Meet Our Steem Witness With @timcliff. Episode 18

As a steemian who want to see this platform continue to grow and flourish, we all have 30 votes to cast for any steemit witness of our choice and I will say this is the most important 30 votes you will ever cast on this platform.

Meet our steemwitness is a program put in place to know more about our steem witness, there roles and obligations. We need them as much as they needs us. Our witness are the leaders on the platform and thus it is our paramount importance that we due our due diligence before casting our votes.

Today I bring to you one of the most active witness on the steem with a current rank of 3rd on the witness voting list.

What you need to know about @timcliff

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How did you first hear about steemit and what made you decide to join?

My brother shared a post on his facebook wall, and that is how I first learned about the platform.
I initially joined as an investor. I bought a small amount of STEEM, since I thought the project seemed like it had a lot of potential.

Steemit has continued to build a user base over the past year, but still has a lot of work before becoming main stream. What do you think is the biggest obstacle before steemit rivals some of the online social media giants?

There are still some key features missing from the platform. I think communities are going to be a big game changer.
The perceived 'unfairness' seems to still cause a lot of issues too. I'm not sure if anything will need to be done to address that before we can attract mainstream users. We already seem to be growing by a lot.

Do you have an endgame in mind with steemit.if so could you elaborate?

To take over the world? :)

With some of the current problems steemit faces, I.e. Whale circle jerking, pool draining, bot votes etc and some radical backlash, what, if any solutions do you see?

A lot of these problems have been around since the beginning. Several changes have been made that have helped a lot.

The biggest solution that I see to the current set of problems is to make downvoting more prevalent. Stakeholders need to start downvoting material that is not adding value to the platform but is still receiving rewards.
I am currently petitioning for some changes that will make it more appealing to downvote.

How do you see the flagging war affecting the future of steemit?

Downvoting content that is not deserving of rewards is one of the key elements to ensuring the platform continues to reward content and users that are adding value.
When stakeholders downvote other users as retaliation for flagging/downvoting, I think that adds toxicity to the platform that we are better without, but it is everyone's right to use their stake however they want.

Being a witness takes a lot of time and energy, how do you keep a balance between this and other commitments?

I probably don't do the greatest job balancing. I spent most of my free time on the Steem platform in one way or another :)
I do try to take a little bit of time each week to spend with my spouse though. I also sleep.

What is the biggest challenge you have ever faced since you joined steemit?

It has been hard convincing my spouse that I should be spending time on the platform instead of with him.
It was especially hard during my first year, when I was barely making any money but was still spending about as much time here as a second "full-time" job.
These days it is easier because I at least have something to show for my efforts to prove it is "worth it".
Earning a bunch of magic internet money that "may be worth something someday" was a lot harder to argue :)

Can you tell your role as a witness?

It is pretty much a full-time job. I do a lot of stuff behind the scenes, including a lot of discussions about what changes should be made to the platform.
My primary duty is to manage my servers and ensure that they are reliably producing blocks.
I also spend a lot of time each week offering support to users (mostly through the steem.chat help channel.)

I have also worked on a lot of various side projects for the platform, including helping to get the "Welcome" page and FAQ up on steemit.com.

Is there any project you have at hand now or you are working on one?

I am working on several projects at the moment. I generally don't talk about my projects though until I have something to show for it.
My monthly witness posts are where I share what I have been up to.

If there was a worldwide internet and cellular blackout for a week, what would you do for those 7 days?

Probably spend a lot of time outside.

What is one thing that most people don't know about you?

A lot of people probably don't know I'm gay. I'm not really private about it, but I don't talk about it too much either.
I wrote a post about it a while back: https://steemit.com/lgbt/@timcliff/finding-a-balance-between-being-out-and-accepting-other-people-s-uncomfortableness-with-being-gay

What is the biggest mistake new users make when joining steemit?

Expecting to earn a lot of rewards without putting in a lot of effort and finding a way to add value to the platform.

If you could only vote for one witness (not yourself) who would it be and why?

That is really tough. There are several witnesses that I vote for that I feel are really crucial to the platform. If I had to pick one, it would probably be @smooth.witness. He does not do a lot in public, but he is one of the most knowledgeable witnesses as far as how the platform works, and he has a lot of insight into what is best for the platform. I have also seen him make difficult choices that involved putting the platform's needs above his own.

Where do you see the value of steem in the next 4-5 years along with this platform?

There are some challenges in front of us, as far as scalability and user experience. I expect we are going to successfully deal with those challenges though.
Once we do, I expect the platform will be a lot larger as far as user-base, and we will likely be in the top 5 cryptocurrencies.

Do you have any other thing you are doing apart from steemit?

I actually have a full-time job in addition to being a witness. I am a product delivery manager for a large software development company. I have been working there for about 10 years now.
I am in the process of winding that down though so I can focus more time on Steem related things.

In five sentences or less, tell steemians why you deserve their vote?

I consider myself one of the more active witnesses, and I am always trying to do what I can to make the platform better.
There are quite a few good witnesses, and some not so good ones. I encourage everyone to learn about who the different witnesses are and what they are doing for the platform, and decide on who most deserves your vote.

If you could give advice to all new members on how to be successful on this platform what would it be?

Find ways to add value. 2. Find ways to attract attention without being spammy/annoying. 3. Stick with it.

PROMOTING AND INTERVIEWING STEEM WITNESS IS ALL I DO

As steemit users we need to do everything in our power to choose witnesses that will represent the community well. Before voting make sure you do some research on the people you are voting for and be informed. Head over to https://steemit.com/~witnesses and click on some of the witnesses names, get to know them a bit better and do your part to make sure this community thrives.