INDEED THWARTED
I have disappeared from the Reader. I just added myself again, but effectively, it looks like nothing I’ve posted for the past couple of weeks has been publicized. At all.
If anyone is interested, although we are out-of-town for a few days, we are still intermittently connected and alive and all of that. I don’t know what’s going on with WordPress. Half the people can’t complete a comment, another bunch can’t make their photographs appear. Connections are disappearing and then some then reappearing … but you just can’t stop those Happiness Engineers from screwing with your site.
I’m so disgusted with the way it is going, I’m just about ready to give up. NOT because I don’t want to write, but because I’m tired of having WordPress trash me every few months with some bizarre changes to the software that removes functions rather than improving ANYTHING.
And just for thwarting, this was our trip to Connecticut. I don’t have any graphic software here so … this is just the way it looked through the front window …
For any of you who haven’t seen me around, I’m around. It’s them, not me, and I’m pretty much fed up. Not only that, but they’ve allowed several OTHER sites to use my title …. which isn’t legal and they are not supposed to do it.
This is not how you run an organization. WE ARE THE CUSTOMERS. They are not OUR customers. Someone should really remind them that without us generating material, no one would come to these sites at all.
I’ve been doing this here, on WordPress, for more than six years and this is the first time I’ve been just about ready to throw in the towel. I never thought I’d reach this point, but I’ve had enough. They can STOP fixing things that are not broken and try fixing the stuff that actually needs repair.
Maybe I should be looking for another platform.
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Categories: WordPress
FIXING THE LATEST WORDPRESS UPDATE 
DON’T LET THEM NEAR A COMPUTER 
BLOGGING INSIGHTS: FIX OR BREAK? 
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Well if you do get fed up and leave, please leave a forwarding address behind. I might just migrate too. And I’m curious…who told you you weren’t showing up in the Reader? I’ve seen you every single day (at least one post). It seems to be working okay over here….
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I went there and typed in my name and got NOTHING. Typed in Garry’s name, Ellin, Tom and Rich. Nothing all the way. Nothing for Serendipity, nothing for an posted title. Most of you are getting posts from February or March. For us, nothing at all. It’s not universal. It’s working for some people, but basically, their search engine is gonzo.
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On a different note: That photo is scary – we had a trip back from Switzerland to France on the 1st of January 2017, when a normally 6.5hrs trip took nearly 9.5hrs with zero view and me taking similar photos from the inside. I could drive for maybe 90’ then my eyes were so tired and enflamed with the strain that I had to give over to Hero Husband… This pic gave me a dry mouth and a hard-beating heart 😉
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We were lucky that the roads were mostly clear but the visibility was almost zero for much of the trip. It’s exhausting driving in those condition. Also, the road is MOSTLY flat, which helped and for once, no one was driving as fast as possible, so while there were accidents, not as many as you sometimes see in that weather.
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That may not be YOU. Because about a year ago, they changed the way the galleries work, so I can’t go back more than a year or two UNLESS I know the specific title or month/year it was published — and even that doesn’t always work. They just lopped off a bunch of years. There are a TON of pictures I can’t access. Most of them are available on one or another hard drive, but I’m usually too lazy to go digging for them. But that may be them having simply decided not to bother with anything older than about three years.
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I get YOU but I have to sign in nearly every single time I’m commenting on any blog I follow. NOt having a blog of my own but being only a ‘follower’, I can’t speak for stuff of mine not being published, except if I may say that quite a number of my comments have not been published, so YES, we seem to be in the same boat. What ails me too is that – when I go back much later to said posts to see why the blogger hadn’t replied as they usually do – I THEN (only) realise that my comment has gone AWOL…. I think sometimes that WP has become too big for their own good; already the name for the ‘customer service’ is so ridiculous that it beggars belief.
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They have server problems. I’m sure of that. But once you sign in, it should be for good whether or not you have a blog, You have to pick a blog “name” as if you were really planning one, but you shouldn’t need to sign in over and over again … and NO ONE should have their comments go AWOL. My OWN comments on my own site are doing that too. Not a problem if it was a sentence or two, but if it was a lot more, it’s infuriating. They don’t fix the real problems but seem to spend their time messing up things that really DO work.
