#1: gina commented on Tuesday, 29-01-08 12:31

in general i comment blogs rarely ('cause i do not feel like my comment is interesting for others)

#2: Stefan commented on Tuesday, 29-01-08 12:47

Well: i am the Newsreader-type ;)

but i do like your blog !!

#3: Georg commented on Tuesday, 29-01-08 13:20

Hi Thomas,

first I read all blogs just with a newsreader and 2nd as gina already said: I don't think anybody or you is interested in my comments.

Lets examine the latest postings:
- OT mail:app => this is OT and I use XP
- t3editor: I saq the film, but what should I comment? a "nice"?
- sourceforge down => so what...
- Thunderbird & plaintext > never hat this problems
- Private Pics > not shown in the feed and I am not really too motivated to click again to see a single pic
- Installer changesets > You do a really great job but not too many people are using 4.2 and I guess just some have looked really to the install tool. I know this is always sad for the developer but it will get better after the first stable release
- unknown3 > could have been worth a comment, but read gina

I got > 500 comments on my rggooglemap.com but only because I present there all of my extensions and give some support

georg

#4: Andreas commented on Tuesday, 29-01-08 13:26

Hi Thomas, I read your blog through a Newsreader Extension in Firefox. I visit it on a nearly daily basis, but actually I think the quality degraded over the last six months (since the relaunch?).
Sorry, I hope that didn't sound too rude, I no way do I want to insult you or your work. But the post in the last time simply aren't worth commenting, they link to another site, show a picture, or mention any kind of technical innovation. That isn't bad, but as you don't mix these information with some kind of personal interpretation they are simple facts - no need too comment. The real "action" often happens on the linked pages.

Additionally the whole TYPO3 development seems to be at stake at the moment (I know it isn't, but it seem to happen behind closed doors and anyone is waiting for 5.0, without knowing when it will come).

Again, I don't want to offend you, I hope you can see the intention of "constructive criticism" in my comment.

#5: Thomas commented on Tuesday, 29-01-08 13:48

Hi!

I would fully agree to Georgs post. Most of the articles are not commentable...

Ask yourself why do you want to have more comments? For me in my blog a comment means some things to me:
a) somebody is reading my blog ;-) -> i could also see this in my log analytics
b) someone is posting something like "i love it" -> makes me feel good, but´s it´s also a kind of "fishing for compliments"
c) People got questions about an article -> i want to help
d) SPAM: be happy that you don´t have to deal with that...

If you really want to have comments on yout blog you will have to provoke to get a reaction. many people will read the normal articles, most of yur reades will think: fine! or nice article. only 10 percent will write this reaction down as a comment...

#6: Ralf commented on Tuesday, 29-01-08 14:16

Hi Thomas,

I'm reading your blog through a news reader. News readers make it possible to follow different weblogs in less time. Your blog is very interesting and I don't think that the quality of entries should or could be measured by comments.

It's worse nothing if every reader posts a comment like "nice entry" or "very good" or something like that. I'm writing comments rarely.

But once again: I like your blog and appreciate your work.

Regards
Ralf

#7: Michael commented on Tuesday, 29-01-08 14:42

Either there is nothing to add for me, or I discuss the topics somewhere else (skype or newsgroup).

I think the commenting system is fine for compliments, but not for any sort of discussion.

Anyway, I'm a regular reader of your blog and like it very much, so please keep it the way it is...!

- michael

#8: Thomas Hempel commented on Tuesday, 29-01-08 14:47

Hi folks,
thanks for the comments! ;-)
I guess you're all right. I'm was not giving too much personal opinion in the posts the last months. This has diferent reasons for sure. One thing is that I realized that for some people my opinion seems to be important and that they make their own decission on my comment. To be honest that fears me a bit. At some point in the past I decided to make this blog a bit more steril if you want to call it so but I'm currently trying to bring some more personal stuff back into it. I think I have to deal with the fact, that you have some impact on other people if you blog. ;-)

@Andreas: I'm not sure what you mean with "degraded quality". My guess at th emoment is, that I didn't posted many things I posted in the past. But that might be a result of my position in the community. I don't realize all the things going on and rate them as interesting for other people. I can't say if that is the problem. Can you please explain this? Send me an email if you don't want to post here. I'm really interested in this topic.

