of Hive witnesses. That they are not just something fancy and technical, but that they are the pillars under the Hive blockchains, carrying the whole load.

13 Have there been any moments where you had to take a difficult decision as a witness? If yes, what was it?

@botlord I wasn’t a witness myself at that moment, but since I had been before, and knew I would be again later on, I did think hard about it as well. The reduction of the HBD savings APR from 20% to 15%.

14 Are there any technical or political limitations that restrict your ability to contribute more as a witness?

@botlord I see time as the main issue there. I need to work during the day to keep the family fed and with a roof over their heads, which automatically limits my time. Would I have more time, I would simply not stop developing new tools and all for Hive. I just love the technical stuff, and I just love Hive.

15 Why should people vote for you as a witness, what makes your witness stand out from others?

@botlord People should vote for me as a witness because they know and trust me, and I don’t think I stand out from the others. I expect the majority of witness are running their witness with similar intentions than I do.
I do think it is VERY important for people to regularly re-evaluate their witness votes. Being a witness comes with a cost, both in cash and in time. Many people start their witness, and leave it running for a short while, and then come to the conclusion that the cost is higher than the gain, and stop maintaining it. A lot of witness votes are currently lost on these dead, stale, unmaintained witnesses, while these votes should go to newer witnesses, or more stable witnesses. Go to https://peakd.com/me/witnesses and look around, if you go passed the 100 list, you will see witnesses that have been inactive for over 3 years, but still have 1.5Million HP in votes. Those are all totally lost votes, and could be reevaluated towards newer witnesses with (much) less votes that are working hard to climb the ladder.
That is the responsibility of the Hive user, keeping a decent fresh list of Hive Witnesses voted for.

It is so awesome finally having a chat with you @botlord

Thanks so much for creating time for meet our Hive witness. Have a wonderful day 🤝🏻

You're welcome.

NB: those were @botlord exact words to the interview questions. Nothing was changed.