Comments aren't being upvoted, so they're not being written.
We each have a scarce amount of voting power with which to maximise our curation rewards.
Since comments aren't attracting upvotes, they're not attracting upvotes, so they're not attracting upvotes.
Comments can't compete with posts in attracting upvotes, which is understandable.
It was always going to be a popularity contest, and one of them had to win it.
Turning this ship around, (so comments are attracting the same amount of upvotes as posts); would require having users choose to forego curation rewards for the greater good, and is a perfect example of the tragedy of the commons.
Everybody says, "I won't do it until everybody is doing it", so nobody does it.
By way of demonstration, I just went to the 'Active' tab, and looked at the top 5.
The posts garnered a total of 449 upvotes, and the comments on those posts, in total, landed 7 upvotes.
That's 1.6%, and its the 'Active' tab, which, as I understand is for the posts which are attracting the most discussion/comments.
If so, the hot and trending tabs are likely to be even worse.
My suggestion, (assuming we'd ideally like to see a 50/50 spread between post upvotes and comment upvotes), is to discount or penalise the amount of voting power lost from a 100% upvote, based on the distribution of the most recent 1000 (or 10,000) total upvotes on the site.
If 900 of the last 1000, or 90%, went to posts, then a 100% upvote on a post would cost 180%.
In the same scenario, since 10% of the last 1000 upvotes went to comments, a 100% upvote on a comment would only cost 20%.
The total of the two is still 200%, regardless of the distribution, so somebody who wanted to hedge his bets would no doubt get in the habit of upvoting an article, then also upvoting his favourite comment, which I think we'd all agree is better than what we're seeing at the moment.
It won't take long before cheap upvotes on comments, and expensive upvotes on posts bring the distribution closer to 50/50.
When that happens, people will write more, better comments, and others will curate/upvote them in expectation of rewards.
A side benefit would be to somewhat mitigate the influence of vote bots (at least bots which vote on posts only), leading to more manual curation, which everybody wants everybody else to do, but don't want to do themselves; another tragedy of the commons.
This place will only grow as a community, and communities aren't built on one-way communication.
I'd be interested to know if you feel there has been a change here since writing this. I have been enjoying the exchange in the comments sections on a lot of posts lately and there certainly seems to be plenty of upvoting going on too.
Hey :)
The comments are certainly being written now, which was my main concern, so time took care of the problem. I'd still like to see more upvoting of really top notch comments.
With a culture of comment upvoting, someone with a lot of followers is more likely to resteem a great post they've found and insightfully commented on, which I think would be a good thing.
That too may come in time.
You are right and bring up good point... But I don't think we need to change anything... In a long run I think people will start to realize that every comment on their post is valuable and start to up vote comments which reader took time to read and comment. If author of post doesn't do it, naturally next time reader won't bother commenting, unless they really like content.
Do we just want to rely on authors upvoting comments on their own posts, though?
I'd like to see really insightful comments being upvoted enthusiastically by many users.
I think that depends on preference. For example, I often read comments after I read post, but sometimes don't. If post is really interesting one I do read comments to get an idea where the discussion is going...
It's not unusual for there to be more upvotes on posts than comments, even on other platforms such as Reddit. It's amplified here by curation rewards, but there is one other aspect to think about. There are loads of new users who join SteemIt and create a post, with no followers to start with and no way for that post to get traction, despite all the effort they put into it. While people generally upvote comments less, some of us are active voters in the top posts. A new user could have a much better chance of getting a modest reward and more importantly, gain their first followers, by making some insightful (or even just old fashioned nice) comments on posts that other people are making, especially posts which are on the rise.
I was going to make precisely this point, until i saw you had already done so
But upvoting on reddit is free. Upvoting here costs you voting power. Why would anybody upvote the option which will get less than 2% of subsequent upvotes (a comment) when they can upvote the option which will get 98% of the subsequent upvotes (the post).
You'd be mad to waste your voting power on comments at the moment, the curation rewards are all in the posts.
Thinking about upvotes purely in curation rewards is not very economic in itself. There are more valuable aspects to an upvote than just the curation reward, and that goes many times over for smaller holders, whom are generally wasting their time by focussing on the trivial curation rewards they could achieve.
