Please, can everybody just **STOP COMPLAINING** that your posts aren't getting enough rewards?

I've seen so many articles about how everything is unfair, their posts aren't getting the rewards they want, and steemit is so bad. It's really starting to get under my skin. To be clear, I'm not talking about people who put a lot of time and effort into researching, contemplating, and working to understand\solve the difficulties of this brand new platform. I'm talking about the baseless complainers. Its as though you think all the whales, the witnesses, and SteemInc are out to EAT you.

<center><img src="http://i.imgur.com/xyeWSiw.jpg"></img></center><br>

## Yes, there *are* issues.

<div class="align-left"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/ciKpGSu.png"></img></div><br>

Did you notice the word Beta in the top left hand corner? We are currently at Steem v0.19.1.

There are voting bots and voting rings, and self"ish" voting whales. There are spammers, flag wars, and a general lack of understanding what's going on at the top of the blockchain. Yes, I am aware of the problems. I've read quite a few well paid articles addressing them in a thoughtful, technical manner. It's not that there isn't anything to complain about, but a large majority of the complaining is completely counter-productive.

There are plenty of people working hard to bring light to the flaws of this platform, and to solve the problems we face. The issue is that there is no quick fix. It takes a long time to write the code for each new hardfork, and HF20 was already under way when the problems of voting rings and self voters came to the forefront of everyone's consciousness.

A very productive way to change this system for the better, is to vote for the witnesses who care about the issues and will vote for a Hard Fork that they expect to improve the platform.

<blockquote><p>The STEEM network has many checks and balances to ensure everything is vetted by a decentralized group of trusted (elected) individuals before taking effect. No hardfork will take effect until at least 67% of the active witnesses have upgraded to the latest update.</p>

<p>Just because Steemit Inc. releases a new version of Code does not mean that everyone is forced to upgrade to the new code.</p>

<p>So if you're making that assumption that Steemit Developer Control STEEM , you're Wrong! _{- (<a href ="https://steemit.com/steem/@steemitguide/steemitguide-what-is-a-exactly-is-a-steem-witness-and-why-every-user-should-vote">@steemitguide - What exactly is a Steem Witness, and why every user should vote</a>)}</p>
</blockquote>

If you really care about the issues, find out which witnesses also care.

Vote for them, and you can even spend some time telling your friends to vote for them.

## ~~UBI (Universal Basic Upvotes)~~

<br>Nobody gets paid to show up, here. Well, actually, we *do* get paid to sign up. However, there is no universal basic upvote policy here.

There is still, plenty of room for growth here, despite the various kinks in the system. I'd like to see an article about how much is paid out to the self-voting whales and "exploiters", compared to the total payout across the platform. I'll buy an upvote for you if you do it. lol.

If you want rewards, you have to make friends and write stuff that isn't just good, but that people are happy to vote on. You also have to stop comparing your posts to the highest paid people, many of whom have been here a long time to get where they are.

Recently @sift666 shared with me, a post he wrote about complainers, and what it was like when he started on steemit a year ago. It really opened my eyes and my heart to have his perspective. Below is a selection from that article:

<center><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmd9UB7RL1JSptGn6qGk1yqyU7HdLkxVog7bnvA9HvZtPN/U5du7msDqFufeLo9LgLX2FW9cbCDDNB_1680x8400.jpg"></img></center>

<blockquote><p>Nobody had any money in their accounts apart from whales. Our votes were totally worthless. In 2016 I did 14 posts that earned nothing at all, and 49 that earned more than 1 cent but less than $1. Many of those posts took me hours to write, and when I go back and look now, I still think a lot of them were pretty good.</p>

<p>So why did I persist? I can’t really explain it, but ever since I first saw Steemit I’ve been obsessed with it. And not getting paid to blog was nothing new. I have a Wordpress blog with over 350 posts on it that has never earned me a cent, and before that I had a Blogger blog that paid similar dividends.</p>
<p><center>( @sift666 via: <b><a href="https://steemit.com/steemit/@sift666/old-time-steemers-live-in-a-different-world-to-newbs">Old Time Steemers live in a Different World to Newbs</a></b>)</center></p></blockquote>

<center><img src="https://steemitimages.com/DQmRZXWQf4BM4Pztkyo8CBwVf4Sv8MqrRYDPGZyGa6HT3M3/purple%20and%20green%20spike%20thing~2.jpg"></img></center><center>^{(image by @woodywood143 via: <a href="https://steemit.com/art/@woodywood143/alien-structures">Alien Structures</a>)}</center>

## Lets talk about Success!

There are two basic factors in success, and *many* ways to achieve them.

