Comment Etiquette.
Well, MRG, I’m taking the whole separate entry route for this one! I’ve actually wondered about this myself. As per MoonriddenGirl’s comment on my prior entry, what is the best way to reply to a comment? I’ll be damned if I know.
For any of the diaries I frequent regularly, I usually check comments on prior entries each time I go in to read new entries. If a comment I made in a diary got a response in that diary, I’ll see it then. That means most of my regular haunts will see me come by a minimum of two times a day. I usually only check the current entry and previous entry though, so if a reply has been made to something I said in a comment section further back than that, I may well miss it. I try to respond in other people’s diaries because it helps bump up their hits (if I like their diary, I have no trouble with helping their hits) and because they receive a notify, so they know when I’ve gotten back to them.
There are times when I receive a comment that really merits an entry devoted to it (like this time); I pretty much make that determination based on whether or not my reply would be useful to people other than just the commentor. In this case, I’m really curious how other people approach the “reply to a comment” situation.
What would be nice is a system that notified someone that a comment they left in another’s diary had received a response. I know Steve and Matt are working on Dear Diary:The Next Generation, so this might be something they can work into the design.
Meanwhile, if anyone has any better suggestions as to how to handle replies to comments, I’m all ears.