The time has come for me to start adjusting the blog to do a little more on the promotion side of life. Here is the reasoning behind some changes that will be taking place on the 1st of August 2008 as it pertains to how the top commenter’s will be calculated.
First and foremost, I want to thank all of those who have left me enough comments to even make use of a top comments widget. Without you guys and gals commenting, this whole blog would be pointless to me. It’s really helped my motivation, and I think that’s what I find the biggest surprise about blogging. Thank you.
The Top Commenter’s List
Ignoring the ‘oh that’s neeto’ reasons, the primary reason to have a top commenter’s list is to give back to the people taking the time to leave comments on your blog. More specifically, the component is geared towards those of you out there that have a blog or web site that you yourselves are trying to promote.
When visitors take the time to comment, we as blog owners provide our readers with a variety of ways of saying “thanks for your time and comment!”. You get a link with your own desired text pointing to whatever site you want (normally), and that’s simply golden. It’s a link treasure trove in so many ways and the top commenter’s is a friendly one to be sure.
The top commenter’s list is an additional thank you to the most frequent commenter’s. If you are a frequent commenter, and you are within the top 10 commenter’s, you get your link on every single page in this blog.
My Top Commenters List
Since I started this blog back at the start of this year, I would have never thought I would be looking at numbers like this. Nor would I have thought I would have met such nice people as well.
So, while I could simply leave it and let it grow, it could possibly help to encourage more people commenting if I altered it a bit. So, on August 1st, I’m changing the settings on the component to expire a visitors comment in 30 days. Essentially, it’s a 30 day rolling window of time making ‘Top Commenters in the past 30 Days’ an appropriate title for it. Although, I’ll keep the existing title of Top Commenters.
I hope to encourage more people to comment and become involved in the conversation by creating a great way to get a link on every single page on my site. I think that’s pretty cool.
I also went a little further with that idea and added a recent comments list as well. With that, when you comment it will show in a second list as well.
Let me know what you think of the new settings I’m going to put on the widget. Good idea? Bad? Cheers all!
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@Rose – Easy, we’ve had some extensive back and forth in the past. I was curious if you were going to swing by again, and lo! here you are! Welcome back!
How am I still a top commenter? lol
Thanks Alex! I’m glad to hear that!
This is a great idea for people who blog for the “community” aspect, which you promote very well on your site!
I would blog even if no one read it, and I can say that because for the first YEAR three people came to my page, and two of them were me. :p
@Karen – Thanks! I like changing things up every now and then, but I’m with ya on the being tired….I’m just going and going and going…you’d think I have batteries up my yazoo like the energizer bunny.
@Adam – Woo hoo! You are most welcome. Everyone, if you have not had a chance to see Adam’s blog, you might want to check it out. He does some really good posts on environmental and green concerns. Good job to you Adam!
I am behind the 30 day rollback, and have done it on mine for eons. Oh, and just to let you know, you were the top commentator for the month. Thanks Wayne.
Lovvveee the new format. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to switch to something different, but right now, I’m too tired.
@Demeur – I’m using google analytics for all my traffic analysis, and so far, for the past 30 days I’ve had nearly 1,300 visitors, about 700-800 of those were uniques. Not sure where that stands in the ‘good’ or ‘could be better’ part of life yet. I’m still focused on getting posts out that people are clamoring for. hahaha
@Gary – Thanks much! I really liked it too. One problem I had were the prior posts, but the problem came from me putting an adSense unit within the post itself on certain posts. My posts weren’t ready for the added object in the mix, so some of the older posts look a little screwy. They’ll get corrected soon enough…
As for the lessons, yes, I hope to cover all the default controls and widgets provided by Blogger, and then some extras that they may be missing, but are useful. Templates and controls, those are just around the corner!
@BakerWatson – Thank you too! That’s a good point about the ‘here and now’ aspect of a site. For instance, Rose has been quiet a bit lately, yet she’s maintained her top spot since she’s been there. I think it only fair that others who are commenting regularly should be able to take that top spot a bit easier. Not to mention the ‘competition’ aspects of it.
I also agree that every blogger should have a reason for including something. Some things are simply ‘neat-o’ and are nice to include right? But there should be reasons for including things. That’s why you won’t see one of those calendars on this site. I see no reason to have it there. I never use it, and I don’t see why anyone else would either. Yet, there it is, on so many blogs. I think that real estate could be better used than a calendar.
Good job Wayne. I like the new look. I’m with you on the top commenters list. I think it is good to have it as a rolling calculation. It keeps the list fresh and induces newcomers to your blog to be positive contributors. Otherwise they might not ever catch up to the comments total of a long-term visitor. And I think blogs and links should be largely about what is going on here and now, not some activity that took place months ago. Like Gary I’m interested in possibly adding such a list on my (Blogger) blog but I would want it to calculate on say the last 30 days as yours does.
You do a good job at assessing a situation, implementing changes, and explaining the ‘why’ of your decision. I think many bloggers would be well advised to assess some of the components of their own blogs for the usefulness of certain widgets or other components other than the ‘that’s neat-o’ aspect. I know I frequently experiment by adding, changing the order of things, or dropping items that I don’t feel add to the blog as a whole.
Most impressive—–and sexy as hell. I knnow you run this blog on a different template than the new blogger.com template, and so my question is—-how might I acquire top ten comment list on MY page? If THAT is possible, maybe you might incorporate that into one of your future blogger.com Lessons. (by the way I REALLY do like the new look of your blog page—good layout, good colors, damn nice)
Gary (aka old dude)
http://threescoreplusten.blogspot.com/
I just noticed you don’t have a site meter here. How’s the traffic?
Noticed that mine has doubled in the past month or so, but then I’m not out to make money so I don’t care.