Confessions of a Self-VotersteemCreated with Sketch.

in steemit •  7 years ago  (edited)

10 months I am on Steemit Now and what a heck of a ride it has been.  Like 99% of other users I started here with nothing except a little delegation from Steemit Inc, just enough to allow me vote and post.  When I joined the price of STEEM was above $2 and I think my vote was worth a cent.

The trending page looked okay…ish…..  The same authors were trending regularly but the difference then was that paid voting bots were not a big thing.  And posts on trending were earning really good money.  I wanted to be there.  I wanted to hit trending and get that exposure.

Although my vote was not worth much, I set my posts to Upvote so I could kick start the rewards.  My thinking was ‘social proof’.  If there were votes and a small value, maybe others will follow suit and also vote.  Blogging online is a lot about social proof.  Two blog on the same topic, one has 100 likes and the other has none, which are you going read right?

So every post I made I self-voted and in the meantime the price of STEEM went down and hit below 90 cent. The value of my vote also decreased but I continued on.

And then a little bit of magic happened. @stellabelle made a delegation to me of 20K SP.  This was massive and what’s more, I woke up one morning to it just being there.  I had no idea I was getting it and no idea what to do with it.

My first actions were to go to the Introduction tag and go on a voting bender. I had no idea how long I would have the power for so I was going to make the most of it. For weeks I spent day and night on Steemit, let my own business suffer a little, but I really needed to make the most of this.  I increased my posts so I was posting almost every day and I ensure I did a health amount of curating and commenting at the same time.

But then something just as incredible happened.  @fulltimegeek matched Stellas delegation.  OMG.  I worked harder and harder.  I was active in every channel I could be on Discord and did a massive amount of networking.  At this stage I had completely neglected my own business and by Christmas was beginning to burn out 40 – 50 hours a week is no joke.  But I could see the light.  My SP was growing, my posts were doing better and Stella had told me she would be taking back the delegation at the start of the New Year.  I was looking forward to it being gone.  I had worked so hard, I had posted so much, I had commented everywhere I could add value and I had also set up the Blockchain Business Intelligence Community.

Stella took back here delegation and although I was initially grateful to have it, I was also relived when it was gone.  I was going to get back on top of my own business and take some time off Steemit. I needed the rest. 

But @fulltimegeek didn’t take his back.  I don’t know why but I was under the impression that that would be going at the same time.  I didn’t know what do to.  I needed to focus on my own business for a while and was so burnt out from Steemit. 2 days passed 3 days passed.  I even though of contacting @fulltimegeek to ask him to take it back.

But I didn’t. Instead I went on a self-voting bender.  The price of STEEM was the highest it had been since I started here.  My vote was worth over $7 and I did something I never did before.  I began to vote on my own comments.  Fuck it, all the big fish were doing it.  I said it lasted about 8 days and then @fulltimegeek took back the delegation.

I turned Steemit off for a week. Didn’t touch it at all.  I didn’t even go into discord.  I spent a lot of time catching up on my own business and thinking about what to do next.

No one ever said anything to me about losing the delegation from @fulltimegeek or my self-voting.  No one had to.  I knew it was wrong what I had done. And although no one said anything I knew I had to rebuild trust that I had broken.

So why am I tell you all this now?  Well because I want people to know how I really feel about the practice of Self Voting.  And although my story may mean I lose the respect of some, I hope that I can gain the respect of others.  Heck this is Steemit and what I have said here, is very much food for my haters, I just hope a witch hunt does not begin in the comments, but I do expect a few.

You see I still believe in Social Proof and self-voting offers that, but only to an extent.  Steemit is not like any other blogging or social platform, and there is only so much self-voting that the community will accept.

Bidbot are also a way to gain social proof and I did not agree with them, so now I began to question my use of self-votes for the same reason.

When you start out on Steemit you start with nothing.  Self-voting is a way to help grow your account, as well as providing social proof on the post.  Personally I believe there is a cut off.  A time when you should stop self-voting.  For me the time was when I reached 5000 SP.  I though at this level SP I would been seen as more of an influencer and should myself set a good example.

