I did not mean it like an attack @blocktrades, it it came across like that I do apologize. I'm simply stating that they are not discussed in public, on a post like this and as much as I understand the need for a private slack channel to iron details out, the smaller witnesses and the public are left scratching our head in ignorance.
So I will clarify, not an attack in the slightest, simply an observation. I know @asbear is a newer witness, and as such he is both trying to get his name out there (which I appreciate) and also attempting to understand the dynamics at play.
That is all...
I see, thanks for clarification. In fact, I'd say you're spot on at this point: most of the top 20 witnesses don't think it's a good idea to share security details publicly.
On the other hand, I guess I assumed there was already some public docs that give suggestions for good ways to configure your witness from security, etc, point of view. If not, there should be.
I will be audacious enough to ask on behalf of @aggroed (without his blessing of course, hence the audacious) if you could participate of the upcoming panel this saturday.
I think he will be happy to have your voice added to the pot. As one of the biggest investors on the platform, your contributions, concerns and ideas hold a lot more weight.
With that request, I take my leave... (I won't take it personal if you decline)
Cheers
I've got a standing invitation from aggroed to attend and we agreed he would ping me once a month. I hope I can make it sometime next month, but right now I'm just super busy. I work on weekends too (generally only around 5 or 6 hours on weekend days), so even Saturday isn't a "free day" for me.
I confess I also didn't read all your reply before, only the first part. Since I'm here I'll confirm that I did vote for a few disabled witnesses. I left the votes for quite a while as they were essentially a non-vote plus a reminder to the inactive witness that some people who be happy to have them back (for example, I'd love to see SVK contributing here again). But I did eventually remove them, mostly because I would get bugged by people who wanted me to change my vote from one of the inactive witnesses to them.
Possibly a distinction needs to be made between for voting for a non-active witness (OK in my opinion) and voting for a witness whose server has been down but not marked inactive and therefore missing blocks (this is bad). IMO, there's nothing wrong with voting for a non-active witness: the whole ability to set yourself inactive was to allow you to stop blocks from being missed without requiring you to contact all your voters and get them to unvote you.
On the whole inactive witness or disabled witness I've learn to see this whole thing from a different perspective. I'm attempting to be as pragmatic as possible on the subject, because I know there is probably no effective way from removing politics from the emotional underpinnings but...
Just the other day a new witness showed up on trending, requesting votes of course, as he should and pretty much casting some buckets of blame water on to high stake holders not casting votes, or casting them to inactive accounts.
My current position on the matter is that all new witnesses probably need that time to ferment in slight failure, as to see if they can cut the cheese. Meaning, that they are in it for the right reasons.
We don't want another @zeartul pissing on the fruit punch we all drink from and I'm sure no one will disagree with me there. With that in mind, I find it healthy that a mega whale account would be extremely hesitant to vote on a new witness, simply because the vote is available or the name is catchy.
From where I stand, you, and other whales of tide altering proportions act in the best interest of steem by being "ridiculously"(please note the air quotes) careful.