Blogger - Spam - Again!

Well I have caught Blogger well and truly this time.

I have become fastidious in checking my 'Comments' folders ever since comments I was certain had been posted and had not been there previously have suddenly appeared later. I have just completed today's check. It contained amongst other comments:

which is dated 23 August.  So I went to the 23 August post and found:

Which shows, pretty conclusively I think, that Blogger is now removing random comments from old/previous posts and placing them in 'Spam' and, presumably, heaven knows where else.

I've now removed the comment from Spam and, guess what, it's back where it belongs.

A Holiday and Irritating Blogger

I'm on holiday. I left the Island yesterday for a week in Bishopbriggs (a 'suburb' of Glasgow although its residents would never agree to that description and it is outside the City boundary so a taxi home from Glasgow a few yards over the boundary attracts a bonus fare!). I can't recall when I was last off the Island for a holiday. I am usually off for a hospital appointment even if I have also enjoyed some time with friends down here.

I apologise to some of my readers who have left comments which have gone to spam and which I haven't picked up in good time (I was going to say 'timeously' but the spillchucker was having none of it).

I also had the problem that some of the 'spam' comments appear to have disappeared so if you've commented and it's not been published then I apologise.

I'm hoping that I'll actually get a bit more time in Blogland whilst I'm away

Following Blogs

When JayCee commented on my last blog it made me go to my side-bar to see whether she had started blogging again. I discovered that somehow I had missed the fact. I went to my sidebar where the blogs I read are mentioned and it wasn't there. Possibly I had deleted it when I thought JayCee wasn't going to blog any more. Who knows?

Anyway the real point was that if it's not in my side bar then I don't regularly check for posts.

Now a lot of people don't have other blogs in their sidebar so it started me wondering how they decided which blogs to follow and read. I know one person who only reads another blog when someone comments on his blog so he could follow the link back. However, I like a bit more structure to things.

Many years ago I used a program which allowed me to read all blogs and posts and comment outwith the blogs but that was discontinued.

Anyway I decided recently to do something about it and started writing this post to seek suggestions. When I got as far as the preceding paragraph I suddenly had a brainwave that perhaps there was something in the Dashboard which perhaps wasn't there in the 'old days' or which I had simply overlooked. Ecce! There at the bottom of the Dashboard was 'Reading List'. So I went through it only to discover that JayCee wasn't even on that. Then I realised that I had never actually followed her blog even though i read it. Now remedied. The question then came into my mind as to how I managed to follow YP's blog because he doesn't have a followers widget. Then I discovered that I can do that in the Dashboard too. Sorted. 

Do readers ever look to see who is on the blog list on other blogs?

Another question. Does anyone know why someone who comments on Eagleton Notes appears in the comments but never in my emails?

To lighten this post I thought I'd show a photo of a Rozanne Geranium with a little visitor. The Rozanne is unusual in that it is a perennial Geranium but does not spread or reproduce via runners or seeds. 

Blogger's At It Again

Unfortunately the latest Blogger update (they have, amongst other things, removed Open ID and third part app support)  has left many people, including me, with blogs that no longer provide notifications by email.  So without going to my blog and checking each post or the comments in the dashboard I have no idea who is commenting or when a comment has been made.

What is even worse is that I can't see comments on some of your posts without having to visit old posts all the time to find out what comments have been made. For some people that doesn't matter because they don't read other people's comments but for me that is an important part of the blogging experience. At the moment the only blogs I am sure that I am getting comments from are YP's, Cro's Monica's and Amy's.

There are lots of comments on the Blogger forum about the problem which seems unsolvable by users (or is the correct word insoluble?) and Blogger has so far made no comment.  Hopefully normal service will be resumed eventually but until then if I miss your comments please forgive me.

Speed

Heron of A Heron's View posted recently on the problems of commenting on Blogger recently. From the comments he is obviously not alone. As it happens I had already started to draft one on the inordinate time it takes for comments to publish I recently timed some comments that I made and the fastest to appear after I'd clicked 'publish' was 17 seconds. That's not a lot if you are waiting for a bus (whatever a bus is) but it is if you are commenting on blogs and responding to comments on your own. Just for the record I have super-fast broadband

On the other hand if you want real slowness hard to bear the Royal Mail with this one. I received on the 7th January a Christmas card which had been posted on the 2nd December (sic) so had taken over 5 weeks to travel from Sheffield. It was designed (possibly not intending it to be a Christmas card!) by my great nephew Toby (aged 1) which I thought showed a remarkable talent for colour and composition. 

Blogger: What are you up to?

I woke up this morning to see various comments in my mail about a post entitled 'Calmac Survic'.  Yesterday I decided to do a post on the subject of Calmac's survival but, as I already had a post scheduled for this morning, I decided to do it today instead. However the heading (and possibly some post text) apparently did not stay in my draft and found their way onto the blog and onto Facebook. Very puzzled I checked the Dashboard and discovered that the post is, indeed still a draft.

What is really strange, however, is that I can't see the post on my blog either in draft or any other form and it's not on my Facebook page either.

It shows on the Dashboard as a draft post but when I try and open it there is no text at all.

So I shall try and do a post today and let you know what I did want to say.