Who is a STEEM WITNESS - non technical explanation for amateur

in #steemit7 years ago

Yesterday I made a post about steem.supply and someone asked me on Steem chat what witness is.

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I'll just explain this in a simple (non technical) way, so that anyone can understand.


WHO'S A STEEM WITNESS.

First of all there is no such thing as STEEMIT WITNESS, It's called STEEM WITNESS.

STEEM is a Blockchain (distributed open ledger ) which STEEMIT (social network) runs on.

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So a witness is a group of persons or a person who operates or runs a node. they keep an eye on these nodes that take care of things here.

STEEM has what is called node and each transaction is contained in a BLOCK and each block has a transaction speed of 3 seconds.


There are lots of steem witness. Among the steem witnesses , the Top 19 witnesses produces a block almost every minute.

The other witnesses combine to produce about 28,000 blocks. Each block produced by a witness is greatly dependent on the ranking of the witness.

what will happen when a witness fails ?

If /when a witness fails to produce a block for a transaction, that transaction could/will be lost forever.

So, if witness number 4(based on ranking) fails, witness 5 will replace witness numbers 4.


Each steemian has a maximum of 30 votes to vote for witnesses. So you'll have to vote wisely. Currently I've voted just 3 witnesses. I voted @good-karma @klye and @joseph and I'll be voting some others today.

list of 30 witnesses I wish to vote (this list is in no particular order)

  1. @gtg
  2. @jesta
  3. @timcliff
  4. @good-karma
  5. @liondani
  6. @pfunk
  7. @pharesim
  8. @roelandp
  9. @klye
  10. @riverhead
  11. @someguy123
  12. @joseph
  13. @dragosroua
  14. @steemed
  15. @furion
  16. @blocktrades
  17. @fyrst-witness
  18. @curie
  19. @au1nethyb1
  20. @theprophet0
  21. @aggroed
  22. @clayop
  23. @busy.witness
  24. @thecryptodrive
  25. @smooth.witness
  26. @bhuz
  27. @cervantes
  28. @aizensou
  29. @complexring
  30. @steempty

There are lots of other awesome witness you could vote. To get the list of witnesses click here and spread your vote.

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how did these guys become witnesses?

Most of these witnesses were early miners in the network. anyone (steemian) can become a witness through votes made by the Steemit community.

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These votes from the community will help you get elected. But you must be liked and highly respected by the community.

So this is just a simple explanation of who a witness is, what they do and how to become a witness. I hope this little write up was helpful?


  • Note: this is just a steem witness explanation to an amateur. There are lots of technical details not included in this article**

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