Bluffer's Guide To Hive - The Rewards Pool, Post Payouts, Upvotes & Downvotes

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Back For One Blog Only...

It's about time we wheeled the Bluffer's Guide out of retirement and blow the dust off the covers! For those of you who don't know, the Bluffer's Guide was something I set up last year to help beginner's understand some of the complexity around cryptocurrencies in a mildly entertaining way without using any technical language.

Everything I have shared in the series has been from my own research, understanding and experience of being in this space since December 2017 and I try to provide some opinion (but mostly neutral) to help encourage your own research around these topics I present.

So, today, let's talk about Hive and it's Rewards Pool structure, along with other factors such as Post Payouts, Upvotes, Downvotes and the psychology associated with it.

Previous readers may know what's about to come next but for those who don't...


Before I begin, I want to emphasise that this is a highly simplified version of what I have learnt from my own research and I'm sharing my learning with you. If you do know this topic inside out, be nice to those who are still learning about this (myself included) and we can grow together.

Furthermore, this is not financial advice and I am not a financial advisor. I am a crypto-enthusiast and wanted to create a guide to help total beginners understand what this is all about. Please seek financial advice from a qualified professional if you have any doubt about how to spend your money.

So with that said, brace yourselves, you might learn something! Shall we begin?


The Rewards Pool

The "Rewards Pool" is simply the amount of HIVE tokens created each day that gets dished out to users on the platform who have produced or curated content. 7 days after you've made a post or a comment, you will get a share of the Rewards Pool depending on how the community perceives the value of what you've posted in the form of upvotes or downvotes.

What Are "Upvotes" & "Downvotes"?

If you've come from social media sites such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and others, you'll see hearts, likes, thumbs up and thumbs down "reaction buttons" which are generally used by content consumers who think something is good or bad (trolling and all other human psychological conditions aside). These buttons have no direct monetary value as they aren't backed by anything financially and can be considered as a tally of how many times that particular reaction button has been pressed.

However, with Hive, these reaction buttons come in the form of an upvote and downvote and there is a BIG difference between what we have in the social media sites mentioned above. This is because the upvote and downvote buttons have a monetary value (depending on how much Hive Power you have) meaning you have a say in how much someone will get paid for their contribution of content to the Hive platform.

That's pretty powerful stuff there at the click of these buttons hey?

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How Do I Use Upvotes & Downvotes?

This is of course up to you seeing as it's your account and your Hive Power. Remember, we are in Web 3.0 now which means that by virtue of having Hive Power, you have a say in everything that happens here and that INCLUDES post payouts. The upvotes and downvotes are YOUR tools to say "Hey, I think this post is undervalued and needs more rewards" or "Hey, I think this post is overvalued and needs less rewards".

In other words, if we think of these two buttons completely objectively and treat EVERY post we see in the same way with no bias whatsoever, then upvotes and downvotes are tools of equal importance to determine where you think the share of the rewards pool should be allocated for a particular post.

However, in reality, when have humans ever been that objective?

Psychological Effects Of Upvotes & Downvotes

Whether you like it or not, humans have emotions and no one should be surprised when positive emotions follow receipt of an upvote and negative emotions follow receipt of a downvote. This is even more magnified when money is at stake with these tools and can either lead to feelings of euphoria or feelings of rage.

When you join Hive from the likes of Facebook or Twitter, your mindset towards these reaction buttons definitely needs to be different. An upvote or downvote should be related to the way that users perceive the monetary value of a post. I say "should" because of what I said before about human emotion - people act on emotion mostly - but it might be useful to talk about different examples of how the upvotes and downvotes are used so that you can perhaps be ready for when you use both of these rewards distribution tools. What do you think?

If You've Been Downvoted...

Without A Comment

It's likely that you're going to feel a bit upset. No-one likes to see a downvote and even if you have 1,000 upvotes, you'll stare at that 1 downvote and it will no doubt play on your mind. "Where's the comment though? Surely I deserve some feedback as to why I've received a downvote?"

Well, some would argue against that. Based on what the upvote and downvote tools are defined as above, the reason for the downvote is already given by default - "Hey, I think this post is overvalued and needs less rewards". That's your answer.

In an ideal world, every one would read through everything they vote on Hive and distribute the rewards accordingly but, again, humans. We're a lazy bunch and will look for short cuts, particularly with the various curation trails available at our disposal.

The best way to combat any negative feelings towards the downvoters in this case would be to take it on the chin and put it down to differences about how you perceive the rewards of the post you created. If you really can't let it go, make a comment under your post and tag the user who downvoted you and ask for feedback but don't expect a response.

With A Comment

This is not as likely but it does happen where someone leaves a comment as to why they have given a downvote. Most of the time it will be reaffirming the definition above of "Hey, I think this post is overvalued and needs less rewards" and that's the end of it.

Or the comment could actually give you feedback on how to perhaps improve your post or content in future, things to bear in mind when posting again or what they'd have like to have seen to make the post more valuable.

By all means, don't expect a comment with a downvote but if you do get one, the best thing you can do is to say thanks for the feedback and if you believe it was really helpful apply it to your future posts and test your content creation skills. Even if it's through gritted teeth...

If You've Been Upvoted...

Without A Comment

On the contrary to the above, you're probably going to start feeling pretty good about things! Your post value increases and you will start thinking about a life of lambos... OK, maybe not quite yet. However, there's no comments, so how do you know what was good about the content you posted so that you can post something like it again?

Sure, a lot of upvotes means more money in the Hive wallet at the end of 7 days but a lot of votes can happen on auto... is anyone really looking at your content? More upvotes without comments can seem a bit empty and for a community based social-economic platform, there's a bit of an imbalance there.

Best course of action? Find out the accounts that have voted you and interact with their content, leave a comment and even go out to find other posts related to yours to build up a network. It goes without saying, be grateful too :)

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With A Comment

It doesn't get any better than this and you've really resonated with those who have read through your content. You've made a pretty awesome impression and not only have you got an upvote but you're starting or continuing to build a relationship with your readers.

This is the dream and is exactly what a community based content platform is all about and if it happens to you, definitely interact with the comment, go check out their blog too and spread those feel good vibes all around the place!

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If You're Downvoting...

Without A Comment

You're well within your right to do this of course but it's likely that you're having more of an impact then you think, even if you're just doing it purely based on the definition of the rewards distribution tools above.

A lot of people still don't fully understand what Web 3.0 is and what these rewards distribution tools are about (but hopefully they will know a bit more after reading this blog). It's a novel concept and not seen in many other sites so be wary that you may get some "splash back" or retaliation.

Best approach here? Stick to your guns with your objective approach to the rewards pool and brace for any reactions that may happen - remember... humans.

