A very special thanks to Poneria, from Fel Concentration, Jaedia, from The Lazy Sniper, and Gazimoff, from The Mana Obscura, for their input!

Warning, this is a very long post. I wanted to incorporate views and thoughts that were not my own, and I wanted to keep things simple by not requiring everyone to follow links to read contributions.

As writers we sometimes overlook that we may be viewed differently than we typically would imagine others view us. We’re just normal people, with normal perhaps being somewhat loosely defined, who write because we enjoy sharing our thoughts and generating discussion. Most of us do not bite, and we all love feedback. Sometimes it is easy to forego commenting on a post because you don’t feel like you have anything to say about a topic, or to feel intimidated because you’re “new” or “just a little guy,” or to think that the comment may not really be important or worthwhile. Maybe it’s just wanting to say hello or something else that doesn’t really fit with the topic of a post and so you feel like it would be impolite or “bad form” to comment. Well, it is time to put all of those things aside, because this post is for you.

See that comment section? Type in it. Say hello. Say more than hello if you like. Talk about something random that’s on your mind if you want. Have even more to say? Feel free to visit that forum link at the top of the page and say everything you want to say. I mean it, post and say hello!

You still haven’t posted yet, have you?

Look, there’s a shiny thinga-ma-jigger-bob if you post!

Ok, not really. But post anyway!

*ahem*

As I was saying… Bloggers often get lumped into a category wherein we seem intimidating or unapproachable for some reason. I don’t want that here. I’ve stated many times that I want more interaction with you guys, and I know I’m not the only one who looks at this the same way. In fact, I’ve reached out to a few other authors to add some further insight into “our world,” and I want to extend both a warm welcome and heartfelt thank you to them for their contributions.

When I asked for feedback I only offered some basic questions, quoted below, and the first draft of this post as an idea of something I wanted to collaboratively share with others. First, the questions:

1. How do you view authors (i.e., are they generally approachable? intimidating? warm? cold? etc.)
2. Talk about how you view interaction on blogs. How do you promote it (if you do)?
3. Why do you write?
4. What makes you interested in an author or blog?

Poneria, from Fel Concentration, writes:

1) I view everyone generally approachable through comments to begin with, though I often look at present comments to figure out the personality. I try to not be offensive or jerkish when I type up a comment, but it happens sometimes. I do try to stay on-topic with a post when I comment. I guess the about page is where you’d do a random “hello” comment, though I usually include a hello in my first comment.

I read something on Life in Group 5′s shaman Cataclysm preview, and I wanted to comment on it from a warlock perspective, but honestly, I know practically nothing about the shaman perspective, so maybe the warlock perspective isn’t actually connected at all. Here I felt a little awkward and maybe like I was maybe wasting Vixsyn’s time by posting a possibly useless and off-topic comment.

But I figured at the least I would be wrong and I’d learn something. Maybe if I ever decided to level my 52 shaman to 80 (or 85) I’ll know better. This is how I hope discussion takes place on blogs, both mine and others — if it’s silly, it’s conversational and lighthearted; if it’s information, it’s more for an educational purpose than for a “omg ur rong” yelling match. Blogging is another flavor of public fora, not a private preening ground.

That said, I do get some of my perception of authors from their blog layout and colors. I like flavor, whatever you define that as. But it doesn’t have to be in just blog layout; you could still have the default theme, but if your writing pops off the page, I won’t really care what you do with the theme. But if your theme is fluffy & cute, I’m going to feel like the author should be bubbly and happy, not no-nonsense and “srs bizniz.”

On a side note, I do tend to associate themes with authors. When I read Dots and Hots for the first time, I was really confused why Beru (Falling Leaves and Wings) was talking about warlocks, because she’s totally a resto druid. My confusion arose from the same theme used by both blogs, because I had already been used to reading Beru’s blog on that theme. By the same token, though I don’t really like my current blog’s theme, it’s the best one I like that isn’t already associated with another blogger in my mind.

Wheeeeee tangents!

2) I try to promote comments on my blog with big black bolded text to prompt discussion on some topic or another, but it doesn’t always come. Probably because I don’t have many readers either. Oh well, no biggie. I’d like a back-and-forth, but it’s hard to initiate. Also, I’m rather annoyed at how hard it is sometimes to keep track of conversations on several blogs’ comment sections. I mean, it’s cool to check the little “notify me of replies” check box, but the emails still come weeks or months later when someone comments on an old thread. Also, sometimes the email doesn’t thread the comment replies. So it’s just hard to keep track of the conversation when I want to have a conversation.

