The one raised is a really interesting question. I'm new to the platform but I've been actively posting for 2 months now, almost every day, and my topics are mainly about financial markets, although I'm thinking of creating another account to use Hive more as a social network than as a blog specialized on a single topic. In my opinion there are comments that are worth even more than the post written by the author.
Beyond the quality, many times I found myself in front of a parade of comments-requests to bots like BEER, PIZZA and so on that in my opinion have no value or better, are in all respects a reward for a previous comment or post.
In my opinion, these comments should be excluded from the calculation, as well as those less than a certain number of characters, I do not know if this is possible.
Then one thing I didn't like on this platform, is the abuse that some (few) curators make of tipu, autovoting their own qualitatively silly posts or those of their alt account, I consider them little more than beggars, but I think that's a matter for another post. Indeed, there is only to thank @cardboard for his work and for what he has brought forward.
The social bots like BEER and PIZZA do serve a purpose, they let the author know that they enjoyed the content, in a lot of cases that slice of pizza or that sip of beer has a greater overall value than the persons vote especially if they are on the newish side of Posting on Hive.
There is also ways the ability for you to mute them if you do not like seeing them. I have a few muted because of the size and the style of the auto comment response. One of the things I like about Hive is the lack of Advertisements, and some of those bots are nothing short of billboard advertisements of themselves.
BEER and PIZZA keep it a two line or so comment so not real intrusive when trying to look through the comments.
Yes of course, I completely agree with you. They are nothing more than a surrogate for a vote though, so in my opinion they should be excluded from the comment/post count, just that.
Yes they should, after all it is still a part of the persons comment that left the pizza or beer.