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With A Comment

Although leaving a comment is not 100% necessary, given the current circumstances with the new culture since HF21, it's definitely more favourable if you're wanting to keep relations going well and are honest in your approach to building a "better Hive".

Things to consider when leaving a comment are constructive feedback to the author of the post, being civil and perhaps revisit at a later date to see how they are getting on since you redistributed their rewards.

If You're Upvoting

Without A Comment

You may not feel like the need to comment and let your upvote do the talking for you, assuming you're working on the definition above and you've read through the post - fair enough. Other sources of giving upvotes may be from following a curation trail to help discover content for you, which allows you to reward authors without reading their content or you like a specific author so much that you have them an auto and believe they are creating (subjectively) quality content every time.

Nothing wrong with that fundamentally but you have to really trust that the author will not start lowering their standards and it'll be good practice to actually check what it is you're voting on from time to time. Remember, the rewards pool is a shared resource and blindly following someone may not be a good representation of where you want to be distributing your upvote value so perhaps get that magnifying glass out from time to time...

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With A Comment

Probably the most positive of all scenarios is this one. You've given an upvote after you've read the post and you've left a comment on the original author's post, potentially increasing your network and maybe making a new friend in the process. On a platform where interacting and socialising is key to growing your account, doing things like this is probably what you want to be doing.

Best thing to do here? KEEP DOING THIS!

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Bluffer's Comments On...

Bidbot Usage

Since HF21, there's been a real drive by the community to stop anyone using bidbots on their post, no matter how large or small the purchase of the vote was. This drive has come in the form of downvoting bid botted posts to redistribute the rewards back in to the rewards pool.

It's understandable when the whole concept of Hive was based around rewarding content that is deemed to be (subjectively) high quality as voted for by the users of the platform - so called "Proof of Brain".

Whether you agree with the methods of some that are trying to stop the use of bidbots or not, the best thing for you to do is either not use them and join communities based around your interest that can help you grow your account organically or, if you insist on using them, set your post payouts to "decline" or set beneficiary to @null. This is my recommendation based on what I've seen.

Downvote Trails

Since the advent of HF21, downvote trails have popped up that operate rather like curation trails, except you're downvoting rather than upvoting whatever content the person you follow decides to downvote. Now, blindly downvoting without commenting (as suggested in the section above) can leave yourself open to revenge downvotes which is wholly unsavoury for the platform but I feel these trails will be necessary as we get used to this new ethos around rewards pool distribution. The argument here is: "If you have curation trails to redistribute rewards towards a post, why not have downvote trails to redistribute rewards away from a post?"

However, with all that's been mentioned in the Bluffer's Notes, if there's this really extreme movement of going down the manual curation route, surely we should just turn all the automatic voting tools off and share our collective responsibility for what we choose to reward with our stake? Ultimate "Proof of Brain" there? Maybe. Although there is a use case for downvote trails and that is in the fight against...

Spam & Plagiarism

Spam can be considered as extremely low effort posts (such as one image or word) that occur at an extremely high frequency (10+ more per day). Plagiarism can be defined as someone who has completely copied and pasted someone else's work and claimed it as their own (with no reference to the original).

It's hard to find an argument against redistributing all rewards from users that fall in to these two categories and there are a group on Hive that have been doing great work to combat it all. But even they can get it wrong - no system is without its faults.

If you feel you have been wrongly downvoted for the above then you will need to reach out to the relevant party who's given the downvote and make your case.

0 Value Downvotes/"Mosquito Bites"

We're seeing more of these 0 value downvotes from seemingly random accounts that pop up with a single post on their blog and very low Hive Power (less than 100HP) - in some instances, 10 of these mosquito bites (0.000 value downvotes) have landed on posts. There's no financial loss associated with these downvotes but again, the psychology of seeing them can impact new people to Hive in a bad way and we definitely don't want it to leave a sour taste. The good news is...

DON'T BE ALARMED!

These are the "camillesteemer" group of accounts and, from what information I've received about them, they are just bot accounts from someone who got caught plagiarising by the community earlier in 2019. Then went on a "V for Vendetta" style rampage to downvote anyone that caught her or is supporting those that caught her.

Best course of action? Laugh it off and move on.

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Upvote Rings/"Circle Jerks"

This is a little bit of a grey area but you can consider upvote rings as a group of accounts that seemingly only vote each other and don't look elsewhere to curate content. The affectionate name of "Circle Jerks" is something that I'll only use twice in this blog.

I'm not completely convinced and, after having many discussions elsewhere on various posts, I will adopt a neutral approach on this one as there are many Hive groups doing their own things on this platform who I'm sure favour certain authors over others because they are friends, family or it's part of some other guidelines of the community they are in. However, it's up to you to find out more if you really want to go looking and decide to use your reward distribution tools as you see fit.

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Concluding Thoughts

It's been an interesting period on Hive since HF21 brought us the ability to redistribute rewards via the downvote button without adversely affecting our upvoting capability. What it's brought to light is a glaring issue in the misunderstanding of what the rewards pool is, how big the gulf in understanding the true equal importance of the upvote and downvote buttons and what it all means in the grand scheme of things for the Hive social-economic model.

I hope this blog proves to be a useful guide for anyone that reads it, new or seasoned veterans of Hive, and helps address some of the concerns raised in the many discussions I've been involved with over the last 6 weeks. Consider this post the last time I'll be getting involved in the discussion (comments and feedback welcome of course).

And for the record, I don't work for Hive, I am not in with "the cool kids", I'm just a guy who makes Drum & Bass music and writes travel blogs from time to time, trying to make Hive as prosperous as it can be for every one so we can all win.

Now, back to the music studio ;)

Nicky

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All memes made by me at https://imgflip.com/memegenerator, gifs credited where appropriate

For those what wanted to see the body of work behind the Bluffer's Guide, these are most of the posts I did (some of the platforms I reviewed in Chapter 7 have since collapsed, under delivered or lost their way). Enjoy :)

Contents

  1. Welcome

  2. The history and technology of Bitcoin
    2.1 How and why did Bitcoin come in to existence?
    2.2 How does Bitcoin & blockchain actually work (Part 1)?
    2.3 How does Bitcoin & Blockchain actually work (Part 2)?

  3. Buying Bitcoin
    3.1 Being secure with cryptocurrency & wallets
    3.2 How to Buy Bitcoin & How Exchanges Work

  4. Definitions of common phrases

  5. Portfolio Management

  6. Cryptocurrency News Outlets & Fluctuations in Price

  7. Blockchain Platforms for Musicians & Music Fans

  8. Concluding Thoughts (never got here)



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A lot of really well stated points here... Great job

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Thanks for reading and appreciate the feedback! It's been pretty tumultuous this last 6 weeks and I've been in the thick of it, trying to see all sides of it... No wonder it took me all week to write and went over 3k words 😂

That cat was actually me as I finally clicked "publish" earlier lol!

