First, I’m to answer the following three questions.

How often do you comment on other blogs during a typical week?

More this week than usual. I had a few experiences in the past where I wished I’d kept my mouth shut and that put me off commenting for a long time. I think I’m a little wiser now and know when to contribute and when to bite my tongue.

Do you track your blog comments? How? What do you do with your tracking?

I tried coComment a few years ago, before the Firefox extension existed. I found it cumbersome to use the bookmarklet and I never really followed up on anything I marked. The current implementation is much better.

Do you tend to comment at the same blogs or do you try to comment on at least one new blog per week?

In recent history, I’ve been most like to comment on the same small group of blogs, comprised mostly of people I know well and whom I expect will get where I’m coming from. The few situations where I wished I’d stayed out of it figure strongly in that behavior.

Part 2 of this exercise is to look at Gina Trapani’s Lifehacker’s guide to weblog comments and assess how I’m doing in regards to the various tenets set forth. I won’t pick them apart individually, but let me point out some strengths and weaknesses with brief comments.

Tenets in which I fare well:
Stay on topic. (I’d give myself a B+.)
Don’t post when you’re angry, upset, drunk or emotional. (I’ve learned. At one point, this would have gone into the other category.)
Own your comment. (Damn skippy.)
Don’t comment for the sake of commenting. (How do people have the time?)
Do not feed or tease the trolls. (Seen enough other people make this mistake over and over again.)

Not so well:
Be succinct. (Trying. Failing.)
Remember that nobody likes a know-it-all. (Hard to self-assess on this one, but I suspect I occasionally fail in this department.)
Make the tone of your message clear. (I’ve failed in this department a few times, resulting in much more negative energies that I would have ever intended.)

So I’ve got some work to do. It only took me 15 minutes or so to run through this assessment, but it’s already been enlightening. Saying things more clearly with fewer words is my main challenge moving forward.

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