As I scan the Scorum Blogging Platform and read the comments in chat rooms I continue to see instances where members are confused about their role here on the blogging platform and how best for them to earn an income and profit off of their investment. While I can't tell you specifics about how the algorithms and formulas work to produce the final payouts for blogs, comments, and upvotes, I can provide a general guideline that will help you decide where you fit into the community and how best to utilize both your time and your upvote power. Some of what I'm going to say here runs contrary to what many of you think is the right way to do things, and I'm certainly not about to try and tell you that I'm the expert and that you should do things exactly how I tell you to. I'm just going to give you the facts as I know them and tell you my opinion on the best way for you to proceed. But it is your money, your investment, and your account so all I'm asking is that you consider my thoughts on the matter and adjust your efforts then as you see fit. Those of you with contrary views are most welcome to post them in the comments, let's discuss the various views and ideas together so that we can all learn and gain from the experience.
The Investor
For the true investor, a person or group that has a sizable Scorum Power account but very little time or desire to put into blogging or curating, the Scorum Blogging platform must be very frustrating right now. So far there are no easy ways to get around this problem, you are in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. If you just start clicking and voting on everything that you see to save time, you will gain the ire of the platform. But if you just let your investment sit in the account you are losing all of your potential rewards, which is not fair. So what are these time-strapped investors to do? The answer is obvious to me, they need an easy way to hire good curators and pay them a percentage out of the earned curation awards. I'm proposing an easy "built-in" way of doing this right on the platform, but until that can be integrated if it is even possible, we need for a third party developer out there to come up with a good workaround solution. I know that there are examples of ways to do this on Steemit, they are not as perfect as a built-in design would be, but they might help until a more permanent solution could be implemented.
A possible alternative solution, for now, could be found in using the delegation feature to rent out voting power. An investor with a lot of SP could delegate that SP to good curators for a fee. The curator would then keep the curation rewards and pay the investor a set daily, weekly or monthly fee. Of course, since there is no formal contract involved there would have to be a level of trust involved, but the potential for some rewards to the investor would be better than a surety of no rewards at all.
The Blogger
There are those of us who are bloggers (lowercase b) and then there are some who are Bloggers (Uppercase B). What I mean is that there are a lot of people who can write an enjoyable blog from time to time, but a Blogger is someone that was just born with the gift of writing and it is in their blood. To a blogger like me, writing a truly valuable blog is hard work and it takes a lot of effort, but to a gifted Blogger writing a blog is fun and it is just second nature. There are a lot of Scorum members that are neither bloggers nor Bloggers, they are simply making an attempt and hoping for a few votes from undiscerning fellow members who are in the same boat. Not everyone is born with a gift for writing or with an imagination to come up with stories. Even fewer people are willing to take the time to research a blog, check all of their facts, and make sure that everyone that contributed information for that blog is credited for their contribution. In truth, many so-called bloggers on Scorum are nothing more than copy and paste bandits who do not deserve an upvote. When we upvote someone who has put almost no work or effort into a blog we are participating in the theft of someone else's work and we cheapen Scorum. And by using our upvote carelessly we are also stealing from the Bloggers who actually possess the writing talent and skills and who are working hard to deliver a truly unique work of art that deserve the reward for their labors.
As a little "b" blogger I realize that my blogs have value on the platform because they are my own original work except for the instances, like photos and graphics, where I reference back to the original content creator. But blogging is not necessarily my gift or what I'm best at, blogging is hard for me and it is work. You are not likely to see a blog from me every day, maybe once or twice a week if I think that I have something to add to the platform. But what I can do every day is curate and comment on the Blogs of those gifted ones, and on the other mere bloggers who are more like me. Thus my expectation for the future is that I will be making as much or more income thru curation, which I will talk about next, as I do from my blogs. So I expect to be a little of both, part blogger and part curator, I'm sure that many of you will also fall into this category.
Here then is what in my opinion a true, 100% certified gifted Blogger should be doing to make the best use of time and earn the greatest rewards. First of all, if you are a Blogger then you are probably going to be writing a good high-quality blog just about every day, at least five every week. This means that you will not have a lot of time to be out reading and curating other blogs. So how best to use your voting power? The obvious answer to me is that you should be giving your highest upvote to the curators who read and make the best comments on your blog. Whether they are in agreement with you, or whether they make a good case for another opinion if someone takes the time to read your blog and then make an intelligent reply that ads to the overall discussion, then you should reward them accordingly. I will discuss the distribution of these comment rewards in the curation section, but it is basically very lucrative for the curator and for the Blogger, it also just makes sense. By saving your best upvotes for the curators of your blog you will be fueling and funding the perfect way for great curators to add content on Scorum and receive a proper reward for their efforts. I have heard of people who are flagging big upvotes on comments, and I can see that for a selfish upvote or for a worthless or abusive comment, but someone who actually reads the Blog and makes an intelligent response deserves a reward from, if no one else, the author. This doesn't mean that the professional Bloggers shouldn't be out reading and curating the blogs of others, I'm just saying that the priority should be toward their followers and loyal readers who upvote and comment on their work.
The Curator
In my humble opinion, most of the members on Scorum need to learn how to become great curators. This is something that almost any of us can accomplish because even if we do nothing else we can upvote the best content at the right time for the highest rewards. Here is a basic breakdown of how curation awards are paid out, it is not complete because the payout algorithm is weighted and includes the time stamp of the vote, but it is close enough to give everyone an idea of how it works.
