Hello there,
Today I felt like sharing a list on Steem Blockchain Myths vs Facts.
There are a lot of myths on the blockchain, and the reason for this to happen is mainly the fact that Steem has a huge learning curve and a lot of nooks and crannies of information you simply don't stumble upon through your everyday activity.
Note that this is far from being an exhaustive list with ALL of the myths, but it does have some I see people believe in often.
I'll tackle the various token forms like SP, Steem and SBD. I'll also go over some metrics like followers, reputation and so on.
If this is something you'd like to read, then go ahead...
More Reputation Means More Voting Weight
This one is a myth.
If you see a user roam around with -17 Reputation you'll see his vote isn't affected. This is because reputation is more of a human indicator towards that users' vote vs. flag ratio.
If a user gets the flag to vote ratio to be inclined towards the flagging side, his rep goes down, but the vote is influenced by Steem Power, not reputation.
This is why you can climb from 25 to 50 with a vote being worth the same - it is all about SP.
Steem Power is Spent When Voting:
Myth!
While it may seem obvious to many, I've spoken with countless little fish who think this is the case.
They caught people going about how they can't spend more voting power and they never see a mention on VP inside Steemit, so they end up thinking Voting Power is Steem Power.
They'll then stop voting, not knowing voting actually helps them accumulate more SP rather than diminish it.
The More Followers the Better:
Myth.
I've seen countless "resteem bots" with followers by the thousands. I've also seen people with thousands of followers yet very little as far as votes and rewards are concerned.
Followers are an easy to fake number, plus it is also not about how many followers you have:
- It's about how many ENGAGE followers you have.
That's why the only metric you should care about is follower engagement. Do your followers respond to your posts?
How many of your followers were active in the last 15 days?
You can have a huge follower list and yet have 60% of them innactive, you just need to be old enough on Steem.
Following More People Will Get You More Followers:
This is another myth every newbie seems to believe in.
They start following people until their personal feed looks like the "New" tab, and then they can't make sense of it.
Not only does that hinder your ability to truly try to "conquer" some other Steemians as friends, but it also harms you in another way.
For example, if people see you have 300 followers and yet follow 1100, that will tell them you're not taking things seriously, harming their perception of you right from the start.
Revenue is Profit: Guys in Hot Are Killing It
80% Myth and 20% Fact.
Go to the hot section and find a guy who's "killing it".
Now go to his profile, check his wallet and see that he probably transfered SBD or Steem to bots.
This is a common practice that nearly everyone on these two sections engage in.
On the other hand, there are some users who never use bots, so in that case it is indeed a fact. If you're ever curious, check their wallets.
Heck, if they do their math wrong or don't pay attention, they may have a high revenue number and still be at a loss.
Inactive Accounts Are Too Much: This is Dangerous Info
Myth.
I've worked in the online world for a long time, and while the numbers may seem indeed high, they are what you're expected to see from a platform like Steemit.
I'd say the numbers are just what you should expect, and people shouldn't be worried about those numbers at all.
It is even surprising the numbers are close to what you could expect, since Steemit has such big onboarding and account registration issues.
Steem is Going to Blow Up:
Fact.
I can not assure you with a 100% degree of certainty that it is going to go up in price as nobody can do that assumption, but I can assure you it will blow up in features and adoption as soon as HF20 comes.
With apps, SMTs and all of the new features, we can expect Steem to blow up in activity, purpose, adoption and with all of these I think it's safe to predict - price!
So, I'd like to know, is there any myth on this list you believed to be fact when you were a little Steemian?
And to the new guys who read my guides I also ask, was there any myth you still believed to be true up to reading this?
Finally, what myths did you believe when you were a Steem Newbie?
Share it in the comments below.
Cheers!
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Them first two pics had me like whoaaaa lol
Then you were like whooooa, then you ended up like whooa.
