Lurking Defined

Alrighty then.  There are a lot of new locals bloggers and blog readers around, and being the ancient “oh wise one” (Lord, help us all) having- blogged- for- a- while person…I feel compelled to speak on behalf of the new blog community. 

“Lurking” is when you read someone’s blog and never comment. 

It is known this happens.  YET, when a blog writer looks at blog stats and sees numbers rising and yet commentors are silent, it’s a bit disconcerting to pour your heart out to God knows who.  You can only imagine.

Realize that if there is a sense of “knowing who’s there” /community, it feels healthy.  Otherwise…it can begin to feel a bit strange.

Who?  Men and women can all comment on our blogs.  It is open community, and all may and do comment.  Use good judgment like you would with anything else. 

The goal:   If a sense of community is reached, prayer needs can be shared, authenticity can be trusted and grow, and real life is shared.  If not, well…just know none of us do it to be on a stage.  Blogging helps us stay focused, thankful, and moving forward.  It helps us celebrate, connect, clear the cobwebs, and do something a little different in a day.

Blogging:  Healthy blogging is about life, community, interaction, shared thoughts, opinions, and ideas. We grow and learn when we talk.  We can discuss, agree/disagree, or just say, “loved the post”. 

HOW:  It only takes a name and email address to comment.  It takes 10 seconds.  You can do it.  No…you don’t have to comment on every single post you read, or everyday, but do try to build friendships and let people know you value their sharing and thoughts, say once a week if you read often, a few times a month if they post daily.

My thoughts:  In December there were a lot of people coming by here, so I shut off comments.  I was unable to keep up with anything extra.  There was a spike of 1300 or so people a day due to some seasonal posts I’ve listed in the past that get picked up in Google listings.  But, as a whole, about 300-400 fly by here every day, and yet there are 2 comments are so.  That’s not proportional to the traffic.  Yeah, I could ask a bunch of questions, but I don’t.  I’ve grown comfortable with the ins and outs of comments and I don’t mind so much anymore.  Especially for new bloggers, it’s important to have that sense that what you are doing matters.

Comparison:  Knowing who is around is helpful. Would we ask a pastor to preach blindfolded?  (Perhaps there are weeks he’d prefer it!  I hope not!)

So, lurkers, feedback is valuable, important, some say indespensable in blogging.  Be funny.  Be expressive.  Mainly…just be there.

To blog writers:  A note.  Don’t be jealous.  Run it out of your mind.  Some posts, and some of us, write more reflectively than something that evokes a response.  Just let it be what it is.  That’s okay.  Reflective, quiet, even opinionated is okay.  But, depending on your audience, you may just be ‘planting seeds’ of thought.  Still a great gift to us.  Some people seem to need more “talking” than others and that is sensed by the way the blog post is written oftentimes.  A confident sounding blog post does it’s own work.  

Well, that’s all I have to try to help on that.  Thanks for thinking about it.   I’m sure there’s more to say.  If you want to blog on it, just link to this post and continue with your thoughts or comment here. 

Mainly, let’s keep building some healthy community!

~Maggie