WARNING! Critical Information For New Steemit Users

I hope my title was sufficient to grab your attention! Even if you are not a new user, I think it would behoove you to read further, especially if you are occasionally posting guidelines and tips for new Steemit users. This particularly applies to the guides that encourage new users to post everyday, comment on posts, upvote posts etc. I'm here to tell you that advice is fundamentally flawed! Although most of it is perfectly sound and gratefully received...

For the older, more experienced users, anything above plankton in the cute, popular analogy of the Steemit community, you may or may not be aware of the recent bandwidth issues that were flooding the chat rooms and appearing on other social media - particularly Facebook. Finding Nemo and Spongebob Squarepants aside, we all know the ocean can be a dark and foreboding place.

I signed up for this 'free' Steemit account and after reading through most of the menu items and clicking on a lot of the recommended links - sort of like going to Steemit University - I started interacting with this wonderful new community. I tried to post everyday. I put effort into my blogs. I read lots of posts, and commented politely and with interest and concern. Basically I did everything I was told to do.

It wasn't enough to save me!

A couple of days ago, like many other new users, I got a 'bandwidth exceeded' message. It's like the Steemit Red Screen of Death. At first I was confused, I had plenty of voting power, I hadn't been flagged, was Steemit down?... I also, like other users, thought I'd done something wrong.

So I went on the hunt for answers. First I searched on Steemit for bandwidth related posts, then I went and looked at the white and blue papers (does anyone actually read these, and more importantly understand them? If you answered 'yes' to both questions, hats off to you!) Then I visited the PAL Discord help chat room.

In the end, I found most of my answers.

I visited the webpage which shows my available bandwidth (steemd.com/@ yourusername )
I found out how the available bandwidth is calculated.
I read some helpful posts on how to reduce your bandwidth usage.
I realised I had made a critical mistake by editing a post SIX TIMES!!

Here are links to a couple of the articles I found helpful:

What Not To Do

The Problem in Technical Detail

BUT I what I really wanted to know, was how much bandwidth I had used for each of my transactions. This was the answer I got on Discord:

As you can see, I am always polite and respectful ☺

Obviously I had already done my own estimate, based on my decreasing bandwidth usage during the day and the ageing analysis of my transactions that moved from 7 days ago into the 8 days ago 'doesn't count' category.

So the estimate I had calculated was very basic, logical, but not accurate if taking into account the number of images in the post. But I reckon I was pretty close!

So in conclusion, I impel you to follow all the instructions and advice you come across, AND look for even more material to read, or videos to watch if that's your thing. DON'T start posting or commenting until you are certain you know what you're doing...or if your budget allows it, buy some Steem and power up right from the beginning, your money will be well invested!

At this point I'd like to say that I will have to be very cautious with my previously carefree comments, which is of great sorrow to me, as I was enjoying the interactive side of the community greatly.