A complete GUIDE for Newcomers and Minnows to avoid a possible SPAM and to write good comments!

in #steemit6 years ago (edited)

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Hello Steemit Friends,

I guess I hoped that when my fight against SPAM started, other people would come forward, so it wouldn't be just me.
It was just a hope and... has become a reality.

A lot of new friends have been added in this crusade, and now we are stronger and determined to fight SPAM… It’s like a scourge that is spreading through our steemit community.

I've decided to merge my two previous guides into one:

Newcomers, minnows and spammers.. this post will save your reputation!

Newcomers and Minnows: how to write a "quality" comment

I removed a lot of images to shorten the guide, so it can be more clearly understood.

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Newcomers, Minnows and Spammers.. Read this post carefully! It will help you grow faster here in Steemit.

I'm not overreacting, my friends... If you give me a chance, I will prove it to you…

I know what it feels like, to be the newest member of a community… It feels disorienting… But that doesn't give you the right to disrespect other users!
You must be modest and take time to look around, get an understanding of how the steemit community works!

This guide is composed of two parts:

  • How To Avoid Posting Spam Comments
  • How To Write a "Quality" Comment

Part one - HOW TO AVOID POSTING SPAM COMMENTS

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STEEMIT ETIQUETTE

FIRST OF ALL, I suggest you read STEEMIT ETIQUETTE before anything else.

VOTE FOR VOTE --- FOLLOW FOR FOLLOW

I'll tell you right now, THIS DOESN'T WORK!!

Whether your goal is to grow in the steemit community, or simply to earn money, it certainly won’t be other newcomers who take you there! So what’s the point of this waste of time?

In fact, if you propose vote for vote or follow for follow in all your comments, hoping that some experienced user (whale) will check you out, you'll appear desperate, and risk undermining your reputation… Because you’re going to attract a lot of downvotes! The only ones who will accept this will be other newcomers (or minnows) like yourself… It isn’t very useful for your goal…
Most of the minnows will stop writing after a short time, becoming what we refer to as a "dead follower"!

Keeping Dead Followers makes no sense! It's better to have 100 active followers, with good reputations and decent SPs, than 1000 followers with low or poor reputations and hardly any SP weight… Most of those will become dead followers…

QUALITY IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN QUANTITY!

You could verify this on your own what I've been telling you. Use the steemit Dead followers app created by @mynameisbrian

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PLAGIARISM

It's worst crime you could commit here in steemit!!!

If you take content from the internet and copy/paste it on steemit, trying to pass it off as your own, rest assured that you'll get busted… There's a bot called @cheetah which performs this task, but there are also users that monitor this… To help control plagiarism, please report any issues to @steemcleaners..
Always remember to cite your sources!

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SPAM

Try to write good comments!

Take you time to read posts carefully, and write relevant comments! Don't comment with caveman answers like, "good post", "nice post", or "great"… Also, don't post unrelated links in comments! That will get you a downvote for sure...

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REPUTATION

Keep in mind that your reputation is your Business Card
When you write a post or a comment, typically the first thing a reader sees is your reputation. If you put a stupid or mean comment, you’re compromising your future here on Steemit!

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So in short, my ADVICE is:

  • don't ask vote for vote
  • don't ask follow for follow
  • don't write spam comment
  • don't post unrelated links in comments
  • don't be a troll
  • don't be a plagiarist
  • cite your sources
  • respect other users
  • quality is better than quantity

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Part two - HOW TO WRITE A "QUALITY" COMMENT

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WRITE SOMETHING WITHIN YOUR SPHERE OF EXPERIENCE

Sounds pretty basic, doesn't it? But everyday I see people commenting something unrelated to what they’re commenting on…

My advice:

if you don't understand what you are reading, click on the steemit feed and find another post.

Sometimes it is better to remain silent and appear stupid, than open your mouth and remove all doubt
(Oscar Wilde)

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READ ALL OF EACH POST CAREFULLY

Another mistake of newcomers and minnows is to read only few lines of a post, then skip the rest… They begin writing a comment without reading the post! With this behavior, it's highly probable you’ll write something stupid or unrelated to the post…

My advice:

Take the time to read the post carefully, and then write your comment. A well-written comment will receive more upvotes than one written in a hurry. Quality is ALWAYS better than quantity.

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WHEN YOU'RE IN DOUBT, ALWAYS DO RESEARCH

Very often, writing fast leads to a lot of inaccuracies. In fact, to participate in technical posts requires care and accuracy.

My advice:

When in doubt, always research to make sure your information is correct.

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ONLY PUT A LINK IN A COMMENT IF RELEVANT!

Why would a reader will be interested in your link, if it isn't closely related to the content of the post? Unrelated links will earn you a sure downvote.

My advice:

To put a link in a comment isn't wrong, but make sure it's closely related to the content of the post.

