After such a great response on my "considering a witness campaign" post, I decided to go ahead and finally commit to buying some servers.
I've used some of my earnings to grab 2 different machines via @privex & @someguy123 - a witness node and a webserver. After a lot of research I decided to start small, and I've put some funds aside ready to upgrade if required.
It's been a few days of reading, testing and tweaking (thanks to some great guides from klye and bitcalm) - and I'm ready to announce :
my witness node is ready to go!
I've broadcasted my intent to become a witness, and starting with these parameters :
account_creation_fee 1.000 STEEM
maximum_block_size 65,536
sbd_interest_rate 0
I'll be monitoring things closely and adjust as required, but for now I see no reason to encourage holding SBD by giving out interest - it looks like a lot of SBD demand right now :
SBD is overvalued at the moment ($1.15, peaking at $1.43 ea!)
My first price feed update (thanks to @someguy123's steemfeed-js) :
How to vote for me as witness :
Witness voting is quick and easy - just visit
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
And enter my username ausbitbank into the vote box near the bottom of the page :
If you've never voted for witnesses before, and you trust my judgement you also have the option to set me as your witness voting proxy at the bottom of the page :
Setting me as your voting proxy will automatically copy my witness votes, which are :
Why vote for my witness ?
I believe I've been a sort of 'chaotic good' for in general for Steemit since I joined in July 2016 , I've developed a lot of tools, personally introduced a lot of new users and I'm always thinking about new ways to try to grow and promote the Steem network.
I pledge to take my witness responsibilities seriously, providing a stable and reliable witness node as well as keeping the community informed about upcoming changes on the network.
Here's an overview of my Steemit journey so far, if you'd like to know more about me before making your decision.