10 Reasons Why I Will NOT Leave Comments

September 18th, 2008

This is just a rant I wanted to throw out there. Take it for what it is worth (if anything). These are my reasons for not wanting to leave comments on other sites. Oh yeah, I had another post similar to this a while back…

1. The post is too long

Your post is either too long to begin with, or written in such a way that I do not want to read it…therefore I do not leave a comment. Depending on the material within the post, this does not always apply.

2. You did not ask me anything…

If your post does not pose a question, or invoke any type of response mechanism within my brain when reading it, there is a good chance I won’t leave a comment.

3. Someone else already said what I was going to say.

This happens all the damn time, or so it seems. Maybe you have caught on and don’t leave a comment, but others just keep repeating the same thing, over and over and over. You see this more often on bigger posts with lots of comments. Which brings us to…

4. TOO MANY COMMENTS

This kind of is what I was talking about above in #3. If there are hundreds of comments, expect people to leave the same or very similar responses multiple times. Once again, this is not always a bad thing, but who is honestly going to read through 248 comments after reading a gigantic post. There are some who will, the majority will not.

5. Don’t make me jump through hoops!

It is absolutely necessary to have some type of spam protection in place if you are going to allow comments on your site. I am not debating that in anyway shape or form. All I am saying is, I do not want to have to fill out about 10 different fields just to say “nice post!”.

6. Don’t like the looks of this, I’m out of here…

Obviously the design and aesthetics of the site will have a direct impact on traffic, visitor loyalty and returning visitors, thus more often than none the amount of comments you will get. Take a look at other sites and see what they are doing, specifically sites that are similar to yours. Learn, don’t copy.

7. Can’t follow the flow of the comments

We read from left to right, top to bottom. Why would it be a good idea to reverse the flow of the comments, by making the newest comment appear on top. I mean I can understand that visually in some ways it makes sense, but when you are reading, it can become very, very confusing.

8. Take me to the gold!

I know it may sound like sheer laziness, but give your readers some help and offer a jump link down to your comment section, and or comment form.

9. Where are all the comments?

I can appreciate the idea of keeping the comments off to the side, which saves screen real estate, but this is confusing to most users.

10. Your blog doesn’t allow comments

Obviously if you do not allow comments to begin with, I will probably have a rough time trying to leave one. In my opinion a person should be able to leave comments on blogs. This is kind of a case-by-case basis, as there are some blogs I read that have disabled comments.

What do you think? Am I completely wrong? What makes you not want to leave comments?

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34 Responses to “10 Reasons Why I Will NOT Leave Comments”

Leave yours now...

  1. #1 Dan says...

    those are all lovely, rational reasons why you might not post on an article…

    but, no offence, why is this worth a blog post? most people are capable of figuring out that bad design or an overloaded page are turn offs.

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

  2. #2 Toon says...

    One of the major issues I have is most people seem to blog now just for traffic and to get people to click their ads, especially design blogs, they seem to churn out the same ‘Top Free Wordpress Templates’ ‘Top Free Fonts’ ‘Free Vector Graphics’ etc.

    I’m pretty sure bloggers use google trends and see what’s the most searched things and blog about them, it just feels like a repeat over and over again.

    I can’t speak because I’m the worlds worst blogger, I can never find the time, my graphic design blog is just a place I like to showcase other designers work and support our forum, I respect people who put alot of thought and time into their posts and post stuff that really benefits the reader.

    To be honest when a blog gets too big with like 50+ comments I stop commenting just because I don’t want to become another number, I much prefer a smaller more personal blog to be involved with.

    One very interesting point that somebody brought up the other day is the amount of design blogs run by freelance designers who are giving you advice on design and freelancing but only have like 3 pieces of work in their own portfolio, surely if you’re good enough to advise other people you should have portfolio full of varied and high quality work, but there are many that lack that, always makes me wonder how professional these people are and if they spend more time writing blog posts than actually completing orders.

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

  3. #3 Matt says...

    @ Dan, thanks for checking in.

    This is absolutely “worth” a blog post to me as these are design flaws that anyone who visits blogs encounters on a day-to-day basis. Pointing out flaws that perhaps not you are making, but others may be, and in turn in fixing these might enhance the ux.

    They are just things to think about when you are wondering why you aren’t getting as many comments as you wish, or as other sites.

    Thanks for inquiry though

    @ Toon
    I do not post nearly as much as I wish I could, but eh that is the way things go. I wish I could comment on your design blog from work, but they block the domain, and by the time I get home I do not really want to look at my computer. I see lots of great pieces that I want to say something on, then I remember that I work for a bunch of meat bags ha.

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 1:37 pm

  4. #4 sho'fr says...

    isn’t this ironic, I’m leaving a comment on an article entitled “Why I Will NOT Leave Comments”….

