Category: metablogging

mmmm: some comments on commenting

mmmmWhat can I say? I love getting comments. This is because they prove that the world revolves around me.

Actually, I love the discussion, community and relationship-building aspects of blogging, and commenting is a big part of that. (Response posts and linking are the other big part, and I’m all for those, too.) Plus I do like to get confirmation that someone out there has actually read a post, and comments are the clearest indication.

On getting comments

I admit that I am spoiled. I tend to get several comments on most posts that I put up, which I realize is not the case for everyone out there.

If I write a post and no one comments, I actually find it unsettling. I wonder if I said something to offend or made myself look like an idiot. Or (possibly worse) just bored people.

Reading comments

I read every comment that anyone leaves on my blog. This includes those on older posts. I get an email notification whenever a new comment is left. (Occasionally, the email gets eaten, and I discover a comment weeks or months later, but I think this is rare.)

I also read most of the comments on the blogs where I comment. (Do you?)

responding to comments

The blogs I read have varying responses to comments: some bloggers comment back in the comment section, some will send an email response, and some will not respond directly at all. And me, I’m so mixed up, I do all 3 of these behaviors!

I’m a big fan of getting responses to my comments, and I will check back at blogs where the author tends to respond.

Because I like getting responses, I have the goal of also responding to other people’s comments. Sadly, I typically fall short of this goal.

When I do reply on the blog, I try to reply to everyone who left a comment for the particular post. I will sometimes also/instead send an email response to comments. (Actually, I’d love it if WordPress could just send an email to commenters when there is a response to a comment. I believe that LiveJournal did that. There’s now a little checkbox where you can request to be notified of subsequent comments on WordPress, as there is on Blogger, but I only occasionally use this feature. Do other people use this?)

I fully understand why bloggers don’t respond to every comment, especially when they get lots of comments. I’ve noticed that the bloggers who tend not to reply directly to comments tend to leave frequent comments on my blog and around on other blogs, so they keep up a discussion that way.

Leaving comments

I generally tend to assume that everyone else feels the same way as I do, and that everyone else wants proof that they are the center of the universe. Or that they at least want comments. Therefore I make an effort to leave comments. I more-or-less always have the goal of leaving a comment when I visit a blog (except on blogs where I lurk).

Sometimes comments come easy, sometimes I have to think.

I make extra efforts to leave comments on blogs or posts that get fewer comments. If I see that a post has already gotten dozens of comments, I am less likely to work at writing a comment.

I also sometimes read blogs when I don’t have time (or two free hands) to type comments. Sometimes I go back later to comment, but many times I don’t get around to it.

I leave comments on blogs whose authors leave comments on mine. If I leave comment after comment on a blog and never get any sort of return visit, I’ll eventually stop commenting.

Every once in a while, I’ll come across a blog where the author does not allow comments, and I find this odd. I tend to move along, because without being able to leave a comment, I don’t expect to be able to establish any sort of conversation with the blogger. (I can understand turning off comments for the occasional post, though.)

How many comments?

I’m not sure how many comments I leave (per week, for example), but I probably actually leave more comments around than I get. The number of comments I leave, though, is roughly proportionate to the number of comments I get. If I go through a stretch where I don’t leave many comments, I tend to get fewer comments; if I go wild with comments, I get more comments.

It frightens me to realize that I have probably left thousands of comments around the blogosphere in the past couple of years.

My WordPress stats page tells me that I have gotten 5104 comments on 564 posts. This is over 2 and a half years. (2 and half years to the day, as it happens.) Of course, the 5104 number includes response comments that I have left on my own posts, as well as pingbacks (most of which are from my own blog). These probably account for a good quarter of the total count.

The biggest number of comments I have gotten on a post (not counting my own responses) is probably 33. I have quite a few posts that have gotten 0 comments. Most get somewhere between 4 and 12.

My stats also inform me that “Akismet has protected your site from 61,870 spam comments.” Yikes! Thank goodness for spam filters.

More thoughts

I have more thoughts on comments, but I should probably just post this, since I’ve been drafting it for over a week now.

By the way, have I ever mentioned here that I wrote a paper on blog commenting for the sociolinguistics class I took a couple of years ago? At some point, I may share some of it here.

Here are a few other questions I may or may not get back to. (If anyone wants to chime in, please do!)

  • What makes some posts get more comments than others?
  • What makes comments good?
  • What is the right length for a comment?
  • Are lame-ass or short comments better than no comments? (My short answer: usually!)
  • When (if ever) should comments be deleted or edited?
  • What makes us lurk?

    • I remember a couple of other posts from blogs on my blogroll on comments:
    enkerli offered Solving the comment problem (which was in part in response to my own chart of suggested comment shorthand) and YTSL wrote more metablogging.

