Do you really want to EARN rewards?
A serious continuation of yesterday’s tongue-in-cheek, in-your-face, misunderstood irony is in order today. It was evident that my last post was largely misunderstood and that it didn’t have its desired effects, so today I am going to solemnly outline the issue and clearly explain what I intend to do to address it.
I have consistently rewarded what I consider to be quality comments and have tried to separate the wheat from the chaff by upvoting what, in my opinion, are the best comments, thereby “bumping” them to the top. That I know of, I am one of the few who do this, and as one might logically expect, this kind of rewarding has its drawbacks in that it attracts people who are only trying to get a “freebie”. This has reached the point where I have to monitor each post for several hours trying to keep what is valuable towards the top, and the trash towards the bottom.
That’s untenable for me given my limited time, and I need to be a bit more direct and longer term in my thinking with regards to my efforts to keep my threads clean. I want to continue rewarding quality comments, but I also want to do that when my schedule allows and not be obligated by junk posters to “police” the comments section in the hours immediately following each post. I can’t allow a select few to cause me such a waste of time and effort, and I have to deal more definitively with them.
It is not just my time, it is the reader’s time too, and other quality commenters' time as well. The numbers have grown, and those meaningless comments have turned into a virtual plague of “litter” that robs both the good comments of their rightful visibility and the reader of his or her precious time as well.
I also want to be able to give everyone time and equal opportunity to comment first, before I start rewarding, so I can really move the best to the top and not be forced to make premature decisions in order to combat the nonsense.
As such, I see no other alternative but to start flagging all comments that do not contribute something of value, as I define it of course.
That is right, you heard correctly, I am going to start flagging junk, or what I consider to be junk anyway.
This is an obvious attempt to moderate my threads with the limited tools available to us. Perhaps in the future we might be able to block people. That would be nice, but, until then, we have got to work with the tools we have. I do not like people getting robbed of their time and hard work, and I am going to do my small part to make this small part of Steemit a better place using the tools we have at our disposal.
This is also a very subjective matter, no doubt about it. What I consider to be acceptable in the comments section might be very different from what others might think. Ideally we want to make everyone happy, but we know that is not possible. I am going to start cleaning up my threads as I see fit, and I want everyone to have very good expectations as to what I reward and what I will flag.
Below I will briefly outline my “definition” of junk so that everyone has equal advance notice and, of course, the chance to avoid being flagged.
The Dos and Don’ts
DO
DO post about your own personal experience (2nd hand is good, 1st hand is better). Do post about your knowledge on the subject. And do recognize your own limitations: nobody here is a god; there are no OGs or any of that pompous crap here, just ordinary folk working together as best we can! We all put on our pants one leg at a time, and we all are just doing our best with what we know about the subject, some more and some less, and there’s no fault in admitting that you just started or that you have limited knowledge – just the contrary, it will get you the respect of others contributing in the same area.
DO NOT
DO NOT post copy and paste comments from a previous comment that was rewarded – it will get you flagged.
DO NOT post stupid animated gifs – it will get you flagged unless it is extremely good.
DO NOT post a quote from the original article WITHOUT making specific mention to why you are quoting it, and if it is to agree or disagree, then why you are agreeing or disagreeing – otherwise I will flag you.
DO NOT post any comment whatsoever WITHOUT either explaining why you are making the comment (remember, “because” is the magic word), or giving an example of what you are talking about and why it’s relevant (the example can be either first or second hand) – otherwise I will flag you.
Simple comments like “great post”, “thanks for sharing”, “you’re a genius” and the like, might get you a thank you in reply, but there will be no upvote coming your way, so only do that if you really mean it and have no expectation of getting an upvote.
Similarly, if you are trying to get a reward for resteeming, forget it, it is not going to happen. Now, if you really liked what you are resteeming and you are doing it for everyone, and you want to say so, by all means do so! I often resteem though without feeling the need to post a comment saying that I resteemed the article.
Anything unintelligible will simply be ignored in order to give those who speak English as a second language the benefit of the doubt.
Finally, if anyone ever feels they have been treated unfairly, all you need to do is reply to your own flagged post with the reasons why you think you were dealt with unfairly, appealing to your fellow Steemians for help. That’s the only way to “appeal”, and the wider community will be your jury on that.
You have been forewarned. Think before you click on the “post” button. Ask yourself if you are sharing something of value, or if you are just trying to get a quick buck for doing nothing. If it is the second, and if you post it, I will flag it, guaranteed. And if you become too much of a pest, I will flag you with 100% voting power that will rip a very nice hole in your reputation.
