Should we upvote our comments?
As introduction i let you read my post about how could we upvote to help steemit growth:
https://steemit.com/steemit/@damarth/how-could-we-upvote-to-help-steemit-growth
Nowadays price of steem and Steem $ (SBD) increase sharply and adoption rate accelerate , a lot of money is now involved in steemit economy.
Even if i already have stated six months ago that my optimal voting strategy has 33% of my votepower going on myself and in average last few months i have voted for myself less than my optimal strategy, i often receive complain about the fact i upvote my comments.
In this post i will explain you how steemit ecosystem works and why it is totally normal and acceptable to vote for ourselves and hopefully quarrel will vanish.
There is different class of users on steemit network and unfortunatly i see more and more frictions.
To simplify i see three mains class:
.the authors and contents creators
.the investors
.the speculators
In fact These class are ridicoulus because as soon as authors get rewarded and hold steem or SBD they become a shareholder and an investor of steemit platform so they are incentivized to help the growth of the platform.
But you know human mindset like to make diffrence and create imaginary boundaries and quarrel for no real reasons.
I am in the fourth class, what ? you said there is three class?
Well as you understand these class are bullshit and we should not create false barrier.
Yes i am an author, i welcome new users with comments, i post when i can and i am also an investors as i bought steem tokens with my hard earned money and powered up, i vote and reward good contents, finally i am a speculator as i trade the tokens.
Investors mindset
Ask yourself : What give value to steem tokens?
When i talk about steemit and introduce people to discover the technology they often ask me this question :
Who buy steem token and why?
Actually this is a great question because if you can't answer it then you can't understand how steemit economy works.
The simpliest answer is SPECULATION, some people think steem token price will increase and they will be abe to make profits.
They bet with their hard earned money and take a financial risk because they expect to make profits.
Some people keep their steem liquid and don't power up they prefer to trade the token on the market, i call them speculators.
They are very important because they bring liquidity and volume to the market wich permit to everyone to sell or buy the token easily with minimum spread.
As soon as speculators power up and can't withdraw all funds for 13 weeks they becomes investors and shareholders.
It is a huge risk to lock funds for such time to motivate this moove they get curration rewards and become participants to the platform success.
Actually steemit generate no revenue , there is no buy back strategy with profits so all the steem earned from authors are sold on the market are bought from investors and speculators.
As you see authors can't really complain against investors because without investors and speculators the price of steem would be 0$, authors would earn nothing, most of them would not be so activce and the platform would have a very low adoption rate compared to today because there is a strong correlation between the price of steem and adoption rate.
Have a look to the great Penguin Pablo steem stats report and study how the stats moove regarding tokens price evolution:
https://steemit.com/@penguinpablo
More the price of steem increase , more authors get rewarded, more it create a free positive adverstising loop for steemit and adoption growth faster.
Why authors should not complain about investors behaviour?
-Without investors and speculators steem token has no real value.
-investors take all the risks to make profits. To gain money they need steem token price to increase so they have to act in a way that help the adoption of news users and usecase of the tokens.
-Authors take no financial risk, they only risk to loose some time posting on a social media platform and not get rewarded for it. Look like it was not a big deal posting for free on facebook, twitter etc...
Investors have all the reasons to help steemit network to grow, help adoption, voting for good contents...
So Why the hell some investors vote for themselves? Yes why because it give less rewards to authors and it is not the best for adoption right?
Think deeply about it!
An investors need to be constantly motivated to hold the token and not selling quickly to lock profits.
=> distributing some of the rewards to ourselves help to keep holding the tokens. = less sell pressure = higher steem price.
=> It also show to authors and new users that there is some positive effect to buy steem tokens and not only wait for rewards.
=> Investors sell less tokens because they profit a bit more from it = less sell pressure on steem token = higher price for steem = more profits fro everyone.
=> motivate new users, speculator and authors to buy steem to vote a bit for themselves = more buy pressure = steem price increase...
=>when price of SBD is high (2x+ higher than streem price), SBD price increase doesn't profit so much to investors or authors but mainly to SBD speculators, when investors vote for their comments they get some steem $ and can add sell pressure to SBD price and buy back steem tokens with the profits as result steem price increase and everyone profits.
You could tell me it's the same if an investors vote for other people comments, not really because nothing insure us that the profits from SBD will be reinvested on steem and finally profits to everyone.
It is quite normal that when SBD price goes to 17$ while steem is priced at 3$ investors want to exploit and help to eqilibrate the situation.
This is the reason why at the moment i upvote a bit more often my comments and i upvote authors a bit less, i help to regulate the difference of price between SBD and steem adding sell pressure on SBD and i buy steem with the profits wich benefits to everyusers of the platform.
Ok but what happen if all investors becomes greedy bastards and start to vote only for themselves ???
Is it the end??
