I had my best month ever as far as earned HP goes in April.
In May, I wasn't even close.
How's that for a teaser?
Quick Summary
I don't think I'm in much of a mood to elaborate on this particular monthly statistical report. I think it's partly the numbers, partly what's happening in my life, and partly what's happening throughout the world.
I'm well aware that there are things I can control, things I can't, and blah, blah, blah. It's okay. This too, eventually, shall pass. It was just not the best of months, all around, and I'm glad it's over, and I'm hoping June will be better. HIVE-wise, it has started out better. The other two things are still tanking.
Sometimes, one out of three ain't bad.
I invite anyone who doesn't really feel like listening to me vent or rant or whatever I'm going to end up doing (after having such a positive report the month before), to move on to other things. Don't waste your time. Even so, I will try to not say things I will only regret later.
Posts (no comments)—13
I got started late out of the gate posting and never really caught up. That's on me. I can't even remember what derailed me, either, since it happened toward the beginning of the month, when I wasn't working, rather than towards the end, when work started to pick up.
Comments—144
Unlike posts, I began May commenting more in the first 10 days than I mustered the remaining three weeks. That I can blame on going back to work, since it left less time to attempt to comment on other people's posts aside from my own. And since engagement was also down on my posts, there wasn't as much to reply to.
Upvotes given—368
Like everything else, this represents a drop off in upvotes from May of just under 17%. Could be worse, but certainly could be better. I'm still manual upvoting, and I'm still okay with that.
Upvotes received—1,213
That's off roughly 800 upvotes from April's total. I've had received upvotes fall like that before (sometimes, it only takes a large curation trail to miss a month's worth of posts), but in the previous cases the percentage of the descent was lower because the total number of upvotes was higher. This represents about a 40% drop.
If not for the curangel trail, it would have been even lower. I'm not sure what happened with the larger communities curation, but regardless of what community I posted in, neither of those showed up. I should also mention that a smaller version of the curie trail came calling once, too.
Thankfully, there continue to be the diehard autovoters. It's hard to tell how many there actually are—if I had to guess, there's a core group of 20ish and then it can go up and down from there. Also, there are several Orca-sized accounts that seem to do quite a decent job of curation, along with all of the minnows, planktons and dolphins. Whale upvotes were mostly absent, or very small.
I'd like to know if others felt like curation plummeted in May, or if it was just me. If it was just me, whatever. I'll hope for the best going forward. If I'm not the only one, though, I'm hoping it's not a trend, because this whole EIP depends on curation.
Earned HP—189.411
So, a 600 HP drop from April's All Time High. I didn't really have an expectation of it continuing to go up, but neither did I think it would fall so far. That's the lowest it's been since August of 2019.
Relatively speaking, there are many who would love to have that increase. I understand. For most of 2018, I was in the same boat. With more recent success, however, my expectations are a little higher. But if curation isn't happening on my posts, it would be nice to know why.
I don't think I did anything different than I normally do. As usual, I was all over the place with subject matter. I think I maintained my usual higher standard, as subjective as that is. So, I don't know what happened, and not sure how to go about fixing it.
It's probably best I just consider it an aberration, somehow be thankful that it wasn't less, do what I can to improve on it in June, hope for the best, and move on.
Certainly don't want to make it any worse.
I should add before moving on that total earned HP is now at 6,332.829
Highest single payout—3.653 HBD/11.266 HP
This actually happened on my first post of the month, which was also the monthly report of April. It's the second time a report has been rewarded the most.
Contests—1
I received five HIVE from the friendly folks at foodfightfriday for a contribution to their weekly contest. Since placing is determined by the upvotes of those who actually participate, I have those who voted for me to thank, as well.
Much obliged.
Reputation ranking—69
No change from last month. Not even close. I think the amount moved maybe 0.1 all month. That's actually probably a generous estimate. Obviously, I didn't keep track. There wasn't much reason to.
Will June get me into the 70 rep range? Still plenty of month left to move the meter.
Investment—256.247
I managed to get the above amount from my STEEM account and through Ionomy. I have more that I could have brought in, but for some reason, I lost roughly $140 in USD going from STEEM to BTC with one larger conversion. I don't know if it had to do with a spike in fees after the halving, or what. STEEM had its fork just before that, too, so I don't know if that was a part of it, or not.
Whichever or whatever it was, I'm not happy about it.
So, the remainder I brought in is still there, trying to recoup at least some of that in BTC. Given the way my luck seems to work with all of this crypto stuff, BTC won't do anything for months, I'll get tired of waiting, take the loss, and then BTC will take off.
Thus, it's my fault (even though it could take the next 12-18 months, if history serves as a guide still, for BTC to head to new All Time Highs after the latest halving), that BTC isn't mooning yet.