Be wise and think well before you try to get something for nothing in my comments section – you will look dumb doing it, and dumber still not only going away empty handed, but also with a flag.
I can identify @cryptographic.
I use to give everyone who commented on my articles an upvote of some kind. That led to a lot of work on my part and a lot of junk comments. I figured if someone took the time to post a comment, there was value in that.
Alas, I was wrong. Now I still upvote a lot of the comments I get but it is far fewer than I was. It has to be something of quality, meaning more than one line (although I do have some who comment and upvote my stuff each time who post short comments so I upvote them for their loyalty).
It is a hard line to walk when one is trying to help others, especially newer people yet get flooded with garbage. I surmise this is only going to increase as the platform grows.
Maybe I will have to put a minimum word limit on posts that get upvoted lol....
Finally:
Great post. Thanks for sharing. You are a genius. 😁
And I didn't bump you to the top just because you said I was a genius either! 😂
True but it probably didnt hurt either. LOL
Well I had to jump in with my final bit of powder that I was holding back. When I saw BTS at $.20, I had to bite. Added another sliver.....
It all adds up....
I am also glad that @stan is still heavily involved...just not going to give out news until it is announced.
Yeah, I picked up more of both BTS and STEEM. My BitUSD is nearing zero. 😲
But wait, there is more.....
Here is a recent announcement....a bitcoin outfit that is moving to BTS.
It seems that @stan's work is paying off.
https://steemit.com/bitshares/@stan/bitcoin-latina-just-announced-a-special-deal-for-bitshares
@cryptographic,
I am starting my comment by saying you are one of my top reward person. Yeah I mean it, your generous rewards build myself to this level financially. And your knowledge helped me to secure my crypto investments in last couple of months in this high fluctuation market place. Therefore, I did not miss your posts becoz of these 2 reasons.
Few days back I have noted your comment section is getting crowded. And also I have noted a person or a bot called himself as @magoo and captured a lot of spam kind posts as well. I respect what that guy did and he made a new fan as well.
I am not a good trader or have no high trading ability. Sometimes I am troubling to give a decent comment, because I won't mess your valuable post with something non-valuable. English is a case, yeah English is not my mother language, but I am trying to manage it :D
Your articles are valuable to ms. Personally I hate flag battles. But if you need community support I will do my best to you. This is a great decision. I wish I will not get a flag from you :D
Cheers~
I love @magoo! What a fantastic job he's doing!
No flag battle here! Don't worry about that. This is very different in that it really is nothing more than moderation - if we had a banning function, I would just ban the junk posters, but that's not a major problem because, if used right, the flag ultimately works the same way: you get rid of the junk just the same since they realize that they're not going to get anything out of it and they go away. That's the theory anyway; let's see if it works. And don't worry about not being a trader, or not having the same skills as someone else - it's being a real person with real interest and desire to contribute that counts and you've got that! Good comments can even be good questions. I don't know if you or anyone else has ever noticed, but I've bumped comments to the top that were nothing more than good questions! Keep up the good work and don't apologize for not being more than who you are - we're all a work in progress!
@cryptographic,
I understood! I also like what @magoo do and hope to provide him my best support as well. I was amazed by seen huge amount of accounts under same person! Hope STEEMIT will think about moderation of their posts! It might be very helpful thing for all of us! Wish you a great success and personally I respect how you think. I will probably think about good questions than good comments.
Cheers~
@theguruasia, you just keep on being yourself. I like you like you are, questions or comments. You're a good presence, and represent an important part of our cultural diversity, which translates into interesting and varying perspectives that broadens all of our horizons. I really enjoy reading your comments and I want to end this "declaration of love" 😆 😆 😆 by thanking you once again.
Even though you probably didn't enjoy writing this post, it was a very necessary one and a good reminder for all of us to review the quality of our comments. People who push limits will always exist and it's a little disappointing that it had to come to this, but it looks like it's working exceptionally well. #trashfilter
Yeah, but even though I was pushing the edge of the envelope, I wasn't really aiming at everyone who is already contributing quality - it really was chiefly aimed at the leaches, with a bit of hidden innuendo being dished out to those still insisting on defending "OG" crypto. You know, kind of "get off it already" in spirit, and, to be honest, that probably hurt some folks deep down. But never was I thinking about the quality of what I consider to be "quality". Sure one day you have a better comment than someone else, one day you're inspired and someone else isn't, or it's simply that on that particular day you know more about the specific subject than everyone else, but nobody is going to say that the rest of your posts, on other, less inspired days, are not quality. I even think that eventually one must look beyond the individual posts and begin to value the person behind the posts. Honesty and forthrightness with regards to the subject being discussed are probably my most important criteria. That being said, I agree, it's always a good idea to ask ourselves if this is something that really deserves my clicking on the "post" button. Personally, that's a question that I, for one, always ask myself. 😉
well i like this i t will help me grow and create contant as you said .. nice post
That's the attitude!
