I have 5 posts in draft right now and don’t have the time to complete any of them. This will be a new theme from me. I’m not going to rush posts. I’m going to take my time and develop them without the urge to post for the sake of posting…like this post.
I will comment on Alex saying that my comment on the last post is the reason people don’t comment. Laura has also made similar comments to me that she doesn’t comment because my responses to her comments can be snarky. Please understand that I’m well aware of this and thoughtfully consider if I’m being a dick in my comments before I write them.
To review my comment in the past post, all I was writing is that you were accurately correcting a mistake that I had in my post. It’s like when JC would use a word he didn’t know the right definition of, someone would correct him, and he’d say, “I was testing you to see if you picked that up.” Now, I’m not exactly sure how you were taking it but believe me when I tell you that shitting on people’s comments is the last thing I want to do.
Managing relationships through the computer can be challenging. Here is another example of a time when I know I can be construed as being a dick. I’ll share my thought process behind what I was doing because it doesn’t come across the computer. The example is when I wrote that you should hit me with a 2×4, ala Tommy Boy, if I took Sam’s rationale for blogging. If I read that and I was Sam, I’d think, that’s a pretty dickhead thing to write. Why would he write that?
If you’d rather me write, “I understand that Sam has his own reasoning for why he has a blog and I totally respect that. I however don’t fully agree with it”, this would be a nicer way of writing that. From my perspective though, Sam is my brother who I’ll be painfully truthful to because we have a close relationship where I say what I feel without worrying about hurting his feelings as much as I would with other human beings. I enjoy joking around with Sam because I think he gets that I’m not seriously comparing my opinion on his blogging take with actually getting hit with a 2×4. Now if Sam went home and cried himself to sleep because my comment was too harsh in my disagreement, I’d reconsider how I went about what I said in our relationship and sugar coat what I have to say. I can improve on this but than I wouldn’t be being the real me. The bottom line is that I’m gleefully overjoyed that he maintains any blog at all because I like reading his thoughts on matters.
Writing through the internet is not easy.
I wanted to add to this post to point out the fundamental difference between our takes on blogging so it’s clear. I blog to create a successful website. Sam blogs for personal enjoyment.
I took the comment differently perhaps. My impression was that there was a slight level of disappointment on their end. The commenter appears to have spent some time writing a thoughtful response to your topic – perhaps with the hope of continuing the exchange, but didn’t get much back in that department – souring the motivation to comment in the future.
It’s a tricky spot because essentially you may feel “hey, I gave you my thoughts. That was the point of the post!”
The most valuable commodity any online venue can have is engagement. On the flip-side, fostering an apathetic audience is a recipe for decline. Enagement creates visits, “interaction”, etc. – which are what makes blogs and websites successful.
One way to look at it is that if you can cultivate greater and more meaningful interaction with each thoughtful post, you will not have the tax of having to come up with so many posts.
What’s funny is I honestly thought I was writing a humorous comment. If Alex looked at it the way you pointed out, which I have no idea if that was the case, you make a valid point. I ask for comments and when they come I wouldn’t say I dismiss them but I don’t appreciate / engage them like I should when I “plead” for them. I can improve.
My reply could be a whole post on my blog.
First, whenever you or I write “From now on, my blog will change from X”, I know it’s not going to stick. I wrote this post a while back (http://www.bansheemann7.com/?p=6346) saying I would do the opposite of what you’re doing, and post more frequently with less quality. That never happened. I post whatever stupid shit I think of like I always do.
Second, though I personally didn’t think twice about what you said on my reason for blogging (aside from what it would be like to hit you in the face with a 2×4), it’s very easy for others to take what we say the wrong way.
Third, I’ve been actively trying to give thoughtful responses to all comments on my posts. Think of how we feel when we have a post sitting up that we clearly worked hard on with zero comments. It sucks. That’s probably exactly how a commenter feels when there’s one comment on our stupid post, and it’s them. I want to acknowledge them with the end goal being commenters feel more comfortable commenting, resulting in more comments!
If you add this to your blog, the captions underneath the pictures will be bigger and bolder. People like reading witty captions.
a.wp-caption p, a.wp-caption:hover p, .wp-caption p.wp-caption-text, .full-image-caption {
font-size:16px !important;font-weight:bold;color:#000;
}
The reason I wrote that is because I saw the Zerg rush picture in the linked post and could barely read it and you know how I love a Zerg rush.
Also, you should go into your sites WordPress menu on the left hand side, under settings, under permanlinks, choose custom structure and add this “/%post_id%/%postname%” . Your current URL’s are coming in as post numbers which is the worst way for google to identify keywords and for guests to know what your posts are about.
Don’t you love how helpful I can be!!!!!!!!
I didn’t think you were being a dick, I just found it to be a very vanilla response. You could have just responded “okay” and I would have felt the same about it. I realize now I just didn’t get the JC reference/humor. Reviewing the verbiage in my comment it could be construed as I was trying to be a dick using the word “plead”, which I was not. It was meant as constructive criticism.
Brooke’s analysis pretty much hit the nail on the head. You frequently write about how you want more people to comment and have a barstool/reddit-esque comment section that fosters further conversation and is a large part of what makes other websites highly successful. I have actually been following the North Korea situation a little bit and decided to contribute and when I saw your response I felt like Odd Todd applying for jobs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC6mzc_uq6k&t=1m45s)
I think Sam’s response below is a textbook example of what you should be going for
Jeff • about 11 hours ago
I had a pretty obviously mentally handicapped driver the other day who happened to start off missing a turn and then ended missing a turn.
Are there exceptions to this rating system? This is probably one of only a handful of jobs he is capable/comfortable doing and he seemed genuinely happy to be able to help us get from A to B. Technically it isn’t fair to all the 5* drivers out there and it wont rid out the poor drivers as effectively. Should we let this bro slide and have him just cruising around in circles wasting peoples money? Or should we put the hammer down and 3 star him! Oh the mystery of life…
Reply
Sam • about 9 hours ago Author
That brings up two questions.
1) What you asked, are there exceptions?
-I would say almost definitely yes. Everything is situational, and there’s a difference between a guy being a dick and a guy doing his best with a disability.
2) What’s the criteria for a rating?
-Is it strictly “How fast did he get me from point A to point B”? Or, maybe he missed a turn or two, but if you had a pleasant ride or were happy because he seemed genuinely happy, then maybe the rating shouldn’t be that bad. I think this depends on the person.
As I said before, just constructive criticism
The fans want more video blogs…
“Have a haappppy forth of July!..That was gay I don’t know why I said that…”
rnningfool gold