Like what you read, upvote it. Or is it really that simple?
I don’t think so!
There are a lot more reasons behind the seemingly simple action of pushing the upvote button. I’ve been thinking about these for a while and I’m gonna list all the different kinds of reasons one would upvote. Some of these I do myself, others not.
Like what you see
You actually like what you read, or the pictures you saw, so you upvote the post, simple as that. You are entertained or educated and you think it’s quality content. This is of course the preferred reason for the majority, because Steemit was meant to be used in a way that the community together upvotes (or flags) according to the value they find in the post.
Upvoting Friends
You upvote certain people, what ever they post. They are your friends and you want to support them, even if it’s a shitpost. It’s not circle jerk, it’s called friendship. You might not like, for example, comics, but because your friend makes them, you upvote the post because you want to show you appreciate them as a person and you like his other work. If you are not willing to support your friends first, and a random person second, I think you need to check your priorities. It’s the same thing in real life, you support friends and family first, at least that is what I think you should do.
Curation Reward
You have invested in the platform and you want to get a return for you investment by earning curation rewards. A person like this probably sets automated votes to people that are constantly getting good rewards, so they can just sit back and earn passive income. You might also be a smaller user, or mid level, or anyone, just trying to raise your stake with getting small curations rewards every day.
“Notice me!!”
Some people spread an insane amount of worthless upvotes everywhere they can, to try and catch the attention of as many people they can, in the hopes of getting some upvotes back. Some others might fangirl a certain whale by upvoting their every post and comment. There are sure a lot of people who upvote the picture of a cute girl’s lunch, in the hopes of getting her attention.
Charity
The post might be good, or it might be bad, but someone is telling about their hardship and you want to help, so you upvote. Or maybe you want to help out a newer user to get his Steemfest ticket, so you give a 100% upvote to help him out.
Community support
This ties in a bit with the charity upvotes, but not quite the same thing. There are so many different community projects on Steemit, for example minnow support or curie, and you like what they do, so you upvote their posts, even when you might not even open them.
Spreading information
You upvote posts that have some valuable information, some that you might not even need yourself, but want to help spread the word. These would be for example tutorials, warnings about phishing attempts and how to protect your private keys.
Courtesy upvote
This one is going to make someone mad, but I’m here to speak the truth. If you are a bigger user, you might have some fans who draw pictures of you or make a whole post about praising you. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s shit that you wouldn’t otherwise upvote, but because they went to trouble to do that about you, so you give a courtesy upvote. And don’t get your panties into a bunch, I’m of course not talking about YOU. YOU are of course brilliant and everything you do is beautiful and wonderful!
"Put on your own oxygen mask first before helping others"
This one should be pretty self explanatory.
I don’t think any of these reasons to upvote are wrong per se, or that people shouldn’t do them, but some are definitely more frowned upon than others. I'd say more than anything, do all of them in moderation. Let's have a discussion in the comments!
I usually seek quality and I have to like it too. 75% of people I follow are photographing enthusiasts and they make quality content( mostly ). There are several 1 photo posts without much talk coming from them too but I don't classify this as shit content, sometimes I do it myself also.
My upvote ain't worth shit but I also upvote many certain people to keep them motivated and not leave the platform because their posts are quality and I want to keep reading them.
A couple of weeks ago I cleaned my following of people who are months inactive and I see no point of following them. I remember u did a post a while ago where you asked for awesome blogs to follow ( mm, I believe it was you). There are 2 names @dimitri0610 and @chaseburnett who sadly are inactive for months now but no doubt they were the 2 best photography blogs here on steemit and I refused to delete them from my following. If I could I gave them 200% vote for every post they make. Anyway, why the fuck do I tell this to you, it's not even a topic here. Just check them out, if they start posting again some day you would like it.
I am already following Chase, and it always sucks when someone has awesome content and they stop posting :( "You can't do this to me, I want your posts and it's not fair that you get me hooked first and then just LEAVE!! :( :("
Life is unfair :(
I think you covered the reasons quite well.. but I do autovote everything a poster puts out if I like the content 'usually'. For exactly that reason. I guess that would be my 'add' in comments. As you two are saying - I want someone who posts content I like to stick around. I figure my vote is a LITTLE more incentive to keep going.
This was a good one. In my opinion some people get too hung up on the importance of "content" on this platform.
Especially while STEEM is worth a fraction of what it once was, I believe in curating people over content. Sure, good content is important, but you need good people on a social network, and you need to do your part to empower them, or the whole thing will go to shit.
Yeah I upvote my friends. That's 90% of why I keep powering up. After all, I'm curating people, and my friends are awesome people, or they wouldn't be my friends.... and I want them to know that I value their presence and continued activity on the platform. If that's called circlejerking, well... pass the lubricant.
We can, and probably will, argue endlessly what is quality, which is just a waste of time and nerves. Everyone has their own opinion, likes and dislikes anyways.
I like to get to know the people I follow and upvote regularly, to get at least some sort of personal contact. And I like to follow people who are consistent in what ever they do, ain't nobody got time to go out and search for that amazing article from a random person you have no prior contact with. And do that ten times a day.
I commented to someone else that my friends are smart, funny and talented, so when I upvote them, I upvote good stuff by default!
I pretty much only upvote posts I like and occasionally for charity. Some of the other reasons might also apply but I still have to like the post to give an upvote.
I often upvote because of multiple reasons, usually it's that I like the post and I'm friends with the user, and made said friend through Steemit :)
Well I upvote for most of these reasons, but I like to upvote posts I really like best. However without a will to waddle through 500 shitposts a day to find a pearl I usually upvote my friends... and then I upvote you, cause you're fun, and your work speaks for itself.
