How Not to Comment on Steemit - 7 Things You Should Stop Doing to Avoid Being Flagged!
It is very sad to see people not realizing what an opportunity they have with Steemit and what they can accomplish with little more effort. I believe in bringing positive change through education and majority of my content is an evidence to that effect. However, it makes me feel sorry to see so much stupidity still surviving despite all the educational efforts by the likes of @jerrybanfield, @teamsteem, @donkeypong, @dragosroua, @inquiringtimes and many more people. You should follow these people if you don't already!
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When you do stupid things, you invite trouble. Being flagged is the ultimate trouble. If you don't know, a flag is a downvote. Just like an upvote gives you reward and reputation, a downvote takes both of them away from you. Do you want that? I am listing, from my continuous observation and experience on Steemit, the seven things which lead to you being flagged. You should stop doing these things immediately!
Note:- I apologize for use of screenshots containing bad comments. This post is educational work and does not mean to ridicule anyone.
1. Stupid Comments
You can call them bad comments, spam or whatever. But I choose to call them stupid comments because at the end of the day, they accomplish nothing for their authors. In fact, the sight of a stupid comment make me move the cursor to that tiny flag and make it red. Here are some examples of stupid comments.
- Nice post.
- I like you post.
- Good job.
- Excellent work.
The problem with this type of comments is that they do not add any value to the discussion. The author of the post cannot really judge if you have read the post or not. I can write nice post on 500 posts per day. But I won't do that because I know I will be flagged for at least 200 times.
This is a stupid comment on my post celebrating 3000 followers.
2. Commenting Without Reading a Post
This is criminal in my opinion. If it's a vlog post, commenting without watching it would be equally criminal. Do not, I repeat, do not comment without reading a post. I almost immediately recognize comments which have been done without reading the post and I happily flag them. Upon further inspection, I find series of violations listed in this post and ultimately report to Steem Cleaners.
One of the easiest ways to find out if a comment has been done without reading the post is to see the time difference between post and that comment. Most of the stupid comments are done right after a post is published. The one I shared in above screenshot was one such comment.
3. Asking for Upvotes
If you have voted for someone, by all means let the person know that you have given your upvote. But never ask them to vote you back. Vote for vote is a stupid idea. You don't really need to ask for votes in the comments. You just need to write a great comment with or without the mention of your upvote. It will be read you will most probably get a vote on that comment.
I'm not sure if she understood that she was flagged.
But when your total concern is to ask for an upvote, you do a stupid comment without reading the post; just like the account shown above. It makes one comment culprit of three violations. Do not do that. You will almost certainly be flagged.
4. Offering Follow for Follow in Comments
I have shared in detail why follow for follow sucks. You need to understand Steemit properly. May be go through the very basic FAQ I created for absolute beginners. If you are just beginning on Steemit, you do not have anything to offer except value through your content. If you ask me or any established Steemian to follow you, what do you think we will gain from following you?
Do not be stupid. Learn and accept the fact that you need to improve a lot before people may start following you. I have 3000 followers but I never asked anyone to follow for follow. Learn the recipe of how to gain a good following which I shared in my celebration post yesterday.
5. Copy Pasting Generic Comments on Multiple Posts
If you think that people with a lot of Steemit experience are stupid enough not to see what you are doing, you are mistaken. On countless occasions, people posting a generic looking comment on multiple popular posts have been caught and flagged.
You should not try to bluff anyone. Copy pasting comments invite flags from Steem Cleaners and Cheetah bot. You may get blacklisted and downvoted on every post and comment forever if you do not learn your lessons.
6. Self Voting Stupid Comments
On my guide on 9 ways to choose a niche, one guy wrote hmmm and it got a big vote. I checked who had voted it and it was another account. Then I checked the comments tab on the voted account and found a similar pattern. Here is what happened.
The rewards were cancelled out with flags and the sponsoring account was reported. I am very much dedicated to keep Steemit clean with my educational efforts (such as this post) but I will not be shy to use my voting power to flag what deserves to be flagged. Self voting stupid comments is inviting trouble. Do not do that!
