Aww, I remember "how to write an LJ post that gets comments" type guides back in the day! (I started to try to figure out how long ago exactly, then....stopped.) This is far more organized and realistic than most of them were, though. I think rachelmanija is another regular poster who's very good at asking "What do you think?" type questions that aren't generic but also aren't too specifically targeted. And sometimes the request can be blatant for a themed post, like "Tell me about your own worst theatre experience, onstage or off, in comments." That's good for drawing out a bunch of stories on different levels.
"People like to be asked" is a piece of old political advice that has never served me wrong in life, and it applies here just the same. The difference in number of comments between a long, well written-essay and the identical essay that has "So what do you think about X?" as the last line is significant. Even if people know that in theory you always want discussion, being explicitly asked really truly makes a difference in whether they do or not.
That's a GREAT insight, not just for politics or blogging but in general. Love it.
Although sometimes you get comments that....can often be just flat out contradictions of what you're talking about, which can be frustrating. Not just corrections of mistakes either. That's intensely frustrating to me, although I understand the urge all too well ("NO you are WRONG about the ending of Jane Eyre, SORRY"). I think this happens a little less on DW than it did on LJ, though, maybe because as you say, DW is often seen as more personal.
And I can't tell you how many times I've noticed that someone silently subscribed to me awhile ago, subscribed to them back because they have interesting posts, commented on a couple of their interesting posts as they went by, and as suddenly as that they've gone from lurker to one of my steadiest commenters. It's the same way in reverse with me - I add someone who is really cool and clearly not interested in me, but then they leave a couple comments on my journal and suddenly I get the courage to start commenting on theirs too. It really does matter if you make the effort to the be the first one to reach out.
In terms of finding people to reach out to, the absolute best way I know is to find someone you like who has a DW journal (even if they aren't active on DW), and then go to their reading page, and read it, and add anyone on that reading page whose posts look like something you want to read. And then comment on a couple of their posts. That will net you currently-active people who you have at least a little bit of a community connection with already.
If you have a paid account, you can use your network page as a shortcut for this. (If your network page is flooded with feeds/communities right now, you can add ?show=p to the end of the URL to make it show only personal journals.)
I've seen a lot of people wondering how to make contact on DW, and yeah, this is exactly how I did it (although more by instinct) on LJ way back in the day, and how I still tend to do it now -- communities on DW do tend to be dormant, but I've made some good friends the past few years through even small ones. It really does depend on that "Want to play?" invitation, though, and I know a lot of lurkers are uncomfortable or anxious about that. But even just in posts like this, if I see someone making a neat comment, I can go "Neat comment!" and often I'll get a comment in my DW that says "I've seen you around, you seem cool, want to add?" The process of finding like-minded people who will connect with you like that can seem slow and subterranean, but I do think it's a process that can be nursed along.
(And OMG, the DW split between "I read your stuff regularly" and "here are access to my deep personal thoughts" with access/reading list cuts off SO MUCH drama.)
no subject
"People like to be asked" is a piece of old political advice that has never served me wrong in life, and it applies here just the same. The difference in number of comments between a long, well written-essay and the identical essay that has "So what do you think about X?" as the last line is significant. Even if people know that in theory you always want discussion, being explicitly asked really truly makes a difference in whether they do or not.
That's a GREAT insight, not just for politics or blogging but in general. Love it.
Although sometimes you get comments that....can often be just flat out contradictions of what you're talking about, which can be frustrating. Not just corrections of mistakes either. That's intensely frustrating to me, although I understand the urge all too well ("NO you are WRONG about the ending of Jane Eyre, SORRY"). I think this happens a little less on DW than it did on LJ, though, maybe because as you say, DW is often seen as more personal.
And I can't tell you how many times I've noticed that someone silently subscribed to me awhile ago, subscribed to them back because they have interesting posts, commented on a couple of their interesting posts as they went by, and as suddenly as that they've gone from lurker to one of my steadiest commenters. It's the same way in reverse with me - I add someone who is really cool and clearly not interested in me, but then they leave a couple comments on my journal and suddenly I get the courage to start commenting on theirs too. It really does matter if you make the effort to the be the first one to reach out.
In terms of finding people to reach out to, the absolute best way I know is to find someone you like who has a DW journal (even if they aren't active on DW), and then go to their reading page, and read it, and add anyone on that reading page whose posts look like something you want to read. And then comment on a couple of their posts. That will net you currently-active people who you have at least a little bit of a community connection with already.
If you have a paid account, you can use your network page as a shortcut for this. (If your network page is flooded with feeds/communities right now, you can add ?show=p to the end of the URL to make it show only personal journals.)
I've seen a lot of people wondering how to make contact on DW, and yeah, this is exactly how I did it (although more by instinct) on LJ way back in the day, and how I still tend to do it now -- communities on DW do tend to be dormant, but I've made some good friends the past few years through even small ones. It really does depend on that "Want to play?" invitation, though, and I know a lot of lurkers are uncomfortable or anxious about that. But even just in posts like this, if I see someone making a neat comment, I can go "Neat comment!" and often I'll get a comment in my DW that says "I've seen you around, you seem cool, want to add?" The process of finding like-minded people who will connect with you like that can seem slow and subterranean, but I do think it's a process that can be nursed along.
(And OMG, the DW split between "I read your stuff regularly" and "here are access to my deep personal thoughts" with access/reading list cuts off SO MUCH drama.)