Come one everyone grab a cup of coffee and gather around. I wanna have a little chat. Today I would like to talk about something we rarely address. But I feel it is time to get it out in the open. What is it you ask?
“Comment Pressure” and the accompanying “Comment Guilt”.
In the 9 months since I have joined the blogosphere I read countless ‘blog-help’ articles on the importance of commenting on other blogs to help direct traffic back to my own. I have read countless posts by other bloggers APPOLOGIZING for the lack of comments they have been leaving because, God forbid they were too busy actually living their life. I have even seen some bloggers dish out grief to others for not commenting ENOUGH. So now this commenting thing has become obligatory and constrained. We judge the success of our own posts by the number of comments received and not the quality of the content. We visit other blogs and feel absolute guilt if we don’t leave a comment or two behind. Not because we want to join in on the ‘conversation’ of the post (which a genuine comment can achieve) but rather to show our bloggy friend a little ‘comment love’. Seems to me we may have gotten way off base. Now I appreciate ALL my readers equally. Those who chose to comment and those who do not. Many of my closest friends read my blog but rarely (if ever) feel a need to comment. And you know what? I am totally okay with that. But I never want to make my readers feel GUILTY about not commenting. This is a place of entertainment…a fun place. Okay heck…a glamorous place.
It was over coffee with my FABF Suzanne that this topic came up. She asked me ‘how would you feel if tomorrow you woke up and all the blogs you read were ‘Comment Free’?” My first reaction was “RELIEF”. Actually I do read a few blogs that are already comment-free and I read them FIRST every morning. Why? Well because all I have to do is read and enjoy. I do not have to comment or worse feel bad about NOT commenting. Because of this I am now considering making my blog “comment-free”. I want to start a revolution, a movement for other blogs to become ‘comment free’ as well. I would make my e-mail accessible by a single click button on my side bar for anyone who really wanted to open a dialogue with me. So I would still be available to chat. And of course CERTAIN posts (like this one) which are asking for direct feedback make it impossible to eliminate comments all together. So first- I must (very ironically) ask for COMMENTS from you. What do you think about comments? And more importantly- do you think it is necessary to have them to keep your readers?
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