Time To Bring Upvoting Comments Back (For Those Who Can)
Thanks to the changes in the EIP, it was noised around that upvoting comments might be a waste of time, principally thanks to it being harder at the bottom of the curve to get a comment with a single upvote over the dust payment threshold.
So, I stopped upvoting comments. Between the EIP and the continuing stagnation of STEEM value, my upvote amounts are at the lowest point since I started, that despite the fact I now have over 10,000 SP at my disposal. Nothing more discouraging than to see the power to reward a post decrease even as your ability to do so increases.
However, I've seen others leaving upvotes, some of them on my own comments, so I started doing it more consistently. After a couple weeks of doing so, I found out a couple of things.
One, my voting efficiency rate as measured on steemworld.org increased, which meant my curation rewards did, too. As you can see, on all of the comments, they hover between 49 and just over 50% efficiency every time. It doesn't seem to matter when the upvote was made, either, as the ones above range between 44 minutes and nearly a day.
And I verified that the top comment was actually paid out today, so my $0.02579 STU actually made it over the dust threshold. For me, it takes at least a 30% vote to do it, though 35% really should be the bottom end. Those are higher weights than I'm used to giving to most comments, but at this point, it is what it is. If I'm going to continue to do this, I want to ensure that the comment author is being rewarded.
All of the amounts in the above image correspond to comments, except for the last one, which was a post.
This image has more upvoted posts than comments and you can see more variation in STU, efficiency rate and resulting curation rewards. The top two are both posts, but you can see that even though my vote weight is 35% on each, the STU and SP are quite different, thanks to the elements mentioned above. That does mean efficiency can go higher, but so can the opposite.
The lowest efficiency values are all on posts, even though the vote weights are similar or slightly higher. So, it's not as nearly as consistent as what happens on comments.
For Your Consideration
Many here have mentioned they believe engagement is down. One of the reasons for that, amid many perhaps, is that upvoting comments has fallen off dramatically. After seeing what can be done by upvoting comments, I will continue to do it, and would encourage those of you who have dolphin-sized SP and above to do it as often as it makes sense.
There is also @misterengagement back online to reward comments with, too. The creator of the token, @abh12345, made the announcement of its return here. You do need to have 1,000 ENGAGE tokens in order to invoke the payout, just as before.
I think it's time for engagement to make a comeback. I think it's time for those who are primarily autovoting to consider following those votes up with some commenting, if they aren't already, and for the rest of us who have been commenting all along to continue, and raise the bar a little if we can.
STEEM is still more a social media platform at this point based on the amount of user activity. But can it truly be social without engagement?
How about we bring back the upvotes on comments, and in so doing, bring back the social in social media.
Images source—steemworld.org
I stopped voting on comments after the EIP and doubt I'll resume to do so. I'd rather vote on good quality content instead, and would rather people do the same with me (vote on my posts rather than my comments.) I think we can still be social, make and receive comments, without expecting them to get an upvote. Just my two cents worth I guess. You make a good point about engagement though...We can never have too much of that.
Hey, @galenkp.
Yeah, I don't expect to be upvoted either, and amongst those who actually commented on a post where I asked it months ago, neither did the majority. It's nice when it happens, but it's more like frosting than the main entree.
Except, the way curation rewards work now, it's your favorite kind of frosting. :)
My plan is to continue to upvote posts, but I'm also going to upvote comments again.
It can be a nice little kicker for those receiving the comments, especially if their posts only make 0.10 or so...Getting 0.02 for a comment can be good...But we need content, and don't want people to start commenting for reward in preference to posting content...A nice balance of both is good. Engagement is needed, but there's got to be content to engage with.
From what I can tell, those who are inclined to post are still doing it. Those who weren't really inclined, aren't, but many of those if not most have decided to continue to upvote, either manually, or more likely through autovoting.
Which means, they're wanting to grow their stake, but don't have the time, the desire, the wherewithal, whatever, to post.
So, I'm in full agreement about the posting, and that we need to make sure we have it and more of it. For those who aren't really into posting, though, I would kind of like to coax some of those back into commenting. :)
I agree with your last line in this case for sure...Not posting? Cool, then comment and vote. I concur.
