DON'T PRACTICE SELF-VOTE, IT IS A WRONG PRACTICE WITH PENALTY. SEE WHAT I MEAN BY SELF-VOTE

Hello dear kids and the entire steemkids community members, trust you are all doing great? I am glad to share this wonderful warning/ announcement to you all so that we can avoid the "stories that touches the heart".

It is now a trending issue that most users have formed the harbit of upvoting themselves.

It is normal to us that when we make a publication, we wait for other users to upvote our publications. However, some users due to some reasons best known to them and the reasons which I will share with you all now, they have decided to be upvoting themselves.

WHAT IS SELF-VOTE?

This is a situation where a user choose to use his or her own account to vote on his or her own publications. We understand that steemit is a social media platform and as such, friendships are formed when we upvote other people's publications and they too will upvote ours.

But anyone who chooses to do the upvoting on his own publications is doing the opposite and this is against the ethics of steemit.

FOR WHAT POSSIBLE REASONS CAN A USER DECIDE TO UPVOTE THEMSELVES?

There are several reasons why a user may decide to upvote himself or herself but these are the wrong reasons anyway and should not continue. I have been able to identify some reasons why users can upvote themselves among others and they are

• To grow their reputation
• To earn more
• They feel they can't wait
• They don't want to form friendships
• They feel they are not noticed

The most recent update from the @steemitblog on steemitcryptoacademy is that of having at least 60 reputation before taking part in the lessons. To some users, they have not been receiving upvotes and as such, their reputation is not upto that. This has made them to try to upvote themselves to see if they can get that reputation and join the academy. To them, that is the only place that vote is guranteed if your grade is from 5 and above.

Another reason why some have chosen to upvote themselves is because they feel that they are not receiving upvotes or rather that no one is noticing them. They feel that they have been working hard without upvote from the steemit curators. Well, we all know that steemit is a decentralized platform and as such, you are free to build your own steempower by buying steem and powering up. When you do, you are at liberty to upvote your friends and make them earn. If the other user does the same thing and upvote you who is his friend and others, then all of us will be happy.

But sad to say that some users just come in with nothing and as soon as they earn, they withdraw all and expect those who have been building their own steempower to always upvote them. It doesn't work this way. Sacrifices should be made. Infact, that is the whole essence of the club status initiative so that we can build our steempowers and thus upvote our friends.

We are all depending on steemcurators and because there are a lot of users, they can not serve everyone at the same time. So only those who are patient and consistent wins in the end.

• They feel they can't wait

Yes, some users want it quick. They want steemit to be a get rich quick platform so that they can pack all the steem and elope. But it is not like that. It is not a get rich quick platform. Please, consider the following

• My advice on this problem is that such user should try and be active in other communities, join contests and try to form friendships by regularly upvoting others. Making comments on other users publications can attract them to yourself.

Then try not to be selfish, only thinking about yourself. Life itself has a way of repaying us back in Whatever we do. When we are selfless in service, people will be attracted to us and thus our publications will receive upvotes. Moreover, the frequently asked questions in steemit includes that upvotes are not guaranteed and that steemit is not a get rich quick platform. Please visit here. See the screenshot below 👇👇👇

This screenshot contains what you will read about why users get different upvotes. This will help us to concentrate on building our reputation by being consistent.

• They don't want to form friendships

Some users feel they can just make a publication and drop, then fly away and come back to see $20, $30, $40 and above worth of upvotes on their publications. Perhaps their should be ghosts that spread upvotes just like that. On the contrary, we need to follow the advice that whatever thing we want others to do for us, we should be ready to do likewise to them. No matter how little your steempower is, try to upvote others. It is a good thing to learn. Just like you are waiting for upvotes, upvote others no matter how little. Form friendships through upvoting others. It will help you get friends that will upvote you.

• They feel they are not noticed

Some users also feel that they have been consistent, they have been upvoting others, and they have tried their best to form friendships but they don't get the reward in return. Well, it depends on ones expectations. If you expect to receive upvotes from steemcurator01 and he didn't upvote you, you might get discouraged. Having high expectations can make one to be discharged and the person will start upvoting oneself without waiting. I have always learned to work more and expect less, that way, I don't get discouraged easily when I am not being supported and that has kept me going. If you learn the same thing, it will help.

ARE THEIR REASONS WHY ONE CAN UPVOTE HIM OR HERSELF AND IT WILL BE JUSTIFIED?

Well, self vote is wrong and there is no two ways about it. What of if steemcurator01 and others decide to upvote themselves? How will it look like or you think they don't know how to do that? Everyone knows it. It is done by simply clicking the green button close to the the dollar value where you see how much a post has earned. Very simple. But the aim of steemit will be defeated. We will not all be happy.

So they have decided to be kind by only upvoting users other than themselves. So it will be wise to do same.

However, there are some cases and in rare ones where one can upvote him or herself. I have been able to identify just 2 reasons.

• If you have joined a curation trail and that trail upvotes your publication, because you are part of the trail, your account will upvote you also. I stand to be corrected if this is a good practice or not but I once made that point as a comment and that comment received an upvote from @steemcurator01. To me, it is a sign of acceptance. Below is the screenshot to my comment which was upvoted

• Another reason why one can upvote him or herself consciously could be in a situation where one seeks to be noticed in a trail of comments on a publication. I explained it in the screenshot above.

HOW TO FIND OUT IF A USER HAS UPVOTED HIMSELF

This is very easy, in our steemworld page, there is a what we call voting CIS (Community Support Index/Indicator). This simply means how you spread you upvotes. Do you upvote just few persons or try to upvote different users?

Below is the screenshot of steemkidss steemworld page.

You can see that steemkidss has not upvoted itself at all and she has tried to spread it's upvotes as much as possible to about 83 users and making 133 upvotes in the past 7 days. But notice this user below

This user has upvoted herself only 3%. It could be that she is in a curation trail or for any other valid reason. But note that the % is low.

• I understand that one can mistakingly tap the upvote button but it should not be a practice at all.

I have once upvoted myself thinking that I was upvoting another person. I felt so bad 😞😞😞😞.

So please dear friends, even if you want to up ote yourself, it should be a very small percentage and must be on the reasons stated above, else, it is very wrong to upvote oneself. Let's not be the reason why no one upvotes us.

Currently, if one is spotted as having the custom of upvoting themselves, the person should not expect any upvote from the curators.

Let's be consistent and do the right thing. Even if a person is in club100 and you are upvoting yourself, no one will upvote you. It is as bad as that.

CONCLUSION

I believe that I have made common sense. I believe when applied, can help us all. Thank you all for reading through.