Hey everyone!
It's been almost a full year since I posted my Steemiquettes post and I thought I'd brush up a bit on it again. Another great relevant post about this was recently posted by @krystle which I re-steemed and can be found here.
Even though a lot of time has passed, the steemiquettes have not changed all too much, feel free to read my old post and @krystle's if online interacting is something new to you and you might not be aware what's frowned upon.
In this post I wanted to share how I use Steemit myself and give a few thoughts to each point. Feel free to discuss them in the comment section below.
As a Steemit user, I
- like to interact a lot, a big reason to why my stats look like this
I find interactions being one of the best ways to engage with users and build a following and connect with them. The different chats are also a great way to get to know users better. Remember that its a social media platform after all and just like Nokia's slogan "connecting people" it's a big part of the platform here as well.
One thing that grinds my gears is seeing authors post away and never interact with the commenters or other authors on their posts, it feels a lot like they either don't care much for others or are in it just for the posting rewards and see the interactions as their "fanbase" who don't deserve their time. Of course everything has its limits, I don't expect authors that receive 100+ comments each post to be able to answer to all of them, but what I do expect is for them to at least acknowledge they've read them when they do and reward the time those users have spent on their post with a small vote. Its the least they can do since followers and comments is what make their posts whole. As the platform has taught us also that attention = money, time = money, those users who interact with authors and leave comments could very well have spent the time writing posts instead or doing something else if they never see any rewards come out of it which leads to interactivity dropping and some authors never see much comments on their post because of that.
- never vote on my own comments, unless its important for them to be visible on top of a post
My psychology behind this is a bit mixed since I run a curation trail and I feel that voting on my own comments wastes voting power that could be spent on countless other users posts. But even if I weren't to have a curation trail I think of it this way - my votes going to someone else's comment might brighten their day up and feel appreciated, same way when I wake up and first thing I do is check my Steemit account, the feeling of having received votes from others on my comments is a lot better than just having voted on them myself. This is of course a bit controversial since many users see it as "its my comment, I should vote and reward myself for being active on the platform" - to those users, the only thing I can think of is "isn't being rewarded for making posts and comments from others more than enough? Which other site rewards you for interacting on them? Do you like your own facebook statuses and comments on other users there too?
- if you don't have anything positive to say about someone's post, it might be better not to say anything at all
We all have our bad days, and I am not one who never abides by this rule. I might write sarcastic comments to other people's posts depending on how I view them, but we have to remember that all of us are unique, have unique experiences and see things from a different perspective. What we might see in one way, many other users might not. This does not mean you aren't free to express your opinions but keep in mind to do it in a civil manner. This brings me to my next point:
- don't flag comments based on your opinion
If you have to flag to show how much you are against it, at least make sure your flag is not so big that it hides the comment from view. Everyone has opinions and "silencing" these comments is not the best way to go forward as it might be viewed as censorship. The flags are merely there to bring balance to rewards and to counter abuse, not to make it possible for you to hide them from other readers. Of course this is just my opinion, but think of it this way; you flagging someone's comment so the other readers have to click "show hidden comment" could cause unnecessary drama and curiosity of other readers as to why you handled it this way. I see many authors who flag any negative comments on their posts which in the end makes the authors themselves look bad as they can't take any criticism or feedback. Even on the @matttrainer post I tried to warn people in the chats not to flag all his comments, it just makes it harder for the readers to view and can be seen as censorship. Although I understand that was a sensitive issue its better to reply your opinion and just add a tiny flag making sure others know about it but still leaving the comment visible. This is of course just an issue to the front-end and all posts and comments can be viewed on the blockchain unrelated to the amount of flags they have received. I'm sure we will figure out better ways how to deal with this in the future as the site is growing and evolving constantly.
Thanks for reading, feel free to discuss the points in the comment section and which etiquettes you feel are important to you.
