Back in the good ol' days of the gold rush it wasn't easy. You had to find your way to California. To get there you probably took a 6-month sea voyage from NYC around the tip of South America and back up to San Fran. You likely got seasick, bored, and ended up with scurvy.
Your other approach would be the Oregon Trail. Where let's face it... you likely wouldn't have made it.
Assuming you got to California without "waking up dead" you then had a million people to deal with. Your shit probably got stolen by another 49er. You likely got jacked by the guy selling plots. Your food likely rotted by the time you got there. The gold buyer probably gipped you on the price they offered you.
Modern Mining is Easier
If you want to get started mining these days one of the fastest ways is to just get an asic miner, unethically steal some electricity from work or a university, and start minting fresh bitcoin. It takes a little technical know how, but not much and there are lots of people on here that could help you. That said, you're out $2k, and if you don't have free electricity it's possible that you're going to spend more then you make. If you do have free electricity it's possible you're going to get caught. Right now you're probably minting cash, but a few weeks from now it could cost you more to run the box than it made or land you in cuffs.
Steemit mining can be different
With steemit you have four options in the system to make currency.
- Authoring
- Mining
- Witnessing
- Curation
The top three take a lot of time. The bottom one doesn't have to. Authoring a post can take you anywhere from 5 seconds to many hours. If you already have a following you may get away briefly with some short shitty posts that you still count on for some SBD, but it's likely a boogie man will eventually get you.
Steem mining?
Mining can be good, but last time I heard about mining a handful of people had basically figured out a way to monopolize it and in one of these hardfork's they minimized how much went to miners.
Witnessing?
Witnessing can be pretty sweet... but there isn't formal documentation from steemit on it (though there are some blog posts). It's also somewhat tricky to do, and if you don't have even basic comprehension of linux commands you may struggle.
Lookin' at you @steemitblog!
So, what about curation!
If you want to be a whale you have to think and act like a whale. They don't just see curation as upvoting posts they like. They also see curation as a means to mine steem. That's part of the reason why bots like steemvoter, @steemvoter, exist. It's to help them mine.
How does curation act like mining?
25% of the reward pool of the post goes back to curators. If you vote early on a post that ends up earning a high reward you'll get more back. If you vote on a post that gets low rewards it will reward less. If you vote super late on a high tally post you won't earn as much as if you had voted early. Most people on here aren't using all their votes. You have 200 a week before your steem power starts draining! That's a shit ton of posts to manually upvote.
What should I do?
My advice would be to go to steemvoter.com. Sign up. Under rules start putting in people that you think you should follow. Who should I follow? Well, for that I'd go to steemwhales.com, and then click on posting. That will give you a sense of who has earned the most through their posts. I'd add as many of those top names as you'd like. or steemvoter wll allow. If you vote before 30 minutes you'll give some of the rewards you earn back to the author. If you vote after 30 minutes you might miss out on a bonus. It's a game. Do some trial and error.
What's the problem with this?
Follow trails will ultimately promote shitty posts. If as a well known author you know every time you click post that 100 people are going to upvote you no matter what then it decreases the sense of urgency to write a great post. It might not get you right away, but eventually folks will notice and it will hurt your rep, good will, and rewards.
Also, you as a bot user contribute to that phenomena. So, when you're staring at the trending list and wondering "how did that make it there?" you might actually be part of the problem... but then again you're trying to earn steem not make steemit the world's best blogging platform. Or are you?
A rising tide lifts all boats
We want folks to see our trending wall and think "Damn, that's some good shit! I'm gonna read this." That will attract people here along with good rewards. We don't want shit posts earning 1k each. So, balance your follows and rules you choose to make sure that you can also support the person making the posts. It's kinda like being a raw foods person who promotes healthy eating, but owns Monsanto. Don't be that guy. Check their wall. Make sure you like them. Make sure the posts seem legit, and if you do add them remember to keep tabs on them to make sure they aren't just taking advantage of your vote.
Curate on!
Very important text despite some imprecisions. Upvoted & resteemed.
What did I mess up? I'll fix it.
Nothing is messed up, maybe you just shouldn't put that “You have 200 a week…” part. But it really doesn't matter since the essence of text is great, and it counts.
