I will flesh out your ~ with some actual numbers.
You can check out node mining with a CLI command that provides number of blocks the 64 nodes have mined out of the last 2000 mined. I do this a lot.
Over November and December I logged the mining figures 25 times:
KMD / mth blocks/ ave month blocks/ 2000 blocks
899.8199951 299.9399984 14.04166667 min
1829.010969 609.6703231 28.54166667 max
1536.719663 512.2 23.98046875 ave
1574.017469 524.7 24.5625 median
195.99 65.33 3.06 stddev
You would want to back a NN operator like the one that runs node 41.
I have checked hundreds of times, it is how I check to see if my node is running well.
Node 41 has only been below average 3x that I saw ever, and only 1 time with komodo down. Mining is only one part of this job, and not really as important to NN operators as you may think. KMD mining is nice to log, but notarization stats are paramount. You have one job as an operator: notarization. If you pick the right operator, they will be the one to focus on that.
Let's not discuss the min node, however you may back one of the minimum nodes if you assume we all average 1500.
Also vigilance will keep an operator's node out of elections, period, I would call that a critical advantage. I am vigilant, trust me you want vigilant.
Good advice, thanks! You are correct, the ŕeward for vigilance is avoiding elections all together, and that incentive should ensure high quality notaries. Personally I would make the bottom 40-45 nodes face election every year, that way the reward is harder to get, and the incentive to achieve excellence to avoid paying for votes is even higher, plus the spill over effect onto KMD value from what amounts to a participation dividend for bothering to vote would be larger, which should not be under estimated.
this system has some powerful incentives now, quite beautiful, satoshi would be impressed!