Most of us tend to vote on an article we like as soon as we read it. __But will the vote fetch profitable curation rewards for us?__ 

After HF19, when you vote for an article in the first 1800 seconds after its publication a part of the curation reward goes back to the author of the article. This is called ___reversed auction___. The earlier you vote in this window the more you lose your curation reward.

![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmPK1Ti3RbpVRMubSh789khe7v6JEievT8M2Rv49MhNZY6/image.png)

___Source credit:___ https://steemit.com/steemit/@calamus056/curation-rewards-explained-in-great-detail

___So how does a top curator vote despite this disadvantage and be profitable?___

I was looking for an answer to this question and as luck would have it, [How to maximise your curation rewards?](https://steemit.com/cn/@htliao/am-i-one-of-the-best-curators-on-steemit-in-terms-of-curation-rewards) by @htliao appeared under the new articles section. 
This is what he says about his general strategy:
>Firstly, for some famous authors, I tend to vote between 15 and 27 minutes after the post is created.
>And for the newbies and less famous Steemians who make a good post I tend to vote after 30 minutes. In a more ideal case, not many people have voted before and some dolphins or even whales vote after me then the curation rewards can be maximised.

Since he has made this claim and I was looking for this information in relation to the second part of my [vote distribution till payout](https://steemit.com/steemit/@dbdecoy/overview-of-vote-distribution-on-posts-till-payout-part-1) article. I thought why not analyse his voting pattern in the first hour after an article is published?

#### What is this article about?
We are going to see when @htliao has voted for different categories of users in the first hour of the publication of their articles during the last 3 months. 
___Categories? Again?___ Looks like I can recite these terms even in my sleep!

| Vesting Power        | Category          | 
| ------------- |:-------------:| 
| Above 1000 MVests     | Whale | 
| Above 100 MVests     | Orca     |  
| Above 10 MVests | Dolphin      |   
| Above 1 MVest | Minnow      |   
| Below 1 MVest | Plankton     |  

#### Tools used:
* Blockchain data is sourced from steemsql.com by @arcange.
* The data is compiled and charted on Google Sheets - an excellent online alternative to MS Excel.

#### The Method:
I am deriving the category of authors from the Accounts table, The article and its creation time comes from the Comments table while the voting time is taken from the TxVotes table.

#### The Results:
Vote distribution by category in the first hour:
https://s1.postimg.org/6tnza4e30v/Screen_Shot_2017-10-04_at_08.07.41.png
Votes distribution by time in the first hour:
https://s1.postimg.org/4d5tev9cwv/Screen_Shot_2017-10-03_at_16.46.15.png

#### Observations:
* @hltiao has never voted the so called ___Whales___ in the past 3 months.
* ___Orcas___ got 134 of the total 5210 votes he had made in the first hour.
* More than half of his votes are for ___Minnows___ with ___Dolphins___ and ___Planktons___ sharing the third place. 
* Majority of his votes are for ___Dolphins___.
* In the first 15 minutes he almost exclusively votes only for ___Dolphins___ and ___Orcas___ along with a tinge of ___Minnows___ appearing as time progresses.
* 22 of his 1300 odd __Plankton__ votes came in the first 15 minutes.
* His voting activity increases from the 15th minute and remains near the top till the 36th minute.
* The ___Planktons___ get his attraction from the 15th minute and are prominently featured afterwards.
* Minutes 30 to 35 are the peak activity time when a flurry of voting takes place.
* __Minnows__ attract most votes during this peak period followed by ___Dolphins___ and ___Planktons___.
* There is a sudden spike in voting at the 39th minute but decreases by half afterwards.

So a majority of votes by @htliao occurs between 30 to 35 minutes after an article is published. He is also active after the first 15 minutes but reduces his voting once an article crosses the 40 minutes of publishing.

There are a lot of people following @htliao's curation trail, so If your article gets noticed by him in the first 40 minutes of publishing then there will be a lot of incoming votes in the first day. You may even end up on the trending page!

#### Like this article? Checkout my previous posts:
[Google Sheets for Steemit data analytics?](https://steemit.com/technology/@dbdecoy/using-google-sheets-to-pull-steemit-data-from-steemsql)
[My ten cents on SMT](https://steemit.com/steemit/@dbdecoy/steem-media-tokens-a-gist-of-the-whitepaper-without-the-technical-stuff)
[Are you voting at least 20 times a day as recommended by steem.io?](https://steemit.com/steemit/@dbdecoy/steemit-average-votes-per-day-by-user-category-2017922t174410936z)
[How is the vest power distributed among users?](https://steemit.com/steemit/@dbdecoy/steemit-vest-power-population-distribution)

___I am a part of the Steemit Business Intelligence community. We all post under the tag #BIsteemit. If you have an analysis you would like carried out on Steemit data, please do contact me or any of the #bisteemit team and we will do our best to help you...___

Join the fabulous Steemit Blogger Discord community:
https://discord.gg/e5XFZKa

![PotterfootPink.gif](https://steemitimages.com/DQmY7LMpc5AofTEY6J1zApxWvzkCYNoar64TkD5BUKYRPB4/PotterfootPink.gif)

___Cheers and happy steeming,___
___dbdecoy___

<center>
[![](https://steemitimages.com/50x60/http://steemitboard.com/@dbdecoy/commented.png)](http://steemitboard.com/board.html?user=dbdecoy) [![](https://steemitimages.com/60x70/http://steemitboard.com/@dbdecoy/votes.png)](http://steemitboard.com/board.html?user=dbdecoy) [![](https://steemitimages.com/70x80/http://steemitboard.com/@dbdecoy/posts.png)](http://steemitboard.com/board.html?user=dbdecoy) [![](https://steemitimages.com/100x80/http://steemitboard.com/@dbdecoy/level.png)](http://steemitboard.com/board.html?user=dbdecoy) [![](https://steemitimages.com/70x80/http://steemitboard.com/@dbdecoy/comments.png)](http://steemitboard.com/board.html?user=dbdecoy) [![](https://steemitimages.com/60x70/http://steemitboard.com/@dbdecoy/voted.png)](http://steemitboard.com/board.html?user=dbdecoy) [![](https://steemitimages.com/50x60/http://steemitboard.com/@dbdecoy/payout.png)](http://steemitboard.com/board.html?user=dbdecoy)</center>

___Update:___ Added a chart showing how the user has distributed his votes to various user categories in the first hour.