Sndbox Summer Camp: Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology Quest - Task One: Newbie Onboarding

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I found this late but will still try to be diligent and give it a shot. I hope I do have ample time. Wish me luck! This is a quest organised by @guyfawkes4-20 and @anomadsoul with the support from @sndbox, @voronoi, @hansikhouse and @sndbox-alpha. Moreover, if it is of quality, it may be curated by @ocd. Thank you so much for this quest.

I joined Steemit during December 2017 with the knowledge that it was something like blogging, but the difference is you can earn from it. My brother-in-law @danielwong informed my husband to make it known to me, that since I regularly post about my son's medical challenges in Facebook Page, might as well I do via Steemit and I can get income for my son's medical need.

So I ventured into Steemit with this psychology of Facebook-cum-blogging user. I got my account pretty fast - the very next day after I registered. My heart was pumping with excitement witnessing everyone earning alot as much as SBD100 plus per post. I thought - this was incredible. Some earned as much as SBD70 for their very 1st introductory post.

Before I started posting anything, I took few days to actually read through everything (literally 100% everything) in the "Welcome" page as well as "FAQ" page. No doubt, I became information overloaded and no matter how I tried, even read few rounds, I could not understand the difference between SBD, STEEM and STEEM power. I also tried to accustom to new words like "upvote" is "like" in FB, and "resteem" is "share" in FB. Puzzled as I was, I continued with my first introductory post. As a newbie, I was really looking forward for the increase of the value. Not bad for my first post, the total SBD was around 12.

Many questions started to bombard my own thoughts. Then to my shock, I found myself reading again the "Welcome" page. With sleepless nights, I read and studied Steemit as I would have done the same when I studied for exam. I was thrilled to want to know more how Steemit works. Why some people received SBD70 for their intro post and mine was only SBD12. I found out some received even lesser. What was the game? Was there any philosophies behind which cause some to have more, some to have little?

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Then I came to know from my brother-in-law that the ecosystem in Steemit is equated with that of an ocean. There are whales, dolphins and small fishes like minnows. I remembered when I knew about this, I was like "What is that? I thought it is just normal social media like Facebook and normal blogging. What got ranking somemore? What have I landed myself into?" By nature, I prefer something simple and straight-forward. So it is not so simple in the world of Steemit. It is not merely philosophy of Facebook and you can't handle Steemit like usual blogging - draft and post.

There must be engagement involved. You blog and you read people's post and upvote them as well. And you are advised to comment people's blog. And all these means curation. New word again. I felt like entering a new school - learning all the philosophy and psychology of Steemit. Next up, I was determined to build followers so I started to read others' post, and I did accordingly - upvote and leave a comment. The cycle repeated for few days. Read people's post, upvoted and commented. At the same time, learned from others different ways to create content. I also tried ideas from others which I followed some whales and really got interested in them, hopefully they noticed you. But somehow, doing that for awhile, I felt somewhat fake. I wanted real thing. Real genuine engagement.

That was how I joined @teammalaysia community led by @bitrocker2020, @kevinwong and the team. Not long after that I got to know more of them like @littlenewthings, @elizacheng, @calebleejl, @zord189, @coloringiship, @angiechin28, @alvinauh, @howtostartablog, @aaronleang, @joannewong (and many more until present). These are awesome Steemians that really seek for the betterment of the community. Since then, whenever I posted a content, the payout would never be zero. I count myself super lucky to be in this community. And it is not just a community whereby you just take without giving, because if you do so, people will know you do not really want to engage. You can't go far if the reason you hang out with people is just for their upvotes. As real as relationship outside, relationship within Steemit ought to be real too. Through #teammalaysia, I found out about @sndbox and its amazing goals.

I got so engrossed in engaging and supporting people that I could upvote almost 20 plus a day. Then I learned about voting power followed by the mystery of bandwidth. Again, it is unlike Facebook, where I can click "like" even for 100 times a day. I somehow like this system in Steemit. It causes you to think and plan when you should upvote and how to space out in between upvotes. Steemit makes you smarter in a way.

After that, I started hearing advice that I should come out with a quality post, and not just few sentences as what we usually did at Facebook. Yet again, I continued to learn from all the tutorials on drafting a post, using dividers to beautify your blog, how to post image and mention source image, how it is of utmost importance you don't steal image just from Google. Then I found out about Unsplash.com, Pexels.com and Pixabay.com. Also, plagiarism is a No-No in Steemit world lest you would be fined by Cheetah or Steemcleaners. I learned all these from another awesome community called @steemitbloggers.

