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RE: The Reports from the Witnesses 2018-01-07
Is it correct that witnesses get 1000 Steem per day for their work as witness? And is this 1000 Steem per witness or do all 20 witnesses have to share this daily shower (-> 50 Steem per witness?
Another thing: I think SBDs are a dangerously flawed instrument which must be removed. I wrote a post about it and it would be great to have your 2 cents about it plus what to do to get this to the top of the to-do-list.
Here is a post that describes the witness pay:
https://steemit.com/witness-category/@timcliff/til-how-much-witnesses-and-miners-make-per-block
I will review your post and comment there.
thx for the link. Is this correct: A normal top19 witness produces 1 block per minute and this 24/7 and for every block they get 0,1874 Steem. At the current price of about 6 US-$ they one witness makes a whopping 1,500 US-$ per day... or half a million per year. wow.
Are you all doing this professionally then or is it just a side gig? And are there any minimum requirements for witnesses like coding skills, business experience, maybe some economics knowledge or anything else.. or can you just walk in and claim the position?
Also: Can you give me a link or explain how the witness voting power is distributed. thx.
Also: Can you give me a link or explain how the witness voting power is distributed. thx.
Whopping?
There is nothing whopping about the top witness pay.
...and when you ask things like "can you just walk in and claim the position". Absolutely not. Do some research.. read all posts written by @timcliff over the last year and see if he just simply "walked up" and "claimed his position".
He spends countless hours building up and earning his position. We need our top witnesess to be well funded. It is a massive responsiblity and backbone of the network.
The top witnesses are basically the Executives of the decentralized corporation called STEEM. It's not easy to earn the position, it isn't easy to maintain that position. It isn't easy to run a reliable node and keep it reliable.
All in all, their pay is well deserved, and it can be annoying when people perceive that they could have simply "walked up and claimed the position".
@timcliff has earned trust by the community and has his seat voted in. That is not easily done. No, no one can walk up and claim his position easily.
...and I like that.
You can, you just have to buy yourself in or make enough valuable posts to get the necessary voting power.
(parenthesis added) Tim does a great job, but all his posts are a bit much for me. Maybe if you pay me 1000 Steem I will do it.;-)
I had a hunch that this might be the case^^
I cannot say anything about the programming and maintenance end of Steemit, but I have the impression, the witnesses have no clue about the economic end of their job or how to run a consumer oriented business (eg: zero regard that user might not understand them when using technical terms all the time -> "bluepaper").
Also: I like very good pay for very good people, but I think there are several witnesses among the current top100 who just aren't up to it and who also don't do enough for their pay (Tim not).
edit
sry if I added and deleted several times the same comments. Something is wrong here. I'm trying to keep the chaos under control..
In my view there are several top witnesses who are well worth the pay, and some that are not.
I would love to see more individuals come along who are able to add sufficient value to earn a top 20 spot, and work their way to the top. It is not easy, but it is possible. There are several individuals (jesta, myself, netuoso, aggroed for example) that have done it.
A good top witness will be taking steps to grow the value of STEEM. Even though they themselves are making a lot - if they do a good job, they will actually earn the entire community more than what they are paid.
Oh, if that's your concern: I'm not intending to become a witness. I'm just interested in the system and the economics behind it.
I would like to write a speculative post about witnesses, but I fear downvotes. Can you promise me to undo possible downvotes by zeroing them out with an upvote big enough?
It wasn't a concern about you joining, it was the opposite - I would like to see more witnesses join (not less).
Also, I wasn't necessarily speaking of you specifically - anyone who can add value to the platform through a witness campaign would be good to consider it.
Well, my upvote is not nearly enough to counter most of the the larger stakeholders. I also can't guarantee that without knowing what the content of your post is.
In general though, I would encourage people to post what they feel is important even if it means becoming targeted.
If you want to protect your main account, you can create a "throw away" account via AnonSteem.
So that's where berniesanders was born. Whoever that is created quite an atmosphere in which you better want to shut up.