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…. yep, such as inviting me to update my (non existing) blog 😉
I was often asked (and also tempted) why I didn’t have my own blog but I’ve decided that since I’d have to do it in three languages (my ((Swiss)) German mother tongue/English for most/French for many whom only know this language), I wouldn’t do one at all. Those who know me, will still be addressed in their language by private means and I live out my English side on other people’s blogs. Seems to work 🙂
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I’ve been seeing you on my reader… I’ve even liked and commented on some of your stuff. So I have no idea what’s going on.
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Server issues, for one. BAD coding for two. And finally, POINTLESS changes to the GUI that serve no useful purpose and often lose functionality you needed. Their new “editor” is horrendous. I could not figure out how to close out a finished post or even how to schedule it.
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They must have rolled out a different editor that I don’t have yet. I still have the same editor they rolled out two years ago. I eagerly await the new one then /sarcasm/
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I go back to that editor every time I get bounced to the new one. The new one — you’ll love this — has no draft capability. You MUST schedule it to close it and they ask you at least three times if you are done and did you notice that it’s not the same as your last version?
What do they think editing is about?
No drafts. Imagine that. Talk about publish or perish!
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Wow. Nope, I don’t have that yet. Mine freezes up if I try to put in a picture from my library, so I have to hard crash out of WordPress. It saves the draft every time. I never schedule my posts so I have no idea about that… I mean, I just write and hit “publish”
This ought to be interesting…
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I can send you the link for the old model that we are still using. At least it works — and pictures insert and everything.
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I have the link, thanks!
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It might fix your problem. OR not. Oh, WP got back to me. My “title” serendipity no longer works because (are you ready?) — they didn’t protect it so at least four or five new baby bloggers are using it, so you CAN’T FIND ME BY TITLE. He couldn’t find me by title — and neither could I.
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My picture problem has something to do with permissions. I don’t know why. Even from the old link I’m having difficulties accessing my gallery if I try to dig up pictures too many times. I’ve asked about it a couple of times but haven’t gotten a response. I even got a paid account, but still if I try to post more than two pictures from the gallery into a post, it will freeze up. New pictures, no problem. Library pictures? Freezes every time. Rebooting fixed it, but it’s a pain. I only mentioned my problem because WordPress will have the draft of my post in “drafts” every time I reboot. So they are auto-saving drafts as I type. Even if there’s no function to manually save them.
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I’ve been seeing you on the reader, Marilyn. My problems have to do woth saving and posting and then having my format change after posting.
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That is the “new” editor. I could figure out how to save my post or how to schedule it. They’ve decided — in the editor — to switch from “military” 24 hour time to AM -PM local time, but the scheduler still has the old time on it. I literally couldn’t find anything which said “finished, ready to publish” on the new editor and a couple of posts just went missing entirely. Apparently, I didn’t know what to do. Went back to the old one. Again. I really hate their software. It’s getting worse with each improvement.
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I had that happen with two drafts.. Forgottenman could see them but I couldn’t. Perhaps that was why.
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WordPress got back to me. It turns out — are you ready? really ready? — they didn’t protect my title, Serendipity and like five other people are using it, so I don’t come up when searched for — not in WordPress OR Google. Nice.
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Aren’t they supposed to protect it?
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They are legally OBLIGATED to protect it.
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Well, there are some other Lifelessons as well, but they divide it into Life Lessons or put another few words after it. If I put your name in it comes up on Google.
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All I could get were reblogs of my stuff. None of the stuff from my site came up, including when I actually entered the title of a current post — it said there was no post by that name in my language. Stuff comes up on GOOGLE, but NOT in WordPress.
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Where are you searching? On the Reader site?
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Is it possible that you have checked the “private” setting?
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No. I haven’t. They have seriously screwed up.
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And they KNOW it. The last thing of yours that can be found in their search engine dates to March 25th. There are no other posts in there. You MIGHT be able to find some if you enter the exact title and the title includes your name. Essentially, their search engine is NOT working. If someone — you, me, Martha, etc. — are already connected, we will see each other’s stuff, but no one just looking for material will find us. We have disappeared. All of us. I’m completely gone. NOTHING at all for me except as reblogs. nothing for anyone who has written on this site. Not ONE single post. Everyone else seems to be stuck either in last February, or sometime in march. Nothing in April for anyone. But I’m 100% missing from WordPress for anyone not already following me.
