I devote 50% of my time reading and upvoting and commenting and 50% researching and writing. I quantify it, so it becomes easier that way.
If people don't quantify, it's harder to keep track of where they spend most of their time, and they end up writing posts more than they read/comment.
Another thing I do is I follow this distilled digest diligently and read every single article and leave a comment, even when I haven't got anything to say really, because at least that way I let the person know I've read their article. And I read everything in their entirety, I don't skim-read.
And I'm a couple distilleds behind for this reason.
Often people need to be told what to do. Quantify it. Don't tell them "engage", tell them "read all the distilleds and comment" ... I don't mean this specifically, I just mean concrete advice, even tho it kinda sounds stupid.
Or here's another way to do it, which is what I've just done: tell people what you do, and let them be inspired that way.
Here's another way a mere generic suggestion might go wrong: People tend to prefer to comment on bigger users' posts where they know upvotes to their comments will make it worth their while. Check out Abigail's comment thread! She needs to hire an extra hand just to read the wall of comments she receives, much less reply! And it's probably mostly because she has a big VP, not because people really care. So generically suggesting people should "engage" will just make them all make a bee-line toward certain users and completely disregard others. People like exercisinghealth get only a couple comments each post, and that guy made the effort to make whole videos.
But even when you do your best, it's still hard. I haven't been participating in the discord/formerly steemit.chat channel because I read posts. And when I try to give each person I follow equal attention, that means I could go for 2 weeks or more not giving any attention to people like trumpman and mobbs and ruthgirl who are so active and write stuff that's fun to read, which seems unfair. So after ~8 months on steemit, I'm still trying to figure out how to spend my time here most productively community-wise. It's no wonder those who are new to this are struggling (that's assuming they're making an effort at all).
It's not easy to quantify (at least I haven't managed to do it), I have a list of posts I want to read every day that I don't always have the time to finish. Sometimes real life doesn't leave you the time to do everything you want. I also read posts I upvote, but I don't have much to comment. I won't bother leaving a "nice work" kind of thing, as it won't add anything useful (your posts are an example, I mean I love your work, so well-written and researched, but since I am not an expert on the topic I don't think I can add arguments for further discussion).
And that thing about chatrooms, I am totally with you. It's not only that I don't have enough time to visit them, but also that I don't do well in places where too many people are gathered, I cannot do the small talk.
I believe that if people found a couple of users whose work they value and try to keep up with them, then this place would be so much different. And you know? By forming these "micro-environments" we become parts of small circles that end up entwining on the same platform. That's what I can think of, maybe I'm wrong.
Pfff, like you said it, it's hard though. If you want to be committed, you need to spend almost all your day on Steemit. It's always relevant, since we don't all share the same amount of free time, so engagement and real, essential curation should be judged depending on how much time available everyone has (which is impossible in my opinion).
I really liked this comment for some reason!
Thank you! :D
Your comment is as great as your posts. And as long!
We will follow what you suggest in fact. A post is coming soonish with guidelines defining what we mean by engagement. And also giving hints about what to do.
What is clear is that everyone can't do everything. But if everyone does a little bit... Then, the goal will be achieved.