Spreading Love
20.10.06 @ 10:15 am
Recently, I added a feature to this site, Designing Good, which tries to promote design that is helping make our lives and other’s better. While I think it is helpful, it just did not seem I was doing anything on an individual level to do my part. In addition, I have been amazed at the level of participation that is beginning to take place at this site. A multitude of people take time out of their days to leave insightful, articulate and meaningful comments on a daily basis. I try to reply to comments as much as possible, but other than that, these people get nothing in return. Recently, I decided to try to take on both of these problems with one idea which has come in the form of Comment Love.
At this point, Comment Love is a small feature with some big ideas. At present, I will count up all the comments (other than my own) multiply the number by 50 cents and donate that amount of money. I will also write a monthly post of how much money we donated, where it went and feature some of the top comments and commenters. While I hope participation will increase due to a more symbiotic relationship between author and readers, my main reason for doing this is to simply give something back to both the readers here and to good causes. It is amazing how seemingly infinitesimal amounts of money and time can do so much to help, this is my humble attempt. Presently, I will be donating the money generated through comments to Carbonfund.org, a carbon offset organization and KQED, a local public media station. Global warming and high quality/free media are two issues are very important to me and are very worthy of our money (or at least mine). I may expand the list of organizations, but for now I want to keep it a nice, cozy number of two.
Comment Love Recipients
If you have any questions about what I am doing or any thoughts on the subject, please hit me up - I would love to address any questions and/or concerns you may have. Once again, I want to thank all the readers of this blog for all the time and participation you have brought to this site. ‘Thank you’ did not seem enough to me - my hope is this will.charity, comment love, donations, love spreading love
October 20th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Now, that is all love! And, I do like the causes you have chosen thus far. This certainly takes your articles (and our participation in them) to another level, and hopefully more people will join in… it’s for the good of the world, people
Great to see that you spread the word and the love too… hats off.
October 20th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Thanks Kimmy. I sincerely hope others feel the same way.
October 20th, 2006 at 8:26 pm
$0.50 in Comment Love for November
Once again PJ, you are doing something amazing for the community. This is a really brilliant and unique idea.
As you already know, I write a lot just because I enjoy doing it. But I don’t think the majority of your donations should come from my comments. Nor, do I want to limit the number of posts I write. So I propose that for every comment I write, I will contribute 25cents on my behalf as a way of spreading the love.
October 22nd, 2006 at 6:54 am
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Great idea PJ, very unique :D. I may well begin such a fund on my own blog ;). Have you any ideas yet who the lucky donation recipients are?
Question: Does the amount of content have anything to do with it? Perhaps, rather than the number of comments, comment love should be based on the number of words made up of comments? So every word equalled one cent?
Then if I write a substantial comment like this one I am resulting in much greater donation than someone who wrote two tiny little articles?
October 23rd, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Kellie - No.
We’re equal opportunity here - and I better not see you skimping on your comments because of it. 
Steve - The recipients will be KQED and Carbonfund.org. Content will have something to do with it, but not in terms of word count. I am going to be much more judicious on my moderation of comments - not in terms of what they say so much as if they are relevant and valuable to the discussion.
Let’s take this example: Someone decides to write, “Paris Hilton and the media’s unending coverage of her exploits are detrimental to the public as they both push meaningful and substantial issues to the background as well as give a misperception of women to future generations.” as a response to an article discussing best practices of form design. While I would agree with that comment, it will not be accepted since it is irrelevant to the subject. Additionally, if someone writes, “Cool!”, that comment won’t be accepted either due to the fact that it is virtually meaningless (it’s not even a sentence). However, if someone intelligently writes a comment about how my thoughts on a particular article are completely idiotic, their comment definitely will be accepted. It’s not about quantity of words, it’s about the quality of those words.
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:04 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
PJ: This honestly has nothing to do with this article BUT have you ever thought about just throwing an image up on your Subscribe page with just your RSS url. I’d like to subscribe to your feed in Thunderbird but all you’ve got on your subscribe page are links to other feed readers. What about us good old fashioned people?!
Now I’ve got to view source and find it all for myself ;X
October 23rd, 2006 at 4:37 pm
Michael - Dully noted, thanks for the heads up. You’re right, it didn’t have too much to do with this article, but it’s very relevant to making my site not suck.
Thanks man.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:13 pm
$0.50 in Comment Love for November
(Please do not count this comment as a donation.)
I love your new logo for Comment Love. In fact, I was telling your wife how much I loved it during dinner, but I am not sure if you heard the discussion. I would love to one day own a pin or even t-shirt with that logo. It’s really that simple, but modern and catchy… and it would make a great brand!
Hey, you erased my “cool!” comment. I was just trying to be a smart-ass there.
October 23rd, 2006 at 9:42 pm
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hey. i should be contributing soon. (should). Congrats on the new job.
October 24th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
In addition to PJ’s 50c, and Kellie donating 25c of her own, Kellie will also donate $1 for every Pat Gibson comment, not matter how trite or meaningless. Thank you, Kellie.
You’ve started a snowball effect here, PJ! Great job, man. Sorry I’ve been missing in action lately.
October 24th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
Pat - Not a problem man, glad to see you around here.
On top of Kellie’s $1.00 donation for every one of Pat’s comments, the U.S. government will donate $100,000 for every comment on this site. Considering they’ve spent $300,000,000,000 in Iraq, I think they could drop a couple million a month for some good causes…
October 24th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
$0.50 in Comment Love for November
Even better Pat G.–how about all of us donate $1 each (on top of the US gov’t’s $100,000) for every comment Will makes (or someone by the alias of Take Wild Guess). I think that would motivate this individual who makes a lot of worthy verbal comments about Some Random Dude actually take the time to post these thoughts.
*This is not a 50c comment! (I need to come up with a special code system to label each post i make.)
-50c = not 50c
+50c = 50c comment
October 24th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
Kellie - As long as the comment is approved, I’m going to count that as part of the donation just for sheer ease and the fact that all approved comments will be part of the donation process. I am beginning to think I should take a more liberal view of what will be approved unless blatant abuse can be proven as I don’t want to start censoring or even give the impression that I’m censoring on this site. Honestly, don’t worry - go into each month expecting to give $50 away.
October 24th, 2006 at 3:56 pm
$0.00 in Comment Love for November
Kellie = 50c = WHAT???
P.J.– “I should take a more liberal view […].” What–do you hate freedom or something?
Perhaps the government will hire Halliburton to oversee the further development and restructuring of Somerandomdude.net.
October 24th, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Nowadays, if you eat your cereal the wrong way you are accused of somehow hating freedom…
October 24th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
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Ha-ha. Maybe you should add an unfurling American flag in the red background of the header bar for Somerandomdude.