As mentioned in my design decisions series, I believe it should be the reader, and not the blogger, who decides which content is timeless.

After I consolidated my design decisions series for another site, I quoted a reader’s comment on another blog:

When I find a blog with no time stamp, I feel conned. (From Erica)

I don’t personally feel conned, but a timestamp is a helpful tool in gathering context. For example, if I’m looking up something time sensitive, such as useful apps for my new iPhone, I wouldn’t want to read something dated March of 2008 because the new iPhone wasn’t out then.

On the other hand, as Darren pointed out, there are older posts which are indeed timeless (not date sensitive) that readers ignore simply because they are old:

The problem is that when you have a post that is ‘timeless’ (ie it doesn’t really date because the tips you give or the principles that you talk about will always apply) a date can act as a distraction to your reader. They arrive at the post and see that it was written in 2006 and a little warning bell goes off in their mind that what they are reading is not ‘current’.

While Darren presents some good arguments for having (and not having) dates on posts, the majority of his comments are in favor of keeping dates.

So Should Blog Posts Have Dates?

My official stance is yes. You’d be hard pressed to find a magazine, journal, or newspaper without some kind of time reference. Even reference material and novels have publishing dates and revisions. Why would the web be any different?

Yes, I can hear Liz Strauss saying, “But we’re on the web, not in print.”

While true, a time reference is one aspect of print that should be carried over.

The argument for removing dates is so that the content appears timeless. I would love to declare all of my content timeless. But it’s not up to me. It’s up to my readers.

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• Do You Believe in Keeping Your Users Up to Date?
• Please That Feed Reader - Increase Your Recent Posts
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• Two Reader Appreciation Initiatives Compared
• Where Do Want Ads?

We’ve written many articles here on the importance of having comments enabled. Even Liz Strauss has weighed in on the issue:

My personal opinion is, that if I read a really great article and I come to the end and I can’t leave a comment… These days, my response is sort of like, “They don’t want to talk to me, I don’t want to talk to them.”

However, there are some times when it might be better to disable comments, regardless of the consequences.

You’re On Vacation

When going on an extended vacation, perhaps it’s better to disable comments temporarily rather than let a potential spammer take over your blog.

An alternative to this is enlisting the help of a trusted friend to help moderate your comments while you’re away. If you are in charge of a multi-author blog, perhaps temporarily promoting one of your authors is a good fit.

You’re Done With Blogging

You’ve had it! You’ve experienced everything the blogosphere has to offer and you’re ready to move on.

If you decide not to sell your website and just leave it up for archival purposes, then it would be wise to completely disable comments on your blog.

You’d Rather Concentrate on Writing

In the case of Shawn Blanc, he didn’t want readers to think they had an obligation to comment on every post. Shawn concentrates on his material, and allows readers to weigh in to him via e-mail.

Prominent blogger Seth Godin also follows this approach.

You Don’t Ever Respond

If you find yourself never responding to comments, then perhaps it’s time to turn those comments off.

I’m definitely not perfect, but I do try to respond to all comments. However, if one never makes that attempt, then perhaps comments aren’t a good fit.

You Don’t Have Time

A while back, a blogger named Avinash decided to disable comments on his site. It was temporary, but I understood his reasons.

Some bloggers simply don’t have time to manage comments.

Bloggers have to deal with:

• Spam
• Moderating
• Trolls
• Responses
• Requests

Managing comments is a lot of work, and if you simply don’t have the time, then perhaps leaving them off is a better solution.

There Are Legal Issues

There has been some debate in the blogosphere recently about who owns comments.

There are also countries out there where the blogger is liable for a reader’s comment.

If a blogger is fearing arrest (or worse) over a comment someone else made, then perhaps it’s better to leave them off.

Conclusion

I’m absolutely 100% for having comments enabled. It’s one of the first steps in reader appreciation.

However, comments aren’t for everyone.

In your opinion, is there ever a time when a blogger should disable comments completely?

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I visit Slashdot every other day, and one of the things that irks Slashdotters the most is a linked article with multiple pages. Inevitably, someone will find the link to a printer-friendly version and be praised and worshipped by all.

You’ll mostly see multi-page posts on “newsy” sites like Slate, or tech-heavy sites such as Wired. But every now and then, you’ll find a blog that does it too.

Now when I’m talking about multi-page posts, I’m not talking about its related, but twice-removed, cousin called a series. I am actually a big fan of a decent blog series and have written quite a few myself.

Here’s why I find multi-page posts annoying:

• I’m a big fan of instant gratification. Forcing me to click through pages for content is just working against me.
• I don’t like swarms of ads and pop-ups (I’m looking at you Sitepoint).
• Page loading still takes a lot of time. Even in high-speed bliss, some pages still take a looong time to load.
• It’s an inconvenience to readers. Multi-page posts are not a convenience. They’re a nuisance. I can hear it now, “Look mom, clicking through all these pages is so much fun!”
• It’s disrespectful to readers. Do page views and advertisers really matter that much? I suppose so.

Lorelle VanFossen has also expressed her feelings towards multi-page posts.

Blogs are about communicating and interaction. They are about creating and maintaining relationships with your audience. If you are doing anything that interferes with their ability to read your blog posts and access your blog, you are just putting barriers up between your content and your readers.

Amen, Lorelle!

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hello my name is Alix i live in the uk and i have one thing to say to you. you call yourself a writer ok not got a problem with that but i think a writters main obective in life is to wite about subjects in a open minded way your comments on many subjects are ofensive, outragous and very critical. i find myself not seeing you as a wirtter but a very one minded and one opinioned person who in “My Opinon” should take a brake from writting on subjects which you clearly have no understaning of or concept of. and focus on what the world is really about and im sure you will cearly realise that the probem with this world todays is people like you! who set out there day to cause upset and complete disruption for every one around you. and this i find only happens in people who inside themselves are very comfused and unhappy, so to stop these things from happeing you find it in yourself to unnesserly put these insulting and agin very outragouse commments out there. to be honest i wish people like you didin’t have internet acces becasue your comments do nothing but cause great harm and is a waste of time.
that is all i have to say i hope you read this and understand what iam saying to you and to hoestly find it in yourself to take this as a heping hand.

