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 third 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 of witnesses that you deem it fit.
In this episode, I am excited to bring to you a digital marketing agent, Blockchain promoter, the founder of ethical Digital Marketing Agency called @crucialweb and a dedicated hive witness who goes by the name @ura-soul
Welcome to my interview and thanks for the honor @ura-soul
1. What do you believe is the single most important responsibility of a Hive witness?
@ura-soul To be responsive to the changing needs of the integrity of the Hive blockchain. Many people see this as starting and ending with the secure and reliable creation of the blocks which make up the blockchain itself, however, I see Hive’s security as extending beyond this level. The revolutionary power of Hive requires focus and attention in several different areas, so it is important for witnesses to also pay attention to political, economic, social and technological arenas globally. The goal being to direct the community towards making sustainable and empowering decisions.
There is potentially a lot of money paid to the top 20 witnesses and I feel there is something of an obligation for them to use some of it to improve Hive, not just to churn out the blocks.
2. Do you feel the witness election process is accessible and transparent? If not, how can it be improved?
@ura-soul The witness voting process is as open or as closed as each individual community member wants it to be for them personally. However, we currently have a few accounts that hold much larger stakes than everyone else and so in some senses the election process is mostly about them. I don’t really ever see those accounts talking about why they vote for the witnesses that they do – or providing feedback to other witnesses. The process can be improved by further decentralising the stake and also the biggest stakeholders opening up to public communication on the topic.
3. How do you handle the competition among witnesses, and what differentiates you from other witnesses?
@ura-soul I personally understand that co-operation tends to yield better outcomes than competition – if those involved intend that to be the case. I don’t think about competing, I just think about providing the right intentions, logic and decisions and leave the rest to the voters!
I don’t personally know all of the other witnesses, but I am quite a rare individual in that I have extensive knowledge and experience in most of the many/varied fields that benefit Hive. I have held a degree in Applied Computing for 25+ years and have been a professional system designer and developer for that time. I have previously worked on a social network startup and also built my own social network for many years prior to coming to Steem. My degree was part computing/systems and part business, so I have a strong background in organisations, growth and business generally.
I have also spent 20 years exploring human psychology on deep levels, plus the history and structure of our society, its technology and its destiny. On top of this I am also a professional digital artist, having worked with 2D art for fun and for business in the past. The other art that I specialise in is music production and sound engineering. I’ll be releasing some tracks soon 🙂
For several years I ran a digital marketing company that specialised in decentralised projects and ethical marketing. So when I said I am rare, I have actually never met anyone that has experience in all these fields as people tend to specialise. With Hive, I am able to join dots and design strategies that others are not able to envision.
4. Do you think Hive’s DPoS model needs modifications? If yes, what specific changes would you recommend?
@ura-soul The actual mechanics of the technology behind DPOS seem reliable. However, we do need to improve communication between witnesses and voters, to try to ensure that the most effective witnesses receive the most support.
5. What steps can be taken to ensure more transparency in decision-making, reward distribution, and governance?
@ura-soul I used to enjoy the semi regular video presentations that were made by Steemit and their developers back in the early days of Steem. I would love to see regular, relaxed/friendly video conferences between big stakeholders on Hive. This would enable witnesses to better understand their desires/goals and for everyone to generally operate more cohesively than we do at present.
This would provide a focal point for the wider community and the comments would reveal a lot and help everyone.
6. Should witnesses have a formal mechanism for accountability? If yes, how would you envision such a system working?
@ura-soul It isn’t simple to introduce any kind of formality and accountability in such a decentralised network. However, with VSC and smart contracts, we will have much more flexibility when it comes to creating interesting logic and processes that affect Hive rewards.
Perhaps we might see witnesses creating smart contracts that automatically direct their witness rewards to certain accounts or functions. This is one way that the community can be certain that some of the witness rewards will be used to help Hive and also a way that witnesses could differentiate themselves in future.
