I've been thinking lately, as an avid Redditor who just loved the comment section so much more than the actual content and spent most of his time in r/askreddit which gave you entertainment to no end at one point. Somehow it seems that the comments here on Steem aren't as entertaining, I am not quite sure what it is so I thought I'd just bring this up here and we can have a discussion.
There are a few reasons that come to mind though which I wanna talk about here before we go straight to the "what do you think?".
This being a blockchain and it not being editable, even if it were to be editable there is always proof of your original post/comment saved in the blockchain forever and anyone curious enough could find out what was originally said with the right tools. Is this something that scares people off? As in not saying what is in their mind at the time because of repercussions in the future?
Steem has a way for anyone to stay anonymous, this is also a strength of reddit where you can just anonymously make an account and go from there, say what you want without a care in the world. Here there are consequences though, it's not just like on reddit where if you happen to write something that no one agrees with and or think that was really inappropriate, etc, you can just delete it and no one will find out unless someone quoted you or took a screenshot of it for some reason. Or you can just not care and move on onto the next thread or other subreddit, it's not like people are gonna start following you around making fun of you about something random you said. Here though flags are a lot more easy to detect, someone checks your comments and they can easily spot it. That's not even the biggest issue cause if you write a lot of comments it won't be as easy to notice it if someone happens to look into your account. The other big consequence here is reputation and rewards, not that a few flags on a comment you wish you hadn't written are going to affect your rep score a lot but I mean reputation in general and consequences can be that you will scare a lot of people off or make them not want to reward you anymore in the future.
Is this why people are a lot more careful on Steem about what they comment in other people's posts?
To be honest I've been thinking about this for some time now and sure it may have changed the way I am on the platform as well compared to IRL or on Reddit. Even though I know I am anonymous here and it wouldn't get back to me if I did say my mind about a topic where I am the minority who thinks that way and it wouldn't affect my real life in the way that people would start ignoring me because of my actions on Steem. You are automatically more careful though, is this a good thing? Some times sure, if you're really angry and do something you might regret later, the thought in the back of your head reminding you that this is a blockchain can sometimes save you from those moments but is this also something that is keeping people from writing more entertaining and engaging comments?
I don't know, maybe its just that the userbase is still so small and everyone is still trying to make a lot of rewards by being an author or something else involved in other apps that they barely have the time or care to write comments. Engagement levels are pretty low and it seems like most of the time its accounts who already know eachother quite well that interact more in the comment section. Maybe I'm just comparing it to a 100x bigger platform too much. I don't know.
I've also been thinking about rewarding yourself with a vote on comments more often. This has been something I have been against for the last two years now cause it just feels wrong in many ways, such as forcefully voting your own comment to the top of the authors post instead of receiving a vote from the author of other readers instead. Is this making me unconsciously comment less? Maybe this part of the discussion is meant for another post, I'm sidetracking.
Anyway, what do you think about comment engagement on the platform and do you think it being a blockchain is making people too careful about what they write?
Would it be different if it wasn't on a blockchain?
I'm not 100% sure where I was going with this post or if it makes any sense, so if you feel that way as well having read this then let me know. Maybe its just the bottom of the bear market and the low activity making me think this way. There are a lot of long and thoughtful discussions going on on the blockchain and plenty of comments to reward. I remember way back almost no one would spend voting power in the comment section so I'm glad things have changed but it just doesn't feel as fun yet some how.
To be honest, when I first joined, comments were everything... everyone seemed really engaged and positive, and I made so much more with my comments than I ever could with my posts... I would randomly get really big upvotes on comments that weren't even my best comments, just some random whale agreed with me...
People weren't just getting comments, but entire conversations were unraveling that were even more interesting than the posts themselves. Personally, I feel that all disappeared once people started investing their SP in Smartsteem, MinnowBooster, Bitbots and Dapps for tokens… along with autovoting for curation rewards. In my eyes voting has slid from engaging and rewarding to an investment...
Honestly, it feels like people barely read the comments of their posts let alone upvote people for the time they've spent on those comments... they're too busy pumping out content for their autovotes.
Interesting point @aussieninja
This is a two sided problem:
ROI is the dumbest thing to look for on a social media platform. It's the number of genuine people you have in your network who are willing to engage and spread your content that matters. Look at which accounts have the most value in YouTube or Twitter. It's all about influence. To be honest, if the whales are busy selling votes, it makes it much easier for smaller accounts to pick up followers, so I am not complaining. When this platform grows, we shall see if I am right.
