To vote yourself up, or not to vote yourself up, that's the question.

in #steemit7 years ago (edited)

Is it OK to vote up your own post? What about your own comment? Let's discover the answer together.

shakespeare-hamlet-voteup.jpg

This is an ongoing debate "in the minds" of steem users.

  • Is it okay to vote yourself up?

  • Is it not okay to vote yourself up?

  • Sometimes? Never at all? Who knows?

Before we begin this analysis of the problem let us get one fact out of the way:

The STEEM blockchain does allow you to vote up both your blog articles (root posts) and your comments and replies (posts)

Let's see why that policy is in place...

The idea is that if you were a retailer, I don't know, let's say Pepsi or Cola-Cola, and you wanted to write some posts about giveaways or contests on steem to reach this audience....

pepsi-coke.jpg

All you would have to do is create a steem account named pepsicola or something, and buy a TON of steem from an exchange, let's say $1 million dollars (much cheaper than a superbowl commercial)... and power up that steem account.

This way you could upvote your product brand's blog yourself, simply by purchasing steem instead of earning it.

So buying steem power to promote your business blog is a good policy. It brings demand for STEEM

...and we want that...

You can either buy your steem power to upvote your content, or earn your steem power to upvote your own content.

Where this becomes a problem, is how it is perceived.

Some people think it is greedy and selfish to reward yourself. In normal everyday life, it is normal to dislike people who pat themselves on a back, or take a bigger piece of birthday cake (unless of course it is your own birthday).

So what do we do?

What is right, and what isn't?

question_emoticon.jpg

Until now, if I write something important... Something I really want everyone to see... I will upvote myself, not for the reward, but for the self promotion purpose. That includes both comments on other people's blogs and blog posts I make.

If I write something silly, or unimportant, or just casual, I never upvote myself because it doesn't carry a lot of weight, and isn't important to be seen as much as my other writings. So I never upvote that type of content.

This has worked well for me, until HardFork 19. Now everyone is paying attention to rewards and payouts more than they ever have.. if you're caught upvoting yourself with significant value, you will be shunned or called out on it.

What we need to do, as a community, is set a new defined precedent (that has a timestamp) that is perodically kept current.

For instance, like this:

self-upvoting-policy-sample.jpg

This way, if you follow the suggested policy, as it is written, you can refer to it if someone chastises you publicly for self-upvoting yourself.

Also, it will also be used to help downvote and regulate obnoxious self upvoters who abuse it and take it to an extreme soley for greed purposes and nothing more.

By the way, incase you never saw it, Steemit does have a really great HELP DOC page here:

https://steemit.com/welcome

...but as this document suggests:

https://steemit.com/faq.html#Is_there_an_Etiquette_Guide_for_Steemit

There are no official rules for participating on Steemit.com

Perhaps we should codify some that affects all users exactly the same? This way we don't need to individually bump into this problem continually which does affect the reward pool vastly.

What do you think should be done?

Should we just codify it into the system that NO ONE can self-upvote "ever"? I might like that idea, this way all of are in the same boat, and we can adjust accordingly. Oh wait, what about our botty friends who will upvote their master instead of self-upvoting him or herself?

This is a difficult problem and a difficult situation. Probably why it hasn't been fully understood or addressed.

Help! I think the majority of us is interested in what each person has to say... Please share your comments.

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Should we just codify it into the system that NO ONE can self-upvote "ever"?

Oh wait, what about our botty friends who will upvote their master instead of self-upvoting him or herself?

Seems like you answered your own question why that rule shouldn't be codified into the system. I don't support any change to consensus that doesn't pass the Sybil test. Unfortunately, this is something many Steemians have yet to learn, since it seems like 99% of the changes I see requested on Steem by regular users don't pass the Sybil test.

The excessive self-upvoting problem is a difficult problem to solve that really needs to be left to human beings to try to find and deal with (via downvotes). It is more important than ever because of the linear rewards change, which I hope will provide more benefits than the abuse downsides, but we will have to wait and see how it turns out in practice. To help with this issue, we should try to avoid associating shame with downvoting (aka flagging) blatant self-voters who regularly give themselves too high of a reward (too high is of course subjective).