7. Publishing Irrelevant Comments
Just to be clear, all the cases discussed before result in irrelevant comments as well. If you do not read a post, do not try to understand what it delivers and do not take the time to write a beautiful comment, all you can do is to post irrelevant comments.
If the post is about cryptocurrency, you should not comment about variety of apples. Simply, read the post and write what you think about it. Give feedback. Ask questions about it. If an author finds your comment irrelevant, he or she will ignore it or, even worse, flag it.
Resources to Consult
Here some good resources that you can read on the art and spirit of commenting. You can find my guide to commenting in the list of guides below.
- Comments. The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. by @inquiringtimes
- A Real Steemit Success Story & Guide: The Power of Steemit, How it Really CAN Change Your Life! by @heart-to-heart
Conclusion
Learn. Educate yourself. You need to deliver some value to receive some. Nobody cares about what you need; an upvote or a follow. What people care about is what you think about their content and what it brings to you. Help them know how good their content is or what improvement it needs and they will happily upvote your comments. Do the stupid things listed in this post and you will be flagged. Here are the seven things you should take away from this post.
- Do not do stupid comments!
- Do not comment without reading the posts!
- Do not ask for upvotes in the comments!
- Do not ask for follow!
- Do not copy paste comments!
- Do not self vote stupid comments!
- Do not post irrelevant comments!
Supporting this post with your resteems and upvotes will help the education spread as well as encourage me to keep doing such efforts. You can use this very post to apply the knowledge contained in this post effectively. I am waiting for your beautiful comments!
Divider Image Credits: @kristyglas. More in this post.
As a standard feature of all my posts, I am listing all my previous work to help people find the required information or guidance. As I write more and update the previous work to add more value, the list will keep evolving. Feel free to share with people who need it; especially new members.
Newbie Guides
- An Absolute Beginner's Steemit FAQ : Welcoming & Familiarizing New Users - Steemit Newbies Guide
- How to Add Profile Picture on Steemit - Steemit Profile Picture Latest Guide 2018
- Newbies Tutorial - The 3 Post Formatting / Editing Options on Steemit
- 9 Steps Checklist for Creating Successful & Engaging Steemit Posts
- 9 Ways to Choose The Perfect Niche for Your Steemit Blog!
- How to Create an Attractive Post Thumbnail for Your Steemit Blog Posts!
- Steemit Earning Guide Series for Frustrated Minnows & Newbies - Comment, Comment, Comment!!!
- Know Your Exact Reputation, Vote Worth, Latest Upvotes and Rewards
- Things You Should Stop Doing Immediately!
- Why Follow for Follow Sucks!
Steem Guides
- How to Buy Steem from Internal Currency Market
- How to Buy Steem from External Exchanges
- Things You Can Do with Steemit Earnings
- Complete Steemit Withdrawal Guide - Learn How to Withdraw from Steemit
Steemit Tips & Advice
- Are You Earning & Interacting Enough on Steemit?
- 15 Practical Steemit Tips Which Will Ensure Your Success
- 7 Steemit Tips for Steemians Based on My Personal Lessons
- 3 Valuable Life Lessons and How You Can Apply Them for Your Steemit Success!
- Rome was Not Built in a Day and Neither will be Your Steemit Blog!
Advanced Understanding of Steemit
- Understanding Steemit : Learn About Steem Economy & Currencies Powered By The Steem Blockchain!
- Understanding Steemit : Know How Steemit Reward System Works and How Rewards Are Distributed!
- Understanding Steemit : What is Steemit Reputation Score, How is It Calculated and Why Should We Bother?
Steem Ecosystem Guides (Services Empowering Steemians)
- How to Use GINAbot and Get Seamless Steemit Notifications for Free!
- How to Use eSteem App, A Steem App with Amazing Features
- How to Use MinnowBooster - 7 MinnowBooster Services You Should Know About!
- How to Use SmartSteem - A Vote Selling/Buying Service You Can Benefit From & Other Investment Opportunities!
