Comments on: Blog Commenting Tips Are Utterly Ridiculous

By: Mickey Schraub

Mickey Schraub — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 03:31:44 +0000

Thanks for the article! Just browsing around online I get into some cool stuff. Anyways, back to school work…

By: Errol Canterbury

Errol Canterbury — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:29:57 +0000

Hello, i guess this is as good of a place as any to post and let you know. I went to subscribe to your RSS feed, and when i clicked it i got an error that said “Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING” followed by other gibberish that scrolled off the screen. I had to force the page to stop loading because it locked up my browser. Cheers.

By: Matt Jones

Matt Jones — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:24:05 +0000

In that case I look at who left it and what their sites URL is. If it has been marked as spam by Aksimet it probably isn’t any good.

By: Matt Jones

Matt Jones — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:23:06 +0000

Yes ultimately its up to the blogger to make the choice, but the top-commentor plugin rewards most regular commentor, not necessarily the one who comments with the highest number of words.

By: Matt Jones

Matt Jones — Mon, 05 May 2008 08:20:51 +0000

“But what *is* the purpose of comments? I think it has to be a way to add value to the *conversation*”

I don’t think it’s even as profound as that, its just a way for readers to respond in whatever way they want to.

By: Srdjan Stankovic

Srdjan Stankovic — Thu, 01 May 2008 18:02:17 +0000

Matt, you probably receive comments like this “I just want to say that I really enjoy reading your posts. Best regards…”. Aksimet marks this as a spam comment. There are two options:
- the comment is written by someone who likes your blog
- the comment is pasted from clipboard, person who wrote that comment sends same comments to other blogs in order to receive traffic.
Well, this comment can be treated as spam, because it is not useful for other readers, it is not related to subject of your post and it will not initiate any conversation. But, it is also a polite spam, and if you just started blogging it is nice to see that someone actually visited your blog. That’s the reason why I approved similar comment on my blog. But when you receive many comments you need to be more selective.

By: Mohsin

Mohsin — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 07:07:49 +0000

Right on Matt. I don’t really mind one-liners as long as they are not spam.

If a reader wants to add value to the discussion, cool. But if they only want to let me know that they found the post useful or funny, they are also most welcome.

By: Ramona Iftode

Ramona Iftode — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 09:15:36 +0000

I think it’s all a matter of perspective: I am a small blogger, my project gets few comments, I am still working on promoting it and maybe draw in some more people who’d be interested in my work.

For me any comment (as long as it’s not utter spam or swearing) is just great. For this I have the top commentators plugin and I am happy to see people come and comment and why not, battle for that top spot.

Still, after the blog is growing, so do the expectations for the commenters. The blogger knows his/her blog is already a source of potential good traffic for the commenters and this makes some be more willing to diss anyone who’s not getting into their quality limits they set now, since at first any comment was good comment.

It’s something like “equality, but not for all”. I know some comments that are too short might be a tad frustrating since you’d expect some info, but as you said, maybe it’s just a visitor who’s pleased to read a good article and wanted you to know that. On the other hand, getting on the top list means that innocent visitor kinda knows the drill of the top commenters and was on a posting spree.

Maybe some guidelines would be good for such bloggers who want more quality commenting. I assume I’d do this too, if a normal comment wouldn’t suffice anymore. Don’t know .. never was in this position.