Great post! Curation is a really fun aspect of the platform, and Steemvoter makes it so that anyone can get into & benefit from it. I was one of the earliest users of Steemvoter, and have seen a huge increase in my curation rewards through using it.
Just to give you some idea, I have 120 voting rules and adjust them every so often to find the optimal time to vote on different people. My Steem Power is a bit over 30k and my voting power seems to hover around 70% pretty consistently these days. Given that, I'm making around 100 Steem per week just from curation. At current Steem prices that works out to about $500 extra per month.
Not only am I making good money, but I'm also helping out lots of great authors! I vote on some of the top people from Steemwhales, as you suggest. But I also devote a lot of my rules to lesser known authors who produce good content. And I do check up on them to make sure they keep producing good stuff. If their posts start getting crappy, or they post too often to the point where it gets spammy and consumes too much of my voting power, I'll drop them from my rules.
The important point is, auto curation if done properly can be a great personal benefit to your Steem holdings, while also helping support & have a positive impact on the wider Steemit community. So everybody wins!
Oh man, I loved that movie as a kid, must have watched it a dozen times at least!
I know. I'm dating myself with the reference.
I would advice you do it manually. This way you can write comments and direct your votes more wisely. Unless you are a whale, following a trail won't cut it.
wow. thank you for explaining this. i had no idea about the 200 votes. just a couple of weeks ago, steem dollars appeared and i had no idea how they got there. then went to some steem forum, cannot find it again, asked there if anyone could tell me how that happened and they enlightened me - i am an author just by commenting! that is wonderful!
and just this evening, i have noticed that i have a list of replies to my comments!
and i can vote on them.
even having read the white paper several times and read so many how to steemit posts, i am learning that steemit is DEEEP!
cheers @aggroed
good times!
Is it 40 posts per day or 200 posts per week? @aggroed
I think it's 200 votes
I just read a post today that said its 40/day now and after the next hard fork it will drop to 10/day. Here is the link: https://steemit.com/steem-help/@sykochica/what-s-this-slider-bar-and-vote-power-percentage-what-s-the-difference
Tactical tip mate, what a way that twisting Curation to me at last.Bless you man.
I see a whale agreed with you LOL
Yeah, @thejohalfiles was cool AF to hook me up like that!
Good info! Thanks.
So I'm confused, by employing a bot to upvote whales is beneficial or not? If everyone employs bots will we lose the sense of community that this platform offers?
I think a balanced approach is best, involving both manual curation and auto curation through Steemvoter. I really only have the time to read and comment on 3-4 good posts each day. So that's my manual curation. But there are many authors I like and I want to support their work. So with my Steemvoter rules I can make sure that I never miss voting on my favorite authors.
That's what I do too!
That sounds like a reasonable approach. I am looking for pro tips like this to get the best out of steemit and protect the platform from abuse.
Well, there's a battle here. Bot voting will make you steem currencies. Bot voting irresponsibly will likely hurt the platform. That's why I suggest ethical methods and looking at who you are supporting while also supporting posters that make bank.
Not to belabor the point, but why wouldn't every minnow bot-vote many of the biggest whales? The second they post they would have 10k upvotes and zero comments.
Well, this is a good thing for them to do personally, and it's bad for the platform. There's a balance. Many people use these kinds of bots. So, if they are on the platform than at least all of my followers should know about them.
Appreciate you getting back to me.
great post! You took it waaaaay back with Oregon Trail...lol
I get the feeling the wagon train I'm on is taking the long way. Are we supposed to need sunglasses in the morning if we are heading west? Thank you.
ONly if you're drunk. And back in the day that was a primary form of entertainment.
the first picture ist great. Nice writing btw! keep it up ... Followed you and hope to see more of this!
:)
I love the way you introduced your topic with the history lesson!
I also like how you balanced the idea of using a bot versus not using a bot.
Personally, I feel that using a bot defeats the purpose of Steemit. If everyone is here simply to make money, then we can all start using bots and everyone can simply post junk for the bots to vote on. Heck, just get a bot to churn out junk posts! When everyone catches on and is doing it, there will be no need for any human intervention and it will be just a bunch of robots mining Steem. At that point, this system will be no different than Bitcoin (where its sole purpose is to generate currency). I think that would be a shame.
