Let's Talk–What are your views around voting on Hive?

[firepower]

Recently, I had a chat with some friends who used to use Steem but stopped couple of years ago as they found it quite complex but they are now interested in HIVE after I updated them and I've been encouraging them to try it out for sometime now.

But there were a few concerns which I think I've addressed objectively now. However, I felt their concerns were valid, especially for anyone considering to purchase and powering up Hive and then figuring out how to maximise their ROI in addition to simply using the dApps here.

There's a lot of interest around crypto in India once again so people are jumping on the bandwagon especially with projects they were once familiar with. I'm trying to bring some of that interest to HIVE once again.

Few questions:

1. We have services on Hive that helps automating your votes but do you use it or prefer voting manually? Why?

2. Has automating your votes worked out for you in supporting your favourite content creators and/or maximising rewards?

3. If you are staking up continuously, do you seek to maximise return on your investment via voting/curating users on Hive? With all the bot voting that takes place are you able to maximise your curation rewards?

4. Or do you feel like it's worth voting others consistently everyday only if you had a large stake?

5. What is your one big reason to power up your HIVE tokens today?

6. How do you think the overall experience of voting can be improved further on HIVE?

I'd love to read your thoughts in the comments below, you don't have to answer point wise so feel free to respond in anyway and feel free to share any concerns you have.

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^{I welcome your support towards my HIVE witness node}

Comments

[bashadow]

Some very good questions. Here is how I see and use my vote.

1. We have services on Hive that helps automating your votes but do you use it or prefer voting manually? Why?
   • I manually vote. I am aware of a few of the non manual voting methods, but until my vote is in the value range of $50.00 dollars, I feel I can adequately vote on content I like and enjoy with out causing a post to be seen as having an excessive reward.
     
     
2. Has automating your votes worked out for you in supporting your favourite content creators and/or maximising rewards?
   • Can not answer that as I do not use them as of yet
     
     
3. If you are staking up continuously, do you seek to maximise return on your investment via voting/curating users on Hive? With all the bot voting that takes place are you able to maximise your curation rewards?
   • I am staking up continuously, as for maximizing my return via voting not really. For Hive to Thrive we need to have content the average user finds enjoyable, I see myself as an average user and a long term investor.
     I am looking five to seven years down the road, with my haphazard method of voting I am still earning about 9% ROI per the hivestats page today on curation. When one adds on and in any votes on comments made, or votes on post made, I am sure that number is well exceeded. In additions to the curation rewards, and author rewards, there is also the powered up interest reward from just having Hive powered up.
     
     
4. Or do you feel like it's worth voting others consistently everyday only if you had a large stake?
   • Absolutely not. To succeed on Hive, or on any social media system one must build a following. To count on only one persons vote is foolhardy. I am nowhere close to being a whale or a large account, I do however vote on a lot of smaller newer accounts, and I still vote on those accounts I have found and enjoy the content of. By voting and commenting on accounts I have found enjoyable over my travels through first steem, and now Hive, I have received votes from some of them on my post, and I have had people that also follow those I do come over and give my content a vote on occasion just because they saw a comment I made they liked. SO no matter how big or small your vote is use it, do not let it sit idle put it to work for yourself.
     
     
5. What is your one big reason to power up your HIVE tokens today?
   • The future, it was almost 3 years ago that I was gifted with 15 SP from steem. I have only managed to invest personal money of about 100 dollars. My Hive account is now getting pretty close to 6,000 HP. So with some time and effort and a hard fork, the future of growth is looking pretty good.
     
     
6. How do you think the overall experience of voting can be improved further on HIVE?
   • For up votes I think the system works pretty well, down votes I still have an issue with and think that system is in need of a serious over haul, but I am in the minority in that respect so I live with it.

Hope it helps, my views only on your questions, representing no one but myself, and not a guide to voting. Voting is a personal choice, how one uses their vote is their business. There is no right or wrong way to use a vote, it is a choice we make, even the choice to not vote is not wrong.

[firepower]

Thank you for the detailed response. It's great that you could take some time out to do this. I waited a couple of days hoping to see greater engagement on the post before responding. I really hoped to get more comments on this post so there could've been a better discussion on this. But the two good comments including yours provided me with some insight going into 2020 into the outlook of some of the users who have shown support towards this project and hope to see it grow. I also had a few discussions with some other users i know personally in other channels of communication on this topic to get their views. While the overall feedback I received remains quite mixed I'm happy to see your take on all of my questions.

[bashadow]

Sometimes it is difficult to get people to respond to questions like this, I really don't know why. There are after all a lot of ways to vote, and I guess some people just don't like to talk about voting, like it is a taboo subject or something. I was glad to try and help.

[shainemata]

1. I use auto voting for a few, consistent creators who reliably post good material. It is a very short list. The reason I keep it short is that it drains my voting power quickly. I tend to vote at 100% on everything. Then, my votes for others would be worth less. So, it's better to keep my vote power up.
2. I can't tell for certain if it works for me. I'm not seeing 13% curation rewards like other people do. It's a struggle to reach even 8%. So, no. I guess not.
3. I am staking continuously. I don't know what others are doing. I'm just doing the best that I can by reinvesting Hive and HP. I am starting to keep HBD liquid in case some day I have a project that needs funding.
4. I think consistency is more important if you have a small stake. Large stakes can miss a vote here and there and it won't make a large difference.
5. My reason for powering up is that I have come to realize that there are people who depend on Hive for their income. If they are willing to work on their account, I can help them with my votes. I'd like my votes to be as large as possible to provide the income others need. I get to earn while providing for others.
6. I am perplexed about the utility of timing votes. Many of my posts get voted almost immediately after posting, which denies other people who vote a large portion of the rewards. There are some who are using the 5 minute rule to prevent others from earning on their votes. I wish I could get off their curation list.

[firepower]

Thank you for your detailed response. I hoped to get more feedback on my questions on the chain but this will do for now. Btw, are you using Hive.Vote or something else like your own voting bot?

As someone who has been around witnessing evolution of this chain from its early days I feel it's not easy to optimise curation rewards manually. But a combination of bot + manual voting seems to be working well for few that I spoke to recently regarding this in other some channels.

[shainemata]

Yes, I'm using Hive.vote for the few people set up for automatic votes. The majority of my votes, however, are manual.

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