Thank you so much for your positive feedback! I really appreciate that you have taking the time to comment here. And I’m so proud to be part of your first international commenting conversation (thought I think Langwitches should count because she’s totally international)!

Good luck with your surgery recovery – and I bet you’re going to have a very engaging and rich learning week with all your renewed commenting! Oh, you can make links in a comment box too! All you need is a little bit of html Do a quick google search on link tags for html and you’ll find the code – it’s very simple and you should be able to use it in most (if not all) commenting forms.

Thanks! So glad you enjoy my blog And thanks for leaving your first comment!

You’re so totally correct about how many of us read without contributing, I really enjoy reading your blog, however, I don’t think I’ve left any comments on it as yet. Certainly time is a factor, in fact, right now I was only looking up your blog address to send to someone else on another blog who might find it useful!

However, I thought I’d leave a quick note to say well done on a great blog, and hopefully I’ll leave some more useful comments later!

It is so interesting how commenting helps develop ideas in your own mind – much more so than just reading posts. Something about the act of commenting, I think, helps you connect the topic of the post to a new idea of your own (or a reflection of something you had been already thinking about). It’s really amazing to me. Scott has offered the use of his award badge for the Challenge too!

Alecia,

I know exactly what you mean! And I’m so embarrassed to see that my lack of commenting often follows me right back to my own blog. Every time I do leave a comment I’m reminded how powerful the process is and I want to start doing more commenting…. Let’s hope this Comment Challenge helps me create some better blogging habits

Following in your reflective vein, what I see about myself, is that I am a “responder” to ideas, perhaps more than an idea generator myself. As a result, I often have thoughts that occur to me after reading a great post or other great comments.

Much like my social ability in a big room, I don’t often start conversations, but rather I like to participate in them.

Commenting affords me that online.

Scott McLeod wrote on the power and usefulness of commenting much like you. He even issued awards!

In addition to what you said about it helping to validate new bloggers, I think it’s also important to encourage new bloggers to get out there and read and comment as much as possible, not only to establish a name for yourself and bring back some readers to your blog, but also to work on your “voice” when you are still thinking of ideas to blog about.

Good luck with the commenting project!

Yes, I forgot to mention the “echo chamber” problem too. Sometimes it takes me too long to get around to reading a post (thanks to the too much information problem) that by the time I get there everyone else has already said what I would want to write. Which then means I take even longer to synthesize what’s already been written to add something new. Either or that or it’s like a race to get to blog posts first.

Lisa,

You’re doing what I probably should be doing, but something in my personality won’t let me leave the reader behind. Plus, I feel like I have so many people I’m following in Twitter that if I tried to keep up with all of those post too (though many are the same as in my reader) I think I’d go completely nuts.

Sarah,

I know what you mean – sometimes it’s just more important to say something than to dither over words. I guess I’m just super conscious of the fact that anything I put in writing will stay there. Forever. And be searchable, by anyone. So I kind of want to make sure what I write reflects what I really mean – in the right tone, with the least amount of mistakes possible. Because you never know who might find it one day.

4gcblog,

Congratulations! A first comment on a post about commenting! Perfect

Alice,

Yes, I think it’s a bit of “too much of a good thing” for me. I just wish I could figure out how to thin things out a little. I feel like if I drop anything out of my reader I’ll “miss” something good. I just need to have faith that the best will rise to the top and be linked to and twittered about in other posts that I read.

Suzanne,

Glad to hear I’m not alone. I think it’s a little bit of laziness and a big bit of perfectionism. An odd combination, but it certainly hampers my ability to comment as much as I’d like.

Intrepid Teacher,

Thanks for reading! I appreciate your point – sometimes it is just about letting people know that we relate. It’s always good to know that you’re not alone….