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We've had quite a lot of new users on board, this is a great guide for them!

@tipu curate

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Thanks @livinguktaiwan! Hopefully it can help keep new users on board and even existing ones to make this place as awesome as it should be!

Time for a lie down after writing this like the cat 😂

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that's why I had to comment this first and save it for later read. Have a great weekend Nicky!

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Thanks a lot for the support my friend! You too and enjoy the read. Recommend reading with a few biscuits and a cup of tea handy 🍪 ☕

Have a great weekend too! 💪

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Very nicely done. Upvoted without comment.

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Thanks a lot man! I believe the response is the "networking" gif in that case, although you technically have commented so, KEEP BEING AWESOME 😁

Hey maybe I should do a multiple choice Bluffer's Guide Quiz with these responses and scenarios haha 😂

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Upvoted with a !BEER

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Damn, I knew I missed one scenario! Probably the best of the lot - upvote, comment AND beer 😂 thanks a lot for that, definitely need one after writing this 😀

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Good to see something like this, I really didn't want to write one!

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Thanks for checking it out @slobberchops! It's been a tough 6 weeks being involved at the deep end and flash points with some of these issues and speaking to quite a lot of different groups - it has been very thought provoking and I hope that this blog can help everyone.

No more sleepless nights about it all moving forward I hope 😂

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That is a nice written and easily understandable post. Could be very helpful for new people on Steemit 👍. Great job @nickyhavey! Have a nice weekend! 😃
I had to upvote with a comment ;)

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Haha thanks a lot @psionic-tremors! I hope it is helpful for the newcomers and maybe even more seasoned users as well!

Upvote with a comment? Well you're part of team AWESOME then 😀

Keep up the great music as well and well done on winning the music contest a couple of months back 💪

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Well written man! 💯

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WOW - this is almost a book you're writing ... and a good one it is!
This should make a lot of things clear for people who have questions about all the topics.

Great work and for sure worth a !BEER :)

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Hahaha, well this one was just over 3k words total and could have been longer than my undergraduate thesis but I think this should be enough to get things going 😀

Thanks a lot for the awesome support @pundito and the beer too of course! I'll be digitally drunk by the end of the night at this rate 😜 🍻 💪

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No more online racing games today ;)

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!trdo

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I have never seen this command before... What's it mean? 🤔

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It's a token reward system.
You see !BEER or !SHADE 2 used on comments, Trendo is for posts (doesn't work on comments).

If I'm not mistaking, you get a (small) upvote too. Can't check, because for some reason steempeak doesn't allow me to open the list of voters on your post.

Great post, by the way. Finally found some time to go through it.

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Oh right, so many tokens flying around the place, really have no idea how I'm going to handle SMTs when they eventually hit the scene! Think I might explode lol! Thanks for the info here though :D

And thanks for the comment, I told you it was a monster post haha! It's only my 3rd longest one I've writte though, I had a 5k and a 6k word post before, both were longer than my undergraduate degree thesis haha!

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Downvoted can definitely make it feel personal. I hope many people can see your post and understand that it's a useful tool for the blockchain and not for starting wars.

Bid bots are always a touchy subject and one that I don't like to touch because of the various thoughts on them. I have seen how it helps people grow other people's accounts and I have seen the massive abuse from it as well.

So with that, my question is to everyone that sees my message, is it wrong to be downvoted because of someone using a bit to upvote another ones post and is it seen/wrong to downvote a post that gets rewards using things like Actifit, Partiko and creativecoin and palnet even? Or is it ok?

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Thanks for the thoughtful comment @foxyspirit

Definitely agree on the personal feeling with downvotes which is why I wanted to focus on why they are actually here and shouldn't be considered like the reaction buttons like Facebook and Twitter etc.

I have upvoted your comment/question to the top so that those who have more understanding and in depth knowledge/thoughts on the topic of bidbots can answer your question and help 🙂

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Thank you.

It will be interesting to see what people say.

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Hi @foxyspirit

From what I've seen from some of the high SP #newsteem people's perspective, it's basically all out downvote campaign against bought votes.

I know someone who got downvoted for using a bid system on an actifit post and they weren't very happy. I'm not sure how I feel about this as I know the person is a good, long term commited steemian. On the flip side, if we really want the hf22 economic proposal system to work, and proof of brain to work as it should, then realistically all vote buying needs to be stopped. If it isn't then some people will always find ways to exploit it.

For me, it comes down to one simple reality. The posts, like Nicky's here, that are well written, should be getting the big payouts, while shorter posts get less. This extends to different subjects/styles of content, vlogs, photography etc. It just makes sense that rewards should reflect quality and if the community can push this to be the norm then we'll have a functioning POB rewards system. Also, it would be a much healthier environment as new users wouldn't arrive here with unrealistic expectations of earning loads through posting a few pictures with a short paragraph.

To be honest though, to really cement a true proof of brain system, the next thing that needs to be addressed is the many circle jerks of questionable content that still proliferate here... and that will get really ugly for a while.

Imo, we're going in the right direction though 🙂

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I agree with you, if the quality of a post is great then the rewards should match and won't need to be bought in. But that's in a perfect world.

The way I see it, things like creative coin and palnet (not sure if it's dead or whatever) encourage the quality, encourages the people to do great, even though some don't and abuse the system. And if people are willing to do that, then that's awesome, no? It gives to the people. In a perfect world, the people would use that extra to give back to more people etc.
And there's also the part of receiving encouraging upvotes by @appreciator because I have written quality posts and it helped grow my account which has helped me encourage others. And I've also been encouraged by @curie and @c-squared before as well and all the same has left me smiling from ear to ear and had me write more and more. Is this not the positive side to it all? (I don't know how curie and c-square work btw if it's bot or not).

Now I'm not saying I am encouraging this exactly because I do believe we shouldn't even need this, but things went.... well, the way it went and it became almost needed (I think 🤔) and people also became greedy and shit hit the fan pretty much lol.

Also, please understand that I am not all knowing in all of this and that I do seek to understand more. I do like to look at things in different ways, making me optimistic.

About the circle jerks, ya that definitely needs to go down. Although I don't want to be caught up in it or I will cease to exist lol. But doesn't it just want to make you shake these people to wake them up!!??

This whole platform needs to be treated that way, not just a few people.

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(Edited)

This concept of buying votes for each other will quickly turn into people buying votes for themselves using alt accounts and then things get messy all over again.

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(Edited)

Ha ha, yeah possibly. It's certainly gonna be...

'a never ending battle with no ending or beginning'

Couldn't help myself but drop a quote from The Wu.

I think that is the challenge for those who are committed to trying to keep this place even vaguely honest.

Once the vote sellers have all got on board curating manually, it's time to go after the circle jerks and the alt account self lovers. It's all visible on steem with tools to query the blockchain you can see who is using sock puppet accounts self voting.

Lol, truth is stranger than fiction, and this place certainly proves that proverb 🤣

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Hi foxy, I think I can answer some of your concerns here. I work/ed as a curator for curie for 18 months now.

I've also been encouraged by @curie and @c-squared before as well and all the same has left me smiling from ear to ear.

No one is against them or ocd which is another curation guild. These groups are vital to steem and were formed to counteract the culture of 'group voting' or circle jerk behaviour that had always been bad on steem, especially among the orca and whales. I can only speak for curie, but basically what you have inside the guild is a bunch of people who've a proven track record for finding and the best content. You have to go through extensive training before being accepted as a curator for curie. I had to train for a month before I was let in and I'd had loads of curie votes on my creative writing which is my speciality. They're very serious on quality control and making sure that curators are seeking that quality from all over steem.

As a curie curator you have to follow strict rules to ensure that the focus is on newer steemians to encourage quality content creators to stay, if you have too many posts that you submit for a curie vote rejected by the reviewers that do not adhere to the guidelines, then you can lose your place as a curator. That's how it works anyway. And curators are paid for their time based on how many accepted posts they get.

Curation guilds like this are far removed from vote selling entities such as bidbots because they're actively promoting the proof of brain system. They have been fighting a losing battle for years trying to make trending full of good content, but now, between them, bidbot accounts that have stopped selling votes who're now curating, and random curating whales, the trending is mainly full of high quality content.

I think the point I'm trying to make is that although some vote buying services may have been used in the past by one friend to encourage another when they wrote a good post, this was a minority of how they were used. The vast majority of their use was for value extraction.

Here's how people bled steem dry of value while giving nothing back: People used a system called vote stacking. They make multiple bids to 5-10 bidbots and because of the way the reward curve works, as their post went up $50 - $80 - $120 etc, they compounded the gains they make from the bidbot votes. So what a lot of dodgy people were doing was using this method to garuntee $10/$20+ on posts that were utter garbage! Some were doing this multiple times a day. This is why imo the best thing for steem is simply to push bidbots out of the system.

The way I see it, things like creative coin and palnet (not sure if it's dead or whatever) encourage the quality, encourages the people to do great, even though some don't and abuse the system. And if people are willing to do that, then that's awesome, no?

Absolutely you're right. There is nothing wrong with pal, creative coin and most other tribes. I don't think anyone is against them 👍 I'm certainly not. I do think that certain tribes are trying to bypass the whole EIP campaign against vote selling by offering to sell steem votes for their tokens and this is where their may be a problem. But neither cc or pal do this to my knowledge and they're the only tribes I use at the moment.

I hope all this helps foxy, it's all just my opinion apart from the stuff about curie which is an accurate description on how the guild works 🙂

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(Edited)

Epic reply!! Thank you so much! I appreciate it, that you took the time to elaborate in order for me to understanding.

I didn't know there was so much included with curie and I can say that there is an even higher respect for them than before. (I already had huge respect!)

I'm so happy that things are starting to all fall in place. I hope Steem does climb to the top like l once was.

For those of you that are fighting the war to get it back in place, thank you 🙏🙌🤝

Wishing I had a stronger account to also make an impact. I'll get there. No worries. Spreading posts like this is definitely one way go and using the tools the way we were meant to will also help.

Thank you @raj808 and thank you @nickyhavey!!

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Very helpful actually. Thanks.

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Absolutely @nickyhavey this is purely a awesome useful guide for both newbies and pros in the STEEMIT community!
I really appreciate how you delt with every outline! Bravo!!!

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Hey hey @pemac, thanks a lot for the beastly comment man! Hope it helps everyone understand a little more about the different viewpoints that are out there and encourage more users to stay on this great platform!

Have a great weekend my friend 🙏

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Sure it really helped me to get more understanding of how the community functions and more also the hardfork21

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Ah I'm happy to have helped you out man!

Although this is a big blog, there is so much more going on with steem but I think this is a hot topic at the moment so needed a bit of exploring 😁

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Please How do I gain more steem power as a minnow?

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Many ways you can do that man:

  • Buy steem
  • Enter contests (would recommend @phctop3)
  • Get started with steembasicincome
  • Find communites that are of similar interest to you
  • Write content that you enjoy writing about and make sure the content is as good as you can make it.
  • Join the PAL server, they are all for minnow support, also @steemterminal is worth looking at.

Just a few to start 🙂

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Great look at the psychology behind Steem, not just the mechanics. Thank you!

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Hey hey @zyzzyva thanks a lot for reading through and appreciate the comment, hope it helps fellow steemians no matter how long they have been on the platform!

Have a great weekend 🙂

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Awsome posst Nicky, it will come handy to show it to friend who is new here:)

Upvoted, resteemed and follow to follow,lol

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Heya @georgeboya thanks a lot my man from Greece! Hopefully it will encourage your friends and prepare them for what this awesome platform has to offer!

Have a great weekend man 😀

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Congratulations @nickyhavey! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

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(Edited)

That is one hell of a comprehensive post Nicky. I shall be sure to direct anyone I can onboard to it... if I ever manage to onboard anyone 🤣

You've got the psychology of steem spot on m8.

I recently started trailing OCDB downvote trail as they're particularly going after bidbot abuse and I've been criticizing bidbots for nearly two years, so it kinda felt hypocritical not to use my free downvotes to action what I'd been saying. But, yes you've guessed it... I've got myself a revenge flag stalker.

I've followed your ethos with this, shrug and move on. Although the user has not gone after theycallmedan or any of the other larger accounts on that trail (I smell a cowardly custard 😂)... they've gone after little old me and another smaller SP steemian. But, despite their 100% downvote whacking $0.40 off my posts, I'm still happier than I was before, when every man and his dog could get away with devaluing steem by buying shit content up into trending.

It's something that takes a bit of effort to adjust to psychologically, but when you get your head round it, it's ok 🙂

Great post btw, worthy of the reward!

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@raj808

Hey Rowan mate, haha thanks a lot for checking it out. Quite an important topic that needs to be covered and wanted to give it the respect it needed whilst trying to cover many viewpoints. Hopefully you can get more people on board, maybe I'll slowly but surely chip away at more Bluffer's Guides and have a comprehensive Steem Book/Blog Series to help newcomers (and even seasoned veterans) out.

I have had discussions with acidyo and I see what's going on. There really is no discriminating against anyone, it's just a blanket policy of downvoting any bought upvotes but I do think that they should go after the actual sellers of votes, not those who use them and cut it off at source if they want to have their desired effect. New users will likely be horrified when they receive a downvote after doing something that was likely recommended - I lost count the amount of times I have seen buying votes being recommended to grow one's account to minnows and plankton. Hopefully reading this, that will change.

