As much as I wanted to spend some time with my garden spreadsheet today, I found myself pouring over my new SteemAuto setup instead.
Since August I have been using SteemVoter. At first it was because I was taking a couple of weeks off Steemit and wanted to make sure all my peeps were covered while I was away. Then later, it became an essential part of my Steemit life as it allowed me to still look after my peeps and still have time to do some manual curating.
In the beginning, SteemVoter was doing ok, it was a bit on and off here and there but still it worked enough. I never paid for my service as I figured with my SP how many times can I vote and still make a difference, so 50 seemed enough.
However...
SteemAuto seems to be on everyones lips at the moment and this morning I took the plunge and checked it out.
Straight away its already flashier than SteemVoter and packed with features. Did I mention this is a free service?
I'm sure people have already written up the how to's on SteemAuto so I won't go there, besides it's pretty straight forward. In saying that though, I did create a trail the wrong way and now I don't know how to delete it. That's not my biggest problem though.
My problem right now is the site speed and screen set up.
Now the site speed may have something to do with my connection at home but the screen set up I know has nothing to do with me. I feel like I've been scrolling up and down all day just changing voting percentage and time.
Which brings me to this question.
Is there a benefit in leaving the "wait before voting time" to zero? I've been told to keep mine at 30 minutes.
Another feature in SteemAuto aside from the curation trail is this nifty thing.
You can "Search for a fan"! (Feature located in Fanbase) I was surprised I had fans haha and just want to thank all of you who have me on auto. I have added a few people from that list on to my own auto vote just to reciprocate the love.
You can also search for curation trails you'd like to follow. I'm trying to figure out how it works and how much VP I can allocate towards a trail without sacrificing my own manual curation.
Overall it seems to be the better service, despite all the scrolling, which I am hoping they will fix . Once I figure out how to delete my curation train, I'll be happier.
Thank you auto vote
I haven't hidden the fact that I use auto vote. I know it is frowned upon by some but for me I just can't not use it.
Being a member of some of the biggest communities we have here on Steemit - 
The curating pain is REAL. I never have enough time during the day to do everything I need to do and I can't imagine having to comb through every single one of the tags I follow every day - which was something I used to do, but that was back when I was only looking at #teamaustralia and #steemph.
Auto vote is a huge life saver for me, but I don't just leave it and that's it. I DO look at what I've upvoted and I monitor abuse. I watch the quality and standard of posts and the frequency of posts because I do want to encourage people to put up quality posts, I don't want people to be slack because they know no matter what they're going to get an upvote.
I also found My Steemit Friends the other week and it put a lot of things in perspective for me and I have adjusted my voting accordingly.
Manual curation
Now don't think bad of me, but I am sometimes a sympathy curator..
What I mean by that is, if I'm scrolling through and this poor soul has put a decent post up and no one's upvoted it. I would go upvote it. Hell even if it's not that good but it pulls at my heartstrings I'll be upvoting it.
Part of my manual curation is also upvoting hub featured posts. I see these as pre-curated and I'm just going in giving them that extra thumbs up.
But mostly I try to cruise the New or Hot posts in my fave tags as trending seems to be filled with self upvotes. Trending just doesn't have same the prestige attached to it. These day anyone can get on the trending page if they can afford it. I know. I've done it myself a few times.
Moving Forward
I may have missed a few people today while I was making the transition over to SteemAuto, I'm sorry if I missed you. I'm sure I will find out later on during the week.
I have also adjusted voting percentages to allow me to have a bit more vp to follow a trail and still do my own curation I hope you all understand.
The good news is. I have renewed my commitment to my Steem Power and will be powering up as much as I can which will result in better voting value from me over time, so it's a little low right now but that is temporary.
Well that's it for me you guys. I hope you all had a great week. I know spirits are low everywhere and if I could give you all a huge hug I would. All I can say is.
Chin up everyone It's the weekend! Happy Friday!
🍹 Arly