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Guest Post: How To Make Your Blog More Comment Friendly

March 20, 2012 By 44 Comments

This is a guest post by Sylver.

I just participated in an exciting, pay-it-forwrd Blogelina comment-fest of herculean proportions!

It was…blogelicious!

I attracted oodles of new visitors, discovered scads of scrumdillyicious new blogs, and made gaggles of new FBriends.

My rating for Blogelina?  Five stars + 203 new commenters!

Go, Blogelina!

Howeverrrrr…

In spite of the overall splendiferous experience, I am writing this post out of pure frustration. A frustration borne from dozens and dozens (and dozens!) of diligent attempts to leave well thought-out comments on Fort Knox-protected posts.

Yes, though I made wonderful new friends and followers during this yummy event, sadly, I also made one lifelong enemy.

  • CAPTCHA.

I knew we’d never last after the 7th attempt on the 47th blog to type in the squiggly, warped letters, that – no matter which letters you think they are, they’re not – teased and taunted me until I went from “Oh, darn!” to “Oh, #%@&!!”

CAPTCHA is Comments barbwire.

And, trust me when I tell you, there’s an enormous community of commenters who believe that scaling barbed wire is not a fun sport!

Besides, who wants to be pricked for trying to show love?

But, in the spirit of 100 comments, I put my heart on my sleeve, threw my schedule to the wind, and spent hours scaling some of the most prickly barbwire in the blogosphere.

Even when I managed to get a comment through, and had the desire to leave more comments on other delicious posts, that was never going to happen.

No waaaay would I crawl through those steel thorns again…and again….and again, and again - no matter how many posts I adore!

So sad.

So mad!

Such a perfect name for a tricky spider that CAPTCHAs you in a web of frustration!

What if I have exactly 6 minutes before leaving to pick up my kids from school, and I choose to spend those precious free minutes commenting on one of your delightful posts – but instead end up wanting to strangle rather than follow you because of the CAPTCHA Joker laughing at me from your Comments box?

And CAPTCHA wasn’t the only thing that kept my Comments at bay.

There were many other Joker grins that sent me packing.

  • Like this one:

This is the Comments box drop down where you select a choice for your profile.

Most people are already registered with at least 2 to 3 of these choices. And, of course, everyone should be able to easily apply the last 2 choices if they are not registered with any of the others.

Mwaaa-haaa-haaa-haaaaaaa! goes the next Joker grin.

Many Blogger blogs required me to sign up for a Blogger account in order to leave a comment. I don’t want a Blogger account. I don’t need a Blogger account. I have plenty of other accounts that your dropdown says I should be able choose from.

Why is your dropdown lying to me? Why is your Comments Joker grinning evilly at me? I just want to leave a comment on your amazing post, and I’m too strapped for time to see the humor!

How many busy visitors do you think will sacrifice extra time to register for an account they don’t need? Maybe a few. But wouldn’t you like more than a few comments?

Oh, the embrace of a blog whose Comment section welcomes me with open arms and Joker-free smiles!

Sigh.

Many of the emails exchanged between new Blogelina friends made during this event, became mutual Joker-smile fallout support sessions: “No, don’t give up!” “Tow the line! We promised 100 comments!” “We can do it!” “Think of all the wonderful Joker-smile-free blogs we’re discovering! It’s a gold mine out there!”

The consensus was that, on many blogs, our experiences went something like this:

  • a. Write your well thought-out, wordy comment.
  • b. Re-read it, check for errors
  • c. click ‘Submit’
  • d. Choose your profile i.d.
  • e. Repeatedly enter and re-enter CAPTCHA (or, on occasion, cheer vociferously because no CAPTCHA!)
  • f. Click ‘Submit’
  • g, h, i, j, and k. Nothing happens. Wait, wait, wait, wait, and wait…
  • l. Click ‘Submit’ again.
  • m, n, o, p, q, r, and s. Wait, wait…wait! It flickered! Yep! There it goes…hang on…it flickered back to an empty comment box. Did my comment go thru? Don’t see it…no moderation message….wtf?
  • t. Re-write comment. Shorter & less sweetly.
  • u. Click ‘Submit.’ Again. Choose I.D. Repeatedly enter and re-enter CAPTCHA. Again.
  • v, w, x. Wait, wait, wait…
  • y. Click ‘Submit.’ Again. And again. And againandagainandagain, dammit!
  • z. Wait. Nothing. Spew expletives. Close out!

