I plan on having us throw out more of these educational posts (maybe even create a space elsewhere for them for easier discovery in the future) and this is definitely something I want to address with more depth.

We generally look at how people respond to comments they're given in their posts, as well as how often they're likely to curate and comment on the posts of others.

We have a pretty relaxed standard regarding this since we know not everyone will post in the same community all the time, or will have the time to immediately respond to comments. But we still monitor engagement and consider it a factor into whether a post is chosen over another.

If someone enters the community and posts something great and then doesn't respond to any comments or bother making any comments/upvotes, then we're more likely to just focus on those that do. Particularly if this is a frequent occurrence.

One of our mods actually scouts for good engagement in comment sections and rewards them quite generously via OCD when found. Though such levels of engagement can be more of a rarity.

Let me know if you do want to see this explained in more detail and I'll prioritise it for the next educational post.