What stopping steemit form going mainstream are two things, one the long wait period for new accounts(heard they're fixing it by bring back mining but for account creation ) And second a step by step guide in the front page where all newbies can see and go anytime of how steemit works and do and don't in layman terms. I remember when i was a newbie i compete diff now then back then
I second this comment.... and a third thing to fix would be: a hotlink on the first page to follow @spiritualmax ;D
I quite agree, they should also make a fun section and link it to my chainmon game ;)
Hehehe, now wouldn't that be something? :D
This is a great post. I'm happy to see that I'm not mixed up on any facts or myths.
Looking forward to SMTs!
You and me both Jose.
Insightful post, I cannot in honesty say that I was aware of all, seeing I am classified a hatching plankton, I can say that is what you called fact at the end of this well constructed piece is that you know that the steem price is going to blow...I say its going to give bitcoin a run...not to far in the distant future...
The nasty banksters are already trying to circumvent bitcoin to somehow keep fiat relevant. As that fight goes on, who do you think out of all the crypto chains is capable to be the new trend setter for the market...steem just might steem right by...
You said it yourself, the innovation that are about to arrive even in their beta stages, are kick ass, and a thousand more down the road...then maybe just maybe the crypto bull will gourd the fiat matador...
Is this a myth?
See, you made me think.
Im glad I made you think :D
Yes indeed, Steem's developments are amazing and the blockchain is growing strong.
I think Steem has good chances at becoming a 3 digit coin, but I don't think this will be THE platform to rule them all, this is going to be the hugely successful first, but the mainstream will be the next one, that builds over this one with a much higher ambition.
I still consider myself a newbie even though I'm here for a little bit less than a month. When I first saw Voting Weight I already knew that it becomes bigger when your STEEM Power increases but I know this and many other things because on the first day I read like 6 hours about STEEMIT and the blockchain.
At the beginning I thought that the STEEM Power is decreasing as the time goes on and I should be active - post, comment, upvote so I don't lose it all.
"The More Followers the Better" I think exactly the opposite. As you said you may have a 1000 followers but just half of them engaging and reading your posts and that's why I think is worse because you can't see the number of real followers. That's one of the reasons I'm following only people whose posts are interesting for me .
I've only once transfered SBD to bots. I don't know if it works all the time but there were a decent amount of people that have viewed the post when I did it.
I've never thought about the Inactive Accounts and I'm wondering how is it dangerous?
For conclusion I'm just going to say that STEEM is Going to Blow Up!
Cheers, Max!
Hello.
Yes, bots do indeed work to give your posts added visibility.
I'm sure that you and me read a lot about the blockchain but the majority of people get in and start posing without even knowing how it works.
Glad to see you making your rounds.
Cheers!
I don't know if it is just me but before I start to do something, that I haven't done till then, I read a lot about it because I want to do it right.
P.S One thing that I like about you is that you are trying to answer on every comment under your posts. That's commendable!
I answer every single comment on my posts unless they're spam :)
Glad you noticed.
The hell with resteem bots...I have like 3,000 followers and if I resteem something, maybe 30 people see it.
Most follower lists are full of people who are in @arcange's inactive category.
Great post by the way.
Exactly... I've been telling the newbies not to use those "resteem services".
It's like throwing your rewards to a river.... not to mention that even if they were active accounts they wouldn't see it among the dozens upon dozens of resteems per day.
Glad to finally have you around here Task... I can scratch that off my bucket list. Finally :D
Cheers
When I joined I believed that Steem Dollars were pegged to the USD...how silly of me! Lol.
Heh! Me too! Waste of time that whitepaper! :P
This is not so much a myth but a question.
When steem spikes like in the picture is it better to be holding SBD or steem power? It seems to me that you would come out a lot better to have had a wallet full of SBD then exchanged them at the top of the spike because you would get a lot more steem power for every SBD you exchange right or am i backwards?
The spike is the SBD to Steem ration, it isnt the Steem price. Get it now?
so at the top of the spike you would have gotten around 7 steem / steem power for 1 SBD?
So if steem looks like it is going to spike again i should have SBD waiting to exchange for steem to power up?
