This is grating on me too. Just now I've had to disapprove 2 comments, supposedly about my post, that could just as easily have been written about making scrambled eggs on the moon!! There was NOTHING relating to what I had written at all. Nothing relating to anything actually. This is what people are doing - coming up with generic comments and punching them in one after the other just so they can then request comments on their own posts. And no.... the 'uniqueness' thingy doesn't work.... Someone had a post on here a month or two ago where he had said about having to disapprove a comment by someone who's name I recognised, so I checked and sure enough I had disapproved the exact same comment the day before. Also, I once wrote a very long comment where I referred to a Lady Gaga concert that left me with ringing in my ears, and I was told that it wasn't unique..... Go figure.
What I think should be introduced is that we don't get our credits to request comments until our own comments have been approved. That would save A LOT of hassle.
But yeah. I feel your pain.... :/

I just received some amazing feedback today Elsie.. I will look at your site again with another eye! and use the points i was given..

I understand how you feel. It can be quite frustrating. I can only say two things here:

1. Accept that there are idiots in the world who have nothing useful to say. That often makes it easier to deal with.

2. People will want you to do your thing differently (I know this from experience running a blog), but that's life. You don't always need to do things differently; usually, you just need to find ways to do it better while still doing it your way. If you find one comment that shows you how you might do that, it's worth it.

Hope this helps.

Hi Elsie, yes I agree that sometimes you do get some weak, not really applicable comments. My wife calls it the "man with the Donkey" syndrome. Referring to the man with his son and a donkey. When the man rides the donkey - people in the street complain that it' s unfair that he should ride and the little boy walk. Then when the man lets the boy ride people remark that the boy is young and strong and the old man should ride. People only see one side of the story (their own).
Having said that - after two months working on it, I am getting unbelievable comments. So much so that one of my comments was that they love reading "the comments" on my site.
I had 68 yesterday .......and spent three hours sorting out which to publish - and answering them all.
What goes around comes around.
Take care,
Tony

Hey Elsie, it's not built in the system to support replies to comments. People actually have to tick the box to get an email sent to them when a comment is replied. I suggest you look for the member, send him or her a private message and request that he or she responds to your reply (of course you will return the favor by offering another comment). At least that's how I do it :)

Dear Elsie,
I agree that people should not leave feedback when they are requested to leave comment. Those two are completely different thing. And people shouldn't lie even though they meant for good.

You mentioned that people don't read your post properly. Do you think when some one comes across your site through organic search, s/he will read your post word by word. Yeah, maybe, if s/he has a lot it time. But most people skim through your post. If they don't find anything interesting, they'll quickly press the back button, without even leaving comment. So, my point here is it is your responsibility to make your post readable for rushed people (insert some bold, italic, bullet so people can get the points easily and respond better in comment).

The WA site comment platform has been designed in such a way that people is encouraged to leave a thoughtful, engaging comment. I really appreciate WA checking on comment uniqueness, this is not something easy to do (I am a computer programmer, so I know how difficult it is to transfer what we want to do to a working program). Let's compare, if you get a comment from outside WA, which one is more common, a lengthy one or a short 'great post' type. I believe we received the later more often.

You mentioned that People don't follow up the conversation even if they are asking questions. Ok, perhaps WA can be improved to create a notification when our comments gets approved and encourage more conversation.
But I feel, the current system is already great (you won't get this kind of system anywhere, pls correct me if I'm wrong). Yeah, improvement can be made, but before pointing out that this is because of site comment, let's do our best in writing our posts, make it more readable and don't forget to engage the reader by asking questions at the end of our post. That way, we have higher chance of getting great-quality comments in our site.

Just my two cents of thoughts.

You want the truth Elsie? YOU CAN"T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!

How's THAT for "an honest down-to-earth normal comment from someone who isn't pretending?" LOL!! (See, I really WAS reading your post!)

I truly understand your frustration but, in all honesty, I wouldn't let it dishearten you. Blogs are an unusual animal. From my experience, because they can hide behind anonymous monikers, people will say just about anything whether it's to be rude, provocative, stupid, or, in rare cases, thoughtful. Sometimes, people respond, without any thought given to what they are writing, just to improve their own rankings. UGH!! You just have to sift through it all.

You know that old saying..."You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your Prince Charming!" Unfortunately, you have to follow the same philosophy with comments to your posts.

Don't give up Elsie, because, sooner or later, you're going to find the nugget of advice that you needed/were looking for when you posted your original thought.

Vince

Thanks for the honest post Elsie.

I think you have have a good point. SIte Comments in my opinion are just a jump starter to try and drive traffic to our sites. It would be nice if people did leave real feedback. I think everyone is rushed to leave comments so they can get their website in the queue.

I have been trying to find ways to get organic traffic but it is not simple as we all know.

The one thing we cannot control and is probably the most important factor is the age of a domain. I see websites that are not using keywords and are a couple of months old. They have 1st page rankings on Google. What we need is a time machine to put our websites on the Internet in 2014!

I understand you, But I think it´s part of the problem that, when I for example, wrote on web site few days ago. Which was outside WA. I didn´t get an email when the reply come to my comment. It´s on site I 100% will answer but can´t go there each day. I f I get email about my comment have been replied I would go there and look at it write again if needed.