I thought that it would be useful to do a post on Steemit Etiquette to cover some of the things that one should and shouldn't do when posting here.
I think at some point I have probably been guilty of doing many of these things myself (we all make mistakes).
Having read a lot of posts and talked to a lot of other people on Steemit these seem to be some of the primary things.
This is by no means exhaustive and I’m sure different people will have different opinions on what constitutes good and bad behaviour.
Feel free to add to the list in the comments:
We are all pressed for time but it but it just looks plain bad if all you ever do is post and never curate or comment on other work. In a way this could be seen as simply taking from the system without giving.
As I said most people don't have much time. Take some pity on your followers and don't post 10 times per day. Not only will less people actually take the time to read your work but you may end up annoying and losing followers. It will also reduce you payouts if you post more than 4 times a day.
This is considered link spamming. We all understand that you took great pride in your post but if your link is not related to the direct conversation and seems to be there purely to promote your own work then it looks bad. You are at risk of getting flagged and it is unlikely people will appreciate what you are doing. There is a great chat channel for promoting your links as well as a forum section - put it there.
This is similar to posting unrelated links. Asking for votes is fine if it is in the post promotion channel but it should be done indirectly by posting a link i.e. it is bad form to ask someone directly for a vote. I don't think there is anything wrong with asking if people have seen your post but directly asking them to vote for it is rather unfair and goes against the spirit of proper curation. It may also make some people feel uncomfortable for this very reason.
If you are voting purely for the purposes of getting more votes then you are doing it wrong. You should only vote for content you like and should not expect people to vote for you just because you voted for them - it's removes the whole point of curation.
The Steem wallet allows people to send messages. Unfortunately people have recently been using it to send out tiny amounts of Steem as a means of advertising themselves or their posts. Don't do it you will waste your money and annoy a lot of people.
This is a big issue and I'm sure some people will disagree with it but I think the majority of the community agrees that the flag issue is for posts which are harmful or abusive and should not be used as a dislike or downvote button. Don't like something? Post a comment explaining why or if you can't be bothered to do that or don't have the time move on.
Not strictly a Steemit thing as it applies to the chat but I just thought I would mention it as people still do it and the chat is very much a part of the Steemit community. This pings everyone and is very annoying. There does seem to be a solution in the works that will remove the ability to do this so hopefully this will not be a problem for long.
This is important. It may be acceptable in your nation to be showing bare breasts on your work computer but it might not be the case where your reader is located. Also your reader could be a child. Please keep this in mind. Graphic images without this tag are likely to be Flagged.
If your post does not directly relate to a particular tag you shouldn't be using it. A post about trumpets that just happens to have a photo of a trumpet in it should not be tagged with "photography", similarly a post discussing DASH is fine in "cryptocurrency" but should not be tagged with "ethereum". Tag spamming annoys people and rather than getting you extra upvotes is likely to get you a flag.
If people have taken the time to make a comment on your post you should at least take the time to read them and in appropriate cases reply to them. It is understood that if you have a lot of comments you can't and probably shouldn't respond to each one, however, ignoring your comments could be considered being ungrateful.
A lot of us know cryptocurrencies and are familiar with the concepts. That does not apply to everyone on Steemit. Everyone has to start somewhere if you find someone who needs help or has a question don't wait for someone else to act - help them out yourself if you can. That is a fundamental of a good community.
There are links at the bottom of every post that allowing sharing on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Be a good citizen and help to spread good content by sharing it on other social networks and also posting links in the "postpromotion-other-onl" chat channel. This not only helps out the poster but helps to spread the word about Steemit by showing people what great content is available. Steemit should not just be "every man for himself".
There are many new people joining Steemit every day. Unfortunately it is hard to get noticed. Please try to spend at least some of your time looking at new posts rather than just being on your own feed or the trending page. Not only do you have the prospect of discovering a new hidden gem and making a new user feel appreciated, but you could also be rewarded much more handsomely for the curation.
I think simple courtesy dictates that if you flag a post you should tell the poster why. Obviously if the reason has already been posted by other people this becomes less necessary. You should also go back and check to see if the content has been verified or the poster has complied with the reasons for the flag and if so remove your flag. Simply flagging and vanishing is not really fair.
Thanks to @klye for providing all the artwork for this post. You can find information here on how to use his services.
I love the way you used comics to educate the community about the ins and outs of Steemit. Very effective!
That was Klye's work:)
Thanks for such amazing work.
You're welcome!
