<center>![dustsweeper logo by @charisma777](https://i.imgur.com/8Jy8k6b.png)</center>

Welcome to @dustsweeper’s Frequently Asked Questions. This post will hopefully give you a better understanding of what Dustsweeper is, and will hopefully answer all your questions. After reading, if something is still not clear, please comment or jump into our [Discord server](https://discord.gg/393sY9G)

The word comment is used throughout the text, referring to both posts and comments. The same concept applies to posts so the words can be used interchangeably.

## What is dust?
A post or comment is considered to be dust if it has a value of less than $0.02 at the time of payout.

Anything less than $0.02 will not be paid out.

**So even if your comment is worth $0.019, at payout you will receive nothing. Zero, zilch, zip, nada, nothing!!**

Please see the end for a more detailed explanation of dust.

## What is @dustsweeper
@dustsweeper is a service that will take care of your dust and protect your profits.

@dustsweeper will scan your comments on the 5th/6th day and upvote it above the $0.02 threshold.

@dustsweeper will vote your command above $0.026. Even if there is a price drop before payout, this should be sufficient to stay above the $0.02 dust threshold.

In the rare event one of your comments would drop back below $0.02 before payout, the cost of the vote will be returned to your balance.

## How can I get started? - Transfers to @dustsweeper
Send a small amount HIVE or HBD to @dustsweeper. **That’s all!!**

Please send it directly from your account, using the hive.blog or peakd.com wallet, or keychain etc. Do NOT send it from an exchange, otherwise the bot can not track the sender.

You can get started even with a small amount, as small as 0.1 HIVE. That should be enough for at least 2 votes.

The money you transfer will be added to your balance as HIVE. So if you transfer HBD, the HIVE value will be calculated and added to your balance.

You will always receive a notification after a transfer. This notification is in the form of a 0.001 HIVE memo transfer. To avoid abuse, 0.001 HIVE is deducted from the amount added to your balance.
**Previously this was only deducted for small transfers, transfers smaller than 0.2 HIVE, but recently changed to apply for all transfers.**

## What does it cost?
The amount subtracted from your balance for each @dustsweeper vote is equal to the profit you make as an author.

The calculation is based on the 50%/50% reward model, taking curation rewards and HIVE&HBD prices into account. The return from the vote itself is not meant to provide any profit. That is the whole idea. **Your gain is purely from the saved dust.**

So in other words, the service doesn't cost you anything. You can see it as making a deposit where the money will be returned with every @dustsweeper vote.

## What is the exact upvote value?
If you have been with @dustsweeper since the start you might remember a fixed upvote value. That is no longer the case.

@dustsweeper is now voting only with the necessary weight to make your comments worth at least $0.026. 

For example, if a comment has a $0.009 value, @dustsweeper will vote with $0.017, but if the comment has a $0.019 value, @dustsweeper will vote with only $0.007

The exact upvote value will be used in the calculation above when reducing your balance.

## When does @dustsweeper vote?
There is no fixed time and this might fluctuate in the future. At the moment @dustsweeper votes until the Voting Power reach 80% and then sleeps for 6 hours. 

## Why did @dustsweeper not upvote my comment?
The most likely reason for a skipped comment is due to high demand. @dustsweeper needs HIVE Power, a lot of it,  to be able to vote, but if there are too many comments and not enough HP, skipped comments are unavoidable.

Missed comments do not mean @dustsweeper skipped you. If @dustsweeper needs a break, she will start again from the same spot where she took the break.

## Which comments qualify?
Comments with an upvote value larger than $0 and smaller than $0.020.

Comments with only self-votes are excluded.

To get a bit more technical, Dustsweeper is looking at the rshares value of the comment instead of the $-value. This is actually a recent change. Previously Dustsweeper used the 3-decimal $-value, where any comment with at least $0.001 would qualify. Taking rounding into consideration it meant a value higher than $0.0005. With the old system it was possible to have an upvote with a positive value that didn't qualify. 
With the new system, any vote adding a positive rshares value will be included.

There are still cases where votes can add a zero rshares value. Please read further in the last section "What is actually Dust, Dust Votes and Minimum Payout Threshold?"

## Does it matter when I join?
No, your old comments will qualify for @dustsweeper.

So if you join today and have a 4-day old comment, it will be upvoted by @dustsweeper before payout.

