Dolphin 541,753—Monthly Report: November
I Take That Back—I Want November
As I reported last time, October was a really good month for me. I more or less tripled my average SP amount in one month with 223.186, and put myself within shouting distance of 1,000 SP for the year. I was feeling pretty good about my ability to earn SP on STEEM.
Then came November, and pretty much blew every month of 2018 out of the water, including October.
I was concerned in my last report that, because of the success, I would want to duplicate October over and over again. Well, apparently there was no need to worry about that. Instead, it's November I'll be trying to match.
Intro got you hooked? Good. Let's go!
Quick Summary
November hummed along a lot like October did, except I spent a lot more time on @musing, answering questions and not nearly as much time trying to engage. Several users have remarked how there seems to be fewer posts and such going on, thanks to the less than stellar price of Steem.
It seems like it's harder to hold a conversation now, but I don't know that I can agree that it's harder to earn rewards (something else some users are saying), since I set another personal best. It will be interesting to see just how long the ability to earn lasts.
Time for the numbers.
Posts (no comments)—9
This is down from last month, and fairly reflective of my being on Musing more than I was anywhere else. Payouts on posts in November were up significantly, however, with three receiving in excess of 18 STEEM/SP.
Last month I said posting (and I probably should have added in long form on Steemit, Busy, Steampeak, etc.) might not be the most lucrative thing a person could do with their time, and while I still think that's true, it obviously still depends on the content, and who sees it.
Comments—426
This represents a decrease of over 52% from October. Some of it can be attributed to a lack of general engagement on the platform, but most of it has to do with being on Musing, where there isn't as much replying on answers happening as of yet. It's not necessarily the easiest thing to do, unless you asked the question. Hopefully, there will be more conversing on Musing as people see the value in doing it.
Upvotes given—343/990
Both the spread and total comment numbers are down from last month. I continue to manually curate as I have done all year. Since I was on Musing, a lot of my upvotes went to answers and questions, which meant there was an opportunity for more repetition, with fewer people currently on Musing than available to vote on Steemit, for example. I was, however, a little more judicious with my voting, with the intent of maximizing curation.
I don't have a curation category, so I'll just note here that I believe I did the best I've done in curation, reward-wise, since I started. I believe Musing makes it much simpler to maximize curation rewards.
Upvotes received—848/1548
While my voting went down, upvote spread and total on my posts and comments went up in November. The numbers who voted for me were up 59 while total votes jumped by 206. Not bad, especially since I had less to vote on. It seems like I'm constantly saying had I done more, upvotes would have increased dramatically, but I'm not sure if that's entirely true, given where the upvotes came from, which is the same place where the bulk of the upvotes come from.
I did have a curie, with a total of 595 upvotes. The eight posts added another 339. That means my comments, which include musing answers, unless created as a post (of which I did two), accounted for 614 upvotes this time, which seems like an astonishing amount. I'll talk about that more later, however.
SP increase—494.552
As I've been teasing since the beginning, this number is my new personal SP record for a single month, and constitutes a 121-ish% increase over my previous personal best. This means in two months I've earned more SP (717.738) then I did in the previous nine full months combined (672.937).
Total earned SP now stands at 1,390.675. In my last report, I said I was hoping to get to 1,000 SP by the end of the year, but since I hit that mark around mid-November, I stated in a separate post that I would revise the SP goal to 1,250. Well, now I need a newer goal to try to reach.
I'm not sure how much more growth I can achieve in a month over what I've already done. I need just under 610 SP to reach 2,000, and because of different things (my wife was in a car accident, and my oldest son and his wife finally had their first child), there have been plenty of distractions so far for December. Then, I'll be gone for at least four days next week. Add in Christmas and New Year's Eve, and getting to 2,000 SP isn't looking very good.
So, I'll put the new goal at 1,750. That's still another 360--ish away, and even though it won't mean a new SP record, I think it's going to stretch me anyway. I might be fortunate to get to 1,500.