@Georg: Yeap! A "nice" would be cool. Just to keep developers motivated. I mean everybody wants to be honored for his work. You go to work to get money and if people do some voluntary work a simple "nice" is really great. BUut I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. On the other it's really a big barrier to leave the newsreader jusfor giving an one word comment.

Greets,
Thomas

#9: Andreas commented on Tuesday, 29-01-08 16:04

Hi Thomas, as you wrote yourself, you tried to reduce your posting to a more neutral character. That's exactly what I meant by "degrading quality".
A blog is some kind of personal whiteboard on the Internet. A plain listing of news can be found anywhere on the net. What acutally makes your blog different from other blogs? Being a TYPO3-developer is one important point, I like to read about ongoing development, upcoming concepts, new ideas. But I wan't to read it from your perspective! It's your blog. Plain technical information are boring, as long as they don't contain some value like a short tutorial or tip. A Installer changelog is even more boring - it has to be spiced up (screenshot for example). I know it's more difficult to present architectural work instead of some frontend bling bling.
Perhaps you should try to swap quality for quantity. Posting every day with just a few lines is less interesting than a "high-quality" posting once or twice a week. Just like Dimitry's Blog.

But all of this is just my personal opinion, perhaps other acutally like the more frequent and neutral style.

#10: Georg commented on Tuesday, 29-01-08 16:55

I think like Andreas who has found some very good words I couldn't find ;)
I have most of the TYPO3 blogs in my google reader and there should be something in your blog what I can't find in another one. Neutral entries maybe have the best place in the blog section @ typo3.org. Please write your comments and if some people rely on that, it should make you proud and nothing else! I bet you do the best you can and so there is no reason to fear!

You know TYPO3 and the core very well, so maybe it would be better to blog a nice function you have found, a new cool feature, or a new extension you have found or something like that then a private pic (which are nice but not the real reason why most of us are here).

To your "keep the devs motivated": Yeah I know this very well and sometimes it feels like working one hour after another for kind of nothing but that is not true! Sometimes I just search in the repository for my extensions because the counter is the only thing which gives kind of feedback ;)

Keep on!
Georg

#11: Daniel Pötzinger commented on Wednesday, 30-01-08 13:46

Hi Thomas
I agree to the comment of the others.
Personally your blog is one of my favorit TYPO3 blogs - because one can find something new from time to time - and not only the repeating common news which I can found everywhere.
I think people comment if:
- the really want to say "nice"
- you invite them to comment (like in this post)
- if the post is unique and likely to by trackbacked

Greetings

#12: Georg commented on Wednesday, 30-01-08 18:14

Btw I missed an important feature > there is no notification if there is a new post... this is really important because If I am interested in a communication I won't miss it

#13: Thomas commented on Thursday, 31-01-08 10:36

@Georg: Do you mean an RSS feed with the latest comments?

Greets,
Thomas

#14: Thomas commented on Thursday, 31-01-08 16:24

Hi!

I guess he means a "subscribe to comments" function - which i miss, too...

#15: Georg commented on Wednesday, 06-02-08 09:42

Yeah I would like to see a subscribe to comments function but a general RSS feed would also be ok but please NO RSS feed to comments of a single blog entry because I don't want to have 1000 feeds...

btw the comment form never remmebers my website, just the mail + name

georg

#16: jingo commented on Sunday, 10-02-08 03:24

yes, maybe you should not hang around at focus.de and submit dozens of your stupid comments all day long. then you might have some spare time to brush up your LOUSY TYPING and grammar!

#17: Thomas commented on Tuesday, 12-02-08 14:00

What's your problem? I never posted anything on focus.de and please stop posting that stupid "script kiddy" links.

Greets,
Thomas