WHY AND HOW I DO #PHOTOFEED VOTING SESSIONS

MY #PHOTOFEED TRADITION

I love going through #photofeed tag and rewarding a few dozen people each day.
I get a feel for the photography community and hopefully make it a place people keep coming back to.
I am not a whale by any stretch but I do have bit more voting power and the value of STEEM rising it is an enjoyable to go through pictures each day.

Image of @derekkind who i didn't see in the #photofeed this time around but he's been one of the most successful @photofeed posters in the short history of photofeed. So I thought a picture of him was apropos.

ENJOYABLE ACTIVITY

I'll share a bit about this daily activity that I do. Because I hope some of you also start doing it. Doesn't have to be with the #photofeed hashtag... I also do this with #photogames of course. But I have found that #photofeed is way better than #photography. And see the vote totals I feel that lots of other people may be doing what I'm doing and from time to time visiting the #photofeed hashtag.

In any case hope you enjoy the article... I am just gonna throw out a few ideas. Excuse the organization and spelling but I have some other photography work to get to. haha

HOW I GO THROUGH THE POSTS

I go to the #photofeed tag and then sort by "NEW" Here's a shortcut
Usually I just look at the main image and the title/description. I don't look at all the posts of course this is just a fun past time, and I want to go through quite a few maybe even a couple hundred... but if I find a post i want to comment on I usually open up a new tab or go check out the blogger and see if they're posting other stuff like it.

If the stuff is really good I look for them to say they took it or give information that leads me to beleive they are the photographer... or I'll see that they have other similar content. Or maybe even a watermark that shows it's theirs. etc I'm always on the lookout for new awesome photographers and really good interactive photographers.

I love being the first to the picture and giving the first vote... or perhaps early on where I can double those small early votes. Or find some really amazing stuff and give them some pretty good votes. Always fun to run into some Steemit friends as I go through the feed. I'm starting to recognize some names as I keep on seeing them and time to time realize someone is not only a great photographer but they're here to stay on steemit and that's worth a follow.

GOOD PRACTICES

If you're a photographer posting photography use #photofeed not only do you get a chance to be rewarded by @photofeed but I bet there are other people like me that go through the tags and give out small rewards and not only that but they find people to follow this way.
I think if you're reading this and you're new and posting good stuff... make sure to give people a reason to know that you for sure took the images.
A good example is I came across a few images by @mariya-lorenz - I checked out this snail picture and she did lots of things to show they are her images. You don't have to do tons but there are things that can help.

NEW FOLLOWS TODAY

I don't always find someone new and I follow a lot of the active photographers on Steemit already but today I found a couple nice gems

• @finkistinger
• @dexter (I was about to follow but saw that I already had been following. haha)

STEEMIT FRIENDS IN THE FEED

It's always fun to see your friends pop up in the feed and give them some votes if I haven't already.
These are the friends I found this time around... at least that I noticed.

@soyrosa
@matajingga
@ifechi-works
@vtravels
@skiesandsports
@alevaskye
@manshar
@photovisions
@jayclar30
@victorbz
@nathanielwise

It's no secret I give my Steemit friends larger votes on average.
It's not just about content... it's also about connection.
I also have a vested interest in making my friends successful on here so little by little I try to help out.

VARIED VOTES

I give out a ton of votes... to do this I have to vary the value of the vote so I can do more.
I use the slider and go by CENT amount everything from 2cents up to 30-something
I did give out one full vote this time around because I thought the post was so cool and it was someone who's been consistently posting great stuff and this one was way undervalued in my opinion. This post by @nathanielwise
And it was from 12hrs ago so it took a while to get to it.

CHECKING IF THINGS ARE LEGIT

I feel like this is part of the task is making sure i'm not giving out financial reward to people that arent' playing by the rules. When i do wonder about the images I open them up in another tab and look into it a little more closely then I do one of the following things.
MUTE, CHALLENGE NICELY, EDUCATE
I haven't taken it upon myself to get to the point of reporting or flagging. Truth is I haven't really come across much need to... people are pretty well behaved on Photofeed.

CHALLENGE NICELY

I challenge people nicely if I'm unsure if they are posting their own images. Often I really don't have a clue if they are So I say things like "where did you take this picture?" Or maybe just say things like "You took a great picture" and see if they correct me and say someone else took it etc then i can perhaps educate them because they may be new. Also it's just good to have a dialogue with some new people.

EDUCATING

Sometimes people are abusing the system on purpose.
But I think usually people are well behaved and if there are issues I like to think people just aren't educated.

For example I took a moment to educate @mayorfaruk on this picture
We'll see if he responds... maybe he'll change his ways... he's put a ton of work recently into posts that aren't getting rewarded anyway so I'm sure people believe he didn't take the images. There's a small chance he did so I also educated him that he should mention he took them etc. Maybe i'm educating him for great success of steemit... but chances are he didn't and maybe his culture doesn't stress plagarism or even know that what he's doing is wrong. Afterall in instagram it's pretty darn common. Like i said it's not like he's getting much of anything out of it... i'm tempted to just mute him. But hopefully i can just educate him. If he starts profitting then time to call in the watch dogs of steemit.

I think we can all work on educating... and if people persist in defying the norm after the education that's their choice... but then we can do other things like Mute or Flag and that's our choice.

MUTING

Like i mentioned above MUTING a person is a good tool.
Sometimes better than flagging you're just ignoring them and improving your #photofeed experience.

• I don't mute bad photographers as I like to reward even aspiring/beginner photographers
• But I do mute if their subject matter is often questionable or for me I don't want NSFW photographers on my feed.
• Then of course I'm worried about rewarding people who post other people's stuff.
  On photofeed it's not a big issue I have found and if there are issues usually it's a lack of education on steemit or on the usage of #photofeed

THE EXTRA MILE

If you have the time and want to go the extra mile... I'd suggest not just doing tons of votes but commenting on even more posts.
I commented on a bunch but didn't have anywhere near the time to comment on all of them. So I just wait for to feel inspired to comment.

TIP: If you don't have 500SP and can't portion your vote on Steemit.com but you want to do this... I would suggest using BUSY.ORG
Yes your votes won't be worth hardly anything financially but they may still mean something to the person as a token of appreciation.

PHOTOFEED VERDICT??

My very biased verdict is that a larger portion of the best content on #photofeed is being posted by photographers who play in the @photogames. I'm proud of that. There are still plenty others... but I'm sure they'll make their way over to @photogames soon enough. haha

##STATS
I went through 12hrs of photofeed postings... i'll probably come back in 12hrs or tomorrow and see what's new. I have other things to do in life of course. I have to work and make money. But it was a nice thing to do. I probably spent longer this time because I was making this post at the same time.

Not sure how many pictures I saw but looks like I made over 40 votes. I started at 99% voting power and got it down to 89% which is usually my goal to be down below 90%. And I am embarrassed if my vote is EVER at 100% usually steemauto helps to make sure that never happens.

WHY DO THIS?

• I hope it betters people's lives.
  I know for some people it's a tiny drop in the bucket and it's more of a token vote but I do know to some people steemit is a huge financial benefit in their lives and I love being a part of that.
• I hope it makes steemit a more enjoyable/friendly/beneficial place for photographers.
• I hope it's a small part towards making steem more valuable because that's a benefit to me.
• I hope that I make new friends on steemit.
  I'm not sure how many even look at who voted on them ... I know comments usually connect people a bit better... but sometimes people end up following. It's not really the main goal but it's a nice perk.