Here are some bloggers near Irene’s path that you should check in on:

• Sister Toldjah [Twitter]
• Wyatt Earp – Support Your Local Gunfighter [Twitter]
• Dana – Common Sense Political Thought
• Others will be added.

If you can…

About the 2011 100 Post Marathon.

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I just completed a little project that was kind of sad — cleaning out my blogrolls. It is amazing (and depressing) that some very good blogs aren’t around anymore. It was also a bit telling regarding my housekeeping skills that there were a few blogs on the list that hadn’t posted since 2008. 2008!

There were also a few that have moved. Those links have been updated. The two I noticed were Bad Example and, a very recent move, Blogs for Victory.

All in all, I probably trimmed a dozen blogs from the rolls.

If you know of any blogs that I should add (including your own) leave a link in the comments. This would be a good time. I need to do something to keep busy (and to keep from punching holes in the wall).

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I am serious about planning a blog get-together when the Republican Convention comes to Tampa in 2012, but I have two questions.

What should we call this thing? I’ve been calling it a Blogger Bash, a get-together, a party, all pretty generic. Suggest a name!

Who are the Florida bloggers? I know a few. I did go through an old blog list and was disappointed to see how many blogs on that list were inactive. Some hadn’t posted in months, a few in years. I know there are conservative Florida bloggers out there. Who are you?

Thanks for your help.

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The Republican National Convention will be held the week of August 27, 2012. I think we should have a party. A Blogger’s Party!

I’ve mentioned this in the past, but it’s time to move on to planning. An event of this size will take some time to put together. I’ll need your help.

The first matter for discussion is “when”. My first thought is Saturday August 25th, right before the convention. Will those who come to the convention be coming in that early or will most wait until the start of the convention? Would it be better to hold the event during the week, or is too much going on already? I don’t think after is a good idea. Everybody will be ready to head out.

Please add your thoughts in the comments. Also, I’m looking for help, especially if you are a Orlamapa (Tampa-Orlando) area blogger. If you’re interested send an email to bloggerbash2012@brightandearlyblog.com

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At the time I’m writing this I am only 8 way…

From being 100,000 away…

From being 500,000 away…

From One Million Visitors!!

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This is always the most interesting week of the year, to me. Christmas is behind us and the new year is just 5 days away. It’s a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, and half of the Hallmark channel archives have gone back into storage for another eleven months. They will be replaced with “Marathons” for every half-way successful series on the various cable channels, along with numerous looks back at 2010 and just as many looks ahead to 2011.

Who am I to argue?

Over the next few days I will take a look back at what I’ve posted here at bRight&Early before I peer into the future. I’ll start with my post from New Year’s Day, just to see how I did.

So, what are my blogging plans for 2010?

• More, and more regular, posting here at bRight & Early. Sure, I make this a goal every year, but this year I’m going to do it.
• I’ve posted over the past few days about The Regiment. I’m going to work very hard to develop the site as a great social network and resource for conservatives.
• Reclaim Conservatism also deserves some attention.
• FloridImagine.com is my hosting reseller site. There’s no excuse to neglect an opportunity to generate some revenue.
• I’ve made some halfhearted attempts to get Blog News Co-op off the ground. Perhaps a wholehearted attempt is what’s needed.
• Aside from working on the various sites I contribute to, I absolutely have to be a more active visitor and commenter on my friends and favorite blogs. Like:
  • Support Your Local Gunfighter
  • Sister Toldjah
  • No Runny Eggs
  • Common Sense Political Thought
  • Flopping Aces
  • Ace of Spades HQ
  • Pirates Cove
  • Brian Pickrell
  • Michelle Malkin
  • Hot Air
  • Right Wing News
  • Confederate Yankee
  • The Jawa Report
  • And so many more that I shouldn’t have even started a list like this.

Using the Official Barack Obama grading scale, I’ll give myself a solid B+ . . . in other words, I failed miserably. I guess that means there is quite a bit to carry over into the new year.

I did make one observation that was right on the money:

Politics, of course, will be a big part of 2010. The mid-term elections, and the primaries preceding them, will interesting to watch (and blog about). In addition to following the national races, I am going to watching the Rubio-Crist race here in Florida very closely.

The primaries and mid-terms were very interesting, and very, very satisfying. Rubio-Crist took some interesting turns before it’s wonderful outcome, and I do look forward to seeing Senator Rubio go to work in Washington shortly.

And, before you laugh to hard at my lack of success, how did you do?

Next up, I’ll take a look back at the stories I wrote about this year (when I got off my fat duff and wrote some, that is). Until then, there is one thing I need to do between now and the new year — get a new keyboard and mouse. I don’t know what the kids have done to these, but a sticky keyboard and mind of it’s own mouse make writing and editing an adventure.

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A final bit of follow up to my two posts on comments — comment tools you can use.

There are dozens of plugins you can use to make your comments friendlier. A few of them I was already using. Others I found while doing my research. If you search the WordPress plugin repository you will find almost 800 of them. Let me try to break them down in to a few broad categories.

