The Tao of Steemit
So you wish to live the Way of Steemit?
It is a long and winding road, grasshopper, filled with towering joys and sobering defeats.
The Way of Steemit is brimming with life lessons that must be yielded to, lest you risk whacks with the flag, or worse- banishment. There is nothing worse than being exiled as a Steemit has-been; shoved into the world wide web amongst the slaves of Facebook and other nonrewarding web-lands.
I am here to show you the way, grasshopper.
Transcend the minnow pond and swim with the big whales...
Follow my wisdom and bask in the blockchain glory. Once you can take this pebble from my hand and present it for another tiny minnow, then, my friend, you will have surpassed my teachings and are on your way to being Master Whale.
Steemit has etiquette and guidelines- both written and unwritten. I have compiled the Tao of Steemit for your growth and rewarding knowledge, as @reddragonfly brought to my attention during a conversation that there may be a number of Steemmates who have not read the Whitepapers or FAQ's. And there a few common courtesies here that may not be common sense in all walks of life, but will help you transcend the minnow pond and swim with the big whales. So for ease of all and consistency across the platform, here is the Tao of Steemit.
The beautiful thing about these common courtesies is that they transmit across all areas of life, too ;)
1.. Be Kind!
This should go without saying, but far too often I see people doing the opposite. Sure, some things on Steemit may seem like common sense, like not asking for follows and upvotes, but you must keep in mind that Steemit is a wonderful melting pot of all kinds of cultures and peoples. Different things are kosher in different societies- it is not polite to slurp your soup in America but if you don't in Japan they consider it offending. The middle finger is offensive in the USA but the pointer finger is rude in Italy.
I understand if someone keeps doing it, then by all means be a little less nice. But do not be mean to someone new to Steemit. Remember, you were once new too. Most of us have made the same mistakes before- if not on Steemit in other areas. Be kind and empathetic and help a fellow crypto rebel out :)
Help the new kids out. The bigger Steemit grows the better it is for us all.
2.. Don't Upvote the Already Trending
Steemit even tells you this. The purpose of this is so that the rewards can be equally distributed. For curation purposes, Steemit rewards those who find good content and upvote it before it becomes popular. After it is already trending you are supposed to go look for other good content to upvote. There is no reason to upvote content that is already trending.
3.. All About Comments
Interact with your community. Do not post and forget it. People who read your article want to talk about it. If someone takes the time to leave you a comment, show them the same courtesy and respond with an equally well thought out comment, or at the very least thank them for reading your article.
On the same note, do not expect to attract a following if you only comment "nice post!" Nobody of any substance is going to pay attention to that weak comment. Expect to be ignored. Strong, well thought out comments will gain the respect of the post author, and quite possibly start a longstanding relationship (following).
If you flag (downvote) a post, leave a comment why. But do not flag a post just because you disagree with the author! People are going to differ in opinion. Steemit is a place of free speech. I repeat, do not flag just because you don't like what someone has to say. The flagging system is to be used if a user posts something against the TOS, or is otherwise abusing the system. When in doubt, ask. Do not flag just because you are upset or feel wronged.
Alternatively, it's nice to leave a comment with your upvotes, too. It especially helps new authors know what they are doing right, and it helps everyone know what you like about their content.
And don't put links in comments, unless you have a good relationship with the poster and know they will appreciate it, or it is VERY relevant to the post content. When in doubt, don't do it- instead say you just posted something similar and what it is about and why you think they will enjoy your article. Then the author can choose to read more on your page if they are interested.
4.. Do Not Beg
Follow for follow? Upvote me and I'll upvote you! No. Just, NO. Do not ask for upvotes and follows. It is not only slobby etiquette, it is poor style and could get you flagged. Would you go up to people on the street and ask them to follow you? Granted, yes, Steemit is a social media outlet, but keep in mind it is different from the rest. You are here to build a community of likeminded people. Do not go onto peoples posts and beg for follows and upvotes. Go onto their posts after reading and write something that will interest them. That will get follows and upvotes.
5.. Get Rich Quick?
Even the Steemit Whitepaper says that Steemit is created for the long term. You must be in it for the long game to succeed at Steemit.
Do not expect to see great financial rewards and retire from your day job after two weeks at Steemit.
Nothing great was ever built overnight. Not one person on the trending page is new; they all posted daily for months to get where they are today. You must be dedicated and patient and write quality and compelling content and be an asset to the community. You must build Steemit, like anything else. You will get from Steemit exactly what you put into it.
