Make Commenting Easy for your Visitors
August 2nd, 2007 by ses5909Looks like you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single conversation! Thanks for visiting!
This is a true story. I was reading my feeds and saw that my girlfriend made a couple new posts that I wanted to comment on. So I clicked through to read them and go to make a comment and see the phrase
You must login to comment!
So I leave and send her a message telling her to turn that crap off. It was quicker for me to send her a message than retrieve my lost password so I could login and make a comment. Notice I said “retrieve my lost password” which will let you know I have registered to comment before. She is the only person I have registered for and the probably the only one I will register for.
I’m lazy. I don’t want to have to work for it and I know that the majority of people are like me. If I have to register, or login to comment, you won’t get my comment. It all comes down to laziness. If you have some crazy captcha, I probably won’t comment. You need to make it easy for people like me to say what they have to say and move on to your next post.
Another pet peeve of mine is a lot people who use blogger will only allow comments from other bloggers.
I like to interact with people, not just read articles or blog posts and if you don’t make it easy for me to comment, I’ll probably leave and you could risk losing other visitors as well. Just remember, people are lazy. They are there reading your post and you want to make it easy for them. Don’t make them do any extra work than necessary!
Like this post: TechnoratiStumbleUponDel.icio.usDigg
RSS feed for comments on this post | TrackBack URI for this post
August 2nd, 2007 at 8:53 am
Nothing is more frustrating than having to register just to leave a comment. I don’t think there is a single site I read that requires registration to comment anymore. Unless your blog is already large and you want to limit the comments, you may have something. But for most people, that is a sure way to turn people off.
August 2nd, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I know what you mean, I hate registering. I’m way too lazy. Why does anyone have to put their visitors to all that crap? There is always this moderation option. If you really want to check all comments, you can do just that. I tend to moderate first time commenters but that’s it, no more work than that. Did I mention that I’m too lazy?
August 2nd, 2007 at 9:48 pm
Actually it is good to know this because I wasn’t sure…I had an inkling –I hate to register,too– but, despite my extreme laziness, I will register if I really really have to comment on what was written. So, I am torn between my inertia and my need to spread my wisdom. It is a constant battle.
August 3rd, 2007 at 6:20 am
yeah, it’s just one of those things that drives me crazy. I don’t have many actually.
“torn between my inertia and my need to spread my wisdom”
awesome quote!!
August 4th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Yeah, I know that. I hate that too actually. But it all just depends. I have a group blog and everybody must be logged in to comment. We don’t need comments from other people who are not in the group so we set it up that way.
August 12th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Hey Sara. As I wrote about lately myself, this is a real pet-peeve for me too. I simply won’t comment on sites that require registration. I, too, want the interaction and relationship of commenting, but if someone wants me to register I assume they don’t.
August 13th, 2007 at 1:33 am
@Laarni - In your case, you require that because you aren’t trying to converse with the random person who stumbles on your blog.
@Dawud - Exactly!
August 14th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
All I can say is “Amen!”
August 17th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Glad you agree Bob!
August 18th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
I have registration as an option. I list it there but if you visit www.fam5.com you will see on the sidebar it says Registration (If you want). However, you do not need to register to leave comments.
Thanks for the post.
JB
August 20th, 2007 at 9:32 am
@Jeff - What exactly do you use the registration for then? I’ve never used the registration feature for my readers and would be interested to know if I should be considering it!
September 11th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
[…] comment to the post and just include your link in the appropriate place. Be sure you make it easy for your visitors to comment so they can return the […]
November 12th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
pr72bhzlgk1lz8w5