It is confusing around here - I'm using the platform to write a few personal things as well as doing my own sociological investigation into it - just trying to answer a few of the most basic questions about how the platform works is actually taking me longer than I thought - part of the problem is that it's constantly evolving! Try connect with a few people and inter-comment on the posts you're interested in. It makes it much more sustainable, and blinker yourself to those monster payouts, they're not representative.

Steemd/@youruser name is really one of the best tools on here - that's what I use to check whose voted for me, whose commented.

Karl.