I have 3 separate things to report on and talk about. Steem Witness Forum this Saturday, Dapps of Steem, and the need for faster replays.

Steem Witness Forum

On the last Saturday of every month I host a Steem panel discussion. The format is normally a fairly structured panel discussion between Andrarchy from Steemit, several top 20 witnesses, and a backup witness covering Steemit development progress, witness projects, what the chain needs, and recently some thoughts on what our blockchain and community needs to better achieve healthy growth.

This time I think a more open structure is necessary to talk through the successes and failures deploying the recent Hardfork and discussing how we move forward as a community. The entire Steem community is welcome. I've invited Steemit folk, other top witnesses, high ranking backup witnesses, and this post is to invite the general Steem population. Please find the rules for the discussion I'm going to implement below.

The forum will be held on Saturday morning at 1500 UTC in PALnet Discord. If you're planning on speaking please come early to get a mic check.

Dapps of Steem

Despite a somewhat rocky start HF20 is now in effect and the platform is in a better position to grow than ever before. One of the things I think will drive growth will be the various Dapps that join and build on the platform. Dlive set the stage with being here 7 months and raising 20M. If those unethical fucktards can do it so can you. Steem is a great place to build a business with a fast chain and a large blockchain community. I think it's how we moon and I'm trying to trail blaze this with Steem Monsters along with my partner Yabapmatt and the Steem Monsters team.

To push Dapps along I'm creating a a digital exhibition on November 3rd, the week before Steemfest, to get key Dapps front and center in your mind before we all meet in Poland. If you have a Dapp and you'd like some time to talk about it and give it a quick pitch please message me in the PALnet Discord

Faster Replays

I've been asking the question for a the last few Steem Witness Forums "what is the next most important thing after velocity, communities, and SMTs?" I now think it to be faster replays. As I've started having these discussions suggestions such as checkpoint systems, multi-threaded replays, and rocksdb have come up as good solutions. I'm going to continue exploring this as I think it's critical for us moving forward to be able to iterate faster than we currently can.

We're altering a functional blockchain. This is like repairing a starship while at warp. It's tough to do. While it's frustrating that we experienced an imperfect start to HF20 I believe the reality is that no matter how many people we have review and test there's still going to be hiccups as we enact changes on the live chain. I think as a community we have to accept this as a reality and rather than simply vent at witnesses and Steemit devs I think the answer lies in a reality check.

Rough forks and chain stops are going to happen again as we attempt to improve the core code of the blockchain. So, let's get more ready for the known challenge that lies ahead. In this regard I now think it's paramount we as a community develop a method to replay seed, witness, and rpc nodes faster than we can currently. It'll allow faster iteration and shorter down times for better user experience. It would be better if we didn't experience these things, but I think some of it is inevitable. So, let's be as ready as we can.

If you have any dev expertise that would match an approach that would speed up replays and would be interested in working on making replays faster please feel free to reach out to me in Discord at minnowpond.org.

Aggroed's Rules for Open Discord Discussion

This is in regard's to the open witness discussion. It's not quite a quaker meeting where anyone can speak their mind as the moment calls. I'm trying to balance having something organized so we can get through a lot of people, and also working to ensure a healthy dialouge happens. The following are modified rules I've been using to host the weekly moderator meetings for the Minnow Support Project. Please follow these rules while in the discussion.

1. I'm planning on allowing anyone that isn't banned from PALnet to answer or ask questions
2. If you would like to ask a question either in chat or on air you can type a 2 in the mspwaves-audience discussion channel
3. If you would like to answer a question you can type a 1 or I'll try to call on people
4. I imagine people will get heated and passionate. So, if it becomes a problem I'll start by putting a 1 min timer on people asking questions or speaking. If it becomes a serious problem I'll kick or ban people.
5. This is meant to be a civil discussion. It's not a shit show and it's not to just come out and attack any individual or group. You're welcome to voice any comment and concern, but we have some expectations around treating each other decently. You're at liberty to speak your mind and your concerns so long as you can do it without attacking a person or company (acting peacefully).
6. Complaints by themselves aren't that helpful. If you would like to raise a concern please consider adding a request at the end of it. My concern is x. I think the solution is y. Could you please attempt y would be a good example of a request.

That's it. I hope you come join us, and I hope we can have a good open yet structured discussion.