Hi all!

This weeks' curation league post is again brought to you from the sunny Island of Mauritius!

A minimum of 15 STEEM in prizes are available next week by stating your interest below. You will be entered into both leagues (which are probably best called tables, as they are reset each week!)

On your marks, get set, curate!

---

Introduction

My general views on maximizing curation rewards are:

• Voting in the first minute will earn you a curation reward of almost 0.000

• Voting between 1 and 29 minutes will earn an increasing % of the curation rewards split, this value peaking at 30 minutes and remaining the same from this point onwards

• The goal is to get in prior to the big hitters, but not too early!

• It is commonly suggested that 20-25 minutes is the 'best' time to vote (especially on known 'power author' posts because they are likely to have more auto-votes coming in at these times - and you want to be ahead of these votes)

• A vote of equal weight and equal Steem Power at 30 minutes will give more reward than a vote at, for example 1 hour - first come first served, but don't arrive to early :)

• Voting on good dtube content and utopian-io approved contributions (prior to the vote by @dtube / @utopian-io )can earn some very good curation rewards

As you can see, a combination of many variables such as Steem Power, voting strength, voting weight, time of vote, (and more) all play a part in the amount of rewards received.

My general opinion on maximizing engagement is:

• Spread your vote and write lots of engaging comments!

---

The data for league 1

The raw data has been collected from SteemSQL - @arcange's MS SQL Server copy of the Steem Blockchain.

SteemSQL is now a monthly subscription service and so your support in this post is greatly appreciated!

The key formula used for 'quality of financial curation skill' is:

Curation Rewards DIVIDED BY Steem Power MULTIPLIED BY 1000

This will return the amount of Curation rewards gained per 1000 Steem Power held

---

The rules (which will cause auto-filtering of your account if not met so just enter anyway and see what happens!) to appear in this league:

• Must have voted at least once on a piece of content in the past 7 days

• Must not have leased or delegated Steem Power in the last 14 days

• Must not have Started a Power Down (withdrawal of Steem Power) in the last 15 days

The 2nd and 3rd points above are required to reduce distortion of the figures.

And, as curation rewards for the past week are actually taken from votes made up to 14 days ago, we need a 15 day window as mentioned above.

Don't let this put you off entering though - you will be automatically be excluded/appear depending on the criteria above.

Curating for maximizing returns - League 1

User	C Rewards	Steem Power	Votes Cast	Reward per 1000 SP
miniature-tiger	6.640876	1681.292836	163	3.949863
edje	3.05245	948.181712	146	3.219267
steemitri	7.684649	2684.947612	393	2.862122
instructor2121	14.280455	5889.183278	131	2.424862
curie	247.119319	109538.3795	3084	2.256007
greenrun	13.569605	6941.11279	214	1.954961
fiveboringgames	27.807194	14544.88832	313	1.911819
pataty69	0.203963	120.081524	249	1.698538
sco	1.276792	768.474006	157	1.661465
osm0sis	2.609623	1623.888367	217	1.607021
choogirl	39.338268	25246.74006	1366	1.558152
steemtrail	18.041908	11668.59218	132	1.546194
joe.nobel	0.386921	278.130136	79	1.391152
dandesign86	3.036418	2332.306356	427	1.301895
lordjames	0.030992	24.013708	81	1.290588
clumsysilverdad	1.456757	1135.885286	197	1.282486
jlordc	0.148971	116.854137	123	1.274844
htliao	22.957181	20360.28824	375	1.127547
xervantes	5.734059	5231.971365	236	1.095965
connecteconomy	1.418768	1304.479251	166	1.087612
aburmeseabroad	1.723656	1639.180433	94	1.051535
halcyondaze	0.57691	555.530977	151	1.038483
betbuddha	2.582628	2512.253867	220	1.028012
goldendawne	10.703333	10618.02241	451	1.008035
sneakyninja	0.849857	856.0295	125	0.99279
erikaflynn	0.977821	985.776202	221	0.99193
tumutanzi	14.430723	15206.1182	147	0.949008
cranium	6.489995	6978.221758	670	0.930036
teamsteem	387.520399	419595.4549	1497	0.923557
gniksivart	1.624722	1765.762364	134	0.920125
cryptoctopus	311.905313	340449.692	365	0.916157
costanza	4.553329	5147.948029	223	0.884494
limabeing	0.911907	1039.142841	56	0.877556
haphazard-hstead	5.379116	6330.387745	186	0.849729
steemibu351	0.031992	37.955182	84	0.842882
beanz	43.778379	52608.65421	108	0.832152
ammonite	0.475916	572.047185	67	0.831953
revisesociology	1.027802	1261.126397	293	0.814988
smasssh	4.380236	5577.360339	221	0.78536
dontstopmenow	3.996393	5148.914241	184	0.776162
amariespeaks	0.172975	224.945992	66	0.768964
soyrosa	0.593887	808.640633	127	0.734426
yura81	0.010998	14.99669	73	0.733331
karensuestudios	6.274959	8752.28723	123	0.716951
rok-sivante	62.622912	92683.64268	466	0.675663
bashadow	0.273954	407.306199	215	0.672599
rosemarynoble	0.022995	35.025273	238	0.656512
maintain4real-eu	0.092987	149.417349	315	0.622329
clio	3.629369	5883.668867	131	0.616855
jaeydallah	0.018997	32.767143	309	0.579743
dragonking	0.05599	111.238797	156	0.503334
jawad09	0.06499	132.909645	42	0.488977
rayne122	0.074987	154.760926	104	0.484532
funbobby51	0.031996	68.487586	655	0.467185
kawsar	0.007999	17.203438	15	0.464964
mammasitta	7.071765	15214.97475	432	0.46479
paulag	0.099981	240.025792	76	0.416542
majes.tytyty	6.524911	15807.56679	339	0.412771
killerkuasha	0.043994	126.728408	51	0.347151
retiredinsamar	0.293947	904.20981	166	0.325087
thinknzombie	1.870658	7373.69402	46	0.253694
djmalith	0.064987	306.3673	128	0.212121
hazelgrace25	0.024997	143.974042	47	0.173624
steemit.lover2	0.006998	43.009945	40	0.162718
pariza	0.004999	31.044914	44	0.161015
littlejoeward	0.024996	288.04787	47	0.086777
darkerhorse	0.008999	104.552712	6	0.086069
cemke	0.012998	173.78155	171	0.074792
sunnyofoz	0.001	14.99569	80	0.066669
kaysar07	0.004	72.001989	75	0.055551
ikrahch	0.035991	879.985394	175	0.040899
fernando26	0.001	28.9393	15	0.034552
User	C Rewards	Steem Power	Votes Cast	Reward per 1000 SP

