Do You Actually INTERACT With the Steemit Posts You Look At?
See what I did there? OK, so this IS a bit of a trick question. But I'm curious: Do you actually READ content and genuinely ENGAGE with it? Or do you just "sort of scan" and make a semi-relevant comment? Or are you a "nice post" person?
I have made a really valiant effort over the last many months to read first and then upvote the posts of the (limited) number of people that I follow .
This is becoming increasingly impossible as the number of people I am following has crept up (now standing at 113), and as some of them start posting more than once a day and sometimes resteeming several posts of others. This clogs up my feed with many more post than I could possibly read (despite that there is seldom a day that I am not at my computer for at least 12 hours.
I am seriously considering posting my own personal rule that if someone has more than 4 items a day in my feed I will drop them from the list of those I follow (ie. one post by them and 3 resteems, or 2 posts by them and 2 resteems, etc.). This would mean that there is virtually no chance that I would see a post of theirs after that unless someone else I am following resteems it.
Do I interact? Yes, on a significant number of the posts that I upvote, but not all of them. If I have nothing further to say than "nice post", then I just upvote and move on without comment.
That is why I wish we had more filtering or options to control our feeds better.
Some people seem to think they need to resteem everything they read. Even worse when they do and then don’t leave a comment or any hint of why they would have in the first place. @denmarkguy seems to understand and uses it in a way I can respect. A resteem from him means something as he offers value in making it a limited occurrence and he also comments on that blog as well.
I do hope you make a blog out of it and further your reasoning behind it. I think it’s an important conversation that needs to happen more often. I have come across once in a while people wondering what is considered posting or resteeming to many times a day. Even if its wonderful content reader fatigue sets in where you want to read from another author.
I hope you just have a couple of troublemakers in your feed that can be easily resolved in making it more reasonable. I’ve got a couple I enjoy talking with a lot here but it’s starting to be an issue when once feed is just all them.
Yes, I agree entirely on the filtering issue.
It's one of the few areas in which I will unreservedly say that "Facebook has it right." You can sort your friends (what would be "people you follow" here) into any number of your own custom categories, and then view the feed for just that category. Want to just view updates from your friends who write about politics? Click on that group, and you get a limited feed. Want to just see updates from family members? Get a feed.
That's something we could really use here on Steemit, especially as the platform keeps growing.
@onceuponatime @enjar - Totally agree with both of you - but I think the real problem is Steemit's UX, that we only have that one feed - and can't categorize, prioritize, or internally bookmark.
I'm sure many people are posting a lot just to make money, but many are also doing it because they may have more time that day - and more to say. I'm sure their intentions aren't to drive you nuts (though I hear you on the fatigue - I get it too, but also have been guilty of the overshare too).
On resteeming - it can be totally innocent too. I often resteem pieces so I can easily find them later (my steemit bookmark folder in chrome is so large, it's getting useless at this point). I never even thought of how it looked to followers until someone pointed it out.
One thing to remember is that there are still many new Steemians - or some of us who may have been here a while but aren't regular posters - and what's common sense to 'regulars' isn't to us.
Again, because of the ridiculous content farm-esque interface here - (and useless search feature) - stuff that could be considered common knowledge isn't easily accessible - I mean type 'steemit guides' into the search bar - and the top results are from a year ago! This is very much a community where you learn the 'rules and etiquette' by doing, almost like a language. So for those who are on here and interacting daily , it may not seem like it took any effort to gain the knowledge you have...for us wannabe ;-) Steemians - learning the 'basics' means actively seeking those often unwritten rules out (and getting confused when opinions vary so much on what is proper steemiquette).
Just a slightly different perspective from someone who loves Steemit - but isn't in a position to always be more active :-)
Some of the smarter ways of using resteem are you either have found something outstanding you want others to know about or you found something that is ok and you have not blogged in a couple days so you just wanted to share it with the people following you.
If I have something I am expecting to put 20 hours into before I’m getting another blog out and it could be a few days I’ll resteem content I like. I like to leave my followers with something so if they are checking in on me they notice I’m still active and I hope they think “he must be working on something at this time”. Most importantly I’ll leave a comment so when someone sees “enjar resteemed blab la” they can have some insight into why. This last part is very important. If I have no clue why someone felt it was important enough to share it with their following and they are not being active in creating blogs or comments I start to question my choice in following them.
Now a very large portion of Steemit follows the way too many people. They not only will miss out on you resteem of something but blogs you put out as well. So for this group of people, you have very little danger of them having an issue with it. They don’t even know it’s going on.
I’m what is considered a hard to get follow. I don’t follow many and I curtail my feed. While my upvote is not worth a lot I do what I can in adding value in both an upvote, comments, and maybe even rare resteem. I’ll even answer questions or offer assistance if I notice it is needed.
