Posts Tagged ‘Blog’
… actual anniversary day (I set it in Outlook to remind me this year, all month it has been blinking blog anniversary). Although like every other year so far I don’t have anything big or appropriate prepared!
The last twelve months haven’t always been so easy, we lost a lot of the posts in the grand move over to a new host and I’ve found my attention wavering on more than one occasion. But as I said last year:
This site has honestly been an absolute delight to write and made more …
Tags: Anniversary Blog blogging Quit Your Day Job QYDJ
Quite a while back now I installed the Disqus comment management system in an attempt to build upon the community that was already forming on Quit Your Day Job and hopefully encourage everyone to chat amongst yourselves and really grow some conversation.
At first there was some trepidation from a few of you who really didn’t like the system, and I totally got that, but the system worked really well for me especially managing the comments and you know, it’s my house so whatever makes my life easier then cool.
But I did say that I would revisit the experiment down the track and see how it was faring. Well, we’re down the track and I’m curious about what everyone still thinks about it.
See I know that I’m still getting the traffic come through the site but that my comments have been dropping. This of course could be for any number of reasons:
- Everyone hates the comments system
- The comments system doesn’t always work
- The content of the blog has changed
- The blog just isn’t floating anyone’s boat any more
- Posts aren’t regular enough, too many, not enough
- I’m not engaging everyone as well
- I’m not commenting on enough of everyone else’s blogs
- It’s all fine and frankly who has time to comment now days anyway!
Obviously there are a couple there that I don’t subscribe to but I’m generally open to it all.
You see one of the big things I always wanted out of Quit Your Day Job was to invite you guys* to join a community around here, to come over to my place and hang out (virtually), talk stuff, encourage each other to do that stuff in our lives that make the daily grind worthwhile.
One of the biggest components I see as part of that community is the comments. By the way this is not in any way shape or form a criticism of any of you. I don’t want anyone to feel they have to comment, the fact is I need to make it so you want to comment. The best way I can see of going about this is getting your input, I’m not going to do anything that i don’t want to but I’m also open to accommodating what’s needed to get everyone talking. This isn’t going to be an overnight process but I want to get things rolling.
So first thing’s first:
Loading ...If you do feel strongly enough to chose to keep it or get rid of it then please expand on why you feel that way in the comments (which would kind of be ironic for some feedback at least) or by my contact form, or if you know it you can always just email me.
Actually if you do have any suggestions, I’m opening myself up to them and you should feel free to drop me a line. Of course personal attacks and purely unhelpful stuff really isn’t welcome.
Thanks a lot everyone!!
* I do want to mention when I say guys I don’t mean it in a gender term, I mean all you people, just clarifying.
As you may have noticed over the past couple of weeks I have installed a new comment management system. Since it is such a departure from the old system I thought I might explain why I’ve moved over to the new system and how to get the most out of it.
So what is Disqus?
Well it’s obviously a comment and moderation tool that you can install on your blog or I assume even just a static website.
The big thing about this comment system is that it is designed to develop communities around your site and to also develop a profile of yourself and comments/discussions that you get involved with all over the web.
From their website:
“Disqus is a startup founded in 2007 and based in San Francisco. We are passionate about building products that people love to use. Our investors include Union Square Ventures and Y Combinator.”
Why did I move over to Disqus?
The first thing that attracted me to Disqus was that it integrated with Twitter and Facebook really easily, which meant that I could share responses and comments over on my Twitter account which would in turn promote the conversation and encourage others to come over and take part.
There are also a number of websites that I do like to comment on that already use Disqus and since I generally talk a lot about the same kinds of things I wanted to put those awesome conversations that I have here onto my Disqus profile as well.
So how do YOU get the most out of it?
Well first of all you don’t need to do anything, you can continue on in exactly the same way you were before, name, email etc. I haven’t set the commenting system on moderate or confirm or anything like that so your comments should show up straight away. Your photo should generally still show up if you have a gravatar although I have noticed in some sizes it doesn’t recognise them so I don’t know what can be done there.
But there are a couple of other ways you can interact with the comments system if you are so inclined.
If you have a Twitter account you can log in to the comments system using your Twitter login and password. This will link your comments with your Twitter profile and use your Twitter avatar as your photo. Also anyone who might like what you saying may click your photo and check out your Twitter feed. This is how I first started using the system and I actually got some followers from it, legitimate ones who I still talk to.
Likewise you can use your Facebook, OpenID or Yahoo account, I haven’t done that so I don’t know how easy it is but I assume it is exactly the same as the Twitter login. No Google account yet? Odd.
If you’ve got a couple of social media accounts that you would like to share your comments across it’s probably best to sign up for a free Disqus account anyway, this way you can manage all of your social media channels in one place and if you do go to more than one site that uses Disqus then you have an overview of everything you’re commenting on and replies.
Anything else?
- you can subscribe to the comments by email or RSS, that way you can monitor the discussion and wade back in if something catches your eye
- you can sort the comments as you see fit
- you can tag a comment that you really like or agree with
- you can really help me out by flagging any comments that you deem spam or inappropriate
But I really hate it.
Ah well, that’s hard because I’m really liking it at this stage. There have been some teething problems (ouch don’t mention teeth), it broke the RSS feed for some people (though that’s supposed to be patched now) and a couple of regulars who I especially love have said that they didn’t like it so I’ve tried to make some changes in it to accommodate.
I guess at the end of the day I can always roll it back to the old way if the experiment is a complete failure, so far though I’ve seen more conversation from a wider group of people on here as well as over on Twitter so it’s doing what I hoped it would for the time being.
If there is something specific that really bugs you then let me know.
Otherwise please give it a go, set yourself up on it and try it out before abandoning me!
You need to stick around because I’ll be posting about Jurassic Park, games, Iron Man toys, Indiana Jones sequels, movie posters and my top five EVER films!!!
