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@transisto wrote an excellent post the other day that garnered a bit of attention.  In it, he called out many of the [whales](https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/leoglossary-whale) for what he viewed as abusing the [reward](https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/leoglossary-reward-pool) system on Hive.  Here is the article for those who missed it.

https://steemit.com/steem/@transisto/whales-witnesses-we-have-to-talk

For those who are unaware, @transisto is one of those whales who has a desired interest in seeing the [Hive](https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/leoglossary-what-is-hive) platform ascend to great heights.  He was one of the early entrants on here and truly is one of those who likes to see things get better.  Sure, he has a [financial](https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/leoglossary-finance) interest the same as everyone else.  However, from what I can tell, he is not out there trying to scalp [curation rewards](https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/leoglossary-curation-reward-hive) simply to pad his [account](https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/leoglossary-account).  In my opinion, he is one of the whales trying to make things better around here.  The fact that he took the time to call out some of his fellow whales shows this desire.

That said, I am not really in a position to call out the whales.  In fact, I feel that many are doing their best on here to make this place grow.  Nevertheless, as I close in on 5000 [Hive Power](https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/leoglossary-hive-power-hp), I feel there are some points I can make to those people who are in the range of 1,000HP-10,000HP.

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Each day, we get 20% of our [voting power](https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/leoglossary-voting-power-hive) replenished.  At  a 100% vote, this amounts to roughly 10 votes since each one takes about 2% power.  Of course, if you use less than 100%, you will get more votes. My point here is that many like to complain about the whales circle voting and taking up an unfair percentage of the reward system.  I believe the mindset is "the rich get richer".  Leaving all this aside since I expressed my views in a couple posts already, I will ask those who are not whales what are they doing with their voting power?

One of the reasons why the whales can get a larger percentage of the reward system is because most people on here do not use their voting power fully.  The whales know exactly how many votes they are using each day and are mindful of where they go.  Some will complain about them using their 10 votes on each other (or 20 at 50% or whatever they do) yet few point out that one major factor is they are using their votes whereas others are not.

Whales carry a great deal of voting power on an individual basis.  We cannot contest this point.  They have the ability, with one click, to move an article to the trending section.  However, on a collective basis, there are a lot more dolphins, minnows, tuna, swordfish, and whatever the other categories are.  There are a handful of whales when you compare the numbers to the total minnows and dolphins.  Without looking it up, I am going to guess that the 1000-10000 VP range is the most heavily populated.  The total voting power in this group most likely exceeds that of the whales.  

So I ask you again, are you using your allotted voting power on a daily basis?  Are you aware of how many votes you can place at each level?  How many 100% votes did you give to other people yesterday?  

One whale placing a vote at $12 is the same as 100 people upvoting at $.12.  So, before we complain about what the whales are doing, let us all spend our allotted daily voting power on the quality content we find.

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###### <center> Upvoting Oneself </center>
There appears to be great debate on here about upvoting one's own content.  I stood back and watched for the past three months before drawing any conclusions.  Since a few have asked me, here are my thoughts.

Upvotes are for quality content.  Personally, I feel I post quality content, hence I am worthy of an upvote just like everyone else.  I see nothing wrong with anyone upvoting their own articles.  If one is willing to take the time to create some original content that required a great deal of effort, I have no problem with someone recognizing him or herself when new.

The next point of contention is with upvoting one's own comments.  Personally, I rarely upvote one of my own [comments](https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/leoglossary-comment-hive) unless I write an essay in the comment section.  While I do my best to make quality comments, it just is not something that I feel I should upvote on a regular basis.

What are my thoughts on those who do?  From what I can see, most who do this are selfish in nature.  What I mean by this is that those who continually upvote all their comments tend to not upvote others.  They use all their voting power on themselves.  To me, this is unacceptable and I try to not upvote a person like that for any reason.

Now I will state that I have someone on here that I follow who I respect and admire.  He upvotes all his comments.  However, I noticed that he upvotes almost every comment posted in his articles.  In addition, not only does he upvote all comments, he uses the same VP as he does on himself.  He does not place his comments above anyone else.  If you post a comment, as long as it is more than "nice article, thanks", he will upvote it.  To me, this is him spreading his VP around to anyone who interacts with him.  This is much different than simply upvoting oneself to the exclusion of others.

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So there it is.  Overall, I have no problem with anyone upvoting his or her own articles nor do I think it out of line to upvote yourself if you are treating others the same.  Spreading the VP around is what will move Hive forward.  Those who use their VP to only benefit themselves are showing how little they understand the broader concept of a thriving, active [blockchain](https://leofinance.io/@leoglossary/blockchain).

Please let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.

If you found this article helpful, spread some of your VP to me and throw this a rehive.

Pictures from Google Images