My first 21 days on steemit...highs and lows
This marks the end of my third week on steemit. Here are some thoughts from a n00b.
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmXZBAZKcJgEEkdyy6KcU8BFvPcMNZPYFanmM4WTTXia2S/image.png)
Image courtesty of graniteschools.org
I still feel like I only have the vaguest clue what is going on. I've read a bunch of blog posts explaining various aspects of steemit, like how it matters how old the posts you upvote are, how to delegate SP, voting power, reputation, etc. but there's so much going on I feel like I can't see the forest for the trees. It's definitely a bit overwhelming. At least on reddit, I can grok everything that I'm supposed to do and everything that's expected of me from the text in the sidebar of the subreddit. Things aren't nearly as transparent here.
On one hand, I've read some great posts, "met" some very cool people, and seen some beautiful art and other content. This was my favorite post so far by @pilgrimtraveler:
A dead random whale courtesy of ktuu.com
On the other hand, I find the community dynamics confusing. I'm getting a lot of conflicting information about what I should be doing as a n00b. I have been advised by many people to use services like @minnowbooster or otherwise nobody will ever see my posts until I'm more established in the community, but then I see people getting viciously attacked for using/running these services. Can someone explain what this is all about? I saw that @randowhale got shut down, but don't understand why. Should I be using these services or not?
![](https://steemitimages.com/DQmVinWwwikbn4s1EeWrgPbyu7s4HgCZNFK6vEDRTcPi4wF/image.png)
image courtesy of movieplot.com
In my first 21 days, I also managed to get banned by the @SPL (Steem Poker League). This baffles me, because as far as I can tell, I've met the requirements to play, and to my knowledge, I haven't done anything wrong that would put my application status in jeopardy. When I inquired about the status of my application after a couple weeks of waiting, I was told this by @tuck-fheman:
"Generally we just ban people who don't qualify, but I've left your account pending to give you time to build up some history on Steemit."
However, nobody will tell me WHY I don't qualify. Then, 6 days after that post I am summarily banned. What was expected of me during those 6 days? What is 6 days of history supposed to look like? I believe I was active every day or nearly so.
I've e-mailed about it, asked on steemit, and asked on the SPL Discord server. I do appreciate @bethalea providing a sympathetic ear, but I still can't seem to get a straight answer out of anyone. Obviously, they can ban me for any reason they want, but I feel like I committed some sort of steemit faux pas but don't know what. Have you ever read Kafka's The Trial? It's like that.
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmTc3J713tzUhHytiAXknhesKTXZZHSAem2EjJYUsySNrL/image.png)
image courtesy of wikipedia.org
I have been feeling extremely gung ho about steemit for the first couple weeks of my tenure, but now I'm not sure this is the place for me. There seem to be a lot of cliques, controversy, and in-fighting that are easy to stumble into and take collateral damage from.
If the @SPL doesn't want my chips, that's fine. I have many other places I can donate them. What concerns me more is that someone thinks I've done something bad enough to justify a ban from a community I just joined, followed by complete radio silence. While I am "neurotypical," some of the interactions I'm having on here make me feel like I'm somewhere on the spectrum completely missing social cues. If anyone has any insight about what I'm doing "wrong" on steemit or how I managed to really step in it in just under 3 weeks, it would be greatly and sincerely appreciated.
I will try and put in a good word for you @sc0ut, these @spl people can be a bit crusty;)
Thank you sir! I greatly appreciate it! :)
There has been a lot of issues with people making fake account on steemit to take advantage of communities like SPL. So one way that SPl has had to deal with this is by becoming very strict in its rules and procedures. Posts like this show a human behind the account and help verify your account. Hopefully we will be playing poker together soon.
Thank you so much for your candor and explanation. I suspected I was indirectly being accused of trying to multiaccount or collude or something like that, but didn't know what I had done to cause that.
Another n00b question: When I tried to reply to @nicnas's reply, I got a "bandwidth limit exceeded" message. When I clicked over to https://steemd.com/@sc0ut, it said that my bandwidth was -1,115%. How do you get negative bandwidth? Is this a legitimate value, or a bug in steemd or steemit?
New users with low amount of SP sometimes run out of bandwidth. Wait a little to recharge or buy some Steem and power up.
Thanks. Luckily, it recharged within a matter of minutes and I was able to post the comment. I was confused because when I Googled it, it seemed like -300% was the lowest bandwidth you could have, and that if it got that low it would take hours to regenerate. I'm glad that wasn't the case!
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