Ever get a joke e-mail that you swear you also read a year ago? This can also ring true in the blogosphere, where what one writes can come around to haunt him/her long after is was originally written. In this case, a link to a blog on my WordPress admin page discussed “Who comments on blogs and why?” The blog post linked back to an article in the NY Times Freakonomics blog discussing the same topic. The original NY Times blog was actually written in March, 2007, but I thought it would be a good reference considering this is my 100th post on Poulios.com. Quite a feat considering my first post Poulios.com Goes Live occurred on November 2, 2005. At the time, the web site was hosted on Network Solutions servers and the blog was managed by blogger.com. During the past two years the web site host was moved to Livingdot.com and then to godaddy.com, where it now resides. The blog has also gone through a few changes, from Blogger, to WordPress, to Movable Type, and back to WordPress. What can I say, I like change.
Officially, there have been 85 comments on the first 99 posts. My advanced math skills tell me that’s less the one comment per post. Ouch! There are probably a few good reasons for the low comment rate. I won’t go into a full list, but one reason could be because my blog isn’t made available to search engines and blog aggregators, an option provided on the WordPress admin pages.
After mulling over the article a bit, I found myself thinking I’m a hypocrite. I have my own blog and respond to comments on the blog when I can, but I rarely comment on other blogs. There’s a funny comment on the NY Times blog from a JakeSutton who claims “I think a lot of it actually comes down to basic human shyness. Nobody wants to speak up for fear of sticking their foot in their mouth.” This definitely isn’t why I don’t comment on other blogs. I’m pretty sure I do a good job of sticking my foot in my mouth at least once per day. It’s a personal trait I’ve come to accept.
How do I go about getting more people to post comments on my blog? Is there a need to get more comments on the blog? Should I make the blog available to search engines and blog aggregators? Should I send e-mails to friends after posting to the blog (or teach them how to use RSS feeds)? Should I post about more subjects, like politics? At this point I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I can at least say I hit 100 posts!
I don’t know.
But I do think the balk rule is the silliest, dumbest rule in sports. Isn’t the essence of sports to TRY and deceive your opponent??
Thanks Joker, you’re a lot of help!
Any chance you might find a new soap box soon. It’s been a few years since you started this petition to get rid of the balk rule. How about that silly rule about having a certain number of players on the line of scrimmage. Isn’t that preventing the offensive from deceiving the defense? Of, sticking with football, why can’t the offense have multiple players in motion when the ball is snapped?