Looks like a whole lot of common sense to me, looking forward to finding some people to follow on here. Any suggestions for noobs like myself?
Just treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself.
Great beginners guide. It's been useful for me. Thanks.
@thecryptofiend for an excellent post and @kyle for artwork :)
Thanks!
The one thing you left out is this: don't be a stalker. There are indeed stalkers on this site. Please add that to your list. Great job!!! I loved this collaboration!
Thank you. I suspect I might get quite a few additions so I might need to do an updated version and maybe ask Klye to do some new artwork for it so it all fits consistently rather than adding it to the end now if that is OK? Otherwise it will start looking untidy and people might complain if they see me constantly editing it.
I'll add it to the article in my editing software now so I don't forget. Do you have any examples (I won't use names of course) of this kind of behaviour that I can describe?
That reciprocal voting thing... I'm seeing a lot of that in the chat.
"upvoted!" immediately after the link is posted. One person did it to me recently and I said 'wow, you read very fast!' "...yep! lol" was the reply. Then they sent their links in private. I got more today, until I asked them to please not.
Yes ditto. Happens a lot.
I can understand why people do it but it goes against the spirit of curation. Also it puts undue pressure on the other person to vote for you.
Particularly if you just say "upvoted now please check my mine out" - that basically tells you the upvote was purely for getting yours and they don't give a crap about your post - probably didn't even read it.
Even if that is what you are after a better strategy (to avoid pissing people off) would be to make a serious comment on the other post - it will encourage people to check out your posts themselves and without any undue pressure.
The unsolicited dms are pretty annoying. It's fine when I know someone really well and obviously if I ask for the link and they dm me - that's how it should work. Some people think it is OK to just spam complete strangers with their new posts repeatedly. That's what the links chat channel is for.
It would be like someone saying "thank you" in real life, followed by "AREN'T YOU GOING TO THANK ME BACK!?!?"
Reciprocal upvote begging is becoming one of my biggest pet peeves in the chats.
I think the incentives of the platform as well as the reputation grade encourages users to learn positive habits that can ultimately lead them into using good etiquette....but fun graphics with great explanations is an exceptional way to reach out to new users. Thanks.
Thank you. Yes I agree but it does sometimes help to just have a little guide. My hope is this will keep evolving and this can be incorporated into some kind of FAQ.
I believe a FAQ would be proper, since this platform is different than the likes of Reddit...where the faceless trolls have less consequences.
Yes hopefully @dantheman and @ned can look into doing that. I'm happy for them to use this as part of the FAQ for free if they want to. I can also keep updating a FAQ with community responses - whereas it would look shady if I kept posting this again and again along with all the regular content and rightly so.
Awesome article!
I'm loving this! I'm a terrible writer but everything looks good here with you doing ll the hard writing. :)
Thank you for hiring me to do illustrations.
You're welcome. Thanks for doing such a great job:)
This post should moon just for the graphics alone. Great work man.
Thanks mate:)
Very well done my crypto friend really enjoyed it.
Thanks mate. You're support is really appreciated:)
"Do answer your comments"
It's a thing that hurts me most when someone gets huge follow up on his post and doesn't reply to sincere questions.
Damn.
I think some people do really try but can't keep up. If you have hundreds of responses I doubt anyone could keep up. I think it is bad when people post and then completely ignore their comments. I have done this before though on my earlier posts because I didn't realise they were there and being used to places like FB where most people just vote I didn't actually expect anyone to respond. One of the best things about Steemit is the vibrant comments section.
I have issues keeping up. But today, I have decided to spend the bulk of my day commenting, and finding new writers.
Understandable though because you get so many replies. There is no way one person could keep up with it all. It is all about balance though.
I wish you are right but I'm pretty sure some doesn't bother. I agree it's hard to keep up especialy if u comment on others content. But if it's your blog post and you earn say 3000$, a humble thing to do would be to go through those say 300+ comments and answers genuine questions if they are there. Even if u are a day late and then go to next blog post.
But it's just me or how I would behave.
No I certainly agree. Just trying to understand why some people don't or can't do it. You mention a great point though. It can often be hard keeping the balance on commenting on your own replies and other people's work.
Lol. I think most people wouldn't agree with it. I just love upvoting:)
OK, heck of a job on the comics! Everyone who crafts their own artwork for a post deserves recognition for it :)
That's all thanks to @kyle and his artistic talents.
