Recent Blog Entries
Comment collectors
Written by Tyme White on October 3, 2006
Community: A community usually refers to a group of people who interact and share certain things as a group.
9rules is a community, there is a lot of interaction going on here. That is the point of a community – share ideas, interact, have fun, learn, debate…you get the idea. As our communities grow the interaction will increase. So keep in mind, interaction.
So if I’m browsing your site, I see people commenting but you are not interacting back I’m going to wonder why you do that. Why are you having a one-sided conversation? Why would I want to add a site that will not help foster the community it is placed in? If you don’t do it on your own site, why would you do it anywhere else?
Now it’s cool if you don’t have people commenting, that will come in time. It’s cool if you don’t have comments open. And of course not all comments require a response but I think you know what I mean. Some site owners never respond.
But wait Tyme, I email my responses back.
Well, um, that’s great. I used to do that too until I figured out that when people came to my site it looked like I wasn’t saying anything but hey, you’re site, your world.
Tyme, aren’t you being a little two-faced because I heard you say in a podcast you aren’t into social networks?
I knew that was coming. You’re right I said that, but I interact on my sites. I did it on AOL, Yahoo…I feel like I’m repeating myself but I practice what I preach. Here’s my brand new MySpace (I’m still tripping I did that), Facebook (need to tweak it) and LinkedIn. Friend me. Message me. Do what you do so I know you can interact. I mean, when we have 9rules parties we don’t want you sitting in the corner all alone, do we?
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:18 am
You shall Friend me on all of your social networks or I will disown you. You probably won’t respond to this comment either.
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:11 am
Consider it done because I wouldn’t want to be disowned, would I?
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:21 am
After reading this, I went back and made sure I responded to some comments. Even though I do off an on, I probably don’t do it nearly enough. Thanks for the reminder.
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:31 am
I read a similar article about comment collecting… I think somewhere in the 9rules community blog… maybe about 3 or 4 months ago… Since then I have been more proactive… and I am sure it has helped our blog…
seeing 30 plus comments on one article is nice… so I completely agree…
October 3rd, 2006 at 11:56 am
Talk to me, Tyme!
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Ahha, You forgot to quote about Subscribe to Comments plugin for wordpress, actually its the only plugin which I can’t live without.
October 3rd, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Hey man.. I need more info on that plugin in… the link please… I thought about yet another plugin.. but my site is super slow… my host is killing me…
October 3rd, 2006 at 5:59 pm
9rules parties would be a looooong ways from me now.
I definitely agree with this article. There’s little more frustrating to me in the blogosphere than leaving a thorough comment on someone’s site, only to never have it so much as acknowledged, much less agreed with or debated against. It doesn’t really give me incentive to come back to the site; or, if I like the site that much, I’ll keep visiting, but will not interact anymore.
As they say, you get what you give.
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Oh, and, Nolawi, the plugin is here.
I hope you get things sorted out with your host soon. If they’re so bad that they won’t help in customer sevice or with your plan, tell them you will be reporting them to the Better Business Bureau and will be writing several detailed online reviews that will reflect your experience with them. Hopefully that will get them working…
October 3rd, 2006 at 6:25 pm
I know some blogs don’t have a comment system in place… but I’ve never understood why. I’ve always thought that, above all, the purpose of a blog was interaction. I agree with the commenter above me: it frustrates me to leave feedback and not get a response of some kind. It’s akin to speaking to someone and having them ignore you. I think it’s rude.
I keep a folder in my email client where all of the notices that WordPress sends me automatically go. That way, if I don’t have time to respond to a comment right away I have that message as a reminder to reply as soon as possible.
October 4th, 2006 at 8:44 am
I’ve officially reached cool status - I’m Chris’ friend. I rock.
Thilak - I too love that plugin and it’s probably something we should have on 9rules. As the author of the entry I am notified of comments but one of the reasons why I don’t post around the internet is because I’ll forget to go back.
Derick, it depends on what kind of site it is and I do keep that in mind. For example, a personal site if you’re publicly working through something would you want people criticizing your actions? That’s tough to go through and I can understand why the commenter would turn comments off. Of course to me that’s not a blog, that’s a web site.
Then there is the site where comments wouldn’t work very well. ScrivsTyme is an example - there were too many comments per entry on various topics from in the podcast so instead of comments on the blog we have forums. There are 9800 comments averaging 1900 comments per month (not including whispers). We do have interaction though.
