Commenters.How helpful are they?

The Quality of Comments

We have seen recently many discussions on the subject of comment quality. The prevalent opinion seems to be that there are to many commenters that emphasize the number of comments they create versus the quality of the comments.Also many members believe that they should support the commenters by approving all comments. So I would like to add my comments on the subject.

What is the role of the Commenters in Wealthy Affiliate

The goal is to review the articles of your fellow members and offer comments that will provide additional information, or encourage discussions of the article online, in order to improve the Google rankings of the article reviewed. As a reward for helping your fellow members the commenter can request comments on his articles. As a further reward the most active commenters get a nominal monetary reward. The concept is great, but the rules create some problems.

What is the Reality?

Many of the comments offered are of poor quality and are not helpful. Many are general statements on the subject that are not specific to the article reviewed. They can be submitted without having read or reflected on the content of the article. Unfortunately, because of a misguided loyalty to the commenters, many members approve poor quality comments, which they may later delete since they do not help the ratings of the article. Poor quality comments hurt everybody, since the quality and reputation of Wealthy Affiliate blogs are impacted. Why is this happening?

Rules for Payment for Comments

I know that this problem has the attention of our leaders and rules have been improved. However, the improvements are not enough in my opinion. Rules must encourage the desired behavior. It is a fact that as humans we behave in our own interest first, in this case as a commenter we want to maximize our income. With the current rules, the way to do this is to reduce the time spent on each comment, or comment on subjects that are unfamiliar to us, with the goal of offering as many comments as possible. Both actions invariably affect negatively the quality of the comments offered.

The new rule, must make 50 comments in 30 days to qualify as a commenter and get paid, is not helpful in reaching the goal of high quality comments. This rule encourages large number of comments in a short time, possibly on unfamiliar subjects.

Suggestion

There is no advantage in having official commenters, unless they are selected based on the quality of their comments. Why not pay anybody who offers a number of comments, without a time deadline. If you offer 50 comments, in one month or in one year, you get paid. This will result in higher quality comments, since they will not be rushed,and probably will be made only on subjects in which we have extensive knowledge.

Furthermore, members should be encouraged to reject poor quality comments. This will improve the ratings of our articles and the reputation of Wealthy Affiliate blogs and articles, to the benefit of all of us.