- How to Use SteemVoter to Automate Voting and Maximize Curation Rewards!
- How to Use Combination of BlockTrades and Litecoin to Convert Steem/SDB to Bitcoin
Steem on!
This is one more step by you to guide new steemians to be on proper way. I am also seeing many new users just posting without sense. They might be mis guided about steemit.
I am sharing this guide to my students and it will literally help them a lot.
Teachers teacher @ilyastarar sir,
I have been an ardent instructor of objective commenting since my early days on Steemit, and have read a good number of informative articles on various aspects of Steemit social capital program but I must admit that in all; "this piece is most exceptional!. You captured A to Z of what people must do if they hope to make any headway on Steemit in this awesome article. And I myself, really learnt a lot here.
I think Everyone must be availed the opportunity of reading this, and future informative articles from you. Hence, I am not gonna only RESTEEM this, I will also FOLLOW you.
Thanks for sharing this awesome piece.
@eurogee of @euronation community & The Host, Show Us Your Witnesses Weekly Contest
Thank you so much ilyastarar for this good shoot.. Being a pakistani i am proud of you as you are doing good here specially for newbies.. Actually i joined steemit after reading your post and guide you posted in our group on facebook.. That time i read your posts and that are really helpful for people like me.. Few days ago i withdrw as an experiment by reading your post and it was quite easy.. Thanx for this support
You are quite right.. Its so annoying when i saw someone saying its nice or awsome after my hard work of 5 or 6 hours.. And also feel bad when they asked for an upvote.. In start i read an article in which some steemian was trying to teach commenting to others in a way of begging at least i feel it like begging.. I neva do it never and without it i am doing good.. And i am doing pretty good here as i am sharing my own original work and thanx to allah almighty that He is removing all hurdels..
But another issue i faced.. Once i downvoted and it was really bad experience.. When i joined i saw haejin post in trending so i start following him but i neva comment him.. Few days ago i saw his post in my feed i read it and it was infrmative i made a comment good comment.. After some time i saw many ppl downvoted all comments on haejin post.. 5 or 6 ppl downvoted my commment and then i come to know that there was some issue with haejin posts..
I removed the comment but it really dishearted me as i never did any wrong thing here.. And being a newbie i was unaware any issue or matter with haejin posts and downvoters..
Thanx god they only downvoted my comment..
But i thought many times that there should be a system where newbies should be informed about such things so they wont be discourage here.. Anyways you again did goid work for bewbies as your post ll teach them that how can they protect themselves from flagging
I appreciate your efforts to be original. I am also happy that my initial guide helped you. I am also happy that you left bad advice and started doing the right things. Also, I need to talk to you. Please reach me on discord, or facebook.
Haejin posts became flag-war zones. I stayed away from the whole mess despite having a strong opinion against some people involved. It's none of our business because of the low SP we have. It's better to communicate with people who are not controversial.
Please keep doing the good work. If you need any help, you can reach me via comments, doscord or facebook. I do not hesitate in helping people who are willing to work hard.
Thank you.. I know your fb id.. I add you there..
I'm doing some similar work. It's nice to see group efforts here. I'm looking for a way to make a wider-spread effort, since I'm no bigger than a sardine at best. I'd like to get something going where we can "employ" people to scout out the spam comments, similar to what steamcleaners does.
Not sure if you're interested, but I'm tossing some ideas around...Here are the two posts I have currently:
Don't be Spam! Lesson on how to earn good reputation
Favoritestupidcomments
Let me know if these are compatible with what you are trying to do, and maybe we can get together.
This is SOOO perfect. I completely 100% agree--especially with the "stupid comments" part.
As a matter of fact, I even have an ongoing stupidcomments post I do, highlighting some of my favorites. So if you ever find any good ones, SEND THEM MY WAY! You can check it out here if you want to take a look.
I will definitely do that! Marvelous idea!