But yes, most people think it’s rude to not respond to comments.
October 4th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Actually Lelia my host is expiring at the end of october… I plan to start with a new company… dreamhost or lunarpages.. thanks for the link
BTW Lelia ireall nice name…
October 4th, 2006 at 11:28 am
I came here thinking that someone else had a thing for collecting peoples’ comments and putting them in a spreadsheet for bedtime reading…
Just me then.
October 4th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Seriously though, I make sure that I regularly check for comments and get back to people. It’s only polite.
October 5th, 2006 at 5:28 am
Is important to get back and discuss with people.
October 5th, 2006 at 8:04 pm
Okay, so I will apropriately ask you–two days late for this discussion–when you feel is the cuttoff point for a response. People find posts in search engines all the time. If there’s no date on them (like this one, for instance,) then they may respond to what is for them a new discussion. Of course, they may do this even if there is a date on them.
Personally, I respond to almost all comments, but I’ve noticed here (and on many other blogs) a tendency to stop responding after the first day or two.
Also, there’s a certain point where the comments being left on a post have gotten off-topic and are headed further afield. We work very hard to create community and to foster conversation, but conversation has a tendency to evolve and go in its own direction. Do you have any sage advice for handling that eventuality?
October 6th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
That is a good question. If your blog software feature I would use it (or a plug-in). This will help with spam also. I just moved my blog over from Expression Engine (that has a built in close comment feature) to WordPress (where I need a plug-in) so I have to implement that again.
For discussions that go off-topic I would suggest having a small disclaimer above the comment box to remind readers to stay on track.
October 8th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Thank you for writing on the topic of responding to comments onsite. Ever since I moved to Wordpress and gained the ability to e-mail my replies I’ve been torn about how to respond. I finally decided to post a very quick response on my blog (mostly so that people can see that I’m actually responding and to keep the conversation going amongst commenters) and also e-mail a more lengthy response when appropriate. After all, so few people stop back again to see if the blogger has responded, so it seems like a lengthy response is wasted, and not everyone has signed up for CoComments. Plus, if they receive an e-mail from me a few hours–or a few days–later, it reminds me that I’m here and that they should stop back again.
October 8th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
I used to write back to people in the comments but I was never sure if they were coming back to see my response, though I suspected not. I also read a post where someone ragged on people for replying in their comments because it looked like they were trying to boost their comment count.
Neither of those seemed like good things to me so I started replying back via email and have gotten to know many commenters much better this way
BUT
as you noted, it doesn’t look like I don’t interact with people.
So I ask you, Tyme, is it worse to look like you’re boosting your comments when writing back to people (who may never see your reply) or is it worse to reply by email and look like an aloof, unresponsive lout on your blog?
It would be nice to solve this social networking dilemma once and for all
October 9th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
I cannot believe that there are that many serious bloggers out there who would actually believe that responding to user comments is some kind of underhanded attempt to boost their comment counts. Blogging is first and foremost about community; it’s driven by conversation.
Many, if not all, of the top bloggers out there respond to comments by writing comments themselves on their own posts. The chance to actually interact with this person as a real person is the reason users come to their blog whereas they will actually bypass the same content posted in the older ways on a non-interactive website.
Some of us (meaning bloggers in general) have even taken the time to go out of our way to differentiate our own comments from those of outside users. We make sure that our own comments don’t blend in with the rest of the comments by using special styling. (This, BTW, is built into some themes.) We’ve recoded our comment functions to not hyperlink our name to our own site that the user is already on.
I apologize for going so long on this comment, but another important aspect of responding to commenters by email is the matter of privacy. Unless it’s clearly stated on the comment form itself or in the site’s privacy policy (and every site should have one) that you are going to email users, those users have a right to expect you not to use their email for anything except internal tracking. Commenting on your site is not an invitation to email someone, and ALL unwanted and unsolicited email is spam.
There are numerous plugins for almost every major blogging platform that allow users to sign up to receive comment notifications (subscribe to comments) or site updates (subscribe to newsletter) or even get RSS feeds delivered to their email address (RSS to email). When a user sees one of these on your site and fills out the form or checks the appropriate box, then (and only then) are they telling you that it’s okay to email them in some form or another and only for what they’re signing up for.