@galenkp sometimes gives us some thoughts on his comment upvoting strategy and recently he had some musing about a new voting test. (Go read the post if interested). I often think about my voting too and thought I’d explore this topic too.
I usually upvote all comments. Note, this is my idea for me; I do not judge anyone for doing things their own way which might be different from me. I regard voting on comments as more of a seen, similar to how some people use likes on Facebook or other social media. The upvote itself isn’t saying I approve of the comment or agree with the comment, just that I have seen it and read it.
I might have been influenced by Japanese culture in this, where a hai doesn’t necessarily mean the listener agrees with you, just that they are listening. (Yeah, it’s confusing, and yeah it leads to problems sometimes with foreigners.)
But I digress.
My default comment voting level is 15%. If my VP is around 85–90% which is where I try to keep it, then that 15% is around 5 cents at the current HIVE price. Not a lot, but maybe enough to show my appreciation at someone taking the time to comment. I’d love to give more by default, but I do like to save the majority of my VP for curating good posts. I am almost to 60k HP and am going to push to get as close to 70k as I can by the end of the year, so this 5 cents should go up. It also goes without saying that if the price of HIVE goes up, this 5 cents will also increase.
“But what about the scammy AI comments, bro?”
Don’t worry — all the AI commenters who just repeat my posts back to me or give generic comments like “nice post bro”, while I do upvote them, I only do so for a single percent; that’s less than a cents and so it won’t pay out, it will just go to dust.
Good comments, however… I’ve given out 100% votes on a great comment before. My 100% upvote isn’t as good as some, but it will get you around 40 cents at current HIVE prices.
I also always try to reply to all real comments. Even when I have very little time for it (as has been the case for the past several weeks), I do try to at least give a small reply. If nothing else, my upvote functions as a read, but I like to reply as well when possible.
So that’s how I approach upvoting comments. I’m sure some will disagree with my ideas, but that’s ok, they are for me, not everyone.
How about you, dear reader? How do you handle comments on your posts?
❦
 |
David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky. |
