I've been around the block a time or two when it comes to online writing and social media platforms before Steemit, and I've been hanging out around the Steemit water cooler for a year and a half now, long enough to be an old timer. So, I've picked up a few tricks, but things change with time. This post is as much about me finding new things to learn, as it is helping you to navigate what can be a tricky, and unforgiving platform.
So,here's what I'm offering. If you've wondered about anything regarding steemit, ask. Just drop a comment. Here's what will happen next. I'll answer all of the comments that are on topic. Every single one. If I know the answer, I'll give it, with resources, where possible. If I don't know the answer, I'll let you know that, then I'll find it.
Whether you're new here, or you've been around as long as me, there are probably things you've wondered about. So, I want to hear it. And, if you read a question in the comments you have some input on, please, by all means, share your knowledge! Let's see how many questions we can get and answer.
Most of your questions have probably already been answered thoroughly somewhere on the site, but you've probably noticed that Steemit is not the easiest nut to crack when it comes to searching for what you want. If I can't find it, I've got a few friends around that are even more students of the platform than I am and I'll ask around.
Why am I offering this? Well, I always say I want to be the guy I should have met when I started something. I love seeing people succeed. I've quite a bit of success in my life and it's the sort of thing that cannot be diminished by sharing it. So, what would you like to know?
Can you please explain the calculation of curation rewards when there are lots of upvotes (along mine) in one post. How timing of upvotes impact on curation rewards? It is not simple 75%/25% only I guess.
Thanks in advance :)
Tips for newbies : How to give a fractional upvote when your SP is below 500?
You can earn a portion of the curation reward from your own post, if you upvote it thirty minutes after posting and if you are the first vote. Otherwise, it is typically 75% of the payout to the author, 25% of the payout to voters.
Here, I was mistaken, you don't earn for self votes, except the author's portion, but if someone votes for you in the first 30 minutes of your post, 25% of the curation goes to you as the author.
Is that correct? If upvote my own post at the time of publishing the post, I won't get curation portion of my own vote?
Not absolutely sure on that, you might take a look at the link I shared right below this. It has a lot more information than I shared.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@calamus056/curation-rewards-explained-in-great-detail
What are some Of THE VERY BEST, techniques & strategies when using this platform for investments & sustainable living? I enjoy writing blogs plus making videos, I also enjoy reaping what I feel I have sewn through my energy-- which is greatness!
Also, at what point in your steemit journey did you begin to reap the greatest rewards & see residual income from upvotes that helped tremendously when it came to your livelihood?
@esaia.mystic
Well, the investment question is a little off target. Not sure what to tell you on that one, and since I'm not a certified financial consultant, I can't help you there. I got in early, when many users were voting their own steem power, so votes were a bit easier to get than they are now. Within a month of starting, I was getting some of the top payouts on Steemit. I was in the top thirty authors for several months running.
I'm a super newbie. here less than 3 weeks.
I dont really understand what is delegation? i have made around 4SP so far, but my total SP still remains at 15.
Witnesses is also something i'm confuse about...
the above are just something about steemit....
as for content creation... it always goes over my head how someone can start a channel on youtube are gathers so many views.... i find it difficult.. same here on Steemit...
Delegation is simple. It is a "loan" of Steem power. New users are given a loan, from the platform, to help them get started. Once you've gotten past a certain point, that Steem will be removed from your account. Until then, it is your voting power to use how you want. You cannot sell it, or power it down.
Witnesses are members that agree to run a computer that holds a "node" or part of the Steem block chain, to help keep track of transactions on the blockchain. They are paid for their service, and they vote on some issues regarding changes to the platform.
If you'd like to learn more about content creation, search the hashtag #dolphinschool to find my articles on the topic. I've been a freelance writer and content creator online for over ten years professionally. It's hard to answer such a general question, but, if you have more specific questions about content, I'll be happy to help.
I'm still VERY new to the platform and I am enjoying it and doing very well... here's my big but ;) I have several friends and family members who would be great at it, enjoy it and could also use the money (however little) they could make from it just using some of the time they're already spending on other social media platforms.
My question is this: How do I best explain things in such a way that helps them get started? I've tried the "just start writing and finding other people to comment/interact with" but they are just overwhelmed by the... SO MUCH INFORMATION that as you said seems to be hard to search through for specific info.
