I appreciate my followers but also recognize that they're not really following all of my posts. I definitely don't base my idea of success on that number.

I'm not a fan of the upvote for upvote requests, as not all upvotes are created equal, and I also don't like being directly solicited for my upvote in a private message. I find it distasteful for a stranger to do that before even introducing themselves to me. Nor do I like the "I upvoted you, now you owe me an upvote" approach. In an attention economy, it makes sense to me to encourage positive attention to one's account instead of the cheap & fast strategies I'm seeing from newbies that don't really contribute value to the platform as a whole. I'm encouraging people who approach me in these ways to rethink their strategies, and it's great to see that you're offering considerate advice in these situations as well.

Quality comments, on the other hand, are awesome!! It shows that someone actually read the post and was inspired to contribute something meaningful. It encourages conversation and further discussion, even if the comment is counter to the perspective the post presents. Actually I think disagreements can potentially be more valuable & entertaining, and it's especially cool to see users try to meet each other in respect even if they disagree. Learning from each other is one of the best things about the Steemit community!