Sometime yesterday, this email message arrived in my inbox:
(Click it to zoom.)
It is a blog comment from someone named Steve to Joanna Penn, who had previously written a post opining why writers should embrace technology. As you scroll down that blog post, you will see I added the second comment. Par for the course when I visit blogs and add comments, if I am provided an option to subscribe to follow-up comments, I opt because I like to know if the author or another reader replies to me. If I didn’t subscribe to comments, I’d never know if there were replies.
Shortly after migrating this blog from Blogger to WordPress in the fall of 2008, I installed a plugin called Subscribe to Comments which enables you, when adding a comment, to tick an optional checkbox to receive follow-up comments by email. Joanna also employed this, or a similar plugin, which led to my receiving the above email that Steve posted a follow-up comment.
Like Joanna, many bloggers also use this WordPress plugin. A fair number don’t, and if I have an option of commenting on one blog that does and one that doesn’t, I go for the one that does. What’s the point of adding a comment if I can’t see follow-up comments? was my mantra.
Was it a bad mantra? Is there a better way of receiving comments? Perhaps…
After reading a guest post on Ben Lang’s blog by Stacey Cavanagh on boosting web traffic, I posted a comment — despite not being asked to subscribe to comments. I didn’t ask. I was inspired to write something, and I did.
When Stacy replied to my comment, the following email appeared in my inbox:
Emailing with Ben, I learned he uses a customizable plugin called ReplyMe, which works in cahoots with nested replies, so if you reply directly to me, I will receive an email showing my original comment and your comment. I won’t receive other comments by other people, unless they are replying to me.
It’s an intriguing idea and something I am toying with installing here. But it’s silly to have both commenting accessory plugins installed. Which would you prefer? Would you rather subscribe to every comment that follows yours, or only those comments in response to yours?
Let me know your thoughts.
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{ 38 comments }
Very interesting question…
in some cases, I don’t want to subscribe to every comment, because there are too many (Chris Brogan or Altitude Branding come to mind). But otherwise, I like to receive a notification whenever there is a comment, because that can contribute to the overall conversation. Just because the person isn’t directly responding to me doesn’t mean I may not be interested in what they are contributing to the overall post.
Allowing people to subscribe to comments also is a great way for old posts to be ‘revived’.
Do you hesitate to add comments in such places, knowing your inbox would overflow? Or, in those cases (or any), would a RSS comment feed work?
I think the subscribe option is great for comments, one thing I did on mine was leave it up to the commentor to check the subscribe button, not all commentors like to get the emails.
I use the subscribe to comments plugin….
.-= New from Keith@Need Information: Blogger Interview – Todd Fratzel =-.
That is true; I occasionally don’t tick the box if I don’t care to see replies.
The comments I am most interested in are the responses to my comment, but I do gain a lot of value from the other comments. I’m not sure I would be less likely to comment on either system, but I would know I’m missing out on something by not getting all of the other comments.
.-= New from Kyle Judkins: Weekly Social Links: January 10, 2009 =-.
Do you feel inspired to comment on someone else’s comment, though?
Not always. I do like the information I get from additional comments, but I admit that I am not likely to comment on coments. Maybe I should stop being lazy.
.-= New from Kyle Judkins: Weekly Social Links: January 10, 2009 =-.
Why do you think you are lazy?
Maybe we should call my mom on that one.
But really, I use comments to connect with the blog/author not the other commenters. That’s why the other comments aren’t as important to respond to and allow me to be lazy when it comes to replying.
.-= New from Kyle Judkins: Weekly Social Links: January 10, 2009 =-.
One year later, Kyle, you should now receive an email showing my reply to you. There’s a reason I didn’t install this until now — a very silly reason I only now figured out how to solve.
Depends on the type of post. For example, this discussion will be interesting to follow all the comments to get an overview of what folks think. Other times I may only want to know if someone had a question or reply to my comment. The replyme plug in sounds interesting, however, if it complicates matters too much it might decrease the number of folks willing to subscribe.
.-= New from Fred H Schlegel: Parking, Romance and Cafe Pazzo =-.
Perhaps the happy medium is something that does both. Hmm.
I personally only want to replies to my individual comment because on larger blogs my email inbox would be full in a matter of moments. It’s not that I am not interested in what everyone else has to say, but I value my time and inbox space. I can just as easily subscribe to the blog feed and read the blog everyday which I do most of the time and return to the last post I read and look for updates.
I am going to give ReplyMe a try; I’ve always wanted something like that on my blog. Thanks for the tip
.-= New from Ms. Freeman: Carry a Notebook Everywhere You Go =-.
Glad to help.
I think I’m in the same boat here Ms. Freeman. I usually don’t use the subscribe option if available and rely on my own interest to draw me back to the article if I was actually interested in seeing replies.
My memory isn’t the best though and bookmarking an article just because I want to see replies isn’t the best option.
I love the idea of ReplyMe, thanks for the tip Ari.
.-= New from Josh Kohlbach: Creating Linkable Useful Content =-.
How many blog posts do you subscribe to? More than 5 a week? How do you remember which posts you commented on to return to see new comments? What’s your system?
My system is to bookmark the articles I’m interested in and I periodically revisit them. I know.. not very scalable, but handles okay for the amount of commenting I do at the moment (not much).
