A Comment About Comments

In a [previous post] I raved about just how much I loved the Akismet spam filter, and now I would like to rant about what happens far too often when a comment of mine is published. For after taking the time to actually read a particular post and submit an incredibly well-crafted comment that is meant to greatly enhance the reading experience of all concerned, it gets ignored.

Yes, it could be thought that it may have been something I said. In fact, some might even be wanting to go so far as to think that they now understand why Akismet routinely dumps my comments in the trash, but any who would want to think in such a way as this are obvious just not right in the head.

No, it doesn’t have to be much, and I give you [Crotchety] as a prime example of not doing much. For he always makes an effort to at least grunt something in the direction of each individual comment.

Another example would be [Joel], who is Canadian, which means that he doesn’t even have as much of a life as Crotchety, but he is paving the way to get a life by seeking actually engage his commenters most of the time. For this adds all the more to the subject matter of each particular post, and it keeps ‘em coming back—even if only to chunk another rock in his direction.

Yes, I have also encountered some who like to reply to their commenters via personal email, which is certainly a nice touch. On the other hand, that does nothing to extend the life of a particular post for those who are not privy to those private conversations.

I suppose it all depends upon what you want to accomplish with your blog. For if you are only interested in publishing what you want to say and could not care less about what others think about it, there is obviously no need to reply to comments, but if you want to grow a strong following, responding to comments is almost as important as the quality of your content.

Yes, there are those who are not looking for a response. For they consider their comment as being like a letter to the editor of a newspaper, and they are more concerned with just being published themselves than anything else. So, if you already have more readers than you know what to do with, just do as the newspapers generally do.

Of course, there are also the spammers, and you would do well to respond to even them. For in some cases, they really don’t have any idea that what they are doing is very uncool, and a politely worded explanation of why that is so just might convince them to stop it. Hey, if it doesn’t work, you can always move your blog over to WordPress and install Akismet.