So what to do when you receive comments like the one above? Granted, it wasn’t a death threat or anything, but it kinda makes you wonder if others might feel the same way. And if so, do you care?

My comment policy on my personal site is fairly loose. I will allow comments as long as they don’t personally attack me, defame others, and don’t have unnecessary swearing. My policy warns that to break the policy is to risk deletion. And, I will admit, the above comment was pushed rather quickly into my moderation queue until I could decide what to do with it.

On raproject, we have a similar comment policy. Personal attacks aren’t allowed, and neither is advertising. We also try to promote comments that add to the discussion.

Another example of a comment policy is over at One Man’s Blog. He doesn’t allow commercial links and would like commenters to leave real names (no nicknames).

My question to the reader, what is your comment policy? And if you have one, what kind of comments do you like to have?

I’ll conclude with a quote from Liz Strauss’s WordCamp transcript:

We have one rule on my blog: be nice.
[...]
I’m a firm believer in the more rules you put on a blog, the more loopholes people will find to break them.

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I argued that individuality (in the context of service) harms the customer, and the better approach is a team-based environment where customers (or readers in the case of blogging) are everyone’s responsibility.

I discussed this concept with a friend who is not familiar with blogging. He is, however, very familiar with customer service as he is a waiter at a local Mexican restaurant.

My friend is very popular among his customers, and his customers often ask for him by name. The other waiters do not like this, since waiters at his restaurant are assigned to tables on a turn-based basis. And since my friend’s customers tip rather well, the other waiters are green with envy.

This past week was a very popular holiday in America called Cinco de Mayo. It’s a nice excuse to grab some Mexican food and drink a few margaritas. My friend asked me to stop in, but warned me, “It’s going to be very busy.”

Indeed it was very busy. I was lucky to have found a parking spot, and I had to sit at the bar instead of my favorite table.

The waiters, whom often fought for customers, were scurrying around from table to table making sure everything was alright. That night, there was no set waiter per table.

I asked my friend about it a few nights later. He said, “That morning I came up with the idea. I told my manager that if we don’t work like a team, our customers are going to get slaughtered.”

When asked about the tip situation, he responded, “Even though I get the most tips, I felt it was better to share the tip revenue evenly that day. Everyone was pulling their own weight, and it worked out pretty good.”

In the end, Cinco de Mayo for my friend and his restaurant was a huge success. Many first-time customers came in to celebrate, and many returning customers came in to say hello. And, according to my friend, the day would’ve been a disaster had it not been for a team working environment.

Conclusion - How does this compare to blogging?

My friend’s Cinco de Mayo story is just a neat example of a person placing his customers’ interests first.

How do you think this example of a busy day at a restaurant compares to that of blogging?

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Think about the last time you had excellent service at a restaurant, store, or hotel. What made the service so excellent?

Perhaps it was the small details. The place may have smelled nice. The bathroom was clean. The staff were friendly.

These small details can come back as a negative as well. What about staying in a hotel where the room thermostat didn’t function? Or perhaps Wi-Fi happened to be down that day.

Small details usually only matter when there is something wrong. These small details, however, can make or break what is a good experience.

Blogs are no exception, and paying attention to certain small details can allow your readers to have a good experience on your website. Your readers probably won’t notice, but that is likely a good thing.

1. Turn on Full Feeds

There are many arguments for turning on full feeds. One is from an analytical content standpoint, and the other is from an aggravated reader.

I’ll make it simple: from a reader’s perspective, full feeds need to be on.

One extra thing you can do here is increase the number of posts showing in your feed.

2. Don’t Force Readers to Register to Comment

In the words of Liz Strauss, forcing (yes, I said forcing) readers to login is the equivalent of this analogy:

To me, that’s like putting a sign on the mailbox that says, “Excuse me, please. If you want to deliver mail to me, come up, knock on my door, ring my doorbell, and then wait for me to answer. And maybe I will.”

Again, from a reader’s perspective, there shouldn’t be a required registration to comment. Readers simply don’t have time to register for each blog they want to comment on.

3. Allow Comment Subscriptions

Another easy way to add convenience to readers is to allow readers to subscribe to comments.

If I go to a blog and leave a comment, I’d like to know if somebody replied. Typically if a blog doesn’t have a way to subscribe, I won’t be back. It’s nothing personal, but there are too many blogs to keep track of.

For WordPress users, there is the invaluable Subscribe to Comments plugin, which easily allows readers to receive e-mails whenever there are additional comments.

4. Remove that CAPTCHA

From a blogger’s perspective, CAPTCHAs can seem necessary. Many are overwhelmed with spam, and CAPTCHAs are a quick way to stop spam in its tracks.

However, CAPTCHAs are often defeated, and accessibility takes a nose dive.

One thing I’ve been trying out here is a WordPress Plugin called WP-SpamFree. The plugin has actually worked quite well when used in conjunction with Akismet. And the best part is, no CAPTCHA.

5…

Here’s where you come in. As a reader, what conveniences you when visiting a blog?

What lacking feature causes you to scream into the heavens, “WHY???!!!”

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While going over Liz Strauss’s transcript, I came across yet another ounce of wisdom. Sometimes, the readers don’t respond because they don’t know how to answer the question.

So why not show ‘em? Just jump right out of the blog post and go in the comment box and answer it. Here’s my answer. Here’s the way I would answer this. This is what I would say.

I’ve been experimenting with this a bit here and I have to say that so far it’s worked out fairly well. So if you see me as the first comment to my own post, you know what I’m up to ;).

But Liz brings up an good point. Sometimes the questions we pose at the end of our posts are vague. Sometimes (and I’ll be honest here), we don’t really care what others think, but we still want to invite them in to have their say.

Liz says she she spends more time on her ending question than on the rest of her post. Don’t take my word for it:

I spend more time on my ending question than almost any other part of my blog post. And the time I spend is like writing the question and going, “Ok, how would I answer it?”

