Ha! Ha-ha. Mucho Excitemundo!

Tags

Blog Statistics, Blogging, WordPress

I’m on a roll!

The picture says it all.

WordPress’ ‘Follow Comments’

Tags

after life, aliens, Blogging, Boring TV, default setting, follow comments, new feature, WordPress, Yawning

TV is as boring as ever today, and there’s nothing more to feed my procrastination. I’ve got a wide range of choices between a documentary about people that have caught glimpses of the hereafter, a movie with eerier than usual aliens, and some truly horrible UG produced TV. Wide range indeed. I’ve read your blogs, and replied to your comments and then some; and now I’m tired of procrastinating so I suppose I should get down to writing what I’ve been meaning to (not that I read your blogs just to procrastinate, but y’all know what I mean).

WordPress’ latest idea to ‘encourage conversation’ (their words) lately has had most people in a tiff about the spamming. The option to follow comments by email is checked, by default. If you don’t pay close attention and uncheck the box, you’re notified with every comment, spamming your mailbox. This is obviously a bit annoying, especially if you didn’t want the emails to start with.

Personally, I don’t mind it much. Originally, before that box was checked by default, I always checked it and signed up for the emails anyway, to see how the discussions went. Later, after traffic on the post died down, or got too high, I’d return to my subscriptions page on my dashboard then unsubscribe from that particular post’s comments. The only difference now is that I have to take extra care, double check, make sure I really want the emails.

There are two other reasons as to why I’m not really bothered by this new default, and find it quite unnecessary.

1. The orange notifications feature – This lets me know when bloggers respond to comments I left on their blogs. I can then respond to the blogger’s comment, and carry on the conversation if I want to, and if we can each find something to say to keep it going. With this feature, I don’t need to check ‘the follow comments’ box to be notified that I’ve been responded to.
2. The ‘comments I’ve made’ feature – this is located in the top left hand corner, right under dashboard and home. Here, I get to see all the comments I’ve made anywhere in the blogosphere, and some of the comments that came after my comments. The blog name and blog title, of course, are shown too. This way, I know what vein the conversation is taking and I can return to it if I want to.

As you can see, I’m quite independent of WordPress’ new little step child. Which explains why I hadn’t bothered to deactivate it from my blog, as have most people. I like having options, so I assume everyone else does. The other side of the coin is everyone enjoys a little laziness too, and would prefer not to have to check that the box is unchecked, to save themselves from the barrage of emails that follows if it’s not unchecked. So I understand why I might be expected to disable this follow comments feature on my blog. I was reluctant to do it, still am, but this post will serve a two-fold purpose. 1) Let you know that I’m considering disabling the irksome feature, and may actually disable it tonight; and 2) remind you about the other ways of following the conversation, without getting spammed.

Now you know, I’m all yawned out and I gotta get to bed.

Alors, bonne nuit mes amis.

Liking

Tags

Liking a blog post, WordPress

I’m glad WordPress has a like button. It’s optional and I’ve been disappointed when I’ve scrolled down after reading someone’s blog to find they didn’t activate the like option. I’ve conclude that these people probably deactivate the like button not just to avoid notifications (there’s email settings for that, right?) but to get people to put their ‘like’ in words in the comment box.

I usually ‘like’ a post for several reasons

1. When I’ve really liked the post (you get what I mean). Of course I don’t always click the like button and that does not mean I didn’t like what I read, I may just get straight to the comment box.

2. When I feel under-qualified to comment. In these instances I want to show the writer that I’ve been to his/her pages and read their work and liked it, but

a) I just couldn’t find the right words to express myself or
b) the topic is above me, in a way. I understood what I read but I’m such a junior at it, or (I feel I) would appear such a junior as I’m lacking in ‘experience’ in a given area of life/discussion or
c) I’m rather afraid of sounding corny.

So I ‘like’. But mostly it’s because I truly really like.

         

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.