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