Wednesday, April 04, 2012

GRRR!

Okay, so things are changing in the blogosphere, and I just don't like it. First of all, Planet Blogger has changed it's "compose" page, and I'm not real fond of the new look and format. Maybe I'll get used to it, but, really, I don't know why a change was necessary. As far as I can tell, nothing new has been added, and I don't like having to go to the right-hand column to do things like label my posts. I liked the old composition page much better, with things like "scheduling" and "labels" down at the bottom of the post area. In fact, in the old format, you didn't even have to click on "labels," you could just type them right in. Why, Blogger, add that extra, unnecessary click? But, right now, this new format is just a little annoyance, and I can deal with it and will, probably, one day, even get used to it.

More problematic has been what's happened to me over on Planet Wordpress. Sometime last year, when commenting on all the blogs I like to read on that planet of many marvelous thoughts and ideas, I discovered that my signature image was just whatever random design was assigned to me at that particular day and hour. I didn't like this, so I went on to Gravatar to create my own image for my Wordpress comments, a cute little frog prince that some of you might recognize. I have to admit that I probably contributed to my own problems on Planet Wordpress by establishing a second home there, the blog I write for my library as PV Reader. This means that unless I remember to step out of that lovely home and lock the door, any comments I make on any blogs come up as comments being made by PV Reader and not by Emily Barton. Still, this was never a huge problem, because most of you know that PV Reader and Emily Barton are one and the same. Of course, PV Reader's images, when she comments, are randomly chosen designs, but she tries to comment so rarely that I'm not too bothered by that.

The huge problem surfaced about two weeks ago, when I suddenly discovered that the Wordpress government was holding my Emily Barton i.d. hostage. I could still leave my PV Reader home, but if I wanted to visit anyone else, I had to do so as PV Reader, or remain silent. I could no longer log on as Emily Barton with my Telecommuter Talk URL. Apparently, long ago (so long ago I honestly don't remember creating it), I created a blog called "WorldCitizenshipChallenge" on Planet Wordpress, using my Planet Blogger (located in the Google Galaxy) email address. Despite the fact that I had set up my Gravatar account with the Telecommuter Talk URL, which has worked fine for me ever since I set it up, I was told that my email address was already associated with some other Wordpress home and that I needed to either log into that or log into Gravatar in order to comment on blogs as anything other than PV Reader.

Did I ask the Wordpress government to do this? No. So, why did it suddenly become important to link me to some crumbling, empty home that is probably haunted with the sorts of ghosts I don't like? Especially since getting rid of my connections to that house was damn difficult to do. Until recently, I'd been on such friendly terms with the Wordpress government, their allowing me to comment in their realm, despite being from a different planet, and we'd been running along so smoothly. Now, suddenly, Frog Prince Emily Barton had been exiled from Planet Wordpress.

Seems the only thing to do, despite my opposition to war and violence, was to blow up the old World Citizenship Challenge home. Still not sure that worked, though. The Wordpress government still seems to be keeping an eye on me and trying to figure out if I have secret associations with a home that no longer exists.

5 comments:

Margaret @ BooksPlease said...

Wordpress has been difficult for me too. I started my blog on Blogger and have left the posts on there with a link to my 'new'blog on Wordpress with my own domain name. Foolishly, I tried a blog on Wordpress.com and now find on some blogs that I can only comment using this blog, or change it to the Blogger blog - neither of which I use!

I think the problem could be solved if people had the option to comment under 'Name/URL' as I see you have on your blog.

Stefanie said...

Clearly you are shifty and up to no good to have both Blogger and Wordpress keeping an on you ;)

litlove said...

Wordpress has been good and relatively trouble free for years, and now this latest comment thing is a NIGHTMARE. I now have only one computer that I can write comments on for other blogs - none of the others work any more, just boot me back onto a page whose requirements I can't seem to satisfy. Grrrr indeed!

Anne Camille said...

I've had problems with Gravitar since I set up my Wordpress blog last year. Since I used, apparently, the same email address -- even though I've changed it -- it wants to link back to my old blog. When I do get it to work, on WP blogs I'm 'Anne Camille' (most days), but on any other blog I'm Four Deer Oak. That's the name of my blog, not my name. So annoying!

The comment issue must be why I had to approve a comment from Litlove today, even though my blog is set up to allow comments from anyone who has been approved in the past.

Emily Barton said...

Margaret, I guess things are just becoming more and more territorial here in the Blogosphere. It's a shame, isn't it?

Stefanie, clearly!

Litlove, so, so frustrating, isn't it?

Anne, like WP calling me World Citizenship Challenge. Interesting names we have, huh?