As I start to write this, it’s 9.45pm, I’ve only just eaten dinner and I feel a bit shattered. I wasn’t going to post tonight, but I felt compelled to put together a new pic to go at the bottom of my post signature before making dinner. And now I feel compelled to post it. Sometimes you can’t deny the muse.
Established Steemians have been getting frustrated by things like begging for follows or upvotes, spam comments, people who comment without upvoting or reading the post, the general lack of upvoting from people who ARE reading the post. Sometime we just ignore it, sometimes we try to be helpful and sometimes we’re guilty of being a bit snappy.
New Steemians are frustrated by being dropped into an alien environment with such a lot to learn. They don’t know how to behave or what to do. How do you make friends, gain followers, make contacts?
So I’ve put together this pic with a few simple tips, that I’m intending to put at the bottom of all my posts. It’s not intended to be all encompassing. There are lots of other great posts around for that. It’s just a few basic starters that can be easily seen by anyone who visits one of my posts.
What do you think?
Established Steemians – does this cover the basic etiquette?
Newbies – would this have been helpful if you’d seen it in your first few days?
EDIT - here is a new version, updated and bigger. Feel free to use it yourselves.
Thanks for reading and please let me know your thoughts
Images by myself, @sift666 or from Pixabay, unless otherwise stated.
Follow me for more health, nutrition, food, lifestyle and recipe posts.
How much are "spec-savers" paying you?
the hint section is smaller print than the phone book, and I need a magnifying glass for that.
from what I could see it covered most things.
possibly add that the writer needs the reader's vote to progress, so by helping yourself you are helping the writer as well [even if the vote carries no financial value]
Comments without a vote are likely to be treated as spam and downvoted [flagged] which will affect their reputation and future advancement.
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Lol at the spec-savers comment @len.george :D
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I think poor Kiwideb expects a smart arse answer from me by now.
I try to oblige when I can.
Get used to it, your next.
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Bring it on :)
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*You're next ;) Better to be a smartass than a dumbass I always say! lol
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Ok, will add a couple of things and make it bigger, then add back to the post. Yes, I would worry if you weren't cheeky. I'd wonder if you were ill.
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Great tips @kiwideb. Like you said ... no stress and chill. Create good content and interact and the rest will follow.
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Hiya, how's it going? I sent my sister @andysantics48 over to follow you today, as she's eating healthy to lose weight.
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All good here. Though super busy. But that's a good thing! New challenges coming up! Hope for you the same. Thanks for the mention! So nice you got your sister to join steemit. I'll gladly help her out! She's always welcome to bug me on steemit.chat or discord ;)
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Hi Deb, so sorry for not getting back to your last message regarding this - family things took me away. But I love this! To the point, easy to read, and I think will play a good part in helping people to learn (or remember) how to conduct themselves in the community. I thank you for creating it and allowing it to be shared - which I will be doing in my posts from now on! I see I'm just in time to upvote and resteem too :-) Excellent!
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Now all we need is for people confronted with it to actually read it, lol. If you see my most recent post, you'll see what I mean. Though in some of those cases, I think the issue was more of a language one. (PS all good, family comes first)
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I like what you've done @kiwideb. It's concise and inoffensive.
I have a question - how do you or would you handle those who comment on your posts but never upvote you? I've tried upvoting everyone but those who don't hoping they get the hint. Is this a thing to be concerned about? Someone mentioned that this behavior is considered spam. I know of a couple of new people who don't upvote anyone but themselves. Are they learning this from somewhere? Would you ask?
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Sometimes I handle it better than others. My options are 1) ignore and upvote everything else (mostly I give them the benefit of the doubt and do this) 2) explain nicely why it's bad behaviour (educate, and what this will hopefully replace) or 3) have a go at them and then feel ashamed of myself afterwards. I hadn't thought of asking why they do it. Maybe that's another option.
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Thanks @kiwideb. I'll definitely use this chart.
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I like the concept - and since you are graphically inclined..... how about doing it as a 'success wheel' similar to the hand image at the top of the post.
