How Not to Comment on Steemit - 7 Things You Should Stop Doing to Avoid Being Flagged!

in #steemiteducation6 years ago (edited)

It is very sad to see people not realizing what an opportunity they have with Steemit and what they can accomplish with little more effort. I believe in bringing positive change through education and majority of my content is an evidence to that effect. However, it makes me feel sorry to see so much stupidity still surviving despite all the educational efforts by the likes of @jerrybanfield, @teamsteem, @donkeypong, @dragosroua, @inquiringtimes and many more people. You should follow these people if you don't already!  


Image designed via Canva.com and background image is free to use from the inbuilt gallery. 

When you do stupid things, you invite trouble. Being flagged is the ultimate trouble. If you don't know, a flag is a downvote. Just like an upvote gives you reward and reputation, a downvote takes both of them away from you. Do you want that? I am listing, from my continuous observation and experience on Steemit, the seven things which lead to you being flagged. You should stop doing these things immediately!

Note:- I apologize for use of screenshots containing bad comments. This post is educational work and does not mean to ridicule anyone.

1. Stupid Comments

You can call them bad comments, spam or whatever. But I choose to call them stupid comments because at the end of the day, they accomplish nothing for their authors. In fact, the sight of a stupid comment make me move the cursor to that tiny flag and make it red. Here are some examples of stupid comments.

  • Nice post.
  • I like you post.
  • Good job.
  • Excellent work. 

The problem with this type of comments is that they do not add any value to the discussion. The author of the post cannot really judge if you have read the post or not. I can write nice post on 500 posts per day. But I won't do that because I know I will be flagged for at least 200 times.


This is a stupid comment on my post celebrating 3000 followers.

2. Commenting Without Reading a Post

This is criminal in my opinion. If it's a vlog post, commenting without watching it would be equally criminal. Do not, I repeat, do not comment without reading a post. I almost immediately recognize comments which have been done without reading the post and I happily flag them. Upon further inspection, I find series of violations listed in this post and ultimately report to Steem Cleaners.

One of the easiest ways to find out if a comment has been done without reading the post is to see the time difference between post and that comment. Most of the stupid comments are done right after a post is published. The one I shared in above screenshot was one such comment.

3. Asking for Upvotes

If you have voted for someone, by all means let the person know that you have given your upvote. But never ask them to vote you back. Vote for vote is a stupid idea. You don't really need to ask for votes in the comments. You just need to write a great comment with or without the mention of your upvote. It will be read you will most probably get a vote on that comment.


I'm not sure if she understood that she was flagged.

But when your total concern is to ask for an upvote, you do a stupid comment without reading the post; just like the account shown above. It makes one comment culprit of three violations. Do not do that. You will almost certainly be flagged.

4. Offering Follow for Follow in Comments

I have shared in detail why follow for follow sucks. You need to understand Steemit properly. May be go through the very basic FAQ I created for absolute beginners. If you are just beginning on Steemit, you do not have anything to offer except value through your content. If you ask me or any established Steemian to follow you, what do you think we will gain from following you?

Do not be stupid. Learn and accept the fact that you need to improve a lot before people may start following you. I have 3000 followers but I never asked anyone to follow for follow. Learn the recipe of how to gain a good following which I shared in my celebration post yesterday.

5. Copy Pasting Generic Comments on Multiple Posts

If you think that people with a lot of Steemit experience are stupid enough not to see what you are doing, you are mistaken. On countless occasions, people posting a generic looking comment on multiple popular posts have been caught and flagged.

You should not try to bluff anyone. Copy pasting comments invite flags from Steem Cleaners and Cheetah bot. You may get blacklisted and downvoted on every post and comment forever if you do not learn your lessons.

6. Self Voting Stupid Comments

On my guide on 9 ways to choose a niche, one guy wrote hmmm and it got a big vote. I checked who had voted it and it was another account. Then I checked the comments tab on the voted account and found a similar pattern. Here is what happened.

