Would you like to know what my strategy is concerning self upvotes and what I intend to change in the next 30 days? I'd be also very interested to have your opinion on the subject in a comment because this will help all of us.
Steem is decentralized and there are no specific rules that say you should not upvote yourself or that you should. This is a topic that Steemians are discussing, some thinking it's wrong to self upvote, some thinking there should be limits and others thinking that it's all right.
Is Self Upvoting Wrong? What's my Strategy?
I am writing this post to show you what my strategy is concerning self voting, but I am not telling you that this is the right thing to do, just that this is what I am comfortable doing.
If you go to this link, you will see this graph: http://www.steemreports.com/outgoing-votes-info/?account=gmichelbkk&days=30
I invite you to check out what percent you have for your self votes, just replace my account "gmichelbkk" with yours in the URL, and if you post a screenshot for your account in the comments below with your opinion on the subject, I will upvote it 100%.
As you can see on the graph above, I have upvoted 243 users in a period of 30 days and my "Self Votes" is 11.2%.
I have 193 "Others" as the main portion with 19.6%, @qurator is second with 12.2%, I am third with 11.2% and @silvergoldbotty is fourth with 9.6%.
My strategy for self upvoting my posts
So, what is my strategy for self upvotes?
What I have been doing is upvoting my own posts 100% when it's published, checking the box that is provided for that effect.
I bet that most of us have been doing it!
The reason I am upvoting my own post is first the thought that if I am not upvoting my own posts, then who will?
Not upvoting my own posts would mean that I think my own posts are not good enough. Upvoting my own posts also encourages others to follow and if the option is available in the Steemit editor for us to use, this means that it is alright to do so. We are just given the choice not to do it.
I got this habit of upvoting my posts from Facebook for the same reasons I explained above.
It doesn't even cross my mind to upvote my posts, just to make a few more cents, that's because I do not have a lot of Steem Power, and I might think differently with much more.
Right now, when I upvote one of my posts at 100% vote weight with 550 SP, I earn $0.11.
You can check for yourself using the calculator here: https://steemnow.com/upvotecalc.html
Considering that I post daily, in one month I earn 30 x $0.11 = $3.30.
If I didn't upvote myself, I would be short of three dollars and honestly there are better and easier ways to make $3 than upvoting myself.
Now, let's see, if I had 100,000 SP, how much would I earn?
At that level it surely gets more interesting.
In one month, I would then earn 30 x $19.35 = $580.50.
One last, if I had 300,000 SP, how much would I earn?
In one month, I would then earn 30 x $58.07 = $1,742.10.
With all the discussions by Steemians about self upvoting, those who are for and those who area against it, it all depends on which side of the fence you are.
When I make $3 per month for writing 30 long and quality posts, no one can say that I do it for the money. If I was at the other end and earning $1,742 for the same posts, there would certainly be people yelling their disapproval of such a thing, even though I could earn the same amount writing articles for clients, and without investing.
I personally think that when someone invests 300,000 SP in Steem, which is $843,000 today, they have the perfect right to earn their $58 per post at the condition the post is of quality.
They also have the perfect right, in my opinion, to earn ten times that if they write 10 quality posts.
The disagreement comes from people posting low quality posts and upvoting themselves for it. If you have lots of Steem Power, you don't even have to do that, just delegate your SP to a bot and you can cash daily payouts for even more money.
I believe that we are all on Steemit to make some money, otherwise we would stay with Facebook.
What I will do, starting today, is not to upvote my own posts to see if really this makes a difference, at least for 30 days. I will bring down this "Self upvotes" stat close to zero. I believe that not upvoting myself can bring me even more rewards as I give to others first.
My strategy for upvoting comments
Now, what is my strategy for self-upvoting comments?
My strategy is to never upvote my own comments, except if it is a very important comment that I want to be at the top of the other comments. I have done it very rarely, fewer than ten times I think, and the 100% value is $0.11 the same as for upvoting my posts.
I do not say that this is right or wrong, you are free to do what you decide is best for you.
My strategy is also to upvote all comments made on my own posts and I choose the vote weight according to the vote power I have available and the quality of the comment. I may upvote 50% or 100% a very useful comment, 20% for kind and meaningful comments, 10% for short but original comments, and 1% for repetitive spam comments to show my disapproval.
You can see this here: https://steemit.com/@gmichelbkk/recent-replies
I do not downvote comments, or posts, as I do not believe that this feature is used as it should be.
I think that upvoting other users' comments is much better than upvoting your own because this promotes engagement and show people that you appreciate the comment.
I noticed that even though I upvote everyone's comments on my posts, I very rarely receive an upvote for replying to a comment, because I also make a meaningful and custom reply to all the comments on my posts, as much as possible.
You can see this here: https://steemit.com/@gmichelbkk/comments
It doesn't matter if the upvote is valued at $0 because what counts is the interaction and if everyone was upvoting other's comments and replies, then no one would need to upvote their own comments.
I challenge you to upvote my reply to your comment in this post and see how good you will feel in doing it. I also challenge you to continue doing it for other authors.
Remember that if you post a screenshot of your self upvotes graphs and give me your opinion, I will upvote your comment 100%.
I hope that you enjoyed reading my post and learning about what my views on self upvotes are.
Would you upvote this post and follow me for more because this will encourage me to write more Steem posts like this one?
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Michel Gerard