Moreover, why should there be discussion? If a post is authoritative, well researched and obviously correct, then the only thing to do is upvote it and move on. A lengthy discussion thread is a sign that either the post is either unclear, incorrect, or has mindkilled its readers.
Alternatively, a length discussion could be a sign that the post inspired connections to related topics and events. Additionally, it may have made a critical advance that furthered understanding of the topic for other people. Even though optimizing for engagement yields divergence from what we want doesn’t mean we should optimize against engagement. Or that a lack of engagement is somehow good.
If there are a bunch of long-form articles for which the only reasonable response is, “Yep, that’s all true. Good article!” that’s a win condition.
I do believe there is a place for that, but were I to repeatedly make posts which were so thoroughly correct and got essentially no engagement I would take that as a sign that people weren’t really interested in it and that I should focus on other topics that have a larger impact.
High upvote low reply is less bad, but still feels like it is fundamentally broken in some way. Failing to leave a mark maybe? I think I would mostly be confused given such a reaction. There might be specific types of posts that would generate that, but I feel those qualities do not generalize to the set of “authoritative, well researched and obviously correct” posts.
I think posts will produce engagement if they leave the reader with open questions and ways to apply it. But generally, the more comprehensive and correct a post is, the more I expect less engagement. (This has been my experience anyway)
I agree we don’t want to optimize against engagement, but I do think it’s a longstanding problem that good, comprehensive high quality posts often get less engagement – the more comprehensive and high quality, generally the more you need to actually have skills and domain expertise to figure out how to apply it to other things.
Alternatively, a length discussion could be a sign that the post inspired connections to related topics and events. Additionally, it may have made a critical advance that furthered understanding of the topic for other people. Even though optimizing for engagement yields divergence from what we want doesn’t mean we should optimize against engagement. Or that a lack of engagement is somehow good.
I do believe there is a place for that, but were I to repeatedly make posts which were so thoroughly correct and got essentially no engagement I would take that as a sign that people weren’t really interested in it and that I should focus on other topics that have a larger impact.
Note that I said discussion, not engagement. Would your conclusion be the same if a post got relatively few replies, but was upvoted to +100?
High upvote low reply is less bad, but still feels like it is fundamentally broken in some way. Failing to leave a mark maybe? I think I would mostly be confused given such a reaction. There might be specific types of posts that would generate that, but I feel those qualities do not generalize to the set of “authoritative, well researched and obviously correct” posts.
I think posts will produce engagement if they leave the reader with open questions and ways to apply it. But generally, the more comprehensive and correct a post is, the more I expect less engagement. (This has been my experience anyway)
I agree we don’t want to optimize against engagement, but I do think it’s a longstanding problem that good, comprehensive high quality posts often get less engagement – the more comprehensive and high quality, generally the more you need to actually have skills and domain expertise to figure out how to apply it to other things.
See Writing That Provokes Comments