You can find us all on Google, however. Interesting.
They will get back to me on this. No, really, they have promised.
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But we are showing up in the Reader, right?
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Not really. I looked you up and your last reader listing was mid March. Sue Vincent’s last one was February 25. Some people are fine, but most of us “long timers” are partly or fully missing. We will get followers already linked to us, but if you type you name or site name into their search engine, you’ll get old posts, nothing new. You might get something if you enter the full name of a post. I’m entirely missing.
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Old posts. Nothing new. It’s them, not you. Their search engine is gonzo.
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I’m seeing my posts in the Reader, just not in the search engine. Those following me, I take it, are seeing them. I follow myself so I can check it out and my readership doesn’t seem to be down.
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That is what I am doing (now) too. The search engine is not working. Pretty much not at all for anyone except a few people and mostly, those who post only occasionally. Those of us who post often are the MOST effected and that NONE of my stuff shows up there is infuriating. Fortunately, I do come through on Google.
The least thing they said was that there is a much bigger problem here than we realized and we are going to need to dig a lot deeper to see what’s happening. Check in with them so they know that we are all waiting for answers. I think I was the first person to report in detail what was going on. They DON’T read our posts, you know … so we can complain all we want to each other, but they don’t know anything about it.
You don’t need to be on their case hourly, but they need to know that many of us know there’s a big issue and they are obligated to FIX it because WE ARE THEIR CUSTOMERS and it’s about time they started treating us as such!
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The first place I noticed it is that only a couple of my posts show up when I search the Reader for NaPoWriMo..I had never used the search there before..
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But that’s how newcomers to WordPress find us. That’s the tool they use. It’s also the tool that spreads our data to FB and wherever else we publicize — AND it’s how they keep track of our hits, our posts, our pictures … everything.
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Thanks for staying on them about this.
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Marilyn, I’m still getting everyone in the Reader–including you. Do you not see my “Likes” and comments? And I see myself there, every post.
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Any already following you (and vice versa) will still get notices, by email or in the Reader. But no one new will find us in the reader or at least none of the new material. For me, it’s a complete wipe out. I’m not there are all — not any of us. But the regulars who follow me are still following — and as I said, Google is alive and well. I’m assuming so are the other search engines (bing, yahoo, etc.). But this is a BIG issue. Their database is broken and that’s a very serious matter in this business. It’s ALSO what I did for most of my professional life — technical writing with a heavy emphasis on managing databases. That’s what I did. That search engine is the core of their system. It’s not an extra. It’s how the system knows about itself and can find all its pieces. When it breaks, it’s a major piece of damaged software and for people like me and a few others who have thousands of posts and pictures, it’s going to be very bad. Cee is mostly missing, too, as is Sue Vincent and all the other “old bloggers” who’ve been at this for a long time. We aren’t completely dead as long as our links still work, but if they collapse, WordPress has collapsed.
So yeah, it’s important you make sure they know WE know and they keep at this. They HAVE TO SOLVE THIS. It’s a big deal.
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Thanks for explaining, Marilyn. Fingers crossed.
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Ha.. love your oxymoron. appropriate.
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I totally get your frustration after several weeks of my own problems, but you are appearing in my reader. Wish I could say the same for others I follow though 😦
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It’s apparently a “catch as catch can” thing. Sometimes I’m there, but often — not everything. The things I put through the Daily Post show up, but a lot of other things vanish. So you see me — but not necessarily all of me and I couldn’t find me at all, so it may have to do with what server you are on. They are making a horrible mess of the software we really need.
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Agreed. It’s doing my head in, and I only have a relatively small issue that they can’t seem to understand or solve.
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I don’t normally use the reader — I prefer to get posts and comments through 3-mail. Your posts and comments seem to have been consistently coming through nicely. There was one blogger (not one of yours) for whom I would get posts, but when I tried to comment I’d get an error message — that went on for some time, but suddenly it’s cleared up and I can again comment on her posts rather than using email forwards!
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I know they come in email, but when they don’t show up in the reader (which I also don’t use), a lot of people who depend on it just lose you. They’ve been messing around for at least a month now and each change is worse than the last one. I get really discouraged.
