The big online goal for me this year was to get back into reading blogs. I set up the Connected list and created an easy, one click, way for someone to subscribe to the entire list. (There are over 135 blogs listed, by the way! These are bloggers that are WRITING.)
I am not great at always being able to read everything. But even if I carve out time to read blogs once a week that is 100% better than what I was doing.
{and obviously – if you looking to connect with more blogs please add your site to the list.}
After spending some time reading yesterday evening I realized that I have some VERY specific gripes about how some sites manage their comments. (don’t even get me started on contests and giveaways)
When it comes right down to it the easier it is to leave a comment on your post the more likely you will be to receive comments.
Ten Commandments of Blog Comments
1. Do not close your comments.
I used to close comments on posts about day to day Alzheimer’s stress because I assumed anyone reading it would have no idea what to say to me. I shut myself off from support when I really could have used it. As a reader it is frustrating to become invested in a blog post and feel motivated to comment, even if it is as simple as, “so sorry”, and then discover that the author has closed comments. There are a handful of blogs that I had to stop reading because I just felt so twitchy that I couldn’t respond.
2. Do not rely on Facebook for comments.
A new trend right now is a plugin that allows people to comment on a blog post and have that comment be published on Facebook. This is unsavory for two reasons:
a) it is not mobile friendly
b) I don’t want my comment to you to be public on my personal Facebook wall
3. Do not require readers to be logged into specific blogging platforms to comment
This is specifically an issue with blogger and wordpress.com sites. I do not want to have to log into my gmail account to comment on a blog. Nor do I want to log into wordpress.com. {If you have this going on on your site and want help fixing let me know!}
4. Don’t get me started on disqus
I know this comment system has a loyal following but I am not a fan. For starters – it is not mobile friendly. It also doesn’t foster community. If you leave a really great comment on a blog I want to KNOW you. I want to READ you. With disqus (and many other comment systems) you can not click through to the comment leaver’s site.
5.STOP WITH THE CAPTCHA
Have you ever tried to enter a CAPTCHA on an iphone?
6. Non threaded comments discourage conversation
I try to respond to comments on my site. When I do I use the reply button ON my site. (this sends an email back to the person that left me a comment as well as publicly posts the response) Sometimes a person on another site will leave a seriously KICK ASS comment and the impulse is to high five them. If you do not thread your comments it can get messy.
7. Do not use a fake email to comment.
This is more for the folks leaving a comment. USE A VALID EMAIL ADDRESS! I appreciate comments and conversation so much. It’s one of the reasons why I like to write on the internet as opposed to a paper journal. I like being able to write back to comments when I can, but it is heartbreaking to have a reply bounce back. If you don’t want to use a primary email address for leaving comments consider creating an account that is just for your blog comments. (and check it often for responses)
8. Do not overly lean on comment moderation.
This is a tricky one as it is more about my need for instant gratification than anything else. I know that it can be scary to just leave your door open for anyone to walk into your blog and leave a comment. I know that using moderation allows more control. It also is probably keeping some folks away. What if they don’t see their comment published in a specific window? Does that mean that their comment wasn’t worthy of publication? Again, this is just to put you in the mind frame of your readers. You can always moderate live comments.
9. Try not to overwhelm your readers with logging in options.
Yes. I am looking at you Intense Debate.
10. Why are you writing?
As you are writing think about why. Imagine that you were telling your story or post to a friend. What do you want their reaction to be? I think about this often when I am writing something emotional. Usually the more raw posts receive the smallest interaction. I suspect this is because people do not know what to say. Asking for feedback or advice is nice on a post. Even asking a question that is on topic is kind. I love seeing comment prompts on some posts because it shows me that the writer knows I am there.
Do you have any comment commandments?
See what I did there?
{ 53 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes. Everything you said. YES.
A-MEN on the Captcha. I can never read that stupid thing, even when I’m on my massive desktop (and I don’t *think* I have vision problems…)
YES! LOVE THIS!
I will add that for those leaving comments, you don’t have to say something spectacular! Just say you’re there! I love that!
Can you ask everyone to get off blogger? Because I CANNOT comment on blogger blogs from my phone/ipad which is often the only way I read blogs these days.
HI DRESDEN!
HI CASEY!!
YES! I really can’t believe Captcha is still a thing. Also, thank you SO MUCH for creating the Connected bundle – I didn’t realize you had that, but I just subscribed to all the blogs! And now I’m off to make sure I have threaded comments on my blog. I think I do, but now I can’t remember…
So glad you like the bundle!
Let me know if you have any problems setting up threaded comments.
What bundle???
