Are You Being Helpful? Or Trying to Get Points?

Wealthy Affiliate has this thing called "ambassadorship", you've heard of it surely. I'll be honest, it motivates me to remain active, say howdy to newbies and look through the occasional unanswered posts. However, there is a downside to this, noise.

What I've noticed is that many people will leave comments on blogs that have nothing to do with the blogs themselves. They are general "great post!", "good points!", drive by praises that show they didn't read it at all. Sometimes the comments are totally contradictory to what was said, because the title was different from the actual points made. I see a lot of "looks like you found your answer"'s under questions. A lot of redundant unnecessary points brought up in chats. (By this I mean someone asks a question, someone answers, and somebody else has to throw in some info that has nothing to do with the conversation.)

I get that I'm being picky. I'm not complaining, I'm a praxeologist. People can do what they want, and I'll work around them to seek my own way. But I want you to consider this:

• Are you posting on everything, with short meaningless comments, just as a way to gain ambassador points?
• Are your comments providing value? Or are you contributing towards noise that might confuse others who are trying to ask a question?
• Do you actually care about what you're talking about? Or do you feel a responsibility to do so as someone with a particular rank? Or as someone who is trying to gain recognition?

Nothing I blog about here is meant to tell anyone what to do, it's never even meant to be advice. It's only something to mull over. Some thoughts based on some things I've noticed. When I see a question has been answered, I move on. When there gets to be too many people in chat trying to override what I've already said, sometimes with unrelated comments, I leave. When I see a blog that I don't understand, I don't say anything.

If I mention something to you, if I say thank you, if I leave a comment, you can be dead sure that I'm being honest, and I have an actual interest. Making sure you're doing this too can be very important. WA is meant to be an honest place in a sea of scams and spam. Are you helping to make it so?