Self-Voting: The Benefits And Drawbacks
HardFork19 gave smaller accounts more power.
There are lots of people who have gone from having a vote worth nothing or only pennies to almost a dollar or multiple dollars.
In my case, my vote went from being about $.15 to $3.50 at full power (I think. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's close enough to that).
With this newfound power, people are naturally going to upvote themselves, perhaps more than they did when their posts were worth less or nothing. It's only natural: the drive to give yourself some "free money" is strong, and with several votes per day to be doled out, people are perhaps being very greedy or precious about their votes.
I'm going to explore a little bit about what are the advantages and disadvantages of self-voting -- at least as far as I see it.
Self-Voting Blog Posts
When you write a post, you have the option of automatically applying a vote to it.
The box is below the text entry field, on the right side:
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This image is like Inception... I'm fixing that spelling error right now.
When checked, your blog post with be accompanied by a full-powered upvote.
PRO: The Tip Jar Effect
It is a well-known fact that if you put money in the tip jar at before the store opens, customers throughout the day are going to be more likely to leave a tip themselves.
This is the psychology of Social Proof: the psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation; so if people see that others are doing something, they're more likely to do it themselves, even if the origins are artificial.
So, by starting out your post with an upvote, you not only give yourself the value of your own vote, you also give your post momentum, because people will be more likely to upvote a post that is making money.
CON: No Curation Rewards
As I understand it, automatically self-voting your blog posts will get you no curation rewards.
Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but you do not receive curation rewards for upvoting posts that are less than 15 min old, and you receive twice the curation rewards for upvoting posts that are older than 30 minutes.
The sweet-spot for curation is exactly 30 minutes because you get in as early as possible with the maximum amount of potential earnings.
There are some people who like to wait until this mark to upvote their own posts, so they can gain that curation reward.
In all honesty, this isn't going to make a lot of difference unless your post makes more than a hundred dollars, because your portion of the curation pie will be so small that it doesn't supersede the benefit of the tip-jar phenomenon.
Self-Voting Comments
This one is a little iffy.
So, the way that comments are displayed under a blog post is by value: comments can be upvoted, and the more they are worth in dollar amounts, the better placement they have in the comments section, with the most $$$ valuable post at the top.
It is simply a fact that if your vote power has a substantial dollar value, you can leave a comment on a popular blog post and then upvote it and it will get more exposure at the top of the section.
I'm not entirely sure what the cons are in doing this besides organic community perception: other users might think it's unseemly to upvote your own comment for any reason, including getting it placed higher in the comments section.
In any case, this is something that you can do.
My Thoughts
Steemit allows you to upvote your own posts.
There are different approaches you can take, with different advantages and disadvantages, so what you choose to do with this power is completely up to you and what your goals are here on Steemit.
Personally, I like to start my blog posts off with an upvote to get the tip-jar effect. It's true that I usually get a decent amount of votes for my posts, and I could wait until that 30 minute mark to get curation rewards on top of author rewards, but my posts still earn a very modest amount of money per post, so I consider it more worth it to get the tip-jar ball rolling.
If your account is the size of @papa-pepper, @stellabelle, @lordvader, or @trafalgar, and you can expect a regular payout for your blog posts in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, then I would wait for that 30 minute mark to upvote yourself, because you'd be making a good amount back in curation rewards on top of your author rewards.
What do you think?
Did you learn anything from this post?
Or did you notice all the things that I probably got wrong?
Go ahead and tell me what you think about all the self-voting we are seeing going on after HF19. Do you think it's a good thing or a bad thing?
I was about to upvote, but it's only been 8 minutes. Comments being sorted by dollar value as a default was new to me. Good info!
We crossed the 15 minute mark so I upvoted your post @shayne
What do you think of using whaleshares and/or randowhale to create the tip jar effect and saving to self-vote until 15 or 30 minutes?
Not always reliable, imo.
I hadn't heard about randowhale until recently, and I don't really see a problem with it if that's what people want to do. It probably would work pretty well with the tip-jar effect, especially for the smallest minnows.
Yes I think I will upvote my own comment right now!
I believe self voting is okay. It's your SP, your $$$. There's now an even more demand for SP. Though it's also great to upvote other people's stuff and share the wealth
lol, look who upvoted himself to get higher in the comments section :p
hi
and look who upvoted you 100 % to share the wealth LOL
You are a good man... maybe too good.
(doesn't know what that's supposed to mean)
Thank you :D
and there it is, people.
hi
I agree, but like you said, with the caveat that to truly be part of this community you need to be upvoting other quality posts as well. To me that is a big part of the community.
true that :) I want to share the wealth as well, not just give it all to myself
You're one of the good ones for sure :) Now if only I could get that slider so I can start upvoting comments as well. I'm close!
you'll get there :) no worries. thank you for the compliment :)
Should be real soon, just need a few more payouts! Then I can get back to rewarding people for engaging in comments on my posts, one of my favorite parts about Steemit.
have fun :D
Yes I learned a lot. I used to be totally left wing about steemit. I am maturing in my thinking ;)
Wow, well explained to a 4 year old. Thanks
I only self-vote on certain circumstances :) gotta save the steem power for good posts
I'm pretty sure this is incorrect, because votes in the first 30 minutes are shared with the author, which in this case would be yourself!
For reference:
Link: Voting between 0 and 30 minutes
Link: New Curation Reward Algorithm: Penalty to Early Voters
Hehe, I think maybe you are overthinking it in the case of new accounts. Before HF 19 I was upvoting a lot of comments of my own because noone else did and so I got to the top of the heap . No consideration whatsever to earning since I often did not even see a return. After HF19 I started pay more attention.
l have to say that I have comments that paid much more then my so far 14 long form posts made TOGETHER . Before HF19 it was a lottery , now there is a bit more predictability which I think healthier .
For me it comes down to the fact that if you put effort in the comment, you want a maximum of people to read it, so WHY NOT upvote your own comment? Yes you give up some curation rewards by doing it earlier but if that means your comment is read first it can earn much better author rewards ! Upvoted myself, lets see if it works out !
:))))))))))))
If you have great Steem Power I think you should upvote your own posts and comments. I don't find anything wrong with it as long as you also contributing with upvote for others. But that's just my thoughts on it. Thanks for a great post as always @shayne
Yeah, some people might wind up in an echo-chamber of their own greed, but that'll eventually run out of gas because you need injection from the outside community.