But I don’t have 5000 SP yet and I have stopped voting.  When I realised how much of an influencer I was seen as, I realised it was time to stop.  I don’t think ‘do as I say and not as I do’ is a good enough attitude for an influencer on Steemit, not matter what size fish you are, Whale or Minnow.

Now I happily delegate out a lot of the little power I have.  I don’t vote on my own post or comments and I won’t be voting on my posts again in a hurry. I support people around Steemit as much as I can and I have even set up a witness server @steemcommunity with @abh12345 (shameless plug ) I do hope you will consider giving us your vote.

So if you self-vote, within reason, the truth is, I don’t see a problem. Especially when you are new and need to grow your SP.  But if you are a whale, a witness or a community leader, then it’s time to look in the mirror.

Feel like I just did a full counselling session.

STEEM ON everyone 

Paula

x


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I remember doing the SoG report that week and thinking, what is going on here!

Good to see this confession :)

ha ha the data king spotted it. I should have known :-)

This story is almost the same like what just happened to me @paulag. I stop self-voting at all, no matter how big my upvote worth to me. I won the price of 500 sp delegated from my friend @sagescrub for 2 weeks, but still I just hold myself to do self voting. yes I need to grow my account but what I thing is "respect must be earned from others, not from my own.

best regards

Self-Voting is an act of self-love and everyone who wants to grow here, should vote about 60% of his VP for himself. Through self-votes you grow your SP and therefore the other 40% of your votes become more meaningful over time.
It's a perfect symbol of how life works. The more you love yourself, the more love you got for others. If your vessel is empty, it helps no one.
So by all means: Please vote for yourself, so that your votes become bigger for your followers! Thank you for your report about your story here! 🙏❤️

And although my story may mean I lose the respect of some, I hope that I can gain the respect of others.

I already thought very highly of you and now that's even higher. Thanks for sharing your story on this, I didn't know you felt that way. A great contribution to the topic.

I'm firmly against self-voting but even more firmly in favour of each man doing with his vote what he will.
When I joined Steemit initially, I tried to vote only for those didn't self-vote but, needless to say, I soon ran out of people for whom to vote. I've since dismounted my high horse, relaxed my little rules and now sneak around checking people's voting behaviour on Steemreports..

what is steemreports?

A handy little tool for the modern stalker
http://www.steemreports.com/outgoing-votes-info/?account=deirdyweirdy&days=7
Just change my username for any other and you can see how benevolent people are in their voting habits.

thanks,
this is useful

I just had a look at your stats. Pretty impressive. A model steemian spreading the love. Fair play to ya.

I just got 100sp delegated by @paulag last Friday. I want to maximize it's usefulness, but still I am not sure the best way to do that.

Oh did you? That's great. You deserve it.
I try to vote for accounts with a lower rep, less SP than myself or those who try to spread the love. It doesn't earn you a lot of curation rewards as a rule though, but it does make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

I see, @deirdyweirdy. I do the same, basically. But I still take the posts' content as matter, is it okay? What is your opinion.

By the way, I made a meme last year end when I was participating in a meme contest. (I didn't win.) Then some people said that upvoting your own posts and comments is recommended. So I started upvoting my own posts and comments until about 2 weeks ago. It is not about how much I made when I do so, something just didn't feel okay.

phew if you are stalking mine then you know i'm in good shape lol.

I wouldn't dare!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

I want people to "control" their own success with Steem and do whatever works for them to gain steem.
Smaller users in my opinion should self upvote more.
To this day, I upvote my own posts at 100% about one a day. I do not upvote my own comments. I try to support those who make interesting content that is out of the "norm" on steem. I upvote a lot of comments to encourage engagement.

I heard your confession, and I don't judge a bit, however, I can see why that might have upset those who delegated to you. :)

Keep showing up and find a way to earn! Try to be tolerant of others as they too are figuring out what works!

I am glad you are here.

I am sure that I well annoyed people, but look, I have to move forward and I learned a lot about myself in the process and I hope that it can be seen for what it was and how much I have given back since.

I think how you self vote is rather ethical and by no means overboard.

I love this
"Try to be tolerant of others as they too are figuring out what works!"
thank you

Smaller users in my opinion should self upvote more.