Some people can get away with resteem a lot of things. I even have a couple of people I have in my feed just for that. They go out and find me most of the time content I love to read, I’ll upvote, I’ll comment. I have no need of spending hours looking when I have people who do that for me. It’s beneficial for both parties.
So while it might not be 100% for all cases to unfollow someone if they resteem a bunch of times a day if they don’t fill a curation role and they have earned a “hard to get follow” they run the risk of that person unfollowing them. Some of those hard to get follows are very powerful and can make a life-changing impact on your blog.
See what I mean - your comment provides so much insight from the perspective of a blogger aware of his/her audience. Would make an excellent post on its own. And due to the crappy Steemit interface - I'm seeing the importance of paring down who I follow - so I can trust my feed for quality content.
Also good points on following some people who basically just curate - as we all know how difficult it is to find good content.
I have a rather funny one called “steemitlice” it’s linked in My Year of 2017. Out of respect I won’t link it here. It kind of goes over some things it a bit dated as well.
I’m more interesting in finding out other people’s perspective on this topic to see if I’m far off base or not. I have way to many blogs atm to get out.
I'll look through your posts and find it. Or maybe the search function will work for it.
I empathize entirely with that-- you're one of Steemits authentic manual curators; doing what you do takes time. And it gets to be a LOT to keep up with everything.
I have been working on a post for about a month now (since Steem started upticking in early December, and people suddenly got busy posting again) about the whole idea of "following" and the futility of having more than 100-150 people you actively follow.
I'm about to have "a cutting" of people I follow because the number has crept up to 400+ and I am missing out on favorite writers/contributors. I just don't even get how anyone thinks they can "follow" 2000 people, unless they are just casting 0.05% automated bot votes. And that's just not my gig, although I suppose it could make sense if you're sitting on 1M SteemPower.
Besides, I really enjoy the social aspects of Steemit... I'd rather interact with a few hundred people I've gotten to know over time, than randomly pepper myself around. Which isn't to say I don't occasionally pick up interesting newcomers...
I’m going hold you accountable for doing so! Lead by example. You been saying and thinking you need to for a while now! It only gets to be a worse and worse issue over time.
And I will!
I keep going back and forth between two systems, one of which I am testing. Either I can just plan cut my followers from the current 450+ to about 150-200... OR I can adopt the system I have been making on a "private" page on one of my external blogs; create my own categories with links to each profile. It's laborious to build but once it's up, it's very easy to use... and because it lives on a web site, I can access it independently of what device I am on.
Stay tuned...
Sometimes, I would welcome the 'nice posts' as some of the comments are so thoughtful they require as much work to answer as the post itself. I find lately, it is hard to cover all the ground I would like to because I enjoy writing so much, but there are a lot of comments coming in (good problem to have) which take s a lot of time to answer. I still miss some.
So, often when I read now I skip commenting as well as I would like to unless there is very few comments that are worthy. It is encouraging to get good comments so if there are 'nice posts' only on something that deserves more, I will try to spend some time.
Then, in that department I suppose I am well fortunate. Since I don't get 'nice post' comments and not even 'Spam Comments' in my content either.
So, I guess I must be one of those rare species who actually have the time to joyfully READ content top to bottom and genuinely ENGAGE with the masterful rants of others to serenely drop a relevant and challenging comment of mine in them... sometimes. LoL
Well... you're one of the rare exceptions around here in the sense that you are both a high quality writer and commenter...and quite prolific. You're out there walking on that edge where Steemit borders on a full-time job, I'm guessing.
I'm a bit of a statistics nut, and about 1-in-8 comments I leave is 100+ words and it's not unusual that I leave a 500-word comment. Simply because what I read is interesting but it IS a lot of ground to cover, and I am starting to lose touch with some of my favorite writers. However, I really appreciate the interaction and engagement... that's a large part of why I am even here.
But it's time consuming and I also like to curate the comment sections of my own posts... and this one is just a simple "short form" post... anf look what we have here: 60+ comments and that also takes time and effort to keep up with.
Not that I am complaining!
Last night, I was at a friends with unknowns and they asked 'what do you do?' At some point, do I say Blogger? :D
Yes, it is a good problem to have but it is also very time consuming. I am really trying to keep up but the pressure is high. Let's see.
I'm a 100% interacting person.
Title pulls me in, scan first paragraph then reply if I have information useful to post.
UPvote When I really approve and resteem to share with my followers.
Yup! Let's hear it for the human readers and curators!
It's just there's so much chatter about "spammy comments" and people misusing the site, but it seems to me that there are plenty of people who genuinely care about content to offset that.
Oh Yeah!!
I love interaction and swapping ideas and comments.
I'm a reader. I can't stand the nice post brigade!
I'm with you on that one-- I'm a reader, and I'm a manual curator.
I think some of it also has to do with the type of content I read... I lean towards "personal anecdotes" like you often post, rather than just the 5672nd analysis of what someone thinks Bitcoin will do today.
To each their own, and all that rot...
