Is Self Upvoting Wrong? What's my Strategy?
Would you like to know what my strategy is concerning self upvotes and what I intend to change in the next 30 days? I'd be also very interested to have your opinion on the subject in a comment because this will help all of us.
Steem is decentralized and there are no specific rules that say you should not upvote yourself or that you should. This is a topic that Steemians are discussing, some thinking it's wrong to self upvote, some thinking there should be limits and others thinking that it's all right.
Is Self Upvoting Wrong? What's my Strategy?
I am writing this post to show you what my strategy is concerning self voting, but I am not telling you that this is the right thing to do, just that this is what I am comfortable doing.
If you go to this link, you will see this graph: http://www.steemreports.com/outgoing-votes-info/?account=gmichelbkk&days=30
I invite you to check out what percent you have for your self votes, just replace my account "gmichelbkk" with yours in the URL, and if you post a screenshot for your account in the comments below with your opinion on the subject, I will upvote it 100%.
As you can see on the graph above, I have upvoted 243 users in a period of 30 days and my "Self Votes" is 11.2%.
I have 193 "Others" as the main portion with 19.6%, @qurator is second with 12.2%, I am third with 11.2% and @silvergoldbotty is fourth with 9.6%.
My strategy for self upvoting my posts
So, what is my strategy for self upvotes?
What I have been doing is upvoting my own posts 100% when it's published, checking the box that is provided for that effect.
I bet that most of us have been doing it!
The reason I am upvoting my own post is first the thought that if I am not upvoting my own posts, then who will?
Not upvoting my own posts would mean that I think my own posts are not good enough. Upvoting my own posts also encourages others to follow and if the option is available in the Steemit editor for us to use, this means that it is alright to do so. We are just given the choice not to do it.
I got this habit of upvoting my posts from Facebook for the same reasons I explained above.
It doesn't even cross my mind to upvote my posts, just to make a few more cents, that's because I do not have a lot of Steem Power, and I might think differently with much more.
Right now, when I upvote one of my posts at 100% vote weight with 550 SP, I earn $0.11.
You can check for yourself using the calculator here: https://steemnow.com/upvotecalc.html
Considering that I post daily, in one month I earn 30 x $0.11 = $3.30.
If I didn't upvote myself, I would be short of three dollars and honestly there are better and easier ways to make $3 than upvoting myself.
Now, let's see, if I had 100,000 SP, how much would I earn?
At that level it surely gets more interesting.
In one month, I would then earn 30 x $19.35 = $580.50.
One last, if I had 300,000 SP, how much would I earn?
In one month, I would then earn 30 x $58.07 = $1,742.10.
With all the discussions by Steemians about self upvoting, those who are for and those who area against it, it all depends on which side of the fence you are.
When I make $3 per month for writing 30 long and quality posts, no one can say that I do it for the money. If I was at the other end and earning $1,742 for the same posts, there would certainly be people yelling their disapproval of such a thing, even though I could earn the same amount writing articles for clients, and without investing.
I personally think that when someone invests 300,000 SP in Steem, which is $843,000 today, they have the perfect right to earn their $58 per post at the condition the post is of quality.
They also have the perfect right, in my opinion, to earn ten times that if they write 10 quality posts.
The disagreement comes from people posting low quality posts and upvoting themselves for it. If you have lots of Steem Power, you don't even have to do that, just delegate your SP to a bot and you can cash daily payouts for even more money.
I believe that we are all on Steemit to make some money, otherwise we would stay with Facebook.
What I will do, starting today, is not to upvote my own posts to see if really this makes a difference, at least for 30 days. I will bring down this "Self upvotes" stat close to zero. I believe that not upvoting myself can bring me even more rewards as I give to others first.
My strategy for upvoting comments
Now, what is my strategy for self-upvoting comments?
My strategy is to never upvote my own comments, except if it is a very important comment that I want to be at the top of the other comments. I have done it very rarely, fewer than ten times I think, and the 100% value is $0.11 the same as for upvoting my posts.