The end column is what I think is a genuine indicator of how well you are financially working the curation game with the tools,including vested Steem Power, that you have at your disposal.

---

Chart and Analysis

Amount of SP earned per 1000 Steem Power owned

This weeks' results:

( @zapncrap 17.92, @curx 14.61, @qsounds 5.96 , @biophil 5.07, and @credo 4.57 removed for bots/trails sorry! )

• @miniature-tiger takes first spot this week, well done master curator!

• @edje takes 2nd, the sound of music is in the air!

• @steemitri in 3rd, well done the curating mannequin!

Well done to @instructor2121 and @greenrun who also performed very well this week.

---

• The average curation reward/Steem Power this week is 1.49, up from 1.36 last week.

---

Community Curation Excellence - League 2

This new league is not based around rewards and relates to engagement.

Everyone currently on my master list has a chance here - delegation dealings or not.

I've used some metrics (which is the fancy way of saying that made up some numbers) relating to:

• Comments (number and amount of text)
• Comments outside of your own blogs
• Up-votes to others
• Up-votes to unique others
• Self-votes (a minus score for this one sorry!)
• Witness engagement

The top 20

Name	Ashers engagement/excellence rating
@davemccoy	2524532.6
@goldendawne	2458442.8
@blazing	2017041.4
@yura81	2014358.6
@coolguy123	1807987.2
@carlgnash	1739254.2
@lpessin	1708636.6
@teamsteem	1597475.4
@cheneats	1570010.8
@biophil	1522852.8
@pataty69	1463256
@choogirl	1350129.4
@gniksivart	1216860
@beeyou	1154585.6
@bashadow	1147541.4
@maverickinvictus	1108576
@limabeing	1074829.8
@swelker101	1006115
@wwf	969383.6
@josephsavage	962224.4

---

Firstly, if you are placed in this league you are doing great - 1st place or 20th!

Well done to @davemccoy who tops the league of engagement and excellence this week! Dave is a recent delegate of mine and has started his Steemit career excellently!

Also, very well done to @goldendawne (one of the #stewardsofgondor) and @blazing (huge commentator!) who have finished 2nd and 3rd - well done both!

Want to be a part of the league next week? Let me know below!

_{Calculations may vary from week to week but still with a goal to find top community engagers.}

---

Prizes sent!

---

Finally

A few points:

• If you have spotted any glaring errors in my post, please let me know so I can fix them

• If you would like to be added or removed from my personal curation league, let me know

• If you have any other comments or suggestions, please enter them into the box below

---

_{I am part of a Steemit Business Intelligence community. We all post under the tag #blockchainbi. If you have analysis you would like to be carried out on Steemit data, please do contact me or any of the #blockchainbi and we will do our best to help you.}

_{I am contactable on many discord channels under the same username.}

_{Data was collected on the 11th February 2018 at 6pm (UTC)}

---

Thank you for your support, have a great day!

Asher @abh12345