The Online Photographer

The comments are currently completely up to date.

Yesterday I alighted on what might be a better method for Yr. Hmbl. Moderator to keep up with comments: instead of writing a post first and then updating all the comments of a new morning, over my white tea, as has been my quotidian habit lo these very nearly 19 years (TOP turns 19 on the 28th of this month), I'm going to try switching the order around, and doing the comments first and then doing my writing.

That might help. I'll try it and see.

I will note, however, that the problem is not entirely mine. It is 97% me; I grant that. I am not dodging blame. (I am Hmbl., remember.) However, another aspect of it is that people are not commenting in as timely a fashion as they used to. More and more, readers are tending to visit not every day but every few days (if not every week or more) scrolling down to see if they find anything interesting. Formerly, when I had multiple tens of thousands of visitors every day (pause to sigh for Good Old Days), I would get a plethora of comments on a new post right away, from which I could extract the Featured Comments; and then I would just let go the good ones that came in late, because that saved me from having to add Featured Comments to days-old posts and getting all mixed up. Now, however, almost nothing comes in immediately, and I am left with the task of adding new Featured Comments to days-old posts, dealing with scattered comments on scattered posts. Which is greatly more confusing to Now-Brain (formerly Young-Brain) and flummoxes if not flusters the workflow. It was much easier to marshal comments when they were all together, and to work on only one published post at a time.

For example, I got a nice comment just yesterday morning from a reader named John about traveling with a Leica in China, left under the "Deathless Leica M Film Cameras Rebound" post—a post which today is a week old. It's an excellent comment, so I added it to the Featured Comments of that old post, even though relatively few regular readers will see it there, because you have already left that post in your rear-view mirror.

I'm not saying you shouldn't comment on old posts. You should do whatever is normal, convenient, and natural for you, and we shall continue to prize your droppings as you manifestly prize our'n. I shall, anyway. But that's part of the whole picture, and I just thought I'd mention it. Even though it looks like I am looking for an excuse.

—Mike the Mod.