Lilac Colored Glasses

Here comes one of those vanity posts that bloggers do so well; a post about the notorious topic of “how do I respond to comments.”

I used to never respond to comments because, well, I had like 3-5 readers and I talked to them on an almost daily basis, so responding to their comments wasn’t really neccessary. Over the past year or so though, my readership has grown a bit and now I find myself regularly getting 10 or more comments a day. I realize on the food chain of blog commenting that puts me somewhere in the vicinity of krill but hey, you take what you can get, right?

So I’ve been getting more comments, which range from sage advise to supportive WOOHOO’s and I’ve been answering them via e-mail, if I feel the need to answer, thank or inform the commentor. Does that mean that I don’t read or care about your comments if I don’t respond? No, not at all. I have a queue of comments sitting in Outlook so that I don’t forget to respond to the commentors. I’ve even been approached for advice on immigrating to Belgium by a couple people through this blog and I’ve done my corresponding with these people via e-mail. I don’t typically answer comments in my own comment section and this is for several reasons:

1. I personally don’t check a person’s comment section after I make a comment so I don’t assume others do either. What’s the point of me answering in a place the commenters might not even check?
2. I like to personalize my responses and sometimes it can get a bit lengthy or personal, so that is done better in an e-mail, in my opinion.
3. Sometimes comments come late. I can have comments show up three days after I post and if I’ve already answered other commentors, I dont want that last person to feel neglected or ignored (Holly is notorious for cluster comments every few days and I can’t stand the thought of the BESTEST person feeling left out of my comment/answer loop).
4. This one might sound harsh, but if I answer other comments in the commonly accepted list of answers in the comment section, that means I have to think of some sort of answer to the WOOHOO brand of comment. Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as appreciative of a woohoo as I am of any other comment, but those ones are sort of hard to answer…nor is it really neccessary in my opinion, to respond to woohoo. If I leave a woohoo somewhere I don’t expect it to be answered.
5. In my humble opinion, the best way to repay a comment is to visit that person’s blog and comment back on their thoughts and posts. I always visit my commenters blogs and do my best to comment back if they took the trouble to stop by and leave their words for me. I think that is the most equal and pleasing exchange of all; the exchange of words as opposed to thanks.

That being said, I will continue to answer comments through e-mail (but I promise to be more diligent about it) and I will also continue exchanging comments by visting your blog if you stop by (except Carrie and Judie cause they don’t have blogs, but I’ll definitely start e-mailing you guys some responses, sorry if I’ve been a turdburger for not doing so).

I am also going to ask for the answering of my comments by other readers please stop. I’ve been noticing a trend wherein certain readers go so far as to address and answer comments or questions posed by my other readers. In my opinion, if you want to answer the comments you can do so on your own blog and not in my comment section. If you think that certain comments require an answer, chances are that I’ve already done so via e-mail.

Thank you for reading. You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.