7th May 2008

Week 1: Comment reflections

posted in Blogging |

I’m not leaving my usual focus on all things visual, just adding a weekly report on an online blogging project I am participating in.

31 days commentingA group of bloggers from around the world have accepted the challenge to do something every day in May to become a better commenter on other blogs. Since I did another challenge last year with two of the organizers, I decided to join them. First, there are over a hundred blogs participating. The group in the last challenge was 14, so we got to know each other. It’s much harder to keep track of who is who this time. There are also networks of bloggers who have joined, and I’m noticing that it is harder to comment when it seems like all the other people in the comment string already know each other. Something to be aware of when I engage with my readers, or on blogs where I know others. What can I do to create a welcoming environment?

  • Day 1- Commenting self-audit

Commenting has always been somewhat sporadic for me. In phases. I read over 150 blogs, most of which I read the majority of the posts, so that alone is a major time commitment. I find when I am short on time, I skip the commenting. I’m also noticing I gather insights across the blogs I read, often making connections between tidbits that mash up with pieces offline. So the responses I find emerging don’t make sense attached to one place.If I knew ahead of time which tidbits were going to align, I might be able to write the type of posts rich with links that Sue Waters, Michele Martin, and Beth Kanter are so brilliant at doing. I seem to have a more retroactive thought alignment process rather than the anticipatory ones others seem to have that know what they might need and bookmark it for later.

  • Day 2- Comment on a new blog

This was easy. The comment challenge is full of blogs that are new to me. Since I train adults, I don’t follow K-12 blogs as a general rule, and the group has a lot of them. It’s been fun to explore them, they certainly have a different flavor. Not quite sure how to add value to the conversations on them yet. Instead I find myself telling those who are expressing anxiety about being behind that it’s OK. I guess I’m trying to find a common ground to share.

  • Day 3- Set up comment tracking

Like so many other things I discover on these challenges, the tracking software is a matter of strategizing how I am going to change the patterns of how I engage with daily practices. I center my online life around Google Reader and Mail, so things that integrate easily are the ones that I can adopt quickly. I have installed both co.mment and cocomment, but certainly have not fully adapted to them. And so far, I have found the RSS feeds from these tools to be confusing. Especially with so many similar conversations occurring across multiple blogs.

  • Day 4- ask a question in a comment

This is something I do with some regularity. What is interesting to me is how often bloggers ignore the questions I ask. Now I can understand if I ask another commenter a question that they may not see it. But as bloggers, we often get multiple notifications of comments. And I’m not talking just about the blogs with a huge amount of traffic. Leaves me wondering if it is the type of questions I ask, or the type of bloggers I’m asking.

  • Day 5- comment on a post I don’t agree with

By far the hardest task for me. This is totally contrary to my online behavior, and has sparked some of the deepest reflection. Offline, I certainly have no problem disagreeing with others. I suspect there are people around me who would say I voice my disagreement too much. So why is it so different for me online? I still haven’t figured it out, and I still haven’t disagreed.

  • Day 6 - engage with other commenters

It’s been nice to see the engagement with other commenters on the challenge. I have found it difficult to do this in the past. I read all/most of the comments on a post before I comment, and often try to engage with others. It’s almost like there are unspoken norms that develop on certain blogs. My favorites are the ones where the blogger and the readers talk freely and back and forth. I wonder what it takes to foster that norm?

  • Day 7 - 3 Learnings

The three things that jump out to me from the first week:

  1. Dedicated commenting takes an organized system to stay manageable
  2. I really don’t like the idea of disagreeing online
  3. There is a gap between what I like and what I am (not) creating on my own blog
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 18 responses to “Week 1: Comment reflections”

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  1. 1 On May 7th, 2008, Sue Waters said:

    "Leaves me wondering if it is the type of questions I ask, or the type of bloggers I’m asking".  Nope it’s not you it’s them. New bloggers don’t appreciate the need to comment back and feel that maybe there is blogger etiquette that you are breaking by commenting back.  Some of the well knowns will only comment back to a select few commenters.

    I think I have disagreed in comments but I try hard to restrain myself and probably would be more vocal f2f. 

    Fostering the blog where "blogger and the readers talk freely and back and forth" takes time to create. Combination of how you write the posts, build up your readership and engage back with your readers. But it does happen on your blog. 