But then subscribing to comments isn’t scalable either – I already get too much email. I probably subscribe to close to 50 or so blogs, including yours now
Interested to hear what you decide as this is something I’m struggling with in putting together my own blog. I agree with other commenters in that “it depends.” On blogs that are highly trafficked and commented upon, I only want to know if I’m responded to. On others, I often want to see what others are adding to the conversation. Here I want an OPTION to subscribe since it still might depend on my bandwidth, interest, etc. By the way, what do you use for the toolbar below?
I’ve emailed both plugin developers to ascertain if a happy medium exists, or could. Let’s see.
Twitter: lionslinger
January 11, 2010 at 8:40 PM
Well, I prefer those comments in reply to mine. I don’t want to clogged myself with comments that are irrelevant, it will definitely be a burden to my email.
Why not do what I do and auto-filter incoming emails to Yahoo folders (or Gmail labels, etc) based on subject/body content, e.g. “comment?” That way, no overburdening and you can read when you want.
This is a great discussion going on atm!
How do you manage to get through them all? How do you avoid being overwhelmed with loads of comment notifications and having to sort through them?
.-= New from Josh Kohlbach: Merry Christmas To All =-.
Hi Ari, Just wanted to say thanks for the mention and thanks for your comment! I like to subscribe to comments as well, hence the install.
Happy New Year! Thanks, Joanna
.-= New from Joanna Penn: 5 Reasons Writers Need To Embrace Technology =-.
Thanks for chiming in!
I also prefer those comments in reply to mine. Good post.
Whenever I get change to put valuable comment then I do not hesitate for write good comment and I subscribe to those comments to see who reply to my comment. I like when someone reply to my comment and if he agree with my comment I feel better.
.-= New from chandan: "PHP Dir Submit" Directory submission service =-.
In this case, there’s nothing to agree or disagree with. But I hear you.
Personally I think I would prefer only being notified if someone replied directly to me, otherwise if I would get a notification every time someone wrote a ‘nice post’ comment and it’s bad enough dealing with that on my own blog.
.-= New from Sire@WassupBlog: Why The The Struggle For PR Is A Waste Of Time =-.
I’d rather subscribe to the comments in reply to mine.
Every single comment. I actually had this conversation with Ben when I asked him to install a regular STC plugin; I don’t know if he understood though.
I get hundreds of emails per day which are comment replies on other blogs. It’s part of my daily schedule because it is important for marketing and networking.
I feel it is just as important to read/reply other commenters if not more so. The admin is one person, so that’s maybe one more visitor to your blog; one more connection…..what happens if you converse with, or better, help 5-10+ other people within the comments of each blog.
Think about it.
.-= New from Dennis Edell: 7 DAYS ONLY – ProBloggers-31 Days To Build A Better Blog- + 3 Awesome Bonuses! =-.
You reply to 5-10 comments on other blogs with the same intensity you do on your own?
Absolutely. Keep in mind, 5-10 is merely an example. If there are 50 comments on a particularly interesting post, I may read everyone and reply to 20 or more, who knows.
My replies to replies works off several factors…How interesting the post is and my knowledge on the subject. How much someone seems to really need help. How good the comment is – I need something to play off in the first place, giving a forced reply to a crappy comment is just as bad as “nice post”. etc….
This is also where a simple, recognizable avatar comes into play also, even if someone is just a “comment skimmer”, when they see the same avatar 5 10 15 20 times in the same comment section, they are going to take notice.
.-= New from Dennis Edell: 7 DAYS ONLY – ProBloggers-31 Days To Build A Better Blog- + 3 Awesome Bonuses! =-.
Given the option I would subscribe to all the comments. There’s been situations where I didn’t “reply” to someone’s comment but rather only commented and refferred to their comment. I’ve noticed that I’m not the only one that has ever done that, whether deliberately or by mistake.
If it’s a topic that was relevant and important enough for me to comment on I am interested in the input of others, not just what they think of my own comment. To me that’s like being involved in a group discussion but ignoring everyone except those talking directly to you.
.-= New from Aaron: So Mark McGwire took steroids… =-.
I like the idea of only receiving an email when you get a reply to your specific comment. It would be nice to have both options, but that would confuse some people.
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Hi, just wondering i tried to leave a comment to some websites or blogs but for some reason my comments is not shown. Is it important to subscribe to a blog or website when leaving a comment?
Twitter: TwiMommi
January 2, 2011 at 12:30 AM
I have only opted to follow blog comments on a couple occasions. The topic was really juicy and I didn’t want to forget to go back and see what happened.
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Twitter: DrewKime
February 27, 2011 at 4:12 PM
I came across this discussion while trying to figure out what subscription options to provide. My current web host has a 200 emails/hour limit, which can be exceeded on a relatively popular thread *if* lots of people are subscribing. I can’t find any metrics on how many people actually do subscribe.
Personally, I prefer RSS comment feeds. I put all of them in a “post comments” folder in Google Reader and don’t have to worry about going back to check anything. But I know I’m not the typical reader, as only about 4% of all internet users have ever subscribed to a feed, much less a comment feed.
So how about it? Anybody know of any statistics on how many people actually subscribe for comment emails?
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Intriguing. I’ve occasionally RSS subscribed to comments but only if I REALLY want to see all replies and if email is not an option. But if the comment replies get massive, I quickly unsubscribe.
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