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Main => Stakeholder Proposals => Topic started by: NeoReel on January 11, 2018, 02:47:02 pm

Title: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 - Montreal (East-Coast USA-Canada)
Post by: NeoReel on January 11, 2018, 02:47:02 pm
BitShares community members,
I would like to thank you all for this great community! I'm a long time lurker who now wants to get involved.
This is our Witness Proposal.

A little story about us:
We've been running an animation studio in Montreal, Quebec, Canada since 2001. Through the years, we have developed several tools and projects revolving around the web and entertainment industry, notably the gaming and film industry (clients like Autodesk, Netflix, Lionsgate, etc).
Back in 2013, our computers were ideal for mining, so we started mining Protoshares! That was fun! Glad we could help out in the early days of BitShares.  :) We have been pushing for many cryptos ever since. In 2017, we embraced BitShares and became Lifetime Members so we could further boost this awesome cryptocurrency, tool and exchange.

How we want to improve the BitShares network:
In 2018, we want to run a steady BitShares Witness setup in the Montreal area, Quebec, Canada. This is crutial to us because we've noticed that Canadians can experience medium to high latency. The proposed new Canadian worker will help strengthen the BitShares network north of the USA.

Our servers:
 Full node API: Dedicated server 4 Cores, 3.8 GHz, 64 GB RAM, SSD wss://relinked.com/ws
 Witness: 4 Cores, 2.4 GHz, 24 GB RAM, SSD
 Backup Witness: 4 Cores, 2.4 GHz, 24 GB RAM, SSD

Please vote!
We would greatly appreciate if you could vote for our Proposed Witness "neoreel-1"
Let's work together to see the BitShares network overcome Bitcoin!

(http://neoreel.com/images/others/latency.jpg)

This is a World Map overlayed with the Technological Density data. I circled the areas with Active BitShares Witnesses. Notice how a new Witness in Montreal, Canada would cover a large area that is currently experiencing lots of latency. Notably: New-York, Washington, Boston, Toronto, Detroit, etc.

(http://neoreel.com/images/others/coverage.jpg)

Worker Proposal:
We have also created a Worker Proposal intended to sustain the BitShares Full Node if we don't get to become an active witness. You can vote for our Worker Proposal "NeoWorker - neoreel-1".

Contact:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoreel/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoreel/)
or email me directly.
Original proposition http://neoreel.com/bitshares_e.html (http://neoreel.com/bitshares_e.html)

Cheers,

Marc-André Guindon
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: ecslew on January 11, 2018, 05:59:31 pm
Great support to you!
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: NeoReel on January 11, 2018, 06:41:18 pm
Woot!
Thank you!
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: ecslew on January 11, 2018, 07:37:52 pm
You are welcome! Are there any legal issues involved in Canada!
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: NeoReel on January 11, 2018, 09:35:45 pm
Well, the government is taking it seriously and is thinking about how to deal with it... It basically wants you to declare it as an income (and so you can also declare it as a loss), so you still have tax obligations. Nothing close to what's happening in China/Japan/Korea...

The AMF (Financial Authorities) are simply warning that it is "unsafe", volatile, and that you will not be protected. https://lautorite.qc.ca/en/general-public/investments/knowledgeable-investors/bitcoin-and-other-virtual-currencies/ (https://lautorite.qc.ca/en/general-public/investments/knowledgeable-investors/bitcoin-and-other-virtual-currencies/)

The canadian government consider cryptos like an income or when used to pay for goods https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/services/payment/digital-currency.html (https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/services/payment/digital-currency.html)

Having that said, running a witness node will not be illegal in any ways, but the BTS salary and expenses will have to be declared as such.
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: R on January 11, 2018, 11:19:33 pm
Why a worker proposal? Not a witness?
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: NeoReel on January 12, 2018, 12:32:40 am
Since this thread mentions "Witness Proposal", your post tells me I've made a mistake by creating a worker proposal. Doesn't a new Witness need to be voted in using an initial Worker Proposal?

The docs I've read state that you need to make a Worker Proposal to Propose for a Witness Node:
"Workers are the "catch all" group where if you have an idea for something that could improve the network."

Can you point out how I can solve this? Do I only need to set up a Full Node and run it? I thought I needed to be voted in...

Please enlighten me!
Thanks,

Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: R on January 12, 2018, 12:54:57 am
Since this thread mentions "Witness Proposal", your post tells me I've made a mistake by creating a worker proposal. Doesn't a new Witness need to be voted in using an initial Worker Proposal?

The docs I've read state that you need to make a Worker Proposal to Propose for a Witness Node:
"Workers are the "catch all" group where if you have an idea for something that could improve the network."

Can you point out how I can solve this? Do I only need to set up a Full Node and run it? I thought I needed to be voted in...

Please enlighten me!
Thanks,

Anyone can run a full node and offer it to the public, but this is an unpaid/unrewarded role.

Anyone can register to become a witness, you need voted in before you become an active witness securing the network and earning rewards. http://docs.bitshares.org/bitshares/tutorials/index.html#witness-tutorials

No worker proposal is required to run full nodes nor witness roles.
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: NeoReel on January 12, 2018, 01:48:24 am
I thought the Worker Proposal and Witness Proposal were going hand in hand... Oops...
Anyways, I've just registered to be an active witness in Canada. My local node was working fine already, but I'll install it on my dedicated server and ask for your votes.