These rules of etiquette remind me of the "Ten Commandments" posts that others have done. However, it has new rules I haven't seen anywhere else. So far, I haven't violated any etiquette rules just because doing all those things will take the joy out of what I really want, which is writing content, reading high quality content, and building relationships. I do admit, though, that I find great pleasure in watching the values in my wallet increase slowly but surely every day -- just as anyone would love to see their stock/bond portfolio increase in value. But I'm not going to "pimp" myself to do that. That'll force me to spend time on things I hate -- advertising myself -- and less time on the things I love. There's no fun in that.
If only everyone would follow your example:)
Excellent etiquette post with amazing #KLYEART!!!
I agree with these points - Be active, but don't be greedy. Be present, be courteous on Steemit.chat (How many times have we seen the 'Oops I didn't mean to post that in here' LOL).
Steemit is a marathon, not a 100m dash. Leave those to Usain Bolt...
ROCK ON DUDE!! YEAH BUDDAYYY!!
-bigedude
Thanks glad you like it and get it:)
@thecrytofiend Brilliant example of a collaborative post! Great content, great artwork. Sets a high benchmark/template.
I sometimes will say "Upvoted" and "Followed" where I see reputations of 25 or around that figure. I assume they are newcomers and I do it to show them they are getting some audience and appreciation for their first posts.
One feature I think could be more utilized at present is the Share button for other social media networks to spread the good news. Surely this could offer some reward incentive, much the same as upvoting or commenting wilst Steemit is still in Beta. What do others think?
Thank you so much:)
That's actually a brilliant idea - rewarding shares on different social media. I suppose the question would be where would the extra reward come from? The most obvious place would be the curation rewards - personally I think the benefits would be worth the loss but some may disagree with that.
Have you any idea how to get someone's "ear" with such a proposal who has any influence? Thanks in advance! P.S. I actaully believe the benefits would far outweigh any potential 'loss' in this scenario... more people on the platform benefits everyone.
For example, I shared your post on Twitter with the hashtag #Steemit on only one of my accounts. That's a potential audience of 13K straight away. Thanks to some bot software I have installed for Twitter, it will definitely get retweeted several times. Imagine if everyone took part in this?
Thanks for doing that. I'm not sure of a sure fire method. One way might be to suggest it in one of the responses to @dantheman's posts - but given how many people respond that makes it very difficult to get visibility. Perhaps we need the equivalent of a Steemit suggestion box with voting to see how many people agree with each suggestion? I'm sure some skilled user could come up with a simple way to do it and then if they post on it they might get some whale eyes and hopefully the team to see it too.
Man, a Steemit suggestion box What a GREAT idea! LOL...I am asleep. There's a #steemit-suggestions channel on chat. I'll drop it in there and see what happens. Thanks for your help!
@davidbrogan I'm sure someone else has probably thought of it or suggest it before but thanks.
Another great and really useful post. Thank you for this, really helpful. I have upvoted but not sure if a post is 4 days old if it counts...but I guess it is the thought :-)
Thanks. Yes it still counts. There are two voting periods with different feeds right now, one for 24 hours and one for 30 days. It's designed to allow more slow "digested" work to also get rewarded.
There may be another one for after 30 days as a lot of people have been asking for it but it hasn't been added yet.
That's useful...I learn something new every day here....mostly from you :-)
You are too kind:)
Thank you! Being brand new here it was awesome to find something outlining what the expectations are for members. I appreciate that--even if it seems to mostly come under the headings of "common sense" and "don't be a overly self-promoting jerk." lol
Thanks and welcome. I just read your first post I think? People are generally very nice here but it is always good to be polite so that's why I thought it would be useful.
It's brilliant! Klye & thecryptofiend you've killed it with this one!
High Five! - I miss Borat (the TV show - the movie was nowhere near as good).
Yeah, high five man!
btw, the tv show was indeed awesome!
Yes. They should really repeat it some time because those little skits are timeless.
Was there a TV Show? This is news.
Yes I think it was done by Channel 4 in the UK, you may be able to pick it up on DVD, if not in the US amazon store I think it will be available in the UK one. It was a segment on the "Ali G Show" - which was the other character that Sascha Baron Cohen used to do. You may even be able to find it online - trying searching for Ali G TV show or Borat TV.
Thanx a lot :)
thanks for the guide very helpful, I do understand the crypto world, and if I see question I will answer. Looking forward to work on Steemit.
lovely post very creatitive and innovative
Thanks. I think @klye's illustrations really bring it to life.
Very thorough, very nice.
