We should be careful in defining the "inactive" state here. For example, I use an alternate account to run mine, and rarely do anything else besides signing blocks. Just because it's socially inactive in my case does not reflect the case you are describing.
Maybe something that would be more reasonable would be if it's not signing blocks for more than 30 days, and is an enabled witness. That, in my view, should have more visibility, yes, so that people can make a call about what to do.
Sorry if I missunderstood what you meant by activity.
By inactive i mean not signing any blocks for +30 days , i also use an alt account for my 2nd witness and seeding node @stress.node .
i always find https://primersion.com/witnesses from @primersion very helpfull in keeping an eye on things and https://hive.arcange.eu/witnesses/ from @arcange
Ah, yep, then I am in agreement.
There are a couple more like those. But those are solid ones.
It also would be helpfull if the frontends would hide those old witnesses so people can't vote on the until they have have actually updated the price feed for instance or other signs of being active again.
Price feed only takes place on the top 20 witnesses... so its not useful, just an exercise, same with the APR stance.
Growing as a backup witness should be about learning... it should bring pressure over time, and should bring blockers eventually (top 20) about how you bring security to the chain in terms of production.
I have the luck of being super stable... but someone else might not, and we still (need to) defend the chain stability.
Being decentralised is way harder than people think... even I don't really grasp all the outcomes at the age I am living my life.
Yes, we want everyone to discover that, but it's not easy to teach. And not everyone wants that... even if I keep going...
Reality... is hard sometimes.