7. Since you became a witness, what impact have you made on the community that other witnesses have not done?
@ura-soul I worked for Splinterlands as a developer for a year and created the system that ran Splinterlands TV – including the practical side of the streaming technology, right through to the prize giveaway system and other tools. I also created the downvote tracker at hivealive.io – which is possibly going to be integrated into some well known Hive websites in the near future.
I have also been briefly involved with advising the marketing team for Hive in the past.
In general, the most common comment I hear from other people about me is that they know they can rely on me to be honest and reasonable.. which is something of a rarity in today’s world! When I have had time I have participated in many debates about the future of Hive and day to day problems – I hope that I have been able to add some clarity and helped to bring some real balance.
8. How do witnesses collaborate to solve community-wide issues, and what can be done to improve this process?
@ura-soul There are chat groups for witnesses and so discussion of such topics takes place in there.
As with other forms of witness accountability, it might be possible to track statistics for witness involvement in these groups and feed that data into smart contracts on Hive for some clever uses! Maybe one day this could lead to the most proactive witnesses gaining more exposure and votes.
9. Do you believe there should be a structured process for witness succession or rotation to encourage fresh ideas?
@ura-soul The main reason I hear from big stakeholders as to why they don’t rotate out other witnesses into the top 20 is that they want the people with the most experience to be in the top 20 positions. This is understandable, but it does lead to a dead end when it comes to change and creativity.
I would not be opposed to some kind of rule that says that witnesses can only be in the top 20 for a certain number of weeks concurrently - it would certainly make the process more interesting.
10. How do you handle criticism from the community, and how has it shaped your approach as a witness?
@ura-soul Criticism, when valid and backed up by logic/evidence is very valuable. I love to learn that I have been mistaken or incorrect in my thinking because it means that I am a step closer to being correct!
I did launch a DHF proposal called @Strategizer to try to get funding for market research for Hive and it was ultimately not successful. However, I did learn that if I want to help Hive grow as a witness and developer, I am probably best off creating my own app and leading the growth myself – rather than relying on a consensus of voters to support me. Part of the beauty of decentralised systems like Hive is that everyone can use them as they prefer and we do not all need to agree – though it would be nice to feel more understood on key topics!
11. How do you see the role of witnesses evolving as the Hive platform grows and changes?
@ura-soul So far this role hasn’t really changed or evolved much at all. I would like to see a return to the original ethic from Steem, where witnesses are required by the community to be creative and active in growing/evolving Hive generally in order to get votes.
The main problem I perceive with this is that growing Hive is complicated and requires specialist experience in a variety of areas that most people do not possess. So for this to work there has to be a considerable amount of communication done by the witnesses, which costs them time/money. So until the value of the token increases, I don’t expect to see this happening too much any time soon.
12. Some users feel witnesses hold too much power. What are your thoughts on decentralizing witness influence further?
@ura-soul Witnesses have power to choose to accept or reject forks, plus set various parameters such as the APR rate for the HBD interest payouts. I don’t see that there is a problem with them doing this. The process makes logical sense to me. The main area where I can see an argument for some witnesses having too much power is that the top 20 get paid quite a lot of tokens, which cement their ability to keep themselves in the top 20. This motivates them voting each other and protecting the status quo.
The witness vote decay feature, which we currently have on Hive was an idea that I suggested to Ned at Steemit inc. a long time ago and which eventually got implemented. I think we should experiment with the auto-cycling of witnesses out of the top 20 based on a maximum concurrent time limit. This would really open up the situation, but as always – the details are important!
It is so awesome finally having a chat with you @ura-soul
Thanks so much for creating time for meet our Hive witness. Have a wonderful day 🤝🏻
You're welcome.
NB: those are @ura-soul exact words to the interview questions. Nothing was changed.
PROMOTING AND INTERVIEWING HIVE WITNESSES IS ALL I DO
You can read more about Ura-soul here