6.. Treat Steemit Like Life
The best thing I can say is to treat this platform like the neighborhood in your community. Your page is your house. Everyone can see it. You want to keep it looking nice, and put up things that are "you" and distinguish your house from the others on the block. Make it colorful and entertaining so people will want to stop and look, perhaps stay a while and see what else you have.
Build a strong foundation so your house will last years by posting unique and interesting articles. Keep your "windows" clean because everyone is watching you.
You want the neighborhood to respect you. You do not wish to be seen as the bully, so be nice to all who pass. You don't want the reputation of being a thief, so don't steal content and put it in your yard pretending it's yours.
Remember, everything on Steemit stays on Steemit. Every comment, like, post, argument, everything is recorded forever for all to see until the end of the internet. How do you wish them to see you?
7.. Community Spirit
The rest of the internet is a dog eat dog world, where everybody is out to help themselves only. Steemit is different!
Steemit was created to be a community. We need to get out of the Me Me Me mindset and adopt a all for one and one for all mentality. Get into the habit of viewing your fellow Steemmates as your own personal community members- I like to call it my Tribe- and helping one another grow. We are all here for the same purpose. We are all rebels. And we are all slightly different from the crypto naysayers- we are risktakers and dreamers and believers and innovators. We are all creative and intelligent and helpful and friendly and generous. Lets uplift each other so we can all grow!
And always remember to show appreciation and gratitude for those who help you :)
8.. We're Only Human
Remember that we are a community of Humans. We make mistakes. We have good days and bad days. Keep this in mind before reacting, or overreacting. Take a step back if necessary, and tickle your empathy bone.
There will be differences in opinion and arguments. Do not take them personal. This is, after all, the internet.
Celebrate peoples accomplishments and offer a shoulder in times of need.
Be a good friend, just like you would in real life.
Offer forgiveness and ask for it when you are wrong.
Be critical of others work only when they have asked for it, and offer help where you can.
Never ever attack someone until you have gone to them and made an honest effort to communicate.
Conduct yourself like a gentleman or woman and have fun.
Never be immature, save that for your frat house- it has no room on Steemit.
Don't troll and remember to respect everyones differences.
Racism and Sexism and any ism should not be brought to Steemit.
Be real and be honest and be yourself always.
This is the Way of Steemit. Go forth and prosper, Obiwan- you are Steemit's only hope :)
Help Bless @ArbitraryKitten with @Papa-Pepper CryptoJeep Challenge!
My real life horror- the accident and PTSD
- Part 1-My Near Death Experience
- Part 2- the Accident Aftermath
- Part 3- Subtract the D from PTSD but Your Brain is Still Scrambled
- Part 4-How to Heal Mind and Body After an Accident & Helpful Advice for Your Loved Ones
- Part 4.5 What to Expect With Concussions and Traumatic Brain Injury
- Part 5- The Tunnel. A Real Life Horror
- Part 6- The Journey
- Part 7-My Healing & @Papa-Pepper CryptoJeep Challenge
Trigger warning- graphic and raw.
Images via Creative Commons
Thank you for your support, I love you guys ♡
With Love, Positivity and Good Mojo Light,
May Your Days Be Always Happy and Bright!
Tips for New Steemit Writers
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How to Write Well
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How to Conjure and Practice Empathy
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$25 USD for You & $25 USD for ME!
~
What to Expect With Concussions and Traumatic Brain Injury
~
Belt. A 5 Minute Fiction Freewrite
~
How to Learn English for Free
If you found this post after day 7 please consider upvoting a recent article ♡
How Has Steemit Changed Your Life?
It helped me in few ways!
Financial help to make a decent income - I was in a huge financial trouble and I had a dark future, but STEEMIT gives me the light to see how beautiful it is.
Freedom, I have 10 hrs per day job. So if this goes well, I will leave my job and will be a full time Steemian. Hope you all will support me like you do now.
Found a Hobby as photography. Yeah all credits goes to @onceuponatime! Without him, I never find my #untalented-photography skills! So, it changed my life as well. As I said before, all credits goes to @onceuponatime!
This is a learning curve. Actually my native language is Sinhala, now i am reading, writing in English. Not in fluent yet, but I do my best. And also i could see the world here. Your experience, others experiences wow this is a university of all kind of studies.
