Hello class, yesterday we talked about some basic things about the wonderful platform we have all found ourselves in called steemit. I know some might wonder how they can make the magic of a decent payout be theirs from time to time, this helps us really fix that problem.

Scam and spam

As similar as they sound, they are tow different entities with the same disastrous end. So many people want votes, want to get noticed. I know how frustrating it is to put out content especially as a newbie and expect so many upvotes and comments, only to have your expectations cut short by getting next to nothing upvote or even nothing.

The first rule I give to my closest pals is never expect anything from people on the platform, they have a right to disappoint you because they might also be busy helping others.
The bitter truth you have to first of all understand is that everyone is accountable for his or her sp and as far as the person is not doing anything illegal with it, then they are free to use it according to their preference.

Scam is frowned upon by the community, it is the intentional action of trying to defraud members of their hard earn steem blockchain cryptocurrency either as SBD or steem.
Some individuals go as far as imitating names of those of reputable stand in a bid to swindle unsuspecting steemians of what they have. Please discard any individual claiming to be willing to upvote you at high percentage for a token save for legitimate voting services.

Spam although seemingly innocent to the spammer is equally a destructive action as scam. Have you ever nutured an "innocent" thought of just going to a person's blog to comment and advertise the link to your post in the comment section or worse still leave a seemingly irrelevant comment? That is spam. Spam defeats the purpose of community and true interaction.

Getting votes

Getting votes start communities and is further strengthened by interaction. One funny thing I have seen on the platform is a recent trend called upvote swapping cycle where people create groups with the intention of simply swapping votes with each other because they feel that is the solution.

Let me break down what is wrong with that logic: If everyone of similar sp range should simply be content with upvoting circles, at the end of the day more people will get poorer while a few gets richer.
A lot of people complain that only a few receive the high votes, guess what, the solution they came up with also causes the same problem if implemented at a higher level.

If you want votes, join a community, interact, get to know more people of different sp values, build long lasting relationships, don't complain unnecessarily, instead learn and interact necessarily.

Voting power and communities

Without voting power, voting would not be possible. Voting power is not infinite, it is finite, meaning that as much as any curator loves voting and supporting, the person is handicapped by an ever decreasing level of voting power per vote.
This leaves people with only two choices;

Vote high and vote a few people and reward them handsomely which creates a competition for votes
Vote lower than planned and reward more people but give less rewards. Even this method doesn't get everybody.

As much as I like voting people, I am usually plagued by that decision and no matter what, you cannot reward everyone, so you have to break people into smaller units and locate exceptional talents who are highly committed and under rewarded in units called communities.

It does not mean that anyone is less special, it is rather a solution to the problem at hand, a solution which does not even totally fix the problem.
Let me tell you a simple curation secret...
@80% VP, the curator would have lost about 20% of his Vote weight
@60% VP, the curator would have lost about 40% of his Vote weight
@40% VP, the curator would have lost about 60% of his Vote weight
@20% VP, the curator would have lost about 80% of his Vote weight
@0% VP, the curator would have lost 100% of his vote weight.
The truth is voting power doesn't climb back from 0% to 100% in a day.