Make it nice and large (which will get resized down, I know) and put some text under it saying to option the image in a new tab to see it full sized.
I think if you can come up with something simple, yet striking that catches attention, you might find everyone else wanting to copy it for their own blogs :-)
I think just text on it's own will get skipped over, especially if it is smaller.
I hope that helps.
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I'm not really graphically inclined. This is just a word table with a blue background, then a screen shot dumped into photoshop. It's a good idea though, and I'll put it on the back burner and see what I can think up. For now, I'll just make it bigger and add the new image into the post. I;m hoping that text on a blue background will grab some attention. We will see...
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I really liked this advice. Making friends is prime and this is done by the 5 Cs.
Actioning them.
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Good luck with building your brand with the 5 C's (and also more advanced promotion).
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I think that covers it pretty well - I'm sure all newbies reading this will learn something - I did :)
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Oh good. Just make the pic a bit bigger, and it's all go.
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I am glad that I passed my first couple of months of been fresh Steemian. It is difficult to start something, like in real life all new start is difficult, one have to work hard. I think I was a bit lucky due to my hobby drawing and painting and also the variety of such contests I quickly found a lot of friends among the artists so we could share our works and support each other. As every new one there were days when some of my works where I spent days for creation and was very happy to share it brought ZERO upvotes and no comments. I just reassured myself, as many of artists work were valued much later, so I just kept going. I agree with your advises, one quite important is to support other people, to upvote and comment what you like and many of other Steemian do the same. It is again like in real life treat others how you want to be treated. By the way, I like your dress, reminds me Medieval time!
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Yes! It is a very medieval type of dress. Thanks for commenting, and good luck on your journey here. Your drawings are great.
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Ghee .... and I was going to leave you a comment without an up-vote after asking you to follow me and up-vote my post of mickey mouse. Ha ha.... People are living in a "ME" society everything comes after their needs.
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Which goes right back to @aldentan's C - Cunt, don't be one. Maybe they are so self obsessed, they don't even realise when they are.
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share is pretty readable on the spot
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Good that some can read it. But nearly everybody else wants it bigger, so bigger it will be.
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GREAT kiwideb! THE QUALITY CONTENT AND COMMENT REALLY MATTER !
i m new to steemit about 1 month here!
i really notice that quality comment and as well as content really matter in steemit!
you are absouloutly right it helpfull for steemit!
hard work always pay off!
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Were you able to read the tips ok, or was it a bit small?
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For me, they are significantly smaller than the main text. I'm on standard view (no zoom) in my browser. I don't know if it is a steemit thing, but the fixed width is not exactly making great use of my widescreen either...
Anyway, to add to the conversation I would like to ask about the discovery of content on this platform. One thing that I used to love on youtube was bumbling into random content. Youtube has an endless treasure trove of genuinely good content, but these days it seems to be hidden behind a wall of lower-quality content which is bashed out on a regular cycle to game the platform's monetisation design. I think it is really important that big platforms (which I hope steemit becomes) take people outside their bubble. In the real world, we go on holidays to exotic (NZ was to me when visited in 2007) places and do things we don't normally do. I wonder if there is a digital equivalent?
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My ideas there are checking the feeds of people you are following, and checking categories you are interested in. This guide is getting bigger by the minute! But I think they are worthwhile suggestions, and will give more interesting links that just New or Trending. Oh, and glad you found NZ interesting.
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C:
Create- From your heart and soul.
That's your content.
Cunt- Don't be one.
Lol. Nice post. Sorry for the profanity. I think the picture is too small though.
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Yes, too small is the general consensus. Easy enough to fix. But not tonight... I like your additions and might add #1 (along with your name) if that's ok. #2 pretty much covers the rest of it, and amused me. But I might leave that one off.
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haha :P
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The first 4 C's are something that has been discussed over and over, but I feel like it's good to drill it in to people. The 5th C is my favorite though, as I feel like it's the most underrated suggestion of all.
