Thanks
@lafona for asking, and for your efforts.
I would L O V E to see tools everyone can use to visualize witness metrics. That's one big reason I was the first witness to adopt wackou's bts_tools.
More details on missed blocks and deviation from median price feed might be a good start. I would also like to see info for all witnesses in one place, and with sortable columns like the BitShares 0.9.x era block explorer that
@svk built. Also links to each witness' "campaign" forum post or status reports, seed nodes and backup servers run by the witness or other info such as tools created, approach to feeds (algorithms or feed scripts used such as xeroc's, alts, wackou's etc).
Some way to characterize participation on the testnet might also be good, could start with a simple yes they did no they didn't, but more meaningful metrics would be even better.
Frequency and quality / depth of witness reports would be a quantifiable metric, tho to do that right a measurement standard or report template would help to normalize what the reports should / could contain. One example might be witness identity, real world ID or anonymous.
It was suggested that witnesses might be "bonded" with some type of collateral scheme, but IMO this specific point needs more discussion. How would that be done? What amount makes sense? How does that help the security of the DEX? Can the witness use the bond or is it locked, and if so who controls the locking? If not locked (some type of multisig?) perhaps contributions to a common pool for bonds, a witness bond fund, which might could be used as a legal defense fund. Some some ideas I recall have been mentioned before.
Not sure how best to display decentralization, both geographically as well as by hosting providers, but that's important to consider IMO.
Number of forum posts or activities in social media, active in telegram or Friday mumble etc might be useful to gauge community participation.
It would be great if we could come up with a "reputation formula" that aggregates all of the quantifiable metrics into a singe score, and have that plotted over time.