Comments or Conversation
I’ve been pondering for some time on how to word this blog, I think about it, then leave off, then when I log on to blogger again it re-surfaces, and it has become such a puzzlement I’m grasping the bull by the horns and saying my piece.
A short while ago when one of our blog friends on here was struggling with starting her blog, she asked me about replying to comments, I tried to give her the answer, but TBH I think I skirted round the issue as I wasn’t sure that I really knew myself, or I thought I did, but didn’t.
To begin ; you submit a post, and invite comments, which if you are lucky you get, on one or two comments there is something you would like to reply to personally, now, what is the best way of doing so, by putting a comment on your own space with a reference to the person or, go into their space and leave them a comment appertaining to the one they left? but where?
Another puzzlement to me, you read someone’s blog, find it interesting enough to leave a comment and maybe ask a question about the subject, You often don’t get a reply, as some people appear not to go back to their blogs and read the comments, or if they do, don’t give any feedback , so to my way of thinking, it’s like having a conversation with the hand cos the face ain’t listening
I’ve often read a new blog, liked it enough to leave a comment, and you hear nothing more, and it can be difficult to keep tabs on who you’ve visited.
It’s one reason why I’m thinking of dispensing with WP as I get about two comments and one of them is already on here,
I find I’m losing track of people because of the lack of continuity of conversation, I wonder if anyone else feels as I do, or perhaps no one actually understands what I’m saying. I put on an extra page for comments on this blog, hoping that it would be used for replies to comments, but it hasn’t been.
In WLS we had the luxury of posting direct to our own space, comments on others’ space and sending private massages, Now that’s the bit I miss on here., and not everyone wishes to divulge their email addy.
I often feel quite guilty that I haven’t maybe visited someone for a while, but then I think ‘have they read what I said’ why don’t they reply.
I’m aware that WP have a reply button below each comment, but how many people go back to see if there is one, and if so, follow it up, if relevant of course.
HELP
- Posted in: Uncategorized
Arlene and two adopted dogs. 
HI Arlene,
yup, ’tis time consuming, but whichever blog site you use, Blogger or WordPress,, you can use the many ways of keeping up with any or all comments….I see Europa’s listed all the ones I use, but I do find, (as I said on your Blogger site) that I keep checking and re-checking in case I’ve missed someone out …(and I usually have Bess barking at me when she thinks i should be attending to her and not the ‘strange screen’ I keep staring at … 😉 )
xPen ‘n Bess x ( woofs and hugs to the gang!!)
I think Tango and Ruby would agree with Bess and wish Mum would pay more attention to them, they probably think it’s a mirror and I’m admiring myself. LOL
But I do wish it wasn’t so complicated to leave them [comments] Well I’d better waken the hounds up to let them spend a penny then off to bed. I’ve been on the phone for nearly three hours, so everything is late to-night. Love to big sister Bess from Ruby and little sister Bess from Tango. LOL
btw, i do prefer to keep comments and subsequent replies on the post in question. i have enough trouble keeping things straight as it is.
k☼
Not having enough time strikes a cord Kirsten, and it can become very time consuming going back and forth, perhaps I’m just frightened I miss something LOL
wow, that was a lot to read! i use the simple approach, because time contraints and a ragged attention span make indepth endeavors on the internet difficult for me. i subscribe to my favorite blogs, read the posts that interest me, and commenet as i have something to say. its not too hard to go back and see what dust i stirred up on any given post. sometimes i get engaged in a conversation, sometimes i get nothing. usually its a few brief exchanges. as for commenets on my posts, it just depends on the content, and whether it sparks interest or not. i do have a few readers, so thats who i hear from most. i would like to have time to do more … but right now i just dont have the time to stir things up like i would like to. ;D
k☼
In fact, I might do another How-to both comparing Blogger comments and WordPress comments to each other so that you can see the difference.
Arlene, It’s Blogger where you don’t automatically get an email sent whenever anyone comments on your blog post. On here, if someone replies to a comment or leaves a comment on anyone’s blog they should get an email informing them of that fact.
As I am on both, its one of the annoying things on Blogger that you do not get an email sent whenever someone leaves a comment. (and has been requested by many for their new updates to Blogger when they update it next.) Also I love the way that comments are threaded on WordPress so that you can reply to an individual ‘commenter’ rather than the very indistinct ‘Reply’ you can do on Blogger. (Again, many have requested the same function in Blogger comments)
Did everyone know where to come to read your blog on here or have you been pushing the Blogger blog more?
