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Asher, if i vote early does the author lose out also? my understanding is that part goes back to the pool but who's part?

No the author is safe :) Author share is 50% fixed, no matter who votes when (unless there are beneficiaries). What goes back into the pool is a part of the curation rewards.

cool, i fked up and upvoted your graph post under 4 minutes and felt bad for you. lol

I still get the same rewards :)

And as i didn't vote the post myself, I wont earn any of the curation.

Also, the curators didn't really lose out due to the votes coming in under 5 mins:

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