Ooo, I need to check on #3 now that you mention it. The others get a resounding YES from me.
I have one more: if you respond to a comment a person leaves on your blog, try to let them know! This is easy to do in wp: I use the email form to reply (just hit reply on the email version of the comment) and cc the email the commenter has left. So easy! It drives me crazy to think that someone may have replied to a comment of mine and that I will NEVER KNOW unless I go back to their site to check nine zillion times.
I try to do this!
(side note: I know of two cases where I have forwarded a comment to someone and the original commenter never followed up, so to speak — which made me realize that I should enable the ability for all response comments to be emailed to original comment. so THANK YOU!)
This is one benefit of Disqus…it automatically emails you when someone replies to one of your comments. And it does threaded comments nicely.
Unfortunately, where I blog I had two choices: require people to get a specific log in for the community or use Facebook. I reluctantly went with the later. I figured that more people had Facebook accounts, and you do not have to push comments to your personal wall. (That’s one nice thing about our site is the default is not to show on your wall. You have to click a box to send your comment to Facebook.)
I wish I could just let people type.
that should say “the latter.” Ugh.
I assume I have the problem with #3, people having to log into gmail to comment. Please do tell me how to fix this!
Also, I’d love to know how to comment on a comment so that it gets emailed back to the commenter. (did that make sense?) one blog that i write comments to… the blogger responds to my comments and i get her responses in my inbox — love that. do you know how to do this? (if yes, please do it here so I know that you responded without me having to come check this post and its comments again!)
This is me leaving a response to your comment. You should get this response emailed to you
As for #3 – yup – you have this going on.
Here is how you adjust your comment settings on blogger:
1. Log into your site and navigate to settings
2. In the left sidebar find the wrench icon next to settings – click that to expand options
3. Select “post and comments”
4. Select “Anyone” under “who can comment”
YES – this means someone can be anonymous and leave you a comment. But you can always delete anonymous comments.
I especially agree w/#6 (as I check it’s like this on my own blog.)
just checked your site – you are good!
Hi Dresden- I think this is an interesting post because for the past several months I have been unable to comment on here!
. So many times I wanted to reach out to you and hold your hand, (I even sent you a personal e-mail, but I think the address I have is outdated), so this one hits pretty close. I, of course, don’t write anymore, for reasons that aren’t even clear to me anymore. I miss it. I miss you. But , I want you to know I read you everyday, and love you very much.
Duh- left some info out of that last response. I am not sure if I ciuldn’t respond because of some i-phone glitch or what. It wasn’t for lack of trying on my part. Anyway, I am glad that that situation has apparently resolved because I really miss playing scattergories!!! Love you!
SO GLAD TO CATCH UP AGAIN!!!
Going to check on #3. I have Wordpress and honestly no idea what it does.
As for #6, I was annoyed with this today because while I have threads, at some point it stops be from continuing the thread. Also, on my iPhone the threads don’t work.
Great list. Hope I’m not a big offender here.
I originally thought I could leave a comment on your site without being logged into a platform, but because the email I use is associated with a wordpress.com site it always navigates me away to being required to log in.
(by the way – your recent post is wonderful and I am sad that I could not tell you this ON your post)
If you want help in figuring out how to change your comment settings let me know!
Also, ironically, I just figured out how to post on your site with my blog actually showing up. Many of my recent comments havent pushed through to the blog because if I have h capitalized in http it was just rejecting the URL. Who knew?
I’m guessing that the CAPTCHA is word verification? That is seriously a pain and often I refrain from commenting with it. That said I am one who doesn’t allow anonymous comments as the few negative comments I’ve gotten we’re nearly enough to make me quit blogging. Yes I’m very sensitive to negativity.
I am so disappointed in people for being jerks on the internet!! You are so sweet and kind – how could anyone leave you a negative comment?!! ((hugs))
Yes, yes, and yes!!
Love these! I need to do better with the whole commenting thing, both on my blog and when I visit other blogs.
Thanks for the tips.
As for #3. Up till not long ago I had my blog open for anyone to comment. The problem is with the very annoying captcha. I tried removing it, but then there was spam all over the place. The best way to overcome it seems to close my blog only for Blogger readers. I think anyway most of my readers are from Blogger, but it is still annoying that it is either this or that.. oh well..
Oh, and a tip- I usually tick the notify me on new comments box that allows me to see if the writer had something to say in return to my comment, because once I have read a post, I mark it as read on my reader and never come back to it. Except not every blog has that option available and while mostly my comments, comments in general, are not a ping-pong, it is frustrating to comment on a blog and not have that option.
