witnessurvey swisswitness

Whilst going through my Steemify notifications yesterday I noticed a message from a new service called @witnessurvey.
This seems to be an initiative to get a general overview of what Witnesses stand for or what they aim to do with running a witness.
While this comes at a time when even Steemit Inc is laying of people it seems like a nice opportunity.

So below I have answered the questions on the survey:

What is your position/stance on bid-bots (ownership/delegations/opinion)? - @abh12345, @ammonite

• This is a free blockchain and we are here in a free community with community regulation. The blockchain allows for these services and as such we feel they have their place.
• In all honesty we would like to see them used as a tool for promotion and not as a tool for profit.
• all bot owners should use at least a black/whitelist to avoid abuse and spam
• a lot of people are not only here as bloggers but also as investors and the delegation option is a valid way for them to get a certain ROI. The more people buy steem to do such things the less liquid steem there is and the more the price goes up.

What does the witness want to do to make the blockchain more user-friendly and help to on-board new users. What do THEY personally want to see done and what will they do to get it there? - @ericwilson

• we just want to provide a witness that supports the blockchain and helps in its decentralisation (hence our server in Switzerland)
• One of the team @sirwries has pledged some of his personal time to go through the steem github and check the code (for starters, maybe with more experience even propose some things)

Do you think votes for witnesses should last indefinitely or should they time out (or perhaps decay over time) so that periodically voters will need to reevaluate and affirm their positions by recasting their votes? - @harvhat

• When a witness is no longer active and providing the service they are rewarded for the votes should decay over time. Vote decaying is something that needs to be put on the table

Do you think the 30 witness votes each steemian gets is the correct number, especially in light of the fact there are only 20 top witnesses to be seated? - @harvhat

• yes, this allows for other witnesses to rise and fall due to the extra 10 votes over the top 20. I think this is a good amount that allows for enough diversivication.

What is a concern or two that you have about the #steem blockchain? - @johnspalding

• There is a lot of activitiy going on but the most important things that must be addressed are external investment and external onboarding wich will both help the blockchain and its value grow

What are you hopeful about for the #steem blockchain? - @johnspalding

• Having attended Steemfest was very eye opening on what kind of activity is going on with a look towards the future adoption. There are so many dapps popping up that all sound promising. Hopefully we will be able to support some of those with our witness through delegation or votes.

What is the monthly cost of equipment? - @abh12345

• roughly 200 dollars per month on 2 dedicated servers (with about 1 block per day return : 30x 0.35 = 10.5 dollars per month)

Where do your earnings go? - @abh12345

• for the moment they stay in the ecosystem. We pledged paying for the servers for 2 years without powering down.

[What are some of your] Current projects? - @abh12345

• We pledged a 100% vote to @dreamsoftheocean which is something that is affordable with our current 400 SP.
• Once we hit 500 we will start delegating 20% of our SP to help out projects that help the steem blockchain grow.

[Will you provide an] Alt accounts list? - @abh12345

• we are a team of 3 people @felander, @wolfje @sirwries

What are the benefits associated with being a witness? - @klassic

• for the top witnesses there is a financial reward (which we are not) but there is the social awareness and the sense of helping the community with the service we are giving

How do I become a witness? - @steemingmark

• set up a server, do a lot of politicking to get the votes of the people

What do you think the SBD [STEEM] price for a new account should be? - @harvhat

• the price for a new account should be as low as sustainably possible

What is a witness and how I become a good worker? - @rubaethsyed

• A witness is a service that provides the blockchain with a confirmation of the blocks of data on the ledger. As a steemian you can become good by voting for witnesses, by blogging and powering up

Have you implemented any new procedures for evaluating potential hardforks? - @patrickulrich

• we follow the implementations that are being put forward on Github about the upcoming forks on a conceptional level at least ( maybe not always on a technical or coding level)

How does a new user make the availability of his vote known to the cabal of witnesses wannabes trying to overthrow the current witness regime? - @grimgriz

• writing regular updates
• filling in this questionnaire
• interacting with people and mentioning the witness service

Should we have interest for SBD? - @patrickulrich

• we are of the opinion that SBD should be pegged on both sides with a longer view in mind. If there is no upper peg then the whole concept of SBD being a stable coin is pointless (we might have taken advantage of the billion dollar stable coin boom if SBD had been pegged)

What takeaways do you have from the Hardfork 20 issues that occurred? - @patrickulrich

• the sandbox issue is good
• more independent code checks are in order (to avoid the blockchain halting for example)

Do you think 20/21 top witnesses a good number or should there be more or less? - @harvhat

• this is the way the system is set up and it seems to be working fine. If there would be a lot more the system to approve or disapprove would become harder and discussions even longer