by @cryptoctopus and @clains

This is important and I urge people to participate

I was inspired by fellow community members to create this weekly update on what the witnesses are doing for the Steem Community. Since witnesses are very important positions that are handsomely rewarded financially, I think it is important to keep their feet to the fire and to inform the community of what's going on in the "inside baseball" of the Steem Blockchain.

What Are Witnesses and What They Do

Steem currently has 19 witnesses that validate the transactions of the network (you can see them here) and they get compensated for every block of transaction they validate. It's a very important job and it is litterally the backbone of the steem blockchain (the technology that powers Steemit.com).

A witness node in the top 19 get paid a fixed amount of about 1 blocks a minute or 1371.42 blocks/day assuming no misses. Payments are ~1430 steem per day (paid in VEST aka SP). At $3.50 per steem that's about $4800 per day each.

Needless to say, this position is VERY LUCRATIVE and is very political in nature since it is votes that put you in this position. For people to get this position they need to be voted in. To vote for a witness you can go here: https://steemit.com/~witnesses

What Does a Witness Do:

1. Upgrading the software when there is a planned upgrade
2. Upgrading in the case of a hardfork (emergencies/hack)
3. Provide reliable price feed

The job could require very little work when things run smootly, but if there is an emergency, they may lose some sleep and be on their toes for emergency upgrades.

I may get some backlash from this but in my opinion it's hardly something worth paying $1,752,000 each per year for.

Should We Ask More For This Price?

People who get to earn the equivalent of a CEO of a Fortune 500 should deliver value equivalent to that compensation. If they don't they should be replaced by someone who can. If we get more competition going in this field then we can expect the witness to increase of value of the network.

How about funding the development of an implementation of Quora on Steem? How about a Github that is rewarded for well documented push request? (You get the idea)

This money could be use to increase the shareholder value of all SP holders and not only for personal gains.

Solution

This is what this weekly update on "what witnesses are doing for Steemit" is about. I think it isn't too much to ask witness to start delivering their own weekly update to justify their pay. What I would do is then compile that information within my weekly newsletter. The ones that fail to deliver an update on their project would be exposed. After all, it isn't much to ask right?

What I am expecting

I am expecting the witnesses to respond simply by providing a weekly update on their blog that justifies their position:

1. What's they've done this week
2. What they are working on
3. How it's going to benefit the ecosystem.

If they fail to do so, I shall call them out on it and ask the community to consider voting for someone who is working on delivering more value than they do. More then promises, we need results.

I will be monitoring the #witness-category tag. If any of you want to campaign for this position, I highly suggest you use this tag and I shall cover your proposal in the next newsletter.

If a witness fails to deliver updates again and again yet remains a witness...this will raise a significant issue in terms the centralization of political power.

Format of the Next "Witnesses Exposed"

1. A summary and a link to each witness updates
2. Links to articles of people who are running for a witness position
3. A Call to action for votes