RE: What if we encouraged self-voting?
Voting for yourself (and promoting voting for yourself) does not promote more engagement. If you want more engagement, be more engaged and attract more engaging followers.
The whole point of the vote is to signal to the blockchain how the rewards pool should be distributed. If everyone just votes for their own comments, there won't be enough voting power left over to meaningfully distinguish what the network thinks is "good" content and worth rewarding.
Check the level of engagement I get on most of my posts. It's amazing! I don't think we have an engagement problem as much as we have a follow back problem. Every social media platform is only as valuable as the people you choose to follow and who choose to follow you. If we just have bots or mindless "Great post!" commenters, engagement will always be terrible. If we then encourage those people to reward themselves from the rewards pool, it will only make the problem worse.
Sorry, I can't agree with voting up my own comments all the time. Maybe once in a while, but I prefer letting people vote themselves if they think the comment is worth voting on.
Agree. Engagement should not really be based on the number of people commenting. It's the quality of the conversation that counts.
I also agree. I didn't say we should try to get the highest number of comments. Thoughtful conversations get pretty hard to come by on smaller accounts. People have to choose where to put their time and effort and most of us are going to put our efforts where it pays off.
I keep finding myself heading back to Facebook when I actually want to discuss a topic. When I ask myself why.. It is just more interactive.
Steemit is more interactive for me, but I've worked hard to get over 4,000 followers over the past year and 8,000+ posts and comments. Was it that way in the beginning? Nope.
For many, it just takes time and patience. Many of the people I end up following consistently leave great comments on my posts and provide wonderful engagement. They do it consistently and so I check out their blogs and end up following them and voting up their content here and there. That's how I gained followers and that's how others do also. I don't think encouraging self-voting on comments will change that process.
I also see that you have worked hard and have a good following. I do agree that is the main part. I also think growing an account is still a difficult effort and I would like to see the site hold more value via relationships and if the smaller accounts upvote their stuff as they grow, I support it.
This takes nothing away from the fact you have worked hard and built a great following.
I see what you're getting at. Thanks for explaining. If it's a small account trying to build up enough Steem Power to have a vote that matters, then I can see the argument for helping them get there a little quicker.
I can also see the argument for them to put in some real money, buy some Steem, and power up their account. :)
Now I think we are in complete agreement. I should do a post about that as well.
Anyone who can - should put some money in if they want their investment to grow. Hear Hear. Even 20-100 bucks would make a huge difference during that early phase.
a YUUUUGE difference. :)
@lukestokes, I think something else that might be worth bringing into this discussion is the fact that a lot of people create great content... get lots of comments, but then they don't curate the comment section of their own posts.
On any given day, probably half the upvotes I cast are for other people's comments on my own posts. I strongly believe that's central to how (for example) you and I create engagement. But some write a great post, get 300 upvotes and 100+ comment and the O.P. barely has a presence "tending" the replies to their post.
That would be a case where I'd apply the "once in a while" self-upvote... I guess I lack the patience or state of Zen to put a lot of effort into a response, only to have it dwell, unread, near the bottom of a pile of "nice post" and "your gr8 pls upvote me" filler...
Yeah, that's a good example and I've done the same before (and been flagged for it by Bernie... hahah). I guess I wonder why people spend so much time on crowded threads like that only to be ignored? Where's the fun in that?
Some more popular authors don't have the time (or even voting power) ti curate all their comments. I get that. At some point it just becomes too much.
It was all about discussion. You don't have to agree with me, thank you for engaging in the conversation. You weren't really my target audience though.
Hi @lukestokes, I am so happy to read this. I am only a lowly one here on steemit but I really am not a supporter of self-upvoting and bots, bots, bots.
I prefer to go 'au naturel'. Although I have increasingly been feeling like a wierdy wierdo as everyone seems to be happily SUVing and licking the bots all around me.
I thought I had totally misunderstood the rules of the game.
It ain't worth much yet, but you have my witness vote. Thank you.
Thanks for your support. :)