What Are Steem Witnesses And Why You Should Support Them!

in witness •  8 years ago  (edited)

The clearest guide to understand what are "Witnesses". They are essential to Steem. Without them, Steem can't exist. Support them and they'll support you. This is a core principle that most Steemians haven’t thought much about and one this post hopes to solve.

Disclaimer: I've been a Steem Witness since September 2016. I'm currently #55.

Why Voting For Witnesses Is So Important!

If I'm looking at 2 equally good posts by 2 different authors and only one of the author has approved my witness, I'll tend to vote for the post by the author who has approved my witness. It's called mutual support.

Obviously, I would never support anyone that hold ideals that goes directly against mine, even if they were my biggest supporters. Logically people that hold the same ideals support each other. We usually don't support those whose ideals go against ours.

What are Steem Witness?

The excerpt below from "Steem: An In-Depth Overview!" explains the basis of what is a Witness. I highly recommend reading the whole post if you haven't. That post reached the top trending post so it's not like it's some half-baked post. (It's currently the best post to understand how Steem works.)

Steem witnesses are computers or nodes run by some Steemians. These are running 24/7. They provide the computational power required to process all Steem actions recorded on the Steem blockchain. This is communally called: "signing blocks". Those computers run the Steem open source software. There are 20 witnesses and 1 backup witness. Each 20 witnesses sign around 1400 blocks a day and the remaining backup witness blocks are signed by all remaining witnesses in a rotation. Signing block is done automagically as long as the computers and software are running properly. Top 20 witnesses are assigned block to sign at random.

Anyone can vote for witnesses here. Everyone has 30 votes and these can be change at any moment. Those with the most "Steem weighted" vote become part of the 20 witnesses, all of the remaining witnesses are in rotation for the remaining witness slot in proportion to the vote they receive. Each witnesses receive an "x" amount of Steem for each block they sign. The full list of witnesses can be found here or here.

How To Set Up A Witness

Witness can be run on a local computer or on a virtual private server (VPS). VPS are servers or computers running 24/7 which people can rent when they need them.

I've set up my witness using Steem-in-box created by @someguy123. It's a script that install or update most of what has to be set up. It's been very useful and without @someguy123 I might have never become a witness. I'm very grateful to him.

"The Complete Noob Guide to STEEM Witness Setup" by @klye and @klye himself have also been greatly helpfull. The guide has a couple of nice joke and also it totally was perfect for the noob that I was.

Top 20 witnesses usually run 2 Steem witness nodes. One is used as a backup. A script usually switch from the main witness node to the backup node when the scripts detect a certain numbers of missed blocks in a row and will initiate a switch. They also use 2 witness nodes so they can have one online while they are updating the other one during hardforks.

Steem Full Nodes

Edit: See@wackou's comment below for correction. I'll correct further later today.

Steem full nodes are also computers running 24/7 run by some steemians. These nodes fulfill the request made by the different Steem apps or tools. Any apps, like Steemit.com, busy.org, eSteem, steemwhales.com, etc., need information coming from the Steem blockchain and these information are provided by the full nodes.

Steem full nodes require some computers that are a bit more powerful than those running witnesses. Top 20 witnesses are encourage to run full nodes. At some point @abit removed his support to some top witnesses who didn't have one full node running, often sending those witnesses out of the top 20.

If there is too few full nodes then these nodes will receive more requests than what they can handle properly and the Steem apps that use public full nodes will become sluggish or inoperable.

Here is a list of public full nodes and who runs them. Kudos to them! The list is run by @wackou. Kudos to him!

Steem Witness Rewards!

Steem witness receive ~10% of all the newly created Steem. (See "Steem: An In-Depth Overview!" for more details.)

Let's break it down to each block themselves.

  • Top 20 Witnesses: ~0.1874 Steem/Block
  • Backup Witness: ~0.9370 Steem/Block

The more block a witness sign, the bigger their total witness reward. Witnesses are paid in Steem Power.

The actual numbers are a bit lower per block than what is mentioned above. (See here for more details. N.B. The miners have been changed into an additional witness.)

Thoughts On The Witness Rewards

The witness rewards might seem high and unsustainable at first but in reality if a witness sell too much of their rewards they'll end up losing their place as a witness so no matter what, the majority of the witness rewards will end up being own by those who value them the most and these people will also end up being the most valued witnesses.

The List Of Witnesses (Click on the image for the full list.)

Red witnesses, in the full list, are witnesses that aren't online anymore.

Some Differences Between Witnesses And Backup Witnesses



@abit have stayed in the top 20 pretty much during all the time of what the graph shows while @timcliff has been in and out. Tim is now currently witness #23 and signs around 59 blocks a day while I am currently signing around 7 blocks a day at #55. There is quite a large difference between being top 20 and being top 21 or below.

Steem Back Dollars, Price Feed And Registration Fee

Steem Back Dollars

Steem Back Dollars are $1US worth of Steem at the moment they were created. If the Steem blockchain needs to reward some author with 2 liquid Steem and the price of Steem is 50 cents each, then that person would receive 1 SBD. If the blockchain owes one author 4 liquid Steem and the price of Steem is $2US then they would receive 8 SBD and so on.

SBD generate interest. The interest is the median interest rate of the last 3.5 days set by the top 20 witnesses. It is the APR seen in the list above.

SBD can be converted back to Steem at any time using the function "convert" found in the wallet. It take 3.5 days to convert SBD to Steem and the median price feed of those 3.5 days is the rate which will be used.

Price Feed

The price feed is use by the Steem blockchain when it calculates how many SBD it owes for its author rewards. It is also the price feed that is used to calculate the worth in $US displayed in the wallet.

The price feed is the median price feed of the last 3.5 days of all the top 20 witnesses price feed. The price feed can be set manually or automatically with a piece of software called a script. Set manually it can be update 2-3 times a day and automatically every hours or so. When set manually witnesses look at the price of Steem here or elsewhere and enter this USD price in their witness terminal.

Below is an example of the command line witness must enter to change their price feed:

publish_feed "teamsteem" {"base":"1.167 SBD", "quote":"1.111 STEEM"} true`

This is reporting that STEEM is $1.167, with a 10% discount (1/.90 = 1.111) if it did "quote = 0.500 STEEM" that would be a 100% premium.

Price feed scripts do this automatically taking the average price from different exchanges.

Thank you @someguy123 who helped me re-set up my price feed today.

Registration Fee

The registration fee determines how many Steem a new account receives upon its creation. Those Steem comes from the @steemit account. The registration fee is the median fee set by the top 20 witnesses.

What Witnesses Do!

  • Maintain their witness node up (Make sure it's running 24/7.)
  • Maintain their price feed, APR, and registration fee up-to-date (Less important for backup witness.)
  • Maintain Steem full nodes
  • Update their witness node (Only if they agree with the proposed hardfork.)
  • Review the Steem code and new proposed hardfork changes if able (Github)
  • Support the creation of new Steem Apps (Code and financial support.)
  • Debate the proposed hardforks and every Steem rules new or old
  • Informed and help the community (Posting, commenting, Steem Chat and Steemspeak.com)
  • Outreach (Marketing, networking, etc.)
  • Do what every Steemians do (Upvote, post, comment)
  • Etc.

Why Steemians Should Support Their Witnesses

The less Steemians there is casting their vote for witnesses the bigger their influence on the witness list than if 100% of Steemians had voted. A lot of people are currently missing out on the opportunity of supporting some witnesses and maybe in return have some support from those witnesses.

Vote for the witnesses you think have the most positive influence on Steem. This will help them gain more influence/Steem Power and in return they'll have all the reasons to support you back. The bigger your support the bigger your odds are. For these reasons, I recommend everyone to vote whether or not they end up voting for my witness or for the witnesses I support.

  • Vote for the witnesses who you share the most value with!
  • Vote for the witnesses who put Steem to good use!
  • Vote for the witnesses who support the Steem project you support!
  • Vote for the witnesses who support the authors you love!
  • Vote for the witnesses who support you!

Mutual Support Between Witnesses!

As witness We all support one another, at least we try to. Even as we compete against one another, we try not to lose sight that we work to create a better world.

To view the full list of the witnesses I support click here on the tab "Votes Received" and "Votes Cast" to see the full list of witnesses I support.

Mutual Support List!

Here's the list of the witness I support and which support my witness. Thank you guys!

If I don't vote for a witness, it doesn't necessarily mean I don't support them and if I vote for a witness it doesn't mean I agree with them on everything they do, say or think.

Follow The Witnesses

Follow the witnesses and engage them. Witnesses determine the new Steem implementations/hardfork and ultimately all Steemians determine who the witnesses are. (See: "What is a hardfork?")

@roelandp @bhuz @anyx @witness.svk @xeldal @good-karma @jesta @pfunk @gtg @pharesim @arhag @roadscape @smooth.witness @blocktrades @klye @abit @riverhead @wackou @liondani @clayop @charlieshrem @timcliff @busy.witness @ihashfury @datasecuritynode @furion @complexring @steempty @bitcoiner @someguy123 @aizensou @steemychicken1 @joseph @cyrano.witness @chainsquad.com @cervantes @delegate.lafona @thecryptodrive @boatymcboatface @au1nethyb1 @steemed @curie @fyrst-witness @krnel @chitty @bacchist @bue @ausbitbank @dragosroua @masteryoda @steem-id @nextgencrypto @archange @neoxian @teamsteem @team.alpha @protologic @idnit @viva.witness @fubar-dbhr @enki @stephanie @blockchained @glitterpig @pcste

What I Stand For!

I'm here helping in the creation of decentralized systems which empower individuals in all walks of life, amongst them, information dissemination, governance and money creation.

Wealth is just a tool and not an end in itself. Joy is what I'm all about.

For more on what I stand for see:

Approving My Witness

Consider approving my witness if you share those ideals and consider approving other witnesses too, seriously!

Type teamsteem at the bottom of the page and then click vote.

(https://steemit.com/~witnesses)

Thank you for reading and for your comments! I read them all!

Thank you @timcliff who refreshed some of these witness notions and also helped me with various other points mentioned in this article.

Find Out More!

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

This is pretty kickass:

Vote for the witnesses who you share the most value with!
Vote for the witnesses who put Steem to good use!
Vote for the witnesses who support the Steem project you support!
Vote for the witnesses who support the authors you love!
Vote for the witnesses who support you!

Yep. One of the most empowering things about this platform is actually having a say in who secures the network and makes influential moves regarding the ecosystem here.

I thoroughly enjoy voting for voluntaryist witnesses and those with a solid grasp on sound economics. There are some on your list I hadn't considered, and since I have quite a few unused witness votes it looks like I will have to get busy!

After attending @ned's talk in Tokyo recently and hearing his thoughts on "proof of brain" and the upcoming development/implementation of SMTs and customizable, "account-based voting" it seems critical to have the most capable, grounded, and principled people possible in witness roles to really make the most of the tech coming down the pike!

Without a clean playing field and sound, Austrian-econ-based free "playspace" Steemit can only grow so far. With freedom, however, I think the perceived "limits" are virtually non-existent!

13902643_545926558924763_487142029982910360_n.jpg

It really like the way the EOS community is helping people learn about the witness ( block producer) candidates. They have an informative website where people can check out who each candidate is. It would be great to see something similar with steem.

Hi @teamsteem,

First up - much respect to you for being here for the long haul! It’s really cool to see someone like you who has been around from the start, still here actively engaged in the community.

I’ve been here about 6 months or so, and had a few ideas about what I look for in witness. But I still struggle to keep up with enough of the top 50 to cast individual votes (in the past I have selected a proxy who I believe in).

What I really really LOVE is the culture that crytocurrencies grew from. (Summed up well by Dan’s quote)

I stand in the belief that initiation of violence is not necessary to live in a well ordered society and that everyone’s life would be better off if it could be achieved. This is a belief I choose because there is insufficient evidence to prove violence is necessary. Dan Larimer (Ex-CTO of Steemit) [1]

I also love that what you stand for is joy!

You’ve inspired me - I’m going to clear my proxy vote and check out the witness tag so that I can vote for individuals who align with my values in life and in steem.

I think this is a really important topic - it’s worth putting a little time into because it really bugs me to see certain names in the top 20, when I know there are people like you further down the list.

Keep fighting the good fight!

Thanks from all of us!

On entering steemit.com you arrive with so many expectations and a sea of new concepts that are not always easy to digest, many times I managed to read some articles that referred to the witnesses as the main promoters of steemit (at least that's how I understood it), in my ignorance I began to vote for the witnesses that I felt radiated a little feeling for the community, today I can say that I am happy with my choice of 29 witnesses, However after reading you and having much clearer the objectives of each of them, I feel indebted to them all, because they are really the heart of this platform, I understand that there will always be some better than others, the important thing is that they work together for all of us, among so many things I learned in this publication, is the way they get paid in SP!! very well (I was just a little curious), so I'm going to quote what I liked best:

As witnesses, we all support each other, at least we try. Even when we compete against each other, we try not to lose sight of the fact that we are working to create a better world.

In the union is the strength, thanks for working for us.
Excuse my English, I use a translator.

great post, thanks for writing it! Just a minor correction: the list that I am maintaining is the list of seed nodes, not a list of full API nodes (I should probably do it as well when I find the time to index them). Let me try to explain briefly the difference:

  • full node: node that has the complete blockchain (as opposed to light-weight nodes, etc.) AFAIK all Steem nodes are full nodes, distinction comes from other cryptos.
  • seed node: entry points to the Steem network, their main function is to be public, connected to the network 24/7, and accept a lot of incoming connections to ensure that people can always join the network (note that this is not a concern for people on steemit.com but only for people wanting to run other nodes) HW requirements are minimal (~2-3G RAM)
  • witness node: nodes signing blocks and adding them to the Steem blockchain. These should preferably not be known (to avoid being DDoS-ed), and also have low requirements (~2-3G RAM), similar to seed nodes
  • API nodes: this is what you refer to as full nodes, as these nodes do a lot of indexing of the data from the blockchain, digest it, and serve it in a better shape to people wanting to build other apps on the blockchain. Requirements are huge and growing every day, currently >32G RAM already. These are few and far in between, and would benefit from more people running public ones, but they do require some more advanced sysadmin skills than just seed nodes.

(small note: people here might have started to call API nodes will all plugins activated "full nodes", and I might have missed it, in which case you can just ignore what I said :) )

It shows that I'm still a newbie on some of these things. Thank you for clarifying.

hey no problem, it is by doing that you learn new things, everyone that knows anything had to go through that phase, no exceptions there ;) You already did a great job explaining what witnesses do, least I could do was to contribute a little part too. Steem on!

You're right.

@wackou, I agree! I've only been on Steemit for a month, and I keep seeing the word "witness" pop up everywhere and I was like... what the heck are people talking about. First I learned of dolphins, minnows, and whales... and I was like huh? :P This was an awesome post. @teemsteem thanks for the info. Super helpful.

thanks

You are very very smart

Thank you for explaining the differences between the nodes.
Noob question:
I'd like to support the steemit network (because I think it is a good idea), but

  • is my contribution required? Hard to find network stats.
  • maybe a upgrade to 64 Gb Ram is necessary instead of SSD
  • bandwidth requirement? my actual limit is 100Mbit/s
  • expenses vs earnings? (vs ZEC/Monero mining)

Voting for witness is something that many steemians take for granted....
I have already voted for 18 witnesses since I joined steemit and your post has encouraged me to vote for the remaining 12.
But I must admit that after reading your post, I will be looking closely into certain things before voting for someone as witness.
Things like you already mentioned
1. What are their ideals?
2. What they stand for?
3. What is their vision?
PS
Thanks for making me realize the importance of my vote and what to look for when voting for someone as a witness.

haha damn almost exactly a post i wanted to make :)
i will delay mine a bit :)

Awesome! We need more post like this.

귀하의 게시물을 좋아 보인다
나를 @emaa 따라

I liked, enjoyed and learned from both posts so I think no harm done, right?

The first time i came on steemit, i saw WITNESS on some peoples bio i thought they were 'jehovah witnesses' and used that in their account to attract people who had practiced same beliefs with them. I got to ask what it meant but i couldn't understand those terms everyone was using like nodes,server and blocks all what i understood was my vote mattered to them, so i started using some votes randomly on some witness i didn't even know why i was voting for them, but ama tell you that this is the very first detailed explanation i have seen in here. Although another new user would find it still a bit complicated but i think i understand to a large extent what witnesses do, they do not just run a server i could say simply that they are liason officers and shareholders on steemit right? Btw as to getting votes i learnt some witnesses trade votes amongst themselves seems you do not practice that @teamsteem do you?

This is great, and while I still have some unassigned witness votes I would have liked to see this much earlier in my Steem journey! I didn't vote any for months, and did not proxy because I don't like the thought of giving away my precious vote.

You answered a question I didn't know I had, about full nodes. I had just assumed those were for signing blocks and I never thought about how apps run. Considering speed and stability of apps is my second-biggest concern about Steem (it's ok, but could be better), I can add full nodes to the list of things I might look for in a witness. Since full nodes aren't directly part of witnessing, can non-witnesses run them? Does doing so carry its own rewards? Should it?

It's daunting, voting for a witness when you don't know what they do, so I appreciate this guide and think it would make a good addition to a Steem 101 course for new users.

You only touched briefly on the role of witnesses in community support and governance, which I see as the #1 attribute beyond the technical requirements. Do witnesses need to govern a decentralized community? Not really, but you have a lot of power and with great power comes great responsibility.

I read your piece on governance and was struck by the idea that in our current system, money is created out of thin air by an elite few at the expense of everyone else. We haven't exactly left that behind with Steem, at least not yet. Since one can buy more Steem power directly with fiat currency, they are linked.

Upvoting, if directed mostly at oneself, sure seems like creating money from thin air. Of all the facets of the Steem economy, I am most fascinated by the unfolding process of how the community establishes shared morals and expected behavior (every society has them!) Witnesses, because of their power, must play an important role in this.

Since full nodes aren't directly part of witnessing, can non-witnesses run them? Does doing so carry its own rewards? Should it?

Yes. No. No, not sure how this could be incorporated in the consensus code of Steem. I think it<s easier to let the witnesses make sure there is enough full nodes. Witnesses have incentives to run full nodes.

You should really try to make a contest on a topic i can argue on. hehe.

I think i have been following you for a few weeks now, maybe longer and your as a witness really do what i care most for. You interact with the community, you spread your voting power and dont engage in shady business.
And thats something we minnows care most about.
1.Do i think my witness is a decent enough person?

  1. What do they stand for?
  2. How do they contribute?

There are many different approaches witnesses take and while most dont have a great reach outside steem, the biggest concern right now for minnows is growth. The well-being of the ecosystem always comes in second if you yourself cannot achieve some kind of growth, recognition.
I would always, for example vote Curie or Pharesim over Banfield.
A minnow can clearly see which witness here gives the most and which one is here to maximize profits.
When you are a witness you should put others above your own personal gain. You need to show that with your actions.
Anyways... Keep up the good work.

And self plug :) : Im a singer violinist, write sometimes, etc.. Im doing quite well but you can never have enough comments. :)
Ill give you my full upvote if you leave a comment on one of my videos. :D haha. Tc

I am here helping in the creation of decentralized systems which empower individuals in all walks of life, amongst them, information dissemination, governance and money creation.
Wealth is just a tool and not an end in itself. Joy is what I'm all about.

I have always thought about what steem witnesses are when i see steemians with high reputation begging for witness votes. With this post i now have full knowlgde of what being a witness entails. I can now use my voting right properly and judiciously. Kudos

I am Anyasi Emmanuel and i am a proud steemit blogger.

The efforts you put into this deserves quite the exposure it got. Explaining the Steemit ideology in a simple way.

I have put this up as part of the suggested reads for the people I bring to the steemit platform.

Thanks for all your supports.

Keep being Awesome.

This post is just one of many reasons why I voted you as a witness, I actually have 1635 reasons that took me many hours of research and I have made an entire DLive video about all of these reasons:

Thumbnail

Note: I do not normally link to my own posts in the comments section but this is my entry for your contest and typing the entire context of my video into one comment would make the comment far too long.

It is such an insightful post. I never knew witnesses do this much, they are the back-bone of steemit.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

This is a pretty good guide but I CTRL+F for the word 'trust' and come up empty.

The most important factor in approval of witnesses is trust that they will act in the interests of the blockchain. Therefore you trust that they act in the interests of making your own stake, which you're voting with, more valuable.

Trust is certainly an essential factor in voting for a witness.

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

.....Therefore you trust that they act in the interests of making your own stake, which you're voting with, more valuable.

Do you have an opinion as to whether the current bid-bot craze is increasing the value of our stake?

Personally, I do not, but I'm interested to learn from long-standing witnesses, particularly those without obvious connections to a bid-bot, how they see the situation.

Thanks.

Another informative post :)

Yes when i joined steemit firstly, i have been hearing of the witness, but didnt really pay more attention to it. Scrolling to my previous feeds and saw this wonderful post of @teamsteem and saw the title :

"What are steem witnesses?"

i immediately clicked on it asap to know more and to be sincere i really know what a witness is and what they actually do just from the blocks and also the payout for there work done on the steem industry.
after knowing that i immediately went to check on the list of witnesses and voted @teamsteem.

I will always keep on saying it :

always vote for a witness capable of uplifting the steemit community
vote for someone who's more capable to withstand the stress and problems that might come there way just to see the steemit initiative is in absolute order.

I stand and support @teamsteem.
I stand for what feels better
Thanks for this knowledge you just shared.

Good evening @teamsteem.

Wow, wow wow, well this is so much information for me to process at the moment and I'm bookmarking this for future references.
Well, I did know that witnesses are Steemians and are the ones who are responsible for the running of the Steem Blockchain.

All this time on steemit, I've always been thinking about how the signing of block is done, I always thought the witnesses are always with their systems to click sign or thereabout. It was always mystery for me. A big thanks to you for such an amazing job done by you to explain what witnesses are and their integral role to the development of the Steem Blockchain.

I also noticed that a lot have changed, like they conversion of SBD to Steem which took about 3.5 days isn't the same now, almost instantly on the market when you place an order.

Keep being amazing for the amazing support you are offering to Steemians, you were actually the first Witness I did vote for, coming all the way from following you on twitter and I'll say it's been a blessed journey knowing you. Thank you once again.

Conversion of SBD and selling them on the internal exchange isn't the same thing. It used to take 7 day to convert it only takes 3.5 days now.

Thank you very much for the explanation, I didn't know they were different, always thought they were the same.

Haha! Oh yeah!

Muchas gracias por la valiosa información, aclara muchas dudas y lo posteo en español.

Merci!

Thank you for this, and the list running full nodes!

Thank you @whatsup! I'm glad you appreciated it! And Thank you for approving my witness! I really appreciate it.

SBD can be converted back to Steem at any time using the function "convert" found in the wallet. It take 3.5 days to convert SBD to Steem and the median price feed of those 3.5 days is the rate which will be used.

Now that the price of Steem Dollars on the open market is about twice what is usually is, does the 'convert' feature give the best rate from Steem Dollars to Steem?

Good question.

You'll be better to sell your SBD to the exchange and then buy Steem with the Bitcoin than converting. The feed price is the price of Steem. So if the price of Steem is 1$ you'll get 1 Steem if you convert but 2$ worth of Bitcoin if you sell on the exchange. That's why some witnesses are putting a premium on their price feed. If almost every witness had -110% as a premium then the conversion rate would be close the price of the SBD price of $2,11 seen on the exchange.

Thanks. I think Changelly would be best then, because they can convert from Steem Dollars straight to Steem.

I really doubt it. Changelly will have to do the change themselves on the exchange and thus have to charge a % to make sure they don't get under.

Do you mean on the "market" that is linked to in our Steem Wallet?
I haven't tried that yet.
Or do you mean an exchange like Kraken or Poloniex?

I mean Poloniex and Bittrex. Steem isn't on Kraken, yet... For some reason the internet market price is lower than on external market. It might not always be true.

Good looks @teamsteem, thanks for making Steemit a better place for everyone, your posts are amazing!! Just voted you for witness - my first ever vote :)

Thank you for your vote! I'm following you and I'll be helping whenever I can.

:) Thanks fam, I really appreciate it! you're actually an example for me to follow here. Keep killing it, Steem on!

Yes, I know their importances. I already voted 30 witnesses. Thank you for this guide. Upvoted :)

Awesome! And Thank you for the upvote!

Okay, I just voted the first time for a witness and it was for you @teamsteem.
Nice post.

Awesome! Thank you very much!

That was a great post explaining why we should cast witness vote. I just casted it for good karma and some others mentioned in your post. But I think whosoever author is standing up for witness, should mention it in their footer, so that we can vote for our favorite ones. I voted for you after seeing your footer.

With time I think everyone will know who are the witnesses and how essential they are. Thank you for supporting my witness by the way.

Thank you for standing up for the witness position and giving us a better choice.

Great post! I was wanting to write something similar, but being that I wrote a "what is a witness" guide a few months ago, it felt like I would just be re-hashing old content.

For those of you who have considering being a witness, but have been uncertain, don't be afraid to PM me on STEEMIT.CHAT. I've helped many witnesses get to where they are today, even @teamsteem :)

I totally second that.

A great post of potent content for us all. Thank you for informing many of us as to the importance of our Witnesses. All for one and one for all. Namaste :)

Thank you Eric!

Ah. Thank you for this post. Although it seems long, this post actually explains things in a short and simple way. I now know that full nodes are on different server and price feed is just an automatic script. Previously, I thought that price feeds are on different servers while nodes are different software. Lol. :)

P.S. You were one of the witnesses who I've voted first, ever since I've known this "witness" term back when I joined Steemit. :) You've done a great job supporting minnows. Vote TeamSteem!

Awesome post! It will help newbies clear a lot many doubts! Thanks for doing this!

Thank you Firepower! I really enjoyed your last post. That was a great read.

Thank you so much for taking the time to go through that! I really appreciate it! :)

Great post and witnessed your recommendations as well ,Keep up the good work !!!

Thank you @louiscpt! And thank you for supporting my witness!

Went to vote you as a witness, but already voted for you.

Awesome!

Thanks so much for this post, I literally just learned about how the approving my witness works thanks to @aggroed (who's helped me since I've gotten started here on Steemit) and @sacred-agent. Following their recommendation I found you and this awesome post that clarifies so much more than I knew. So with that I've upvoted, am following you and just approved your witness. Very nice to be able to support a fellow Canadian. Wishing you the best of success! @judym

Awesome! Thanks to the 3 of you!

Congratulations @teamsteem!
Your post was mentioned in my hit parade in the following categories:

  • Upvotes - Ranked 5 with 581 upvotes
  • Comments - Ranked 9 with 93 comments
  • Pending payout - Ranked 2 with $ 1270,38

I get it! Cheers!!

Thanks!

Great information and a helpful resource.

Thank you @seablue!

Even some mean ones?...you make a comment on their post and they go Ballistic on you😞

Everything is part of a spectrum in life.

I don't support meanness. As of now, I try to stay focus on my main objectives. Like I said I don't agree with anyone 100%.

Some of the witness do support it. The manner they respond to innocent comments i just see them as shitty witness.
I know two of them very mean with words, not gonna disclose their names for now.

I think it's better to concentrate on the positive that we see and build up from there. Now I'm not saying we should never oppose ourselves to some of the bad stuff we see. We must chose our battles wisely.

Very true i agree.

  ·  8 years ago Reveal Comment

Thank you for this information. I didn't know about Steem witnesses. I'm glad to have been enlightened..... steem on!

IMG-20170628-WA0048.jpg

Incredible post. I was actually wondering what witnesses were when I was looking at the side bar. Thanks so much for your insights!

Awesome!

Ya voté, gracias por la información del post!

Gracias! Merci!

Very informative indeed!

Thank you!

i have to admit you did very good with this post and i agree with you too

Thanks!

great...resteem and upvote for you....

Congratulations @teamsteem! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Award for the number of upvotes

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

If you want to support the SteemitBoard project, your upvote for this notification is welcome!

Now I learn more, so everyone needs to read more too! Tnx.

Awesome!

Setting up this is the same as on the steemit gthub? Because I did try that, but to na avail. Also I read in the chat witnessing is dead?

I really want to know this!

You should check with @someguy123 but unless you plan on investing a lot of $ in Steem or maybe you have a super plan to get you a lot of huge vote I wouldn't try. You'll lose time and money which you could have invested in gaining Steem reward or buy some Steem. I don't want to discourage you. I just to warn you depending on what are you objective.

I thought it would be the same as mining some other crypto currencies?

It's not in anyway the same. You need to re-read the paragraph What Are Steem Witnesses?

interesting post!

Thank you!

Very useful information.

Thanks i have been looking for a post on this topic.

i resteemed your post... :)

Thank you for the resteem. I really appreciate those.

😊

teemsteem

That's my name!

I voted for you. keep up the great work!

Hi @teamsteem, thanks for your great post, i really admire all your postings, very informative, clear, and have value and values for community even individual like me :)

Thank you @jraysteem!

good post, follow me

Thank you!

@teamsteem,pleas help me upvote my post......!I really need your help thank you.....

I think this has motivated me to look at running a Steem node!

Wow that post must have took forever to put together, I'm too overwhelmed to read it all whew. good job ! payed nicely :-)
Hope you make Witness some day, you deserve it !

I'm not in the top 20 but backup witnesses are still considered witnesses.

tx for making some concepts more clear to me :)

It's a pleasure!

You have great talents and posts that teach me how to be like you, and @teamsteem pleas upvote my post,thanks

Thank you!

Followed For Great Content ;)

Thanks!

Loading...

Wow this post has a lot of value, even reach the number 1000 more, this will be a tranding in minggubini. I am amazed at you, you have a great writer talent, all the posts you make are very classy.

I want to be like you, hopefully I can learn from your way, but my post is now very bad, as evidenced from Upvote people it is still very small, far different from you @teamsteem

Good job and i like it...

Thank you @barvon! I appreciate your comment. In the end, it's the sum of all posts and human experience that matter. Steem has the potential to change the whole world, it already has do so.

Equally, for your response I am relieved @teamsteem
You have a good post every time you make a post.
Different from me, people may not like it, but your posts are always many people who like it.
I love your way and hopefully I can learn from your way.

Congratulations @teamsteem! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Award for the number of upvotes

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

If you want to support the SteemitBoard project, your upvote for this notification is welcome!

I definitely need to take my time to read and understand all the nitty gritties of this article.
Quite informative indeed and many many thanks for sharing these top secrets.

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

This is the post I was looking for,
@deepapoudel, here are answers to your questions :)

I still don't fully understand this, I will need to re-read it later but thank you for such an informative post. One of the witnesses gave me a bump on my very first post and it made $20 thanks to him, and I can see from his comments that he is a really kind person so I want to support him too.

You do such amazing work my friend. It is an honor to be hand-making special t-shirts for you! Thanks!

Thanks Pop! Can't wait to wear it! Seriously! This will be awesome!

YES IT WILL! I'm even excited for you!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations @teamsteem! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Award for the number of comments received

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

If you want to support the SteemitBoard project, your upvote for this notification is welcome!

Hi friend, I have a little doubt in one of my posts. I know he does not talk about it. But, I would like to know what happens. I hope you help me with my confusion. I have seen several posts with less votes and earn more than some that I write. For example, this Https://steemit.com/life/@jorlenbolivar/a-small-journey-from-your-machine-into-the-universe-open-this-post-without-compromise-you-will-not- I know anything
Why is this happening? And if there is something I must do to earn more. Haha sorry for the inconvenience

Aggroed sent me here, said you were a good witness so I voted for him and the rest of your list of witnesses. I'm trusting your good judgement. Thanks for the post. I didn't know anything about voting. Now that I know it's so easy I want to get out and encourage people to vote. One quick question, anyone not on the top 30 you would vote for other than neoxian, yourself, and glitterpig? I'm a minnow so I should give the "minnow witnesses" who are doing good things some votes!!?

the activities of the witnesses should be reported well more often.
It is difficult to know what is going on

Thank you @slowwalker! I agree that there should be more information provided. Even more so for the top 20.

I'm pretty low on the list of witness and Steem isn't my full time job yet but I would love it very much so. So far I've concentrated on making the rules of Steem as clear and fun to learn as possible for anyone will do to so.

I'll continue to go in that direction for a couple of posts more and then try to make some outreach to make Steem more widely known. I have a couple of awesome idea in the work. I'm not sure out much out reach will be needed as I think a lot of it will happen organically just as it is right now but I think any outreach will help and is a no brainer. Thank you for your vote by the way. I really appreciate it.

귀하의 게시물을 좋아 보인다
나를 @emaa 따라

they are like night's watch men from GOT. thank you for this post :)

Haha! Somewhat! Thank you!

Wow! Do I have a lot to learn. Thanks for the in depth explanation!!

Another excellent post teamsteem. Just given you a witness vote. Regards, SirKnight.

That was incredible, thanks for sharing, your article really cleared a lot of things up.

This post looks soooo informative. THANK you for taking the time to write this! I've bookmarked the page. Btw, where do I get a steem shirt?? :D

I used a random printing t-shirt company. I forgot which one it was. Thank you for the compliment by the way.

Hello, great post! Please take a look on this post I think is important.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@trilumia/steemit-feature-suggestion-language-filter-or-important-or-international-users-are-coming
Thank you and have a great day!

Excellent post! That clears up some questions I had about the witness part of Steemit.

Awesome!

Thank you!!

My vote was added for teamsteem!

thank you @teamsteem, reading your post inspired me to engage in the Steemit community more and help grow the Steemit community.

High standard post. really informative and useful post. thank you so much for your effort @teamsteem !👌👌👌👌👌👌

Wew! Thanks for the informations @teamsteem. Got my first vote!

I'm glad you took the time to read this post and my latest one. Thanks for the support!

Just learning about Steem Witness. Thank you.

I am happily starting to follow you, GO STEEMIT! Your optimism is contageous.

This post shows a great deal of effort put to gather info & to write it up on this blog Thumbs up hey This is evident that you are a true & devoted steemian I wish I had knowledge of cryptocurrency & everything you explained After reading your post I now have a hazy idea of cryptos & witnesses I will continue to read your posts & to upvote Am sure many are benefiting from these your posts

Thank you! You want want to check my post about Bitcoin the best performing financial asset of all time which is giving birth to the greatest wealth shift in human history.

You can count on me. Vous pouvez comptez sur moi :)
Greetings from Belgium. Bonjour de la Belgique :)
Capture d’écran 2017-05-25 à 13.17.46.png

Thank you @dimitrya123! Merci beaucoup! C'est très apprécié!

hi, I have a question about witness voting.

  1. Is there a difference between voting for 30 people and voting for 1 person?
    For example, I have 30 SPs. If I vote for 1 person, will it send 30sp power to 1 person? If I vote for 30 people, will the power delivered to 1 witness be 1sp? Or does 30 people have all 30sp of power delivered?

  2. Is there a relationship between witness voting and personal voting power?
    In other words, when witness voting, does the person's voting power be consumed like a regular voting?

  3. Is there a limit to the duration of witness voting?
    Will it remain indefinitely until I make a change?

  1. If someone has 30 SP their 30 SP will support each witness they support. 30*30 so to speak. If you vote only for 1 witness you're losing a 29 votes of 30 SP.
  2. No. Witness voting doesn't cost any voting power.
  3. No limit sadly. This should probably be changed.

Thank you for your help. It has helped a lot.

Reading this post made me push through what I want to learn from the start of my crypto life and that is to learn how to code.
Is it too late for a 23year old guy like me? xD

I'm not a coder but I'd say if you have the will you should try and see. I'm pretty sure you can succeed if you put enough effort into it.

Thanks for the education lesson. Very well explained.
As the song goes 'can i get a witness'

Thank you!

Bitcoin's only value is that it's the first cryptocoin. Will always be grateful to Satoshi Nakamoto, but it's time that people start to see that steem is not only the better and more decentral cryptocurrency, but also currently doesn't have any scaling issues at all as steemit can handle thousands of transactions per second while btc can only handle 7. On top of that and probably even more important is the fact, that steem(it) has a real usage value: Giving people a decentralized and independent social media plattform on which people who create valuable content are getting a generous financial reward. When mainstream media will realize that, Steemit will probably be even a competitor to FB, since FB is getting greedier and now even making fanpage owners pay tto boost their posts in order to reach their fans.

Bitcoin still have a lot of value. I hope Steem or something of the sort can dethrone it.

Congratulations @teamsteem! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Award for the number of comments

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

If you want to support the SteemitBoard project, your upvote for this notification is welcome!

a helpful post. I never understood the significance of the witness until now.

Cool! That makes me happy to read this.

Now this Is exactly what I was looking for @teamsteem! A very in depth explaination, and informational too Sir...Thank you very much:)

Awesome!

Congratulations @teamsteem! You have completed some achievement on Steemit and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

Award for the total payout received

Click on any badge to view your own Board of Honnor on SteemitBoard.
For more information about SteemitBoard, click here

If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

If you want to support the SteemitBoard project, your upvote for this notification is welcome!

This would've been a solid resteem had it not been for differences of opinion when it comes to which of the witnesses to support.

You obviously did very well financially by including your list, so I all that can be offered past that is integrity and devotion to better outcomes.

It's okay to disagree. Like I said I don't agree with any witness 100% of the time.

By the way most of the rhsares on this post don't come from the witness whether the one I support or the one that support me. I also had good reasons to both list them.

100% ok to disagree, as you say. There are just some people that I don't think should have any real power in a community such as this.

It should also be noted that I of course can only assume how including the list in your post increased its social and therefore economic rating. There's no proof to back my claim and I'm by no means suggesting that's why you included it in the first place.

Now let's win that poll ;)

post like this got you my vote as a witness

Yeah thanks! You know how it works @bobskibob!

Great explanation - thank you :)

Thanks!

Thank you for the informative post! I'm quickly becoming a fan of your work. Keep them coming! I hope you don't mind if I post my last article here. I'm trying to get it noticed since I'm just starting out.
https://steemit.com/money/@jdawg/diversify-out-of-the-dollar

Thank you! I don't mind. I just think you should have try to make a comment about your post or better make a great comment about my post that would have made me want to look at your blog. I'll look at your post later. Thank you for sharing.

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

That's a fair comment!

My post is about diversifying one's assets partially out of the dollar, but in reality all fiat currencies. I believe the dollar is in trouble. Others must believe so too, perhaps that is a large reason why cryptos are doing so well?

My apologies for not making a better or great comment about your post. I'm a complete noob when it comes to cryptos/blockchain. I'm definitely not a tech guy and I'm trying to learn. I wish I had got into altcoins sooner, but my lack of understanding kept me away. In fact, I'm completely new to social media too. I have stayed away from the likes of Facebook, etc., until I found Steemit that is. I quickly became hooked. I understand the purpose of witnesses now and will now vote for them, which I was likely not going to do before I read your article. Thanks again!

Thank you!