I Done Opened My Mouth And Closed It!

Disclaimer: If you remember, back in late June I had written a post that I was very leery of posting, simply because it talked about my personal take on a particular aspect of blogging. I wrote a post about posting this post, and I after getting some very good advice, shelved it for a month. Please take note that this should be taken at face value and reading between the lines is strictly forbidden.

I don't comment much on the blogs that I follow. I'm not sure how that really came about, because almost from day one of my blogging, I made sure to comment on the blogs that I followed, because I enjoyed having the people comment on mine.

I got to thinking about this the other day when I got my weekly stats reports. Prior to this year, I used to agonize over the amount of visitors/commenters to my blogs. I figured (wrongly) that since I wasn't commenting on other people's blogs, those people weren't commenting on mine.

But this year, even though I'm getting a reduced average amount of original visitors to my blog (about 12-14 per day for an 85-95 per week ratio), I figure that people are perusing my blog to satisfy the need to feed their brain (or in some cases, troll for info so that they can troll me if/when I reappear in the chat rooms), and not necessarily to comment on what I wrote. So that got me to thinking about the many reasons why someone wouldn't comment on a blog, which in turn mirrored to a small degree why I've been reducing my commenting from an average of 50 a week to a core group of about 25.

In no particular order of importance, here's a few of the reasons that I came up with. Who knows, maybe some of these are reasons of yours as to why you do certain things with the blogs you read.

1} Getting lost in the shuffle. I read quite a few blogs which are insanely popular, which in turn generates a phenomenal amount of comments (anywhere from 60 to 250+ per post). I figure since an ungodly amount of people comment, why should I add mine to the mix? Especially since I got this thing about having my comments acknowledged in some small way.

2} Not having my comments acknowledged. Yes, this really does bother me. I know with a few of the blogs that I follow, this is a given, and I'm happy with these particular blogs because those bloggers do reciprocate and visit mine. And I know with other bloggers, they'll make a general comment thanking everyone for their responses. This is fine too, because it means that the bloggers in question took the time to read everyone's comments.

My beef is with the ones who don't acknowledge comments at all, or that they'll acknowledge a comment via the e-mail (yes, I read blogs who have that policy). Sorry, but after the major trauma I went through for 3 years in the chat rooms, the last thing I want is someone e-mailing me without asking first (aka personal spam). Which is why I don't have an e-mail (got 4) listed in my profile.

3} Content. Some of the blogs that I follow have the type of content that makes it hard/uncomfortable to comment on. Like if the blog is about the trials and tribulations of one's life (example, a recovering alcoholic). While it does makes for a fascinating read, because I haven't been there and done that, I don't feel comfortable in commenting. Or if the blog has turned into a pseudo magazine. While still a great read, it doesn't readily lend itself to commenting, usually because the blogger is concentrating on churning out content as opposed to dealing with commenters. A few of the blogs I follow fall into this category.

4} Doesn't have that same appeal anymore. The blogs that fall into this category are ones that I used to be a regular commenter on, but over the past two years, they evolved into something that just doesn't hold my interest like it used to. I'll still make an appearance from time to time, just to let the blogger know that he/she still has a long time lurker in the midst, but for the most part, I'm content to scan the post summary before marking it as read in my reader.

5} Simply a good read. And then there are those blogs that I follow and/or subscribe to, that I simply enjoy reading and not commenting, because its like reading a favorite magazine or newspaper. It more than fills the need to be informed and entertained, but because either I know diddly squat about the topic/content in question or I know just the barest of outlines about it, I don't comment.

I've managed to come up with a few more reasons as to why I infrequently comment on certain blogs while I was writing this post, but these five in particular make up the majority as to why my ugly puss (or in this case, the lovable couch potato cat avatar for Blogger or the Hong Kong Phooey dog for WordPress) simply lurks in the blog world.

So my friends, your opinion on this (usually) taboo blog topic is.....?