This Redfish understanding of Witnesses and why they are important

I started last October in Steemit and the way it was presented to was it's just like Facebook. Upload a picture and get likes for it which are called upvotes here and you get a bonus of those votes having monetary value. Sounds simple enough right so let's go for it!

So with optimism, I registered and forgot about it until almost the end of October that I was given guides on how to make a great introduceyourself post and I followed it to the dot. It was long and had images and told my personal story and it got less than 5 views and netted me 0.05 cents. That was harsh!

Unsplash - yang miao

Yet I persevered and still continued posting. I joined a group and one of their first requirement was to vote for @steemgigs as witness because that was @surpassinggoogle witness name and he supports the Philippines in Steemit.

I admit I did not go through the FAQ on my first month. I was ill-equipped and basically had zero knowledge what I was doing in Steemit aside from posting, upvoting and resteeming. To be honest I was treating it like any blog platform I had before which was as a virtual diary.

Everything changed in my 2nd month as I saw the possibilities that can be achieved with Steemit. The first thing that I thought of was using Steemit for the charity that we have been running for the past 11 years called @giftinkind.

Gift in Kind PH is an organization born of our desire to help less fortunate communities in terms of providing school supplies to elementary level children. In the last three years, our focus was on Banawen Primary School which is a school for the children of Indigenous tribe called Aetas.

You can know more about that in this post if you are interested.

Promoting Steem to Gift in Kind Foundation| Our first step to modern fund raising

So with that in mind my focus was on getting stronger for their sake. At this point I was already a believer of the Gifteconomy of Steemit and wanted it to work for that organization. To that end, I needed to learn everything that I can about Steemit and thus I began my study of all aspects of Steemit from creating better posts, curation rewards, markdown guidelines and formatting, and the important aspect of Engagement which has the Discord channels, communities, and building relationships. I made several guides about this and had it published to help fellow red fishes who were starting out.

So how is this important for choosing your Witnesses? Well for starters you tend to vote for witnesses you know and what they do and a lot of witnesses are usually in communities like Minnow Support Project (P.A.L), YouAreHope, SteemPH, Steemgigs, Qurator. The Writer's Block and others that I might not be aware of since I already have over 20 different Steem communities and sadly I am not active in all of them.

Witnesses are very vital for the Steem block as the top 20 decides what gets implemented in the Steem Blockchain. Below is taken from the FAQ itself and a number of very important stuff like DPOS and number of blocks each one handles.

What are Steem witnesses?
The Steem blockchain requires a set of people to create blocks and uses a consensus mechanism called delegated proof of stake, or DPOS. The community elects 'witnesses' to act as the network's block producers and governance body. There are 20 full-time witnesses, producing a block every 63-second round. A 21st position is shared by the backup witnesses, who are scheduled proportionally to the amount of stake-weighted community approval they have. Witnesses are compensated with Steem Power for each block they create.

I believe it was December when I started adding my witnesses and I had a whopping 5 witnesses! They were:

1. @steemgigs
2. @blocktrades
3. @good-karma
4. @ausbitbank
5. @cloh76.witness

1, 4 and 5 were voted because of the push from a community that I was in that had them. 2 and 3 because I used their services and products.

I was your typical user that followed everyone else and voted without really knowing what they did or their stance on the things that happen in Steem.

I was perfectly unaware of anything and kept swimming in the tiny part of the ocean but things were bound to change.

January was the time of some major changes in the way that I was behaving in Steem, I was no longer interested in the status quo as I really wanted to be serious in what I can bring into the platform as well as I read this awesome post from @ashleykalila

🔵What Do Our Top 20 Witnesses Actually Do? (Complete Overview Written In A Way So That Everyone Can Understand)🔵

This one gives us a condensed version of what the 20 active Witnesses do. So armed with the knowledge of what they do I was able to pick to add a couple more witnesses that I agreed with and what they wanted to achieve on the platform.

I even shared this with several communities that I belong to and asked them to read it and be informed. A few took a look at but the majority was just apathetic to the whole matter and did not bother to vote nor even assign a proxy.

That is another thing although the information is already served to them, people are too apathetic to do it. In a way, a lot of people are still functioning in a scarcity mindset of what can you do for them. If they don't receive support nor have any perceived value then they don't have the incentive to do it. This kind of mentality is very sad for me. We have to see it as our responsibility to vote for witnesses.

So I was feeling pretty smug about being able to utilize my witness votes and chose some of the names on the list and some I just because I believe in what they do like for the OCD-witness, Curie and, Busy-witness since I almost exclusively post from busy all the time even on mobile.

Then a month ago during one of the live curation programs we had in the @promo-mentors channel we had @ameliabartlett talk about her latest post regarding lady witnesses and I have left out @patrice who is doing an incredible job in @steemcleaners who is out looking to punish the plagiarist, spammers and phishing scammers out there! So I immediately rectified the situation and changed a vote for her.

Ladies of Steemit, Volume 6 | Can I Get a Witness?

Unsplash - Hans-Peter Gauster


The next piece on the puzzle happened 11 days ago with a discussion in Steemitizens of Steemit of @sircork where a couple of the witnesses talked about the phenomenon of the dead witnesses - they are not really dead, well I hope note, but that they just stopped being active witnesses for the Steem Blockchain.

