Why this post?

I joined Steemit a few days ago, and took quite a bit of researching to find out anything on how this site works. I don’t think the average user will commit to doing that much work and will miss out on all the great stuff this community has to offer. I did Google Steemit FAQ, tried tag for FAQ and questions, but did not find anything. So hoping this post can answer some of the questions that I have encountered when starting out.

Since from my understanding we can only edit a post until the second payout, I am also adding a link to a google doc which you guys can right click comment on as well. :)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/112FzDzhijsv3IFLvybaM2Cpylfq4VwiXFBNKr_E7xUM/edit?usp=sharing
What is Steemit?

This is a great video that helped me learn what steemit was

Q: I just joined but keep getting error for insufficient steem power when trying to upvote.

A: Not 100% sure on why this is happening for new users, maybe someone in the comments can explain. I had this happen to me and my friends the first day. I bought steem power via btc and that solved the issue. However a friend joined the other day and did not have the issue, so this could just have been a server glitch or something. I asked this question here

Q: What is the dollar value next to posts mean and how does it get paid out?

A: The number is how much that post will get rewarded when the payout occurs. Which happens about 24 hours from when the post starts and after 4 weeks again.

75% of the payout goes to Author
- 50% (or 37.5%) is paid as Steem Power
- 50% (or remaining 37.5%) is paid as Steem Dollars
25% of the payout goes to Curators as Steem Power only

Q: How do I get actual money out of this?

A: When you have Steem Dollars you can trade them for BTC on the market instantly. I will post a guide for how to go from Steem Dollars -> BTC -> to USD at a later date in the Google Doc.

Q. Why do some posts with less upvotes get paid more than others?

A. Each day there is an X amount of Steem Dollars / Power that is distributed on the network across all the posts and comments. Currently the number is $27,000 from my understanding. User with more Steem Power in their accounts add more value to the posts they upvote, which in return allocates more of that money to the post.

The longer you are on the community, the more steem power you collect, the more your vote counts essentially. But here is a hyper simplified example of how this works. If I am wrong please correct me in comments, so I can adjust this.

Example
Lets say there is 7 users on the whole network and $1,000 is going to be allocated to all the content. Users 1,2,3 and 4 all have 250 Steem Power each. User #5 has 1,000 Steem Power. This means that total network has 2,000 Steem Power.

User #6 makes a post and gets an upvote from 1,2,3,4.

User #7 makes a post and gets an upvote from #5.
Both users have 1,000 steem power allocated to their posts, which would mean they both get $500 attributed to the posts.