Reading and Commenting on Blogs by Susan Sanderson

Oh, hello! Thanks for dropping by.

Are you a reader, a writer, a blogger, all three, or two out of three?

Blog is an ugly word, isn’t it? It started out as weblog, being a log of a life uploaded regularly to the World Wide Web.

The name was shortened, but the scope was widened. Nowadays a blog may be used in the original manner, but there is far more variety in blogs.

A blog may be about any single topic or a mixture. It may be written by one person, a team or (like this one) many individuals taking turns. What distinguishes a blog from writing in a diary or notebook is that the latest entry (or post) appears first. This is a common feature of social media. Facebook, Twitter, message boards, Soundcloud (and no doubt all the other platforms I have managed to keep away from) all work the same way.

At first I hid behind a username and a photograph. I still use these to comment on most blogs. Is this confusing?

I had no intention of blogging about my faith. What changed is another story.

Blogging invites social interaction between strangers. Many bloggers are disappointed when no-one comments. Sometimes this is because commenting can be very time-consuming and doesn’t always work.

On the day I began to draft this post, I failed to post a comment on a blog. I know I opened a disqus account, however I failed to login (is that really a single word?) to it. For bloggers it is relatively easy to comment on blogs using the same platform (blogspot or WordPress, for example).

A comment on Facebook, “I couldn’t find where to comment,” inspired me to write this post. It is often much easier to comment on Facebook or Twitter, but the discussion is disconnected from the blog.

Blogs may be displayed in different ways. If a link has been followed to the blog’s home, more than one post may be shown. Scrolling down reveals a number of posts, but the comment fields are not shown. In this case it is necessary to click on a comment link for one of the posts. Just to confuse the reader, the link may be at the top or near the bottom of the post. One of my blogs just has a heart as the link. (There is some advice on a page, which used to be called “Navigation”, but now goes under the more usual name, “Start here”.)

If an individual post is displayed there should be somewhere to comment. For people who do not have their own blog, commenting is more off-putting as there is so much personal information to enter. Where does it all go? Who can see it?

Oh, are you still there? Good.

Before you go, please take a look around and see if you can find where to comment, how to share this post on social media and how to read older posts.

Thanks for reading.

Susan Sanderson always wanted to be a writer.  In 2012 she revived her interest in writing with a project to collect the kinds of sayings, which were much used in her childhood. http://suesconsideredtrifles.wordpress.com

Blogging was intended as a way of improving writing skills, but has become an interest in its own right.  Susan experiments with factual writing, fiction, humour and poetry.  She does not yet have a book to her name. Her interests include words, languages, music, knitting and crochet.  She has experience of the world of work, being a stay-at-home mum and an empty-nester.   She is active in her local community and Church, where she sings alto in the choir. She and her husband live in Cumbria.  

More info about Disqus

Sue's Trifles Blog

Sue's Words and Pictures Blog