I can sum up the genius Liz Strauss advice into three steps:

1. Spend a generous amount of time on your end question.
2. Ask a question you would answer.
3. Then, answer it.

As Liz puts it, why wait for the readers? You can comment first and lead by example.

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• Have I Offended You?

I was invited to the conversation, and I did my part. Did you do yours?

What I ask is a somewhat rhetorical question. Having the opportunity to transcribe Liz Strauss’s presentation, I came across some valuable gems of advice.

One of her points about why readers don’t leave comments was because readers notice when the author doesn’t respond.

Which begs the question: why would an author with no intention of responding to comments invite readers to be apart of the conversation?

Below is a quote from Liz Strauss’s presentation describing exactly that scenario:

A really good friend of mine who writes a great business blog was on a blog of a very famous author who asked a question. And she found the question so compelling, she went over to another blog and got a friend of hers to come back to this first blog and answer it. And the author did not answer the comment.

And so my friend went back over six months of the original best-selling author’s blog and found that at the end of every blog post, he asked a question.

But he had never answered a comment. And she ended up writing a blog post about it saying, “I don’t feel like I’ve been invited to be a part of the conversation and I don’t think I’m going back there.”

Readers pay attention to those kinds of things. If you rarely respond, then I don’t feel welcome.

My lone comment…

This week I commented on a post over at BlogHerald. The post was written by Chris Garrett, who usually does a great job at responding to readers.

He asked, who else upgraded to WordPress 2.5?

Several readers responded, including me. But where was the author? We (the readers) were invited in. But there was no conversation, which was unfortunate.

Why ask me to show up then?

It’s hard to respond to comments. It’s “labor intensive” as Liz Strauss would put it.

However, blog authors have no excuse to not respond to comments when they actively encourage readers to be apart of the conversation.

A conversation isn’t one-way. When somebody asks me to chime in, I don’t expect to talk to a digital wall. I never “expect” comments. I’m thankful for each one.

I’ll close with another quote from Liz Strauss about her efforts to respond to readers:

If a blog is a conversation, you need to respond. I respond to every comment on my blog. And believe me, it is labor intensive. Of those sixty-thousand comments, at least 25,000 of them are mine. That was a lot of hours.

Liz mentions that in order to have a conversation, a blogger needs to respond to his or her readers.

Here’s another rhetorical question: if the author doesn’t show up, then why should the reader?

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“What?” I asked. “You can only see the last 10?”

“Yes, only 10.” he replied.

“How many posts would you use?”

Alex responded, “Do thirty to fifty. If it’s a new subscriber, he wants to read some. I know some bloggers who show the last 2 years.”

Wow, Fifty Posts?

Alex as a new reader wanted to read our content, but when he subscribed he could only see the last ten of our posts. I immediately went into my WordPress settings and increased the count to fifty posts per his recommendation.

In WordPress you can access this setting under Settings (or Options) and in the Reading panel.

WordPress Feed Settings

I’m sure Alex is not alone, so do your readers (and new subscribers) a favor and increase that feed post count to whatever you feel comfortable with.

PS: While you’re at it, make sure you have “Full text” turned on also.

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The common denominator on most of the about pages I saw? There weren’t any pictures of the blogger!

I basically went to WordCamp blind, not knowing who was who, and hoping that I would be able to place the blog with the face when it came to meeting people face-to-face.

From my perspective as a reader, I shouldn’t have to search for a blogger’s picture. It should be right there on the “About” page front-and-center. Of course, not everyone is comfortable posting a picture, and I completely understand this. But if you are, please (pretty please) put a picture on your about page.

For those with multi-author blogs, I suggest implementing Gravatars to enable your authors to showcase themselves. It’s difficult to showcase authors on the about page of a multi-author blog, but on individual posts and on author archives, Gravatars are an excellent way to identify authors based on a nifty pictorial icon.

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With the launch of the new design, I had a chance to re-examine the comment section. I chose to more-or-less keep the comment section the same, however I made an effort to provide some special emphasis on allowing the readers to stand out.

Here are several techniques I explored for allowing a reader’s comment to stand out more:

A Prominent Avatar

Comment Avatars

A prominent avatar is probably the best way to tell readers apart. We use Gravatars here, and if you have one, it’s a great way to set yourself apart as a commenter.

I decided to allow the full 80×80 Gravatar to show in all its glory to allow the other readers to be able to quickly distinguish between commenters based on the avatar.

The Commenter’s Name and URL

I’m going to pick on Michael from Pro Blog Design in this example, simply because Michael is a common name.

Showing a commenter’s name as well as a URL is another way to help distinguish between commenters. Many commenters might have the same name such as Mark, Nathan, or James, but there is typically only one URL to each of those names.

For example, Michael is from Pro Blog Design. Combine that with his name and his avatar, and one can quickly tell him apart from any other Michael.

We also allow commenters to put keywords in their name to further tell them apart. For example: Sue @ TameBay. There are very likely many people named Sue, but only one from TameBay.

Too Many Sue’s

Allowing Blog Signatures

Many bloggers I know frown on having blog signatures in comments, but it’s a great way to tell readers apart. Unfortunately, many view signatures in comments as spam.

One WordPress plugin I have seen to try to change this mentality is called Comment Luv. The plugin inserts the latest post a commenter wrote into his or her comment

I personally chose not to install Comment Luv here because it modifies the original comment. I’d really rather have something that kept the signature and the original comment separate. I’m still looking for a good solution short of writing my own.

Color Code or Rank Commenters

Some techniques I’ve seen on the web, such as on WeblogToolsCollection, shows how many comments a person has left.

The above technique uses a modified version of Lucia’s Linky Love WordPress Plugin. The number of comments showing is a great way for other readers to see how prominent a particular commenter is on a site.

One can easily take this concept and develop specific colors to make a ranking system based on the number of comments.

Display a Featured Comment

One other thing you can do is display a featured comment. An example of a featured comment is a comment shown much more prominently than the others. To see an example of this, please visit this post over at theDailyWTF.

