A wee rant about blog hosts.

I've been reading blogs long enough to have developed my own habits and my own set of pet peeves. In the furtherance of my "It''s all about me, all the time" effort, I am willing to share my gripes with you here. I am generous that way. You can thank me later.

TypePad:

I use TypePad. Amy uses TypePad. Norma uses TypePad. Vicki and Trudy and eurolush use TypePad. Whenever I click onto a blog and discover that the host is TypePad, I do a little happy dance in my chair. Until, that is, I decide that I simply must share something with the blogger, and so I comment. But if the blogger has turned on "Always require CAPTCHA" I weep with despair.

The programmers at TypePad must really, really have a thing about spammers because when this option is set, they require the commenter to fight their way through multiple CAPTCHAs before the comment is accepted. At first I thought it was just me -- maybe I was utterly incapable of typing the displayed letters and digits. Eventually I learned that TypePad always does the multiple CAPTCHA thing. This is extremely frustrating, for this commenter, anyway. I used to have my own blog set this way, but when I discovered what it pain it was on other blogs, I turned it off. I haven't had any spammers in nearly two years ::knock on wood:: Check your TypePad blog to see your settings (Weblogs | (click on the title of your blog) | Configure | Feedback) and consider turning off the CAPTCHA requirement. Thank you for your cooperation.

If you want a little protection from spammers after turning off the required CAPTCHAs, there is another option on that page that you might want to try: you can turn off commenting on your posts after a set period of time -- one month, a year, something in between. Seems to me that should help. I recently got a snotty comment on one of my first posts (September, 2006) so I turned off comments on posts older than six months. Try it; you'll like it. Maybe. Whatevs.

Blogger:

The reason I do the happy dance in my chair at TypePad blogs is because right up there at the top of every post are navigation links:

Maybe that doesn't matter to you. Maybe you read everyone's posts in your Bloglines or FeedBurner or whatever aggregator you use. Maybe you don't care whether you read every single post from a blogger. For myself, I always click on the first unread post in a particular blogger's feed in my Bloglines so that I read it in the blogger's chosen setting. Seeing the layout and appearance of the blog helps me recognize which particular blogger I am reading. (Yeah, lame, I know, but I gotta work with the brain I've got. Visual memory and all.) And once I read that post I want to read the next one without having to go back to Bloglines to get the link. TypePad makes that easy (see above). Blogger has finally made it easier, too.

or this:

So, please, if you use Blogger, go take a look at your blog and see if you have this at the bottom of your post. If you don't, fix it. Thank you.

I have never had any trouble with Blogger's CAPTCHAs for some reason.

Don't know why, don't care. It just makes me happy, and anything that makes me happy has to be a good thing, right? Right.

Oh, and while we are talking Blogger, there is another thing you should check in your settings. Do your commenters have to have a Google/Blogger account to comment on your post?  If this is what your comment page looks like:

you are making it very difficult, if not impossible, for many people to comment. I happen to have both a Google account and a Blogger account, but that does not necessarily mean I can comment. Don't know why, just know it doesn't always work. Makes me unhappy. Boo hoo.

If you wonder why you should bother, your might want to read the first part of this exchange on another blog I subscribe to. This is how wars get started. You don't want to be the cause of KnitWars2008, now do you?

WordPress:

WordPress is versatile and robust blogging software. It does not, however, automatically give that previous post/next post link thing that I like so well. I know it is possible -- both Chris:

and Erika (I think):

have it on their blogs. So, WordPress users, make a Kat™ happy. Check your settings and find that navigation thing. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your check chocolate is in the mail.

* * * * *

Thus endeth my diatribe on blog software and hosting. Discuss among yourselves. After you have checked your own blog.

Comments

[Chris]

1.

Whew - glad I got the seal of approval! Actually, I must confess to not having to type multiple captchas on Typepad - that generally just happens if you let the captcha just sit there for a bit (not a very long bit, either) before typing (as in you click to a new window to do something else while waiting for it to load) and it times out.

[Julie]

2.

Ooops, I really thought I didn't have the stupid CAPTCHA thing on, but apparently I did. Sorry about that and thanks for the heads' up!

[Gillian]

3.

Interesting. I read a lot but obviously don't have a blog. Reading this, I've learnt a bit more. I do have a Google acct, but if I want to use it, I have to go to the Google registration page, every time, and re-register.

[Erika]

4.

