What are Witnesses?
Recently @djynn asked me to explain what witnesses were in regards to Steemit.
In cryptocurrency in general the blockchain is hosted on computers or servers called nodes. In Bitcoin these nodes are the full core wallets and the miners.
In Steemit these nodes are called witnesses and they confirm blocks and transactions. In plain terms the Steemit blockchain runs on the witness nodes.
(Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, illustration by Thornton Utz - Self scan from The American Magazine for May 1955 (p. 121)
The voting for witness thang chooses which witnesses will receive rewards for running a witness node.
Out of the all the witnesses running nodes only the top twenty(I think its actually the top 19 with the 20th spot given to back up witnesses) recieve rewards, which leads to the next question how are the top twenty chosen?
We vote for them!
People like you and I vote for our favourite witnesses and those who reCeive the most votes get the highest rank.
Why vote for one witness over another?
One criteria for choosing a witness is the reliability of their node which you can learn about on this site https://steemd.com/witnesses .
I personally vote for witnesses like @followbtcnews (mostly because of @crimsonclad his partner running the node) because of community involvement, their mirror site gosteem.com and support and help received.
I voted for @jerrybanfield because he promotes Steemit to the youtube community.
Other witnesses like @bue seems to give upvotes to people who vote for him.
Overall the best witnesses are those that will help Steemit to grow.
Here is a link to the FAQ for more information about witnesses
https://steemit.com/faq.html#What_are_Steem_witnesses
If your lazy you can use someone you trust as your proxy and everyone they vote for you will vote for as well.
@neoxian vote is carry by @whalepower
Vote for @neoxian for witness
Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by openparadigm from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, 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.
Thanks @openparadigm!
Thanks for the explanation. Now I have more info on which witnesses to vote for.
Your Welcome!