So I have now spent one week on this amazing, rapidly evolving and often confusing platform.

Pretty much a Steemit master

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As I see my first few tiny rewards starting to trickle into my wallet I thought I'd share a few loose thoughts on the newbie experience. Don't expect anything revolutionary here but it has still been fascinating to start familiarizing yourself with what goes on here on Steemit.

1. My comments on comments

Commenting on other peoples posts is as profitable as writing your own when you don't have any followers yet. I have earned a bunch of upvotes on comments and they also help introduce to other users. Some things to bear in mind when commenting:

• Actually read the post
• Comment on posts from users both big and small
• If you're commenting on a post, upvote it as well
• If you don't get an upvote that's ok you can still get a response and perhaps make a new friend

2. With no Power Comes Great Freedom

I heard much advice that it is very important to conserve your voting power so that your upvote carries as much power as possible and grants you the highest possible curation rewards.

I think not...

Basically at my Steem power my upvote is worth nothing. The way I see it I don't think it matters much if It's worth nothing or 50% of nothing. Curation rewards are also insignificant.

Therefore I will upvote as much as I please. My vote still carries at least a symbolic meaning and people still appreciate it So I will upvote anyone I feel deserves a pat on the back.

I'll save the conserving of power until I reach the point where my vote becomes worth something. Then I'll need to grow up and make sure that my $0.01 doesn't fall in the wrong hands.

3. Your shit stinks and it's there for everyone to see

In case you didn't know people do a whole lot of shady stuff on the internet.
On Steemit people also do a whole lot of weird, immoral or just selfish things as well. But the wonderful thing is that the blockchain is public!

I found it fascinating just to go into others peoples accounts and see what they've been up to.

For example i wrote this post after finding a user that pastes the same generic comments into all the #Introduceyourself posts and then upvoting himself but never the original post.

I find this behavior irritating and wish that the new users who thanked his comment and gave it an upvote would have also taken the time to delve into his account.

Basically when someone leaves you an interesting comment take a brief look at what kind of a user they really are.

4 Raise the Red Flag

I don't see a lot of people flagging posts or comments.

Maybe Everyone is just more incentivized to suck up to each other at all times to get upvotes at any cost.

But the fact of the matter is that there is a finite amount of rewards to be had. If someone is getting it there is less left for everyone else.

So I feel that flagging people who are doing shady stuff is something more people should take the responsibility of doing.
I dont mean flag people because you don't like their stuff or because you disagree.

But like the self upvote spammer i mentioned before some people are trying to get rewards by not doing anything useful. They are stealing from everyone else.

So flag them when you see them!

Too bad my flag also carries no power what so ever.

That's all for now I'll go back to posting picture's from my instagram and upvoting vacation pictures from random Filipinos.

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