Vote buyers are shooting themselves in the foot. They are essentially paying for votes that are due to them and rewarding users who have no interest in their content. Again, I may be wrong, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I am not saying these tools have no place here on the platform, but i do think it's gone a bit too far.
@kabir88
This is sad but true, combine it with the bear market and not many are around to give a shit about posts let alone comments.
I hate when I see that, authors posting their regular shit, getting autovotes, bid bots or votetrades and not coming back til their next post. It's so disrespectful to ignore your comments especially on a unique platform that lets you reward your readers for their time. Pff.
Yeah, I totally agree.... I can't help but think those people that haven't bothered to engage or reply will be totally lost when their autovoters move onto whatever more-profitable tasty businesses rock up with SMTs... while those loved by their readers will still have friends to play with.
That honestly never occurred to me... but you're right, I can't think of any other platform that rewards a person's readers... apart from a worthless visual tick, thumbs up, etc.
Not only that but as you said people I think are commenting and engaging less as they are busy with pumping out their own content. Sad really. I am lucky to get a handful of genuine comments from real people
Agree with this. Most of us are here for money, and vote selling made it easy.
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exactly! and in fact, perhaps all are actually here for money - just some are more HYIP-minded (and thus employ whatever means possible and available as bots, etc) and others are less. thus it makes people "Content Indifferent", as some rightly call it.
so, regarding the main questions asked in this post:
what I think is, most (or rather all) people are first of all focused on earning, Content is secondary in best case. then a lot (or majority?) of people focused only on making money - thus Content is not even in their attention / focus at all: why bother, if it is not necessary condition to be able to earn more, but rather actually distracts and takes away time which can be used to earn more? :D
(or do some other things, like "offline" / in real life - and leave the "curation" etc. to bots)
especially since System is made in such a way that it kind of "encourages" that (if not almost forces)
so, it doesn't actually matter: whether it is on blockchain or .... on some similar HYIP-like based platform where people mainly focused on money making.
and I doubt it very much or perhaps even rather sure that most do not worry or fear of anything - they simply don't give a damn. LOL
So, that's my brief answer to these questions: "business model" or "ecosystem" is made in such a way that it attracts people with HYIP mentality and / or enthuses them to be more minded so.
(here is in a bit more details)
Facts! too much emphasis on rewards now.
I think that comment engagement is low not because its blockchain itself. People just want to earn rewards as author. Same on vimm, everyone wants to stream (because they want to earn rewards) . Its sad that people are selfish.
Also I need to agree with that quote. I feel the same on my posts/streams mostly people that knows me comming to comment/talk.
I would say that upvoting comments is a good way to motivate people but its still not what we want. We want people to be more active on content that they enjoy not because they can earn some $.
I think a good way to motivate people to comment is to made a question like u did.
Lets just hope that people will stop being selfish. We should encourage people to comment and be active on blockchain. If we want to create a better place for authors we need active readers too.
He's a fan of sub ask reddit that's why LOLOL
Hey! What happens on smoke stays on smoke! No crosschain gossip!
<3
reddityo lol 😂
Love that LOLOL
Yes we want people here to engage for the fun of it without rewards being the number one factor - I generally engage with the same people alot on here -maybe I should expand out a little bit
@acidyo, you ask a great question! I think there are a number of factors involved in my view and you've touched on a few already. I can only speak for myself and what I have found to work in terms of getting engagement.
Many authors do not create posts that are designed for engagement, some are just posting information or opinions with no real call for responses. If someone is already so resolute in their view, why waste time engaging with them?
Perceived value. There is still a feeling that the most earnings can be had from authoring a post rather than taking time to make meaningful comments. For example, if I wrote this comment as a post, the payout would most likely be higher. But I would much rather be part of a conversation, so am willing to take time to make meaningful comments
Consequences. It seems expressing a minority opinion is not the done thing. Whether that's done via comments or downvotes, the risk of reprisals are high.
Finally. On the bright side. The stats from this post show some positive movement towards a community that's engaging in conversation rather than everyone trying to be the next Shakespeare
https://busy.org/@penguinpablo/daily-steem-stats-report-wednesday-october-24-2018
This graph from the post shows it best:
Authors who make effort to reward engagement via a vote or atleast a response tend to have much higher level of comments.
@kabir88
Well said.
Also what happened to your rep?
