Minnow #541,753—Monthly Report: August

Two-Thirds Of 2018—Gone

It's the first week of September, which means the kids are back in school, it's finally American football season again, and it's time for what I know all of you have been waiting for, my monthly report for August, 2018.

I know the anticipation has been building and is reaching fever levels, so let's just get to it, shall we?

You might want to hold onto your hats. You're in for a bumpy ride.

Quick Summary

What can I say? August started out pretty good, as I set personal records for the number of comments made in a week (516) and total character length across all comments (279,328).

Then, it pretty much fell apart, as I hit a Steemit wall and then needed to take more and more time away due to my wife's hernia surgery. As of this writing, I'm still encountering limited time, though it is easing somewhat.

Posts (no commments)—25

Another 25% drop on top of the one from July. Partly due to running out of things to say, and then finding myself on call for the needs of my wife's healing and well being. It's hard to get into any kind of rhythm when you know you can be called away at any moment.

Throw into the mix that it was hard to keep up with posting and try to increase my commenting, and it was just not going to be a good month for post quantity.

The total number of days spent posting were 16.

Comments—1182

Overall, this represents only 11 comments less than in July, but 791 of them were made in the first 11 days, a nearly 72 comment per day clip. I even set a daily personal record of 102 comments.

Enter the wall, then the surgery. I feel fortunate to even come close to last month's totals.

Total days commenting were 25 for an average of over 47 a day.

Upvote given—267/874

Upvote spread increased over 43% but the total number of upvotes decreased by nearly 33%. For the first couple weeks of the month the fall off in the number of votes can be attributed to a conscious change in strategy implemented in July. I simply stopped upvoting every reply beyond the first. I've done this because of the lower STEEM prices which have caused any votes under 25% to drop below the $0.03 dust threshold. This allowed me to upvote a wider variety of people at the same time.

The rest of the month, though suffered from the same issues as previous categories.

Upvotes received—311/1000

Upvote spread and total number of votes were down from July, 116 and 310, respectively. A lack of posting did not help these numbers. Also, curie did not upvote a post until the very last day of the month, and then, it was only a small subset of the trail. I'm not sure why that is, but the last few times that has happened to my posts.

Regardless, had I been in the 40 post range like I was before these last two months, upvotes received would not have fallen.

SP increase—71.064

Thanks to the last minute curie upvotes, what was headed for a lackluster month turned into one that was less seven points than in July.

Everything received in the way of rewards and awards were powered up, along with the curation SP. I feel very fortunate to have increased even that, given how August went. I will feel just as fortunate if September manages to get bailed out in similar fashion.

Highest single payout—10.123 STEEM/10.133 SP

Grandpa Gotta Cook—Homemade Grilled Individual Pizzas was the curie this time around. I believe that to be the first curie received for my entries to the weekly Food Fight Friday.

Again, vote weight for the major curie trailers was 33%.

Self-upvotes—0

While I did manage to avoid any accidental upvotes, that didn't stop me from accidentally replying to my own reply a time or two. Maybe I need a category for that now?

Contests—9

As I continue to participate in @abh12345's engagement league, I also find myself still involved with @foodfightfriday and making at least one appearance with the @comedyopenmic. Both are more for fun as anything else, and the comedy (so called) is purely as the mood strikes. In addition, I have also been participating in the daily five minute freewrite, of which, to my knowledge, I have been nominated/selected as some other writer's favorite piece a few times now.

Flags given/received—0

After a flurry of activity by small accounts forming part of the Steem Defense League resulting in six flags last month, this month passed without a single bite, just like the other six months.

Followers—660

An increase of 39 this time. With the advent of User Authority (UA) on the horizon and a supposed wide appeal for its adoption (at least in theory), I suppose I should figure out a way to attract more followers. Or not. Until followers actually ever means something (like taking the time to read and engage on posts), I'm dubious about it being a metric for UA just as I've been dubious of it on every social media platform I've participated. Way too many content creators and not enough consumers makes for bad followers.

I'll save the rest of this mini-rant for another day.

Reputation Rating—57

No visible increase in my rating this month, though the curie vote did push it closer to a change than it would have been otherwise.

Investment—575.053 STEEM

After four months of refraining from buying STEEM, I finally bought more in the first few days of August (after once again figuring out the labyrinth of rules and the need for multiple attempts before succeeding that has become Coinbase in my case).

Remember, back when STEEM was still a little over $1 USD? That's when I bought it. I have yet to buy any more since the prices fell below $1 USD, but it has been on my mind a lot. I've been wanting to see if it would fall nearer to $0.50 USD, but so far, $0.75 USD is about all it's done, which I missed anyway.

I'm not sure how I'm going to determine when to do so, but I hope to buy more before September is over.

Playing into this, I'm sure is the knowledge that had I waited until now to invest, I'd be pretty close to a Dolphin, with more to spend to get me there. Live and learn.

Miscellaneous

I'm hoping to get back into the groove by the third Monday in September. While my wife is still convalescing at home, I don't want to get too involved in Steemit posts or commenting and then be called away or neglect something I should have been doing.

I would like to say I've been working on something big for my full return, but so far, I haven't figured out what that might be. At this rate, I'm just hoping not to lose everyone who has been so kindly upvoting my work. I feel like that may have already happened and I'd hate to lose more.

I have been reading posts here and there to keep up to speed with changes and developments. I just haven't been doing a whole lot more than that. As I said, I hope to be back to full speed the week after next.

Note to @pjau. You know the drill.