What Value Does Steemit Place On Comments?
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One of the most valuable aspects of Steemit to me is the interactions, suggestions and ideas that take place in the comment section below each blog post.
Meaningful comments can be just as, if not more valuable than an original. post. Not every comment is valuable. While a quick "thank you," is courteous, the same can be posted by a bot that did not read the article and is offering no real opening for further conversation. Well crafted comments can lead to collaborations, friendships, and and understanding that their are others who feel like you do, or even those that can respectfully disagree with your view and have a space for them to voice why.
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Steemit has made comments valuable through the reputation system that weeds out hateful comments and has the "cream of the crop" comments rise to the top.
A quick scan of almost any youtube video comment section will show you how terrible social media comments can be. Steemit has kept trolls at bay and allowed people to be honest, but at the same time to be respectful since they have a reputation attached to their name.
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It's no secret I am a frequent commenter and try to respond to most if not all those who have taken the time to read my posts and ask questions or provide advice in the comment section. I think comments are the best way for newer users to get to know others and likely the best way to gain followers.
Unfortunately great comments almost never make as much money as blog posts for the following reasons:
1. People can vote on a blog without even reading it if they wish. (That is not true of comments).
2. With a finite amount of voting power, it makes more sense for those with higher curation power to vote on what makes the most money, which is almost exclusively blog posts.
3. Most people do not vote on comments with their slider set to 100%.
There used to be comments that made hundreds of dollars, but this is now a rarity. I will continue to try my best to create meaningful comments, even if the time spent doing so could have been put into something else that makes more money. However, I'm sure there will be others who make great comments that see that the rewards are far too little for the amount of effort put in, and they will cease to spend too much time on them.
What is the Solution?
To be honest, I'm not quite sure, but I do have a few possible ideas to keep people making great comments and hope these will get the creative juices of others flowing and help to format a solution that benefits all of steemit.
A project curie-like initiative for curating the best comments. The best comments for the day, week, etc. could be posted in a blog post and the users spending the time to create great comments could be rewarded with SBD or other perks.
A separate voting slider for comment voting that would reward less, but allow for a greater number of people to be rewarded for comments. (Not sure if this is feasible or not).
If comments are not rewarded well, I feel a vital, valuable piece of steemit will slowly die away. Far too often I see a blog post with a high number of votes and no comments. To me that seems like an issue that needs addressing before people give up on it.
What do you think? Do you feel comments are currently undervalued? What do you think is the best way to reward great comments? You have complete freedom to express your thoughts in the comment section below. Looking forward to some well thought out responses.
Something that skews the upvote/comment ratio is bots. For instance, I probably get 50+ bot upvotes with every blog post. These bots aren't readers. All they care about is their algorithm telling them they'll likely earn a substantial curation award.
Speaking of greatly-undervalued comments, check out @arhag's comment on my recent post.
Holy smoking Hannah I just did check it out Shannon! Incredible replies, way over my head in many ways, but glad to see it spelled out. I upvoted his rely but I'm still a micro-plankton here so it won't do a whole lot of good.
Upvotes are always nice, but especially for those who are new, one of the best ways to show appreciation is through a thoughtful heartfelt comment. Sometimes a kind word about something you spent a lot of time on is also just as valuable as a vote from a whale. Finding people that share your passion or similar experiences are often worth more than monetary gains (not that both can't be part of the same section).
I read comment @arhag made on your recent post and agree 100% If he had made the comment a blog post, it probably would have made 10 or 100 times as much as it would as a comment. Maybe a way to tip great commenters directly in the comment section would be of use, but I know that the quality of comments like these will not last forever at the current rate. (At least that is my belief from what I have seen so far).
I also agree .. just not sure of a solution either like you. But comments are by far the best way so far that I've seen community built here so it should not be allowed to atrophy into nothingness. I've also found/followed wayyyyyy more people from reading their comments (which added valuable content to the article, and the platform) than I have found/followed from the new, hot, trending, etc tabs. That's the most organic way imho - not even sure why voting by bots is even allowed here for that matter.
Voting by bots does have its place (if I trust someone enough that I "endorse" them with an auto upvote and still at the end of the day check to make sure writing quality is up to expectations, I'd say it's a well deserved bot vote). But voting for hoping instead of taking the time to read seems to defeat the purpose of a blogging platform. People derive value as they see fit, but I think commenting is the best way to engage with others in a personal way.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.. maybe if I knew how to make bots I'd feel differently! Comments mean much more I agree, but there's only so much time in the day for any of us. I think we often upvote in the same way we hit like on FB.
Possibly smaller rewards with the option to reward some really great comments with some sort of bonus reward
I agree completely. Changing the true ratio in the code might help but not sure how much (also maybe liking comments on someone else's blog could count for more than just tipping your hat and liking a comment on your own blog which you may feel more obligated to do. If there was a way to give less weight to an upvote of a blog where someone didn't even click on the blog..that's one idea..but there are flaws there as well. Also, rewards on blogs and comments expire at the same time right? If someone likes my comment here in 2 months I don't get anything, correct? I wonder if changing the expiration times would help any of these issues?
Both worth speaking to developers about to get a concrete answer. liking comments on other people's blogs may lead to bots of the same users liking each others comments on separate blog posts, but I like the way you are thinking.
I think comments have a finite amount of time they can be voted on (correct me if I am wrong).
I worry that the post and the comments are essentially busy work that we are doing. The content is so ancillary to what is actually rewarded. I bet the content is being read less than 5% of the time.
I don't know if it is quite down to the 5% level, but like most places, people want the biggest rewards with the least effort. And if you can set something up that makes money while you do something else, that seems like a pretty good deal. But those who spend hours or days crafting a post are the ones who lose out here (I believe) and definitely those who try to input with great comments).