Featured comments are shown up front, and then you can browse to view the rest of the comments.

You can also opt to show a featured comment in a prominent location elsewhere such as the front page of your website.

I chose not to utilize this technique simply because of the lack of tools, but it may be my next project to write a WordPress plugin that can tackle featured comments elegantly.

Display Top Commenters

It seems many blogs have a widget on their sidebar that shows the top commenters. This is a good way to incentivize people to comment more, but may also result in less quality comments.

I chose not to implement Top Commenters here simply because I couldn’t find the room in the design, and also wanted to incentivize quality comments over quantity. And, of course, not everyone likes the concept of top commenters.

Conclusion

Within this post I mentioned six ways to tell your readers apart through comments. They were:

1. Display a Prominent Avatar
2. Show a Commenter’s Name and URL
3. Allow Blog Signatures
4. Color Code or Rank Commenters
5. Display a Featured Comment
6. Show Top Commenters

Can you share some other ways to tell commenters apart?

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New and returning are two very different types of visitor to a blog. One has been here before and knows the drill; the other is still wondering if they’re even in the right place.

Michael goes on to say that there are some differences between what a new reader expects, and what an established reader expects. The important thing is how to tell them apart and to know what each one wants.

With the upcoming re-design of RA Project, one of the things I’ve had to think about is what will a new visitor want. Michael points out that the home page is not the place to try to attract new visitors. He recommends building an entirely separate page that is geared specifically towards those new readers. The benefit is that established readers can skip getting the “new guy” experience every time they access the website.

Things to Have On Your New-Reader Page

Here are some things I think a new reader page should have in addition to the points Michael has brought up in his post.

• Who are the authors?

  Many times I click on the “About Us” page and only see a blurb about only the blog. I also want to know about the authors too. We’re guilty of this here at RA Project, but I will definitely try to change this for the up-coming re-design.

• What’s popular?

  What do the existing readers like?

• Frequently asked questions.

  Many people have asked me what reader appreciation is, and sometimes it’s hard to give someone new to blogging a good answer. Perhaps you receive questions that new visitors constantly ask.

• Contact mechanisms.

  A new reader may want to contact you. Have contact information readily available.

• Downloads and freebies.

  Sometimes readers just come for the perks and leave.

Promoting Your New Reader Page

Michael recommends that after constructing this page, you should promote it for the new readers. Here are some places I think you can promote your “new reader” page.

• Near your subscribe links.

  If you have a page describing what a feed subscription is, you can also promote your “new reader” page here as well.

• On your contact and about page.
• Above your Sitemap

  If I go to a sitemap, I’m usually looking for the topics a blogger writes about. This is also a good place to capture those new readers.

Conclusion

I recommend giving Michael’s posts a look because they are a great resource for capturing those new readers. They also give pointers for how to tell those new readers and established readers apart.

• The Most Important Distinction Between Your Readers - Part 1 of 2
• Building a Page for First-Timers - Part 2

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Gift Cards - Easy to Give

We’ve all more-or-less been in a situation where we couldn’t quite decide what to get somebody for a gift occasion such as a birthday or holiday. It’s much easier to ask someone, “Where do you usually shop?”

Once you find out where that person shops, you can head over to the store, pick up a gift card, and you’re done. Right? Well, besides giving the card away, you’re done.

But what about the recipient? What does he/she do with the card once it’s in their possession.

The Recipient - What to do with the card…

There are three logical choices for a person to do once a gift card is received.

• Travel to the store (or online) and spend the gift card.
• Give the gift card away or exchange it.
• Put the gift card in a drawer and let it expire.

Let’s face it, if everyone loved receiving gift cards, there wouldn’t be so many online exchange websites.

With the alleged “convenience” of gift cards, why are so many going unused? According to this 2006 article, more than ten percent of all gift cards go unused.

There are some obvious reasons why gift cards would go unused:

• The recipient isn’t interested in the store. I could definitely relate if given a Victoria’s Secret gift card.
• The store is out of state and unaccessible online.
• The gift card is not applicable in your country.
• The recipient may be forgetful and stash the card away for later use.

Gift Cards Can Be Extremely Inconvenient

Over Christmas I was waiting in line at a maternity store waiting to buy my friend a gift card. There was only one lady in front of me, so I figured the wait wouldn’t be that long.

I then overheard that the customer was going to pay for the transaction using a gift card.

The clerk asked the customer, “How much is on this gift card?”

The customer looked at the card and said, “I have no idea. You guys don’t know?”

The clerk rolled her eyes and said, “Hold on. I’ll have to call the customer service line on the card to figure out the amount.” After verifying the amount on the card, the clerk rang up the transaction.

After waiting in line for ten minutes, I was finally able to purchase my gift card at this store.

Another example is when I was buying something with a gift card. This was at a major retail chain called Circuit City. The clerk couldn’t finish the transaction without verifying the amount on the gift cards, so once again the customer service line was needed.

In the end, I was glad I got the items for free. However, in my opinion, the recipient of the gift card shouldn’t be tossed through the usability hoola-hoop.

Gift Cards - Conclusion

Gift cards are extremely convenient to give. It’s why there are so many contests online that give out gift cards. However, the recipient’s experience should also be taken into account. Not all gift cards are the same, and not all are convenient to purchase with.

Gift cards suffer from the same usability issues as everything else. Should it be the user’s responsibility to remember the amount on the card? I would think not. Should there be an easy way for users to cash in unwanted gift cards at the store? Sure, but there isn’t.

Remember, there is nothing more practical and usable than cold hard cash. Giving away cash online, however, usually requires another usability hurdle: Paypal.

Thank you for reading.

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I’ve been having a problem with “you” lately. Not you you, but “you”, as in the word.

This site gives out a lot of advice and pointers, and we try to give it away without directly harming any one particular individual (with the exception of perhaps John Chow).

I was reading through our archives and it seems that the posts the readers reacted to the most (in the form of comments) were the articles that spoke to them, but not “at” them. In other words, the article spread the message through commentary and example rather than direct preaching.

