Final Edit 30th December:
I have voted those who participated as follows (see your name and rank) in the table below:
"The best": 100%
"Super-hero": 70%
"Hero": 50%
"Excellent": 30%
"Good": 20%

In total there were around 100 people who said they would help newbies. I upvoted around 70% of them with a vote of between 20% and 100% as shown above. In addition I may have voted their comments and the newbies on which they commented. Due to the way steem voting strength decliens - especially after more than 10 100% votes, and recovers after 24 hours, I hade to spread my voting over 5 or 6 days to give out the maximum number of votes.

There were around 300+ newbie blogs referenced, It was impossible to read them all. I read 100s and voted on some of the best. Sorry for those it was impossible to get to. In particular I made an effort to give a small upvote to any newbie who said "Thanks" when he got a comment from someone here. It wasn't much, but better than nothing.

According to steemreports, I made 570 votes during this initiative. Here is the pie chart showing the size of each vote. You can look at it on steemreports by typing in my name like this:
http://www.steemreports.com/outgoing-votes-info/?account=swissclive&days=5

What looks like a large vote (the pink section) reads "520 others". These were mostly votes of below 10% or 20% power. Still worth quite a lot top the recipient given my voting strength.

You can see who I voted for on the steemreports link below, by hovering your mouse over the slice of pizza.

Edit 28th December: This is closed. For those who participated, I continue to dish out rewards, but my power is below 70% again https://steemnow.com/@swissclive so it will be another day before everyone has been voted. Most of the top participants have already been voted as have some of the blogs.

Edit and update 27th December: Participation in this finished at midnight on Christmas day.
I haven’t finished upvoting yet. I will be soon publishing how the upvoting worked.

Here is my assessment of the best 55 bloggers or commenters amongst those who participated. Everyone mentioned in the list below will be getting a vote from me (I have already voted some. More are to come as my voting strength increases):

If accidentally I missed your name off the list below, let me know, and I will check it. (Nobody who participated after midnight on Christmas day please)

adityabhat (42) Hero
admiralsp (41) Hero
afiqsejuk (34) Hero
anotsopopularkid (42) Hero
aquamarine (30) good
artopium (47) Hero
ashleighchanel (26) Excellent
blacksheepblog (48) Hero
calatorulmiop (53) Hero
charlesmackenzie (25) Hero
cranium (59) The best
dagger212 (43) Excellent
davedickeyyall (54) Super-hero
deeclown (42) Hero
dlina-v-metrah (57) Hero
dobartim (60) Hero
doctorcro (48) Hero
doodlebear (57) Hero
endatu (41) The best
filotasriza3 (62) Hero
fourfourfun (47) Excellent
frank1in (46) Super-hero
frondaison (34) good
funkylove (41) Hero
geekorner (45) Hero
ginquitti (46) Super-hero
jfolkmann (42) Hero
jjay (25) good
julsmlz (44) Excellent
lifenbeauty (44) Hero
marsella-2017 (60) Hero
mauigold808 (29) Excellent
mawit07 (56) Super-hero
melodyrussell (59) Excellent
mindhawk (47) Excellent
miti (55) Hero
moeknows (52) Hero
mountainjewel (53) Super-hero
nathen007 (43) good
otemzi (56) Hero
paolajane (54) Hero
saavvy (25) good
skycae (49) Hero
strongerbeings (47) Hero
techslut (64) Super-hero
terryxxjones (35) Super-hero
theaustrianguy (64) Hero
wanderlass (39) Super-hero
yairdd (50) Super-hero
zaki79 (25) Hero
zarfot (39) Super-hero!

A 100% upvote from me comes out at just over $20 which means that with Steem Dollars worth around $10 each you could get up to $75. (@miti did the calculation for me). I think the calculation is $20 / 2 X 75% + 20 /2 X 10 X 75%. That’s $85. Round it down to $75 as SBD is $9.36, not $10.

However, as mentioned the actual amount would depend on how many people you have to vote for. It could be less than 100% per person. The reason is your voting strength drops with each vote. Some people have received votes in this blog of up to 100% power, others are to come.

As you probably know the advice on voting is that you shouldn’t make more than 10 100% votes per day, or 20 50% votes or 50 20% votes and so on. If you do that your voting strength drops too much and it takes longer and longer to recover.

As it happened there were close to 100 people who responded to this post and close to 400 blogs referenced by those persons.

I literally already spent 18 hours reading blogs, replies and comments, and did not get close to finishing them all.

Some people seem to have interacted with over 100 blogs even 200+ during the two day period. It was tricky to see which were newbies in that. The sheer number of commments and posts meant that I couldn’t fully read every blog.