Regardless, I'm happy to be well past 1,000 at this point, and I will do what I can to push it further.
Highest single payout—0.109 SBD/26.433 STEEM/26.715 SP
Yes, that's right, I got paid in three different ways, SBD, STEEM and SP, thanks to the fact we're in 10% SBD debt ratio territory and constantly bouncing under 100% of the Liquid STEEM ratio.
This came on my level up announcement post—It's Dolphin #541,753, thanks to many generous folks, mainly dolphins, who welcomed me into the ranks. This marks the second time in as many months where the highest single payout did not include a curie upvote from their curation trail. No worries, though. I don't see this as a trend.
I should give credit where credit is due. The reason why this post earned what it did is because @soyrosa, who also became a dolphin (we did it within hours of each other), commented on a post by @whatsup congratulating her for becoming a dolphin, and soyrosa mentioned that I had too. Whatsup resteemed my post, others did, too, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Also noteworthy are the 0.066 SBD/15.718 STEEM/15.889 SP I earned on the post that was curied, called Why wasn't Captain America able to lift Thor's Hammer in the Avengers movie even though he did in in the comics? No, I didn't come up with the title. This post is actually an answer to a question on musing, which I subsequently chose to post to my blog (musing has a post to blog option for answers).
This was one of two musing answers I opted to turn into a post. The other one, incidentally, or not, earned the third highest upvote with 0.038 SBD/9.216 STEEM/9.314 SP. The question, and thus the title of the post, was—And if beings from other planets visit us?
Self-upvotes—0
I did not go accident free, though. There were at least two, possibly three times I upvoted my own comment. It happens when I get a reply and I don't remember what I said previously, so I go to look at what I wrote. Then I end upvoting my comment.
Sigh.
Contests—5
I earned 18.787 in STEEM from five different contests (@abh12345's curation and engagement league, @curie's comment contest, @c-squared's comment contest, @steemcommunity's minnow power-up league, and @foodfightfriday's weekly competition.
I also received 0.392 in @steem-bounty thanks to the curation and engagement league.
Flags given/received—0
Another scar free month.
Reputation Rating—62
This is another number I'm pretty happy about that came out of November. I was at a very high 59 when I started the month, and was pushed over 62 with a day or two left, so this is more of a two point-something increase than three. Still, I consider it a high accomplishment, given how much harder it is to increase reputation rating the higher you go.
I know many, if not most, disregard the reputation rating, and with good reason. I'm happy with mine, though. I believe I have put in the work to earn it.
Investment—1,029.385
After taking a month off, I did actually buy again. STEEM prices dropped below $0.50, so I decided to pick up some more. I suppose I could have waited, given where prices are now, but as always, I don't have a crystal ball, and I make my calls where I can. At this point, I don't think I will be investing anymore this year unless prices fall below or near $0.10 USD.
This brings my total invested amount to 4,516.526 STEEM.
MIscellaneous
This may seem a little inauspicious to announce a level up in the miscellaneous category, but since I already let the cat out of the bag in a separate post, maybe it is a little anti-climatic. At any rate, thanks to November's STEEM investment, I went well over the amount needed to become a dolphin, meaning that in less than 11 months, I went from plankton to minnow to dolphin. No, I won't be going after orca, unless STEEM submarines to under a penny. I'm not sure what that means for STEEM after that, but I'm kind of the mind to say, I don't want to find out.
There are currently 1,906 dolphins on STEEM, and I am one of them. I was the second participant of the minnow power-up league to make it to their Wall of Fame, which is essentially a legacy board for those who graduate from minnow to dolphin.
Last month I gave a breakdown of my earnings. This month, thanks to Musing, it's a little more complicated, but I can easily say that the bulk of my earnings came from author reward earnings and curation rewards from Musing. If I had to ballpark it, I'd say it's well over 400 SP, say, around 440 SP.