3) Because I feel like it. I feel like I have something to say, so I do. I started my WoW blog primarily because I felt like writing more than a long comment or two on a couple of posts. It’s my brainstorming ground half the time. On the flip side, if I don’t feel like I have something important enough or different enough to say, I don’t post. So I actually have a bunch of drafts that were cool when I started, but now (like the Cataclysm class previews), they’re rather boring and redundant.

4) The writing, generally. More specifically the voice. Every once in a while, some priesty post comes up on Righteous Orbs, and I go, “OH YEAH, Tam’s a priest,” because otherwise I really don’t read RO for the class information. I hardly read anything for the class information. I mean, psshhh, if I want class or raiding info, I’ll go to MMO-Champs or Elitist Jerks or Tankspot or WoW.com or some other general information site. There’s an example above: I know crap about shamans, but I read Life in Group 5. It’s rarely ever the “class” or “genre” of the blog that scores it a spot in my feedreader. It’s totally the writing.

It’d be awesome to know why people read my blog, but only if they want to say. I can’t not use colors, and I tend to write as if I’m talking to the person, not writing a post to be read later. I don’t know if either of those is good or bad or meh. (Okay, okay, I’ve been told the colors are awesome, but the other, I don’t know.) I tend to write a LOT, but sometimes I feel the length contributes to me, and cutting it would take some of the voice out.

Jaedia, from The Lazy Sniper, writes:

I blog because I enjoy writing. I started blogging a few years ago purely to see what it was all about, the same way I get into most of the silly social networking thingies on the internet – curiosity. I’ve been a little in and out, sometimes blogging a lot, sometimes not at all, but I’ve always acknowledged that writing is very therapeutic. If you have something on your mind, no worries, write it down, have a rant. You can keep it private offline, in a notebook, or broadcast it to the world, whichever way you’re most comfortable with.

Of course, I enjoy the social interaction from blogging. There’s nothing nicer than receiving comments on a post you’ve written, whether it’s just an image you’ve shared, an anecdote, or a long well thought out story, comments are nice. They help bloggers to grow, to know what people like and don’t like, how to change certain things. My readers are very important to me and I love to hear their thoughts. I’m in the process of trying to incorporate a better comment system at the moment and I hope I vary my posts enough to engage my readers. I try to reply to comments because I enjoy reading them, and I want the commenters to know that. If you don’t respond, how do they know they’ve been appreciated?

When I started my personal blog I didn’t feel intimidated because I primarily shared it with friends and nobody else. However, when I started my WoW blog, I did feel a little intimidated. There was this huge community of people who had been blogging for 2 or 3 years about the subject, how on earth can I compete with that? My information was inadequate as far as I was concerned and I didn’t know how to get my toes in the water. I joined BA and read around, which is where my obsession for editting things all the time has come from, but these days I’m fine. In fact, a little intimidated to publish thoughts on my personal blog because that’s a little less protected. My thoughts over there are MORE personal, and would probably affect me a little more if I received negative feedback.

I like to be viewed as a cheerful and helpful person. I’ll write guides and compile lists in the interests of helping people, and I like to attempt to entertain via the written word, using images, anecdotes, and different ideas (or things that I find a little different anyway). If I receive just one comment saying that they like my blog, my guides are helpful, I make them smile, anything, then I’ve done what I set out to do (as well as the writing).

Blogging is a very personal thing, wherever you come from, and you do need to be an opinionated person to be a blogger. Apparently I’m opinionated, I never knew that. That’s something I discovered about myself from blogging. Though, I’m open minded, willing to listen to other people’s opinions, and accept them. When I feel strongly about something, I would rather go the way of, “Well let’s be adults and agree to disagree and go on our way” than continue with a full blown argument.

Gazimoff, from The Mana Obscura, writes:

I don’t think that I was intimidated when I started The Mana Obscura. I was thinking about it for sometime, and decided that the time was right for me to finally take the plunge and get it underway. There were a lot of online resources around to help me get started, and a welcoming community of bloggers that quickly made me feel at home.

I like to see my blog as a place where I share my thoughts and opinions on videogames. It’s great if people want to comment on what I write, but I don’t want people to feel compelled to.

Having said that, I don’t want to put people off commenting. I don’t want readers to think that I’ve written the definitive article on a particular topic, or the last word on a concept. I ‘d like to be the starting point, not the end point. I don’t want my writing to intimidate people into not commenting – I feel that if that happens I’ve failed as a blogger.

Hope that’s a good start. For more on a similar vein, there’s my Shared Topic blogpost here.

We all have slightly different views on what we want a blog to be, and yet we all encourage feedback in some fashion. Whether it is passively hoping people will take an interest in what we have to say or asking directly for input, the idea of building a relationship between us and our readers is important. So come on in, join a discussion, say hello (even just a *poke* if nothing else)… it is you guys, the readers, who truly make a blog anything more than a static source of rambling