What is Voting Power Efficiency and Curation Reward Penalty

Hey everyone. Thought I'd post about how I would explain to newcomers a part of the curation and voting FAQ's that they have been asking me over the weeks.
Thought this screenshot was pretty fitting after recent increased traffic.

With all the recent newcomers it has come to my attention that many are not aware of the voting power efficiency percentage. Many have been asking me why they are not making any curation rewards after week old posts have been paid out that they have voted on. I just want to mention the factors involved in earning curation rewards when you are new here.

Voting Power Efficiency

Voting power regenerates at approximately 20% per 24 hours, costing 0.5% per full 100% vote which means you would have approximately 40 votes per day to cast while maintaining as high as possible voting efficiency.

You can use that voting power however you like, on your own blogposts, others blogposts, your own comments, others comments.

Curation Reward Penalty

There is currently a time penalty in place which was added when we had a lot of bots about a year ago who were trying to gain most of the curation rewards.

The penalty is reduced proportionally with the age of the post starting at 100% at 0 seconds and going down to 50% at 15 minutes and 0% after 30 minutes. This means that if you vote on a post at 15 minutes, 50% of your potential curation reward will go directly to the author. Bear in mind that this is something that can change with upcoming hardforks.

---

Now you might think, "why doesn't everyone start voting at 30 minutes then, gaining most of the curation rewards possible?"
This all comes down to stake and the thought that this post will make a much bigger reward later for those who are after high curation rewards. It can be worth it voting a lot earlier while receiving a big curation penalty if the post really ends up trending and gaining a lot of votes after it. You end up making a bigger curation reward having been somewhat early on a very successful post but you could end up losing out some cause you voted too early and the post didn't get much rewards afterwards.

I thought I'd try to keep this a bit simple since I myself am not too knowledgeable about the fine technicalities and details.

If you are thinking now, "okay but which posts can be the best to vote on then in the chances of getting a good curation reward even as a newcomer?"
This is why I very much like the system and how it works, you see readers and voters often get used to the authors and are fine earning some curation rewards instead of taking the time to read new posts from new authors. Here is where the incentive comes in to read new stuff and filter through the "New" section.
If you happen to find a post that is of very low rewards past the 30 min mark, with a 100% vote even you as a newbie with only 100 delegated SP can earn a decent reward if during the rest of the week that post gains more traction and rewards.

Hope that answered some of your questions regarding this, if there is anything else you are wondering about feel free to ask away in the comment section and I'll try and answer them if I can. :)

---

Edit: googled the "announcement posts" of these two topics I talked about and found the real ones posted by abit almost a year ago. Haven't read through yet but it should still be up to date.

Curation Penalty Original post

Voting Power Original Post

---

Edit 2: You can check your current voting power efficiency at Steemnow.com created by @penguinpablo!