Do's and Don'ts of Steemit and PALnet
Spam and ill-advised behaviour seem to be running rampant here. On the minnow support Discord server we also have some problems. This post will offer examples of what not to do and also handy hints towards success on these platforms.
Steemit
Comment spam
You have no doubt seen this. As soon as you have posted you get the usual nice post, upvoted, upvote me, resteem or Follow me, I follow you. No, they didn't upvote you. Worse yet, they probably linked one of their posts there too. Or it's one of the many comment bots that are the bane of our Steemit life. Don't be this Steemian. Chances are, you will be flagged and set to mute.
Plagiarism
Many posts contain content copied and pasted from elsewhere on the internet. It is very easy to discover where from. Or maybe they include photographs from Google, or other sources, and do not credit the source. Worse yet, trying to pass off artwork that is not theirs. Again, it is very easy to do a reverse image search to find the origin. Don't be this Steemian. You will get found out, reported to Steem Cleaners (if cheetahbot doesn't catch you), flagged and likely muted.
Multiple Accounts
While it is fine to have more than one account - I have this and the @Muxxybot account - doing so to circle jerk votes between them is frowned upon. Remember, the wallets are on the blockchain. They are readily visible to all and it takes little detective work to figure out the links between them. Don't be this Steemian. You will get discovered sooner or later, reported to Steemit Abuse and likely have your accounts banned if there is deemed sufficient reason for doing so.
Flagging
There are legitimate uses for flagging - such as fraud or plagiarism, disagreement on rewards, hate speech or trolling and intentionally miscategorized content or spam. A disagreement of opinion is NOT a reason for a flag. You have something personal against an author? Not a reason for a flag. Don't be this Steemian. It most likely will cause a flag war and neither side comes out well.
So what do you do?
Offer well thought out, constructive feedback in replying to posts.
Create original content.
Respect other points of view
Follow Steemians within the areas you are interested in.
PALnet
PALnet is the nerve center of the minnowsupport project. This Discord server can be found at https://discord.gg/v3GpU4N and I, along with several others, am a moderator there. On the whole the community is fantastic, but we still get problems from newcomers.
Unsolicited messages
Every day I sign into Discord, I have messages from users I have never spoken with before. Other moderators get them too. They often include a link to a Steemit post they want upvoted or resteemed. These get ignored by me. We have a list of whales with serious weight behind them. Do not send them messages without their expressed wish and NEVER send them a link with the hope they will upvote you. Don't be this Steemian. At best you will get ignored, at worst you may get flagged by a heavy hitter.
Spam
We have many channels dedicated to different subjects. Most have a channel description. If not, take a look through the channel and see what content is there or being discussed. Randomly pasting links to posts innapropriate to the room will get them deleted, you will be warned, eventually put in the trollbox for repeated offences and in extreme cases banned altogether. We NEVER allow posts in Genreal unless it is Minnow Support Project related.
Upvoting
We have two upvote bots in the upvote channel. This is the ONLY place to use the $upvote command. Repeated offences will lead to you being warned, trollboxed and eventually banned. NEVER upvote in general unless you want to be kicked from the server.
Asking for upvotes/resteems
While we do our very best to support our fellow minnows, do not ask directly for upvotes or resteems. We have friends we often upvote and share content from and we all keep an eye on our voting power.
Troll behaviour
We have 2 rules at PALnet. Don't post links in general and be nice to each other. Purposely insulting or becoming argumentative with the other members of the community will earn you the trollbox. Continued offences will lead to a ban.
Multiple accounts
We have seen some users with multiple accounts on Steemit sign up for the Minnow Support Project in order to abuse the upvote bots. It is easy for us to discover this activity and we check the logs daily. Anyone caught doing so will have all of their accounts banned and we will keep an eye out for future sign ups. Your multiple Steemit accounts will likely be reported to Steemit Abuse.
So what do you do?
The biggest benefit you will get from the project will be to engage in chat, get friendly with everyone and organically grow your followers who will, at their discretion, choose if they want to upvote or resteem your content.
Be polite, repectful and courteous to the other members of the community.
Learn where you can and cannot post links to your posts.
I welcome all other Do's and Don'ts in the comments below
Click HERE to learn more
You tell em Muxxy!
And one other thing for all of you who have been here for a bit longer.
I have no problem with you upvoting your own comment. But don't comment on my post, upvote your comment and then not even vote on my work. That's just rude!
Don't be that Steemian either!
That type of comment may be the most disingenuous of all the spam comments @tremendospercy. The reason, because it's not actually spam. It's just poor judgement. Leaving a well thought out comment, tipping yourself a quarter and walking away with nothing for the author. It takes a certain level of smugness to do that. pfft
Indeed, one concurs wholeheartedly.
just what i was going to add. happened to me recently.
