BlogHer - Why Comment? - Comments

That is the question

Rebecca Gillis — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:04:04 -0500

Oh how this is the question, to comment or not to comment? I guess the answer here is obvious, however, I tend to read blogs and not comment unless I have something of some relevance to the entry to say... which, let's be honest, isn't very often. I guess ya'll just are lucky, eh!

For me blogging is a way to share my life experiences and hopefully give someone something to read and look at, since I am a photographer too. Commenting just to flank interest to your site is useless if your site sucks. If it is worth while reading then eventually people will find it and read and enevitably comment (and spam... bloody spammers). Should it matter if you have comments? I think not, but thats coming from someone who doesn't get any comments but does have a few readers.

So I say f**k em, if you love to blog then blog... if you get no enjoyment out of it the why the heck are you blogging in the first place? Comments don't make the blog, nor are they essential to its existance.

Why comment?

fiveflowers — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 15:53:29 -0500

I find I really only comment if I have something nice to say, and usually not the first time I visit. But I think its important not to expect anything in return, I just sort of give my 2 cents.

Link Textfiveflowers

Comments as an extension of blogging

Claudia Snowden — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:28:58 -0500

As a writer, I tend to fill any blank space. And when there is a comments section at the end of an intriguing site, or a particularly moving or stimulating post, if there's time, I'll spill some ink onto it. I'm less concerned with how far it spreads than having the luxury of an opportunity to reach out and blend the original writer's thoughts with my own, regardless of whether that writer or any other chooses to comment back. If it so happens to stimulate further thought and conversation, then cool. I'm just happy to be on the journey, giving and receiving as many strokes as possible along the way... :)

Claudia
http://friedokraproductions.blogspot.com

Post a blog about this!

WCarrasco — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:41:08 -0500

Post a blog about this!

Lets Comment and Debate?!

WCarrasco — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 10:40:41 -0500

Heres a topic: Television and Children!

I walked in on my little boy watching a VERY r rated movie! He then continued to ask me question upon question about this. This was completely inappropritate! I've heard of internet fiiltering options. What about for the television. This is a real Issue I think

Thank you for voicing this!

Marti — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 15:32:43 -0500

Thank you for voicing this! I feel very much the same. I love getting comments, and I wish I could visit everyone who takes the time to stop by and say something. I feel like I should comment at their blog, put them on my blogroll, visit them every day, and offer them a kidney if they needed it - LOL!

But there just isn't time.

When I first started blogging, I was desperate for visitors, for comments, for that ego-reward that someone was reading my words. If someone said they enjoyed the piece, or complimented me, I was on top of the world. If no one said anything, I was crushed. I took it as a personal rejection...I'm not worthy. (Old Wayne and Garth reference LOL)

Now I'm trying to accept the reality that some posts will get a lot of comments and some won't. It doesn't have to make or break me. I don't owe my soul to those who do comment. (Of course I do appreciate them! LOL) I write because I love to write.

I think women tend to take our comments more personally, because our blogging is more personal. If a man blogs about the latest digital camera, and someone makes a negative comment, the author will take the comment as being against the object, not themselves. If a woman blogs about having an angry moment with a child, or a frustrating encounter with her own mother, and someone responds negatively, it is the author who is being slammed, not "stuff". Even a lack of comments imply rejection, as twisted as that is. LOL

Blogging is an awkward but exciting media. I am still enthusiastic about it, and will try to roll with the punches as it matures. I wish y'all all the best! (And please don't be offended if I don't find time to comment. It's not you, it's me LOL)

Marti

Why NOT comment?

WestofMars — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 09:14:45 -0500

If you read something that gives you something to say, why NOT comment?

I love getting comments on my blog. It reinforces my reason for having it -- so people can meet my fictional characters and grow to like them as much as I do. But it also makes me feel like I'm the center of a fun community. That this fun wouldn't be happening without me.