The rewards were cancelled out with flags and the sponsoring account was reported. I am very much dedicated to keep Steemit clean with my educational efforts (such as this post) but I will not be shy to use my voting power to flag what deserves to be flagged. Self voting stupid comments is inviting trouble. Do not do that!

7. Publishing Irrelevant Comments

Just to be clear, all the cases discussed before result in irrelevant comments as well. If you do not read a post, do not try to understand what it delivers and do not take the time to write a beautiful comment, all you can do is to post irrelevant comments.

If the post is about cryptocurrency, you should not comment about variety of apples. Simply, read the post and write what you think about it. Give feedback. Ask questions about it. If an author finds your comment irrelevant, he or she will ignore it or, even worse, flag it.

Resources to Consult

Here some good resources that you can read on the art and spirit of commenting. You can find my guide to commenting in the list of guides below.

Conclusion

Learn. Educate yourself. You need to deliver some value to receive some. Nobody cares about what you need; an upvote or a follow. What people care about is what you think about their content and what it brings to you. Help them know how good their content is or what improvement it needs and they will happily upvote your comments. Do the stupid things listed in this post and you will be flagged. Here are the seven things you should take away from this post.

  1. Do not do stupid comments!
  2. Do not comment without reading the posts!
  3. Do not ask for upvotes in the comments!
  4. Do not ask for follow!
  5. Do not copy paste comments!
  6. Do not self vote stupid comments!
  7. Do not post irrelevant comments!

Supporting this post with your resteems and upvotes will help the education spread as well as encourage me to keep doing such efforts. You can use this very post to apply the knowledge contained in this post effectively. I am waiting for your beautiful comments!


Divider Image Credits: @kristyglas. More in this post.

As a standard feature of all my posts, I am listing all my previous work to help people find the required information or guidance. As I write more and update the previous work to add more value, the list will keep evolving. Feel free to share with people who need it; especially new members.  

Newbie Guides

Steem Guides

Steemit Tips & Advice

Advanced Understanding of Steemit

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This is one more step by you to guide new steemians to be on proper way. I am also seeing many new users just posting without sense. They might be mis guided about steemit.

I am sharing this guide to my students and it will literally help them a lot.

Teachers teacher @ilyastarar sir,

I have been an ardent instructor of objective commenting since my early days on Steemit, and have read a good number of informative articles on various aspects of Steemit social capital program but I must admit that in all; "this piece is most exceptional!. You captured A to Z of what people must do if they hope to make any headway on Steemit in this awesome article. And I myself, really learnt a lot here.

I think Everyone must be availed the opportunity of reading this, and future informative articles from you. Hence, I am not gonna only RESTEEM this, I will also FOLLOW you.

Thanks for sharing this awesome piece.

@eurogee of @euronation community & The Host, Show Us Your Witnesses Weekly Contest

Thank you so much ilyastarar for this good shoot.. Being a pakistani i am proud of you as you are doing good here specially for newbies.. Actually i joined steemit after reading your post and guide you posted in our group on facebook.. That time i read your posts and that are really helpful for people like me.. Few days ago i withdrw as an experiment by reading your post and it was quite easy.. Thanx for this support
You are quite right.. Its so annoying when i saw someone saying its nice or awsome after my hard work of 5 or 6 hours.. And also feel bad when they asked for an upvote.. In start i read an article in which some steemian was trying to teach commenting to others in a way of begging at least i feel it like begging.. I neva do it never and without it i am doing good.. And i am doing pretty good here as i am sharing my own original work and thanx to allah almighty that He is removing all hurdels..
But another issue i faced.. Once i downvoted and it was really bad experience.. When i joined i saw haejin post in trending so i start following him but i neva comment him.. Few days ago i saw his post in my feed i read it and it was infrmative i made a comment good comment.. After some time i saw many ppl downvoted all comments on haejin post.. 5 or 6 ppl downvoted my commment and then i come to know that there was some issue with haejin posts..
I removed the comment but it really dishearted me as i never did any wrong thing here.. And being a newbie i was unaware any issue or matter with haejin posts and downvoters..
Thanx god they only downvoted my comment..
But i thought many times that there should be a system where newbies should be informed about such things so they wont be discourage here.. Anyways you again did goid work for bewbies as your post ll teach them that how can they protect themselves from flagging

I appreciate your efforts to be original. I am also happy that my initial guide helped you. I am also happy that you left bad advice and started doing the right things. Also, I need to talk to you. Please reach me on discord, or facebook.