No because steemit ecosystem protect everyone. If investors stop voting for authors, adoption will fall, valu of the network will decrease to oblivion and at the end investors will loose everything!
At one point SBD price will go under steem price and there will be no more exploitative strategy everybody can return to what i think is the equilibrium strategy. (33/33/33)
Author mindset:
Authors want their work to be rewarded with fairness.
As stated before when authors get rewarded they automatically become a shareholder they also have decisions to make:
If they quickly need cash to live or don't believe steem value will increase they will directly cash out their profits nobody say anything about it, they are free to do whatever they want even if it create sell pressure on steem price, decrease the valu of steem token and everybody get rewarded less at the end.
But if they believe steem adoption will keep going up , they believe steemit technology is revolutionnarry and give financial power back to everyone , then they become investor and power up!
There is some greedy authors aswell attracted for some quick profit who permanently post shit, create multio account and constantly try to trick everyone in order to get rewards.
But i don't care , why? Simply because long term these people don't matter, over the time everyone see what they are doing and they will not profit much and for long, it doesn't really impact the platform.
On steemit we get to know each over, we finish to like contents creators and it is a pleasure to vote for them. As investors it is a pleasure to read good contents and rewards them. It feel good to give money to people that deserve it.
Scammers posters will never get anything significative.
One special word for authors that post great contents and doesn't get the rewards they deserve, don't loose faith, be patient, stay active and develop connection with other steemians, it take time to be valued as you should simply because there is so many new post and authors per day.
Step by step your work will be rewarded, no doubt about it :)
To conclude , each participants to steemit ecosystem is a decision makers, the ecosystem will always find an equilibrium wich profit to everyone in the long term, it is a very powerful system and it is one of the biggest reason why i believe so much on the success of the platform.
With this post i try to explain you different scenarios case of abuse and exploitative behaviour from differents interest coming from all participants of steemit economy to let you understand that action create reaction and at the end you can toy with all possible scenarios and finally be insure that steemit ecosystem is protected by Game theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
If SBD isn't too high compared to steem , you could decide to downvote some investors that only vote for themselves for a very long period of time to be sure they don't exploit the system too much while others investors stay balanced with a 33% strategy but at the end keep cool because nobody can really abuse the system without risking to loose more than what they could win.
Risk reward and expected value are simply not positive when somebody try to abuse the platform long term.
Happy new year to everyone!
Thank you for posting this!
As I've been saying over and over again, the opinions of the investors need to be better represented here because they drive all the value we enjoy and so many people don't understand their perspective.
At Steemfest, I was up till almost 4am talking with transisto to better understand his perspective because he invested a lot here. Understanding the motivations and vision of the investors is hugely important for the future success of this platform.
This, I think, is the key concern many have. They think any amount of self-voting for simple comments puts the whole platform at risk (and serious existential risk at that). Examples are shown here: Whales: You Have Some Flagging to Do.
$150+ votes for the same "SBD Correction" comment over and over again is a big problem for the ecosystem. Some people here (cough berniesanders cough) don't seem to care about authors, investors, or speculators. They seem to just like creating drama.
If investors buy STEEM via their extra SBD reward that could increase the value of STEEM, but couldn't that also be offset by those who avoid investing because they see STEEM as a scammy blockchain that pretends to reward authors and curators but actually rewards self-voting "greedy" investors?
I think you make a lot of great points here and do a great job of encouraging people to trust in the long-term value potential here. I also think you may be under-representing the existential risk of mass self-voting and what it could do for the long-term value of the platform and token. Maybe I'm wrong there, but if everyone started self voting, the signal to noise ratio would get pretty messed up and we could lose quite a large portion of our community (authors, readers, investors, and speculators) because of it.
I had a detailed discussion about this 6 months ago: Self-Voting: Scammy Behavior, Rational ROI, or Something Else?
If there's anything I can do as a witness (currently number 10) to better represent the views of investors like yourself, please let me know. This post is a good start. I can now send people here when they start complaining about the "greedy whales" without better understanding how they create all the value everyone enjoys (something I keep repeating over and over again).
I might get a solution to unfair abusive behaviour:
I would like the steemit developer to cap the self comments upvote to 33% of voting power per day, i think it's fair and well balanced enought for the ecosytem.
I think if steemit developers cap the self comments upvote to 33% or more of the voting power per day. it's fine but wouldn't it create room for others to cheat?
I agree 100% that ......If investors stop voting for authors, adoption will fall, value of the network will decrease to oblivion and at the end investors will loose everything!
Voting quality contents is imperial to steemit's success. Steemit is an investment of wealth and intellectual asset. Let's create wealth today for a better tomorrow.
After reading your post I visited the profile to flag such comments and I saw that content of the comment has changed. It says "This is helping SBD correction, which is good for Steem". Has anybody explored further as to what that means?