Replacing “You” With “One”, “Her”, or “He”

Please consider the following sentences as an example:

• You need great content.
• You need to respond to comments.
• You need to stop being like so many other bloggers.

In the above sentences, having “you” in there seems like a call to action. Perhaps a conviction in the case of the last bullet. By taking “you” out of the sentences, one can make the point much less direct.

Taking “you” out of the equation, here’s what I came up with:

• When “one” writes great content, “he” (or “she”) makes an attempt…
• “One” responds to comments when he wants the reader to feel a connection with the author.
• It seems when “one” becomes like other bloggers (posting what everyone else is posting about), he becomes an automated robot regurgitating the filth of the blogosphere.

Taking “you” out of the above sentences is providing a non-confrontational call to action.

Replacing “You” With “I”, “Me”, or “My”

Instead of replacing “you” with a third-person substitution, one can make it first-person.

Consider the following sentences:

• You should be more transparent.
• You need to be more proactive.
• You shouldn’t place ads within the content.

The sentences are almost insulting and accusatory, as if they’re saying you’re “not” transparent or proactive even though you may be.

When I replace the harsh and accusatory “you” with something less direct, I come up with:

• I wish more bloggers were transparent in their practices.
• My goal is to be more pro-active in responding to comments and e-mails. Too many times I’ve been ignored when corresponding with others.
• I personally feel tricked when a blogger tries to influence me with ads placed within the content.

By changing out “you” with a personal touch or conviction, I have taken the focus off of the reader and onto myself. If a reader is convicted, it is indirectly.

Some “You” Examples

Let me clarify something: using “you” in your articles isn’t a bad thing. In fact, I just did. But I’ve read too many articles (some here even) that attack or directly speak to the reader when the intention isn’t there.

In one fairly recent article, I wrote about how to lose readers. I used a combination of “you” language and personal examples to get the message across. I did try to avoid directly attacking the reader of the article by replacing “you” where appropriate with a less direct form.

Another example is a short story I wrote entitled, “The Lost Comment.” I went through a scenario as a first-time commenter. Not once did I directly engage the reader in the post.

In another short story, I wrote about bloggers who edit readers’ comments. Again, I approached this from the first person and pretended I was a reader. Any accusations were indirect.

And in this final example, I wrote an article that asked, “Where are you when you’re not on your blog?” I primarily used “you” language because it was my intention to talk directly to the readers. And the readers responded very well to the post. However, I did try to make the majority of my points non-accusatory.

Conclusion

Clearly using “you” is not bad in the majority of cases. It’s a great way to make things personal for both you and the reader.

One doesn’t always want to directly talk to the reader, and in those cases, the word “you” can be easily replaced. Replacing the word can even lead to more personal examples, rather than just preaching.

I’ll end with this quote from a personal narrative article I stumbled upon on the Internet:

Don’t tell the reader what he or she is supposed to think or feel. Let the reader see, hear, smell, feel, and taste the experience directly, and let the sensory experiences lead him or her to your intended thought or feeling. Showing is harder than telling.

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• My Apologies to All the Comment Subscribers
• Why Spam Is a Reader’s Problem Too
• Being Aware of Fake Appreciation
• The Art of Miscommunication

While this is an interesting and an extremely important concept in my view, to see how people interact with those that help make them money directly or indirectly, there were a few things in Stuart’s post that I think could be developed further to have an art of analyzing the effectiveness and purpose of comment responses. The concept is excellent, and something I have been talking about for a while also. I think the following 4 measurement should also be included or considered when seeing the interaction rate of a blogger in their own blog’s comment area:

4 things to measure the comment responses

1. Type of a blog

   The type of a blog is extremely critical in judging the quality of a blogger’s willingness to interact with readers and commentors. A commercial blog will be inclined to feel obligated to comment more than feeling passionate about commenting. A personal blog will be inclined to disagree more thoroughly and maybe more aggressively than feeling more considerate of others.

   These other reasons for blogging, like making money or simply expressing ourselves, play an important part in figuring out whether or not, and why, a person is interested in responding to her/his readers and commentors.

2. Quantity vs. Quality

   While the concept of preferring quality over quantity is something that is assumed to be true as a universal fact, not all quality is better than quantity. Online, the art of commenting has changed the quantity aspect of comments, resulting in even a single comment to amount to being more than a single comment, and this is not because of the quality aspect of that comment. For many years I have been responding to many people on different blogs through a single comment to many aggregated comments: I leave a long comment with separate sections dedicated to each commentors that I am addressing. This results in a single comment addressing the different people I need to address, or me addressing different people through a single comment.

   Thus, the measure of the number of comments cannot be valid anymore, not because of comparing quality with quantity but because the very concept of quantity has changed, with one comment serving as many comments. Darren from ProBlogger also pointed this out in his comment to Stuart, and I think it is an extremely important point that can help us realize that the war between quantity and quality is not a universal war that is valid everywhere.

3. History of a blog

   For me, it is extremely important to consider the personal lives of people and corporations, and other entities, when it comes to analyzing behavior like not responding to comments. Has the writer lost interest lately in responding to comments but gained interest in talking more thoroughly and openly? Has a blog run out of time lately to comment immediately, and thus takes some time before returning comments?

   Looking at the history, we can be more accommodating of a person or a corporation’s behavior, whether for the good or for worse, whether to be more accepting or to be stricter.

4. Is the other person also focusing on the vision?

   In addition to finding out whether or not an entity is going through some temporary or permanent change that may be resulting in their focus on commenting to evolve or change, we also have to focus on whether or not the other person is focusing on the same thing as a goal. Imagine taking the concept of evolution and applying it to religion, and then saying that all religions are fake because the concept of evolution proves them wrong. Now imagine the creator of the concept of evolution coming along and telling you that you are stupid, for he or she never intended for his/her theory of evolution to be applied to religion. At that moment, you may realize that you are applying something irrelevant to something different without considering all the related issues.

