The biggest development in curation analysis since I last did a post on this topic has been the addition of the detailed curation returns function on steemworld.org - it's only available on pending returns, but it's a damn handy tool!
I've been using this to review and tweak my auto-vote times accordingly, in conjunction with beempy.com over the last couple of months.
NB @cryptoandcoffee has pointed out that SteemWorld might be reporting innacuratetly, so keep this in mind. I would have linked to his post where he mentions this, but I just can't seem to find it, it was fairly recent!
This aside, I've just added @steemchiller to my autovote too, it's about time I started contributing.

I've calmed down a bit with my mission to max out my curation returns from my main account, having realised that I quite like manual voting which means I'm highly unlikely to hit the sweet spot with several people I vote on. I also upvote several comments (which yields a very low curation return because no one else votes them) and I also like chucking out the odd flag with @steemflagrewards, and both of these further reduce my curation efficiency. Hence I've 'settled' for a relatively low curation return on my main account.
However, I have powered up my alt account @self-track to 2K Steem, and I now use that to play the 'curation maximisation game' (sounds like the Generation Game). I don't vote comments with that account, and I'm a bit more mercenary with who I upvote.
@ReviseSociology curation returns
- last 30 days = 76.74 (6.29 per 1000 active SP)
- last 7 days = 17.99 (1.47 SP per 1000 active SP)
- Curation efficiency = 35.58%, weighted = 39.99% (dunno what the difference is!)
Compared to the last time I analysed my curation returns
Monthly curation returns up from 58.46, but curation efficiency is down from 38%. I don't quite understand this as I have invested more Steem in the last month, but not enough to explain the large increase in curation yet the decrease in efficiency. I guess the increase must be due to a combination of tweaking and voting higher payout posts!
I know that I explained my relatively poor performance above, but I still should be doing better. I'd like to get this up to 1.75 SP per 1000 active SP for next month, then to 2/1000 after that. what can I say, I'm a gradualist.
@Self-track curation returns
I'm a bit more of a curation-mercenary with this account
- last 30 days = 4.60 SP ( 2.42 per 1000 active SP)
- last 7 days = 13.77 SP ( 7.24 per 1000 active SP)
- Curation efficiency = 61%, weighted = 65.5%
Now this is a bit more like it! NB the previous 7 days are more accurate, because I've powered up 1000 Steem to this account in the last month, which will bring the 30 day return/ 1000 down a lot.
At this point I'm just going to tag @goblinknackers to highlight the advantage of auto-voting and the fact that it get you a healthy return, for really doing very little!
The curation returns for @self-track based on the last 7 days are a very tasty 12.6% per annum.
This is the first time I've reported on this account, so nothing to compare it to!
Conclusions
With overall curation returns for the last 30 days of around 90 SP, or around $35 (! nice!) at current Steem prices, I'll take that - it's a perfectly reasonable income for just upvoting people, much of which is automated!
And NB if Steem 10*, that's effectively $350 I've earned this month for just clicking an upvote button a few hundred times, or not in the case of my autovotes.
A very final word on analysis - oddly it's probably more accurate to based analysis on less data - on the last 7 days, rather than the last 30 days, because the last 7 days is more accurate reflection on returns on my current SP, which is typically always increasing.