Haejin posts became flag-war zones. I stayed away from the whole mess despite having a strong opinion against some people involved. It's none of our business because of the low SP we have. It's better to communicate with people who are not controversial.

Please keep doing the good work. If you need any help, you can reach me via comments, doscord or facebook. I do not hesitate in helping people who are willing to work hard.

Thank you.. I know your fb id.. I add you there..

I'm doing some similar work. It's nice to see group efforts here. I'm looking for a way to make a wider-spread effort, since I'm no bigger than a sardine at best. I'd like to get something going where we can "employ" people to scout out the spam comments, similar to what steamcleaners does.

Not sure if you're interested, but I'm tossing some ideas around...Here are the two posts I have currently:

Don't be Spam! Lesson on how to earn good reputation

Favoritestupidcomments

Let me know if these are compatible with what you are trying to do, and maybe we can get together.

This is SOOO perfect. I completely 100% agree--especially with the "stupid comments" part.

As a matter of fact, I even have an ongoing stupidcomments post I do, highlighting some of my favorites. So if you ever find any good ones, SEND THEM MY WAY! You can check it out here if you want to take a look.

I will definitely do that! Marvelous idea!

I was searching on the internet to find helpful tips that can help me grow here in steemit and this post interests me. I admit I have joined some follow for follow and upvote for upvote groups and later made me realize that it doesn't worth my time and effort. I realized that I have wasted my whole day posting links to ask for follow and upvotes. Some stupid comments like what you mentioned above came to my post and It made me feel unworthy. So I decided to focus in learning and engaging with good quality content creator. I dedicate time to learn and within 2 weeks I have seen how much I improve in this platform. I got organic comments and followers and been noticed by whales and got featured on several posts. It inspires to write more good quality content. I totally agree that those things must be avoided, it's an amateur attitude in our community that shouldn't be tolerated. Thank you for sharing this tips, it changes how should I look to myself and gave me confidence. I'm looking forward to more of your educational posts. More power to you

@ilyastarar really enjoying your posts mate. Totally agree with you regarding comments!

I see all the time same thing on other social media platforms, especially Instagram. People just comment "great post" all the time...basically dumb comments that are obviously not even them, but BOTS doing for them, but people think it works and brings value 😑😑

Same with follow for follow. What's the point of in it if these followers are not active. 😲 Ugghhh, these things just really annoying.

Either way, on positive note, keep up with guides and tutorials. Very valuable. 👊
Классно получается 👌

Hi Ilyastarar, a really helpful post. I'm still learning my way round and learning to pick up on comments for comments sake/copy and pastes etc. It's so important to keep steemit clean so thank you for being vigilant (I'm not confident enough to downvote, not until I really know my stuff at least). I get so excited when I see I have replies and it's disheartening when they're just "nice" or "good post".

There were a couple things I wanted to ask you:

I've heard that cheetah bot can detect when you copy and paste a post. I always copy and paste because I write my posts offline and then paste them in. I also sometimes find that I can't get to the HTML Raw editor without clearing the window and repasting it in. So, I guess my question is- Will cheetah detect and downvote anything copied/pasted or just content that exist elsewhere on the internet?

The other question was just about getting your captions in italics. I can't for the life of me work it out, I've tried div-class, figcaption and still had no luck. How do you do it?

Anyway, thanks again!

A great comment indeed. It sucks when the reply is a short comment. I hope mine doesn't suck.