Long story man! I am not a fan of self voting, specially when I saw someone do it 10 times a day on repetitive posts.. so I flagged them. Then there was a truce, but the same account started self voting their comments to above $80+, so flagged them again... You can guess the rest of the story and who that might have been ;)
You're a braver man than I kabir. Let's get you back up to the rep score you should have.
I'll try to remember to check your comments every day,
:( that sucks, and yeah I can very well guess who. Oh well Bernie made it out from -18? So you'll get there some day. Here's a little push.
Thanks @acidyo! That means a lot and not just the monetary value. It's reassuring to know there is still a good amount of STEEM power in the hands of people who genuinely care about the growth of this platform and the new users that land on our shores with dreams and aspirations
I can vouch for @kabir88 - a great community minded Steemian - thanks for running the #upvoteplankton initiative!
I remember following along when you got flagged to the ground - im glad you just keep on Steeming - im sure you will reach a positive Rep again soon enough :)
Thanks @conradt! Appreciate it.
I remember learning in my Maths Mechanics class the basic formula for Power.
Power = work done/time
Work done = force x distance
So, if we apply a small force over a long period of time, the results can be surprisingly large!
Sure. Bernie should be role model for all the people who got flagged to death.
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Ahh...but how many of those comments are due to one author getting 15 bot comments per post? ;)
The short answer is: the post makes 100% sense but you focus too much on the lesser issues.
The long answer:
Sorry for the long comment, I hope you get to see it. Cheers !
I do read 99% of the comments on my posts actually. I may not always vote them up or respond to them but I do always read them. :) Sometimes I just filter them by age instead especially if I have to upvote them cause that makes it not jump after each vote which is very annoying.
That's good to know, I thought there were simply too many comments to go through :)
Interesting. My guess would be the repercussions of getting flagged. Here you are accountable for your comments and they last forever on the blockchain. But maybe it can also be the fact we are a smaller niche community and it is like a small town where everyone knows everyone kinda. As Steem gets bigger maybe people will loosen up because it won’t echo so loudly if they make a very controversial comment.
Posted using Partiko iOS
I agree when it comes to flagging --I try not to flag just because I dont like the arguments or a point of view, for example, I would say flagging should be just used when someone is rude, racist, hate speech or heavily spam the blockchain or abuse the reward pool. there are not that many users and it feels like when you press the downvote button its a personal insult and mostly it ends with a counter flag for no reason. there is a lot of crap content on steem which I would like get rid off but If big players or even witnesses dont care than small accounts will usually just stay still, get some reward and leave steem.
Perhaps it would be beneficial for someone to build a UI that cares less about the (non-consensus) rep score, or replaces it entirely. This may be an issue with steemit.com rather than Steem.
I don't regularly comment here because there isn't usually many comments that I want to respond to. On reddit I might read through 100+ comments before I find one I respond to.
On here I generally just like to read the article.
Gotta admit I feel the same way lately, not sure why. Too many posts too little time? Maybe I'm following too many people.
@acidyo I think for me after reading a post I usually respond based on what I feel as regards the post even without reading other peoples comments. I think this makes my responds be uninfluenced by other peoples comment. Yes I do read other peoples after mine goes out.
I think because I understand how blockchain works I self regulate myself, I think others do too.
Finally, a lot of post on steemit are not so much that engaging, so people don't comment so much. But if post are engaging, with an attractive topic that pulls people to go read it. I find those post usually getting more comments.
That is my 0.02 steem worth of thought on that. Lol
Posted using Partiko Android
I think it is much simpler than that.
This is blogging, with incentives.
Reddit already had awesome comment sections, beating the comments on Digg by lightyears, even before .self and AMA became popular. But the latter definitely helped. Imgur also has organically grown an awesome comment community.
The main focus/use of both platforms is just different. That not necessarily helped by the design either. This here is so... slashdot.
Generally, it isn’t necessarily a good idea to compare. Just check Medium... top quality content and often has only few and regularly crap comments. That bad they even felt the need to create a highlight section.
I've noticed that the few that will upvote your post tend to leave the comment section blank, which could be a good or not so good thing, it all depends on how you look at it.
Unless they truly conversate back and forth with you, then thays always a good thing, then maybe like me sometimes, we just don't know what to say.
You take a chance of getting flagged if uou don't say enough, they say you're spammer, so I guest us minnows are just being very careful right now. But I do agree with your post about the lack of comments.
