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.