Wow. I found myself on there too :/
I know. You upvoted that comment spam with 100% (via minnowbooster vote-selling), and now you don't have enough voting power and can only upvote @diabolika's post with 25%. I hope you don't expect anyone to upvote your posts - but at least you can use the SBD's you earned by selling your votes to buy votes on your posts.
All I want to do is let my surplus voting power work while I am working and unable to actively participate on the platform.
As mentioned above, an alternative is to follow curation trails of good projects like @curie, were voting power contributes to rewarding quality content, the kind of content which gives this platform its value. Unfortunately, most users are way too greedy.
... and increase my following
I doubt you increase your following by vote buying and trash voting, I suspect some users might be appalled by it.
I don't think that they are all bad...
They are mostly interested in profit and unable and/or unwilling to mitigate abuse. Don't listen to what they are saying, look at what they are actually doing.
Your other comment received a downvote in cancel out the upvotes obtained via minnowbooster (this kind of vote-buying on comments looks like cheating, doesn't it?).
I expect people to upvote quality content... wait, i actually don't expect that... I hope for that. I expect people to upvote posts that are going to get huge payouts so that they can get in on the action... I expect people to likely not even read the post they upvote but upvote it because they know the user is notorious for having whale buddies and/or spend $100's of SBD's promoting their posts with voting bots. I don't expect anyone to upvote my posts (I actually have my doubts about how many real read's a post gets on here)... I try and give my posts the best chance they have.
I am sure I did not increase my following by trash voting, and it was not my intention to be involved in it. In fact, after seeing your comment, I regret it. Now that I have seen it, I have removed myself from that service. Look - you ARE making a difference. Thank you... my hands are not clean but I am not (and never was) trying to flush steemit down the toilet. There are a lot of people who are though.
I can GUARANTEE that I got more followers by writing good articles and paying to get them seen. After writing some really good articles and having them disappear into the abyss, I started to use vote bots and that is likely the only reason I ever got an upvote from @curie in the first place... because somebody saw it and thought it was good. Voting bots, or very skilled ass kissing seem like the only two ways to move up the ranks on steemit (aside from buying steem) and I just am not a very good ass kisser (can you tell?). I hope that people that read and like my posts comment more than upvote because I care more about the conversation than I do about the 2 cents. If there are users that are appalled by vote-bot usage (and I am assuming you are) then I guess I can expect not to be upvoted from you (again). I also know that I have never paid a vote bot to upvote a post that I wasn't really proud of writing because THAT would not be right. I don't expect them to be downvoted because they are always thought provoking and well put together. Plus... there is a lot of trash that should be downvoted before my content.
I don't upvote posts at 100% anymore and had plenty of vote power to upvote her 100%. I handed out way too many 100% upvotes (personally) and then couldn't upvote posts that I wanted too. Minnowbooster will not be taking that liberty of voting for me from this point either. Don't assume you have me figured out. Thank you. I have been a big supporter of @diabolika since I started here and have also bought her upvotes with my dirty black market SDB's ;) when minnowbooster ate up all my voting power.
I was trying to thank you for making me aware of this and admit that I was wrong. Thank you for showing me (indirectly) that I was wrong. You are making a difference on steem.
On the topic of cheating... Take a look around. Your mission is going to need a lot more steem power to clean up this place. The biggest flagger is also one of the biggest 'abusers' and it seems like everyone is behaving as if they are 'free' to do what they will with their 'stake'. The trending page is the same usual suspects and the same garbage every day. It seems like the rules are in the programming and there is no such thing as cheating the program. There are a lot of experts at 'working with' the program. It shows you where people are at though. For me... I just liked my comments being near the top so they would get read. I think I am clever (I know, right) and make some funnies.
To conclude... I mean you no disrespect. I am glad you brought this to my attention. I agree with you enough to have 100% control of my upvote again and I will look into the @curie trails that you mentioned. I am likely going to write an article on this encounter (and pay voting bots to make it visible). I am mostly a student of how societies operate and think Steemit is a fantastic petri dish to examine. I encourage you to read it and let your position be represented better than I can do for you. Happy curating!
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