Without a separate pool, there is already spam. Whether we want to call it "abuse" or not, plenty of users already upvote their own comments with trails, and larger stakeholders have often voted themselves - or every comment on a post. This new comment rewards pool would simply create another way for different types of abusers to abuse.
Something like 0% would be reasonable. There's really no reason for a separate pool. As I pointed out already - this very post demonstrates that engagement and comment payouts is just fine. If we want more engagement on regular posts, maybe we should work on attracting and retaining more users? That's the real issue here, not the lack of a comment rewards pool.
I can't speak for the voters putting comments over $1 but I am upvoting more comments in this post because they are important to reward for expressing their opinions about the future of Steem. I regularly upvote good comments elsewhere but not nearly as much as posts. And I often treat comment voting as a ranking mechanism rather than a reward one.
Yeah, same here.
What I'm really trying to figure out is why so many people believe that comment rewards are necessary for engagement. Go to every major social media platform and you'll find thousands, or millions of users commenting and upvoting other comments all the time...for no rewards. So, what is it that's creating the engagement on those platforms that we are allegedly "missing" here on Steemit (which I don't even believe is true)?
The answer: Users.
What is the purpose for creating a separate rewards pool for comments?
If the purpose is to increase engagement, it won't work. You need active users to do that. Without active users willing to engage, you're likely just going to be encouraging and rewarding spam, or otherwise meaningless engagement.
If the purpose is to just have a separate rewards pool, then what functional purpose does that serve? Why is it a necessary change for the blockchain?
What is the actual problem that would be fixed by this hard fork? The post says this:
You can't engage more people in discussion if you're lacking the "more people" part of the equation. Step one would be: Get more people interested in Steemit. If, after more people are here and active, the engagement is too low (which, again, I don't believe is true), then try to find ways to increase/improve it.