I am a Level 6 Commenter

We live in a society of computations. Everyone hates math, but we all love a simple concrete number. Presidents bend to public opinion polls (margin of error +/- 3%.) The law dictates that maturity begins at age 21. The government defines 'poverty' based on a specific annual income. Numbers are everywhere.

Recently, a new number graced our digital lives. In the gold ol' days we commented on hubs without a second thought. We had no idea that anyone was paying attention. As it turns out, HubPages computers continuously cipher. Clandestine calculations at HubPages headquarters consider commenting to be an activity worthy of quantitative assessment. We have each been assigned a Commenter Level.

I am a Level 6 Commenter. Hopefully that comes with a decoder ring and a secret handshake.

When I deposit a comment on a third-party hub, my Commenter Level is recorded along with my verbiage. If I am the author of the hub (yes, I do comment on my own hubs), my Commenter Level is omitted. I have no control over this process.

Some of my friends also have Commenter Levels. These are my digital friends: they probably wouldn't like me all that much if we lived in the same neighborhood or stood in line at the same Starbucks. We probably enjoy different TV shows and prefer different brands of lip balm. We come together as a cadre of commenters. We are joined by this simple but significant numeric value.

As I write this, I am a Level 6 Commenter. That may be extremely good or woefully deficient. It's just a number, but when I see the work of a Level 8 Commenter or a Level 5 Commenter, I wonder just how far apart we might be.

Perhaps reaching the next level is as simple as leaving copious comments on the hubs of other authors. It's possible that HubPages takes into account word size and sentence length when calculating a Commenter Level. There's always a chance that this new number somehow factors into Hub Score or Hub Ranking or even Hub Happiness (I made that one up.)

Brief online research indicates that Level 8 Commenters achieve at the highest level. Additional strata may exist: if you have soared to Level 9 or above, let us know. Leave a comment here: it probably won't hurt your level.

Theophanes achieved Level V Commenter status by leaving insightful and engaging comments. If that's the standard, I don't have a chance.

Should you find yourself on the outside looking in at us hubbers, feel free to join. You too can earn a Commenter Level.