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DON'T UPVOTE YOUR OWN COMMENTS

It's a very frequent error, and very often punished by downvotes… An upvote means appreciation for your comment… Other readers are the ones who should upvote your comment… It is assumed that you believe in your comment, and you'd always vote it!

My advice:

If you write a good comment, be assured it will get some upvotes… So don't waste your effort upvoting yourself! Also, the activity is pointless due to your low SP!

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DON'T ASK UPVOTE FOR YOUR COMMENTS

I know it is frustrating to write a good comment and not receive any attention… Maybe your reputation score is very low right now, but be perseverant… Everything is difficult in the beginning… But in time, leaving good comments will prove your worth to others… They'll notice, and upvote you more…

My advice:

Try to choose authors who share your own thought and ideas. It will be easier to write comments which attract their attention.

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SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE

If you have a past experience strictly related to the post content, share it! It will be highly appreciated.

My advice:

Include personal experiences… They add value to your comment, and often create new discussions which could turn into future posts.

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ASK TOUGHTFUL QUESTIONS

Questions are useful to provide new opportunities for discussion, and add quality to the content of a post.

My advice:

This could be a really good way to interact with authors of posts, receive upvotes, and make new friends and followers.

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HAVE FUN!

I’ve saved my most important advice for last: if you don't enjoy writing comments, it will be obvious in in your words. I think that positive interaction with authors is the best way to make new friends, while growing in the steemit community at the same time! It's nicer to give an upvote to a friend, keep that in mind!

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Thank you for taking the time to read this post.


If you like it, please upvote and resteem!

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A big thanks to @occupywallets for helping me to correct this.


photo source 1 , 2 , 3

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Someone was just asking me what a good tutorial or guide on steemit looks like. THIS is what it looks like. Upvoted hard and resteemed with love. <3

Just one comment about self-upvoting comments. I have been known to upvote my own comments with 1% or 2% of my pretty heavy voting power (look, Ma, I am a dolphin!) to ensure visibility above the spam, especially in long crowded threads. I am not a fan of self-upvoting of comments, but as long as "nice post follow me" comments continue to crowd our comment sections, I will continue making sure my comments are SEEN so they can be replied to and / or upvoted.

Hi @techslut. I absolutely share your view about self-up voting comments. If you have the voting power to do it, you can get ahead of the spam, or as I have done in this case to push my reply up a notch so that the comments flow in a good order. As a general rule I don’t upvote my comments, but it’s my right to do so. In general, I prefer to use my voting to support others. With heavy voting power, I can make a difference to them.

Can I ask you a favour? You can see my comment about multi-serial spammer @jout below. He has the same reputation score as me, so I can’t do anything. He is writing hundreds of comments an hour all with the same words. Many users want to stop his behaviour, but don’t have the power.

It looks like you do have enough power.

No obligation on you - but if you do accept to sometimes stop spammers with a flag, the he would be the number 1 candidate.

Thanks!

Have you reported him to steemcleaners? Also, look me up on Discord and we'll figure out how to deal with this issue. I am on a bunch of Discords.

Hi @techslut. I have downloaded Discord and verified myself etc, and created a channel. Can’t find any way to look up users like you. Seems i have to send you an invite here first? Here it is: https://discord.gg/yMeTs9w

I know it has been a while, but I'm just seeing this. I went to look, and I can see that Swissclive is still trying to flag the guy to make him stop. A report was submitted to:

https://steemcleaners.org/abuse-report/

They know about the guy now, and hopefully he'll get squashed soon for the abuse. Thanks to you guys for bringing it up here, or I would never have known it was a problem!

He is also upvoting his own comments through an upvote bidbot @postpromoter - an interesting get rich quick scheme

I have yet to upvote one of my own posts but this makes a lot of sense. I post quality comments which add to the discussion and they are probably never seen by many because of all the cookie cutter responses.

Never feel bad upvoting to get above the bots and spammers. No reasonable person is going to flag or give you trouble for doing it. I'll remove my upvote later though once the position is secured by other upvotes to avoid the issue of paying myself with my own SP. My SP is meant for others, and I definitely don't want to game the system.

Someone was just asking me what a good tutorial or guide on steemit looks like. THIS is what it looks like. Upvoted hard and resteemed with love. <3

Thank you, dear ;-)

Just one comment about self-upvoting comments. I have been known to upvote my own comments with 1% or 2% of my pretty heavy voting power (look, Ma, I am a dolphin!) to ensure visibility above the spam, especially in long crowded threads. I am not a fan of self-upvoting of comments, but as long as "nice post follow me" comments continue to crowd our comment sections, I will continue making sure my comments are SEEN so they can be replied to and / or upvoted.

I completely understand.. I'm very active in this sense, having a campaign to raise awareness in steemit community about spam and i'm very proud I've enlisted some friends in this battle against spammers. I don't want to replace @steemcleaners or @spamminator but support them.