At this point, the tool https://steemian.info/witnesses was shown and this blew my mind because this has all the information both technical and project details that you need to be able to choose who your witness will be. This awesome tool is run by another awesome witness @drakos

The link icon encircled in red leads to their witness details post or page so that you can read about what they do.

Here it is showing the following information:

• Full Rank - current rank on the list
• Active Rank - current rank minus the dead witnesses
• Witness - name of the witness
• Operations - here you can approve, unapprove, check the voter's list of the witness and a link to their witness update or application if new.
• Votes (Mega Vests) - remember I said that the delegated proof of stake is important. This is why. To know your vest you can go to https://steemd.com/@username and look on the lower left side

This is mine currently as it transforms both by actual and delegated SP into vests. 1 MV is 1 Million Vest

So I have 0.8 MV

• Voters - total number of voters
• Missed Blocks - this is important as you will be able to see how updated a witness is in completing his or her block
• Last Block - the block that was last processed by the witness
• Registration Fee - registration fee of STEEM
• Block - size of the block they are processing
• Version - What version or Hardfork they are using. We are currently in HF19.
• Price Feed - their price for SBD
• Feed Age - Feed age in hours of the block
• Bias% - This is how the witnesses set the bias towards pegging 1 SBD to 1 USD.
• APR% - I read somewhere that this affects the interest rate in the Savings in your wallet

We stated earlier that the Top 20 makes the call on what will be implemented in the blockchain. Another important aspect as Top 20 witness is they act as the main witnesses to process the blocks and position 21 serves as a backup.

the Witness on the 21st spot is rotated according to the ranking of the witnesses from 21 -400. Currently, we only have 127 witnesses,

Block Production
Blocks are produced every 3 seconds, in rounds, which are 21 blocks long. Therefore, each round is 63 seconds. Each witness in the Top 20 produces a block within that time frame, while a backup witness is shuffled to produce a block at position 21 based on their rank.
Witnesses produce blocks according to the scheduled round, proportionally to their rank in the system, excluding the top 20 witnesses who are scheduled every 63 seconds. The ranking is based on the total amount of VESTS of their voters.
You can monitor the schedule live at https://steem.bitcoiner.me/schedule/.

Now, this is the problem on the witness page (https://steemit.com/~witnesses) only shows 50 Witnesses there out of 400 positions. Out of the 50 listed 4 of the witnesses, there are already inactive. There is a high probability that some redfish like me when asked to vote for witnesses. might click on some of the names there and inadvertently click one of the inactive ones. I had an inactive witness on my list but changed that when I saw that he was already crossed out.

Maybe Steem Inc. can remove an inactive witness that has not provided updates in a month. There have been recommendations to show at least 100 witnesses.

Below is a great suggestion by one of the witnesses @ura-soul on how to improve the witness page.
Suggestion: Improved Witness Voting Page for Steemit.com

So I only have 0.8 Mega Vest if I change my vote from the top 20 and move it to the 21st-100 it would not make any impact on them since they have hundreds of thousands of SP behind them but may change the ranking of a witness I support.

I wanted to present to you my 30 witnesses and a snapshot of what they do. You can choose to do the same votes or go through their witness link and make your own decision.

