Dolphin 541,753—Monthly Report: November (2019)

The EIP...

...has been working. At least for me, and I suspect quite a few others. I believe this to be true because even though my post production stagnated in November, earned SP was similar to months since Hardforks 21/22.

I wasn't a proponent of the change—I'm still not sure it was really necessary—but I'm going on record that I've seen a steady flow of upvotes that I didn't see prior. I can't speak for everyone. I know there are at least some folks, from what I've read, that aren't seeing the uptick.

I'm not sure why that is. I don't know how long this will all hold, either. But for now, it has, and I felt I should lead with it in this report, since I haven't been very onboard when it comes to the EIP. I feel I should acknowledge when things are going in a positive direction along with when they are not. Only seems fair.

Again, this is my own experience, and surely does not reflect that of everyone's. I'd be interested to know more of what the EIP has done or hasn't done for anyone who would care to comment on it.

On with the report.

Quick Summary

Last November was the best month I had last year, with nearly 500 earned SP. Another November has come and gone now, and 11/18 continues to be the best month I've ever had on STEEM.

As I mentioned above, though, November kept pace in the STEEM Power department with previous months since the Economic Improvement Plan was introduced in Hardfork 21.

The rest of my numbers, however, continued to sink. I'd have to check if they were all-time lows, but some of them sure feel like it.

On that rather pitiful note...

Posts (no comments)—15

Once again, I wasn't able to average a post a day. That would mean up around 22-23, since I'm aiming to post primarily during the week, and occasionally on a Saturday.

Post production was down three from October.

As hinted at last month, I was not able to maintain STU above $1 on all posts, but 12 out of the 15 ended up well over $1 STU, meaning payouts were well above 1 STEEM and 1 SP, too.

At least seven of the posts (probably eight, though) had something to do with STEEM, which is a higher ratio than I'd like to maintain. Those were the topics that came to mind, though, so that's what I wrote about. Hopefully this month, I can bring that percentage down a little, because I'm really not that interested in writing about STEEM.

However, as a writer/blogger, there is a need to go where the readers are, so I won't be getting completely away from STEEM. I do have opinions about STEEM in general, and as others write about it, I feel the need to share my thoughts, too.

Comments—105

Horrible. That's about all I want to say. I managed to drop nearly a third below last month's previously pitiful amount of 152.

Maybe I can pick those numbers up this month. I've been dropping off @abh12345's Engagement League list pretty regularly as of late, something that hasn't happened with such high frequency since I first joined. It's certainly not a feather in my cap kind of stat.

Upvotes given—40/97

Unfortunately, upvoting is pretty dismal too. I wouldn't blame anyone for accusing me of circle voting, either. It certainly looks like that's what's happening (though the next category would serve to dispel it someone what—or else my circle is terribly lopsided and very neglected).

After stating in a recent post that while I understand why people autovote and do not blame them for doing it, I just don't want to do it myself, I think I managed to convince myself even more that manual curation is where it's at for me. I could probably find a way to better use my time on STEEM to get to a wider range of posts, meaning outside my feed, or do a better job of following more users.

I've got it as an ongoing goal, but as you can see, I'm going backwards more than forwards. I'm down 27 on vote spread from October, and total upvotes are less by more than half.

Upvotes received—801/1979

Meanwhile, while down from October, the vote spread and tally received is still in healthy territory. This is mostly due, as it has been for most of my time here, curation trail activity. Curie used to be the main reason for upvote numbers, but now it's a combination of an increase of autovotes on my posts, along with somewhat alternating visits by curangel, c-squared and some smaller trails.

This seems to be where things were headed before HF21 and the EIP changes, and now it's evident that post-hardfork, the intent is to stay on course with even more curation trails.

Earned SP increase—219.817

This is a surprise to me because with about a week or so left in November, I was only halfway to the final SP amount. The last five posts, though, brought in the rest.

The difference between October and November in this category is 0.300 SP, so I'm okay with that. However, in case a more sobering statistic is needed, I'm 274.735 earned SP off of last November's record breaking tally of 494.552.

Ah, the heady days of Musing upvotes.

I think, though, more consistency with posts (meaning averaging that one a day during the week), will help me get into at least the 300 SP range, which would still be an overall improvement.