Downvoting is a healthy and necessary part of the Steem system to keep people in check and fairly allocate rewards to those who produce valued content. It would help if the UI separated out displaying downvotes for the purposes of too high rewards from the more menacing flag which could be reserved as a symbol for downvotes given for reasons involving fraud, scams, plagiarism, and/or hate speech.

Edit: Also, thank you @jesta for ChainBB which allows me to upvote with less than 1% voting weight. Although, it seems its estimated rewards calculation is a bit off.

You're right... Glad you wrote. Notice I did say botty friends because some of these bots are indeed healthy for the system even if people take time to warm up and learn about them. :)

I often hear the term Sybil, but I'd like to define it for our readers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sybil_attack

@arhag is correct. Humans can want things, but sockpuppets and bots will usually find away around the system. So if you implement changes, you better be sure it passes the Sybil test... (Otherwise you could be jumping out of one fire, and into a nastier fire instead)

I especially like this part:

It would help if the UI separated out displaying downvotes for the purposes of too high rewards from the more menacing flag which could be reserved as a symbol for downvotes given for reasons involving fraud, scams, plagiarism, and/or hate speech.

I would love to see that in place.

Seconding this idea of "downvotes" being separate from flags. Maybe downvotes would be half-power flags or something?

IT's tough though, there are times when I wanna downvote something but I feel really awkward about sticking my neck out and looking like a jerk.

Great post BTW - not something I think about too much. My general strategy is to upvote my own original posts, but not comments - which means I'm only giving myself about 2 upvotes per day.

Problem with down votes is, that it ends up being a tit for tat. I as a minnow, down voted a popular article from a whale, so he picked my best article and slugged me. He lost a tiny fraction off is $1000+ article, while I lost a huge bite from my $100 one.

Ya!! I would not have the balls to flag a whale. Sorry that happened to you.

Tit for tat is childish in my opinion and bullying should not be tolerated. Might does not make it right.

Sure, but it does not stop it happening, right or wrong.

No, but as a society, if we all agree on certain etiquette or rules and someone breaks those rules, then as a group, that person is chastised. If (and that's a big IF) we can ever get everyone to agree, then things get solved.

I totally agree that simply disabling self-up-voting can never work. There are too many ways to get around it, bots, sock-puppets, delegation, multiple accounts. So any option there is right out.

To expect it to be handled by community distribution is tough, because that requires people to give up voting power to remove rewards from someone else. Even if their goal was to increase rewards for other content, they could do that more directly with their power by voting that content up (probably).

It's a tough situation to tackle, but people will definitely generally act in their own financial interest. So expecting down-vote curation to stop it could be tricky.

This guy gets it.

Thanks for your point of view.
Actually I think the bigger problem than the linear reward curve is the higher impact of fewer votes. Some people are now writing exactly 10 short articles per day (as they have 10 heavy 100 % votes available) just to upvote them all with 100 %. This is an example:
https://steemit.com/@sandrino

Apart from that I think the fast growing number of Steemit users would require the exact opposite of a few high impact votes (whereby big accounts tend to reserve their fewer but heavier votes for other 'big fishes' because of the expected heavy upvotes in return).
Instead of that many small votes for many different users would be a much better idea ...

You have to remember that when people are upvoting themselves, they are using their own steem power which they have either earned through SteemIt or have purchased. Either way, they have every right to use it as they wish.

Being able to upvote one's own content, whether it be posts or comments, encourages people to engage with SteemIt and to write more that they might do otherwise. I have not seen an increase in "junk" since the hardfork. In fact, things appear to be the opposite.

Also, when people see that an article or comment already has value they want a part of it. It's as simple as that.

I upvote my own content and also reserve some of my voting power to vote up people who comment on my posts or comments and also for other content I see on SteemIt. I see nothing wrong with this balanced approach.

Agreed!

