RE: Self Upvoting by the Top 100 Authors on Steem?
Wow! I just read another post about self voting today and it seems like most people do it to some extent. I am, however, shocked to see how much some of the top people give back to themselves. Not judging or anything but this post was pretty eye-opening.
I personally will usually only upvote myself a max of once per day. On posts that I earn well on I usually don't usually self vote. But for posts that I do put a good bit of time into creating that don't earn much I will upvote even though my vote at 100% is worth about $0.20.
I feel that since I've put more of my own money into this "economy" than I've earned here (I've now contributed more of my own funds to my SP than I've earned from my blog), I should be able to not feel guilty about self voting. Especially since for every self vote that I do, I give out 10-20 upvotes to other people's posts and people who leave meaningful feedback on my own posts.
This was kind of a relief to me to see that self voting is more the norm / rule than the exception even though some people frown upon it. I Personally feel like as long as we are mostly supporting others and not just constantly self voting then it's perfectly fine to self vote. It's kind of like getting paid a dividend on my investment of my own money into my SP. I was partially inspired to use this method of investing and earning by one of your posts, Jerry.
On a side note, I haven't withdrawn a single cent to an external account or cashed out my rewards here and I don't plan to for a very long time.
John I totally agree: "I feel that since I've put more of my own money into this "economy" than I've earned here (I've now contributed more of my own funds to my SP than I've earned from my blog), I should be able to not feel guilty about self voting. Especially since for every self vote that I do, I give out 10-20 upvotes to other people's posts and people who leave meaningful feedback on my own posts."
I am keeping all my rewards here from now on too after cashing out about 20% of them so far and powering back up the rest! It seems a delicate balance between giving back a reasonable percentage to ones self especially after making a significant investment while not going overboard and just voting it all up for ourselves!
First of all congratulations on a great analytical article and for the consistent quality of your posts. You're a big promoter of this platform and Steemit needs members like you.
You bring up an interesting topic when you mention that you invested in Steemit. Just looking at statistics regarding self voting doesn't tell the whole story. Statistics can be misused and misinterpreted. Did you hear about the man that drowned in a pond that averaged only 1 foot in depth? He didn't know about the 9 foot whole in the middle.
1.)If someone has invested 10's of thousands into Steemit it becomes clearer why they do some self upvoting. Steemit NEEDS investors and investors want a return.
2.) Many members, myself included have given away thousands and in some cases 10's of thousands worth of Steem and SBD in prizes. Should using some upvotes to fund those prizes be demonised?
3.) If someone spends half an hour making a comment on a post should they be allowed to tip themselves a dollar or two for their time? Perhaps their goal of self upvoting a comment is to get it near the top because they've made an important point that they'd like to be seen. Statistics can NEVER reveal those things.
4.) many members have spent 100's of hours mentoring others in Steemit.chat, on Skype etc.. should they be allowed to "pay" themselves a few dollars for what they have done?
These are just some points to keep in mind when examining these stats.
It is true that there are some who abuse the system and if some are using a high percentage or even 100% to upvote their own posts it is cause for concern.
Keep up the great work and thanks again for the great dialogue on this topic!
Point 3 is what I came here to say. I am extremely new to Steemit, with my account under 2 weeks old. I did did research for the 2 weeks waiting to be approved and for the little time I've been on here. Although my upvote isn't worth much, I do self upvote in some comments to get the comment a bit higher so you don't have to be reading every comment to find mine down at the bottom. Just a point to never banning self voting, with giving a full opinion on something I feel I still don't have enough knowledge of and haven't put enough time thinking about to have a strong opinion one way or another.
Upvoted!
Welcome to Steemit! 2 weeks to get approved. Wow, I had no idea that it was that long. Keep learning and enjoying the platform!
@kus-knee you're welcome for the discussion and thank you for joining us in it! What you have shared is very helpful for me to feel after investing over $50,000 in Steem along with devoting my entire business to it for three months now that upvoting my own post a few dollars is reasonable!
Not to mention that you've brought a large number of followers from your other sites, tons of experience as an internet marketer, and a boatload of enthusiasm. Self upvoting in your case is warranted and even expected. Keep it reasonable and I don't think anyone should complain.
We want an enthused @jerrybanfield whose investment pays off!
This sounds totally reasonable Jerry. I'll confess the ability to upvote your own content as you contribute to the community is the biggest reason I traded all of my Litecoin for Steem Power. I know there are other reasons to hold steempower but to be honest I'm not sure what they are.
So you can't discount the fact that having the ability to upvote your own posts is an attractive feature to bring in new investors. You've mentioned this on your Youtube and I totally agree. It could easily attract a multimillionaire to drop just one of his or her millions for this purpose alone. And that would cause the price of STEEM to go way up, which would benefit all.
This is incredible!