Previously, we had a fantastic conversation about blogrolls and how we decide who goes on them. I can honestly say that weeks later, I am still swooning over the conversation that took place in the comments and I’m so excited over how much I learned.

So, today I’m curious about how you look at commenting as a reader – do you comment on every post you read? do you mostly lurk and only comment when really moved to say something?

For me, this is kinda wrapped up in a web of how I pick blogs to read, and how I organize my blog reading – but I’m going to try to tease these things apart into smaller topics and just focus on the commenting today, as best I can.

When I read a blog, I figure if I don’t leave a comment, then the blogger won’t know I was there – I’ll remain a nameless stat on the sitemeter. The author won’t know that I gave a rats ass about their blog – and they might not give a rats ass about mine in return.

I admit it, I’ll say it, commenting is a form of blog marketing. I’m talking friendly ‘hi, I exist’ kind of marketing. Kellan talked about this exact thing a couple of weeks ago, and said it well.

(I’m not even going into spammy comments left on posts that say something along the lines of “I’m blah blah from gnatdesigns.frogknot.com I’m hosting a template contest …” when that has NOTHING to do with the post.)

So, 1st there’s the decision of whether or not to say anything, and then … what to say. If I see that someone already has 70 comments, I know I’m not going to read all the comments, and I doubt that I have anything all that inspiring to add to the conversation. If it’s someone familiar such as Ree or Flutter or Kyla then I know a simple “dude” will do in just about every situation. When I don’t know the blogger as well then how do I go about saying something – or do I just let it go and try again the next time I make it over to read?

I put the commenters over in the sidebar for a couple of reasons – I was curious how many times some people had commented and this was way easier than counting (I’m all about the easy), it might give g00gle juice (I’m honestly not sure) – and I’m thinking about using it in place of my reader for a while. Back in the blogroll discussion there were some who said they use their blogroll in place of a reader and I’m thinking that idea isn’t a bad one at all – we’ll see. I’m thinking on it as an experiment.

Also – if you leave a comment which do you like better – the blogger shooting you an email reply or the blogger visiting your site? I used to do both and then I realized I was making myself crazy and we’re all about the blog guilt free here.

Some of you have mentioned that your name links to an outdated site – some of you may be listed over there under a couple of names – tell me below and I’ll fix it for ya. (I cut off the list at the people who have commented 1 time because of the bloggy giveaways comments taking up so much room)

(If you are interested in the widget (wordpress), it’s the My Top Commentators Widget and you can tweak it to show however many people you want for a set time frame.)

So here we go – I’m curious – what are your thoughts on commenting?

(ed – Sandy (momisodes) has a discussion on this very topic today too!)