Three questions in a title? Kinda nuts, isn't it? But I found myself reflecting on these things as I went through my feed this morning. 

As many of you can relate to, my routine has been significantly modified since joining Steemit. I used to catch up on correspondence and see what was going on in the mornings. Now I do some of the same, but really concentrate on Steemit. 

When I don't have an article to publish in the morning (like the last few days as I give my brain a break and study some more for my Haiti series), or something else pressing, I jump on Steemit and look through my feed. I don't read all the articles, but do check out the ones that jump out at me. And I try to check a couple of times during the day too.

Folks use the Follow option differently. For me, it means I'm interested in you. I want to hear what you have to say, or we have some common interest that makes me want to follow you. It doesn't mean I agree with everything you say or that I read everything you put out. But I try to keep up with at least looking over all the titles in my feed.

As I have been going through my feed regularly, I see a couple of habits developing. These aren't bad. On the contrary, I actually think they're helpful.

I said "habits"!<>

Upvotes

First - I rarely upvote an article before I read it. There are only about two or three authors here that put out content that I will upvote before I read it. Even then, I still read it. In other words, if I have upvoted your content, then I have or am about to read it.

Second - I don't have to agree with the content to upvote the article. Unless I find it promoting something I find morally wrong (which happens), if I find that it's well written and reflects a lot of effort, then I'll upvote it.

Third - Upvoting is not the same as liking on Facebook. While my measly $0.02 SBD upvote doesn't amount to much of a monetary reward, I do take putting my name behind an article seriously. I consider it an endorsement.

Comments

Fourth - If I don't comment, it only means I didn't comment. :) Sometimes I see a compelling reason to engage. With some authors I've developed a bit of a relationship, so we sometimes just banter a bit in the comment section. But sometimes I just read something, appreciate it, but have nothing to say about or add to the discussion. I do find it odd when someone comments positively on my article but doesn't upvote it when the payout is clearly very low.

Fifth - I find that I often will not comment if the author has not been engaging with other commenters. It's understandable that some authors simply don't have or make the time to engage with commenters. But if it doesn't appear to be important enough to them to reply, then, unless something is particularly compelling me to, I generally won't bother commenting. I may begin to lose interest in that author too, depending on who it is and their content. This is a good reminder that I need to be mindful of replying to folks who take the time to comment in my articles.

Titles

Sixth - Titles matter. I don't agonize over titles, but maybe I should. I find that as my feed grows, I am unable to keep up with them all. So I become more selective in which ones I'll read. All I have to go off are the title and first line of the content. This tells me that I need to focus more on my titles and try to include a captivating first sentence.

Grammar & Spelling

Seventh - Spelling and grammar matter. Sometimes it's just painful to read through a piece. There are a lot of free tools to help with spelling and grammar. If you don't have Word, use the Openoffice version. There are word processing websites. I will give a bye to folks on this sometimes, when it's clear that English is not their first language and that they're really trying. But, still, content is content. When I have edited for a publication, nothing with poor grammar would get through. In fact, I have returned articles after only reading the first few sentences, asking them to clean them up before resubmitting. On the other hand, I have also been known to go through and painstakingly edit an article because I was confident that the author was really working hard at it and perceived my effort as a good way to encourage and teach them. Poor grammar reflects low-budget efforts. So it does tend to affect my upvotes as well. In fact, it can affect how long I might follow an author. Having said that, it's not an English test. We all make mistakes. But it does help to develop your skills so that the occasional mistake is the exception.

Payout

Eighth - Payout matters. If I read through an great article and it's already at $750 or so, unless there's a compelling reason to do so (like helping a charity or a good cause for the payout), I won't upvote. I might comment. But there's no sense me adding to the list of folks increasing the payout. I'll save my pennies for others who have articles that need every penny they can get. And I do measure the content against the payout. Some short articles are worth $50. Other, more involved pieces, might be worth $1,000. Very rarely, unless there's a compelling side-story, charity or other form of payout complementing the article, it can be worth more. I'll be asking for some help on my Haiti project this coming week and hope to have my final article surpass that level. But the reasons are far beyond the content.

Ponderings...

Well, these are just the ponderings of Another Joe. Your mileage may vary. But I thought I'd throw them out there as I reflected on my developing interaction habits.

By the way, if I were to read this article, I would consider its value at about $50, or maybe as high as $100 if the author was one I really respected. I suspect it'll be far less, but that's okay. I'm just hanging with friends this morning, enjoying a cuppa Joe. :)

Steemin' on,
Another Joe

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