I’m the winner! I’m pretty sure I’ve got all those “correct” on my site. And yes, I SO agree with you. I leave a lot of comments and some of those things are so annoying.
you really are in the top tier of awesome when it comes to blog comments
I totally agree with these! I have a ton of spam on some of my posts, and I would rather manage with spam than make it difficult for people to comment on my blog.
A to the Men.
Dude thank you thank you THANK YOU!
YES!
Your commandments are my commandments and I think I follow them.
Very, very important stuff. I have to admit that I do close comments, but I’m off to change that now. And I’m awful at replying to comments. I need to find the time.
BTW, on Wordpress blogs, I think you can log in on Twitter to comment?
Connie – you can log in to twitter to comment but then how does that connect someone to your blog. (plus, there is zero SEO benefit to that) (you know, if that sort of thing interests you. grin)
I definitely agree with these! It makes me so glad I switched to a self-hosted Wordpress site a while back. Comment system is simple and I have a plugin that emails commenters when their comment receives a reply.
In reading this though, I wonder what the answer is for Blogger blogs. I don’t really have much of a problem with Intense Debate or Disqus (maybe because I don’t use mobile a whole lot to comment on blogs). I’m hearing from blogging friends on Blogger that they are getting a lot of spam now that they removed the CAPTCHA. It seems like unless they open themselves up to everything and everyone (and spam) and reply to comments via email instead of on their site, they can’t possibly fit these guidelines. (Thankful again not to be using that platform anymore)
yay for your switch to self hosted!! You officially own your content now!
That is a shame that removing CAPTCHA increased spam for some bloggers. Personally I would still rather weed through spam if it meant making commenting easier.
If you’re getting a lot of spam, make sure you have akismet set up. that will help with a lot of it.
Thanks for a great post… CAPTCHA and Wordpress.com commenting are both the devil. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve abandoned a comment that I was leaving because I had to jump thru hoops and then the site erased it as I was jumping thru said hoops.
wooo for akistmet!!
hoop jumping for comments = no thank you
Can’t think of any, but these 10 are perfect! Captcha, I tried to use it and it was a pain.
That Wordpress login thing is a huge pet peeve of mine. Of course, I’m still on Typepad, which sometimes decides it won’t allow comments from certain browsers, so I guess I don’t have much room to talk. I do use CAPTCHA, but only because I’m otherwise inundated with spam.
Captcha drives me crazy. I have actually missed commenting on posts because I thought they went through and I didn’t scroll back down to see that indeed I needed to enter in that stupid combination of letters and numbers from hell.
OK, I use Wordpress and, gasp, Disqus. What comment system do you recommend??
I couldn’t agree more. I especially hate, hate, hate leaving comments on blogger sites.
I have been searching for weeks on how to have comments to my posts show under the post without having to click on the “number of posts.” In other words, just like I can read all your comments above, I would like to do that on blogger. Any help on how I do that.
Thanks,
Debbie
I love reading through comments when a blog hits me for whatever reason. I’m sure you bloggers like knowing that we are out there (I never comment by the way), BUT–as a reader I cant stand weeding through the non-informative comments. I wish there was a way to hide comments that are just for you, like the “thank you for posting”, or the “can’t wait to try this” type comments. Not trying to sound like a weenie, but the comments for me that are helpful are the ones that say “Tried this worked perfect, or tried this and had to do…”
I guess I wish there was a commandent sheet for people leaving comments. Done crying.
I agree wholeheartedly. I’m a big fan of CommentLuv Premium with all the bells and whistles. Also, I don’t like to have to register to comment. Great post!
Enjoyed your article! I just celebrated my 1st year blog anniversary and love to learn from others about what works and what doesn’t. I learned pretty early to get rid of Captcha as I hated it on other blogs and didn’t want to subject others to it. I blog to share my crafts and the comments and emails people write make my day. Found it all very positive and was lucky to have only one troll. Thank you for the tips. I have my comments open to all and just check to make sure there is no spam.
Revisiting this today after the feature on BlogHer — and am wondering your opinions on people on the Connected list that are not… participating? For lack of a better word? I’m specifically carving out time, commenting my heart out and… man. Nothing.
The captcha. Every time a site requires captcha a puppy dies. And a baby seal. Do it for the seals. PLEASE
OMGosh this was an amazing list and thank you so much! I have moderated comments on (though not for long now) and I didn’t know to make sure my comments were threaded. I really would like more people to comment on my blog (even if it’s just to let me know they liked it). Also added my blog to your list – hoping to find some more readers – and bookmarked to take a look when baby is sleeping later. Thanks again!