Like the title says, defining the quality of a post on Hive is like trying to find the Holy grail. It is close to impossible. And yes there are a number of metrics we can use, trying to define it, but still they are meaningless. It is just the same as trying to identify if a Hive user is genuine or not.
I was writing a another post, but a post of @acidyo and the interaction in the comments and a post from @forexbrokr did push me to write this post in stead of the other.

So, first let's have a look at what metrics could be used, afterwards I will give my opinion about it. Like I write, my opinion. One can and may disagree with these.

• Length of a post;
• Images attached or not;
• Reblogs;
• Upvotes;
• The Hive value of the post;
• The interaction on the post.

I do think that this is about it. If I did miss some metrics, feel free to let me know.

The length of a post

Well some people are way better writers than others. Some do need a thousand words to describe/explain something, while others can do this is a sentence or not. Maybe the length of a post, could be an indication how much time a person did spend on the post or article. Maybe even not, if it is full of quotes.
The numbers of words used, according to me can't define the quality of a post. Suppose that there is a sports bettor here on Hive, who has an amazing track record. Suppose that he does write a post on a daily basis, with just his bets. Suppose that you do follow these bets and do make a shitload of money. Are these post than quality posts?
In my opinion yes, for the people who don't care about sports betting no for sure not. They even could have the opinion that this is more spamming the block chain than adding value.
On the other side, we could have an author who does publish a chapter of his book on a daily or weekly basis. Sure these post could contain lot's of words. But it will be perception if those posts are quality or not. If you aren't interested in novels for instance you don't care. If you do adore the content of the book and the storyline, you are always waiting on the next chapter, which makes it a quality post.
The same can be told about photographers who do publish some of their work.
As you can already see from the above, quality can't be generally defined. It is all about perception.
We can agree that if a number of amount of people do find it quality, it can be considered as a quality post. But aren't we than dictation the rest what the definition of quality is.

Images attached or not?

Again, that doesn't say anything about the quality of the post. It does say something about the time spend. And what about attachments which are completely of topic? Do they add quality to the post or not? Decide for yourself.
Up to this point I am not sure if I will add an attachment or not. If I will add an image will this change the quality of this post or not?
Suppose that you do find this post rubbish, would an attachment change you mind? I guess not. Also the other way around, if you do find the content of this post superb and Pulitzer price contender and image or not, won't change the content of this post.
I do agree that some images, graphs or other do add value to a post, but not more than that!

Reblogs

What about reblogs than? I do think that you do know the answer already. Meaningless. I have some of my posts reblogged, but most of these are bots.
But suppose that big names in the Hive world would reblog this post, people like @acidyo, @tarazkp , or others. (don't know so many big whales here or Hive influencers) Would this make this post quality? Both may adore the post, and maybe do want to share it with their followers, but if their followers don't care. It is still just the opinion of 2 people.
And to be honest it doesn't mind if a Hive influencer or a plakton account does reblog the post. When done genuinely both should have the same impact quality wise. Of course the perception of this post will differ who does the reblog. Probably also it will depend on who does this will have an impact on the earnings of the post, the exposure and probably some extra followers for the creator of the post.
So, no I do think that we can rule out reblogs. Maybe if a lot of different people will reblog the same post it could be an indication!

Upvotes!

We all love upvotes don't we. And in most cases upvotes are related to the Hive value of a post. Again the question can you determine the quality of a post based on the number of upvotes? Knowing that not a lot of manual curation is done on the blockchain.
Regardless of the quality of a post I do write, I know that these posts will get between 40 to 70 upvotes. Below is possible if it is the second post of a day, higher could be an indication that the post did trigger some extra people. In some case even only one, but a person with one of the bigger curation trails.
Also it depends on your followers base. I have so called 1349 accounts following me. I do think that at least 80 to 90% of those aren't on the Hive chain anymore. And lot of these followers are bot accounts! Influencers of the blockchain can have a 10 fold of this or even more, to lazy to dig into these numbers, but the exact amount is irrelevant. Regardless of how an account did get his following base, an account with more followers of course has more chance on an upvote. A newbie could write the post of his life. But if this isn't discovered by anyone (chances are slim to none these days by the work of for instance @ocd or @curangel) does this says anything of the quality of the post? Again no. We can agree that more people did read, euhm upvote the post for several reasons. This could be from trying to score some curation up to an upvote for upvote ring.
So the number of upvotes do say something about the people who did see the article, nothing about the quality! I could go on and on about this, but this post is already getting too long, and probably I will already have lost 70% of the ones taking the time to read this post!