Most important thing is I could find great friendships here! That's the most important thing in my life!
Finally I would like to say, yeah STEEMIT changed my life style and it changed in a good way! I wish it will change more and more and more! After all I found people like you, @arbitrarykitten mam...
Wel done and perfect work...
I love you sharing this! Steemit is such a life changing platform! It amazes me how more people are not jumping on board! But, I suppose those who will benefit most are the ones attracted :) And only a certain strong and creative type fits in here ;)
I've noticed the account number growth has reached over 700k but there's less than 60k active users on any given day. Perhaps this is a symptom of the "get rich quick" expectation.
Honestly any decent human being should be able to figure at least some of these things out but some still struggle. Some are more obvious than others (like be kind and not abusive) but there are some who have trouble with other issues. It's definitely it's own animal (steemit) and a complicated one at that. It requires patience, tireless work, and dedication for most and even then they may not achieve their goal.
I think posts like this are becoming a growing necessity as the ranks of users swell and maybe people are out looking for info before they post. I decided earlier in a conversation maybe I need to do more how-to and explanation posts like I used to.
THanks for taking your time to help people.
Also, with Steemit being different from other social media outlets- as you aptly said "it's own animal"- people are bound to come here not paying attention and act as those do elsewhere. I felt a gentle and friendly reminder is a good thing :)
Thank you for reading! I enjoy providing inspiration and motivation, and I am always here to help with advice and tips and to answer any questions :)
As bad as that sounds, it is the truth. People jump into the steemit bus hoping to make what the whales are making in the short term... I would prefer they enjoy the ride and soon enough, it will pay off.
I love how you structured this. This is good advice and has been said many times but I love the way you wrote it and made it easy to relate to.
Glad you like it!
@arbitrarykitten
Thank you very much for such a best words .
I need it . because i use steemit from jan 2018 and i earn only 3 SBD at first i thing just post and earn a lot of .
But not like that i lose hope . but i continue to work hard on steemit .
Now i forget about earning i use it like a game . slowly slowly i want to win .
I am doing engineering and i give time to steemit . its very hard to me .but i am getting bore without using it .
When i have rank 34 some one flag me . and they flag my 2 posts so my rank goes down to 14 .but i try to work more hard and then i have now 39 .
I m saying that everything is done by hard work .
Steemit is very interesting platform .but if you know how to use it .
Very thankful to you . your post give me more courage to work more hard and a good way to walk in it .
I am so proud you rose out of the devastation from being flagged! That is amazing- most would have given up. To rise from 14-39... Wow, you definitely have what it takes to succeed at Steemit. Good job! I expect to see you risen very high by the end of the year!
Thank you .
I will do my best . thank for appreciating my efforts . i need them .
There is excellence written all over this post. . With all these common courtesies minnows like me are sure to catch on fast; soon you will receive the up votes and engagement you deserve. To me it is already remarkably useful to comment on quality posts of relevant authors which I find interesting . You build a relationship with the author and occasionally get up votes too.
I hope this post will motivate minnows to put more effort and to make out something good on steemit, thanks for this awesome educating post!
Building relationships- exactly. That is precisely what Steemit is about :)
This articke is very good and I think a lot of minnows need to read this.
I and a friend of mine created our own steemit community that is aimed at helping new steemians know their way around and also help them make connections with each other and help each other grow.
One of the aim concerns we have is the "get rich quick syndrome." Many of the new guys just want to come and start earning 15 sbd per post. This is what drives them to go about begging for upvotes and followers, despite our teachings for them not to.
After a few weeks, some of them get frustrated and become inactive... The ones who stay active, over time, start earning more and the inactive ones see the error in their ways.
We also hold contests and also resteem some of their very good posts to encourage them. We are doing what we can to help them and encourage them.
The account name for our community is @tact.
We're currently operating on whatsapp and will soon launch our discord channel wothin the next month.
Oh wow, great initiative!
Yes, once they see that Steemit is not a get rich quick scheme, the unsavories fade away, leaving the entrepreneurial minded go getters :)
Yes. We get to work with the serious minded ones.
I remember when my friend @aehiguese introduced steemit to myself and our friends, most of them were not interested. They thought it was a waste of time, that it was one of those internet scams where you'll never be able to get the money in cash. They also thought the money was too small, this was because at the time, we thiught was 1sbd was equal to 1usd.