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You’re always in the Reader when I actually get the time to do some reading. If you weren’t, it would stick out like a sore thumb. In fact, when I’m catching up on a full day or longer, I can tell when I’ve hit the end of each previous day by your block of posts you regularly put up each evening.
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It’s good to know my faithful friends are still with me. It has been bizarrely erratic these past few weeks. We’ll be home tomorrow and I’ll have my regular computer. Working on this one is really hard. I should have brought the one the really WORKS! Thank you!!
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SERENDIPITY is on my Reader going back for quite a while, but I swear some that I follow come and go.
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I think I come and go these days too. Some days, zero comments and no likes … and they next day, maybe a lot, but lately, really BAD. It’s frustrating .
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Your posts have been in my reader, too. Weird that they’re missing from some people’s readers but not from many others’ readers.
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I think it’s about half my stuff goes in and the rest languished. Today when i went to hunt myself down, I couldn’t find me. I’m buried in the search net, too. I think only people who follow me regularly actually get most of the posts. It’s just frustrating. And a lot of people are having trouble commenting. I’m having trouble commenting on my own posts. I have to close the site completely to get the post to stay closed. Weird, eh?
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It is frustrating how many apparent bugs (or at least issues) there are in the WordPress software and how things (e.g., reader posts, followers, drafts) keep disappearing. I use the WordPress app for the iPhone and I think it’s buggier that the one for Windows. But I’m in bed writing this comment on my iPhone because it’s better than being in bed with my laptop.
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I can’t write in bed with a laptop, so I don’t write in bed. I stay up late enough to make sure things have posted … then I really hope that they really ARE posted and don’t vanish. Comments disappear too because my OWN comments on my OWN site vanish.
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It’s always something — but you are in my Reader. 🙂 The snow photo is scary.
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It was nearly a white-out for about 75 miles, then it was raining and finally — clear, but really cold. And I got a few days off. Which I needed.
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Don’t throw in the towel, Marilyn. We would all miss you. As for WordPress – you have NOT disappeared from the Reader. Your posts are in my Reader nearly every day. Hope your trip home is better than your trip there – the snow has to stop eventually.
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I’ve been having days where I get zero comments on about half my posts. None. Not even any spam. I think actually some stuff gets in — and a bunch doesn’t. But they’ve been doing a lot of stuff. I THINK they are supposedly trying to make us less hackable … but otherwise, all they are doing is making the editing sites worse than ever and their version of stats are totally USELESS.
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The stats have always been useless, Marilyn. I stopped worrying about them sometime ago when I realized I was getting feedback on posts that WP said no one had viewed. WP has become annoying – I’ve been fighting with the editor, too, and finding non-spam comments in my spam folder. I wonder how many of the comments I’ve made haven’t reached the right post. Take a break if you need to – but please don’t leave us!
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And that’s another thing. I have 35 “likes” with zero comments … and according to the stats, NO views. Their newest editor is a nightmare. I’m not going away, but I do get awfully frustrated. Writing and then realizing no one even saw the piece … well … that’s the writer’s personal nightmare, isn’t it.
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I don’t use the Reader much, and get you by email… but they have messed around with just about everything. I didn’t get ANY emails this morning and had to go unblock all the notifications I hadn’t blocked. Again. Even so, I doubt there is a better platform at the moment, nor a better community…and that ‘s what keeps me here.
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I’ve been having days where we get ZERO comments. None. It’s very frustrating. I finally hooked up to myself to get my own posts so at least I can tell whether or not they are posting at all. They have really been screwing around with the software. I get 500 views on day and 150 the next and it makes me feel like not bothering. I know they will get over this and we’ll get a few months of them NOT messing with our software, but then those Happiness Engineers will be back at it again. I really wish they fix something that needs fixing. Just one, fix something — REALLY fix something.
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My comments and views are way down too… and for no apparent reason except that it is the month of blog challenges, which I am sure were set up to distract us during the end/beginning of the year when the happiness guys are busy tinkering….