I agree in that these small votes are not really hurting the reward pool, but I also think there is a better option, for 2 reasons.

The up-voting of good comments on popular blogs (in your interest area) I think is a better way for minnows (and dolphins at times) to spend their precious 5 cents. If you pick the right comment, give a good reply and a vote, at the right time (usually before post author), then you have 2 chances for this comment to be seen and up-voted by someone who can probably smash a weeks worth of self-votes with their 1-5%.

The second reason is the greater chance of these people coming to check out what you are doing on your own blog. If your recent stuff is decent and in the same area, you might get another up-vote, and maybe even a follow.

This is what I suggest when asked anyway, and I've had plenty of minnows come back to me excited about it working out for them - in fact, I still do some of this myself :)

Cheers!

Loading...

I’ve been all over the map on this. Currently self-voting on posts but not on comments. About 20% of my SP delegated to @smartsteem for an income stream, about 40% delegated “quasi-altruistically”, the remaining 40% being used for voting. Not sure I’ve found the right balance yet.

If you are an active user here you should delegate 0 vests and use your own stake to upvote yourself, downvote scammers, spammers, other abusers and if you still have any time left, then try to reward unrewarded good content.

If you think you have enough time or ability to do all of this with your available stake you are wrong, because even if you had your entire stake at your disposal now and it was doubled,you would have still
found yourself helpless if you tried to fight a bad whale or two.
Philanthropy should be the responsibility of the rich if anyone's.
Particularly of the undeservedly rich, A.K.A. "the whales".

I guess we’re going to have to agree to disagree.

downvote scammers, spammers, other abusers

Like people who use bots to upvote their own comments? 😏

That’s the issue right there. What’s acceptable to some is abuse to others.

Interpret it however you want.
The main idea is that if you are active then you can benefit the most out of your stake by using it to achieve your goals.
If you are inactive or lack time, you may profit by delegating your stake for a rent.
I am not at all in the know about STEEM rent prices, but all other things being equal there are bot owners far more deserving than smartsteem/smartmarket to delegate STEEM to.
But remember that I wrote all other things being equal, and I do not know if they are equal.
It should be discussed/negotiated with them.

You got a 10.00% upvote from @luckyvotes courtesy of @stimialiti!

You got a 14.29% upvote from @ubot courtesy of @stimialiti! Send 0.05 Steem or SBD to @ubot for an upvote with link of post in memo.

Every post gets Resteemed (follow us to get your post more exposure)!

98% of earnings paid daily to delegators! Go to www.ubot.ws for details.

This is commonly refered to as greed

This is commonly refered to as greed

This is commonly referred to as hypocrisy.

lol

You got a 7.41% upvote from @luckyvotes courtesy of @stimialiti!

You got a 7.58% upvote from @sleeplesswhale courtesy of @stimialiti!

You got a 44.94% upvote from @proffit courtesy of @stimialiti!

You got a 12.50% upvote from @luckyvotes courtesy of @stimialiti!

You got a 25.00% upvote from @sleeplesswhale courtesy of @stimialiti!

@youtake pulls you up ! This vote was sent to you by @stimialiti!

its so hard to find the right balance. I have to weigh up how much delegation I give out free v's keep for curating...

hooray for self voting . . .LOL

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

I am still relatively new and have very little understanding of this crossroads that you are describing. I joined Steemit at the end of January and only hear stories of the December highs. No idea what that is like...

My upvote only recently started to show any value and I'm now at $0.03. I have never had a significant payout and I have never withdrawn any money from Steemit.

The value system that says it is wrong to self-vote when the system invites it and goes as far as providing an easy way to automate it, baffles me. I am a fan of my own writing. I like what I have to say and how I say it. And I want the world to know that I have such discerning taste... (tongue-in-cheek)

I am open to being convinced.

if you think your content has value and you want to upvote it, then that is your right on steemit. There is no written rules on what is right and wrong.

Hi @paulag. Please ignore me if this is a bother. Your post engaged me and got me thinking.

I am new at this and at this level, it really doesn't matter who I upvote. My impact is miniature. Plus I do this in my free time and I'm building slowly. But somewhere in the future, I would want to earn enough from this to make it possible to say my Steemit income is covering all the coffee I drink in a month or a holiday or something.