I have stuggled with the same questions.
As a newbie, I realized that some comments on my posts were earning more than my original post, without all the effort that went into the post. I started upvoting my stuff about a week ago to earn more STD's & SP since I havent made much yet (I am not complaining because fb never paid me a dime). But I do think about how it looks to others.
I just learned of a Steemian who has two accounts, and one votes for the other. I'm not sure if that is allowed, but it is similar to your pepsi example.
One thing I like to remember is that everything on Steemit is transparent, and I stick to original content and ethical behaviour because once I'm a whale, my past may become scrutinized; just like Presidents.
I justify voting for some of my own content and comments by how much effort I put into them and the fact that I don't really have an influencial group supporting me. Whether that is right or wrong is a good question.
I would be fine if self-voting wasn't possible, it would take the morality question out of the equation.

I was afraid to even put a reminder to upvote and share on my posts until someone told me its fine to do that. They clarified that you shouldn't go to other people's posts and ask (beg) for resteems and votes.

I'm still not even a minnow yet, so I can't support you with my big votes, but you are welcome to enter my weekly contests to try and win some SBD. Last week the prize pool was almost 25 SBD. Not everyone wins, but you have as good a chance as anyone. The contests are geared towards the small frys to help them along and is supported by a generous donation to make sure the prize pool is not too small.

once I'm a whale, my past may become scrutinized; just like Presidents.

You bring up a great point. A really great point. It is something we should all consider. Thanks for that!

"to earn more STD's??" You meant SBD's I guess. ;)

Haha, yes indeed I meant SBD. 😊

Лучше не скажешь..))..good

It is an interesting dynamic and something I have personally struggled with, but lately I have gotten comfortable promoting myself when earned/applicable. (as in comment votes)

As for post votes, I have always has the upvote post box checked in my submit a post screen since day one so had not even thought about it.

Now that I do though, hell yeah I am voting myself up. Worked my butt off for 11 months to build up some SP never having a big pay day post or one viral or even sniff the trending page.

Plus, 90% of my posts are value add not fluff. I aim to provide value to the community. Hard work equals a good steak dinner from time to time, now I can afford to finally buy one. :-)

A very honest and upfront description of your habits. I'd love to thank you for sharing this... I've been following you a long time @scaredycatguide and you're one of the best curators of content I've found. You don't just blog. You run around commenting and I've been doing it too... I suppose you might be one of my inspirations long ago, and I'm sorry your steak dinners took so long.. but the next one you get, you eat it up good.. and enjoy it. You deserve it.

It's not bad to upvote yourself. It is when a Steemian self-upvotes irrelevant posts that we know that is a selfish act. Steemit doesn't have specific rules in regards to that and I would support a policy that limits the amount of self-upvotes one can get in a day.

i suggest, upvoting yourself in any way has to be forbidden! upvoting my content should be a tool only for others to like or judge it, not for myself.

upvoting my content should be a tool only for others to like or judge it, not for myself.

Showing yourself a little self love isn't going to be a bad idea. Is it?

sry, it's not about love, it's about money!

Hahaha 🙌. Money rules.

that limits the amount of self-upvotes one can get in a day.

That might be the must easiest and effective course of action in the short term. I agree.

Oh yes, it is 😊

A self-upvote always is a selfish act LMAO. The word "self" should have given it away ;)

I don't like too many rules and regulations so I'm fine with individuals choosing to upvote or not their own posts and comments. Until I read your post on this I hadn't checked to see if others have been upvoting their own but now I've done a quick search and it seems most whales do this. It's probably one of the reasons they are whales, and that's fine with mini-minnow me as long as I get a piece of the rest of their big Steem pie. I don't think I've ever, other than my default setting introductory post, upvoted my own post or comment, but I like having that option if I want to exercise the opportunity in the future.
Thanks for posting this, great to read others opinions on this.

This. I also dont upvote myself, but wouldnt shun anyone for doing it. More regulatians would also mean more complications later on when you try to make a case for every situation. I just think its not worth it.

No I say we don't need rules to govern every little bit of our lives. I think you got it right...up vote yourself to get something important noticed especially in a busy post.

I have mentioned this before, but it is worth a mention again.

Many early adopters were users of other platforms, and likely regularly engaged in self promotion. As the followers of the Witness/Influencer crowd migrate to the Steemit platform, this group of "new" self-promoters will have to cut their teeth on what it means to 1) create quality content, and 2) self-promoters in a way that also promotes others in the community.