    So if "There is a gap between what I like and what I am (not) creating on my own blog" what do you think you need to do to make it happen on your blog?

  2. 2 On May 7th, 2008, Beth Kanter said:

    I wish I could take that 31-Day Challenge.  So, tell me what type of system did you come up to track comments?  Mine is in much need of upgrading …

    I use all the ego alerts, but if there are subsequent comments, I won’t know.   I did try several of the plugins - but I failed at getting into the happen.

    Even did some trainings  on the topic ..
    http://howtoblog.wikispaces.com/Session+3

  3. 3 On May 7th, 2008, Britt Watwood said:

    I am one of those people you do not know (nor do I know you)…but I enjoyed reading your post.  Your third item for today is one I had not considered in my own blogging - and one worth reflecting on!

  4. 4 On May 7th, 2008, Christine Martell said:

    Sue,
    Well, it’s good to know I’m not the only one with mixed experiences getting others to comment back. Good question on how to foster a different climate on my blog. A series of different things recently has shown me that I behave differently online and offline. Since I am a facilitator offline, I think part of the path may be to utilize more of those skills and apply them to the space I create online. I seldom lecture in my offline sessions, yet I think I do online. Yuck. And why do these challenges always seem to surface more things I need to work on in myself that at first glance have nothing to do with the topic?

  5. 5 On May 7th, 2008, Christine Martell said:

    Beth,
    The comment tracking system is a work in progress. I’m at the beginning stages trying to get into the habit of clicking the toolbar button before I start. I’m trying to comment more than usual to help cement the habit. I still do not have a system worked out on the back end. I have the RSS feeding into my reader, but it isn’t working for me. The interface on the CoComment site is better for seeing the comment threads, but it’s another step to go there so I don’t know if it is going to work long term. I’ll let you know if I have an epiphany. As usual, there’s some great helpful resources on your training wiki. Thanks for sharing that.

  6. 6 On May 7th, 2008, Christine Martell said:

    Britt,
    But I do know who you are…you are part of the group I listened to talk about how you are using social media on the podcast with Michele Martin. I’ve tried to get my colleagues on the board of our ASTD chapter to use our social media tools, and I haven’t been as successful as I’d like. So I watch you guys for pointers and secrets.

  7. 7 On May 7th, 2008, Sue Wyatt said:

    Hi Christine, I am using three ways of tracking in this challenge and I’ve noticed each is tracking things differently.  First co.mments has picked up three of my conversations but I have not been linking to that tracking device recently.  Cocomment though has picked up 29+ comments I have made and whether anyone has commented after me or not. But then technorati tags is picking up whenever anyone uses comment08 as a tag in a conversation.  So I am finding technorati is about everyone’s conversations while cocomment is about my comments only. 

    I am finding this fairly easy to follow as it is all fed into my Google reader. Every evening open the reader, check the cocomments then in technorati tags, actually open every conversation at the real blog site and see if there is anything I can comment on while reading.

    This is the first time I have tracked conversations and comments and would still like to find out from other bloggers what they think would be a good tracking device to use with students aged 12/13.

  8. 8 On May 8th, 2008, Michele Martin said:

    Hi Christine–It’s interesting that you’re noticing such a difference between your on and off-line behavior. I find it’s a challenge to bring my off-line facilitation skills to blogging because I have to be much more thoughtful and conscious of what I’m doing online. Off-line I’m in "unconscious competence" mode, but online, I have to be very conscious of what I do and how I do it. I think it’s part of what I enjoy about blogging because it forces me to be more reflective. That doesn’t make it easy, though. :-)

  9. 9 On May 8th, 2008, Christine Martell said:

    Sue, this is helpful. I keep wanting to be able to read everything from Google Reader. Just accepting I have to go to each blog, and looking at it as an opportunity to comment and see the posts in context will go a long way toward me adopting the process. Maybe the universe is telling me to just slow down a bit. So contrary to my nature!