As I also do ‘clone’ posts to both, they both have their strengths and weaknesses but WordPress is at the moment, better than Blogger in my opinion for the way it handles comments.
Just my twopenceworth. Oh and I’m clicking on that ‘Notify me of follow-up comments via email’ at the bottom of this comment box so that I can follow the conversation.
Yes TG I was aware of that [reply in WP but not in blogger] also that you get emails, my inbox is full of them but it’s also everyone else’s reply too. LOL. usually gom back to my blogspot to check out if anyone has left a comment and almost invariably leave a general reply and possibly single out any that I feel merits further subsequent comments, check back on my blog if you wish. I just don’t understand why people can’t go back to their blog and when they feel it has run it’s course for comments, just say thanks for comments and answer any questions or make further remarks if necessary. No I didn’t push this blog apart from putting on the side of blogspot, also blogging on….. with a couple more blogs I do, but I think it’s people who already followed me have commented. Bless my friend Wolfie, she has followed me and boosted my flagging spirits from when I first started.
Yes but that only works on your own blogs. If you want to keep track of comments on other peoples blogs “Track my comments” is the easiest way to do it. Unless you want to “subscribe by email” and receive a large supply of emails for chosen blog every time anybody comments on it. Often leading to a return visit to chosen blog anyway, because you’ve lost track of what the latest emailed comment update applied to anyway!!
Well I have had many ideas on whether a blog is primarily for imparting a specific opinion , incident or an experience or even poetry and storytelling , whichever I believe that the subject matter is designed to elicit comments only on that blog not to be seen as a continuous medium of conversation unless the blogger specifically continues to post in the same particular vein ,personally I think that continuously carry on a conversation can be a bit tedious after a while unless you and the blogger have the same ideology on a matter ,even then I think a better mode of carrying on the conversation can be found like a specific blog site to cater for those who are keen followers of your writings on a particular subject.
These are just my thoughts and not intended to retract from your great blog on a rather perplexing dilemna that we all face at some time or another
A great observational blog
Ian aka Emu
Yes Wolfie, never had so many comments on WP love it and thanks lol, I feel the point of blogging is being missed when there are no comments. I thought that’s what it was all about. Now I’m not saying for one minute that my comments on others’ blogs are interesting or profound but even just thanks for reply to comments shows that they’ve been read, not just mine I hasten to add.
Thank you for you input Ian,also compliment on post. While I do understand what you’re saying and i think a conversation blog sounds like a good idea if it was made clear that it was posted up on the lines of ‘would you like to discuss’ or Opinions on the following’ but I was simply referring to, to put it in a nutshell, that posters don’t thank commenters, after they have taken the trouble to read the post, to me it’s good manners. A general, ‘Thanks to all for comments’ at the end of a blog would be nice, they could perhaps pick out someone who has maybe asked a question referring to something specific in the post.
I’ve got a feeling I could be making myself unpopular here. maybe by upsetting the apple cart. but speaking my mind was always in my nature,
I didn’t see all your comments Wolfie as they obviously came on when I was composing mine, but I’m leaving the digesting of them till to-morrow, as I am tired and Tango is pushing my arm, I think I get the hint. catch you tomorrow
LoL…The hint?!! What…that you should join W/P full time you mean? 🙂 That it’s better than Blogger?!! Just a thought btw…people need training in the art of replying to their comments! You’d be surprised how many people joined my network and had never replied to any comment ever. In fact I never did when I first started out I thought it wasn’t the “done thing” since nobody else seemed to! BUT! People spending time on Wolfie’s site soon learned all about the benefits of replying to kind commenters! Lots of interesting conversation! You just have to be patient and bombard them with replies on yours and their pages all the time till they realise what they’re missing by rudely not replying!!!!
No I’m not joining WP full time dear me poor Tango would never get out and I’d never get any painting done. But I do enjoy looking at other blogs, some are very interesting and some really a work of art. Oh I wish I had more time.
Well my great friend Arlene…lol…you did say you didn’t get any feedback on here…lol…so I’m just making sure to prove you wrong!!!
Btw..where else does it snow on your blog!! I love my snow!!!
BTW Wolfie, what did you mean about ‘where else does it snow on my blog’? WP offered it as a gadget, or on my blogspot I downloaded it from Blogmation. I love all these silly things, entering my second, or is it third? childhood.
