RE: Voting 101 -- An Itty Bitty Fishy Guide To Voting Well (if over 1,000 SP -- this is not for you)
Good advice @tecnosgirl, and interesting input from @logic and @wakeupsheeps. Voting is a bit of a complicated subject because there are so many opinions on how it should be done. I think you address the facts about voting percentages pretty well (worth less the lower the percentage). You also covered the spammy comments, which I think are mostly done out of lack of understanding.
Here is my take: If you enjoy a post, upvote it/reply. If you find a comment particularly relevant or useful, upvote and reply. Generally, I will vote between 10-20 times in a 24 hour period, depending on the content. However, if you're reading and responding to a post, you most likely won't have time to read many more than that.
Regarding flags... I won't mess with them until I understand the impact better, though it seems they are just detrimental if a post/comment is not blatant spam. I had an early post hidden completely from a flag bot because it had a referral link in it. That just confused me.
I am going to address saving some upvoting comments and using part of your voting power each day for them. I frequently get down to less than 80% because I upvote for at least 10 pieces I like and 10 comments each day and if an article is really good I upvote it no matter where I am at. But when I am really drained and it is good stuff that deserves more than a few cents I use Randowhale or Minnowbooster because that gives more to the content than my upvote does. And I guess I am encouraging users to use those when their voting power is down. It is frustrating for a new user to see 9 upvotes but 0 on the post. Because all the voters power was down to 0. That is mainly why I say keep a watch on it, spread out the voting. A few of use are working on a series of posts and I think it will clarify some of this when we finish with all of them. I should maybe put a disclaimer on here that as your SteemPower increases so should your voting. Because it is about sharing the wealth. That is why I like using Radowhale and Minnowbooster to boost other people's great content. And though I think what I post is good, I won't upvote my own stuff. I would rather give that .5 cents to someone else.
That is a great idea, using randowhale and minnowbooster on comments. Didn't think about having a 0 cent vote for really good content. My votes won't really be worth much yet anyway, but as long as they are over a penny for now, I'll be watching my VP.
Definitely think people should start with a common sense approach to the whole platform, then read posts like this to get a better understanding of how it all works.