Welcome to Steemit all new Red Fishes!

Yes, that's what you're called here on Steemit when you have not earned you're reputation yet. Some may even call you Minnows, as it's what usually referred to new users since the beginning.

Steemit is growing and we are now 240 000 users, with roughly 2000 new users every day!

Steemit can seem very alien for many new users, it's a social media platform but so far away from anything like the previous sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all the others. In this post I will do my best to make you familiar with many of the functions and inner workings of Steemit in a simpler and easy to understand way.

We will go trough:

Values of Steemit
- Steem
- Steem Power (SP)
- Steem Backed Dollar (SBD)
- Vests
Reward Types
- Posting Original Content
- Curating Content (voting)
- Flagging Content (down-voting)
- Comments, yes they earn to!
Rewards - How they work
- Poster vs. Curators
- The Rewards Curve
- The Rewards Pool
Before you're starting to post anything
Some great resources
Witnesses - The cogs in the factory!

Value of Steemit

Steemit has 3 different "tokens"

STEEM - The currency that runs the platform:
Also known as Liquid Steem. This, like other cryptocurrencies, can be traded on many markets. Holding your assets in STEEM does not give you any interest and it does not give you any power in the voting process. You should only keep your holdings this way if you are going to sell soon, consider putting these to good use as SP.
Steem Power (SP) - Your power on the platform:
The more SP you hold the more power you have when you're voting. Holding your STEEM as SP will "lock" them up, essentially promising the network that you will not sell all your STEEM. In return the platform lets you decided who gets what of the rewards pool. You can use "Power Down" to release your SP into STEEM, which will give you approximately 8% per week over the course of 13 weeks.
SBD - A Market Pegged Asset:
The Steem Backed Dollar was put on the platform to make a currency that could easily be used for buying things with. When you go to a store for example, they can say that something costs this much SBD and they should be regarded as the equal value of one USD. The meaning of this is to make it easier to buy goods on any market with Steem. Because of this there is not good to keep your assets in SBD because they will not grow, but will rather always be worth 1 USD. At least that's the idea.

When SBD is worth less than one dollar the network will put interest on the holdings, making it worthwhile to keep them instead of selling them, making sure the sell demand is low thus making the price go up.

When SBD is worth more than one dollar there will be no interest, but other than that there is no simple way of holding down the price of SBD, something that has been causing discussions in the community.

A simple explanation video by @andrarchy.

@andrarchy did this great simple explenation video about a year ago.
Source: Steemit Vlog #4: Steemit 101 - Steem, Steem Dollars, and Steem Power

Please Note: Some changes has been made since this video was made with interest and payout times.

VESTS - A way of representing your commitment

When browsing Steemit you may read about whales and dolphins. There are a few levels set up to distinguish users of certain levels, and that's done by something called VESTS. 1 Million VEST is at the moment 483 STEEM, something that you can look up on SteemDB at any time.

VESTS is the value that represents your share of the Reward Pool. The larger value you have the more you can give out to others from the reward pool, it's essentially your share of the pool.

	Status	You Own
	Red Fish	between 0 and 999999 VESTS
	Minnow	between 1000000 and 9999999 VESTS
	Dolphin	between 10000000 and 99999999 VESTS
	Orca	between 100000000 and 999999999 VESTS
	Whale	more than 1000000000 VESTS

Published by @arcange in SteemitBoard - Update 6

Rewards Posting and Curating!

Posting Original Content

On Steemit you earn rewards on your posts when someone curates (votes up) your post. This is their way of saying that you should earn a part of their share of the rewards pool. This is the easiest way of getting started with earning some rewards.

At the moment you can get rewarded for your posts in three ways:

Power Up 100%:
This means you will receive all rewards in Steem Power (SP). This is good if you want to grow, and as a new user you wish to do that.
Default (50%/50%):
This will pay out in 50% SBD and 50% Steem Power (SP). Meaning you can trade the SBD that you are rewarded with, but the SP will be locked in with the platform until you power down. You can use the internal market to buy more SP if you so wish.
Decline Payout:
This option will burn your rewards and will not be paid to either you or the curators. This is a way of limiting the supply of steem. You would probably never use this option as a new user.

All rewards are paid out after 7 days. After this time the post will not gain any more payments, but anyone can still comment on the post.

Curating Content

Once you have started to gain some Steem Power (SP) you can also earn rewards by curating other users posts. All posts are giving 25% to curators on payment. Depending on when you voted, and how large your share of all votes you have, you will earn a reward when the post is paid out to the author after 7 days.

Flagging Content

Many users, mostly larger whales, are taking it upon themselves to down vote bad content. This can include, but is not limited to, plagiarism and comments that asks for followers. As a new user you shouldn't worry to much, just post what you think others will like and you will be just good to go.

You can read some more about curating on Steemit 101 - Upvoting.