I do not say that this is right or wrong, you are free to do what you decide is best for you.
My strategy is also to upvote all comments made on my own posts and I choose the vote weight according to the vote power I have available and the quality of the comment. I may upvote 50% or 100% a very useful comment, 20% for kind and meaningful comments, 10% for short but original comments, and 1% for repetitive spam comments to show my disapproval.
You can see this here: https://steemit.com/@gmichelbkk/recent-replies
I do not downvote comments, or posts, as I do not believe that this feature is used as it should be.
I think that upvoting other users' comments is much better than upvoting your own because this promotes engagement and show people that you appreciate the comment.
I noticed that even though I upvote everyone's comments on my posts, I very rarely receive an upvote for replying to a comment, because I also make a meaningful and custom reply to all the comments on my posts, as much as possible.
You can see this here: https://steemit.com/@gmichelbkk/comments
It doesn't matter if the upvote is valued at $0 because what counts is the interaction and if everyone was upvoting other's comments and replies, then no one would need to upvote their own comments.
I challenge you to upvote my reply to your comment in this post and see how good you will feel in doing it. I also challenge you to continue doing it for other authors.
Remember that if you post a screenshot of your self upvotes graphs and give me your opinion, I will upvote your comment 100%.
I hope that you enjoyed reading my post and learning about what my views on self upvotes are.
Would you upvote this post and follow me for more because this will encourage me to write more Steem posts like this one?
Would you please help @jerrybanfield become a top 10 Witness because you can help funding projects to build Steem as explained here? Vote for jerrybanfield as a witness or set jerrybanfield as a proxy to handle all witness votes at https://steemit.com/~witnesses. Read the 5 reasons why I'm voting for Jerry Banfield as a witness and how to vote in my post. You may be interested to read: What is a Steem Witness, How to Vote and Why?
Michel Gerard
There is no such thing as right or wrong. When the money meters, there is just profitable or not profitable. In STEEM present economy model it's profitable to upvote yourself. So people will do it (an mass).
Just as simple as it is.
Thank you @master-set for commenting and giving your opinion.
I’m on the fence, some self upvotes are self promoting, and necessary. There’s a balance. Good and thoughtful upvotes with comments can pay off a lot more! And comment threads can be nice little dusting of SP :)
Challenge accepted, replies will be upvoted.
Thank you very much @britcoins for commenting and taking the challenge which will continue I hope with upvoting other authors' comments in the future.
Before I joined last July, I read up on Steemit. I saw it was frowned upon to upvote our own comments, so I never did. I've since seen many people doing that and wondered what the current thought is on that? I always try to upvote authentic comments to my posts to increase engagement.
Thank you @evernoticethat for giving us your opinion here.
Hello @gmichelbkk,
This is one of those hot button topics ongoing on Steemit as we clear the dust of this universe, there's plenty debate over what's right, what's wrong, posting etiquette and so forth. As most of us here are probably coming from Facebook, much of what goes on here is similar; we share details about ourselves, our lives, and our thoughts with the world. Here, aside from our friends and perhaps few family members, this global network links people from all countries and backgrounds, so there's plenty of new ideas and images we can invest our attention and grow.
When I joined Steemit, back in October 2017, a friend recommended me to share my artwork with the world here and earn rightfully an income worthy of its value. Not to mention, I believe that cryptocurrency (read: Blockchain technology) has the potential to change everything about what's not working (considering the value of labor) for billions of people around the world. I found the @Earthnation Guild, a group of devoted creators seeking peace and prosperity to all humanity, and they've enlightened me to the inner workings of Steemit in my short time here. In their former membership, the Guild supported its members by means of a voting bot, a combination service of resteeming and upvotes that the guild members' funded with their post content value. This is how I discovered @SteemBasicIncome, a project with a goal as titled; a universal basic income for all Steemians posting valuable content. The system is simple; as someone has to elect to sponsor your account or invest shares in an account, each share adds to a collective automated voting pool that positively generates STEEM and SBD by the post frequency of its invested members. The more you invest, the more you post, the more potential earnings each post can make. Sounds like Steemit could integrate a system like this one to increase rewards across all SP levels for everyone, forever. Imagine the first 100 users online Facebook or the first 5000 employees of Microsoft who were early adopters and hold a seminal position in the company that they've essential built. We Steemians, too, are all shareholders in Steemit and set the value of its currencies abroad.
