Hello HIVE community, I have decided to power down, and instead of leaving quietly, I would like to let you know, why.
You may agree with this point of view or not, but I am of the opinion that early automated voting is a very bad method to determine and reward 'quality content', and also it leads to a big disadvantage for manual curators.
I don't intend to elaborate or discuss that here at this place, and who wants to know my ideas could for example read here or here.
Not to support early curation snipers I started to upvote comments of authors (I actually ask them to write comments) who had written great posts in case there were already many strong auto or randomn votes from, for example, @trafalgar / @traf, @upmewhale, @buildawhale / @themarkymark and others on my personal 'curation snipers' list. :)
It is also true that I reward some comments of (small) users who are either part of my family in Indonesia, good friends, which I met for example at SteemFest, or just making great posts. However, the clear majority of my upvotes is reserved for manual selected posts of a big diversity of users which I support with my stake (which I have aquired by investing own money and so far never powered down).
However, I don't write this post because I want to tell you how great my voting behaviour was. Of course I accept other points of views about what a good curator should do.
The problem is that it seems that top witness and former bidbot owner @themarkymark cannot accept that I don't like his voting behaviour and avoid upvoting posts which he has auto voted before: as some of the most influential whales on this platform seem to unconditionally trust him, it looks like he owns either their posting keys and/or uses their delegations.
At first I got caught by surprise by 100 % flags from @theycallmedan and @usainvote on a chess post. I know it's everybody's right to flag whatever he likes, but nevertheless I wondered why @theycallmedan, whom I highly appreciate, was suddenly downvoting me. When I asked him he told me he didn't do it himself and withdrew the flag. Anyway, I wouldn't leave the platform because of a few flags. But things were getting worse:
@usainvote (with his rather big delegation from @blocktrades) started downvoting comments which I had upvoted before. That's not 'nice' but well, it's also his right. However, you may know that I am running the German Bundesliga HIVE Soccer Cup prediction game. At the end of the season the winners will receive some prizes from small sponsors, including me. To make it more interesting and motivating for these participants who aren't able to win a main price anymore, I promised to upvote one comment of every matchday winner in the weekly HIVE Soccer Cup post ... and exactly these comments of the matchday winners are flagged by @usainvote.
I asked @blocktrades why he gave so much power to any completely unknown and new user, but he answered he was only unknown for me, but not for him. Well, after thinking about the case I came to the conclusion that he is also not unknown for me ... and that's @themarkymark who is still not satisfied with his other flaggs but felt the need to sabotage my soccer prediction game by demotivating the participants.
I am aware that there is no 100 % certainty but a (in my eyes) very small possibility of being wrong, but sorry: I just cannot come to any other conclusion (or why should the only downvote of @theycallmedan within 7 days be for a harmless chess post or why should @usainvote exclusively downvote comments upvoted by me, as if there weren't more urgent things to do?).
Furthermore the voting behaviour of @usainvote and @themarkymark with their typical frequent 10 % upvotes is very similar (and there are other hints).
I have been here for over four years, lost a lot of money with STEEM, but stayed ... because of the community, because of the people I met at SteemFest.
However, I don't intend to fight a senseless struggle against a user who is supported and trusted by the most influential leaders of this platform. There is no huge financial damage but I simply have no energy for childish games like that. My time is precious, and I want to spend it with enjoyable activities.
I will continue to play Splinterlands, might either delegate my remaining stake, maybe start autovoting myself (if you cannot beat them copy their methods) or withdraw it completely - I still have to chew over the different options.
Apart from that I will enjoy my BTCs which never ever caused me a fraction of all the stress and hassle STEEM and HIVE did and keep doing. :)
I hope @faltermann, the butterfly expert, who always was such a great help in the past, will accept to be the new, knowledgeable admin of my insect community.
@reiseamateur, would you like to lead the HIVE Soccer Cup community?
@stayoutoftherz, may you want to adopt the chess community?
Lets talk in Discord concerning the handover of the keys.
Thanks for the good time I could spend here with many nice and friendly people!