If I could only truly wield a thousandth of that kind of power otherwise.
Eventually, I do plan to convert the BTC into HIVE and power it up at some point.
With the above amount, that brings the total invested in HIVE to 12,141.688 (fiat and STEEM conversions). Total HP as of May 31, 2020 stood at 18,474.517.
Miscellaneous
I've decided to stop reporting on a couple of categories that really haven't been serving much of a purpose. I will no longer track self-upvotes or downvotes given/received.
Despite my current dour disposition, as I mentioned earlier, June is looking better HP-wise. If I can figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with my life, that would be another improvement, and if people can get whatever it is they want from whoever it is they want it, maybe the world can calm down and take a breather.
Yeah. I'm hoping for two out of three instead of one out of three. I don't have any control over what the world at large does.
So, as always...
Onward and upward.
Image source—Pixabay
For another monthly report (without nearly as much grousing), @bashadow has been sharing his numbers, as well. You can find his May totals here.
Hi Glen, it seems you're feeling a little flat in the real world which probably heavily affects your activity here. I think 2020 has been very tough for so many although that certainly doesn't negate your own feelings. I hope you find the spark you're looking for, or require, to get you back on track. I wish that for all of us around the world I suppose.
I wish you all the best on hive for the following month and, more importantly, in life itself. Stay strong sir.
Hey, @allover.
Thank you for the kind words.
I'm not one to give into hopelessness, but the way things are right now, at least in the US with the protests and the back and forth on social media, it's gotten to the point where it's impossible to do anything without someone taking offense. Which doesn't really help the true cause, if indeed, it is the true cause.
So, it gets to the point of being pointless, really quick, and yet no one stops. They keep going.
My personal situation has been going on for about 7.5 years. The job has mitigated some of the issues to a degree, but it's also created some others.
May is over and June has already been bearing better fruit, so that's fine. It's more the frustrating feeling that I've had several times throughout my time on STEEM and now HIVE that I'm constantly starting over. Quite a few people manage to get out of that but I haven't figured it out yet, and after nearly 2.5 years, I'm figuring I should.
It is a very troubling time I'll grant you that, and I'm not surprised you're feeling this way; Many are. You are right about the negativity that seems to exude from the protests. They preach love and equality but there is no follow through, just hare and violence.
With the social media thing you mentioned, all I can say is to delete it, the social media, altogether. There is nothing positive to come from it, and if there is the negativity far outweighs it. I'm not one to tell people what to do, but I do not see there being any point to drawing that negativity around oneself.
You know, I saw someone put a meme on social media recently calling people who say all lives matter racist. (She was white). So...My conclusion can only be that some of those BLM supporters don't want equality at all, and are indeed racist in turn. I mean, she wasn't black. So is she saying she does not matter? I can't find any time for someone who holds a sign that says kill cops and loots businesses in the name of peace and equality. All lives matter Glen, including the 10,000 people that die in drunk driving deaths each year in America. Including the 3,500 people who die in road accidents around the world each day. No protests about that though right? People from all backgrounds are hurt, victimised and killed unfairly. They all matter. To say they don't is counterproductive. This situation will broaden the divide.
It's all crazyness in my opinion although people seem more interested in doing something that provides some ability to feel better about oneself no matter how poorly implemented and how lost the real message gets. Fast forward a month and those same people are on some other soap box.
I have to ask, if you find steem and hive so frustrating why do you remain? It's like Facebook for me...I found it negative, so left. Cold turkey. If you're not happy why do you persist? I'm not suggesting to go, just trying to understand as feeling negative is not a nice way to feel and cutting out the source will help improve the situation.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding, if so please forgive me. I hope you get to feeling better sometime soon because I've been where you are and it's no way to be. Best of luck.
Hey, @allover.
HIVE hasn't been the source of frustration for me as far as social media goes, or what people are talking about mostly. There are those, I know, who are talking about and taking stands as far as current events go, but I don't see all of that. I don't really go looking for the tweets or the facebook posts—they show up in news articles, though. So, it goes beyond just someone's feed, and as it is, I'm not on Facebook much at all and I only go to Twitter because we're encouraged on HIVE to help get the word out.
I do have sons who have very much been a part of the consuming of social media so I get things through them, too.
So, it finds me.
As far as earnings here on HIVE and before it STEEM, up until last month, I was seeing rises in earnings on posts. Last month felt like the bottom dropped out as far as upvotes went, and I've been wondering if I was the only one that happened to.
