Thanks a lot for the nice mentions!
One thing I will say: I have started to upvote my own posts, but I try to do it in a manner where it doesn't entirely benefit me with the voting power I have.
I try to upvote my posts after upvoting other people's throughout the day, so the voting power is closer to 70% rather than 100%, which means the larger votes of the day go to others; secondly, I do it towards the end of the reward week so it's about a day or so before the reward is released; I do this because typically, once again, the voting power has decreased quite significantly throughout the day of voting people's content.
I was very much against voting on my own posts with this stake that I have to use, but I thought about it extensively, and I looked at various methods of how I could further increase my voting stake upon the realisation that 30,000 Steem delegated to me isn't mine. It isn't going to last forever, and I not only want to ensure that people receive the best rewards they can while I do have this delegation, but that I can earn enough Steem myself through posting and curation myself so that once this delegation does end I will have enough SP to continue supporting everyone independently.
I've already placed (I can't remember the exact figure) around $1,300~ into Steem when the price of Steem was around 80 cents. I did this for the exact reason that led to me receiving this delegation: I believed in Steemit and wanted to increase my stake so that I could do more. I used to write about how Steemit lacked proper curation and that many were overlooking a fundamental process that not only rewarded us all, but kept the platform growing and improving.
You're right that the existing curation guilds do some great work, but part of my decision to attempt to increase my stake as fast as I can while I still curate properly was that many of them work together to find content and upvote it, but so much content is still ignored because they can't upvote everyone and everything. I have been asked whether once this delegation ends if I'll start my own curation team, and the decision will forever be no. I'm not interested in starting my own community, I'm interested in contributing to an existing community. The one that includes everyone, doesn't require any delegations to anyone, doesn't require any bots, rules, or any leaders: just regular, authentic curation.
A community is never made, but it is formed. The curation I've done has done nothing but impress me in terms of how much people want to discover and communicate with each other. I've noticed people begin to curate and comment on each other's work on a regular basis just from a resteem I gave several weeks ago, or even months ago. The fact that regular curation can improve the experience of the Steem blockchain for all -- without me needing to be in the equation aside from one minor boost -- is how I believe Steem should function. This is a decentralised blockchain, and leaders aren't needed to perform such a basic, fundamental process on it.
I don't care how much I profit in the process, because it's the fact that I'm supporting others and watching them grow and become more creative that is the true reward. It's something you can't really do anywhere else.
Having this delegation made me see that, and while this answer was pretty long, I'll try to sum it all up in short: I want to be reach the point where I too can give people 30k SP delegations and sit back and witness just how large and positive the changes that come from it are. Nearly all of my earnings in the last few months have gone entirely back into Steem Power, with a recent exception where I've tried to accumulate a little SBD since I had none. A quick edit too: I've even had comment rewards set to 100% Power Up for the last few months. I recommend it, every little bit of SP helps!
Have a good day. <]:^)
Wow, this answer was a giant post in itself... what a pity I don't have a higher SP in order to give you a better value for your comment! I just noticed that your description on Steemit is "Building other people's accounts" and I guess it couldn't be truer! Also, keep on upvoting your own posts, I totally support it :)
But, on behalf of all of us writing about movies, TV programs and similar stuff, you for sure serve as an encouragement and one who helps us keep up writing, and I really admire you for your job/hobby :)
I'm just glad there's others like me that enjoy these things enough to take time out of their days to write about them and share their experiences.
Truthfully, Steemit and having access to all this information, different viewpoints of filmmaking and reviews, has certainly contributed to my decision to fight all the social anxiety I have and return back to college to study film and tv production myself.
I have an interview on the 24th for the course, which decides whether I get a position or not. So thanks to you all, you're helping me as much as I'm helping you. d:^)
Wow, good luck with that! I do hope you will succeed, and so happy to see that you have profited in your personal life from your activity on Steemit! :)