Sue Waters

Oh dear! I’m way behind in recording my reflections from the Comment Challenge so it’s time to play catch-up (apologies for the long post).

But before I do I liked to thank Michele Martin for the excellent daily tasks she has created. Thanks Michele (you’re amazing)!

Day 1: Do a Comment Self Audit

Michele’s task for Day 1 is to do a Comment Self Audit of my own commenting practices.

1. How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week? — Lets just say I’m a prolific commenter
2. Do you track your blog comments? — I use both cocomment and co.mment which feed into my Google Reader using their RSS feed. Means I can rapidly respond to new comments on other people’s blogs if I choose.
3. Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?– Always visiting new blogs 🙂

While I think Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments is good I don’t agree with all her tips — unfortunately to explain why would need a blog post. However Betty Gilgoff in her Day 1 reflections suggests Gina’s guide “would actually be a good resource for students when setting up blogging with a group”– which I think is an excellent idea (with some modifications).

Do you use a Guide to Blog Comments with your students? If so, can you share the link for us to check out?

Progress = Completed 😎

Day 2: Comment on a New Blog

Michele’s task for Day 2 is to do a comment on a new blog (which I do all the time).

I try my best to visit and leave comments on:

• Blogs of readers who leave comments on my blogs
• Blogs that link to my blogs

While this is good practice for building a blog community, my main reasons are to thank the person and support new bloggers.

Progress = Completed 😉

Day 3: Sign up for a Comment Tracking Service

On Day 3 Michele set us the task of signing up for a comment tracking service. As Michele says “To really engage in conversations through blog commenting, you need to develop some effective strategies for managing the comments you make on other blogs. A comment tracking service is a great solution.”

Cammie Bean introduced me to tracking comments, using Co-mment, during the 31 Days To Build A Better Blog last year when I complained that leaving comments on other peoples blogs frustrated me because it was too hard (time consuming) to know if the blogger responded. I now also use cocomment because its excellent for community building and tagging (here’s my post on how to use cocomment).

Progress = Completed 😎

Day 4: Ask a Question

Michele’s task for Day 4 is to ask a Question as she says “One of the most powerful conversation starters is to ask a question. It’s one of the best ways to engage the blogger and other commenters in further discussion.” Whenever appropriate I ask open-ended and thought provoking questions for the reasons Michele highlights.

Don’t get disappointed if the blogger and other commenters doesn’t respond back — unfortunately not all bloggers respond back to comments on their posts and not all commenters using comment tracking tools. But when they do you see some amazing conversations happen.

Progress = Completed 😀

FINAL THOUGHTS

There’s still time for you to join us for 31 Day Comment Challenge! Just go across to Michele Martin’s blog to get started with the tasks and add your name to our participants page.

Remember to follow our tagging recommendations for the Challenge.