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Although they're being discussed, newbies might not see those discussions. Hopefully at least some of them will see it on my posts. Yes, patience is a virtue. And I don't mean in a goodie goodie way, but as something that can improve your life if you use it wisely.
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I think they are great!! Ignore the trending page, it will sap your will to live lol!!
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I took that line directly from a conversation you and I had the other day, I think. Or at least the inspiration for it.
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I read this earlier but I couldn't upvote or reply. The bandwidth limit exceeded monster was attacking me. I don't get it. I have 15 SP, but 2 short posts is too much? I took your word and toned it down a lot. I've started commenting and upvoting others' posts, and I am keeping it at a tolerable level for everyone, but my bandwidth limit goes kerplunk every morning. It's fine when I go to bed. I do honestly believe the bandwidth is being sucked dry by other forces. Someone or something is pulling it away in order to satisfy some other factor that is not in our control. Great post by the way :) P.S., I managed to get an upvote and reply from that berniesanders guy last night. I know a lot of people don't like him or something, but that was pretty cool.
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Oh well done! A vote from bernie is something to be very chuffed about (proud of). That is weird about the bandwidth disappearing overnight. I have no idea what could be causing that, sorry. Did you see I did the first part of the depression post? The second part coming up later in the week.
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I'll check it out. I'm at work right now:)
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Wait, what...there's a trending page???!
Another thing I suggest to new users is to look for challenges to take part in.
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Yes, thats a good idea too.
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Hello @kiwideb - As a 4 day old Steemian I really appreciate your list here. I've been kind of wondering what would be considered normal and expected etiquette because I certainly don't want to go around hacking people off. Unfortunately it also felt intrusive to use the comments sections on posts to ask those kind of questions so to have it here nicely laid out... golden. Thanks for that. Peace
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Mine is a very short list so I can put it at the end of each post. But if you have a look a round, there are lots of posts about how to do things on Steemit. Asking questions on those would be fine, as long as you upvote so they know you're genuine. Good luck. I know it's a lot to learn.
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It certainly has been! I just learned what "you have exceeded your bandwidth" means too! :^)
Thanks again and Peace.
~Eric @genxrev
EDIT: I saw in a response you gave to another ^ up there - how I could use Steemd to go back and look at my history and discovered a whole section where I had wanted to use the Reply section of my interface to upvote people and had actually been on my Comments section in error. I thought I'd caught all of them, but after looking down found a couple that had slipped by and was able to fix those too. So again I must give you my thanks!
One last question if I may and then I'll stop bothering you: Is it considered ok to self-upvote to try to get your comment noticed out of the clutter provided you also upvote the author of the post as well or would it be bad form to self-upvote period?
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That last question is a tricky one that not everybody agrees on. I think that it's ok to do occasionally, if you have a specific reason, but a lot of people consider it very bad manners. If you have a friend who you can quietly ask to upvote for you, that's one way round it.
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Appreciate you talking with me. :)
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Yes I think it would have been helpful! When I first joined, I read something that made me think I could only upvote 10 times a day. I think not really understanding the voting power is something that keeps new people from voting as much as they could/should. Now I was explained 20% of almost nothing is no worse than 90% of almost nothing, and an upvote is always appreciated :)
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Yes, the guideline of 10 full strength votes is fine for established people who can use the slider to share them about, but I'm starting to see that it's making things very difficult for new people who don't have the slider yet. And the bandwidth issue is something we didn't have when we started either. All in all, it must be very hard to get started now, and I'm trying to be a bit more understanding (though sometimes I don't do as well as I'd like.)
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The bandwidth thing is super annoying, now that I understand why it happens it's a bit less annoying, but, I Googled it, used the search, even made a post asking about it - and I couldn't find anything that really explained it. It's also weird that some of my friends have never had that problem. My buddy @chrisdyer said it's never happened to him, and he uses the site mainly during the day, USA time. Anyway, all in all Steemit is awesome so, onwards and upwards towards more SteemPower so eventually it doesn't happen. Finally reached 15 SP this week so I'm on my own and off newbie delegated SP! lol
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I think all newbies should see this when they join, its written really well :)
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Thanks Karen! I hope some of them do, before us oldies get too annoyed.