Since I've mentioned musing several times throughout, and it contributed heavily to my SP and my reputation rank, I should elaborate a little as to what I did. For the month of November, I answered a total of 88 questions, 79 of which received some form of a musing upvote, ranging from a 3% to a 20% upvote. Mostly, they were 5%-10%.
I also want to note here that there's been an uptick in interest earned, or whatever it's called, on my stake. I'm not 100% sure of this, but I believe I'm receiving around 0.001 SP every four minutes. If true, that means I'm getting 1 SP every 2.8-ish days. That's 5 SP every fortnight, or 130 SP a year.
All in all, I'm happy how November concluded. Now, I just need to salvage December before it gets away.
About This Post
Yo, @pjau! Another report!
Image source—Pixabay and my own text.
Your log of your progress, and the way you went about becoming a dolphin is a remarkable story.
In the beginning of your journey, did you up-vote your own content.
I up-vote my blogs, and although I know it is somewhat frowned on, with out doing this, much of the material I post would earn next to zero. My 100% upvote is worth around .06 cents and I feel that at least I earn a couple Steem this way.
At least half of the time I spend on Steemit reading other posts and commenting.
I have been guided in this direction by a few rather successful Steemians like yourself.
I totally enjoy the platform and plan on continuing to move forward even at this pace.
Over the past four months I have been keeping somewhat of a log myself.
It is a rather simple way of keeping track of my progress.
All I do is record the Steem, SP, and SBD that I earn on a daily base. At the end of every 30 day period I add them altogether and come up with one number.
For the 30 day period ending 9-25 my combined total was 22.993
For the 30 day period ending 10-26 my combined total was 25.136
For the 30 day period ending 11-23 my combined total was 45.212
I am about half way through the next 30 days and have a combined total of 75.095
This is a very encouraging number as my goal for this 30 day period was 60 as a combined total.
It looks as though 100 is a realistic goal.
Your monthly report has inspired me to continue to do what I am doing.
I seem to be gaining some traction and more people seem to be enjoying the content I post.
Congratulations to you #glenalbrethsen for a great job.
Your notes look a lot like mine, @thebigsweed!
Well, I'm happy to see my posts be helpful in any way. I've been posting the report mainly for myself, because as you said, it's helpful to see what you've done from month to month. That doesn't work for everyone, but it does for me.
re: self-upvote
I don't self-upvote. In the very beginning, I had someone who introduced me to the platform that would give me some sort of an upvote, and he also sent a couple of people my direction to at least look at what I was doing. So, even if it was three to four people who were upvoting on a regular basis, I did have someone.
That lasted for about two or three months, I think, and then I was kind of left to my own. I think it was somewhere just before summer when things began to pick up pretty good. Then the summer hit, along with the dive in prices, and people started to leave or curb their activities and what I earned dropped quite a bit.
I still can't say that I have that huge of a following though. Most of my earnings to date have come through curie upvotes, contest winnings, and lately, answering questions on Musing.
Thanks again for the info.
Well damn! That's a good month or two for sure!
As many have stated, the last couple of months have been time to earn STEEM. As long as you are not required to cash out, it's the best time in almost 2 years to be stacking. All we need is to come out the other side, which I think we will in time.
I'm more privy than some to your recent growth as I get to see the Minnow Power-up League report each week, and really glad we have that running as I get to witness some excellent growth from people I enjoy having around.
Cracking stuff, I hope you create some new records in December :)
Well, thank you, @abh12345.
I seem to have people in my feed who aren't all that happy with what they've been earning, or talking about others who are saying the same, so, I don't know. I always seem to have the opposite experience of everyone else. :)
I think the Minnow Power-up League is significant in that by displaying how others in the league are doing, the focus becomes more on SP growing activities rather than ones that might be beneficial in some other way. I don't know that I would have grown as fast as I did without it, even if the post itself really didn't offer how to do it, or what others were doing, like the curation and engagement lists do.
