TimCliff Witness Update 2017-03-18

Hello Everyone!

Here is what I've been up to since my last witness post:

• I finished the first draft of the new Steemit FAQ page. (@pfunk and I are planning to add a lot of content to the page to make it a more comprehensive FAQ.) @pfunk is currently working on 'draft 2'. After that is done, we plan to submit it to the community for review. The final step will be to submit a pull-request to GitHub, and hopefully get it up to the live site!
• I continue to be involved in many of the conversations regarding HF 17, and other potential changes to the platform. I gave my detailed feedback on the hardfork in my 2/19/2017 witness post. I have not made my final decision yet as to whether or not to pick up the HF though. I am discussing privately with some of the other witnesses to try and come to a consensus on the best path forward. I'll be posting as soon as I make my decision.
• I created the latest edition of the Reports from the Witnesses series. This report provides the community with an aggregated report of all the witness reports from the past week.
• I have been very involved in the discussions regarding the "whale no-vote experiment". As soon as @abit posted about the experiment, I realized that there were a lot of people that were confused/upset and did not understand what was going on. I created this post to help explain and clarify what was going on. I collected data on which whales were voting within the parameters of the experiment vs. ones that were not, and created this post with the data. I also posted my views on the experiment in this post and this post. This is a major development in the Steemit community, and a big step forward towards resolving one of the bigger issues that has been plaguing the community since I joined.
• Based on conversations between @sneak, @dantheman, and the community I submitted a pull request to update the wording in the Steem blockchain license. The goal is to make it clear that Steemit, Inc. does allow people in the community to create alternative releases, and for the witnesses to pick them up - as long as they are on the current chain. I am working on improvements to the wording so that it can be accepted. (Post here.)
• I bought around $700 worth of SBD (with BTC) to work on a SBD debt reduction program. Details can be found in this post.

Some Suggestions:

• With all of the flagging going on, I recommend you have a link to this post handy for users who may be getting upset due to lack of understanding on how the rewards system works: Everything you need to know about potential payouts and flagging (for new users).
• If you are interested in upvoting posts where the rewards will be burned for SBD debt reduction (via random post promotion), you should follow the user @pipes.

Forward Looking Plans:

• Finalize decision on HF and upgrade witness + seed nodes once consensus is reached.
• Send an updated revision of the Steem blockchain license to Steemit, Inc.
• Continue my involvement with existing projects.

Summary of current witness parameters:

• Price Discount: My discount remains unchanged, at 2%. The SBD peg has held close to $1.00, sometimes slightly above, sometimes slightly below. There were some more drastic swings during the price spike, but that was to be expected. With the STEEM market-cap currently at $50,000,000, the debt level is not as severe as it was when we were below $20,000,000. Currently, the debt level is about 2% of the market-cap. I still believe this is on the high side though (especially if the price were to return to previous levels) so I will continue to maintain a small price discount - to encourage more people to convert SBD->STEEM (to help reduce the debt).
• SBD Interest Rate: My SBD interest rate remains unchanged at 2.5%. Given the current level of debt, a higher price discount is the preferred method over a higher SBD interest rate to maintain the SBD peg. My current policy is to only update my SBD interest rate once a month (on the first of the month) as summarized in this post, but that is subject to change. I am planning to lower my interest rate to 2.0% on 4/1.
• Registration Fee: My registration remains unchanged at 20 STEEM. This is approximately $4.26 at the current market price.

I welcome feedback on any of my projects or things that I can be doing better as a witness. If you think I am doing a great job, I would really appreciate your witness vote!

https://steemit.com/~witnesses

Thanks everyone for reading my witness report!