No No No... what happened is that during that spike the SBD price was MUCH above the Steem price... that graph has nothing to do with steem price.
When the SBD to Steem ratio is high, buy.... this is when SBD is superior to Steem buy.
ok. thank you
Actually 2, when I was new I wasn't aware of the voting bots, and I was also impressed when seeing huge users with huge following like +600.
Now of course I understand things better.
Your last fact is totally on point! Steem is going to keep growing like crazy, and let us all hope this is reflected in the price as well!
Cheers mate!
Cheers man.
Yeah, I myself believed in some as well. I was one of those who believed the numbers at the bottom were pure organic profit... hehe....
Far from it.
When I was brand new, I saw lots of "follow me upvote me" - and I thought that was normal and OK. I had a hard time finding a tutorial at first, and bandwidth issues kept me from using the site and led me to think it was a glitchy disaster of a site. Glad I stuck around to learn otherwise.
Yeah! Glad you stuck around, it will be the best thing that happened to you Im sure.
Steem is a lifechanger.
when i was a newbie, i thought it means success to follow the top 100 steemians mainly whales, but later i found out its waste of time as they either never posts, responds to your comments or upvotes. bet is join forces with your level and grow as a team.
thanks for sharing this.
Yeap, whales are, for the most part, boring :P
Not only boring but selfish as it seems all their votes are sold to the highest bidder through bots...👌
Refusing "free steem" is kinda hard I guess
I definitely believed I needed to follow everyone who did something somewhat interesting. It was fear if missing out behaviour.
I started to clean up my list of following and indeed a lot were inactive at that point. I still have to do a lot more because my feed is still so full that I miss a lot (still fear of missing out but than to the otherside of the spectrum).
Yeah, you must work by layers according to my experience.
Dedicate two weeks making a high effort to connect with a group of individuals, then keep on maintaining that group but make a focused effort on another group for 2 weeks and so on.
Chase them around :D
Cheers
That's a good suggestion. I am more wandering around than chasing. Maybe I should go a bit faster and more determined.
Holy poop on a stick, I've been on here for, well, quite a while now in bursts and did not know all this crap.
I didn't know voting actually helps accumulate more SP rather than diminish it.
thank you thank you thank you and have a great week!
No problem man, it helps thanks to the curating rewards!
Cheers!
Dont forget you only get 10 votes per day at 100%
Well thats something else I didnt know! Great post thanks.
At first, I definitely assumed all the voting and follower numbers were pure. and You're right, when you check people's wallets that are in the Hot or trending section they probably got some bot action going on! great write up. It's important to keep our impressions in perspective
Thanks man,
Glad you liked it!
Cheers
Having engaging followers is really challenging though
It takes time to build a following!
Thanks for the input, yeap it takes both time and engagement on your own part.
Slow and steady then
Yes, what chelsea said is true, it takes time... But most of all you need to engage yourself.
Same as you're doign here :D
Haha very true also @spiritualmax ....engagement is so key!
Would just keep doing that
Really great post! Though I have been on the platform since August of 2016 I learn new ways of looking at steemit from posts such as yours. Thanks so much for this excellent breakdown. I have never used a bot and am extremely thankful for the engaged audience I have for my work! I LOVE steemit!! I think it will continue to develop along a natural course as it has been. Thanks again
Yes, the engagement here is amazing, it's great that people are encouraged to participate, and makes getting a following easier.
Hey @spirtualmax thanks for explaining about the reputation...because I didn't think it affected voting weight either based on what I've noticed in the past few weeks since joining steemit.
I was wondering why the reputation even mattered or made a difference, so thanks for explaining it. Following you!
Actually, you read it wrong... it doesn't influence... however, reputation does influence some things.
For example, it influences the amount of followers you get. I've noticed there are certain people who only bother to comment, vote and follow if a user has 60+ in Reputation... others 50+.
They think that's where the money lies, so they have to follow the money... They are wrong, but it's a fact that the higher the rep the better you tend to do.