**But first.... let me end this fallacy right now!**

**You... don't... need... to... post... every... day!!!!**

At least, if you want to put the effort in it requires to deliver higher quality content. Posting a few times a week is enough to reassure folk that you are still here.

## Quality Content

<br>Perhaps you have set the bar too low for what you consider quality content.

I'm not pointing any fingers here, nor do I have anyone in particular in mind.

### Layout

Are you adding high quality images that you've appropriately sized and aligned? Sometimes centered, sometimes left align, sometimes right align. Occasionally using **bold** and *italics*? There are plenty of articles about how to this stuff, so I'll link to some of them at the bottom. Make sure you have enough line breaks or "White Space" as I've heard it called.

### Content

Did you write an article? Or did you mention an article, add a link, but not actually go over a bit of what's in the article? There is nothing wrong with a post that is mostly a quotation from a great book, just don't expect to get paid for it.

I notice that Artists do very well when they make a post that shows the artwork in stages, not just the final product, but an explanation of how it came about.

Also, it's helpful when posting videos to write a bit about what you will be talking about in the video, you don't *have* to write it all out. I do notice that major news organizations often do this, however. If you are doing videos about news topics, consider, that some of your followers might want to read it so it's easier to reference after they watch.

### References

Even the nicest article written can be nicer by adding a few references. Especially, if your articles are primarily for informational purposes. We have to care about our readers. What if they want more information?

This goes for images too. How am I going to find who my newest favorite artist\photographer is unless you add a link to their account? Even when getting free stock photos that don't require attribution, it's nice to the creator and to your readers. Another thought on this, is that amidst so much copypasta, spam accounts, and wasted storage space, a link to where you sourced your information is nice to alleviate any concerns. Moreover, since we hope to get actually paid for this stuff, that also brings up concern of lawsuits. Often, when searching for a good reference on something which I could have just wrote about, I learn new things about my topic. This makes for better content, and a more fulfilled me.

I always wince at this, when I see an article that I really liked that doesn't add references. Mind you, nobody has to add these references. Especially if you're not complaining about your lack of post payout. If nothing else, reference the posts of other disgruntled steemians and you will make some new friends.

### Resteems

If your blog feed is full of resteems, it can be difficult to find your content. Also, without a large following of people who engage with *your* content, re-steeming is unlikely to benefit you. Certainly, it can gain you a bit of good will from the author. For me, I try to re-steem no more than twice between each of my posts, and it tends to be material which is related to my blog, or i think is important for everyone to be aware of.

### Subject
Do you write posts about what everyone else is interested in? Personally, I came to write articles about social skills. Active Listening, Body Language, Networking, ect. First of all for my own education, but also for all of you, and anyone who is curious.

I was gonna blog somewhere anyways, and I've been meaning to start writing for a while, I'm just grateful I found the Steem blockchain. My problem is that my subject matter does not have universal appeal. Maybe I need to work on my titles, or simply haven't connected with enough people, yet. In fact, I've had a hard time finding other authors who write in my "main" subject area regularly.

So, I expanded my subject matter to include what more people are already interested in \ exposed to here. Not just what everybody is interested in, but *I'm* interested too (even if it's not what I originally planned to blog about).

### Sourcing images and other materials for your Blog.

It enriches everyone's experience here to source art and other material from within the blockchain. This also strengthens the platform over all.

I write posts showing off the art of my new friends, and have gotten permission to use some of their images in my blog, **a trend which I would like to encourage**. Everyone loves art, and all of our blog posts need images.