I too see the advice to never upvote your own replies, and I disagree with that advice as well. Typically, I will upvote my reply to get above the bots and spammers. Then once it is secured above them, I remove my upvote. Thanks and followed!

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Thank you so much for this wonderful guide. If all these is taken into consideration, steemit community will go a long way. Kudos to you @miti

You're welcome @funkylove ;-)

I will definitely resteem this post so I can always reference it. Thanks, @miti for putting these together. I'll follow your blog for more.

Excellent post my friend, today is actually my first day on Steemit and this is EXACTLY what I've been looking for, even before joining. Countless Youtube reviews and guides did little to provide the insight as to the nature of the steemit social network itself, Steem notwithsatnding. Social media up to this point has left me jaded after having taken the plung full "steem" ahead (I peaked at MySpace, before falling for the FB time suck trap;). I'm actually excited about the potential of this paradigm and that alone is a great value to me in and of itself. I honestly haven't a tenth of the knowledge which I imagine is required to be a compatent crypto-trader, but steemit and it's inherent system of "check and balances" provides me with the ideal platform to trade thoughts, collaborate ideas, and meet with other open-minded individuals; this is what the kids call "winning." This here seems like the best way to run a truly SOCIAL network built on creativity, partnerships, and communal alturism. They say your vibe attracts your tribe, but in this case I think the Steemian Tribe has attracted my vibes. Thank you sincerily for this post, I appreciate your time.

@fatherhoodrich

I found your arguments... very interesting, very... impassioned. Take your time to explore steemit, and you'll see that everything's fine. If you'll conduct this in a good spirit, you will grow fast.. i'm here from 3 month now and you see where i'm! but it took a great effort..

A great effort, thanks so much for putting this together, I'll be sharing in my other groups to help newbies understand steemit better.

Thanks Lyndsay, your help is very appreciated!

I always put some thought into comments because I want to show that I've actually read the content rather than just say how much I liked it or that I'm going to resteem it. When I see spam comments getting upvotes, it kills me.

In this way you will grow fast in steemit community ;-)

This is a really good and important post. Thank you for writing it. I'm updating my spam-warning-message, replacing the link to your old article with this one.

Well done.. thanks ;-)

Great work, as always. I understand that after the next fork, upvotes in the first 15 minutes won't give author rewards. So commenting and upvoting your own comment will give you nothing anyway.

Since I use bots to promote my own work, I always upvote legitimate comments on my pages (even if it's just enough to push them above the bots' comments). If it is already high on the page because of self-voting, I am less likely to. New members that upvote themselves are therefore deprived of my more valuable upvotes.

Hi Joseph,

i never upvote my post until someone do it before me.

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As you can see, i waite that 3 users upvoted the post before doing it.

That makes sense. I like to wait until the 30 minute mark to upvote my own posts, so that I can get better curation rewards from the later voters. I do the same for the other projects I run. Across the three accounts, that's roughly 15% of my upvote.

I try to do my own curation for the rest, but I do have a bot in place to release pressure off the top (e.g. if my voting power gets above 98% it follows a prescribed algo to keep it from reaching 100%).

Really interesting!

That was very well written, and I suspect that English isn't your first language... Good job! I'll throw it out there, if you want me to edit this, let me know... I'd be happy to...

Yes, i'm Italian and... Why not? Are you on discord or in steemit.chat?

Not yet... I am sort of a hermit, but I am slowly adapting!
Can you email a word doc?
After I edit, do you know how to do a compare doc? If not, I can give that too, so you see what changes I made, and where...

Email sent to you, thanks!

do you know how to do a compare doc?

Yes i do ;-)

I think it's better that you cancel your email address from your comment...spammers lurk..

okay, thanks! (sorry)

Which would you personally recommend, for this newbie? (discord or steemit.chat)

I think that steemit.chat is easier for a newbie. To use discord you need of an invite to a channel.

Okay, thank you!

I have a separate question, more on topic with this post... I want to become the best I can, so I am curious if you think this is spammy...

imageedit_54_7327937237.gif

I make them myself, and people seem to really respond well to them... But after reading your post, I wonder if it is too, "LOOK AT ME!"? Thanks!

If you leave a reply, I (personally) would NOT want a large image like that telling me you up-voted my article. I can see who up-voted it using any number of tools if I really wanted to know. However, writing in WORDS that you up-voted my article will usually get me to look and see what kind of up-vote you actually made. The same applies to a re-steem.

It is a cool gif, but it clutters up my page and most likely really has no relevance to what I wrote about.

Fully agree... almost all authors don't appreciate gif like this..

Okay, I really appreciate your advice... Do you want me to remove my GIF example from the comments?

I don’t like a GIF in the comments unless it relevant and adds something to the discussion.

Agree with you

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