Answer 1. No, the Cheetah bot detects content that is similar to the content that is available on the internet. Copy pasting others' work is a problem (plagiarism). Your own work will not be flagged.

Answer 2. There are three editing options on Steemit. I use visual or markdown editor mostly and html at times.

*Italic*
Italic

**Bold**
Bold

I hope your problem is solved by the link above.

That's awesome, thank you so much.

I think with the italics I was over complicating things using html.

Keep your education posts coming, they're super helpful!

I appreciate your passion to bring a positive change through education in society.Yes, you are right that many people misuse this opportunity.One time someone flagged on my comment and I learned a lot from that experience.Stupid comments are really discouraging authors who work on a posts day and night.It is really a criminal act to comment without reading a post.It is a bad habit to ask for upvotes.Four point is one of the worst options many users do in my point of view because offering Follow for Follow in comment shows their cheapness.Copy Pasting is also a bad tread on internet.Getting a credit of others work is immoral.Six and Seven point also show non serious behavior of users.Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences with us.These are very helpful for us.I really enjoy to read this post.Thanks again.

Lakin sir jb koi banda steemit pa km start karta ha to usy koi idea ni hota wo kasay km katay aur kamay like me aur wo bohot si mistakes kr jata ha .apki post bohot he informative ha ma kosish karo ga ky ap ki pichli guidelines previous post ki bi paro keep it up

It's an English post and all the people are commenting in English. Please become part of the discussion.

if google translate is right he's saying you have no idea. but it's questionable weather it's worthy of a reply. might be true, not flagging content and actually just telling them to expand their comments and thinking would be better, be better at creative writing or something, or tell them to read a book to expand thinking. a good writing book? always leave a comment on the stupid comment? yes, with some kind of advise.

Dear Santa, please create a cartoon tutorial around this content.

🎃

Awesome post and awesome timing @ilyastarar thank you.
Shared to Twitter

good idea...

Thanks, 😳 I can't do it though. Can you?

wow you are super talented, I have a great chance to be on you before making mistakes.

Do not make stupid comments!
Do not comment without reading the messages!
Do not ask for positive votes in the comments!
Do not ask to follow!
Do not copy collage comments!
Do not vote yourself silly comments!
Do not post irrelevant comments!

I am new on steemit and discord.

I work hard on my writing, I progress every day thank you for t'en advice.

Do you have a discord?

I look forward to learning from you

upvote and restem.

Yes, these are all seven valid "dumb things" to do.... and I'd guess I've probably given a flag or two for every one of these, at some point. Even though I try to be really patient with newcomers... I reckon once someone has made a few hundred posts, they really should know better.

Thumbs up!

That's must be some sort of 'flag record' you've created here :D

Though I agree with your comment policy but wouldn't it be too harsh for a newbie who really doesn't understand how Steemit works (honestly it is bit difficult here for the first few weeks)

But hopefully same newbies will read this understand what it means to comment like crazy and what harm it brings to them.

Good post. :)

I am glad that so far this post has not received any stupid comments. I won't be surprised if it gets some upon becoming popular. People commenting badly on this post would be such an irony.

Great post!
Just kidding, I did actually read it. I am a newbie, so I wasn't really aware that you could flag comments, as I get really fed up with people making stupid comments on my blog posts. As I am a newbie, it doesn't really happen very often, but it's good to see that I can flag.
To me, comments are a great way to connect to people, especially since I am new here and I still need to build my network. I can't see the value to write a nonsensical comment, how does that add to the discussion?
Anyhow, as a minnow I really value your posts, so thank you for educating the uneducated :-).

Wow, I didn't manage to read your post earlier. I could have upvoted this and resteemed it for my other friends to read and reward you for this excellent write up. Yes I agree with you about the stupid things some of our fellow newbie Steemians are doing, but I guess they are just bots, lurking and hoping someone will upvote their stupid comments. Thank you for this post @ilyastarar, I'll use this post of yours as a reference for current and future use to educate other Steemians.

