Reputation

Many times, I have heard advice from seasoned Steemians cautioning others to pay no need to certain numbers belonging to other Steemians — numbers such as Reputation Score, accumulated SP, etc.  Still... it is difficult to do that sometimes, and the numbers make one wonder.

As an example, I have watched my own Reputation score climb slowly since I have been here and it is now 58. I am very proud of that, as I have been working very hard to support others while networking and growing on the platform!

Another Steemian who joined the platform about the same time I did shared the triumph that they had reached a Reputation score of 60 recently. Another Steemian who joined two months after me is already a 62 Reputation! Don't get me wrong: I am very happy for them, no doubt! They deserve it! But, it also made me wonder what I might be doing wrong to not be there, too, simultaneously.

According to the FAQ on Steemit:

• Your reputation goes up when accounts vote on your content.
• Users with a lower reputation score are unable to affect your reputation.
• Every time another user upvotes one of your posts or comments, it increases your reputation score. The more Steem Power that the voter has, the larger the effect is.

So, apparently, the Steemian that reached Repuation 60 already has done so because more higher-rep people have upvoted their content than mine. The FAQ goes on to say:

• The reputation score is one way Steemit measures the amount of value you have brought to the community.
• The best way to earn upvotes is by adding value to the Steemit community.

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Well, darn it, that is what I thought I was doing. I take great care with my posts. The post you are reading now has been crafted by me, carefully, over the course of a roughly four-hour period: thinking, typing, proofreading, changing, tweaking, formatting, proofreading again, moving things around, re-formatting, re-proofreading, and so forth. I would not be happy with it, otherwise.

I also feel that I am generous with my upvotes/comments to others' posts. If anyone disagrees, please let me know!

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• I proofread my posts multiple times, before posting as well as after posting, for errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
• I make an effort to construct my sentences in a manner that makes my point clear, without ambiguity.
• I make an effort to refrain from using idioms that might be confusing to those whose first-language is not English.
• I make an effort to carefully balance the formatting of my posts, so that they flow easily and are pleasant to read.
• I make an effort to keep my content interesting and understandable by explaining things in simple language.
• I make an effort to include at least one photo/image with each post so that it is not merely dry-text.
• I make an effort to include as many of my own photos/images as possible, and only resort to using a borrowed image when necessary. On those occasions, I make a conscious effort to cite the source of the image/photo.
• I make an effort to ensure that my posts are always interesting in some way: either from a helpful viewpoint, an educational perspective, or from entertainment value.
• I make an effort to post frequently-enough to keep a decent flow of content coming, but not so frequently as to drive people away by the sheer quantity of posts.
• I never engage in "tag abuse" and always carefully pick the main-tag and auxiliary tags for my posts. Even when posting from Steepshot where more than five tags are allowed, I never add them frivolously and without thought.

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Yesterday, @lynncoyle1 mentioned Where Do Your Upvotes Go?, a post by @abh12345 which offered to generate a pie chart showing how any given user's outgoing upvotes were being distributed among other Steemians. The pie chart he generated for me shows that most of my outgoing upvotes are aimed at Redfish (those with less than 500 SP) and Minnows (those with less than 5000 SP) vested into the platform.

Next...

Thanks again to @abh12345 in Where Do Your Upvotes Come From?, I learned that my incoming upvotes chart looks like this, with very few Dolphins, Orcas, and Whales upvoting me:

^{• MY INCOMING UPVOTES, CHART BY @abh12345 •}

Perhaps I need to start paying more attention to posts of people with higher Reputation than me, to foster support from them rather than those with a lower Reputation than mine? However, that sounds rather pretentious and like "gold-digging" to me. Besides, if few of us reach-down to help pull others upward, how will those below us grow?

What I am doing now is to network on Discord and the Steem blockchain, upvoting what naturally comes my way that is of value, without looking for posts by any particular Reputation or vested-SP.

Regarding networking, I am in The Alliance, Steemit Bloggers, Steemit Ramble, PALnet, VO,TU, Steem Sugars, Golden Project, L❤Â, Steem Community Coalition, Helpie, Whaleshares, The Steem Experience, AIR-Clinic, T-Pot, and a double-handful of other communities. People who join servers often say to me, "Oh! You're here, too? You're eveerywhere!" So, networking alone does not seem to be the problem.

I encountered another person on the platform not long ago that was celebrating his becoming a Dolphin with 5,000 SP after only six months on the platform. Heck, I've been here eleven months and have yet to break 800 SP — and about 60 SP of what I have was purchased by me when the price was low a while back and I scraped-together a little to invest. He attributed his success to "working hard," but I have been doing that, too, almost all-day, every single day since I've been here. The only difference is that I haven't made $150 here, $60 there, $300 yonder, on posts like he has miraculously done, yet his posts are no more quality-content than mine, per my own estimation.

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Am I incorrect in thinking that my blogs have quality? Perhaps I am blogging about the wrong things? Do I need to make longer posts with even more research than I am doing now? I have no clue.

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In the end, though, I must admit that I am having fun on the platform, I value the networking and friendships that I have made, and I have accumulated crypto-value that I did not have before I came onto the Steem blockchain. So, I am grateful for all those things, despite my lower-Reputation score and lower-SP than some others who on-boarded the same time as me, or later.

Critique and comments are welcome. Thank you, in advance!