Dolphin 541,753—Monthly Report: February (2020)

I Know There's A Governance Battle Going On...

...but it's time for another monthly report by yours truly, and so I'm going to take a break from the observations and opinions I've been throwing into the void, and will toss this out there instead.

Actually, I don't really mind if no one sees it or cares about it because this report has alway been for me to track my statistical journey on STEEM. If it encourages others along the way, great. If not, no need to bore people out of their skulls with data.

I haven't pointed the following out in a long time, so I'm going to do it for the good of the order. You know, just in case STEEM comes out the other end of this current stressful uncertainty and it matters to someone again.

To earn my stake, I have:

• Never used a bidbot, though one or two may have been used on my behalf, and a few former bidbots turned curation bots have upvoted some of my posts since the EIP.

• I have never self-voted intentionally, and I've always removed them when I did, at my own upvoting expense. I know some will find this to be wasteful, and I understand.

• I have never been intentionally involved in any circle voting, unless curation trails are considered circle voters. I still manually upvote and couldn't keep up with all of those voters even if I wanted to.

• I have tried to post what I considered to be quality content, and then others, when they've actually seen the post or put me on autovote, have actually decided if it's quality to them. If you take a look at the upvotes I've received over the last couple years, you will see the range of my received upvotes are all over the place, though they have been trending upwards, as one might expect from some somewhat consistent posting.

• I have tried to curate what I believed to be quality content, be they posts or comments. Quality, being in the eye of the beholder. Since I'm on the giving in, I get to decide what I consider to be quality, just like everyone else does.

• I have purchased close to 7,000 STEEM, most of which has been powered up. Probably 1% of it went for SNAX. Not snacks, though if anyone knows someone who sells snacks for STEEM, I will consider it.

Okay. I think that's all I wanted to say at this point in time regarding my stake and how I've acquired it. It is time to proceed with my stats for February.

Quick Summary

Some stats went up. Some went down. If that sounds a little vague or rather obvious, I'll just add I think I'm getting consistent in my inconsistency, and move on with the numbers.

Posts (no comments)—17

Posts were down from last month, but better year over year, where I only managed to muster 10. Thankfully, life conditions from last year did not repeat, though 17 is still under the 20-plus number I want to be. I'll blame it on the leap year effect.

Post STU was kind of all over the place. I almost pulled off another month of all posts over $1 STU, but alas, a post where I played DJ for love related songs didn't quite get there. Oh, well. What can I say. Romance is dead.

I will say that posting in a community, particularly @ocd, helped out quite a bit on a couple of posts after Communities officially went live. I can see the potential of post discovery in them, as long as someone still does some curation amidst all the trails. I think Communities will be good for STEEM, if/when we all can concentrate solely on the content within them again.

Comments—93

Another stat that went down over last month. I tried. Fewer and fewer folks are engaging on my posts, and thanks to longer hours at work, I had less time to go out and read (and what I did read got repetitive really quick thanks to the Sun/TRON buy out of Steemit and basically everything that took place the rest of the month).

I know that the more I comment on the post of others, the more it's reciprocated. I've seen that happen. The question is, how to do it with the time I have when I also want to post. Still working on that.

Upvotes given—93/257

Like the comments, my upvote numbers were also affected. Both spread and total upvotes were down. I've been encouraged to autovote. In the age of the EIP, more and more seem to be doing that. I guess I'm more interested in reading what I'm upvoting than I am earning curation rewards.

I do need to map out some kind of strategy, though. Tough to do when my hours are so unpredictable from week to week, but I hope to have something figured out before too long.

Upvotes received—651/1844

These numbers also fell, which I feel is only right. As in comments, the more I've upvoted other posts, the more people have become aware of what I'm posting.

Curation trails, as mentioned above, are the bulk of those numbers, as they have been since more or less the beginning.

Earned SP—408.040

This is the first stat to actually go up, and it seems to fly in the face of what I've been saying so far. I don't know how to explain it, other than there were a couple of posts that were rewarded quite well. Even so, without them, I would have been over 200 SP still, which would have shattered records for February regardless. The above amount basically crushes the previous attempts, and constitutes the second highest amount of earned SP to date.

I don't have the same exactness in data breakdown this month, but it's something like this:

• Roughly 359 STEEM/SP (which includes some converted SBD) from posts and comments

• Maybe 7 SP from curation

• Close to 34 SP in 'interest' from my stake

• 8 SP from the monthly @curie contest for posts with engagement

Thus, total earned SP for the past 26 months is now up to 4,786.727. I don't know if that amount is significant to anyone else, but it is to me. It means that I'm almost a dolphin in earned SP only.

Total SP (earned SP plus purchased STEEM promptly powered up) was 11,936.658.

I was hoping for 12,000 SP by the end of the month, but I'm happy to be closing in.

Highest single payout—63.304 STEEM/63.322 SP

This may actually constitute the highest amount of STEEM/SP I've ever earned on a post. The corresponding STU is not the highest, though, so I would have to go back through the numbers and look at how the STEEM/SP was divided up. Suffice it to say, if it's not a record, it's up there.

The post receiving this amount was titled, Grandpa Gotta Work: Nearly 40 Hours In Four Days With One To Go. The amount received was a combination of two whales who don't seem to follow trails upvoting, along with a trail. Pretty potent when added together. It's very much appreciated, especially after that long week.

Self-Upvotes—0

Tack on another 29 days of being accident free.

Contests—1

From the aforementioned curie contest.

Downvotes given—0/received—20

A new record in downvotes received, and one of them was large enough to take off some STU. The rest weren't exactly felt, per usual. As the saying goes, Anklebiters gonna bite ankles.

Reputation ranking—68

It didn't take very long to get to 68 after coming close to doing it by the end of January, but the needle didn't move very far in February, despite some higher upvotes. With each successive rank achieved, the goal posts move even farther away to the next one, so at the current pace, I will probably not reach 69 by the end of the month, but sometime in April.

Depending on what happens with STEEM by then, of course. I don't know what else to do but keep moving forward until I can't.

Investment—1,027.506 STEEM

I did not buy the February dip (I did this a few days before it) but it does constitute the singlemost high amount of STEEM that I've purchased at any given time.

SNAX/SNAXP

Total SNAXP on STEEM-Engine through February 29, 2020 was 11,841,487.8653. Total acquired in February was 1,480,540.3918.

SNAX on their blockchain via STEEM posting rounds grew to 317,214.3555.

Miscellaneous

I'm not very good at making predictions. It's hard to know how March is going to look given the current state of STEEM. As long as the siege and seizure of STEEM continues, the less attentive to other topics people seem to be. I know it's been hitting me significantly when it comes to what I seek out to read. I have always been an information junky. I like to know things, especially stuff that could affect me. It's easier to make decisions when you have information. Good information, that is. Not speculation. Not conjecture. Real intel.

I'm not sure how much of that is actually out there. Most of it seems to be misdirection (aka lies), and the rest seems to be reactionary.

Here's hoping, despite where it all seems to be headed, that things get sorted out for the good of STEEM, the platform, its users, and anyone else who wants STEEM to succeed, sooner than later.

Onward and upward.

For another monthly report, check out what @bashadow did in February. For even more summaries, here's the monthly post by @abh12345 where users request their stats in the comments.