From page 32 of the Scorum White Paper;
"In order to protect the system from spam voting, we implement the
following system: during the first 30 minutes after publishing a post or
a comment, a portion of the voters’ rewards goes to the content
creator. If a vote or comment comes within the first minute of content
publication, 100% of rewards will go to the author. This percentage will
gradually go down to 0% by the 30th minute."
First of all, a Curator must know and understand that if they vote within the first minute of a blog being posted then 100% of the reward will go to the author of the blog. The majority of the reward will still continue to be awarded to the blog's author until 30 minutes has expired. This is a safety feature that was installed to prevent instant automatic upvote bots from stealing the maximum possible curation rewards from living users. So voting early is a very good way to reward the author of a quality blog, which comes in handy to use as a tip or as a way to encourage new bloggers. But for the person trying to make a living through curation, it is not the best plan.
Ideally, a professional curator will want to place his best vote, on the very best content at exactly the moment when the first 30 minutes has expired. By doing this simple step and by being patient, and by recognizing great content, you can greatly multiply your rewards as a curator. Many of those who are even now struggling to try to write a blog, or who can not write and are trying to cheat by plagiarizing the works of others, can easily learn how to become a professional curator and earn a very good income here on Scorum without so much fretting and discouragement. I have seen for myself that with just a little effort an account can double in value over one month with curation alone. That will not always be true, but it is right now and even as our membership rises and the total amount of SCR/SP rewards decreases, the value in fiat money of those rewards will be increasing which will easily allow curation to hold its place as a great income opportunity.
When you upvote a blog after the first 30 minutes then 75 % of your upvote will go to the author of the blog, the remaining 25% will go into a pool to be split between everyone who upvotes the blog. The payout from this pool will be weighted and your final reward will be a factor of when you voted relative to the other voters, and also on the amount of your upvote. So there are basically at least two rankings to determine how large a percentage of the overall upvote pool you are going to receive, this will include Time + Amount of vote as compared to the other voters. Thus the highest possible curation award for upvoting a blog would come to you for being the first person to vote after the first 30 minutes and for your upvote to be the greatest amount as compared to all others. If you can do this, and if you pick a great blog that will be sure to receive a lot of upvotes over time, then you will get a very generous reward for your effort. Voting at any time up until the end of the sixth day will still give you a good curation reward, but the best reward will go to the biggest and earliest upvoters.
Now here is where your curation can go from the easy amateur stage to the more professional and useful true curator state. So you have placed your best upvote on top quality content, it is now time to reply to the blogger. I once read a post from a blogger that stated their greatest peeves was when some would-be curator came by and left a comment that just said, "Good work" or "Great content" or something to that effect. What these commentators are really saying is that they don't care about your blog and that they're certainly not going to take the time to read it, but could you please upvote my comment anyway? Simple two word or one line comments are not going to get you many upvotes, and instead, they can actually hurt your reputation in the long run. If you don't have time to read the blog or if you don't care anything about the content, then it's best to just upvote the blog and then move on to the next blog. But a professional curator is going to read the blog and make an appropriate comment, this is how they can add value to the discussion and that value should receive a reward.
When you do leave a comment then, try to add something to the conversation! The more you add to the conversation the more the readers are likely to upvote your comment. And guess what? Your comment is just like a miniature blog! That's right, you will get paid for every vote on your comment just exactly like the author of the original blog is getting paid, but you don't have to do a lot of research or even worry that much about grammar and spelling, though it certainly helps to make a good impression. You will get 75% of the reward for your comment and the person that upvoted you will get 25%. So listen up Bloggers, by upvoting those who comment on your blog you will be receiving just as much, or almost as much of a reward for that upvote as you would by upvoting someone else's blog and you will be increasing the number of curators that will want to visit and read your blogs. This is an important concept for the overall health of the platform because it will ensure that both the great Bloggers and the great Curators get properly rewarded for their efforts.
Commenting on the blog is then the first level of curation commentary. Next comes the second level, which is commenting on the first comments. If someone then comments on a previous comment, and this second comment receives upvotes, then those votes are split 50%-50% between the author of the original comment and the author of the second comment, the author of the blog receives nothing from a vote on an extended comment conversation unless that author also stays engaged in the conversation. What this shows is that it is very rewarding for you, the curator, if you come back to a blog that you have commented on and then upvote any comments under your own comment.
As you can clearly see the Scorum Blogging Platform has been designed to reward anyone, investor, blogger or curator that comes in and stays engaged in the conversations. If you are active on the platform and you actually become personally involved then you are going to profit from your efforts. For those investors who don't have time to put into blogging or curating I'm confident that there will be ways in the future that you can earn a significant income on your investment, and at the same time support the platform and help others with more time than money.
I hope this blog helps and encourages everyone to keep working and to keep honing your skills. By doing this we can all receive the greater rewards of added knowledge, wisdom, friendship, collaboration, as well as monetary increases from the time that we spend here and the money that we have invested.
I give my permission for anyone to translate this blog in its entirety and in its original context and post it in their own blog of their primary language Scorum site. I just ask that you please include a link back to the original English version here.
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