As I announced in one of my previous posts, where I’ve been researching @minnowbooster loan services, I have learned a great deal about curation in the process. I think that some people’s struggle and accumulation of so much votes on some of the posts is related to the fact, that user lack the knowledge about the exact way how curation works. No worries! That’s what I’m here for.

The Real Basics

So everyone who has done at least a tiny bit of research probably knows this. Still in order to have complete explanation of the curation, the real basics have to be explained.

The closer to the beginning of the chain the better

Imagine all the up votes on every single post like a chain. The closer spot the beginning of the chain you beset, the bigger portion of the curation reward you snatch. This rule is there to incentivize users to seek good stuff early and vote for it.

The more SP one has, the better

SP plays crucial role in determining few factors. First is probably obvious to everyone and that is the value of the vote. The more SP one has, the bigger portion of the reward pool is allocated to the post/comment where he votes. That is though not the only thing that is determined by the SP. The portion of curation reward you get to take (presumably) linearly grows with it too. Simply put – power up, from long-term perspective it’s worth it.

The More Advanced Stuff

Post Age

Very important factor is age of the post. This is where all the curation gets a bit tricky, though it doesn’t stop here! When the post/comment is created a 30min countdown is started. The closer to 0-minute-age of the post you cast your vote, the bigger portion of your reward you give to the author. At 30th minute the % given to the author reaches 0.

All my calculations have been done with SP 200-550. It’s highly possible that with more SP voting behaviour should change. What worked for me so far though is voting between 15-30 min. If I vote earlier, I give too much of already low reward to the author, keeping very little to myself. If no one has voted for a post I want to vote for till 15th min, it’s totally perfect and I wait even more. I’m keeping a close eye then, prepared to vote for the post as fast as I sense valuable votes coming in its way. When you have your favourite authors, you will soon learn when the valuable up votes come in and act accordingly. The best outcome is when almost no valuable vote has come in before 30 min mark.

Highly Advanced Stuff

Why is it worth it to vote for users that receive very minimal payment

Ok let me put it straight. If the content is shit, its shit. Don’t vote for shit content. But there is plenty of content that is good, but doesn’t receive payment. Now why would it be worth it to vote for such a content you ask? If you vote for a post let’s say around 20 min mark and the post already has between 5-20 bucks on it. You KNOW that the post will have additional 50-150 bucks on it in next 30 mins, so you cast vote feeling how well you curate. Now let me tell you a secret. If there already was a vote worth 5+ bucks on the post, even if it additionally receives 150 bucks after your vote, you don’t get to see much of the reward. Why? Because the SP of the user who has voted before you is high enough to take the majority of the curation reward, because he has found it earlier than you have and he did have the SP to afford voting much earlier. Shocking right? I know.

On the other hand if you vote for low value content. Let’s use me as an example. Lately I struggle and don’t receive much valuable votes. So if you vote for this post let’s say in 15th min mark, you will probably be one of the very firsts to do so. By that time the post will have around 20 cents of value. Since there is no valuable vote before you, you get to take all of the portion that you can with your pathetic SP. It’s likely that this post will reach at least 1,5 dollar mark. If it does you will receive much more curation reward, than if you voted on a post that had 20 dollar on it in 15th min and will end up being trending 150+ dollar post. Even more shocking right? Now imagine that a whale decided to vote for me for my effort, as it from time to time happens. Your single vote for me has suddenly evened up your whole week curation reward, assuming that you didn’t know what to do and you weren’t particularly lucky.

Moral story of the day? Vote for quality low value content, it will pay off.

Putting all the obtained knowledge to good use

This is where it gets REALLY tricky. It isn’t that easy to summarize all the facts assembled and create a working curating strategy. I personally have doubled the effectivity of my curating after executing this strategy.

Assume we work with SP between 0-1500, therefore we are the lowest of lowest minnows. Calculations have been done with such SP. If you have more you have to adjust your voting behaviour. You can suddenly profit where we, the low class, can’t.
Power up! Not only you will gain more SP over time, but the prize of the Steem will grow too. And you want that believe me.
We either have to find users, that receive low payment on their post, or those that receive high, BUT POST 15 MIN, or both (I highly suggest that).
Don’t get stuck voting for the same people for the whole duration on this site. Find your favourites and support them I’m not saying you shouldn’t do that. I actually ENCOURAGE that. As long as the voting behaviour of the rest of the users remain the same as before, yours can remain too, but if it changes, you have to adjust. Did some user you have voted for started to receive valuable up votes early? Find someone else on whose post you gain at least some curation reward.
If you happen to have over 500 SP, don’t use the slider to give less than 50% vote much often. Your power is shitty as it is and you need to CONCENTRATE your votes.
DON’T vote for posts that have over 15 bucks if you want to receive any payment.
VOTE for posts that look valuable to you, but it’s not reflected in the current reward status.
DON’T vote for shit content. Every vote counts and every vote going in a way of shitty stuff KILLS the site in long-term, because instead of supporting those that work for the page, you support those that are here just for easy-peasy money and don’t give single fuck about the outcome of the page.

I hope I helped you guys! Let me know what you think and maybe in time, whether you have had same success with it as I had:).