As I said, I will be surprised if I even make it to 160 SP this month. It's already a quarter over and I'm not a quarter of the way there. :)
I suspect those complaining are needing to cash out, but i'm not 100% on that.
Maybe you just had a storming November, but I hope it's just a sign of things to come :)
Can you explain musing a bit more @glenalbrethsen? Where did you learn about it it sounds like it might be a worthwhile thing to do.
Gladly, @gillianpearce.
Musing is a site for asking questions and answering questions. Looks quite a bit like Quora. The site is musing.io. You can login through steemconnect.
As you answer questions, they show up on your profile page. Within a 24 hour period (sometimes it's a lot less), musing curators read through your answers and then decide if any of them should be upvoted by their account or not. Others, generally smaller accounts, may also upvote you.
Questions aren't always upvoted, but when they are, they generally get anywhere from a 1%-5% upvote, but no more than that. Currently, that equates to $0.25 to $0.75 upvotes, more or less. Answers generally get between 5%-15%, with the occasional 3% or 20%.
The criteria for an upvote is original content that covers the topic. The more thoroughly covered, generally means a higher upvote. Unfortunately, not all questions require thorough answers, so there's that to watch out for. Some questions can be rather inane, and even repetitive.
I generally pick and choose the answers, looking for ones where I feel I have knowledge and can offer what I know, advice, opinions and anecdotes, etc.
Even so, I'm not sure if I've completely figured out why some get the upvotes they do. In other words, there will still be some level of subjectivity, and smaller answers will tend to get smaller upvotes than longer answers (they don't need to super long, though).
You can also choose to publish an answer on your blog if you feel like you've just created a blog length post. I actually think those tend to do better (in the size of the musing upvote) because they can reach more people.
Not sure what else to tell you. If you have questions, though, ask away. :)
Thanks for the explanation @glenalbrethsen. I'm not sure why but I've never come across musing before.
I just took a quick look and one thing I was wondering is how important the timing of your answers is. Is it best to be one for the first, for example?
When you say
Do you mean you can copy and paste it or is there a way to do this automatically?
How's you and your wife feeling now after the accident? Are you both over the shock?
My wife seems to be doing well. Thank you for asking. I'm doing okay, too. :)
re: timing
No. Actually, who's first isn't as critical as who covers the topic best. There are folks who answer days to weeks after the question was asked and depending on what they said, will be curated accordingly.
re: automatically
Well, it depends. There's an option to post to blog that appears when you go to answer a question. I believe you need to be logged in to answer the question, though. Then, after going to the question page, you click on the answer button and a text box appears. To the right side of the box, a check box with the option to post to blog appears at the same time.
Thanks @glenalbrethsen. not sure if I'll find time to do this but your instructions are useful.
Maybe in the New Year! 😁
Glen, what is Musing? I need a new plan on reaching 500sp.
Posted using Partiko Android
musing.io
People ask questions, you give a stella reply and musing (with their 1 million SP) may give you a nice up-vote for you time. Good luck!
What Asher said. :) I think reaching 500 SP is way possible to do on Musing, if you spend some time at it.
Cool, thank you guys. 🙏
Posted using Partiko Android
Great progress! I have to think about measuring progress like you but it has been so busy trying to focus on engagement and growth, that I have not been to sit and analyze it. However, I do know that the Steem Power is truly accumulating much quicker as price decreases and engagement declines. Great opportunity to get more and more as we continue our journey!
Posted using Partiko iOS
I definitely agree—I wish it would have been like this at the beginning of the year as far as earnings go (not as far as STEEM prices, but it's kind of six of one, half a dozen of another). I figure we all should try to grow as much as we can now, and be happy that we do have the chance to do it, as well as to try to invest at the lower prices. If/when the price changes and actually goes up, we don't want to be regretting not doing all that we could.
re: measuring progress.