Are there any pages, steemians who seem to have gotten a good hold on preaching/teaching the PRE-newbies that are almost afraid to even dip their toes in for fear of doing it wrong?
Just simple laid out things that aren't written in techno speak from the interactions, formatting, but even more importantly NON-technical explanations of this whole mysterious crypto thing.
If that made any sense, I'd greatly appreciate your input!
Thanks in advance for even trying to wade through this rubbish that my brain seems to be handing out lately! :)
Well, the best convincer I know of, is to take pictures of the stuff you get with your steem. LOL Once I was able to show pictures from Paris, that Steem paid my half of, when my wife won a trip, people started to take me seriously. Here is the best explanation of all things Steemit. Some of it is a bit technical. To be honest, the technical aspects of crypto are not important. As long as they can navigate the required sites to convert their money, and I'm about to do a tutorial on that, they can do it. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://steemit.com/faq.html&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjJsuKore_YAhUB-WMKHT4MCe8QFggEMAA&client=internal-uds-cse&cx=011445933062884569876:-jmpkfnkicw&usg=AOvVaw2YppL-xP0ibcPBPPE8B-_Y
As far as the technical aspects of Steemit, they should ignore them, other than the html required to format posts, which can be worked around using a free tool called MarkdownPad 2. Search the hashtag #dolphinschool for some other things I've written about getting started here on Steemit.
I suppose I just need to get on them about being more consistent. I've been on for such a short time that I feel like I'm not the one to tell anyone how to do things! I'm doing well, though, so I want everyone to get on and have the experience that I've had (making friends, being inspired to write again AND making money!) I think my friends just are too timid with it. They make a post or two and then just feel like they aren't doing it right. I suppose I just need to keep helping them along and trying to be encouraging. OOooh, I am ALWAYS looking for more formatting advice myself and would love to share that with them as well. Thank you for that!
I'm personally not so worried about the technical parts of crypto myself, as my husband it the crypto-investor-nerd of the house, but I am wondering if there is any way... well, to be honest, most people I know just think it's some sort of scam or almost like monopoly money. Everything I try to read on it is in such techno-speak that I can't even understand it. Maybe I'll ask my husband to try to speak my language and write a post for me to share with them if one already doesn't exist! :)
I LOVE the idea of the tutorial. I haven't really even began to try and navigate getting my money out of steemit yet. It just overwhelms me almost immediately and I just decide to look at it later. I think there is a big market for someone who can explain the necessary basics and know how of this kind of things to the people who just don't speak technical if you know what I mean.
Also, THANK YOU for your response and wading through my novel of a comment :) Thanks for the links, as well. I am going to go check them out!
The problem with putting it into street language, is they always boil it down to "It's backed by nothing" as opposed, of course, to the state, that we already know will screw us over every chance they get.
Oh yeah... too too true!
Also, don't feel you need to respond to all of that mess, I'm in a rambling mood this evening!
You're fine, thanks for the comments. Happy to help.
Do you think it's worth it to turn my first Steem Dollars into steem Power to increase my earnings? Or WILL it increase my earnings? Thanks so much for doing this!!!
It will increase your vote power. Right now, the price of steem dollars is higher than steem. As long as that is the case, it's a good ratio. It takes a lot of steem power, however, to get a very valuable vote. At my current level (my highest was over 16k steem, before I powered down to pay for a wedding, and some other things) my vote is about 30 cents, depending on the price of Steem that day.
What is the Steem and SBD inflation rate?
There is no inflation rate. The interest rate for Steem, not SBD, is set to 9% annually, I think, currently. The price of both coins fluctuates with the market. The price of Bitcoin has been the single biggest driver of that, but we seem to be stabilizing, even with Bitcoin still in a slump.
Great idea for a post @markmorrisjr. I know I saw it somewhere at one point, but am having trouble finding it again. What is the easiest way to caption a photo that you might have borrowed from Google with the source link. I know the code to make a hyperlink, but is there a way to make it stay right under the photo even if you are text wrapping your story around the picture? -@bozz
That's one I don't know. When I use photos, I always make my own, or use photos that don't require attribution. I'll see what I can find out.