Hopefully a solution will be proposed to satisfy as many as possible.
Great post! Resteemed :)
I do think that this is going to need to be handled by community action, rather than a change to the voting/payout formulas. As was seen with the attempt to change the voting weight from 40 to 5, changes that affect how the payouts are done will be very controversial and met with resistance by people who don't want the change.
I think finding more ways to get the community upvoting comments is the right solution, since the system is already designed to pay out based on the subjective value we all assign. We just have to make the decision collectively that we value comments.
Yes you are probably correct that the community should handle this in the same way curie handled undervalued blog posters. Thanks for the kind words @timcliff !
Comments are undervalued. But ordinary users should just treat them as they would on reddit, upvote anything you like, and don't worry too much about curation rewards. If you are a minnow you won't get a curation award anyway, so vote away.
Absolutely true. Followers are undervalued as well. People would rather have a vote that makes them 100 dollars instead of 100 followers (not all, but some). a whale vote may be a one time thing, but put out consistant quality posts, and those hundred followers can wind up making you far more than the whale vote.
I thought of a post you could to to help with your "comment" initiative. In the "Official FAQ" that they are working on, they mentioned that all upvotes (even if they are from someone with a lower reputation) will help boost your reputation. I think a lot of people don't upvote comments because they think "what is the point" regarding the payout (since it will still give 0 SBD), but if they knew that every little bit would help with the person's reputation - they might do it more.
Also, I wanted to let you know that I gave you a shout-out in my latest post :)
Thank you! I greatly appreciate you and the time you spend not only creating great blog posts, but also the comments you make. You are a valuable asset to steemit and I wish you continued success. I will look into all you you spoke of :)
Thanks @bendjmiller222, you as well :)
Yes, I feel comments are undervalued. I came to steemit to read. I have read some great posts and I'm always learning something! I don't know that I want to write. But, I have made many comments. I like the chance to interact with the author if something interests me. But the rewards are scarce.
Some people have no interest in writing blog posts. I think they still add a lot of value through comments and sure be fairly rewarded for doing so. Everyone can respond to the content others have created and it can be fun to do so if you find an author you appreciate and wish to share ideas or what you liked or wished would change about his or her blog posts.
When you write over 50 comments that have responses thanking you, but a total of less than a dollar, it makes you question if the time you spent writing the comments is highly valued. (Still far better than you would get on other social media, but out of fairness to those who only wish to write comments and those who spend a fair amount of time doing so, I believe that the rewards should be a bit higher in general).
@bendjmiller22 we could back into this instead by doing something like - removing the ability to upvote a post without actually opening the posts. This will inherently lead to atleast some more readership and the potential of people reading comments that otherwise would not have.
On the flipside, it will probably cause an early dent in post rewards as bot votes may be lost or while they adjust but in the long run it will be better for the community because human interaction, not bots are the driver on weather this "social media experiment" grows successful.
I am no expert coder, but I would be surprised if there was not a way to "trick" steemit into thinking you clicked a blog post and then voted, when in reality you coded a mouse to click, scroll down and then vote at a certain percentage. I do like the idea of having people need to read the articles so it is not like picking your favorite pony based on the name attached to the post. nobody makes a great article every time, but with bots it can make some of the mediocre posts seem fantastic and encourage others to try to attempt something similar.
Taking the human element of reading and voting is a double edged sword. Nobody has the time to read everything, but at the same time it doesn't do justice to reward someone without knowing what the article was even about except that you got curation from it.
I know great minds like @donkeypong and company are looking in to this, but the more input we get the better the chance we have at some great solutions.
I really value comments, otherwise this is just some game of clicking to win. I want discussion to learn stuff and make new friends. I'll regularly vote up good comments that I see
I agree. Steemit should be about content, collaboration, and creativity (along with some other things). Curation and monetary rewards are great, but should not play quite as large a role as they do. Without great content , nobody will want to join and read and without new people adding their voice, steemit will not thrive.
Great post! I was noticing this same thing myself! If we cut down the max voting number like was proposed a couple weeks back I think it will hurt voting on comments even more...
100% agree on that. I don't like a max vote at all, because if I were a whale and that were the case, there is next to 0% chance I'd vote on a comment. It'd almost be foolish to do so. I'm glad it was not implemented.
A very valid point. It seems to be getting less and less worthwhile spending time on comments.
Yes. I am willing to work on some kind of curation for great comments, since I believe that the community is likely the best solution to this problem. Changing code or adding features may help, but like curie, it comes down to each one of us to put our thoughts into action and work as a team to continue to make steemit a valuable place for all types of interaction, from those who blog, to those who just comment, and to those who choose just to vote.
Agreed. The community is very important in this and I believe will come up with a solution.
Great ideas!
I have been talking about this for a long time and totally agree. I hope this gets some attention from the high ups as this really needs to be addressed to cultivate a truly rich and intimate experience instead of a much more shallow one.
Thanks for sharing~*~
I do too. I'd be happy to work with a team who also highly value the best comments and figure out a system to reward the top number of comments from a reward account or another way that people find to be a valid way to monetize comments that are extra valuable.
Yes having some kind of "curation guild" could be cool but again it would be subjective and require LOTS of time from people dedicated to doing it.
Would be WAY better if the platform would just design it so that there was actually incentive to comment and vote on comments.
I am sure this could easily be done.
Yes, they are undervalued, I make a lot of comments, some of them are even reasonable, and I've made 013 SD in 2 months after about 130 comments. But I think that is OK, I have gotten involved in some lively discussions which to me is mostly why I am here. See I've never been good at writing and I am always the quiet one at reunions, so I guess steeming gets me to lose steam, as I sometimes I am bothered by something and I find answering to a post whether I agree or not helps me, and at the same time I am acquiring some writing skills.
Great Post!!!