    If you have more, please leave a link in the comments.

    This post has been another installment of my Merry Merry Month of Metablogging, which may well meander out of the merry merry month of May.

    mmmm-hmm?

    The trouble with blithely promising to put out a month-long in-depth series of blog posts is that my life doesn’t always prioritize time for blogging in quite the same as my head. So, my Merry Merry Month of Metablogging series now clocks in at one post in 10 days. At this rate, I should manage to pull off a staggering 3 posts in the series by the end of the month.

    Anyhow, life has been busy. Nothing too dramatic. More of the same. Work. Parenting. Chaotic house.¹

    We also went down to the in-laws this weekend, for the first time since December. It’s not that big of a trip, but it still takes a lot of energy. Between time in the car, time spent dealing with little ones, and time spent socializing with the people we made the trip down for, I end up with pretty close to zero time for online activities. We got home at around 2:30 last night (or this morning, if you want to get technical), and I find myself feeling jetlagged, even though it was a car trip.

    Now that the wee ones are sleeping, I have a bit of time to blog.² And there is a backlog of things to write. Again. I really want to do the Monday Mission for this week, which just sounds too tempting, so I’ll probably do that before doing things I actually should be doing.

    Anyway, that’s where I am.

    ——-

    ¹ There’s been some ongoing stuff relating to home repairs that has sucked up an inordinate amount of time and energy, too. I don’t even want to get into it here, because then it would be allotted more time and energy, and I’d rather have fun blogging than get riled up. I get riled up even thinking about how riled up I would get if I started blogging about it.

    ² Especially if I ignore the mess in the kitchen, the laundry, the remaining unpacking, the bills, the letters I owe, and the work I need to do for my job.

    mmmm: on the blogroll

    mmmmWhen I come across a blog that is new to me, one of the first things I do is look for a blogroll. It gives me some insight into the person behind the blog: tastes, humor, worldview and whatnot. It’s fun to see if I recognize any blogs on the list, and to see if we share common interests. It reminds me a bit of my tendency to go right to the references section of an article I’m reading when I’m in research mode.

    Why I have a blogroll

    I see the blogroll as a courtesy feature of a blog. Potential visitors can get insight into who I am by way of who I know. It’s a courtesy to the bloggers on the list, as I am potentially sending them traffic, whether directly through people who like to explore blogrolls, or by adding to their rankings for search engines or Technorati. Foremost, my blogroll acknowledges that I read and enjoy those blogs (and/or that those people read and enjoy my blog). Like a references section in a journal article, it lists the bloggers whose voices have influenced and inspired my own writing.

    Who is on my blogroll?

    If I list a blog in my blogroll, it means that I regularly read that blog. I may miss a post here and there when my life gets hectic, or may skim over a long post on a topic that is alien to me (such as about a TV show I don’t watch). But if a blog is up there, that means I am a loyal reader.

    I admit that there are blogs in my feed reader that I have not put on my blogroll. Usually it’s because I haven’t established a rapport with those bloggers. Sometimes I’ve just forgotten to add a blog.

    Some of the blogs there are fairly dormant. This applies especially to a few of my near and dear real life friends who started blogs, but didn’t keep them going for long. (But they should have!)

    I’m considering paring down the list, and removing blogs that have not been updated in, say, 6 months. (So post something if this applies to you!)

    Removing blogs from the blogroll

    It makes me sad to remove blogs from my blogroll, and I’ve done so only a few times. Mostly this has been when a blogger has deleted the blog or made it private. In at least one case I took a blog down after faithfully reading a blog and leaving comments for an extended time, and never getting back any sign of a visit back from that blogger. Another time I noticed that my own blog was removed from a blogroll, so I responded by removing that blog from my own.

    Adding to the blogroll

    I usually will add to my blogroll if I find my blog on a blogroll, and/or if I get regular comments from the blog author. I used to be fairly stubborn about not adding blogs without these happenings. Now I’m quicker to add if I find a blog I like (and if I happen to be in the mood to add links).

    I’ve been rather hesitant to add big, high profile blogs to my blogroll, but I have started to do that more. There are now several big blogs in my sidebar whose authors don’t read my blog, though they have at some point been courteous enough to come by for a visit and leave a comment (or otherwise acknowledge my existence).

    to blogroll or not to blogroll

    I’m not quite sure why some people don’t have them. (Well, laziness I understand, if that’s the reason.) Some prefer instead to share favorites from their feeds, some prefer to link to blogs in posts. I think these ways of expressing appreciation for other bloggers are great, but for me don’t supplant the blogroll.

    It seems that some people find blogrolls quaint and outdated. Well, call me quaint and outdated. (It wouldn’t be the first time.)