My thinking thus far was that when my upvote got to the place where it had value, I would upvote myself. This would guarantee an income that I could include in my budget.

You have challenged my thinking on this. Thank you, I think... :-)

Do you see what I did there? :-)

Get rid of delegation, bring back penalties for posting more than 4 posts, and that will force whales to curate rather than delegate to other like bid bots. Then I'll go back to no more self-voting my own posts, like I had done since before HF19 hit with the linear rewards. When I came back to Steem 2 months ago after leaving when there was only 2 bidbots, to seeing how many there were now, and how little support people get now without paying for it... well I decided to self-vote again. Things were better before bid bots were made... HF19 was ok at first, but opened the door to many issues...

We need to solve our problems as a community and not appeal to big brother's stick?

It would help if stinc wasnt stealing every vote less than .02sbd, too.

I did a Blocktrades delegation thinking I would get rich self voting and then I went nuts for three months upvoting everybody else! Cost me about 500 USD but felt GREAT!
image.png

Ah what the heck...I am going to self vote this comment. I deserve it LOL!

lol love this

Hello. I just stumbled upon you and I am glad that I read your entire post.
First - I had already been following @abh12345 and voted for him (and you it seems) for witness.
Second - I very much appreciate you telling your story about upvoting because I have been thinking about this a lot and revising my actions over time. My full voting amount is $.07 so upvoting my own comments isn't a big deal financially. I do like to upvote other people and do that a good amount I believe. Asher has a bot so a person to check on his acct or others and see how much up-voting one does. :-)

My present conclusion - I presently am not upvoting my own comments as long as the original poster upvotes my comment or at least responds. This is when my comment is more that a "thank you" or "Yes", etc. If after 5 or 6 days I don't receive an upvote or response, then I upvote my comment. As you wrote, that gives one a sense of worth; a sense of socially fitting in; etc.

I agree with your thoughts on if I were to have a large amt of SP - not upvoting myself. But I don't have that. A thought I'll keep for the future.
Cheers.

Personally i dont see a problem with small accounts self voting as long as it is not excessive.

Thanks for the witness vote. Asher runs a data query not a bot to check for self voting. I do the same my self

Thank you for your response.
Re: Data query - sorry I used the wrong terminology. I am still learning this.

Yes, Ma'am.
A good counseling session, I guess.
I have stopped upvoting my posts and comments for some times now,
but I did recently buy votes.

people feel forced to buy votes just to get visibility and the bot owners get richer and the divide gets bigger

Yes, I guess everyone wins.

your acknowledgment is like a dilemma to me, it is like a dejavu story that just started in my steemit life, why every part of life should always have regulatory rules, why should there be sad and happy. this article tells the story you've been through and missed, and I just started it, will the end be the same as you feel now? I will be going through this process patiently, I make a confession as well, now I am at the moment as you feel at that time of cristhmas mommy.

I think most people do a certain amount of self voting, and for minnows that need to grow I dont see a problem with it in reason.

I do upvote my posts , never comments which makes up about 5% of my steemit interactions. Everything else, I give to others.

I like your honesty and appreciate it @paulag. My opinion is also, that it's o.k. to self-vote when starting on steemit but it's really an ethical choice when being a whale or a whitness. Never expected this platform to be so ethically oriented and socially responsible and I must admit I like this and similar discussions, so thanks for sharing your own story;-)

there are way more ethics involved as your rep grows. Some of self inflicted ethics and some are community driven

Great topic of discussion and the comments have been as good to read than your story. This is something I have debating myself as well. While I upvote my posts, I do not upvote my comments. However, I only post 3 times per week vs being very active on commenting on quality content. My view is that starting out, you should have the liberty to use your SP how you feel especially if it has come from your rewards and/or actual investment into STEEM. I think that was the purpose of the DPOS approach as it needs to incentivize people to have stakes on the blockchain. However, as influence rises, it should be more distributed instead on oneself.

I dont see anything wrong with upvoting your own posts - after all if you write good content it takes a long time and your upvite is going to help it suceed and be seen by more people.