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

  5. #5 Acuity Designs says...

    Matt:
    Great post! Will take it into account when blogging myself. LOL @ number 7… that sounds like such a ‘pet-peeve’

    Toon:
    I definantly agree that nearly every design blog right now, follows the ‘top 10′ or the ‘100 unique sites that do this’ trend in articles, but I wouldn’t say this makes up the mainstay of most blogs, its simply ‘whats hot’.

    As for the freelancer’s small portfolio vs knowledge arguement, I disagree. Myself and Ashley have only been freelancing for around 7/8 months hence our small folio, alot of our work/graffiti/collages aren’t suitable for the clients we want. It doesn’t mean we are unprofessional or haven’t got a clue. We have got in the past 4 weeks, 12 jobs (huge number of jobs by our standards to date) as a direct result of our new blog. Right or wrong, blogging for us right now is summed up by:

    ‘consistent blogging of a decent standard = traffic = better web prescence = more clients.’

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 5:13 pm

  6. #6 Navdeep says...

    amazing… very true and this comment just passed trough all the 10 filters on the top and made it here :)

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 6:30 pm

  7. #7 Dmitry says...

    Good post. One of the best ways to get comments on your posts is to simply ask for them. Ask a question or ask for feedback at the end of your post. This way people have something direct to respond to, especially if they originally didn’t intend to leave a comment.

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 6:58 pm

  8. #8 Wayde Christie says...

    A great article - bookmarked!

    I base my decision on whether to comment on many of the things you mention here, but it’s great to hear someone elses take on the issue.

    Cheers :)

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 8:06 pm

  9. #9 Matt says...

    Thanks Navdeep, Dmitry, and Wayde for the support, and glad you enjoyed it. Keep in touch!

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 9:51 pm

  10. #10 Justin says...

    Are you oblivious to the correct spelling of obvious?

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 10:06 pm

  11. #11 Goobi says...

    This post deserves a comment!

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 10:53 pm

  12. #12 mark says...

    Next article: How to get intelligent comments and not (almost humorous) foolishness!

    • Posted on September 18th, 2008 at 11:24 pm

  13. #13 Paul says...

    I don’t think I’ll comment on this…:P

    • Posted on September 19th, 2008 at 3:19 am

  14. #14 Bikram says...

    Hmmm. All the points u made are interesting. Specially the ‘Too many comments” point. There are couple of blogs that I follow which gets too many comments and what I wanna say is already there. So, I see no point in commenting.

    I had gathered a few different points some times back. They are listed Here.

    • Posted on September 19th, 2008 at 5:35 am

  15. #15 David Airey says...

    “Don’t make me jump through hoops.”

    Absolutely. I’m disappointed when, after reading a nice article, I want to comment, only to find I need to register first.

    • Posted on September 19th, 2008 at 6:07 am

  16. #16 Matt says...

    @ Bikram
    Yeah that really gets out of control sometimes. Or you try to commit to reading them all, then you get lazy and frustrated and just leave.

    @ David
    Yeah, sometimes I will look and see how they setup their site first, before I even do anything.

    Thanks for the comments so far everyone, good or bad, at least I got a comment out of you!

    • Posted on September 19th, 2008 at 6:14 am

  17. #17 www.adf.lt says...

    amazing… very true

    • Posted on September 19th, 2008 at 8:36 am

  18. #18 raul says...

    - The blog request to have Javascript enabled to post comments. (Netnewswire does not work then…

    - The blog ask for sign up or you have to have one open id or something similar.

    • Posted on September 19th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

  19. #19 Matt says...

    Great points Raul, and I think in large this comes down to sheer laziness on the programming end. How difficult is it to check a form server side? I mean, it is always nice to have that front-end check as well, but really…

    • Posted on September 19th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

  20. #20 bri says...

    No comment.

    • Posted on September 19th, 2008 at 1:12 pm

  21. #21 Rock says...

    INTERESTING

    Here is my comment to go against what you said… I’m leaving a comment just for the F#$( of it!

    • Posted on September 19th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

  22. #22 mark says...

    why insist on asking for an email address (one that you’ll never validate) I hate when comment fields make that a required field.

    Another big turn off is seeing spam in the comments

    • Posted on September 20th, 2008 at 3:19 pm

  23. #23 Matt says...

    Hey Mark, I agree that the email question is a little strange, but it has sort of become almost a given that you will have to leave it to be able to comment. Kind of pointless though.

    The spam one is especially true of “do-follow” blogs. Who wants to be associated with some spammy crap hole?

    Thanks for stopping by!

    • Posted on September 20th, 2008 at 7:25 pm

  24. #24 frank says...

    Very insightful … or at least nice to see written down!

