Like many of us here on WordPress, these are the activities that cause me to lose track of time.
Oh wait. I almost forgot. Binge-watching British detective series on BritBox also make me lose track of time.
While Dr. Tanya, who hosts Blogging Insights, is on a hiatus, Sadje thought that she could host discussions about our experiences and expectations regarding blogging on the Blogging Platform prompt.
Today’s topic is about blogger meet-ups or blog parties and was suggested to Sadje by Dr. Tanya.
Sadje asks…
Have you ever participated in or hosted a blog party? Do you think they work, or as Dr Tanya says, engagement is the best way to promote your blog?
I have to go with Dr. Tanya’s perspective that visiting blogs, reading posts, and leaving meaningful comments on them (i.e., engagement with other bloggers) is the best way to get noticed, assuming, as a blogger, you know how to write engaging posts, of course.
The meet-ups and blog parties may be good for new bloggers to introduce themselves to the blogging community. That said, to me it’s like going to a speed-dating session. Personally, I’ve never been to a speed-dating event, either in the real world or in the blogosphere.
These are the activities that cause me to lose track of time.
Oh wait. I almost forgot. Binge watching British detective series also make me lose track of time.
I have a few bones to pick with WordPress. Well, at least they finally seem to have resolved the on-again/off-again pingback issue. Good for doing whatever they had to do to fix, after a week, whatever they did to break pingbacks in the first place. That’s the good news.
But on to the not so good news. I just realized that at least one blogger I have been following for quite a while, I was no longer following. Apparently, unbeknownst to me and with no action on my part, WordPress has been arbitrarily dropping blogs I follow from my follow list. Because I follow around 170 blogs, it sometimes takes a while for me to realize that posts from bloggers I follow are not showing up in my Reader anymore. So if you notice that I used to like and comment on your posts, but I haven’t for a while, let me know. It’s very possible that WordPress arbitrarily purged your blog from the blogs I follow.
If you’ve been following my blog for a while you may also know that since November of 2020 I’ve had an issue with commenting on blogs that do not have “.wordpress.com” in their URLs. WordPress admits that it’s a bug, blames it on Apple’s iPhone security settings, and is doing nothing to address it. As a result, even though I’m logged into the WordPress iOS app, if I want to comment on someone’s blog, I have to enter my name, my email address, and my blog’s address. That takes me to another screen where I have to enter my blog’s password and offer to sacrifice my first born child in order for my comment to be posted on the blog.
That’s a real pain in the butt. But even worse are those blogs that warn that I must be logged in to comment. I am logged in, dammit, to the WordPress iOS app, so I don’t get what the problem is. And yet, for bloggers that have this setting under Discussions, I can’t leave a comment.
So, for those of you who have checked the setting, “Users must be registered and logged in to comment,” and you know who you are, even after I attempt to re-login (though I’m already logged in), I cannot comment on your posts when I visit your blog. I can only comment when I find it in my Reader if I’m following your blog.
But now, if I want to contact a happiness engineer to report these issues, do I do it via WordPress or Jetpack?
Many of us who have been blogging on WordPress from our smartphones or tablets are being told to delete that mobile app and install the Jetpack mobile app if we want all to keep using all of the features of WordPress. Why? Because as of March 8th, WordPress is “simplifying” its mobile app and dropping functionality that most of us use, such as stats, the Reader, notifications, the activity log, menus, and themes.
What? Everyone knows what WordPress is: the worlds largest, most popular web hosting site. Who the hell knows what Jetpack is? Why would the owners of a well known, highly regarded brand (WordPress) push most of us off to something few people have ever heard of? I don’t get it. Do you?
For today’s Sunday Poser, Sadje poses two questions:
1. What makes you want to comment on a post?
If I particularly enjoy a post and want to let the blogger know it, I will leave a comment. That said, I follow a lot of blogs and if I could, I’d comment on every post I read as well as every post linked to one of my posts, most often related to one of my prompts. I know that, due to time constraints, I can’t comment on every single post, and often, by the time I get around to reading the posts, others have already commented on them. I won’t typically leave a comment if it is merely a close duplicate of what someone else has already commented. I want my comments to be be meaningful and to add value, not to just pile on.