Your post demonstrates a "lead by example" approch to helping others understand the "why" of self promotion.

If we against the self-voting rule, what will happen?
As steemit have no admin to check every comments. Even we have set up the rules, people do not know it. Especial in steemit there are many people from other country who cannot read English!

I know, but a lot of people are looking for tips and ways to get bigger votes (even if they do not speak english). A lot of new people will have more experienced friends already on here (including friends who do speak english even if that particular user does not) who can explain it to them.

Even me, I speak english, and I am not new, and even I was unsure how people felt about upvoting yourself until we had this discussion. That's why I suggested maybe a community guideline be set, like in an FAQ (which can be translated to other languages)....

What we did accomplish though, is that most people understand upvoting important comments, or important posts is ok. But upvoting every single thing you write, even if it is not important, may not be seen to be very nice. At least that is what I see from all these comments.

I was hoping if the blockchain devs came in and looked at this long list of user feedback, it might help to decide if this needs to be addressed or not. I also wanted to take some of the confusion away for users too.

As an example, if a debate ever comes up again about this same subject at a future time, I can link back to this post as a reference now, and show them how people feel about the issue.

Together we built this nice informational resource page about upvoting yourself...and I couldn't do it without all of the visitors help. I'm glad we at least talked about this...

I upvote all my posts, do you now why? because I rarely am a target for trails, when I see a post after 5 minutes gets more than 150 upvotes and under 10 viewers, and my post after 3 days gets 50 viewers and 9 upvotes(I am talking about the ones that take time to make and are informative in my opinion), I am not going to even think about not upvoting myself.

The problem is that curators aren't incentivized and penalized properly. If that problem is solved, you don't feel the need to upvote yourself anymore :)

I think upvoting yourself a couple times a day is ok. I hess it also depends ig you are a minnow or a whale. Many factors too keep in consideration. But the ideal, to me, would be to spend ones VP mostly on other users, whoever is sharing good content deserves some. Lets not get greedy and continue to help this community to grow.

Great post @intelliguy!

Funny, I was thinking the exact same thing! I kinda like your approach where if its something important then all good, and if just for kicks then a no go. Upvoted + Resteem :)

Great post in fact I'm going to re-steem this post.
I'm new here on steemit, just getting started, and I haven't posted yet. But I thought I saw when you did make a post the default is you upvote your post automatically?
Looking forward to more from you.

The ability to upsteem your own posts and comments rewards people for buying Steem.

Take this ability away, and there will be a lot less demand for buying Steem, as well as a lot more supply of people selling them.

I often will upvote myself but I usually do so after the first 30 minutes. With HF19, I'm going to have to decide how much to upvote by.

Thanks for that tidbit.... experienced users like yourself really help to show how they feel about this...

How about $0? :)

why should I? It's my account, my writing and my SP to use. As long as I'm supporting others, there is zero reason for me not to support myself as well.

There's always 1 reason: selfishness ;)

But yeah, as long as there isn't much incentive to vote on others it will exist. Hopefully the curation protocol will improve in the future to make everyone happier.

as I said dufus.... as long as I am supporting others, there is nothing wrong with me looking after myself as well. You may choose to be self-centred, not everyone is like you. There are a lot of people on this platform who spend a lot of time supporting and helping others, if they choose to upvote their own posts that is their choice. The platform allows for it and there is no reason except your own irrational fear someone might make a few cents more than you.

If some people spent as much time actually working on the craft of writing and producing good content as they do bitching because the system doesn't just hand them returns they would be actually earning returns.

People aren't earning shit, because of bad curation behavior like self-voting, repetitive voting and follow-for-follow nonsense.

Pretty funny to call others self-centered when YOU are the one upvoting yourself!

people aren't earning shit because they produce content that is shit. I comb though dozens and dozens of crap before ever finding a post worth taking the time to read.

And yes, I upvote myself using the same percentage as I give to everyone that I upvote who writes content worth upvoting.

You want to earn, learn the craft and practice it.

