RE: Why I’m spending most of my voting power on rewarding people who comment on my posts
I like your point of view.
Just a couple of days ago, I bumped into someone that was doing the complete opposite.
After I commented on his post (and if I may say so, it was a very good comment), a very interesting conversation followed. At one point I asked him why he didn't upvote my, or any other comment on his post. His anwser was that he saved his VP for posts.
Everybody chooses his own ways, of course - I have no problem with him doing that.
Personally I think a useful comment can be worth more than the post itself, and by rewarding the people that comment on your post, you're actually saying 'thanks for reading'.
I also try to reply to every (genuine) comment I get. Not just to be polite, but to use SteemIt for what it actual is: a social network platform.
A comment and reply to it can lead to a very interesting conversation or discussion. And next to getting the chance to learn something from that, or getting to see another point of view, it also builds relationships which can be fun and rewarding for both parties.
One last thing: I haven't been here for very long, just a couple of months, so I still remember what it was like when you're new and your account has no value. Curation rewards are very low, because your voting weight is still low. Posting an article brings in just a few votes, because your reputation score is low (believe me, I know: some rookie mistakes made my reputation score fall down all the way to 11), and loads of people simply don't bother to read it. At that point, commenting and getting rewarded for it is the only way you can earn some rewards.
Upvoting comments from people who are new - even if it is just a couple of cents - can make a big difference to them.
That's why I really appreciate what you're doing.
I'm going to stop commenting now, because I'm too curious about any other posts you've written. Time to check them out :-)
Hi, @mike314-0005! Thanks for leaving such a good comment, this is exactly the type of comment I think adds lot of value to the post.
It's very interesting that you just read about someone who did the exact opposite! You already know what I think about rewarding comments, so I won't repeat myself, but I'm also a big fan of the fact that everyone chooses how to spend their own voting power. Some only upvotes themselves, other upvote comments, some only posts, and some people even only spend it on downvotes. I'm glad there are different people here, and in the end I think we get a good mix of all of these types of voters.
I completely agree. There are many posts on Steemit that are decent at best, but get's bumped into my subjective good post category because some comments added a lot of content and maybe even explained in greater details.
That's good! There's no point in having a social media if people aren't planning on interacting and replying to comments in my opinion, so it's good to see that there are more people here who tried their best to reply to all comments. I do of course also understand that the whales who get 500+ comments on their post cannot reply to all of them with the same effort as us smaller accounts can, but I agree that interaction is a key aspect here that is often forgotten or devalued.
It's interesting that you mention how commenting is the only way for new members to get noticed, which I have almost completely forgotten since I've been here for such a long time now. But it makes sense, and I think networking and building up a reputation is extremely valuable if you want to earn money here. It's just like all other social medias; you need to build up a following if you want to make any money.
Best regards from @valth
lol - I came back to this post because when I read it a couple of hours ago, I didn't actually notice who wrote it, but I did remember your commitment and I thought of asking your advice on the 'changing my username' thing. Funny to see you already did and it was you who wrote this article :-)
Hehe, that's funny! I started following you after you commented here, so that's why I commented on your post earlier today :)