Dolphin 541,753—Monthly Report: January

And... January is gone

Yes, January flew by faster than normal for me, which is already fast enough, and now we're part way into February, which means it's time for me to produce another report post.

For those who might be seeing such a thing for the first time, this is my way of keeping track of how I've done on a monthly basis. I break down some data, do a little bit of analysis and then secure it on the blockchain.

Feel free to wander through it and comment on whatever you find interesting.

On with the show.

Quick Summary

Musing's nearly 1 million SP delegation was abruptly removed last month, but before it was, I managed to earn some more rewards before Musing via their curators stopped upvoting user content. Curie also came calling, which along with the low STEEM price (and thus higher STEEM/SP rewards), helped my 2019 to start with the fourth highest earnings of SP since I started 13 months ago.

Posts (no comments)—7

Same amount of posts for January as December, without all of the distractions. Even though I know I will need to produce more posts again, I've yet to do it. I'm not sure why. Maybe I'll figure it out before the report is over.

I feel like I've yet to find my place here when it comes to my voice. I can write about a lot of things, but not all of it holds my attention very long. I think that's part of why I'm not producing. Another piece of it is feeling like I should have a larger following than I do, but I can't control that, while not producing posts doesn't help any. There's probably more to it, too.

Comments—327

After heading downwards the last few months, the amount of comments I produce rebounded considerably. Some of those were answers to Musing (no more than 20, but probably less). It's good to see the number go back up for a change, even though it really should be higher.

Upvotes given—276/743

As hoped for, my upvotes increased significantly, though still very low compared to what I was doing various months last year. Still, I'm happy to see a jump of over 200% in the number of users upvoted for, and a 277% increase in total number of upvotes. Those numbers should be way higher, and I believe that's already happening for February.

Upvotes received—1309/1745

Again, significant jumps in the number of unique upvoters (from 519 in December) and total number of upvotes (874). This was largely thanks to the @curie curation trail providing 1,008 upvotes on one post. The next highest received 198 upvotes, this time led by @sndbox.

This means that the remaining five posts, plus comments, received the remaining 539 upvotes.

SP increase—188.341

This represents a drop of just under 18 SP from December. Since December was slammed with all kinds of life events and January not so much, I probably should be disappointed, but oddly, I'm not. As alluded to above, the bulk of that SP was earned in the first 12 days of January, prior to Musing halting its upvotes. After that, the curie and sndbox upvotes provided the majority of the second half rewards.

This is the second straight month SP has fallen since November's record. I do not yet have anything resembling Musing's earnings ability to replace it with. Nor do I anticipate it happening soon. I need to go back to producing more posts and comments and see what I can drum up that way, while being on the lookout for some other dApp that curates its content that I can readily participate on.

One thing to celebrate is the year over year difference from January 2018 to January 2019. For the former, I earned 55.470 SP, meaning I start this year up 300% over last year. That's heading in the right direction, I'd say. If I could continue at that clip, I'd generate another 1,000 SP in just over five months.

Total SP earned sits at 1,784.864, and total SP hit 6,301.390.

Highest single payout—4.883 SBD/13.033 SP

This payout came on a post titled Glass Half Empty Or Half Full? where I suggested there was more going on with the glass and its contents to simply derive a negative or positive outlook based on one's interpretation of a single moment in time.

Self-upvotes—0

Accident free yet again.

Contests—2

I ended up in the money twice from @abh12345's Curation and Engagement League's weekly contest, and also received varying amounts in bounties thanks to comments on those individual posts. Total SP earned was roughly 5 SP.

Flags given/received—1

The league of anklebiters (my title for them, not theirs) apparently came back, since I was hit on a comment. The damage to reputation and rewards were both negligible.

Reputation Rating—63

As postulated last month, I did tick up in reputation rating from 62 to 63. I'm believing it's going to be a fairly slow go from here on out, after moving over 4 points in less than three months while on Musing.

Investment—0

Aside from a significant increase in STEEM value that lasted for over a week, prices have been hovering in the $0.25-$0.30 range. I mentioned last month that I wouldn't be investing any more unless STEEM fell below $0.10. I'm holding firm on that. It's a rather big Catch-22 at this point, since no one really wants to see STEEM fall any lower than it has. Hopefully, we only have a few more months of this bear market, and we will see a sharp increase in price somewhere between April and July, if historical trends stay true.

Miscellaneous

I can't think of much more to say, other than I will continue to plug along and see what happens. There seems to be plenty being worked on all of a sudden as far as STEEM related organizations and projects go, and the anticipation of change is in the air. We shall see. In the interim, I'm still here, still looking to contribute and earn rewards.

Until next time...

Onward and upwards.