Les links to today’s Dork Tower on a topic important to most bloggers. Go ahead and read it …
… okay, and we’re back.
Comment counts, as much as page hits, are sort of a currency amongst many bloggers. They validate the value of the blog (and thus the blogger), it’s felt.
A lot of it boils down to why one is blogging. Is this a personal expression and sharing sort of thing, or is it, bluntly, show business. If it’s the latter, then you’re pushing for lots of comments, and probably lots of hits. And it means you’d better be ready to do whatever is necessary — like someone in show business — to bring yourself to others’ attention.
I’m definitely more in the former category. I blog, not to be mentioned on InstaPundit or MeFi or BoingBoing every day. I blog because it’s a way to express. If I have an audience of 10 or 10,000 doesn’t make that much difference to me.
Okay, that’s a lie. Getting 10,000 visitors a day (as opposed to a month, which is about where I’m at) would be a bit daunting, but an incredible ego-boost. But I’m honestly not willing to do what’s necessary to get there (which is why I’m not in show business). And I’m honest enough to know that a lot of what I post about is simply not all that interesting for a lot of people.
But what does that have to do with comments? Well, there is certainly a correlation between overall readers and overall commenting. But even in a smaller forum like this, how does one engender comments?
Damned if I know.
Like Les, there have been times I have put blood, sweat, and tears into a given post, sure it’s going to inspire lots of commentary and discussion. Cue the crickets chirping in the background.
And there have been times when I’ve made a wry, offhand comment, or posted on something trivial, and had it just explode.
Looking at the most commented-upon posts, it’s a wide array of topics:
115 comments: Why U.S. Bank sucks, and Margie is marvelous (05-Jun-02)
36 comments: Car talk (09-Jun-03)
31 comments: Distractions (26-Mar-03)
31 comments: Suing our own fat asses off (25-May-02)
30 comments: Liar, liar, Iraq’s on fire? (10-Jul-03)
29 comments: This is wrong (22-Oct-03)
28 comments: When is an ID not an ID? (31-Jan-02)
27 comments: Return of the King (22-Dec-03)
23 comments: Evil! Evil! Evil! (29-May-03)
23 comments: Splitting hairs (26-Feb-04)
(The above are from this script; I don’t generate this all the time because of the processing delay. For my own notes, to update I have to rebuild the Most Comments template, then run this PHP file.)
Most of the topics above are serious ones — except, maybe, for the cars and RotK ones. Few of them are personal (i.e., about me; all of them, clearly, have a personal passion of some degree behind them). The most-commented ones are where the commenting community has taken off with the discussion, as opposed to it simply being ones where it’s been back-and-forth with me.
I note that only a couple of the above are about Iraq or the Presidential Campaign. That’s good, since I’m more or less skirting those topics for the time being.
As general rules, comments are engendered by readers with a level of comfort in the setting. That is, the posts have to be interesting enough (and have something interesting to comment about), but the environment has to be safe enough for people to feel they can say something. That means no flaming, certainly not from the blogger him/herself, unless what’s desired is comment-count-through-flame-wars. That also means responding to comments (as proper) and keeping conversations alive.
I know I wish I had more folks commenting on my posts, just because I like the conversation. If there’s something you, as readers, would find more conducive to commentary, let me know. But, even if the commentary is minimal, I’ll keep on blogging about this sort of stuff. Because, ultimately, it really is about me (so to speak), not about fortune and glory.
Thanks heavens.
It seems to me that many blogs with explosive comments are those that make explosive commentary. I am pretty sure I would get more comments at the Flea but am ruthless at pruning out material that is insulting or simply argumentative. If I were to leave such comments be I imagine fights would break out and comments (and possibly traffic) would be generated but I decided early on that my blood pressure could not take it.
I am with you in your befuddlement at what provokes a reaction and what is left in silence. Sometimes I post something tongue in cheek to get a reaction and nothing happens while the other day a debate broke out about the efficacy of Ewok military tactics. I take * no * responsibility for that one. 🙂
I’ve rarely hacked out comments that were posted — but I’ve rarely had to. I usually answer harsh comments with something a bit more reasoned — that usually doesn’t provoke a response in return (indeed, many of the original commenters go away at that point, which makes me think they were trolling for flames).
Something that’s well-reasoend and clearly well argued is much harder to respond to than something that’s done quickly and without much effort. Hence posts that you spend ages on are less likely to have something someone can pounce on than those that you do without so much effort.
Perhaps some readers (***Dave’s and Flea’s) who stick around are exercising restraint in responding to provocative posts so as not to raise their own blood pressure.
Long debates on geeky trivia are a good way to exercise the need to argue without anything really important on the line, and consequently little impact on one’s blood pressure.
Well, I wouldn’t know anything about those …
Two things:
One, unless I have a strong opinion about something, I’m just here to study _you_ and your opinion.
Two, I’d respond more if you turned off archiving via robots in your comment pages. My minor comments here and there don’t need to be posted to Google. pgrinning]
One, unless I have a strong opinion about something, I’m just here to study _you_ and your opinion.
Well, I’m certainly flattered.
Two, I’d respond more if you turned off archiving via robots in your comment pages. My minor comments here and there don’t need to be posted to Google. pgrinning]
Well, the individual archives are the “archive of record,” and since so many of my own bon mots are in the comments, vs. the actual posts, I’m afraid I’m stuck with that. 🙂