I approve of this message!
We all need some aggrandizement.

amazing and very interessing post thank you for sharing resteemed and shared in the steemit faceebook group

I have only recently started upvoting my own posts. It was a difficult moral decision to make as I always wanted my work to be rewarded by others on the platform. Now with the big rise in voting bots i feel I have to compete for exposure in whatever way I can. 
Does my work bring value? I believe so, it will have long term value for whom ever stumbles accross it. It may not be as popular right now as some photos of a half naked girl or a post about Steemit reward pool rape but in the future long after the seven day payout someone will find it of value. 
After spending hours putting it together I want to reward myself for the work i put in albeit with my tiny vote. Otherwise whats the point in me keeping my Steempower stake.  I do wish the system was working better for content creators like myself but until the day that happens unfortunately Ill be selfvoting my posts. 
My cooments are to try and bring value to other people's work and it is for others to decide if that is so.  
I suppose what I'm trying to say is we all need to find our own ethical litmus test.

Steemit how enormous a stage I have they got the possibility of ​​your post. Thank you very much sir @aggroed

@aggroed while I welcome your post, I still have an issue with the self upvoting. You talk about passing your own litmus test, but should it not be up to the community to decide if your post or comment passes the litmus test, or am I missing some understanding? As always thanks for your continued work to build this community.

You are a good friend I am amazed you are steemit friends good and that I have ever known

          You upvoting yourself at $0.100 is not really a big deal. What people, especially new users do not see is the percentage a vote is unless they do a little bit of digging. On this post it was a 10% upvote. I think a lot of people saw what @grumpycat did, and I still think that a lot of people new users, dolphin, and yes whales fail to understand what he was trying to point out about the self voting. Prior to his doing that how many people even realized it was going on? 
          Completely off the topic, but related,Can you tell me what a "producer award" is? I am part of a group of individuals that try to help new users, and if any should ask me that question I would like to be able to answer it. Does it have something to do with being a witness? 
          Also I do not have "all" the background and inside info of what went on between @dan and @ned, but Steemit is pretty much @neds. Yes he lets people play in his sandbox, he let people invest in his sandbox. But at the end of the day it is his sandbox. He is responsible and answerable to any remaining owners, but if he want to destroy it, isn't it his right? So I really do not have a problem with him deciding if he wants something posted or not posted. Advertised or not advertised. Think of all the possible upcoming problems if he would have been actively supporting and promoting bitconnect, ( I think that was the scam crypto, but not totally sure), he would have FBI, CIA, State of Texas Justice division, and S&P police division pounding down his door, along with probably a hundred other government I want my slice of the justice pie alphabet soup departments. So his toy, he is allowed to be as petulant as the next guy if he wants, yeah it may affect his future ability to draw investors, but that is the bed he makes every time he commits something to the blockchain.

Very good post and very well written.  Thank you for it.

I do hereby solemnly swear or aver that if you sell out I will come after you like a biting sow.  You asked, I will.

Congratulations @aggroed, this post is the eighth most rewarded post (based on pending payouts) in the last 12 hours written by a Superhero or Legend account holder (accounts hold greater than 100 Mega Vests). The total number of posts by Superhero and Legend account holders during this period was 38 and the total pending payments to posts in these categories was $4026.84. To see the full list of highest paid posts across all accounts categories, [click here](www.steemit.com/steemit/@bitgeek/payout-stats-report-for-5th-february-2018--part-ii). 

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Litmus taste can prove it.

I just can't tell you how informed I am reading  this,  you did a crash course  of Steemians  whales in just few minutes of reading.

This was a great post. You cleared up some grey areas for me, mainly with the bid bots. I haven't used them to this point because I wasn't sure how to think about it. I will look to invest in some bid bots moving forward and see how it works. I do split a lot of my voting power with those who engage with me but I also want to get paid for my effort as well. I will continue to fine tune my curation process to maximize overall value to the platform. Also, just a side not I have powered up 3 times in the last 8 days and I'm super excited to be investing in my future here on steemit and the community as a whole! Keep on steemin!! :-)

Good post @aggroed you've shone the light on a few things here I wasn't immediately aware of.  Self-voting is a tough topic to take on but I think the litmus test idea is fair.

*"Culture is King"* I think is the key component for the long term success of the platform.  I'm exploring this and hoping to come up with some best practise guidelines for people to aspire to.  I think if we can improve our culture we can set a good example and lift the whole platform up.

Sometimes I self vote just to push my comment to the top of the stack. How do you feel about this? It's not because I think my comment is good. I just want to start a conversation.

@aggroed very well put, excellent examples!
I haven’t upvoted my comments recently seeing as my power is low I run out, I never thought past the point of trying to get visibility. My vote doesn’t count for much anyhow. I do not think you need worry about your self votes on posts, I always find your posts helpful in some way and personally think you should be able to pay yourself for the effort without confrontation! That said your examples show how some try to “milk” the system for personal gains.