Editors

At it’s most basic, a comment box is nothing but a form to collect some information and to input the body of the comment. If a reader wants to add any formatting to the text that plain text box can make the process a bit difficult. There are quite a few plugins developed to allow commenters to add basic formatting such as bold and italic text, and to make creating linked text easier. The one I use is Comment Form Quick Tags. As you can see in the comment form, adding the proper html code is just a click of a button. Other helpers I use related to editing include Live Comment Preview which allows writers to see what their comment looks like before they hit send, and Editable Comments which allows those leaving a comment to go back and edit it for a predetermined period of time.

Control and Analysis

You want to be able to exert some sort of control over the comments, mostly to combat spam. Spam comments are the bane of most bloggers. There are innumerable plugins that deal with just that. Akismet and Spam Karma are two popular and wildly recognized ones. I also use one called Comment Timeout that allows you to close the comments automatically after a configurable length of time. Believe me, a lot of spam comments come in on post I wrote months or years earlier. One feature I like in Comment Timeout is the ability to keep comments open on posts that contain recently approved comments, keeping popular, active posts alive. You may also want to analyze the comments you get. There’s a plugin for that as well. I use Comment Analysis because I like the many pieces of information you can find, and even include in a sidebar widget. If you look in my sidebar you will see most of the things you can track, like the number of comments, the latest and most commented posts, and the busiest commenters. Used correctly, this also gives a little link love to those who take the time to leave comments. One tool I discovered while researching my post is one called CommentLuv. If your commenter has a blog with an RSS feed, CommentLuv will attempt to discover their most recent post and append it to their comment.

Follow Up

I like it when I have the opportunity to be informed when someone replies to a comment that I’ve left somewhere. Subscribe To Comments makes that easy. The comment writer just has to leave a valid email address and check a box to be able to receive notice when someone else has added to the thread.

My question to all of you is, what plugins do you use to enhance your readers commenting experience? I am always looking for new things to try.

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I wrote a post called Comment Envy on Friday morning, and although it was written partly in jest, it was a question to which I really wanted an answer. I searched for any blog posts on the subject and reached out to bloggers who have an active and engaged group of commenters.

Searching the blogs I found quite a few posts on the subject. Nearly all of them were a form or flavor of a four year old post by Darren Rowse at ProBlogger.net called 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog. In fact, many of them had the same list, or parts of this list. Some where in a different order or with a few additions or comments, but the same tips showed up nearly everywhere I looked. I’ll encourage you to follow the link to read Rowse’s description of the tips. Mine will be listed here.

• Ask for comments — OK, this one may seem obvious, but maybe it’s not. It was at the top of nearly every list I looked at. My interpretation is this, your readers need to know that you want them to comment. Several of the other tips are related to this one in a way.
• Ask Questions — I think that every blogger asks questions, but most of the time they are rhetorical, aren’t they? (See what I did there. ) To get readers talking you have to give them something to talk about, and a great way to do that is to ask questions. I remember something I heard about doing an interview that said, “Ask your question and then SHUT UP.” I take that, in this context, to mean ask your questions but don’t immediately provide the answers.
• Be Open Ended — Rowse wrote, “If you say everything there is to say on a topic you’re less likely to get others adding their opinions because you’ll have covered what they might have added.” This one should be easy as I have never, and could never, written everything there is to say on a topic. But, I would add, you need to write in such a way that you make it clear you haven’t covered everything. Then, going back to the first point, make it clear that you invite others to add their thoughts.
• Interact with comments left — I’ll have more to add on this, but for now let me quote from the ProBlogger post. “If you’re not willing to use your own comments section why would your readers?” It seems obvious, but I have to ask my self if it is something I make a habit of doing. Do you?
• Set Boundaries — This one may not be as obvious as the others, but several posts I read indicated the same thing. They mentioned anecdotal evidence saying that comments increased when they created a clear comment policy. While I think that is a good idea for many reasons, I think that this tip can be in place even in the absence of a written policy. I think readers get a good sense of what is and isn’t acceptable from the tone and style of the blog writer as well as the other comments posted. If you follow the previous tip and interact with the comments it is easy to step in and let people know when they’ve crossed the line. Even in the anonymous world of the internet people like to feel safe, and clear boundaries are one way to do that.
• Be Humble — This one is easy for me. I know I’m not an expert on any of the topics I spout off about. Many would say that that’s painfully obvious. Still, there is a way to write things in such a way that you come across as open to other points of view and additional information.
• Be Gracious — Even (mostly?) when you’re wrong. The flip side of this is being defensive to any criticism. It doesn’t mean turning your back on things you believe, or kowtowing to the PC police out there, but rather allowing others to disagree without being shut out.
• Be Controversial? — I’ll let Rowse explain what he means.
  