Well, since the major market tumble a couple of months ago, the Earthnation Guild on Steemit has since gone defunct, however, SBI is still going strong as well as other similar services like @SteemAuto and @SmartSteem I've since incorporated into my account activity. I've ceased paying for bid bots as a part of the guild's collapse because the value of SBD fell so much, it wasn't worth the cost, so now I'm mostly self-powered. Occasionally, the automatic voting mechanisms set in by @SteemAuto and @SteemBasicIncome finds my posts and upvotes my own content, but often I have but two or three manual votes daily to offer my most favorite Steemians (other fellow artists like myself; @haedre is one of them.) Of course, I've followed your account because of awesome content like this, I usually comment first, before then resteeming, seldom I'd simply upvote other comment replies or posts because I'd overrun my voting power.
Here's to the future, see you at the top!
Thank you @gmichelbkk for sharing this!
Thank you very much @craigahamilton for your long comment explaining how you started on Steem and that I will have to read again later has it has a lot of information in it. I upvoted your comment 100%, thank you for showing your graph and the resteem.
I wait 30 minutes for the curation awards.
Thank you @mysearchisover for letting us know that you wait 30 minutes .
This is a very interesting post. Thank you for that. I am a massiv selfupvoter. I am not shamed of this as we all are interested to grow in the community so i see the upvote as a tool to grow up. some day if i become more powerfull in sp and my vote will be more worthy i may be would not be upvoting myself this much. I think it is important to vote for others content and spread the love.
Thank you @blockchainnerd for giving your opinion in this comment.
If you are discussing self upvoting you have to include delegating SP and being rewarded for it and bid bots for self promotion. I see these as more of an issue as they can massively promote a post, far more than self upvoting.
Why is it wrong to upvote yourself but acceptable to pay someone else to do so? I do t see the difference.
Steem is a long way from the concept of the best content rising to the top and receiving highest rewards. But if you ban all of the above, most whales would check out (as they can’t make the money) crashing the price. You can’t have it all ways!
Thank you @grizgal for commenting here. Nobody here is saying that self upvoting is wrong, it depends on what you feel doing it and what others feel when you are doing it.
I would like to see good content at the top too, without using bots.
here is my graph and I will gladly upvote this comment now!
Thank you very much @hansdewet for showing us your graph. I upvoted this comment 100%.
Nothing wrong with upvote!
Thank you @livelifefullest for giving us your opinion.
I also do self upvote on all my posts for the following reasons:
Got 7.4% Self Votes here
I'd also agree with you on the amount of each UV. Maybe it won't be noticed if its only a cent to few dollars but if we're already talking about 10$ and up, perhaps thats the time issue may arise...
just my own opinion though! ☺️
Thanks for this very nice insight! See you around! 😊
Thank you very much for writing this comment @pingcess and showing your graph. I think 1 & 2 are very good reasons to upvote yourself. I upvoted your comment 100%.
I love this view. Initially, I shy away from this but I started upvoting my post with same reasons you highlighted. As you thought, there noting wrong with it since it is made available. It can easily be disable or let me say remove if it is not needed.
I may not be upvoting every comment to my post, but I always try to reply. But I think, you make sense with that, I may join that strategy.
Here is my graph
Thank you very much @empowermite for posting your graph and giving your opinion because this makes the post more interesting. I upvoted 100% percent.
Thanks, I appreciate and derive pleasure in being part of candid opinion