2. How do you handle the reading and commenting on the blogs you follow?
I try to read every post that shows up in my Reader, but it’s a challenge because that’s a boatload of posts to read. And, of course, I need time to compose and publish my own posts. When the activities of daily living get in the way of spending many hours during the day on WordPress, I end up reading most posts in my Reader between the hours of 10 pm and midnight while in bed. I will, at the very least, like those posts in order to let the blogger know that I visited.
I hope these responses address Sadje’s questions.
Some of you are aware that I use my iPhone for blogging. I have the iOS WordPress app, which I use for reading and responding to comments on my posts and for reading what other bloggers I follow have posted and for commenting on their posts .
But for writing my posts I use my iPhone’s Safari browser to log onto WordPress because it’s easier to use for composing posts than the WordPress app for iOS editor. And it gives me a real-time word counter, which comes in handy for prompts with word limits.
Why my iPhone and not my laptop? I do it because I can read, comment, and post from anywhere. My bed, my living room, the dining room, my backyard, on a bus, at the park. And, if I do say so myself, I have become quite adept at using my iPhone’s virtual keypad.
Anyway, a few days ago I downloaded iOS 12, the latest iPhone operating system, to my iPhone. I have found a few quirky things (i.e., bugs), which I’m sure (hope) will be addressed in iOS 12.1. But one of the new features on iOS 12 is something called “Screen Time.” It keeps track of how much time you spend on your iPhone and how you’re spending that time.
Out of curiosity, last night before I went to bed, I checked Screen Time. And I’ll be honest with you, what I saw shocked me.
Of the 17 hours I was awake yesterday (from 6 am to 11 pm), I spent 10½ using my iPhone. And of those 10½ hours, I spent 6¾ hours blogging — either reading, commenting, responding to comments, or posting.
In other words, I spent 61% of my waking hours on my iPhone, which is just nuts. But of those 10½ hours, I spent on my iPhone, nearly two-thirds of it was spent related to blogging.
I’ve been awake so far today for 2½ hours. That time includes taking a shower, getting dressed, fixing and eating breakfast and reading the newspaper. And yet, of that 2½ hours, I spent 1½ hours on my iPhone, one hour and 20 minutes of which were spent on WordPress.
I think I need to rethink how I’m spending my time.
Sometime I wonder why I do this. By “this,” I mean blogging. It takes up a lot of time. Figuring out what to say in each post I write. And, as important, how to say it. Finding the perfect image to include with each post.
And there’s the reading part. Reading what other bloggers have posted. Deciding whether or not to like their posts and to comment on them. And, if so, to compose the actual comments.
And prompts. There are word prompts, photo prompts, prose prompts, poetry prompts, prompts about song lyrics, daily prompts, weekly prompts, and random prompts. Reading the prompts, looking at the rules, deciding which ones to participate in and which ones to pass up. It takes a lot of time.
I have a life outside of blogging, you know. I live in the real world populated by flesh and blood human beings (and dogs and cats). I can’t spend all of my time blogging.
My wife knows me well enough to know that I could, if left to my own devices — hey, that’s funny; get it? My own devices, like my iPhone or my laptop? — become totally consumed by blogging. I do tend to have an addictive personality.
That’s why, last May, when I told her I wanted to start a new blog, she had a lot of trepidation. She knew how easy it would be for me to lose my real world connection and to be almost wholly consumed by the blogosphere.
So we negotiated a deal. She would not object to my starting a new blog if I promised to not spend more than two hours a day on blogging activities.
I agreed to that deal, figuring that I’m awake for maybe 12 hours a day. During those 12 hours, I am eating meals for maybe two hours a day, walking the dog four times a day for a couple of hours in total, watching TV, using the bathroom, doing other internet related stuff, reading the items that show up on my iPhone’s newsfeed way too often, and playing solitaire on my iPhone.
With all that, I probably couldn’t devote more than two hours a day to blogging anyway. But now I wonder if two hours is enough. I wonder if it’s time to renegotiate.
“Honey, can we talk?”
Written for today’s one-word prompt, “wonder.”
Facts, Fictions & Fantasies 