Why comments matter

The people doing V2K with remote neural monitoring want me to believe this lady @battleaxe is an operator. She is involved deeply with her group and @fyrstikken . Her discord is Battleaxe#1003. I cant prove she is the one directly doing the V2K and RNM. Doing it requires more than one person at the least. It cant be done alone. She cant prove she is not one of the ones doing it. I was drugged in my home covertly, it ended badly. They have tried to kill me and are still trying to kill me. I bet nobody does anything at all. Ask @battleaxe to prove it. I bet she wont. They want me to believe the V2K and RNM in me is being broadcast from her location. And what the fuck is "HOMELAND SECURITY" doing about this shit? I think stumbling over their own dicks maybe? Just like they did and are doing with the Havana Syndrome https://ecency.com/fyrstikken/@fairandbalanced/i-am-the-only-motherfucker-on-the-internet-pointing-to-a-direct-source-for-voice-to-skull-electronic-terrorism

Yes, I practice this, I am from Twitter if that makes sense, like I was using Twitter before Hive and I think I get it from Twitter where I like to comment on post even if it is just to say good job :)

I believe to comment is the best way to socialize with others in the blockchain to create awareness and to boost one's account as well

Yep, I like when people comment on my posts, and I upvote them if the are of decent quality. So, I comment a lot too, but still not enough, though your story inspires me!

50000 comments already? I'm around 17000... but I agree, comments are important for engagement... I guess I should improve this point.

funny comments matter even more :P

There's nothing better than getting comments on a post, as it shows that people have read it. But, mainly it's a good way to meet new people and have a chat. Sometimes I read a post but, haven't got much to say by the end so I leave an upvote, or reblog it. I try to avoid making comments saying "wow, cool post." Because I find it a bit disengenous and seems like I haven't read it.

Yeah when money is involved I think a lot of people will be chasing it, but, I've found that a lot of people on here are just sound people interested in social interactions and just want to use Hive because they've lost faith in the major social media platforms. Like me, I've barely used any other social media platforms since finding Hive. To be honest, the thing that brought me here was to idea of earning to use social media. But, the thing that made me stay was.... earning to be on social media haha no, the people I've met. The communities I've found and the idea of everything that Hive is.

It's a great platform. But, there is a chance that 90% of people online are bots. Not just on Hive but, on all social media in general. Who's to say though.

!PIZZA

Habit of engagement is best way to grow on hive blockchain. Thanks for sharing, I'll really put more effort to increase my way of engaging on others post

Engagement is indeed important Steve and been at it for a long time. I was a regular in the top 10 of the #egagementleague and hard work is always rewarded.
Been keeping an eye on the "revived" Tsu and it's nothing like the original. I don't think that we will ever have such fun again, as it was not for the income, but rather for the engagement that counted for everyone.

The one thing that I learned in the last two years is to not worry too much about the reward that you get on posts. I will definitely not get richer through my posts but it will give me ideas on how to navigate. Engagement cannot go wrong.

Hello @steevc

I share your opinion, there are many people who only publish and forget that Hive is a social network, and that its success lies in the interaction of people; That is, they do not contribute to the growth of our company

I have read in a report on social networks that comments are as important as publications, and in many cases, the incorporation of new users or investments largely depend on the comments on a post.

Some time ago I read a post, where the author mentioned that compensation is very good for the wallet, but the comments were good for the soul

Have a beautiful evening

I enjoy a comment, sometimes leading to a full conversation back and forth, it's great. I can't give much with my vote @ $0.03 so try to make up with it by commenting where appropriate, sometimes all i can say to an art piece is 'nice work' but it's usually appreciated as i wouldn't say it unless i genuinely liked the piece. Not that i don't like the votes, don't get me wrong but sometimes a comment can make your whole day (needing the appreciation of strangers is a creative persons curse). I'm trying to build my account up and believe me i could use the money instead, but i believe that this has HUGE potential.

!WEED

Engagement all the way! I think nowadays with some mobile apps available, being engaged has never been so easy and fun!

Lovely post @steevc

I have to agree that a lot of posts are low effort. Even interaction can sometimes feel cheap; something like:

-> low effort post
---> nice post
------> thanks
----------> you're welcome
Lol.