    Still others prefer to keep their reading lists to themselves.

    Where I stick it

    My blogroll has gotten a bit unwieldy, but I still like having it on my front page. In fact, I like having a theme that keeps the sidebar showing for all pages. Some people think a gigantic blogroll clutters the page, and detracts. But I like giving it the extra exposure. Call me cluttered. (It wouldn’t be the first time.)

    Blogrolling by numbers
    And to demonstrate my compulsive tendencies, I actually counted up the blogs currently on my blogroll, and tallied up how many had blogrolls. I made a spreadsheet. Call me a dork. (It wouldn’t be the first time.)

      blogs on my blogroll: 78
      blogs on my blogroll with blogrolls: 58
      blogs on my blogroll with blogrolls with my blog: 47

    Blogroll me, baby!
    In case you haven’t guessed it, I like being listed on blogrolls. It feels like support and validation. Also that acknowledgment of existence, which I seem so partial to.

    So, what are your thought on blogrolls?

    This was the first post of the metablogging series I threatened to write as part of my self-declared Merry Merry Month of Metablogging.

    mmmm…blogging

    I am declaring May to be the Merry Merry Month of Metablogging.

    Over the past few months, I’ve seen a change coming over the blogosphere. Bloggers are dropping out, frittering away. (Or perhaps just twittering away.) For many, the excitement over blogging has died down.
    mmmm
    But I still really love blogging. For a couch potato with many interests like me, it’s the ultimate hobby. It’s been more than a hobby, though. It’s been a way of making connections with people, continuing conversations and expanding my horizons.

    I know some people find blogging to be the most boring topic for blogging that there is. I’m not one of them. I’ve been quite fascinated by just about all topics bloggy. I like the blogging about the blogging. (I also like to use the word blogging.)

    Whereas I know I really need to buckle down and get cracking with my work, I really want to get this out of my system. There have been loads of posts that I’ve wanted to write, but haven’t had the time. (Or when I find the time, I lack the focus and energy.) But the metablogging topics have continued to weigh on my mind.

    For instance, I’ve wanted to share my take on, and my experiences with, these aspects of blogging:

    • blogroll and linking
    • commenting and discussion
    • identity and image
    • design and themes
    • categories and tags
    • traffic and readership
    • memes and group projects
    • popularity and rankings
    • personal disclosure

    Here are some of the questions I’ve also been thinking about:

    • Why did you get started in blogging?
    • What do you get out of blogging, and what do you want to get out of it?
    • What advice would you give to a new blogger?
    • What will be the future of pants posts?

    Anyhow, my plan is to cover each of these topics (as many as I can get to) in a series of posts this month.

    I’d really love it if other people would like to join in the conversation. If you have posts on blogging that you’d like to share (whether new or from your archives), let me know, and I’ll link them up.

    —

    In other news, the April Just Posts are coming up. If you’ve read or written posts on a topic pertaining to social justice, please send your nominations to me or Holly. Want to learn more? Check out the Just Posts info page.

    still off my feed

    I mentioned before that my feed reader¹ has gone all wonky. I use Safari to bookmark my RSS feeds, for blogs and news. I even added my Facebook friends’ status updates. It showed all my unread counts on the bookmark bar of my browser window, organized into folders according to my own nefarious purposes. I could even access the feeds offline.

    It was working really well for a long time, maybe even 2 years. Until last month or so when I was travelling. I don’t know if I just overtaxed things with the accumulation of unread items or what. (There seems to be something going on with an application called “PubSubAgent,” which keeps hogging all my CPU.)

    Anyhow, largely because of this, I haven’t gotten back in the swing of reading. I’ve been trying to visit people who leave comments, and trying to work my way around the blogroll listed in my sidebar, but my blogroll is actually a bit out of date. Plus I haven’t been doing a good job of keeping track of which blogs I’ve visited recently.

    Clearly, I need to update my system (as well as my blogroll²).

    Before I go transferring all my 150+ feeds over somewhere else, I’d love to hear how other people go about reading blogs. Do you use a feed reader? If so, which one? Do you like it? I have the impression that Google Reader is the most popular these days. I’ve tried Bloglines, but it didn’t thrill me.

    So, here’s a poll:

    Beyond that, are there any systems you have tried and hated? Want to try? For that matter, how many blogs do you read regularly?

    —————

    ¹ In case you don’t know what a feed reader is, it’s a way of consolidating articles and posts so you can read without going directly to the sites that publish them. They have the advantage of helping you keep tabs on which sites have new content.

    ² If you are not on my blogroll, and would like to be, let me know!³

    ³ If you are on my blogroll, and would like not to be…bite me. Or, um, let me know, too.