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Have you tried their “newest” editor? If the last ones were bad, this one is the worst yet. My computer rebooted and I found myself in “the new part” of the program. I literally couldn’t figure out how to close the finished post or schedule it. I’m down at least 50% since three weeks ago. Since no one seems to hate me, I’m figure it’s them. I get so frustrated, I just want to throw in the towel. Not because I don’t want to write, but because I’m so wear of battling the endless mess their engineers make of the software we really NEED to get posts out. A lot of people are having a hard time getting pictures into posts right now and the vanishing comments are back. ALSO — on the NEW editor, I am missing almost 5000 followers.
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I haven’t seen it anything other than the ‘old new editor, thank goodness… and still prefer the classic editor. I am hoping that when the roll the new one out finally, they will have ironed out the glitches. I did see an article on their Gutenberg editor a few months gao, but was sort of hoping it was .org only…
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The latest one was truly ghastly. My computer rebooted me into the ALL NEW WordPress. There was no PUBLISH button. I kid you not. NO publish button. You couldn’t leave the post as a draft. You HAD to schedule it and they changed the scheduling to AM-PM local time — but the real schedule is still 24 hour military — so you had to recalculate that 00:07 was now 12:07AM which is really going to mess a lot of people up. And each time you scheduled it, they asked you again if you had scheduled it and pointed out that it was different than you last version (duh) because editing is apparently not a “thing” for them.
But — NO publish button and NO drafts. NO DRAFTS. What about those of us who take a few days dawdling over a piece we are working on? It sometimes takes me weeks to finally figure out what I’m trying to say.
Instead of this gobbledygook, put in a 20-second NO DON’T PUBLISH THAT retraction button and a way to edit a comment where you have made 30 typos in a 20 word sentence. That would work for me.
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Oh, that I may have come across… and I do not like the AM/PM scheduling…or the fact that the permission for comments turns itself off every so often. I can think of a number of fixes that would make life easier… including sacking half the developpers 😉
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I’m with you on that one! I don’t even know what they are trying to accomplish.
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I’m betting they don’t either…
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You’re coming through on my reader too Marilyn. WP sent me a question, if I would recommend them. Maybe I should have responded differently.
Leslie
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Sadly for us, there really isn’t much else out there except Blogger which has at least as many issues as WordPress. IF someone comes up with a better platform, I’d do it. But sadly, there really isn’t much to choose from not that Yahoo and some of the smaller ones have disappeared.
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😦
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You came through to me just fine, also. Depending on the site I was trying to comment on, I could not. The Happiness Engineers had me do some…..stuff. And then sent me a survey asking how they did. How do I know? What’d you do?! Everything seems to be working now. Sorry about all the screw-ups you are having. And yes, I get you in my email. I don’t use Reader.
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It’s a day-by-day thing and no, you don’t know how it’s going, only that I got 450 hits yesterday and 110 today … and I’ve been around awhile, so I have a top and bottom that’s more or less normal … and when the bottom just drops out, something is usually wrong. But those Happiness Engineers just can’t keep their hands off our software.
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Hi Marilyn. FWIW you appear daily in my Reader feed HOWEVER, more than a few blogs to which I subscribe do not appear. The internet worlds in mysterious ways, as they say. Keep on keepin’ on… Best, Babsje
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I’ve been coming and going and I never know what is happening. I have a normal day and the next day, I get NO comments. NONE. At all. I understand the ups and downs of stats, but from 36 comments to NONE in 24 hours?
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I hear you. Speaking for myself, I am the opposite of a frequent commenter BUT it is disconcerting to not find blogs in the Reader and have to ferret them out manually. I think it *may* be because I am reading primarily on mobile lately but it seems like every blog to which I should subscribe should ALWAYS appear in my Reader whenever they post. Just my opinion. Good luck! Best, Babsje
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Marilyn you were in my reader everyday too….birthdays and ants and all! That looks like one scary ride to me!!
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It was almost white-out conditions until we hit the Connecticut line. Then it became heavy rain. By the time we got here, the sun was out. What a ride!
The people who find me seem to be those who also get me via email. In the reader, it’s like I wasn’t there. I rejoined to receive my own stuff so at least I can tell what’s getting out there.
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I found you every day in the reader without a problem, although my own reader connection disappeared for a day. Otherwise no problems – touch wood as mum always said.
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It changes. Some people get me, MANY don’t. I couldn’t find me on the reader. I found a bunch of other sites with the name Serendipity — but I was missing.
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