I've been thinking lately, as an avid Redditor who just loved the comment section so much more than the actual content and spent most of his time in r/askreddit which gave you entertainment to no end at one point. Somehow it seems that the comments here on Steem aren't as entertaining, I am not quite sure what it is so I thought I'd just bring this up here and we can have a discussion.
There are a few reasons that come to mind though which I wanna talk about here before we go straight to the "what do you think?".
This being a blockchain and it not being editable, even if it were to be editable there is always proof of your original post/comment saved in the blockchain forever and anyone curious enough could find out what was originally said with the right tools. Is this something that scares people off? As in not saying what is in their mind at the time because of repercussions in the future?
Steem has a way for anyone to stay anonymous, this is also a strength of reddit where you can just anonymously make an account and go from there, say what you want without a care in the world. Here there are consequences though, it's not just like on reddit where if you happen to write something that no one agrees with and or think that was really inappropriate, etc, you can just delete it and no one will find out unless someone quoted you or took a screenshot of it for some reason. Or you can just not care and move on onto the next thread or other subreddit, it's not like people are gonna start following you around making fun of you about something random you said. Here though flags are a lot more easy to detect, someone checks your comments and they can easily spot it. That's not even the biggest issue cause if you write a lot of comments it won't be as easy to notice it if someone happens to look into your account. The other big consequence here is reputation and rewards, not that a few flags on a comment you wish you hadn't written are going to affect your rep score a lot but I mean reputation in general and consequences can be that you will scare a lot of people off or make them not want to reward you anymore in the future.
Is this why people are a lot more careful on Steem about what they comment in other people's posts?
To be honest I've been thinking about this for some time now and sure it may have changed the way I am on the platform as well compared to IRL or on Reddit. Even though I know I am anonymous here and it wouldn't get back to me if I did say my mind about a topic where I am the minority who thinks that way and it wouldn't affect my real life in the way that people would start ignoring me because of my actions on Steem. You are automatically more careful though, is this a good thing? Some times sure, if you're really angry and do something you might regret later, the thought in the back of your head reminding you that this is a blockchain can sometimes save you from those moments but is this also something that is keeping people from writing more entertaining and engaging comments?
I don't know, maybe its just that the userbase is still so small and everyone is still trying to make a lot of rewards by being an author or something else involved in other apps that they barely have the time or care to write comments. Engagement levels are pretty low and it seems like most of the time its accounts who already know eachother quite well that interact more in the comment section. Maybe I'm just comparing it to a 100x bigger platform too much. I don't know.
I've also been thinking about rewarding yourself with a vote on comments more often. This has been something I have been against for the last two years now cause it just feels wrong in many ways, such as forcefully voting your own comment to the top of the authors post instead of receiving a vote from the author of other readers instead. Is this making me unconsciously comment less? Maybe this part of the discussion is meant for another post, I'm sidetracking.
Anyway, what do you think about comment engagement on the platform and do you think it being a blockchain is making people too careful about what they write?
Would it be different if it wasn't on a blockchain?
I'm not 100% sure where I was going with this post or if it makes any sense, so if you feel that way as well having read this then let me know. Maybe its just the bottom of the bear market and the low activity making me think this way. There are a lot of long and thoughtful discussions going on on the blockchain and plenty of comments to reward. I remember way back almost no one would spend voting power in the comment section so I'm glad things have changed but it just doesn't feel as fun yet some how.
