Marie doesn't spam, she doesn't 'prey' on anyone, and she doesn't hack anything. She nurtures writers and community. I am a writer almost entirely because Marie has always nurtured writers, here and elsewhere. Her comments are absolutely correlated with quality, because she only comments on stories that show quality (nascent or mature). Her comments are intelligent and engaging, and have contributed to improving my writing (and, I would imagine, the writing of others).

You may never have said you want us to engage, but you did make engagement an important (not minor, unless the explanation of the new algorithm was misleading) element in how we are rewarded for our work. We're not all millionaires, so we need to be rewarded for our work. We don't expect to become millionaires, but we do still like to be rewarded for our work. And so we engage, and we encourage engagement. Mostly, we encourage engagement by writing engaging stories, but we also encourage it by engaging ourselves, and by cultivating community.