So this is my personal opinion and a bit of research which I have done on witnesses. Don't kill me for this :)
You can correct me wherever I am wrong and provide me your valuable feedbacks.
Also join this poll and click on your favourite witnesses. Its just a fun way to know which witnesses would be the most popular among us:)
Favourite Witness Poll - TRY THIS FUN POLL
Here are some basic points for those of you who are new like me and wondering what a witness is.
Who are Steem Witnesses?
The Steem network is controlled by Witnesses.
These are people who have gone out there and set up servers to keep the network going, keeping your transactions going, keeping your upvotes going, keeping your post going and so on
They have governance control and they can make decisions on the communities behalf
They also make decisions on hardfork which in the end is important to us
Where to vote for Steem Witnesses?
The above link shows the top 100 Witnesses.
You can vote for upto 30 Witnesses
If the person whom you want to vote is not in the list you can search for them in the search box provided at the end of the page on the link.
You can also set a proxy who will vote on your behalf if you are unsure whom to vote for
Did You Know?
The top 100 witnesses are paid for their services
The top 20 witnesses earn a regular salary
My thoughts on Witnesses
I feel voting for your witnesses is a brilliant idea
So if a witness stops contributing or doesn't work as he is supposed to, people will remove their votes from his name and he will automatically drop down
As the top 20 are paid a salary there is always stiff competition for witnesses to enter the top 20 list which keeps the witnesses on their toes all the time
My only issue is once steemit goes to the top many influential people would like to become witnesses.They may buy votes from people and reach the top 20. What can be done to stop that?
Let me know your thoughts in the comment section whether witnesses is a good idea and what further can be done to improve it and so on.
Lots of Love,
Alice
This is an excellent discussion on Witnesses, it is still a very misunderstood process. It’s important that every account uses their Witness votes - because they help ensure the blockchain keeps running smoothly which means you all can keep posting, upvoting and commenting.
The actual ranking of Witnesses is not just by votes though, the Steem Power of the Voter makes the real difference for position - so the biggest investors have the ultimate decision on who reaches the top 20.
Every vote counts though, and of course the small Steem power holders of today are the potential big holders of tomorrow.
#thealliance #witness
Ohh...so having more Steem power will help us to vote better for our witnesses..
Did not know this...
And how are the Witnesses paid?through Steem power?
Witnesses get a producer reward for resolving a block on the blockchain - this only happens if their Witness server is active and processing transactions at the time it is callled to resolve a block. The frequency a Witness is called is based on the ranking - which is influenced as you now know by the Steem Power held by the voters. The higher your position the more frequent the producer reward - right now I get called for a block every 5 hours and receive 1 Steem Power in return. The top 20 are getting called for blocks every few minutes. The rewards need to contribute to server costs - which are expensive. And the top 20 run nodes as well which are even more expensive and have to be on very fast gigabit up and down internet connections to - most Nodes are on 512gb Ram and a few terabyte of SSD storage. They have to be as they form the main backbone for keeping the transactions on the Steem blockchain as fast as they are- in fact Steem is one of fastest crypto currencies for transaction speed.
A lot of information in there..so the top witnesses need to have best servers and internet..
Good to have all this information now..
The only thing from my understanding is that a witness runs a server. There are top 20 witnesses that outsource the server and do not engage in the platform....this is not a requirement but have always felt better about voting for witnesses that are accessible and not just interested in doing the minimum amount of work, the whole platform is essentially based on engagement and when you have active witness's the platform benefits
paid from a separate pool in the reward pool .11 per block and they get a certain number of blocks a day....witnesses in the top 20 get a lot more blocks.
Wow..that's not bad..would it be around 100 blocks per day for each witness?
This is a pretty fair estimate, there are more variables to consider, but until you reach top 20 I think a fair guess.
not bad bases on what? fiat ? these is where I have learned to shift my focus.
As a follower of @followforupvotes this post has been randomly selected and upvoted! Enjoy your upvote and have a great day!
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by Alice(blog-fictions) from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows. Please find us at the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.
If you would like to delegate to the Minnow Support Project you can do so by clicking on the following links: 50SP, 100SP, 250SP, 500SP, 1000SP, 5000SP.
Be sure to leave at least 50SP undelegated on your account.
@comedyopenmic for life
Awesome :)
I do not know too much about witnesses but its a good idea for us to have the power to vote on them so we know who are the best people who will provide their customers best. I will have to do more research on steemit witnesses to see which ones are best. I am guessing that they are all crypto whales with thousands to millions of STEEM POWER?
if you feel strange about voting on witnesses that are rich whales, hit me up...I know many small witnesses that you would really like. I can help.
Do you have Discord that we can talk more about it perhaps? I would like to understand more about Witnesses.
I will send you an invite
https://discord.gg/dfWP7vu We have some really great witnesses there that will really explain in detail
this is worrying some people, the fact that if you have enough money you can just buy your witness votes...hopefully you are buying it for the right reason I guess. This is why the witnesses I vote for are doing something good for the community and are accessible to me so I can ask questions. They may not be in the top 20 now but I feel they will be. I may be a witness soon, will you vote for me ?
Ofcourse I would vote for you :)
I might as well.
Sounds like a vote of confidence ... sort of :) hit me up on discord Papa... would be cool to talk
I had no idea that I could vote for the Witnesses, I thought they were just there naturally, haha
Thanks for that!
Me too haha..just recently did some research on it..
Congratulations @blog-fictions! You have completed the following achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPThis post has received a 31.70 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @blog-fictions.
Congratulations @blog-fictions! You have completed the following achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOP@resteemator is a new bot casting votes for its followers. Follow @resteemator and vote this comment to increase your chance to be voted in the future!
This is a well researched article, Alice. Keep the good work on.
Thank you so much for the encouraging words :)
You ~ Alice ~ are a smart cookie!!
Good post my friend!!
Bear Hugs!! x0x0x
Congratulations @blog-fictions! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPDo not miss the last post from @steemitboard: