Witness Votes Don't Come Cheap

I want to preface this post by saying that gaining witness votes shouldn't be easy; votes should be earned through participation in the community, displaying your ability to carry out witness duties, and showing your long-term commitment to the blockchain. But there seems to be a disconnect between Steem users and the importance of voting for witnesses. It takes just as much effort to upvote this post as it does to vote me as witness, but few will will choose the latter. The most recent stats I could find on witness voter participation showed that only 7.5% of active accounts here on Steem have actually voted for a witness. That's insane.. and needs to change!

This got me wondering, what is it that keeps people from participating fully in the Steem blockchain (and community)? Witnesses (including myself) have spent hundreds of dollars (if not more) and countless hours setting up and maintaining witness servers and seed nodes to ensure the security, continuity, and accuracy of the blockchain and its transactions. Shouldn't the community understand all of this and be eager to cast their votes for the people they feel deserve it most!? Maybe not.

I've boiled this down to five main reasons I feel Steemit users fail to vote for witnesses. And it's not completely their fault...

Lack of Understanding

Probably the biggest reason more people don't vote for witnesses is because they just don't get it. Many of you will read what I wrote above and think, my God, I don't even know what a witness is! Fear not, I made a video called What Are Steem Witnesses and Why Should You Care? for those interested in learning more. I encourage you all to watch it if you're new to the topic. (Keep in mind that I wasn't a witness at the time of recording)

You might also be surprised to learn that running a witness server can be expensive and time consuming. Not only do witnesses maintain their servers, keeping them upgraded with the latest version and security patches, but they need to remain active within the community in order to know what's going on. Otherwise, they risk missing out on important updates or decisions affecting the blockchain. Other duties of a witness include maintaining a public seed node, tuning blockchain operating parameters, publishing accurate price feeds, authoring & discussing improvement proposals, among other tasks.

One of the unique aspects of the Steem blockchain is that we operate on a Delegated Proof of Stake algorithm where we elect our block producers (witnesses) based on the stake weight of our accounts. This effectively means that the more Steem Power one has, the more vote weight (or influence) they have over the blockchain. In other words, we rely on YOU to supply us with your vote so that we can produce blocks for the community. And who wouldn't want to participate in that if they truly love this incredible network!? :)

There Are Already Enough Witnesses

You might be thinking aren't there already plenty of witnesses, why do we need more? That's actually a legitimate question as most of the top 20 witnesses rarely change. However, recently we saw that Jerry Banfield decided to shut down his witness and possibly move off of the blockchain altogether. So witnesses can change their direction and stop at a moment's notice. Therefore, we need plenty of backup witnesses (outside of the top 20) to ensure that Steem continues to function and grow.

The top 20 witnesses (plus one backup witness outside of the top 20) produce a block every round. Each is given a turn to produce a single block at a fixed rate of one block every 3 seconds. If a witness fails to produce a block in their time slot, then that time slot is skipped, and they miss the block. And yes, witnesses do earn Steem Power for producing blocks at a rate of around 1 Steem Power for each block.

Another great example of why we need good, active backup witnesses is what happened just last week. The entire blockchain stopped suddenly due to an emergency fail-over in the code. The blockchain did what it was supposed to do by halting block processing, and in the meantime all of the "active" witnesses got together and updated our code. Many of the top witnesses took a while to get their code updated which allowed backup witnesses to produce more blocks than normal. I talk a little about it in my witness update where I updated my code immediately to 0.19.5.

There are currently hundreds of witnesses outside of the top 20 who are seeking your vote as backup witnesses. I'm actually one of them! So maybe consider one of those who is on top of things and ready to update their server at a moment's notice. Unfortunately, many of the top witnesses have moved on to other blockchain projects such as EOS, or they have simply become inactive. But the votes they received in the past have still stuck so they remain high on the list. So it's a good idea to check in on those you vote for from time to time.

It Doesn't Affect Me, Plus I Have Little SP Anyways

This is, quite frankly, a dumb assumption. If you're posting on the Steem blockchain via Steemit.com, Dtube, Dlive, Steepshot, Busy.org, Dmania, or any of the other Decentralized Apps built here, then you definitely need us witnesses. Without us, the Steem blockchain (and these apps) would cease to exist. It's just that simple.

And don't ever think that your Steem Power is so low that your vote doesn't count. Every vote counts, and over time your Steem Power will grow if you stay here long enough. So your vote will mean more over time as well. :)

It's Too Complicated

Everything about the blockchain sounds complicated to the average user. When we join Steemit we're forced to learn about upvote worth, how to fund our accounts, transfering money around, formatting our articles, obeying the unwritten rules of Steem, who and what are whales, what categories to use, the difference between trending and new articles, how to earn curation rewards, powering up and powering down Steem, the difference between SBD, Steem, and SP, using the internal market to buy/sell Steem or SBD, what are upvote bots and are they ruining the rewards pool, and what in the heck is the rewards pool????

So why in the world would be want to task ourselves with something else, Right!? It's already complicated enough.

The good thing is you don't have to know how to run a witness server or seed node to vote on someone who does. It's kind of like electing a government official. You may not know how to balance the nation's budget, but hopefully the person you vote for does. It's the same here, minus the centralization of the U.S. Government lol. We are here to serve you if you'll let us.

I Don't Know How to Vote or Who to Vote For?

Voting is actually really easy. Just go to https://steemit.com/~witnesses and you can either choose somebody from the top 100 or enter a name at the bottom to vote on somebody who is outside of the top 100. If you'd like to vote for me, just enter my name brandonfrye and click Vote. It's that simple!

Again, I really think that you should take some time getting to know the various witnesses here on the Steem blockchain. Don't just vote for somebody because they're in the top 20 or 30. Some of the top 100 aren't even running the latest version of the blockchain, or aren't producing fresh price feeds. So you shouldn't use that as a guide. Instead, I recommend taking notice of those you meet during your daily activities on Steemit/Steem. Maybe they created an app that you really like to use. Or perhaps they've written articles that you really enjoy. Or maybe they run a community that you love. Just make sure there's a reason behind casting your vote.

Keep in mind that each person gets 30 votes for witness. I'm not going to say that you have to fill all of the 30 votes that you get as a Steemit user. Take me for instance, I don't vote for 30 witnesses at the moment because I don't know of 30 that deserve my vote. My vote carries quite a bit of weight and I'm not going to throw it around aimlessly. I like to get to know the witnesses and choose those I feel have the best interest of the blockchain at heart. I'm also continuously looking for new witnesses to vote on; I know there are a LOT of great ones out there and recently I have started focusing on the newer ones. Especially as a new witness myself, I understand how tough it is to get going. So I like to support the small guys.

In Conclusion

Voting for witnesses is super important and is even rewarding when you see a person you've voted for doing incredible things for the community. I take great pride in the folks I've put my support behind and I know it rewards them as well. I feel as if it's part of my duty as a long-term user of the Steem blockchain. I plan to be here for a very long time and want to see the platform succeed.

You too can start voting today! Again, be sure that you feel the person you're voting for has the best interest of the blockchain at heart and is fully committed. Most witnesses also publish a Witness Application such as mine where I explain why I feel I would make a great witness for the community.

I hope that this helps you to understand the importance of voting and why your vote counts so much. I would appreciate it if you voted @brandonfrye for witness. And if you have any questions at all, please feel free to leave them below in the comments or reach out to me directly on steem.chat.

Getting Witness Votes is Like Pulling Teeth... And Here's Why