Unchecking Upvote Post + Ending Self Upvoting!
Why use all our voting power on others instead of upvoting our own posts? I am unchecking the upvote post box starting today on my new posts and also am ending my practice of sometimes or often voting up my own comments because it feels like the right thing to do for my own happiness.
When I starting using Steemit in May, I was so excited about voting that naturally I voted up hundreds of my own comments just to try it out! Burning my voting power all on myself left me feeling the same way I used to feel when having sex without a partner. There is a line from a Kesha song that sums it up!
"Look who's all alone now."
With trying to make more posts everyday, I have not been feeling very good about burning up 6% of my daily voting power or about $45 a day voting my own posts up when we are kind enough here to already be voting the posts I makes up $200 to $1,000 a day. Do I really need that additional $45 from my own votes or would I feel better about being able to give that out?
While it might look like I am trying to impress us with how generous and kind I am, the truth is just like the rest of us I want to feel good all day all the time except for occasionally when I honestly want to feel miserable and roll around in it for a while. What I am learning is that every little action I take contributes to how I feel. Almost all the feelings I do not like are traceable to small actions of selfishness. To identify them I just need to notice when my feelings of joy slip into fear or anger or jealousy or doubt. Whatever I did right before that is usually the source.
Last night when I read a comment about "Why does Jerry's post have $15 upvoted right when it is posted" I identified the feeling and made it worse by writing a defensive answer along the lines of "Well because Jerry is a big shot that invested 15 BTC into Steem and when you invest that much you can vote yourself up all day too."
After that answer I felt even worse because that is exactly the kind of jerk I hated most of my life and thankfully today I realize this is motivation to do something about it. Ending self-upvoting forces even more faith because starting each post from $0.00 is a bit scary. What if it stays there and earns as much as a post on Facebook? At least with voting myself up, I know short of a total spam post that gets flagged I will earn $15+.
Finally, what if the founders of Steemit @ned and @dan took the same attitude I had up until last night about their posts? With each of them having about 100 times as much Steem Power as I do, that means each of them could upvote every one of their posts $1,500 to $2,000 although technically that much of a vote might drop the value of the votes significantly. Wouldn't they perfectly be within their rights to make several posts every day and rake in $5,000 to $10,000 a day off of their own upvotes? I noticed that on @dan's recent post about EOS he declined payout and on the one before that he did not upvote it. @ned also declines payouts on this posts.
If the founders of Steemit choose with their example to not upvote their own posts and trust the community either to create the payout or decline payout, is not this probably the right answer for me too? The first argument here likely is "well they have lots of money while you, we, me, and I do not. We need every dollar we can get." Ironically I have learned the more generous I am, the more I will tend to be given by the world. The attitude of "I do not have enough money and therefore need to hustle for every dollar I can get" is the same attitude that left me without the ability to ever feel financially secure and to then waste any good fortune that came my way. Maybe I will upgrade to declining a payout all together one day ...
Until then, I am going to give out all of my voting power to someone besides me in the same imperfect and awkward way I have been doing it so far. Thank you for reading this and I hope it was helpful for you!
Would you upvote this post if you support giving up our rights to upvote ourselves because the more readers see this, the more we can collaborate with our voting power?
Love,
Jerry Banfield
I think all the "self voting lists" and the entire issues is completely over-shadowing all kinds of other work we should be doing on the Steemit platform.
To quote @smooth:
"Someone who buys SP and then selfvotes is not 'draining' anything and at best can get back a portion of what was put in. It causes no harm at all."
Investors are the ones who underwrite all of the rewards on this platform. If you are not an investor, or are only a smaller investor, you need to focus your efforts on creating inspiring content that makes investors want to give their money to you. Whatever else they do or don't do with their money (including self-voting) is not your concern and does not harm you in any way. Nevertheless, you do have a downvote that you can use to disagree with what you think are underserved rewards. I suggest using it."
