Steemit Etiquette: Is it RUDE to Leave a Comment but NOT Upvote?
Recently, I have come a cross a number of comment discussions suggesting that it is "rude" (or something like it) to leave a comment on a post, but not to upvote it.
Maybe the immediate answer seems like it should be an obvious "YES!" but maybe it's not really as simple as that... so I'm going to take a few moments "off" from writing about art to have a look at the possibilities.
Are You Lying? For Sure, That's Rude!
Experimenting with the macro setting on the camera-- geranium in the pot by our front door
I would say it's DEFINITELY rude if you're outright lying about it. You know, if you leave a comment along the lines of "great post, upvoted and resteemed" and then it turns out you actually neither upvoted nor resteemed... your comment was actually pure "click bait" to get someone to check your profile.
Shame on you!
Even more shame on you if you then follow up your meaningless comment by upvoting yourself.
Reporting Spam? Plagiarism? Not so much
Of course, the question "is it rude to not upvote, when you comment" pretty much becomes moot if your comment is written to point out that someone is a plagiarizer or spammer, and you're mostly trying to either get the attention of one of the spam/plagiarism bots... OR you're politely telling the original poster they'd be better off using a different approach.
There you pretty much have a "get out of jail free" card. Don't upvote Spam or Plagiarism!
The Enthusiastic and Ambitious Minnow (Redfish)
When we first get on Steemit, it works out that we get about 10 "full power" upvotes before our voting power is pretty much depleted.
Experimenting with the macro setting on the camera-- wild Aster at the side of the road
Now, if you're an ambitious sort who wants to (sincerely-- not through endless copy-paste garbage) build a following as quickly as possible... you might easily want to leave 50, 75, even 100 engaging comments on interesting posts... per day, simply to "get your name out there."
In a broader sense, that's a valid social media approach to quickly building a name for yourself. But if you were to try to leave 100 upvotes per day, your voting power would be perpetually stuck at around 2% or less.
Whereas it's a little subjective... I wouldn't automatically call it rude to not upvote everything you leave a comment on.
So... there's a bit of an exception.
As Far As Everyone Else Goes...
As I understand it, Steemians automatically get a voting "power slider" once we reach about 500 Steem Power to our name. At that point, you can adjust your voting weight from always being "100%" by default, to being say 25%, or 20% or something else.
The point here being that you can then vote for (let's say) 50 posts a day and not have it drain your voting power completely. For example, with this account I try to not let my voting power not fall too far below 70% by the time I sign out for the day, since only 20% replenishes per 24-hour period.
Experimenting with the macro setting on the camera-- an interesting weed at the side of the road
Now, is it "rude" to not upvote a post you comment on, if you DO have the voting power slider?
I suppose it's a bit subjective, on a case to case basis. I suppose it depends somewhat on a person's voting patterns. I like to check the Steemreports outgoing votes feature... which lets you see how someone votes. If they mostly vote for themselves... that tends to be a point of annoyance for me.
Some Final Thoughts About 0% Upvotes
Yes, I know there is no such thing as "0% upvotes," but I used to get annoyed when I'd see microscopic upvotes on some of my posts.
I'd see that someone had upvoted a post at "0.03%" and would ask myself what the point even was... and wonder why these people were (just MY perception) "adding dust to the blockchain."
Of course, the truth is that these tend to be bot votes, not votes cast by an actual person, so getting mad at them is a bit of a waste of energy. Typically, such votes are part of things like the Minnow Support Project, or some kind of voting guild... and they are "spreading the wealth" among SO many people that each individual vote ends up being tiny.
I think I will conclude this "sidetrack here," and open it up to discussion. What's your opinion on "commenting but not upvoting?" Do special situations apply? Should we ALWAYS upvote posts we care enough about to comment on? What do you think about "microscopic" upvotes like the "0.03%" (yes, that was a real thing!) I mentioned above? Leave a comment and share your opinion!
The Red Dragonfly is an independent alternative art gallery located in Port Townsend, WA; showcasing edgy and unique contemporary art & handmade crafts by local and worldwide artists. All images are our own, unless otherwise credited. Where applicable, artist images used with permission.
Hi @reddragonfly! @jerrybanfield is sending you 10.0 SBD tip and @tipU upvote
:)
send tips with @tipU | earn interest in @tipU profit
Thank you @jerrybanfield, very kind!
Yes and the question is did I upvote :) I love your post which I am including in upvotable 30 thanks to the recommendation of @flamepower along with sending you a tip!
Thanks for the kind words @jerrybanfield, and appreciate the tip!
I think you covered the points really well here. To start with, I would mostly only comment for the very reason you stated... I quickly found out that if I voted on everything I wanted to, I would have no voting power!
Then I leased a bit of steem for a while which was nice, because I had the slider and could pretty much vote a little bit on everything.