Comments, yes they earn to!

Anyone can vote on comments and they also earn rewards, just like posts. You can't change the payment type. By making good comments on popular posts you can gain some very good income as well. Just try to be on topic, add something meaningful and put some good value to the post. Please think before you comment though

Rewards - How They Work

Poster vs. Curators

When you post something all the earnings of that post doesn't go to you. Curators earn about 25% of your posts reward, this is a reward for them that they have found your post and the larger your earning is, the larger theirs get to. It's in their best interest that your post earns a lot and without them you wouldn't :)

NOTE: Comments are also always paid out in the manner of 25% to Curators and 75% to the poster. I am however unsure if the Reward Curve applies to this as well.

The Rewards Curve - Why Curators share the reward the first 30 minutes

Without going to technical on this topic you should know that there is a rewards curve on all posts. As explained before the poster gets 75% and the curators get 25%, but during the first 30 minutes of a post there is a little difference. During this time the poster gain more.

When the post is published the poster gain 100% of the post rewards and down to 75% after 30 minutes. This is a linear "curve", meaning that after 15 minutes the poster gain 87,5% and the curator gain 12,5% instead.

This is a gamble from being a curator since you will gain more if you vote before everyone else. If the post gain a lot of votes and a vote is placed after 30 minutes when the sharing is over they may end with a very small reward anyway. If they on the other hand is before everyone else, they are rewarded with a bigger payout for finding good content, and the share isn't that bad anyway.

The first 30 minutes the 25% of a posts reward that goes to curators are directed towards the poster instead. It's an almost linear curve. If someone votes on your post within 15 minutes of it being posted it means that half of the reward will go to the poster and half to the

New Curation Reward Algorithm: Penalty to Early Voters

The Rewards Pool - The minting factory of Steemit

Every time someone votes on something they are essentially saying that that post or comment should have a share of the rewards pool. Depending on how large their VESTS share is and how many VESTS that are used during that day the pool gives out newly minted Steem accordingly. Today the rewards pool gain 46,000 Steem every day to distribute.

Before you're starting to post anything

You're probably eager to start making your first post about something. But you should know that Steemit is NOT like Facebook or any other social sharing media places. There are a few, very basic, things that you should think on when you post.

Copy/Paste: You should never just copy something online and paste it in a post on Steemit. If it's your own original content from a blog, make sure you're telling that. Consider adding some extra content or reflection for your Steemit followers.
Plagiarism: Stealing content from other places are not tolerated by the community. Just as easy as users can vote you up, they can also vote you down, making sure you receive no reward. Many users have "bots" that look for plagiarism posts, you will be noticed.
Always Cite Sources: This is on the same theme. If you use images that are not free for usage, always cite your sources!
Add value not content: When you post something you should add some value to it. If you're posting a image you took, add some background to why you took it and why you posted it. It will engage your readers much more!

Resources

Statistical Webpages:

HowTo Pages:

Get in contact with others on Steemit Chat

More resources can be found in this post by @double

Witnesses - The cogs in the factory!

Last, but definitely not least, I wish to talk about witnesses. They are hard working users that have invested resources in the Steemit network, making sure that the whole thing works as it should. The Steemit system runs on something called a blockchain, something you've probably heard of in other cryptocurrencies, or it's something completely new to you.

Essentially, all content on the Steemit network are recorded to the blockchain. It can be posts, transactions, votes and much much more. To make this work flawlessly it needs to very quick, and that's why there is one new block every 3 second, every day all year around. The network has witnesses, like little helpers, making sure that all these records are done in the correct order and sorted in to the chain.

These witnesses does much more work than just running a computer node, many of them work behind the scenes with code and others do very much visible things with organizing gatherings and helping new users in help channels. But by running a witness they receive a small reward, something that helps them in their work on the platform.

As a user on Steemit you can vote on 30 witnesses that you think is doing a good job. You don't have to decide today and you can always change your mind later on, it's not an election. Most witnesses have an introduction post and continuously post updates on their view of the network.

Everyone should in the end try to cast all their votes, It's your way of supporting and deciding the future of the platform. From time to time the network makes an update, called a Hard Fork (HF), and the witnesses are those that can decide if it gets accepted or not - this is where your vote comes in!

Vote for your witnesses right here today!

The Truth about the STEEM Witnesses and what we do! by @fyrstikken

With this I wish you all welcome!

Hopefully you have a little more understanding about the platform and how it works. There is much to explore and learn and I still do every day!

Go out and browse the community, get to know some people and follow some great authors.

Remember to be kind, helpful and welcoming

Image Credits

Witness Change Credit - https://twitter.com/_witnesschange
All other images under Creative Commons Licenses

Quick Introduction to Steemit, or "What the Hell Is This Thing I'm On Now?"

Welcome to Steemit all new Red Fishes!