## Can I Send A Friend @dustsweeper As A Gift?
Yes, you can!
Start the transfer memo with the text `to:` followed by the username. For example: `to: danielsaori`

The user receiving the gift will get a memo explaining it was a gift sent from you. The memo will also include the link to this FAQ.

## What is my balance?
Check your balance with the following two options. 

* Login to Dustsweeper's [Discord server](https://discord.gg/393sY9G) and check your balance with the `$stats` command.
* Make a transfer of 0.001 to @dustsweeper and you will receive a balance notification.

## Can @dustsweeper be used when I upvote other people?
This is still not possible, but it is the next change to be implemented. Hopefully, this will be ready within the next month.

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# Delegating to @dustsweeper
It is possible to delegate HP to @dustsweeper and be paid while doing so. I am not promising riches, but it is a nice way to support a community service and being rewarded at the same time.

## How it works?
If you are delegating HP to @dustsweeper you will be rewarded for every @dustsweeper top-up. If you delegate 10% of @dustsweeper's total HP, you will receive 10% of all top-ups. So if a user sends 1 HIVE to @dustsweeper to top-up their balance, you will be rewarded with 0.1 HIVE.

* Delegate any amount to get started.
* 5000 HP is currently the maximum for the reward calculation.
* Anyone can participate, you do not need to be a Dustsweeper user.
* Transfers/top-ups to Dustsweeper will be returned to the users, proportionally to each user's delegation.
* Stats can be checked in Dustsweeper's Discord Server.

## How much do I get paid?
It is very difficult to give an accurate estimate, especially over a short time frame, as it all depends on the frequency users are topping up their accounts.

Here are two observations I've done so far:
* Over the last 20 days on HIVE, from 1st to 20th of June, the annual ROI was 15%. (The actual value was 28% but I disregarded from some very large top-ups just after going live on HIVE.)
* During 3 weeks in mid-2019, the annual return was 16%.

When we have been more than two months on HIVE I will provide a better estimate.

## When do I get paid?
* Profits will be paid out daily as long as it is above 0.01
* Profits will be paid in both HIVE and HBD.
* Profits below 0.01 will be accumulated.
* The only exception is if you stop your delegation, then any amount above 0.001 will be paid out.

## Abuse protection
The 5000 SP maximum delegation is to minimize the risk of someone abusing the system. Without the threshold, a user could delegate a large amount of HP, top-up the account, and the un-delegate again. That way they would be able to claim a large amount of their own top-up.

With the 5000 SP threshold, we at least reduce the profitability for someone attempting this kind of abuse.

We still serve the right to adjust the Dustsweeper balance for any user deliberately trying to take advantage of this.

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## What is actually Dust, Dust Votes and Minimum Payout Threshold?
Right, I would like to begin by apologizing. I am sorry if this will confuse you, but I felt it would be good to do a proper breakdown and explain the various terms linked to Dust.

Let's begin with Dustsweeper. Dustsweeper is dealing with something referred to as Payout Dust, or more properly described as the Minimum Payout Threshold. This is the threshold set to $0.02 in the blockchain code. If the payout value of a post/comment is below this threshold at payout time, there will be no payout. This concept has not changed for a very long time.

Another term related to Dust is Dust Votes. A dust vote is an individual vote that is considered too small to exist. The blockchain will ignore such vote and it will have no monetary value.
With HF20 there was a change linked to Dust Votes. The parameter for a dust vote remained at "50M rshares", but how it was implemented changed. Before HF20, the 50M rshares parameter was considered a hard threshold, votes below this threshold was not accepted. If voting below this threshold, an error would occur and the vote would never be registered. At the time of HF20, around 1.2SP was required to reach 50M rshares. 

With HF20, instead of being a hard threshold, all votes casted were instead reduced by 50M rshares. Small votes falling below 50M rshares were no longer blocked but instead given a value of 0.
Although these dust votes are now visible on the blockchain, I believe most frontends do not show them.

Dust votes are also relevant to Dustsweeper as only comments with an rshares value above 0 will be considered for a Dustsweeper vote. Although voted, with an rshares value of 0, the comment holds no monetary value, hence no dust can be saved from Dustsweeper's point of view. I hope that makes sense.

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Thank you for reading.
Written by @danielsaori.

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![dust sweeper](https://steemitimages.com/DQmZBsqBSTL2TsoX9ywy9prX7r762XV29VxwPvE2aVcQTan/Picture_20180513_211411075.jpg)
<sub>**Designed by @charisma777**</sub>
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