In Steemit, some posts have a little steem icon next to them in the title... on the right side of the time posted... what does this icon mean?

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Yeah you're absolutely right. On steemit, when you make a post, you can either

1) split rewards 50/50 between SP and steem

2)choose to convert all rewards to SP. There will be no actual steem in your account

3)revoke rewards altogether and as such, make neither SP not steem from it.

When you see the steem icon beside the post title it means the author has chosen to get 100% SP from the post. He will make no steem from it and all rewards will be converted into Steem Power for him/her. This is the only condition where the icon will be seen. So you were right about it with your first theory