Over at another blog that I link to quite often these days, (Take a guess! Is it Aunt B. Or Mike Duran?? Pick one) there is a discussion as to how to use blog comments as breadcrumbs leading back to your own blog.
Now, to be honest, sometimes I don’t want people from one blog coming to this blog because I get nervous. How will the Christians handle my love for Harry Potter and my frequent use of the self-constructed epithet “crapweiler”? How will the Pagans, the Atheists, the Jews, the Muslims, handle my occasional forays into Jesus Is Just Alright With Me? And how will the feminists handle my traditional marriage with its traditional gender roles? I get nervous and then I realise that the point of this here space is transparancy and an opaque transparancy is a tautology. Okay, no it isn’t. But I once heard a famous person I dislike misuse the word “tautology” in just that way on a talk-show, so whenever I have the opportunity I poke fun at her by doing the same thing. Don’t use $3 words to try to look smart if you don’t know what they mean, Mrs. Shakespeare In Love.
Anyway. The discussion veered into the arena of how many blog entries go uncommented upon and how demoralising that is. Ooops. There’s nothing else to say but “it’s demoralising when people don’t leave comments.” If it weren’t for WordPress’ wholly unreliable stats page I would be left most days feeling as though my blog was only read by me and, occasionally, my husband.
Thankfully I have these encounters “IRL” as the kids who are too lazy to type out the letters ‘n eal ife’ say, where folks will come up to me and begin to talk about things I’ve said here as though they either paid attention all along or knew they were going to see me so they went back and studied up. Either way, I’m both flattered and slightly remoralised.
But I’m also creeped out. I can only imagine how it’ll feel to have a book published and then see all these strangers weigh in at Amazon. Yes, I know I have magical thinking occasionally, what with assuming it will a) get published and b) bought by people who will then c) take the time to review it. Eh. So what? If it weren’t for some degree of magical thinking I would be an atheist.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
No one comments on my blog. I get maybe one comment to every dozen posts. Stats tell me people are reading it. People I run into at events tell me they are reading it. On the one hand, I don’t really worry about it, since I’m most just writing what ever blather pops into my head. It isn’t like it’s a directed, designed or planned book, sewing or political blog, it’s just blather. On the other hand, I’ve been online for a long time, in a lot of different community formats that all invited, encouraged and thrived on feedback and interaction and I definitely miss that. It’s probably that missing that leads me to occasionally find random strangers blogs and leave comments. *cough*
I haven’t given it enough thought to make any sort of profound statement about it, but I feel like I used to participating a lot online in communities of like minded people, and the rise of blogs has sort of turned that into a much more one sided conversation. I guess I’m giving back my own side in my blog, but it doesn’t feel that way.
I’d read it, I daresay, and even pollute it with my long and inane comments. If I knew how to get there. 🙂
But yes, as a person weaned on UseNet, who used it back when it was a VAX pastime for nerds, the loss of conversation is something I feel very keenly. I don’t like the talking-at aspect as much as I enjoy the talking-with feel of a forum.
The one thing that keeps me endeared to blogging is the fact that, unlike the present state of web fora, there are no lengthy sig lines with cartoon cats, countdowns to baby’s birthday, etc.
I never cared about UseNet, but e-mail lists changed my life. Well, one list in particular did. I miss that….
I find it kind of weird that WordPress doesn’t automatically share a link. I was actually just discussing today that I hope Google+ is the next interactive web thing: http://willamettestar.com/2011/07/07/new-horizons-new-directions/
An interactive web thing that is free of “games,” long sig lines and blinkies gifs.
I think about one in ten comments is a real comment on my blog. I mean, comments that actually pertain to the post. And of those, maybe 2 of them really show that the reader was paying attention… I think I’d rather have a huge debate in my comments about what I wrote rather than “hi, im a new follower, follow back.”