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I think we are very close to annoyed, something needs doing :)
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Hi kiwi! I've only been here for 2 weeks so I'm still looking for this kind of post that can show me the rigth way to grow on the plataform, So thank you so much for your help I'll keep it in mind but I have a question: Why did you say that a comment without an upvote could be flagged?
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Good question.
Because there are a lot of bots which go around automatically attaching comments to posts. But nobody is reading, the comment doesn't relate and there is no upvote. So there is no true connection with the author, who will regard it as spam.
Even worse, sometimes people make comments, don't upvote the post, but upvote their own comment. This is regarded as "raping the reward pool" or simply being selfish.
Both of these have been happening such a lot, and people are getting so annoyed, that they are starting to flag such comments.
At the risk of sounding like someone's grandad talking about back when he was a boy - when I started on Steemit, there were a lot of minnows all starting together. We all had no SP, our votes were worth nothing, but we actually read each other's posts, upvoted them, talked to each other and made friends. And now after 18 months of hard work, we have some money. But we didn't get it overnight, and there are now a LOT of people joining up just to make a fast buck. And it isn't always easy to distinguish them from people who are genuine (like you), and just don't know what to do.
I'm hoping these guidelines will help the genuine people, and stop them making errors that they could be punished for.
EDIT - Because your question seemed genuine, I didn't go to your steemd page straight away. But I have now. I see that since you read this post, you have been upvoting other people - which is great. But you don't appear to have upvoted this post. So although I won't be flagging you, I will be taking off the upvote I originally put on your comment.
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ahhh now I get it kiwi! But your right because I've seen somes bots commenting peoples post and I didn't pay attention because I didn't know what's that all about so I'll definitly not going to comment anymore with out the upvote! I really aprecciate you taking the time to explain me all this.
Now I'm part of a small community of approximately 40 newbies from my country (Venezuela) on whatsapp and I'll definitly send them your 5 C's image because there we try to help each other to grow together and this are advices are really good for that.
I want to appologize for not given you my upvote and I totally understand why you unvote me after you realized that but at the moment I commented you I didn't have any voting power because I upvoted to all my friends from the community I just mention and I was trying to stop upvoting for a while so It recharged a little. Now that it's charged I'm gonna upvote you and if I may, I want to kwon if you have any advice to solve this problem with the vote power?
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Sorry, have been a bit busy and didn't get back to you earlier. That's a very good question, and a good point that it's harder for newbies now to balance your bandwidth and voting power than when we started. Eventually you will get a slider and be able to vote in % but that doesn't help you now.
I would say that you could maybe spread your support around your friends by not voting every post, so you share your support amongst them. If you want to upvote someone else but can't, it's better not to comment at all than to comment but not vote.
In this case, when you wanted to ask a genuine question, you could apologise for not upvoting and explain that you have no voting power today.
Good luck. (I will upvote you now, since you've explained, though not everybody will)
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Thanks, you're very kind! In my community we already came up with a plan... we'll take turns every day to vote 15 post so everyone has their turn and we maintain a higher voting power to grow together! So we are waiting for the best! Thanks again for all your advice!
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Good thinking!
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many thanks for the informative sharing.
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Now you perplex me a little. I seem to always get two comments from you on my posts. One, like this one, which is generic and which I don't upvote. But then another one which shows you've thought about the topic, and said something relevant. This one I do upvote. Can you tell me why this is?
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it's great tips thank you for sharing this valuable information with us
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When do you think you might start acting on them? You are exactly the person I'm talking to. As far as I can see from your steemd page, you didn't upvote this post, and you haven't upvoted anybody except yourself. I'm not going to flag you because I prefer education to punishment. But you might take note that I've upvoted everybody else's comments on this post - but not yours. And in future, you might want to remember that everything you do is stored forever on the blockchain. It is the work of seconds to go to your steemd page and see what you've been doing.
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