Hey, @galenkp.
And that's what we call consensus. At least on the last line. :)
I agree with it all, but particularly the last line is what I meant.
I agree engagement is must.As after all it is a social platform which rewards too!
Hey, @praditya.
STEEM is many things, but so far, aside from being an investment platform for the majority because they all have some stake, next in line is the social media side of things. So, as you say, we must engage!
Exactly, I always felt this platform is way more than just a source to earn. Would love to engage further.
I use a small upvote on comments to keep track of who I have replied to! I know it won't raise it above the dust threshold, but I hope that for at least some people that it will trigger dust bunny or dust sweeper.
Plus, the act of just upvoting, even if it doesn't give financial reward is still a nice feeling for both sides!
Hey, @bengy.
I like your way of thinking. As it is, the majority of us aren't going to be able to do a whole lot of upvoting and get people over the dust threshold, but I'm in agreement, just the act of doing so is a nice gesture. I'm sure someone somewhere would have some counter to it, but if it's merely having fractions of STEEM going back to the reward pool, well, we seem to be keen on that as it is with free downvotes, so why not, the more the merrier!
As you say, dust bunny or sweeper could pick up the slack, and in the end, the idea behind getting engagement going again for those where the gesture is enough will have succeeded. :)
I am looking forward to the day when I can reward some comments with a vote that will pass the threshold. Even at 100% my SP level does not quite reach there, I am sue however that one day it will. In the meantime I can start to give out the engage tokens again when I see comments that are...well..engaging. It was nice to see the post. I still would like to get to the 15,000 mark soon, then the 20,000 mark by years end. I hope I can get back into the comment side, I still struggle to get post out, but they come when they come.
Content is important, but comments are also. I like reading what other's think of a post as much as I like letting other know what I think.
Hey, @bashadow.
I think most of us are like that, otherwise, we might as well just be writing to ourselves in a journal or something.
re: SP level
Yeah. So, this idea of upvoting on comments might not be for everyone, but as @bengy pointed out, even a dust vote can be a gesture of goodwill. Everyone knows what's going on (we have access in multiple ways to see what people have staked), and most of us are in the same boat, anyway.
It's pretty frustrating that sense I've started here, I've had upvotes as high as 30 STU (just after HF 20), and yet, as a double dolphin, I think the best I regularly get at 100% is close to $0.09 STU.
STEEM value has a lot to do with it, but the new convergent linear curve through it all for a loop, too, making it lower and unpredictable.
I wish you good luck with the 15,000 and 20,000 marks.
Posts are best when you've got something in mind that you want to put out there anyway, so forcing it isn't the best of ideas. I know I can't always come up with something, and some of the things I do come up with are too work intensive to pay off really.
I just don't like hoping/relying on that someone may come along behind me to boost my vote. I do have dustsweeper, so I could vote on comments, but then to avoid taxing dustsweeper and dustbunny, I would vote at max level of 100%, and there are so many people whose post I like to drop a vote on. Granted most of those are at less than 100%, but by the time I see them they already have a few votes, so I am just adding my voice that I enjoy what they are doing and appreciate the post even if I do not leave a comment.
The price I think will be going up on steem, it has been flirting off and on for the last few weeks at the fifteen ($ 0.15) range a few times, I think when we see it start to flirt at the 18 cent range that will be the beginning of I hope a slow rise, and when it hits 20 cents, that I think will allow me to vote comments, I am not sure yet,.
I'm just allergic to the dust level I guess. It would be nice if the witnesses could send a change request in to lower the dust level vote when the value of steem drops to a certain level. Maybe peg the dust vote level to say 1000SP.
Surely the only reason you're at 50% efficiency is because if you're the only person voting on a comment you get 50% of the reward.
It's a tough ask this, it's so much more lucrative to just vote on posts!
@abh12345's initiative to reward with tokens is interesting!
!ENGAGE 20
Hey, @revisesociology.
Well, I don't know if this is meant for everyone, but I would like to think more can do it than are doing it. As it is, the idea is for engagement to increase, however that can happen, and if upvoting in STEEM helps, cool.
