Comments on blogs

askeladd · Nov 8, 2006

This may be a bit specific to Blogger, but here goes -

As a blog owner, does anyone have any preference for comments using Haloscan versus Blogger? I started off with Blogger's setup but switched to Haloscan to be able to do trackbacks (which I never did figure out anyhow). I'm kind of thinking about going back to Blogger to be able to receive email notification of posted comments, but I'm not sure how to undo Haloscan. I suspect that it's probably a matter of going into the template and removing some code, but what and how much is the real question.

Anyways, how do you all handle comments? Do you have any recommendations or caveats?

aka eraser · Nov 9, 2006

I can't speak to the technical aspects of your question but those who can will be around soon, I'm sure.

Every blogger enjoys comments. They satisfy that innate longing we all have to be seen, heard, and hopefully, understood. I've heard from many readers (via email) that they simply won't comment though. They're too darn shy to put their words "out there" - even anonymously.

Oh, here's a techie aspect: I enable the word verification feature that Blogger offers in order to cut down on the spammers.

angeebee · Nov 9, 2006

Comments are great: encourage them, and make them on other blogs

Hi

There's a school of thought which says that blogs are conversations, and comments are at the heart of the conversations.

Re making comments on others' blogs, that's great. You become part of the blogosphere, and you can make contact with other bloggers. Feel free to leave comments on my writing blog - Angela Booth's Writing Blog at any time. I much appreciate them.

I do have moderation on the comments (on all my blogs), because there's a lot of comment spam, which is a hassle. For the writing blog I use TypePad, who are good at handling spam, but there's so much of it that I get overwhelmed if I don't moderate comments as I go.

All my other blogs are WordPress blogs, and there's a plugin which collects all the spam, I just have to hit Delete to remove them.

Re comments on your own blog - encourage them by responding, offering freebies and prizes, etc.

Good luck with your blog.

Cheers

Angela

WestofMars · Nov 10, 2006

I was reading something this week that said it was telling when they click on a blog that the owner was saying is hugely popular, only to find that there were no comments at all.

Personally, I love comments. I have comment moderation on, just so I have control over what's posted with MY content, and I word verification for anti-spamming, too.

As for the technical stuff... can't help, sorry. I'm not even 100% certain what you're talking about!

Rashenbo · Nov 10, 2006

I prefer just to use the Blogger comments, but then, I really don't worry much about track backs. I either follow the profile of the user back to their site... or I use sitemeter and technorati to keep track of folks

askeladd · Nov 10, 2006

Thanks, all, for the input.

Iirc, trackback has to do with somehow linking a post that you've written to someone else's post. Never messed with it, and probably not likely to in the near future, so that's why I'm thinking about getting rid of Haloscan and going back to Blogger comments. Only thing is that I don't want to get rid of too much and end up breaking my template.

If worst comes to worst, I'll just leave things as is. For me, the downside of Haloscan is that I don't receive notification whenever someone leaves a comment, so I have to check my blog manually. If I stuck to Blogger comments, I could have each comment emailed to me.

Oh well - at least with Haloscan you can set up a gravatar.

Comments on blogs

askeladd

Polyglot

aka eraser

Fish Whisperer

angeebee

WestofMars

ShapeShifter

Rashenbo

askeladd

Polyglot