Yesterday, I received a rather strange comment on one of my posts that turned into a discussion on comment upvoting etiquette. It seems some people believe it's expected from authors to upvote all the comments:
Normally, when someone posts a link to their own posts in the first comment they make, I just ignore and disregard them. I find it quite rude and impolite to just post a link to your own content in a comment, especially if it's not related to the topic at all. Anyway, I decided to check out his post out of professional curiosity and encountered a bewildering theory on author etiquette.
The author of the post is of the opinion that every single comment should be upvoted. And that it is rude and 'bad manners' from us, the authors, to not upvote every comment that is being made. He continues to make a metaphor about a party. Upvoting comments is like taking the time to welcome everyone personally. Here is the full statement from his post:
As long the comment is not spam or some other type of crap; that should be enough for the author to give any comment under their own post a vote!
Now, I don't feel that way. For me, every upvote is precious. And I won't be handing them out like candy. I'll only vote for a comment if that made a strong and meaningful connection with me or the original topic. I think it my technique shows through in the screenshot. His first comment was junk and I was close to flagging it. Spamming links as a first comment is definitely 'not done'. But after reading his article, I decided to reply to him. Now his answer to my reply was a more thought provoking comment, so I decided to upvote that one. But not his other comments.
I would love to know the general consensus on this. Do you automatically upvote every comment that you get? Should we be rewarding everyone that makes a comment? Please keep in mind that I'm only a mutilated tuna with 3000SP, my vote is worth a couple of cent. The comment author will make a reward regardless of my vote! And commenting should be done because you want to participate in the discussion, right? Not because you might get an upvote!
The fact that he decided to unfollow me because I explained him my vision on comment upvotes, proves that he was never interested in the content I put out, but was only following me to get curation and comment rewards. Why would you choose to stop seeing content from someone based on the fact that he won't upvote your comments? That does not make sense to me.
So my fellow Steemit authors, what do you think about 'author etiquette'? Should we be upvoting all the comments on our posts? Do you expect your own comments to be upvoted when you leave one?
Steem ON!
Jan
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