a follow up to my post about replying to comments

Happy May Day!

No, the photo’s not relevant to anything but it was taken in May last year when Older Grandson was a a little over two – he doesn’t look like that anymore; he’s lost that chubby baby look and is a proper boy (albeit a pre-schooler) now!

For we Australians it's the beginning of the last month of winter but the weather here in Sydney is still gorgeous -- a great day to be outside!

So why am I still inside?

I have been catching up with (86) blogs, leaving comments and answering emails (including comments).

Didn't my last post about responding to comments left on blogs open a great conversation?

So, I have found a time consuming way of keep this particular conversation going. I may not do it for all blog posts but for this one it seemed like a good idea!

Firstly, I have written fairly lengthy replies to some of the poeple who left comments on my blog regarding the last post. Why only some of them? Because I can only type about 45 words per minute and I've been in front of this computer on-and-off for almost six hours (lucky I'm retired) so I haven't replied to everyone yet -- but I will!

Then I cut and pasted the relevant part of my reply to my own blog as a direct reply to the comments! So now the conversation can be followed by those who so desire -- you're welcome to add further comments if you have time to go back and read all the comments and replies there.  Just give me another twenty-four hours or so to go back and finish my replies!

Personally, if I was one of my followers, I don't have time to read all the comments and replies and I rarely of back anyway so this may be a total waste of my time. But let's see how it goes (as a social experiment)!

Tomorrow's post will be on a whole other topic -- the linky party for 2013: The Year of The Finished Project. Are you getting your UFOs done?

a Blogger verification secret; & a dissertation on responding to blog comments

Have you noticed that Blogger’s comment verification (to prove that you are not a robot) has reverted from a jumbled collection of letters and a photographed number to their previous format: a jumbled collection of letters and a recognisable word?

Well, I have stumbled upon a “secret”: no matter whether the jumbled letters occur first or last, type only them – ignore the “real” word (which is, of course, easy to read). In every case where I have tried this, the comment always publishes! I have tried typing only the “real word” and that doesn’t work; but type the non-real word (is that an “unword”?) and it works, every time (just as omitting the numbers always worked!).

When will Blogger make it easy for us and just have a simple maths problem to solve or, better yet, a little box under the comment which one ticks to prove that one is “not a robot”?

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And now a short dissertation about bloggers who don’t respond to the comments left on their blogs (please don’t stop reading now – you may agree with me, or you may not realise I’m talking to you!).

I don’t respond to every comment that’s left on my blog but I reply to the vast majority of them. I think it’s good manners to simply say “thank you” or to show the commenter that the time they have taken to leave a comment is worth my time in response. That’s how friendships are built, online and in the real world!

We all like receiving comments. it makes us feel good, like someone is reading and cares about what we have to say.

I concede that it’s good to keep the conversation going by replying to those comments in the comment section of your blogs but…

If you post with Wordpress, we who post with Blogger don’t get your responses! Did you know that? We don’t know that you have replied to our comments! (I only discovered it by accident when I went back to an old post to check something and found out that the blog owner had responded to my comment! Up until that point, I thought that my comments hadn’t been worth answering!)

From talking to other bloggers, rarely do any of us go back to posts that we have already read to see if a reply has been left on our comment. We just don’t have the time. We could, of course, tick the little box that invites us to receive (by email) the comments that are left on your blog posts after ours – but I, for one, don't want to sort through dozens of comments in my inbox which are largely irrelevant to me!

Those of you who have had me following your blog for a long time, know that I am a faithful commenter. It would be great if I got a response to even half the comments I leave on other people’s blogs!

Since the list of blogs I read is now over 150 and I comment on about 80% of all the blogs I read, I have begun sorting through them and eliminating some. Want to know which ones I’ve eliminated first? That’s right, the bloggers who don’t ever respond to comments I have left! Mostly because I feel like they don’t consider my comments important. There are some “never-reply” blogs still in my reading list; blogs I’ve been reading for a long time, blogs where I know the blogger personally, or blogs I really, really enjoy or whose work I really admire.

So, please, fellow bloggers, if people are kind enough to take the time to leave a comment on your blog and you can contact them, either by email or visiting their blog, please, please, please, do us the courtesy of responding! Don’t just leave your response on your own blog – chances are that we will never see it!

So, what do other bloggers think?

comments and word verification

On Wednesday, Jennifer at Ellison Lane Quilts posted this discussion starter about how to make commenting easier.

 

Basically, she posed a question about the number of blogs that have word verification and how life would be easier for readers if they didn't have to go through that process.

 

As many of you know, I read and comment on lots of blogs every day (there are 165 on my reading list) and, as I commented to Jennifer, I am so used to word verification I hardly give it a thought. It is easier on some blogs than others; some are so difficult to read it takes me two or three attempts to get it right! And sometimes it's Blogger that makes things difficult! My on-again-off-again internet connection doesn't help either!

 

It would, of course, be faster for me to leave comments if I didn't have to go through the word verification process then wait to see that my comment has gone through.

 

Jennifer's post gave me cause to think. I use word verification on my blog. In what I now think may be overkill, I also use comment moderation. I think I have always used word verification to keep out spamming and when that didn't work (I had spam a few days in a row), I added the moderation.

 

So, how do I choose to respond to Jennifer's thought provoking post?

 

It seems I have four choices:

~ Do nothing.
~ Remove word verification.
~ Remove moderation.
~ Remove word verification and moderation.

I have chosen to take up the challenge and remove verification from my posts! I can always put it back if spam becomes an issue. I am still thinking about the moderating; one step at a time please!

If you are using Blogger, and want to remove word verification from your comments, Jennifer has the technical know-how on her post so there is no point in me repeating it here.

So, do you use word verification? What do you think about not using it?

Happy Blogiversary to me!

Today is my first blogiversary. Pinching an idea from RoseRed:
looking back at this year, what were my knitting milestones?

I started a blog, joined Knit4Charities, participated in four KALs, attended two knitting workshops [feral knitting and lace knitting] and a dyeing workshop, knitted my first pair of socks - make that ten pairs of socks, designed and knitted a lace stole, bought and used hand painted wool and last, but certainly not least, attempted and succeeded to dye acrylic yarn. I made the largest number of items in one year that I've ever knitted [is that why I'm not allowed to knit now?]

And, in honour of this auspicious occasion. I have modified my blog template [but still kept my purple theme!]

Without all my new blogosphere friends, this blog would be just self-indulgent; so thank you one and all for dropping by. Please don't lurk here today - leave a comment if you don't mind, even if it's just: "Hi, Lynne"!

"Happy blogiversary to me!"