7 min read

AMA with Goat

Elaine Egan, our Senior Solar brand Ambassador recently sat down with Delegate Goat for her first Solar Delegate AMA. Read the transcript…
AMA with Goat

Elaine Egan, our Senior Solar brand Ambassador recently sat down with Delegate Goat for her first Solar Delegate AMA. Read the transcript below to learn about delegates, voting and more!

Elaine

Goat agreed to come on today to chat to us about what it means for him to be a Solar Delegate and what he does as a Solar delegate. I’ve prepared some questions by way of an introduction to Goat, some Solar related questions, some not.

Goat_Delegate

Wait, what do you mean some not?

Elaine

Relax lol

Goat please introduce yourself to the community. Can you explain what you do around here?

Goat_delegate,

Hi, for those of you who don't know I’m Delegate Goat. I run the Delegate Goat (I know it’s very original) for the Solar Network. I also occasionally help the Mod team with questions and answer questions and queries in the the group chats here and on Discord.

Elaine

I think you’ll find Goat is around helping out more than just occasionally!

You often say you’re not a coder or developer. How did you end up setting up a node? What specific skills did you need to acquire?

Goat_Delegate

My node skills started back in 2017 with another DPoS project, every instruction had to be input manually. With the installer used by Solar it’s so much easier to install and set up a node. Of course you still need to know how to set up and run a vps which are skills I acquired over time.

Elaine

So with that being said, what attracted you to become a Delegate for Solar? What interested you the most about the project?

Goat_Delegate

Having known the team and some of the other Delegates from other projects it was an easy decision to come over, especially when I found out Developer Gym was going to be heading up the coding division.

The possibilities of Solar is what intrigued me the most about the project, what it can become on its own and with others building and expanding upon its framework.

Elaine

Yeah Gym was on last week for an AMA on Solar Core. A skilled guy for sure.

What excites you the most about being a Solar delegate? Can you share any future plans for your Delegate ness with us, or are they top secret?

Goat_Delegate

As I have mentioned multiple times before, i am not a coder nor programmer but I plan on supporting Solar in any way I can. I am always happy to help fellow Delegates test new tools and of course I’m a sponsor of practically every Competition that has been run on Solar since they first started plus as mentioned, I will continue to help out where I can as much as I can

Elaine

I have to personally thank you Goat for sponsoring the events. Without contributions from the delegates the events would not be able to run. Plus imo the events are great for building our community.

There’s been quite a lot of talk in the channels about private delegates and their effect on the ranking of delegates. What are your thoughts on private delegates and what advice would you give the community on choosing a delegate?

Goat_Delegate

A tricky situation to discuss but my thoughts are these

Private Delegates are something that we have to accept exist, these are either individuals or groups who can afford to vote a delegate in to the forging positions by their own means and without community support. We cannot stop them otherwise the project would go from decentralised to centralised very quickly if we gave someone the power to choose who does and does not forge the networks blocks.

My advice to anyone looking for which Delegate to support would be this: -

Please do not just look at what returns the Delegate is offering for your vote in a purely SXP sense but also what they are offering to do for the Network and project outside of just paying their voters.

Yes supporting someone who only pays 70% rewards means you will receive less SXP but you are supporting someone willing to put time and effort in to helping the project grow and over time that will bring more value to your SXP than just someone who is forging and sharing.

Also keep an eye on your delegate, make sure they are actually supplying what they promised they would. If they are not doing so call them out publicly, we have the delegates channels specifically for these kinds of reasons. The community votes the delegates in so they are accountable to the community who have chosen to support them.

Elaine

Wise words! I agree with you entirely. I often say to the community don’t just go for the biggest payout. If we want to see this project succeed we need to look at the big picture and the long term, not just a quick reward!!

Pet Peeve here for me is Delegates that do not leave contact details on their proposals!! What do you think of this Goat??

Goat_Delegate

I don’t like that as well, those who say please vote for me but do not have any way to contact them in the proposal makes me wonder why. Why would you not want the people willing to support you to not be able to contact you if they have a query about either yourself, if you are actually doing what you promised or if a payout issue occurs?