Yeah unfortunately we've had a wave of spammy comments that now it feels wrong to just comment "hey man, this was a really nice post."
I think there are different incentives between the 2 platforms. Reddit is generally more focused to entertainment and that’s why AMAs or threads where people share their creepy experiences are so popular. People in reddit cares more about the comments. In steem, the posts are the ones getting more attention.
Besides, a reddit legend like this guy https://www.reddit.com/user/PhD_in_everything/ would probably be flagged on steem right? Or maybe not?
Haha I'd love to see more novelty accounts that focus on the comments here on Steem!
A well armed society is a polite society.
We're carefully measuring our words because this is far from a consequence-free environment.
With the possible exception of Facebook, most of the rest of the net is like reddit. Rather than competing with that, we're better off emphasising and selling this as a feature.
You know Ed Sheeran was bullied off Twitter?
lol no I hadn't heard of that. Yeah I guess we aren't as evil here, which is a good thing but at the same time removes one aspect of humor I guess. Hmm
It does until there's a relationship there.
Roasting strangers is a bad idea here, but once you find each other...
Well, if you asked me to say truth then listen, comments are the great way to engage people from all countries.
At this time almost I have 53 steempower which I got from commenting. If you compare my blog posts and comments then you will see that 90% of my rewards are from comments.
We need to focus on building a strong community and it is possible only through comments.
Have a good day @acidyo
Posted using Partiko Android
I don't think people are afraid to talk. Haven't you folks ever seen the insane things people say under my posts? It's been like that for years.
Hehe guess I gotta find the right authors comment section to read for my daily dose of popcorn. :D
It's not even drama. It's just people goofing around, being in good moods, chillin'.
I find part of the problem when I look elsewhere is maybe people are too afraid to just relax and have fun. Everywhere else seems so serious.
Maybe the anon people are more fun! I don't even think it's only based on anonymity, I think it also has a lot to do what you do on Steem and what readers might think of you. In chats I use to fool around a lot more and the people there are usually used to it, but on the chain it feels like you gotta be so much more formal as if you're on a job interview.
I don't treat this place like a job interview, but I do know what you mean. I see people acting like that. I have nothing to lose. I just say whatever, but I've been this way since I got here. I'm the same in life. I don't need to impress anyone, but at least when I do, it's natural. I didn't have to fake it.
Yeah I started out that way on Steem, not sure where that guy went. Hmm hmm, so many epiphanies today, lol.
Some folks don't even respond to the weird comments I leave on posts. That makes me sad inside.
I know and it's still a donkey! 🌍🙊🙉🙈🐒🐵
It's a monkey!
i think you hit the nail on the head. people don’t wanna rock the boat. so maybe we aren’t as vocal as we would like to be because of fear of being downvoted.
that being said i think the longer you are on steem, the less you worry about that.
and also. the price of steem. less people here trying to build relationships because we’re not ‘mooning’
think it’s all part of the journey tho. the right people will comment and engage with you :)
Posted using Partiko iOS
Good points and yes, I'm taking notes on who to reward next time moon is shining bright and who only comes back then. :)
Hi @acidyo, I usually read the comments in the posts i read, but i do not often find interesting comments unfortunatelly. Maybe people are just afraid to be flagged by saying really what they are thinking ? Or just looking to be voted on their comments by writing general things with no interest ?
I don't know, but the question you bring to us should let us think about the way the comment section could or should be feed.
Have a nice day !
I think this is definitely a huge factor as well. Didn't think to mention it in the post at all.
ANd finally i'm sure that most of the people reading a section with this sort of comments do not read the entire section,
so these comments prevent some discussions from being able to take shape from time to time.
This is just my vision as a new steemian.
Yeah I'm sure I skip the comments of many posts as well. Hmm I should try and work on that.
I joined around the same time as you, but I got burnt hard by investing at the very peak of btc/steem on the left of this chart:
It is not the end of the world. The 300-400 steem power I had at the time (which would of taken 2 years to power down) went up to over 700 sp on its own due to the original inflation rate and is around the $ value of the 1.7ish bitcoin I threw into steem power at the time.