The way I see this whole thing is like an oscillatory graph, right now, we've overshot with downvotes and we might still nor be making our way back to the equilibrium line yet as knowledge about what the rewards pool is is still limited. That was the motivation of this post - to bridge the gap somewhat.

As always, appreciate the in depth response from you, that alone is like a whale upvote in my book and to get the raj808 seal of approval, great honour!

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(Edited)

I do think that they should go after the actual sellers of votes, not those who use them and cut it off at source if they want to have their desired effect.

Yeah, I personally think that they'll never do that due to the fact that those people who set up bidbots have huge stake (SP) of their own. I questioned theycallmedan on this one in a comment on one of his posts and he straight up said he's not playing the blame game. Translate that to mean, 'i won't attack the Bernies, markys and frystkens of this world because they have too much skin in the game.' (all people who run/ran bidbots)

And although I was angry with this attitude of basically letting them get away with what they've done to this place, I see the logic from a purely business perspective. Most of those people have closed down their bidbots or switched them to manual curation. If all of those people sold their steem, it would probably crash the price beyond recovery. So it's a fine line between trying to force them to do what is right, and using methods to remove their market that doesn't threaten their standing on steem lol.

And then there are intelligent people out there who see through these bullshit games of ego, PR and power and understand exactly what has gone on here on steem. So far as I'm concerned I've let it go, but I know who has benefited massively from the bidbots on steem... the owners!

But you have to be positive, newsteem and downvote trails are working slowly to clean things up. What I think the result could be is that we have a much more functioning proof of brain system when the next bull run hits. If that plays out things could be just as impressive price-wise as last time. Unfortunately, we're gonna lose some people in-between then and now.

This is the way I see it anyway. The EIP was always going to be a make it break move. Without it, steem would have died quickly. If Stinc stop their monthly sell off of hundreds of thousands of steem, everything could recover quickly in a parabolic market, and with all the development here steem could surprise the whole crypto world. We shall see 😉

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Good point about the big accounts, it makes sense really as to why they won't go after the source so the next best thing is go after the customers. Yes, there's only one winner in the bid bot game and that's the owners.

But hey, if they all sold their steem and brought the price down, I'm sure there'll be many people waiting in the wings to pick it up... like me! I'd continue buying up until prices started recovering again, which they will because we're still so early on in this game that a lot of things need to be tried out.

I've read on nonameslefttouse's post that this is rather like trying to re-build the damage caused by a massive illness over the last two years. The latest HF has been a vaccine that is giving the ecosystem some of the tools it needs to fight off the germs and then we'll hopefully be cured in time for the next bull run.

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I don't downvote because I am afraid of retribution! My account is so small my payouts could be wiped out by a 1% downvote from those I feel like downvoting. It seems to be a tool that only an elite group can use. The gnats (I prefer "gnats" to "mosquitoes") are hard to ignore even though they are harmless.

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I don't downvote because I am afraid of retribution

Yeah, it's a concern for sure. I don't blame you owasco. I've had some blowback from it the past few weeks I've been downvoting and someone tagged me on their post today calling me a thug.

Tbh I can't even bring myself to enter into the drama of explaining to this person how if I'm a thug for downvoting them, them they're a thief for using a bidbot. It's difficult because a lot of people don't understand the basic fact that the daily reward pool is a limited amount, so by them boosting their payouts using bidbots they're literally stealing from everyone who doesn't use them.

I've been on here for just over 2 years creating only high quality content and spent many depressed days because my 3000 word short story made a dollar or two. All this time my chances of getting honest, fair curation based on quality has been diminished by vote buyers as most of the whale steem power has been locked up delegating to bidbots. This is now changing, and I think it will level things out as time goes by.

This is why I have no regrets about following a downvote trail. If people don't want to learn how the reward mechanism works on steem, and want to continue stealing from everyone else, they deserve what they get. What's ironic is that those who are creating decent content would have a decent chance at higher payouts in the long term if they stopped using bidbots. I think there are only 4 or 5 bidbots left operating. Not sure if I'm right about that though.

These are just my thoughts on it all. I was getting ready to leave steem if the EIP didn't work. From what I can see so far, it's going in the right direction. Time will tell.

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I'm not even sure what a bitbot is. I don't know if I'm using one. I know I never paid for upvotes, except sbi which I just started buying as a contest sponsor. Is sbi considered a bidbot?
Thanks for that explanation of the rewards pool and how it is affected by the bidbots.
I still have so much to learn! It doesn't help when big changes come along and pull the rug out from under me.

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Haha, if you don't know what a bidbot is and you've never bought a vote you are safe ;-)

P.s. as nicky said in a perfect world the powers that be would go after the bidbot owners... and the people purchasing the votes wouldn't have to worry because their would be nowhere for them to purchase them, but we ain't in a perfect world... mores the pity.

SBI is safe owasco. I wouldn't worry too much about it all. It sounds like you have been doing exactly as I did on steem when I arrived and just acting in a decent way.

Far too many people on this platform have seen the exploits and ways to leach value and thrown the moral compass out of the window in the pursuit of money.

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One of the things I've noticed is people who think they can take short cuts or have some kind of immunity.

This is probably controversial, but

An over rewarded post is still an over rewarded post regardless of the cause. I don't care if the money is going to your beer fund or something 'more important'. Steem is not a charity.

Your previous history doesn't matter. This isn't a membership club or subscription service. I don't care who you are, you have no right to post crap and say stuff like well I normally post great stuff.

Steem is not an occupation and you have no right to collect ROI anymore than anyone else. If you think differently try to get a job with Steemit, or better yet start a proposal, let's see what everyone thinks.

I'm also beginning to have second doubts with all these vote trading and vote-buying schemes that have been flying under the radar. I like and use some of them, but the lines between subscribing for bids and buying them a la carte is blurry. The same goes for small bids. I've noticed a lot of junk in the sub 3 dollar range that doesn't seem to attract much attention but 90% of the value is vote buying/trading and there is 0 engagement because the content frankly sucks and the effort (or complete lack thereof ) shows.

Sorry for ranting. In my opinion, if you don't want to create decent content delegate.

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@abitcoinskeptic hey mate, hope it's all good your end!

Yes I know what you mean about posts and rewards and I think we are from the same school of thought there. Unfortunately, not everyone is this objective and don't see post rewards the same way. It's like a belief of a right of passage - "I've bought steem so I'm entitled to have more post rewards". Sorry pal, you don't get to decide that.

I did want to put something in about self-voting too but I haven't done it for as long as I can remember, maybe a year. That's another contentious issue. Sure, we all think our own work is great but it's not up to us really to decide it's monetary value. It's like taking money out of your own bank account and then putting it back in again.