Hi @beverlyjoe. Thanks for your feedback and generous words. Busy.org allows resteeming old content so you still can resteem. I just published a new post and I am sure you will find it helpful. Something you can vote too. ;)

Thank you again :)

Will do. Thank you.

Tell me something - If I said simply - nice post, how would you know if I have read your post or not? I might be refraining from giving a negative comment and simply being nice. In another one of your posts (or should one call these lists?) you talked about reputation score - to what extent is actual reputationbuilt on this platform by meaningfully engaging with others vs. simply posting repetitive lists - commenting on one's own posts, never visiting those who comment on yours? etc. I just wonder about the formual in that sense. Is there a social index that equates to meaningful engagement as opposed to self voting and sticking to ones own post comments. Your input would be appreciated.

If I said simply - nice post, how would you know if I have read your post or not?

Exactly my question. Why would anyone read a post and then leave a comment which doesn't make the act of reading clear. Why comment for the sake of commenting?

My lists have helped people. Some of them have decided to follow me. Many of them have become my good friends.

If I ignore your comment and go to another blogger's post right now, it would be more profitable for me to comment there because I may get more exposure to their audience and may even get voted; something that doesn't happen enough on replies.

I simply choose to read your comment and reply to it. For me, writing this reply is more important than writing a comment on another person's blog.

Still, my comments tab is not empty of comments on other people's posts. I have followed people from comments on my blogs and visited their blogs. Ask @jongolson may be. I flagged @julistar for a bad comment on a post and helped her learn about Steemit. She's grateful. I gave her some encouraging votes lately.

Thank you for your feedback. It is helpful.

thank you very much for getting these guides translated and sharing all of them here along with posting this in the resteems request channel on my discord! I will resteem this and send an upvote with @budgets to add funding/visibility to the project!

I'm relatively new here but I noticed these bot posts I guess it comes with how the system is configured rewarding these people somehow. It's too damn bad cause i like what this thing might accomplish. Might fix these issues in later version of social media on EOS perhaps? Even if I provide quality content, the ecosystem is plagued by these bots so the good comments get drowned by the noise. Is there an algorithm to filter this or we have to weed through the shit by flagging these accounts? Then we'd have like a flagging war or something. I guess it's just not a perfect platform.

Nice Post!
hahaha... sorry couldn't resist :p

But seriously now though... This is a "Nice Post", newbies (myself included in the beginning) would be tempted to junk comment... purely for the hope of an upvote.

On the topic of self-upvoting: What's your take on self-upvoting non-junk comments?

For visibility, good comments may be upvoted just enough to get them seen. Upvoting all comments is a bit too much to justify in my opinion.

I had no idea you could flag comments. It's good to know! I'm super new as well, and I knew when I got those types of comments on my blog, I was really annoyed by it, but, didn't really put my finger on why. I'm not a fan of spammers. :). Keep up the great work in helping us newbies! I know myself, I really do appreciate it!!!

Even though I was a victim of some of those things you mentioned but am grateful I was cancelled and corrected by someone I never attempt such unholy Steemit rules again.even when I see people doing that like a vote for Vote I try to cancel them

Excellent post @ilyastarar! I actually just posted something similar to help beginners learn how to leave better quality comments. I feel it is a huge slap in the face to leave a self-serving comment or one of just 2-3 words. Give the author more respect and actually comment on what they shared!!

Thank you for sharing this @ilyastarar. I'm new to this and I'm guilty that I did some of the stupid things you have mentioned hahah. I did not know that flagging has a big impact on your vote. I think it's time to recheck the FAQs so that I can be more aware of. This is really a good read Sir especially for new steemians like me. :D

In the listed guides, you will find An Absolute Beginner's Steemit FAQ. It will help you a lot.

This needs to be said. I hate that I spend 20+ mins typing out a nice post and someone in comments asking me to follow them or upvote them or check them out. Just like on YouTube I hate when people comment "nice video" and its clear they didn't watch it.