I am hoping to get some whale support, also start investing my paychecks until I get to 10,000 steem power. At which point I will be putting much more effort on the steem blockchain
(sorry if it sounded like verbal diarrhea, I am exhausted and will head to bed in 3 minutes)
I think a lot of it is just down to money/vote power. I am one of those that will occasionally upvote a random comment I read, (used to happen more in the past due to steem price), but now it becomes a thing of trying to maintain a balance. Prices are down so we have to adjust. Post that have payouts get 505 vote so I can give at least a slightly above dust level vote on comments. So that with prices down that means less votes available.
I think another thing other than a loss of potential votes is that of the comment flaggers, someone new comes in to steemit very limited on SP and RC powers. They make a mistake, by asking for a follow, someone not even the Post Author in most cases flags the comment with no concern for the effect it has on that person to interact on steemit, thus shutting out a potential commenter.
Any one that has stopped comment because they think they should be rewarded for the comment needs to reassess the current realities of the price of steem, and their own actions when commenting. I am happy to say that it has been at least 8 months since I have seen terms lie 'What good enough for a comment but not a vote" from post authors. Those types of comments do not lead to engagement at all.
As was pointed out also by I think @kabir88 a lot of post lately do nothing to raise the engagement level. When I receive a comment If the comment requires a reply, I try to reply. Not all comments need a reply. I do try to give a vote to most of the first level comments on my post, that however does not include blatant vote farmers, those that leave a comment and obviously did a copy paste comment or did not really read the post. I do look at the blog of those that leave a comment to ascertain this, it does not take long, and often I find a post or two to read and then comment on one of theirs.
There are not a lot of cases where a comment should be flagged. It would be nice if steemit had a way of flagging the voter not the content creator, that way comments that have been unduly upvoted can have the votes nullified without damage to the commenter/content creators reputation.
Educate the "I vote for you you vote for me" type people. School them that it is a wrong comment to make. People can say all they want about new users doing research to learn the correct etiquette, not an easy thing to find on steemit or other blockchain places. (I am having that particular issue with trybe and whaleshares).
We all have expectations, but no one knows what those expectations are until someone tells them what they are.
The only part of people being careful and afraid of speaking their minds are the small minded people that attack them for speaking their mind. Not everyone can ignore the ignorant attacker. I have had a few of my comments attacked, but at the same time I have also had people point out where I was in error. the attacks often come after the solid explanations of where my reasoning went wrong. But there is very little a person can do when the attacker upvotes themself to make it appear their comment was made first. We don't always look at the time lines.
So let's get the dev-team to lower the RC cost of comments like they lowered the cost for Votes, and maybe commenting will pick up again.
Trybe and whaleshares @bashadow, can't believe you've been cheating on us :P
Trybe is down, I guess it got hacked, but did not work today. I have no idea how to use it, just joined for the free tokens coins they give when you log in on a daily basis, but I forget to do that a lot. As for whaleshares, I think half or mor of the top 20 steem witnesses are witnesses on there. So far not sure what I am doing there either, heck I don't know what I am doing here, other than it is not facebook, or twitter or youtube is the pee ode people at reddit. The meaning of Social online has changed a lot in the almost 20 years I was gone fro it all.
I've noticed this and had similar thoughts. Downvotes on Reddit may hurt our ego but downvotes on Steemit can hurt our wallet and and affect our ability to earn future income. Forum encounters can be contentious and in some cases users will form grudges and obsess over punishing someone instead of simply disagreeing and moving on. This can foster an environment in which participants only feel comfortable providing positive feedback and will censor themselves. I think it's a bit of a double edged sword in that we eliminate some unnecessary trolling and people will put more thought into positive engagement but we can also miss out on personal growth from challenging our ideas. I've considered creating a seperate anonymous account to offer divergent opinions without fear of retribution from large accounts but haven't bothered because user interaction is low and it's easy to sink into the rut of autovoting and collecting income.
"Is it blockchain worthy?" and "Is it upvote worthy?" are also high barriers of entry for commenting. When I joined Steemit I thought it was odd that many users wanted to engage outside of the platform through chat applications but now I assume that is where most of the communication takes place. Users will generally only post items they can affirm are blockchain and upvote worthy. This can be a good culture to foster if the site gets very large - bad commenting can essentially be compared to spam posts - but right now we don't suffer from overuse of the platform and low user engagement can leave this place feeling like a ghost town.
Lol
Anyway, it's not just about the nature of blockchain, I reckon. It's the style of site. Steemit is not = reddit. It's more akin to Wordpress, and if you see comments on wordpress, it's basically the same kind of thing as here, including friends who mostly comment on friends.
