Tuesday, October 2, 2007

An Open Letter to BenKepple.com

Mr. Kepple,

As you may know, we at BeforeISleep.net are great fans of your online property, "Benjamin Kepple's Daily Rant." In fact, your property has been an inspiration, encouraging us to post even more frequently than we otherwise are inclined to. Since you have been such an inspiration, we feel that we can no longer simply sit back and observe while your heretofore fine blog continues its long and maddening technological decline.

We speak, dear friend, of your continuing lack of comments. You posted on this topic a while back, essentially throwing your hands up, saying there is nothing you could do because you don't know how to fix the comment feature. And so incredibly worthy topics, such as the recent discovery of a brain-eating amoeba waging war against our nation's swimmers, go UNCOMMENTED. As loyal BeforeISleep.net readers know, often the Comments section are as entertaining as the original post itself, and I'm sure that loyal Rant readers would relish the opportunity to wax at length on the comparative dangers of the futuristic brain-eating amoeba against the unspeakably horrid Guinea Worm (video here - jump to 7:15).

Comments also increase the popularity of one's online property. First, the ability to "leave a comment" engages readers in a way unaccomplishable by simply lurking in the shadows. Right now, the only way Kepple readers can comment on your blog entries is by e-mailing other random Kepple readers, or by posting a response on one's own blog -- both solutions are less-than-optimal. Second, when a casual visitor to BenKepple.com scans the entries, he will see that NONE of them has ANY COMMENTS. The constant "0 comments" gives casual visitors a very negative impression of the popularity of your site, and they will simply move on, reasoning that, if no one else listens to you, why should he?

To that end, we propose a solution. We, the proprietors of BeforeISleep.net, hereby offer to FIX YOUR GODDAMN COMMENTS. We are sure it is not as hard as you are making it out to be. We will, of course, require confidential details to your site (i.e. user name and password), and you of course are free to change the password just after we fix the problem, so that you need not worry about us having access to your site in perpetuity. We encourage you to contact us at your earliest convenience, while bearing in mind that this is a limited-time offer.

We look forward to hearing from you, so that your loyal readers will once again be able to engage in the time-honored tradition of Internet comments, as demonstrated in this lovely video (of which you are already familiar):



Cordially,
BeforeISleep.net

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