Inactive witnesses (as far as I understand) get skipped over when the system picks the next witness to produce a block. They don't harm the system in any way, but the fact that they still have votes is an indicator of voter apathy. If, for example, some top witness started doing something bad for the network, we'd have to vote them out. If people are still voting for witnesses who aren't even active, there's a good chance they'd still be voting for that witness account, even if the community was trying to remove them from an active witness spot.
I don't think there's a way to mark an account as no longer being a witness once the update_witness command is run for that account. It's not a bad thing to be an inactive witness. I understand if some started the process and then later decided they have other priorities. No worries there, but we should all be removing votes for accounts that are not active and put those votes towards accounts that are active and working to move up the rankings to hopefully produce enough blocks to pay for their server costs and time.
Appreciate the info... fills in a few blanks.
Given what you're sharing here, it might be nice/useful (if possible) to extract and list a "last active" or "last block time" next to each witness' name when the "vote for witnesses" page displays. If one of the objectives is to get relative newcomers interested in voting... they perhaps we need to remove as many "tech-y layers" from the process as possible. I'd also submit that there needs to be a more concerted effort (perhaps among the active witnesses, themselves?) tp publicize that "voting for witnesses" isn't just something to "do once, and fuggetaboutit" but an ongoing process you need to re-visit now and then.
Agreed! These pages help:
https://steemd.com/witnesses
https://steemdb.com/witnesses
I've also asked @jesta to take the details on that steemdb page and include them on the individual account page where it says "Votes Cast" (example: https://steemdb.com/@lukestokes/witness click Votes Cast). That, I think, would be super helpful. Maybe even a popup if someone is voting for an inactive witness.