by @cryptoctopus and @clains

Last week we had the first edition of this series. As stated, the goal is to inform the community on what the people who are the backbone of Steemit are doing, to glorify the good actors and to expose the not so good.

Apart from those updates, remember that they had a hardfork this week that requires work on their part.

Caveat

This was brought forth in the comment in the first edition and it's important for everyone to take this into consideration:

The payout of Witness is more akin to stock options than a salary or fee for service, because it is tied to the future value of Steem and can't be cashed out (more than 1% per week). This is a good thing because it means the interests of witnesses are aligned with the interests of Steem in terms of long term value (and increasingly so as witnesses are more vested). However, it does mean that you can't reasonably say to witnesses, "You are being paid all this money, so you better go and spend it every week" because no one is receiving that in actual, spendable, payments. Expecting strong qualifications, competence, engagement, attention and effective representation are entirely reasonable expectations however.
There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty as to how much they will truly profit in $USD.

Witness Update

@joseph

I just got on the top 19 list a few days ago. I have done some work before even getting there. But for the next few weeks I am putting a plan to hire and send Steemit reps to the Content Marketing World Conference and Expo. I was at first thinking of Vegas or LA tech expos, but I found out one of the biggest expos is going to be held right here in my own backyard in Cleveland Ohio.

I will submit this plan proposal to the community for support and sponsorship.
The conference will host 5000+ attendees and over 200 Guest speakers from around the world. With 100's of big companies participating.

@riverhead

Really just the one answer: I've implemented steemit.chat so the community has an unrestricted chat engine (no history limits, no fees, better day control, etc.) Cass has updated some of the look and feel of steemit.chat to make it feel more like home.

@bhuz

Hi clains. As you can check, I was voted in only few days ago, so I don't think anyone can really expect something from me yet. Anyway I plan to make a post about my intentions if I keep the witness in the top #19 - https://steemit.com/findandreward/@bhuz/let-s-find-and-reward-steem-s-contributors

@wackou

1 ) What have you done this week?

I accidentally deleted my seed node (d’oh!) so had to rebuild it from scratch took advantage of this to dust off my deploy script implemented world map view of connected peers, see: http://seed.steemnodes.com/peers
(was a long time in the making, had to clean it up)

2 ) What are you working on?

want to release my deploy script once it’s cleanup and more versatile (ie: can deploy seed nodes, api nodes, witness nodes, etc.) and preparing a post with a list of bounties that I’m gonna pay out of my witness pay
mostly work on the bts_tools and the deploy script, security-related

3 ) How it's going to benefit the ecosystem?

It benefits the ecosystem because witnesses are able to do better their (sysadmin) job, with fewer efforts -> can lead to better reaction times in case the network has problems (forks, client crashing, etc…)

@nethyb

Hi clains, I've been pretty good at contributing to the 'witness update log' so you can see a good history of what I've done and are doing to help steem etc...

The key project I'm working on now is a collaborative effort with xeroc to provide an easy way for bloggers to start using steemit withough having to change any of their blowing workflow - see https://steemit.com/steem/@au1nethyb1/easy-steeming-for-55-million-blog-posts-per-month#@au1nethyb1/re-au1nethyb1-easy-steeming-for-55-million-blog-posts-per-month-20160531t141716006z for some background - the tool is called streemain (streemian.com) and uses the native capability of most blogging platforms - wordpress etc to provide rss feeds. (edited)

Specifically this week we've been continuing to test the registration process for new users - do call out to your readers if anyone wants to be a beta-tester and tell them to get in touch with me - I've got beta registrations codes and would be really keen to get their perspective on the signup process and what makes sense and what does not...

Apart from that this week - I've just updated the amazon EC2 servers that host the witness and seed nodes that I run to keep up with the demands that the incredible growth in steemit has put on the underlying blockchain infrastructure.

@roadscape

Updates to Steemd.com:

New tx pages: https://steemd.com/tx/c222c8419461ecd3b8df6a1541f9e3ccebcb0f5f
-New block pages: https://steemd.com/b/3345678 (incomplete, waiting for a node API change)
-To help with account recovery/debugging, added owner key history page and filed an issue to get recovery --operations returned in user account history.
-Node updates to keep up with the latest versions & improvements.
-Minor UI improvements to witnesses page, distribution page
-Misc "easter egg" reports from the last few weeks
-https://steemd.com/checkpoints (witness fork tool)
-https://steemd.com/tools (liquidity rewards)
-https://steemd.com/richlist

Next for Steemd.com

-I'll continue working through a backlog of feature requests. Also starting to strategize potential next projects, which include block indexing, tx/op indexing, and post indexing.
-The main goal of my work on steemd.com is to share interesting internal blockchain data and process it in useful ways for users, developers, and witnesses. And of course to show the world how awesome our blockchain is.

@abit

1 ) What have you done this week?

• code review for v0.12.x
• Upgrade nodes to 0.12.x and testing
• Detected an too-big-transaction issue and reported to the dev team
• Chinese community development
  -> Communications in WeChat and QQ groups
  -> Write Chinese tutorials
  -> Review the Chinese translation of white paper (not finished)

2 ) What are you working on?

