Following the recent price surge, I saw a wave of new followers in my account. I went from around 500 to more than 700 in just 2 weeks. A lot of these users are very polite and eager to contribute, but some of them are, how to put it, a little bit "too enthusiastic". For both categories, I thought to put together a very quick guide of how Steemit can be consumed.

Because, mind you, Steemit is not your regular "throw-rubbish-content-and-expect-to-be-paid-pennies" website, but a revolutionary, alive and very peculiar project.

Without further ado:

1. Steemit.com is just one angle

Because, at its core, Steem is just a blockchain, there are many ways in which you can observe it. Steemit.com is just one way to look at it. But there are many others. Here are the angles I'm using:

• steemdb.com - created by @jesta, steemdb is a very well organized way to explore the blockchain, including information about many other aspects: witnesses, power downs, rewards and so on. I use it almost daily, to check if my witness node is functioning properly

• eSteem - created by @good-karma, eSteem is a mobile app for interacting with the blockchain. I'm totally recommending it, especially for its notifications system: you get to know when your posts are resteemed or when somebody follows or unfollows you. Works on both iOS and Android

• steemwhales - created by @heimindanger, it shows detailed rankings of all Steemit users, based on a few filters: steem, account value, steem power. Useful if you want to know exactly how much do you "worth" or what is the potential of the network. Depressing in the beginning, when you see how much some whales have accumulated, but nevertheless motivating.

2. Vote for witnesses

The Steem blockchain is not maintained by a central - or centralized - organization. That means your articles, votes, earnings and withdrawals are not guaranteed by a single entity, like, let's say, Facebook. Instead, there is an ever-changing consortium of witnesses, which are running special servers, called witness nodes, which are taking turns in validating those transactions. You should always, and constantly, vote for witnesses, because the entire network depends on them.

3. Chat is for chatting, not for spamming

Please, pretty please, with sugar on top, use only the promotion designated channels on the steemit chat. Don't post your random cookings endeavors - as tasty as they may be - in the witness or dev channels. That's a guaranteed way to be rejected.

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Other than that, it's all common sense folks. You know, like use sun screen, don't drink and drive, don't drive and text.

You know the drill.

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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You can also vote for me as witness here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses