Show the author that you've read the post
My recent post What success on Steem means to you? received some thoughtful comments from @robertoueti and @deemarshall but among them were a few like these:
"Beautiful photo", "Great work", "Nice drawing keep up".
I wanted to showcase them because we have all probably received quite a few such comments. They don't add anything to the conversation and they probably never read your post in the first place. I usually reward with something like 5 % upvote any comment that is thoughtfully written. But I'm not going to upvote these comments which say "Nice post" because by upvoting I would just encourage people to comment like that in the future too. In fact, I have every reason to believe that they have commented with the idea in mind to get an upvote from me without actually any effort from their part.
That's not what it's all about. True engagement means you are looking forward to a person's comment, you read their posts and comment on them too.
It's a relationship.
I can show you another comment that the same post received. It's by @lildebbiecakes, my long time fan and an amazing artist:
That is so nice of you to mention my name here dear friend, I feel honored and I definitely am one of your biggest fans of not only your amazing artwork, and your many incredible talents, but because you are a really nice person. And I know you are because you write such wonderful things like this, your heart is what impresses me the most Vidas, and your lovely wife’s you see. Peoples wealth does nothing to impress me, people’s kindness and giving and love towards other’s impresses me, and I know nobody is perfect here on this planet including myself. But you impress me, and what you write here I believe is absolutely the truth because I’ve experienced it for myself.
I found out and could see right away after I joined on Steemit December 25, 2017, that I was learning such valuable information an how to better my art skills by people who had mastered digital drawing. And looking and talking to these many likeminded and wonderful artist who share in the same passion to create as I do was so uplifting, and something I had never experienced before. I easily got hooked on the art contests, I was able to draw digitally for the first time. I have grown leaps and bounds with my digital drawing from practice through these contests. If it weren’t for this Steemit Art community, I would not have grown so rapidly, and I wouldn’t have the knowledge of what I have learned today. I probably wouldn’t have learned half as much in college that I have learned on Steemit and it’s FREE! I couldn’t afford this type of education. And the wonderful artist from all over the world that I have made such beautiful friendships with is PRICELESS ! I could probably travel the world seeing many countries, and have a place to lay my head each night, and this is simply because I have replied on people’s posts, just because I like visiting. You are right Vidas, you need to build a solid foundation of Steemit friendships for success now, and in the future, that will last throughout the years, a Steemit family. And good friends require sincere attention, care and giving, just like your actual family at home.
As I have watched the Steemit prices go down, I am fine with it because I know that what I have gained from Steemit , the education and friendships, is worth every second of my time and work that I have invested here.
Ok... I know I have written a very long comment, but you know me HA HA❣️Got to go and draw
Now I don't suppose everyone SHOULD write such long and sincere comments but as a rule it's nice to at least let the author see that we have read their post and what kind of ideas this post generated.
And yes, sometimes a post doesn't generate any ideas because it's a copy and paste photo stolen from the web or a graph without any explanation.
As in any aspect of life, we get what we put in, don't we?
What's your commenting strategy? Do you receive spammy comments, like "nice post"? Let me know in the comments.
Nice drawing keep up.
Sorry couldn’t help myself 😆
Appreciate your humor...
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I feel strongly that spam is in the eye of the beholder.
I welcome ALL comments, even those many would call spam, after all, there is no requirement to answer them if they are observations like 'nice post'.
I always look at the commenter's level. Low rep Steemians may well be learning how to interact and that doesn't annoy me at all. They are trying to find a way of scraping a few upvotes.
Sometimes, I reply to them explaining how Steemit works. I learnt this from the wonderful Steemian @mariannewest, who takes time to help new people to make the most of Steemit.
I feel that tolerance to this kind of 'spam', (if you insist on calling it that), would be a positive step towards growing the rapidly depleting Steemit newbies.
For rude and offensive spam there is always the red flag. I think that if the comment does not deserve the red flag, it should be welcomed.