I had to decide how divide up 10 X 100% between close to 500 comments or blogs. Even if I split it over 2 or 3 days (as I am doing), I still dividing 20 X 100% between nearly 500 candidates, which would be an average of 2% each. In the end it will spill over to 3 or 4 days voting.

The decision was that I would initially favour people who participated by replying in this blog. I decided that they will get 100%, 70% 50% or 20% depending on the degree of interaction with newbies. Many of them have received a vote from me on at least one of their comments. More votes tomorrow.

As for the newbies, who have already been voted by my followers, I decided that as a first step I would vote any newbie who replied to the voter. Thus I rewarded by voting his comment or comments, at 1% - which is $0.21, worth over $1.40 to the newbie based on the present price of SBD.

The result of this is that some newbies received several votes at 1% whilst a few did not get anything because they did not thank or reply to the commentator. If someone commented on their blog it was worthwhile to reply or say “thanks”, because that’s what I voted. If there was a good two way interraction, I may have voted more than one comment by the newbie thus increasing his total reward.

In general, people here made a lot of effort to make good and meaningful comments, and in general that deserved a reply or a “thank you” from the newbie. That’s what I voted. Understandably, a very small number of spammy comments didn’t get a rely, so I did not vote. Roughly 75% of all comments got a reply - which in turn got voted by me. I hope I didn’t miss any.

Along the way I made some mistakes voting on some non-newbie comments at 1%, or people who weren’t part of the competition, or just didn’t deserve anything, but in the interest of time, I let it be.

So far I estimate that I have given out close to 500 votes and my voting strength is down to below 70%, so I am re-powering for 24 hours before continuing the voting.

Thus, where are now is as follows:

If you interacted in this blog, and commented alot on newbie blogs, you will have already received a vote of between 100% and 50% depending on the level of interraction. If you had less interraction, you will get a vote of between 20% and 50% (I will finish this tomorrow when I have more power.)

If you are a newbie who received a vote and comment from someone referenced in this blog, you should have received a 1% vote on your reply, if you said “thanks”, maybe more than 1 if you had a dialog. Your blog itself has not been voted yet. It might qualify for a full 100% upvote, but only the very best blogs will get this. None have been directly voted so far.

If you are a newbie referenced in this blog, who interacted with another newbie, who replied to you, you will find I have already, or I will, vote for you between 20% and 100% as mentioned above. In addition, you may find lots of votes on the comments in your feed. That’s good for you and good for them.

Some of the 1% votes on comments went to non-newbies or to people who are not entitled, (because they did not interract in this blog). This happened in the interest of speed. I judged the comment to be valuable, but then noticed it was not a newbie reply.

I could not do a detailed analysis of the background behind every comment. So some comments were more deserving than others, but all were treated equally.

However, whether you are a newbie or not, if there is a vote on a comment in your blog, you will benefit. For example, if there are 5 comments in your blog on which I voted 1%, that’s 5 times $0.21. With SBD worth close to $10, you would get around $1.35, (I think the exact maths would be as follows = $0.21 / 2 X 5 X 25% + $0.21 / 2 X 10 x 5 X 25%). Why did I vote those comments and not you? It’s because so far I have only voted comments, not blogs. That may come for you.

If you are newbie who received a vote and comment from someone referenced in this blog but you failed to say “thanks”, or reply in another way, you will not have received my vote. Perhaps you felt the comment you received was spammy and did not reply. Quite understandable. I would not reply to spam comments either.

If you are a newbie who replied rudely “I don’t need your advice, you presumptuos git”, then I tried to avoid voting you. I am not sure I missed all the trolls due to the difficulty of fully reading every post and every comment.

If you interacted in this blog, I may already have up-voted you between 50% and 100% on one of your comments in this blog. If you have received no upvote yet, it is because you will get between 20% and 50% vote after I have re-powered over the next 24 hours.

Sadly a very small number of people did not help newbies in the time allowed, so I will not immediately reward them. I might get to it, but it’s not the priority.

Will I reward the actual posts of newbies? That was the original plan but I have not done it - yet. So far you have been rewarded for your comment in reply. With literally 100s of blogs linked to people here, there is too much to closely read all of the blogs I have read many and will read more, and will be voting at full 100% strength on the very best blogs when my power recovers in the days which follow.

I can’t vote for every blog, due to limitations on my voting strength.

Summary: So far, the bulk of the reward has gone to those who interracted in this blog. Newbies whose blogs received comments have a much smaller share of the reward so far. I only rewarded a newbie if they replied to the comment. If a newbie, also participated by helping other newbies, they will be rewarded if not already done. In that case they did well as they benfitted twice.

There is more to come, but with my voting strength close to 60% I had to stop voting for a while, (you shouldn’t go below 70%).

