I’m a bit behind in the comment challenge. I’m so excited that other library folks are joining in. Meredith, Lauren, Marianne. There may be other librarians who I haven’t found yet. There are over 100 bloggers participating!

Day 1: Self Audit

• How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week? It really depends. Normally I only comment when I have something of value to say. I rarely comment just to comment. I abhor comment spam! Sometimes I’ll do a short “nice job” comment to let someone know I am reading. I found when I first started blogging that small gesture helped motivate me to keep blogging. It’s important to let people know that you are reading. Blogging is a lot of work! Here it is 10:30pm and I could be asleep but I’m here blogging. It’s nice to know that someone reads this.
• Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking? This has been a huge frustration of mine. If I comment on a blog and want to see if I have a response I either subscribe to the comment RSS feed (if there is one), or tag the post in delicious to follow up (the challenge is remembering to check my follow up tags). I’m happy to be trying a new tool as part of this challenge coComment. It seems like a lot of extra work, but maybe it will get easier as I become more familiar with it.
• Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week? It varies. There is no rhyme or reason to it.
• Review Gina Trapani’s Guide to Blog Comments and ask yourself how well you’re doing in each of the different areas. Are there any specific areas where you think you need to do some work? What do you want to do to address these issues? Yeah I’m guilty of a few of these but for the most part I’m on track. My challenge is more in finding time! I have over 600 feeds and 784 unread posts in bloglines right now. Maybe it’s time to weed my feeds!

Day 2: Comment on a new blog

I commented on EdTech Workshop. Andrea wrote about her challenges with coComment and I replied to let her know I’d had the same challenges. Not the most exciting comment in the world but at least she knows she is not alone. It’s all about community! It’s also cool that she is a teacher in the area where I went to school. It’s a small world!

Day 3: Sign up for a comment tracking service

Signed up for coComment. You can find me here if you have an account. If you don’t have an account, it’s free.

Day 4: Ask a question

I asked a question on Michele’s site about getting coComment to work. It turned out that Marianne Lenox and I tested things among ourselves and we answered my question. This is the thing about comments on blogs. If you allow them, you need to read them and respond to them. I was in the habit of emailing each new commenter to thank him or her for commenting. I need to get back on track with that. It’s a good habit and helps build community!

Day 5: Comment on a post you disagree with

Ironically I commented on Meredith’s post about the comment challenge and what started out as a “hey cool your doing the comment challenge” turned into me sharing a different point of view about a comment Meredith made on another blog. Maybe this shouldn’t count. I don’t disagree with her, but I like to play devil’s advocate sometimes.

Day 6: Engage another commenter in a discussion

I’m still working on that. Originally I thought this was engage the blogger in a discussion via comments. But as I type this I realize it is engage another commenter. That’s more challenging because you don’t want to hijack a post. Here are two discussions that I have tried to generate in comments: Banning Babies from the Library, Staying Organized. If you have time, please join in!

With that I think I’m caught up for the week! p.s. It’s not too late to join the challenge and become a better blogger.