Matt Gemmell turned off comments on his blog yesterday (well done) and offers three ways to comment on his site instead. His first way is:
>Write a response on your own blog. Considered, long-form follow-ups by an identifiable, accountable person are the ultimate form of feedback and discussion. I’d love to read what you have to say. Let me know about it via email or a tweet.
He also adds Twitter and Email to the list, but the above is his preference. It is my preference too. When you comment on something I write by posting on your own blog you are doing two important things:
1. Owning what you say.
2. Allowing me to publicly respond if I want too.
Many people think that commenting this way is a surefire way for it to not be seen. To address that let me tell you how you can make me aware of it:
1. Click a link that takes you from your comment to my site. Then you show up in my referrers and I try to look and read what and who is linking to me. Obviously the more traffic you have the quicker I notice this.
2. Shoot me a link on Twitter. That makes it dead simple for me to send the link to Instapaper, thus ensuring it will be read.
3. You can email the link to me, but I archive a large portion of email while only scanning it. Sorry, but that’s the truth — emailing me a link will likely not get the link read. That’s not the universal case, but if I don’t respond “Instapaper’d” then yeah…