Okay, so this is a post I've had in my WIPs for over four years (under the title "how ot get comment", if you want a glimpse of my working methods...), and I think I have finally figured out how I want to say what I want to say in it, and this seems like a good time to get it out there. But of course I gave myself a deadline to get it posted and now it's after 2 AM so it's probably not as polished as that four years of drafts deserves!

Also, I remember the last time december meme happened, my reading page suddenly got so busy I could barely keep up, but now we've got that and tumblr returnees at the same time, and I am actually behind on my DW reading page! This hasn't happened in probably half a decade! It's great, but also AUGH, I am behind on my DW reading page and I've also got so much stuff to do.

So, this is basically fifteen years' of trial-and-error learning on how to make dreamwidth posts that will produce good comment discussions involving lots of people. After fifteen years, I am at the point where if I'm sitting at home feeling depressed and in need of human conversation, I can make a DW post and have enough comment notifications to keep me in ego boost for several days. And a lot of what makes this work is just fairly simple strategies that I wish more people knew.

There's two basic principles to bear in mind going in. The first is that leaving a comment requires both effort and risk on the part of the person commenting, and your goal is to lower that threshhold of both risk and effort as far as possible. Anything that makes it easier, or makes it feel safer, for someone to take part in the discussion is good. Anything that takes work, risk, or cognitive load away from them and shifts it to you is good (for the comment count, at least.) If you're coming from sites where there are like/reblog/bookmark sorts of options, it's important to note that on Dreamwidth, the simplest possible interaction with someone else's post is still considerably more effort than that, and you will get a whole lot less comments than likes, universally : but a lot of people find this style is worth it anyway, including me.

The second thing is that when you make a post with the specific goal of generating lots of discussion, you are essentially inviting people to a gathering in your space. ( You are host a discussion, and you have the duties of a host. )

So, hopefully I haven't scared you away!

Here's some specific concrete things I try do to in any individual post that I'm hoping will get good discussion going:

1. ( Only one topic per post. )

2. ( Everybody likes to be asked. )

3. ( Make your post accessible to everyone )

4. ( Use cut tags wisely. )

5. ( Answer your comments promptly )

6. ( Be ready and able to deal with bad comments. )

7. ( Timing )


Beyond what you do in an individual post, the single most important factor in getting lots of comments is that you've collected a readership who feel comfortable commenting on your discussions, and that happens over time, as part of things you do in a ongoing basis.

( a bit on journaling styles )

But here's some specific things that are important:

8.) ( Make friends. Talk to people. )

9. ( Be consistent. )

11. ( Be persistent )

And if you want an example - when I was doing my FMK poll posts, before I got way too behind on the reading portion, I was pretty much just going down every item in this list in an incredibly blatant way.

( Example: FMK )