My question is...based on the way that curation rewards work, if you upvote your comments that were upvoted by other users right before the deadline to upvote, does it give them better curation rewards? Someone wrote a detailed post about the timing of votes and how it affects curation payouts earlier this week...wish I had the link to it...and it inferred that's the way it worked as far as upvoting your posts. At least then you'd be more a team player about upvoting comments, plus you could convert the voting power almost immediately into steem power when it paid out 12 hours later.
I really think moderation is key here, and that allocating your upvotes to other users wisely can be more lucrative than up-voting your own comments.
The white paper states Steemit has deliberately made the rewards for earliest votes highest, in order to reward those that discover content and curate it first more, to encourage curation work.
I fail to see that accounts randomly accessing Steemit per schedules that have nothing to do with when posts are made could possibly be advantaged by this. However, self votes, and coordinated cliques, certainly can.
Draw your own conclusions as to the true motivations behind this mechanism.
Edit: speelingh. Hookt ahn fonix rilly werkt fer mee!
I'm amazed I hadn't thought of that (upvoting someone's post right before a deadline for payout) and then receiving the rewards more quickly. I can't answer your question but I'm curious about that now too. Anyone who's been on Steemit for a few months or more has seen that it's much healthier than it was before (I don't just mean the price being higher). There are some "problems" that will never be solved because they're just impossible lol. I agree that I'll earn more by posting good content and contributing to discussions like this one than I would just upvoting myself all day. Plus, why would I want to shoot the project in the foot if I am an investor?