Given that I'm a writer and I deal in so much rejection and negativity, despite my best efforts, this bit of positive energy directed toward my writing, or even as an off-shoot of my writing, is just a really cool feeling.

love and comments

Liz Henry — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 14:15:59 -0500

Sometimes I want to comment just to say "me too" and "yow, what great thinky thoughts" but then feel self-conscious that it could be seen as contentless or like I'm a sycophant... Other times, the exact opposite - I have so much to say that I find myself writing a super analytical response that goes on for 10 paragraphs. (Comes off a little bizarre on some stranger's blog.) But what the heck... who cares... etc. So I end up commenting all over the map in all different ways.

Other times it's exactly the great, great posts that make me thing that I *don't* comment on because I want to respond in depth and detail, and don't have the time. Then the moment passes.

Do you like it when people go through your archives and comment them up? I always think that's cool!

-----------------
Liz Henry
lizzard@bookmaniac.net
Badgermama - personal & mommyblog
http://liz-henry.blogspot.com

Simply opening comments is a statement

Lisa Stone — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:46:54 -0500

Forgive me because, as usual, I come at this discussion from the perspective of someone who has spent the past ten years trying to change the way American journalism is practiced from the inside out. As well as the outside in.

And from the anti-ivory-tower-shameless-user-advocate perspective, I think comments indicate that the blogger and/or the blog network is interested in what their readers have to say. As a reader, it's an invitation to participate in the conversation the blogger or blog group has started. And I think each blogger has the right to develop her own personal netiquette for how she deals with comments on her blog - hey, it's her party.

So if an individual blogger, an independent, chooses not open comments or to invite me to join the conversation, that's fine. But if an organization purporting to provide news to a community that already isn't doing a good enough job listening to the people it's supposed to serve, such as a newspaper site, doesn't open comments? Then it's a push-media column, not a blog, and a missed opportunity to do better journalism. Okay, storming off now to get my morning Cheerios...great post Trace.

Lisa Stone
BlogHer Co-founder
Surfette

reply to Netiquette

schmutzie — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:37:27 -0500

Koan at Multidimensional.Me has figured out a good way to deal with this. She replies to your comment within her comments section so that other readers can see it and also e-mails you her reply. That way the comments section can be more conversational, but the individual commenters won't necessarily miss out on the dialogue if they don't return to her post to check up on the discussion. It's something that I have tried to do when I can. It feels a lot more personal.

milkmoney or not, here I come

Good question about commenting!

Liz Rizzo — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 10:28:10 -0500

OMG. So I can't tell you how often I comment and then never go back to check for a reply. Who can keep track? Although, if I asked a specific question, I would bookmark it and go back and check.

I reply to comments on my blog when I can. I try to make a point of it, because I really appreciate that someone took the time to comment, but I definitely let some slip by. On the rare occasion that a real discussion starts up in the comments, I try to wait sometimes to let people talk to each other before I jump back in.

If someone comments with a specific and important question, like about IUDs, I will answer on the blog and then email it to them. Of course, I'm fortunate that this only happens a few times a month, so it's not to difficult to keep up with.

I wish I had Jim's maturity.

DesiGal — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 09:03:46 -0500

I wish I had Jim's maturity. When there're few comments or hits on my blog, I do tend to go into a minor spiral of "Do I matter this less?" I comment for much the same reasons as Sarah. When something cracks me up, or makes me go Aha, I feel compelled to leave a comment.

I feel terribly guilty about not commenting on interesting posts. I feel guilty when people comment on my posts and I don't go and check them out. It just feels as if I'm a freeloader of sorts. Like any real-life relationship, blogs too thrive on give and take. I usually go and check out my commenter's blog, because a) I might miss something interesting, and b) it also feels like the polite thing to do, to acknowledge the conversation we were having on my blog.

I have tiny blogroll by some standards, but I haven't read any of the writers for an extended period of time now. I find that having a full time job, a two-year-old and three different blogs and a website leaves me with no time for anything other than a surface reading of other people's blogs. And many times that's such an insult to the writer. So I've decided I'd rather not read now and catch up on everything when I have a little downtime.