Elaine

Yeah, I mean we see delegates who promise big rewards then disappear until they fall out of a forging position!! What do you think this does for the community and the project?

Goat_Delegate

If this happens it shows to me what their intentions are towards Solar and the community. If the only time you see a delegate is when they need votes to continue forging, take a long hard look at that delegate, what are they actually bringing to the ecosystem? Are they actually doing anything to help the project move forward or are they only here to make money? They are potentially denying someone actually willing to help the project. It’s sad to say but there are those who promise the earth to forge and then disappear like a shadow in the darkness.

Elaine

I agree with you 100%! Makes me wonder what we can do to discourage these fly by night delegates?

Goat_Delegate

The best way is the community to use their major power and unvote such delegates, show them that the community as a whole does not tolerate such behaviour and will prove this by removing such bad actors from the forging positions.

Elaine

Good point!! I think the community is such an important part of any crypto project! A strong project will usually have a strong community acting as spokespeople for it

I’m going to ask Goat a couple of non Solar questions now just for a change!

How do you see the future of crypto? What obstacles do you see to mass adoption?

Goat_Delegate

I would love to see Crypto adopted mainstream but we have a long way to go before that can happen, regulation needs to be brought in and mass market manipulation needs to be eradicated as well as tough punishments for the rug puller and scammers, im sure we have all seen at least once the fake elon musk tweet scam or the send x to this address and get y back.

Before any mainstream adoption can take place however I feel all project prices need to be decoupled from Bitcoin. It should not be allowed to dictate a project’s price, a project’s value should be based on that project’s efforts and nothing else.

That way we would truly see what is truly worth over $100 a coin/token and what is really worth just pennies. As it currently stands a project with no use case whatsoever can be worth near a dollar depending on bitcoin price and in the same breath a project with outstanding progress and active development could be worth very little if the whales decide to crash bitcoin so they can gather more.

Elaine

What most of you don’t realise is that on the quiet Goat is a bit of a foodie. He would often share pictures of his foodie accomplishments with us!

So that being said. Goat, what is your favourite meal to cook?

Goat_Delegate

My favourite meal to cook is a tricky question, I would possibly say cottage pie as to me its comfort food. It reminds me of going to my grandparents when younger, my grandmother made an amazing cottage pie. Mine is nowhere near as good of course.

Elaine

As well as a foodie our Goat is a Dad Joke connoisseur. So that being said, Goat, what is your favourite Dad joke?

Goat_Delegate

Oh god, I know so many but why is it when your put on the spot your brain goes blank?

Ummmmm Ok What did the ocean say to the beach?

Nothing, it just waved.

Elaine

Well I’m chuckling!!

Chuck

I would just like to thank Goat for all the help you have given me and the mod team over the past months. Much appreciated.

We opened up the chat for community questions.

Community Questions

Goat_Delegate

First of all thank you all for your questions and I would like to clarify something. I am not a member of the project development, recruitment, marketing or any other team. I am a delegate and as such I am not exposed to the internal workings of the project but I will try to answer your questions with the knowledge I have based on announcements etc.

Q: Can you share your social media links so we can keep ourselves updated?

A: https://t.me/solar_network

https://blog.solar.org/

Q: As an investor, safety is always one of the biggest concerns. What kind of security protection do you provide for your project? How do you ensure asset safety and return on investment of customers?

A: I have often this seen posted by the mods “Solar has no investors, only coin holders”

No project can guarantee return on investment. Plus I cannot give financial advice.

Q: Do you have tutorial videos or articles so we can get to know the platform better?

A: I have heard these are being created but I would not have any information on a time frame for you.

Elaine

I’d like to thank Goat_Delegate for coming here today to chat with us and answer questions. You can find him in our Solar Main Telegram channel and Discord server.

If you’ve enjoyed this article please give it some claps.

Follow Solar!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SolarNetwork

Medium: https://blog.solar.org

Telegram: https://t.me/Solar & https://t.me/@Solar_Network

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialSolarNetwork

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solarnetworkofficial/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/solarnetworkofficial

Discord: https://discord.solar.org

Website: https://solar.org