What's a witness? Not many people know! Which is a shame because they do a ton of shit around here. Just how much do they do? Well, I wanted to create a story around that so that people would have a sense of what it is.
So, to clarify, a Witness is two things.
- It's a server that helps build the blockchain.
- It's a person or team that has been elected to run the witness.
The server
There are two types of servers. The main ones and the backup ones. The main ones are the top 20. They witness every block, meaning they help put all the blocks on the chain. A block occurs every 3 seconds. So they do about 1400 a day. It's basically a full time on call position.
The backup witnesses are rotated in every so often depending on how many vests/steem power is behind the votes that elected them.
Witnesses publish a price feed for SBD, an account creation fee, how big a block size should be, and what percent interest should be put on SBD. The blockchain is built with an average of these variables form the witnesses building the blocks.
Voting
You can vote for witnesses here: https://steemit.com/~witnesses.
If you want to vote for a witness below the top 50 put their name in the box below the list. If you can see their name you have voted for them. If you click on the name and it disappears then you have unvoted it after havin' successfully voted for it.
People
So, yes, the Witness is a server. The witness is also a person or a team. They are out there expanding our community, helping our community, interacting with other communities, teaching people the ropes, and a variety of the other roles. Here's my thoughts on what a Witness does around here in the vast experience I've gotten doing it for the last 2 weeks.
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I invite the other witnesses to wear these if they choose . Take as many as you'd like that make sense. It'll help share what Witness' do around here.
Images were created by https://www.fiverr.com/nekoiichi and you're welcome to sport them (or contact him as he's awesome!)