I welcome comments on this blog — suggestions, affirmations, critiques. Recent comments are highlighted on the sidebar. I thought it would be helpful to share my present “policy” (which is always open to feedback and revision) on comments.
I generally respond to comments very quickly by emailing the person who left the comment. I usually don’t, though, respond back in the comment section itself because I think people don’t often check the option that allows them to receive follow-up comments. I want to make sure they do indeed hear back from me.
Though I generally approve comments from the owners of sites who want my readers and me to check-out their websites, I typically will not respond to them.
My posts on the In Practice blog are a different matter. Those posts are usually designed to initiate a public conversation about the topic of the post, and comments from readers and my responses are published in that blog’s comment section.
I agree Larry you are excellent responding back to commenters with email. Personally I wish I was as organised as you.
However I would recommend that you reconsider your thoughts on posting the comment on your blog. Regardless of if people do or don’t check back for a comment, your responding back to comments on your blog is more about demonstrating to readers that you are interesting in engaging in conversations. If I am reading someone’s blog for the first time and they get lots of comments and rarely responds to any on their actual blog it makes me wonder if they care. I know you care because you always email — but new readers won’t be aware of this. My personal recommendation would be to continue emailing plus paste the comment you email into the comment area of your post.
Sue,
Good idea. I’ll start doing that. Thanks for taking the time to offer the suggestion.
Larry