responding to a comment within a comment

I frequently respond to a commentor within their comment. In WordPress, it’s super easy. There are other ways, but my favorite is the laziest way:

I view the comments on a post while logged into WordPress. In many templates, the word “edit” will appear next to each comment, along with the commentor’s name and the date of the comment. (click on the image below to see it more clearly)

I just click edit.

How do you edit comments on Blogger? It doesn’t look like you can. After a search, I found a Q&A that read like this:

Question: “Someone left a comment on my blog and they made a spelling mistake. I could care less. But they do I guess and want me to edit their comment to fix their spelling mistake is there any way I can do that?

Answer: Not native Blogger comments – with Blogger, you take them or leave them.

So in Blogger, it appears you have to just make your own comment on your post if you want to reply to a comment there. That’s also what I’ve seen Shannon do on Rocks in My Dryer and she’s on Typepad.

My “best practices” for responding to a comment within a comment? I italicize and indent my response, I place it in parenthesis and I add “by JSM” to differentiate the comment from the response. Save. Done.


This post was inspired by Elle at A Complete Thought. Thanks for the idea!

need a comment do-over?

Ever leave a comment on a blog and REALLY want to remove it later? Maybe you have an embarrassing typo, maybe you shared just a little too much and have “commenter’s remorse” or maybe you accidentally posted a comment on the wrong blog post. I’m sure there are other reasons.

The good news? You may have some options!

If:
You have a blogger account* AND
You are logged in AND
You leave a comment on another blogger blog

Then:
Go to the blog where you left the (unwanted) comment.
Find the page where your comment appears.
Next to the comment, you should see a trash can icon. Click it.
On the confirmation page, click “Delete Comment” and you’re done!

See an example here.

*Did you catch what I wrote? A blogger ACCOUNT. I didn’t say a blogger BLOG. At least, not an active, public one. You don’t have to switch your blog platform. You don’t even have to create a “real” blog. You can create a blogger account, create a “bare bones” blog, make it private and ba da bing. You have a blogger account. Then, when you comment, use OpenID to link to your active blog, whatever its platform – BUT make sure you are logged into blogger when you comment.

Because, if you aren’t logged in to blogger when you comment, you won’t see a trash can next to your post later.  Here’s the thing. If you have a blogger account, but use OpenID to sign your comment, you won’t be able to delete your comment UNLESS you were logged into blogger when you posted the comment.

ohhhhh. (in the link above, blogger explains a few other reasons you may not see a trash can next to your comment)

I did that this morning. And then I had to email the blog owner to beg her to delete my comment for me! (no. I’m not telling who it was. you’ll go read my comment before she deletes it. I’ll give her public credit for inspiring this post AFTER she gets a chance to remove it.) UPDATE: Thanks, Amy for deleting my stupid comment.

You can also manually add a “delete” button on your blogger blog by inserting some code into your template. I found these instructions which provides the code allowing the comment author to delete it. I get the impression this would be for commenters who don’t have a blogger account. I haven’t tried it yet, but I probably will (Pragmatic Communion and Pragmatic Computing are hosted by blogger).

Unfortunately, if you have a WordPress blog, you don’t have that option. Here’s a WordPress FAQ (frequently asked question) and their answer:

Can I edit comments I wrote on another blog?

It is unfortunately not possible to edit or delete any comments you have left on another WordPress.com blog.

The best thing to do would be to attempt to contact the blog owner.

bummer.

Anyone know how is this handled by Typepad? What about other blogging software platforms?


Ever leave a comment on a blog and REALLY want to remove it later? Maybe you have an embarrassing typo, maybe you shared just a little too much and have “commenter’s remorse” or maybe you accidentally posted a comment on the wrong blog post. I’m sure there are other reasons.

The good news? You may have some options!

If:
You have a blogger account* AND
You are logged in AND
You leave a comment on another blogger blog

Then:
Go to the blog where you left the (unwanted) comment.
Find the page where your comment appears.
Next to the comment, you should see a trash can icon. Click it.
On the confirmation page, click “Delete Comment” and you’re done!

See an example here.

*Did you catch what I wrote? A blogger ACCOUNT. I didn’t say a blogger BLOG. At least, not an active, public one. You don’t have to switch your blog platform. You don’t even have to create a “real” blog. You can create a blogger account, create a “bare bones” blog, make it private and ba da bing. You have a blogger account. Then, when you comment, use OpenID to link to your active blog, whatever its platform – BUT make sure you are logged into blogger when you comment.

Because, if you aren’t logged in to blogger when you comment, you won’t see a trash can next to your post later. Here’s the thing. If you have a blogger account, but use OpenID to sign your comment, you won’t be able to delete your comment UNLESS you were logged into blogger when you posted the comment.

ohhhhh. (in the link above, blogger explains a few other reasons you may not see a trash can next to your comment)

I did that this morning. And then I had to email the blog owner to beg her to delete my comment for me! (no. I’m not telling who it was. you’ll go read my comment before she deletes it. I’ll give her public credit for inspiring this post AFTER she gets a chance to remove it.) UPDATE: Thanks, Amy for deleting my stupid comment.

You can also manually add a “delete” button on your blogger blog by inserting some code into your template. I found these instructions which provides the code allowing the comment author to delete it. I get the impression this would be for commenters who don’t have a blogger account. I haven’t tried it yet, but I probably will (Pragmatic Communion and Pragmatic Computing are hosted by blogger).

Unfortunately, if you have a WordPress blog, you don’t have that option. Here’s a WordPress FAQ (frequently asked question) and their answer:

Can I edit comments I wrote on another blog?

It is unfortunately not possible to edit or delete any comments you have left on another WordPress.com blog.

The best thing to do would be to attempt to contact the blog owner.

bummer.

Anyone know how is this handled by Typepad? What about other blogging software platforms?


Find more ideas over at Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by Mary at Giving Up on Perfect.

Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to January 2015 are archived at We Are THAT Family

Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to February 2009 are archived at Rocks In My Dryer