    It helps me make sure I’m doing my best to make commenting simple on the blog i’m getting ready to launch.

    one question if you have some time to get back …

    what do you suggest to help readers want to comment or feel like they need to comment by the time they get done reading??

    –
    http://twitter.com/franswaa

    • Posted on September 21st, 2008 at 12:03 am

  25. #25 Matt says...

    Hey Frank, that sounds like a nice idea for a follow up.

    There are so many ways to answer this, and to be honest there is no one way of approaching it. I will say this in full confidence though: content is key. Consistency, and quality of posts will help users stick around, and possibly one day leave a comment.

    Wow, very good question, hopefully that will suffice for now.

    Thanks!

    • Posted on September 21st, 2008 at 8:18 am

  26. #26 holga hacks says...

    post being too long puts me off leaving comments, also I think asking a question really helps a lot but I’ve left posts in the past that don’t ask a question and people still comment on them :)

    cool post

    • Posted on September 21st, 2008 at 7:24 pm

  27. #27 10 Reasons I will NOT leave comments | CrazyLeaf Design Blog says...

    […] 10 reasons I will not leave comments on some blogs View source //default banner house ad url clicksor_default_url = ”; clicksor_banner_border = ‘#f8f7f0′; […]

    • Posted on September 23rd, 2008 at 5:35 am

  28. #28 Clay McIlrath says...

    I agree with all of these except the TOO MANY COMMENTS one. I know often times i too skip over reading what everyone else said, and even if i’m saying the same thing as them, i still want to say it. Or sometimes i may have a question in which case i’ll bookmark that post and visit it again over a few more day to see if anyone replied to my comment. THAT is where it gets annoying.. trying to find what page your comment is on. I think it would be awesome of someone (or i may if i get the time) developed a plugin that handled UI for commenting a little better. There are two things i would have it do:

    A. Pagination.. a lot of blogs have it, but they’re often static pages so then you gotta scroll again each time you select a page.. Why not make is AJAX.

    B. Comment Reply subscription. Say the input field that you use for you “display name” is also a variable for a reply function. Then you can have the system email the person if anyone directs a reply or comment back at them.. (many forums do this)

    ———————
    For example:

    Clay Submitting a comment:
    user: Clay
    email: clay@website.com
    comment: This is a comment

    Matt Replying:
    user: Matt
    email: matt@website.com
    comment: @Clay : Reply comment.
    —————

    Then simply have that plugin look for the @user and send them an email alert that their comment was replied to and a direct link to it. How cool would that be?! I hope i can get time to develop it!

    • Posted on September 23rd, 2008 at 2:23 pm

  29. #29 Matt says...

    That would definitely be a cool idea, except for if someone has the same name as someone else. I suppose you could do it by email, but even then…Maybe if you did it by having a “quote” link that inserted an anchor to your original comment, and if that comment had the ID from the response, you get an email.

    Nice thinking though, and thanks for stopping in!

    • Posted on September 23rd, 2008 at 2:48 pm

  30. #30 Wayne says...

    Hi all,

    I would like to add a certain annoyance that I have found with some blog sites, whether or not you guys will agree with me or not is another matter.

    I personally don’t like it when I arrive at a public blog site where you can do everything bar post a comment without having to log in, sign up or something else.

    • Posted on September 28th, 2008 at 10:40 am

  31. #31 Dave says...

    Good points. I think #4 can be answered with a strong threading system. Seriously, if you’re getting more than what, 30 comments per post? …you need to have collapsible, threaded comments.

    #5 is by far my number one reason. No, I don’t want to sign up for an account to post a comment. The irony is that those bloggers will never know what the problem is b/c no one who’s frustrated by it will be able to tell them what’s wrong. (Laughing about that it how I keep from getting angry about bloggers requiring accounts for commenters.)

    You say that #1 depends on the content, and I think it depends specifically on whether long content is scannable. Your post is relatively long, but I can scan your ten major points, so it’s not an issue.

    • Posted on October 3rd, 2008 at 2:21 pm

  32. #32 Matt says...

    Thanks Dave, in response:

    Yeah, 30 comments (whoops, I broke that one on this very post) could be a fair number, maybe 40 or 50 at the most…? I think it also depends on the styling of the comment section.

    I really do not like signing up either, and almost will never do so. I have on a few sites, mostly forums.

    Great point on the content being ’scannable’, because as you have so astutely pointed out, we do scan when we “read” most of the time.

    Thanks for the great feedback, and for stopping by!

    • Posted on October 3rd, 2008 at 3:07 pm

  33. #33 Tom says...

    amen.

    • Posted on October 7th, 2008 at 11:58 pm

  34. #34 Jon Jon says...

    This is not a comment.

    (Great post by the way…)

    • Posted on October 10th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

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