I agree with what has been said and would like to add that the aimed-for audience determines the quality of the comments. Here, you have a serious group of individuals looking to contribute their knowledge. On other sites, the comments will be more along the lines of ‘Nice!’, ‘Good read’, ‘This is bull****!’ And often times, there are more comments of the second nature than the first.

The question then becomes: is it better to have one contributive response, or 10 ‘Nice Post!’s?

Finally, as in Leave In Some Openness, open-ended articles will receive most comments. But aren’t they more like forum entries, where the poster seeks response and discussion? Inevitably, we have to clearly identify what an article is: is it a statement, or a topic of conversation?

Perhaps it’s because my weblog is such a huge mixed bag of content and the specialist audiences that would provide the ideal replies are put off by stuff that doesn’t affect them. Worth thinking about, I think.

I have to agree with Bryn though; I tend to be extremely controversial with my topics, because I can write more on them. But it’s interesting. My political, commentary, and art categories garner more GOOD comments than my writing, general, music, and technology category. I’m really not sure how to target these guys at all!

@Andrew: Oooh, yes, the pivotal question at the end of the post trick. I’m only afraid my meager and idle audience would pass that by as well, seeing as it takes a mammoth effort to get them to try to make good comments on ANYTHING, let alone posts where they have to be prompted to answer.

I think the hardest thing for most bloggers (myself included) is limiting yourself to one topic. When you start to branch off, people get confused. “You were talking about cats yesterday – and now you’re talking about the migration of the giant squid? WHAT A LOSER.” It doesn’t seem right though, to have to stay within the frame of one topic or within a certain intelligence. Were this World of Warcraft (maybe I should write about this for once), I would issue out a “WTB BETTER COMMENTERS” and sit back and relax.

You mentioned Paul. Compare the amount of comments he has to the number of subscribers.
Or even Veerle, who most of time has many comments.

And if I check fe. the 9rules members I follow, although great content not many have a high number of comments.

Tracking comments has become even harder : many blog’s email notifications are listed as spam in gmail, co/co.mment would kill many feed readers (mine surely).
But nevertheless I miss the back and forth one used to have in forums. My reading habits have changed since blogs. I contribute less.

Now, would there be a way to integrate comment forms remotely in a feed reader? I surely would participate more.

Here are just some of the things that might get me to comment when I don’t usually..

The Author, who generally I know nothing about..has hit a topic or problem that’s been whirring in the back of my mind for a while, but that I’ve been too lazy to try and solve, or even discuss – (hint: do research on people’s problems, and try and solve them or at least discuss them)

I noticed that some people I ‘do’ know are getting actively involved in the comment process, supplying their own thoughts and solutions…mmmm! (hint: actively seek out people who know more about the subject than I do, and perhaps suggest using any nice or devious methods I can think of, that they put me straight, correct me, make me look a fool..or perhaps just feel sorry for me, and want to make me a new friend..BLESS!)

The Author makes a blatently outlandish statement, that I feel is so controversial that I just have to comment..the cad, how dare he/she/it..I’m not having that, who the hell do they think they are..I’m going to give you a piece of my….

gotta go..got more blogs to READ..but I’ll be back, if only to see if anybody replied to this..I’m vain like that!

aaahhh! vanity…………

A way I’ve found to increase comments is to end with a question. “What’s your opinion?” or “Can CSS survive?” This often does the trick.

Maybe I’m just jealous of people like Paul getting at least a few comments on every post, but whatever, I can live with it, as long as I know that you guys are enjoying what we’re putting out

Does this mean RSS feeds might be killing article feedback? I don’t think so, but it does mean less people might actually visit the site (which I know I’m guilty of often). And if you don’t have the comment form sitting there right in front of you, plus you have a large list of other posts to read… it must have some impact, don’t you think?

But then again, here I am, posting a comment, after coming via my RSS aggregator….