BlogHer - NaComLeavMo - Comments

I love it!

washwords — Thu, 22 May 2008 11:13:10 -0500

and I love comments, so please, bring em on! :)

washy || http://washwords.wordpress.com || washwords.dc@gmail.com

sharing info about a new site

LeeNYC — Tue, 20 May 2008 21:48:21 -0500

I wasn't sure how to let you know about a site I launched with my family, so since you are asking for comments I thought I'd add it here:

Because we are a small business with no advertising budget, I am trying to get the word out about our site:

MostEmailedNews.com

Most news websites have that little box somewhere on the first page
telling you the top stories that people are sending to each other.

MostEmailedNews.com takes those boxes from a bunch of different news sources
(ranging from sites such as The NY Times, BBC, Times of India and CNN) and puts them all together for you. It
gives you a nice cross section of what people are emailing.

It's not yet finished but I thought I would share it with you. It's quite addictive since
I'm on it all the time now. Check it out and If you like it, please tell your friends!

Lenora Brennan
MostEmailedNews.com

fabulous idea!

FatFighter — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:20:36 -0500

thanks for putting this together - sounds like a great time! ;)

Fitness. Food. Fun. FatFighterTV.com

Taboo be GONE!

Pamela Jeanne — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:01:29 -0500

I am so ready for the world to lift the taboo from infertility. Bring on the new readers -- come and see the world as we who can't conceive see it...

Pamela Jeanne

www.Coming2Terms.com

I'm in

Mariah — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:56:44 -0500

For shnizzle.... count me in!

http://helpihaveateenager.blogspot.com/

Mariah, insane mom

I was just on your blog this morning!

sassymonkey — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:27:02 -0500

I should have left a comment! ;)

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

I desperately need to do this

sassymonkey — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:25:05 -0500

I've been thinking about this and I realize I've become very, very bad at leaving comments...even on blogs that I read regularly. And I feel like a heel about it. Like my former roommate once said, "I think about a lot of things in my head and sometimes I forgot that other people can't hear inside my head too."

I've been trying the last few days to be a more active commenter.

It's a great challenge! :) I'm heading over to sign up although I'll miss a day or two during my move. :)

Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.

I am IN!

RamblingsbyReba — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:21:57 -0500

Count me in! WHOO HOO! :)

Exactly!

Melissa Ford — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:27:34 -0500

Who wants to think that they're speaking to an empty room? Even if you have a sitemeter and know people are visiting your blog, it is hard to have your words met with silence. Were they read? Did they affect someone?

I need to learn more about Stumble and other networks like that.

Venting about infertility since 2006
www.stirrup-queens.blogspot.com
and we're not talkin' cowgirls...

So True

Melissa Ford — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:25:22 -0500

And it's amazing what you can learn about your own life or experience by reading about someone leading a life or having an experience quite different from your own.

What is your blog url so I can add you to the list?

Venting about infertility since 2006
www.stirrup-queens.blogspot.com
and we're not talkin' cowgirls...

Committing to commenting

Candelaria Silva — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:16:17 -0500

I'm in. I try very hard to leave comments now and I explore at least two new blogs weekly. Great idea.

When you step outside your comfort zone, inner-circle, you inevitably find other human beings there many of whom you can relate to despite any small or big definition by which we define ourselves (i.e., age, gender, lifestyle, beliefs, habits).

Candelaria - Good and plenty!

It Keeps Things Going

alyssaroyse — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:55:08 -0500

I have to say, comments (sometimes even mean ones) really help a blogger keep going. When someone writes a really great blog and then no one comments on it, it can be hard to keep going if you think that you're speaking to yourself..... So I think this is a great idea! It's like a pat on the back to bloggers who are really creating this new media.

I will make an effort here to start clicking through people's sig links and meet some new people, let you know you're heard....

The other really helpful thing is to Stumble blog posts that you think are really good. I know that as we try to build traffic around social change on JUST CAUSE IT, when an article gets stumbled enough, it makes a world of difference!

