Lately the value of Steem tokens have risen very high very fast, and seem to be pretty stable at above $5 right now. I really love that this new price allows everyone to make more money on this platform, and a consequence of the new value is that my votes are actually worth something for a change.
It is not that long ago that my votes were only a few cents each, and it felt really good when they actually increased to be in the two-digit cents when I voted a full vote weight. It has kept rising steadily since I power up most of my rewards, and during the recent price spike it got to a point where a single vote cast by me is actually worth a decent bit. Right now my vote at 100 % voting power is worth $2.5 in the Steemit UI, there are a few factors to keep in mind. Firstly I rarely keep voting power at 100 % because I always end up finding so much good stuff to upvote. But as a counterweight to that, we also have to keep in mind that half the rewards are paid out in SBD (which is still displayed at $1 in the Steemit UI) that is worth $7 at this time.
By removing curator rewards from the equation the vote is worth $1.875, meaning that about 0.94 SBD is paid out. If you sell this right now you will end up getting about $8 for a full 100 % vote from me, despite the interface showing $2.50. Not too bad for a writing comment, is it?
Good comments get rewarded!
Let’s stop the math for a moment, and return to the point of this post. What I wanted to clarify was how I was spending my voting power, which is mainly distributed to the people who comment on my posts and reply to the comments that I write. I try to upvote most comments on my blog posts, but I never upvote comments that look like spam or copy-paste.
If you do however write a genuine and original comment on my blog post, then you will get an upvote (whether you like it or not!), and the vote weight I use will be depending on the comment itself.
To keep it short, longer comments that add new information, questions, or discussion will get a higher upvote compared to those who just add a line about what they liked about the post.
I also have this in mind when I upvote comments:
- Additional information is always a plus. I try to keep most of my posts somewhat short (so you can read it within 5-10 minutes), but it's always nice if other users add more info or funfacts in the comments!
- Do you have a different perspective on the post? In that case, share it with us!
- Do things work differently in your part of the world? I would love to know, and happily upvote those of you that shares your own experiences!
Building a community
The main reason why I spend so much of my voting power in the comment section is because I want to create a community within my posts. I love it when I get to know the people who read my post, and learn what it is you guys are thinking in regards to the stuff I write about. I have already gotten lots of new ideas, alternative perspective, additional information and country-specific information from the comment section, and I hope to keep is this way.
I want my community to be of a high standard, so that you readers know that you will find good and interesting content not only in my post, but also in the comments below. Of course I cannot ask you guys to provide this entirely for free, so that is why I upvote anyone who contributes in the comment section.
There are honestly a bit randomness to it. At certain times I am more conservative with my voting weight compared to other times, simply because I tend to go lower when I spend more time on Steemit. This means that you can write a great comment, but still be kinda unlucky with the timing, and not get as much as you would on another day. I’m sorry that it’s like this, but that is the way it has to be, or else my voting power would be at like 10 %, and no one would get much money at all. Still, I do my best to justly reward everyone.
What's in it for me?
You might be wondering why I am spending most of my voting power on comments rather than curating content, which would give me much higher curation rewards. It's true that I miss out on some curation rewards, but I think my net gains are higher by upvoting those who contribute to my comment community, because of the following reasons:
- Those of you that are active in the community will over time get more Steem Power yourself, unless you decide to cash out of course. This will over time hopefully allow you guys to return the upvote-favor and give my posts some upvotes as well.
- The comment section will be full of good content which can be interesting for others to read, and by such increasing the quality of my posts. This hopefully attracts more readers.
- This will promote activity in the comment section, making it a place where users can interact with each other and talk about biology, nature and science. An active community with lots of interacting people will in term hopefully attract new readers and community members.
This shows that it is a win-win situation for both of us, and in time I hope we are able to have a good community of people who are interested in science here.
Anyway, now you guys know how I reward those of you who spend their time to add contributions to my posts, so if you haven’t already been interacting, then now is a great time to become a member of the 