Thank you for sharing your insights, which resemble to some extend what I was wondering about, seeing comment after comment - all unanswered - under high valued posts, given in the hope to get some small upvote. 
One thing I am thinking about sometimes would be a mechanism or procedure to re-compile valuable comments and/or discussion threads into new unique posts - combining all the collected knowledge and opinions.

A decent article again. So true that you interact with the comments as that is how you build your following. A lot of people don't get it as they post, use a bot and ignore comments. No future in that if bot's go.

I really wish that my vote has more worth than the 2 miserable cents I can give you.
We are on the same page, but this is just a great article. It is so much better written than I even could do!
I was wrong with my statement it the greatest appreciation an article can get. An article written partly based on one of my articles is the ultimo appreciation. Never thought that this could happen, cause I consider myself a lousy author! Thx for making my day!
I will try to keep the interaction going while you are doing some offline duties!

@tarazkp wow great responses on this post! People are reacting on each otther on the content and creating friendships!
That’s what it all is about! We are a golden team if we can achieve this! 👊
I did resteem your post, trying to give it much more attention!
Lets keep this going, easy choise for my friends post next Thursday! Well deserved!
We should a way to keep this momentum going!

@tarazkp I will try to keep this in mind
Because I'm busy sometimes I find myself guilt of just saying thank you to those who leave comments now I know better

I've been thinking on this since I first came to the site a couple months ago. 

You've said it all very well, and I think you've covered close to every point that could be made. I feel the exact same way and it's the reason blogs like your own have become my favorite, and the reason I seek out your posts to read over the sea of others. 

My favorite part of many posts is the comments section. The post seems to be merely a prompt to begin conversation there. Those are the kind of posts I seek out. And I've seen more than a few times where conversation has sparked further writing by the author and new connections between users. 

It takes all kinds and there definitely are all kinds here. I feel like it'll all balance itself out in time. And users like ourselves will just ignore that other side of things that doesn't interest or benefit us. It's fine that it exists, but it's just not relevant to what we've come here for. I kind of have that *live and let live* perspective on things. 

I also, at least so far, have tended to comment more than I've posted. But my reason for that is that I've seen a lot of content generated seemingly simply to do so to the point that it comes off redundant and uninspired, unoriginal...and I want to avoid being another one of those type contributors. As a newer user, it's seemed to benefit me more, and be more enjoyable, to simply engage with others and the meaningful posts they've already written. Doing so has given me plenty of ideas of my own that I might expound upon, eventually. Regardless, I value the genuine interaction the most. 

I think for every writer who feels the way you do there's likely a commenter who feels the same and will engage with you. We all just need to take on the unspoken purpose of recognizing each other and then work together to creative a supportive environment, in spite anything else.

> requires decent interaction

Yes. The whales who used to flag me for not providing content they thought would help bring new users in (morality, truth, philosophy, etc.) or because I had not enough views, were upvoting posts with no real engagement for sports bet picking crap,comments that someone only had to pick a team... great engagement there... lol

I even rewarded ppl with sbd from post rewards for a period to try to reward interaction on my posts, as my 100% upvote was worth 7 or 15 cents or so back then.

I also go through modes or moods or time periods of posting/commenting. I do other things when people are commenting on a post, and don't check my posts. I comment in batches after people have already commented. Probably not the best for keeping them interested, but I'm doing other things... so yeah :/

Totally agree. Sometimes I check my written comments and get a bit disappointed if the author don't answer anything or react anyhow.

Well, it is sad that when money is involve in anything people forgot the main purpose of it. What's a social media or a community platform without interaction. I am someone who makes lots of comments - far more comments than my post because I really do enjoy reading others post. As a curator for the wafrica community I read at least 100 post a day and try to interact with others as much as I can but one thing that turn me off about an author is when I don't get replies to my comments - it's like my words have no value to you. 

One section I check first when ever I logged into Steemit is my reply section to see who have dropped a response to me. It's sad that a lot of the high earners don't even care about the community interaction. To me they are just like a nagging partner in a relationship who never listened to the words of the other. 

But I appreciate the efforts of others like you and a few more who keeps the wheel of conversation going, not just a 'nice post/thank you' kind of conversation, they are the people who makes this community fun and interactive and that's what a social media is supposed to be.

I agree on the importance of the comment section. I'm always conversing with my commentators and upvoting them. I understand when someone who gets 100 comments on average can't always answer everybody but those who get less would be better of making an effort.