Now the lease has finished, I haven't got the slider any more and for some reason it now feels very rude to be commenting without upvoting!
But this has just spurred me on to invest a little more into Steemit in the near future. :)
For me, the bottom line has become that it requires a lot of patience to get a Steemit account to go anywhere... and when I come across those who complain a lot, it's usually because they are expecting "overnight riches" and now are upset that they can have a vacation in Maui after two weeks.
I've considered leasing a little Steem Power until our account reaches 500, but until I actually have the time to but into this, it'll have to wait.
In the meantime, it's a cool place to blog, and I'm glad there are other people who are seriously invested in this place!
I agree. Patience, and really thinking about putting in rather than getting out.
Even in my short time here I've come across people who are complaining and trying to game the system. But yes, it sure is a great place to blog. I'm thoroughly enjoying meeting people from all around the world here. :)
I think of this more as a "gift economy" or a place where you "pay it forward" for people. And we each get to curate what we think is "good" content... and ignore (or even flag) what we consider useless content.
Yes, I love this attitude... it's this kind of attitude that I believe can grow Steemit from strength to strength...
Why didn't you lease again? did you think it was worth it? I just did a small lease - no slider yet - and and plan to keep leasing until my regular sp in over 1000 at least. I'm very interested to know how it went for you :)
I've just leased again now actually! The only reason I hadn't was because I just didn't get around to it for a while. It seems to be working really well for me. To be honest, I don't know whether it's worth it in terms of financial investment/gain... however for me it was worth it to get the slider and to be able to vote whenever I like. :)
I'm close! 20 more sp or so :)
Cool!
I have trust issues because of the comments. Some people will say that you're "going to follow me now" but it's a lie. 😐
Yeah... it ends up being multiple lies, really. The first lie being that they are going to "follow" you; the subsequent lie being that simply because they "followed" you, they are actually going to *look at your stuff" sometimes.
I believe the reason of following a post or a person or an author must not come from "You must follow me back" attitude. If you love what you're read, then you should follow it if you want to hear/see more of that. It shouldn't be always about money.
Agreed. Those usually end up being "empty follows" anyway, @tiffanyrej. I have seen fairly new accounts here that follow 5000 people, even more. Do you have any idea how much time it takes to follow that many people?
But I am not into the whole "follow-back" thing. Either someone is interesting-- and I will follow them-- or they are not.
Interesting logic and on point, I do a lot of commenting, because I love to engage people and make conversations, just me, and it would be nice if I had a big account, but not yet. I do have one question however. To make it into the hot or trending, is it the number of upvotes or the amount of the upvotes that get counted? This is the first time I saw one of your post, and since you have good logic, I am following, and a 50% upvote for what it is worth.
Thanks for the comment @johnnyray! My own background is mostly marketing and social media/content creation... NOT blockchain/crypto, so whereas the money is "nice," this account is part of a greater strategy of visibility and building a base for our local art gallery. Also, we're looking to give our artists more exposure... and perhaps leveraging our Steemit membership and support of artists here into getting some new works in the gallery.
And I enjoy the social interaction, as well. I'll go check out your stuff, next!
I agree that (for me at least) it would depend on the voting patterns of that person as to whether I'd consider it rude or not. Quite frankly, though, I don't have the time or energy to assess the voting patterns of every person who upvotes my posts. I'm just trying the best I can with the time and energy I have...and hopefully one day my account will turn into something more fruitful that it has thus far.
0.03% and even 1% votes are kind of retarded/pointless - my opinion. I don't get a lot of 0.03%, but I notice that I get a lot of 1% manual votes, and what does that give me, half a penny?... :)
I don't have the time, either, to be honest... mostly, my curiosity is piqued when I see someone with a 70-something reputation and 100K+ SP leaving lengthy and worthwhile comments, but not upvoting and I find myself wondering WHY.
I know the "micro-upvotes" are sort of silly. I know from my earliest days here that many were part of initiatives to "make everyone feel included" so some heavy hitter whale account bot votes 10,000 posts a day. Maybe I bought into it six months ago... but today? Not so much. Authentic curation bots run by actual HUMANS.... that's different.
I wonder if the second paragraph of your response sort of answers why they don't upvote? Maybe they too think it's pointless to upvote @1% and use their voting power to cast more significant >20% votes for a select group of people per day? If that's the case, I don't know why they'd bother leaving a comment. Maybe your posts are irresistable to them and they saw your post after they already cast all their votes for the day? :D
I don't know...I can only speculate. I do understand your frustration, though.
Yeah, it does become a bit of a speculation, after a while. I guess I keep coming back to my own perception of "what Steemit IS" and that is a social content platform. That being true, BE SOCIAL!
With such a limited number of votes per day available to newcomers, I can understand why someone might comment on a post s/he really liked -- or had something worthwhile to add -- and not feel he could UV because he needed to "save" his votes for other places OR ... he really was out of power when he made his stop.
