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Everyone who votes the post up is a curator. The greater percentage increase in total votes your vote adds, the larger the share of the curator rewards you get.

So there is no benefit in being the first to upvote a topic?

Also, what effect does a user voting for their own topic have? Say they have multiple accounts using the same key (or not), can they game the system by upvoting their other accounts post?

on this post... the first 2 people have made money....

I believe a curator is the first person to upvote a topic.

Not according to what @dantheman posted above.

Everyone who votes the post up is a curator. The greater percentage increase in total votes your vote adds, the larger the share of the curator rewards you get.

Well, technically the first person to upvote is a curator ... and more importantly the first to upvote is the most important curator, especially when it comes to making STEEM. ;)

A curator is simply someone that curates: to pull together, sift through, select for presentation.
In other words, filters out the cream from the crap!