Be A Community Builder…. And by this I don’t mean be “the guy that fixes everyone’s plumbing”, although if you want to be one of those, I hear the pay is good.
About Blogging is adding two new things to promote a sense of community. One is Lucia’s Linky Love . It’s a dofollow wordpress plugin that will enable commenters to get linkbacks to their own sites. (Currently, if you leave a comment on a blog, you do not get link “credit” for it in Google/Technorati with relation to their rankings. This plugin fixes that.) However, to prevent “human comment spammers leaving insipid, irrelevant comments just to get link-juice”, I’m setting this plugin to reward only users who comment 3 times. This way if you’re a regular participant, you get some linky love! (Adding later today! Post first… fiddle with Wordpress second… one of my self-discipline blogging rules. 
)
Another idea is one I’ve seen in the blogoshere called “IReply”. This is just a pledge that many bloggers choose to make saying “If you comment on my blog, I will reply.” Sometimes that can be difficult, depending on what people say, but over at DayJobNuker.com , he took the idea one step further, and I think it’s great, and very workable!
I’ve made a couple of changes for practicality, and added one point…
…for every new person who leaves a comment on my blog for the first time. I will:
1) Visit your blog or website
2) Visit Several Pages
3) Leave a comment on a post if have something to say
4) If I like your articles/posts, I will bookmark them in Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, or other appropriate Social Network.
5) If you tell me that you have subscribed to my RSS feed then I will subscribe to yours as well.
Jaynes Note: It is against Google’s (and probably others) TOS to ask for or promise to click-throughs on ads, therefore I’ve modified the “pledge” a bit.
These are fantastic, and I’m going to start doing all of these things right away!
If you’re willing to take the Community Builder pledge(ish), saying that you’re willing to make an effort to do these things for your readers, then why not make a post or put up an icon saying so? I’ve created four icons… two black and two white (one set is smaller to fit on a sidebar). If you ask me, I will also gladly send you the layered png files so you can recolor or rework them for your own site. (My email address is on the header image.)
If you do that and link to this post, I will also add a link to your post/blog here!
Here are the other images I created … use them freely!
Other “Community Builder” blogs:
September 17th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Thanks for the mention. Please note that I said nothing about clicking Adsense. I just said I would click a few ads (which is my right to do as a reader). I might or I might not click on Adsense. Anyway I am always dying to see what the ads are with the cool titles about making tons of money and I can’t click them on my website so I might as well do it on other’s sites.
Really cool looking icon you made and nice looking site. Sometimes I hate looking at other’s blogs because I like them more than mine
September 17th, 2007 at 10:09 am
Thanks very much!
Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry if I made it sound like you advocated something you didn’t. Google can just be so persnickety that I was wanting to be a little extra cautious and not even mention the advertising, although I do make a habit of checking out sponsors of the places I visit, and there’s nothing in the world wrong with that.
Glad you stopped by!
~Jayne
September 17th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
I love this post Jayne! I have to say though…even before you officially implemented this list, you were already doing most of them and are one of my most active, favorite fellow community members
September 17th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
I just wanted to thank you for dropping by and entering the contest at my blog and leaving a great review of your hosting company.
I found your blog through Lucia’s BigBucksBlogger and have to say it’s very pleasing on the eye.
I had already decided to add you to my Bloglines so there’s another subscriber for you
Oh, and although you’re now in my reader it doesn’t mean I’ll never be a “real” visitor again!
September 18th, 2007 at 7:32 am
iReply, eh? I’m down with that! You seem to have the good on all the latest trends in bloggerdom. Where have you been all my life?!? I see this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful blogging buddy relationship!
September 18th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Hi Jayne
Just thought I would mention that since you are keen into improving your blogging maybe you should join us at Building a Better Blog Community.
Sue
September 18th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Thanks, everyone! I’m glad the idea is such a hit, and I’ve noticed that the more I give to the community, the more popular my own blogs become. It’s great that it works out that way, and it makes all the hard work worth it.
September 21st, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Good idea. I’ve scheduled a post about it for next week.