Just leave it how it is. I love upvoting myself and a lot of you are gonna hate that , but the truth is that most of you are probably never going to even read any of my post. I am not the greatest writer. This is the first social media platform I have ever participated in. I love it , the fact that you can get paid for posting is great, and that the reason we are all here, becuase you can make money. But the good authors with a lot of experience have to hate on the little guys, because they want all the(money) upvotes. Its all about the money.

It's an important question, and one I have pondered quite a bit.

if I write something important... Something I really want everyone to see... I will upvote myself, not for the reward, but for the self promotion purpose.

That's close to how I feel about it. I generally would not upvote my root posts, that's for others to do. Upvoting my post feels a bit like buying a copy of my own book to boost sales. It's manipulation...

For me, it's more about upvoting comments, and only in very specific situations... namely if I "arrive late" at a post about some topic I feel passionate about and (perhaps) have expertise in... and then write a long and complex response. And then it's at the bottom of 183 comments... where (very likely) nobody will read it and use it as part of the discussion. In THAT case, I will upvote my own comment, only because I can "bump" it up to the first 10 comments or so, where it might get read... and become a "discussion." It's pretty much like "bumping" a post, in the old days of web message boards.

Other than that, no I don't tend to upvote myself... it just has an ethically dodgy feel to it. My wife does upvote my posts, and I upvote hers... that's a slightly less insidious form of nepotism...

My wife does upvote my posts, and I upvote hers... that's a slightly less insidious form of nepotism...

Is it? or isn't it? Now we have to open a whole new discussion on that.... (just kidding)... this one has gotten everyone think already.

At the minimum, the great comments that have been shared, hopefully it grabs the attention of people developing the chain so they can either confirm its fine, or change their view.

That's why I will upvote a comment of my own, infrequently. It's to put my comment higher up in a discussion.

My wife does upvote my posts, and I upvote hers... that's a slightly less insidious form of nepotism...

If it's "social media", then I would expect that family and friends would get more up-votes than random strangers. That's part of the equation when you're evaluating subjective value from your own perspective.

I don't even have a problem with self-upvoting, provided that it's not coupled with spammy content. IMO, the problem isn't self-voting. The problem is the incentive that self-voting might create for people to intentionally produce and vote on low-value content. That would be sort of like a form of embezzling.

We paid/contributed to earn the right to vote. That includes the right to vote on our own stuff, and our family's.

You're exactly right, the problem is the lack of incentive to vote on others.

I appreciate that thought. I have been conflicted on that point, so I just haven't upvoted anything of mine yet, not wanting to be viewed as selfish. But I think I could live with myself with that approach: silly/unimportant post - no way; thoughtful/serious comment - ok, maybe.

Self voting is acceptable on steem blockchain, it is like mining coin yourself, nothing wrong in it.

To an extent, I agree, but I would like to know if an author is prone to self-voting large amounts for valueless content, so that I can decline to vote for that author's posts, or even add them to my "Mute" list.

And yet, the default on a post is set to upvoting yourself

Yes, good point.

If the code says that a person cannot upvote himself people will just create a second account and upvote there....people are greedy, and greedy people are creative

I don't have an opinion on whether or not it is "good or bad" to upvote yourself. That being said I have decided that until My Steem Power has increased to the point that I have use of this mythical "Slider" that allows a user to adjust the voting power, I will be upvoting my post's and comments.

Once the slider becomes available to me I will re-evaluate whether or not to upvote myself.

The slider will currently pop-up at around 485SP (1MVests), talks go around about lowering this to 125SP (250kVests)...

I hope to get this option in the near future myself!

i hope that too. it's a long way to 1M vests...

I think if you are new and have a low reputation then save your vote for curators who make good posts that earn consistently. This way your vote will earn you steem and SBD with curation. Once you have gained some steem and powered up, then start to up voting your own content. Just how I see it.

I am in agreement with you. I think if you've earned your reputation and steempower over time, you should be able to do what you want with it... because you've been using the system so long. But there are a lot of people who don't see it the same way, and some of them are level 70+ so you have no choice to make sure a giant doesn't teach you a lesson. We really should have a definitive policy or program code to handle this situation once and for all.