*If you aren't posting the art that you make, and collaborating with other artists on the site*; I hope, that you will *consider sourcing the images for your blogs here on steemit*.

Some artists will be happy with a simple linkback, and "remember me when you're rich". I always pay whatever I can afford to pay. Typically it's a small sum way under the actual value of the image comparing how long they took to make it. Even if they are super talented and it only takes a few minutes, it still probably took a long time to get that talented. But yes, I will remember you!

It can also be helpful to contact people if you want to write about them or refer to them in your articles. Unless it's a simple @ tag while mentioning something that is common knowledge, on the block chain, I try to get a hold of people before I reference them in my blog.

### Writing about Steemit

I write about steemit sometimes, but always in a positive fashion. Not because I have rose tinted glasses. Consider this, how do you think you are gonna get that whale vote when you are talking about how horrible steemit is, and bashing whales? Anyways, I doubt most of the people writing scathing opinions of steemit have taken any time to get to know the people who run this site. Nor have they, likely, taken the time to find solutions. In a moment of mistrust, jealousy, anger, or frustration, they've lashed out at the community who's support they hope to attract.

If you do decide to write something critical of steemit, **please try to stay positive** with it, or at least polite and not offensive. Otherwise, people are gonna start getting muted pretty quick around here.

It would help if you put more effort into researching the issues, and possible solutions. Think of Fair and Balanced, not like FOX news, but *actually*.

Good examples of this have come from @rycharde, who is fairly new here, yet managed to highlight possible improvements to the system(due to his mathematical prowess). If you like his ideas, maybe you could work to promote them. With public support, we might be able to get some implementation:

* **[Ideas for Future Rule Changes - Voting, Earnings, Maximum Social Benefits - a Discussion Document](https://steemit.com/steemit/@rycharde/ideas-for-future-rule-changes-voting-earnings-maximum-social-benefits-a-discussion-document)**

>The best that can be achieved, in the game theoretic sense, is to make optimal social behaviour more attractive than the sub-optimal equilibrium point. This must be encoded in the rule-set...

* **[Proposal for New Rules Regarding Self-Votes and Voting-Rings](https://steemit.com/steemit/@rycharde/proposal-for-new-rules-regarding-self-votes-and-voting-rings)**

>There has been much discussion of these issues recently. It can become very heated, especially when behaviours are given a moral interpretation. What I seek to do here is to clarify a few things and then concentrate on encoding rules that encourage behaviour that is beneficial to the whole reward pool and that reward people who have different strategies.

## Community

We need friends here, not just for payout, but for a real fulfilling experience. But how do we make them?

### Comments

This is number one, and an area where I have room for improvement. When you engage people in the comments, they see your comment while engaging with the site(compared with chat). This makes it very easy for them to jump to your profile and get to know you \ vote on your posts.

I was encouraged by @sift666 in chat:

>When you post or comment, separate each idea with a line break.
>
>Idea... ENTER.
>
>Unless you do that very few people will understand what you are saying.

The more well thought out and complete the comment, the better. I'm sure everybody reading this knows don't say "follow for follow" or ask for followers in someone else's comments. If you want to ask for people to follow you, do it in your own posts. No begging for followers in peoples comments. Engage. If you leave a good comment, they will check out your profile, and perhaps follow you.

I tend to vote on and respond to every real person comment on my articles, often I upvote the replies too. It's also a good idea to check out the profile of people who leave you comments.

## **<center>Don't be rude</center>**

If someone writes something you don't like, it might be better to ignore it than to leave a sarcastic comment. We can go back to the old adage of "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all". (yes, I see the irony of my post complaining about complainers)

See: [How to avoid saying things that you'll regret](https://steemit.com/life/@inquiringtimes/how-to-avoid-saying-things-you-ll-regret-later)

### Upvotes

Recently I started checking out who my biggest, and most frequent upvoters are. That way, I can check out their blog if I don't know who they are, or send a thank you for the support. Not a bad idea to show some appreciation to the people who regularly upvote and comment on your posts.

