RE: New to Steem? Here are a few basic tips...
Great post! I'm a newbie and appreciate posts like this that help point out what may be obvious to the more experienced users. I'm currently struggling with how to use my upvoting powers (as weak as they may be to start). I'm a firm believer in positive reinforcement so any good post or reply, I'm naturally inclined to up vote. I think I have a good grasp on upvoting posts: if I make it all the way through and felt it was helpful, entertaining, or thought provoking, I definitely vote it up. However, comments and replies are a bit trickier and I'm torn between rewarding positive engagement and lessening the overall value of an upvote. I guess it's something that will start to come naturally with time. Any advice you can provide would be greatly appreciated as I certainly don't want to offend anybody I may be having a conversation with.
We each have our own technique. Until you get a slider after getting enough power to like it then you will possibly want to be more sparing in your votes as they will default to 100%. This will depreciate your voting power quickly.
If you go to https://steemd.com/@yourusername it gives a lot of good information... in your case it would actually be https://steemd.com/@xistentialshadow
As you vote:
that voting power % goes down and your votes become less and less effective. This is to prevent people from simply up voting everything without thought or creating bots to intentionally drain the reward pool to their own benefit.
Once you get a slider being able to set a % of your vote enables you to vote more often. I tend to vote 10% on comments. That means I can up vote 10 comments before they equal the same as a single 100% vote.
I vote a lot so this tends to be an issue for me.
It is something that each person does slightly different, so you'll really just need to find what works best for you.
Thanks! That makes sense and I had no idea all the information available at the steemd link. Very helpful!