You're already halfway there!
well peoplelike you we need here and sorry i could not write a detailed comment couse i was not feeling well . i really appreciate your efforts for this community and helping people to grow you motivate us thank you so much
Sometimes we say more with less!
More doesn't mean better, and lots of people confuse that. On the other hand, we all know the old saying that quality is better than quantity. 😕
love you for that .. for understanding
At this post too, you will receive ironically some spam with Nice, yhis is a good article and stuff like that.
Unfortunately the way that Steem is made to award content creators, no matter that they are writing articles or comments, makes it a wild west of spammers who are looking for an upvote on blogs of guys like you with lots of Steem Power. Taking into consideration that your posts receive an average of 65 - 70 comments, I can say that I completely understand and it is legit for you to flag the spam comments in order to discourage this behavior.
As you said, your time is in the game and you won't like to lose it scrolling through unvaluable comments in order to litter this place. What can I admit is that I appreciate so much that by now I have received a few upvotes from you on my comments. Reading your article makes me think that you found them good and as a main commenter it is nice to see people appreciating your work so I have to say just one more thing: Thank you!
There is nothing worse than clutter in my opinion. I hate it. And it's worse on the most popular posts (not referring to mine in this case) where I know there are valuable comments to be found, but I don't have the time to sift through the junk, so I miss them. If it's a really important post by someone really respected on an important subject, I'll "speed read" the comment to try and quickly catch what's important, and while I usually come up with something when doing that, what I always reaffirm is my conviction that the majority is complete junk. That's one of the reasons why I'm doing what I'm doing. I don't want my threads to be like that. Hopefully more people will consider doing the same. As was said above, it takes a lot of time, but if you're blogging to begin with . . .
You know, one thing that I found pretty original and healthy in your blogging behaviour is that you first post an article, then let people comment for a while and at the end you come and pick the good comments from the bad ones and reply to them so you let people enough time to write comments without the fear of getting unnoticed. I think this is a good step into encouraging people not to spam because they have enough time to actually write good comments. Very few authors check their replies after a couple of hours so I find this to be a very good example, hope it will work without the need of spreading some flags :)
You're definitely right about there being no need at all to be in a hurry to comment on my posts. Absolutely none! And as you say, it's intentional on my part precisely so that not only everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute, but so that there is also the possibility of doing some "final packaging" before things are forever embedded into the blockchain. I think it's also the best way to try and create dynamic conversations where others are brought into the "sub-threads" of the thread. 🙂
I guess it would be very healthy if you would introduce a note about this in your future articles, maybe even as a footer:
Don't hurry to comment, I will read all of your comments later and vote that one which are worth visibility. And don't spam, I got flags too :)
Or something like this, I guess it will boost a bit the quality of the comments. Of course you should know better what approach you want to use, I am trying to offer some helpful advice :D
Good idea for something I could add to my signature line!
Yep, you will just have to find a nice way to say it, or even let there a link to this article, it would be awesome and have enough information for somebody who is interested in your opinion about this. And this article will become pretty popular also :)
I often wonder how people with a large following have the time to look over every comment and reward them adequatly. I often post comments, where I express my opinion and they usually are considerably long, which means that it takes time to read. 85% of the time, I don't get an answer and the top comments are "nice job bro", essentially this means that the author does not bother reading the comments and auto-votes them.
I want to congratulate you for reading what your audience has to say, this is a very serious effort which is often overlooked.
I guess flagging has a chance of accomplishing something, let's hope it will. I am glad you made a clarification for your last post, to be honest it seemed too offensive and I (as a reader) felt uncomfortable.