You make a good point with regard to even low bids that go under the radar buy I think it will only be a matter of time before those get curbed as well.

Thanks for stopping by and providing some interesting insights as well. Great rant 😀

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Solid.

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Metal Gear Solid?

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Just solid. You said a lot. I don't need to say much more. You deserve a break now. I'm happy to see this comment section is acting civilized.

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Haha, Thanks a lot @nonameslefttouse! Yea this one took a lot out of me and suffering some kind of content creation hangover now! I blame it on all the beer tokens I got last night and having a chin chin with the other legends who commented here 😂

The aim was to get a discussion going and help with sharing some of what I found out from the last 6 weeks and that everything will be A-OK 👌

Thanks for reading it all, not easy to make 3k word posts and keep it "readable", time to retreat 😁

Have a great weekend man 💪

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Nicky, you’re all that and a bag of doughnuts! Great guide! I read every word of this post (my comment)! Confession: I tend to skip around a bit, unless someone has my attention! 😉

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@cindyhartz

Haha! What's with the doughnuts?! Must be a northern saying 😁

Thanks a lot for reading every word my friend! That makes it all worthwhile 😊 and considering is my 3rd longest post on the blockchain I've ever made at 3k words, that's made my day really!

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😂. It was originally “all that and a bag of chips!” Either saying means you’re the total package, plus!

Glad I made your day!

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Ah yes, I've heard of the "bag of chips" - north east slang right? Haha thanks for the good vibes! Have a great Sunday and enjoy those chips and doughnuts :D

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😁. Yes! But I actually live in the southeast part of the north east!

Thanks and have a great week!

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Ah I was in the North Yorkshire Moors last month, stayed in Grosmont which may be closer to where you are?

Stay dry this week, gonna be a wet one!

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I like your style of writing lol. Will be forwarding this post to anyone asking why they've been receiving upvotes...

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@kevinwong

Hehe thanks man! Have to inject some humour in to a deep topic such as this one and keep it "light".

Yes please, forward away to whoever! I'm not sure anyone's asking why they get upvotes but at least they have some reasons for it here 😁

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Should be required reading on acquiring a Steem account.

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I should do a multiple choice quiz to go with this post based on what reactions should you have when you get downvoted without a comment etc 😁

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Hi @nickyhavey

Thank you for spending time writing this guide.
It is thoughtful and easy to read and explains a lot

You show great writing skills and are good at sharing your thoughts on how the system works.

I'm glad we got in touch and you're not one of those with a different agenda

I read a lot a day on the various posts that have to do with the essence of the case. I am amazed at many who just preach shit and leave comments to people they do not like and when people with big accounts do it and in addition use their power to give downvote it becomes on the wrong ground. Then they do it to harm people as much as possible.

I hope they with another agenda read your post and opened their eyes. If they could only think like you, the problem would be no problem

Thanks again for the post you wrote
Re-steemed

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Heya @xpilar, thank you for checking it out and leaving great feedback.

I've appreciated our conversations about this whole topic and they have opened my eyes to things I didn't previously consider so thank you too!

Unfortunately there will always be bad actors in any system but if the majority of people have a civil discussion around some of those "grey areas" I mentioned then I'm sure we will be flying.

I don't think I'm on my own when I say we all want steem to succeed but there is still a way to go before the fog after hf21 clears.

Again, I'm really grateful we had the chance to meet on steem, hopefully next time it will be in a more positive situation 🙂

Thanks for the resteem too 😊

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thank you @nickyhavey for your nice feedback

Unfortunately there will always be bad actors in any system but if the majority of people have a civil discussion around some of those "grey areas" I mentioned then I'm sure we will be flying.

Yes that's exactly why I shed light on this, I hope so too 👍

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I my opinion you are one of the cool guys and I love this blog.

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I my opinion
You are one of the cool guys
And I love this blog.

                 - brittandjosie


I'm a bot. I detect haiku.

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Ah gee thanks @brittandjosie! Really pleased you love this one, hope it can provide those in steem terminal with some useful information to understand this space a bit more 😊

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I've been on steemit since July 2017 and unfortunately this is the first time I've come across your blog. Very good layman's explanation of steem mechanics. Entertaining as well.

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Heya @scaredycatguide that's a long time on the platform, I've been around since March 2018 but discover blogs I hadn't before pretty often so no worries, it's a big place!

Thanks for the great feedback and hopefully this will be useful to anyone that comes across it

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Excellent down and dirty post, simple and lighthearted. Just the way the like it. I see now why you've got so much STU on this. Better that than an STD, so keep typing!

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Excellent post my friend. Hope you come back for another blog!

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Thanks for checking it out @felt.buzz! Maybe the Bluffer's Guide can be tempted out again but we will see. I stopped doing them because the body of work only netted about $1.50 over the course of 8 chapters but this one seems to have gone supernova.

There'll be a music post coming up next 😉

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Great post for newbies and anyone in general to read.

For myself I think there's a difference between abuse of bots and use of bots and while I agree with the main reasoning of the newsteem downvotes I don't agree with how its being done.

I also think if you are one of the ones that are downvoting or on a downvote trail and you get retaliated on then you have no right to complain. If you can dish it out then you can take it too.

Getting retaliation downvotes should be something a downvoter should expect to get. If its ok for one to downvote because they disagree with something (buying bot votes) then those same people should follow that same logic when getting retaliate downvotes themselves. Retaliation downvotes are given because the downvoter don't agree with the stance of the original downvote given to them.

I would like to touch on allot of other things you bring up but I would be here all day typing so I will stop here. To be clear I decided on the day I joined Steemit that I wouldn't downvote anyone. Many months later I'm happy to report that I have stuck to that and have handed out 0 downvotes to date.

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Thanks a lot @rentmoney for checking it out, hopefully it sheds some light on what can be a confusing topic!

Yes you have a good point around the differences between use and abuse. The argument is that paid votes shouldn't be profitable for the person buying them as they are considered advertising. But if you're manually curating and your steem power isn't very high and you might have a few spare STEEM lying around, can you not sponsor someone's post using bid bots? I've never used one so I don't know how they work and don't want to know either. I'd stay away from them altogether 🙂

Again, I agree with the point about retaliation. It's to be expected from what I posted in the original post.

I don't think "downvote" should be a dirty word or a tool anyone is afraid to use IF done in the true spirit of community and growing the value of Steem. I did start using these reward redistribution tools since HF21 and realised the impact it has after many discussions with many different people. The last thing anyone wants is a gigantic flag war which would be unsavoury for anyone involved.

Still some way to go to find equilibrium here but I hope the Bluffer's Guide can help with general ethos around here.