Thanks boss! Glad you liked it.
You're totally right that bots make this place kinda screwy. You can purchase content creation bots that will just write stuff for you. So, it could go that way. It may have already. But since some can do it some will. And if you can then it doesn't make sense just because you don't know about it to miss out on it while more technically savvy make more off of it.
That's always a dilemma isn't it? There will always be a few who are able to figure out a way to circumvent a situation or methodology and use it to gain personal advantage. As others find out about what they are doing, they too wish to jump on the bandwagon and profit from it. After all, it's not fair to those who 'play by the rules'. But ultimately, like a virus that multiplies unchecked, it eventually kills its host. So we are faced with the question you proposed: Do we hurt the system that sustains us for short-term gain or do we miss out on the riches that others are partaking of? Until such time that changes are made to prevent 'abuse' (if you can call it that), it is left to the discretion of each individual. As I understand it, democracy is not applied here and a system of meritocracy is used instead. This means that those with the most rank will always have more say than the rest of the Steem community, and they are the ones who will have most to gain or lose. It takes a lot of willpower to vote for changing the system to a way that stifles your income.
I really hope that you're going to take your comments here and develop them into a post, @happyme maybe easpecially helpful for new Steemians.
Thank-you abradamip5j,
I was thinking the same thing myself, but at the same time wondering if a post like that would upset some of the whales and make them down-vote me when I already don't have any power.
Each individual has their own skeletons in the closet of their mind and those skeletons will affect how they react to any given idea. It actually takes much effort to be able to read something and to analyze it without letting emotions affect your perspective. For example: I read a post where someone was complaining bitterly about being down-voted by a whale. What they said made sense and I felt sympathetic towards them. Then I read another post where someone else said that because of the down-voting, they are now able to make a few dollars on their posts. I can also sympathize with them. So in the end, I agree with both sides! Every action will have its own reaction. It may hurt some while helping others. Who am I to judge? I'm sure there are many things from either side that I am not even aware of, so its best for me to stay out of it and allow each person to be responsible for their own actions based on what they believe.
Yes, I understand what you're saying, I usually see both sides, too. Your reply gives me much food for thought, might help me prevent some missteps of my own, thank you.
That's wonderful. It really warms my heart to know that I can make a positive contribution to others, even if it is just a tiny contribution.
perfect imagery with the gold panning with it lol love it
Thanks. That means a lot to me because I've been following your posts almost since I got here and really respect them!
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Superb post! - I loved your "Resteem" post, and that's why I'm here in the first place. Upvoted & followed. I'm looking forward to read many more posts from you! :)
Well thats awesome! 64 rep means youve been here a while and know whats up. if you are excited for my posts then I am really flattered! Thanks!
I need your team to choose an option as soon as possible:p
I didn't know that minnows could use bots at all, so thanks for this! I'm going to check it out but I agree that it's important to manually curate as well. There are people that I know and want to support and a bot can be certain I don't miss anything of theirs while allowing me the free time to also find new content that I think is worthy of support. I really want to see good content excel here and not just click-bait. Resteemed and following you for more great info like this!
Congrats @aggroed!
Thanks. It's hard sloggin' at times. Glad to have your support here! Nice witness post. I'm going to do a witness campaign when I hit 1k followers I think.
Awesome!
🍒 As always useful and interesting, I will dedicate time to apply all of it.
Me while reading this post
You're awesome! This made my morning!
I know I'm awesome ;D
Thank you learning learning learning all the time
Thanks. Very helpful.
Weoooo gold rusg
Really appreciate your very informative post here but do have a question. I read a post last week (wish I had made a note of author) that informed the rules for payouts had changed and the author now receives 100% of the payout made in the first 25 minutes. Do you know if this is true or misinformation? Thank you.
The 3rd Q. about the 30 minute penalty will answer your question. BTW, this is not the first time I've read about the 30 minute rule.
https://steemit.com/steem-help/@sykochica/answering-common-questions-about-voting-and-curation
Thank you, now I've got it!
You are very welcome. I figured it would be much better if you read it directly than have me attempt to explain it.
total bullshit. Takes a week.
Thanks for your response. I'm new to his and see I probably used the wrong word, payout when I meant reward pool.