RE: Exploring Steem Communities: Here's a Video of What's Possible, in case you Missed the Steemwave Radio Live Stream
I would love to chat with you about this, and I'm really excited to know that you found the video helpful. I will think more about what sorts of short, easy to consume content would be useful- so if you have ideas, I'm all ears! I talk every week live (and you're welcome to join if it suits you) but I recognize short, 5 min snippet videos that are lots of fun and very clearly explained would be great versus these 1 or 2 hour behemoths. Maybe you and some others can help direct me towards the most important stuff.
As for your question... it won't cost you Steem or Steem power to make up and downvotes, so don't worry about that. A very, very simplified version of the system is that you can make up and downvotes each day, but their impact (ie, how much rewards they allocate) will depend on how much Steem power you have and how many votes in total you have made, as well as a few other larger ecosystem factors. If you make lots and lots, they get weaker and will take some time to replenish! This is a very incomplete explanation, and there's a lot of nuance that can trip you up early on, but I don't want to overwhelm you. It seems so insane when you start but it quickly just becomes something you will innately understand and not think much about, I promise.
The gist of what you're doing now is a great start -find stuff you like, make a comment on it, and upvote it if you think it deserves some rewards! Based on how you learn and how headlong you want to dive in, I can recommend many different resources for you. Something that exists right now already might be a great start. There are lots of them out there, so don't feel like you have to check them all out at once:
First off, I'm a resource available to you, so feel free to chat with me here, on discord, or on steem.chat. If any of those are up your alley, I am probably lurking in them 😂
If you find videos to be the most help to you, you can check out Steem Onboarding or Steem Savvy for some great ones.
If you prefer chatting back and forth live, Discord is one of the big go tos. PALnet, the Steem Terminal, and many many others exist with all sorts of purposes and niches and I'd be happy to help you find a few that fit.
Overall, welcome to the chain! It can be big and crazy, but once you get the hang of it you'll wonder why you weren't here in the first place. I'm stoked you reached out, because it's nice to see Steem though fresh eyes again~
Awesome!
Most of the reading I've come across basically reveals that the developers are doing their best to create an organic atmosphere through different algorithmic solutions. So with that and the further advice you laid out before me, I think I'll just use the site naturally for now then maybe later I'll give some more consideration to the minutia of my browsing behavior once I become more established.
While I think short videos can be good, I like to be able to sit down and sink my teeth into some subjects every once in awhile. I'm excited for some of those beta features you showed off on your livestream. I'm going to look into Steem chat and perhaps I'll see if I see you on there.
Thank you.
Totally! The coolest thing about Steem is truly that "blogging" isn't the be all end all. We're starting to see all sorts of solutions, games, and (d)apps cropping up. This is one facet of it all that will absolutely help bolster an organic atmosphere, but the interface that I demoed here will make the biggest impact on written content and social blogging. Once it's live, I am fairly certain we'll see a lot of these features pulled into other services in ways we may not expect to build a better user experience~ when you start considering that chain data can be pulled by anyone to create anything, it starts getting realllly interesting. Drop me a line if you need anything!