Today, not only are we celebrating Hive's 3rd birthday, but yesterday, I also celebrated completing the #500CommentChallenge on Hive. It wasn't lost on me the coincidence of these two happening at almost the same time.

I was going to write a post for each, but decided to roll them together into one very special celebratory article.

So today, as we hold aloft our steins of butter beer ready to quaff them in honor of this special day. Let me take you back to the events of the ten days leading up to my eventual success.

The Value In Engagememt

I'd "noticed" a complete lack of comments on some very good posts over time here on Hive. With the transition of #LeoMarketTalk over to #Threads, I'd been engaging with some amazing Hivians and wanted to spread the love to even more deserving publishers whose work wasn't getting the attention it deserved.

So with the 3rd anniversary approaching, I recalled an episode of #Cryptomaniacs where @taskmaster4450 spoke about some people lamenting the fact that they weren't getting eyes on their content, but were unwilling to start networking themselves in order to raise their profile and help get the word out. Task spoke of successful Hivians who were doing exactly that, and wisely advised "go out, write 500 comments and then you'll start seeing results."

So I decided to challenge myself. Could I write 500 comments? Sure, but in what time period? Since I care for an ill relative, I wanted to give myself a good shot without spreading it out too much either. So I settled on 500 comments over a ten-day period.

That meant that I would only have to write 50 (thoughtful) comments a day, which would total 500 by the end of it. It was doable. Not too easy, but not impossible either.

I also knew the importance of making a public declaration in order to weld me to my effort. Announcing something publicly really helps to spur you on to actually complete it. So on Thursday March 9, 2023, I announced on LeoFinance #Threads that I was committing to the #500CommentChallenge over the next ten days.

It was a bold pronouncement. But would I actually be able to do it?

"Dive Right In, The Water's Fine"

Below is the tally I made in a Notepad document. Each forward slash represents one comment. I used to break them down with a slash for a Hive comment and an asterisk for LeoFinance, but this time decided to merge everything together due to the sheer number of comments necessary.

As you can see, on day 1, I did well and hit my goal of 50 comments. This of course led me to become a little overconfident on day 2, where I began much later and only managed 14 comments for the day (the first number is the total comments for the day, while the second, is a running total).

The 3rd and 4th days were better, but still not meeting the minimum. Thus, I was slowly falling further behind, which required even more effort in order to get back on track. Sometimes, I get so involved in a subject, that my comments can get rather long since I specialize in long-form content in order to feed the ever-hungry search engines, and draw new people to Hive.

By the fifth day, I was back to being just above 50 comments, but knew I couldn't keep writing War and Peace with each one. The next two sessions were disappointing, before I rallied again on the following day.

On Friday March 17th, I generated 43 comments. All of these were across Hive, LeoFinance, Ecency and #Threads. However this left me in the hole having made 321 comments at that point and needing 180 more by what I THOUGHT was the final day on Saturday March 18th.

By midnight Saturday, I'd created 80 comments and thought I'd fallen far short of my goal. That's when I realized I actually had another day left to knock out the last 100 comments. So after a short nap and thinking #WhoNeedsSleep, I pulled an all-nighter, and by Sunday morning I'd written one hundred comments, totaling 500 (actually 501), and had successfully completed the #500CommentChallenge!

Khal was there in #Threads and congratulated me for my achievement, and friendly @rmsadkri noticed my efforts and gave me a congrats as well, before I said goodbye and was off to a well-deserved sleep.

What Did I Learn After 10-Days and 500 Comments?

I learned that Task was right. For those of you struggling to get noticed on Hive, nothing works better than thoughtful engagement. I met some amazing people who I might never have encountered otherwise, including a sweet grandmother who adores her family, and a freedom-loving naturist enjoying life on the big island of Hawaii.

I picked up a number of new followers, and found some amazing content creators that I've bookmarked and followed back so I can consume even more of their content.

But what really surprised me was that there were way too many great posts that were hours and days old with absolutely no comments. Not even one. I'm so glad that I had the chance to help rectify this situation and add my voice to let them know that somebody saw and appreciated their work.

The other pleasant surprise was that I ran into far less spammy, plagiarized posts than I expected. Yes there were some, and sadly mostly from the same too-lazy-to-learn-proper-English, non-English-speaking region now known as: "The Land of Scammers."

These people have no morals, who are even willing to steal the life savings of the elderly. Complaining about their corrupt government, they mirror that corruption with a lack of creativity and originality to call their own. Their only mantra being to poach from the hard work and efforts from those in developed countries.

Some even have the nerve to donate a portion of their stolen proceeds to churches thinking it will absolve their sin.

It won't. (How about not stealing in the first place?)

They seem to have no fear of God, nor about being judged by him in the afterlife for their literary larceny. A region of con artists and copycats, who shoplift the best ideas and mimic original text from some of the best writers here on Hive.

They then pass this purlioned writing off as their own, while receiving massive upvotes and draining the reward pool. I don't need to name the spot, those who know, know.

But whoever's cracking down on that, it seems like it's starting to work, and I'm glad, because as we celebrate our third anniversary, we want to put our best foot forward for Hive.

A Hive Comments Corps?

I believe that we need to create a cadre of people who ASIDE from the curators, go out and do one thing: Leave comments on deserving posts.

Let the curators handle the upvotes, these people will use their Resource Credits to leave hundreds of comments every week. I know because my RC took a hit just writing all of those comments, and if I'd had to upvote each one, it wouldn't have been possible. So somebody, fund a Comments Corps for Hive.

Today in celebration of our birthday, I went ahead and powered up 10 $HIVE. Every little bit helps on the pathway to increasing our Hive power and the ability tu curate original content creators. So happy birthday to my brothers and sisters on Hive! And after the festivities, you just might want to start a #500CommentChallenge of your own! Cheers!

If you found this post informative or inspiring, please leave an upvote, comment and reblog. And if you haven't already: Join Hive! :)

Please check out my recent posts:

• Hive People

• On Hive, Every Day Is Comment Day - The #500CommentChallenge

• When I First Started Blogging, I Was Scared To Death...

• Stay Positive, Stay Classy

• Optimizing Your Blogging Workflow

Image Credit: [1] @EverNoticeThat Created using Canva.

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