Something that helped me feel good about using way more upvotes was an article by @timcliff. Here is a selection from that article.

<blockquote><p>Let's assume:</p>

<p><h4> You want to vote 40 times per day.</h4>
<ul><li> You don't have a vote slider, so all your votes are cast with 100% strength.</li>
<li>With pre-hf19 voting, each of your 40 votes would have added 1 cent to the payout of a post.</li>
<li>Under the new voting, your votes are 4x as strong, so they now add 4 cents.</li></ul></p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p><h4>If you start voting 40x per day, what will happen?</h4>
<ul><li>After a few days of doing this, your voting power will drop until it reaches an equilibrium at around 25%.</li>
<li>Each vote you cast will be 1/4 as strong (since you are voting with 25% voting power).</li>
<li>Each vote you cast will use up 1/4 as much of your total voting power (since only 25% is left).</li>
<li>Each vote you cast will be worth 1/4 as much, so they will now be worth 1 cent instead of 4 cents.</li></ul></p></blockquote>

<blockquote><p><h4> Will I run out of voting power?</h4>
<ul><li>No - not if you are casting around 40 votes per day.</li>
<li>Each day your voting power will dip down to around 5-10%.</li>
<li>Every day your voting power recharges by 20%, so you will gain what you spent back.</li></ul></p></blockquote>

(<a href="https://steemit.com/minnowsupportproject/@timcliff/minnow-voting-it-is-still-ok-to-vote-40-times-a-day">@timcliff Minnow Voting, it is still OK to vote 40 times a day)

### Collaboration

A useful tool for collaboration is [hackmd.io](hackmd.io). This allows you to share what you are working on with other people while you work on it. It even allows you to [edit an article with someone else in real time]). (current post linked). A big thank you to **@reggaemuffin** for telling me about this.

---

_{I might as well mention for a moment that I started talking to @reggaemuffin during the bandwidth crisis because I was concerned that there weren't enough witnesses talking to people and reassuring folk of what was happening to deal with it. When I initially messaged @reggaemuffin, I didn't really expect much. To my surprise, I received a relatively quick response to my concerns.}

_{A note for contacting anyone here, but especially witnesses, is to assume that they are always busy. Don't be demanding of their time or attention.}

_{I've managed to chat with a few witnesses, briefly, to get their opinions on different matters. Possibly, in part, because I wrote some helpful articles about technical matters in the past.}

---

So, collaboration. It's a great way to make new connections and expand the audience for your material. I'll include in this linking to other articles that are related to your topic. Also, whenever I want to mention anyone in an article, I make sure to contact them, if possible. It's good to let people *see* how you want to refer to them, or what type of content you want to use their art for. So, whenever possible, I contact and

### Chat

There is [steemit.chat](https://steemit.chat) which has a help channel. @timcliff and @drakos answer the technical questions which we all have from time to time. It's actually quite impressive to me how all the questions get addressed, even if they were asked a while ago but there was no one around to answer at that time. Besides the #help channel, there are some steemians who use steemit.chat but not discord, so even though I don't use it all the time, it's nice to be able to keep in touch with people.

### Discord

It is entirely out of the scope of this article to go over all of the discord channels. All I can say is that it's a way better design than steemit.chat. In fact, I do intend to write about all of the discord servers someday.

@swelker101 wrote an article that highlights a number of them:

[Using Discord to Enhance your Steemit Experience - The incomplete list](https://steemit.com/steemit/@swelker101/using-discord-to-enhance-your-steemit-experience-the-incomplete-list)

A good thing to remember, is don't just jump in a room where you don't know anybody yet and expect people to flock to your profile. Get to know some folks, have fun, and find one or a few where you feel comfortable.

I don't spend too much time in the chat rooms, as I tend to be busy on steemit.com and writing articles. But it's great to be able to chat with my new friends :-) I am told by some people who have spent a lot of time in chat that it can distract them from producing content.

---

Ok, I feel like I've covered a lot here.

Feel free to leave feedback.