Re “where else does it snow on my blog” I didn’t know anywhere else apart from W/P offered the option to have snow. I haven’t seen it on any other site but obviously it is!! It would be nice if I could just possibly maybe if it would condescend to let me, get back into my “myspace” account and see if that allows snow…but it won’t let me back in or change the password!! Must be the snow….lol 😉
Thanks for that fairly comprehensive reply Wolfie, but maybe I’m just looking for the easy option, but i still feel it’s a rather convoluted way of having conversation, Though my ‘beef’ if you can call it that is more that many folk don’t follow up their comments, when they are replied to, so no use looking for what’s not there, Oh dear I don’t want to sound like a moaner, so sorry if I do, but I love conversation but maybe I’m contributing to the wrong social network, FB is too short, as is Twitter and rather impersonal. I don’t really want to have loads of followers, as I say I couldn’t keep up, but it does sometimes put me off looking out of curiosity, at others blogs, leaving a comment and you never hear anything else, and sometimes the blogs are very interesting and one I’d like to re-visit, then due to lack of follow up, I forget them, hey ho, that’s life. Are you still there Wofie? LOL wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t . off to let the dogs out and off to bed, G’night.
A lot of people have never had the “feedback to comments” experience especially if they’re not WLS’rs! They need educating 🙂 Most who try it end up loving it but ya gotta teach them and show them what they’re missing!! And don’t you think this reply option is useful? It makes it obvious exactly who you’re replying to and you don’t lose the thread of the particular conversation 🙂 Catch ya tomorrow…eyes on floor! 😉
Yes Wolfie, this reply button is good and I try to use it, but I really prefer Blogspot as a platform, probably because I can pretty it up, lol now isn’t that pathetic, I know you have to subscribe to follow someone’s blog, but as I said I’m not really looking to break records on numbers of followers. cripes, I’d never get anything done. But even using the reply button doesn’t guarantee that the original commentator is going to come back to check, oh dear it does get complicated.I’m sorry you’ve had bad experiences, I wondered why you haven’t been blogging [I do check you know]
Feedback not quite over!!!!! You need to have subscribed to a person’s W/P blogsite to get updated comments in “Track my comments” 😉
So far as feedback goes, there are givers and takers in all walks of life. We all like comments and feedback or we wouldn’t be here…so I dare anyone to say otherwise! But one or two quality comments are far preferable to dozens of not even thought about one or two word comments I would say!
Now…is this enough feedback for you? And is there a big enough quantitiy of comments from Wolfie to cheer your spirit tonight/today? lol…I don’t get to Blogger as much W/P so sometimes it’s hard to keep up. I’m also not at all keen on leaving any comments/feedback at the moment as I seem to be putting my big wolfie paw in my mouth and saying all the wrong things in cyberland everytime I open my mouth! I am rapidly losing confidence and hence no new blogs of late.
Also…as a consequence I’m not commenting on other peoples much so I can’t really expect them to bother with mine if I do post one can I? And I’m not going to be all pious and good and say I don’t worry about no comments cos I DO!!!! Feed back over!!!! Icewolfie hugs x 🙂
You can still send private messages via WLS. But to be honest email is a lot quicker, more fun with the new smileys, and it saves them so you don’t have to endure vanishing messages that take hours to re-do when Private Messages go wrong!!
Our WLS Space was pretty much the same thing as we have here on W/P or Blogger. We can still leave comments on other blogs (spaces if you like) and we can still post directly to our own blogs especially easy if you use Live Writer. Not that much has changed. Your displeasure at a lack of comments or replies is not a new problem either! You were saying that way back on WLS remember?!! Not that I blame you, I was just saying 🙂
So far as replying to comments goes I usually answer mine on my own page but I think it’s personal choice. With my g/bk on W/P I have recently taken to replying on the senders g/bk if they have one. The trouble with answering on the commenters page rather than you’re own is you’re jumping around blogs checking comments if they’re in the g/bks. W/P only tracks comments on the actual blogs not the extra pages.
Your idea of an extra page for comment replies is a good one, but again it can be difficult to keep track of which blogs they refer to especially if some time has passed or several new blogs have been posted.
You can keep track of any comments left after your own on other peoples blog pages in W/P by clicking the drop down arrow next to “My Account” at the top of your W/P page – if you’re logged in – and scroll down to “Track my Comments” which shows any new comments on blogs you’ve commented on and also gives the option to visit them if you wish.
Unfortunately Blogger doesn’t appear to do this, tho I do find clicking on “Comments” shows me all new comments on my own blog. Pity it doesn’t do comment tracking for other blogger pages too.
W/P has a similar option on the Dashboard sidebar – “My Comments.”