I did a little experiment with those 3 comments. I thanked them and asked the question of what do they like about it. If thy are newbies and don't know how to interact, then this question should give them an idea, right? We'll see if they reply at all.
In my experience, if something smells fishy, it probably is. But I'd love to be wrong.
PS It's funny that there are no such comments on this post yet...
Oh good, that will help point the newbies in the right direction :)
I think this document is useful for explaining Steemit to newbies:
https://steemit.com/about.html
Thank you! I've heard about it... Yes, they started to think how to retain and help users...
Posted using Partiko Android
I used to receive that sort of comments too.
But after the HF 20 implementation those spam comments have been reduced a lot.
You can easily distinguish who has read your post and who hasn't. There were times in the past where I used to receive so many of those comments and nearly none useful where I thought that even if I write a catchy title and my text is irrelevant and full of shit, still nobody would read...
As I've repeatedly said, people are too busy to create than consume...
PS. The platform gives you the option to flag those comments...let's not forget that.
Luckily, a commenter doesn't get rewarded for commenting directly. Just for getting and giving upvotes. Otherwise we would have reward pool rape problem, like ONO does. Of course reward pool rape is present different shapes on Steemit as well though abusive self voting and circle jerking.
I think it is safe to say that we all get those annoying spammy comments - although I will say that since the whole RC system came into play it has definitely alleviated a large part of that problem. I used to receive like a million and one "nice photo" or "nice post" quotes and now I get only one or two every now and then.
I do agree with you - when you see that sort of thing it does not really inspire or warrant any kind of response because there was no genuine appreciation there to begin with.
The worst of those comments really, are the ones that are actually completely unrelated to your entire post haha... what can we do but laugh really!
I think spammy comments come from spammy mentality because some people come to our platform after seeing a video, an ad or a post where "an expert" tells them the "secrets" of bow to make lots of money here. Get rich quick mentality.
Nice music....
Hehe... anyway, I don't tend to get many of those spammy posts on my posts, so I'm not sure how I would deal with them... probably ignore them I guess. If they don't feel like reading, then I don't feel like replying! However, there was a competition that I was running that required some longer comments, and what really annoyed me was when someone cut and pasted an earlier comment (sometimes in a different language)... that had me breaking out the flags for the first time in my Steem life....
As to making comments, I firmly believe that the comments that you make on another person's post is the moment of first contact, and it is something that entices the other person to have a look at your blog... or NOT! So, if people choose to leave spammy comments, then they shouldn't expect anything to follow from it!
Yes... Sometimes I click through their profiles on purpose to see who they are and what they are doing on Steem. Never found even one successful person spamming like that. Sometimes they are real beginners and their attitude changes for the better later on but often they stay at the same level.
Or quit and go through the world proclaiming that Steem doesn't work.
very often there are posts that dont entice engagement in a way that one could leave a detailed comment. Just taking art or photography as a topic for example. i am not an artist or a photographer so I dont know what skill is involved or required. I might like the pictures but have no value to add. But at the same time, with so many auto votes going on, I do like the creator to know I have visited, so yes I would leave what you call spammy comments.
In the reply to such comment, I recently have tried to ask a question. We'll see if any of them reply. That would confirm if they care or not.
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Hi @organduo, wow.... what a lovely post. I’m so thankful to have responded to your post yesterday, and I’m so blessed that it meant something to you, that you would copy my reply and talk about it with such kindness, thank you Vidas❣️
We never know what kind of impact we are having on people, don't we?
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Thank you so much for participating the Partiko Delegation Plan Round 1! We really appreciate your support! As part of the delegation benefits, we just gave you a 3.00% upvote! Together, let’s change the world!
Hi @organduo!
Your post was upvoted by @steem-ua, new Steem dApp, using UserAuthority for algorithmic post curation!
Your UA account score is currently 3.392 which ranks you at #7208 across all Steem accounts.
Your rank has improved 33 places in the last three days (old rank 7241).
In our last Algorithmic Curation Round, consisting of 249 contributions, your post is ranked at #96.
Evaluation of your UA score:
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