The staking dashboard prioritises validator performance based on era points for last 10 days from the current era. This is because stakers want, above all else, to reliably receive rewards on a daily basis. We cannot compromise on this - we need to maximise probability of receiving rewards.
There are however various tools and filters to promote lesser known or lesser active validators.
It recommends mostly big networks of multi - validators, who already have full stake.
Incorrect, it recommends high performing validators based on recent era point history.
For 1KV Validators impossible to get into recommended, even if they have low fee.
This is not true. There is an “optimal selection” option when generating nominees, that mixes high performing validators with less active ones. The latter is a smaller share, because to reiterate, daily rewards need to be probable for all stakers, otherwise they will not stake on Polkadot.
In terms of inclusivity for all validators, this will likely remain an issue until the validator set can better scale.
I am open to hear suggestions on improving this. In the same manner, 1KV should also revise their strategy if they wish validators to be online more often.
They make big ones even more bigger and steal from little independent validators who really provide quality service.
The biggest “operator” is Jaco and his validators. Why? Because they have a large backing as a result of a long history of 1% commission, and are therefore elected very often. In addition, his nodes, when active, regularly generate the largest amount of era points. So they are probably run on high end, optimal servers.
These economics are out of control of the staking dashboard. E.g. we cannot dictate how validators market and attract backing. If users want to discover lesser known validators we can provide the tools to make it easy, but we cannot force users to do that.
And the dashboard does more than any other staking UI in that we have a dedicated community page that allows any validator operator to upload their data to the page.
For whatever reason, 1KV have opted not to upload themselves as an operator on the Community page, but they are more than welcome to.
unique locations and true decentralization! Its really bad!
We recently integrated Polkawatch support that actually documents a validator’s geography. Click “View Decentralization” under a validator item on the Validator page to see where they are operating.
Ultimately we can always provide more tooling to discover lesser known validators. I would love to hear suggestions on doing so.