Priya Ramachandran
Blogher Contributing Editor - South East Asia
Words on Water

Commenting

Sarah — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 07:59:53 -0500

I usually only comment if 1) something strikes me as particularly funny or poignant and I want to compliment the blogger or 2) If I feel that I have something to add to the conversation 3) I think that I have a funny comeback.

I never feel like somebody owes me anything if I leave them a comment. I don't even expect them to look at my site. I feel like they are unrelated.

When I started out I had issues about the whole linking thing, and I would be offended if I linked to someone who didn't link back, but once you are at this for a while, your blogroll can get so out of control you just look like a 'Thursday Thirteen' person. Then your blogroll is irrelevant and doesn't actually reflect what your read. (Which is why blogrolls are interesting in the first place).

Sarah
That's right, you heard me.
Sarah and the Goon Squad

I wish I could comment more

Mary Tsao — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 21:48:56 -0500

If I had 48 hours every day to blog, I probably would comment much more than I do. Unfortunately, I sometimes find it hard simply to read through my blogroll.

Comments can't be a requirement of blogging, the sign of a good blogger, or proof that readers like you; it's unrealistic. I see them as a "nice to have" rather than as a necessity.

Interestingly enough, comments don't always correlate with hits. Some posts bring lots of comments but average hits; others bring lots of hits but few comments. Go figure.

Mary
BlogHer Contributing Editor, Mommy & Family
Mom Writes

Why Comment? Why Blog?

Pam — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:45:52 -0500

I think this comes down to why you're blogging. I blog about and for Me, Me, Me on my own site. As such, I don't really care about comments - not that I don't enjoy them, I totally do, just that they don't make me write more or less. I blogged on paper before there were blogs and they were called "Journals". I certainly didn't expect or invite comments on those.

On community projects - like the BlogHer site, for example - I feel differently. Because they're community oriented, I make a conscious effort to participate. It's about the dialogue, right?

As for commenting on other's personal sites, if I feel like I can add to the conversation, I'm in. Or, if I've added something to my regular reading, I might drop a comment to introduce myself and tell the writer I think they're awesome. "Just saying hello and you rule!" Like that. I've made some blog friends and often, I reply to them off blog.

I don't link to sites just because they've linked to me, that's not a good enough reason. The real reasons are more arbitary than that and I wouldn't even try to define them.

Comments are wierd. There's all this crazy expectation in them.

Nerd's Eye View

Why Comment?

sweetney — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 08:23:55 -0500

Contributing Editor Tracey Gaughran-Perez also blogs at sweetney.com & Jinkies!

To comment or not to comment? That's the question at issue over at Motherhood Uncensored, where Kristin has started up a great discussion about why people comment on blogs (or don't), and what blog reader and author expectations are regarding comments and commenting behavior.

People read and they comment. Then they expect you to come back and do the same - with the hopes that you get hooked on them, add them to your blogroll, and run off together to the Cayman Islands. Heh. But then, they either don't come back, or they come back and comment once. And you realize. Maybe they're not that into me.

It sucks, but you get over it. Or do you?

So, do you stop reading them altogether? I mean, did you just read their blog just because you wanted them to come back to read yours? And because they don't read yours, you won't read theirs?

All thorny and controversial matters in the blog world, to be sure. Its interesting, because blogs have created a whole separate social sphere, one with its own rules and manners (though loosely constructed), enforced only through things like blogrolls, link-backs and comments. Thus a lot of inference and reading-between-the-lines is required on both ends of a relationship between bloggers, which as we all know can often lead to misunderstandings and misreading. It's a very complicated, nuanced, and wholly new form of interaction, and what becomes clear in reading both Kristen's post and its comments is that we're all still trying to figure out how to navigate this new terrain and the relationships therein.

Kristen's closing questions to her readers get right down to brass tax:

So, why do you comment? I mean. What's your motivation? Does every post you read speak to you enough that you need to say something, or are you motivated by something else?...

...Are comments really what blogging is about? Are they essential to your blogging existence?

And so I ask you: what do you make of all this, as a blog author and/or reader? What are your thoughts on comments and the ill-defined social etiquette governing them?

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Tracey Gaughran-Perez | sweetney.com