I’ve just been noticing a steep drop in commenters this year. Oddly, my readership (according to Mint and Feedburner) has actually increased. Crazy stuff.
Somehow I feel like I lost some of you. Maybe it had something to do with my pregnancy - you’re worried this will turn into a ‘mommy blog’? Or maybe it’s as my mom says… I’m kind of a conversation hog sometimes, saying things in a way that doesn’t leave the door open for others to say much else - because I’ve already said what they wanted to say.
So which is it? Have I come to bore you, offend you, confuse you?
Tell me, who the heck are you? Do you still read? Why do you read? And why in the world don’t you ever say hello anymore?
I’ll shut up now and let you comment (of course if you don’t, this will be the saddest post in the history of my blog). :)
Oh, and there are a few of you I know comment frequently. I’m not talking to you, you’re awesome.
Chris Huff left a comment on January 19, 2008 at 7:41 am | #
I’m not sure I’ve ever said hello (here on this site). I’m pretty much a lurker via bloglines. I skim all the headlines, and only open ones which sound interesting (about 1% of them). Then I might comment on about 5% of the ones that I read. So, mathematically, you have about a 1/2,000 chance of getting a comment from me. It’s a pretty rare occurrence.
Damian Karlson left a comment on January 19, 2008 at 8:40 am | #
Hey, I still read, but usually through Google Reader — which means that I very rarely comment. Don’t take it personally, I don’t comment on many blogs I read. Many times its because I’m reading posts at work, or because once I leave a comment, there isn’t a universal way to track the conversation.
Anyhow, you’re not boring me. Keep up the good work. D
Karla ~ Looking Towards Heaven left a comment on January 19, 2008 at 9:14 am | #
i’m still here. i’m wondering if something is wrong with how i’m getting your feed. when i just came over to comment i noticed several posts that i had not read/seen…
blessings, karla
Natalie left a comment on January 19, 2008 at 9:24 am | #
HAHA,**Chris_, I’m grateful for your comment then! Seriously, thanks for poking your head in for a minute. It’s good to see you.*Damian_* thanks to you too. I understand you completely. I often don’t make it beyond my feed reader either. As for tracking comments, I’ve been somewhat satisfied with “Commentful](http://commentful.blogflux.com/ although it doesn’t work on all blogs. Most, but not all.
Now so far this is making sense, but here’s where it’s a little disheartening for me. Commenting used to be so much more active for conversation about a topic (in general, on all blogs). I’ve seen a lot of other blogs where people comment a lot and there’s more SEO trickery going on than anything else, so I’m thankful I have real people with real things to say. I definitely have quality over quantity in those of you who comment regularly.
The reason I posted this is because I like to get to know people, particularly people who are reading what I’m writing. So I’m putting together a link list behind the scenes here, for myself (which might be shared someday) of readers and looky-loos and another of active readers (people who comment). From either list I’d like to be able to look in on some of you from time to time to see what you have to say!
Carolyn left a comment on January 19, 2008 at 10:38 am | #
No, I’m here,too. I’m just not much of a commenter. Also, sometimes you bring up topics that would require a response that would be as long as your original blog post (which is definitely not a criticism), and I am racing through blogs at 90 miles an hour before starting work. Also, right now, just as they are doing scary recession talk on the news, absolutely everyone I know is inundated with work. They don’t even have time to blog regularly, let alone leave comments on other blogs. So, please don’t be disheartened.
Vyoma left a comment on January 19, 2008 at 2:09 pm | #
One reason your feedburner count could have shot up is that even read posts show up back again in my Google Feedreader. Quite annoying to find 10-15 posts back in the feedreader when I am done reading them - but I guess that was the ’sideaffect’ (or aftereffect? :P ) of you migrating your blogging software.
Other than that I never was much of a comment person. :)
Natalie left a comment on January 19, 2008 at 2:30 pm | #
**Vyoma_* - I’ve seen that happen with a lot of blogs. It’s only happened a couple of times with mine that I know of and it must be when I change the feed at all. For instance, when I changed to Wordpress I had to edit feedburner settings to send them the new address. They must send out the last 10 posts automatically. I agree it’s annoying. %(note)Anyone have a tip on how to stop that?%
**Carolyn_* - Good point. I forget sometimes how easy it is to be busy with work since I’m not working as much anymore. It’s a shock going from full time to only a couple of hours a week. And, I find myself up at all hours of the day and night, just sleeping when I can get a nap in, so I end up with more time than most people lately! Thanks for the input, it’s good to see you.
Phil Bowell left a comment on January 19, 2008 at 5:50 pm | #
Hi Natalie. It’s really great to have you back up and about as well as blogging :-) I’m still around, but these days I’m not commenting on many sites anymore. I’ve changed my blogging style a little, and so I’m more likely to link to an article and say a few words than a comment. Don’t be disheartened though, people are still reading and will continue to. You have a lot to say!
John Stansbury left a comment on January 20, 2008 at 10:00 pm | #
In WordPress, in Options > Reading you can set how many posts go out, and if they’re full text or summaries. 10 is the default setting, so that’s how many show up from FeedBurner.
If that’s the first time you’ve updated the feed, it’ll show off the wrong stuff in FeedBurner. That’ll work itself out as stuff updates.
'Mas left a comment on January 21, 2008 at 11:17 am | #
I’m also not much of a commenter. For a while there, you had comments turned off with the previous design, so I guess I got used to there not being an opportunity. Looks like you’ve turned up the heat with this posting, though. :)
Chris Goodrich left a comment on January 22, 2008 at 1:17 am | #
Hi Natalie!
