I am also under the mindset of trying to find a couple of comments in my own blogs and sometimes in others that I like to reward with an upvote. It just helps bring the good ones up out of the bottom of the dumps where all the spam goes to die. Always disappointing when you get into a blog with dozens or more comments and zero of them have upvotes by the author so trash just sits there as the first person who put out a spam comment. Even worse they are all just “such and such paid for an upvote” great that what I want to see when I get to bottom of your blog that you spent a bunch of money.
The comments that drive me crazy are ones where time was spent into creating a somewhat vague but almost believe paragraph(s) of a comment. They tend to target a certain tag or even certain topics within a tag. They are almost believable and so close to getting an upvote then you go and check and you see they are just copy/paste spam.
As someone who enjoys comment sections, those tend to be very disappointing as you keep running onto them. The effort was spent but only once to try and lure in upvotes. Some of them are getting very clever in trying hide they are just copy/pasting I won’t go into further detail of some smarter ones I ran into as I hate for it to spread even further.
I usually spend a few minutes on my comment so sometimes it’s just hard to avoid being yet another “broken record” by the time I get it posted. When I started those type of comments where not yet made and I’ve already invested in the time. I’m not a speed writer and I have to spend some time on formatting/ editing/ rearranging thought.
I know what your talking about when you talk about the almost believable complimenting copy/paste comments. I have gotten those thinking "Wow, they really enjoyed my post!" But my smile fades quickly when I see they left the same thing on many other posts seconds before and after (meaning they never even read my post).
When you mention the smarter copy/paste comments - I have gotten ones that steal others comments and change a few of the words to make them seem new. I got one today on a different post of mine, and like deja vu, I was sure I read something similar before. I had - It was a mimic of the highest voted comment on my last post. I almost posted a screenshot of the comment they copied in a reply to their Copycat comment but figured it wouldn't fix anything lol.
I wouldn't worry about falling into the "broken record" or any of my categories above. You seem like a Genuine Commenter and I am happy that you took the time to write such a thoughtful comment on my post! :)
I fear comment thief is going be a big issues down the road. I’ve noticed some of mine get used from time to time. Thankfully most of these people are not very bright and they copy/paste them into places where people get that feeling it’s an “enjar” comment so they go and look if it was stolen from me. Other times I have to waste time dealing with the scumbag myself if I run into it.
The logic some of them use is just mindblowing. It’s like I get there a culture difference and somewhat of a language barrier but no you can’t go around doing that nonsense. We are not a YouTube comment section or a back alleyway in whatever country you live in. We have standards (least some of us lol).