I been on the Steem around a year and a half. And like all people who have been using an system, app, website, car or experience, I have things that I'm tired of, an infuriate me about the Steem eco-system.....
BUT, AND THAT'S A BIG BUT!
The reason I'm here, deep down I believe in the model and community, (warts and all...
So today I decided I wanted to try add a new contest to my offerings of the SteemDecathlon....
Season 2 was pretty rough on me because I was in the hospital and rehabbing afterwards at home. (getting better every day).
So it's been a long so process.
And even though there is constant progress not being able to do things that were easy,
is pissing the heck off. 
And the pain makes onery when I really don't want to be.
So when essentially the following of the conntests dropped off with the crash and my only getting upvoters from bots and not participants (except for mostly the Steeminati)...
It's a little disheartening...After all over 1000 followers should net me some players right?
So today rather then do the payout 🏅as a percentage of the upvote, I said let me roll the dice 🎲 and just give 10 steem away... simple enough.
So I look at the post figuring all the fellow members of the Steeminati had upvoted
(thanks guys).
...and was hoping for some participants....
alas no one yet...
But then I notice something, normally the Steeminati my self included only come up to certain upvote when all voting without bots. I see a pleasant surprise a user called @newhope had upvoted the contest more than 1.5 times the level we had combined. Now I would like to point out last year, we got higher rewards because Steem was 6 times the price it was today. But that was relatively probably the largest non-bot vote at least in 3 months.
So I wanted to find out who this benefactor was. And what I found out is, NO ONE REALLY KNOWS!
So all I can say is, you have lifted my Spirits and your name IS GOLD WITH ME AND THE REST STEEMINATI.
Sorry to hear about the medical challenges.
I feel you on the upvoting issues... When I don't do bots it seems no matter how much I try to make a good post I don't go above $0.30 and that's usually only that high if I'm posting on Engrave and Engrave folk upvoted me.
That's the real challenge for Steem, its just not functioning as intended. Bots are profitable for bots and sometimes content producers, but hardly profitable for content producers. Content consumers have far too few incentives for upvoting people.
Ultimately, I think Steem's upvote system doesn't match for long-form content as much as we want it to, but for twitter-style micro-posts it could work. Its no problem to get $0.11 for a quick 160 character comment, but if you put your heart and soul into an article/video and get $0.30... Yeah, not going to work.
I have a system that the Steem Platform will be perfect for....
I been working on for 5 years and now with the smart tokens, it's time to do it.
Awesome, love to hear about it when its ready.
The Steeminati haha never head that one before!!
Anyway wish you better times no the pain and rehab stuff.
we work together
here's some info...Always looking to recruit
https://steemit.com/steemdecathlon/@steeminati/https-steemit-com-steemdecathlon-richatvns-steemdecathlon-s02m01e01-meme-monday-quickshot-hulk-entry-1
Defended (27.03%)
Summoned by @richatvns
Sneaky Ninja supports @youarehope and @tarc with a percentage of all bids.
Everything You Need To Know About Sneaky Ninja
woosh