Things that Puzzle Me About Steemit

in steemit •  6 years ago 

I've been a Steemit member for over a year, and actively posting for about six months. I've read several posts about how to use Steemit effectively, plus the introductory information provided, but remain confused about some details.

I've read it's best to only upvote about ten posts per day. I've also read it's poor etiquette to comment but not upvote. Suppose I've found 15 posts I really like, and I want to comment and upvote all of them. Should I go ahead and upvote all 15, or choose 10 to both upvote and comment, and only comment on the remaining 5? Does anybody really care? Will I be excommunicated for making the wrong choice? (Just kidding.)

To my amazement, I have somehow accumulated 238 followers. However, upon close inspection of that list I find that I only interact with any regularity with about 30 of those people. I have no idea who the rest of them are. Might they be robots? Or someone who read exactly one of my posts, followed me, and went away?

Two or three of the people I follow happen to be huge whales. When I see the hundreds of upvotes they already have on a given post, I wonder whether I am simply throwing away one of my allegedly-alloted 10 votes for the day if I choose to upvote and add my (literally) 2 cents'-worth to their earnings. This puzzles me.

Choosing appropriate tags for this post is also going to be a challenge, but I'll do my best. I welcome answers to my collection of questions.

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I feel ya, where you went with this. I too have been here for over a year. I almost gave up on posting, especially when I got discouraged seeing the whales getting massive upvotes and such, and the little guys got squat. But that made me work harder, and find where I belonged. I tried the daily freewrites, and got hooked. I tend to stick with reading their posts now, and sometimes go to other posts. The freewriters are helping each other grow, unlike others.
As for the voting and comments, I used to think the same way until a few told me that you can vote as much as you want. The reason for trying to keep to just 10, is to keep your vp from dropping too low. Sometimes I vote more than 10 in a day. All depends on the comment or posts. Many will not think less of you if you don't upvote their comment. It is the response that brings worth. I hope this helps a little. :)

Yes, it did! Thank you!

Oh I will wait the answers with you!
Especially the last 2 questions .

It's good to feel so not all alone! Friend! lololol

Thanks for stopping by to say hello!

What you need to do is make friends in your league, so to speak - like the friends you grew up with it's a special kind of bond. They're more likely to be there for you and upvote.. in time we all grow a bit more 2 cents becomes 10 and so on. As for whales, you have to be lucky to become friends with one, few actually bother to answer a comment, let alone visit your blog.

Yes, I have been finding like-minded people, and it is certainly helpful.

The Steem Pope is here with answers! Some of them might even be right!

Your vote power diminishes with each upvote you make. If you upvote 10 times per day, every day, your vote power should regenerate to 100% each day. If you upvote more than that, your vote power will not refill all the way, and the amount of rewards to assign with your upvote will diminish. It's not really something you need to worry about. You can see your vote power percentage at steemd.com/@[your Steemit user name] or steemdb.com/@[your Steemit user name].

The surplus followers could be from any number of things. Bots, newbies who try to follow everyone, people who have since quit Steemit, people who liked something you posted about but have since lost touch, or who knows what all else. The few who interact are the worthwhile ones, and don't worry about the rest.

People who follow whales often hope to be an early upvoter on their new posts so they can earn curation rewards when more people upvote it after them. As a minnow, you won't earn much playing that game, but many do it anyway. Remember that if you think a post has earned enough rewards, you can certainly withhold your upvote despite enjoying the content.

Does that help at all?

Yes, thank you very much, O Steem Pope! I was hoping you would chime in on this one!

@marwa did you see this? You indicated you were looking for answers, too.