Can validators add metadata to their validator address?

Validators
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I am not a validator, but am interested in building a validator ranking list that considers more factors than just uptime and fee which are currently available on the Radix Gateway API.
I was wondering if it is possible for validators to add metadata to their validator address on the radix ledger. This will make it easy to gather the required extra information through the existing API and it will also ensure that only the owner of that address is able to change any of these values.
Any comments or thoughts of how this can be done differently would be appreciated.

2 Likes
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I don’t think that’s currently possible. Some node runners asked the team to expose the node version and show it in the validator list, to see which nodes were up to date, but I don’t think the team considered adding this feature.

So far we can only edit the name, URL, fee, and enabling/disabling new delegated stake.

But to achieve what you talked about, you could create some sort of database with additional metadata (the extra information you require) submitted by the node runners from the owner’s address;

For example:
I submit a transaction from my node’s owner address to a wallet (for example the validator ranking list’s wallet) with a message that contains the required information readable and parsable by a program.
The program then verifies the owner address and matches it to a validator, and then adds the information in the validator ranking list.

This process would obviously be opt-in and would only work if lots of node runners decide to participate. We tried to do something similar with the Validator Code of Conduct but only some validators decided to join.

What kind of information would you like to obtain from node runners?

3

Thanks for the reply Mattia.

My approach for now would be close to what you suggested, using a separate database and the owner address to verify authenticity.

The extra information I am interested in getting is server provider and server location (preferably down to city level), but it looks like I might be able to now get that using a geoIP service, although I am not sure how accurate those always are (maybe someone here has some comments about the accuracy).

It would just have been easier if arbitrary validator info could be provided by the owner, stored directly on the ledger and queried there.

1 Like
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Another field that might be worth listing is whether the validator has agreed to the Validator Code of Conduct. Is there an official place where this list is kept?

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You can find a list of validators that have agreed to the Code of Conduct here: Validator Code of Conduct badge on RadixTalk

GeoIP might be hit or miss for residential IPs, but I think that for leased servers it might be quite accurate. It might also be better than a self reported info from the node runner because there’s no chance it might be inaccurate (intentionally or not).