Friends

08 March 2012

Having another moan...

It’s complaint time, at least for me.

First of all, why is it that some blogs still retain the ‘subscribe by email’ button when others have had it removed? I really miss this facility. Are there too many emails flying around ... is that the problem?

A blogging friend uses his blog to encourage participation from followers, which was great fun, but now the subscription service has (mostly) gone it means we must visit repeatedly on the off-chance there will be more dialogue to read and respond to. How do you feel about losing the provision of subscribe by email?

Seems to me the new system is doing its best to isolate us from friends. It’s like losing out on conversations, he said, I said, and then he replied, and ... so on. I wonder if it’s just me that feels this way?

All this on top of the other old chestnut, word verification, is driving me nuts.
Most are complaining about the new style captcha and a lot of us have vetoed it, but those that haven’t might be wondering why their followers are not answering back. Is it worth even responding to comments since they quite possibly won’t be seen?

RSS feed is/was another way of seeing post comments but that doesn’t seem to be working either. Is Disqus the way forward?

Since writing the above I have discovered that the new Blogger template caters for 'subscribe by email' as noticed on my WI blog. It's these old templates that have been updated - or should I say downgraded. Bah!

18 comments:

  1. Not quite sure about all this, Valerie. Graham and a few others told me that they couldn't get threaded subscriptions which apparently weren't available on the old blogger interface. I upgraded to the new, enabled threaded subscriptions, then returned to the old because the new was so very horrible.

    Throughout this, I understand that my "subscribe by email" button has continued to appear.

    Could it be that some people have stopped putting this facility on their blog? I just look at the blog feed on my Dashboard page .

    I am so uninterested in the technie bits of blogging, that I just like to stay with what I know and not bother about it, - an attitude which is incomprehensible, obviously, to those people who are constantly working on "upgrading" systems.

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  2. Not quite sure about all this, Valerie. Graham and a few others told me that they couldn't get threaded subscriptions which apparently weren't available on the old blogger interface. I upgraded to the new, enabled threaded subscriptions, then returned to the old because the new was so very horrible.

    Throughout this, I understand that my "subscribe by email" button has continued to appear.

    Could it be that some people have stopped putting this facility on their blog? I just look at the blog feed on my Dashboard page .

    I am so uninterested in the technie bits of blogging, that I just like to stay with what I know and not bother about it, - an attitude which is incomprehensible, obviously, to those people who are constantly working on "upgrading" systems.

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  3. Hi Jenny. Thanks for your comment. I have two blogs running at the moment, one old template and one new. The old one (Mixed Bag) has lost the facility, but it is still on the new template. I didn't choose to remove it but it's gone anyway. Changes are so disruptive, don't you think?

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  4. I installed Disqus which is really good for replying and you only get a notification if you've been replied to. It's good, but requires some code in your blog template and it all got mixed up and alas, I got confused, so it disappeared. Blogger should have a better system.

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  5. I HATE word verification with a vengeance!

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  6. no please do not use discus-ting i hate that thing and it does not work on all computers...and word verification stinks...the improvements def seem counter culture to blogging as they are anti community....

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  7. I can certainly empathize...I hate the new "word verification"...most of the time it takes me 2 or 3 tries for it to accept my comment....one day I'll just give, and do a post on my blog to apologize for not commenting anymore, because it takes way too long .... and is way toooooo frustsrating.

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  8. Well, as you know Valerie, even though my blog (Vent) is hosted at Blogger, outside of using the interface to post, I use NOTHING from Blogger. And btw, I still use the original interface, because the new one is horrible.

    Honestly, except for that one technical glitch I had with Disqus last week, I LOVE it and HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who is hosted on Blogger. In fact, I found out later that the glitch had nothing to do with Disqus, but rather Blogger.

    Disqus is so easy to install too. If you're really thinking about using it, check out their website sometime this weekend. All you do it sign up, place the HTML code in a widget on your sidebar and then import your Blogger comments, and viola...you're done!

    LOVE the cartoon on this post. Very FUNNY!

    Have a great weekend, dear lady!

    X

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  9. Hi Ron, thanks for the info on Disqus. My only question is do commenters have to hold an account before they can leave a comment?

    Brian, it seems that not everyone is enamoured by Disqus. I do hate not being to see comments when away from the blog.

    Pearl, Oh me too. with a VENGEANCE.

    Thank,s Martha, I agree that Blogger should revert to it's former system which was GOOD.

    Mona, I get eye strain trying to read the captchas.

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  10. Something is definitely wrong with word verification. I have switched it off on my blog. I was having two or three attempts to get my comments accepted even though the letters were correct. Earlier this week I selected Publish Your Comment then realised that one of the letters on the word verification was incorrect and tried to go back and change it but Blogger accepted it!

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  11. Cheshire Wife, Oooh perhaps that means Blogger is getting tired of captchas. I wish!

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  12. Thanks for the post. I have been wondering what happened to some blogs which don't have the 'subscribe by email' thingy. I miss that. It's much easier to check emails to see if my comment was responded too. Seems such a hassle going through all the blogs to find that out. I removed the captcha from my blog too. I detest those things now. You should see me trying to work out what the letters are...quite comical. x

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  13. Hi Diane, do you stand on your head to read captchas? I felt is if that's what I did when I tried. That's why I gave up. You are right, it was definitely easier getting email notifications.

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  14. The word verification was pretty bad when they rolled it out but it seems like they have made some of the words easier to read lately. I did take mine off for the time being but that might change if I keep getting spam from some dude named Anonymous. Have a good one, Val.

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  15. Yup,, it's frustrating. Blogger is hell bent on fixing things that ain't broke.

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  16. Mister V, it seems there is no end to the changes... I'm proper fed-up.

    Mr Shife, Anonymous is getting around, I have a daily batch filtered into Trash but I still have to delete from there. Grrr! I don't think even the captcha stops it 'cause I had a load of anons before I removed mine.

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  17. I removed the word verification..
    just too much trouble..

    lately I am finding a few differences
    between blogs on the laptop or PC and reading those on the Ipad..

    Change is inevitable... whatcha gonna do

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  18. Not a fan of word verification either. I'll moan along with you!

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