![curie.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdk5Z56cTWYgL93dpX5yb6NPMeLA8bwWbcnZqZ9emFZNF/curie.png)

### <center>What do Curie curators do?</center>

Curie curators keep their eyes out for exceptional content on the entire Steem platform. They discover promising talented authors who are creating exceptional content, however not receiving much of rewards and exposure. When curators discover exceptional posts they submit them for a review. After a review posts may be approved, rejected or closed. Approved posts receive upvotes from @curie and its trail. Curators receive 8 Steem of finder's fee for each approved posts as a compensation for their efforts.

### <center>New Curator Recommendations.</center>

New curators can join Curie through mentorship and recommendation process. Curators who demonstrated excellent curating performance become mentors and get the ability to recommend new curators. If recommendation is successful and newly recommended curators perform well within certain period of time, mentors get rewarded with recommendation bonus. However, poor recommendations will lead to the loss of recommending ability. 

### <center>Who are the Mentors?</center>

Only direct curators, top direct curator contenders, and curators who achieved AR >= 90% and CS >= 25 (AR & CS explained later) can recommend new curators. These folks are the mentors because they have the ability to recommend new curators. 

Direct curators are those who over long period of demonstrated high quality curating skills with their high accumulative CS and AR. They don't have to submit their posts for review, Curie directly follows their votes. Currently, direct curators are @alcibiades, @teofilex11, @carlgnash, @milosm2302, @liberosist, and @markangeltrueman.

Top direct curator contenders are those who are close to becoming direct curators. There are no direct curator contenders at this time. They are announced in monthly [Curators Review post](https://steemit.com/curie/@curie/5vzemb-curators-review-october-2018) that is published in the beginning of the month at @curie blog.

Curators who achieved AR >= 90% and CS >= 25 the previous month are @lordkingpotato, @misterakpan, @gibic, and @jazzhero. These mentors change every month based on curators' performance and are also announced in monthly [Curators Review post](https://steemit.com/curie/@curie/5vzemb-curators-review-october-2018).

Some mentors choose not to participate in mentorship/recommendation due to lack of time. Some designate other curators to do the mentorship for them. All mentors have their own methods of mentorship and criteria for recommendation. For the most part the goal is the same - prospective curators are expected to demonstrated they have or can learn quality curating skills.

### <center>What are AR & CS?</center>

AR is Approval Ratio and CS is Curation Score. These are the numbers used to keep track of curators' performance.

`AR = (Total Approved Posts) / (Total Submitted Posts).`

`CS = AR * AR * (Total Approved Posts).`

For example, if I submitted 10 posts and 9 were approved, my AR would be 9/10 = 0.9 and CS would be 0.9 * 0.9 * 9 = 7.29. AR is usually displayed in percentage. AR 0.9 would be same as 90%. 

### <center>What to do to become a Curie curator?</center>

1. Join Curie Discord at https://discord.gg/6KRftMH if you are not there already.
2. Go to #announcements channel and read the pinned messages. There you will find guidelines that Curie curators follow in submitting posts. Get familiar with them. After reading them if you still have questions feel free to ask in the #general channel. 
      >Guidelines - November 15
>1) Verified and engaged authors only who have been consistent without much success of late. Focus is on new authors who have made few good posts, but haven't been discovered yet. Posts from the high REP authors have to be exceptional.
>2) Posts must be more than 90 minutes old (30 minutes for top curators), but less than 72 hours old, with maximum $3 pending payout.
>3) Only original content. Articles, art, poetry, videos, recipes, etc. that appear first on Steemit. (I.e. no reposts of older work) Please check for plagiarism and reposting before submitting. Content must be exceptional and unique.
>4) No Steemit-related, religious or political posts.
>5) Submission limits are dictated by curator's performance the previous week, according to these tiers (the numbers below are weekly limits) -
AR =>85% and top 4 curators with highest CS - Unlimited submissions [Those with unlimited submissions will be required to maintain at least a 70% approval rate at all times, mid-week.]
In case of a tie, curator who had higher CS previous week will be in the top.
CS =>2.5  but not one of top four curators by CS with AR > 85% - 15 submissions
CS <2.5 and new curators - 5 submissions
All curators are required to maintain 70% AR at the end of each calendar month regardless of the number of submissions. Curators with more than 5 submissions have to maintain 55% AR (this will be checked starting mid-month). Otherwise they may be restricted from proposing immediately. Each month resets on the last day of the month, 1500 UTC. Curators who had 15 submissions will keep the same limit if they maintain 100% AR with 2 or less submissions. 
Direct curators and direct curator contenders may ask for a daily limit exemption.
Cumulative CS >250, AR >95 over 6 months earns a direct follow from @curie.
>6) English posts only.
>
>Finder's fee is 8 Steem per approved post.

3. Now that you are familiar with the guidelines and still would like to become a curator, go to #become-a-curator channel and express your desire of becoming a new curator.  As I mentioned earlier, mentors have their own methods for mentorship and recommendations. From there, mentors will be able to guide you through their mentorship process.

P.S. Curie uses https://www.becquerel.io for submitting posts. You can also see list of Curie approved/upvoted posts there. Some curators use https://steemlookup.com for finding exceptional posts. Both tools are developed and maintained by Curie.