Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Comments and community

Thalia's recent post about keeping up with blogs has me thinking, so rather than hijack her comments, I thought I'd move this here.

I've been reading without commenting for months now, because it's all I can do to keep up through Bloglines (and even then, I have over 500 unread posts in my queue right now - though some are from review sites and the like), but it takes more time and energy and focus than I usually feel I can muster to actually click through and come up with something useful to say in response. And then I think how that makes blogs one directional, and how one of the things I value about the blogworld is the conversation and support and communication... which is to say I think I need to break out of my bubble and get back to commenting rather than lurking. By the same token, I've slowly been unsubbing from some of the (bigger) blogs where I never really felt like part of a community so much as a flock - where I never really commented much anyway. (And by *some* blogs I mean one or two so far - it's hard to stop following someone's story.)

I haven't been posting either, obviously. We've had a whole confluence of circumstances combined with what is probably a bit of low-level depression and a ton of projects and huge life changes and I've barely managed to keep my head above water. But I'm hoping the tide is changing, and one of the things I really WANT to do is get back to blogging and participating in a bit of a blogging community - for fun and for sanity. I make no sweeping claims, since I hate setting myself up like that (see how well I did with the Moxie challenge?) but for myself, I think I'm going to try. It might mean reinventing my blog identity, or changing how I think about blogging, or commenting, or something. It's a process, and I'm only beginning.

7 comments:

  1. damn it blogger ate my comment. Anyway, I hear you on the posting thing and the reading too many blogs. Also, I hope all is okay re: the big life changes and the low level depression. Write more if you want to/can. We're here for you.

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  2. I'll be happy if you post more :)

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  3. I go through stages on this. I used to save posts with the expectation of commenting -- now I either post or move on. I've also been known to mark all my bloglines feeds as read and start fresh -- it feels less troublesome.

    I think most people struggle with this -- which hopefully means most people are forgiving when their comments drop off. It does seem to be a seasonal thing, too.....

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  4. So nice to see you pop up. Hope you and the kiddos are well and look forward to reading more.

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  6. Hi Cass
    Good to read you again. Looking forward to hearing how it's all going...

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  7. count me in as someone who would love to hear more, but who obviously understands at least some of the challenges involved!

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