I am pretty new to the Platform but I do agree with your points made in this post. There is nothing more annoying than someone asking you to follow them just because they followed you, that is negitive growth for sure. I am a firm believer that the more we invest into somthing the more we will get out of it in the long run. Take the time to actually read the content and comment the way you would wish others to do so with your post or content.

I know some people will take this seriously but my main concern was some steemit user may think it was like what you have mention about the other social media and they get used to it like in term of giving a not relevant comments or they just like it but not so in it because they know it was their friend post or someone who may seem like just accept any comments without considering the important value of it...any way its hard to see thing change to what we want it to be...but to expose more knowledge with good educational points I think it can be slowly guide other steemit user to be in the right path for their own benefits...Its not so easy to influence people to get people to notice what we post and everything depend on certain trending and following anyone that suit with their interest...Thanks @ilyastarar for a good input to add more articles in my reading library.

That's a lot of guides for us to not do stupid stuff in this community. Indeed, we do see a lot of newbies trying to get attention, but some in a wrong way. I myself was once doing in quantity but still keeping up with the quality by reading through then only comment. However, it did not work out quite well. It is really a long term effort to build up the audience and trust.

Steem on!

Hey, ilyastarar its CryptoMario and I am a newcomer to Steemit, I was reading some post when I stumble upon your's which I really appreciate because of all of what you're saying. It was a big reminder to me it is good to know what's a bad comment at all time.peace & love.

Needed some guidence on steemit this post will help alot i will save this post and would like to resteem it i have been making alot of those mistakes u mention above specially asking for upvote or upvoting my own B.S comments but again its a learning curve new to the steemit project learning little by little.

Perfection.
Thanks for another amazing tutorial.

i think flagging these people is the wrong approach you should leave a comment and say please expand your thinking comment with creativity, i don't want to flag your post, but you will get better results this way thanks for the comment. i don't agree with the flagging of posts but giving the knowledge directly to people who need help. i mean flagging is just as stupid as the comment, they don't learn anything from the flagging, it's like youtube removing videos, the content creators never get a reason and are left in the dark, and being in the dark helps nobody.

Just flagging and not doing anything to educate people is wrong. But look at this post. Then look at the comments I flagged. Don't they have the responsibility to learn and read before doing anything? I am all in for education and I have educated a lot of people in replies to their bad comments.

Also, I flag to keep my comments feed clean. I upvote good comments and flag the bad ones (not too heavily) to arrange my comments feed. You can see that on every post of mine.

:') I am afraid of Your this post.
Please don't take screenshot of my comments .I was also doing this type of stupidness but I learn from you these are bad for us.
Your all guides are very helpful .
Thanks for such an amazing and very informative post about comments.

Just came across this article and wanted to say very nicely done. I'm fairly new to Steemit and hence educational blogs like this that help newbies like me is a must!
I'm trying my best to learn from the experiences of people such as yourself and certainly articles like this help people like me get a boosted start.
My first few days on Steemit were met by people commenting the "follow for follow" and "like for like" that you mentioned. But that's the sort of mentality I hated on Facebook and why I believe Steemit is much better.

I also see that you're from Peshawar and it warms my heart to see other Pakistanis on the platform. I'm still a little confused about how we can cash out all of our crypto earnings in our country but I guess a little more research would do the trick! I'll take a look at the articles you have already posted on the matter.
Keep writing! Keep making an impact! God bless. :)

You may find one withdrawal guide in the list of guides I shared at the of this post. It needs some updation though. As you are from Pakistan, the best thing to do is to visit @steempkrex (service initiated by me).

Great initiative man! I was blown away by @steempkrex, what a wonderful initiative. I've followed and hope to use the service whenever I want to cash out. For now I'd like to use the steem I earn and push it up to steem power. Hoping for the best! :)

@flauwy addressed this the other day and pretty much tore his comment section a new ass for all of these reasons. He traped them by posting a video that was like 15 minutes and flaged and tore them appart if they posted some BS reply before then. I got props on being the first real reply though so that felt good. It was very entertaining. I even resteemed it for entertainment value. I hope my reply wasn't to generic, please don't flag me.