Is it something meaningful or is it just a way to avoid all the negativity they are facing?
For the first time in... maybe ever? I gave my comment a full upvote. Feels weird to me. How does it feel to you?
I have read your posts about why you generally don't up-vote your comments. It has made me think but I have still stuck to upvoting my own comments whenever I don't feel bad about it.
Sometimes I upvote my comments to increase the visibility and at other times I upvote my comments as I would have spent time writing it. I generally don't upvote my comments if they are short ones like "Thank you" or "Good post". But whenever I feel that I have added some value I make it a point to upvote my comments. Whenever I am in doubt I upvote my own comment and make it a point to upvote a few other comments which have added value to the post.
In my opinion what differentiated steemit from other blogging platforms is the kind of interactions that happen in the comments section. One of the driving factors could be the rewards for comments and if upvoting their own comments is a motivation for people to engage with others I don't see a problem with it.
Would like to know your thoughts on the same @lukestokes
I'm all about upvoting other comments to encourage the interaction you're talking about. When you upvote your own comments, it can be seen (by some) as increasing the noise and decreasing the signal. Obviously the author (in this case) thinks the comment is valuable or they wouldn't bother writing it. What matters is what the network thinks. That's a true signal. Sometimes I don't upvote a comment if I see they've already given themselves a self-vote.
I'm a little disappointed they removed the option to decline payouts on comments so you could still get the visibility, but it was apparently a bit to complicated for most users.
Ultimately, people can do whatever they want, and they will have the reputation their actions give them.
Don't be ashame to upvote your comment here , you spent time writing this comment and time has value because we only have a limited amount of time in our life!
You also deserve some extra profits from all the work and positive impact you have on the platform.
Damarth, this is a very strong point and the meaning of being an author ,if yourself cant appreciate your work ,whre is the meaning of your job. I am still new here but with short moment i can upvote your work , you have done a great job by this post today . keep up ! I wnt to learn more from you!
Quick question though: I recall the witnesses recently discussing that self upvotes would no longer count toward the author's account but rather be absorbed back into the rewards pool for the day. As a whale your upvote holds a life changing amount of money for others. Since your vote doesn't cost you anything- you're not losing anything by voting- why not spread it around by upvoting those who comment on your work as well as upvoting those who are starting out? I'm not sure where the current conversation is regarding self votes being reabsorbed into the rewards pool as I'm not a witness, but if your self votes were just getting lost back into the voting pool then it doesn't make any difference if you're upvoting yourself. Is that correct?
I found @damarth though a comment and upvote that he made on a friend's introduction post. Thanks man! Really appreciate it on behalf of my friend @stylebeautylife
What are your thoughts on this?
Lizelle
HF20 has changes related to the initial window where curation rewards currently go to the author. You can read more about that from Steemit's own publications, but HF20 isn't live yet.
As for what people do with their own stake, remember, investors want a return and it's ultimately their vested stake to do with as they wish. Almost all of my voting power goes towards voting other posts (I don't even vote up my own root posts as most everyone else does). It "costs" something in terms of voting power. Since I flagged some abuse recently my voting power was down to 50%. With steemvoter down, it's starting to come back up now.
Voting for those who are starting out sounds easy, but takes a lot of time. That's time I don't always have. There are many responsibilities for me to manage, but my witness account delegates to a number of services that are helping curate content. You can see my recent post about that.
Thanks for your reply @lukestokes.
Thank you for all that you do. It does take forever to get through everything and yes, we're definitely here to get a return on our investments. I apologize if you felt I was attacking you. I meant that as far as I understand any votes for oneself are void, so it wouldn't make a difference either way. They were also talking about penalizing you if you vote for the same person too many times, which makes no sense to me.
Thank you for the links, I will go have a look. Hope you have a good day further.
good to see you back, i thought u have quit :)
Hello, no i am just super busy, i am on steemit for a long time :)
First of all a happy new year. I have been very impressed by your post because in my little two-month stay on this platform I have realized that what you say is true, there are many types of class of people. For example, in my case I am from Venezuela and I have given that many Latin Americans are of little mind who only think about winning and nothing more they do not think about their future in their voting power in their investment they just want to win and now. I think that everything has to be balanced in this life and that everything has to be controlled in its own way. Today two days that you have uploaded your post.
In this life you have to think as an investor you have to think that today you win but tomorrow is another day and you must also do it and think big
Hello @damarth I admire the great effort you put into writing this insightful post. It takes a deeper understanding of the steem ecosystem by people like you to come up with this submission. I have to admit that it took me a second reading of this post before I could fully comprehend and understand your stand point on this matter.
Thank you for throwing in my light on it. I always ensure that my knowledge is fetching me more than my ignorance is costing me. Now resteeming this post for more views because it's worth reading by everyone.