Because the format here is different. You're trying to build a personality, a character, a story of a being that people get to know and love/hate. In reddit it seems to be more like a one-hit-wonder kinda place, or like a public version of your facebook feed or something.
Different animals
Just more incencitive to create a root post rather than commenting
Someone should start a comment voting trail that follows the best commenters. :)
@ned Pls fund my comment curation project
ye @ned come on dude
At least I tried lol
Don't worry I'm sure he'll reply soon
Waiting for @ned's response
I was going to finish the poverty on the entire world his choice !!
LOLOLOL
Bring it on! Commenting is engaging. There is SteemUA but something commenting-focused only would be useful.
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Yeah the steemua hype kinda died down quick.
Hype maybe but it still works perfectly fine. I was thinking about a system that rewards comments in a more direct manner. Perhaps an evolution of SteemUA.
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I did for some users.
I upvote every comment they write.
I think this might be a big part of the problem.
Spinelessness often becomes a problem.
I don't tend not to suffer from it too much..lol
https://steemit.com/blog/@lucylin/are-memes-the-ultimate-truth-serum-my-view-on-kok
I talked to my colleagues about how crypto currency is going to rock the world, they thought that I am crazy. That I am in some kind of ponzi and only one of 10 is curious and want to know more. I tell about steemit in first place.
I think people don't realise what blockchain really is and no matter what you say they laugh in mynd and think that you are going to be sloughtered. But they don't realise that if they keep supporting banking system then they do damage to other lives and also they don't know that they are in biggest ponzi in history called paper and digital currency backed by nothing.
I believe that when old system will collapse and that will be our biggest chance to change old standards.
Steemit isn't as big as Reddit, so less people are gonna be commenting on the comment sections.
And then there's a complete difference regarding Steemit, namely the economic incentive.
This reward might motivate people to be polite and to avoid shitposts and offensive comments, which might not be rewarded.
Another reason might be Steemit's lack of an app, on Reddit you can comment with your smartphone on the go, i think it is more difficult here
Oh ..It's like that now. ..we not good enough for you no more. .. .
At least the comments aren't as toxic as some youtube comments can be?
Although I think you hit the nail on the head a little bit with it being a blockchain. I know my girlfriend @faeryboots thought it a little bit strange that she couldn't delete anything off of here. I'm sure most of us have been 'guilty' of this, but maybe the hope of some sort of reward instills a little bit of fakeness in commenting? And something about being fake isn't as funny as legitimate IDGAF (I don't give a frick) off-the-cuff comments. Although the more time I spend on here, the less I am caring about rewards and just having fun with it. Good things take time I suppose... we just need to wait for the 🤡 to come in 😛
As long as you are anonymous, you can write whatever the hell you want. But, once you lose that anonymity, you tend to care a lot for your reputation.
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Will you vote for my comment? If it is that I will leave another one so that you can vote for me again and so I will vote for yours too. I think I have answered honestly. Although there will be politically correct people who say that this is not the case.
Comments were the primary source of engagements before all these voting bots, as that time, people were expecting to get upvotes from others, if they are engaged. But with these voting bots, I think, there is very less value for comments from engagement perspective. Most are busy with making a post and then buy upvotes.
However there is now a new form of rewards for comments. If you observer, @steemhunt or @musing now rewards comments on a regular basis. I am sure, more such platforms will also evolve. So if one is not interested to buy votes, then they can still earn a little by having meaningful comments / answers.
I am sure, if we kill all these voting bots, comments will again take a peak.
comments = circle jerking for upvotes or arguing
I agree with you on most of the things you said...
There are a lot of minnows here that are trying to fight their way up. Comments are marketing to promote yourself on this blockchain. This is the only thing you got, without it, you can write the best post on platform and it won't be noticed.
That said, your comments are your ID here and that's why some people are trying to write a very good comment. That's also why some people don't want to write a small comment because they think that that will be considered as a spam or a very bad comment. That means that your rep falls down in other people's eyes because of that small comment.
It is easy if people know you here already or if you have a lot of SP, then you don't have to write meaningful comments and you can afford to have fun and writr whatever you like.
Other thing is that if you write a good comment you will probably be replied and engaged in conversation. With a small comment you will just be in the bottom of the post.
About upvoting your comment... I did it only once in my STEEM career xD I understand why people do it, but I don't agree if you're going to upvote your shitty comment. If you are going to write a good comment then it's ok go upvote it so that it doesn't get lost in the sea of small comments.
