Everything You Need to Know About Commenting
"If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!" - Joshua Uebergang
You’ll find everything you need to know about posting comments to Earthling Communication on this page. Reading through this page just once will help you get the most out of commenting!
The commenting system at the bottom of articles is designed for a quality discussion on the articles I write. In your comments about the article you can add information you think is important, answer other people’s questions, ask questions of your own, or comment on something else that you think is relevant to the article.
The Only Rule For Posting a Comment
Respect everyone. Practice your communication skills by following this rule. Comments that consist of: meaningless content (simple comments that can be applied to almost any article), inappropriate language, or personal attacks will be deleted. Think about what you are saying and reread your comments before posting.
Registering
Registeration is not necessary, but I recommend you register if you think you’re going to make more than one comment. You can register for free to my site which will enable you to: keep track of discussions; manage, edit, your comments; and quickly comment without having to continually log in. You can register for free here.
Upon registering, a password will be emailed to you. Simply login with your username and password at the provided link in the email, then you’ll be transferred to your special profile page. I strongly suggest you use your full name as your public display name instead of a fake name because this is the name that will appear under your comment. When you talk to someone face-to-face, you certainly wouldn’t introduce yourself as “HotBrunette” or “CoolGuy24″. So introduce yourself to others by using your real name as your display name for comments.
Customizing Your Image
The special image you see next to people’s comments is called a Gravatar, short for “globally recognized avatar”. This image can appear on blogs and websites worldwide that also have Gravatars enabled. (You can see mine here.) I’ve enabled Gravatars on Earthling Communication, and encourage people to make their Gravatar a photo of their face, to build trust and help with online intimacy.
The Internet is made for connectivity and bringing people together. It is no longer about anonymous discussions between faceless persons and corporations. Having a Gravatar of your face makes commenting and discussions more human, friendly, and creates a community feeling. You can think of it as an online handshake: It is an easy way to introduce yourself and make yourself known.
Bring a face to your comments. Make your comments real by getting a Gravatar account. It is quick, easy, free, worldwide, and popular. If you don’t already have a Gravatar account, sign-up here today. All you need to do is ensure the email address with an attached image in your Gravatar account is the same as the email address you registered or comment with. Even if you’ve already commented, you can still attach an image to that email address you used to comment and have your special image appear!
Styling Your Comments
Styling your comments is simple. Firstly, you can use the smilies by clicking on a smilie of your choice to add some emotion to your comments. Secondly, the text in comments is styled used a simple language called HTML. To use HTML, here is a guideline of the popular HTML tags you can use and how to use them:
- <a href=”http://www.earthlingcommunication.com”>A clickable link<a> will show as A clickable link
- <strong>Your Text</strong> will show as Your Text
- <em>Your Text</em> will show as Your Text
- <strike>Your Text</strike> will show as
Your Text
For more advanced users, you can also use the variety given to you from the div, span, blockquote tags. Additional tags you can use include: br, img, p, pre, span, strike, strong, sub, sup, ul, ol, li.
When we follow these simple guidelines everyone will get the most out of the comments. Let’s learn from, and enjoy, our discussions! Feel free to ask a question below if you would like to know something about commenting.
