![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmf1UXN9NxaGc7EqzY5CJ3SmKYCxXUVqXdWC5frL6ksFAu/image.png)

This is my formal application for witness support from the Minnow Support Project.  

Although I am a bidding bot owner (@buildawhale) I run the service with an exceptionally high level of transparency and honesty.  I also manage a team of 6 curators maintaining our daily [Curation Digest](https://steemit.com/buildawhale/@buildawhale/buildawhale-curation-digest-11-28-17) where we feature five of our favorite posts daily rewarding them with additional upvotes and exposure.  

I am frequently found on PAL discord and have been on been on MSP Waves a few times, and I look forward to being on again (especially when this cough goes away).  Although @discordiant hasn't been around lately to play Overwatch.

https://i.imgur.com/Ug2WP1y.gif

# Witness Details

I currently have 272 votes for my witness and am ranked #63 with a total of 3 missed blocks in 4 months.  The first two were early on when I found a problem with the shared memory space, and the last was when my entire town was out of power.  In all three cases, the problem was resolved quickly and my witness was disabled immediately and in the last case failed over to my secondary witness.

I currently have three witness servers (48GB, 32GB, 32GB) in three different states and two different countries (US & Canada).  I have two auxiliary servers that control a remote kill-switch and fail-over as well as my price feed.  

I have posted a few posts providing advice and support for managing a witness.  One of my recent posts was [how to set up a remove kill-switch for your witness](https://steemit.com/witness/@themarkymark/how-to-setup-a-kill-switch-for-your-witness).  I am in #witness and #witness-social on a daily basis talking with other witnesses and visitors.  

I currently propose the following settings as witness:

* 0.200 STEEM creation fee
* 0% APR for SBD with no bias
* 65536 block size

I am running the latest version 0.19.2 and updated within hours of it becoming available.  My price feed was updated 16 minutes ago from the writing of this post.

# Full Node
I also set up and manage a full node for @buildteam (https://rpc.buildteam.io).  It is a full 256GB node with SSD disks.  It has been running with 100% uptime and is one of the fastest nodes on the platform.

# What are you pledging to do to support the Steemit Community?

I spend a lot of time hanging out and discussing Steem/Steemit with community members and work on ways to stop the amount of garbage put on the platform on a daily basis.  I do this by frequently reporting spam and plagiarism, as well as supporting projects that reward quality content.  

My curation digest is one of my community projects where we provide more exposure and rewards to users who submit quality content.

I am working on two new projects that haven't been announced yet to further support quality content and another to remove spam and plagiarised content from the platform.  I recently had a long talk with @patrice from @steemcleaners about how we can further prevent the spam and plagiarism on the platform.

# What are you pledging to do to support the Minnow Community?

I am very active in multiple communities, as well as witness channels providing help and support to new users. I frequently write very in-depth howto/support posts to help new and veteran users alike.

For example of my recent posts that have been popular.

* [@bellyrub gone full evil? double selling votes, self-voting, trying to get 40K from users; triple dipping?](https://steemit.com/bellyrub/@themarkymark/bellyrub-gone-full-evil-double-selling-votes-self-voting-trying-to-get-40k-from-users)
* [How to milk the reward pool with complete freedom](https://steemit.com/steemit/@themarkymark/how-to-milk-the-reward-pool-with-complete-freedom)
* [How curation rewards work and how to be a kick-ass curator](https://steemit.com/curation/@themarkymark/how-curation-rewards-work-and-how-to-be-a-kick-ass-curator)
* [Markdown 101 - How to make kick-ass posts on Steemit](https://steemit.com/steemit/@themarkymark/markdown-101-how-to-make-kick-ass-posts-on-steemit)
* [Work ON your business, not in your business! - How to succeed as a small business](https://steemit.com/business/@themarkymark/work-on-your-business-not-in-your-business-how-to-succeed-as-a-small-business)
* [You are not entitled to an audience, you need to earn it!](https://steemit.com/steemit/@themarkymark/you-are-not-entitled-to-an-audience-you-need-to-earn-it)

# What are you pledging to do to support the Minnow Support Project?

In a short time on the platform, I have proven myself a community leader with integrity and passion.  Just imagine what Minnow Support and I can do together keeping this place amazing and helping the minnows.

I will continue to work with Minnow Support Project and the Steem/Steemit on many issues troubling the community.



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<center>[![](![baw_I.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmX8o4NviF6T7vrhAeyCC6a8kgyW3FNHar3U9TcoiSUmTS/baw_I.gif))](http://www.steemit.com/@buildawhale)</center>

[![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPkQhAQceC7aHr4Gy5GKv7LMoiy47P7PyaNCeZBHMpFke/white-bg-with-drop-shadow.gif)](https://steemit.com/~witnesses)