Do You Think Bloggers Are Commentors, and Vice Versa?
One of the mentalities that I try to promote is that good bloggers should be readers, and that good readers should be bloggers. A good blogger should be able to read and respond to comments, thereby fulfilling the job of both a reader and a commentor. A good reader should be able to read and respond to a blog by writing a comment, thereby fulfilling the job of both a blogger and a reader.
However, this concept needs to be defined further to that a standard can be set for people who want to follow something that allows both bloggers and commentors/readers to be appreciated.
What is your view on the concept of good bloggers being good readers, and good readers being good bloggers? How about bloggers being commentors, and commentors being bloggers?
inspirationbit says...
I don’t think that some standards can be set for bloggers and readers to follow. W3C can’t reinforce their standards with browsers, how can we expect people to start following some relationship standards?!
Personally, I wasn’t commenting much on other blogs before I launched my own blog. Partially because I didn’t know how to behave myself on those blogs, I didn’t have the feeling of “belonging” in the blogiverse until I personally got into blogging.
Now I do enjoy comments and interaction on my blog, and I do like to contribute with my thoughts, opinion, questions by commenting on other blogs. However, I don’t comment all the time, not on all blogs. I usually comment only when I have something to say, otherwise I feel phony when commenting just for the sake of showing off the link to my blog.
Everett says...
I am a blogger and an AVID blog reader, sometimes a commenter as well. Often times, however, my eyes are so tired and my brain is so saturated from reading fifty blogs with multiple posts on each that I don’t have the time, inclination and/or mental bandwidth to provide thoughtful feedback in the form of comments. But I enjoy when my own readers do so, which is guess can be a bit selfish. huh…
Ronald Huereca says...
inspirationbit,
I’m hoping to write on the points you brought up. Thanks for your input.
Everett,
I’m also a blogger and avid reader. I read so much a day, it’s impossible for me to comment on every blog I come across. I do comment, however, when I feel it’s beneficial to the discussion or I have something to add.
The hope for comments on every post, but there are some posts where I try to directly engage my readers.
BTW, Everett, thanks for commenting and please come back again.
Bes says...
Vivien-inspirationbit, thanks for the comment. Good point; people set their own standards, so how can we set something that people can follow?
Well, one thing we can do is to set an example. People can then decide if they want to try something new or if they want to hold onto the older things.
Yes, I have seen that your comments are useful and have very useful insight on my site, so I can imagine why you would want to focus on commenting.
Thanks again Vivien.
Everett, thanks for the comment! Good point [about mentioning that you are all 3. A combination is a good thing, trying out different things and being part of it all.
Yes, sometimes I am also really tired to comment on something, so I will usually leave the comment window open or bookmark a site to come back to it later. I don’t think it is selfish, as one cannot “force” themselves to comment all the time and expect to be “wanting” to comment.
Thanks again Everett, I really appreciate your input on this. Like Ronald said, please come back again and share more thoughts with us; I would really appreciate it.
Ronald, thanks for replying and explaining things for Vivien and Everett.
I am going to look forward to your post on those points.
Also, I know you read a lot of RSS feeds everyday, so I can only imagine how hard it may be to comment on everything right away, I think.
Chris M. says...
I am an avid reader and commenter. However I wish there were an extra 4 hours a day just for reading/studying/learning. Blogs would definitely be part of that 4 hours a day.
Sad fact: On my own blog, most of the attempted comments seem to be from robots and are spammy.
I do love a good comment, it makes me feel good to know that someone finds my content useful.