What a nice compliment at the end there, thank you very much 🤗
"I love you so I'm upvoting you hoping you'll notice my love!"
This is one of the main reason why I'm getting upvotes.
Well doh, who wouldn't want love from a warm bread!?
I know!
Friends, self-upvote (not comments), like what I see - and more rarely - charity and information.
We are pretty much on the same terms here.
Upvote original content that I like, self upvote (you have to love yourself too 😛), supporting friends, charity, and basically for all the reasons you mentioned already.
I'm waiting for someone to point out a reason I didn't think of!
I commented on a post some time back and someone told me to upvote the post since I liked it and commented on it. But with 15 SP to my name (With the beginner delegetion) my vote is worth nothing even with 100% power x) Wouldn't you/people just be happy with the fact I liked the post and maybe followed them for future benefits?
Whats your take on this @eveuncovered?
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Let me dig you up an old post of mine, talking about the subject ;)
https://steemit.com/steemit/@eveuncovered/hey-rude-boy
Ohh. Haha xD Guess you think different that me.
I can see what you are saying :D A 0.001 is worth more in terms of showing appreciation than the actual dollar. I get :D
Think you might have changed my mind xD
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I'm glad you didn't take it the wrong way :) I am pretty good at converting people to my side ;)
Just give me a more logical answer than my own and I am pretty much convinced xD
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That there means you are smarten than the average Joe! I can't stand people who don't listen to logic!
Logic and retarded honesty is all I have :p
Well thank you :D
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I think you got it pretty much complete there, I suppose all I can add is why I wouldn't upvote, and that's where I think the author got a good reward already. So if someone has a $100 in upvotes, I'm not going to add to that, I'll give upvotes to some other less rewarded posts.
I'm not sure if I agree on that. It's definitely an interesting way of looking at rewards. For me I think a case like that would depend on if I know the person, or if just something let's say, a community post. If I'm a fan of someone, it doesn't matter if they have 1000dollar rewards on it already, I will gladly add mine to the stack too.
si te soy honesta que de eso se trata steemit no recompensa el esfuerzo de las publicaciones normalmente es cero cero cero, entonces debes usar estrateguias porque no lo considero muy justo.
aveces una publicaciones estupida tiene muchos botos y es basura yo me pregunto como pasa eso.
Ya no es al azar es solo pagar
@anomadsoul, little help here! 😅 Could you translate and answer to this, you'll probably know what I would like to say anyways 😝😂
si coloco traductor y se distorsiona lo que quiero decir.
Opino que por cada post deben pagarte aunque sea algo muy mínimo. Que te estimule a investigar y publicar contenido de calidad.
Para algunos esta plataforma es grandiosa, porque nos ayuda a mejorar la economía de nuestro hogar (mi caso). Siento que invierto mi tiempo y me encanta porque leo las informaciones de los demas y aprendo, pero cuando veo un post que sube como la espuma casi siempre esta un grupo que botan por ti y tu le pagas. Entonces no es creatividad e ingenio . Eso deforma la idea original de la plataforma.
Google translate
if I'm honest that's what it's about, steemit does not reward the efforts of publications, it's normally zero zero, so you should use strategies because I do not think it's fair.
sometimes a stupid publications has many botos and it is garbage I wonder how that happens.
It's no longer random it's just paying
I know how to use it myself 😈 but it's not perfect so I'll jut delegate the comment to someone who understand Spanish 😝
I blindly upvote stuff on my TL. Fuck socialism.
I don't know what TL stands for :(
I dont think the 'family' or 'friend' analogy is suitable (it may not be an analogy by the way) to adjust upvoting who we are close with. Of course I agree in a society family and friends come at first in many things but on social media I must say it is pretty frustrating to see that for me. We already know this from facebook, instagram or similar services. People just sending likes what ever the content is without thinking because they know who posts.
This is just old fashion social media behaviour and for me on steemit like places this behaviour should be avoided. Cause new social media needs and seeks good content more than ever. We also live in a world with fake news and garbage posts. And If we repeat the same behaviour patterns we showed in the past we will end up with the same results. Thats why choosing the good content is way important.
On the other hand I dont mean that we should be very cruel and cold rational to our close ones. But I have a huge doubt it is beneficial to upvote and encourage shitposts (definition of it for me is the posts which requires no effort or knowledge) of our friends or family members for them also cause that way we motivate and encourage them for more shitposts. So that on the long term we give damage to their level of productivity.
I only surround myself with talented, smart and funny people so when I upvote them, it means I upvote good content. But I’m of course only talking for my behalf, most people might not be as fortune to have such awesome friends.
What comes to ”old fashion social media behavior”, I don’t think there is such a thing, there is just human behavior. And we motherfuckers are both very simple, and very complicated.
Obviously I didnt mean on the behalf of you. Behaviours mostly shaped by the environment so how we determine the environment will effect the previous. Thats why I narrowed the subject cause the subject is about upvoting as I remember. Old fashion social media term describes that which is the 'environment'. That environment shaped people's behaviour depending on its conditions and structure. And it was not much different than our social circle we live in real life. In that atmosphere we favour our friends and family without judging the situations or consequences. We didnt and dont give much attention to the content.
But now we have a slightly different environment and we should not behave as we did before if we want to benefit from the new one. Simple as it is.
SO many reasons! I just upvote because I like the content. But I understand the reasons behind all the other ways too
Hihi, I like to dig out the complicated stuff behind the simple things :P
Thanks for sharing, I appreciate it very much!
I usually upvote the posts of people who put interesting content or that make me relax... 😃