I'm all ears mate, if you've got any more comments, drop them here

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I love how you made it so that I/others can understand it without all the technical stuff getting in the way. Thank you and I understand the downvoting, but, do people have to be so mean about if for God's sake.

Also, this is awesome, Nicky! Well done!

!tip .20

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Heya @dswigle thanks for stopping by and glad it was understandable without getting technical (there's still a distinct lack of easy to understand posts about this topic in the crypto space in general)!

I think trolls will always exist and sometimes there are just cases where you have to put it down to the other user being "a bit of a nob" 🙂

Thank you for the positive vibes my friend, sorry if you have been affected by negative stuff, hope this guide helps with some strategies to move on 🙂

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This post has been included in the 201st edition of The Steem News - a compilation of the key news stories on the Steem blockchain.

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Sometimes it is easy to forget once you been here a while how long it took to take everything in.

Those psychological effects play such a large amount. People love getting likes, hearts, upvotes, thumbs up and so forth.

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I'm still taking everything in after 18 months and there's still stuff I don't fully get but it will all sink in, one day!

Generally though, people don't care to look too much into the mechanics of the platform and just need to know the absolute basics to get through so I hope this gives a good foundation for anyone to build up their understanding of this ever evolving world of Steem!

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This is a very good guide! I'll resteem it for the benefit of my followers who are new to Steem.

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Hey @gadrian thanks a lot for stopping by and glad you found it useful! Appreciate the resteem to your followers too and hope it gives them a good starting point to understand this particular aspect of the platform 🙂

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Great summary of explanations, little brother :)

Hope this post gets seen by more and more people as it is a great article for each newbie and even people who were on steem for a while but don't understand everything yet

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Hey little sister, thanks a lot for the awesome words 😊

I hope it helps everyone out who was unsure about what's going on but if we can encourage newcomers (and longer users) to stay and grow on the platform then we will all win in the end hey 🙂

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You sum it up well. People see Steem differently. Some are into the freedom, but others just see it as a way to make money with little interest in community. I have been downvoting/flagging for a long time where I thought the person was not using Steem as intended. That could be buying votes on a low value post, selfishly self-voting or 'circle jerks'. I do not do it for differences of opinion as I'm not looking for fight. I will leave a comment if I think they will see it.

As part of Steem Flag Rewards we have se guidelines on categories of misuse. I often say a bit more and some people do change their attitude.

I do not want to drive people away from Steem. I just want to see it being used well and getting rewards where they are earned.

I've had plenty of retaliation. Some people seem to consider downvoting a 'crime', but they do not understand curation. There are limited rewards and nobody is automatically entitled to any. It should be up to the community. No system is perfect, but Steem has potential to change the world.

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@steevc thanks a lot for stopping by and giving some insight and yes, there are different approaches to steem. Those who are in it for the money could still get a return by delegating to manual curation guilds and that would benefit the ethos and community feel without them having to do too much at all.

Self-voting was something I forgot to mention but I haven't self voted for as long as I can remember, maybe the beginning of the year (I was still very much a minnow then). The way I see it, it's not up to the author to give themselves a vote if we want this to be a truly community based platform using the Proof of Brain concept.

But I'm sure we all appreciate the effort you guys put in at steemflagrewards to stop spam and plagiarising occurring so thank you and definitely agree with wanting steem to be used well to keep the honest users here as well as drive new users in here 😀

Love your last 2 sentences!

Thanks for the support on this one 💪

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This is a bloody GEM @nickyhavey! and you better be back for more.... otherwise..... hahahaha ;)

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Haha thanks a lot @jaynie! Another Bluffer's Guide? Maybe I can bring it out of retirement and bring a full Steem dedicated one out to everyone here...

Seems this one went down pretty well...

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Thanks for putting this all together! I find it very helpful.
If you can find the time, I'd like to better understand the upvote curve.

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Heya @owasco thanks for checking it out and so glad you found it helpful my friend!

Oh God the rewards curve? Of all the topics you pick the hardest one 🤣 haha just kidding man, well it seems that this one was really popular, and got more reactions than I ever thought possible so I may have to wheel this series out of retirement fully!

Thanks for the suggestion, if you have any other topics, let me know

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I'm all for you writing more!

Next idea could be explaining the differences among SP, Steem, SBD and my favorite STU. I think I understand all of these, but it took me forever to figure out what STU is. Maybe show how it affects upvote value.

Another one - the .02 threshold. Many low SP accounts are wasting their VP upvoting comments to no one's benefit and their own detriment. It's better to go upvote one of the commenter's posts. Maybe this is circle jerking, but it's better than wasting VP, no?

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All great suggestions, I'll see what I can do to get some guides about those out but it may not be soon. I'll need to do some research myself on those. As long as it helps with understanding this ecosystem then that's the main thing!

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First things first, @nickyhavey @tipu curate (I hope it works - I'm still getting the hang of this).

Seriously (as if that wasn't), I am so glad that you went out on a limb and wrote this. I know that you thought long and hard about not doing it - for all the reasons you cite about negative responses to downvoting for lack of understanding, etc. etc.

It does take a while to realise, when joining Steemit, that the vote buttons are exactly that: votes which have value. It took me an age to understand this. Part of the reason, IMHO is because steemit bills itself as a social media site. I think that this is misleading and it causes a lot of damage.
It's still how it's being punted "out there". In layman's terms, had I understood that everything I did on Steem had a concomitant cost, I might have approached things slightly differently.

This post has, for me, consolidated a lot about the "new" Steem that I wasn't sure about, but sensed, instinctively. It did, for a while, shortly after HF21/22, feel like a kinder place. Somewhere between then and about two weeks ago, that changed. I am a recipient of those "mosquito" downvotes and although it's taken a while, I've become inured to it. I do hope that they run out of steem - in all senses of the word.

I do hope that what @nonamelefttouse's prediction

This concept of buying votes for each other will quickly turn into people buying votes for themselves using alt accounts and then things get messy all over again.

is not realised. It's something our other friend, @quillfire also suggested would happen some time back.

I have to add that the discussion on this post has been as insightful as the post itself, particularly from @raj808 - along with the associated discussion.

As a total technophobe, I'd like to see this post, and ones similar to it, becoming part of a Dunce's guide to Steemit's mechanics into which folk could dip if they were confused/unsure. This is because, again IMHO, too much of the guff written for and about Steemit is written by techies and it leaves the likes of me swirling like a dervish in the deep blue sea.

Thanks again, Nicky, for explaining the almost unexplainable.

Fiona

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Hey @fionasfavourites the most epic of commenters 😁

Firstly, no idea how tipu works, you may want to have a chinwag with @dswigle for that!

I did want to write something like this to put my own mind at rest more than anything after the mental torment I had been through with all the many discussions I've been involved with from all sides really. But I hope that this approach to educate rather than incriminate serves its purpose.