Total earned SP from January 1, 2018 through November 30, 2019 is 3,743.841. With a little bit of hustle, I could make a two year total of 4,000 SP, or an average of 2,000 earned SP per year.

As it is, I'm now quite a bit over 2,000 earned SP in 2019, at 2,147.318.

Total SP, which includes investments, rose to 9,270.537. This means I powered up over 600 SP in November.

Highest single payout—14.090 STEEM/14.013 SP

This came on one of the last posts I wrote in November, inspired by Thanksgiving, but with a healthy nod to what I was thankful for on STEEM. The post was titled Yes, Another Post Expressing Gratitude.

All told, six posts received double digits in both STEEM and SP. I believe that to be a record or very close to it.

Self-Upvotes—0

No self-upvotes, accidental or otherwise. My streak continues.

Contests—1

I managed to win some STEEM from the @foodfightfriday contest, thanks to voters and generous sponsorship by @appreciator. I was one of quite a few that week that tied for third and received 4 STEEM.

This marks the first time in a while I've earned STEEM from a contest. I'm pretty happy about it.

Flags given—0/received—14

Another day, another downvote. Most came from the Steemit Defense League folks, per their usual, but a couple showed up because of SBI upvotes. I wrote a post about it, so that's all I need to say.

Reputation Ranking—66

So close. I was less than 0.100 away from turning to 67 in a little over two months time, which I believe to be a record since the earliest months where moving from rank to rank was far easier. That seems to be one advantage to the curve we now have thanks to the EIP, along with a steadier stream of upper SP accounts voting on my posts.

As you can see, I am at 67 (it came within this last week), so December's report will reflect the upgrade.

Investment—$640.234

I bought STEEM again, but like last month, not all of that amount was powered up. Most of it was, however, a change from last month.

I may still buy some more before the end of the 2019. With Christmas fast approaching, however, I've been hesitant to do so, just because funds may be needed for last minute gift purchasing, or further paying on credit card debt from previous gift buying.

The end of the year seems to be more about the spending than it does the saving or the investing. I'd like to reverse that trend one of these years.

Token Trading

I continued to sell off the tokens of the most value. That's probably the opposite of what I should be doing, but it hasn't really amounted to much, and I've used the 3-5 STEEM or so to purchase SNAXP with.

With SMTs coming sometime either late first quarter or early second quarter next year, I wonder where these tokens will be after that. Maybe the more valuable ones will end up converting. If so, I might regret exchanging them for STEEMP/SNAXP.

SNAX/SNAXP

More SNAXP buying took place, reaching a total of 8,412,187.7609. The last purchase took place on 11-16-19, however, and since then, the SNAX folks have announced they are soliciting funds, and the scoring rounds (which have been up for a while now after being knocked offline thanks to HF21 and then some other issues), are becoming a little more sporadic.

While I'd like to get to 10 million, I'm now wondering what's going on. SNAX has announced they will be working on revamping the scoring algorithm because they haven't received the explosive type of growth they were waiting for with SNAX being available for earning on both STEEM and Twitter. My guess is, a lot of the Twitter folks are also STEEM users.

So, I'm watching that a little more than I was earlier, and will probably hold off on any more purchases until there's more positive news coming out of the SNAX team.

Miscellaneous

I mentioned as a goal last month of 4,000 SP by year's end. Last month I thought it had an outside chance. Now, it seems to be a higher possibility. The first few posts of December are tracking about where they were in November, although maybe a little higher. Still no double digit STU yet, so much more work to be done, with thankfully plenty of month left.

Believe it or not, my wife has another injury she's nursing, this time to her knee, and it is work related, like her hand was (but not the hernias, interestingly enough), so she's back and forth between doctors visits and a lawyer specializing in worker's compensation claims. Which means, to a certain extent, I'm involved too.

I don't know if it will take so much time that it will derail my attempts at more consistent posting, but who knows. Work takes enough time without anything in the mix. However, her health and well-being is more important to me than what I might end up missing out in rewards, so we'll see how December goes with Christmas and New Year's Eve also looming.

Regardless, as I'm prone to say at the end of my reports:

Onward and upward.

For another monthly report, here's the one @bashadow recently posted.