• Chinese community development

3 ) How it's going to benefit the ecosystem?

• By code review and node monitoring, we guarantee the system is working fine. China is a big market. More adoption in China means better growth of the ecosystem.

@arhag

1 ) This past week, July 17, 2016 to July 23, 2016, I have worked on the following:

I have reviewed the code changes made by the devs for the 0.12.0 hardfork, in which several issues were discovered during its development that I pointed out and the devs corrected prior to the final release. In addition, I submitted a few other bugs to GitHub discovered in the Steem code (some of which have been fixed already in 0.12.0 and some which still need to be fixed):

-The posting authorities for the first three special steem accounts were incorrect, which allowed anyone to post under those names (e.g. https://steemd.com/test/@temp/test1). This has been fixed with this commit.

-@void discovered a bug with the JSON serializer that I quickly investigated the root cause of and proposed a solution. This solution was implemented in time for version 0.12.0.

-After trying to investigate the root causes of some user complaints, I discovered two problems with the cli_wallet. First, the way it tries to determine which keys are necessary for signing a transaction prevents certain operations from succeeding when according to the documentation they should succeed (https://github.com/steemit/steem/issues/165). Second, it incorrectly serializes user-specified enums in such a way that using update_account_auth_key with a incorrect role string will cause the wallet to think they are trying to modify the owner authority (https://github.com/steemit/steem/issues/172). This could potentially be quite dangerous for the user if their wallet has their owner key imported. These two bugs have not yet been fixed.

-I submitted this issue to both request the code be fixed to match the documentation and to hopefully obtain a more convenient API for witnesses that regularly update their chain properties and block signing key that will lead to slightly less blockchain bloat.
Finally, after several months of nagging the core devs about the need for machine-generated passwords by default, they have finally (seemingly due to recent brute force hack by the whitehat hacker) been convinced to update their password policy. I am very happy with the change, but I think there is more to be done. So I have written out my detailed plan for what further changes I believe are necessary to further improve security for the users of the Steemit website.

2 ) What are you working on?

I plan to continue to review any code changes made by the devs for bugs and problems. In addition, aligned with my goal to prioritize my efforts on security features/tools for the time being due to the recent hacks, I am also working on the design for a future blockchain feature that enables: a last will and testament / dead-man switch smart contract that distributes funds / mechanism in a predefined way in order to allow a user to recover their account with the help of a recovery agent after some period of inactivity (as a last resort mechanism to help people recover accounts even if they lose all their passwords) as well as securely give away their wealth to their beneficiaries after their death.

3 ) How is it going to benefit the ecosystem?

My ongoing efforts to review code changes by the devs have caught bugs or potential issues before they went live which could have possibly been a major inconvenience for the Steem community if the devs were not able to catch it in further testing (requiring for example another emergency hardfork right after to fix the issue). It also goes without saying how discovering and investigating (and in some cases fixing) various bugs in the steem codebase helps the ecosystem. In addition, my efforts to focus on better security features and tools can benefit users by better protecting their funds from theft (or their posts and reputation from defacement). The password policy changes implemented by Steemit (that I have been pushing for months) are a great step in the right direction, and I believe the other changes I have outlined in my recent blog post on security would further help protect users if implemented by Steemit. I think the last will and testament / dead-man switch features that I am designing will eventually also help improve security and let users rest a little easier knowing that a mistake of losing their owner password need not necessarily lead to permanent loss of their funds or account, and as an additional bonus, that should something bad happen to them, their loved ones will not be left poor due to being forever locked out of accessing their wealth on the blockchain.

@jabbasteem (coder behind steemle.com)

1.a) working on steemle
1.b) Asked ned and vandeberg for an update of the post payout and voting history (get_content) api extension suggestion i've made a couple of weeks ago. Currently all votes that are made in the following payout round are replacing the old votes with the same account name which is bad. Old votes should be displayed seperatly in array without being overwritten by new ones. If a post had more than two payouts then you cant see the past payouts before the last payout in the get_content query and also not what the amount was. All payouts should be displayed in an array including the payout amount. These changes could benefit 3rd party devs very much. It is very much needed for steemle to work properly.
2.) Working on a Smart voting bot.
3.) As far as Steemle goes. Steemle won't be continued to be developed unless the api changes get implemented.

@steempty

sorry i couldn't work on something new recently and in the near future, some personal matters to take care of. you can see in my github and in my witness post what i did until now. I hope i can continue to contribute soon...for now i am out of top 19, from next week i won't be available at all for couple of weeks but i'll be back and continue my projects ASAP.

@xeldal

Most of my time has been spent maintaining and enhancing market making and arbitrage bots for all steem related markets; connecting the markets. Like every other witnesses I've upgraded witness/seed/backup/redundancies etc. and assessed conditional witness parameters for proper operation. I've provided feedback for market mechanics and economic incentives. Applied earned SP for curation to best benefit the overall success of the platform. Scouted and sponsored various top quality blogger/youtubers/facebook content creators. New money, new interest, new users; stable/liquid/connected markets; reliable/transparent/trustworthy/fully dedicated service; theses are the benefits. Any funds earned have been used to provide liquidity to the markets. If you have any other specific questions don't hesitate to ask. : )

@bitcube

-Fixed Steem 0.9.x - 0.11.x compilation problems on Windows VC++.
-Released Windows Wallet for v11.0 and 0.12.0
-Released guide for Recovering hacked accounts with Windows Wallet. See bitcube's Steemit's blog."

