I ran into one of my writing group compatriots yesterday at the library – RK. She knows who she is because she reads this blog. That’s what she told me when we talked yesterday (that she reads this blog, not that she knows who she is). What’s even more important is that she likes this blog, which warms my heart no end.
She told me that she used to blog, but stopped because she got addicted to blogging and checking in on her blog, which, coupled with a tendency to want perfectly polished blog posts and keeping up with and commenting on other people’s blogs, ate a lot of time, more than she was comfortable with. So, she deleted her blog. A drastic measure to be sure, but one that saved her sanity. Now, she’s taken on the role of lurker. She reads blogs, but she doesn’t leave comments.
I told her that I’ve noticed a lot of my time evaporating while blogging, but more than blogging itself, which doesn’t take very long, I find that I’m spending even more time keeping up with the blogs of others and with making sure to comment on them. I like comments, heck, I love comments, and I leave them because I want bloggers to know that someone is reading, but I’m beginning to see how excessive commenting is getting away from me.
Along with the Blogging Without Obligation movement, I think we need to celebrate the humble lurker, the reader who reads, but doesn’t comment. Like RK, I lurk around several blogs, with nary a comment left. I’ve been known to leave comments often on a bunch of other blogs and I still will leave comments if so moved, but I have to scale back a bit on the commenting so that I can keep my sanity. Rest assured, if I don’t leave a comment in a while, it’s not that I’m not reading. Rather, I’m lurking. And, of course, I don’t expect others to play by rules that I’m not willing to follow, so, if you want to lurk on Woo Woo Teacup, feel free. Let’s call it Lurking Without Obligation, shall we?
Btw, I have had people, like RK, tell me in ways besides leaving a comment that they are reading. In person is nice, but I’ve also had people track me down via email to tell me they’re reading. Feedback, no matter what channel it comes through is fabulous. As writers, it’s good to know that our words matter to someone.
12 comments
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April 16, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Joy
Hi Mary, I really like your blog. I’m sure you noticed since I do like to leave comments even if it’s just something small. I am very new to this whole blogging thing so to me, I like the comments but I have come to realize, that most of the people I know, don’t know they are supposed to leave comments. So many of my loved ones have written or called and said how much they loved what I or my son wrote and I asked why didn’t they leave a comment and they said they didn’t know how. I couldn’t figure out why I had so many hits with such few comments.
I’m doing my blog with my son and a girlfriend is going to join me soon just so the posts can be fresh every day. I tend to feel if people do stop by day after day to the same post, they will tend to not check back every day and therefore, forget about checking back.
What I like the most about it is that the commenting. The back and forth between me or other commenter’s is the fun part to me. I never knew there were so many “lurkers’ until I started my own. I’ve had close to 650 hits on mine and have only had it for a little more than a week. That’s a lot of lurking. I have no idea how they found me or if they like or hate what we are writing about. I like the feedback plus it’s flattering. Selfish I know……
April 16, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Reeva
I couldn’t agree more with everything in this post. I’m not a big comment-leaver myself, and I’ve caught myself being more stressed out about my comments than my own blog-posts. That ain’t right!
I tend to use my stats to track who is reading, if I care to know, which I don’t always.
All that said – please don’t ever stop blogging. I’m glad that RK did the right thing for herself, but if your blog disappears I’ll cry. Don’t make me come up there!
April 16, 2008 at 9:43 pm
lkwinter
I met someone on a forum from Canada, and we talked through emails, but then the “email load” began to get rigorous–she sent too much and my time was slowly becoming “internet oriented.” Recognizing the problem, I politely made the case and since then the correspondence went way down. Internet addiction and the phenomenon of interactive propriety is a viable entity; I completely understand and relate to your post.
April 17, 2008 at 8:42 am
Manoj Sterex
I do visit a lot of blogs and I try to leave comments on all of them. Yeah, it is time consuming and all, but its worth the time if you can bring a smile upon the face of the writer and a warmth in his/her heart that their words are being read, appreciated and discussed.
April 17, 2008 at 4:33 pm
woowooteacup
Hi, all – When I finished writing this post, I realized how ‘multiple personality’ it sounded. Leave comments, don’t leave comments. Which is it? The beauty of blogging is definitely in the instantaneous feedback and the fact that readers can interact with the posts. In order to have a vital blog community, bloggers need to be willing to visit other blogs and leave comments. However, with millions of blogs out there and only so much time in a day, we can easily reach a point where we’re swamped and no longer have time to take a bathroom break or eat or visit with our families or . . . etc., etc. It’s about finding a good balance and that balance point is bound to be different for each of us.
