I spend most of my time with people aged 5 and under, and my husband is not the slightest bit interested in the main things I write about, so blogging gives me a voice that I wouldn't otherwise have. For the first few months no one really read my words and there were very few comments from those who did (some of the posts that few read are posts I still consider my favourite). Still, I wrote. There were things I wanted to note down and remember, to look back on and to show the children when they are older. It started 'for Me' with no consideration to anyone else reading it (because no one was!) but over time this has changed, largely because my experience of reading other blogs has shaped the way I would like people to interact with mine and whilst I still write about what I want to write about, it's not just written for me now, I know that there are some other people reading and your feedback is valued.
And as much as I love writing a blog, I love visiting others even more - peeking into people's worlds, seeing their pictures, imagining living their lives.... I read LOTS of blogs. There are a only few I subscribe to by email - these are the voices that really 'speak' to me, and I never want to miss a single post. Generally I use a feed reader to keep up as this is the only practical way I can keep track of the hundreds of people I follow in the limited time I have.
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My Flipboard |
If I know/follow someone on
Facebook or
Twitter too, I'll sometimes click on their links to new posts which means viewing their blog via another app, but most often I'll catch up with posts on my iPad, or sometimes my iPhone, using
Flipboard. (This presents the posts in a simple magazine format which is easy to flick through while I have a cuppa.) Both of these methods make
reading the posts easy, but there are a number of frustrations with commenting on them.
Captcha/Spam prevention is not just preventing spam, it's preventing comments!! A lot of times I write a lengthy comment on a post only to find that the captcha thing just doesn't work on the device (or maybe the app?) I'm using. The word verification image doesn't show up at all, and therefore the comment can't be submitted. This is SO frustrating!
Even when I can see the images (on my device or my laptop) my eyes actually find it hard to read them. So I try again. I'll be honest, if I can't make out the 2nd image, I usually give up in frustration.
When participating in memes/link-ups I try to visit as many participant blogs as possible and to comment on as many as I can. Often it's a short comment on the item - a quick sentence of feedback just to let the person know I dropped by and took the time to read their post. But sometimes, the word verification isn't embedded in the comment form and it takes SO long for the captcha page to come up - even on a laptop - that I think my comment has been submitted and am clicking off the page just as the captcha is coming up... Arrgh, too late. I rarely go back in this instance, as I'm already onto the next blog. (Hanging around to verify the word means there is another blog that will have to be missed due to time constraints.)
When I started blogging and so many people had word verification in place, I thought it must be necessary, but as it annoys me so much when I try to comment on other blogs, I switched mine off
last June. Since then have only needed to delete 4 or 5 spam comments.
Using Blogger, it's easy to switch it off - just go to the dashboard > Settings > Posts and comments
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one to get frustrated by this stuff. What's your take on it?