We are happy to announce that the initial selection of Orange Group III BetaNet node operators can be found here.
As in the previous selections, we prioritized complete applications that indicated they could meet the previously announced minimum hardware and bandwidth requirements. We also took into consideration the response and comments that we received in the BetaNet forum from both the BetaNet community and the applicants.
Last week we reached out to the applicants and asked them to provide further details to their posted application. While we have previously asked applicants to indicate whether their server will be located in a personal home or datacentre, we want to ensure that we have more detailed information that will help us pinpoint those nodes that are planning to run on cheap VPS servers which do not meet the xx BetaNet specs. As a result, we asked nodes to provide us with the name of their Internet Service Provider (ISP) or specify the name of the company hosting it.
Not many nodes provided this information, and many nodes have been sent specific questions that both the team and the community would like answered. If no response is received, these nodes will not be accepted.
Another selection criteria we have to be aware of is the location of the applicants. We have geographic bins with a higher concentration of applicants and many regions with lower participation. In the bins with lower participation, we have been less selective in choosing nodes as a way to encourage further participation. This proves to be a minor effect on the network as a whole as the number of nodes ultimately selected in these bins is fairly low. On the other hand, like previous selections, we had a fair amount of applicants from Russia. Ultimately, any single criteria being too common across node operators can threaten decentralization. While this has led us to be more selective about nodes in Russia and node operators from Russia, Russian nodes with high caliber applications were both accepted within the Russia bin and outside of it.
If you were not selected, please remember that this is an initial selection and subject to change. Participation in the community is one of our strongest criteria for selection, so please speak out and let us know why we should reconsider your application. We also invite the community to please review the selection and give us their honest feedback!
Thank you,
xx network node team
missing them for a better distribution