So it’s blizzarding outside. I mean it’s snowing like woah! Which can only mean one thing, trainer procrastination. In my flurry of activites to stay off of the bike that goes nowhere, I logged into my wordpress.com account. I had 2 new comments, that’s pretty exciting even if they are talking trash under cloaks of anonymity like “meatwad”. Now, the blogging world has been around for a while now, but nowhere is there a site that discusses blog commenting ettiquitte…until now.
Let’s look at a few examples and good, bad, and mediocre comments.
First, an example of a good comment: Submitted on November 6, 2008. Author: Corey Carlson. “I thought you did just great. Buy some socks, you’re not a triathlete yet. – Corey”
Now, what makes this good? Well, this is the World Wide Web, you never know who is reading, so grammar and punctuaion count. It’s not a text message. How sad would your 3rd grade teacher be if she saw a comment that lacked any sort elementary English skills? My guess is very sad, I know mine would be. Corey showcases his command of the English language here, making all of his teachers very proud. Secondly, the content is relavent to the post. Finally, he tried to make me feel better about a race that I lost. Yet, he’s a good friend and offers constructive criticism on my sock length choice and doesn’t sugar coat it. In fact he zings me by dropping the triathlete bit. Thanks Corey, as you know I now wear tall socks.
Moving on.
A medicore comment: Submitted on February 9, 2009. Author: Alex Lewis. “Ballar”
Classic example of a mediocre comment. Now, let me start of by saying, this is by no means a bad one. In fact, it accounts for 80% of the blog comments on wordpress.com according to the most rencent research. It’s concise and to the point. It can also be argued that it was spelled correctly depending on where you stand on poetic liscence issues. The author is obviously proud of what he typed on his keyboard, and isn’t afraid to let the whole world know he will type “ballar” and claim it. My hat is off to you Mr. Lewis.
Finally, the inspiration for this post. The bad comment. Submitted March 4, 2009. Author: Meatwad. “Well aren’t you just a gift from god. Get over yourself man, you’re not that great…”
First things first, the name. I don’t know what concerns me more. The fact that this person calls him or herself “meatwad” or the fact that thier e-mail is actually meatwad4201@yahoo.com. It takes a special person to think of “meatwad” when signing up for an e mail account. Let alone use it. I hope this is your e mail you use when you are typing away in forums and blogs in anonymity.
The grammar and punctuation isn’t bad. Typically, the G in God is capitalized, but I can roll with with it being lowercased. Perhaps a comma after “Well”. I’m pretty sure that a question mark is better suited for ending the first sentence than a period, since afterall, it is a question. Ending your comment with an ellipsis doesn’t necessarily drive your point home. It leaves a lot of uncertainty.
Finally, the content. This was in regards to my post about putting candle wax on cable ends when you don’t have the proper cable button available. Blantaly, a joke. As the majority of my posts are, this was based on the idea of sarcasm, used purely to entertain the masses. Meatwad, I fear that you did not pick up on this, and if you took it seriously, I apologize. I hope that you didn’t wax up your cable ends, then get laughed at because of my blog. If this was the case, please send me your address and I’ll personally send you 4 real life cable ends to make up for the confusion.
So, there it is. Commenting 101. I’m sure this may stir the comment pot even more. I also don’t doubt that every grammatical error will be presented to me in simple chapter form. I knew that going into this. I’m prepared. If you take one thing away from this virtual lesson, it would be this, “Don’t take life too seriously Meatwad, you’ll never get out alive”.