Will help you with flagging, yo :)
Thanks for that feedback. It's very important for me to get good, honest feedback. I got some comments yesterday that made it pretty clear that that post did not go over well, much less achieve its objective. Aggressive hard hitting truths not kept in context can be taken wrong, and then when you couple that with indirect interpretations that many surely made, I can understand how you were probably not alone in feeling uncomfortable. I'm trying my best to create real community with real people who have real lives and real experiences to share with one another in one small area of our collective experience - independent thinkers risking being honest and frank - and I think that flagging junk just might work out very well - very few of the abusers have posted here today. 😁
Yes, a small step in the right direction ! No problem for the feedback, I think a good discussion/feedback gives us invaluable information, food for thought. This is the only way to improve ! On that note, I would be happy when you have time to check out my blog - I am curious what kind of tips you can give me :)
P.S. Hard hitting truths is rarely a successfull strategy, you did well when you decided to write a follow-up :)
You'd think I'd have learned that by now. 🙄
We often forget what we've learned. Sometimes emotions take over :) Nothing wrong, lol
I agree with what you are trying to do here. The community should be those who help develop engaging conversations to help build knowledge. I think that is what adds value at the end of the day so your guidelines will help. I personally like when posts and comments are more relevant because I get knowledge from both perspectives provided by posts and comments. Some comments add more value that the posts themselves and it leads me to head over to those posting comments pages whom I will follow as well.
No doubt about it, some comments are more valuable than the posts themselves, and it's all about staying on topic. And then there are the comments to comments where sometimes you find some gems. I don't know, but it seems to me to be a no-brainer for authors to do their best to bring the best comments to the top and make them standout in a social media setting that distinctly allows the author to effectively do just that. I don't know why more don't.
@cryptographic - Sir in real life I'm a house wife... I had few crypto coins & thank to you I converted them into Steem, BitShares Sir... I can't understand graphs very well... But you helped me to learn what I want to do next... I know my vote power is not good enough to reward you Sir... But you never cared it... You helped me to learn & earn from your articles...
But few people started their dirty works on your articles... Today you decided to make a mechanism against it... I like it & I hope it'll work well too Sir...
If I have knowledge related to posted topic I'll try to give a quality comment Sir... If not I'll not comment you Sir...
Please don't stop posting Sir... Your guidance helped us not depend on signal services & invest on long-term perceptions...
+W+
I remember you telling me that before and am very happy to know that you are learning and enjoying the experience as well. Not to worry, good questions, honest questions, honest feelings, those are all quality comments. You don't have to be an Einstein to post quality comments, just a real person with a real desire to better know and understand the subject at hand and a willingness to risk asking what might seem to be a dumb question. Remember the old saying: the only stupid question is the question not asked! And thanks for the support.
@cryptographic -
Remember the old saying: the only stupid question is the question not asked.What a nice saying Sir... I'll try my best Sir... If you feel it's a stupid question please forgive me Sir... I'll try to attach to the subject as much as I can... Respect you Sir... I never found a person like you are doing on this platform... Thank you & glad to find you Sir...
+W+
well said. i do use gif to express my feelings. it's the easiest way. but i respect your warning. repeating the same gif will not work. it becomes annoying. if i know the subject, i'll comment, no matter you reward me or not. i'm trying to obey your rules. excellent warning message @cryptographic
@resteemia
Nice to have good confirmation that you are a real person. 😉
Looking forward to getting to know you better.
Spam is a massive issue on the platform, and even though I mostly see it on posts under the "New" category, I still take the time out to sift through them to try and support newbies or people that truly are trying to share something important to them.
With that I tend to get a lot of followers but they don't last long as I pick up that they unfollow me if they post again and now I haven't upvoted them.
As for you doing that up in the comments of your own posts. That's really awesome but extremely time consuming. But it does speak of the issue of spam commenting and it's such a headache.
I despise when I'm searching for an answer on the platform and find a post that asks my same question
Only to find, " great post" something to that effect of worse , tons of comments left by the many vote bots used to up the posts worth..
If it's at all possible in future, please also write about how the rules you have laid down here as dealt with the spam infestation on your posts. It would be great to see the outcome.
No doubt about it. I don't even bother to look at "New" anymore. Not even within my categories. Unfortunately, I just don't have the time to help curate. I have enough of a problem just keeping up with those who comment here and the blogs of those of us who have kind of formed a working group.
You're so right that trying to engage on a meaningful level is time consuming, but I believe it's worth it in the long run. If you want quality conversation, you've not only got to do the same, you've also got to recognize and reward in kind. The idea is to try and leave something useful for future readers, and leave it in the best form possible. Like you say, there's nothing worse than doing a search, finding the same question, and then coming up empty.
It looks like it's working so far. None of the people I'm addressing have commented yet, but this is to be continued . . . 😈
Let's wait and see what happens on your next post, When I follow people it should be because they have something worth following (Topics,content, ect). Before follow them , I check them out, to see what are about, ect. Im sure you will have followers, that have not 'read' your rules...
So even though this is to be continued . . . 😈... I am interested in how its all handled.
Not by you, but by the CS's (comment spammers).