Iv never upvoted my own comments - I hate seeing someone with like a $2 upvoting their own comment whne the comment is very brief. I think that upvote would be better used on others and they will be likely to come and at least check out what you are all about

I self voted when I started, but I want making much anyway. I stopped doing that some time ago. I've only used it to counter some flags I consider unfair. I've built up some SP that I want to use to support others with votes and delegation. We need to build this platform for long term success.

I would ask people to not vote on their own comments. Let others decide if they have value.

There are circumstances where I self vote. I have written about it a few times, when I think it can be justified. I also spend a lot of my voting power downvoting other self voters.

you do actual spend a lot downvoting. Not a practice I have gotten into much. I don't think your self voting is excessive at all, and well the platform allows for it so each for the own right?

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

Actually I think 'each to their own' is exactly the attitude we need to be getting rid of. One of the main reasons I'm interested in Steem is that it is a system of collective governance without violence. But with the wider distribution of power, we have to hold each other accountable. In a representative democracy we expect high accountability from the small number of people with a lot of power. Why wouldn't we expect the same accountability from power held by many? It is the only solution to the tragedy of the commons.

unfortunately the platform its self allows for 'each for your own' and too many with a lot of power take advantage of this.

We can not expect accountability unless there are standard setters. Greed has overcome many of the standard setters that I cant wait for the wider distribution of power and I am ready to set standards.

Obviously I want to make money, lets not pretend. Steemit offers this to me as equally as it offers it to everyone else. However how I chose to make my money on Steemit is a way that differs from many others....it might be a slower way and some might call me a nob, but as long as it feels right for me, then it works.

We can set our own standards. We don't need to look to someone else to set a standard for what's right, what's expected. As the stake (power) gets more distributed we will have to do this regardless.

It's okay @paulag, you repented.

I’m always debating internally about self upvoting my own blogs. Comments I try and never touch unless it was by mistake as I can see that as a runaway thing that gets away from people.

It’s really one of those things you never know about yourself until you are put into a position where your vote carries a fair amount of weight behind it. Good on you for coming forward on this. It will be quite interesting to see how many people behave when steem gets much higher than $7 each.

When STEEM gets higher that $7 I hope people wont make the same mistake as me and I hope they learn to spread their vote wider by reducing power - that way, everyone wins

The appeal of self voting is obvious, especially when you're a minnow. It can be so difficult to be noticed on Steemit these days with all the vote bots boosting content to the top of the trending page with no quality control at all.

Up voting for me has been a way to add a tiny reward for my effort, which let's be honest, is generally worth more than a cent if you're actually taking the time to try to add value to the platform.

Having said that, I haven't being upvoting my comments. I think the difference here is that accounts with larger amounts of SP can catapult their comments to the top of the comment section even if the author/other voters don't want that to happen.

I think it's great that you were given the chance to build your account through such generous delegations. Did you ever find out why they had both delegated so much to you?

This is so honest and so raw, hitting me on so many points that i can't help but cast my vote. My SP is about 230 and i self-upvote- only my posts, not my comments. My attitude is, if i don't upvote my post, who will? It might be wrong, but i also figure i have no choice. The environment is so tough now that creating great content isn't enough anymore.

Stella took back here delegation and although I was initially grateful to have it, I was also relieved when it was gone.

You wrote this so beautifully thati understood. I also pray a delegation smiles on me, lol. Till then, I've been enjoying steemit.

That was an entertaining read. Thanks for the share! You're very lucky to have two people delegate SP to you, wish I had that hahaha.

BTW what is a Blockchain Business Intelligence Community? Sounds interesting. I'm pretty sure I can hunt it down somewhere through your posting history, but I'd like to know more about it from yourself. hehe.

#blockchainbi is a group of people that enjoy analysing data and spend a lot of time analysing the Steemit blockchain

#blockchainbi is a group of people that enjoy analysing data and spend a lot of time analysing the Steemit blockchain

Thank you. I'm taking a look there now.

Saya sebagai salah satu steemian baru, memberikan apresiasi kepada @paulag atas perjuangannya mengembangkan diri di Steemit.

