(Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes)
Heather Craik blends a passion for 3 dimensional computer graphics with a love of writing. Any such combination served up blog-style is unbeatable. When she’s tired of writing, she can model. When she’s tired of modeling, she can write. Each provides support for the other. Here, Heather continues discussion raised in her almost-but-not-quite-a-blog-post comment from the last Saturday Morning Surfing. Secret or not, Heather surely fits into any League of Extraordinary bloggers.
CommentLuv – We love it so!
-by Heather Craik
Most of us here will know what CommentLuv is and why we use it, but here’s a quick recap to bring everyone else up to speed;
CommentLuv is a plug-in that allows your commenters to enter their own website’s URL and gain a link back to them through their comment. If you happen to run a blog it’ll also look for your latest RSS feed and publish the title and link to your post.
Before we get to the really meaty stuff I’d like to say that I love using CommentLuv; it’s a fun plug-in to have and it’s certainly increased the sense of community/amount of comments on my blog. In fact, since I installed it, I’ve noticed myself looking for links whenever someone else comments so I can go and visit them. In fact, on other blogs with it installed I’m more likely to visit other people I find interesting, or even comment myself.
From a purely altruistic point of view I’d like to think that people (myself included) comment more when it’s installed because:
- There’s usually a greater sense of community on those blogs
- It shows that the author of the blog cares what you have to say in general
- Everyone on such high-community blogs posts interesting comments that no one could read and remain unchanged (possible exaggeration there)
However over the last couple of weeks I’ve been wondering why we really like CommentLuv, and who actually uses it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’d be fair to say that the people on this site read it because they have their own websites/blogs or are looking to create them. Possibly you even use the plug-in yourself, have used it on another site or you’ve at least heard of it.
I’d like to venture a radical concept (though probably not one that you haven’t thought of before).
Gosh, someone said it. Oops.
Hilarity aside, the only people that’d find it useful are people with a link to share. Everyone else would probably just ignore it, or if the check box is on by default, get bothered with some strange error they didn’t understand. (I’ve had this happen a couple of times to my non-web-owner friends)
I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, I think it can be a very positive thing when used correctly. Here’s why we might be hesitant to own up to it though;
- Having ‘I like the link back’ as a motive makes you worry about being regarded as a spammer
- Spammers actually do try to use it for this reason
- Semi-spammers use this as an opportunity to say ‘Great post’ and gain a link
- Bloggers have this crazy aversion to owning up to wanting something for their time
Isn’t that a little insane? We’ve probably all thought something along those lines at some point, so why is it such a taboo subject?
Personally I think it’s because there’s such a stigma surrounding making money online, promoting yourself, and generally receiving rewards for the work you put into your site that we’re all too afraid to own up to it.
People (usually the uninitiated) are going to persist in thinking that bloggers should work for free unless we start standing up as a whole and saying “Actually, we can provide good content and make a living.”
CommentLuv, at least to me, is a passive way of hinting that you know people like to be rewarded for their time and that you expect the same sort of treatment. I see nothing dark and horrible in that statement, so why not bring it into the open?
What do you think?
Is it time for us closet-link lovers to step out?
Heather writes The 3D Student providing
video tutorials, reviews, and advice for 3D students.
She loves working with light and texture for
animation and modeling,
writing, drawing, film and playing video games.
Visit Heather at The 3D Student.
CommentLuv Sales Page Linking: Yes or no, what do you think?
(Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes)
CommentLuv plugin for WordPress is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the growing CommentLuv subculture. It’s changing some of the rules.
Here’s something interesting I’ve observed from commenting around Blogistan:
NOTE: This is an observation. It’s not an indictment.
I have a sales blog post of some sort (about) every two weeks, so I usually have something sales-y in my RSS feed, and CommentLuv picks it up.
But, personally, I tend to NOT display a sales link on other people’s sites. Not in the URL, not in CommentLuv display. That is, I surely have done it once in a while, but it’s not something I’m comfortable with, so I avoid it.
(For what it’s worth, I usually promote staff or people who have guest posted before I promote any of my own articles.)
So: “You betcha, sales link in CommentLuv!” Or, “No way Jose!”
What’s your call?
Oh yeah, one more thing… we’re going to have a polite discussion here. If you feel yourself getting wildly emotional over something anyone writes, just chill the eff out, mkay?