  I put a question mark after this one because it doesn’t always work (and I personally avoid it as much as I can these days) – but there’s nothing like controversy to get people commenting on your blog. Of course with controversy comes other consequences – one of which is the risk of putting off less vocal members of your readership.

  I would add that this one is very dependent on your own style and personality. Some writers can pull this off and still be gracious in doing so. Others, like me, are much less confrontational and aren’t looking to “pick a fight.” Even at that there are ways to introduce controversy without acrimony. Post a list of the “Top 10″ anything and you’ll see what I mean.

• “Reward” Comments — Let me be clear. You’re not getting money. 1) That’s not what this means, and 2) I don’t have any. The reward can take many forms. It can be as simple as replying, “you’re right” or “good comment”, or something more tangible in the form of links back to their blog, listing top commenters, or pointing out great comments elsewhere on your blog. People like to be recognized. We have a saying where I work, that employees will work for candy. In that context it means that people will work to get the next sale, or the most calls answered, or whatever, even if the reward is a Snickers Bar, baloon, or 50 cent off fast food coupon. That’s because people are competitive and they like to be recognized. You can feed off of that on your blog.
• Make it easy to comment — This one is a pet peeve of mine. I don’t think anyone wants to jump through a dozen hoops just to leave a comment. Most won’t find it worth the effort. If there is anything that makes leaving comments here difficult, please let me know!

I think that’s a pretty good list. Don’t you?

But I wasn’t content to leave it at that, so I reached out to the two bloggers I mentioned in the previous post. Ace may very well be in a Valu-Rite induced haze and hasn’t had time to read or respond. I’ll add his thoughts when I get them. I did hear from my friend Wyatt at Support Your Local Gunfighter. Here are my questions along with his answers.

1. Do you do anything special to encourage comments?
The only thing I always do is answer every comment. I try to respond to every single one, no matter how long it takes me. I never wanted to be one of those people that took commenters for granted, so everyone gets a response, no matter what.

2. What do you think is the number one thing (habit or style, not topic) that induces readers to comment on your posts?
I think the commenters feed off the post topic and themselves. A good topic gets commenters going back and forth with each other, and that’s the one thing that puts a smile on my face. It shows that they’re interested.

3. Looking back to a time when you started to get a number of comments on each post, what got the ball rolling?
Not sure about this one. I think the comments are topic-generated. A good topic – in my case, usually one that is off the wall – begets a lot of comments.

4. I know that both of you have a number of very regular commenters. Did you encourage that? If so, how?
I try to build a relationship with commenters by interacting with them. Responding to their comments, the occasional e-mails, and commenting on their blogs when I can. I made a lot of good internet friends through SYLG, and many commenters know me as well as I know myself.

5. Any other thoughts on comments you would like to include?
Dave from Garfield Ridge – the first major blogger to notice SYLG and give me encouragement – gave me terrific advice when I first started out. He said that the key to hits and comments was to post often and post well. I post at least three times a day and try to post things that people are interested in.  It’s not easy, but if you work hard at it – blogging, I mean – the comments and the hits will follow.

There you have it. I think those are some great tips and advice. Come back later and I’ll be taking a look at some WordPress tools you can use to help with comments, but for now leave your comments here!

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Hi. My name is Jim and I have comment envy.

Hi Jim.

I love writing here at bRight & Early as well as my other blogs. It’s fun, it keeps me informed and engaged, and it’s a way to express my self and sort out the thoughts that run through my head. And while I do write, in small part, for my own benefit, I wouldn’t do it in this public way if I didn’t want to reach out and engage a larger audience. I believe this is true for many non-professional bloggers.

That being said, there are two things that are “Pay” for bloggers who don’t make a living doing this — Links and comments.

I may discuss links some other time, but today I want to talk about comments. As I said, I have comment envy. I would love to have the type of commenters that Ace and Wyatt (to name just two) have. That leads me to ask, what is it that causes some sites to have more comments and others have fewer? Is it the post, the site, or something else? Have at it (where else) in the comments.

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I noticed this in my feed reader this morning.

We’re aware that there is an issue with BlogRolling blogrolls causing some browsers to display a security warning.

There’s nothing really wrong with BlogRolling itself but the way we connect your blog to the sites in your blogroll makes some security algorithms think there is.

If you find yourself in this situation, we recommend you remove the Blogrolling code from your site.

We’re probably going to be shutting the service down soon. We’ll post more information here and on our Twitter account (@blogrolling) as we decide on next steps.

I had BlogRolling here at bRight & Early for years, but removed it a while back when they were having a different issue. When I first started this blog getting your site added to someones BlogRolling list was one of the premier ways of getting some link love. But, like a few other blog must haves in the early years (Is Rob ever going to fix TTLB? And is Technorati useful anymore?), BlogRolling’s time may have past.

I know that several sites I frequent are having the issues described. Most of them have disabled BlogRolling. So, what to put in it’s place. WordPress has dozens of blog roll plugins. Which one(s) do you use? What are your favorites? Have at it in the comments.

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