I only have one column in my post, but I use MarkdownPad2 to create my posts. For banners, just create wider images. It will center them for you. You can then drag them into the box, or copy and paste, or use the upload service in MarkdownPad2 (free) to upload your images to Imgur hosting.
ok thanks
Most informative from all the comments so far. I've resteemed too.
Is there a cheat-sheet for newbies? like a one-page cheat-sheet teaching people how to sign-up and handling of their passwords and basic concepts of Steem/SBD etc
There are several. I suggest going up to the search function and searching FAQ, you'll get a bunch of options. Also, in the top right, those three bars? Click them, then go to Steem Tools. There are a couple of pages linked there that have tutorials and such.
This dog get swag
Why is it on occasion the error "out of bandwidth" arises?
I think this is a case of having a newish account. If you still have the steem loan in your wallet from the platform, you're limited in the actions you can take.
I greet you with nice photos and I encourage you to visit my profile :)
Spam comments are not the way to make friends and influence steemers. Read the content and respond to it. Just randomly dropping a sentence here and there is not the way to do it.
For me, I am purely after the social part of this platform. Where do I start? I like to write, photography, cooking and socializing. Do I just grab a hashtag and post? Do I just go add people to follow?
I have posted in a couple hashtags but no response. So what do I do?
Is there a notification here? How do I find any responses to posts?
Follow me, I'm about to launch a ten part course for planktons and minnows on how to get attention. I've got a giveaway post on my page where I'll promote you for free! For photography, get on steepshot. It's kind of like instagram, but feeds into the steemit blog, so you get the advantage of having your work in a smaller pool. For interaction, go to the top right, click that menu button and select explore. Look at the categories that have the most comments. Those are active places to post. I also just shared a post on why it's hard to gain attention and what you can do to fix that. Check my blog. @markrmorrisjr
#markmorrisjr, thanks for the post. I want to ask about security and the distribution of propaganda on this platform. Facebook and Twitter were used in the US 2016 election to create a false narrative to millions of Americans. In fact many members of my family bought into the ads that were posted on Facebook. The government is investigating Russian troll farms as the source of most of the fake news. How does Steem plan on handling things like that? What are the pros and cons of tackling propaganda before it spreads across the platform?
Sorry, not interested in this conversation. Here's the big joke. The american mind has grown so weak that our biggest national election was swayed by fricking memes. If people are going to be that stupid, we can't protect them from it. We can have free speech, or we can not. Yes, it's a risk. But, I'm not interested in any kind of public censorship, govt or not. People need to censor what comes into their own minds and experience. If we shut this down, then what? We just perpetuate the problem, but insulating people from using their discernment on what sources to believe. Also, how do you know who to believe? In order to suss out "fake news" you need a gold standard, nothing like that exists in information , media.
applause
We're on this earth to explore our minds, which are the windows through which we perceive the world. It is our JOB to sort through all the information available to us, and to decide what we can do, with all that information, to make the world a better place. If we are seeing "fake news", we should take it on ourselves to spread truth and knowledge to help others build better minds, so as to discern these things for themselves.
no questions
I have a couple of questions. Finding answers in the search bar has been daunting, as the posts are usually outdated, and finding that one tag word is a game I can't seem to win.
1: Is there a website that allows you to see how much each upvote from a person is worth? If only one person in a sea of pennies (not that I don't still appreciate those pennies) was the reason my post was successful, I would like to know who that one person was.
2: If I were to use a bot like @ninjawhale to give my post some recognition, that gives you 50 small upvotes, does that rape the reward pool, and give my actual voters a much smaller %?
Yes, there is such a site. And not just for your posts. You can use it to court other author's supporters too. Go to steem tools (top right, click the hamburger menu) and find UpVoters. It will show you what you want to know. Meh, on the "reward rape" there is so much vote buying going on that one minnow buying a few bucks worth of votes that are already for sale, and won't happen if someone doesn't buy them isn't a huge problem. It's like that energy shot, if you get to where you need them three times a day, it's a bad idea. But once a year, to make that emergency late night drive, it's a wash.
Hm, I don't see anything about tools or upvoters.
Sorry, the link there says "Steemit App Center" the site it delivers you to is called Steem Tools. Once there, search for UpVoters.
Woah! That's a total game changer. I cannot thank you enough.
Yep, hey are you interested in @dolphinschool to help newer users get started. Check it out and stop by to say hi. @steemgoblin