Witnesses have a key role to guard HIVE from any external attacks that could compromise the blockchain, which is why there was the Hard Fork over a year ago. Preserving the chain requires a certain reliability and each user can vote for the witness they deem best suited to this role of guardian.
Each user can express up to 30 votes and it is extremely simple: if you use the @peakd front-end just click on your nickname at the top right, a menu will appear from which you will have to select Witness and you will access the screen you see in the screenshot below
The list is in order of the most supported by users but what is important is that everyone has expressed their 30 votes. At any time you are free to remove the vote from the witness in case you change your mind. Being a witness involves responsibility, professionalism and certainly a constant presence. For this reason it is important that you view the latest released version, it is currently 1.24.0 or higher, and you check that it has been updated by the witnesses.
In fact, there are some witnesses that have obsolete versions such as 0.22 or 0.23, therefore dating back to before the HF. In this case, if the check is blue on your vote, you must absolutely remove it and distribute it on active witnesses. There are still non-active witnesses with important votes in their favor.
The operation will take you a few seconds, you will have to confirm your consent with Hivechain or Hivesigner! Greater distribution of votes helps the decentralization of the chain and the security of the entire HIVE ecosystem!
I hope that the post can be useful to those who have not yet been aware of this important responsibility that we Hivers have towards the blockchain