Over the past few days I’ve read posts by Timothy Gowers on his polymath project and by Lewis Shepard on the most recent failure to connect the dots among available pieces of intelligence in order to head off a terrorist attack. The posts themselves are excellent, but what really struck me was how thoroughly both authors responded to comments on their blogs.
As Julien Le Nestour and others have pointed out, this is not something I’ve done. I’ve always considered comments important and actively solicited them in most posts, but have rarely responded directly to them. I’ve considered them a way for folk to air their ideas rather than to engage in a dialogue with me.
I see now that this was shortsighted, and that interacting with commenters is a great way to make a blog more dynamic and valuable for its readers. So my resolution for 2010 is to be a more active responder to what others are saying here. I can’t promise that I’ll reply to every comment, but I will reply to more of them.
How can I best do this? What advice do you have about how to respond well to blog comments? Leave a comment, please; I’ll use it as an opportunity to start practicing… 
And Happy New Year!