It happened to me a lot of times that I write a big meaningful comment but I wrote it 2 days after the post was made and author didn't catch the comment because it was at the bottom of the post. I hate when that happens and that's why I partialy understand why people upvote their comments.
I believe these are the reasons why engagement is not that big. It is expected from minnows to write a good big comments and that is sometimes tireing.
I remember when I did this. It was awful because sometimes you just wanna say Haha that's funny, but instead you need to write abig comment and explain why it is funny. There are too many spammers here and if people don't know you around here then your small comments can be easily seen as spam comments...
I didn't like that way because it made me to start writing semi generic comments. Now, I write a good comment when I want and a silly one when its needed :))
Yes I think people are very careful here and I am one of them. I try to keep myself out of trouble and only write comments that can be useful and not hurt anyone. I try to keep myself out of flag wars etc... But well there are users who dont really care and even abuse each other in comment, what I find a bit rude and funny in the same time.
Well if you want to know my opinion, I think people should be careful, because it is a matter of reputation here. Sometimes a simple comment can cause a lot of trouble and starts an endless flag war that is unnecessary. Even if it wasnt a blockchain I will still be careful with every word I say and keep myself out of trouble.
Some months ago I wrote a post about some self-upvote abusers and mentioned them in the post. One of them was very angry and flagged my posts, but I got a lot of support from other users. At that time I realized that I put myself in trouble, even I know I am 100% right.
When I first joined, around 1 year back, my earnings from the comments were much higher than that from my own posts. So I kept commenting. But later my activities dropped. It was may be not getting as much as the expectation. I think "presence of money" is one of the main factor here. Whenever we are commenting, our expectations are getting something in return, not just expressing my views! When the authors are upvoting are comments, we are feeling "loss in business" and refraining ourselves from posting comments on those author's posts
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Honestly this is the best comment section ever. In all other social media that i am in or my friends are it's a shithole. At least there mostly none insulting each other or they do using arguments and i really really enjoy the comments in my post.
I learn new things and have a good time with others. Also when i wanna ask something i know i will take a serious answer and not be afraid that i will be called stupid or something (or someone trolls me). there are some scammers that write "good post" and stuff but you can mute them or troll them and have some fun!
People are careful but not so much. I think they get that this is a more serious platform than fb for example so they adapt their comments that way. If you make a serious post you probably gonna have serious comments, if it's a funny ( i have done multiple) then you will get funny comments. (there can be a fear about flag though depending on the person's sp)
The only issue i can see is the overall engagement as mostly none does any manual research so the majority will receive comments from the same people. We should interact with each other more and try to find new content more cause there are hidden diamonds out there! For instance everytime i post something i already know the 95% of who is gonna upvote and comment it :P
Nah, I don't think there's so much fear of content living forever.
People tend to comment mostly on big accounts for visibility and potential rewards. And then their feed, starting with their friends first, most likely, if they have them on notification.
Yes, I do believe we are a more post-oriented platform than Reddit, so reading the posts to engage to takes time. And if you also count in writing your own post, well, time flies by. And there's probably something else you have to do every day, so... maybe tomorrow you'll comment more...
Ah, let's not forget Discord, steem.chat, and github (for those who follow the repositories there). Each simple task takes time.
Flags are the biggest problem. Fake people are fake nice to get those sweeet upvotes. After being here for a long time and seeing through all the fake bullshit, I can imagine that this might come off as boring to you and many others.
It is exatly because of this reason that we don't have true and honest engagement here. Or at least not in the numbers we would like to have.
Basically fakeness is boring and we can subconsciously see through the bullshit. In end it comes out as uninteresting.
Not chiseled in stone, just my 2 cents on it.
I don't think this is the case. It's simply because of what the sites were built to be. Reddit is what it was supposed to be originally, practically a forum and steemit is a place to blog.
On Reddit you can say all sorts of bullshit stuff, rage, roast someone or whatever. The community is more free and the community there is.. well.. those kinds of people who like to leave roasted comments or share unvaluable opinions.
In Steemit, it has been states here and there that CONTENT MATTERS. Not because it can't be edited, but I think it's just the people in Steemit.. the community here is more mature and people who like to blog and share their opinions in a more mature way, just think more throughly before pitching in a random comment.
Reddit is for everyone. Steemit is too, yes, but have to be honest here, only certain people end up using Steemit actively and those active on Reddit, aren't the Steemit people.
