NOTE: You can now simply use the Comment Reply Notification plugin to achieve the desired result.
I know some of you use the subscribe to comments plugin, which gives the readers a choice of whether or not to receive notifications of replies. However, one problem I have with the plugin is that it emails the subscriber every time someone replies, not just when the author replies. I don’t know about you guys, but usually I don’t give much of a damn what other people are saying on someone else’s blog. Sorry. :eww:
So in search of a plugin that would give the commentors a choice of whether or not to receive an email reply from the author (in addition to having the reply on the site), which obviously failed, I decided to come up with something myself. If you’re interested in implementing this awesome feature in your blog, you’ll need to several things:
Follow the instructions on WordPress Comment Ninja on how to setup and use. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but basically, it gives you the options of emailing the reply + replying on site, only emailing the reply, or only replying on site when you go to the comment section of your WordPress admin panel through Firefox.
Now, follow the instructions for Extra Comment Fields by installing the plugin and activating it. Then, instead of creating an text type input field (unless you insist), create a check box field. Give it a name and id, but make sure those two are the same and they shouldn’t contain any spaces or special symbols. For the value of the check box, set it to “yes”. Remember to label the check box so the commentors know what they are checking off. This is what mine looks like:
<input id="email_reply" name="email_reply" type="checkbox" value="yes" /> <label for="email_reply"><small>Receive email replies from author?</small></label>
Add the new input field somewhere in your comment form, found on comment.php in your theme directory. Now insert the following code to where the comments show up. I inserted mine right after <?php comment_text() ?>:
<?php print $comment->your_name_here; ?>
Replace the your_name_here with the name you gave your extra comment field. So in my case, my code would look like: <?php print $comment->email_reply; ?>. This input field won’t show up in the actual comments, but you will be able to see it in the comment section of your admin panel. That way you’ll know whether or not the commentor wishes to receive email replies!
Don’t forget to go in the your WordPress admin panel >> Settings >> Extra Comment Fields and enter in the name of the input field! Hope this helps, and any questions, comments, or suggestions, leave a comment! 
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The idea of this post came from Stephanie’s comment. I’ve always read on the WWW that it was good to reply to comments because it promotes conversations between the author and readers and encourages the readers to comment more often. Some people even took it another step farther to email the replies to their readers, which made sense to me. How else would the readers know that you’ve replied (unless of course, they’re constantly checking your blog)? I know that if I were the reader, I’d love to get an email reply back. It shows that the author cares, and that makes me feel warm and fuzzy. 
I’m not saying that Stephanie meant anything by her comment, but it did get me thinking about the other side of this issue: What if some people didn’t want these email replies? They might consider it spam or an invasion of their privacy, I don’t know. But I do know that I don’t want to cause any unnecessary misunderstandings and problems because of something as harmless as an email reply.
My question for you guys (ok, so I ask a lot of questions, but I like to hear opinions, whether they agree with me or not) is: Would you want to receive email replies to your comments? Why or why not? I actually use a Grease Monkey (a Firefox plugin) script called WordPress Ninja to reply to your comments, and it gives me the option to email the reply directly to you, post it as a reply comment, or do both. Usually I try to do both, but if your comment was something like “Nice layout! Great work!”, then I’d feel a little silly emailing you “Thanks.” 
Also, um, I’m scared of emailing some people in case they go *wtfspamdeletesandblocks* on me, which would be the last thing I want.
Comments much loved and appreciated.
This is going to be a new series I’m writing, and basically it’s going to be a review (more liking plugging and pimping) of my favorite makeup products. I might expand or create a new series to feature hair products, or other goodies in the future, but for now, I’m just going to stick to makeup.
This is my number one eye product that I pretty much use every day. It’s part of the Kate cosmetics line by Kanebo, and it comes in 7 different shades. The one I use is the shade shown in this image (BR-3).
This eyeshadow is extremely versatile due to the gradient block it has. I was reading an earlier issue of Popteen the other day, and it showed 3 different looks you could create using this goodie. I myself came up with another 3 looks, not to mention the product itself provides a standard method/look on the back already.
Asides from the versatility, the quality of the product is excellent as well. The colors go on smoothly without any creases. They usually stay on if I put primer (since I have oily eyelids and my Anessa sunscreen doesn’t help either), and the BR-3 shade is excellent for day and nigh looks!
For my day/school looks, I usually use the gradient block as a base, controlling how much color I want by simply mixing it. The dark brown makes an excellent alternative to eyeliner, and it looks a lot less harsh than black, which makes it perfect for school.
For my night looks, I use the white shimmer (it’s sort of cream like) to create a base, swiping on the darker colors in the gradient block. I finally follow with the dark brown color in my creases, ending the look with black liner. To blend the whole look, I use the brush tip to swipe colors over my entire lid. This brings me to mention their brush, which I love. It’s a dual-tipped brush with a sponge and brush end. More versatility!
The product was so awesome that I got 2 more: One in pink (PK-1) and one in blue (BU-1).
I’ve noticed that there are two major “mini-blogging” (I don’t know the correct/standard term for this) methods people use: Twitter, and Asides. Asides isn’t a third-party site like Twitter; I think it’s actually a plugin for WordPress, but I’m not 100% sure (see Jem and Amber for examples). I know there are other methods out there like Tumblr, but I’m not going to go into those.
The reason why I bring this up is because I’m curious why some people use Twitter while other simply choose to use a WordPress plugin, as I’m now debating which one I should use. I’m currently with Twitter right now, but I like the idea of having these mini-posts as an actual part of my site (as opposed to just downloading the feed and having it show up on the sidebar) and allowing readers to comment regardless of whether or not they have a Twitter account.
On the other hand, I like the social aspect of Twitter, where people can follow you and you can follow them, though I feel like I’m not really putting that feature to much use.
Anyways, my question for you guys is: Which do you use, and why? Comments much appreciated.
I visited Website Grader out of boredom to find out what this blog would be grade, and to my surprise (and delight), it scored a 94/100. So what exactly is Website Grader?
Website Grader is a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
You can read a copy of my report here, and following the advices they gave, I’ve made several changes to the site:
- I’ve shortened my meta description from 225 characters to 149, which is within the recommended 150.
- I’ve decreased the number of keywords from 68 to 10. Why? According to WG, having too many keywords can dilute the effect of the most important ones. Quality > Quantity.
- I might consider removing avatars from my posts from now on since having too many images will affect the loading speed. What do you guys think? Does Ever After take a long time to load? Are the avatars worth having around?
The rest of the areas, like inbound links, Alexa rank, PR rank, will take time to work on. If you’re interested in finding out the marketing effectiveness of your site or would like to know what areas your site needs working on, I’d highly recommend submitting your site in to Web Grader. You can even have them send you monthly reports on how your site is doing so you can track any improvements (or downgrades). All this, free of charge. ![:]](http://riyuu.org/wp-includes/images/smilies/kao_regular.gif)
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