1. Why did you decide to become a witness?

I had always been fascinated with the witnesses since I initially joined. I had been contributing to the platform in many ways prior to launching a witness campaign, and at the point I decided to run it just seemed like a natural progression. The idea of being able to make a profit if I started producing enough blocks to cover the cost of my witness nodes was part of the initial draw as well :)

2. Have you made any contributions that have been accepted into the STEEM codebase? If so, what was it?

Yes. I have made several minor contributions (small bug fixes, config updates, etc.) which can be found here.

I also submitted two changes that were part of the last hardfork, both of which changed the way SBD is handled:

• I submitted my first hardfork pull request to the Steem blockchain! (Updates to the SBD print rate.)
• Steem Hardfork Pull Request Submitted - Beneficiaries paid based on author's payout setting

3. HF20 started out with a ton of bugs. What do you plan on doing in order to make sure that we don't suffer a repeat of that?
Here is my plan to address what happened:
@timcliff's Witness Hardfork Approval Standards v0.1

4. What have you done to promote the STEEM blockchain outside of the blockchain itself?

I have run several external promotions including the SteemBlast campaign.

5. Communities have become a very big thing in the STEEM ecosystem recently. Have you done anything to promote communities and help them out?

I delegate SP to five projects that I believe are helping to grow the community and ecosystem: Hive account@goldenproject, Hive account@magiccleatus, Hive account@minnowsupport, Hive account@spaminator, and Hive account@witnesspage.

6. Do you understand enough of the STEEM codebase and C++ to be able to tell what changes are being made when they are committed?

Yes. Probably more than most, but still only to a limited extent.

7. Have you developed anything for STEEM? It doesn't need to be software, a community that utilizes STEEM counts too.

I have developed quite a few changes for various Steem projects, including many condenser (steemit.com). Two of the more notable ones are the "Welcome Page" and "FAQ", both of which I worked on in collaboration with other witnesses. I also run SteemEconomy.com, which is a directory of all the business that accept STEEM/SBD as a form of payment.

8. Communication was a major problem for STEEMIT INC. Many people want the public to be able to read whats happening in the private witness channel that STEEMIT INC has created. What do you think about that?

If community members want to know what witnesses positions are on various issues, they should ask them directly. If they don't get the responses they expect/want, they have the right to change their votes accordingly.

9. STEEMIT INC has done a major part of the development for the STEEM blockchain. Who should be doing more of the development for the blockchain, them or the witnesses? Or is it a shared responsibility where the witnesses do one part and STEEMIT INC does the rest?

The responsibility for developing code should rightfully fall on the development team. Witnesses can (and should) be encouraged to contribute to development, but I would consider witnesses that do that to be going "above and beyond the call of duty".

It would be great to reach a point where more development was done by "outside" parties (those other than Steemit, Inc.) but right now there is a huge amount of knowledge and skills that are missing from those on the "outside" to be able to do it effectively.

10. Why do you deserve to become the top witness?

I try to let my actions speak for themselves. I consider myself to be an active witness who does a lot to advance the blockchain, community, and ecosystem in a positive direction.