Oh, maybe I shouldn't be reading posts on zero sleep lol. Oh that makes sense! Thanks for explaining. Yeah, they're wrong. My reputation is getting pretty good since I only did my first intro post on Feb 1, but my votes are only worth point .08 at full power. That's ok... They'll grow 😀.
Excellent list Max! I already knew most of these because we have a lot of smart people hanging around with us on the crypto empire! but I agree with you on your final point, the horde of new users will be unstoppable when smts and applications start launching on the platform!
Agree... and in my opinion that's when Steem can rise... Im not seeing it rise meaningful before that happens.
Reputation is more important than you think. What you wrote down about is correct but you also wrote about the human nature. People do trust steemians with a higher reputation faster than one with only 25. While the last one could write great addition posts it is harder for them to get noticed!
Which brings me to the follower part. It is better to have 100 genuine followers tahn 1000 follow-you/follow-me followers.
Great article!
It's harder for them to get noticed because High Reputation users pay for their post's promotion and have all of the networking in place already.
Less to do with the number and more to do with the previous work that compounded on the blockchain.
Cheers
The wallet transparency you mentioned is a cool feature. Not that Steem is at all going to be the same as a national currency but it does remind me of the Norwegian concept of earnings transparency http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40669239.
Steemit breaking taboos, woohoo.
Thanks Alien :D
Norwegians are avant gard I guess
Thought this was another one of those BS copy and paste articles until it wasn't. Read the whole thing, actually got something out of it, and then I joined the Discord.
More of a comment on spiritualmax than anything. Joining his Discord and reading through old posts has given a ton. Great article, great author.
Thank you for the kind words Butters!
Glad to have you aboard for the ride.
Cheers
Agree on the reputation that it is a Fluff number just to make you feel good. I still want my 60 Reputation goal but the bigger goal is getting my own SP to 1000.
That is why I don't believe in resteeming services as majority of the accounts there are dead accounts.
Preach my brother about the word of Engagement!. This is a better way of assessing if you are doing well.
Just like Eon said get lean on the people that you follow as you want to engage with people that you like their content. Create relationships and engage those that you like.
Another masterful post Max!
And make sure to avoid "Bot Graveyards" hehehe.
Thanks man, will see you around, future ambassador... when is your community organized enough to come forward for an embassy?
We are cooking up a lot of things and getting organized with chapters and project heads! Soon Max, Soon!
Myth I believed in was the reputation and meaning more. On last point you are absolutely right. Steem is going to take off.
Glad you agree, and yeah that's a common one man.
Cheers
Thank you for this post and information.
No problem!
Cheers
I am just happy with the fact that steem is going to blow up really soon and there is quite a lot to learn from on daily basis. Fact is steem has really opened up our thoughts and for that i couldn't be more happier.
Yes indeed, even if this whole thing would crash and burn I'd still be happy for everything I've learned here.
אז עדיין לא הצלחתי להבין אם זה רווחי או לא רווחי להשתמש בבוטים להצבעה תמ ורת תשלום?
Hey man, care to translate? :)
Great post. Now I understand better the whole reputation thing.
Resteeem
Thanks for the resteem.
Ya got myth, fact, and stuff that nobody knows.... I'd put the blow up in that category. I'm excited for it too, but I cannot call that a fact in good conscience :)
I stated I dont know if it will blow up in price or not... but it will blow up in use with SMT.
some good information in there. for new users every one would read. some of us made those same mistakes first couple of weeks. gotta learn some how i guess better from trial and error.
Thanks you for stopping by.
I like this pic. Story of my life xo
hehehehe :_D
But is there a way to the trending section of not through hot?
Yes, if you pay for a vote that's large enough.... you can do it with around 60 SBD
60 SBD? 😝 haha, perhaps in 2019
Hehehe, well it's a high rollers' game :P
Great post, I beleived most of those myths. Thank you for clearing that up.
Thanks :)
Now that was some fact-based analysis :)
Thanks.
This is a great great post...add me
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Oh, also, I'm still a little steemian. And I agree about doing the math wrong...I think I do it wrong all the time :/ I know, not good.