Personal Insights
Blog Comments – why comment?
Blogs, blogging, blogger. Well – who on Earth is this stupid person writing something I already know. This is a great blog – I’ll hit like. The code that you would copy is awesome, great, mediocre, or doesn’t work. Links are broken. This blog is a duplicate of one I already read. People might think my comment is stupid.
Mmmmm… It looks like there isn’t a reason to comment. Right? WRONG!
So let’s take these tall tales one by one:
Stupid person writing the blog
You already know something they wrote. So what? Maybe 100 other people didn’t know it. Also they were very brave to write that blog.
So are you brave enough to write a blog? If you are and you are blogging – Great news! If you are blogging, then think about how you would feel. Don’t you want comments?
I’ll just hit like
I’m guilty. Some days I just don’t have the time to leave a comment. Some days, I’ve read something – but I just really don’t know much about what I read. So yes, hitting like does work. Leaving a comment works even better.
The blogger actually was brave enough to put code in the blog
Is it awesome? Say so. Could it be changed a bit to make it better? Say so, and then help by posting a different way to do it. I believe that there are 1000 different ways to do one thing in SAP. Also remember that the person posting may be on a different SAP version than you. Some of the syntax is not available in their version.
Is the code flat out wrong? Is it something you would never let any other developer in your team do? That one is harder. Find something good in the blog and then suggest the other code. Perhaps point out the things that wouldn’t be correct AND WHY. Think of them as someone in your company and how you would approach their code review.
Guess what? If you do that to one of my blogs, I’ll thank you. Then I probably will revise the code in the blog.
Also remember it is hard to get a bad code review. Think about getting a bad code review for all to see. You can be nice while still being helpful.
Links are broken
That one is easy – please do comment and let the blogger know to fix them.
This blog is a duplicate
Actually I think I’ve written something similar to this blog and couldn’t find it.
So when you find something that seems to be a duplicate, is it still a decent blog? Did the other blog contain more information that needs to be shared? Explain the new information and leave a comment. The name of the other blog would help a lot as some of the links get broke over time.
People might think my comment is stupid
No comment is stupid. Period.
Think about leaving that comment
We appreciate it.
Here’s what the entire community will gain:
- Better content
- An open discussion
- Learning from the blog and the comments
- Thinking about a different way of doing things
- The “comment” person gets some exposure
- More content. That comment might drive a person to create more blogs!
Whew – you’ve made it to the end. So feel free to comment. I’d love to hear from you. And if you don’t want to comment and you’ve made it to the end, that means there must be something you liked about the blog. Hit like.
Thank you all! The bloggers and the commenters.
Just reading the title of the blog on twitter I *knew* you wrote this blog, Michelle. Jelena Perfiljeva is very good at letting me know about broken links..thank you, Jelena
Commented 🙂
I thought I had too. Can I find it? No darn it. Jelena is awesome.
Thank you for the comment!
Michelle
Aren't duplicates should be viewed as plagiarism (if not by same author) ?
p.s.
since no comment is stupid, my question is safe 😉
Very Safe!!
Yes if you just copy the blog - I would consider it plagiarism. But I was thinking about the duplicates - very likely - like this one. The ones that are written because the author couldn't find the "duplicated" blog. So they write something very similar. Pretty sure this one is similar to my other one that I can't find. It must be a strange title. Oh well!
But as a repeat - I think it is a good reminder so I wrote it anyway.
Ah... "couldn't find" ..... right. 😉
I'm laughing.... I did a quick look. Very quick look at the titles of my other blogs. 😉
One issue people struggle with in making comments (or even blogging in general) is confidence in their written english. Another one is humour.
Both are cultural in a sense; for example, I know a lot of people where I could reply to Denis's comment by saying "There's no such thing as a stupid comment, just stupid commenters" and they would know I'm joking. However, since I can't assume that Denis understand my sense of humour I won't say that (if I say "I won't say that, but I might think that", then we venture into meta humour which is an even deeper cultural morass).
If you start thinking too much about it, and you have limited time, then sometimes it's easier to just go Ugh.. Too hard and just hit the Like button.
Totally agree. Sometimes it is just easier to hit the like button. It's hard for me because in the comments, I tend to write too much.
Humor - it's sometimes hard to understand humor. I tend to write my blogs as if I am writing to someone. So you guessed it, I do add humor. Sometimes I think it might be bad due to the non-native English speakers. And not just those, people who are native English speakers may not get the humor. Sarcastic humor is really a hard one.
Then I think, OK I'm leaving the humor in. Some might not understand it. Some might think it takes away from the message of the blog. Some just might not like it at all. Any of those people, I hope will comment. It probably won't change my writing style. I will however, answer if something didn't quite send the message I wanted.
Non-English native comments. I know that would be intimidate me. I still have a silly hope they will reply. I honestly will try to understand the comment, and if I don't I'll ask about it.
See long reply - something that I tend to do.
Have a great "Monday" (for my part of the world)!
Michelle
Nice reminder, Michelle!
If folks are not comfortable with posting (somewhat) negative comments, they could start following the author and just post a comment to ask the author for a "follow-back". Once they are connected, comments can be shared in private messages instead of publicly. I'm fairly certain that an author would still amend/update her/his blog post as needed.