    It's RSS, baby!
    It's RSS, baby!

    learning to count to 2

    Hey again. It’s me. So, remember that thing I said earlier this week? About not managing to get the Just Posts up this past Tuesday, having said we would post them on the second Tuesday of the month? And then how I said we’d post a bit late, on the 10th. Well, it has come to my attention, thanks to an astute reader, that this past Tuesday was actually the first Tuesday of the month, and that the second Tuesday isn’t until next week. (Next Tuesday, to be precise.)

    So, um, we’ll be returning to our previously scheduled scheduling, and put up the Just Posts on Tuesday. Which is the 14th.

    In the meantime, I’m going to practice the following skills:

    1. reading a calendar, which I understand contains information about the days of the week.
    2. counting past the number 1

    Hey, look at that! My list goes up to 2! I must be making progress.

    just a bit delayed

    Having mentioned that we’ll be aiming to put up the Just Posts on the 2nd Tuesday of the month, rather than on the 10th, it turns out that today (being that 2nd Tuesday) won’t quite work this month. My internet connection was out all day yesterday, and only just got fixed early this afternoon. (I did manage to sponge off a weak wireless signal from a neighbor to go online a wee bit, but the connection was painfully slow, and dropped out more often than not.) In any case, I am now back online. With a faster connection than before, even. Hurray!

    Anyhow, the March Just Posts will be up on the 10th! This means there is still time for you to send in nominations. So please do!

    The Just Posts are a monthly roundtable of posts on topics of social justice and activism. For more information, including how and where to send your nominations, please check out the Just Posts info page.

    falling off the moving sidewalk

    Traveling with small children is challenging. Aside from keeping physical needs met and tempers in check, you need to tote a lot of stuff. On top of your own clothing, laptops and personal items, you have to pack clothing, diapers, toys, books and gear for the little ones, who aren’t able to transport this stuff on their own. And depending on their size, you also have to be able to lug along the actual children.

    At the start of our trip, we parked in the Boston airport central parking garage, where, for whatever reason, it is impossible to find baggage carts. It was going to be tricky just to get to the terminal.

    We put Theo in the stroller, had Phoebe walk with her little Hello Kitty suitcase, strapped one carseat to a suitcase, and put various backpacks and other shoulder bags (including the other carseat) on our backs and shoulders. John pulled two wheeled suitcases, and I pulled the third suitcase with one hand and pushed the stroller with the other. We were an awkward caravan, but somehow we got moving, down in the elevator and over to the pedestrian walkway to the terminal.

    We got on the moving sidewalk, which moved us along at a nice pace. John and Phoebe were a few paces ahead of me, and stepped off at the end. I was ready to do the same.

    Then the front wheel of the stroller turned as it went over the bump, and jammed into the base of the stationary railing just over the threshold. The stroller stopped, with its back wheels still rolling along merrily on the conveyor. The stroller blocked my way to step off, and I couldn’t manage to dislodge it with my one free hand. I had to run backwards in place to avoid being propelled into the back of the stroller, while trying to get the stroller unjammed with one hand, and keep my suitcase from hurtling forward with the other.

    It wasn’t pretty.

    Such is my life these days, especially since having kids. There I was, smoothly rolling forward, carrying on at something I’ve done dozens of times before. Maybe my hands were a bit full, but I never questioned that I was in control. Then one little snag hits, and wham! I’m flailing awkwardly, dropping my load, caught in the machinery. Trying not to be crushed by my baggage or to crush my offspring. Running clumsily in place to avoid falling on my ass.

    These past few weeks I’d been moving along quite well, accomplishing things. And now all the other things I’d been letting slide are starting to come hurtling back towards me, but my hands are too full to get a good grip. Our house continues to be chaotic, and I have work, home and family obligations to attend to. Missed bills. Taxes. Wedding gift for the wedding we already attended. Birth announcments for my 7-month-old. Thank you notes. Home repairs and car repairs and yard work.

    Meanwhile, I’m feeling pretty wiped out from the efforts of travelling, my push to submit the abstract, and the damn stomach bug. I’ve had this low level headache that I just can’t seem to shake. Things have also been rocky with Phoebe, who is adjusting to being home after the trip, sleeping in her own room and the 3-hour time difference. She’s still traumatized by her recent bout with the stomach bug.

    She is also showing signs of being a three-year-old. There have been tantrums. Basically daily. And maybe not just Phoebe.

    So, I continue to not be caught up with my blog reading. To make things trickier in that respect, my feed reader (Safari) has gone all wonky on me, and my laptop apparently keeps going into overdrive because of something related to that. I can’t access my feeds, so my blog visiting has been rather erratic. Once more, I apologize for being generally absent.