Keeping our Witnesses Honest - Should dead Witnesses have their votes returned automatically? How about a Witness Vote Manager Service?

We need strong and reliable Witnesses

Witnesses and their servers are the engine room of our beloved Steem Blockchain, and without them the whole platform fails. They are the custodians of the Chain. But they need to be active, and up-to-date at all times to keep the platform running smoothly. So why are there so many dead, or outdated witnesses in the top 100?

For Witnesses, the higher they are up the list, the more they are involved with creating blocks on the Steem Blockchain, and earning rewards which may eventually pay for the servers they are running. They also carry more influence on the direction Steem takes on future developments and updates etc. Many Witnesses spend more money (and time) maintaining their servers that what they earn, so it makes sense for them to want to work their way up the list. The problem is that many of the dead witnesses have a lot of witness votes in their favor, keeping them high in the list, and are therefore able to switch back on at any time, and keep their place in the line... This shouldn't be so.

The Bad Ones

Here is a list of dead, disabled or outdated witnesses in the top 100 taken from https://steemdb.com/witnesses (I have listed any witness with a price feed 3 weeks or more out of date):

Rank	Witness	Votes	Price Feed	Last Updated	Version
35	@aizensou	26.204 PV	1.500 SBD	7 months ago	0.19.2
44	@witness.svk	19.333 PV	1.507 SBD	5 months ago	0.19.0
51	@nextgencrypto	17.410 PV	6.322 SBD	1 month ago	0.19.2
54	@theprophet0	15.869 PV	6.031 SBD	1 month ago	0.19.1
56	@complexring	12.794 PV	4.222 SBD	1 month ago	0.19.2
59	@roadscape	11.904 PV	1.022 SBD	4 months ago	0.19.2
62	@steemychicken1	10.642 PV	4.200 SBD	3 weeks ago	0.19.2
67	@datasecuritynode	9.479 PV	1.080 SBD	5 months ago	0.19.1
68	@bitcoiner	9.063 PV	5.365 SBD	1 month ago	0.19.2
69	@bacchist	8.852 PV	0.901 SBD	3 months ago	0.19.2
71	@arhag	7.621 PV	1.293 SBD	5 months ago	0.19.1
74	@chainsquad.com	6.815 PV	0.179 SBD (2%)	10 months ago	0.19.2
75	@blueorgy	6.422 PV	5.926 SBD	1 month ago	0.19.2
78	@cyrano.witness	6.091 PV	1.001 SBD	7 months ago	0.19.0
79	@bayareacoins	4.825 PV	0.916 SBD	3 months ago	0.19.2
80	@agoric.systems	4.564 PV	1.807 SBD	2 months ago	0.19.2
82	@b0y2k	4.408 PV	0.000 STEEM (-INF%)	Never	0.19.2
83	@kushed	4.326 PV	0.166 SBD	10 months ago	0.19.2
85	@bue	4.048 PV	1.100 SBD	5 months ago	0.19.2
89	@tdv.witness	3.646 PV	0.152 SBD (2.9%)	1 year ago	0.16.0
90	@demotruk	3.444 PV	6.230 SBD	1 month ago	0.19.2
96	@steem-id	2.908 PV	5.988 SBD	1 month ago	0.19.2

That's 22 out of the top 100 who are doing nothing for the benefit of the blockchain. The only reason they are still there is because nobody has reviewed their witness votes, and removed the above witnesses from their vote list.

So why not automate it?

Yes, automate the removal of witness votes for those witnesses who are not maintaining their servers to within a certain standard or price feed updates, and version numbers. Why not create a built-in process, or even a service we can subscribe to to cull dead witness votes for us (like @steemvoter or @steemauto, except for managing witness votes)?

• If the consensus it to run version 19.2, then witnesses running older versions should have 30 days to comply, or have their witness votes returned.
• Likewise, if your price feed is more than 30 days old, why should you be this far up the list? If you cannot maintain a price feed, and are more than 20 days out-of-date, you don't deserve to be in the top list, and your votes should be returned.
• Some witnesses may need to disable their servers for whatever reason, but they should be able to bring them back online within a finite period (30 days is very generous), or face their witness votes being returned.

What will this achieve?

Having an automated accountability process in place will reward those who are committed in the long run by removing the dead or under-performing witnesses, and not allowing them to pick up where they left off if they decide to come back. They will need to earn their place back. We don't want to see a list with nearly a quarter of the witnesses in the top 100 being out-of-date, or disabled. Get rid of them.

The incentive to always maintain your witness node to within the boundaries of the standards set by consensus of the other witnesses will strengthen the platform immeasurably by not allowing the fly-by-night witnesses to "take a break" whenever they want, and then just hop back on where they left off.

Only committed and proactive witnesses will be seen on the top 100 list. Sure, the onus is on us all to choose our own witnesses, but there also needs to be a level of accountability to the platform that requires witnesses to meet certain criteria to keep those votes, and not rest on the premise that once you have a vote, and are up the list you will stay there. A Witness Vote Management Service could help us all manage our witness votes more effectively.

If you're an active and committed witness you'll have no problem with this arrangement. It is likely only those who are not performing up to standard that may not like it, and seeing those witnesses being knocked down with give those further down the list, but more committed to the platform, an incentive to gain more votes, and move into those holes created.

Do Your Bit - Remove your votes for weak links

I encourage you to review your witness votes regularly, and have a look at how their nodes are performing at https://steemdb.com/witnesses. If you're supporting dead witnesses, remove your votes, and let someone else more deserving and active move up the list. We need to reward those witnesses putting in the work, and we need to clean up that top 100 list to only have active witnesses present.

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