"The idea of creating 'lists of shame' and demonizing people is divisive, creates a hostile and toxic environment attractive to no one, and serves no useful purpose. There is no way to tell from these lists whether the content is deserving of the rewards or not. The only way to tell is by actually looking at the content, and if you think it is undeserving, downvote it."
"Your own statistics show that self-voting is awarding about 8.5% of the reward pool. I don't find that suggestive of any problem whatsoever. It is probably a very reasonable number given that the current parameters give people 10 full power votes to make per day. Thus one is being applied to the voters' own content and nine to others' (on average, of course). Seems fine."
I think upvoting your own posts is a personal choice that depends on where you are in the minnow-whale cycle. If you're a minnow then it obviously helps so why wouldn't you do it? However, once you start to get some serious voting power (like you do), then maybe it's not worth it so much anymore. I can definitely see your point: your posts make a bunch of money anyway so it's probably more beneficial for you to use your steem power to upvote others and help the platform grow. Like I said, I think it all depends on where you are.
Good post. Keep 'em coming. 💛
@choogirl I couldn't of said it better myself.
"I think upvoting your own posts is a personal choice that depends on where you are in the minnow-whale cycle. "
I upvote myself with the logic that it will help my post/comment get exposure. I'm still trying to find the upvote sweet spot. I been experimenting with splitting my upvotes between myself, commentators and other blog posts. I'm not sure if this is good strategy, I guess that's why it's an experiment.
I'm curious to hear from others how they are using their upvotes?
I usually only upvote my posts these days. Very rarely do I upvote my own comments unless it's to get exposure on a popular post like this one (and even then I would never do 100%). Although, if I'd just written something like "nice post" on @jerrybanfield's post I wouldn't upvote that. In this case I'd rather use my steem power to upvote other people's posts than my generic comment.
I still think generic comments have a purpose because it lets the author know you appreciate their work, but upvoting it? Yeah nah, what's the point? I see a lot of stuff on steemit I would rather upvote instead.
That's a good point @choogirl!
Do you think the author should also receive an upvote on his blog too if they upvote themselves?
I'm not sure I understand your question, sorry.
I mean if someone replies to a blog and upvotes it, should they also upvote the blog too?
Sure, if you get something out of both. The blog post and the comments are different things. There's no rules though so you can vote on what you want.
I don't upvote my comments because i would rather let the person posting see what their readers upvote. I still upvote other comments I connect with.
@choogirl Agree with you. But I don't approve upvoting your own comments.
And that is why you still only have 33.78SP 8 months after your comment. As a minnow, if you are not willing to develop an Upvoting strategy (which includes self UV's), you will forever be a minnow. I have invested my own money into this platform and I will decide if my post or comment deserves my own UV. I'm with @choogirl on this one!
Nope. That's because I was inactive. I haven't been here since 5 months. Anyway self upvoting is not prohibited and you can do it if you want. ;)
I see... well, you will never earn anything unless you get involved one way or another. Welcome back!
SUPPORT FOR RANDOM PIC @randompic
Hi, my reply is now hidden because of a cyberbully.
So, @donkeypong is flagging all of my blogs and replies to intentionally ruin my rep score.
If anyone likes to stand up to bullies, go and flag @donkeypong as much as possible and lets ruin a rep score that deserves to be ruined.
If you are against censorship, tell @donkeypong to stop acting like the censorship police .
@donkeypong is a cyberbully, stalker and harasser.
https://www.steemnow.com/
PLEASE UPVOTE RANDOM PIC AND RENEW HIS REP SCORE THAT WAS UNJUSTLY DESTROYED BY CYBERBULLIES
Exact. This is my opinion too. You got my 100% upvote :D
Thank you @tabea! Love your work by the way.
We minnow can use all of the help we can get. Once established it makes more sense to turn it off, and let the crowd decide. Thanks 🐓🐓
The larger you are, the more of an impact your actions have. You can do more benefit to the community with your votes and you can do more harm. It all affects the Steem price in the end. I agree that larger players need to be held more accountable, and they are more automatically accountable to the price.