Very interesting! Glad you made a legit comment there and got rewarded for it. That is exactly why I wrote this post!

Now I got my point what happened to us when someone tries these things and in return got Flag. Although I have never copy and just but this post I'm gonna sure kept in my mind don't try to do so either I'm gonna flagged or its annoying to someone. I read your rules and it actually happens sometimes in my post people comes and start commenting follow us, Upvote please, very nice bhala bhala bhala. These type of person have just concern that if we comment like that maybe it will give us an upvote. Sir in the same way as you mention it takes serious time to wrote a post like that with such concentration. I also make the tutorial but people come only just for upvote not for skills not for information nothing else they just concern with upvote only. At least its good initiative to for new one to follow those guys they spend there huge time in such work.
One thing that I just gonna say "There is no shortcut to success"

Very well explained! There is no shortcut to success, indeed. Thank you very much for the comment!

I don't really flag too often, but these comments specifically asking follow4follow type questions really get on my nerves.

Usually I'll just ignore them, but maybe I'll point them towards this post in the future, so they can learn.

i'm of the impression you should ignore them, that's the logic i have, you get these kind of comments on youtube all the time and that's not even for money, it's some kind of psychological problem people have, it's all human nature and psychological . i've not got a clue if flagging them will make much difference, might just frustrate them, causing them to be a danger to humanity in another way, because they may not understand why it's happening and someone who does not understand anything, may end up being a danger to the people around them, by harming their mental capacity due to being in poverty. you could be flagging a high level risk, therefore maybe they should consider if the man is mentally stable enough to be flagged.

I am a newbie and wrote a blog concerning this matter but not as eloquently or formatted as yours. Nevertheless it does annoy me when people ask you to follow as they have followed you and idiotic comments such as nice post also annoys me. However there is a flip side to this. Many longer term users, higher up the chain, also do not give reciprocally either. Some newbies do write brilliant and relevant comments and are not recognised by the big wigs for it. I am 100% behind what you are saying but it is a two way street methinks. Peace and love. We should all be helping one another.

I get your concern and it is a valid one. If a person is not appreciating good comments, there may be two possible reasons.

  1. He has too many comments to deal with and can't possibly handle each one of them. Or he is too busy in something offline. Life has all the stuff ready for people at times.

  2. He is complacent or arrogant enough not to care about his followers or their comments.

If the case is # 2, I would happily unfollow such people and advise others to do the same as well. Following should go where it is deserved and appreciated.

I agree. I do understand that some are flooded with comments and do respect the fact that there is a lot more in life. However point 2 in your reply to me I have found, unfortunately, is all too commonplace. You have always replied to my comments and upvoted them and I thank you for that.

Seems to me like a learning process people have to go through. On many social media platforms this strategy of just posting "great job" on a couple hundred posts or just follow thousands of profiles to get noticed, worked. They got lazy and now have to learn that they only get rewarded on steem if they put effort in their activities. Flagging is a way of training them and the whole community so eventually the spam content gets fewer over all.

One of the reasons I like steemit is that it is both challenging the commenter and the poster to be creative at the same time.

I once saw a beautiful photography, I was about to type in "nice shot" when i saw i was entering the spamming territory, I had to take a look again at the photography and write about the colors, highlights and things I loved about it.

Nice tips you've got there, it will go along way in maintaining steemit quality.