Not everyone likes to do it. I do, but I was in business for 15 years so it's kind of ingrained. After December, I will have a full year to look back on and try to improve upon, which I hope will be much easier than it was to start out with.
I keep track of my comments on a weekly basis, then pull lists from three different places. I try to also keep track of my single high payout, because it can take a while to locate it otherwise. So, after 11 months of doing it, I have kind of a rhythm and a system that could probably use more streamlining, but for now, it works.
Okay so did you accrue so much by being on Musing? I see a lot of plagiarism and copy and paste there and I do not get a lot of play myself. But happy you are and congrats!
Hey, @eaglespirit.
Sorry for the late reply here. Been on the road mostly moving my oldest son, his wife and our newest grandchild.
Basically, Musing has been upvoting most of the answers based on whatever criteria they use. There aren't a whole lot of others who actually upvote, and those that do are accounts with very little SP.
So, I don't know. Just like other dapps, musing isn't going to be for everyone, but I think there is plenty to be had as far as rewards go.
I don't pay a whole lot attention to what others are doing. I just try to answer questions in the best way I can, and go onto the next one.
There are supposed to be curators reading answers, so I'm hoping that the copy and pasters will decide it's not worth their time.
494.552 SP... niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiccccccceeeeee, what's that now? Like 20 cents worth? 😂 That's a decent amount though, maybe 1k this month?
Comments are so much easier to do than posts. In a way we need more people commenting, and decent ones at that, I would rather see a few posts with lots of comments than lots of posts with no comments. Which has always felt being the latter on the Steem blockchain as a whole.
And niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiccccccceeeeee, Dolphin status!! I wonder if it should be moved up though, in January Dolphin 🐬 was considered 5k~ SP, but it is still considered that now, even though there is a tonne more SP on the market as a whole, not just from the inflation, but from converting from SBD. Shouldn't we be adding some sort of inflation to the ranks. 🤔😂
Anyway good month again!
Well, thanks, @pjau. I think. :)
I guess if you're saying that it's easier to acquire SP because there's so much of it floating around, then maybe an adjustment up would make sense for dolphin status. The problem is, that mark would be floating around all the time. It's not that easy to get to for a lot of people, anyway, so moving it around isn't going to help morale any. :)
Oh, and it's actually $123.638 USD, not 20¢, thank you very much!
re: 1K
Not likely. Last week was full of distractions, this week I'm gone for most of it, next week is about the only solid week I have (although the newest grandchild will probably be staying with us) before Christmas, and then the following week we're into the new year. So, doubtful it's going to happen.
Congratulations! Your post has been selected as a daily Steemit truffle! It is listed on rank 7 of all contributions awarded today. You can find the TOP DAILY TRUFFLE PICKS HERE.
I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least 7 SBD worth and should receive 226 votes. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.
I am
TrufflePig, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!Have a nice day and sincerely yours,
TrufflePigWell, well. @trufflepig. I made it into the Top 10 this time. Thank you for your predictions. Now, the rest of STEEM needs to pick up the slack. Hard! :)
howdy tonight so Glen! Another great month, that's pretty exciting stuff as long as the prices go up someday.
Yeah. All of this is pretty much contingent on higher prices. I'm managed to whittle my USD per STEEM costs to under 94¢ USD, so I'm feeling pretty good about that, obviously, providing it exceeds that amount. I've got to believe that the STEEM is really worth more than $1.
Five dollars isn't that much of a stretch for a new baseline. I think it's worth considerably more than that. Things just need to hold for a while longer until the bears decide to hibernate or whatever those folks do so the bulls can come back. :)
yes sir I like that scenario! Is this just your analysis or do other people see it that way too?
I don't know that I've seen anyone putting numbers on STEEM prices, just that we should keep holding and working because eventually all crypto is going to go up and STEEM along with it.
Some people don't like thinking about STEEM in terms of fiat, and while I understand it and actually agree with it—we do have to get away from the fiat conversion—the problem is, the real world isn't using crypto for much of anything Bitcoin. So, we all have to think in terms of the fiat we use until at some point everyone's accepting STEEM.