This would be made even easier if we had an option to indicate on our profiles that we are okay to receive direct messages from folks we don't yet follow.
Agreed. It would be nicer if people could just ping us.
I love the idea of getting in contact with someone directly. A great way of doing things!!!
I know you - so I know you would do a good job of sending a negative and making it a learning experience. The one thing I would add - make it a learning experience. Don't just say how it all is wrong. If it is all wrong, then you can find something positive! It's hard to post blogs sometimes. 🙂
After reading your blog I realized it is something similar to Audrey Stevenson new year resolution. Giving a like or sharing the feedback does really encourage the people and does have a positive impact on the whole community. and Yeah, I started to like and comment more after reading her blog.
😀 Agree but easier said than done 😀 (for me atleast) But I know Nabheet Madan does encourage a lot of people by providing feedback.
Thanks for the blog
BR,
Mahesh
Thanks for the shout-out, Mahesh, and look at that: your comment here is an excellent one. It not only reinforces that Michelle wrote a very encouraging blog post here, it also helped me understand that my own new year's resolution post had some impact as well.
Thank you!!! I went over and read Audrey's blog. So cool.
Thanks Mahesh Kumar Palavalli for the mention, you are doing an awesome job. I hope your knowledge has increased tremendously. One thing which i have learned in last few years is start appreciating the people publicly for their time and hard work they have put in answering Q&A, writing blogs etc. This goes a long way in motivating the other person.
Any negative feedback is also welcomed but should be in a constructive way. Sometime i feel we are too harsh and we end up loosing a community member. We must understand all communities strive on balance haves and have's not. You can not have only all outstanding performers in the community, it should be healthy mix of some good students, some who need mentoring, some who will be the flag bearer of our community in future.
Overall Michelle Crapo you always strike the chord, thanks for putting up this blog. Lets welcome everyone with grace thinking them to be the next flag bearer of our great SAP community.
Nabheet
Thank you!
True words - constructive feedback.
Always nice to start the week with a positive blog post from Michelle -- encouraging everything that makes a community worthwhile.
I hit like. Wish I could have liked it twice. 🙂
🙂 🙂 You make me want to keep blogging. I'm smiling as I type this.
🙂
Hi Michelle, This is a nice reminder of how much a comment can add to the sense of community, help build relationships and provide constructive dialogue.I enjoyed reading about your perspective.
Thank you Michelle! Comments fuel bloggers. A comment is a confirmation that someone actually read the post. Eventhough some in our community don't like short comments like "Thanks!" or "Great!" I don't mind it at all (nor do I mind an emoji). As you said, just commenting raises the visibility for the commentor, and I would add that the comment increases the appreciation beyond the easy click of Like-button because I'm willing to associate my photo with the comment.
I'm with you - next time I finish reading a post I'll add a comment, even if it is just a " 🙂 "
It is good to appreciate; it cannot be one way traffic; an exchange is important for people to grow - whether through knowledge, opinions, conversations or tweets or posts in the social media era. Thus, totally agree and appreciate you Michelle for bringing this out! Thanks!
Hitting like is a bit similar to when you post a picture on Facebook. You don't really care about the like but enjoy reading the comments.
However I must admit I'm guilty of just hitting like as we.
Love that comment. I think it’s OK too - to write a similar blog. Even repeat an old blog you wrote at times... Although if I did the same blog every week I might have some interesting comments. 😉
Of course that is true. But we all know you are a good person and would never do that ?
I might. Don't be too sure.
As mentioned above sometimes a reader will find a blog not to their taste, and does not like the content and/or cannot understand the humour.
There is not much that ca be done about the humour aspect, but in regard to the content, the idea is to offer constructive criticism.
I got a comment on one of my blogs over the weekend, which could best be described as a vortex of hate. This is the sort of comment we don't want people to be making:-
In actual fact in all the years I have been following SCN (since 2001?) I have never seen such a vitriolic attack in a comment. Unless of course it happens all the time but the moderators remove them before anyone can see them.
What puzzles me is that if you try and write a rude/swear word in a blog, you get an error message (I got one when I tried to use the phrase "having a bitch" as a synonym for complaining about something, and "bitch" was flagged as a swear word) but obviously there is no such check in a comment...
Cheersy Cheers
Paul
Wow! Just wow. Comments like that are not good, and don’t help you or I from writing a nice blog. Constructive – It needs to be constructive.
BTW - I love the blogs! I'm struggling with writing some nice ALV classes to help with editing the ALV. Yes, I was given the first spec, and wrote the program without edit. Now I want something that will do the edit part and still give me flexibility. Your book and blogs give me a huge benefit there. And yes I'm on HANA on-premise. And yes, I'm still using ALV. 😉
Maybe he needs to learn the difference between "loose" and "lose", too. I.e. before he loses all credibility by loosing such comments upon you.
Cheers Michelle..
Cheers Enquiry!
Hi Michelle -
Fantastic message, needs to be upvoted 🙂
It should either pop up on the front of everything once every three months, or it should be a must-read for everyone going into the blogging sphere!