Witness	Full Rank	Active rank	Latest Witness Update	Project/Initiative
@blocktrades	13	13	@blocktrades	often serves as the internal wallet of Steem, main SP delegator of @anomadsoul who engages the whole Steem community
@followbtcnews	16	16	Full Steem Ahead! Vote @Followbtcnews For Witness	Runs the Steemchat node with @crimsonclad
@curie	23	23	Witness Update - Acknowledgement of error and changes to @curie witness operation structure (April 2nd, 2018)]	Committed to find exceptional content from undervalued and new authors
@busy.witness	25	25	Busy v2.4 Release: New features that will make you love Busy.org	A Steem condenser that packs a lot of innovative features and gives an upvote to users who use it and the busy tag
@drakos	27	27	Drakos Witness Update 2018-03-11	Whenever an account gets hacked the Philippines community will turn to @drakos. He also maintains the steemian.info site where I got most of my info on witnesses
@utopian-io	28	28	Utopian The Community-Driven Witness Is HERE! Vote For My Witness, LETS GROW TOGETHER!	runs the condenser utopian.io that approves and rewards content about troubleshooting, bug finding, design and guides for open source applications
@teamsteem	30	29	I Allocate 2,000$+ Daily On Steem!	Is a community focused witness who has 1% self vote rating according to Steemocean.com and gives most votes away to different topics
@yabamatt	31	30	Witness Update - Voting Bots & Listing Requests	He made the Steembottracker which a lot of people use to see which bots are voting and he also has his own bot Post Promoter
@therealwolf	40	39	MAKING STEEM GREATER - @therealwolf is now a Witness!	Creator of Smartsteem and Smartmarket which are bid bots and vote selling services. His service checks for quality and blacklists people who abuse it
@ocd-witness	41	40	OCD - Introducing #ocd-resteem - Get Resteemd By @ocd	Another major curation guild that looks for undervalued authors.
@patrice	44	43	@patrice Witness Application	Protecting the Steem blockchain from plagiarist, spammers, and phishing scammer through the Steemcleaners initiative together with another witness @anyx
@markymark	47	46	Witness "@themarkymark"	Creator of the Buildawhale bid bot, fights spams and plagiarism
@anarcho-andrei	102	84	Anarcho-Andrei: A New Witness Statement	Community active witness who supports writers and authors
@sircork	65	60	Meet YouAreHOPE's Founder, Steem Witness & Steem Community Contributor: @SirCork	YouAreHope founder who is committed on using Steem as a means of funding charities all over the world. Also runs the Steem Star Network to give everyone a voice in this platform
@dragosroua	56	54	Witness Update - DragosRoua	Runs the node for Steem.suppy which is a great tool to see your efficiency in posting and comments and ints value
@qurator	118	96	Announcing the Qurator Witness!	Started as a community that encourages good quality posts. Runs contests and encourages engagement
@enginewitty	127	100	Frustrating Witness Update	One of the most approachable witnesses and has delegated to a lot of communities and advocacy like LadiesofSteemit
@swelker101	104	85	Witness Update 01/04/2018 - The vote begging Post!	A witness that supports authors and writers. Also involved in supporting musicians
@jackmiller	120	97	New Witness Announcement! Greetings from @jackmiller	Community focused witness who sees Steem can be used for Charities and other forms not limited to just blogging, Delegator to several community projects
@ats-witness	52	50	Long Time User, First Time Witness!	Community minded witness who is supporting the Open Mic series
@guiltyparties	85	70	GuiltyParties Witness Update	This witness is involved with communities around veterans and Steem Silver and Gold. Usually can be heard in Steemi Ramble and Steem Star Network answering questions about witnesses
@krnel	71	62	KrNel's Declaration of Witness	Writes about philosophy, truth, and morality. Active in the vegan community
@yehey	100	82	YEHEY - Witness Update 2018-03-03. Witness Server Upgraded.	Community focused witness who curates travel and good quality posts
@liberosist	51	49	Accidental witness @liberosist	One of the two big trailers for Curie which is dedicated to find exceptional content
@mahdiyari	97	79	Why vote me as a witness?	Creator of Steemfollower and Steemauto. Also wrote bots for Steemcleaners
@steemgigs	55	53	Steemit: "Our Gift To Humanity!" Please Read This Steem Witness Proposal Post, Till It's Eternity!	@surpassinggoogle's witness node to support the steemgigs condenser and his vision of everyone has something to offer
@ura-soul	86	71	@ura-soul Witness Application	Creator of Steemocean.com which you can see the voting behavior of everyone. Submits fixes of Steem to Utopian on a regular basis to make the platform better
@arcange	57	55	Arcange - Witness Update	He has created a lot of essential things in Steem like his SteemSQL, the Scam warning bot, Steemitboard updates and even a Google Chrome extension of Steem Toolbar
@steemcommunity	114	94	Introducing @steemcommunity - A Witness Project by @abh12345 and @paulag	The newest Witness in the block that is being run by @abh12345 and @paulag. It involves empowering engagers and community leaders
@jrswab	109	89	Official STEEM Witness Announcement	Communitit focused witness who created two communities to help educate and train Steemians both new and old

I have gone through all 127 witnesses and looked at what they write about, their ideas and projects they want to do in Steem and I have chosen those that resonate with mine.

One of the biggest misconceptions of people is that witnesses cannot be bothered. They are human and are often social beings that would appreciate feedback or a comment.

If you do reach out don't just say hi or hello in chat. Get to the point unless your point is only to get upvoted and it is weird to approach someone out of the blue and ask for that without even building a relationship.

Don't think that your little SP as a redfish or minnow will not be important. Sure a thousand of us will not be able to propel a witness to the number one spot but it could move them higher in the ranking. So that the things that you care about will have a voice.

Think of witnesses as your representatives who will voice your thoughts. We cannot let apathy take hold that it is not important. They will steer Steem to either greater heights or ruin. Our votes matter.

If you don't agree with my list then do your own due diligence and research. Use Steemian.info/witness as your starting point. Use the search field to look for past posts. Reach out to witnesses in Discord or Steem.Chat. But for Pete's sake move and do something.

Those 30 votes that are lying around can be used. If you are too lazy to think then choose a proxy that you trust and hope they will make the right choice.

I know it is too much to ask people to look at it annually unless they start caring about it. I, myself vow to check every quarter on the active witnesses and make adjustments as needed.

So please Redfishes go and vote. You can always change it anytime.

A lot of the information used in this post came from https://steemian.info/witnesses by @drakos
For the most updated Witness Report updates you can check @timcliff The Reports from the Witnesses 2018-04-01
For an idea how active Steemians are in voting for witness you can check @lukestokes The Witness Voting Engagement Report - 2018-03-23
For full disclosure of witness information you can follow @witnesswatch WitnessWatch Weekly Report #10: How much do witnesses make?

Be informed in order to make the right decisions.

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