Why I vote so much on comments
If you look at my voting pattern I use about 80% to upvote comments and replies and to be fair most of them are replies to me. The reason I do this is because I think discussion and engagement is drastically undervalued. Many medium to big Steemians love to moan about people not reading the 5-10 page essays they put on Steem, but to me this a flaw of the system not the people.
As someone who actually reads quite a lot on Steemit, I can tell you it is not very profitable. Sure you might get new followers from it, who then upvote your posts, but if you do not plan on putting good quality Posts out there you will not make much money on Steem. I made my lion share of Steem Power (~300SP) in my first 3 months when I had time to put out high quality posts and was very enthusiastic about Crypto.
Many of the great Philosophers that you love to quote and read books about often made the statement that the best ideas are not developed in a monolog but in conversations. Plato famously had discussions with imaginary friends, just because he felt like ideas are worth less if developed in a monolog. The big German thinkers of the 18th and 19th century that represent many of todays rivaling ideologies (classic Liberalism and Socialism) actually wrote a lot of letters to each other offering critic on a very high level - something completely absent in todays world.
With all that sad there is a "Steak around the neck"-problem if I vote for all my comments. I artificially create engagement with my posts and comments and depending on my voting patterns - that won't be as equalized as they are right now when I hit 500SP - I also favor comments that agree with me rather than challenge my view. The perfect recipe for an echo chamber.
However I think an echo chamber is preferable to an essay that looks good, but nobody read. As a reader I would also like to suggest to keep your post shorter if you want them to be read completely. If I read long posts I even often forget what I wanted to comment and while the ' I just toss the idea out and wait for comments' approach does not always work for me, I think it is a better way to spread your word - whatever it may be.
With all that said I am very happy with the engagement I get on my posts and while I credit part of it to my voting habit, I want to sincerely thank you, who actually takes the time to go through all my ranting and rambling to come up with different angles and opinions on the subjects I want to discuss.
Nicely written. Thanks to Plato we actually have the preserved knowledge of Socrates work. Liebe Gruesse.
I might not agree with your views on climate change ... but this one needs upvotes badly. I fully agree.
Sadly the written word became more and more undervalued, and many just go with passive consumption through videos all the time.
thank you for the upvote, but there is a seven day rule on payouts meaning votes after 7 days won't count.
I am honestly not a big fan of the written word. It is a good way for communication but reading entire books always felt like a bother to me, I enjoy well written Pen&Paper and PC-Adventures , but it is really rare that I enjoy reading an entire book. It always felt to me like being trapped in someone elses mind.
All that said I was really sad to see that someone like you who puts honest effort in his content get nothing out of Steem, while others spam the platform and still get paid.
I also should read some of your posts at some point, my formatting skills are pretty aweful :D
Sorry to hear bout the seven day rule. I am still relatively new to this. Thank you for all the upvotes.
Being new is the big problem - visibility is very low because of being new. And the small turnout may also be due to trying to be honest - others use bots to upvote everywhere, or to upvote their own posts. I also haven't upvoted my own posts ...
And I like books more than films. They may be twice or thrice as expensive as a Blu-Ray, but you have a lot more time to enjoy them. That is, if you find an apropriate book you can enjoy. And there are books that are more like well written P&P-Adventures.
So maybe a few tips for you to broaden your success on Steemit:
First off: Good honest effort is a great place to start. We have some decent curators who will try to push you here and there if they see undervalued content.
Getting involved in the comment section of people who write on similar topics as you. This is my "secret" tactic. I know that at any given day, I can go to @dwinblood and say "I wrote this and that on politics/philosophy, would you mind checking it out?" . I am rarely that blund because I hate begging, but I actually did it recently because I knew @freiheit50 has a math background and I made a math post.
write a good post explaining what you want to do here on Steemit, with the tag "introduceyourself" . Steemetiquette kind of demands that you only use it once, so you should try to make that one count. Your post with tag "introduction" is nice and all but you should not repost it just because Steemians don't really like reposts.
Good point, I also wish to get engaged in discussions more, not to argue but to challenge people to change my opinion and vice versa because in the end "only a fool doesn't change his mind"
"Der denkende Mensch ändert seine Meinung" / "A thinking human changes his mind" is the saying we have in Germany ;).
People spent their time writing something so I like upvoting comments on my posts. Just as long as not it is not the typical spam.
yeah, the comments where you can tell they only read the title or the "I voted for you, please follow me"- ones are the most annoying. I don't get too many of them tho - sometimes it is a blessing to not be in trending/hot ;).
Just a small tip, you can mute others!
I am actually not a big fan of muting in general, it feels like self-censorship. you often want to see what others would see if they visit your post.
I think mute is a good function tho, I just don't like using it on myself.
You just gave me a great idea for my next Confused Philosophy ‘Plato’s imaginary friends’ he is my next subject.
I love reading the philosophy and have some favourites I regularly interact with. I look forward to getting my slider so I can vote more often and share the love.
I feel pretty strongly that engagement is the key to reason. When we reason in a vacuum, we fail to get criticism, and this means we fail to stay on the right track, going right off the reservation, as we proceed from such illogic as isn't pointed out to us by critics.
I have often said I didn't come to Steemit for rewards, but for free and open discussion, which is no longer possible on Twatter, or Fakebook, etc... Criticism is actually more valuable to me than mere money, as when I am released from meat prison, I will take no cash beyond, but, if aught survives meat, it will be such as I have come to know.
Thanks!
To be honest I have come for the rewards and they are at least part of the reason why I am so active on the platform. I am glad to have found people like you who I can have long fruitful discussions with, but without the money-incentive I do not see Steemit having a lot of benefits. Low visibility through not enough upvotes or even downvotes is pretty much the same as getting censored.
@thatgermandude seems to have been able to gather very nice audience. Wish I had some one who I could seriously discuss with.
Just infest relevant blogs with cogent comment, and you will =)
Trying to mix-smash fascism with current system is not going to yield too many like minds! Neo-fascist are just bunch of rascists and there only seem to be anarchists here. I guess some one has to be first with this.
Whenever no one has done what someone needs to, it is time to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Oh yeah, that's all very interesting.
I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to vote on this platform, being rather new to it. I'm kind of annoyed how I have to be careful what I vote for, because I'd prefer to be more liberal, I think people don't upvote enough online personally.
But at the same time, I somewhat disagree with upvoting on people who agree with me. The more enthusiastic they are about my opinion, the less I feel like it's fair to upvote them... I feel like I'm upvoting myself, which I really dislike, especially on this platform.
Instead my targets are usually people who're constructive. I'm biased, I have no illusions of impartiality, but I try to upvote people who're constructive and polite, even if they're in complete disagreement with me. Likewise I try and downvote people who're rude and argumentative, even if they agree with me.
But again: I'm not perfect.
same, but this is more of reflection of myself. I often vote on replies some days after because I think they might have been jerks (jesus I sound like a pussy..) but at least they dared to challenge my opinion which I do appreciate, but often only after some time.
and the rest is what you said. Kinda sad that I have to 100% agree and be really thankful for your comment, even though we just established that that is not an interesting conversation ;D