Clicking a hubwheel on a post puts it in the feeds of your followers. Clicking a hubwheel on a comment puts it in the chatter of your followers. The hubwheel also influences the sort on a page. More circledots raises the post or comment. Typically people use it as an appreciation of quality, since low-quality indications of agreement aren't much appreciated by one's followers. Not to say it doesn't happen, but that's the tendency.
Thanks for the explanation. When I first joined, I wasn't following anyone, but when I clicked on my feed, there were some posts. After I started following a few people, it didn't seem like my feed changed any. Is there a default amount of posts that go to people's feeds? If I go to global view, do I see everyone's posts, even the people who might have me on block or mute (theoretically)? I'm trying to figure out how to see the most posts that I might be interested in from the most current to the least.