After, three weeks of just staying true and posting consistently on a daily basis, I made over 3usd. I was broke at that particular time, because I was still a student then. We (my friends and I) were all broke. I told aehiugese that we should just withdraw the 3 sbd we each had in our wallets, at least it would be something. It was then we discovered that 1sbd at the time was 15usd... We were ecstatic. After making the withdrawal and getting the cash our friends could not believe it. Moat of them started join this platform. It was from helping them that we started the @tact group.
We now have many cases of people who left the platform coming back, especially when they see that we have helped others grow.
Let's all just try to do our best to encourage the newbies, while also making sure they don't get it too easy and get lazy.
And thanks for the upvote on the comment
@arbitrarykitten
That is a great feeling, isn't itt? When the ones you care about actually see that it is real and good and join. And then watching them succeed is satisfying :)
You are doing great work. I admire anyone who takes the time to help someone <3
It is really satisfying. Most of my friends don't have much, I just hope that steemit can be the first step to financial freedom, while also providing the platform for them to get more purpose in life.
Thank you for your kind words.
Beautifully said and presented @arbitrarykitten!
I wish more people would actually PAY ATTENTION to things like this; in essence, you can become quite successful in this community if you just go about "building community."
I am probably no less self-serving than anyone else... except MY "self interest" reads (evidently) a little differently from most people's: My motivation is "I still want to be DOING this, five — or ten — years from now, so the actions I take must be in support of that. And since there is no "they" here to make that happen, the onus is on ME to take the sort of action that will create that reality."
What scares me most about this platform is instability and the fact that a huge number of people aren't looking beyond tomorrow's BTC rise or fall.
My motivation is "I still want to be DOING this, five — or ten — years from now, so the actions I take must be in support of that. And since there is no "they" here to make that happen, the onus is on ME to take the sort of action that will create that reality."
Mine too, absolutely. I am playing the long game here. I know it is the only way. And I love it here! I do not want to go anywhere else on the web, lol.
Well... as far as the people who scare easily... They are not cut out for the market. Plain and simple. It's just like the stock market. There are those who set aside their emotional parts and play the market well and succeed. And then there are those who freak out at the slightest downturn. You have to be in cryptocurrencies for the long haul. But with that being said- never invest more than you can live without for a time.
Well well well... these are some of the greatest advices i have ever seen on steemit. Its kind of uncanny how our thought patterns combine sometimes. A month ago, i thought about writing an article named “jbn-tzu- the art of writing” and i was going for the same chinese theme that you have managed to come up with.. but for some reason, i didnt finish the article and moved on..
hahah.. weird.. (do we used to know each other in previous life?? )
The post is brilliant.. i think people need to be told that this isn’t a get rich quick scheme. You have to have some patience. And you have to give yourself sometime to settle down and grow on platform.
This is a very well written article and i love how you think about minnows and for their betterment all the time.
Deserves a resteem
I have noticed we catch each others brainwaves more than sporadically... ;)
I remember when I was a minnow. There were not many, but the couple people who helped me and answered my newbie questions were very appreciated, and helped me so much. but it is a shame I had to go around asking until I found a helper- the info should have been there- People bigger than me should have been there to offer their wisdom. That is what I feel a community is all about. I am probably Steemit's biggest believer lol, and I want to keep the "community" in it as it grows- because it will be huge
:)
I hope you are right about steemit going huge. We have dedicated our time to this platform in hopes that some day it will be a massive success..
And yes you are right. Someone should be there to guide new comers. I am glad i found you on discord. If i hadn’t, i probably would have left steemit..
kudos to you..
I am happy you are here, you are definitely a refreshing asset :)
Great advice my Sensei. Cleverly written post. All the advice here can bring a minnow some inner-peace. Thanks again!
Confucious say STEEM ever onward and upward Grasshopper :)
You smashed it out of the park with this one!
I think you managed to get every important factor when it comes to conducting yourself well on the platform. I really admire the style and how your introduction was so authentic and different.
I read the Tao of Wu not to long ago and as soon as I saw 'Tao' on TSE, I knew I was reading this today. Oh boy am I glad I did! I'm going to share it in BuddyUP for everyone to see.
I especially loved:
Yeah we are! We don't conform to the already broken system. Things will change and we will be able to make a difference :)
Thanks for the wonderful read @arbitrarykitten!
That means a lot <3 Thank you so much :)