I see it the opposite. If you are new, curation isn't financially rewarding...so okay to vote for yourself. Once you are a whale and have over 1k followers, then you don't need to vote for yourself...and you can actually get a financial benefit from curating good posts.

Yes new post from Intelliguy. I'm definitely always on the lookout if you post anything. I can quite call myself a fan of yours now lol.

I really agree on your take on Self Promotion. People like Donald Trump and Floyd Mayweather built their fortunes on this technique, although its Ironic that these guys I quoted are hated they really do know how to promote themselves and more importantly pay themselves.

I don't think it's really a bad idea although it definitely is awkward. Kinda like High Fiving yourself, but if we take two steps backward and zoom out a little bit these are byproducts of basic human instinct of being a bit greedy and wanting more for ourselves and at this point I don't think it can be stopped no matter how often people call out this kind of behavior. As you browse Steem articles you'll find lots these self upvotes and much worse people begging for upvotes and Followers ( YouTube subscribe me I subscribe you tactics all over again lol ) and it is what is. What I would suggest is looking at it on a different perspective and that is " at least for now" a marking advantage of Steem. I look at it as some sort of good way to introduce it to the general public and pique interest and damn it is really effective. Heck, it's one of the first few reasons I got introduced to Steem and got me interested in the first place. Falling in love with Steem and it's community altogether is a different story. Kinda like come for the free $ stay for the community thing. I hope I'm making sense I just woke up from a nap when I saw your post and immediately read and replied.

Here's my upvote and I'll upvote myself to drive it home. :)

Let me comment and upvote myself! (great post BTW!!!)

I do it like this: upvote my own posts and don't upvote my own comments.

If I really like a post an author I give 100%. Else I give around 10%-50%. Works out well, since it makes a couple of cents

if you're caught upvoting yourself with significant value, you will be shunned or called out on it

I think it's too early to assume that this is true.

If Brand Pepsi can do so without significant backlash, why not Brand Intelliguy?

Perhaps the community will indeed move in that direction, but I don't think it is self-evident.

I have never really considered it "not done" as someone mentioned in the previous comments: it's the default setting for posting.

I don't see why we wouldn't, since it's made possible to upvote ourselves why should we judge it negatively? I think as a community Steemit is a very generous one and I believe its users will continue to mainly upvote others, but why shouldn't we also reward ourselves as well and give our own posts a head start? I don't have much of an issue with it, but then again I'm a newbie so maybe more seasoned members of the community feel differently about it?

Who cares if "someone calls you out for upvoting yourself"? I don't understand that part - if you can't upvote your content - you shouldn't write it in the first place? Great article by the way - in the grand scheme of things your upvote is just a teeny tiny ripple... what one needs is thousands of tiny ripples or one big fat whale taking a belly flop! LOL

Are we simply creating a problem where none truly exist? I never upvote my own comments, and almost always my posts - by default. With the increased energy level one vote requires, I may just disable the self-upvote at submission.

The natural breaks for abuse are codified -- in the code. Everything else is codified in our soul. And it's visible, transparent and it speaks to character.

When I see a greed account, I usually do not follow - and once spotted, will treat any submission by such account with the credibility it has earned, or unearned.

Happy Weekend

ch @globocop

Assuming that people are doing so openly and not gaming the system via sock puppet accounts, self-voting should be encouraged for exactly the reason you noted--it's simply good for the price of Steem.

So long as you are spreading the votes and not just voting for yourself is see nothing wrong with voting for your own posts. After all it takes a lot of time and effort or investment to get to the point where your own vote counts for much. I rarely do more than one post a day so I feel like this is fair.

I usually don't vote for my own comment unless someone else votes for it first. (Unless I feel like it really adds value to the conversation)

There is a lot of luck involved with how well a post does and it doesn't seem to correlate too well with the level of effort that I've put into it. I figure it is kind of a nice benefit to be able to vote my own post up and get something at least.

Let's say hypothetically that the price of Steem went into three figures. Would it feel right for me then to vote my own content up? ... :D (I can't even answer my own question, lol)

If someone is really acting in a way that is not community minded I think that they don't tend to do too well in the long run and can start attracting flags, so in a way this tends to work out imo.