Couldn't agree more. People with more SP have more influence and indirectly also more 'responsibility' to nurture Steemit. Track down the serious and good people and motivate them even more by giving a simple upvote.
They certainly have way more responsibility! But when they misbehave everybody is scared to confront them and end up asskissing them instead.
Ah.. Well, I don't really participate in such drama though. But that doesn't sound like a good thing either.
Totally agree with you..
@demotruk thank you very much for commenting here and helping me understand the responsibilities we have as the "larger players." Would you help me begin serving our community as a witness by voting at https://steemit.com/~witnesses because your vote would help me get my first block?
I agree. you got my upvote.
Well I have noticed that I'm not getting hardly any upvotes on my replies since this self upvoting became popular. There is no incentive for members to upvote someones elses post now since they can earn by upvoting their own.
This will not get any upvotes. ;)
Hey, what just happened :p
Could it be...an actual upvote!!! No way!!!
And look what else just happened.
I think you strike a good balance @choogirl. Good point.
I couldn't agree more. As a 'beginner' of Steemit, you feel like your posts are worth more than just a couple of cents and could use any tiny bit to make you reach a payout which you are content with.
Exactly. Which is why upvoting your own posts is a good idea when you are still a minnow and not feeling much love.
This.
This has put my mind at ease. Thank you.
It's strange that it's possible to upvote your own posts, I think... It seems like there's an endless amount of money and I'm not sure where it is all coming from?
You are 100% correct..
Kool Coment...
This little baby minnow likes to upvote his own posts. lol
I was just thinking of that the last few days. Not from an aspect of right/wrong but what is the right strategy to use in this "game". As a minnow our vote may only be worth .01. At that point we are all struggling to get any attention and any tiny payout is huge. But as we get more steempower we get more influence and we can think about the responsibility we have to the steemit community. This is a shared environment and the more everyone prospers the better it is for everyone, including ourselves. Self upvoting is just a strategy like using randowhale or the discord community. Like a space ship, we have to get off the ground and into orbit. That takes more energy. Once we are in orbit we can use less energy to actually do what we are here to do. Engage with others. By doing that the folks we interact will benefit along with us.
Yes, Steemit is growing and we are all going to do very well, BTC hasn't peaked and Steem hasn't either, this wealth is easy to share.
Cheers to the Future
I second that.
I agree. Upvoted and following you now.
123 u got up voted. any one knows why we making money form commenting?????
can u image if we get paid to post on instagram and that money goes to bitcoin or some coin in the market...image.. posting and that post money goes to any coin you want bro, that powerful 2 me..
I think you are absolutely right. I feel like it is fine to upvote your own posts during the beggining, but as soon as you start having more steem power you should feel responsible on helping the platform and the social network grow helping to create a community.
that's how i feel.. like a kid with a new toy.. let me play with it.. o.k. and after i play a little you can play too..
I think upvoting your own posts is a personal choice that depends on where you are in the minnow-whale cycle. If you're a minnow then it obviously helps so why wouldn't you do it? However, once you start to get some serious voting power (like you do), then maybe it's not worth it so much anymore. I can definitely see your point: your posts make a bunch of money anyway so it's probably more beneficial for you to use your steem power to upvote others and help the platform grow. Like I said, I think it all depends on where you are.
Good post. Keep 'em coming.
Why did you copy my comment?
Seriously. What is that? @ustaad got caught red handed.
Why is nobody using flagging? It's getting so annoying. Alright i'll do the dirty job again then...
Thank you @calamus056. It honestly didn't occur to me.
Thank you By thinking this way @jerrybanfield so you are helping each one of us growing too !
This post received a 2.9% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @andyluy! For more information, click here!
