Don't you hate it when some of your best followers don't show up to vote anymore? Where did they all go?

There are several reasons for this, and we should cover them:

1 - CURATE-AND-RUN

Ever heard of post-and-run? Basically you publish a post, people upvote and comment, and you're already offline. Meanwhile you leave your commenters hanging to see if you like their comment they left for you, or if they might even get an upvote on their comment for taking the time to reply to your post.

This happened to me. Not only did I 100% upvote someone's post, I resteemed it too to my 1300 followers. For 4 solid days they didn't acknowledge my participation in their cool blog post. So I know what post-and-run feels like to an upvoter. It can suck. :(

Well curate-and-run works similar. People hop onto steemit, look at their feed, a few of their favorite friends, upvote a dozen or so posts.. They make a few comments, and they soon see that their voting power dwindles. The $$ amount their upvotes they give start to get less, and less... so they stop for the day, and walk away.

I call this curate and run. Limited voting power, and too much good content, means you have to curate and run, and wait for yourself to rejuvenate your voting power again

2 - CAT & MOUSE GAME OF VOTES

This is a funny one. It becomes soon a game of cat and mouse. It doesn't matter who is the cat, nor who is the mouse. But the way it is perceived is that the mouse is constantly teasing and hiding from the cat.

You write a post, and you notice that some of your more regulars don't show up to vote. Human curiosity starts to wonder.. is it because of the content? Is it because I haven't voted on their blog lately? Did I do or say something to piss them off?

So you deliberately go and search your long lost follower blogs and see what they've been up to.. What do you find? Oh, they've been too busy posting their own content.

...then it hits you...

They've been posting their own [good quality] content and where were you? You didn't visit their blog for 4 or 5 days now... Is that the reason they don't visit you either?

What if it is simply a curate-and-run problem? Maybe they are just low on voting power for a couple days?

What if they are busy? What if they just took a break from curating, but they are only posting?

The cat and mouse game of visiting the people who you follow, or who upvote you, can be quite tricky and is full of reasons why it happens. Try to not pay attention to it. It's probably a small trivial reason why they haven't showed up, so don't give yourself a guilt complex or hold resentment, that's just dumb.

3 - STEEM IS GROWING

That's right, you already knew that though. This world is getting bigger by the day. The steem blockchain is growing in participation by the day. Your old regular friends of yesterday, are meeting new friends today and tomorrow. Just because the last few months, someone was a regular visitor to your blog, doesn't mean they'll continue doing it.

As steem grows, bumping into people on the blockchain will happen less frequently. You'll recognize names of course. You'll reminisce over great interactive commenting times you've had in the past...

"Hey, I remember that person. We just commented on the same blog post today. Gee, come to think of it, I haven't visited their blog lately, and they haven't visited mine either. Hmmmm"

Well don't worry. Just wave as you sail past each other as you both read and post on the same chain. It may happen again where two of you interact, or maybe that interaction has now slowed to a crawl.

......so let's get back to the original question:

Where did that person go? Why did they NOT come back and visit your blog? Losing votes? I WILL TELL YOU WHY!

...because that is the nature of a growing blockchain, people's lives, how the world interacts.

How many times have you seen an old friend at a party and say "hey! Haven't seen you for a long while. How ya been?"...

People get busy. Their interests change. Their time to spend and invest "playing on the blockchain" will vary depending on what is happening with their real life.

So have fun, and don't worry... there is no algorithmic way to ensure your cool followers will always return to upvote your stuff long term. Share the wealth. Be happy they're still around and upvoting other people too.

If you're a good writer, people will always be happy for what you write.

...sometimes it is just a few that like your stuff that day.

...sometimes it is a LOT of people who like your stuff that day.

...sometimes maybe even it's a coincidental day that everyone is too busy, or out of voting power, and your good post just sits unnoticed except for a few.

Don't read into things, even if you do, it won't change much. The best thing you can do, is just be understanding, patient, and continue doing your thing..

This is a long winded way of saying:

If you haven't seen @intelliguy voting on your blog, or commenting lately, I'm sorry. I will be back though to see you. :)

I'm either curating-and-running, I tried keeping up with cat & mouse game of votes, but steem is growing, and I just have to manage the best I can, and so do you.

If I hear crickets below, that's okay. If there is a huge tidalwave of comments, that's cool too.

I'm ready for either. Thanks for reading and voting for this post if you like it.

I know you're busy and I understand and appreciate that about you. Thanks either way :)