Commenting is very important in the online community. Even while in college, in my online classes, we have to comment on discussion posts made by other students. I find it bothersome when people do not comment in a method that shows that they understand or 'hear' the other students post. We are not commenting just to comment, we need to agree, reinforce, disagree or argue with a blog posting. For this posting, I commented on seven blogs to include:
Emily Sehi:
Emily discussed commenting in her Thing #4 post. I commented on her post because her blog is very inviting and easy to follow because of her use of screenshots, pictures, and links.
Rachel Funderburk:
I commented on Rachel's posting for Thing #3 because she agreed with many things I had posted in my own blog. I love how she is planning to bring blogging into her classroom. I also enjoy the background of her blog, it seems very academic.
Amber Law:
With the very cool background image and use of transparency modules, Amber's blog connected with me before I ever started to read her posts. I initially went to her blog because she had commented on mine, showing the importance of commenting. I commented on her Thing #3 post because of her inviting first paragraph. She had a very good message in the posting, but with the first paragraph, she hooked the reader.
James Harris:
I also commented on James' blog with his Thing #2 post. I commented on it because, although similar to others, I liked how he modeled his avatar after himself. His avatar has a coffee cup, which seems like I am notorious for when I am on campus. Also, with his blog, he reminded me that even though we have the ability to use various colors, backgrounds, transparent variations, and pictures, sometimes black font on white background is best and easiest to read.
Megan Singleton:
With a similar academic background as Rachel's, I also initially went to Megan's blog because she commented on mine first. I commented on her Thing #4 post. She had a easy to follow posting that contained a lot of information so I am using that style for this posting. Also in Megan's posting, she mentioned commenting on her cousin's blog and that lead me to my next comment.
Andrea Brewster Photography:
After following Megan's comments, I found my self on Andrea's photography page. I was caught up by the talent evident in her photography. I think it is important to let artist know that what they do is appreciated. Sometimes artist do work for no compensation and encouraging the ones that connect with you (similar to blogging) will give them the motivation to keep doing the good work.
Politics by Justin:
Finally I found Justin's blog page (actually I found it before doing this assignment earlier this week) and his blogs really connect with me. He has strong political beliefs as do I. I had read his postings before but because of this assignment, I decided to go back to his blog and actually comment on something. I then noticed how the comments that Justin gets on his blog are both negative and positive. However, I also noticed that he replies to many of his commentators. He has over 3,000 followers on facebook but on a posting, he only had about 5 commentators. More people should comment on blogs that they like or disagree with.
I'm an awesome internet stalker, and I saw this and thought I'd comment on it. Fits with the theme here, right?
ReplyDeleteI'm Justin Acuff, the young political pundit you so graciously talked about in the last paragraph (thank you, by the way).
Comments are interesting things. Because I work for Addicting Info and manage several Facebook pages in the capacity of my work for them as well as myself, and also have access to the statistics of Addicting Info's website and my own, I can tell you a bit about why people do and don't comment.
Everything you read illicits an emotional reaction. Your reaction to that depends on the severity of the reaction. If you didn't really feel anything, you'll forget about what you read pretty rapidly (or not even finish it).
If you liked it or agreed with it, you might click a "like" button. If you liked it a lot, you might share it through various social media outlets.
Commenting is a bit of a different thing. It's like sharing in that someone really has to like it, but it also has to engage them further. It's necessary to not only make them feel, but to make that feeling able to be articulated. You have to ask them a question, or posture an opinion, or engage them further than just having words on a screen for them to read.
Using statistics, it appears that approximately one to five percent of readers actually comment.
Once again, thank you for the compliments you paid me. I hope this shines some light on the situation.