Comments on: On Being a Good Community Member

By: Kim

Kim — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:48:22 +0000

I love your point about books being sort of timeless and in constant conversation. That makes being slow about responding to blogs seem less like a big deal. I hadn’t thought about it that way before

By: Kim

Kim — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 21:47:33 +0000

Agreed, blogging is fun, not stressful

By: Jeanne

Jeanne — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:29:05 +0000

I’m glad to read all these comments and see what people think. My goals for being part of the community are already lower than everyone else’s here, but I figure you do what you can (for me, that means trying to get to the blogs I like to read most about once a week and the others about once a month).

Yes, I miss out on a lot of timely issues. Sometime I dip in to Twitter, but most of the time, I just can’t keep up. When we’re talking about fiction, though, the convention is to use present tense, because it’s always going on when we open the book. And similarly, most of what we say about fiction doesn’t go out of date too fast.

By: Fyrefly

Fyrefly — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:27:46 +0000

I agree with everyone else: give yourself a break! Everyone gets swamped, everyone gets behind, everyone doesn’t comment as much as they’d like to, and no one takes it as a personal insult when another member of the community drops out of sight for a while. “Kim hasn’t commented on my blog all week! She must hate me!”

Do what you can as long as you’re having fun – when it becomes a stressor instead of a stress relief to be blogging, that’s when you’re doing it wrong.

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:31:54 +0000

Great point — stats mean a lot less, from a community standpoint, than relationships.

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:29:27 +0000

That’s interesting, I didn’t know that about Dewey. I just read that you unsubscribed to a lot of blogs — I think that’s cool, actually. Trying to be more selective with blogs to read regularly might be a way to make the community aspect seem more manageable. It’s a strategy, anyway

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:28:22 +0000

Yes, I’ve been trying to make an effort to visit blogs that frequently comment here. I’m more successful some days that others, but the last week was sort of an epic fail on that front. I’m slowly getting back

By: Suey

Suey — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:07:44 +0000

We all have off weeks… or months… maybe even years! So don’t stress about it. You are great with the community thing.

And to answer your question, I think to be a good community blogger, that it’s important to remember that it’s more about the friends you make than it is about the numbers and stats.

By: rebeccareid

rebeccareid — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:34:32 +0000

I agree that Dewey was a good example of community: and she only subscribed to a few blogs. But she reached out through those who came to her blog and she encouraged us to reach out to each other.

Just do what you can. It’s not supposed to be overwhelming. We all understand.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:15:19 +0000

Just keep doing what you’re doing. Yu are a great member of the community.

I think all of the things mentioned are important and some weeks I am better at certain things than others because most the time it’s tough to juggle and come out on top of the time gain. More than anything else I try to comment and return visits to blogs and do everything else I as I have a minute.