While scrolling through the top 100 to find the guy I planned to add, I decided to check out some of the names that were put in long ago. Like I said, this hasn't been at the forefront of my activity on Hive, and it turns out that I had some assumptions about how witnesses were organized that turned out not to be the case at all.
Making a list and checking it twice
My thinking was that this was a dynamic, up-to-the-second, thing, and that it'd been put together to respond quickly to any changes. I assumed that if someone ceased being an active witness, that the system automatically paused or removed him from the list. So as the months and years rolled by, I'd see the same 20 names, and thought everything was plugging away as usual. That's when I decided to take a closer look at the Master Witness List.
When I did, I was surprised to see that some were no longer active witnesses at all. Viewing their stats showed that a number of them hadn't processed a block in months or even years! The list shows the witness name, how recently they processed their last block, as well as their witness age.
There's a small yellow symbol next to names that have been inactive for at least a week, while also telling us how long ago their witness has been disabled. As a person who uses HiveBlocks on a daily basis, I'd see those names and never gave them a second thought, thinking someone was administering the list, or that it was self-correcting. Turns out that we're all the administers of our witness lists, and we need to keep them updated on a regular basis.
It'd be awesome if HiveBlocks had an indicator next to each name showing their status as a witness. Possibly a green dot showing they were processing normally, a yellow one if they paused for 90 days or less, and a red one if they hadn't processed a block in over 90 days. This way we'd have an instant visual indicator to guide our decisions while maintaining our lists. We all need to update our witness votes from time to time.
Now the person I was going to add is a well-known Hivean who I thought was already residing on my list, turns out he wasn't. That was an easy mistake to fix as @nathanmars brings incredible value to the people of Hive.
However, during the pruning of long-defunct members, this also gave me the opportunity to add a few more names to those I vote for witness, thus @threespeak, @chrono.witness and @clicktrackprofit made the cut of the 20 I currently vote for. Keeping it around that number gives me the flexibility to add new people without having to remove someone else who's deserving due to my list being full, so I don't ever think I'll fill it up.
So there you have it. This little check-in has taught me the importance of keeping our witness lists current. We want to always insure that we're giving back by supporting those who provide value in keeping the infrastructure of Hive running smoothly. If you're not voting for any witnesses, now is a great time to make your list, and check it twice!