Excuse me for a second while I discuss one of the things I am most passionate about for a minute, but Carolyn mentioned about how economic fears of a recession are gaining, however, work load is getting increasingly more stressful. This is easily explained in economics as the Federal Reserve attempts to balance the recessionary forces and the inflationary forces. By fighting the recessionary forces, they can possibly increase the inflationary forces. By reducing interest rates and adding to the money supply (ways they use to stimulate economic growth.), it causes the economy to produce beyond it’s capacity and therefore causes greater work for employees. Eventually employees will decide to re-negotiate their compensation and therefore causing costs to rise as well as prices; thus we have inflation. I appologize for the tangent on monetary policy; but I find great pleasure in discussing economic theory. But for the sake of tying everything full circle, Natalie, I will propose that this is the primary cause of your reduced commenting. As people are working harder for our possibly over producing economy, it leaves little time for extraneous activities such as commenting on blogs.
On a little more serious note, I think the primary reason I have not commented in a while has nothing to do with you or your writing, but rather with me and my workload. (I know, the whole “it’s not you, it’s me” thing is quite cliche.) I find your articles very though provoking and I badly want to comment, however, I can sometimes spend an hour or more thinking about what I have to say plus an additional half an hour to write my responce.
As I am sure you would agree, I wish that there were more hours in a day to accomplish more of the things I want to do. Sadly, time is our ultimate enemy in preventing so many of the things we want to do, and therefore some things just fall to the back burner.
I am so very happy that your twins are home and healthy and that you are back online writing; you definitely have been missed tremendously and I look forward to reading more and more of your insightful thoughts, and with any luck commenting a little more. :o)
Michael Montgomery left a comment on January 23, 2008 at 3:17 pm | #
“Remain calm. Do not be alarmed.”
Just not commenting much lately, anywhere.
My feed reader feels like a fire hose. “Mark all read”, anyone?
Natalie left a comment on January 23, 2008 at 7:42 pm | #
Boy, you must all think I have nothing better to do with myself than monitor comments! I’m sorry, I so made it look like that. I’m just curious why there was such a difference from this time last year. Glad to know it’s not me.
And I completely understand about work. Even though I’m not working (design-wise) as much, I definitely have my share of work around here to keep our personal economy afloat. Thanks,**Chris_* for the refresher in economics, not my strong suit, to be honest. It’s good to look at it that way.
I wish I could have a nickel for every unread post in my feed reader too!
Bradley Scott Shoemaker left a comment on January 28, 2008 at 12:23 am | #
As stated above, I haven’t commented on this site in such a long time and it pretty much has nothing to do with you or your posts. I got my new job around a year ago, a blessing and burden. The blessing is I have worked there for 9 years and enjoy the company so to get the promotion to Web Director was great, however, it comes with the burden of being locked into a corporate CMS that has no idea what standards are and basically forces me to work harder and longer hours to try to accomplish basic things. By the time I am done with working for the day I try to stay away from computers altogether and spend my nights with family and friends.
Also another equal part is when I switched to a feed reader. 4 months into the switch I went from reading everything faithfully to missing a day, a week, a month, etc until one day I opened up my reader and realized that thousands of titles sat there waiting for me to skim over… At that point I kind of became overwhelmed and stopped checking the reader altogether. So I am just getting back to the point where I am checking out a lot of the places I used to visit to see what I’ve been missing.
I too am grateful that the twins are home and that everything turned out ok.
Natalie left a comment on January 28, 2008 at 12:38 am | #
Nice to see you**Bradley_* - thanks for stopping by!
Michael left a comment on January 29, 2008 at 11:27 am | #
Hey Natalie. I’ve been reading your blog for a long time now, left a few comments here and there, but whether I’m remembered or not is another story. Anyway, I have the same sentiment as a lot of people - I’m not much of a commenter. In fact, I’m not much of the blogger that I used to be, although I still try to post once or twice a month (more is planned onces I finish my new layout).
I’ll even admit that I don’t use a feed reader. Yes, I type in your url by hand. So yours is one of the blogs that I actually pay attention to still, lol. It’s an ever-smaller list…
I should mention that I always enjoyed the spiritual/religious (pick your own terminology) themes that you wrote about, but they are not as prevalent as a year ago. That hasn’t put a decline in my reading, just in my commenting, sparse as it may have been to begin with.
Clint left a comment on January 30, 2008 at 7:23 pm | #
Well i just found you today (through the 100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes on Smashing Mag) and I already replied twice :-)
I was wondering … not related to this particular post now that i come to think of it … do you only design or do you also make the programming on your themes for example?
Natalie left a comment on January 30, 2008 at 7:54 pm | #
Hi Clint, nice to have you. Yes, I do all the development of my themes as well as the design.
Jennifer left a comment on February 1, 2008 at 9:02 am | #
You lost me for a while, heck everyone lost me! But I’m back reading my favorite blogs :)
I’m sure I’ll be sending lots of mommy questions soon!
Kristi left a comment on February 4, 2008 at 2:44 pm | #
Hey Natalie - I thought I had commented on this post before, but I guess I didn’t. Maybe that’s another possibility: people forget like I do! Ha!
Just a comment: you are a lot like me in your writing / talking style, which is very conversational. I think your mom is right. I have friends who say sometimes they are kind of stumped as to what to say on my blog sometimes because I go around in various circles and tangents, and they don’t know what to say because they usually agree with it all…. and who likes to just write the words “I agree?” :)
Be who you are, and I know there are lots of people who appreciate that and enjoy your blog. Hope you’re doing well!