A comment on comments

I am a lurker. I'm the person that sits in the knitting group and listens rather than talking. I just don't talk much unless I have something to say (this habit is also the dominant cause of sporadic blog posting). If someone else has said what I was going to say, or if there are already several comments on the post, I don't tend to add my voice to the chorus. But I am listening. The problem with blogs is that people can't necessarily tell that you're paying attention, unless you leave comments. I keep telling myself that I need to be better about this, but old habits die hard. So, if you're commenting here and I'm not commenting back, I'm sorry. I just wanted to let you know that I am listening.

I'm curious, though...how do you decide where and when to leave a comment?

Excuse me...I need to take a moment and indulge my scientist side and admit out loud that this informal survey is inherently flawed becase it's asking people to comment about commenting, therefore biasing the results toward those that tend to speak up, and potentially missing the ideas of those that lurk.

There, I think the inner scientist is satisfied now...