Comments on: Do Your Readers Think You Are Ignoring Them?

By: Ashish Mohta

Ashish Mohta — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:13:46 +0000

It happened with me few days back, the problem came with some theme error which sowed only comments from one particular post.Luckily i was notified by one of my good friend jhay.grow relationship with readers and bloggers, they will notify you

By: collis

collis — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 03:42:51 +0000

I found out today that my contact email had been down for a week thanks to a change in server, who knows what stimulating spam I might have received in that time!

But seriously I agree its not a good idea to ignore readers. Although I recently read on the hideously designed, but emminently readable StevePavlina.com a post about how he got rid of user comments and it was quite fascinating, read it here: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/10/blog-comments/

It does make you think though, out of all the readers, for example you have over a thousand here, how many actually comment or contact you? what percentage? I know on my own blog is about 10-20% which I would guess is quite a high percentage too.

By: jhay

jhay — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 01:46:09 +0000

I love my readers so much I reply to each of them via e-mail even if I don’t reply to their comments on my blog.

By: Bes

Bes — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:23:51 +0000

Good point. I seriously hope my readers do not think I am ignoring them if I overlook an email, a comment or even misplace something. I do go through the spam folder all the time, both in my email client and in WordPress, to make sure nothing good got caught in the spam net.

Also, Chris, I like your choice of not doing a “permanent” top commentors/comments display. Some people may have been commenting for many months, and that may actually depress some newcomers into thinking that they can never make it to the list. If one must do a “top commentor” thing and cannot avoid it, it should be a rotating commentor display where the top commentor stats are reset every week or month to allow everyone a chance to start from scratch.

I myself allow people to see the top commentors and a few other statistics on a secondary page and not the main page, though I have been thinking of ways on how to change it so that it does not coerce people into commenting more or feeling sad if they are not on the list.

By: Darren Cronian

Darren Cronian — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 17:21:12 +0000

We discussed this recently on my blog when a reader mentioned that she thought it was great that I answered all of the comments left on the blog.

By: Ivan Brezak Brkan

Ivan Brezak Brkan — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:23:06 +0000

Good point… But I would argue that your readers have better things to do than spam, expecially since you do write for web-savvy people…

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:18:29 +0000

What worries me about a permanent top comments display is I don’t want it to turn into a quantity competition. Sometimes people in those cases just throw in a comment to get their score up.

By: Ivan Brezak Brkan

Ivan Brezak Brkan — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:11:16 +0000

Seriously, you do have a unique writing style that does “poke me” to make a comment and makes it hard not to do so, although I manage most of the time. I’m not sure if you would be willing to do so, but a latest comments and top commentators coult encourage even more people to speak their mind… I know it works for me. Feed our egos!

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:06:21 +0000

Sometimes I am at a loss what to say

By: Ivan Brezak Brkan

Ivan Brezak Brkan — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 16:03:21 +0000

Spam or feedback… Hm In any case… Chris, you never write, you never call… I’m going to think you don’t care about us little people any more!

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:15:35 +0000

Very good point. I have had the same thing. Most often it is places where you have to register that never seem to manage to get my confirmation link to my mailbox.

By: Richard Beddard

Richard Beddard — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:13:00 +0000

There’s other ways you can ignore your readers. We installed a plugin that prevents spam by requiring people to comment to input an alphanumeric string as well. It didn’t work, and stopped people’s comments from being submitted. I’ve come across blogs where I have tried to post but failed because I can’t get past the anti spam measures.