I strongly believe that the kind of behaviors you conduct on Steemit tends to bring those who agree with it to your side. They become your ally, friends, neighbor, those who help you when things go ajar. There are those who play Steemit for the short term, and those who play it for the long term. Many shortcuts are great short-term but will hurt you long term. People who disagree with your kind of behavior will not follow, upvote, and leave a comment more often than not. They might even mute you.
As far as upvoting your own work. I experiment always with a different way of doing things on Steemit. I’ll still upvote my own blog(s) but I tend now to wait 45 minutes or so to give any one who first read it and wants to upvote it the chance. I’m still small and not having that initial start of 1 upvote seems to put me at a great disadvantage till I build up more of a readership and support. I have not upvoted my own comment in a while now. I feel if my comment did not get the rewards vs the time I invested or maybe it did but I still spent hours on it. I’ll just expand it out further and make a blog out of it. Those who spam comments all day generally can't use the time they already invested in that spam comment to make a great blog out of it that people will read and upvote. It’s all about trying to find that balance.
Thanks @enjar, for the feedback.
I guess the "side" I take in this debate, and what I am willing to lobby for is standing behind the long term perspective. I have "seen enough" here to determine that Steemit is an awesome model for an alternative social content platform... IF it is used appropriately by its keepers (i.e. we, the community) it can easily keep going for 10+ years and turn into a major player in the worldwide social market... 50 million users by 2025 is not an unrealistic goal.
But that requires LONG TERM planning and thinking, as well as people being able to act according to supporting a big picture in the long run... not just their pocketbooks TODAY. Unfortunately greed seems to be an inherent part of human nature... and it tends to run counter to long term objectives.
Indeed, finding balance is an important thing. "New" or not, you write some of the best comments I get... so I always upvote them... which (for me, anyway) is how "community" works. You interacted sincerely and intelligently with my content... thank you. Upvote. Pay it forward. Putting 30c in your tip jar doesn't cost me anything but it might help you build your SteemPower balance, which in turn will help build someone else. Synergy. Everybody wins.
Human greed can always be used to reinforce good behavior, but same can be said for bad behavior in the terms that we see it as. Take today for instance. I dealt with a spammer who was begging for upvoters. I informed the guy that is not how Steemit works. One other person noticed my comment as well, and reply to it reinforcing in what I was saying. He also upvote my comment to indicated to others that this is expected behavior when we see spam we should call it out, and try and resolve it. The spammer in term swore at us in another langue and that was all I needed to know about him. He got my downvote. The spammer was rather an anger about it. I took a look at his wallet. He withdraws every liquid sbd he can get his hands on. He gets very short tempered with people who call him out, and all he has to do is anger one whale enough to be put into a pit of dispersing of a bad rep. This guy will self-destruct in time and be done with Steemit because no one will be I willing to help him expect other greedy people.
I try and always help out when I can. Even if someone has been here longer than me or not and they might not welcome it. Even in last 24 hours spent a few hours either helping or trying to contribute to helping minnows out. If the spammer would have been nicer; not only would I not have downvoted him, but I would be happy to help. Instead, he chooses greed and anger so all he gets in return are a few cents here or there from people who do not understand his disingenuine.
While some days I really wish there was more tools for dealing with comment spammers, beggers, and others alike. I also know over time they just won’t make it. Yes they will extract asome amount SBD and even STEEM out of the system. The only issue I can see in regards to this is those who create robots that spam and make money. Those sadly are here to stay. More needs to be done.
When these people get really greedy the community comes out and downvotes them into the ground. I found a guy the other week. Was making up to 7$ per spam comment. Took me hours to find people to downvote him but it happened. Three people downvote him to the point he lost money because he was buying his spam comments upvotes.
At the end of the day as long as we focus on building and working with those who want to see Steemit be successful 10 to 20 years and even beyond we have a fighting chance. The scammers and those who want to do us harm I hope for most part are just lone sheep who won’t get many friends. With our influence gained over time we help control witness ranking, the reward pool, and how others wish to interact with us.
At least that’s my thoughts at 3am! I hope it’s somehow understandable lol.
Wow, this was an amazing dialogue, I am new on my husband's account that I made into a family account as I was waiting for two weeks for my own....still nothing yet..oops I digressed. So ...I had no idea anyone would upvote themselves. That seems really contrary to the entire system. I have merely tried to write good content but is is very sad when no one votes. But since I am in it for the long haul I will just keep at it. I do think that when I have read something I often need the little reminder that if I liked it to upvote and resteem... Do you think that is not a good line to write or is it frowned on by the veterans? Thank you!