@lightsplasher, I agree with your statement: (Unless I feel like it really adds value to the conversation)

The hard part is that most people, including myself, believe that our content provide more value than what it actually does. We tend to look on ourselves more favorably than others.

I completely agree, but since upvoting is so subjective it is hard to guarantee that upvotes actually go to the post that provide the most value.

We can sometimes be our own worst critic of the things that we produce. I get this way about my art at times. I also used to constantly pick at my writing to the point where I didn't feel like posting anything. Perhaps that is why I only infrequently post. At least voting for myself occasionally has to a degree increased my fun factor around all of this.

It is difficult to know what benefit your votes are having. Posts that are well written provide value but other posts do too. There are so many levels of abilities and life situations that people are in and some intangible benefits for voting for content that others many not find first rate. If we all just voted for the very best, of the best, of the best, I don't think we would build much of a community. :D

I think you kind of have to follow your heart on some of this stuff and do what you feel is right.

Maybe everyone's post should have been upvoted automatically by themselves. As the person writes a post or comment, the means that person is promoting it anyway.

If everyone was forced to automatically upvote their own posts, then authors who wrote over 10 posts a day would not have any Steem Power left over to benefit authors of other posts.

Great post resulting in a fair bit of debate. Myself I wouldn't feel quite right upvoting anything of my own, but I wouldn't be in favour of making a rule about it.
'Listening to self praise can be quite hard to bear
But sad to think such people are no longer rare
Self praise it is no praise some are known to say
Whilst others see self promotion as quite okay
And though love of self it is a necessary thing
You should leave it to others your praises to sing'

putin-upvote.jpg

I handled it like you. Only upvote my relevant posts and comments. Something like "Cool article bro" does not deserve my own upvote. I'm new to steemit but don't you have limited voting power per day? It would be bad if you use all your power on your own posts and have nothing left for posts of other people who deserve a upvote. Can this happen?
Anyway, I'm feeling relieved that there are more people who are upvoting their own stuff.

PS: Cool article bro!

Myself, I'm not opposed to upvoting, and can see how it could be a problem. I will even acknowledge that I have exploited the ability to do this, but will put more thought into when I do or don't upvote myself. As I said, I can see how it may be a problem, and support the suggestion of limiting self-upvoting to important posts. I have to admit I have no idea how to downvote

Good points here thank you. I will upvote my comment now 😂

To be clear, I don't do self-upvoting.

Now, that being said, I don't deem it's wrong to upvote yourself. It's freedom of choice. Our voice. Every user's choosing. Now, is it driven by greed? I can't answer them.

But, as you present the example of Pepsico, sure, if they packed with One Million dollar, single upvote would produce enough rewards for them. Good for them I surmise. And, I think, that's the motivation behind the action. After all, you have to understand the factor of "money."

Now, having said that, I kinda, prefer not voting of our comments. On a post/article, I guess, okay (fair to me). But, when you comment on someone's post, you appreciate the work of someone (if not criticize). The content of the post. Not the intent of making rewards out of it. I would say, it's not a good curation. It's an intention-driven attitude- And, that's just me.

For instance, in this very article, I can comment,
|This is an interesting article
And upvote my comment. Who cares. I will get my share and done with it.
You see the point. Here my intention would be to get rewards. I don't add any value to your writing. Your post. Your content. Your thought.
And, this to me is not a healthy sign for the community to grow.

But, as I said, it's one's will and freedom. You and I can't stop it. Of course, none of us is trying. It can be the guide. If we have to stop it, we have to make the changes to the code and have it enforced for all.

If not, it's okay to have this option. It's ultimate users call.

Lastly, I do want to mention; it's a different type of article. Often user asks, including me. You just pen them down. Good thought. @intelliguy

I read everything you said, and you make some good points. The confusion comes from, we need to define a status quo so people who think they're doing what the majority do, don't get penalized by the few (and some of they could be heavy whales) if there isn't a status quo.

I am confused on your last sentence though:

Often user asks, including me. You just pen them down. Good thought. @intelliguy

No sure what this last bit means.. Can you rephrase? I don't want to miss your intended meaning.

