Comments. What can I say about comments? Comments are a great way to meet new bloggers and to get people to visit your blog. But there are a few problems that come with commenting such as time.
Replying
Lately I’ve been having a bit of a problem replying to comments I get. I just started school again, so that might factor into the problem. It’s just that I haven’t been as fast as before when it comes to replying. However, I do attempt to reply to all the comments I get, after all, I am very thankful that people took the time to leave them there. But like everything, there is an exception. If someone comments on my blog with a comment like “Great haul!” and that’s it, I won’t reply. Why waste time to just say thanks for commenting? If I have to think for awhile to think of something I can say when I reply, I probably won’t end up doing so. I’m a high school student and I’m just happen to be very short of time. That brings us to…
Commenting Back
It is kind of a common courtesy that if someone comments on your blog, you reply to that comment and visit their blog and comment on one of their posts in return. I try to do this as soon as possible and as often as possible, but there are some incidents where I cannot comply. Yes, I know, shame on me. The thing is I like to leave meaningful comments on the blogs I visit. If I think I cannot leave a comment that will be somewhat meaningful, I won’t bother to comment at all. But I usually can find ways to leave comments that mean something. Sure, sometimes it takes awhile to find a blog post that I can comment on, but I do try. I think what makes that hard is sometimes people who run blogs about only Adult books (or some other genre of books I don’t read) come and comment on my blog. I usually only read YA, so Adult is kind of foreign to me. There is very little I can comment about on a blog that is solely about a type of book I barely ever read. And then there’s those blogs that have adult content and say so. I’m sorry, but as a 15 year old, I don’t feel comfortable visiting those kinds of blogs, let alone commenting on them.
Besides the issues with commenting, I do love comments and commenting on other blogs. In fact, that’s how I found out about this great feature that Readers in Wonderland are doing. It’s called Bloggers Commenting Back. For more information, just click the link.
How do you feel about comments?
You’re right about being hard to comment on blogs that only post about books you haven’t read and are not interested in reading. It’s hard for me too, but, just like you, I do my best. 🙂
I always reply to comments on my blog, but, as you said, if the comment is as simple as “Great post!”, I won’t bother… for two reasons: I appreciate the comment, really, I do… but the person didn’t bother to write more than two words… and secondly, I know that person will never come back to check if I responded to their comment. No one goes back for a “Thanks”.
Aside from what you mentioned, I think another problem with comments is the Blogger commenting system, which is not very user-friendly. I hate it that people are not notified about replies to their comments, and few of them come back to the post to check. 🙁 I have to look into installing Comment Luv on Blogger. I think it’s one of the best commenting systems!
Oana @All Fantasy Worlds
I can’t believe I forgot to mention the problems with Blogger’s commenting system! It has given me so much trouble! And I’m terribly sorry for not replying earlier. But guess what, apparently Blogger has made a few changes with it’s commenting system. I have to look into them though. (There’s a “Notify Me” thing in the corner!)
My policy is to comment back to everyone on my own blog, and I’ll check out people that leave links to their own blog as well. I follow a lot of people who follow TSC and the people who comment are usually the people I end up visiting anyway. I have a certain style of post I enjoy to write and read and I’ll comment a lot on blog posts that I enjoy.
School does make everything harder though. I think scheduling posts is probably the smartest thing Mari and I ever did just because we set up posts for weeks in advance. We write mostly on the weekends which leaves the weekday to post. But yeah, it’s a struggle 😛
-P.E. @ The Sirenic Codex
I write posts on the weekends to so I can schedule them ahead of time. That’s not the hard part anymore. The real hard part is finding the time to reply to comments and comment back, especially when I’m having a horrible week at school and staying up late just to finish homework. Do you have any suggestions on how to find time for comments?
I think what I end up doing is getting into a routine with bloggers that I begin to like and have relationships with. I’m more apt to comment back on their blogs more frequently if I feel like they’re interested in my blog too and find it interesting. But if I don’t hear back from another blog, I probably won’t spend my time commenting on theirs for long.
And I agree with Oana. The only reason why I’ve ever considering switching to WordPress is because the commenting system really sucks on Blogger. It never notifies me when someone replies to my comment, which is frustrating. But I hate WordPress too much to switch. I had to use it for work, and the set-up of it just isn’t for me. But the comment system is a definite perk!
I heard great things about WordPress’ commenting system too! But it just seems so complicated. I like getting into a routine with commenting on blogs I like too. It just makes commenting easier since they usually are about topics I’m into.
I’ll reply to all comments on my blog that seem meaningful (or that seem like people are actually going to come back and look for the reply for). I mean, if it’s “great review! Here’s my blog” or “new follower! follow back!” then, yeah, no. NO REPLY FOR YOU!
I’ll always go back and comment on the person’s blog as well! It takes me a while to get through the backlog though, because I usually do my comment replying on the weekend, so there’s a massive comment buildup during the week (I mean yeah it’s not THAT massive, but relatively :P)
Re: Becca’s and Oana’s points- I really don’t know what the best commenting system is for blogger blogs. Quite a few people seem to use Disqus, but apparently that’s a problem because some people don’t have accounts? Don’t know :/
Urgh. I hate it when people say “follow back”. I don’t really mind when they say “I followed”, but telling me to follow back is a bit rude. I totally understand what you mean about only commenting on the weekends and then having to deal with the build up. Oana suggested on Twitter to designate time everyday to commenting and commenting back. I’m giving it a try. So far it seems to be working.
I know a lot of people use Disqus. I considered switching, but I heard a lot of complaints on how you can’t find someone’s website if they don’t have an account. But, I don’t really know either.
I’ve been struggling with same problems. I always try to reply to every comment i receive too. And I try to go visit their blog and comment on one of their posts too, but like you sometimes, I can’t find a post to comment at the time and then things come up. I’m trying to be better at it though.
If you find a solution or some way that works for you, PLEASE tell me. It would really help! 🙂
I always (try to) reply even to the “great haul” type of comments, even if it’s just a “Thanks for stopping by.”
Sometimes it’s hard to find something to say on someone else’s blog too, especially if I found them from a meme or they commented on my blog from a meme and we read different genres. A lot of times I’ll look back 2 or 3 posts and see if there’s a different one I can leave a comment on. There’s usually something.
I used Disqus when I was on Blogger, but I lost all my comments when I moved to WordPress because they wouldn’t transfer over. I can still visit them in my Disqus account but it’s not the same as seeing them on my blog. Fortunately I moved before my blog started getting *too* many comments. It sounds like that wouldn’t be a problem for you, since you don’t like WordPress.
At this point, I don’t really know how I feel about WordPress anymore. It seems so cool, but it’s kind of out of my league. However I am thinking about making the switch sometime so I guess Discus is a no go for me. I really love comments and feel that people who spent time commenting on my blog deserve to be able to see their comments. Decisions, decisions.