From December 1 to December 24, a lot of websites offer some kind of Advent calendar experience, where every day one new blog post is published. And often, that’s something special, because sometimes these posts are all about one specific topic, or maybe some of the blogs usually don’t do daily or not even regular posts at all. In any way, these blog Advent calendars are just awesome!

If you cannot or don’t want to contribute to such an Advent calendar as an author yourself, this post might have an easy, maybe funny, and hopefully jolly idea for you to get involved nevertheless. And also a way to say Thanks to the nice people who do contribute by writing one or more of these merry posts. All you need to do is to leave comments…

“Oh, I Know This from Somewhere!?”

That’s very possible! The concept of doing some specific thing in some specific period of time is nothing new, thinking about JavaScript 30, 100 Days of Code, and similar projects. And actually, I had a rather similar idea last year. This time, I did some changes to the thing, though.

“So, What’s Different This Time?”

Last year, I called the project 24 Days of Comments, and the rules of the game said to leave 24 comments, each day in Advent one comment. At least that was what one should aim for. This year, I would like to actually codify what the previous time was also (just) OK: while aiming for (at least) one comment a day is a nice thing, this is no longer a hard rule.

So, the general idea is to leave 24 comments, some time in Advent. Consequently, the game is now called 24 Comments. 🙂

“And Why Would Anyone Want to Do That?”

The original reasoning is still the same. Writing a blog post takes time, even more so when you write several or all for an Advent calendar series. Leaving useful (!) comments is something you can (more) easily do, so that’s what this is about already.

With the new name (and spirit), this makes it all less stressful, and also provides you with more time to find posts that you really can contribute something to, that you found particularly helpful, or where you have further questions.

However, as Bego mentioned in a comment to last year’s post, this is not about stupidly crossing of 24 todo comments off your imaginary list. It is about useful, thankful, helpful comments after all.

“OK, but Where Should I Leave My Comments?”

In general, you are free to do whatever you want, wherever you want. My personal idea behind this is to leave comments on blogs, most probably specific or at least somehow related to web development. However, if you feel there is a Twitter thread worth commenting, or some forum post or something, go for it and leave your thankful and/or helpful comment over there.

The following list includes all relevant 2018 blog Advent calendars that I know of, and that allow for direct feedback:

Again, it doesn’t have to be an Advent calendar post that you leave your comment one, but if you read a lot of these over the next weeks anyway, chances are high they most likely will be.

Hashtag(s)

“What about social media?”, you ask? Well, yeah, of course there is a hashtag. Or even two, if you will. The actual main hastag for this year’s project is #24Comments, while you still can use the old one, #24DaysOfComments, if that’s what you are going for. If you choose to pick the last one, it would be awesome to also include the (shorter) #24Comments as well.

Also, to spread the word about this, you might want to include a sentence (with a link?) or two on 24 Comments in the comments you leave on the various Advent calendar posts. Or tweet about the project. Or share the posts with your comment on social media. Or do all of that, and maybe even more if you can come up with a cool thing to do.

Comments?

So, this could be an easy win for you. Want to leave one of your 24 comments right here, right now? 🙂

What do you think about this idea? Should I just stop trying to push this next year? 😀

Did you maybe even participate last year?

Do you know any Advent calendars that I should add to my above list? Just drop the link in a comment, and I’ll add it in. But please make sure the posts can be commented on. Thanks.

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