This is not a rant and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone. I think lurking too much, without ever commenting is a bad thing. Even pinging another blog is better than lurking.

Why would I say such a thing? Well, I was reviewing my comments for the last batch of drive-bys and noticed that my first real response to a blog article was an individual who was having a problem with one of my scripts — he wasn't a blogger. His comment came at almost a month after my first post. I wasn't writing very often back then, due to issues here, but that single comment was not the impetus to get me to write more frequently.

Although I started posting more frequently six months later, I didn't get the urge to become more prolific until I started receiving a lot of comments the following month. I notice that a lot of bloggers give up at the 6-7 month mark and part of it may be that they're not getting the stimulation provided by commenters.

I find myself guilty of lurking too much sometimes and it's a habit that I'm trying to break. That's one of the objectives of my drive-bys — If I don't have anything to add to the conversation besides a "hello, I'm not lurking" type of comment, the least I can do is comment from here and ping them once in a while.

I would love to receive comments from people who've been reading and have never commented before. It would definitely make my day. In my case, I welcome the "hello, I'm not lurking" type of comment. Have at it!

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One of the blogs that I lurk too much for is Arnie's Critical Assumption. I enjoyed his recent post about making excuses and I have my fair share of them. I really need to put more effort into preventing myself from needing excuses.

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Did this post make you think? Do you want this kind of stimulus again and again? If you add my blog to your feed reader, I guarantee to make you think about things you never thought of before.