Thank you:)
Very nicely done. Love the artwork too! These kinds of reminders are needed, as I know I haven't responded to all my comments either. I will be better.
I think we can all work to be better. Nobody is perfect and I have made most of these mistakes too.
@thecryptofiend,
It's nice that you learned from your mistakes and helped others from doing the same - that's very kind of you.
Thank you :)
@thecryptofiend Well presented! :)
Thank you:)
I love Klye's artwork - good post, thanks :)
Thanks:)
This is great! I've been wondering if I am commiting faux pas after faux pas but had no way to be sure.
Thank you. I'm glad you find it helpful. I would add that these are matters of courtesy or politeness they are not absolute laws. There may also be things I haven't though or heard of like @stellabelle suggested.
Haha, this was a super entertaining and excellent guide! With all the new users signing up every day, this is the kind of post that will help them get situated here. Thanks for sharing! Oh, and I got a good laugh at "This ain't Twitter!" :)
Lol thanks. That is @klye's genius at work:)
You draw looks exactly like @klye's. Or he is drawing for you? I don't get it, but it looks nice!
Yes they are his drawings - he now offers a service where he illustrates for other people:)
Now that is a comprehensive list!! I think it covers all points. I don't like reciprocal votes as such but by the same token in chat I like to say when I have upvoted someone but usually in a way that lets them know I have read their article. Like upvoted @ blahblah my pc b does that to kind of thing. Anyway, week dive for such a good guide with awesome as ever illustration from @klye!
Thank you:)
Good points, love the cartoons too :)
Thank you:)
Good post to prevent from pissing everyone off!
Thanks yes that is the hope.
Very well written amd received. Thank you for getting this out there. Especially the flag thing. I got 5 flags on a post and no comments as to why. I figured it out but too late. Followed!
Thank you. Yes I think it makes sense to let people know why they have been flagged.
Thanks a lot, @thecryptofiend!
And @klye, your pictures are just awesome! Hahah! ;)
And this manual too, just perfect!
Such things would be good to include in some FAQ for beginners.
Thanks yes hopefully we can get some sort of FAQ developed.
YES! I agree with all of the points you made. You should've mentioned this when you commented on my post, as they really complement each other. You had such a detailed post too, I really feel that our posts could've boosted each other had you linked to this. Alas, I discovered this in postpromotion. Anyway, since I've already mentioned to you my thoughts on the matter, I just wanted mention one quick thing.
Personally, even if I received a thousand comments, I'll do my best to respond to them all. Even if it takes days to do. The comments helped your post achieve the success it received, so the least you could do is acknowledge their contribution. I do agree what you said that it would come out as ungrateful.
Really though, I agree with every other thing. I do hop this reaches more people and we could build a better community out of this. It all boils down to a question of character. I have hopes that it would improve, but let's see. Great post, man!
Thanks. Yes I understand what you are saying. I think it depends on how often you post and how many comments you get. I think for someone like @dantheman to respond to all his comments would be near impossible as he posts quite regularly and they get a lot of attention. I think several people would be required to answer all of them.
In those cases, at least other people notice the post and reply to it. I guess my main gripe is for those posts that go unnoticed. They have the length and substance of a separate post, but they don't receive any interaction (votes or response)
Great pieces of etiquette! Even better with the Klye art which somewhat softens the message :)
Thank you:)
Isn't all this just a soft skills reshaping within a decentralized system? Surely when you escape The Matrix you escape control? Isn't your etiquette babble just another form of control?
Thanks for post and some great points on how to navigate this developing system. Haven't been able to see what's going on on Stemit lately, had lots of 'life stuff' to handle. Glad to see so many new 'posters' and hope to be able to post soon. Just had to check in to see what was happening, exciting stuff. ~ljl~
Thanks. I'm glad you like it. It is difficult to keep up! Look forward to see your posts.
Thanks for the helpful post. Can you post content that you like but did not author as long as you credit the actual writer? For example a newspaper article you liked, etc.
thanks for the post! good practice notes
You're welcome!
I have been on steemit for two hours now holding a paper and a pen, and this is the only content that made me make the pen do the work
thank you so much, it also was funny.
I saw you commenting @greenruns post and mentioning this article. Came here and read the recommendations. Really good! Did you do the drawings? Because they fit so well, you couldn't probably find them some where else?
Nice!
I completely agree on this rules. Some of them are not easy to follow, but I try:))
Thanks a lot. This post is really helpful to newcomers like me.