The very first comment to my blog! (#63; Topic O)

When I turned on my computer this morning, I was greeted by an e-mail message stating that someone had left a comment on one of my posts. How exciting! The very first comment to my blog! As I wrote earlier (#28), my friends had a hard time trying to post comments to my blog. I asked one of my friends with contacts at the World Bank for help -- I was ready to engage the services of one of its outstanding IT staff as a consultant; no taker. I went to our retirement community's popular computer club for help; no taker either. Through sheer luck, I found out the reason for my blog's rejecting comments: the default value allows comments by registered people only. I changed the setting to "anonymous", meaning that any one who cares to comment may do so without registering or revealing his/her identity. Eureka! As I read the e-mail, which appears to be self-generated by the blog's software, not only was the comment shown in its entirety, the message also gave me three options: (1) Publish this comment, (2) Reject this comment, and (3) Moderate comments. This was most thoughtful of Google's software designer. Earlier, in a front-page article in Forbes (11/14/05), the author cautioned bloggers to exercise care in handling comments. This very first comment (to #59) is well written -- succinct, thoughtful, and to-the-point -- much better than I can do myself. I was indeed pleased with it, since it reflects the type of readers I hope to attract to this blog: articulate, responsive, and direct. I clicked the first option: Publish this comment, and then saw the comment appearing in my blog. Marvelous. I sincerely hope that, with this outstanding first setting the pace, I may attract more readers to comment and make this space more interesting.
Posted at 8:07 pm, Thursday, February 2, 2006