   Same is the case with commenting. Just because one person does not consider a few comment replies to be enough does not mean that the blogger in question and his readers or commentors also consider a few comment reply to be inadequate. Some people may be focusing on providing more information than commenting. Other people may be focusing on replying through fewer comments to everyone. I usually try to reply in bulk to everyone, addressing everyone separately and individually as I do not like the idea of categorizing people in every situation. I also try to communicate with people outside of commenting, so some times or maybe even many times I will e-mail, call or instant message someone instead of replying to their comment openly. For me, the focus is on communicating, whether openly or away from the public, directly or indirectly, and not on the public display of the number of comment replies I leave on my own site.

Measuring the measurements, everyone

These are some of the many critical things that need to be analyzed or kept in mind when observing and judging the comment responses of others. I may get a “thank you” reply from a money-making blogger daily and instantly to every comment I post on a money-focused blog, but that reply may be less honest and more obligatory than a comment I may get from a personal blogger whose response may be more human. Again, another critical thing to keep in mind is what the person, towards whom the comment response is aimed at, is or should be looking for.

I am glad Stuart talked about this, as it is a step in the direction that this mentality should be headed towards.

Thank you for reading. If possible, please let me know what you think either directly or indirectly through comments, e-mail or some other medium.

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The question that arises from such an observation could simply focus on whether appreciation really “reappears” or if it simply “resumes” after being paused because of the absence of some direct form of communication. It made me think of a very critical concept and question related to appreciation. Can appreciation be paused and resumed? I’m going to talk interchangeably about two possibilities of appreciation pauses here: one pause is when you go away and others pause their appreciation in the meantime solely because of your absence. The second pause is when you pause appreciation on purpose while someone else is still around you.

Pausing on purpose: Can fake appreciation be paused?

After coming back, I found out that some people who called me their “friend” before simply did not care about communicating or inquiring about things, even when they were directly told by someone else about my position or absence, when before I had done the same for them in other situations and cases. Does a supposed-online contact, who proclaims to be your friend, have an obligation to show any kind of appreciation towards you? In my view, no.

Do selfish immature people that I know, the ones who got spoiled by bad parenthood or bad mentality or maybe both, realize the concept of appreciation during empty times when all they can focus on is to feel better by simply doing things their way? In my view, no, since such people are not leaders nor influencers who will ever change anything in the world: they simply exist to ruin teams, to focus on unimportant goals because they themselves chose those goals and not because of the importance of those goals, and to feel better about their existence by sticking to things for their own selfish interest without being considerate of others. In your view, can appreciation be paused and stopped towards such people until they grow up?

Another example: you tell someone to act more mature in their decisions so that their decision does not hurt you or the team in the long run, and solely as a golden rule of their “tit for tat” mentality that someone starts questioning your actions too or telling you to change things so that they can feel better. Can appreciation for such people be paused?

Allowing the concept and illusion of friendship to affect the possibility of appreciation pauses

When it comes to online-contacts who proclaim to be friends in order to steal and copy blogging and writing ideas, in order to come close to get ideas, motivation, advice, publicity, topics and plugins, I believe such people not only have an obligation to show real appreciation, but that such people have no interest in real appreciation other than to manipulate it for their own sole benefit. Their very existence revolves around fake appreciation that centers on creating an illusion of appreciation. That is the reason I like the idea of using the word “contact” and “no appreciation” compared to “friend” and “appreciation” in situations where we are simply throwing those latter 2 words around without thinking about what we are talking about.

It is better to mean things we say than to say things to create an illusion of intelligence that in reality does not exist in order to fake appreciation. Maybe a lot of my posts need word replacements now to reflect this observation of some other people. How about your previous posts? Do you need to change the word “friend” for many people to “contacts”? If so, would such a change be justified for reasons other than “tit for tat”?

Pausing due to purpose: can appreciation be paused while things are on pause?

Now, the word “resume” and its siblings make the concept of appreciation seem very interesting when applied to it: can appreciation somehow paused so that it could be resumed later? Can I simply stop appreciating you without not appreciating you on purpose, and simply resume that appreciation later without any negative side effects or results? It can be that appreciation gets paused when interaction stops. It could be that the amount and quality of appreciation can somehow cover up the silent times when new appreciation is not being propelled in some direction.

Imagine that you go on a vacation or that you go to a hospital in an emergency, and during this time there is no communication towards you from my site. When you get back, I start appreciating you. Is that new appreciation, is that the old appreciating simply being resumed, or is that something completely different? What if I act immature, and want you to do things simply because I cannot easily let go off things? Would that affect any and all appreciation that existed before your going away?

Can the nature of an appreciation pause define its nature and validity?

I met a guy last week who showed a lot of appreciation in person after a long time of no communication. It was as if our last interaction many years ago had simply resumed, and the appreciation from his side seemed very sincere. However, for reasons I will not dive into, his appreciation revolved around his mentality of having an “MBA in English” from one university and “an MSBA” from another university; I know the MBA in English at that one university does not exist, and that the MSBA from the other university is a crappy degree that simply exists in order to allow students from that university to feel better. Sure, I feel happy knowing that someone who is probably a loser in many ways feels better for having a crappy degree from a crappy university, since their happiness may be genuine, even if it exists solely to cover up their feeling of inferiority.

Now, regarding their appreciation towards me that revolves around them having two degrees, one of which I realize does not exist and the other one I know is not worthy of anything even to them: Does that mean that their new appreciation towards me, after the long time of no communication, is fake compared to the appreciation shown to me long time ago, when they appreciated me based on themselves being humans instead of being someone with graduate degrees? If one believes that such new appreciation is not worthy, then it means appreciation did not resume in such a case and thus appreciation was simply reborn with a different face and purpose.

Do you think appreciation can be paused?

These are some of the things to consider when wondering how and why appreciation reappears after disappearing for a long time. Can appreciation be paused? Am I not showing, nor getting any appreciation during times when I am not posting on this site? What do you think? Does any good or bad appreciation shown through this site cover up for the silent times when I am not around?