I feel this reflects some of the wisdom I learned recently reading Adam Grant's Give and Take, although I am still tempted to upvote my own comments from time to time for now anyway =)
That's a good choice made by you. Personally, I'm still going to upvote myself because I have no conscience... :P
Do you at least upvote the authors blog that you're replying on?
Ye I give about 10% to the ones I like which don't usually get much.
See, you upvoted your own reply instead of upvoting mine.
This defeats the purpose of upvoting something you like. Do you think?
A member may like someone's reply but not upvotes because they are upvoting themselves. This gives me no incentive to upvote your reply since you already did.
I always upvote myself because I like to. I didn't upvote your comment because I didn't think it was worthy of one. In other cases, I do upvote posts and comments that I like.
Oh okay, well I'm just making a point.
I still feel like people are not upvoting much because they only get 10 upvotes at 100% per day.
Unfortunately it is not mine or anybody elses (who's upvoting himself) problem. If it is actually harmful to the Steemit platform or Steem in general, it is up to the developers or others with power to fix it. Most people are going to pursue their own interests and if upvoting myself helps me, then I'm going to do it.
That's how i thought about it at first too. But now i feel like we can figure it out without waiting for the devs to fix it.
Also take your case as an example. You just gave yourself $5 or whatever. What difference does that make to your account of 10K? Almost nothing. Imagine if you gave 50 struggling authors 10 cents, they would be really happy with it and some of them might even start to publish fantastic content you and others are going to like for years.
Investing in others is much better, what goes around comes around they say, and they might have a point :)
You hit the nail square on the head. I can move forward now. Thank you.
Lolz exactly
Luckily going to hell doesn't require a conscience :p
I think you are right. Steemit is always about the community and not ourselves. When you give others more the universe will return you even more. Somehow the good karma will return. Thumbs up!!! Upvoted n followed!!
"I think you are right."
Few seconds later you upvoted your own comment ;)
I think it really is the matter of personal choice.
True, if you want the platform to not live up to it's full potential, or even fail, you should keep upvoting yourself.
meep
It's very noble of you to do that. I think in some cases that immediate upvote can really help boost the post so that more eyes get to see it. At least, that's what I tell myself when I upvote my own content.
Upvoting our own posts can be beneficial only in a way when we are short on upvotes and we consider our post to be worthy of reading. But, visiting the hot page and all the self upvotes on the plagiarised and meme stuff I'm afraid this will be a turn off for many potentionally great authors on Steemit. This needs to be sorted out in the next HF, also the reward system is not showing too much efficiency, only thing that has changed is that people either vote only themsleves up or circle jerking. @jerrybanfield Thanks for addressing this matter.
Thank you. 90% of my content it my own stuff with sometimes references to other websites, but do quote my sources. Yes it is a big turn off to see a picture of a kitty cat, wearing a hat, receiving $100 + no writing no explanation, no effort to the post at all. It makes all my hard work look like unvaluable content and that I should be doing the same posting a pic of my dog laying on the grass. look a your comment thread, you have had 10 votes and your getting a whopping 88 cents. I made a post this morning and I had 13 votes that netted me $58 cents. DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS and getting very frustrated, I have been on here a year and have 550 follower with a rep of 54.
I won't be paid this 88 cents.
yes u will
Agree with you on this.
i will spread the voting love. right now i need to make money for my spirit.. i started a shopify store and it hasn't made me money yet.. i get on here. and my account has 89 cents. thats more than i have right now. i invested all my time and every thing to making money online. sand i look up to mr. banfield for helping me figure out what really good.
I thinks its the noble thing to do @jerrybanfield , looking at your previous posts you don't have much to complain about your payouts. I don't mean it in a negative way, you are bringing good content and new Steemians to this platform.
Thanks for that!
You are right.
Am on Steemit because of jerry through always watching his videos on Youtube and following his guidance and advice
He has done great and I am here due to jerry facebook ad
His content is good and what he's going to do is very noble, but let's be honest: his and other content is way, way, wayyyy over-rewarded!