Commenting on the Blog
Being a good blogger is more than just writing posts. Blogging is a public medium, and therefore blogs invite comments; in fact, a blog without comments is just a piece of writing, just like any book that you might read. Blogging, however, is intended to be a dialogue between a writer and its audience. As a result, authors are merely the beginning of the conversation. It is your job, as a commenter, to continue the conversation in a thoughtful manner.
When you do choose to comment on another person’s post, you are actually helping them improve as a thinker and writer. Therefore, your comments should be both relevant and meaningful. Moreover, when commenting you must keep in mind that your comment also becomes a published piece of writing.
You should think of your comments as requests to the author for a response, or as invitations to the other commenters and the author for a group conversation. You can see how this works well on New York Times’s blogs for example, where readers leave some very good comments and the authors return to participate (for example, look at the comments and resulting conversation on this post “What Makes Free Will Free?” on the NY Times’s “The Stone Blog”: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/what-makes-free-will-free/).
Check out the next visual to better understand the blogging cycle:
What makes a “good comment”?
Good comments
- are always related to the content of the post;
- consider the author and the purpose of the post;
- are complimentary in some way;
- ask or answer a question;
- add meaningful information to the content topic;
- are constructively critical, and never hurtful;
- include personal connections to the author’s topic;
- follow the writing process.
Examples of Poor Comments:
- “I like your idea!”
- “Great job; you rock Sarah!”
- “English class is awful and I can’t believe she is making you write on this topic!”
The Author Reply
Once you have posted a blog entry, it is your responsibility as a blogger to respond to the thoughts and questions of those who post comments to your entry. In many instances, a commenters response should be viewed as a compliment to you; you have encouraged them to think more about the subject. In some instances, it is okay to simply thank your commenter; in other instances, you might feel that you can (or should) continue the conversation. In responding to your commenters, always be cognizant of your own feelings and be wary of going on the defense if you do not share the thoughts of your commenter.
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Thanks to Mike Gwaltney, an OSG colleague, for sharing his initial document on commenting.
Some of these ideas should also be credited to:
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