📝 What is "State of the Witnesses"?

State of the witnesses will be a regular update provided to the community on the status of the Whaleshares witnesses. The intent is to keep members informed of what is happening on the platform and what witnesses are doing. It is important that members of the community vote for witnesses that represent them and are driving the platform in the right direction. These updates are not intended to be all inclusive, but should only be a portion of the information used for your decision making.

In addition to the overall status, each update will also feature one witness in the "Witness Spotlight". This will allow the community to get a deeper look into the person/group behind the witness and how they play a part in the Whaleshares community.

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📈 Status

As mentioned in previous reports, we came to our first required update to address a memory allocation issue that is a security vulnerability.



Version 0.2.6 was released almost 2 months ago to mitigate this vulnerability and unfortunately we have 11 active witnesses that have not updated or failed to communicate it in the official Discord #witness-chat channel. Witnesses that continue to run a vulnerable version put the whole chain at risk.

The update was announced in the Whaleshares Official Discord #witness-support channel with all witnesses being tagged and requested to indicate in the channel when their node(s) had been updated. I have indicated in the chart below with a ✅those witnesses that have confirmed their node(s) have been updated. If you are one of the few witnesses that are not a member of the Discord channel, I would strongly suggest you become involved (instruction on getting access to the channel are in the Witness Guide) as this is the primary place for witness communications.

I question the commitment to the platform, and other witnesses, of witnesses that have not communicated the status of their witness node to a critical vulnerability after 2 months. I encourage you to also reevaluate your votes for these witnesses.

There are currently 9 witnesses disabled in the top 50. Some have been disabled for many weeks and I encourage everyone to review and reconsider your witness votes. We should try to keep the top 50 witnesses as enabled and block producing capable.

• @artwhale-witness (disabled 8 days ago)
• @whalebook (disabled 8 days ago)
• @blackman (disabled 3 weeks ago)
• @intelliwitness (disabled 4 weeks ago)
• @csxcommunity (disabled 5 weeks ago)
• @chronocrypto (disabled 3 weeks ago)
• @deranged-witness (disabled 4 weeks ago)
• @blckchnd (disabled 4 weeks ago)
• @desmond80 (disabled 5 weeks ago)

I encourage you to remove your vote from any witness that has been disabled for a week or more. Witness voting is a responsibility of all member and not just a one time deal. Everyone should make it a habit to regularly review their votes and make adjustments. The longest disabled witness in the top 50 for the 2nd report in a row is csxcommunity at 7 weeks. If you are mentioned below, you still have an active vote for csxcommunity that should be removed.

@bangzi @blckchnd @clockwork @darrenclaxton @zero @nasarakbar @blockchainaward @pairmike @csxcommunity @azizbd @samprock @scottcbusiness @oksanagb @crisangel @kennyroy @oaldamster @schoolforsdg4 @trailblazer @moshitunes @sheriffakin @phototalent @happy437 @suheri @future24 @davidleplaid @victorlina @lovelymkylie @royalties-boss @ceyebrity @solomon507 @mariejoyacajes27 @broncnutz @yinkaknl @nikkyp @syukriandira @jayboi @angelcg22 @edgarbautista23 @ironshield @tcpaikano @engineermabbas @azirgraff @multifacet @niwrah @akata

I would also highly suggest investigating enabled witnesses outside the top 50 and consider voting for them. Currently the following witnesses outside of the top 50 that are active are:

57 @minnowsupport
60 @trumpman
61 @t3ran13
62 @francuzzz
63 @revueh
64 @semasping
66 @theghost1980
67 @superclutch
68 @spanish
70 @php-node-client
72 @walterjay

And as always, if you don't feel comfortable choosing witnesses to vote for you can always choose to proxy your votes to someone you trust who has taken the time to identify witnesses they feel are right for the platform.

