Comments Responses
- 17 Comment
Over at Quit Your Day Job I started a new poll regarding the way you respond to your comments (when you get them!!).
When you respond to the comments on your blog do you do a separate comment for each response or do you do one big group response?
I know people who do it both ways and frankly I can see benefits for either methods.
The first method is you post a different comment for each of the comments you get. Effectively you are doubling the comments on each of your posts. Even though half of them are yours it would give the impression that you have a lot more comments than you have actually gotten. Imagine if we responded individually on Comment Friday? Say we get 30 comments and then respond to each of them, on the front page it would appear as 60 comments. The other thing though is it’s like the retail rule, you are more likely to get more customers coming into a store with customers already in there than an empty shop.
The second way is by just doing the one big comment responding to everyone within it. This is the method I myself use and I think I do so more out of saving time than anything. Actually that’s not true I also have a recent comments plugin like the one found here and if I respond to several comments then it just looks like I’m commenting on my own stuff LOL. I like people’s names being displayed in that plugin because it gives them a little link-love too.
So what do you do? The single comment or the many? As a commenter do you like having a response aimed directly at you? If someone is responding directly do you notice it and think cynically that they are just trying to boost the appearance of their comments?
So after you’ve commented here about why not head over to QYDJ and vote in the poll too? You never know you may read something there that warrants a comment!
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17 Comments on this post
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Rhys said:
Voted!
Ideally the best thing is for threaded comments, and should people have subscriptions then you can respond to them individually.
May 16th, 2007 at 1:39 am -
Zura said:
I do both, depending on the person and the situation. Mosty I comment individually because I have a plug in that emails my reply comment to the original commenter. But if several people who are my friends make similar comments on something, I’ll just post a reply on the site that says something about what they all said.
I appreciate a personal comment when I leave comments. It lets me know the author is reading all his/her comments and that I’m appreciate for wrting.
May 16th, 2007 at 1:47 am -
Lee said:
Rhys – Thanks for that – we’re going to put the comments subscription plugin in here over the next couple of days. I should look at threaded comments actually, I like that idea for my sites.
May 16th, 2007 at 2:03 am -
Chris said:
I too do a mixture, although mainly respond in one comment. I see blogs with lots of comments who respond individually every time, and it just looks silly.
Subscribe to comments is very useful, as is threaded comments although it doesn’t work with every theme…
May 16th, 2007 at 2:05 am -
Lee said:
Zura – I’m going to have to check that comment plugin out because that sounds exactly like something I could use!
May 16th, 2007 at 2:11 am -
TheAnand said:
Weird, co incidence….I just decided that I will posts comments in bulk! yea i got tired of seeing my own name in the side bar!
May 16th, 2007 at 7:06 am -
Psycho Dude said:
I sort of do both, it depends on how much time I have when I’m doing the commenting. Whenever I got multiple comments and have the time to reply to them individually I will do so, otherwise I respond to them in a single comment.
May 16th, 2007 at 7:11 am -
Bonnie said:
If I go back to see if my comment has been answered, I don’t mind seeing my name with three or perhaps four other commenters in one comment. What I find harder to take is the poster commenting on ALL the comments in one sort of final comment on the post. This just starts looking like someone doing homework and there is no comment discussion going on there.
I tend to try and visit the blog who commented and offer a comment over there–unless it’s a comment I can make that relevant to a theme that people are talking about.
May 16th, 2007 at 8:12 am -
derek said:
Not too long ago I posted a similar topic on my site to get feedback on how often you should respond to comments.
I try to respond to each comment on my site and usually respond directly to that comment. I do use the threaded comments so it helps keep a flow to the dialog. But the one thing I don’t care for is getting so many of my own comments on the sidebar.
We had some interesting discussion on the topic over at my site and I still plan to respond to just about every comment. 🙂
May 16th, 2007 at 12:46 pm -
Matthew Jabs said:
It’s funny that you’d ask this Lee.
I used to group them all into one comment…however, not 2 minutes ago I just got done installing Brian Meidell’s Threaded Comments plugin for wordpress. No joke, I just installed this.
From now on I’m going to reply to each comment in thread format.
PS…if you install this, make sure you back up your database & homedir first, well, this is true with any changes you make to your blog.
PSS…I gave a little love again today Lee (if you don’t understand, ask Matt).
May 16th, 2007 at 1:44 pm -
Beth said:
It all depends on the number of comments and the topic. If I have a lot I will respond in one comment but direct each to the original commenter. If I only have a few or of the responses aren’t similar, I’ll comment on an individual basis. Since I use a recent comments plugin, I don’t like a lot of my own appearing in the list.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:07 pm -
Lee said:
The Anand – that is weird – get out of my brain lol – I’ve persisted with doing the individual responses here and I don’t know if I like it or not – it’s fine if you’re here to answer straight away but when you’ve got five comments to answer you just ruin the sidebar – mind you I’m not that unhappy having to answer any comments!!
May 16th, 2007 at 5:34 pm -
Lee said:
Psycho Dude – I think that’s the happy medium if you can’t decide to do both – I mean it’s your blog you can do what you want!!
May 16th, 2007 at 5:35 pm -
Lee said:
Bonnie – same here I always try and at least make it over to a commenter blog to at least give them the hit. I always forget to go back and check my comments made on other blogs for responses!
May 16th, 2007 at 5:37 pm -
Lee said:
Derek – LOL ok I’ll get out of your brain! I’m really glad you posted the link (click on dereks name for the link on his comment or if you are too lazy click here – man I can’t believe you are too lazy!!)because the more discussion on this the clearer picture to help make up my mind. I was just thinking as I was reading through your comments how nice it was with the individual responses too. Also it was a good chance to see the threaded responses.
May 16th, 2007 at 5:44 pm -
Lee said:
Matthew Jabs – OK now you get out of my brain! Man we’re all reading each others minds today. Thank you for including the link to the plugin because I am so going to experiment with that on QYDJ. I’ll be interested to hear about your experience with it as time goes on.
Cheers for the link love!
May 16th, 2007 at 5:46 pm -
Lee said:
Beth – I think you’re reflecting the general consensus here that it’s appropriate sometimes and then not so other times – thanks for commenting.
May 16th, 2007 at 9:28 pm