Hi,
I have been blogging here for the few months. Many of my friends read my blog regularly and give me their comments. The only issue is that they tend to give their opinions straight when they meet me or by sms( a really easy medium to use and my friends use it extensively!) or by mail. I've tried telling them to write their comments here but most of them don't. I'm tired of reminding them about it. That is why this post has come up!
To my readers and friends,
Some of the reasons I think for your noncommenting online are:
1) You think that your comments don't matter(your comments do matter a lot because I would love to know your opinions on what I write!)
2) You feel that others might not like your opinion(as long as it doesn't hurt anyone, all your comments are welcome)
3) You think that the commenting procedure here is a bit tedious(well,I can't do anything about it! The blogger team should take care if this is the problem. Personally, I think that this is one user friendly site and that the blogger team has done a good job of it)
4) You think that conveying your opinions matter and not the medium( True! your comments over any medium are welcome but I would prefer them to be written here because it is a lot easier and would help a lot when we(or someone else) read the post at a later date)
5) You are worried about your privacy and don't want the world at large to know your opinions( I don't think anyone not known to you and with a malicious intent would try to trace you and send hate messages. Come on! this is beyond anyone's imagination! And, we are giving out so much info over orkut and other websites. A small comment here wouldn't cause much trouble)
6) You think that since you see me day in and day out, you don't bother to write the comments here( A plausible reason! Lets see if the comments increase when I shift to Bangalore in a months time)
7) ............
Frankly, I've run out of reasons!
The comments that you give right to my face are on my mind for some time but I tend to forget them as time goes. A few weeks later, both you and me cannot remember what your comment was about a particular post. And, with the sem work that we have, I tend to forget them sooner. :(
The comments that you give over mail are there in my mailbox but after a few months, when I read them again, I can't make sense of it. I don't know which comment of yours is for what post! And, that adds to the confusion!
The comments that you send to my cell phone are there until either my inbox overflows (most likely) or I delete them to accomodate another msg. Frankly, I cannot keep track of them too. Finally, it leads to the same situation as the face to face comments.
So, I am in a fix over this. Fellow bloggers! Do give me some suggestion as to how you faced such a situation when you started blogging. There should be a way around and I'm bent on finding it.
PS: It is no fun when some one sends a serious comment to your cell when you are busy shopping or having fun with friends. It should be experienced to be understood :(
15 comments:
The first to comment!
He he... yeah comments do feel good, especially on the blog post itself. Don't worry you'll get more comments on this one
Sure... This is one good blog! I guess 6 should b my reason (5 is stupid for all I care :)). So, when r u leaving to B'lore?
Alka
Sudipta, Hopefully :) Time should tell!
Alka, great to c u here. Yeah! 5 is stupid. But, der r a few paranoids too (Its for them ;))I'd be leaving in the end of Nov or first week of Dec, surely after a small break after our exams.
sure Harini I'll write comments...I wish u gr8 success in d exams...as well as Best of Grace for ur proj.
The think I like in u d most is ur frankness in expressing vat u feel...
keep it up...keep on blogging
I think the reason for not commenting in some ways is similar to students not engaging in a class discussion:) when a teacher asks some question, many times, many students may know the answer, but they simply wont respond. one reason(other than being shy) i guess maybe because they think "the answer shud be obvious/known to most ppl". sometimes it maybe also bcos of the topic of discussion doesnt tend to invite much comments. To engage the blog-readers more, I think we shud keep asking questions or opinions.
Another reason, I guess is because its not too much of a discussion-system (unline orkut scrapping). X comments on ur blog, u wud normally comment on X's comment (probably in the same comments section), but X doesnt know this unless (s)he check the comment section again(the motivation to check the comment section for the same article again in most cases might be very less).
I think all the blogging s/w need to do some work here :)
But the same problem exists with sms too. Im surprised that many ppl give comments via sms(if they read the article in the browser and not in the cellphone). If they are reading the article in the mobile(which I highly doubt), then it makes sense. Scrolling up looks like this comment has grown to the size of an article :D
-Arun.
actually now that i think, one reason for ppl commenting over sms might be, they atleast get notified when u reply to thier comment(unlike here)...but still im surprised ^_^
Annie, thanks a lot! But my being frank is not well received at all occasions :) Thanks for starting to comment here ;)
Arun, well..... That is one good reason! Is the blogger team listening? An email notification to the commenters too would do loads to solve this problem. And, abt the sms, one of my friends said that once she reads my blog, she immediately reaches for her cell phone and types in the comment like a message and sends it to me! She says it is easier and faster! And, a quick response..... yes!
Well Harini....I think that conveying my opinions matter and not the medium...it has to reach u some how...tats important la...i think this post of urs is very different.......
hmmmmmm....the only sms i sent in the past 2 yrs was "test" and asked my friend whether he got it :D..and the only ones i recieve r from my service provider. looks like the present indian generation is like in japan and korea.
-arun.
Rupika, thanks :) As I said in my post, I don't mind getting comments over any medium but I prefer the blogspace. Kinda easier.
Arun, when you come to India, you'd be surprised to see the number of people using cell phones. College students form an important segment of the mobile market. It is cheaper, faster and more convenient. So, there is no surprise that most of them prefer using it, even to comment :)
somewhere in some corner of my heart i envision a day when most people hook onto PDAs connected to WiMAX network, it's all happening much faster than anyone could predict. But backbone is information sharing. cell phone is really a revolution of it's kind in india, it has not just changed the way we communicate, but brought in a new lease of life to millions of impoverished people.
Well, anonymous! That is true too. Soon, we would reach the day you are thinking loud about.
From what I've seen,
Probability that a visitor comments on your post is inversely proportional to your personal relationship with that visitor.
Now, there are some random exceptions to this and it's mostly a rule of human nature and can’t do anything about it.
But there is something you can do about Point (3) - move to Wordpress! :)
Blogger commenting system really sucks!
Thanks, Anand! And, Welcome :)
I have already asked Anand about this, thats why I ruled out Wordpress :)
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