Could a newbie blog still get a 100% vote (worth up to $75)? Yes, I will be upvoting some of the newbie blogs in the coming days as my voting strength recovers. Only a few of the several hundred blogs referenced will get it. It depends on my time and voting strength. Hopefully SBD will rise not fall so the real value will fluctuate according to SBD price.

Edit 26/12/2017 Boxing day afternoon. I am still going though all the posts and comments. There are hundreds if not a thousand. some people encouraged ten going on a hundred newbies!

Edit 26/12/17 Boxing Day has arrived. This initiative is now closed. I will be starting the upvotes in the morning. Check back as I will list all participants and the amount of upvote they received.

On Boxing Day, 26th December, I will be giving away up to $75 each to anyone who encouraged newbies (relatively new posters to steemit) on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, 24th and 25th December. Newbies can also get a large upvote from me. Just tell me you did it.

‘Tis the season to be jolly! Free dosh for encouraging newbies.

Newbies have a hard time when they come to steemit. Some write brilliant posts, but never get noticed. Now’s the time to change that.

How it works

1. Find some newbie posts (quality and useful or thought provoking posts only)
2. Make some meaningful comments to the newbies’ posts that you found
3. Let me know how many comments you made
4. Anyone can participate including followers, non-followers, and newbies.

Requirements:

1. Newbie = someone who joined steemit in the months of November or December
2. To qualify the newbie’s post must be original, meaningful and thought provoking. In other words, no short posts, no re-jigged news stories, no “here’s a picture of my apple tree”.
3. Your own comments must also be meaningful and thought provoking. (No “Great post about cow poo bro”)
4. Upvote the newbie
5. Minimum 2 comments on 2 newbies’ blogs. If you comment more than 2, tell me. That’s good.
6. Language: You can comment in the same laguage as the blogger. But remember, I can’t make a judgement if the blog isn’t in English, French, or Spanish. Comments in Chinese, Russian, Thai, or Korean mean nothing to me.

Reward

According to steempower my 100% vote is worth well over $20. Half of that is paid in steem dollars (SBD) and half in steem. With each steem dollar (SBD) now worth close to $10, that's a lot of money for you. According to my friend @miti that would be over $75.

The maximum reward I will give is 100% per person.

If I see many candidates, I will have to give less than 100% to some or all.

To allow everyone plenty of time, I will not give any rewards before 30 hours have passed from the time of this post i.e no rewards until 26th December has started (European time). This will give everyone plenty of time to make comments on newbie posts.

I can’t guarantee that I will give 100% of my voting power to each person as it depends how many people join me in encouraging newbies.

How will I judge?

1. I will read all comments.
2. If I like the blogs on which you commented, I will also upvote the newbies.
3. If you comment many newbies, (more than 2), I will be extra pleased (bigger reward).
4. If you give the newbie advice to checkout a newbie guide that’s good. For example, you advise them to checkout: https://steemit.com/steemit/@miti/a-complete-guide-for-newcomers-and-minnows-to-avoid-a-possible-spam-and-to-write-good-comments
5. If you find other ways to help the newbie such as answering questions, giving advice on style, or markup, or offering to answer his questions, feel free to do so. That’s good!
6. You can mention my name @swissclive or refer to any of my blogs if you wish, or refer to this one (no obligation to do so).
7. Encourage the beginner in any way you like.

Time-line

1. No rewards will be allocated until Boxing Day, 26th December. It’s not first come, first served. There’s no hurry. You have time.
2. I may comment your posts/comments before 26th.
3. When you are done, tell me in this blog how many comments you made to newbies. I will read them. No need to provide links.
4. You can start commenting immediately.
5. Most likely the newbie will be so impressed by your comment, you earned yourself another follower.

Newbies

Are you a newbie? Nobody commented on your interesting and thought provoking blog yet? Have you done an “Introduce Yourself” blog, or something more recent?

Please feel free to put the link to it in this post. (No short blogs, no photos, no re-jigged news-stories, no rubbish). Someone who reads this blog will hopefully comment and upvote you.

If that happens, your blog will be read by me too, and, maybe, upvoted by me. I have high voting power, so it’s worth it if I like what you write.

Do you agree we should encourage newbies?

If you agree with me that it is good to support newbies, then please resteem this blog so they get as much Christmas cheer as possible!

Update 27th December

Voting on newbie blogs has not started yet. Voting on newbies' comments has finished. Voting on people in this blog is ongoing. More votes to come when I re-power in a day or so!

Here is the division of the 532 votes I gave out so far:
The big vote reads "482 others". The biggest vote was to @cranium who literally helped hundreds of bloggers over Christmas. Second biggest was @endatu. Third is @wanderlass. Smallest is to @brazen.