Saya menganggap aktivitas di steemit ini hanyalah cara untuk mengembangkan bakat menulis saya, dan berlatih mengungkapkan isi pikiran sendiri. Menurut saya, "vote self" tidak perlu dilakukan. Karena itu menunjukkan rasa tidak sabar yang ada dalam hati kita. Kita hanya perlu menulis dan terus menulis aga kapasitas kita semakin meningkat.

Biarkan orang yang menilai.
Biarkanlah air mengalir di jalurnya.

Dengan demikian, kepuasan itu akan terasa lebih nyata. Karena itu merupakan bentuk pengakuan murni orang lain terhadap tulisannya kita.

Berlatih lah untuk bersabar.

(Indonesia language)

Makes sense. Nice to meet you @paulag! I don't think our paths have crossed till now😊

Interesting to read your story @paulag. self-voting is a difficult one I think.

When I first started I self-voted without really knowing anything about it but it seemed like most people were doing it so I thought it was OK.

Then I got publicly criticised for it so I stopped more because the person who called me on it was more powerful than I was/am.

Now I'm sure what I feel about it. 😢

I think its really up to how you feel. Your SP is not the large (no offence) and if I was not a witness and not in a position of influense I would self vote my own posts too. Take a look at the response above by @whatsup. I would consider that rather fair self voting.

Thanks @paulag and for pointing out the response from @whatsup. The Commenting League isn't running next week as Asher is away so there will be no penalties to incur for self-voting so maybe now is the time to give it a go again and see how it feels. 😁

This happens to everyone when they first join wishful thinking of the term of wealth here. A self-control is required to sustain and grow further. Should ignore everything related to STEEM, SBD, and SP (STEEM POWER) and focus on what we want to share or help to build up the community. Self-voting is always a temptation since is an instant solution for visibility and consider it as self-advertised too. A great confession which will make you move forward. Well done @paulag!

thanks @legendchew

interesting story @paulag. talking about self-vote, just like you said i vote my self at the first time i join steemit. i almost lose of my vote power because of it 😁😁😁. No body will vote me unless my self. i do this to help my self increase. Untill someday, i don't know, i think self-vote is not good. without any clear reason i stop it. is it right or wrong i don't care. i just don't want to vote my self again. if what i present here worth let society decide it.

I am very interested in Mrs @paulag review, and we in Aceh are also collecting investors to develop steem blockchain in Aceh

Hi @paulag, I highly appreciate how open you talk about this! You didn't lose respect in my eyes, you even gained more. I didn't notice your self-voting at that time, but I remember well that getting a vote and engaging comments from you on analysis posts was the highest appreciation I could think of. Keep it up!

So glad I read this post!

I just got 1000sp delegated to me (I don't think I have it for very long - a week or so)

I only upvote my posts - never upvote anything more of my own - comments etc.

I was wondering if I would be frowned upon if I continued upvoting my own posts or not?...(it wouldn't be a change of behavior, so I think not)

I love the honesty of this post.(And the meme from @aneukpineung78. That's exactly how I feel as well!)

When I first posted, I noticed the 'Upvote post' tickbox. I figured it was there for a reason, and maybe it was the 'in' thing to do, but couldn't bring myself to tick it because, well, it just felt uncomfortable.

My votes aren't worth a damn thing right now, so I'm using them more as a 'like.' That being the case, I have a certain irritation with people that 'like' their own posts and comments on Facebook, and I liken it to that.

I wish my votes had weight and could up the monetary gain instead of just make the vote number go up for content that's worth it. For now, I'm stuck with the equivalent of a thumb's up, and feel the small amount I have to give out should go to someone other than myself.

And when they are worth something, I would feel even more strange about paying myself!! (Although I do see the other side's argument, as well.)

Thank you for this post and for opening up the discussion about it!

I love the honesty of this post.(And the meme from @aneukpineung78. That's exactly how I feel as well!)

When I first posted, I noticed the 'Upvote post' tickbox. I figured it was there for a reason, and maybe it was the 'in' thing to do, but couldn't bring myself to tick it because, well, it just felt uncomfortable.

My votes aren't worth a damn thing right now, so I'm using them more as a 'like.' That being the case, I have a certain irritation with people that 'like' their own posts and comments on Facebook, and I liken it to that.