@aggroed keeping in mind that of course I'm a complete newbie to this stuff....  but I'd like to offer an opinion about the steemit platform- and this is just my own personal perspective.  Content is Key- because it is *through* content/value/energy that this platform operates.  It's not because of cryptocurrencies/Steem coins- because *without* the Content/value/energy that is posted here, there would be nothing to attract people to the platform and therefore there would be no reason for it's continued existence.
We all need "money" to live.  Truth.  And I completely comprehend the allure of Steemit as a way to "make money".  But to me (and again, this is just my own perspective), if people are here just to "make a buck", that doesn't add value to the platform, nor does it do anything to raise the value of the platform.  It feels to me, after just a couple of weeks here on Steemit, that there are a lot of people who are here "to make money" *Off of* the platform, and yet are not, seemingly, capable of adding **value** to the platform.  THAT is the conundrum as I see it.  And I can't help but wonder if people using Steemit for a while have forgotten that basic point.
d
![1 unfucker badge.jpg](https://steemitimages.com/DQmWfouw7SQHJpiGxNc2tfNDqe6QpAATiBjZCX6pibkehGi/1%20unfucker%20badge.jpg)

You are truly right @agroed I think it's high time the bots find a way to curb these spammers... Because they are ruining the Bot experience for the minnows especially. @dee-y over and out.

Superbly written, now my biggest concern with this whole self voting or reward pool rape, is what is going down with the bernie v hj show, they have both started turning on each others commentators, this abuse of power is smashing new people into the ground, just for showing interest in what they think, are two people to vote on, for high returns. The new people have no idea about the whole war, in's and outs, they just landed here. And some of them paid to get in here. I think it is beyond unfair for either b or h to be bashing down new people, who are simply trying to follow "the suggested rules" to vote for and comment on high value posts. Peace and respect, drops mic & out.
self voted comment to rise above spam.

nice post

Very cool post @aggroed . I like the tone of this post as well as the content. WE all have to live by our own rules, and through consensus we are finding a common ground of what is OK and what is not.  It's good to see this discussion happening, and some  efforts toward keeping the 'company' that we are all invested in to be honorous as well as lucrative! 

I know many whales are working really hard on keeping Steemit on the good path, and i DO have faith and confidence that even though (right now) it is somewhat of an oligarchy.. that in time things will spread out a bit  more evenly. What I am REALLY happy about is that despite reward pool rape by many with a lot of power, they also have a genuine love of Steemit and generally act in a decent and cool manner and have good intentions.

The big difference between Steemit  Oligarchy and Centralised State Run Oligarchy is that we all genuinely DO have the opportunity and potential to rise up and become one of the big fish. No one can stop that here, and this is Steemit's 'Get Out Of Jail Card',  ... that it IS decentralised in the most fundamental ways.. 

Ommmm

lol. i like the fact that after criticising everybody, u still have to do the same for yourself. 

And honestly, i must say that your observations are a bit true judging from the few days i have been on this platform,


don't worry, when I'm quite familiar with the system, i hope to come back and critic this post as well.. lol... nice one


ELDAHCEE

@grumpycat, your presence is needed here.

Come and read this

Thank you

<center>This was a very timely and helpful post. I was trying to comprehend how all of this works, within the parameters of what is seen as acceptable within the Steemit Community just last evening. Another member had just happened to post something that made me feel that I had better look into this topic further before I dared to either (bots or upvoting) to gain some more exposure for my posts. Thank you for the guidance once again! :) </center>

Give me litle rat

My upvote is only around 1 buck for 100%, but sometimes I will use it to get above spammers in a post that has a very long reply list.  I completely agree that some people are badly abusing self-voting valueless content.  Thanks for being on point on this issue and for everything else you do to improve this community!

You had me rooting for you up to here:

>I use my bidbot to help me cover some of my life costs

I think it was @berniesanders that said, 'Get a job, steem isn't here to support you.', but that was a long time ago.
Maybe he will confirm, or deny, that that is still his position on the matter.

It remains my contention that ganging up to influence who does, and who doesn't, get rewards is reward pool rape.

When you only support those that join in your reindeer games, and nobody that doesn't, you are on shaky moral ground, in my book.

As long as the contrarians and dissenters don't find support here, because we ain't popular, you are just bringing the same game into steem that most of us are trying to leave behind in the broader world.

Thanks, a lot.

thanks for sharing about somthing chemistry
overall that ls very good 
I apprise with you

Personally I dislike self voting at all levels of the game. I pledged a few months ago to not self vote and I have stuck to it. I'm just a minnow so the value barely makes a difference but as I grow I will maintain this personal  rule. 

Of course, everyone is free to decide how to use their stake.

## With great stake, comes great responsibility.
 

I, personally think, this social experiment called steemit, is starting to show us who is indeed a responsible person by nature, and who really isn't. 

This is perhaps something we all need to learn from and try to be a good example to others. Especially those with a massive ~~ego~~ stake on steemit.

good

Stunning post, thanks for sharing this

Resteemit done

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXtNzy5mPF6xCxaisxSRruxoo9jU5SWNBBcpgbbR95igV/image.png)
I could get a slider w/ one of those upvotes!

I think that's probably the best advice.  Vote responsibly.  @crimsonclad said a similar thing when i first joined.  If you're adding value - there is no problem with a self vote.  I took it to heart.  As for bid bots...they helped me get started, now that I have a tiny amount to be able to delegate  I don't use them as often.  But hey...if they're growing people.  I don't see the problem.  There's bad apples in every community, but my thought is that good usually wins out.