Blog interactions

25 Aug, 2025

Back in June I blogged about the lack of Commenting on blogs. It became one of my most read blog posts, and generated lots of discussion in my comments, inbox, and reply posts (bloggers create their own blog post in response).

Where are we now?

I have a Community Echos section at the bottom of a blog post where I list reply posts. It's a great idea; blatantly stolen from Jedda's own Community Echos idea.

It gave me a solution for those who don't, or won't comment, but allowed me to pull together a variety of responses to my own post. Readers of my blog could then delve deeper if needed. It's also a fantastic way to discover other blogs.

There's a bit of work involved, as it's quite a manual process. I have to go looking, and then edit my original post.

I usually discover most of them by looking at the basics stats I get here on BearBlog (the software running this blog). It shows me if someone came to the blog post from another site; I can then go to that site and check if it has a post in response to mine.

I update my post with their post details. All good fun

Web Mentions

There's a thing (technology?) called Webmentions which I think is supposed to implement something in a more automated way. I don't really understand how it all hangs together, and it seems quite a faff to get setup. And there are limits to what BearBlog will allow me to do.

Another solution?

I spotted a great post over on Joel's joelchrono blog. He does Webmentions (but manually) and calls them Pings.

He has a similar view to me around Webmentions, and also his Pings are created manually.

Another great solution to keep us all interested, linked up, and informed.

Your ideas?

What about you? Do you do something similar?

#blaugust2025