I sometimes just scan it shortly, especially if it is a long one and I dont got the time to read it.
If I comment I usually read the whole thing, that is why I urge people to make shorter posts :D
I get that...
I've been experimenting a bit with post format for the past couple of months; like this post was done from the @zappl front end-- quite different from most of my "long form" posts.
I actually get a lot more interaction on shorter posts (number of comments) but the comments themselves are much longer on long form posts.
Different kinds of readership I guess.
Then my comments are books regardless of the length of your post ;-P
That said your long form posts are your signature - and why you have 90% of your followers (ok, well at least 100% of this follower). I know I'm rare in that I prefer reading great content (regardless of length) to watching videos . It would be one thing if you droned on and had nothing to say for 1000 words - but please don't change ;-) Even this short post was thoughtful - sprinkle short in, but please don't make it your thing! You have too many good words to say lol
No worries, I'm not going to suddenly go "all short!" I'm mostly using the shorter posts to try to reach a new audience (who might typically be in the TL;DR category), and perhaps a few will become regular subscribers.
I'm admin on a couple of Facebook groups with 20k+ people, and I also manage several "large" pages... so mixing up content is usually a good way keep a wider range of people interested. However there's a major difference between FB and here... in that here we have far more two-way communication.
Funny how that works. In it's 'early' days - FB was the social media spot for interactive conversations - not saying it isn't now, but it's definitely changed - and last time I was on (almost 2 years ago for my personal account!) - it kind of reminded me of two old ladies talking/ yelling at each other at the same time.
People are excellent at ruining things with their need for attention (referring to FB here, not you mixing up post lengths on your blog -which sounds like a good idea!)
I have been reading them. I have a short attention span though.
If I open a post and there is a short novel in there about a topic, I'll scan it and If I think I can contribute I will.
I will make sure and read the majority of a post if it interests me.
Happy New Year!!!
JGV
Happy New Year back to you!
That's one of the crucial things for me... if it is a topic that interests me, I'll read the whole thing and engage; if it's NOT, I probably will just pass and not comment at all.
I can be the same way. I find it really important for people to use formatting to not only keep me engaged as a reader but also to just “find” what I’m looking to gain out of knowledge. The longer something is the better the formatting and usage of headers better be.
Nice post :)
Yeah I read them and tell people what I think.
Reminds me of one of my favorites... my wife uses it all the time!
Did you see I just used that pic on my last post about flat earthers? - Its a classic
It depends.. I interact with different people differently.. some get long lengthy explanations.. some get.. humor... it really depends on the person..
Which-- as far as I am concerned-- really reflects the true nature of a social venue like this. Some peopel we know well, some we don't; it all depends.
I asked the question because it seems like more than a few people have a very formulaic approach to Steemit.
I have a formulaic approach to upvoting comments on my posts.. but not when it comes to commenting ..unless is just a newbie that I'm helping out
Honestly, it really depends... I always make sure what the post is all about, but if it is "too long" I don't always read it all. I try to get an idea and then I look at the comments. Personally I really like when a post has picture(s) and tells a story, but if it is something I'm really interested in, I read it all :-)
I've gotten more particular about what sorts of posts I am going to read. If it turns out to be long and on some topic I don't care about, I just go back and leave it. There's plenty of really good content here, so I can afford to be picky about what I read.
I wish I could sort my reading more effectively... there are about 15-20 whose stuff I'd read ALL the time, and them some I'd read SOME stuff from, and others who occasionally publish something in an area that interests me.
That sounds like a good way of doing it. Basically, I think I just need to get a small network here, like you have done, so that I have a few people whose posts I always want to read :-)
Nice post (just kidding, but it is)
Certain authors I try to really read in detail and engage with. Another problem I have is if a post is too long. Not sure if it’s my ADD or affects of the short attention span many of us have.
This is not a suck up comment, but you write some of the best posts of all the people I follow on Steemit.
Nice, comment (I’m joking as well!)
It is very important for an author to try and keep the audience engaged which is the danger one runs when having very long blogs. I’ve read parts of some really wonderful blogs but I just get bored and off I go to another one. So I don’t think it’s your ADD as much as it is society’s attentions spam we have these days.
Awesome comment! So much wisdom I always gain from your wisdom, thank you! (J/K!)
Appreciate the kind words, though... some of all of this also is (perhaps) a self-sorting mechanism... we don't officially have "Communities" as a feature, but it seems that people who care about content have self-arranged to follow each other. I look at the comment sections (my own and people I read's) and I see a lot of "meat" there and very little spam. And it seems that often the same names are following similar groups of people.
Just scroll through the comments here... most of us are having dialogue; sometimes 3-4 people part of the same thread. For me, that's what GOOD social media is about; I'm not in the marketing business; I don't have a product I am pitching... I'm in the interaction business. And if a bunch of people want to "talk" on my posts, that's cool as hell!