But I frankly I don't mind; I just don't bother with that.

There are a lot of genuine creators who put effort into writing or recording well thought out and researched content, and have also been consistent as to improve their writing, speaking or editing skills. These are the accounts I try to discover, follow, upvote and engage with.

One of the reasons is you can have insightful conversation about something that interests you. You might learn something new and who knows, maybe even make a new online friend.

#followfriday posts are a great way of discovering new people on HIVE to engage with.

You do not have to comment on every post you like, but if you have something to say then why not take a few seconds to say it?

Exactly! Sometimes I don't have something to say on a post I like, and thats OK too. There are a bunch of tokens like Pizza and Beer you can send to show your appreciation. The @stickupboys even came up with the awesome idea of creating a bunch of GIFs to interact with their audience. So sky's the limit.

But yeah, comments are an amazing way to build relationships here on HIVE, one day I will make it to 50,000 haha.
(I have quite a ways to go)

I think you ought to be making at least ten times as many comments as posts.

I agree with this. Community after all is built through social interaction. Not didactic broadcasts.

Perhaps one trick is to finish a post with an open question. That way it prompts that reader to feel like responding. What do you think?

I just think that more actual social engagement would be good for Hive. It would make content creators more keen to come back even if their rewards are not great. People post on other platforms for no reward as they can get an active following there.

I agree with you. Commenting gives this encouragement that your posts was thoroughly read, assimilated and then a response or feedback. No doubt that reward is also part of the chase but for good writers, of which i want to become, i want people to relate with me on a particular story or idea from the post. I spurs me to write more. That's why i also love engage with people so that we can exchange perspectives.

Commenting truly matters honestly.

I was going to say, 'no comment' but that's a little cheesy. Oops.. already did it!

I've been spending a fair amount of time recently re-thinking how I intentionally interact with and create posts on Hive. So your post here is very timely for me.

Engage with posts you enjoy that interest you so you have something to say. The author will probably welcome the engagement (or at least they should), especially if they do not get much otherwise. Responding to comments can lead to more regular support.

This is important to point out. And it has been one of the difficult things for me. My career is fitness and I'm arguably a subject matter expert in that field. For a long time it interested me, and I thought maybe I'd find joy in interacting with the fitness communities on Hive like Actifit and Exhaust. But the truth is that as I prepare to retire from fitness work, consuming and interacting with that kind of content just isn't exciting anymore.

This took me some time to learn this about myself. And I've found I get more joy from reading posts from folks that are writing on things I know less about. It does make contributing to the conversation harder, since my knowledge base is smaller. But I guess the thing to do then is to ask clarifying questions in the comments to keep the engagement up. Maybe that kind of thing would work for others also finding themselves wanting to be social on a post where they perhaps don't have the knowledge or vocabulary to be adding to or counter-pointing a discussion.

I agree that more social engagement is necessary for Hive to attract more users. When I write content I try to remember to finish with a question to spark engagement, like you did in this post. I don't always remember, but I think that just as people should strive to comment more, so too should folks writing posts try to prompt that engagement. I think that's part of good blogging.

All that said...

Nice post.

!PIZZA

#TGSFT
Thank god someone finally thought about talking about hive OUTSIDE of it, we need more people like you who are actively advertising HIVE on other platforms such as twitter, quora, fb etc

I finally made the top twenty in one of his Hive Engagement League posts! ...but it was for LeoFinance specific comments, so I'm not sure that counts. But still, I was pleasantly surprised.

Part of me thinks that most people don't leave many comments because it takes time and they don't have time (or they don't feel like they have time, but that feeling is hard to fight against them, so I have forgiveness for this attitude). But then I look at FB and see people making hundreds of comments on everything. Is it just that much easier to comment on FB? Or is there something else at work here?

Hmm. Anyway, I always try to do my part in the commenting fun, when time allows.

!PIZZA

If you are at 50,000 I wonder what gangs talking is at. He comments on everything, lol!

But seriously, my biggest problem is time. I just dont have enough between producing 2 or more podcasts, live streams and exploring all the stuff that Hive has to offer. But I do go through and read and vote.