I guess since I've already paid for the Worker proposal, I'll convert that into a Bitshares French documentation translation... That is something lacking for us frenchies! :)

Thanks for helping me out!
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 AND [Worker Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: xeroc on January 12, 2018, 09:39:16 am
Can you please setup a testnet witness first, before applying for a main net witness? Thanks
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 AND [Worker Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: ecslew on January 12, 2018, 05:41:42 pm
Is there any witness node in Vancouver?
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 AND [Worker Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: NeoReel on January 15, 2018, 04:09:41 pm
I don't think there is a node in Vancouver... But now there is in Montreal! :)

The witness can be connected to using wss://relinked.com/ws
It is great to finaly have Low Latency! Currently at 111ms when I use to get 1500ms to 2000ms with all the other nodes.
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1
Post by: NeoReel on January 16, 2018, 09:34:50 pm
This is a World Map overlayed with the Technological Density data. I circled the areas with Active BitShares Witnesses. Notice how a new Witness in Montreal, Canada would cover a large area that is currently experiencing lots of latency. Notably: New-York, Washington, Boston, Toronto, Detroit, etc.
(http://neoreel.com/images/others/coverage.jpg)

Please VOTE for a new Active Witness neoreel-1
Connect to our server now: wss://relinked.com/ws

Thank you!
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1
Post by: NeoReel on March 12, 2018, 03:15:01 pm
There has been quite a few requests for a witness located near the North-East coast of the USA - Canada.
Please, consider voting for the witness "neoreel-1" located near Montreal, which is currently in position 98 with 50 million votes.
You can also connect to this worker using wss://relinked.com/ws (http://wss://relinked.com/ws)

Thank you!
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 AND [Worker Proposal] NeoWorker - neoreel-1
Post by: abit on March 19, 2018, 12:32:41 pm
I don't think there is a node in Vancouver... But now there is in Montreal! :)

The witness can be connected to using wss://relinked.com/ws
It is great to finaly have Low Latency! Currently at 111ms when I use to get 1500ms to 2000ms with all the other nodes.
Hi, for better security, witnesses (block producing nodes) should be running separately from API service nodes (the ones serving wss:// to public).

Witnesses should setup hot backups.

Should not publish IP addresses even locations of your witness nodes.

Witnesses should publish price feeds.
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 - Montreal (East-Coast USA-Canada)
Post by: NeoReel on March 19, 2018, 02:20:16 pm
Thanks for your feedback abit.
Yep, been thinking on having the witness separate from full node, and I've been reading on setting up a hot swappable witness node and started fooling around with the testnet witness.

As for the price feed, I started implementing Xeroc's version but ran into a few issues. I'll get back to this asap.

Cheers,
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 - Montreal (East-Coast USA-Canada)
Post by: NeoReel on March 19, 2018, 07:52:46 pm
Stupid question. Are all the witnesses also full nodes? Can you be one without the other?
I wanted a new full node in North-East America/Canada because I think things might be slow up here for us and I also want to be accepted as a witness, but I might have no chance at all becoming an active witness in the forseeable future.
Should I push for the full node worker proposal first and then the witness proposal, or are they both tied together? I guess if the trust is put into the witness, then you are automatically accepted as a full node... Let me know how it goes!

Thanks!
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 - Montreal (East-Coast USA-Canada)
Post by: pc on March 20, 2018, 05:54:06 pm
The actual witness nodes are not (or at least should not be) allow incoming connections from the general internet. They typically run in a very limited configuration, for performance and security reasons.

Many witnesses are running additional nodes as seeds, and sometimes as full (API) nodes as well. Witness pay is quite generous, I think we can reasonably expect witnesses to run a full node as well.
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 - Montreal (East-Coast USA-Canada)
Post by: abit on March 21, 2018, 03:54:30 pm
It seems wss://relinked.com/ws is now a testnet API node. @NeoReel is it intended?
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 - Montreal (East-Coast USA-Canada)
Post by: NeoReel on March 22, 2018, 12:38:01 am
Hello,

Sorry about this. I've been flipping things around with the testnet to setup a witness and a full node on different servers as requested earlier by pc. This will go back to a normal full node as soon as I finish installing this new server node so I can get rid of the witness. Will be fixed tonight.

Regards,
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 - Montreal (East-Coast USA-Canada)
Post by: NeoReel on March 22, 2018, 02:27:30 am
This full node wss://relinked.com/ws is back on the main blockchain.
The testnet witness as moved to a new private server.
I still have to setup my failsafe script to automatically report and switch to my backup witness.
I still have to setup price feed broadcast.

Cheers,
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 - Montreal (East-Coast USA-Canada)
Post by: NeoReel on March 23, 2018, 01:12:45 am
I have setup the pricefeed using xeroc's tool. Wondering if this tool is supposed to work when the witness is not active as I cannot see any price feed activity in my accounts. Obviously, you do not want random users publishing price feeds, but then again, that means it cannot be tested prior to having an active witness.

I've been running the new witness on the testnet and noticed it missed a block today. As I'm looking in the logs, I'm trying to understand why it did so. Trying to find it back, what error should it show in the log? Is it the error "Pushing block to fork database that failed to link"?

What is the most common reason for a block to be missed? Too long to verify all the transactions? In which case it is "normal" to miss a block once in a while? The witness server is fully dedicated to do only block generation, so why would it miss?

Thanks for all your info!

Cheers
Title: Re: [Witness Proposal] neoreel-1 - Montreal (East-Coast USA-Canada)
Post by: pc on March 23, 2018, 05:00:11 pm
It is correct that you can't publish price feeds until you've been voted in. That's one of the reasons why you have a testnet witness - check that your setup works on testnet, then it should also work on mainnet.

Missing a block once in a while is normal. If it happened at the full hour, it could be due to https://github.com/bitshares/bitshares-core/issues/504 but I think that's unlikely on testnet. Possibly caused by network glitches. Also check that your server clock is in sync.

Edit: Maintenance happens every 2 minutes on testnet, not at the full hour.