___________
Alyssa Royse
JUST CAUSE: A Web Site To Save The World

Start Her Up: A blog for Women Entrepreneurs

NaComLeavMo

Melissa Ford — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:20:38 -0500

I am all for daily novel writing and, of course, daily blog writing, but rather than 30 posts about the numerous bowls of Cheerios I consume throughout the week, I am for daily comment leaving. Hence NaComLeavMo--National Comment Leaving Month (the "national" is relative to wherever you happen to be). Comments are half of the blogging experience, yet the comments box often gets short shrift, leaving the post simply dangling in the blogosphere. Comments give affirmation, support, closure. They give food for thought, questions, rebuttal. Comments can be 12 point font love.

Last year brought the Commentathon--a month long quest to leave as many comments as possible throughout the infertility blogosphere. But this year opens up this concept and smooths it out in order to draw in all corners of the blogging world--knitting bloggers reading political blogs, cooking bloggers checking out the book blogs, and mommybloggers mingling in the infertility world. It is like the BlogHer conference happening on-screen. It is meant to not only knock you outside your blogging niche but to also foster understanding cross community. One month, a commitment to leave 6 comments a day, and a chance to connect to a plethora of other bloggers.

It is cozy to read and comment on blogs within your community. Certainly, the close-knit nature of certain areas of the blogosphere create a space where information can be passed along and support gathered from those experiencing similar situations. What is missing when we read and comment only within our blogging niche is the opportunity to have our vision of the world tested, to reexamine our long-held beliefs, to learn something new.

Resolve recently discontinued their magazine, Family Building, but when it used to arrive in my mailbox, it was either within an unmarked envelope or had an additional sheet of white paper encasing the cover. People were embarrassed to be receiving an infertility magazine, an executive in the organization explained. Infertility is still a taboo topic hence the covering of the cover. But the lack of communication between the infertility blogosphere and the outside world (and this holds true for all groups discussing sensitive or misunderstood situations) means that the taboo will forever be repeated. I want those outside the infertility community to read our blogs in the same way that I want to read more blogs outside of my realm of understanding. Hence why I'm on the NaComLeavMo list.

That is my reason for joining NaComLeavMo, but other bloggers have listed their own thoughts:

Fertility Notes asks, "Have you been lurking? Those bloggers you bookmark don’t know you read them faithfully every day. They don’t know that you (or I) find them funny, inspiring, insightful. Let’s nurture them by letting them know." Sam's Stories concurs: "The point is to start/increase conversations on your blog, as opposed to the posting in a vacuum thing. It is also a good way to meet and greet other bloggers."

Sell Crazy Someplace Else extends the invitation to the greater blogosphere too: "Though this idea started in the IF (infertility) community, we would like to have blogs and readers of all shapes, sizes and persuasions join us. Come on blogosphere, let's go comment crazy!!" And Surviving Single Motherhood is doing it for the love she'll get in return for leaving comments: "Yes, I'm a dork. I check my sitemeter visitor log every other day or so. It makes me happy to know people are reading this other than me. Again, I'm a dork and I'm okay with that. But I have to say, the lack of comments does make me a little sad."

The larger question is if you are joining the conversation--whether it's to finally feel welcome to comment on blogs outside of your area of the blogosphere or to receive some comment love back. Whether you're doing it to find new blogs or to admit to your lurking on existing ones. Whether you have writer's block and would rather comment than stress about posting or whether you view commenting as a creative outlet.

Add yourself to the list and kick up your commenting starting May 25th. Including, but not limited to, the pu-pu platter of blogging topics you can delve into right here at BlogHer.

Melissa is the author of the infertility and pregnancy loss blog, Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. She keeps a categorized blogroll of almost 1300 infertility blogs and writes the daily Lost and Found and Connections Abound, a news source for the infertility blogosphere. Her infertility book, The Land of If, is forthcoming from Seal Press in Spring 2009.