So I made my debut on the Indian Economy Blog two days back. Must say that in just two days, i’ve noticed a lot of difference from “personal blogging” (such as this one).
For a start, it is to do with the readership. The thing with this blog is that most of the readers/commenters are friends or friends of friends. Of course there are a few others also, but most of them seem to be of the kind I can connect to. And that allows me to treat each comment with respect and reply to it honestly.
The thing with a public blog such as the Indian Economy Blog is that most of the readers are unknown. They are people who have no clue who you are, or you have know clue who they are. And it is not uncommon to find really arbit comments such as those on this blogpost a year ago. And it’s a public forum, at least more public than this. So i can’t even abuse them! There are a number of sane comments also, which you want to reply to, but they are usually lost.
Then the next thing is the “structure”. Having been so used to the “tree structure” of comments in LJ for more than two years, it is tough to reply to comments in the “list structure”. Need to put numerous “@”s.The comment and it’s reply are in two different corners of the page. Too much of a pain.
Yes, like a good blogger, I tried to reply to all the comments that were there but hte lack of the tree structure meant I soon put no enthu da. Also, the fact that most commentors were perfect strangers meant I somehow didn’t feel like replying to all. And of course, the number of comments is much greater so it’s all the more difficult.
However, yeah, it’s nice to get some footage. It is nice to see that something you have written is being read by so many people. It is nice to know that i have one place to put most of my “serious” posts for which I want an audience bigger than this blog provides. The structure and nature of comments, well, I’ll just have to take them as the natural counterbalancing factor! ??