Of course, this question is aimed at people who already can realize such a trend to apply to their lives, and thus this question does not exist to explain in detail and introduce this concept to those who do not know what it means. I’m hoping the brief hints and introduction above tells you what the concept is about. Please let me know if you have any questions about it.

Thanks for reading, again.

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Today I would like to tell you of another option: giving up in an argument that you may be winning, for the sole purpose of maintaining the relationship and a good level of respect with the person disagreeing with you. This option can help you maintain a lot of online and offline relationships that would otherwise simply dissolve away. For the rest of this article, I am assuming you never knew the meaning of the word “ego“, and that you do not exhibit it either.

Why should you give up winning arguments, specially if you are right?

One of the biggest reasons to simply give up an argument that you know you are winning would be to save any relationship you may have with the other person. Many arguments are worth fighting for if you believe in them, and many arguments are worth losing or ignoring if the benefit you get from winning them are not as important as the relationships you may be affecting along the way. What is the use of upsetting a reader or a commentor if you keep arguing about something very simple and something you do not consider important?

Around 20% of the American population in 2005 believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Would you go about ending your relationships simply because someone you know or knew believes or believes that, considering the fact that the majority of the world is taught in schools that believing such a thing is a sign of illiterate culture? If the now-current theory was your passion, theory that the Sun does not revolve around the Earth, you probably would have disagreements with those that believed otherwise. If such an idea was not important to you, you could simply agree or let the other person know that they are or that they may be right. In that latter case, having a huge disagreement that could affect your relationship with them would not be a good thing, and thus you would avoid such a conflict completely by not disagreeing in the first place.

When to give up winning arguments?

When can you give up a winning argument? I do this by the considering importance of the relationship, the other person, and the disagreement in question.

Let us imagine an example in order to figure out why giving up the chances of winning some arguments are better than winning some arguments. Imagine if a close friend of mine strongly believed in some religion, and I did not. If I disagreed with my friend about her or his religion, my friend would either have a choice to ignore me or disagree with me. Let us assume that ignoring me in such a case only makes me disagree even more. In such a case, my friend may choose to actually disagree with my disagreement or with me, since she or he may feel offended that her or his beliefs were being disputed by me. In such a case, some people may think that winning an argument supporting their religion may be more important than maintaining their friendship with me. In that example, the person realizes that the importance of the disagreeing argument to them may be more important than their relationship or friendship with me.

Now imagine the same example from my perspective. If religion is not of much importance to me, I could simply give up my argument and agree to anything that my friend tells me, since for me the friendship and the relationship may be more important to me than the discussion about religion. In such a case, simply holding on to an argument, even if I knew I was completely right, would yield to nothing beneficial for me: if the other person agrees to my argument, what benefit would I get? On the other hand, if the other person cuts of all the ties with me due to this single argument, I would have made a mistake holding onto my side of the argument. For me, simply agreeing to my friend or caving in would be better than holding on, mainly because the topic in question would not be as important to me as the friendship that was being affected.

How to give up winning arguments?

There are several ways to maintain or even improve your relations with someone offline or online on your blog and give up a winning argument. Following are some random ways of doing such a thing:

• Giving up an argument by NOT ignoring the disagreement.

  Many people simply say “Let us just drop this topic and move on.” In many cases such a sentence is a sign that you do not want a disagreeing conversation to adversely affect your relationship with someone. In many other cases, such a sentence is a sign that you are too stubborn to let go of your point, just like the person you are disagreeing with, and thus you simply want to hold on to your point and still have any kind of a relationship with the other person. In many cases, the latter scenario results in the relationship being affected in a huge manner.

• Tell the other person you do not care about the topic, and that you agree with them since they are so passionate about it.

  Admitting to the other person that you will agree with them, even when you do not agree to the point itself, can sometimes result in the other person assuming that they have won an argument. That can result in a few things, including the other person realizing that you are considerate of all of their points, including their disagreements.

• Admitting that you may be wrong, and allowing the other person to explain more while you do not disagree with them afterwards.

  Unless there is something that you witnessed yourself or did yourself, there can be a lot of different perceptions to a single fact. Sometimes the other person may be misinterpreting something and not realizing it. Admitting that you may be wrong and not doubting the other person while they explain themselves can be a very good thing to do when you want to get to the bottom of something while not affecting your relationship with that other person.

• Not disagreeing over unimportant things.

  It can be very easy to tell someone that they are wrong. It can be very hard to simply listen to someone explain their viewpoint about something. Sometimes, right in the beginning of a disagreement, you can realize whether or not an argument is worth pursuing, and whether or not being perceived as someone who was wrong, even if you were right, matters to you. For you, pursuing a religious topic can be important, but disagreeing a topic related to cats or blogs may not be important, or vice versa.

Should you give up winning arguments? Sometimes you should, in order to appreciate

The answer is simple: it depends on you. Do you want to place a topic above a friendship or a relationship with an online reader or a commentor? Go ahead and argue all you want in such a case. If there is a situation where you feel that winning an argument will prove your point but may result in your relationship with someone being ruined or affected negatively, you can simply cave in and move on with that person. Figuring out the right priorities for you will help you realize which situations and topics may result in either more or less appreciation for your blog or fellow readers and comments, and also for yourself.

What do you think? Thanks for reading.

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How do you know when your readers are ready for you to take them to the next level?

The 13 signs it’s time to change something:

1. Your blog has been around for more that one year and your Alexa chart has stabilized around a value, regardless the number and the quality of your posts
2. Your feed subscriptions don’t grow anymore, despite the fact that you keep on moving the subscribing box on various positions and you try to bribe motivate readers into subscribing
3. Comments on your posts are from the same people you know for ages
4. Moderating comments means more and more deleting spam
5. The number of pageviews per visit approaches 1
6. The average time spent on your blog is never more than 50 seconds
7. The bounce rate is around 90%, which means that 90% of your readers quit your blog after viewing one page
8. Nobody clicks on anything, so despite the fact that your blog looks like a Christmas tree, you barely make any money out of it
9. You sell links & reviews since 10 months ago, but nobody’s buying them yet
10. You got tired of submitting your articles to social media, because none of your readers ever thinks to do so
11. Almost all your new competitors who launched over the past 6 months do much better than you, although your content is competitive
12. Almost all other blogs adopted a new navigational pattern (like moving some things from the sidebar to the footer area)
13. Despite all the above, you still feel like you have something to say

How is it for you? When was the last time you changed something on your blog?

