#Blogger sucks
In addition to its new verification-word security feature, which is confusing, harder to read, and does not work, Blogger now apparently no longer allows commenters to be notified of further comments on a post. This, of course, will inhibit discussion by making it more difficult to follow and contribute to.
Is this the worst customer service since PayPal? Why is Blogger doing this?
© Peter Rozovsky 2012
Is this the worst customer service since PayPal? Why is Blogger doing this?
© Peter Rozovsky 2012
Labels: Blogger, customer service American style
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 9:43 PM
23 Comments:
I totally agree. The word veritication crap looks like gobbeltygook to me. Hate it.
Oops, word VERIFICATION crap. Maybe blogger is run by robots.
The new verification words are not just hard to read, they're boring. Their may, in fact, be a reason for these changes, but in true American customer-service fashion, Blogger has not bothered to explain them.
I find that I am notified that I am getting a comment, but I don't know if anyone else is notified on my blog that there is a new comment.
I'm hoping it's a temporary glitch.
Cindy, it seems that you only really have to type in the first word if that's any help.
Seana, I received notification of your comment, so perhaps Blogger has instituted automatic notification.
But why do I have to try to figure this out on my own? Why did Blogger not let its users know? Crappy customer service of the kind we've come to expect from American technology companies.
Glad you brought this up. I have to submit a few word verifications to blog at different sites because I cannot see the words clearly.
An "r" run into a "n" often looks like "m," which is only one example.
To those of us who are getting older, what we're reading has to be clearly seen.
To whom does one even complain?
I wonder why this is happening. Does Blogger worry that another company or extraterrestrials will hack into a discussion of authors and books?
This isn't WikiLeaks, after all.
Previous experience suggests that complaints about Blogger are not answered.
What I can say, based on experience, is that if you mistype the verification words on your first try, succeeding ones get easier to say.
Extraterrestrial hackers might not be a bad idea if they boost the readership of non-Stieg Larsson crime fiction.
Blogger folks really don't listen to us or perhaps there's some rule they have about not telling us anything.
Several months ago they shut down my blog and simply said I have violated some rule. When I asked what the violation was, I got no answer. However, the next day I was back in operation again. I still don't know what mortal sin it was that I was supposed to have committed.
Fred, I can't figure out why technology businesses are so indifferent to customer service. Not that most big corporations ever treated their customers with special warmth or kept them well informed, but at least they faked it. PayPal and Blogger/Google don't even pretend to give a shit about their users.
I empathize with your frustration, Peter. The problem was apparently temporary, but I had never noticed the e-mail follow-up option on Blogger comments before.
According to this blog post, you need to be logged into your Blogger account in order to see the follow-up option.
Peter, just reporting that I didn't see the e-mail follow-up notification option when I left my comment just now. I see it own my own blog today, but didn't see it yesterday. It may help if you upgrade your Blogger template.
A blog owner's option to be notified of all comments is different from the commenters' option to be notified of follow-up comments.
There's always the option to switch blog providers, but there are probably similar glitches with any provider.
Peter, in recent weeks, just about all the programmes on my computer seemed to just go to pot. My favourite idiocies are Skype, which of its own volition and certainly not mine installed in the wee hours a new Beta version, and it came complete with a notice that the home service was temporarily unvailable. It's about ten days now.
Hotmail will not sign me out properly, though I clear cookies and history as per instructions. But it also started to get slower and slower and stick, unreponsive. I do have to thank Windows for telling me that this is caused by Flash Media using a certain type of script. What the connection is there I have not the foggiest.
I am endlessly on the alert when doing anything on Google to make sure I am not back to signing in again, and again. Blogger, Skype, et al. keep confronting me with FB, which I abhor, Blogger flat out giving the impression on some sites that you can't get into Blogger and send a comment without joining FB.
I've tried installing Chrome, but every time it puts my 'Favourites' in 'Bookmarks' and my 'Bookmarks' nowhere at all. I followed instructions to establish a 'Bookmarks' list and import, winding up with another 'Bookmarks' full of the 'Favourites.'
I have more, you know. But the thing is, as people have said, there is no actually effective help with all this. But to most it, what alternatives?
Peter,
Has there been any changes to your blog lately?
I am no longer getting the option to have further comments emailed to me, while I still find the same option on other blogs.
I have not gotten any of the comments to this posting that came after my comments.
It almost seems as though that function has been turned off.
I also am not seeing the double VW on other blogs here.
Gerald, thanks for the link. It's nice to know that Blogger's users will step in to provide the service that Blogger itself so wretchedly fails to provide.
I just logged onto my Blogger account, visited a Blogger blog, and found no e-mail follow-up option. Maybe, as you suggest in your second comment, I need to update my template. Maybe. One would think a company would bother informing its users about such a significant change. But this is Blogger, so users are left to figure things out for themselves.
I went to my comment settings and turned off the word verification. I'm assuming that works. (If anyone wants to stop by and verify that, I won't complain!)
Gerald: To be clear, I was referring to a commenter's ability to be notified of further comments on a post to which he or she has posted a comment. I did not mean a blogkeeper's ability to be notified of comments to his or her blog.
And yes, I've flirted with other blog hosts when Blogger has had problems in the past and concluded that, Wordpress, for example, would be just as bad.
Philip , none of that surprises me. Companies whose consumer products rely on communications technology simply do not factor customer service into their business plans. And customers -- especially those getting their service free -- have been bullied into submission. We accept that customer service will be crap.
Why? For just the reason you suggest" What alternatives?.
Fred: Every facet of Blogger except what I see when I click on "Show Blog" looks different. Scheduling posts is now more cumbersome. I can no longer create an automatic link to my post's title. When commenting on other Blogger blogs, I can no longer choose to be notified.
Other chances do not detrect from the experience, but were merely unnecessary. I have yet to find a single improvement. And, naturally, I have yet to hear a single word from Blogger about the changes.
Kelly, I've just posted a comment at your place without word verfication. The comment reminded me that e-mail notification is possible with the new Blogger template.
Rather than touting the advantages of the new template so users try it out of their own accord, Blogger's strategy is apparently to make the old template so bad that users will have to flee. More customer service, American-tech-compamny style.
I did resort to blogger help on this one, and got one answer. If you switch back or are still on the old blogger interface, you can embed your comments and this gives people the option of subscribing to the comments.
So I've done that, but it doesn't really solve the problem of following comments on othe blogs.
The page of advice is here.
Seana, I can't see where that person's anwswer is applicable to my situation; I'm still on the old Blogger.
Remember a time when companies stood behind their products instead of relying in customers to provide the content upon which they slapped their corporate label, a la Facebook, Wikipedia, and Blogger? Perhaps we're starting to seea downside to this "democratic" business model.
OK, I'm back to the old Blogger "interface." Now, let's see what happens.
Thanks.
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