Musings 2: If You Want to Maximize Your Curation Rewards, Do Not Rely Solely On Curation Trails

_{Image Source}
Hello Steemians!

Welcome to the second session of my Musings. If you haven't read the first session, please consider it first. Although sessions in my musings are all mutually exclusive, I would really appreciate it if you can check them out in order. That way, you will be able to follow through with my thought process. Anyway, here is my first musing:

Musings 1: Read Something Before You Write Something

In this musing, I'll be discussing what I have observed since I availed @ginabot's amazing notification service on discord. For those who haven't availed the service yet, please click here. You can read in that post the inclusions and features of the service. Included also are the steps on how to avail the service. I will not be discussing here the steps on how to do that because (1) I'm not good at making tutorials, (2) I believe it's not in the scope of this musing, and (3) @ginabot and others have already made comprehensive tutorials on how to avail the service. If you have concerns regarding the steps, you can always contact me directly for one-on-one follow through.

_{@ginabot's new look. GINA stands for General Independent Notification Automation. Image courtesy of @kemane and @ginabot.}
Basically, in @ginabot's notification service on discord, you will be notified of almost any activity in Steemit that is related to your account. From follows to transfers, name it, @ginabot will notify you. I can now track activities like upvotes on my post.

Let's go back to @ginabot's notification in a bit. In the meantime, I'll discuss another interesting development. I bet you already know that @steemph.cebu's curation trail is currently sitting in Top 7 of steemauto.com's list of curation trail with 262 followers. Wow! That's a great feat considering that curation trails like @curie, @surpassinggoogle, and @cryptoctopus, along with @steemauto, @airhawk-project, and @utopian-1up, are on the top of the list. These curation trails are international and @steemph.cebu is a local community; this means that Cebu is one of the fastest growing community in Steemit.

I followed the curation trail just recently, after all the glitches have been fixed and the framework has been set to prevent abuses. I express my gratitude to the moderators of the curation trail. You guys are awesome!

Understanding Curation Trails

Curation trail is basically a mechanism in which you will automatically upvote a post once a trail that you follow upvotes that post. For example, you follow @surpassinggoogle's curation trail; once @surpassinggoogle upvotes a post, you will then automatically upvote that post.

_{Image Attribution}
About a month ago, @jassennessaj made a comprehensive post about curation trails. I think you should give time to read it here. He also made some points on the good outcomes of curation trails.

There are two options in curation trails: (1) set a fixed percentage of voting power that you wish in your upvote and (2) follow the curator weight. If you consider the first option, you should consider a percentage that would not totally drain your voting power. This percentage is dependent on the average amount of posts that your followed curation trail will upvote in a day. The second option is more on the trust that you give at your chosen curation trail. With that trust, you believe that the curator will not totally drain your voting power.

My Observations

Still with the concept of @ginabot's notification service? The good thing about @ginabot is that it shows the voting power and the vote value in SBD. Well, let me share this observation:

_{Screenshot from my discord chat. @ginabot notification showing someone has upvoted my post at 3% voting power and $0.000 vote value. I just blurred the user for the sake of privacy of that user.}

Comparing that with @surpassinggoogle's upvote:

_{Screenshot from my discord chat. @ginabot notification showing @surpassinggoogle has upvoted my post at 3% voting power and $3.942 vote value.}

I guess by now, you should have understood what I mean in this post. In my opinion, you should consider your options when you follow a curation trail.

_{Image Source}
Here is my claim:

If you have a STEEM POWER that is still below 1000, you should realize that there is a greater probability that you won't earn any curation reward from following a curation trail.

Disclaimer: I am not discouraging anyone to unfollow your chosen curation trail. As said in my title, you should not rely on it entirely if you want to maximize your curation rewards.

Let me take that case as an example for my claim. I think that the user followed @surpassinggoogle's curation trail with the curator weight option. Meaning, whatever is @surpassinggoogle's voting weight, automatically, that would be the voting weight of that user.

The problem lies on the difference of STEEM POWER. Since @surpassinggoogle's SP is much bigger than that minnow, 3% voting weight has a disparity of vote value: @surpassinggoogle's vote value is at $3.942, while that user is at $0.000. Since that user has a vote value of zero, surely, he won't get any curation reward from that vote.

Let me add another observation:

_{Screenshot from @penguinpablo's steemnow.com. It shows my latest curation rewards.}

Another feature is @penguinpablo's steemnow.com, which can display the current status of any steemian. SteemNow displays range from current SP to total potential payout from the posts.

In that screenshot above, I showed my latest curation rewards. Currently, I have 304 SP and all of my curation rewards are from posts that I manually upvoted or from posts of steemians with my automatic fan base curation. None of them comes from @steemph.cebu's curation trail.

Inferences

The question now might be whether or not to continue with the curation trail. If that is your question, go back to the reason why you followed a curation trail. Should I stop following @steemph.cebu's curation trail? Definitely not! My reason in following the trail is not for curation rewards, but for the benefits that the curation trail brings to the community.

_{Image Source}
Following a trail is showing support to the initiatives of the curator. It shows a statement of camaraderie and togetherness in a particular community. Regardless if I earn curation rewards or not, I will still continue to follow @steemph.cebu's curation trail.

Manual Curation and Fan Base

You should be aware of the status of your voting power. If continue to be at a value of 95% or above, you're not maximizing its potential.

_{Image Source}
Go for manual curation. Upvote contents that sparked your interest and showcase the qualities that you like. About 10 upvotes per day is good. Do not attempt to do indiscriminate upvoting because you're wasting your voting power at upvotes that don't hold any vote value.

For seasoned steemians who consistently showcased quality contents, you can automatically upvote their posts via Fan Base. You can set a fixed voting power and time of voting for that content creator. Every time that content creator post something, you will automatically upvote that post at your specified time of voting. Maximizing curation rewards, voting 30 minutes after posting will give you 100% of your curation share. I personally set 15 minutes after posting.

Curation rewards are passive income for me. Even if I'm not online or not posting anything, I am still earning cents. They might be cents, but their value would be tremendous in the future. Your $0.001 SP curation reward now might be a few dollars worth in the future. We don't know exactly, but that's the speculative nature of cryptocurrencies.

All in all, you should consider your options in order for you to make sound decisions about your curation rewards, followed curation trails, and Steemit presence in general.

Please let me know what you think about this musing. You can comment below anything that you want to comment. Violent reactions are even welcome as long as presented in a logical and civilized manner.

See you in Musings 3!
Kim, @ybanezkim26