Given the faithful rising to the Reverend’s Come to Bava call to Blog or Die I want to pick up on the followup invocation of Always Be Commenting. I’ve long clung to the idea that the scope of blogging is not just what you publish on your site but how you contribute, participate to others by writing in the comment space of other people’s blogs.
Yet given the withering of many blogs, the flight to news letters, the outsourcing of responding in the rental spaces of so-called social media, the act and art of commenting right in the same place a post is published is seen as well, maybe, web archaic.
In many sense most have embraced the passive act when it comes to reading what the last of the Bloghicans write from their own space- if it is pushed to you in a social media stream (sources and algorithm or timeline send to you) or an email, you then go to read. To me, it’s a different modality when I review what I can browse (sources I select), and I choose to go to the site to read. This is active tense
Sure getting boosts and reposts in the Other Spaces is, well a minimal response, a human written message in direct response to something you have written is, to me, an order of magnitude more powerful.
I also draw back to a magnificent anecdote from my First Blog Year, the notion Matthew G. Kirschenbaum wrote blogged about as a Comment Blogger, where someone blogged without a blog, all of their writing was in the comment space of other blogs.
This was an act I took on in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010- the week of “muzzling” my own blog and taking the time that week to be commenting in the blog space of others, aka blogmenting (the tag).
After 15 years, the muzzle is back on this week.
Thanks for All the Fish Comments
I dusted off some tools I used previously to reflect on the past year. Even if WordPress is being snubbed these days (for the dude a the top), I am in it for the tool, and with some MySQL queries I can yank this out, and actually, somehow, I am able to do this WACGPT (Without Asking ChatCPT).
I enter these in phpMyAdmin (there goes a few readers, eh?)
SELECT comment_author, count( * ) AS acnt
FROM `wp_comments`
WHERE comment_date >= "2024-01-01"
AND comment_date < "2025-01-01"
GROUP BY comment_author
ORDER BY acnt DESCTo give a ranking of my most generous commenters:
| Name | Comments in 2024 |
|---|---|
| CogDog The Blog | 47 |
| Alan Levine | 38 |
| Tom | 19 |
| cogdog | 18 |
| Kevin | 17 |
| Stephen Downes | 8 |
| Eric Likness | 7 |
| Bonni Stachowiak | 5 |
| Tony Hirst | 5 |
| George Station | 4 |
Of course three of those are various versions of me. But a hearty CogDog Howl to Stephen, Tom, Eric, Kevin Tony, Bonni, and George.
I also have a spreadsheet with data for every year of CogDogBlog, using formulas tha generates the MySQL queries to get the number of posts, comments, and commenters in a year (get a copy if you are curious) and a chart over blog life. The arc and tail tell their own story. But at least it’s sill ticking.
Here we go a full week of comment blogging. No blogs here, muzzled until February 24. I’m heading out on the blog trail to comment. I’ve got my usual feeds, but I’m willing to stop by if anyone leaves me a link.
As a comment here 😉
Featured Image: Maulkorb “Lassie” von Sofahund flickr photo by blumenbiene shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license
Nice post!
Since there are no blog actions taking place here just leaving my own comment (that counts, right?).
For all comments I am doing this week I am including a secret hash tag of #CogDogPbzzragOybttvat2025 so maybe I can track by search.
What is that? Put the stuff after CogDog through ROT13.
@barking And for folks who want to allow "commenting" make sure your WP "other" settings for comments do not have this checked:
I started my blog in 2005 and in the early years a lot more people were commenting and engaging than in the past many years. I connected with you and the #CLMOOC group after the #ETMOOC in 2013 and have posted more than 70 article where I pointed to the networked learning going on. Many of those articles were visited by #clmooc members who left comments.
Skim through the articles and see if there are any you want to comment on. https://tutormentor.blogspot.com/search/label/CLMOOC
Ack! I’ll admit I was truly hoping to see my name up in lights on the top commenters list, but the competition is stiff! Clearly I must be imagining comments on your worthy posts more often than I actually make them…to be rectified!
The picture…muzzling a Dalmation. How is the dog going to tell us about the fire? Thankfully for only a week.
Yes, Gene, I was a bit torn about the image of the Dalmatian considering my memory of one named Dominoe https://50ways.cogdogblog.com/50Dominoes.html
The muzzle is off now!
I regularly love commenting on CogDog The Blog, Alan. I recently decided to shut down the comments on Teaching in Higher Ed, after much consternation over the decision. It was one of those things that once Dave told me the steps to take and it was “official,” I did feel great relief. There are just way too many spammy back-linkers and commenters, not to mention well-intentioned people who want to comment to ask me to find something for them related to an episode. I just don’t have time to do that, but apparently have lots of time to experience feelings of guilt, as a result. The biggest thing I imagined missing were occasional opportunities to connect with you there. But I finally came to the point that I can still connect with you here, not to mention hopefully get even more times to engage in other ways in the future.
You always have a welcome seat at the comment table here, Bonni. Besides, I get to hear you every week in a new podcast.
I do not really criticize or question the decision to cut off comments, especially for a popular site like yours, where I can only imagine the deluge of crud that comes in. I revel in being obscure enough so I can just make fun of the spam once in a while.
See you around and hope you are still having camera fun and spotting 208s 😉
Oh, yesssss…. The #208 fun lives on. Dave even recently got us a custom license plate that has that special number in it (and will be the first license plate in decades that I’ll ever have a chance of remembering… not since GOBONNI when I was 16 ?). The kids even now contribute to the album when they come across 208s in their 11 and 13-year-old lives.
And I am, indeed, still having camera fun. Most recently, I’ve been trying to experiment more with video as a medium… and attempting more authentic videos, without feeling that they need to be perfect (as if I could attain that, regardless).
My problem is that I read everything through Feedly, usually 3-4 weeks late! Half the time I would click on a post to add a comment and there wouldn’t be a reply form. I wish Feedly had a way to indicate if comments were open or not. But now that I know I only have to comment four more times to crack the top 10….
Heh the door is open! So is yours. Feedly cant do much there, as you likely know, there are no data fields in R$S for such a thing.