@datasecuritynode

as much as I understand and appreciate the effort.. I can't go saying what we are doing publicly as of yet you will notice though that right now.. datasecuritynode has not withdrawn any funds .. unlike most witnesses it has not 'powered down'

@smooth

My ongoing initiatives are:

1. Provide free accounts for members of the cryptocurrency community who do not have or do not want to link reddit/facebook accounts via the web signup.
2. Provide direct support and individual and public education for both new and existing users in slack, steemit, bitcointalk and twitter.
3. Funding and co-directing marketing and onboarding efforts with Kushed.
4. Development of services adding value to the SBD ecosystem.
5. Providing funding for market making in the internal and external markets to enhance liquidity.

@complexring

I've reviewed the latest code, attempted to stop centralization of liquidity rewards funds to one person, provided insight into liquidity reward algorithms and how calculation of points need to be be fair and not favor large stake holders, hired a web developer to work on steemgrants and steemscholarships the Mutual Aid Societies that I proposed to sponsor as part of my witness funds, was aware of my hosting service losing electricity immediately and asked several members to unvote me while my hosting provider was fixing the issue, flag spam, provide insightful help to new members on steemit and on slack ...i will do a post later but rest assured there is much going on in the background that is being done analyzing security concerns from a mathematical perspect, etc.

@blocktrades

1- this week we got SBD -> STEEM re-enabled after we fixed the delayednode code for the steem client (get_transaction_history code would give us bad data about transaction hashes temporarily and cause us to see a transaction as two separate ones),
2- we also reported the error in the get_transaction_history code to Dan (who was able to fix it),
3- we updated our ethereum clients after the ethereum hardfork so that our users can buy steem with eth (this was more work than it sounds, since w have custom modifications to geth to allow us to provide unique input addresses to each customer),
4- we're working with Dan to figure out the problems exchanges are experiencing with occasional transfer failures,
5- finishing up getting OPEN.SBD trading on bitshares (only thing remaining is to update the web wallet code, but we've got some new changes that have held that back), 6) adding support for sending memos with steem when doing withdrawals from OpenLedger (this will allow direct withdrawals from OL to bittrex and poloniex, for example)

Other than that, just normal support and assistance to a lot of steem users who are new to crypto, steem, and bitshares. This weekend we're going to make some tweaks to the network code to see if they can help with some of the transfer fails, but they should make the network more solid in any case.

As to the benefits:

1- increasing reliability of the steem client is important for exchange support (and means users will have fewer problems with withdrawals from exchanges),
2- the memo changes will make it easier to send funds back and forth between exchanges without having to go thru a steem wallet,
3- support for ETH means more funds to support the Steem development,
4- adding SBD to OL means a 3rd exchange supporting the currency

@pharesim

I worked out the anti spam bot with anyx. He coded most of it already, so i paid him something and will enhance it where necessary. Curation, hard forks and stuff don't need to be mentioned i assume. I do a lot of support. Providing answers, scripts, whatever necessary, on several different channels...

Working on Pevo. We now have a dedicated chat for Pevo, where we will gather scientists helping us to design the optimal publishing experience https://chat.pevo.science. We partnered with @coinbitgold (#academiaspotlight, chinese science community), check it out here

I also looked at svk's node.js lib and will port it to native js, think i got most together for it. That's basically it for this week.

@svk

I have updated witness, seed node, steemex.com, I answered a lot of questions concerning steem-rpc and steemjs-lib. I’ve also helped with code review at steemit.com

I have also updated the market at steemit.com and fixed various issues.

Missing Updates:

@kushed, @silversteem

It doesn't mean that they aren't doing anything but somehow they haven't felt it was important to give an update to the community.

Witness Proposal

@originate
Read his witness proposal here: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@originate/witness-application-for-originate

@anyx (developer behind @cheetah , the beloved anti-plagiary bot)
Read his witness proposal here: https://steemit.com/witness-category/@anyx/witness-application-anyx

@gazm
Read his witness proposal here: https://steemit.com/steemhelp/@gazm/witness-proposal

Comments

Those response were gathered by @clains manually and very few actually made a public update on their blog. This is disappointing. For the amount of rewards they are getting I was (@cryptoctopus) expecting a bit more.

Nevertheless, if you read through the update you can see that some of them made some very important work in the backend, especially when it comes to security. Those change may not be apparent for most people but they are fundamental to the long term viability of the platform.

Vote with your conscience

https://steemit.com/~witnesses

Does some of the update above inspire confidence and competence to you? Please vote for them. Since, it's the first real edition of this, I would ask you not to be too harsh (as we are) since it is really the first update. We will increase the pressure for detailed updates as time goes on. We will demand competence and RESULTS from our witness to ensure the best long term success of this platform.