Welcome to Steemit: Some Steemit Basics; Upvoting, Downvoting, Resteeming and Commenting.
Welcome to Steemit.
When you're new here it can be a bit overwhelming, so hopefully I can take you through some basics steps to get to know the Steemit platform.
Let's start with upvoting.
Where is the upvote button and what does it do?
You've just read a really good article and at the bottom is a little arrow pointing upwards.
This is the upvote button and if you click on it, within the first 7 days of the article being posted, you will give the author your vote which is worth Steem. How much Steem your vote is worth depends on how much Steem Power you have.
So what benefit is upvoting to me?
There are actually multiple ways this benefits you, even if initially it only appears to benefit the author. Firstly when you upvote someone you have the chance to earn a part of the curation rewards for that post. The earlier you get in the better, but not too early, because if you vote too soon the system will assume you haven't read the article and all of your vote goes to the author with no return for you. It's suggested you don't vote less than 15 minutes after the article has been posted.
When you upvote someone your username will show up as having made a vote and others might click on it to visit your page to see what your blog posts are like. Then you might get uovotes in return.
Then a slightly more long term and subtle benefit is to the longevity off the platform itself. Upvotes encourage people, meaning that they are more likely to stay around and stay active. Activity keeps the platform going which means more chance of it being around for earning potential in the long term.
Voting limitations.
Every time you vote your Voting Power will decrease by 2%. The lower it gets the less value it has to both the author and the curator (that's them and you). However, it will build back up at the rate of 20% per day. A useful site to track your voting power level is steemnow.com, just change the username to your own. It will tell you what percentage you VP is, how long it will take to get back to 100% and what the current value of your 100% upvote is.
It's recommended you only upvote a post in the first 7 days because after that the post will have been paid out. Although you can still add your vote, it no longer adds value, but it still depletes your voting power.
Commenting or Replying
How do I comment?
If you want to leave a comment on a post then click on the little word at the bottom of the post that says “reply”.
This will bring up a box for you to write your comment in. Underneath the box you're writing in is another box which shows you what your reply will look like once posted.
Why should I comment?
Just like upvoting, commenting has multiple benefits. Firstly it gets you noticed both by the author and any others who might read the post and comments. Secondly, you can get upvotes on your comments.
How to and how not to comment.
Bearing the above in mind hopefully you might realise that for the best benefit your comment needs to be a good, constructive or helpful one, because it's going to reflect on you. So something like “Good post!” or “Nice post!” isn't very helpful and won't impress anyone. So at best you'll probably be ignored and at worst someone might downvote/flag you. People like compliments, but be sincere. Telling them it's a great post and that you've upvoted, resteemed and followed them isn't going to wash if you haven't actually done any of those things.
The best comments will show that you've actually read the post. Giving feedback or asking questions is usually a good start. If you can't think of anything to say other than that you think it was well written, then you might be better off not commenting.
Downvoting or Flagging?
Downvoting is also known as flagging. You'll find a little flag symbol to the top right of any post or comment.
If you click on it a box will come up with potential reasons you might want to flag a post.Flagging/downvoting basically has the opposite affect to an upvote and will remove rewards to the value of the downvote. A post that has been flagged low enough will be hidden.
Resteeming.
How do I resteem and what does it do?
Once again at the bottom of a post is another symbol which is an arrow going back on itself.
This is the resteem button and if you click on it a pop-up will come up asking if you're sure you want to resteem it. It's effectively like sharing and the resteemed post will appear on you blog page.
Why should I resteem?
Resteeming basically brings the post to the attention of your followers and is your way of sharing something that they also might be interested in. Financially it’s of more benefit to the author, so it's doing something good for them, but it can also be beneficial to you as a curator too. The more votes the post gets after you vote, the larger your cut of the curation is likely to be.
@minismallholding. You explained the initial procedure for new comers very nicely. I hope if any one obey this post will grow rapidly.
Thank you
Hello there @minismallholding. I am really glad you have posted this and it will remind us of the basics but the most significant ones. I didn't even know about the steemnow until this post.
Glad you got something new from it.
And thank you for it :) Have a great day @minismallholding