Wild unknown witness wasting bytes appeared!
https://i.imgur.com/pt9JFMv.pngA witness node differs from normal nodes by its mandatory behavior. A witness node has to post periodically units on the chain to validate as fast as possible previous transactions (from normal nodes) by referencing them as parents.
Hmmm afaik, a witness has no mandatory behavior. They post each 100 units or less in order to receive payload bytes, but they can no posting at all. Am I wrong? I do not remember reading that on the whitepaper.
Yes and no. I think it's a matter of interpretation. A witness who doesn't post frequently enough is, technically, useless for the network integrity and to assist normal nodes to have their transactions validated as fast as possible. So, that means this lazy witness is potentially a bad witness and should be exclude at term. A temporary lack of posting could be obviously tolerated when there are technical reasons but it should be limited in time.
So, in my opinion, a witness has a mandatory behavior to be selected/elected as a good witness.
