What Does Quality Engagement Look Like?

_{Image source—Giphy}

I've been following a few recent posts regarding engagement on Steemit. I thought I would further the discussion here.

As some will know, @abh12345 hosts the weekly Curation and Engagement Leagues challenge. Prize money (donated generously by the folks behind @curie) is awarded to the top engagers using various metrics. Among them are the total number of comments, the number of second level replies, and the total amount of character length.

Other things, like the number of posts, witness votes, the number of upvotes, and the number of accounts upvoted people have produced in a week round out the metrics, with a small penalty given for self-upvotes. Somehow, these metrics are used in an unknown but no doubt highly technical mathematical equation to determine total number of points. The leaguer with the highest number of points wins.

Anyone and everyone are welcome to participate, and can sign up to join on the weekly results list posted Sundays. The latest one can be found by clicking here.

On a related post published yesterday, @abh12345 showed the results of the Top 100 highest engagers on Steemit since the beginning of the year. The list is essentially driven and ordered by the accumulative amount of characters, or CL. In the comment section, there broke out a discussion about comment and engagement quality, and calling into question whether or not the way the engagement league rewarded its participants even accounted for quality.

My name is at the top of that list, with a smidge over 3.43 million CL. My total comments at the time of data gathering were 5,066 for an average CL per comment of 677. That amount puts me above the average of CL per comment. I do not have the highest average of CL, by the way.

I've mentioned this so you all will know I have a dog in the fight. Whether or not the engagement league is measuring quality matters to me. Unfortunately, there's no easy way to quantify quality on comments, just as it doesn't exist to determine if posts hold to some standard. Even so, I feel like I should do the best I can to add value to posts I comment on. Otherwise, I'm wasting my time and others who happen to read what I wrote. There's better things to do than pad stats for league placement, prize money or not.

This is not about me, however. I don't need affirmation. I know what I do day in and day out. And so does everyone else out there commenting and trying to keep this STEEM platform social and community driven. This discussion, however, is worth having, and extending.

Just like posts, comment quality or quality of engagement is highly subjective. One person, usually not involved in the back and forth, mind you, can look at two people holding a conversation and think, "That's pure drivel!" In fact, they will probably use terms that are more direct and less polite. But is that true? Is the conversation pointless or of low quality?

I admit. I've read through comments and thought, "That's vague," or "What does that mean?" since so little was said. Yet, more times than not, there's a reply, and often, somehow, someway, the responder understood! How did that happen?! Well, the conclusion I've come to is—and perhaps it's an obvious one—those two know each other. It's as simple as that. Or they're better at guessing than I am. More times than not, though, what I'm seeing is just snippets of all kinds of conversations those two, and many others, have had over the course of their stay on STEEM, and in reality these conversations have been happening not just on the blockchain, but off, in various Discord channels and even in person.

On the surface, an exchange such as that could amount to spam in another scenario (though spammers generally are one and done—they don't seem to like conversations that much), simply because little was said. Yet, I would contend, the relationship is such, that not a whole lot needs to be said.

So, does that amount to quality engagement?

What if what the two or more are discussing is totally off topic from the post? What if it has to do with things each person will be doing on the weekend while the post was about the finer points of marmot boarding and grooming? Does that constitute quality engagement?

I like to stay on topic when on other people's posts out of courtesy to them. Some pretty much want things to stay on topic and not become a free for all, and there are others who don't seem to care. If they veer off topic, than I'll go with them. Again, who's commenting and whether the author knows them seems to color the attitude a bit.

When it comes to comments on my posts, sure, I'd like to talk about what I wrote (it means people are reading it, and I'm not just providing a place for people to hangout and talk about whatever), but I also don't mind other interactions either, because one of the reasons why I post is to generate engagement. If people feel comfortable commenting, exchanging opinions and knowledge, be it on topic or not, I say I'm helping to promote engagement on the blockchain.

So, tell me, what constitutes quality comments or quality engagement?

Does it have to be on topic? Does it have to be a certain length? Does it have to use more than just one syllable words, or better yet, more than lols and 😁. Does it include people you like? Is it different if you don't know them but they're doing virtually the same kind of replying? What is it that makes quality, quality?

My guess is, quality is subjective and we make exceptions for people we know because we've put more effort into other engagement, too. None of us get to see the length and breadth of what anyone else does on STEEM, every day, every week, every month. How could we, if we're going about our business? Me, I don't know how anyone can end up with more than 400 comments a week, because the highest I've ever managed is 359. But they do, week in and week out. Just as many others wonder how in the world do I manage 677 characters per comment?

I don't know. The words just come out. I spend a lot of time searching through posts, too, and reading. For every two or three I might comment on, there's at least one I don't because I have nothing to contribute. That's the way it works for me.

It may work different for you. And as far as I'm concerned, that's perfectly okay.

We're not going to ever get to a surefire way to measure quality. One person's trash is another man's treasure. It's been true for a long time, and it will continue to be true here on the blockchain. The moment we start talking in absolutes when there's more than one way to do things, especially ones that provide some pretty convincing results, I think we've closed ourselves off to the possibilities here.

And, we're probably shutting ourselves away from a lot of meaningful, in one way or another, engagement in the process.