The Curse And The Blessing of Steemit Auto-Voters!
For about eight months so far, I have been using the auto-voting system tools to be able to support some Steemit authors that I like continuously. From day one I knew what kind of blessing such tools are, at least for me.
Image Source: Pixabay. Credits to geralt for intelligent-networked, used under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
By automation, they would detect the every newly published article of every single author that I listed and upvoted it at the time and in the amount (percentage) that I determined in my settings (for each of them individually). Great!
From that point forward I didn't have to worry anymore am I going to miss to reward any newly published article from my preferred authors as they are going to be upvoted automatically and regularly as long as I keep them on my list. Perfect!
But behind that blessing, there is also a hidden curse that may catch you and in which trap you may easy and quickly fall if you are not aware of it.
Image Source: Pixabay. Credits to DasWortgewand for human-gear, used under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
The Curse of Auto-Voting!
As first let's be clear about that the Auto-Voting tools, neither their creators or owners are not the ones who we should blame for the existence of that 'curse.' We are the only ones who may be guilty if we are not aware of it if it slips from our attention and if we don't care, neglect or even just forget to solve it.
So, what is the curse?
The curse of using Auto-Voting tools is that being lulled with such wonderful automation, we might forget even to check and read those posts and not to mention leaving a comment there. And that's exactly what happened to me!
It ended up that I was missing most of the articles of my preferred authors, more than I would miss out at the time when I was doing it manually. I felt so nice and secure knowing how auto-voters would take care of everything (or almost everything), and by my auto-votes keep supporting the work of those members I like the most. But that was partially wrong, and I'll explain why.
If nothing, hey, I didn't put those people on auto-voters because I don't like what and how they write. I put them there because I do, and it turns out that I read every second, third, fourth or even any of their publishing. Not to mention that accordingly, I didn't leave any comment there either. Pure disaster!
OK, those members enjoy my regular upvotes but is that really all that it is about!? I don't think so! After all, Steemit is not some lonely publishing-platform planet. It's a social network as well!
And above that, wouldn't those members be happy to see my comments, some real engagement with their content, except just some, more or less, blind automatically left vote? I'm sure they would! I know, I would when we turn sides.
Therefore, I decided, this has to be stopped! If you think that I'm going to stop using auto-voters - oh, no, NO! You are wrong. I found a much better cure and way more efficient solution for this issue. In fact, I came up with simple and easy but...
A perfect magic against the curse of auto-voters!
Image Source: Own derivative work with the images from Pixabay. Credits to kalhh for book-star-magic, and Clker-Free-Vector for godmother-fairy, both used under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
It's, in fact, another daily task for me but after all, it's a pleasant task which I already started to implement. So, the only thing I have to do now to get rid of the automation curse of auto-voters is to go through my voting history data, actually read those posts, and if I have something to say to leave my comment there!
It's very easy to do if you are, e.g., using SteemVoter as I do, where under "Logs" tab/button you would find listed all the posts that have been upvoted by SteemVoter auto-voter on your behalf. The links listed under the "Post" column will take you directly to the particular author's post.
Realizing how many great posts from my preferred authors I already missed by not doing it before or at least not regularly, I decided from now on to implement it in my daily schedule as default. And I'm sure it would be a pleasant win-win combo as for me same for the authors on my list!
Image Source: Pixabay. Credits to kalhh for magic-wand-hat, used under the CC0 Creative Commons license.
If you are using auto-voters too, I would like to encourage you to consider, at least trying the same! You might be surprised with the power of that simple magic!
Posted on Wednesday, March 21, 2018
That is great advice, and I to make use of auto voting for some peopele mainly so that if I have a crazy day and dont have much time to get online at least I use some of my voting power and dont let it go to waste, but like you I also dont want it to stop me from visiting and commenting on interesting posts so I try to get a good balance :)
Yeah, I know how it can be. I'm curating a lot on a daily bases, some for some teams and trails, and some on my own searching for smaller SP and/or reputation members with quality and original content. That kind of search might be very time and energy consuming, and being tired and exhausted I simply forget on those I actually want to read and comment.
However, thank you for stopping by and commenting! 🙂
My pleasure to visit
Steem on
I get how auto voting can be helpful but it does move you away from steemit as a social network where interaction between members is one the most beautiful things that we can do here. I am glad you found the cure for that.
I do not use auto votes but I am more comfortable with using it than I am by being the one on whom it is used. It is strange for me to accept that my post will be upvoted if a person has not read it. Do I deserve that upvote? I have seen some people fall into the pit of low-quality posts without any care, they will receive upvotes, no matter what they write. I know there is money involved here, and dont get me wrong I do love an upvote, but I appreciate people who upvote and comment much more than those who just upvote.
I am so happy to hear that you are going through your voting history and reading the posts you have upvoted 💚
Great info. I tried the auto voters for a few days and realised it's a waste. You never meet new people and never get to know what's going on and you lose your votes to some random stuff...
Great topic. Actually this platform has in, my view, a huge problem with Automatisation.
At first point, if this platform wants to compete with other big social sites, we need to interact with each other out of social reasons, not business related.
Second Point is the fact, that upvotes somehow declare the quality of a post. Personally, i check posts with a lot more upvotes and a good header often than others with a lower count. Can't relate to other steemians, but it might be the same with them.
An other point with auto upvotes, which i realized weeks ago, is the number of posts the author might provide. Let's say an author writes one big article, which you clearly want to honorate. Now this author realizes that he has some auto upvoters, why not splitting up the article in several parts, getting upvotes for each part.
Just my thoughts on that topic.
