RE: Upvoted and resteemed. Oh, have you really? Let’s check shall we?
As a newbie, I was trying to learn the ropes with commenting and upvoting, but was then told to keep my % over 80% or else, I wasn't really helping anyone. I was frustrated and wrote this post and got a variety of responses. I believe there are times when I've received a valuable comment without an upvote and I'm ok with that. I equate it to working as a bartender. Tips are nice, but I don't expect them. That being said, if they're upvoting only their own, then that says something about their priorities. But, if they've been busy reading and commenting and maybe they're about to sign off and notice a very striking title, and click on it to find the article was engaging enough to warrant a well organized response. Isn't that response worth something? Are we just here for the upvotes, or for the community? I mean no disrespect, this topic just sits on a fine line in my opinion.
Btw, I'm not trying to spam you with the above link. It's a 3 week old article, so it's my understanding that there is no payout after 7 days, so I'm only referencing it to show what the comments were from other Steemians more experienced than myself.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment @crowbarkids. I know starting out can be frustrating in that you want to comment and upvote everyone and everything that's interesting to you - you want to contribute. And yes, your contribution is small but it's still a contribution. It's how Steemit grows.
I started Steemit in 2016. And I never once commented without upvoting. It's not that I was looking for big payouts it's just how I learned that each upvote made a difference in the over all payout for everyone. Once my voting power went down - and sometimes my vote was 0, I just waited until it went up again. I had a lot of help from dolphins and whales at that time and this is how and what I learned.
You likened up-voting to getting tips as a bartender. Up-voting isn't a tip though. It's part of the larger scope of Steemit rewards and investments. I found a really great post by @snbox - he's put together a toolbox of sorts with all kinds of interesting helps not just for new people but for everyone.
I get a lot of people on my posts who comment only sometimes and that's fine, I know their steem power is low at times.
But when I am investing in their blogs and it's never reciprocated, after a time I begin to see a trend - why? because I upvote comments on my blog. When I noticed a comment from one of these people on another blog saying she has started commenting more than posting because she was making more SBD from upvotes on her comments than from her own posts. I was shocked. It's not only mooching it's not helpful to herself. She needs to upvote others in order to increase her voting power.
We are here to build an investment and for the community. Otherwise we'd be on FB still, right?
I understand where you are coming from and appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
If you are interested in a further look at what up-votes are and how it all works I recommend this article by @sndbox. what is a Steemit Upvote?