16 Responses to “aside: blog discussion for the day”  

1. 1 ppb Oct 2nd, 2007 at 2:21 pm

   Can I tell you the pressure of answering this? There are NO comments. Should I
   a) keep refreshing to hit the page more often, or
   b) comment?

   The pressure. The pressure!

   Frankly, I would rather have the comments, even if just a blog stone. I feel like nobody’s reading or worse, they’re reading but they think what I’m writing is stupid or unimportant. But that’s me. The exception to this preference would be memes or Friday Fives. Those are just read and leavers, in my book. I don’t care if they sit empty.

   Of course, I don’t check my stats on my blog very often, if at all. I’m always amazed at people who know when it’s their 300th post or 1,000 comment. I am just never together enough to know these things! Maybe I’ll go look now.

   Now with Fidelia’s Sisters, i DO keep obsessively checking the stats. Because I knew there would be few if any comments since the target audience is not a bloggy audience, per se.

   Where I get really twisted up is when a sermon is posted or a poem. I never know what to say in response to these things. I know how to comment when one is in process, but finished sermons and poems—I never know what to say, and then I feel bad for it. I almost never publish sermons unless they’re in draft. And I never publish poems, since it was about a hundred years ago that I last wrote a poem (I think it had to do with a tree, or a cat, or something like that). I like reading these things on line, but I get struck dumb by them.

2. 2 towanda Oct 2nd, 2007 at 5:35 pm

   I prefer comments…I try to leave ‘em, too, although I don’t always have the time to be that thoughtful. It must be the introvert in me…

3. 3 Libby Gruner Oct 2nd, 2007 at 9:33 pm

   comments more than hits. I’d love to know I’m being read by thousands–ok, dozens would do–but I love even more to hear from a reader once in a while. Of course it would help if I updated more frequently…

4. 4 Matthew Oct 3rd, 2007 at 8:55 am

   comments. I love having discussions through the comment section on my blog.

5. 5 NotShyChiRev Oct 3rd, 2007 at 12:02 pm

   I’m with everybody else. Comments over hits, any day. But then I’m not making money off of my hits either.

6. 6 tribalchurch Oct 3rd, 2007 at 2:20 pm

   I have a blog with lots of hits and few comments. I check the stats. I’m endlessly intrigued by them. My husband has a blog with lots of comments and less hits.

   He thinks my blog’s really weird, but I just figure maybe my readers aren’t the commenting type. It’s sort of intimidating to leave one, when you’re not used to blogging. But I wonder sometimes, who are all those people? It’s an anonymous sea…

   I like to interact with the comments, and that’s a lot easier to do when there are fewer of them. So, although I love comments, I’m happy with what I’ve got.

7. 7 Quotidian Grace Oct 3rd, 2007 at 2:53 pm

   Like the rest of you, I live for comments! I don’t check my stats very often.

8. 8 Woodstock Oct 3rd, 2007 at 6:17 pm

   I like to read comments.

9. 9 Teri Oct 3rd, 2007 at 9:07 pm

   comments comments comments! Then sometimes I can guess (or know) which location on my little stat map goes with which commenter, and I can have conversations in comments…you can’t have very engaging conversations with the stat counter.

10. 10 reverendmother Oct 4th, 2007 at 11:01 am

    I realized I never answered…

    I think if the choice is really extreme, like between hundreds of hits and no comments, or twenty hits and ten comments, I’ll take the latter. I don’t read stats all that often but it is intriguing to see who is out there. It’s like when people say “Oh, I read your blog” but they’ve never commented. I get a kick out of that.

    Mainly I just think it’s interesting that you might have two blogs that seem pretty similar on the surface, but one attracts a big readership but hardly any comments, and the other blog has tons of comments and maybe moderate readership.

    Maybe it comes down to whether a person intends her blog to be more about a space for community vs. a place for writing to be disseminated. Obviously most blogs contain elements of both.

11. 11 zorra Oct 4th, 2007 at 11:31 am

    Comments, comments, I love comments. Even if it’s just a blog stone, I’m glad somebody took the time to comment. I’d like to become a better writer, but mostly I’mblogging because I enjoy the community.

    Most of the non-comment hits I get are from people looking for information about dogs!

12. 12 Mindy Oct 5th, 2007 at 5:34 am

    Comments! I think it validates me. I hate to be left standing there with a blog post that no one says anything to. It is like I am standing in the middle of the room naked or something.

13. 13 mamaS Oct 5th, 2007 at 9:32 am

    hmmm… comments, I guess.

    I have another blog with a much bigger readership, and almost no comments. But almost everyone who reads it knows me IRL.

14. 14 Keith Oct 5th, 2007 at 12:50 pm

    I’m supposed to know what my blog is for?

15. 15 Kathryn Oct 7th, 2007 at 3:56 pm

    Comments, definitely….I’ve given up on site meter anyway so I have no idea how to find out how many hits I get, but when nobody comments on a particular post I feel all sad and unloved ;-(

16. 16 spookyrach Oct 17th, 2007 at 9:42 am

    I am a comment whore.

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