When the last hardfork happened, ENGAGE was my back up plan, but it went down, too. Now, that it's back, I need to get into the habit of handing it out again.
Ideally, since my upvoting isn't going to result in very much, I'd like to do both the upvote and ENGAGE.
Let's see if this works for me, too.
!ENGAGE 25
It worked just fine cheers!
Asher's going to run out funds very soon at this rate, he only topped it up with 5K I think.
@revisesociology you have received
25 ENGAGEfrom @glenalbrethsen!View and trade the tokens on Steem Engine.
Very interesting information. I do upvote comment when they are more engaging or I just go to upvote the bloggers’ posts.
How about dust bite! What’ s the minimum weight so that it will not turn into dust?!
Cheers.
Hey, @kaminchan.
Cool. I think however anyone wants to do it is the way they should. In the past, I was primarily upvoting the first comment, and if they continued to reply, maybe upvote the last one, depending on how long the conversation went. Right now, I'm still looking at how it all works so might end up upvoting a few more than just the first (if there are any).
re: minimum
Well, unless it changed with the EIP, it's supposed to be just around two STU. We've typically added a little more because over a week's time the rewards tend to erode depending on what's going on elsewhere. That small of an upvote doesn't get hit as hard as higher upvotes, though, and as I've been watching my own rewards, I don't see them falling as much as they have in the past. STEEM, though low, has been relatively stable, so that helps, and whatever other factors there may be have seem to flattened out, too.
Well said! I upvote every comment on my posts, principally to give those who don't post a chance to earn at least something. When I joined first I'd never blogged before so was delighted to get the odd cent for my comments.
Hey, @deirdyweirdy.
Cool. I was to until HF21, under the belief that my upvotes wouldn't make it past the dust threshold, which meant unless someone else upvoted, or many, which just doesn't happen on a regular basis, I was basically sending rewards back to the pool. Not the way I want to go about it if I can help it.
I agree. It is very encouraging to receive an upvote on a comment when you're barely making anything on a post. It's a thank you for contributing, even if it is just a small one.
It's a bit of a catch 22. You want to reward people for taking the time to comment and engage with you, but you don't want to "waste" your vote, and also don't want people to be commenting for the sake of commenting.
I think @bengy is correct in that rewarding comments can bring services like @dustsweeper and @dustbunny into the fore, but as well as that, we don't always have to think of upvoting purely in terms of Steem.
For example, @talesfrmthecrypt has been running a great little T20 cricket based competition based on Australia's Big Bash League matches. He upvotes entries with a small amount that is not only below the dust threshold, but also falls below the threshold at which @dustsweeper actually picks up and boosts the dust. So it's micro-particles if you will. Having said that, however, I am rewarded for these entries with some SPORTS tokens.
So upvoting, even a small amount, can still offer some reward.
The other side of the coin (or token), is that there are people who will engage because they value the engagement above any rewards, however a little acknowledgement in the form of a tiny vote tells them that their contribution is appreciated.
Just my thoughts.
Hey, @sparkesy43.
It's tough to give what you would like on a post or a comment, and it's tough to try to spread it around, so most of us have to be a little choosey with what we upvote and how much.
If anyone's ever commented for commenting sake on my posts it's been few and far between and long ago, since we're more or less in an engagement drought right now. :)
It's true, though, STEEM isn't the only thing going, and there is value in getting other tokens even if it's just to eventually convert them into STEEM. If staking occurs and some of those tokens eventually take off, all the better.
Two years ago when I joined, the going preference for voting, especially for newcomers, was to use 100% upvotes on posts, and forget the rest. I couldn't do it, but I see so many of these micro-particle upvotes you mentioned and I see a certain wisdom in the 100% upvoting. It seems, however, everyone, high or low SP has decided that its better to upvote as much as possible, even with nothing, rather than upvote only a few with maybe something.
So, there's plenty of micro-particle upvotes to go around. :)
@glenalbrethsen you have received
20 ENGAGEfrom @revisesociology!View and trade the tokens on Steem Engine.
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