So, I think of it terms of that. I'll be happy when I don't have to.
Ok sir Glen, you'll be happy when you don't have to think of Steem in terms of it's worth in fiat?
Right. That will mean STEEM is widely accepted as a digital currency and therefore, I'll only need to think in terms of how much STEEM I have and whether it's enough to pay for whatever the STEEM-priced product or service is.
Obviously, as long as the dollar is still influencing the prices of things, it will still be good for STEEM to be worth in excess of $1 USD, but maybe by then, we'll be able to earn in STEEM and therefore actually make the equivalent in STEEM that we would in dollars. That happens, then there's no real reason to be thinking about dollars anymore.
oh ok I get it. And what percentage of chance do you think Steem has of lasting long term?
No idea. Most investments, from what I can tell, are based on investor sentiment. In stocks, investors will look at the strength of the C-suite, its ability to make profitable decisions, etc., and then they'll look at profits, what growth is likely to be in the future, competition, and so on.
With crypto, you aren't supposed to have a company or other entity governing the blockchain or making decisions—so really, the farther away you can move from that, the better. There's not really a product, although I guess dApps qualify, but they're not really selling anything, but rather looking for users, and eventually, a means to get their own tokens going.
So, it's really going to depend on whether or not serious investors find value in utility, or in scarcity. If it's scarcity, then STEEM may still last, but not like Bitcoin or others that are based more on availability of the coin more than anything else. If utility, then STEEM is in a good place with much of the emphasis placed on making it easier and easier for app developers to code for STEEM use.
I'd think that utility would win out over scarcity, but that tends to be too practical for most folks, I think. :)
I'm a little late on commenting, but it looks like you had a good November.
What is Musing? Is it a UI for Steem, or is it another site?
Congrats on the rep. I don't put a ton of weight in other people's reps because I don't know how they got there, but I do know how you got there, and it's a huge accomplishment. It gets harder and harder to increase at higher levels, so the fact that you jumped multiple levels is great!
I hope your December is even better!
Why the shoutout to the (admittedly) awesome pjau at the end of the posts? Just curious.
It's not so much a shout out as it is a wake up call. He spends most of his time on Discord working through steemcleaner reports, so he doesn't spend as much time looking at his feed, but he's pretty interested in the reports, so I ping him. :)
December is not going to be better, but I might be able to salvage it with one decent week next week. With my wife in the car wreck last week and my second grandchild being born (also last week), I spent too much time worried, trying to navigate through the insurance claim or distracted. Now, we're going to Idaho to see the youngest addition and to move his whole family back to Oregon. Next week is the last full week before Christmas, and then, I'm not sure what's going to happen that week.
I know. I have to check what people are doing who have reps in the 60s and have only been here for half a year. I appreciate the recognition for the work.
Musing is a Quora clone for STEEM. So, you can ask questions and answer others. You login via steemconnect and start looking for questions to answer. I usually go to the view all page, which brings up the newest questions, rather than staying on the trending page.
The website is musing.io. They have nearly 1 million in SP delegation from Steemit, and they've been upvoting answers and many questions with upvotes of 1-5% for questions (not too many 5% questions, though), and anywhere from 3%-20% for answers. Most answers will get between 5%-10%. Right now, that's $1.20-$2.40 a pop. Answers are generally faster to come up with than a post, plus you have the option to post to your Steemit blog if you desire.
They do have curators by the way, so they're not just indiscriminately throwing out upvotes. That's the main reason I decided to try it. Someone's reading the answers. Still leaves room for subjectivity, but that's the way it's going to be when humans are involved.
Oh, and thanks for nominating my post on bernie's contest. I didn't win (some travel post did, go figure), but I appreciate nonetheless. I know you were beat out by someone else, which makes it even more cool because that means two people tried to nominate it. :)