The ones who have lots of power who go out of their way to manually drop a penny on a post may mean it as a compliment (at least I hope they do), but I agree it doesn't feel like that. It feels extremely condescending.
The worst though are the ones who don't upvote the post, leave literally a 4 word comment and upvote their comment themselves for anywhere from $.30 to $10.00. I have one who's done that to me three times now, and I've seen and heard about it elsewhere.
A little investigation shows that my "stalker" ... well, that's what he does in the time he spends here. I'm not the only one he hits. He UVs his own tiny comments on about 10 posts a day, doesn't UV the post -- and then he vanishes. I'd say it nets him about $100 / mo -- but I'd also say the ill will (and the Karma he's generating) weigh a lot more than that.
I wouldn't call it rude. I call it downright shitty. But then that's me -- and when it happens I quietly tell myself, "It takes all kinds" -- and move on. I see though that it's a question -- and a practice -- being raised by others. And that's encouraging. (Thank you for the opportunity to rant. I am very new here, so my UVs not worth much, but it's up there. Lying about such things is also downright shitty, and at the end of the day I have to live with myself. Just sayin'.)
One last thought. My vote worth is tiny now ... less than $.01 (but growing!!) ... and if I see a post I really like, I'll make a note of it, wait until I'm powered up again at 96 - 100% and go back and UV it, either later that night or even the next morning when I've had all night to recover voting power.
You see, I believe in that thing called Karma -- and that's how I'm cultivating mine.
Yeah, abusive self-upvoting sucks... and fortunately, there are now a number of community initiatives going to call out practices like that. If you are not already aware of their existence, @sherlockholmes and @spaminator look into things like you describe, all the time. @smackdown.kitty is a bot created specifically to flag abusive self-upvotes, but I'm not sure how to summon it.
Yes, I would also call it "shitty." And I believe in karma, as well...
I'm new and trying to figure this out. If someone upvotes their own comment on my post, do I get any benefit from that on the post payout? I also wonder about upvoting the comments of people who comment on my post.
I've been going back on Day 5-6 and upvoting a few comments that were the best on any of my posts. I figure that gives credit to the person and I don't have to upvote on the fly when comments are coming in. But again, I have no idea how upvoting comments turns into payouts and for who.
As far as upvoting - I comment 20+ times a day and have no power to upvote most of that time. If the person is of high power - I say nothing about voting. If the person is 50 and below I will tell them I'm not voting because I am recharging like in this case.
I found you through @jerrybanfield's upvotable post - congrats!
Thanks for the comment @fitinfun! As far as I understand, when someone upvotes their own comment, they are basically putting most of the money in their own pocket (75+%). There are some further "timing technicalities" I really don't understand.
I typically upvote (and respond to) engaging comments on my posts close to the beginning... and then I'll revisit 4-5 days later and catch up with any later additions.
For me, the bottom line is "reward content I perceive to add value to the discussion, and/or the site as a whole." I realize that's subjective, of course...
I see you're another Tsu transplant-- welcome to Steemit; lot more potential here!
Oh! Yes, I'm from tsu - I'm so hopeful about this place but I am sure stumbling around.
So do the votes on comments also make the post payout go up?
@fitinfun, the votes on comments operate separately from the post; they have their own payout pool, as I understand it. Sometimes you can make almost as much in rewards from a well-placed comment that inspires discussion, as you can from the primary post. It's rare, but it happens.
OK - thank you - I will keep that in mind :)
People here tend to vote more on those with higher reputation so that they may "return the favor" some day. I have seen many cases where people vote reputation rather than content. Once you write a positive comment, it means you like the content and the only way to reward the content Developer is upvoting them.
Everybody has their own strategy, of course... relatively few high reputation accounts seem to curate manually, though... and a lot of the time, a 1% upvote from someone with a lot of SP turns out to be worth less than a 100% upvote from someone with a lot less.
Which then leaves us to consider the "value" of someone with a high reputation upvoting you because it adds more to your own reputation.
I guess it depends really on the person and in some circumstances. Some person just don't want to vote if their voting power is not 100% or at least near to that. You can't really tell whether they don't want to vote the post or they just don't have the right time to do it ^^
True enough @tiffanyrej, much of this ends up being guesswork, in the long run....
I would love to be able to afford upvoting each time I comment (sometimes I 'talk' a lot! lol) - but I can't! I think it depends on the pattern one visits - I tend to visit 'friends'... people I follow - so I go to their pages instead of checking my feed (as there's just too much there to digest and also not everything I want to read/see) On a person's page, I normally visit more than one post - I usually upvote one, resteem the same or another, comment on more than one. That's why I can't afford to upvote all posts I comment on, but I at least upvote one of that person's posts. I feel less guilty that way too! :)