Hi all!

Yes that's right, from this week and for at least the next month, The Curation Leagues have sponsorship from the awesome @carlgnash and @paulag. Without this, and the support from yourselves and the likes of @fulltimegeek, @v4vapid, @acidyo, and @anomadsoul, the prize fund would not exist at present due to the more difficult times we are facing.

And so, thank you to all of the above and everyone who visits each week and gives their support, awesome!

To enter the leagues until you say otherwise, drop a comment below!

On your marks, get set, curate!

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Introduction

My general views on maximizing curation rewards (to score highly in League 1) are:

• Voting in the first minute will earn you a curation reward of almost 0.000

• Voting between 1 and 29 minutes will earn an increasing % of the curation rewards split, this value peaking at 30 minutes and remaining the same from this point onwards

• The goal is to get in prior to the big hitters, but not too early!

• It is commonly suggested that 15-25 minutes is the 'best' time to vote (especially on known 'power author' posts because they are likely to have more auto-votes coming in at these times - and you want to be ahead of these votes)

• A vote of equal weight and equal Steem Power at 30 minutes will give more reward than a vote at, for example 1 hour - first come first served, but don't arrive to early :)

• Voting on good dtube content and utopian-io approved contributions (prior to the vote by @dtube / @utopian-io ) can earn some very good curation rewards

• Voting on @ocd posts is likely to gain good curation rewards as founder @acidyo, and @anomadsoul support these posts after giving time for other accounts to vote - you will be in front of a couple of large votes here!

As you can see, a combination of many variables such as Steem Power, voting strength, voting weight, time of vote, (and more) all play a part in the amount of rewards received.

My general opinion on maximizing engagement (to score highly in League 2) is:

• Spread your vote and write lots of engaging comments!

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The data for league 1

The raw data has been collected from SteemSQL - @arcange's MS SQL Server copy of the Steem Blockchain.

SteemSQL is now a monthly subscription service and so your support in this post is greatly appreciated!

The key formula used for 'quality of financial curation skill' is:

Curation Rewards DIVIDED BY Steem Power MULTIPLIED BY 1000

This will return the amount of Curation rewards gained per 1000 Steem Power held

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The rules (which will cause auto-filtering of your account if not met so just enter anyway and see what happens!) to appear in this league:

• Must have voted at least once on a piece of content in the past 7 days

• Must not have leased or delegated Steem Power in the last 14 days

• Must not have Started a Power Down (withdrawal of Steem Power) in the last 15 days

The 2nd and 3rd points above are required to reduce distortion of the figures.

And, as curation rewards for the past week are actually taken from votes made up to 14 days ago, we need a 15 day window as mentioned above.

Don't let this put you off entering though - you will be automatically be excluded/appear depending on the criteria above.

Curating for maximizing returns - League 1

_{See the rules above if you are missing from this table}

The end column is what I think is a genuine indicator of how well you are financially working the curation game with the tools, including vested Steem Power, that you have at your disposal.

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This weeks' winners!

Congratulations to @crypto-econom1st! 2nd last week and a storming week this week - With a low SP it is possible to score high, and in time some adjustments (like SP bands - argh more work!) might be needed for prizes. Good job dude!

@mys, last weeks winner who uses the '@utopian-io' approach is a good 2nd and looks like he'll be tough to knock out of the five too :)

Well done to @freyman (new entry), @williamsyee (new entry), and @patay69 who all take the remaining prize spots with an excellent number per SP owned.

Prizes for all of the above!

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Community Curation Excellence - League 2

This the newer league which is not based around rewards and relates to engagement.

Everyone currently on my master list has a chance here - delegation dealings or not.

I've used some metrics (which is the fancy way of saying that made up some numbers) relating to:

• Posts (P)
• Comments - number of (C)
• Comments - outside of your own blogs (C E)
• Comments - length in characters (C L)
• Witness votes (W)
• Upvotes to others (V)
• Upvotes to different authors (U V)
• Self-votes - a minus score for this one sorry! (S V)

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Firstly, if you are placed in the table above then you are doing great! Over 100 names don't score more than 1000 with my rather harsh (but fair I think) scoring system.

Congratulations to @gillianpearce who tops the league of engagement and excellence this week! A recent delegatee which has clearly inspired her to do even more this week, well done Gillian! :D

Well done to @davemccoy, @lynncoyle1, @bashadow, @themanwithnoname, @themobilewriter, @abh12345, @beeyou, @goldendawne, @aussieninja, and @blazing who take the remaining prizes positions this week, nice work all!

I am sending at least 1 SBD to the top 10 in the league (excluding myself so well done lucky 11th place!)

Do you want to be a part of the leagues? Let me know below!

_{(Calculations may vary from week to week but always with a goal to find top community engagers.)}

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Prizes sent!

Curation League 1

Curation League 2

And new delegations to:

Err, no-one this week!

Everyone in the top 10, bar the ones selling votes to bid-bots, is currently receiving delegated Steem Power from myself, and so I'm saving it this week.

But wait... that works in your favor though! 0 votes to self from moi means more SP for you guys :)

Potentially, repeat high scorers in league 2 could be DSP boosted, lets see.

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A quick message to other Dolphins, Orcas, and Whales

Doesn't the league table represent how good delegating even a few hundred SP can be for engagement within the community?

If you haven't already, join me!

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Finally

A few points:

• If you have spotted any glaring errors in my post, please let me know so I can fix them

• If you would like to be added or removed from my personal curation league, let me know

• If you have any other comments or suggestions, please enter them into the box below

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Thank you for your support, have a great day!

Asher @abh12345

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_{Asher is a Steemfest 2 attendee who lives off the crypto he earns on the STEEM Blockchain.
He owns 1 pair of jeans and a bicycle and values engagement and community building here on Steemit above all else.
If you like this post and think it would benefit others, please consider an upvote, or a resteem, and a comment!}