Yeah. That was tedious, right? Imagine doing it rather than reading about it. :?

Here were some other Joker-smiles:

  •  How about an offer to ‘Leave a Comment,’ but no box to enter your info!

I tried typing everywhere in this box, but no dice. I would love to have alerted the blogger, because it was a great blog, but there’s no way to get in touch with her.  :(

  • This message says, “Your comment was a bit too short. Please go back and try again.

My comment was 3 paragraphs long. Of course, when I went back it was gone. So, I re-typed it and copy/pasted it repeatedly to make sure it was long enough (6 paragraphs long now).

Guess what?

You guessed it! Same message!

Good times!

  •  This message is not in English.

I have no idea what it says, but it was very insistent. It popped up each time I clicked ‘Submit.’

Did my comment go through?

No idea!

  • I was already signed into my Google account, but:

Logged out, signed in again. And again.

No dice.

  • And no contact info for the blogger.

When CAPTCHA wouldn’t accept my letters after multi-tries, or my comments didn’t budge after multi-clicks, I really wanted to contact the bloggers of scrumdillyicious blogs to let them know. If it were my blog, I’d want to know that visitors were bleeding out in my Barbed wire Comments section!

But, here again, Joker smiles.

No Contact page. No email provided. Not an FB friend, so couldn’t leave helpful info in a private message there either. Definitely didn’t want to leave a message in a public forum saying, “Hey! Your blog’s not working!

How many busy visitors do you suppose will take the time to hunt you down?

Real-world answer? Almost none.

Reading blogs is supposed to be fun. Not frustrating.

Wouldn’t it be great if all our blogs welcomed our visitors’ comments rather than bleeding them out with barbwire?

Join me on my blog, and let’s see how we can “Kill the Joker & Kick CAPTCHA to the Curb!“

Sylver Blaque is a writer, documentarist and world traveler. Her blog takes readers on travels through foreign minds - from that impossible coworker in the next cube, to cannibalistic tribes on the other side of the world. Via essays & stories, world news & music, historic time travel, and a diverse community of visitor commentary, layers of culture peel away to expose the visceral belief we all share…the belief that WE are, in fact, the ‘normal’ ones.

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Comments

  1. Jamie says:
    March 20, 2012 at 9:41 am

    Oh, I so hear you on that CAPTCHA frustration!!! I participated in a blog comment a thon (probably the same one) ….and had similar thoughts. Many went through without a quirk but there are some which I am just not sure if they went through at all, even though I tried and tried! I wonder/hope if my blog is comment friendly….will try to figure that out! Cute post!
    Jamie recently posted..Revisiting a Read Along

    Reply
  2. Lindy says:
    March 20, 2012 at 10:21 am

    I’m almost afraid to try to leave a comment after all of that…but I think it’s hilarious and I feel your pain!

    Reply
  3. dawn says:
    March 20, 2012 at 6:44 pm

    I’m glad I only had to deal with the first issues during the comment event because I thought they were enough of a pain. I especially hated the drop down box that didn’t give me the option to just sign with my name and url which I prefer to do since my blog isn’t on Blogger. Normally I don’t comment on blogs that don’t give that option, but I did for the event. Thanks for sharing! It’s good to have a reminder about what turns readers away.
    dawn recently posted..Pet Pop Quiz and Contest

    Reply
  4. Corinne Rodrigues says:
    March 21, 2012 at 6:47 am

    Having participated in the same event, I can fully empathize with you, Sylver ;)
    Corinne Rodrigues recently posted..Chipping Away

