Steem has an announcement thread on Bitcointalk, which is one of the oldest crypto discussion boards.
Some users there were talking about the hard fork with 50/50 curation. And a longtime legendary user of the Bitcointalk forum @smooth and Steem user and a concenscesus Witness on this blockchain.
He states there is still a five minute timer. Which I believe means the first five minutes upvotes on a post will not earn curation rewards.
This was discussed on Steem Waves Saturday with @crimsonclad and if you are running steemauto its important to set your upvote delay above 5 minutes.
So don't let your rewards get squashed just because you voted too early.
Sometimes the early bird does not get the worm. Or maybe just not the earliest ones that show up.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1466593.0
Link to the Steem thread on Bitcointalk