Well, that's why the most important part (when using auto voters) is to pick wisely the members you would put there. Meaning, you have to know the quality of the content they provide (through some previous times), their posting frequency and many other things.
Regarding the platform itself, I can't entirely agree with you as the platform was not created as some possible future replacement for Facebook, Twitter or similar social sites and accordingly it doesn't compete with them.
The goal was to gather quality content providers (bloggers) that would be more easily found and rewarded for their work than they would be otherwise, even if they are running their blog on own domain and being paid through some GoogleAdsense or similar advertisements displayed on their site, and above all being lost among billions of websites out there and without some serious investment unable to reach some higher place in Google Search.
Therefore and from my point of view, Steemit is more some kind of combination in between some blogger community site (e.g. like free WordPress or Blogger.com would be) and some social network site. Accordingly, the expected interaction would also be somewhere in between those two.
And the biggest difference from both is that it pays its members for their activity.
In the end, last but not least, instead searching for interesting content among Trending, Hot and Promoted or among some popular tags, consider trying in the New!
Although there would be without doubt a bunch of worthless (one-photo, one-video, a lot of copy/paste, plagiarism etc. articles), you may find some true not yet discovered gems there.
Personally, I'm trying to take a peek there as often as I can. 😉
Auto vote to an extent is good, but you rightly pointed out that in the process of auto vote, you miss out reading some of the valuable post. well each thing has it's pros and cons so a balancing is required
Thank you @ana-maria. What you say is so true. Iam going to begin Auto Voting myself and good to hear this effective strategy you are doing :)
Thanks! Glad you like it! 🙂
Hi @ana-maria.
I can see that you took a great decision by checking the posts you have been automatically upvoting and I believe that's really great because, as Steemians, we effort to create good content for the community to enjoy it and the biggest reward you can get is not the upvote value, but a thoughtful comment showing that the post was seen and read.
In my case, I prefer to select some posts (I'd like to see them all) and curate them properly as I love giving some value through comments and upvotes.
Great post and great decision!! =D
Well, I can't entirely agree with you because being here almost 2 years, I have met some really great original content creators. And not wanting to diminish neither the value nor the significance of the comments, I have to say that the only true reward that you can give to another member on the Steemit platform is the vote, in fact. As otherwise, chasing only comments or similar, they could post on any other blogging or similar platform out there.
In some short time frame, it's not easy to determine and pick those constant good content providers, but after some time you know who they are and who you want to support even if you are not around as auto-voters would reward their work and contribution even then.
In other words, there are many different aspects that should be taken into consideration. 🙂
You know what? You're right with this comment you left me. If someone expected to only read comments about what he wrote, a blog out of here would be enough.
What I meant was that I try to give some value besides upvoting as I see that we receive many upvotes but a few or no comments. And yes, like you said...
Maybe my comment was like "newbie words" but that's how I see the way to offer some value. Thank you @ana-maria for taking the time to comment and open my eyes to a new perspective, totally appreciate it! 🙂
I dont know why you would use auto voting unless you were not going to read posts, for the sake of saving you a button click?
lol - from your perspective I would be very lazy.
However, the reason why I would use auto voting is not to save a button click! But, unless you are glued in front your PC screen 24/7, sooner or later you would realize that you have missed some posts of the authors you like and deserve to be supported because of their continuity of providing a quality content. With auto voting, I'm sure their work is going to be rewarded no matter if I see that particular piece or not.
Besides that, if you are not around for a day or two and using only manual votes (button clicks) your voting power for that period would stay at 100% VP completely wasted as a single vote wouldn't be cast out.
That's a loss for authors that might be rewarded (in the case when we use the auto voting), for you as a curator, and above all for the whole Steemit community simply because the system works in a way that every our activity on the Steem Blockchain participates and helps in creation of new blocks and tokens. Meaning, only our activity is filling the Reward Pool.
Maybe we should continue this discussion somewhere in the mid of summer 2019 or at least when you find at least about 100 members who you would find worthy enough to be followed by you, as before that you would hardly be able to see how easy (especially if you are following some daily bloggers) their articles may fall down deep in your feed to become almost unfindable (at least not that way).
Thankyou for your long and detailed answer, honestly, thankyou. However, voting on people who use the site rather than content they have made and you have enjoyed seems very backward! Steemit needs to stop pretending that its a social media site if thats the case and become a betting website with fairer odds. It seems that it only pretends to do this to give a safe return to its investors. Dont get me wrong, I believe in steemit, but it is a seed, not a tree, and it will definitely not be grown by mid-'19! Yours, BishopWeed.
Thanks for this info. I didn't even know a auto voting option existed...I've only been here a few weeks, but will definitely look into this eventually. I'm still seeking out authors that I like at this point. But I can see this being beneficial down the road, as well as, the point you made about going back through and actually reading and engaging ...Thanks! Following you :)
I would suggest you to stay away from auto-voting especially at this early stage when you don't know yet the quality continuity of some member either his/her posting rhythm, as both may have a bad effect on you.
For instance, only the frequent rhythm of posting of some member may drain your voting power, as auto-votes can't be set, e.g., to vote only one post per day of some member, what means you would be voting for the member on that list on each post he/she published. And if that person exaggerates or even trying to rape the reward pool by posting 10 times per day.
So, take your time and get familiar with every single one before you put them on your list.
And last but not least, thank you very much for the follow!
Thank you for this honest advice... I think I'm far from ready for it anyway. Im committed to learning, and I'm sure down the road I may take advantage of things like this. Again, thank you for taking the time to reply and expand on this for me. :)
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