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Whoever that aims to succeed in Steemit must really put time and effort to learn all the above. Plus time to engage with communities. It is indeed a commitment and hard work. You don't lay down or you don't work then you will have little. It is as real in the working world as it is here in Steemit. Although I am still not so knowledgeable on crypto trading, I just want to focus on Steemit.

On top of all the above situation, soon I discover there is this flagging war going around here. At first, to me, it is totally out of my mind. I mean, why would you want to jeapordise others by doing so? Can't we just have freedom here to do what we like and do it without any war? I thought it is a decentralised platform where all of our voice worth something? Then pathetically I saw some were flagged until their reputation became negative. Psychologically, it is unsound to me. That made me pondered. Should I continue since it is the philosophy of life I could not endure. But later I found out from my community that I did not need to be fearful because we will have each other's back.

Another thing is that although I was told that I can earn alot and Steemit can be my part time job, later I found out it is advisable to power up your SP too. In other words, to be successful on Steemit, you don't just aim for quick money return. It is like a business whereby you invest into it a sum of money, you boost up your business and the strength of it, and think about the return later on. Wow that is not what I thought and not what I told when I first joined. But that definitely sounds like entrepreneurs in the making. Somehow, eventhough I need the money, after I made my one-time withdrawal, I make a new commitment to power up whenever I can. It took me 4 months to power up to 200SP and my 100% upvote only worth SBD0.02 now. It is indeed "slow and steady win the race" kind of thing.

Just recently I discover all the bots around Steemit to boost your post provided you send some SBD to the bots. Out of curiousity and knowing alot of people used them, I tried using them too, for example @upme, @postpromoter, @boomerang, @qustodian and @appreciator. Until today, the question whether to use or not is still debatable. Personally I think it is a subjective matter. Most importantly, don't spam the bots and use it wisely. I stopped using the bots after using them around 1-2 weeks, simply because I want to grow my account organically. Many still use and I am fine with that as long as they don't spam. Some even use it for good purpose whereby they boost other people's post with bots for charity or fund-raising purpose.

From there on, the notion of giving up on Steemit began to fade away. I am motivated to continue on by hook or by crook even to the extent of a few sleepless nights in a week. I strive to improve. And I commit myself to engage with the communities as much as I can. Later on, I joined few more awesome communities like @qurator, @minnowsupport and @thesteemengine. In my opinion, if you first join and you do not have a specific nation community to be part of, you must join @minnowsupport (Link to PAL - Peace, Abundance, Liberty Discord Channel at https://discord.gg/jajE32A). There, minnows get support from each other to boost you up so you do not easily give up and end Steemit.

Did I just mention 'Discord'? Yes, aside from Steem Chat, they are many communities here in Steemit found in Discord. Discord is an app designed to help gamers talk to each other in real time. It is widely used among different communities here in Steemit for Steemians to chat with each other. There, we engage, we grow, we promote out posts, we support other posts and we get to know one another more.

Learning curve in Steemit seems unending. Just when I know I know quite on Steemit, then there comes dsound, dtube, dmania, busy.org, steepshot, zappl and dlive. There are just too many to learn here.

Additionally, I am fascinated by the dedication of panel of curators from @ocd and @curie that seek to search and support awesome contents that are not noticeable by people due to being drown into the ocean by so many floating posts around. I was featured 2 times in @ocd and I could not be more grateful.

Indeed, Steemit is not for the faint-hearted, not for those who easily give up. You cannot just come and try one month and conclude that you have failed or Steemit has failed to make people successful. You cannot just come in and blame that the whales are not helpful enough. Be a whale and you will know the responsibilities you need to carry upon your shoulder. You cannot come and just envy those who did well and then you left thinking that Steemit is not for you. You keep on swimming and keep on swimming. By the way, 4 months here and I am still a plankton, looking forward to the day I will be officially a minnow. As of now, just enjoy the ride here in this ocean - I mean, Steemit. Do not give up - yet! I agreed with the earlier slogan "Come for the rewards, stay for the community".

Thank you once again to @guyfawkes4-20 and @anomadsoul for this awesome quest.

_{Who am I? I am a mother of 2 sons (2nd one is battling CDH). I used to serve actively as a pastor and worship leader at my local church, but now I fully focus on taking care of my 2nd son and of course home and family. I love life and want to live my life with love. Why am I here? All the while I love blogging. So here, I can blog and share, at the same time earn some income to support medical needs for my CDH son. What do I blog about? I blog about life, family and practically anything under the sun that inspires me daily. I start to realise I love photography and freewriting. Most importantly, I want to have fun here blogging and connecting with people without stress. And do it with love and passion ❤😘}

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