Reading your post I was really curious how many comments I can find below. Only the bravest ones? :-)
I can take the majority of your recent post as an advice and generally I agree with you. But I would like to remind you the other side of the coin. There's no clear guideline for newbies. Yeah, it's true, that you should learn as much as you can on the new world you're joining before you act. But to be honest, Steemit is the 'Promised land' for many people, and they will not read all the advice of experienced users. Can we really expect them to do this? I've been here for a month, I've been watching the ecosystem, I've been learning quietly. I don't think that everybody is so patient. Especially if we are speaking about money. Real money. People can lose their minds and they are trying the methods which are successful in other ecosystems. Should we really blame them?
My method is the ignorance. It's annoying if somebody is begging for an upvote or for following him/her. Ignore him/her! Maybe later on, he/she will have the experience and will stop writing stupid comments. You can notice them as you did in some of your examples. I've never flagged anybody although it was hard to resist the temptation. But as a rookie, sometimes a stupid comment is better than nothing.
Flagging is a punishment. We should preserve it for people who deserve it, by misusing the system. Spamming, fishing, cheating etc. Stupid comments should be ignored. That's the best way to teach them.

I undertstand the sentiment. I also see why people do this. I use tiny flags as a way to clean my comment feed and make sure that the stupid ones stay at the bottom. Bigger flags are given where deserves. Scammy behavior or actions are where my flags are directed.

I won't buy being new as an excuse though. I have seen people intentionally making stupid shortcuts and making no effort whatsoever to learn about Steemit. Such people should either correct themselevs or get what they deserve.

I think that getting flagged can be a good indicator of how well you are performing. It never feels good though!

that's a pretty informative article .I have also seen people doing stupid comment but i think most of them are newbies that's why they do stupid comment.and you have highlighted the major issue due to which newbies got flagged .

You are right.i am also newbie and i didn't knew about this flag thing before and i was downvoted 1 or 2 times.my RP decreased and then i realized what's the matter.your article is informative specially for newbies☺

I always wonder why they keep repeating the same mistakes and never learn..
Is it the lack of Knowledge or just sheer stubbornness...???
And by the way beautiful post...you just stole my words....

thank you sir this is true some people commenting without reading or copy paste others comment but some people are less talkative when they like the post want to say anything in their mind but cannot say it properly so just said i like your post or good post i think in the beginning we are trying to understand things and less communicate ,reading posts and searching improves knowledge and comments too.

Yes you all right many of newcomer do like that, make a spam in out comment even there comment without vote it seem like slap in our face. Thank for sharing the great information.

Yeah, this is true. I keep seeing other people doing such comments and sometimes it annoys me.

Thanks for the links. Ah so much to learn!

I don't know what it is that attracts me to posts that say, "Do not." I really want to do it more then. It is just a big temptation for me. I want to fill this comment with pleas for you to do something for me while I myself have not read the content of your post or watched your video. Actually I don't want to be flagged so I am not making a stupid comment. Some of these people seem like they don't know that they are even being flagged. In that case it would be nice to say something like, "I flagged you for your comment because..." I don't know who this was but maybe her rep is 27 because she is starting out and doesn't know what she is doing. Flagging wouldn't help in the case of new users if she just started on Steemit she wouldn't even realize she was flagged.
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I'm just saying that when we flag we should also educate the user as to why we flagged them.

Thanks

Thanks for reminded me of this case. I flagged just 1 % to bring the comment below others. I do need to let her know about a few things. I will share this guide and also the absolute beginners' Steemit FAQ to help her know basics.

This turned out to be really great. I'll remove the flag, or may be just give a sweet vote on her reply.

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So true. But I have a question...How do you feel about upvoting comments in general. I know you mentioned that upvoting your own stuff when you say 'hmmmm' or 'great post' is a no-no....But what about a thoughtful comment to gain visibility?

I've heard the argument for and against, and I'm curious what you think.

I've never done it myself, but was wondering what more experienced Steemians thought of that practice?

I'll share what I wrote in reply to @braaiboy comment on the same matter.

For visibility, good comments may be upvoted just enough to get them seen. Upvoting all comments is a bit too much to justify in my opinion.

That's my opinion. Some people are strictly against such a thing and some are supportive of voting every comment if they wish to.

Yeah I guess it's a case by case basis and some Steemians are ok with it. I completely understand the need to do it if you are trying to make a point and add some value to the convo....But completely understand the annoyance of upvoting things like 'Great post' lol

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