Over the past 10 days there were quite some changes in UA ranks, which caused a lot of questions, and there were also a few posts (for example by 
Hive account@tarazkp and 
Hive account@soyrosa) openly questioning whether the 
Hive account@steem-ua project still needs, and deserves, delegation support. This post aims to answer these questions and concerns, so that hopefully all can conclude Hive account@steem-ua is still “Alive & Kicking” and simply fine as it is.
Hive account@utopian-io quitting their witness node and UA rank effects
As you might know, in short, the UA influence (or reputation) metric and ranks are heavily dependent on two core components, being:
-a- the Follower Matrix / Graph (who follows who), and
-b- the Witness rankings (and who those witnesses follow)
Computation of UA scores for all accounts on the Steem blockchain is a massively complex undertaking with lots of number crunching. Something to realise as well, is that with every witness (un)vote and every account (un)follow on the Steem chain all UA scores change. When “plankton X” decides to follow “plankton Y” or “whale Z”, still every UA score changes, albeit slightly — that won’t effect big changes. Yet when a massive account like Hive account@utopian-io, which is not only very influential on the Steem chain but was also a top-10 witness account, decides to quit their witness activities, then all UA scores & ranks change a lot indeed.
You may like those changes, or you don’t, but this change in UA scores has always been coded like this by design: the event in which Hive account@utopian-io quit their witness activities and UA adapting its scores accordingly, is in fact proof the UA system is objectively functioning exactly as intended!
These UA score & rank changes can indeed be intuitively justified as well: as Hive account@utopian-io first announced quitting its witness, has been calling for voting on other witnesses they think deserve your witness vote,
quit their witness node (server), and quickly dropped its witness rank, from a mathematical point of view Hive account@utopian-io itself became “less influential” on Steem (therewith not meaning to state that Hive account@utopian-io isn’t meaningful anymore: it still is!), ergo the UA algorithm now passes on less “trust” to the Hive account@utopian-io account itself (the UA algorithm detected a large drop in people voting for the Hive account@utopian-io witness, and the UA algorithm “assumes” that therefore less trust should be passed to Hive account@utopian-io), and as a direct effect the account Hive account@utopian-io passes on less trust to the accounts it (in)directly follows itself: hence, those accounts dropped in their UA scores and ranks.
And at the same time, due to Hive account@utopian-io quickly dropping in witness ranks, the other witnesses increased their witness ranks, some of which increased a lot, so more UA Trust is now being passed to those witnesses and as a direct effect also to the accounts those witnesses follow themselves.
Where some lose rank, others gain: the sum of all “absolute UA” still remains 1. This is nothing short but full proof that UA functions just fine as it is.
UA (the Influence Metric) vs. Hive account@steem-ua (the Algorithmic Curation Program)
As we’ve stated time and time again, Hive account@steem-ua - the Algorithmic Curation Program - is merely one possible application of UA, the Influence Metric. Almost 5 months ago, we’ve Open Sourced the UA code for anybody to download, install, verify, contribute to, and build their own dApps with. Hive account@steem-ua has always been and still is an ALGORITHMIC curation & up vote program based on UA scores: this is not per se better than full manual curation, yet it is different and a perfectly fine alternative to delegating to “bid bots” or “promotional services”.
Hive account@steem-ua is still being delegated to by almost 900 individual delegators: a few powerful supporters wholeheartedly delegating tens of thousands of SP to Hive account@steem-ua (e.g. 
Hive account@neoxian and 
Hive account@jaki01) enable hundreds of smaller delegators to get upvoted by Hive account@steem-ua with a higher value than they could receive if they would self-vote at 100%. In other words: Hive account@steem-ua helps to keep onboard these smaller accounts, to stay with Steem and grow their accounts.
If you’re a big Steem account and you’re primarily interested in getting rewarded a good ROI in terms of “accumulating even more Steem tokens by delegating”, then delegating to “bid bots” is your best choice.
However, if you’re, being a big Steem account, more interested in adding more value to Steem, to grow the Steem user base, to increase demand for Steem then Hive account@steem-ua can be your preferred project to delegate to. Your big delegation matters: it supports hundreds of small accounts getting better upvotes by Hive account@steem-ua, and that by itself increases your own Steem holdings.
Thank you for your time! Steem On!
