Thursday, January 30, 2020

following up


evening chores last night


Two follow-up notes on the blogging questions...

I have found no pattern in commenters who are being blocked, so I searched the Help page on Blogger where several bloggers had asked why some readers are unable to leave comments on their blogs.

Here is the reply, specifically relating to Embedded comments, which is what I use. It's the only Blogger option where comments appears on the same page as the post, and where Replies to the Comments are permitted:
This option (embedded) uses third-party cookies to connect users to comments. Many people disable third-party cookies on their browsers, and that is the usual cause of this problem. Because of the nature of the internet, this is out of your hands, because it is a choice that users make in their browser settings.
So, there you (maybe) have it. Personally, I have not bothered to disable third-party cookies on my browser, and I don't know what the pros and cons are for doing so. And I'm certainly not suggesting that anyone change their browser settings. But if someone who has had trouble commenting on Comptonia decides to experiment and finds out that this really was the problem, I'd love to hear about it. Maybe even in a comment!

And if anyone discovers other options for bridging the commenting chasm, please share, any time. If I've learned one thing, it's that this problem affects many of us.
~~~

Re: the Feedly sponsored ads, I looked at my Adblock Plus settings to see if I could change something. Yes! At some point - probably years ago - I apparently chose to allow what are called "Acceptable Ads:"
Acceptable Ads are nonintrusive ads. They are the middle ground between ad blocking and supporting online content because they generate revenue for website owners.
On some websites - for example, international news sites - I allow ads because the "real" content is valuable to me and I'd rather allow ads than pay to subscribe to a dozen online newspapers. I think the "Acceptable Ads" setting may be how the Feedly ads slipped through, although it's very strange that I have never seen them before this month.

Now I've made all ads "unacceptable" and my feedly lists have returned to all-blogs-all-the-time. So far, so good! I will manually turn off my ad blocker on certain sites; I already do that on some sites anyway.

~~~

Thanks very much for all the input on these conundrums.
We shall now return to our regularly scheduled blogging content.

Bud says, "Does that include breakfast?"

Yes, Bud. Yes it does.
I'm on my way.
~~~~~

15 comments:

  1. Interesting stuff. I had forgotten I'd chosen to embed after I noticed other bloggers were able to show responses right after comments, and someone kindly explained how I could do likewise, blogger's "explanations" being so murky that I ended up asking other users. I have had the occasional question about comments, so rare as not to seem significant. The cookie issue may be why.

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    1. Full disclosure: I didn't even know Blogger had a Help page. I set up Comptonia by guess and by golly!

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  2. Aha! Thank you! I'm going to change my blog to Embedded comments too. I want that reply feature :)

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  3. The look on Bud's face reminds me of how I feel when I read a glitch explanation from the website techs in their help section. lol

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    1. Hahahahahaha!!! I will now think of that every time Bud gives me The Look :)

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  4. Fascinating. Now that you pointed out the ads in Feedly, I went looking for them. But the way that I flip through my feeds, they get skipped automatically. But if I were to browse through the list of them as you were showing, I'd come across them. Funny how it works like that.

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  5. You made me think twice about our automatic use of adblockers. Maybe there are some media sites that we could allow ads on, to help support the site. Hmmm...thanks for the reminder that civic duty often comes with pain.

    Cheers -
    Chris from Boise

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    1. I wish video ads hadn't become so popular - I can (sometimes) ignore a static picture and text, but a flickering image in my line of vision is just plain annoying all the time!

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  6. I don't have a clue about tech stuff. I have no idea how I ever figured out (and all by myself!) how to set up a blog and do what I do. Several years ago I tried to switch to what is apparently called embedded comments, but there was some big glitch with it that was affecting a lot of people and I switched back. It was all such a strain on me that every time I think of trying it again, I decide to just leave well enough alone! I hate pop-ups and when I visit a new-to-me blog that has lots of them, I never go back. I visited one yesterday, looked like one I would have really liked, but the pop-ups were constant.

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    1. I've regretfully given up on following some blogs because of the unavoidable pop-ups. I enlarge webpages on my laptop to make them easier to read, and pop-ups block so much of the text it makes reading - or trying to read - very frustrating indeed.

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  7. It all sounds like Greek to me! My computer guru set me up and I haven't monkeyed with anything for fear of doing something that isn't reversible. I live in fear of the next automatic update and what it can do though.

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    1. Oh I'm with you, except I have no guru. Wish I did! Things are beginning to stop working on my out-of-warranty laptop, and the very idea of having to 1) buy another laptop, and 2) set up a new laptop, makes me feel quite weak.

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  8. Great picture of Bud! :) I never changed any of my settings all those times that everyone was freaking out with Google plus and all the updates, etc. so have never had any problems. Only one person has ever told me they couldn't leave a comment and I can't understand why it would actually be an issue for just one. All those people that changed to google plus though they had to and that did cause a problem with leaving comments
    ... but now google plus is no more. :/ I tend to lag behind with the tech stuff and sometimes that is the best place to be. I do moderate comments just do I can weed out the spam ahead of time.

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    1. I also ignored Google Plus, and tend not to change things once the settings seem to be working. But after two people in the past couple of months kindly sent emails to let me know they weren't being allowed to post their comments, I asked both here and on twitter. That's when I found that several people were having the same problem, so who knows how many over the past several years? It bothers me quite a lot to think anyone is being shut out from participating in a conversation here. So I did my best to sort it, and at least for now, I think I've done everything I can at my end. I hope people will feel free to email me if they feel like chatting and can't post to the comments - I really love the interaction. It's a quiet life here in Goat World!

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