What I want to add is that consistency and perseverance is also needed.
I agree with this analogy. Voting quality contents is imperial to steemit's success. Not raping the reward pool by voting "shit post." Because in the future these contents would also provide intellectual assistance to researchers or someone just looking for a piece of information. Just like Wikipedia and wikihow is helping millions today.In summary, steemit investment of wealth and intellectual asset.
What someone DESERVES or NOT is subjective. It is a mix of perseverance, hard work, quality content AND a bit of luck.
The problem here is that people try to force their luck by asking to be upvoted by bigger accounts (which to me is totally fair, they are promoting themselves after all, hey) but when they don't get what they want or think they "deserve" they turn around and trash talk the very people they wish would help them out.
That is simply the issue. "deserving" is a loaded word. And HIGHLY subjective.
One could argue that someone who invests heavily deserves the right to upvote whatever he chooses to. After all, his upvote rewards are high for one simple reason: he risked his money.
There are many sides to one story.
The calculations are made with a small amount of STEEM in the form of STEEM Power. Content creators have the right to choose a 100% STEEM Power prize instead of the default 50% liquid currency (a combination of STEEM and Steem dollars) and 50% STEEM Power. Users and investors have the option of converting liquid STEEM to STEEM Power, also called powering up.
I agree 100% that ......If investors stop voting for authors, adoption will fall, value of the network will decrease to oblivion and at the end investors will loose everything!
Voting quality contents is imperial to steemit's success. Steemit is an investment of wealth and intellectual asset. Let's create wealth today for a better tomorrow.
I have heard a few complaints about self voting whales and a few arguments in their favour. I believe those who earn themselves large amount of SP as investors or popular authors earned the right to use it at their discretion however not to the detriment of the platform. I usually see you upvote posts in the introductory section and then upvote your comment too(I have tried to upvote lots of your comments in the past to get some curation reward) . In most cases, I believe those who received your upvote would be grateful and investors upvoting themselve is natural as there must be ROI. The problem is cross voting whales who only vote in their circle regardless of the nature of their content. Voting pattern should be balanced between self voting and quality content voting. IMO
I agree, some whales should think more deeply about their act, understanding that they have more responsability as the biggest shareholder and at the end it is counterproductive for them to exploit the system at maximum in their favor.
I hope this post let everyone think deeply about our behaviour on the platform and how should we all balance our strategy for the benefit of everybody.
Yes, I believe reading this post will help whales see the better approach and make the platform a better one for all the classes of users involved.
Agree that balancing selfvoting and quality content voting is the way to go. Whenever we upvote our comments, making sure to upvote some other good comments can be a balanced strategy. I am upvoting your comment as it is adding value. I upvoted my earlier comment on this post as I felt it added value and as you mentioned there is nothing wrong in looking at ROI.
"If SBD isn't too high compared to steem , you could decide to downvote some investors that only vote for themselves for a very long period of time to be sure they don't exploit the system too much while others investors stay balanced with a 33% strategy" In fact, everything is explained in this sentence. @damarth
Hello, thanks for the interesting post. Maybe I have a good post for you with a chart, where you can see the correlation between Steemit activity values and Steem price: https://steemit.com/steem/@sevenseals/steem-statistic-charts-week-53
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmWje3QeAatUtWFyQhZnVqodutQM9Gsh229v9LEyg9hgNV/1111.jpg)
And here is a post about SBD price , SBD supply and SBD inflation and how it correlates: https://steemit.com/steem/@sevenseals/new-chart-steem-dollar-price-and-steem-dollar-supply-calculation-of-sbd-inflation
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWXxR3VTMiWyuP2FoKJ5tR8VoTABBFKfmViRQRXwf66EK/1111.jpg)
Hope you enjoy it.
Sure i do thank you very much!
"There is some greedy authors aswell attracted for some quick profit who permanently post shit, create multio account and constantly try to trick everyone in order to get rewards.
But i don't care , why? Simply because long term these people don't matter, over the time everyone see what they are doing and they will not profit much and for long, it doesn't really impact the platform."
I think this is the most important part of writing.this platform is out of balance with the money input output and they are trying to make money.the quality of the produced hides has no significance for them. Thanks for sharing..@damarth
Self upvote is a tricky subject.
This is a good article and touch a lot of point.
Writting a post is not a joke unless you post meme or post a picture. Don't get me wrong, meme or picture earn substantial reward compare to writting a post.
I am not going to take my valuable to feel pity about that.
It pushes me to do better and invest more time to myself.
Conscientiously all steemians need to know deep down inside what is your role in steem.
I applaud all steemians who vote all posts they deem worth a reward.
Sincerely I do not wait for anyone to upvote my posts. If I earn a big reward from upvote I know it is worth it.
And I thank everyone for their support.
Keep on steemit.
Thank you. it is very kind of you.