Technically in a previous hardfork, the miner position was removed and a new ‘top 20’ position was added in its place with the same pay. Also, it is one block every 63 seconds - close to one per minute, but not exactly.
If the price of STEEM stays the same (or goes up), then yes - that is how much witnesses are making per day.
It is up to individual witnesses how much time they devote to it. For me it is pretty close to a full time job, but I do have a ‘day job’ in addition to my witness. One thing about witness pay is it can be great when the price is up, but we were still expected to do all the same stuff when the price of STEEM was $0.08 as well. We can also be voted out at anytime.
Anyone who has the technical skills necessary to get a witness node up and running can be a witness. Getting the votes from stakeholders however requires that they prove they are trustworthy individuals and are able to add value to the platform.
It is up to each individual stakeholder to decide what is important to them when voting for witnesses.
There is data on witness voting on steemdb.com.
So, nobody controls them or tells them to do more/a better job or what?
How much does the technical end of running a node cost?
Would you change some of the pay for some more security on being witness?
It is a decentralized system. Witnesses are accountable to their voters. If their voters remove their votes, they lose their ‘job’.
I spend about $300 per month on my infrastructure, plus my time. From a technical perspective, it requires some level of Linux sys admin skills, and a small amount of programming knowledge.
Not sure what you are asking.
Let me give you an example: When markymark isn't doing what he was supposed to do again, do you (or others) shout at him for his laziness? Do you tell around that he's a bad witness? I think for the hygiene of Steemit that is very important.
Is it tax deductible and do you publish the bill?
Well, you get ~0.2 Steem per block right now but can be fired any time. What if you had the choice to only get 0.15 Steem per block but after being voted out you'd still be in for another 4 weeks. Sort of American style VS European style.
I don't know the details here. What was he supposed to do?
The witnesses (and stakeholders) often get in very heated discussions, but there really isn't a central person to make this type of call. Even if I were to yell at someone for "not doing their job" - the worst I can do to them is publicly call them out, or take away my witness vote (if I am voting for them).
The real way that witnesses get hurt by doing something wrong, or 'not doing a good job' is by not getting votes, or by people who have voted for them taking their votes away.
Yes it is tax deductible. No, I don't publish the bill. The hosting companies that I use for my witness servers are kept private for security reasons.
No. I am paid per block that I produce. If I am voted out, I produce less blocks (or no blocks depending on the severity). If I am not producing blocks, then it doesn't make sense for me to get paid.
Also, at what point does someone earn their 4 weeks? A lot of times a top 20 witness is only there for a few hours, or a few days. Do they have to stay elected for at least a week to earn that? Or two weeks? Also, what happens if someone turns out to be a malicious witness? Would we need to invent a way to turn off the 4 weeks pay in cases like that? Who would control it? ...
My opinion is that I don't see what value it adds, and it would make the system more complicated.
I think it is very important for everyone to know, who hates whom among the witnesses, because it is you who have a (semi)professional look at each other. 99% of all users have no contact to the engine room or the bridge at all. That can be bridged by expressing personal opinions.
My question here is: How should normal users otherwise find out? A "press" could help. Interested users following the debates and then writing articles about it. But that would end as usual: Debates behind closed doors. So, the answer is that it becomes part of the job of a witness to be openly critical about his fellow witnesses.
I brought this up because it can help creating transparency. I would also advocate that witnesses start an official business when they get into running a node. Because if I was the government and try to get someone, I look at his tax records. That's why publishing the numbers and creating an own entity (without the adress of course..) would mean to reduce a potential weak spot.
That's how an American thinks;-)
A possible advantage could be a better development for the system. In 4 weeks you can pull off projects and with having the necessary funds through the mining money, this might induce a more rapid development.
But, you're right. It could complicate things too much.
Another thing: I haven't found the specific voting modalities yet. Am I assuming correctly that your vote counts as much as you have MVESTS?
(see my reply below)