Stephen Francoeur, in a post a couple of days ago, poses this really excellent question about blog-iquette:
I’m not quite sure of the best way to reply to comments left at the end of postings. If I post my reply as a comment, will the original commenter think to go back to see if I’ve written my reply there? Or should I respond by doing an entirely new post, which the original commenter is more likely to see? My messier solution for now: post a new message mentioning the comment and noting my own follow-up comment.
WordPress has the feature that you can subscribe to an RSS feed for comments on individual posts. Do other blog apps have that functionality? And does anyone actually use it anyway? Paul, the few times I’ve commented on his blog, has emailed me in reply, & following his lead I’ve taken to doing that with my own commenters sometimes. But the problem with that is, my reply then isn’t public. Scott comments on his own blog, & has managed to get some actual conversations going from time to time, so clearly his readers are avid enough to check back.
Anyone have any suggestions on how to handle this situation?
8 Comments
Scott Nicholson
The LiveJournal blogging resolves one of these issues through e-mail notification.
When someone replies to my blog, I get an e-mail with their reply and a webform to make it easy for me to reply publically to the comment.
The person who left the comment then will get an e-mail with my reply, and a webform making it easy for them to reply.
The trickiest bit with this format is that people sometimes forget that replying in the e-mail based Webform is going to make a public blog reply, so sometimes provide too much information for public consumption.
Allen Searls
Yes, I’m glad you brought this up. I have the same quagmire and generally do exactly the same thing. Since the commenter generally has to give their email as part of the process of commenting, I thought Typepad might email them any subsequent comments in the thread, but they don’t, and understandably so, as if you’re a popular blogger you could end up spamming your commenter with other comments. Subscribing to a comments-feed is also weird for me, as subscribing is generally something to do for something you want to read on an ongoing basis, it’s a pretty big commitment to add a new feed to your reader just to see a possible response to a comment you posted somewhere. So for now I think your solution is best 🙂
Allen
Paul Jones
When I am a good boy, I reply on the blog so’s that the conversation makes sense and includes others.
But sometimes I am not so good. I have wordpress send me mail of comments. So if I get the mail while I’m out and read it on my Treo, sometimes I will reply just via email and not get back to commenting. Sometimes I only want to acknowledge that I’ve read the comment, so I might email and not comment myself. Sometimes, I have something more personal and not public to say to the commentor, then I only use email.
What was it that Emerson said about “Foolish consistency”? The link answers.
虚拟主机
I’m glad you brought this up. I have the same quagmire and generally do exactly the same thing
Mike Paahana
i use my gf computer so nobody no’s its me
Archibald Andrews
The reason why we comment on a particular blog is we want to share basically our thoughts with others. But people who answers or reacts to a blog should be able to have this responsibility to censor what they type in as a reply because everybody has access to it, its for public viewing.
Archie_Andrews@hotmail.com
marjone
I thought Typepad might email them any subsequent comments in the thread, but they don’t, and understandably so, as if you’re a popular blogger you could end up spamming your commenter with other comments. Subscribing to a comments-feed is also weird for me, as subscribing is generally something to do for something you want to read on an ongoing basis, it’s a pretty big commitment to add a new feed to your reader just to see a possible response to a comment you posted somewhere. So for now I think your solution is best in our house.
marjone
I have wordpress send me mail of comments. So if I get the mail while I’m out and read it on my Treo, sometimes I will reply just via email and not get back to commenting. Sometimes I only want to acknowledge that I’ve read the comment, so I might email and not comment myself. Sometimes, I have something more personal and not public to say to the commentor,like change in the word.