Welcome to Bearshares!

This page is full of information to help you learn about the platform and become a successful Bearsian. You can return to this page at any time by clicking on the "Welcome" link in the main menu. There is a table of contents below to help you navigate the page.

Included on the page is a "To Do List" with recommended steps to get started with your account, and a "Quick Start Guide" with information on how the platform works.

Below that is a section of "Helpful Posts from Bearshares Users", which contains a collection of posts from users in the community that are helpful for new users getting started.

Below that is a list of recommended users to follow, a collection of other resources including the FAQ Page and Bears 'Bluepaper', as well as information on where to find help.

Table of Contents

To Do List

  1. Backup Your Password
  2. Review the Quick Start Guide
  3. Read the Helpful Posts from Bearshares Users
  4. Setup your Profile, Avatar, and Cover Image
  5. Choose your "NSFW" (Not Safe for Work) Display Preferences, Language, and Rewards
  6. Sign Up for Bears Chat
  7. Create your "Introduceyourself" Post
  8. Learn More

Quick Start Guide

Helpful Posts from Bearshares Users

Users to Follow

Other Resources

Get Help

Third Party References

To Do List

1. Backup Your Password

Unlike centralized web services, it is not possible to recover lost passwords on the Bears blockchain.

You are entirely responsible for saving your password, backing it up, and keeping it secure.

It is strongly recommended that you store an offline copy of your password somewhere safe in case of a hard drive failure or other calamity. Consider digital offline storage (such as a flash drive or burned CD), secure private cloud-based storage, as well as printed paper. Use multiple methods of storage for best redundancy.

If your account is valuable, value it!

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2. Review the Quick Start Guide

The Quick Start Guide section of this Welcome page contains basic information to help get you started.

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3. Read the Helpful Posts from Bearshares Users

The Helpful Posts from Bearshares Users section of this Welcome page contains many well-written articles from members of the community with tips on how to use Bearshares and succeed on the Bears blockchain.

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4. Setup your Profile, Avatar, and Cover Image

You can update your profile through the Settings page. This includes your display name, location, about information, and website.

To set your avatar image, enter a link to where the image is located into the "Profile Picture URL" field or use the "Upload an image" feature.

To set your cover image, enter a link to where the image is located into the "Cover Image URL" field or use the "Upload an image" feature.

Once you have made all your changes, click the "Update" button to save your profile.

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5. Choose your "NSFW" (Not Safe for Work) Display Preference, Language, and Rewards

By default, content that users have tagged as "NSFW" will be hidden, but a link will be shown to reveal the content. You can update your display preference so that NSFW content is always shown by default or is completely hidden with no option to reveal.

You can select the language you wish to display the website in. Currently, English, Spanish, Russian, French, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Polish and Chinese are available to choose from.

You can also choose how you will receive your Blog post rewards and Comment post rewards. It is recommended that you read the Digital Currencies section first.

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6. Sign Up for Bears Chat

A lot of users mingle and chat when they are not posting or browsing Bearshares. It is a great place to meet people!

There is a link to sign up in the main menu in the upper right corner.

Your bears.chat account is a separate account from your Bears account.

Some channels allow you to share links, but others don't. For instance, general is for discussion without link promotion, while postpromotion is for promoting your posts.

Each channel will have its rules posted in the "Room Info" section.

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7. Create your "Introduceyourself" Post

While not required, the tradition for new users is to create an "introduceyourself" post in order to let the community get to know you.

You can see some examples of what other people have done here. Many users like to take a picture of themselves holding up a piece of paper that says "Bearshares" with the current date.

If you have other social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) you can help the community verify that you are who you say you are by sharing the link to your Bears profile on them. If you are claiming to be someone famous, this is pretty much expected.

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8. Learn More

The Other Resources section of this Welcome page contains helpful links to learn more about the platform. The FAQ page contains answers to the most commonly asked questions and the Bluepaper explains how the platform works.

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Quick Start Guide

Free to Participate

It is free to post, comment, or vote on all content on Bearshares.com. You might even get paid for it!

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Votes

Upvotes are Bearshares's way of saying you like someone's post or comment.

To upvote, click on the Upvote icon at the bottom of the post/comment.

Downvotes (flags) are Bearshares's way of saying you disapprove of someone's post or comment.

To downvote (flag), click on the Flag icon at the top right of the post/comment.

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Comments

When you are new, commenting on other people's posts can be a great way to get involved in the community and to connect with people!

To comment on a post, or reply to an existing comment, click on the "Reply" link at the bottom of the post/comment.

