There are some questions about witnesses and voting for them that I continue to receive, so I figured answering a few of them here before I vomit out a big list of links might be a smashing idea.

<center>![Witness1.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmdyAkRKbFGiid3jAnTzccNTuQ7zFqdJWm7Xz9HVY2qn1W/Witness1.jpg)</center>

<center>*What are witnesses?*</center>

Witnesses "witness" the blocks as they are added to the Steem block-chain. They are the means by which Steem is both decentralized, while still achieving consensus for things like new hard forks (a common event on Steem, rare and newsworthy on for most other coins.) They set things like the Steem price feed, interest rates on SBD in savings, and many other attributes of Steem via a consensus voting model, and choose which software upgrades to accept. Theoretically, if you controlled most of the witnesses, you could do severe damage to the block-chain.

In short, you want trustworthy witnesses who you believe have Steem's best interests at heart, and whose policies you agree with, when applicable. The top 20 witnesses each receive a substantial amount of Steem each day from witnessing many blocks, which is well-earned, as the position is difficult to achieve and entails substantial server costs and time. Witnesses from 21 down are "standby witnesses", and receive far fewer blocks (5% or less), scaling lower the further down the list they are. They are stuck in the worst of both worlds, in that they need very reliable witness hardware to hope to continue climing the ranks, but take substantial losses because of their small share of the witness reward pool.

<center>![Witness2.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmUgQED289ee5E7694V3uNggR7MA7hkWSNP5Ay2HurEBFY/Witness2.jpg)</center>

<center>*How long are you going to do these witness reports?*</center>

As long as I can find information on witnesses, I'll keep going. Any witness is welcome to reach out to me to provide information I can add to my research.

<center>*Who should I vote for?*</center>

Helping you to determine that for yourself is the reason for this series of posts, which I have devoted many hours of effort to.

However, voting for witnesses is stake weighted. In other words, if you have 100 Steem Power, your vote is worth 100 users who each have 1 Steem Power.

As a result, I am well aware that game theory simply doesn't incentivize small voters to make intelligent witness voting decisions, particularly 30 of them, which is how many witnesses you can vote for.

I suspect this is why almost 80% of Steemians are not voting for witnesses, if memory serves. Per LukeStokes, it was as low as 7.5% 3 months ago.

<center>![Witness3.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmf1XcYKMBUitsey9KrWhAh6VszNjWCauR1SFPs5cHAG1m/Witness3.gif)</center>

There is an easy solution, however. In a few clicks you can proxy (grant) your witness voting to another user you trust to decide for you. The option to do this is at the very bottom of the witness voting page, which you can access from the top right drop-down on Steemit. (3 Gray Lines button > "Vote For Witnesses").

Of course, I would welcome your proxies if you feel I am qualified to vote for witnesses on your behalf.

<center>[![Proxy.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmV7EukwPiajCok1zWTGUTY4oiWy5zFGTYhLqHrBuJAcUf/Proxy.png)](https://steemit.com/~witnesses)</center>

Proxies can be revoked at any time, and they do not affect anything else but witness voting (no effect on regular voting.) You can also see which witnesses anyone is voting for on their Steemd page, along the left-hand side, if you want to audit someone's votes before proxying to them.

<center>*OK, enough grubbing for our witness votes, already! Gimme the links!*</center>

Hey, it's not like I'm going to vote for myself.

Note: The following ranking is as of 10/28/17.

00	acknowledgement post

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/meet-the-witnesses-0-remastered-status-update-acknowledgments-and-special-thanks

01  	jesta	 

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/jesta-meet-the-witnesses-2-remastered

02  	timcliff	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/timcliff-meet-the-witnesses-1-remastered

03  	gtg

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/gtg-meet-the-witnesses-4-remastered
	
04  	someguy123	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/someguy123-meet-the-witnesses-6-remastered

05  	roelandp	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/roelandp-meet-the-witnesses-5-remastered

06  	good-karma	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/good-karma-meet-the-witnesses-3-remastered

07  	klye	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/klye-meet-the-witnesses-11-remastered

08  	blocktrades	 

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/blocktrades-meet-the-witnesses-9-remastered

09  	anyx	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/anyx-meet-the-witnesses-7-remastered

10  	pfunk	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/pfunk-meet-the-witnesses-8-remastered

11  	aggroed	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/aggroed-meet-the-witnesses-12-remastered

12  	ausbitbank	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/ausbitbank-meet-the-witnesses-15-remastered

13  	furion	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/furion-meet-the-witnesses-13-remastered-view-ly-ico-ending-soon

14  	riverhead	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/riverhead-meet-the-witnesses-14-remastered

15  	clayop	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/clayop-meet-the-witnesses-17-remastered

16  	thecryptodrive	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/thecryptodrive-meet-the-witnesses-16-remastered

17  	liondani	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/liondani-meet-the-witnesses-18-remastered

18  	pharesim	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/pharesim-meet-the-witnesses-10-remastered

19  	xeldal	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/xeldal-meet-the-witnesses-19-remastered

20  	lukestokes.mhth	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/lukestokes-mhth-aka-lukestokes-meet-the-witnesses-24-remastered

21  	smooth.witness	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/smooth-witness-aka-smooth-meet-the-witnesses-21-remastered

22  	jerrybanfield	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/jerrybanfield-meet-the-witnesses-26-now-24-remastered

23  	busy.witness	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/busy-witness-aka-busy-org-meet-the-witnesses-22-remastered

24  	wackou	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/wackou-meet-the-witnesses-23-remastered

25  	cervantes	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/cervantes-meet-the-witnesses-27-now-25-remastered

26  	bhuz	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/bhuz-meet-the-witnesses-25-remastered

27  	~~drakos~~	

(Not yet completed, owing to his explosive growth in recent rankings. TBD, matey.)

28  	abit	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/abit-meet-the-witnesses-28-remastered

29  	ihashfury	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/ihashfury-meet-the-witnesses-29-remastered

30  	fyrst-witness	

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/fyrst-witness-meet-the-witnesses-30-remastered

...

37	roadscape

https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/roadscape-meet-the-witnesses-20-remastered

<center>[__Please see the acknowledgement post here.__](https://steemit.com/witness-category/@lexiconical/meet-the-witnesses-0-remastered-status-update-acknowledgments-and-special-thanks) </center>

__*If you have any additions or errata for this post, please let me know! I will see that they are voted to the top of the comments, and will make the appropriate edits (if possible).*__

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<center>*[Almost 80% of Steemians do not vote! If you wish to make me your witness voting proxy, I will attempt to vote in Steem's best interest based on the information in my witness reports. You may set me as your proxy by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of the Witness Voting page. Proxies are instantly revokable at any time.](https://steemit.com/~witnesses)*</center>

<center>[![Proxy.png](https://steemitimages.com/DQmV7EukwPiajCok1zWTGUTY4oiWy5zFGTYhLqHrBuJAcUf/Proxy.png)](https://steemit.com/~witnesses)</center>

*Sources: All the bloggers on the above list.*
*Copyright: All the bloggers on the above list, The Simpsons, http://pleadthefirst.com/2005/10/20/cartoon-greensboro-voter-%20participation/*