The hive value!

Aha the Holy Grail. We all like to have a post upvoted into heaven, cashing out big time! But due to the nature of this blockchain, like it or not. My vote can have more impact than your vote. While another vote can make my vote ridiculousness. Does this mean that a person with more stake, have a bigger impact on the perception of the quality of a post?
I do remember that fights there were on Steem, where one account did get only a small number of upvotes but needed wheelbarrows to collect his earnings.
For instance an upvote from a curation group could have a great impact on the post earning, but most of the time this is one human curation who does like the post or content. Also here if 99% of the other curators don't care about the post, the upvote has value but has to be neglected on the quality definition.
Chances are slim to none that a curation group would upvote the post of the sports bettor like in the example above, the author writing a new book has better odds :).
If you do look at your own posts and earnings, maybe you then can draw some conclusions. If you would earn around 1 Hive per post and suddenly have a 4 or 5 hive post, it does mean that more people did like it, or maybe just one but one with a massive stake on the blockchain!
Also here much more examples could be written and discussed!

aha the interaction on a post!

This maybe comes close but also not. How are we going to define the quality of a post based on the number of comments. This would mean that each comments has to be checked on it's quality and again this could differ for most persons.

Also here the followers base does have an impact on the comments. If 1000 people do say an article in stead of 10, than of course the first article has much more chance on a comment than the second one. So does the number of comments say something about the article?

There are people here on Hive who do write up to 400 comments per day! I kid you not. While such a comment does add to the metrics it suddenly becomes non saying! Do they like the interaction or are they just trying to score an upvote, some love, pizza or beer? Hey maybe they are just promoting something!
Is a 100 character comment 10 times better than a simple congrats or thank you! Or is a 1000 char comment 10 times better than a 100 char comment?

Again I do appreciate all genuine comments I do get and I do adore the more the better. A genuine comment did trigger readers to spend some time to ask questions, star debate or something else based on the piece I wrote. Time is something a person can only spend once and that time spend will never come back. So in my case people who do spend time to read something I posted, does mean something to me.
The comment section however can be used maybe to indicate how genuine the authors or the one writing a comment is. An author who doesn't take time to answer the genuine comments on his/her article is just here for the earnings! I do know influencers here who do get 50 to 100 comments per post. Not all genuine, but they do their upmost best to answer all genuine comments! That's the way I like it. If I do follow an account and do see that they aren't answering comments open for interaction, based on the article, they will loose my interest and for sure the time I can only spend.

conclusion

Lot's of words written above, which again doesn't say anything about the quality of the content. For me personally quality is something which triggers people to interact. I do care about all comments or upvotes.
Quality can't be defined because quality is different for all of us. It all depends what you do like, what you care about, more or less just about interests.
So the conclusion of myself is that quality isn't objective and is always subjective. I am not placed on this world to enforce you my vision of quality!
Regardless of all metrics in place, we can't use them to determine if a post is a quality post or not! A one-liner could be a life saver for one, is this than a quality post? Not for the masses but for that one it was a pure gem!

Like written more times in this post. I am always open for interaction. And I am not afraid of different ideas. A comment with different even opposite ideas is as much valuable as an agreement.

Did you notice than no image was attached to this post? And does this has an impact on your evaluation of this post? Just wondering?

Cheers,
Peter