Upvotes are not free on Reddit either, nor likes on Facebook. For a bot they can be free, until the bot behaviour is detected (meaning they have costs of risk). They have costs of attention, time, opportunity and social costs (for visible votes such as likes on Facebook). These in practice may be much larger costs than the curation-opportunity costs associated with Steem upvotes.
yes, I upvote comments everyday to move them up to the top
I actually think there is another major reason why comments don't get upvoted.
The comments section is poorly organized. I don't know if this mirrors reddit, because im not a reddit guy. But its a bad way to do it. Its difficult to read, inorganic to follow and very difficult to spot new comments on a thread youve already looked at.
The threading is unnecessary, and just adds to the confusion, especially when its nested many levels deep. It also discourages people to quote what theyre responding to. Which isnt that bad when its just a comment then a reply. But when there's a branch of replies inbetween, you have to scroll around to see whats going on.
Who or what is luzpher replying to... you can't see without scrolling up, and he didnt quote because its not automatic and because probably there wasnt a nested reply between his response and what he was responding to when he posted. I know its not a big deal, to have to scroll up but its inorganic.
Also, the times are all estimates, so often, all the comments are "yesterday" or "5 hours ago" but with no idea which came first. Sorting by "new" only orders the individual nesting levels. Its very difficult to go to a post and see which comments are new since the last time you looked at it.
Also, the deepest replies are often the most detailed, which means the longest comments are nested 6 deep and take up the whole screen because they can only be one inch wide. Which means a lot of wasted white space and a lot of navigation. Which again its not a big deal but its inorganic and it makes it very difficult to read.
A flat format reply scheme that recorded the actual time (or even one that allowed you to choose threaded or non threaded) , and had a forum-style quote button for replying would be far easier to navigate.
I haven't given the layout much thought tbh, but you make some excellent points.
Now is the time to be having these discussions.
That's the whole point of beta.
This post has been ranked within the top 50 most undervalued posts in the second half of Dec 23. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $4.85 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.
See the full rankings and details in The Daily Tribune: Dec 23 - Part II. You can also read about some of our methodology, data analysis and technical details in our initial post.
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I write and upvote comments but I rarely give more than 1% because coments rarely get upvoted to huge dollar amounts but it has happened in the past..
What do you mean about comments not being written?? Where?
You can't see them because they're not being written.
They're not being written because they won't get upvoted.
They won't get upvoted because people are saving their voting power to upvote posts, which currently attract 98% of the upvotes.
this gets my upvote
I see. Curation isn't something I understand fully, upvoting yes if i like a post or a comment.
Am not even using the supposed number of upvotes in a day...unless there's a tutorial Matt. You gonna make one for us newbies?
By all means continue to do so. Curation just means that if you like something, which goes on to be very popular, you get a bit back yourself; by upvoting it early, you boosted its visibility. Considering it then became popular, you're being rewarded for correctly guessing that others would like it. The way it breaks down is a little complex, but feel free to just keep doing what you're doing, as it won't make too much difference :)
https://steemit.com/steemit/@mattclarke/a-suggested-tool-to-demystify-curation-rewards
Ive seen this but still got no clue. My memory is selective ;)
Have you heard of Reddit, where the comments get paid $0?
We're better than reddit. Here we reward good content.
If we want that content to take the form of comments, we need to reward them.
That's not currently the case.
I think the reasons we're better than reddit have nothing to do with monetary rewards, personally. :)
Clearly we're much better looking.
Happy x-mas Matt ! You are getting closer to me now, only 10 places away :)
You deserve to be top 500 with those sick badges.
Keep your head down, Venezuela's going to get worse before it gets better. You doing okay?
So far.... hope this shit will end soon.... love this country, but not the politics.
Very true Matt. I always try to upvote any comments on my posts. Even if I have to drop it back to 50%
Great post and good information
Thanks Ianstrat. I think its important to see trends developing early, and finding ways to address them.
I'd hate to see the sense of community fall away as people lose interest in reading/writing/curating comments.