I wish my votes had weight and could up the monetary gain instead of just make the vote number go up for content that's worth it. For now, I'm stuck with the equivalent of a thumb's up, and feel the small amount I have to give out should go to someone other than myself.

And when they are worth something, I would feel even more strange about paying myself!! (Although I do see the other side's argument, as well.)

Thank you for this post and for opening up the discussion about it!

I like these honest confessions :)

And it is also good to reflect on paper. What you say about being an influencer is true.. I only come across to you now for the first time, but as building my own SP still, we tend to reflect on what the 'bigger' players are doing and if it is accepted or not.

Keep it balanced madame, there is also a life outside the steemside, but the life inside is also nice!! We will see each other along the ride

I like your points here. That's probably something I would try too from now on.

I have yet to self-upvote (at least not on purpose :). I have yet to use bots, but they have been initialized by others on my behalf. Up until Monday morning, I'd never received delegation or given it. Now I can't say even that, though I can say that I didn't try to solicit it, nor am I paying for it.

Avoiding those things, or better said, choosing to refrain from their use, is how I've decided to interact with this platform. I know there's earnings I'm leaving every day because I don't do this or that. Or at least, that's the drum beat some offer.

To them I say, fine. Do what you got to do. On a platform where code is law, it amazes me how many people there are out there that still want to tell me what I should or shouldn't do, or who will pass judgment at the drop of a hat.

You are free to do whatever it is you feel you should do, and so is everyone else. And when those actions meet at cross purposes, then I suppose there's something that should be hashed out. Until that time, live and let live.

Withholding or withdrawing support is a judgment, I suppose, but I wouldn't want anyone to go against his or her own convictions just to avoid the appearance of judging. Personally, I'd rather know what expectations I was under than just have the delegation show up, but apparently that, too is the way some will operate. So be it. If I ever delegate, I will probably have a mile long list of do's and don't's, so maybe it's best I refrain from it for the time being. :)

I saw your writing, I liked it very much
I want to see something better in the future.
Be good friends

I saw your writing, I liked it very much
I want to see something better in the future.
Be good friends

Hi @paulag it was very interesting to read your post, never thought that people will be so honest here. Im trying to find my way here on STEEM but at this moment I must say Im a little bit confused about getting more Power to vote. I read a lot of posts and comments, I learned a bit about robots, wales and all the other trivial things to keep in mind but still not be as sure as you what to do.

So all the best for your decision.
Zwischenlinie-2 für Steem-Post 940x120.png
With sunny greetings from Andalusia
Don Thomas

Interesting read @paulag; I really appreciate the transparency!

In Social Media, everything is a form of social proof, and what you build often rests on fragile ground.

If someone tirelessly votes for the very best content, regardless of the author's ability to reciprocate, that is one "statement." If someone only votes for Big Fish who can reciprocate in-kind, that's a different "statement." If someone mostly votes for themselves, it's yet another "statement." Vote for developers? "Statement." Vote for content creators? "Statement." All of it creates the complex pudding that is "Social Proof."

Steemit is a complex ecosystem with a lot of different ambitions. Approaches seem to run the range from short-term "maximize cash" to long term "community building." Our task — our challenge — becomes to align ourselves with those whose vision for Steemit is in alignment with our own.

I think you and Asher are doing something right with the direction of your witness, so I am behind that. Your self-voting confession doesn't alter that fact. My personal perspective on self-voting is something I've seen in a few posts: Your first self-vote per day is a "freebie." After that, you're welcome to continue self-voting, but each following self-vote drains your voting power 5x (or some multiple) faster than a vote for someone else.

=^..^=

I always vote for my own post but never on any of my comments (unless needed for visibility). And I totally agree with your last statement, although abuse is subjective, if you are a whale then you might consider sharing your power to others rather than keeping it to yourself.

I've cast my vote for you witness guys, best wishes to both of you in your witness server. Regards to you and Asher.

-Chris

I need to self vote myself back to level 1 so my posts become visible again.

Unless your vote is more than.02sbd it rounds down and stinc gets the money!

Oh, I didn't know that, so I should stop?