The first thing I want to ask, what role do comments have on steemit?
Different sites handle comments differently but typically I have seen two approaches used.
Chronological or upvoted to promote the best response by the community. Steemit is the first site I have been to where it is not either. The order of the comments is on the surface arranged by power behind the votes given it, but with self voting on the comments, people are voting more for their comments than they are for their posts.
Is it the right approach? If a response is riding at the top because it has received multiple votes from people that agree with their reponse, how fair is it that a single person with more steem power can begin to obscure those comments by voting for their own?
I understand the point of being able to self vote. I completely do, and I agree with it. They have invested in the future of this site, and they deserve to use their power to vote in a way they would want to see the platform develop.
Why are comments different?
Comments are something that adds to the authors post. Wether the value it adds is in pointing out it's flaws, sharing facts that were missed or expressing what it meant to me. Chronologically arranging comments would accomplish this, but since we have the ability to express our agreement/disagreement in comments as well, it makes the most sense to rank them, and here is where it is broken.
Comments are not posts and should not be treated as such. The top comments will always be viewed as the one most agreed upon. In the case of steemit it is the one with the most voting power behind it, so a comment can be well received, have gotten 30 votes from others that agree with either the post or the argument against it, and still be buried under a lot of comments that have only been self voted by the comment author. Does that sound right?
Personally I would love to see them arranged based on the number of votes alone. Author reward for the comment doesn't need to be affected by this, but currently I can't see it as anything but a flaw.
Am I wrong? Is the current voting power strategy that works for posts something that also works for comments, or is it just a way to shout over the crowd? Please tell me what you think.
I agree that the sorting of comments needs some tweaks. Even with the "Sort Order" link, they are all over the place time wise which makes it difficult to figure out how a discussion played out, especially when the 6 deep rule kicks in and people move responses up/down just to reply to someone.
Yeah, not a criticism of the platform. Just flies against what I expect to see. Thanks for the additional insight of discussion played out also. Hadn't taken that into account either.
I think that makes sense. I am new here, so I am not sure how functional changes like that get approved or implemented, but it seems like a good change that would help the community.
I think so as well. I can reconcile the arguments for voting on your own posts, and even comments. But currently it skews what people expect to see from comments. From the most agreed upon to the one shouted the loudest.
Yes, the "trending" sort order is by steem power of upvotes.
Since a prtion of author rewards are paid to comments, you can gain steem power by commenting well on popular posts.
You don't think that a whale's comment should be more important than a newbies, great. Sort by "new."
It just seems to fly in the face of what people expect to see from the top post. Sorting by new qould arrange it chronologically, again, not helpful. I don't think anyone's comments on someone else's topic should be more important, no. They can use their power to create a post and make it trend should they decide.
This site won't have any value with just whales. It needs common everyday users and comments are arranged in a very misleading way from an established structure.