I agree your mirroring bot can cause the result.
However, in terms of curation, @blocktrades and you have obvious differences. Your votes is concentrated on few writers, more specifically, top 5%(17 people out of 340) consists of 65% of your vote (528 votes out of 816). For instance, knozaki2015 got 65, terrycraft 53, crazymumzysa, gavvet, sirwinchester got over 40. Meanwhile, @blocktrades 's top 5% (24 out of 480) has 20.6% only, which is three times lower than yours. Over 10 votes on the same author in the study period is 3, while @smooth has 19.
P.S. you even did't vote for this stats while you always vote for masteryodas daily payout. :)
Can we conclude that the reason the trending page always has the same damn authors is because @smooth's votes are limited to fewer authors?
I think whales should take a lesson from @robinhoodwhale and not upvote the same author in a given time period.
I for one am tired of seeing the same set of authors on the trending page, each post earning almost exactly what their last post earned.
Actually, the authors smooth repeatedly voted are not on the trending page often. But they got significant amount of author rewards during the last month (between $200 and $400 generally)
Please see the following accounts: @knozaki2015 @terrycraft @crazymumzysa @gavvet @sirwinchester @masteryoda
I'm surprised by that to be honest. I wonder what is causing the same authors to appear on the trending page.
From my experience, berniesanders, phareism and block trades have been the most generous whales when it comes to regular upvoting of minnows posts.
Sure, people have different strategies for voting. @blocktrades also has way more votes called out for abuse (e.g. plagiarism, very questionable value content, etc.) than I do. I'm not even saying that is a bad thing, it is kind of a trade-off with voting on a lot of unknown stuff. (I do vote on unknowns too but they are scrutinized a lot more heavily with I'm reasonable sure more time put into vetting.)
Perhaps a valid point (though no I don't always vote for his reports).
There is a huge difference. His reports are usually presented in a neutral data-speaks-for-itself manner. Even when he editorializes he avoids divisiveness and criticism. As such, his posts generally attract positive and good-vibe comments that add value to the community and make people feel good about being here. That is how you retain and attract a user base.
Your post, while the statistical analysis is valid and I recognize the work, is presented in a manner that is divisive and feeds on (as well as feeds) jealousy and hostility, and greatly oversimplifies the reasons for differences in (what you call) influence between users, as I pointed out above. While I think your goals in wanting Steem to succeed are sincere and I share them, your approach is misguided and instead spreads a negative vibe, drives people away, and does not attract new users. I do not feel that adds value or helps to make Steem a better platform.
You're labeling critical interpretation as jealousy and hostility IMO. I think you maybe not comfortable since you are the on the top of the issue.
I get what you are saying @smooth. But my question is how would you view my investment being a dedicated human curator who votes daily for his 106 day straight? My account value is what a full time curator would earn botless. What we need is a solid base of human curators and bots in my opinion are taking these funds right out from under the human curators only to distribute them to authors they privy. We need your help to grow curators which in turn give more value to authors. Giving to authors is great but we need a solid base of voters to promote rewards that grow steadily. $100-$1000 articles are killing us. We need rewards like $1-50 so that the value of rewards can grow in time and be more distributed to more authors.
@furion I have another thoughts on your result. High profitability in curation probably means that a curator voted for popular posts, and then he/she can maximize the curation rewards. Meanwhile the low profitability can have two cases. 1) low profitability with wide range of votes (in my data, low max and stdev). 2) low profitability with small range of votes (high max and stdev). The first case implies that a curator is a hidden gem finder. He/she wants to find new and good authors. The second case implies that the curator is a sub-community supporter. The curator's vote is loyal to small group of people in his/her community. I think smooth is this case. But I am not sure what kind of community he is supporting now.
As you told, more dispersed voting does not necessarily mean better curation. However, concentrated voting is more likely to be a barrier against new users. For instance, @knozaki2015 has lots of over $300 posts for a month (probably after you started voting for him?), which is almost impossible to average users. IMHO, you can reduce your max by decreasing upvote percentage and still keep support writers.
The concentrated vote implies less effort finding hidden gems
@clayop voting for "more authors" does not necessarily mean doing the best job of curation, nor does it imply "more effort". I'm accusing no one of anything but one could easy create an army of sock puppets and vote for each of their posts, creating an appearance of "voting for many different authors", but it would all be fake and self-serving. Perhaps slightly less sinister but also useless, one could simply browse New and vote on any random crap posts, producing a small-but-consistent reward with minimal effort and in doing so also vote up a large number of different authors.
I'm happy that the authors I've consistently supported have produced content that gets votes from other community members, sparks engaged conversations in the comment sections, and is downvoted rarely. I've also voted on a good number hidden gems that then went on to get many other votes after I discovered them. Those are the primary metrics I use, along with my subjective view on what is adding value to the platform and generally helping it to thrive in various ways.
@clayop check out the report I've released yesterday on top curators by profitability. @smooth is not even on the list, because his curation profitability is ridiculously low (7% PA). On the opposite side of the spectrum we have for-profit whale bots, that generate 30%+ returns.
If smooth was selfish, or malicious, this probably wouldn't be the case. As far as I know, he is the only person that spends a lot of time and money on curation that is not based on ROI - rather I believe its his genuine intent to provide value to the platform and use his voting rights to support quality content.
I'm not uncomfortable with my results, I consider them an decent accomplishment (but I can always strive to do better).
I disagree with you making me, or anyone else, being at the top of the list into an "issue" at all. I've invested the most in terms of a combination of SP and effort and that is why I'm at the top. You've invested apparently little or no effort so you aren't on the list at all, despite people with less SP than you being there. That is exactly how it is supposed to work.
Yes first table is representing the drgree of utilization, and you have done a good job. But second table shows how you utilize. The concentrated vote implies less effort finding hidden gems, instead a voter strongly support only few people.
@furion First of all, this statistics is about author rewards, not curation rewards. Secondly, this statistics does not tell @smooth is selfish or malicious. The results present that smooth is the most influential person on author rewards and his votes are concentrated on small group of people.
About your results, probably bots can maximize their curation rewards by voting on high reward posts.
IMO that's an effect of the follow feature.
Everybody, keep on keepin' on - one day at a time to Steem greatness!!!