Commenting Self-Audit - Day 1
May 3, 2008 by teachingsagittarian
How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?
Probably once a week. Most of the time someone’s already made a comment similar to the one I’d like to make, so I tend not to repeat it by adding my comment.
Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?
Not often - sometimes I get email notifications if I’m particularly interested in a conversation. Now because of the 31-day Comment Challenge, I’m using coComment, (which I actually signed up for ages ago, but never got round to doing anything more with it ….) and right now I’m just watching how it works.
Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?
I read certain blogs religiously, then other blogs if I have time - so I tend to comment on the same blogs. I do, however, comment on a new blogger’s blog if someone in my twitter network says “new blogger - please support”
Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments My Self-Review
Stay on topic.
I definitely do this. Comments are short.
Contribute new information to the discussion.
Not something I do all the time and definitely an area I could improve in and want to improve as part of this challenge. As I said above, if someone’s already said what I’m thinking - I don’t usually leave a comment - unless it’s something I feel strongly about.
Don’t comment for the sake of commenting.
Not guilty - I’m too busy reading all the posts in my reader to do this one!!
Know when to comment and when to e-mail.
Yes, I agree with this one - and I appreciate those people who read my blog that know it too. (It’s kinda like the way I treat twitter - somethings are not necessary for every man and his dog to read ………. )
Remember that nobody likes a know-it-all.
I certainly do not know it all, not even close. My mother always told me to treat others as I would like to be treat and this definitely applies to what you put in writing too.
Make the tone of your message clear.
Since my comments are relatively short - (aka: lacking substance 
…….. ) my message is usually one of encouragement or agreement.
Own your comment.
Always. I have never made an anonymous comment - again, something my very wise mother taught me - “if you’re going to say it - own it”
Be succinct.
Short comments usually are! I will keep this in mind though, as I begin to work on improving the substance of my comments.
Cite your sources with links or inline quoting.
Already a habit - comes from all those B.Ed assignments I think!!
Be courteous.
Thanks Mum, another thing you’ve already taught me well.
Don’t post when you’re angry, upset, drunk or emotional.
Never done this ….. especially the drunk one - I can’t read when I’ve drunk too much! Plus I don’t think I’ve ever been that incensed at a blog post ……. yet ………
Do not feed or tease the trolls.
I watched a couple of conversations when this happens - and I don’t like it.
This Self-Audit has definitely highlighted a couple of areas for me. The lack of substance to my comments was something that I was aware of already, but didn’t quite know how to move beyond it. I’m hoping that, by taking part in this 31-day comment challenge, this area in particular will improve.
I’m also looking forward to reading some new blogs and taking on the challenge of keeping to Gina’s guide to blog commenting.
And if you are part of The Comment Challenge remember to add the ” comment08 ” tag to your post.
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
Oh dear! What can I say looks like Technorati is going to give me grey hairs. It has been picking up Edublogs tagged with comment08 like you have done but it hasn’t worked for you
I suggest you add “And if you are part of The Comment Challenge remember to add the ” comment08 ” tag to your post” to text in the bottom of your post”. Read the information on the front page of the wiki to see what I mean.
Meanwhile I’m disagreeing with some of Gina’s guide to blog commenting — so may have to write that post.
Thanks for the tip Sue! Thank goodness we have your expertise! Have now added that extra bit to help Technorati pick up my posting.
I will be interested to see what parts of Gina’s guide to blog commenting you disagree with.
Okay I worked out what the problem is you need to log into Technorati and ping your blog. Then your Edublogs tags should work. Technorati hasn’t indexed your blog for 19 days.
I definitely will tell you (once I’ve checked 100+ blogs)
One main reason I track conversations is not that I want to check for a reply to my comments, but because I always think that a post without comments is not that good.
I’m always interested to see what readers think or add to a post.
Well…. that might be hard to do and give more grey hairs to Sue, but that would be nice if the challenge also includes reading others comments, and not only commenting
Hi Christophe
I think that one of the daily activities includes having to read others comments as you are challenged to carry on the conversation started from a post and subsequent comments. Granted, it is hard to carry on a conversation if there are no comments! I too are interested to see what readers think - I must admit though that for the most part, my comments don’t really add to a post and part of my own challenge is to improve in this area.
Thanks for your comment - conversation engaged!
I would even add: there are three main reasons why I stopped reading some blogs:
- The blog does not allow commenting
- The blog owner never answer
- or, even worse, the blog owner disappear as soon as he is caught writing something wrong
And this includes blogs written by so called “top bloggers”.
So Remember that nobody likes a know-it-all is really very important for me ……
And….. respect your commenters (if they respect “Be courteous”), and help them
Yes, a monologue is hardly a conversation
Note that commenting does not necessarily mean having a conversation, although this is the almost always the cases.
Commenting can also be to add some elements/details to a blog post, or just simply to leave a nice message to a blogger so he can see he writes for some happy/interested readers and is motivated to write more
Overall, I like the interactivity the commenting gives to us.