wayne on July 31, 2008
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!