  10. 10 On May 8th, 2008, Christine Martell said:

    Michele,
    Well I wouldn’t even be noticing a difference in behavior if you hadn’t started writing about all the homophily stuff. Some of what I wrestle with is that both of the blogs I write on aren’t totally mine. This one belongs to my business and the other my ASTD chapter. So I find myself wanting to be professional and certainly not doing anything others may object to. I doubt this really serves me however, since I think I just come off as boring (not something that happens in the rest of life). So Michele, you are one of the few people who read my blog who have met me face to face. Am I imagining this or do you see a difference?

  11. 11 On May 8th, 2008, Sue Waters said:

    Oh dear does this count as me disagreeing?  I don’t see you are lecturing at all on your blog Christine.  You write incredibly informative posts on an area that many of us have minimal appreciation of which is why there is a need for you to provide the thorough explanations.  That to me isn’t lecturing but realising the information would benefit your readers. 

    But understandably when you write these types of blog posts it’s harder to engage in conversations (I had similar issues on the Edublogger).  Those posts that were more informative normally provoked less response even though they were useful.  My post that really worked was Here’s My First Five Tips For Writing Better Blog Posts — What Are Yours? because while it was informative it also asked for their tips.  Perhaps you could do similar on the very basics of using images to enhance blog posts. 

  12. 12 On May 8th, 2008, Christine Martell said:

    Sue,
    I certainly will give you credit for disagreeing. Where is that check box from the last challenge?

    Your perspective is helpful. I keep thinking I must be doing something wrong since I get so few comments compared to others. I’ll have to try your idea about getting tips after the blog deconstruction series I am working on right now.

  13. 13 On May 9th, 2008, Kevin said:

    You write: "What is interesting to me is how often bloggers ignore the questions I ask."
    Yep.
    I think the comment part of the conversation often gets left behind because bloggers get so caught up in their own writing of posts (I am guilty).
    One of the nice things about the Comment Challenge is that it is allowing me to look at my writing and blogging from the inside out — from the role of a visitor on other sites where I am commenting, etc.
    And then, I can go back to my own blog and think about how I need to react to comments of others.
    Take care
    Kevin

  14. 14 On May 9th, 2008, Christine Martell said:

    Kevin,
    I also find it really interesting how different we all are in regard to what might seem like simple things.

    There was a discussion on some training blogs not too long ago where people were expressing how they don’t want to talk with their peers at conferences, they want to listen to the experts talk. That was really eye-opening to me. I speak at a lot of conferences, and make an effort to get the participants talking. That’s where I get most of the value. So it may be similar with blogging. We each learn in different ways.

  15. 15 On May 10th, 2008, Kevin said:

    Wow
    People just wanted to listen to so-called experts?
    I would always rather network with my peers, after being informed by the work of the experts. The conversations at conferences almost always seem richer than the presentations (unless it is me presenting, of course — he says with sarcasm)
    Kevin

  16. 16 On May 10th, 2008, Diane Hammond said:

    Christine, you said: "I keep thinking I must be doing something wrong since I get so few comments compared to others".

    I don’t think this is a "right or wrong" situation. Doesn’t it depend entirely on the purpose of your posts? I just found my way here for the first time from the "comment08" feed.  I read this post, had a look to see who you were, looked around your other posts and then added your RSS feed to Google Reader. As Sue said, your posts are very informative; I’m sure I can learn a lot from you. It doesn’t necessarily follow that I need to comment on each one - "good idea - I’ll try that."

  17. 17 On May 10th, 2008, Christine Martell said:

    Diane,
    After popping over to your blog and getting a similar feel, I started thinking about the fact that there really isn’t a place for people to make general comments on most blogs. I know I get messages occasionally posted in what seem to be strange places, but I see now it might be because there isn’t really a general conversation space.

    I wonder if a page with open comments would make sense?

  18. 18 On May 10th, 2008, Christine Martell said:

    Kevin,
    I know, it was eye-opening to me also. At first I wondered if I should be talking more when I speak, then I realized the people who are attracted to my sessions on facilitating with visuals and such are probably not those who want to be lectured to.

    People do however end up in sessions accidentally. I had a guy from a telecom sitting in the front of one of my session thinking I was going to talk about Powerpoint. He got a sense in the first few minutes that wasn’t going to be the case. It turned out he loved the session and went back and convinced his company to buy my visual tools. So sometimes we win over the ones who don’t think they want what we have to offer :)

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