But a lot of the time I only have time read 2-3 posts and vote at any given time each day. If I comment it's because I could think of something that didn't come off as a canned response. If I can't think of something to say or my comment turns into a mini post on its own then I just don't do it. I will give a 100% up vote instead.

I wish I had more time or even do Hive full time. But that's just not an option for my situation yet.

Positive

So I gave this some thought last night based on our conversation on Twitter, and in the same vein, you mentioned "A string of random thoughts cobbled together" I mapped out a response prior to this post that I've only just read. People can disagree if they like, but I would argue that in the high 90% range, posts that are submitted are not really in the "Conversation encouraging style." I recently did a post "I was human email" while I think it's a pretty good and possibly an informative piece of work, I wouldn't say any of the paragraphs was written in such a way that Joe Bloggs would leap to their keyboard to ask "What's a pound note?" although having said that, it's probably a key element that would be an easy way to comment. As you know, I work in Sales, and one of the hardest parts is Cold Calling; everyone hates it because you're going in blind and can be told to "Fook Off" by even the most professional of companies. After a few weeks and months of that, you give up, so I understand why some folk might be reticent to comment on a given post especially if they disagree with something. One of the less stressful calls telesales people can make is a soft or warm call: "Hi, you bought a widget from us a couple of months ago; I was wondering if there was anything else we could help you with?" so maybe elements such as Pound Notes woven into a post might encourage people to comment?

Negative

While you constantly decry me for being cynical, I would argue I'm a realist. With that thought in mind, I would say that for again, around 90% of the Hive userbase members are more interested in gaining curation rewards than engagement. I have to agree with you; I have seen comments on my posts over the years that I can tell has been written in such a way as to disguise what the author truly wanted to type: "Nice post, I upvoted you, please upvote me." 🤣

I don't know what the answer is; it did occur to me that when I look at news stories and blogs on the Internet, the 'comments' are very thin on the ground. Sadly, Hive is not Usenet or Twitter for that matter. Those platforms are designed and engineered towards engagement, hell Twitter (And Facebook et al.) has an AI and an algorithm specifically designed to show you Tweets from like-minded people or, at the very least, content that the AI knows you are interested in. As far as I know, Hive doesn't even have a feature that says: "Hey Pete, your friend Steevc has posted something." it doesn't have any of the features its competitors have in terms of bringing people together. All we have is awesome people like yourself who flog their guts out compiling data and posting, "Oi! Look at these people who live near you; wouldn't you like to be friends with them?"

Summary

I suspect communities would disagree with the "Lack of engagement" accusation. I know I have made more friends on the Ecency Discord channel than I probably have on the Hive platform. I suspect this is because of the instant communication it provides? I guess most of the Hive userbase is talking daily with each other either on Discord or within maybe gameplay (Splinterlands). I can't comment on 3speak as I don't really use it much.

Not sure that helps much but it's the thought that counts. 😉

You are very right - goes for all social networks that the interaction is one of the most valuable things. I am only at almost 10.000 :) But it seems I can't write short comments so sometimes it tires me.

I would say that the most valuable thing by being on these decentralised networks is that I can communicate with people from the whole world. That wouldn't happen the same way in Facebook.

I don't think I would be a fan of canned responses. If you aren't going to take the time to type it up don't even bother wasting my time. That is just my opinion though. I was looking at my account the other day and I think I am somewhere around 30k comments. There is a user that posts stats on the Leo side of things and I usually try to make sure I am in the "most comments" section of that post.

In my first spell on steemit, comments made people notice me but for a while, it didn't pay off but I appreciate the friends I was able to make from comments in those days. Now, coming back to do the same has been quite tasking because school has been consuming and I have to actually read posts before commenting so I don't have to say 'nice post', lol.

50,000 is impressive! Congratulations. This was 7 months ago so you're probably up a few thousand more by now. It's a huge number, seems unattainable but there it is, you've done it, it's not impossible and you seem like you're having a good time. Plus, you've not once resorted to automated spamming like the account you allude to. (Though I don't see any comments from them recently, hopefully they got the help they needed).

It's inspiring and a relief as it brings the number down to earth, if you catch my drift... It's nice to see that for the new starters. And there's hope yet for the social aspect of this crazy place, as long as we all get involved on a human level!