RE: Why comments matter

Positive

So I gave this some thought last night based on our conversation on Twitter, and in the same vein, you mentioned "A string of random thoughts cobbled together" I mapped out a response prior to this post that I've only just read. People can disagree if they like, but I would argue that in the high 90% range, posts that are submitted are not really in the "Conversation encouraging style." I recently did a post "I was human email" while I think it's a pretty good and possibly an informative piece of work, I wouldn't say any of the paragraphs was written in such a way that Joe Bloggs would leap to their keyboard to ask "What's a pound note?" although having said that, it's probably a key element that would be an easy way to comment. As you know, I work in Sales, and one of the hardest parts is Cold Calling; everyone hates it because you're going in blind and can be told to "Fook Off" by even the most professional of companies. After a few weeks and months of that, you give up, so I understand why some folk might be reticent to comment on a given post especially if they disagree with something. One of the less stressful calls telesales people can make is a soft or warm call: "Hi, you bought a widget from us a couple of months ago; I was wondering if there was anything else we could help you with?" so maybe elements such as Pound Notes woven into a post might encourage people to comment?

Negative

While you constantly decry me for being cynical, I would argue I'm a realist. With that thought in mind, I would say that for again, around 90% of the Hive userbase members are more interested in gaining curation rewards than engagement. I have to agree with you; I have seen comments on my posts over the years that I can tell has been written in such a way as to disguise what the author truly wanted to type: "Nice post, I upvoted you, please upvote me." 🤣

I don't know what the answer is; it did occur to me that when I look at news stories and blogs on the Internet, the 'comments' are very thin on the ground. Sadly, Hive is not Usenet or Twitter for that matter. Those platforms are designed and engineered towards engagement, hell Twitter (And Facebook et al.) has an AI and an algorithm specifically designed to show you Tweets from like-minded people or, at the very least, content that the AI knows you are interested in. As far as I know, Hive doesn't even have a feature that says: "Hey Pete, your friend Steevc has posted something." it doesn't have any of the features its competitors have in terms of bringing people together. All we have is awesome people like yourself who flog their guts out compiling data and posting, "Oi! Look at these people who live near you; wouldn't you like to be friends with them?"

Summary

I suspect communities would disagree with the "Lack of engagement" accusation. I know I have made more friends on the Ecency Discord channel than I probably have on the Hive platform. I suspect this is because of the instant communication it provides? I guess most of the Hive userbase is talking daily with each other either on Discord or within maybe gameplay (Splinterlands). I can't comment on 3speak as I don't really use it much.

Not sure that helps much but it's the thought that counts. 😉