Joy – There is a solution to your dilemma of people keeping up with your posts if you don’t post every day. You need to sign up for a news aggregator (I use Bloglines) and teach all your friends to do the same. A news aggregator allows you to sign up for blog feeds. Once you do, the aggregator will keep track of when each blog is updated. Then you and your friends don’t have to. Just sign into your aggregator and new posts will be waiting for you. Also, about commenting – the reason there are so many lurkers is that most people don’t want to put themselves out there by leaving a comment. It’s a scary thing. If your friends want to leave comments, but don’t know how, just send them an email explaining how.
Reeva – Maybe I should threaten to stop my blog and make you come up here!
(I’m absolutely kidding about stopping my blog, but it would be fun to visit.)
Hi, lk & Manoj – Nice comments, both of you. Somehow, lk, I’ve never had issues with too many emails, which is nice, but I understand how it gets to be an issue for people. Can you imagine the email a famous person like Neil Gaiman or Trent Reznor gets? If all they ever did was answer email, they’d never create another thing again, which would be our loss.
I have to tell you Manoj, I’ve definitely learned some interesting things about India from you – mostly from the couple of chats we’ve had. IMing – now that’s a whole other topic!
April 18, 2008 at 12:51 am
Caroline
I just wanted to comment on something Joy said, that her site had received 650 hits in one week, and she was surprised at this.
I once had a blog on WordPress, and I, too, was surprised at the high number of hits, as shown on WordPress’s counter.
Then I installed a counter from Sitemeter, which recorded hits at about 1/10th the number of hits on WordPress’s counter. Then I learned from other WordPress users that the WordPress counter is not accurate.
The rate of hits on my site, as per Sitemeter, were what I would have expected, and were about 1/10th of what was recorded on the WordPress counter, and I had no reason to think the Sitemeter figures were incorrect.
So perhaps Joy only had 65 hits on her site, rather than 650.
April 18, 2008 at 9:16 am
Joy
Thanks again for more help. I need all the help I can get. I’m learning more and more each day and it’s really fun. It’s using my brain in different ways and I feel learning is always a good thing. I went and checked out bloglines and will try and figure it out. I’m one of those folks who need to study and read in order to learn. I will I know but sometimes I get so confused that I have to just walk away and try again another time.
I guess I never thought of being scared to comment. I can relate to that.
http://joyerickson.wordpress.com/
April 18, 2008 at 7:54 pm
erin g
I don’t know if I should comment or not. Unlike you, I never feel guilty for not commenting, but almost always have something to say. Even on those blogs that get 300 comments per post, I STILL feel the need to put my 2c in. It’s my way. Usually.
April 19, 2008 at 2:13 pm
woowooteacup
Thanks for the advice on the WordPress stats and Sitemeter, Caroline. I always figured that the WordPress stats were counting the same visitor more than once when the visitor clicked on individual posts. For example, if my daughter googled Woo Woo Teacup Journal and came to the home page, that’d be one hit. If she clicked on an individual post in order to read the comments, that’d be another hit. Same person, two hits. I don’t know if that’s the way it works; that’s just my theory.
Yeah, Erin, I, too, have plenty of 2 cents to go around. Maybe that’s why it takes me so long to go through my list of blogs.
April 20, 2008 at 10:17 am
winnipegjets
Mary, I guess you could consider me a lurker too. I’m so below the radar, in fact, that I tend to avoid posting comments….working on a computer all day at work and the occasional big imaging project at home tends to drive me batty after a while. Only when I feel somewhat sane sitting in front of this contraption & when I have a well thought out diatribe will I then start a’ yappin’!
Love your blog when I get a chance to read it…I honestly wish I could understand how us sibling types all ended up with that creativity gene.
Cat’s a’ calling and I smell like a locker room, so I must tend to some feline feeding & personal hygiene care. Keep up the good work!
– Your “smelly” brother
April 20, 2008 at 11:48 am
Manoj Sterex
That’s great Mary. I enjoyed chatting with you as well. I feel its somehow easier to understand your (western, in general) culture and lifestyle by the people here than the other way around.
Coming to the wordpress stats, as for your example Mary, I don’t think that’s the way it works. That would be the total destruction of the meaning of counting, if it were the case. WordPress stores all our blogs on multiple servers. Meaning, our posts, comments, and everything are stored in many servers. I reckon this has got something to do with the abnormal counting.
April 21, 2008 at 11:28 am
woowooteacup
Hi, Smelly Brother! Glad you dropped by, even if you are (were) smelly. Hey, everybody, take a look at that tiny pic of my older brother. If you can see it, you can kinda tell we look similar. We’ve both got shades on for one, but aside from that, we both have what I call the Rasmussen chin, which comes from our Grandpa Jens. He’s of Danish descent and I think that chin is part of it. You can tell from my brother’s commenting name that he’s into sports. He makes a damn fine sports announcer – and you can quote me on that.
How interesting about the possible stats glitch, Manoj. It makes sense. You know, until it comes up, I don’t usually think about how things like stats counters work. They just run in the background, minding their own business, until their business becomes our business. I wonder which stats counter out there is considered the most accurate. Anyone got any idea?