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Creating Posts

To create a post, click on the "Post" link in the upper right corner.

Posts have three main parts: Title, Content, and Tags.

You will want to make your title attractive and relevant to your content. The first image that you use will become the thumbnail image.

You can insert images by dragging & dropping, pasting from the clipboard, or by selecting them.

Tags will help people find your posts. Each post can have up to five tags, separated by spaces. The tags should all be relevant to the content in the post. You can browse content by tags, as well as see a list of popular tags that other users have used in their posts here. The first tag becomes the post's category and cannot be changed later.

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Followers and Feeds

To follow an author, click on their username and click the "Follow" button.

Once you follow someone, all of their posts will show up in your "Feed" on the homepage when you login.

As other Bearsians come across your posts and comments, you will start to gain followers.

You can see all of your followers and the people you are following on your profile page.

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Rebears

If you want to share someone else's post with all of your followers, click on the rebears icon. Rebearss cannot be undone.

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Digital Currencies

BEARS, Bears Power and Bears Dollars are the three forms of digital currency used by the Bears Blockchain.

More information on the three types of tokens can be found in the Bearshares FAQ.

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Curation

Up to 25% of the reward for each post goes to the people who upvoted on it. These people are called Curators.

The more Bears Power you have in your account, the more your votes will be worth, and the more potential curation rewards you can earn!

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Payments

Payouts are made 7 days after the post/comment is created. You can claim your rewards in your wallet after 7 days.

The projected payments may fluctuate (up and down) until the final payment amount is reached.

Payments for posts are split between the author (at least 75%) and the curators (up to 25%).

The author reward is paid 50% in Bears Power and 50% in BEARS/BSD by default.

Authors also have the option to decline payout, or be paid in 100% Bears Power!

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Reputation

A reputation score is one way that Bearshares measures the amount of value you have brought to the community.

The higher the reputation, the more upvotes the account received.

All new users start at 25.

Your reputation will go up as you earn upvotes for your posts and comments, but it can come down if they are downvoted (flagged).

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Cashing out or Spending BSD

You can exchange BSD for BEARS in the Currency Market. Once you have BEARS, you can "Power Up" in your wallet to gain additional Bears Power.

You can spend your BSD at the Peerhub Store.

You can also exchange your BEARS and BSD for bitcoin on a third-party exchange such as BlockTrades or Bittrex.

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Plagiarism

The community is looking for you to create engaging content.

Plagiarising, which is posting someone else's material as if it were your own, is very frowned upon by the Bears community.

If you are using anyone else's material as part of your posts (including images), even if it is free to use, please cite your sources. You should make sure that you are not violating any copyright laws if you are using someone else's material/images. Limited, sourced material sharing is OK under fair use and fair dealing doctrines.

Remember, your posts should have original content in them. Quotes should not compose an entire post. Include your own thoughts, photographs, art, and ideas.

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Password Security

It is not possible to recover lost passwords for Bears accounts. You are 100% responsible for having it backed up. This means secure digital backups, as well as secured paper backups, stored in different places if possible.

Never put your password into unverified third party websites as they may steal your account.

Your Bears account is worth real money. Treat your Bears password like you would your bank password and keep it secure!

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Earning on Bearshares

Everyone's earnings are different. Have fun. Get involved. Meet new friends.

The amount of money a user earns depends on their content, following, level of incoinment and many, many other factors.

Don't get discouraged if you don't earn much at first. Keep up the good work!

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Helpful Posts from Bearshares Users

Blogging

Curation

Formatting

Wallet and Keys

Witnesses

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Users to Follow

  • @bearsharesblog - Official Bearshares Announcements
  • @ned - Ned Scott, CEO and Co-Founder of Bearshares, Inc.

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Other Resources

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Get Help

Ask your general questions in the help channel of bears.chat. Users in the channel will typically respond to questions within a few hours.

New Member Support Community is a group of people dedicated to helping new users find their way around Bearshares. You can find them in the New Member Support Community channel of Discord Chat.

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Third Party References

Peerhub, BlockTrades, Bittrex, Bears Chat, New Member Support Community, and Discord Chat, as well as the tools listed under "Other Resources", are third party applications/services and are not owned or maintained by Bearshares, Inc. Their listing here does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation on behalf of Bearshares, Inc.

All of the links in the "Helpful Posts from Bearshares Users" section were created by our users and do not necessarily represent the views of Bearshares, Inc. or its management.

Please use the third party tools and content at your own risk.

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