Exciting news!!!
I was curied!
I know not as exciting as you getting curied but I do like sharing!
What's interesting about this, besides that it was on a gardening post, my least favourite thing to do and talk about, was the impact it had on my reputation (REP) score. Of course, I was excited about the 300 plus votes and 35$ but I had been slaving away at 51 for weeks and just this weekend reached 52, expecting that it would take many more weeks of hard work and quality efforts to reach 53, if not longer as I have heard that each REP level is ten times harder to get than the prior one.
So, imagine my surprise when I checked my VP on SteemNow* and saw that my REP had jumped close to 53 bypassing most of 52 with one upvote, at this stage only thinking of @curie as the upvoter.
*Change the username in the URL to yours to find out some interesting details, including your current voting power.
However, upon further reflection, it's not one upvote, as I already said above I got hundreds. With the price of Steem these days for many that does equate to a sub 0.00 upvote but its an upvote all the same. So what made the most difference to my REP? The hundreds of upvotes or the one large upvote, who as you can see below is from someone linked with @curie, not Curie themselves.
@curie at 26%, top vote @hedrikdegrote 28.14$
Let the research begin!
Curie
First, It looks like the Curie reviewer decides the % the post is worth and the backers follow suit at the same % determining the overall value of your post. After some investigation I found this was an option under the curation trail section on Steemauto, @curie has close to 800 followers, they can either vote with a "fixed" or a "scaled" percentage. Fixed as in you set it and scaled as in the original upvoter, in this case, Curie decides on the vote and all others follow suit.
So why didn't I get the full 791 upvotes assigned to the curation trail? Because Steemauto is smart and has a "Limit on voting power" section in setting that allows you to set the minimum VP you wish to cut off your auto voting at! Now, that's a win for the good guys or is it the smart guys! If you don't know about voting power (VP) please do check out the post at the bottom of this as its super important if you want to succeed on Steemit.
None of this while interesting answers my original question of why my REP jumped, so let move along with what makes a REP.
What's so important about the REP number?
In theory, it is supposed to be an indicator of how trusted you are on steemit and a source of protection against low REP authors taking vengeance on your REP. How well does this work? I am not too sure as I it looks like the bid-bots throw in a dynamic that was not originally planned for, only time will tell.
Key things about REP
After some more research I found the same things written time and time again:
- We all start at 25, this is a super simplified breakdown of your actual reputation number found on steemd. There is a very complicated formula that I am not even going to show you as understanding the calcualtion will not help understand your REP.
- It only increases with upvotes (on posts and comments, comments are just as important),
- and it only decreases with downvotes or flags.
- The illusion I had at the beginning between account value and rep is highly unfounded,
- as is the link between REP and such terms as “Whale” as you don’t need to have a high rep to be a whale nor does a high REP mean that you are a “Whale”.
I mean look @berniesanders, he is a huge and well known, his rep is -17, something I thought impossible to do but a flag war will do that to you, lucky it has no effect on his overall account value which still sits at over $6K
I know why they shortern it now!
Two things to note
So your REP can only be affected by up & downvotes, what happens if you are unfairly downvoted? First sadly life isn’t fair and sometimes we get flagged for things outside our understanding and while it can hurt our post payouts, there are a few safeguards for your REP.
- Anyone with a negative REP cannot affect your REP, either up or down.
- Downvotes will only affect your REP if the downvoter has a higher REP than yours.
Reward Shares
This is where it gets tricky and sadly I have been told you must understand it, to understand how the REP is calculated.
Every day there is a renewal of the reward pool, when you vote you use your portion of the reward pool dependant on your SteemPower to reward the author 75% and the remaining 25% to the people who voted for the post/comment, yes this includes you.
The 75% is simple, it goes to the author and is not split any further, the curation percentage, on the other hand, is much more like Steemit and a complicated beast. There are a few factors that affect the reward share you receive from your upvote.
- Time of the vote, the best time is said to be at 30 minutes but this is affected by prior voters.
- Reputation,
- Steem Power,
- and current Voting Power (VP) held by the curator.
All these factors combined give the curator or upvoter a Reward Share.
Found on @ilyastarar's POST. I believe this information used to be available on steemdb but I was unable to replicate from the votes tab, if anyone can show me the *reward shares from my most recent post WARNING: The Ficus Tree and The Booty! I would appreciate it.
Reward Share to REP
I am so confused, how did we go from REP to Rewards Shares and now back to REP. Just hang on for a little longer, I promise it will come clear, well as clear as I can get it in my head…
The effect each voter has on your REP is a complex calculation using the REP of the voter and the reward share the voter has received as part of voting for your post. This is then added to that giant REP number I showed you on steemd. Which is then simplified back down for Steemit into our simple two-digit REPs.
While this hasn’t answered my initial question of which is better the one large upvote or the 300 plus other votes, the missing reward share information may have helped with that. I have, however, come to the conclusion that both aided in raising my REP fast, which raises a whole heap of other questions around the use of bid-bot’s and the ability to raise your REP even with spam if you had enough money to lose.
Yes, I said loose, but that is for another day. I hope this has helped you understand more about how your REP works and how it is affected by those around you. Thank you @curie for thinking my post was worth an upvote, I truly appreciate it and love the boost you give to undervalued consistent Steemians.
*Please note that I am still new, only three months in and this is my interpretation of how a REP works using many articles to decipher, I may be special but it took me that many to come to my conclusions, even within these articles I found conflicting information, so if any part of this is incorrectly stated, please let me know in the comments and I will fix.
Power Up and Steem ON!
Want some inspiration or a maybe a laugh, I'm pretty funny I have been told. CHECK out these posts, all brought to you by @insideoutlet!
WARNING: The Ficus Tree and The Booty!
Good Friday, The Good, The Bad & The Ficus!.
Foosball fun for a Good Friday eve!
My hubby is also a great steemian worth a follow, check him out @shai-hulud. Below are some of his:
Steemit Week 1: Who Are You
Don't get hooked by a Phishing scam. Actual steps you can take to protect yourself.
Steemit Day One #2: Why lock an Empty House
Welcome to Steemit. Day one: Get ready for the learning curve.
Don't forget to follow us so you don't miss a thing!
What to know more about @shai-hulud and I Check out these posts: If you like it please consider upvoting a more recent post as this one has now paid out.
Butt naked with 2500 other cruise line passengers! Featured in @qurator & @asapers
Love isn’t always shit free. Featured in @thesteemengine and #themagnificentseven from @catweasel & @enchantedspirit
How I got flipped Inside Out... For REAL! Featured in @thesteemengine
Did YOU know that your upvote needs time to recharge? If not check out this post below, if you like it please consider upvoting a more recent post as this one has now paid out.
Steem & Voting Power, how not to waste it!
One last thing! @asapers a new curation team has started a profit-sharing curation post promotion, follow @asapers to check it and more out!
Images are were taken from steemit blockchain related webpages.