Well said. I agree, and I know quite a few authors who do not engage with their audience at all. Mega mistake in my opinion. Maybe it's a snob syndrome or busy schedule.. but if that's the case, then why post at all? Author's objective is to start the dialog among the followers. You're right, most of the valuable opinions appear below the post itself - in the reply section and I enjoy reading them when they're not written by the bots or people who don't care about the content, but want upvote.

We share the same disdain for the post and flee authors. But I suspect there are more than a few reasons why some of the default to this behavior. 

* People that come from other social media, might have been used to it, it worked then, why not now?
* They have a big enough upvote that the little accounts are hoping to catch and upvote from the author with some fake flattery. 

I for one as someone who reads a lot, I'm pretty extreme when it comes to this. If I make a long comment, If I attempt to engage with the author and I get ignored, I might not show up again. This is not because of some victim mentality or anything that petty, it's just that it becomes apparent to me that the author is not interested in having a conversation, he/she is quite happy standing on stage with carton cutouts as audience members.

We tend to focus a little too much on the upvotes at times, but the back and forth, the dialogue and socializing is sometimes more valuable than some pennies, at least to me it is. 

That actually makes a lot of sense. If you see, a lot of other online forums, have a very close knit community. There since there is no $ rewards, when people do post something or comment there is no agenda on doing it for money or upvotes. Here a lot tends to be fake but however yes the author has a responsibility to cover as many genuine comments as he can. Also a great post will automatically have an interesting comment section.

You are absolutely correct. If I reply and don't receive a reply, depending on how much I enjoy their writing/thoughts I may unfollow them. If I really enjoy their views but repeatedly they ignore my comments I may continue following them, but they will receive no upvote nor direct comment from me. I may still find myself commenting on other comments to their post though as usually if it captivates me it will pull comments that do as well. 

I realize my vote is virtually worthless with Steem having fallen so hard, so I assume I am not being replied to because my input was never valued to begin with. Only the value of my vote. There is a user here who is probably one of the worst when it comes to using the bidbots for visibility. Yet I find this persons writing to be entertaining. He has never replied to a single comment I have left, so while I still follow and read his posts, he does not get anymore upvotes or comments from me. 

He may think this is no big deal, I am sure. But he is boxing himself into a corner as his posts will always rely on the votebots as he trains those of us who read his work he does not seek engagement with us. And I am fine with it as well. I find so much content of value I have had a hard time keeping my voting power above 50% anyway. My vote that would have went to him can now be given to someone else who is seeking actual engagement.

I got acquainted with many people and even started talking to them over phone just because of comments that I made in the blogs of people who shared perspectives similar to me! But I admit, most of the time my comments were trivial and didnt yield any response though. I don't like replies like **'Thank You'** and **'Glad to know that you found my post interesting'**. Rather It is better not to reply!

my dear friend @tarazkp,excellent post,very good writing,i love this post all time,thank you for sharing with us,

I started ending each post with:

>Let me know your thoughts. My posts aren't a static piece of information, but rather the starting point of what I hope turns into a conversation.

Not sure if it helps, but on a ratio I think my posts get a high amount of real comments which then allows conversations to occur. Know a lot about many of my followers and many are people who now I'd like to meet in person one day. 

Recently someone called me out in a comment and it has led to my increased blogging. Other comments shaped the direction I went with my current contest, not just comments for ideas but then comments on other posts seeing a theme people seemed to appreciate. 

Then lets not forget how conversations on other people's blogs can start to shape our behaviors and opinions here too. Think of all people you opened my eyes to the bid bot issue and while my post rewards have dropped drastically I'm not paying for votes. This change has been for a couple weeks now and even running a contest I didn't pay to get upvotes in an attempt to gain more eyes. Instead it's growing organically with a bunch of resteems!

Thank you for your repeated level headed conversations we had about that issue and your patience to allow me to voice an opposing position and talk about it.

Honestly some comments take more time then many of the posts on the ~~I spent $300 to look like a big shot~~ "trending" page. They also tend to have way more value in terms of content and passion from the author.

>There are so many authors of quality here being largely ignored,

This is the focus of my contest and hoping it's one that will shed some light on quality content that aren't getting the attention they deserve as they don't have an audience yet. It isn't that I feel those who have been around for a long time don't deserve rewards, they built an audience. But it's more that I feel we need to help the newest members start to build their audience and reward good behaviors.