Wordpress

WordPress App: Changes Imminent

~ beetleypete ~ 73 Comments

If you use your phone or tablet to blog on the WordPress App, you should read the article in the link. Changes are being introduced this month, splitting the choice of Apps between the current format, and the new Jetpack App. The most obvious difference will be that you will no longer be able to view your stats on the existing App, unless you change to the new one. Other changes are explained in detail on this link.

https://wordpress.com/blog/2023/02/15/switch-to-the-new-jetpack-mobile-app/

I use my PC for blogging, but have the App on my tablet for when I am away from home. If anyone has already migrated to the Jetpack App, it would be good to know what you think about it.

CHALLENGES AND BEING BLIND: ANY BLIND PEOPLE OUT THERE OR ANYONE WHO CAN HELP?

~ beetleypete ~ 24 Comments

Can anyone offer help or advice to Lorraine? She is a blind blogger experiencing great difficulties in managing her blog to her satisfaction.

Every morning my emails from WP come through from blogs that I am following. There are all the usual challenges in there and also other bloggers’ responses to challenges. I so much would like to join in these challenges but as a newly blind person I find I do not know how to get to them from my emails. Are there any blind people out ther who can help? Or anyone else for that matter. My activities on WP are so limited now and it irks me. I can make my posts and with help reply to comments but I cannot go to other peoples’ blogs and read and comment although when I have help I can get my cursor into the reply boxes and type out my own response. Is there anyone who can help please?

I am using an iPad and voiceover by the way.

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HEY WORDPRESS!! CAN YOU HELP??

~ beetleypete ~ 34 Comments

Can anyone help Frank? He has come across a WordPress issue I have never heard of. Please read his post and let him (or me) know if you can solve the issue. Thank you.

toritto

Who is “Sur.ly”?

Recently I went to log onto my wordpress blog (toritto.wordpress.com) and encountered a page evaluating my blog for various offensive themes.  There aren’t any but the sur.ly page blocks access to my blog.

I am currently accessing through my emails concerning posts and comments.

I have never encountered this problem in the more than a decade I have posted here.

I have tried to contact sur.ly with no luck.

What gives?  This seems like some kind of trolling. I have recently deleted a number to “Christians” from my followers list.

HELP!

P.S.  Has anyone come across this problem when searching for my blog?

Many thanks.

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An Alphabet Of My Life: W

~ beetleypete ~ 50 Comments

W=Wordpress.

WordPress to me means blogging, but I used something else for ‘B’.

I came late to blogging. It was not until after a suggestion from my friend Antony that I even considered starting a blog. He thought it would be something for me to do once I retired from work. I looked into it, and decided that WordPress was the platform to choose. At the time (2012) it was the easy option. The process was laid out in a way I could understand, and it was free too.

Those first few posts were very short. I let my friends and family know that I had started a blog, and they encouraged me by leaving occasional comments. Some of them even followed my blog, and I started to become aware of other bloggers, and followed some.

A year later, I was having interaction and engagement with a selection of followers, and starting to feel like I was part of an international community. I even started a second blog with a very different theme, though I don’t post much on there.

Since then, I have added photos, written fictional stories and serials, told the world about my life in a small village with my dog Ollie, and reflected on my past in London. Although follower numbers increased dramatically, and I have now published 5,257 posts, it is usually the same core group of committed and much-valued followers who read and comment on my blog posts.

Blogging not only keeps your mind active, and allows you to express your emotions and opinions, it also introduces you to some amazing people from all around the world. You gain an insight into the lives of people from other countries that you have never visited, and different cultures to your own. Blogging is great, but you have to stick at it, and engage to get the full value from it.

I’m so glad I started a blog. My life has been enriched by blogging, despite the glitches, frustrations, and occasional annoyances.

“Invites You To Follow…”

~ beetleypete ~ 53 Comments

One feature available on WordPress is that a blogger can ‘Invite you to follow’ their blog. During the past ten years of blogging, I have received an ‘Invite to follow’ email on more than sixty occasions. The latest one appeared on Sunday evening.

To this date, I have NEVER followed a single blogger who sent me an invitation asking me to follow their blog.

I might be ‘old school’, (and occasionally grumpy) but to me that is somewhere between begging, and bad manners. The bloggers I follow work hard to create good content. Most of them also follow my own blog, but not all. They write about things I want to read, publish photos I want to look at, or just ooze the kind of personality and character that makes them irresistible to follow.

