You Begging Or Bragging?

I like comments. So much so, I'm willing to 'pay' for them. Yes, that's right. I gladly allocate some reward funds for them.

Why?

Because I like engagement. On my own posts, on other posts, anywhere anyone wants to have a conversation.

The problem is, too many users don't do it. I don't know why, but I can guess at it. Mainly, they're too busy. Maybe they don't have anything they feel worthwhile to say. Maybe they think it's a waste of time because there aren't rewards in comments. I don't know.

What I do know is this. If you want to leave a comment on my posts, one that I can understand that's more than a line or two that actually talks about my post or comment, I will gladly upvote at least your first comment, and maybe more, depending on how our conversation goes.

Maybe you're think, "Yeah, right. He's just blowin' smoke." To that, I would say, "Dude, it's 2019, not the 1940s. Get with the times!" Then, I would say, "Ya want proof? I'll show you some proof!"

And here it is. The above pie chart, whipped up by @abh12345 on a post of his not quite two weeks ago, shows the number of upvotes I made within a 30-day period of time between posts (in orange) and comments (in blue). As you can see, I upvoted nearly 480 comments (that was a slow month for me, too). Many of those were on other people's posts.

This next pie, also from the same post, shows the vote weight on posts and comments. As you can see, I actually upvote a little more on comments weight-wise than I do on posts. That's probably because I'm quite often the only one upvoting a comment, and when I do it, I make sure it's enough to get past the dust threshold—at a minimum, $0.03. If the comment is good and more involved, I might add some more to it.

I'm crazy like that. You never know what you're going to get.

Maybe A Little Of Both

So, here's the deal. I like engagement, and meaningful engagement at that. None of this, "Oh, cool!", "Nice job!" or "That's the kind of post I like! Keep up the good work!" I'm talking about the kind that let's me know someone actually took the time to read my post and comment.

(Yeah, I know. Now that I gave examples of what not to do, someone's bound to do it just for fun. Bring it on.)

If you're willing to comment in a meaningful way, I'm willing to upvote at least the first comment, maybe more of them if the conversation continues. If that feels like a bribe, maybe it is. I've been doing it like this since I got here, so all I'm really doing with this post is announcing that I do it. I'm not guaranteeing anything—you would still have to come up with a thoughtful, pertinent comment—but you can do so knowing that there's a pie-verified chance that:

• I will answer you, unlike too many authors/commenters on STEEM, and—

• I am more than willing to allocate some reward funds for the comment(s) you leave.

Now, I know many of you don't comment for the reward. That's okay. I don't either, but it's certainly nice when someone recognizes that what I said has some value, and that it adds value to their post. So, I don't see it as a bribe at all, but a way of saying thank you for your time and your words.

I manually curate. I read posts and comments. I comment back. I upvote the ones I like. I upvote when people engage with me. I want to engage, and I'm willing to put in the time and the resources to do it. The proof is in the pies.