I was chewing my lip as I read through, hoping I didn't have something annoying about my theme. Phew!

I wrote my entire Wordpress template from scratch, so it may contain weird workarounds and possible omissions. But hey, it only took me like four years to realize I didn't have a Preview button on the comments form!

After reading your post, I just changed the navigation on my pages from "back/forward" to "older/newer." I'm not too proud to crib from other platforms.

Other Wordpress users can add back/forward links with the tag:

?php posts_nav_link(' -- ','< Newer','Older >'); ?

(With angle brackets at each end, obvy.)

[Cathy-Cate]

5.

It's all your fault.

When you go to my blog and it looks different now --
it's all YOUR FAULT. Yes, I mean YOU.

Turns out with free wordpress.com hosting, whether there is page navigation or not depends on the theme. It's not a setting thing.

So the bloggers you mentioned (you forgot to link, by the way; I wanted to check out Erika's blog...sad face), have a different theme from mine, and Chris at least has her own domain, she is self-hosted -- which makes a difference. Unless I pay money to customize my css (which I am not yet savvy enough to know how to do anything with css), I can only choose to change to a theme that has page navigation.

SO -- just to make The Kat(TM) happy (granted, I like page navigation, too) --
I have a new theme! The things I do for you!

Now, about that chocolate....

[Cathy-Cate]

6.

BTW, so I don't look stoopider than I am; I had this window open for about an hour while I gave a ride to the Preteen to a babysitting job, then my family came home, gave me grief for being on the computer, I took a long work-related phone call for me, and took two phone messages for the Preteen.

In the meantime, the Elusive Erika replied. She obviously is much more computer literate than me, and wrote her own CSS.

You're outta luck with me and, no doubt, some other bloggers, who are there with the YH as she professes to be: "Blog broke. Make blog go!"

But if WordPress who don't customize CSS wish to be able to have page navigation, which I agree is a worthwhile and helpful tool, they can look at available themes and filter by 'page navigation'. If they want to make a Kat happy....

I like pretty much all chocolate....

[Cathy-Cate]

7.

That should say "WordPress users" above.

Sigh.

Time to go. Obviously, "Brain broke. Make brain work!"

[lisa]

8.

Whew from me too... I just came into my blog by clicking on the post title from bloglines (Unlike Kat here, I usually click on the blog name versus the post title, and get all of the posts), et voila! I have that last and next post title thing going on. I just lucked out with the theme I chose I guess (wordpress). I don't think I've had to do multiple capthas either. But sometimes I can't discern some of the google/blogger letters and have to do it again.

[Cheryl]

9.

How about a wee rant from a non-blogging LURKER...many times I've wanted to leave a comment on differnet types of blogs but couldn't because of not having a blog account, or going blind trying to read those CAPTCHAS. Thanks for making your blog user friendly

[Sheepish Annie]

10.

Hmmm...I've never had to do a multiple captcha on TypePad. I do not look forward to it.

It can be hard to keep up with the features on one's own blog, that's for sure. But it is worth it if you want comments, I guess. Thanks for the reminder!

[Jeanne]

11.

Hmmm....I don't have to type multiple captchas on typepad blogs....
I never turned them on mine because apparently I wasn't getting enough traffic to make comment spam appealing.

[helen (of troy)]

12.

I added (about a month ago) a link to Home (main page) on my blog--for just the reasons you've spoken about.

its the first thing in the left column--and i am slowly adding/changing setting on other things.

in 18 months, i've had 1 piece of spam.. so i allow annonymus comments..

and thank for the info about capcha, and repeated stuff.. i too thought i was doing something wrong.. (and wondering what!)

[Janet]

13.

you make some good points. i too share your angst about posting. I think there are way too many hoops to dance through. I wish there was some uniformity so that I could keep track of everyone better. Since I got on raverly I am a little happier, but alas not everyone is there. If you find a solution please share.

[Helen]

14.

I hate hate hate CAPTCHA
BUT
I love RECAPTCHA (which does much the same thing, BUT has a benefit-- it uses us to catch the things that OCR readers missed in scanning books so that they can be made available digitally...

I really hate the enter three times CAPTCHA bit!

And some are so hard to READ!

And what about those blogs that DON'T include any option but to be a blogger member to comment. I'm not into making a blogger account JUST to comment on a blog!
hmph
Thanks so much for blogging this. You saved me a lot of work. I'm off to link to this post on my own blog...