Missed Steem Earnings Comments & Comment Upvotes

Source
Premise

You can make money at least three ways on each post you read, but most people only know one way, so they miss out on potential earnings.

Explanation

You can make money or earn Steem by upvoting a post and then you get a share of the curation rewards on the post. This is the way most people make money from reading post, as readers who upvote a post, this is called “curation” and the earnings are called curation rewards.

There are two additional ways to make money .
First, comment.
If you comment you are the author of the comment and thus you earn 50% of the total comment award.
Second, upvote comments.
If you upvote comments you are now a comment curator and you can earn 50% of the total reward on the comment.

Example
Post A2
You upvote Post A2
Total Rewards for post are $5.00
Author rewards are 50% or $2.50 goes to the author.
Curation rewards are 50% or $2.50 is divided amongst the 100 people who upvoted it.
For simplicity I will say Each curator nets 0.025 Steem. (In reality curation is paid in SP.)
So the total you earn just by upvoting is 0.025.

Most people stop here!

Second source of income is Comment reward.
If you write a comment and you get a reward you get half.
Total Comment Reward 0.05
Author reward is 50% or 0.025 So you get an additional 0.025! Now you have doubled your earnings.

Third source of income, upvote a comment which has a comment award, to earn curation award.
If you upvote a comment that has a reward, you get a share of half the total reward.
Total Comment Reward 0.05
The author gets 50% or 0.025.
The curator or persons who upvote it share 0.025.
If your the only one who upvotes the comment you get 0.025. Now you have tripled your earnings.

Review Math
1st award from upvoting post is “post curation reward” of 0.025. Total award 0.025.
2nd Award from commenting and getting 50% of the “comment author award” 0.025. New total 0.05
3rd award from upvoting a comment with an award “comment curation award” 0.025. New total 0.075.

Discussion
This is why you should comment and upvote comments.
You can double or triple your earnings per post by creating opportunities or recognizing opportunities to earn extra rewards.
You create an opportunity to earn extra rewards by commenting.
You recognize an opportunity to earn extra rewards by looking at the comments for ones with upvotes.

Fine tuning this idea, the small details you need for success.

1. You can only earn extra awards on comments, IF the author usually upvotes comments. Some authors upvote all comments, some upvote only comments they like and some authors don’t upvote comments.
   This means you need to know from past experience if the author upvotes comments or you need to review the authors older posts to see if they upvote comments. Steemit is transparent in this regard. You can see if the author upvotes and how much.

2. You can earn extra awards upvoting comments which already have an award, but you need to do some math to make sure you will actually get paid those earnings.
   Remember “Dust”!!!
   Dust is the amount the award has to be for you to actually get paid. If your share of the award is less then 0.02 you won’t get paid an award. Look at the comments under posts to see if the author upvotes comments.

3. When choosing a comment to upvote, only upvote comments over 0.04 if there are no other upvotes.
   You can potentially earn 50% so only upvote comments with rewards which are twice the dust limit of 0.02, which is 0.04, other wise your reward is dust and you won’t get paid.
   Example:
   The comment total reward is 0.40
   The number of votes is zero.
   Divide 0.40 by 2 and you get 0.20 because curation reward is 50% of total reward so you divide by two.)
   This award 0.20 is above the dust limit of 0.02, so it’s worth a vote.

Example:
The comment total reward is 0.03
The number of votes is zero.
Divide 0.03 by 2 and you get 0.015 because curation reward is 50% of total reward so you divide by two.)
This award 0.015 is below the dust limit of 0.02, so you won’t get paid, so it’s not worth a vote.

1. Count the number of upvotes on a Comment, then divide the reward by that number, then divide that number by two and if it’s 0.02 consider upvoting, if not, don’t upvote because the award won’t be above the dust limit and you won’t get paid.

Example:
Comment award is 0.20.
There are four upvotes, but if you upvote it there are now five.
Divide 0.20 by five, which leaves you 0.04
Divide 0.04 by 2, (because the curation reward is 50% of the total reward) and now you have 0.02.
That is above the dust limit and worth a vote.

Example:
Comment reward is 0.15
There are four upvotes, but if you upvote it there are now five.
Divide 0.15 by five, which leaves you 0.03
Divide 0.03 by 2, (because the curation reward is 50% of the total reward) and now you have 0.015
That is below the dust limit of 0.015 and not worth a vote because you won’t get paid.

But the situation above could change
You could look at a posts comments on the first day the post was made and the comment upvotes may be to small to get paid. But you could come back on day three and now the comment awards are twice the dust limit or higher. So those are now potentially worth upvoting. So you may need to revisit posts.

This might seem complicated, but once you do it a few times, it will be easier

Questions?

Additional information that you know on this topic?

Comment below!