STEEM SERIES | Introduction

To say the STEEM blockchain system is complicated, can be an understatement. I do not get uneasy about complicated, I can appreciate having to fire up the Ol’Thinker for some manual labor. I actually enjoy it. What drives me mad sometimes, is what I encounter trying to gather the necessary information to puzzle all of it together. Gathering reliable and accurate information on how clockwork STEEM operates can be quite the challenge.

DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE
There is one page that is frequently linked to, and according to the source link appears to be a treasure chamber of STEEM information. The page is steemd's distribution page. This page has been “Down for maintenance” for as long as I’ve been a member here. I’ve found months old post addressing the same thing, and no one seem to ever have seen the page operational, or to have any information on when it might be up again.

EASY ON THE DECENTRALIZING THERE
Searching and reading Steemit posts for these answers can be even more confusing. Few of them are short and give a precise answer. NB! I’ve already written my first post in this series following this introduction, and it didn’t turn out short either. I’m not going to hold that against anyone else. That would be hypocritical.

Some is trying to make parallels to the stock market in order to explain some of STEEMs features. They work for part of it, but often falls short on some key elements, or just leaves them out. Often this missing element is what I am on the lookout for.

Reading Steemit post in search of such information can sometimes feel like reading newspapers from a bunch of parallel universes; never knowing if the information applies to yours. Information in old posts are often outdated and irrelevant due to changes (hardforks), without there being any information or comment mentioning this.

Decentralizing of STEEM is great, but do we have to decentralize every last piece of information about the system?

THE UP-SIDE
That was my complaining portion of the post. There are many good, and even great, posts out there as well. Many that have helped me to a better understanding. They are however long and perhaps not something you want to spend much time on your first week here. You got other things to do; like writing, voting and reading post that interest you. I am likely to be linking to some of these more in-depth posts through this series.

After going through much of the learning curve myself, I wanted to make the post I wish I had myself when joining the community. I assume many are like myself when first entering this system and soon discover its complexity; we want some quick simple answers on how to operate the darn thing correctly. Like the "quick setup manual" that comes with electronics, or the "Auto"-setting on your fancy camera. We want this mainly to avoid making the bad decisions, rather than finding the optimal. The optimization can come later, as we slowly develop a more refined understanding of the mechanisms.

I realize that I’m not ready to make such a post complete at this time. As there are still features I have yet to fully understand myself. When I am ready, I will consider make a summary of all the features explained in a short and simplified way. Unless it has, by that time, already been done by someone else.

I made this introduction to let you know why I will be making these posts. Also, I did it to vent out some of my own built up steem from frustrating hunts for information.

Have a good one,

warjar

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STEEM SERIES
This is a series I will use to present and discuss features of the STEEM system and its future. Please feel free to make you own contributions in the comments below.

I will do my best to update the information in these posts if features is changed.