Most Bloggers Love Comments, But Not Your Comments

I would venture to guess that most bloggers (who use their sites as a kind of ongoing resume or career tool) moderate their comments. I suspect quite a lot of bloggers who aren’t doing social commentary do as well. How do you get your comments through and onto that person’s blog? Here are some quick hints.

1. Be informative. Explain why this post did or didn’t help you. Maybe the post topic isn’t specific enough for what you’re looking for? Are you experiencing some difference in the behavior from the author? Do you have some insight to the problem being solved? By all means, tell us.
2. Be supportive. If the article helped you then a “Thanks; that helped!” comment is appropriate. First, it lets the author know that their effort wasn’t for naught. Second, it lets future visitors know that the process has worked for people other than the author.
3. Point out specific issues with the article and support it with facts. Keep your comment flame-free to make it into my blog and I suspect most other blogs. If there is something on these pages that isn’t accurate, I’d love to get it fixed. As an old mentor of mine once said: “My pencils have erasers for a reason.”

Here are some comments that I get frequently that I can tell you will not pass muster. Ever. Don’t bother typing them in and hitting send because it will take me far less time to delete them from the moderation queue than it will take you to type them out.

“This isn’t interesting.”
To who? When you make this ridiculous statement you assert that you speak for the entire world. This statement is a guaranteed falsehood because if the blogger didn’t find it interesting they wouldn’t have taken the time to post it. Had your comment been “this isn’t interesting to me” then it may have been accurate, but then it’s quite obvious how self-centered it is. Why does anyone care what you do or don’t find interesting about someone else’s blog? Put information about what you do and don’t find interesting in your own blog and leave it out of other people’s. This type of comment will never reach the light of day, so don’t use up your keyboard.

“You’re stupid.”
Unless you know the blogger then making this type of accusation alleges knowledge you can’t possibly have. In fact, some might argue that only a stupid person would make a statement of fact that they cannot possibly support with anything other than supposition. If you have found an error in the post then detail out what that error is. The bloggers I know appreciate the help making sure their posts are accurate.

I find it sweet irony that this type of post generally will be littered with spelling and grammar errors.

“I didn’t want to say this, but…”
Two words: Horse squeeze. If you didn’t want to make the comment then you wouldn’t have. I can’t think of one single time I’ve ever typed out a comment and clicked submit when I didn’t actually want to. This statement usually precedes “You’re stupid” above.

“You’re too late, I said this same thing on my blog months ago.”
Congratulations! I’m sure you were the first person ever to discuss that point. If you want this type of comment to make the cut you need to offer more than just this. Point out how your process is different (without pointing out how “stupid” this one is) and you’ll probably get your comment through.

Information is repeated all over the Internet. The good authors source their articles and link back to the original material. In fact, this type of linking actually helps raise the search engine status for the original post.

In Conclusion
As any respectable author of a blog in this field, it’s important to me to discover how my audience reacts to my posts. But please do me–and everyone else–a favor by presenting your comments thoughtfully.