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On top of that, if you ever disagree or show other side of the story, you are considered a critic and not a reader anymore. You are considered and outcast, and posts are written in order to show what kind of an enemy you are. So, how can you know why you get dumped so easily in the end, when all this time you were told by the blogger that they were in a reader-blogger relationship with you? One way to realize such a fake relationship between you and a blogger or anyone who claims to appreciate you is to be aware of fake appreciation.

Fake appreciation can come from copying others

You might see people using the same comment signature that you use, people that have seen your signature and started using it after they saw yours. You might see someone using the exact same header as yours, after being a user on your site for a while. I see several people use my writing, commenting and other styles as their own, after they have seen mine. You might even notice someone doing the same things as you, such as getting on social networking sites, and doing the exact things you do on those sites.

So what is the problem with all of these? There is no obvious problem with the scenarios described. The problem happens when these people come close only to get something, and when they mimic something from you, they keep a safe distance, never acknowledging that they took or learned something from you. Many times, such copiers are showing fake appreciation.

So 2 of the problems are:

1. Copying something from someone else and then claiming it to be our own
2. Copying or using something with the sole intention of benefiting by faking appreciation

How can you ever spot fake appreciation?

“Thank you for your comment. ” If I wrote that in a response comment to you, how would you ever know I meant what I am saying? I could be having the worst day of my life, cursing out at the monitor even, and blaming you for making me post a comment in response to your comment. Even then, one can simply write “Thank you for your comment” because that someone has noticed someone else doing it honestly for years. How can you ever spot such fake appreciation, let alone deal with such bloggers? First thing to do in the quest to spot fake appreciation, if you value such a quest, is to realize whether or not you care about the differences between real and fake appreciation in the online world.

Fake appreciation implies that a blogger thinks you are stupid.

For me, appreciation has to be real, literally. For many people, seeing fake appreciation online is a waste of time and an insult, for the person faking the appreciation thinks that anyone who reads it is stupid enough to believe that the appreciation in real. We already have fake appreciation in the offline world. Let us see if we can observe similar fake appreciation traits in the online world.

What do you think? Have you noticed anything fake recently? Do you care whether or not a blogger means what she/he says when showing appreciation?

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Like many businesses, many bloggers believe that if they keep talking about helping others while in reality they keep using others to make money, they will make money. This plan works, and it works very well in many cases. The readers, however, usually come out of the situation with nothing at the end. Reader appreciation includes the concept of disclosing the fact of how existence of money can influence ones’ interesting in blogging and the reasons for blogging.

Readers are manipulated when they are told that them, and not money, is the first priority

Many bloggers who want to make money will tell their readers, who are in reality their customers, that the blogger in question wants to help them. That is the only motive expressed on many of such blogs. In both the short and the long run, not disclosing the important monetary interests we may have, and instead giving an illusion that we are doing it all for others, results in readers being manipulated.

Some people think expressing such a thing is the same as the stereotypical suicide and its stereotypical understanding. Show me a blog and with time hopefully I can tell you whether or not the blogger is being completely open about the existence of monetary interests where the reader has more chances of being manipulated or where the reader may already have been manipulated. For some reason, the more a heavily trafficked site is focused on making money, the less it discloses such a fact. The more money one is making from their blog, the more they talk about wanting to help others.

Blogging for reasons other than to help others is not a bad thing. Lying about it in order to make money is a very bad thing.

Many professional bloggers who earn money through their blogs do not blog in order to help others. This is a simple fact which can be accepted publicly, regularly, and as one of the motives behind ones’ blogging. instead of being hidden behind manipulation sentences such as “I like helping people, that is why I blog” or “I do it for the readers” or any other variations of such sentences, one can simply acknowledge the existence of money through reader participation while giving something solid back to the users. There is no real action. There are only words. Even if many people disclose in a sentence or two that they earn money through their blog, they do not give something solid back to the users.

Self-proclaimed professional bloggers who earn blog money and yet hide that fact usually manipulate their readers in a negative manner

Businesses usually do not need to hide the fact that they are making money. Unless one wants to deceive readers into feeling appreciated when in reality they are being manipulated into a false promise of things so that the blogger can earn money directly or indirectly through the blog, most situations call for disclosing even the existence of monetary interests. The biggest tricks many bloggers play on their readers is to make the readers believe that the blogs in questions are not businesses which exist solely to make money.

It is my belief that sites that do not disclose the existence of monetary ties in a blog and how such monetary ties may be affecting the opinions of a person where a person may be doing something, contrary to what they would do when there was no money involved, so that they could benefit financially directly or directly.

Example: RA Project, and personal blogs

Take the example of Reader Appreciation Project. RA Project has so far had no monetary existence of any kind from readers: no paid ads, no paid advertisors, no paid links, no paid pitches, no incoming money whatsoever. The only thing involving money is our own money being pumped into this project because we believe in it, and because we are making money from channels outside of RA Project at the moment. So far, not having any money coming from the site has resulted in the site being more honest and focusing on issues that most rarely ever wanted to think about.

Many personal blogs are like that too, where personal bloggers focus on whatever they want to talk about without thinking of money. But we all know what most of the self-proclaimed “professional” bloggers think of personal blogs, don’t we?

Professional bloggers, or professional manipulators?

Reader appreciation is the disclosure or acknowledgment of the existence of money, and how it may affect us. Such a disclosure and acknowledgment should be public and regular. Self-proclaimed professional bloggers who are too scared to be like Kottke when it comes to monetary disclosures that Kottke made a few years ago are most probably manipulating their readers into false hopes and promises.

As readers, how will we deal with such bloggers? As bloggers, how will we deal with such a trend?

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