As a former (well, I'd like to think so!) introvert who was never active on other social media I wouldn't know what an amusing comment actually looks like! Well, perhaps my role model for amusing comments is wint. Or is that just what one would normally call comedy? Hm.
As for speaking one's mind, well it seems the stronger your opinions are the more likely you are to suffer when you meet a similarly opinionated (or simply vindictive) opponent higher up the STEEM ladder. Though it should be noted that this system has resulted in less feuding and more civility from the most common and casual offenders that you see on other platforms. I suppose when these things happen on this platform any conflict that would be par for the course elsewhere gets blown out of proportion.
Uh, now I'm looking back at @kabir88's post and the points I wanted to make are basically everything he already said below (or above?). So yeah, basically that.
Except! Where he says "Perceived value", unfortunately I don't think it's just "perceived" -- current STEEM blog interfaces limit comment engagement by design, as you can't for example, re-steem someone's comment with an added description or ready response of your own like twitter or tumblr do. I mean you can mention or quote them in a post, but it doesn't organically link to the original post as in those social networks. Adding to that most people naturally seek validation from the original author first and his commenters second and are aware that others will do the same. In short, on another social networks a comment in the chain has the potential to be more visible and promoted than the original post, but that will never happen on STEEM (for now?).
(ramble ramble ramble, I need breakfast, fast! have a good day, folks who took the time to read this!)
Being able to resteem comments would be a great feature @eccles!
I was able to come to limelight on this platform through useful and unique comment I dedicated myself to. I see commenting as a way to robust and add to a choice post. It surges engagement. Sadly, most authors do not make your time on the comment section worthwhile as a reply seems so indefinitely not coming through.
I still value commenting and will still value it in the future.
Good topic for ore future engagement @acidyo
Its all about time sometimes and the problem I have: 'I dont have enough of the stuff'.
Commenting is great I agree, I just wish there was a method I could slow time down sometimes so I could get through everyones posts.
There is so much meat here to chew on. I think there are a lot of things going on that keep the engagement level lower than you would like. Some have been touched on already by other comments, so I will try to summarize my points.
Content Discovery is still too hard. Finding posts you are interested in and want to engage with is increasingly difficult, even though top level post counts are way under what they were a year ago during the bull run. Wading through all the top level posts, finding something interesting, then taking the time to write a well thought out comment to add to the conversation is way more difficult than it ought to be. Hopefully Communities (when we see them) will help with this. But we can't hold our breath for the release.
People treat Steemit as a Blogging Site. Blogs do not necessarily invite engagement. Often, I try to finish up my posts with questions for my readers, trying to inspire some engagement, but I get comments from the same handful of people and very few newer people offering up opinions. The Blogging format seems to lead to read and move on mentality.
We used to teach engagement, now we teach bots. When I started in August of 2017, my intro post was greeted by humans who said hi and welcomed me to the community. If you found good people in the beginning they suggested to go out and comment comment comment. To grow as a plankton you needed to engage with bigger fish in their comments, because they weren't coming to your blog to check you out unless you gave them a reason to. Now, instead of teaching new people to comment, we have every post in the introduceyourself tag hammered by bots. Some of these are trying to provide useful advice, but they are still bots, and obviously automated comments. We're teaching new users that engagement can be automated, and that's no good.
When we comment we want to know our comments are read and valued. Your blog is a perfect example of a post that many people will look at, have a thought, but then not comment because of the fear it will never be seen by the OP. As of this writing, there are 98 comments on your top level post here. I tried to read all of them, but I have to admit, at the end, I was skimming. So it becomes hard to imagine the OP going through and reading/responding to every single comment. Why take the time to comment if the OP will never see it?
On the flip side, those of us with lower level engagement, people may come and see our post and there are no comments and that makes them shy away from being the first one to post a comment. So posts are left hanging out there with no engagement at all because no one wants to be the first voice on a topic.
I don't know how we fix these things. A Reddit Copy Cat SMT might be one way to go. Creating a more comment friendly UI for the STEEM blockchain could be another. But for those to happen, you need a programmer with the time and inclination to build it. Steem Inc has repeatedly shown that the UI is not their primary concern. So for the rest of us, all we can do is the best we can do.
Thanks for striking up an interesting conversation!!
I can tell you that I get more engagement from my random posts on @musing than an actual authored post with my own ideas.
I guess we just have to go where people congregate.
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