    Reply
  5. Dianna @ practicing frugal says:
    March 21, 2012 at 6:32 pm

    I too got really tired of posting comments on these blogs that made it too hard. I was so tired of captcha and blogger. Glad I wasn’t the only one.
    Dianna @ practicing frugal recently posted..Creating a Budget For Every Dollar and Sticking With It: Part 2 – Tracking Spending

    Reply
  6. Deepthi says:
    March 22, 2012 at 4:43 am

    I can empathise with you… and thanks for picking up the issue…
    I faced a lot of problems when I used internet explorer… then I switched on to chrome which is far far better… I feel.
    Deepthi recently posted..How about some beads?

    Reply
  7. Jacqui Gonzales says:
    March 22, 2012 at 7:10 am

    I hope I’m not the only one who checked to make sure I wasn’t doing any of these things!

    I will navigate the choice drop down box (I usually just pick name/URL for simplicity) but most of the rest will stop my regular visits unless the content is beyond the best ever.
    Jacqui Gonzales recently posted..Marathon Training and Nutrition Part One: The Calorie

    Reply
  8. Amanda says:
    March 22, 2012 at 8:06 am

    Thank you! I wholeheartedly agree with all of this!
    In the interest of fairness, the Blogger/Google login issue is truly a Blogger/Google issue, not the fault of the individual blogger. Bloggers can avoid this, though by changing the comments from “embedded below post” to either pop-up or “new window”. Readers will still see all the comments below the post. This setting only affects how people leave comments. And now they’ll actually be *able* to leave comments. This was actually one of the main reasons I switched from Blogger to WordPress.
    Something else that encourages discussion, and therefore more comments, is to give readers the option of following the comments via email. It’s also nice to know if the blogger bothered to respond to my (or any) comments. If not, I probably won’t bother to waste my time again. I’m not sure where to turn that on, but it must be somewhere as some Blogger blogs have it, and some don’t.
    Amanda recently posted..Kid Quotes

    Reply
  9. Dakotapam says:
    March 22, 2012 at 8:11 am

    I ran into many of the same frustrations. And like you, I was motivated to write about it. What amazed me were the people who commented on my post downright refusing to drop moderation etc. I think we have a long way to go to make blogs more user friendly. Until then, we’re going to have bloggers complaining about a lack of comments! http://dakotapam.com/comment-tips/
    Dakotapam recently posted..Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: Review and Giveaway

    Reply
  10. Leeswammes (Judith) says:
    March 22, 2012 at 8:17 am

    Oh I so agree! That captcha thing is hopeless! But on a positive note, after the Blogelina event, Blogger seems to have changed their commenting system and I have fewer problems now with the drop down ID chooser. I was thinking there is a blogger-> wordpress war going on because it would never accept my WP information. But now it does. Yay!

    The foreign comment is Dutch and says “Stopped possible spam attempt. Go back.” I think foreign blogs are often in their own language (or partially). Of course if you tried lots of times, you would have been considered a spammer. Although you never got anything posted. :-)
    Leeswammes (Judith) recently posted..Book Review: The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon

    Reply
  11. Patricia says:
    March 22, 2012 at 9:46 am

    I know I shouldn’t be laughing ~ I know you were exasperated … but you are so darn clever and wise and write with such delight that all I could do was keep smiling (oh, and now that song is in my head and probably will never leave (… keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you will ….) … but I digress … thank you for the smile and for alerting me to what I should never have on my blog ~ EVER!
    Patricia recently posted..Celebrating the Spring Equinox ~ Part 3

    Reply
  12. Shelly says:
    March 22, 2012 at 10:09 am

    I was frustrated on the event with some blogs where I needed a blogger account. I signed into my google account but then had to add more info to be able to post on the blogger blogs. Then after all that sometimes I still couldn’t comment or my comment would come up as anonymous. At least some blogs had a name/URL to add in and that is what I filled in. I did not realize until this event how hard it is to leave comments sometimes.
    Shelly recently posted..Chicken Artichoke Casserole Recipe

    Reply
  13. Cari says:
    March 22, 2012 at 10:50 am

    I agree Sylver! I hate it when you have something to say, but cannot say it… I almost feel like I am being censored!
    Cari recently posted..How to Get Anything You Want & A Giveaway!