I was searching on the internet to find helpful tips that can help me grow here in steemit and this post interests me. I admit I have joined some follow for follow and upvote for upvote groups and later made me realize that it doesn't worth my time and effort. I realized that I have wasted my whole day posting links to ask for follow and upvotes. Some stupid comments like what you mentioned above came to my post and It made me feel unworthy. So I decided to focus in learning and engaging with good quality content creator. I dedicate time to learn and within 2 weeks I have seen how much I improve in this platform. I got organic comments and followers and been noticed by whales and got featured on several posts. It inspires to write more good quality content. I totally agree that those things must be avoided, it's an amateur attitude in our community that shouldn't be tolerated. Thank you for sharing this tips, it changes how should I look to myself and gave me confidence. I'm looking forward to more of your educational posts. More power to you
@ilyastarar really enjoying your posts mate. Totally agree with you regarding comments!
I see all the time same thing on other social media platforms, especially Instagram. People just comment "great post" all the time...basically dumb comments that are obviously not even them, but BOTS doing for them, but people think it works and brings value 😑😑
Same with follow for follow. What's the point of in it if these followers are not active. 😲 Ugghhh, these things just really annoying.
Either way, on positive note, keep up with guides and tutorials. Very valuable. 👊
Классно получается 👌
Hi Ilyastarar, a really helpful post. I'm still learning my way round and learning to pick up on comments for comments sake/copy and pastes etc. It's so important to keep steemit clean so thank you for being vigilant (I'm not confident enough to downvote, not until I really know my stuff at least). I get so excited when I see I have replies and it's disheartening when they're just "nice" or "good post".
There were a couple things I wanted to ask you:
I've heard that cheetah bot can detect when you copy and paste a post. I always copy and paste because I write my posts offline and then paste them in. I also sometimes find that I can't get to the HTML Raw editor without clearing the window and repasting it in. So, I guess my question is- Will cheetah detect and downvote anything copied/pasted or just content that exist elsewhere on the internet?
The other question was just about getting your captions in italics. I can't for the life of me work it out, I've tried div-class, figcaption and still had no luck. How do you do it?
Anyway, thanks again!
A great comment indeed. It sucks when the reply is a short comment. I hope mine doesn't suck.
Answer 1. No, the Cheetah bot detects content that is similar to the content that is available on the internet. Copy pasting others' work is a problem (plagiarism). Your own work will not be flagged.
Answer 2. There are three editing options on Steemit. I use visual or markdown editor mostly and html at times.
*Italic*Italic
**Bold**Bold
I hope your problem is solved by the link above.
That's awesome, thank you so much.
I think with the italics I was over complicating things using html.
Keep your education posts coming, they're super helpful!
I appreciate your passion to bring a positive change through education in society.Yes, you are right that many people misuse this opportunity.One time someone flagged on my comment and I learned a lot from that experience.Stupid comments are really discouraging authors who work on a posts day and night.It is really a criminal act to comment without reading a post.It is a bad habit to ask for upvotes.Four point is one of the worst options many users do in my point of view because offering Follow for Follow in comment shows their cheapness.Copy Pasting is also a bad tread on internet.Getting a credit of others work is immoral.Six and Seven point also show non serious behavior of users.Thanks a lot for sharing your experiences with us.These are very helpful for us.I really enjoy to read this post.Thanks again.
Lakin sir jb koi banda steemit pa km start karta ha to usy koi idea ni hota wo kasay km katay aur kamay like me aur wo bohot si mistakes kr jata ha .apki post bohot he informative ha ma kosish karo ga ky ap ki pichli guidelines previous post ki bi paro keep it up
It's an English post and all the people are commenting in English. Please become part of the discussion.
if google translate is right he's saying you have no idea. but it's questionable weather it's worthy of a reply. might be true, not flagging content and actually just telling them to expand their comments and thinking would be better, be better at creative writing or something, or tell them to read a book to expand thinking. a good writing book? always leave a comment on the stupid comment? yes, with some kind of advise.
Dear Santa, please create a cartoon tutorial around this content.
🎃
Awesome post and awesome timing @ilyastarar thank you.
Shared to Twitter
good idea...
Thanks, 😳 I can't do it though. Can you?