I must say that the numbers that i will write here are not exact as i found some different values in my search at steem posts and i am not sure did values changed after HF20 but i think it is important for a lot of users to know about this.
What are Dust votes? To put it simple all posts and comments that are worth 0.025 SBD or less on the time of the payout are not going to the creator and curator, they go back to the reward pool. So on all posts and comments that have less than 0.025 in total on the day of the payout are payed 0. This is done to discourage earning with spam comments and to reduce the cost of something that creating stuff in blocks on the blockchain cost :D
I think that people need to know this so they can plan how to spend their Voting Power/Voting Mana. We all want to reword good comments on our posts but if your SP is not enough, even on 100%, to give more than 0.025 SBD all you did is spend your Voting Mana and your vote is not going to the person who wrote the comment.
Why i put only comments in the title? Because there is a small chance that someone else will upvote comments on your posts so there is small chance that total upvote will pass 0.025 and go to the curator. In my opinion better thing to do is to check the commenters page, see what is he/she posting about, and vote on their post because there is more chance that someone else will read their post, vote on it so it will be worth more than 0.025 SBD and it will be paid to the person you wanted it to be paid.
So my recommendation is: don't spend your Voting Mana on comments if you are not sure you can go over the threshold.
While reading about this i found @dustsweeper. As i understand it, it is a bot voter, that if you pay 1SBD, will monitor your comments, and if they are under 0.025 it will upvote so they go over the threshold and be payed to you. As of my knowledge for 1SBD it will upvote around 70 comments. I can't say is it working or not, as i did not try it. All i can say that i found it as an option.
And here is a random photo, i kinda feel weird if i don't post a photo :) and can now use tag for photography so my photo friends will see it.
PS: i know that this is not new, i heard something about it few months ago, but i feel a lot of people here don't know about it, and i think it is important, especially for new users.
Dustsweeper works and it's a great solution for the low upvotes on comments ;) Don't know if it will still work with Hf20 though...
thanks. i will definitely think about using it
It does still work since the patch went through, I have gotten some upvotes from @dustsweeper since then. It is a great service well worth checking out and using.
I think the question you asked in the title should be "Is UPVOTING comments profitable?"
Because - as you said: "No/it depends", while upvoting comments have some value beyond monetary. It's a simple way of saying "I agree with you" or "Your comment is valuable", instead of writing that.
Which brings us to another subject... I think Steemit's best strength and weakness at the same time is money. Sure, it's a great idea to reward people with "money" for their content. Especially for Average Joes, who won't make a living from their stories, photographs, videos, etc., but on this platform get to know that they can produce something of value from time to time, at least. It's nice to know "Oh, I got 3$ for my blog post, instead of getting nothing at all".
At the same time treating Steemit as "means to get rich" is wrong. For three reasons: first - the value of STEEM/SBD is very low at the time; second - treating it as stock market with extra steps often leads to malpractice; and finally - we are ignoring community aspect of the platform. Steemit has great potential for bringing people together; creating both virtual and real-life projects.
i agree on most of your points.
not sure do you mean profitable for voter or commenter? i never thought about upvoting as a means of profit for me (i know it is), don't really care when it was published (in the 7 days period) or all that technicalities, if i like it i will upvote it.
the reason i wrote that if you can't upvote more than 0.025 the better thing to do is to check the commenters posts and if you like it, uprote that, is that is a way to find more about the person, strengthen the community and also monetary reward that person.
Getting rich on steem is well not really an option right now, and people should probably know that. it is a marathon and there is a chance that we will not finish it :)
In the "golden days" of steem i thought about it as a way to maybe pay for the fuel i will spend on some trips or something like that, now i am just sharing my photos :)
Thanks for information.....
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your welcome
I do upvote other people’s comments quite often if it’s engaging in the subject at hand!!
i get why you do that, but i feel that is a waste of Vote mana if it is not more 0.025. i would rather upvote your post then a comment.
Yeah it really depends on the situation and i do try to make sure it’s more than the 2 cent dust vote
Cool. Will have to check out dust sweeper . But overall I think it’s a good thing .
i am thinking about using it
yes and interfaces like steempeak.com allows you to see how much your vote is worth, which is great.
also for some people it's a way to push a comment to the top :)
that is all true, i just felt that a lot of people don't know about that rule, and after this a lot people still don't know about this :D
yes there's just a lot of things that people don't know about steem. including myself! 😆
Very good advise! "don't spend your Voting Mana on comments if you are not sure you can go over the threshold."
Also I read today that the minimum upvote should be backed up by 5 sp. So if you have only that in your wallet, it is pointless to split the votes.
With 10 SP you can do 50% votes... and so on.
And of course great excuse to put a cool photo and use a proper tag! :)
had no idea about 5sp rule.
It was introduced with the HF now I think.
Good idea. If I like a comment I usually upvote it with 0-1% just to give it the nod of approval. Then I go to their page and do just like you said or suggested and support their quality content. Nice one
i never thought about 0-1% voting. not a bad idea.
Thanks fir sharing! This is very helpful!
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Hi @bil.prag!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
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Hello @bil.prag, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!