Witnesses that have missed 10 or more blocks since last report are:

• @bushkill-witness (26)
• @kennybll-witness(10)
• @altruistic (209)
• @god (202)
• @artwhale-witness (1428)
• @whalebook (84)
  
  
  ✅- Indicates witnesses that have confirmed their nodes are updated to v0.2.6

Rank	Prev Rank	Owner	Missed Blocks	Δ Missed Blocks	Votes	Weighted Votes	Created
1✅	1	@krazywitness	23	5	571	7050403754961	8/14/2018
2✅	2	@powerpicswitness	28	0	380	6419496963827	8/13/2018
3✅	3	@bushkill-witness	82	26	409	6358016563238	8/14/2018
4✅	4	@dbread-witness	54	8	314	5627209207297	8/21/2018
5✅	6	@lexiwitness	499	1	265	5560832978366	9/11/2018
6✅	5	@beyondbitcoincas	1584	1	378	5451627340658	8/13/2018
7	7	@jepu	59	2	348	5108544020203	8/14/2018
8✅	8	@ijmmaiwitness	123	1	236	4771592055888	10/26/2018
9	9	@nepd-witness	33	0	268	4706301293454	8/14/2018
10✅	10	@kennybll-witness	1129	10	181	4651996728543	8/13/2018
11✅	13	@nsfwizard	45	1	200	4543957047581	8/30/2018
12✅	11	@bangzi	33	1	177	4505695553255	8/17/2018
13✅	12	@ienrikex	775	1	289	4258540462814	8/17/2018
14✅	14	@ceruleanblue	28	0	133	4147639494158	9/24/2018
15✅	19	@snug	0	0	140	4071328251441	12/19/2018
16✅	18	@altruistic	212	209	278	4023982861042	9/8/2018
17✅	17	@startail	3610	2	98	3756864921482	8/13/2018
18✅	15	@clockwork	31	0	128	3645170441663	8/14/2018
19✅	32	@unity	13	0	118	3599523515724	1/26/2019
20✅	20	@kantos	1408	2	149	3556350452817	12/5/2018
21✅	24	@god	304	202	202	3237275702445	8/30/2018
22✅	21	@contests	17	0	132	3168631303967	8/14/2018
23	25	@wls-africa	162	0	315	3119868559832	9/1/2018
24✅	30	@moonunit	2	0	154	2939642599956	10/29/2018
25✅	22	@met.witness	8	6	90	2876860223925	12/22/2018
26✅	23	@dsound	7	1	93	2846600883657	11/24/2018
27✅	29	@profanereviews	1	0	88	2773007661599	11/8/2018
28✅	33	@project-atlas	0	0	95	2767181715840	1/6/2019
29	31	@neoxian	0	0	122	2697324700501	12/25/2018
30	26	@yensesa-witness	7	0	247	2520038401689	8/16/2018
31✅	28	@sahkan	6	1	100	2518240537412	8/13/2018
32	36	@adsactly-witness	2	0	111	2024173510275	11/13/2018
33	16	artwhale-witness	1510	1428	258	2013583759014	8/13/2018
34✅	35	@triton-witness	77	0	158	1969404209702	9/25/2018
35	37	@aquacy	56	0	119	1962619690797	9/8/2018
36✅	39	@platformswitness	0	0	57	1521173456657	1/24/2019
37	34	black-man	217	0	306	1502767866472	8/13/2018
38✅	38	@comedyopenmic	1	0	94	1481696558098	9/18/2018
39	27	whalebook	143	84	83	1174767775154	8/13/2018
40	41	intelliwitness	93	0	134	874026343740	8/14/2018
41✅	45	@constelacion	84	7	124	778587516606	11/21/2018
42	44	@kwaskoff	5	0	55	670976922956	8/31/2018
43	42	chronocrypto	1449	0	112	636993996374	9/6/2018
44	43	@tnam0rken	298	0	69	618726097595	8/20/2018
45	40	deranged-witness	647	0	98	594131752852	10/14/2018
46	49	@finteh	981	0	40	501833461812	8/31/2018
47✅	54	@skylinebuds	0	0	19	493459527456	1/5/2019
48	47	csxcommunity	51	0	45	407372641872	8/21/2018
49	48	blckchnd	13	0	63	389863132281	8/14/2018
50	51	desmond80	104	0	34	385291650743	10/18/2018

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⭐️ Witness Spotlight - @altruistic ⭐️

📌 For those who don't know much about witnesses, in layman’s terms, can you give your thoughts on what is the job of a witness?

A witness has an important role in the functioning of a platform powered by blockchain. Most people do think that a witness actually produced blocks but no. A witness actually sees a block being recorded as if no one does, there won’t be any activity on the platform. So in a simple form, you can say a witness is recording your activities for you.

A witness should be someone that is trustworthy, open-minded, and ready to stand and work with other witnesses in bringing quality to the platform.

📌 What brought you to Whaleshares?

Love! Yes, I love to engage with people and share ideas and views. To see the progress of others and support them as much as I can even though I can’t support all. I joined whaleshares way back to when I first joined steemit in October 2017. Then we were just a community of loving people before we start to care and share on this platform.

📌 What is your background and how does that make you a good witness?

Being a witness was totally new to me but I become one because I will like to support the platform and show my loyalty and this was possible through the help of a dear friend as I am not a techy person but a religious woman (a Christian) that does not criticize or judge anyone but just simple and easy going and I do care about the platform to be part of the people that make it running and ready for use to everyone.

This makes me continue to learn more about the computer world and blockchain.

📌 What excites you most about being a witness?

What actually excite me most is the opportunity to serve the platform and thanks to the platform users that voted Altruistic as one of their witnesses.

📌 Are you running any projects on Whaleshares?

Yes, My ongoing project is @Altruistic. It’s a community that looks forward to supporting users on this platform, to promote more engagement by encouraging authors who are putting effort into the platform by putting down their ideas and views. That’s why there is a support tag #altruistic-wls that anyone can use and we will be there to give support even if it is little with the account @altruistic-wls which is the community support account unless if the user is on our blacklist.

There are other projects that I have but it’s not yet fully in action.

📌 Do you have or plan to have a WhaleToken? If so, tell us about it.

Altruistic has a whaletoken which is a community token as of now. The token is known as ALTRUISTIC. It is a cross-chained token backed by the Altruistic whaleshares’ account. Token holders can use it to support their posts with the Altruistic account and it can be received by participating in contests, challenges, and other altruistic community activities both on the platform and on the discord server.

📌 What are your goals as a witness?

To join hands with other witnesses in promoting the the total growth of the platform and it users.

📌 What do you see as the biggest challenge for Whaleshares and how do you think it should be addressed?

Well, the biggest challenge is the same things as what other monetized platforms are facing which is plagiarism. Apart from that, other things we should keep on promoting is cooperation and encouraging different voices of the users.

📌 If you had to vote for only one witness (not yourself) who would it be and why?

Every one is awesome in their activities but I will pick @bushkill as his effort to the growth of the platform is commendable. One of his voluntary work is this state of the witness where he does showcase the activities of the witness zone and who the witnesses are.

📌 Tell the community why you deserve their vote?

I am here to stay if God willing, to promote the platform, and to keep on supporting and encouraging as many users as possible.

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💡 Previous Witness Spotlights

Update #|Spotlight Witness|Update #|Spotlight Witness ---|---|---|--- 1|kennybll-witness|2|artwhale-witness 3|black-man|4|beyondbitcoincas 5|jepu|6|krazywitness 7|intelliwitness|8|nepd-witness 9|lexiwitness|10|ceruleanblue 11|ienrikex|12|nsfwizard 13|ijmmaiwitness|14|

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🚨Calling All Witnesses

If you would like to be the "Spotlight Witness" in an upcoming report, please let me know!

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📰 Witness News!

1. comedyopenmic - Drum Roll Please... Introducing Lola

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🐳 Get Involved!

• Vote for Witnesses.
• Want to learn more about the Whaleshares platform? See the Whaleshares whale paper.
• Interested in becoming a witness? See the Whaleshares Witness Announcement.
• Stay tuned with official updates and announcements on the Whaleshares Discord channel.

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📚 Thanks for Reading!

• If you find this information helpful, I hope you will consider supporting me (bushkill-witness) for witness.
• If you are a witness and are doing something to support the community, please use the tag #witness-update in your post and it may be selected for mention in the next witness update.