Not one of them, to my knowledge, has ever emailed a complete stranger asking them to follow their blog.

Blogging is a community exercise. We look after each other, care about each other, comment on posts, make suggestions, offer useful links. We share experiences, whatever our differences of age, location, politics, or beliefs.

A good blogger DOES NOT email someone out of the blue, and ask that person to follow their blog.

So if anyone else is thinking of asking me to follow their blog by sending me an unsolicited WordPress email, I have two words for you. (In bold type.)

DON’T BOTHER.

Has Blogging Reached Its Peak?

~ beetleypete ~ 103 Comments

With new followers as rare as hen’s teeth, and many of the ‘Lockdown Bloggers’ disappearing as quickly as they arrived in 2020, I am left wondering whether or not Blogging has had its day.

From limited research, it would seem that Instagram and You Tube have attracted people who might otherwise have been blogging. The instant gratification of a photo or video is a lot less work that an 700-word blog post or a fiction serial, let’s face it.

Over the past few months, I have noticed that comments on my posts are almost always from the same group of people. No complaints about that, as they are my blogging friends, and I value their input and contribution to our community more than I can say.

But casting my eye over other blogs, there is definite evidence of a ‘slowdown’. Many are receiving fewer comments, and no replies to replies. The Reader seems to be being used to just ‘Like’ posts almost immediately, and the amount of comments generated by most posts is falling all over WordPress.

So, does this matter? Personally, I would blog to online tumbleweed, comments or not. But many bloggers are becoming frustrated by the lack of engagement in 2022, and I understand that frustration. I confess that I am lucky. I have amazing followers, regular comments, and daily blog views are usually around 300 since the ‘slowdown’.

Becoming part of such a community takes commitment, and a lot of time at the keyboard. Content is king. So if you do not post regularly, you will get sparse views of your old ones.

Let’s all agree to keep up with the blogs we follow. Show some encouragement, leave comments as well as likes, and keep the circle of blogging alive.

If not, what was it all for?

Comments Changes On WordPress

~ beetleypete ~ 77 Comments

Since posting recently about not being able to leave comments on blogs I follow, I have managed to cure that problem by using the Reader to comment on posts where that was happening.

However, there seems to be something else happening with WP, double comments.

When someone comments on my blog posts, I get an email notification. That’s as it has always been. But now when they reply to my reply, I get two emails containing that reply. One is notified as a reply to my comment, the second one notified as a ‘new comment’ on my blog post.

To add to that, I am also getting notifications about my own comments, as if it is not my blog. “Beetleypete has left a comment”.

This has trebled the amount of emails I receive in the space of two weeks, as sometimes there will be six email notifications about one comment and a reply.

Has anyone else noticed this development, or is it just affecting me?

Comments Glitches Again

~ beetleypete ~ 78 Comments

It looks as if WordPress has put me on the naughty step again, for reasons best known to them.

On some blogs I follow, my comments are coming up as ‘Anonymous’. On some others, I am being asked to ‘Fill in required fields’. But there are no required fields to fill in, so my comment will not appear. This is happening on a few blogs at the moment, but may well spread. As we all know from experience.

So if you spot one of my ‘Likes’ on your blog post, but no comment, at least you know I tried.

Best wishes, Pete.

Blogging Observations

~ beetleypete ~ 77 Comments

2022 seems to be a rather quiet year for blogging. After the surge in new bloggers during the pandemic lockdowns, WordPress appears to have less new bloggers than ever before. Not that I am concerned, but this year has seen less new followers than I would have got in one month in 2021.

It could be that they tried it, and didn’t like it. Or the recent changes to WordPress plans with far less space allowance and higher charges for upgrades might be putting off potential new bloggers.

Perhaps it is just my blog that feels quiet? Is anyone else noticing this trend?

Luckily, we already have a well-established community, developed over many years. But it does seem a shame not to see so much ‘new blood’ appearing on WordPress.

With that in mind, if you are hesitatnt about staring a blog, or feel it is all too complicated to tackle, reach out and ask for help. Bloggers are friendly and helpful people, and most are hpapy to offer advice and tips, as well as supporting new bloggers with guest posts or features.

You can always contact me by email if you have any questions, so I will start you off with an email address.

petejohnson50@yahoo.com

If any others in our community feel they are willing to help new bloggers, please add a link or contact details in the comments.