Yeah the git Upvoted himself $12 and didn't vote on the post. What a tool.
sorry Percy, I couldn't help myself, my minnow power went to my head
haha, yea.. I've also had a person randomly just post their posts link onto a comment of my post :o/
I'm happy to see I haven't really broken the unspoken rules of etiquette in my short time here. I wish I'd been on the site before the massive influx of spam hit. But I also wish I'd gotten on earlier for other reasons too.
Thanks for sharing this and hopefully it'll get noticed by the people who really need to see it. I didn't really know what I was doing my first few days here and my first couple of posts were very short as I didn't realize that writing longer posts is actually generally appreciated here as long as the content is meaningful / interesting / useful or whatever you want to call it.
I haven't really checked out minnowsupport but maybe that should go on my to do list for steemit. I guess I haven't felt the need as people have been very generous to me and my payouts so far have been more than I could have reasonably hoped for. Even on days when I make a dollar or two that's just free money to me and I think in the distant future those of us who are new here at this point will be handsomely rewarded for our efforts and for holding onto the currency as opposed to just cashing it out and spending it. That's what I plan on doing with my earnings (hold it).
I also feel very lucky that I haven't seen a single purely negative comment on any of my posts yet. It's very refreshing to find a social media site where people are, for the most part, respectful and if they don't like what you have to say they generally just move on.
Thank you for such a wonderful comment. These are quite rare nowadays and appreciated when they arrive.
On the whole most people are respectful on Steemit, but it takes just 1 to sour things.
Thank you and bravo @gmuxx ;-)
Common sense is only common sense once it's pointed out! ;)
Some people, we must remember may have never learned basic good manners.
We can help them just as you did @barbara-orenya by pointing them to this post. I'll spread the word too.
They just need good guidance to mend their ways.
Very true. Thank you.
Nice information sharing. I thing all serious who want to earn some seroius money and reputation may not violate any of this don't s. And as fer as multiple account, their will be very limited advantage for it because if you don't perform here well,so can't achieve anything. So their multiple accounts will be useless automatically. But most bad thing is flagging, if some spam accounts are started flagging random post to spoil this platform then it will be really a bad day for steemit.
Unfortunately the multiple accounts on PALnet take away voting power from the pool: 1 user taking their unfair share from the community.
the comment spam is the worst.
a.) it's obvious y'all didn't read the post.
b.) no, i won't follow you. chances are good you don't create any content worth reading if you're spamming people's articles.
instant "mute" as far as i'm concerned. i'd LOVE to have the option to just delete those comments, however.
My mute list is growing daily
Great advice. In my short time here I have seen several of those "don't be that steemian". Thanks for writing this post with great advice to make this community more productive and prosperous.
Don't use an apostrophe when pluralizing. Never. :P
I was unsure, so I searched it before posting.
Then the AP and Eats, Shoots & Leaves are wrong because you never pluralize with an apostrophe. Never. I AM FANATICAL ABOUT THIS OKAY
lol
Hey there! Great pieces of advice, although I am a noob and I don't get how everything works here. I'm still using the basics. But I'm happy to follow for future guidance and already resteemed and upvoted. :)
Sharing to get it seen by my followers! Thank You @gmuxx!
Thank you, I really appreciate it.
I am still fairly new here, however, I made my way over to Discord and found the most eclectic mix of personalities converged in a very small window. :) I just sat on the sidelines and watched the goings on and the sometimes rambunctious behavior. sigh I found home.
It too me a bit to just jump in and have conversation with people, but, once I made that move, every single person in there was nice, supportive and beyond helpful. I don't always have time to go there, even less in the last week, but, they are there and they come and visit me, which touched my heart.
They are that Steemian
While I am having growing pains finding my niche, I can honestly say that the $$ are not as important at this point, but, good relationships are. The money will come later, or not. But, I think it is more satisfying to find good people that you can relate to.
The tit-for-tat flagging lately is disturbing. It makes me not want to report plagiarism. I have seen ugly fights break out over that. So, what is the answer to that? I worked hard to get to my measly 49 and to have someone be able to knock that down in the blink of an eye doesn't seem quite fair. Especially if it is in retaliation for flagging.
You all work so hard over in MinnowSupport and Discord. I wish I had the talent to do something over there, but, I am trying to point newbies in your direction and help get people started as this place has a learning curve attached to it.
I guess I didn't do or not do here, but, do help anyone you can and don't be afraid to flag someone who deserves it.
And we love you people on Discord. You are the best.