Technically, it is still a social media site but if we were being honest, it's a social-economical media site. It is social but also provides investment opportunities and this is a concept very foreign to a lot of people (let alone investing money seeing as it's not something we get taught at school)!

Loads of talking points and great things pointed out by everyone who's commented on this. Can't quite believe the response it has got in honesty!

You don't need a Dunce's Guide... You have the Bluffer's Guide 😉 maybe I will have to wheel it out from retirement on a more permanent basis...

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(Edited)

@nickyhavey

epic of commenters

Now there's an appellation...

@tipu have started a curation initiative with manual curators of which I am one. I am trying to come to grips with it. Probably need to go back to the destructions.

I agree that Steemit is a social site, but it's more than that, so not qualifying things and simply saying that people earn from posting is misleading. As for the investment bit - spot on - what you said. I like the term "social-economical" but it's not sexy, is it? Perhaps "econosocial".... #justthinkingaloud

Dunce's or Bluffer's Guide - doesn't matter, it's still useful and yes, it should be trotted out on a regular basis.

My final point, and which I tried to make this morning while I was on my phone and I was interrupted (by a cat, I suspect) and posted too early, is that this post, and its equally useful comments is getting no less than its just desserts.

Enjoy them.

Fiona

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they are just bot accounts from someone who got caught plagiarising by the community earlier in 2019.

2018 actually. It's been going on for well over a year. lol

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@nickyhavey
A great scribe here my friend and I hope than many will gain from the knowledge here.
I see a mirror of our world in here, as you have a select society that gathers the riches and then you have the masses. Steemit is supposed to be an equator for hardworking souls that post quality content, but that seems to have been replaced by the money god.
We can only hope that things will improve my friend.
Blessings!

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Hey hey big man @papilloncharity!

They will certainly change and we can hope it will bring some improvements. I mean, looking at this post alone, I've never had anything like it. I wrote 7 chapters of the Bluffer's Guide last year with maybe an average of 1 or 2 comments on, maybe 1 blog got above $1. 12 months later, this has gone supernova!

I think those who were once gaming the system are going to find it a little trickier to make money and will start powering down, this will make a lot more steem available on the market for the likes of us to lap up and spread the wealth around a bit more.

There is no other platform like steem, let's put it that way!

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Sounds good my friend. It has been a hard and honest slog, but we are keepers. Here for the long run.
Blessings!

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Downvotes are weirdly out of all proportion in impact... of course, large material downvotes are pretty rough... but when the gnat bite ones are going around... people seem to get all riled up about it... despite the fact that it is too small to make any appreciable difference in payout!

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Haha yea I know, seems it doesn't matter the size of the downvote, as long as there is one, it brings out the emotion!

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Thanks for clarifying things for me! I must say I have a hard time being objective about it and my emotions still come into play but posts like this encourages me to use the tools we have been given here on Steem, appreciate them and to keep working towards making this a wonderful and rewarding place!

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Heya @porters don't worry, I don't think you're on your own with struggling to be "objective" and especially where money is involved, it certainly puts a magnifying glass on the whole thing doesn't it?

But I think once we all get over the fact that the upvote and downvote buttons are not the same as the reaction buttons on other social media, then we're in a great place to make this place thrive. Still yet to reach equilibrium but the more we educate, the better it will be 🙂

Thanks for stopping by here!

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Great read @nickyhavey, I'm not a newbie but I still learned something about downvoting. I think all Steemians should read your post. 👍

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@wonderwop sorry I never replied to you here man! Thanks for checking it out! I'll be restarting the engines on this series and hope to get another one out in the next couple of weeks.

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Beautifully written as always Nicky!

Funny how sensitive we can be to those stupid little downvotes isn't it. I actually wonder if there should be a minimum requirement for an account to be able to downvote? For example they must have made at least x number of posts in the last 3 months and have obtained a certain account level.

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!steem2email

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What's this wizadry? Haha

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Haha. Something I whipped up so I could read this epic post later 😎 I wrote about it recently if you’re interested.

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I just read a bit of it and it looks like a great idea, almost like an archive but in your inbox! Great stuff!

And thanks for checking this one out! Hope it helps a few people out!

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(Edited)

This post deserves !SHADE 5 and $trdo

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Well now that's pretty bad ass, I hadn't heard of these tokens until I wrote this post! No idea what they are but I'll figure it out at some point haha! Thanks man 🙏

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Holy moly dude congrats. I linked here from @kevinwong randomly enough and didn't see how HF21 had somehow blasted this post organically up into the stratosphere. Deservedly so. Steemit Inc should straight include this in a FAQ that comes with a new account as required reading ... took an -appreciable- amount of time to figure out the voting culture here and this does it about as succinctly as is possible.

Which is not very succinctly haha. Seriously though. Well done as always. Writing and DnB chops usually mutually exclusive entities. Stoked to see you smashing it.

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Haha hey @drumoperator man! Yes I couldn't quite believe that this one went supernova and reached like top 15 on trending! Truly blessed and humbled really! Thanks for the epic comment!

Lol! Yea trying to summarise the upvote, downvote and rewards pool mechanism as well as the associated psychology in a succinct 3k word post was about as narrowed down as I could get it 🤣

I may have to wheel the Bluffer's Guide out of full retirement as I've has suggestions to write about steem engine vs SMT and the convergent linear rewards curve thing. They could have asked for something easier 😂

Oh well, if it helps the cause...

Cheers 🍻

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Awesome, enjoyed all the comments, great effort collating this all into an effective post helping everyone.

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Thanks a lot @joanstewart! Can't believe how well this post has done really. Seems it resonated with a lot of people and I'm glad to have helped shed some light on at least a part of this multi layered platform!

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When platforms become multi layered like Steem has it is a quagmire to make sense of whether old or new arrival with continual changes. Being written in a way that one is able to ponder and see reason is not an easy, you did a wonderful job at achieving an easy to read piece here.

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Hey, I see you help new steemians, I can't seem to understand the pay out options, I choose the default 50/50. I use to choose the top up 100% but after seeing everyone else is using the 50/50 I also decided to use it,but, my last two posts I've posted on that option haven't done anything, I didn't get my upvote from partiko and also it doesn't give me notifications of who likes my posts, there is no money showing at the bottom of my post like how it use to do when I was on the 100% payout. Please tell me what to do, because I want to benefit from this and grow with all of you.

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@mixed-emotions hey there, not sure why you're not seeing post payouts, you can try using a different site like SteemPeak to see what's going on with post payout.

Good point about 50/50 vs 100% payout, I'll add that to the list of tips and topics to write about next 🙂

Partiko seems to have stopped development over the last few months and don't know if they are doing any more so it may be that as well

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