Ruminations of an Online Instructor / MD

Analyzing Comments on the Ruminations Blog for Day 18

May 18, 2008 at 1:19 pm | In 31 Day Comment Challenge, Blogging, Educators Online, Online Instructors, Online Learning, Ruminations Blog, comment08 | No Comments
Tags: 31 Day Comment Challenge, blog commenters, Blog Comments, comment08, Education Blogging, Education Blogs

The challenge for today courtesy Christy Tucker is to analyze the comments on your own blog, in particular looking at which posts generate conversations.

The idea of this challenges is that if you can determine which posts generated conversations, then you make be able to determine what made those past posts good conversation starters and incorporate those features into future posts.

I got out a magnifying glass, took a look at the comments left on the site during the 31 Day Comment Challenge and answered the suggested questions:

* Which of your posts have generated the most comments?

Most comments goes to:

9 Comments for My Edublog Diagnosis Bloquacia or Blogorrhea? / Day 7 What I’ve learned so far

7 Comments for Defining Blogging in Education – Day 3 of the Challenge

* Which has generated the best conversation? (The last question is about quantity; this one is about quality.)

In addition to generating the most comments the My Edublog Diagnosis Bloquacia or Blogorrhea? / Day 7 What I’ve learned so far post also generated the best conversation. Commenters got into a debate about how long comments should be

I ended up developing new terms Postorrhea and Postquacious

So Postorrhea would be an overflow of rather useless posts and comments.

and

Postquacious would be the long posts that perhaps should be new comments.

* Are there any patterns to the commenting on your own blog?

It is hard to say if there are any patterns, since all of the comments have been a part of the Comment Challenge. It does seem that people were more apt to be commenting in the first week and a half and now that the challenge is over the half way point, comments are dwindling.

* Do certain types of posts generate more comments than others?

It seems that more interesting or even quirky the title, the more likely that someone will be commenting.

* If you do see a pattern or commonality between posts that generate good comments, what can you do to increase those qualities in other posts?

Post that Generate good comments, this is a hard one to determine and one that I’ll have to look at over time as the blog progresses.

I can never seem to figure out which of the lenses that I develop for Squidoo will generated comments, or which of the blog posts on the My Green Doc Blog would generate comments as part of the Mom Blog Party.

Accomplishments for Day 18

1. Analyzing all of the Comments left on the Ruminations Blog since the challenge started.

2. Discovering that the most commented post was on Bloquacia or Blogorrhea.

3. Realizing that it is still too soon for me to be able to determine if there is a formula for generating comments.

4. Writing and Posting the Blog for Day 18.

Reflections & Revelations on Day 18

This was a fun activity to do for the Comment Challenge. I think that most Blog owners and Edubloggers are trying to figure out the magic formula that gets people to leave comments. Perhaps someone else will have had insights on this aspect.

I probably had as much fun trying to figure out how to create a magnifying lens effect for the image today as I did analyzing the comments.

Image: Modified Ruminations Blog Logo Microsoft Images and Healthy Apple.

This blog post is part of The Comment Challenge, comment08.