Sorry, my bad. I didn't even scan through before I hit "post" button.
I often see, users comments on posts and upvote themsleves. I feel like really!!!
You came here to appreciate the work or get the rewards! I was befuddled. And this trend was seen profoundly in late. Maybe, due to HF19.
So, I often asked this question to myself. Is it right? (Again, as I always believe, there is no right or wrong. Particularly in the world of new internet and blockchain).
But, I didn't know whom to ask. Rather, self-validation was my mental state.
And, that's when you rightly emerge with your analytical views and curious thoughts.

"Often user asks, including me. You just pen them down. Good thought."

And, you correctly portrayed my feelings here.
Above line was just to say, I liked the article and the thoughts you expressed in it.

Sorry about my verbiage. @intelliguy

I think I should start to upvote myself.
Let this reply be the maiden trip :)

I though this community was unregulated. Seeing posts like these one fell like there should be a guide line. Nevertheless, i do upvote my posts.

Does it mean with the new system someone could write 10 posts a day and then just upvote themselves? That would be wrong and defeat the voting system.

Does it mean with the new system someone could write 10 posts a day and then just upvote themselves?

This has nothing to do with a "new system". This has been true since HF18, when the max number of posts per 24 hours was no longer 4.

That said, if you were to write every day 10 or 20 low quality posts, you will be probably noticed and maybe flagged and your reputation would never go high.

But, it is true, even if you find this "wrong", that you could write a bot that would post an automatically generated poem every hour and upvote yourself.
If you were to do that, you would obviously not care about your reputation, but I don't see any rule currently that would prevent you to accumulate Steem Power this way.

This kind of behavior would catch the attention of the berniesaunders accounts, who would downvote you into getting no rewards. This is exactly why he downvotes now...

Indeed, you are correct. I was only thinking of flagging in term of reputation, but not about rewards.

But what if my goal was to force @berniesanders to flag me so that his voting power would decrease?

@berniesanders, this is all hypothetical, please don't flag me! ;-)

Yes it could be abused but why would someone want to ruin their reputation like that? I wouldn't do it !

No, of course, YOU would not.

But somebody who do not care about the reputation of an account that has been created anonymously might do it. And nobody would know who is behind the account.

Yes they could. But... you'd have to be evil minded to do that.. and their followers would hate them for writing 10 posts a day, everyday, doing it non-stop for weeks and months.

Yup thats called Real steem lover
Best guide to make community more Realistic

I got another question, no one answer me yet. Is it ok with Steemit to use upvoting bots? If you can answer, I will appreciate it.

@Steemvoter is an automatic curation bot with an easy to use web interface ... signup at https://steemvoter.com

Or, you can create your own. Did this comment help?

Yes and no. Still don't know is that against some rules...

I don't have a black and white answer, but this is how I approach it...

Everything is against the rules. There is a law prohibiting anything and everything. The cardinal rule is: "If you are asking for permission, the answer is no!" On this basis you proceed to do whatever it is you are trying to do.

You might try consulting an attorney who will analyse the TOS and consider jurisprudence presidents to answer your question;)

Good Luck!

I meant Steemit rules ;)

I often wondered if upvoting myself was ok or not. Since I consider myself a newbie, it would be nice to have this outlined more clearly. I rarely upvote my o2n comments but I see some that do every comment they make. I also notice it seems to happens with people who are much higher levels . I just thought nothing of until now. Thanks for the food for thought.

I tend to exclusively up vote others up - my 2 cents won't make a world of difference to me. I can see how it would be more enticing if my vote was worth $100

If I write something silly, or unimportant, or just casual
I say several days ago on Discord my opinion about ! I will vote myself , and not because i am selfish . So often i give all the payments from my posts that ( i think ) I am positive and giving person ! I think for being able to respect other people work we have first to respect our one . The value is not measured yet i steemit so every one can decide if something is good or not.For example i do not understand some art .......... but they bring value for someone ! So its up for every one to chose but mine chose is YES will vote myself !

I use self-upvoting, but moderately, with 25%. The reason is, that a part of my revenue goes to @colorchallenge, to reward the best jobs of people.

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