Comment Challenge Week 2
I’m not leaving my usual focus on all things visual, just adding my weekly report on an online blogging project I am participating in.
Day 8: Comment outside nicheIn order to comment outside my niche, I would have to have a niche. I write in an obscure area, and see my roles as varied, so my blog reader is full of a diverse range of topics. Good thing, it made it easy to complete this task, since it is already something I regularly do.
Day 9: Should we comment on blogs?
The thing I most appreciate about blogs is the diversity of approaches. If a blog is new, I recognize that someone may have not decided how they want to approach the blogosphere, but for a more mature blog, it seems reasonable that a blogger may make a variety of choices for reasons that are individual.
Day 10: Comment Audit
This day asked us to look at how our blogs might affect whether we get comments. Over the course of this blog, I think I have done everything on the list that might deter people. I still struggle over voice, who I am talking to, who I want to talk to, and who might care about what I have to say. Of course, this reflects some of my own confusion about the direction my business in general is moving. It’s an ongoing action research project. I try things, watch how they go, and redesign.
Day 11: Comment Policy
I have a bunch of redesign I am working on behind the scenes, so a comment policy will be added to it. I was particularly taken by Kevin’s concept, where he extends an invitation. So much more appealing to me than a policy per se.
Day 12: Comment Friendly?
Since this is a business blog, I do not feel comfortable taking moderation off for first time commentors. I have caught enough objectionable comments to feel comfortable with this.
Day 13: Post using comments
Since the comment challenge began, I have been writing posts based on reader comments or requests. It started with a comment on Sue Waters blog from Christy Tucker about her new blog header, and I responded with Does my header make my blog look fat? . Jabiz Raisdana asked about his headers on that post, so I wrote, What makes these blog headers effective? Then I got an email from Fred Deutsch so I wrote What to do with a visually noisy blog and Suggestions for a visually noisy blog.
I have enjoyed writing these posts since it has provided me concrete examples of visual patterns to demonstrate how they affect what we do online. I can’t do it all of the time, and it might be very boring after a while, but I hope it has been helpful to readers and the blog owners alike.
Day 14: Turn blog over to readers
Ok, so have you found the series on blog headers and patterns helpful? Interesting? What could I do to be more helpful? Any opinions, I’d love to hear them.
8 Responses to “Comment Challenge Week 2”
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I’ve definitely found your series on blog headers and patterns really helpful. Can I say dangerous for you to ask me what more? Well I would like to learn more about using photo’s in posts e.g. ideal size when using text wrap? Which is better right or left aligned? Tips for knowing when photos will detract from your posts.
@Kia Ora Christine – Comment moderation is something that I’ve found somewhat dissapointing for reason of uncertainty, though I fully understand the point of activating it.
Not infrequently on this challenge I’ve had to go back to re-send my comment. I always check the post to see if my comment arrived and, of course, comment moderation doesn’t permit this. So in instances when comments are moderated I’m never sure if I’ve said anything till later.
It’s like talking to someone in a noisy crowd, not hearing what I’ve said and wondering if anyone else had.
Ka kite
from Middle-earth
@Christine – I find, on your site, that my comment is displayed when sent, despite the moderation being in place. This is relief indeed and a great improvement on a blank screen showing nothing but the moderation message – some don’t even do that.
Spot ya!
@Christine – I guess the poster never really finds out what their comment screens look like unless they sit with a commenter. With your posts, I submit my comment as usual, then the comment is displayed with a message along the top that tells me that it is awaiting moderation.
This does two things.
It tells me that the comment submission is successful, and it tells me that if the poster is vigilant my comment will soon appear on the screens of other viewers.
Better that than nothing at all, which tells me nothing about the success of the submission. It could mean that my well worded and spellchekced comment has disappeared into cyberspace
Ka kit
This is a complete change of subject…but I am doing day 27 of the challenge and caught up with your seesmic comment on Kate Foy’s blog. I really enjoyed seeing you in ‘real’, not least because you look so different from your photo on this blog. I hope you enjoyed your hair cut. cheers Sarah
Great suggestions Sue, I think I can do that. Always love the requests, it makes it easier than trying to guess what might be interesting.
Interesting. I guess since I have the ability to subscribe to comments right on each post, that someone would use that. And I’m sure I aggravate it at times when I am out of the office and can’t moderate right away. It an interesting dilemma, since I also would really be upset to discover some of the comments that have gotten through akismet at times posted on my blog. I realize people who use the web all the time would realize it was spam, I just wonder if my customers who aren’t heavy web users would understand?
That’s good. Wonder if I did something to make that happen?