I posted two wildly different articles yesterday. I thought I would take a look at the results of each post to consider the ramifications for our community. We all know the monetary rewards are not a very good benchmark anymore until the code adjusts to the hard fork, but both posts are close to one another in rewards and upvotes.
However, a closer look at the stats shows 14 views for the collectible card game article and no comments, while the Syria post has 31 views and a conversation thread. Admittedly, views from other platforms like busy.org and steemdb won't appear as views in Steemit, but it's safe to say the Syria article indeed had more than double the engagement.
Conclusion: the Steemit community has an interest in serious subjects even in this period of reward chaos. Don't be afraid to post stuff that matters. Rewards shortfalls shouldn't be an excuse for pointless filler fluff pieces, and serious subjects earn interaction with the community at large. I intend to keep posting my usual combination of hobby and philosophy articles with occasional goofball interjections and library stories regardless of the payout numbers.
I guess engagement for gaming posts comes from a small audience. I get some comments on them from time to time, but I also receive some comments saying it's like I'm speaking another language sometimes. I do think it depends on how readable you make them for non-gamers. Even my mum enjoys my gaming stories, because most of them are very easy to understand and in story-format. She wouldn't understand stories about updates, game mechanics and UI changes though ;-)
It's fun to see your experiment though! The serious news subjects do seem to attract more of a crowd for discussions.
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Those of us with niche interests always need to find others to build our niche communities. I had hoped to spark some discussion of the deck contents and get some card suggestions, but I am content to just post for now.
I am glad serious subjects get serious discussion though. Especially when there are real matters of life and death, we need to have conversations about ideas in order to choose the right actions in response. The worst things to do in cases of terror are to cower or to lash out without thought.
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For the record - I love the Magic content! I've been surprised by which posts get views and which don't too. Hopefully you will keep updating us as you learn more about these trends.
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Strangest trend: My repost on Golos earned more than the one here on Steemit so far!
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