Steem update #24566523, by @abh12345

This is an update on what I've been doing lately with regards to Steem. Some of this relates to our witness @steemcommunity, but the majority is tied to my personal account.

_{Sunset in Mauritius - iPhone did good}

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Steemfest 3 competitions

So i found out today that I've got through to the final round of the @openmic Steemfest ticket giveaway. Pretty cool because I was nervous as hell, but felt that I had to give it a go seeing the word 'engage' in the original competition post.

@smooth also put out a contest for two tickets, and I presume he's mulling the comments over right now. I had lots of support on his post and think I'm in with a slight chance there.

I really want to go to Steemfest 3, and will do so whatever happens. Having some of the cost covered though would be awesome - fingers crossed.

Un-following the disengaged

Yeah I admit it, I've un-followed around 400 Steemians in the past month. The thing is though, 99.9% of these accounts haven't produced any content in at least 4 months and so I'm OK with un-following these accounts. If they aren't going to stick around when prices are low, and there are others who are doing just that, I want my feed to show the ones that stayed - these are the people I wish to try and support when the market picks up.

I concede the un-follows relate to @steem-ua and the original algorithm, but don't feel bad dropping silent accounts.

Tighting up the delegation strings

At the end of the month I lose 4000 SP, with around 6000 SP lent out for free already, 10k just seems a little much considering I'm not exactly rolling in STEEM myself.

I took a look at the delegations I have in place last week, and clipped 400-500 SP of the accounts I'd issued SP to to push them into minnow status. Happily, these accounts have not powered down and grown, meaning I could slice a little off and still keep them in minnow-ville.

Also, in the past month or so I've received some free delegated SP of my own. V, Matt, and FTG, have boosted me up to over 20000 Steem Power which is just awesome, and very kind. I'm hoping that this will allow me to continue with the delegations I have in place for the time being.

When you don't self-vote, owning a decent chunk of SP is a bit strange. But it does mean that the $ amount I have been issuing has stayed pretty constant during the price 'correction'. Lucky you guys! :)

Engagement League code clean up

In the past couple of months, Partiko, Ulogs, and Fast-reply have become more popular. I noticed that they like to add text and a link at the bottom of each comment made using their front-ends. In the case of Fast-reply, this text and link adds 199 characters to each comment - this would clearly a huge advantage to those using this front-end and being present in the EL, and so I had to add code to check the source of the comment, and subtract the char count not typed by the user to try and keep things on a level playing field and fair for all.

Hopefully, that's working as it should, and if you dropped in the EL this week, this could be why.

Each week I try to put out at least one 'pie' or data post. They have remained popular since I started, and the most recent bar-chart addition was well received too. You may have noticed I've not upvoted the comments on those posts, the additional effort for each user I deem 'good enough' on my part.

@steemcommunity and @c-squared (@c-cubed)

Last but not least, I'd like to point you in the direction of our latest witness post, in which we announced a partnership with @c-squared.

Basically, these guys are not a community, but support all communities. This is the goal we have for @steemcommunity also. It's a huge ask, and something even I'm not sure we can pull off, but ideally, and with the help of @c-squared and their 200 strong curation team, we want to support the best content, whatever community this account likes to reside within.

@c-cubed is another account that is part of the @c-squared remit, and the plan for this account is to give a 100% vote to the best of the content curated by @c-squared.

As of today, @steemcommunity and my own account, are following the @c-cubed trail. I've never been big on trails but knowing that the account will be voting on the best of the best, with a fixed number of votes, I feel 'safe' with this knowledge. If you think supporting excellent content, even if it's not your thing exactly, is beneficial for Steem, this is the account to trail.

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On a personal note, the bar work is going OK, my hours are a bit random and i'm still getting used to this side of things. On Friday, I'll receive my first fiat paycheck in over a year, and might even have a beer to celebrate. This beer may have to wait until 3 am though :)

Alright, consider yourselves uptodate from my side of things, have an excellent week!

Cheers

Asher