Otherwise, even with the inanity that can happen here—with people who can't seem to be happy over anything, satisfied about anything, or take the other extreme when something is actually wrong—I'm still here because I'm trying to build a future and it's been the best way for me so far to do that without investing a bunch of money in systems or entities that I ultimately can't trust. Here, I'm not 100% trusting anyone either, but there's always going to be risk, no matter what. You pick and choose what risks to take.
re: feeling this way
It's not like I (we) haven't seen this all before. It just keeps getting recycled and sometimes repackaged. So, it's not new. I personally think it could be resolved in a relatively short order, and should have been ages ago, but there really isn't a desire on anyone's part to do that, because it's not in anyone's own self-interests. Too many people in power would lose their power, and I'm talking from all sides of the equation. If things get resolved, people don't need others who claim to stand up for them or fight for them when really mostly what they're doing is fortifying their own power and enriching themselves.
So, it's all rather pointless and futile, yet here we are again, wagging fingers at one another and playing the same old tired game of who's to blame. And so many people treat it like it's all so new and revolutionary, or they think that somehow it's going to change the world this time, and somehow for the better.
What it's most likely to do is push things to the other extreme, and so we'll have another subset of people unhappy because now the pendulum has swung the other way.
Very few of us can hold conversations with each other anymore without someone getting upset about something because it doesn't line up with their own ideas, passion or sensibilities. We can't even seem to get black people to agree completely on what's happening or why, or how to resolve it. We just have to have equality, whatever that means, and however that gets achieved.
There are many problems in the world and it suits people's sensibilities to feel like they are doing something however what benefit that have may be questionable. I avoid social media at all costs, I even stop people from talking about what they see there as it is completely irrelevant to me, and often negative and so damaging. It doesn't make for good conversation as most seem only to want to talk about the latest rubbish they saw on Facebook but I'm ok with that. My well-being is more important.
Just on the voting thing. I think there was some change with the auto-voter which enabled people to put not only a daily limit, but a weekly limit in autos. The weekly default was 2 which meant that no matter how many daily maximum votes a person had set on a user, say 1 per day, it would only vote twice per week. If a person hasn't adjusted that then they're auto-voter will be skewed. Less.
Anyway, my hope is that you find what you're looking for to get you feeling better. No one should have to feel poorly with no path forward. As I said, I felt that way previously and it was a difficult time. I wish you happiness.
Hey you can't win every month, just keep your chin up and carry on, also more time offline is never a bad thing!
It's probably just a one off dip month.
Do you trust ionomy btw? I've had several occasions where I haven't been able to login, yesterday their entire site was down. I moved most of my limit buys off there last month. Right decision I think!
Hey, @revisesociology.
I guess it depends on what winning every month is. On the post front, it felt like I was being ignored. I don't know if it was, I just know what it felt like.
I'm at the point where I do earn a fair amount in "interest" on my stake, along with better curation than I used to. So, that's all good, but once things begin to improve, you don't expect to crash through the baseline, which for me would be upper 200s to lower 300s.
As I mentioned, wasn't expecting another all time high, or even another second all time high. The amount of posts I pump out and their subject matter definitely have something to do with it, so it is what it is.
re: Ionomy
I did trust it until this last time. I think I can email to find out what happened, but I haven't tried that yet. Problem is, I don't have a whole lot of options. And when STEEM wallets go down on other exchanges, it doesn't really matter. You have to wait, anyway.
A problem, there's probably more, is that these exchanges are all centralized. So, they seem beholden to the rules set up in the country where they're at, plus the rules where they're patrons are at. And the US seems to be among the heaviest handed when it comes to rules, so I'm stuck, over and over. In fact, it seems like the only way to really not be stuck is to have gotten in on Bitcoin before the regulation came down, so there would be enough of that to do anything else with it.
Crikey, you do sound a bit down, as you say, it is what it is, onwards and upwards, don't dwell, look forwards to June!
I here you on exchanges, I think it's easier here in the UK.
June should be better, I have taken pretty much Sunday and Monday off on Hive, recouping from last weeks push trying to get to Dolphin status on Friday. With my power down being set for Wednesday I should have no problem, especially with the curation/votes I got on my last set of post, so I think May was a kind of slow curation month for a lot of people, so hopefully June picks up for you.
Hey, @bashadow.
My first post last month was May 7, and I think my last post before that was on April 29, so time was taken off from HIVE, whether it was helpful or not. That was definitely part of the problem. However, it wasn't all of the problem. If curation was just down for May, that's one thing I guess, but still not good. We don't want that to happen.
I've felt several times over the last 2.5 years that I finally get on a roll and then something happens and then it feels like I'm starting over again. I don't like that feeling.
That is great statistics of what you did and received on hive. May in future you receive more of it. God bless.
Hey, @praditya.
Thanks. I appreciate that very much. And for you, too. :)