    Reply
  14. Eleni Poulakou says:
    March 22, 2012 at 10:51 pm

    Well, CAPTCHAs don’t deter me that much, I usually read them easily — but they’re a time waster, that’s for sure. This Blogger thing, on the other hand… When the comments section had this Name/URL option, it was great; I didn’t comment on the rest.

    At first, I was unsuspecting and innocent; I had the zeal of a neophyte and I really thought out (most of) my comments. Then, after a few failed attempts where I repeatedly tried to pass the fances, I changed to Survival Mode. No easy commenting? Well, it’s been nice meeting you, but — Bye bye, sweetie!
    Eleni Poulakou recently posted..Versatile Blogger Award

    Reply
    • Sylver Blaque says:
      March 23, 2012 at 9:55 am

      You are so funny, Eleni! I hear you – there’s only so much time in a day or patience in a busy gal to crawl through barbwire. That’s why I wrote this post, to help bloggers become aware of the Jokers haunting their blogs. I think most bloggers don’t realize the difficulties commenters have communicating with them. But once they’re made aware of it, I’m sure they’ll happily change things to make it easier for their visitors. And that’ll make us all happy! :)
      Sylver Blaque recently posted..Blog Commenting: Kill the Joker & Kick CAPTCHA to the Curb!

      Reply
  15. Gretchen says:
    March 23, 2012 at 12:55 pm

    So true, Sylver! Can’t stand CAPTCHA. And that Twitter bird that follows me. Great post!

    Reply
  16. Tami @ ThisMomsDelight.com says:
    March 23, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    I found a few of these same issues while visiting the 100+ blogs. I hope you didn’t have any trouble with mine!
    Tami @ ThisMomsDelight.com recently posted..Skin Rules {Trade Secrets From a Top New York Dermatologist} Giveaway [US/Can Ends 04/05/12]

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  17. Sylver Blaque says:
    March 23, 2012 at 8:24 pm

    Hi, Tami! Just checked your blog & guess what? Joker-free! :)
    Sylver Blaque recently posted..Diary of an American Girl’s Journeys to the Forbidden Land (Excerpt 14)

    Reply
  18. Lyndsy says:
    March 25, 2012 at 8:30 am

    Wow, for a world traveller you are a bit of a cranky-pants. Give the girls a break, we are all learning how to blog as we blog.

    Lyndsy
    @aromaliving

    Reply
  19. Elise says:
    March 29, 2012 at 7:24 am

    I definitely agree with you on the blogger CAPTCHA. When I was blogging on blogger, I found that blogger was very good about zapping spam comments without my help, and I also had comment moderation enabled for posts over a certain age which is where most of the spam comments came from.
    HOWEVER, now that I have a self-hosted blog, I don’t have blogger there to zap comments for me and I’m afraid NoT to have a CAPTCHA. I only hope that the word/number combination is easy enough that it doesn’t scare off potential commenters.
    Elise recently posted..All You: Is It Worth The Price?

    Reply
  20. Chaton says:
    April 1, 2012 at 6:30 am

    I understand your frustration. My own mother was discouraged from commenting for that reason. I de-activated Captcha. I get more spam posts, but it’s still worth it. Happy Sunday! (http chatonsworld.blogspot.com)
    Chaton recently posted..What Ordinary Women Can Learn From Kris Jenner and Bethenny Frankel (Part I)

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  21. Sylver Blaque says:
    April 2, 2012 at 3:17 pm

    Hi, Chaton. Good move. Tanya had the great suggestion of adjusting your settings to ‘Moderate Comments’ in order to keep spam from posting. Give it shot, see how that works for you. Happy blogging! :)
    Sylver Blaque recently posted..Wild Is The Wind

    Reply

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