Dec 06 2007
Just When You Thought It was Safe to Comment on Blogger…
Things seem to be pretty messed up on the Blogger platform at the moment.
First there’s the outrage at the stripping of URLs from comments without, it would appear, a word of warning or explanation. This is replaced with a “Nickname”.
Then the silent introduction of draft blogger which enables blog admins to activate OpenID for commenting. The onus appears to be on the blogoshpere to pass the word around.
So a few bloggers (me included) whack up posts – “Come and get yer OpenID – Delegate yer blog”.
And it seems we have found the solution.
OR NOT.
This is the message I received when I try and post a comment using my blog URL – “Bad Request. Your client has issued a malformed or illegal request”.
Aha! Try the MyOpenID URL (http://blogpond.myopenid.com). No Cigar!
“Incorrect OpenID URL”
It’s not just me. Pheydeaux3 writes
Yep, it seems to be borked somewhere along the way. Not working for delegating myopenid for me now either. It was working before (phydeaux3 points frantically to comments at the top)…see.
Ahem, this is Blogger after all. If it wasn’t buggy as hell for a few weeks then it just wouldn’t feel like home.
And comment notifications have taken a nosedive as well.
There are many more reports, but no announcements that I can find. It’s not listed as a “known issue“, nor is there any mention on the Blogger in Draft Blog (apart from irate comments).
I think this will be the final straw for many Blogger users.
21 Responses to “Just When You Thought It was Safe to Comment on Blogger…”
Blogger doesn’t just have bugs, they have a huge bug up their ass. As I wrote yesterday, it seems that comments themselves have taken a nosedive since people can’t log in and link they way they want, and those who don’t even have Blogger/Gmail accounts aren’t bothering to comment at all.
I don’t have time this month, but after the holidays I’ll likely be defecting to WordPress.
So, basically, you have to sign off with your comment link going to yet another useless profile page. If I was on my own blog right now, I would be swearing. Do they not realise that the more efficient the conversation is, the more conversation there will be?
To be honest, I don’t even care if OpenID works. I do not want an another signup. I want a direct line, not the switchboard.
Thanks for letting me know that your comment had been blacklisted, Meg. Not only that when I tried to log into wp-admin it told me my site had been blacklisted!! Turns out the Bad Behaviour extension was the cause – they changed servers and mucked up. There is a new version to download – thought I would let you know in case anyone else was affected.
Try ClaimID as your provider cerebralmum – the profile page is much better there and the code you add to your blog does make your comment links go directly to your page not to your OpenID provider.
I agree it is a real pain in the ….. being forced to sign up for this in order to comment but OpenID is going to be taken up by more and more sites, eventually it will reduce the amount of registrations we have to do.
I often got that Blogger error message when I was on Blogger – sometimes when I hit the post button. I had to make sure I copied the post beforehand just in case I lost it.
thanks meg I will pass this on to Veronica at Sleepless nights she is having trouble with comments… cheers kim
Also, blogger isn’t sending notification emails when people comment. Much annoying.
I’ve taken to expressing my thoughts about blogger’s new nickname approach in the nick name field “Lee (I hate how blogger does this now)” and sign off within the actual message using the a tag and linking my name back to my blog.
I have to email you over my thoughts about the whole mybloglog yahoo debacle.
Oh wow how so incredibly annoying. Goes to show why I don’t comment (much) anymore on blogger. I thought word verification was annoying enough!
Sigh….. this is more than frustrating. And I am noticing a drop in ‘new’ visitors lately. Probably due to the commenting thing.
But this isn’t stopping me commenting on Blogger blogs, it’s not the bloggers fault that their platform is shonky. They have worked hard to build up a following and it sucks that they are paying the price for some idiots decision.
Sounds to me like I’m jumping ship just in the nick of time then!!!
Hi guys. I randomly found this blog through Technorati.
I think Blogger was pretty sly over the timing of the OpenID thing. It decided to implement it three weeks before Xmas, when most bloggers would be busy with the holidays and everything that December brings. So, they’d probably say “I’m jumping ship, but after the holidays”. Then, by January some people would have calmed down and decided not to move after all.
Sneaky!
Okay, I’m just back to say that when I left my first comment, my self hosted wordpress blog wasn’t quite ready yet but now it is!!!! So I am officially no longer a blogger blogger!!!! All you wordpress people can applaud now. LOL.
This has me strongly considering jumping the Blogger ship. Since I have set up my blog on there just over a month ago, there have been tiny things that I have been unhappy with and WordPress just looks so much nicer. This is pretty much the final straw. As someone who is struggling to get their blog up and running to have Blogger prevent other bloggers from leaving their URL is starting to hurt my meager traffic as I am finding that people can’t be bothered leaving comments.
Kirsten – sorry it’s so frustrating. As Zac suggests, the timing may be intentional.
Cerebralmum – I don’t think they’re too concerned about the conversation – I like your switchboard analogy.
Sue – whoops, living up to it’s name. Glad you got it sorted. Yeah I’m learning to copy and paste my message on to a notepad, just in case. Nothing more frustrating that crafting a comment only to have it swallowed.
Kim – thanks
Veronica – that’s frustrating, hope it gets fixed soon.
Lee – I was tempted to do that yesterday. Would love to hear your thoughts on MBL.
Karen – yes I agree, but remember it’s not the blogger’s fault – as Kelley points out.
Kelley – well said!
Lightening – great timing, congrats!
Zac – I agree, I hadn’t thought of that, but I reckon you could be right.
Riayn – I think if you’re considering it, do it. The one regret I hear over and over is “I should have done this sooner”.
I am thinking of starting a blogger boycott until they fix their comment system because its just shitting me off too much. I don’t want a blogger account or a google account that i only need to make comments!
Well, this does appear to be working again, on blogs that have activated it. Mind you, it bypasses moderation (ie you are notified of a new comment, but it’s not held in moderation). This is dangerous…
My feeling is it’s not the blogger’s fault. Who is a boycott going to hurt?
Boycotts are never fair and they do have a habit of hitting the people who deserve it least.
However google has effectively already started the boycott by excluding those that don’t have either a blogger account or gmail account from commenting on their hosted blogs almost declaring them second class citizens of the blogsphere. Whether its a half thought through effort to control comment spam or a deliberate stab at other blogging platforms i do not know.
Another thing is for me comments are also an effective way of building up a relationship and part of that is having a link back to your site as a link to help build that relationship. Easy of commenting is also important as while visitors will leave a comment if easy to do so, most aren’t going to “jump through hoops” to do so. The easier it is to exchange the communication, the more chance it is going to happen. Its not to say that you don’t still have safeguards in place against comment spam.
What i also object to is having neither a blogger account nor gmail account related to my photography related blogging i am already effectively excluded from being able to comment and build that relationship and being self hosted using wordpress.org blogs i don’t want to create accounts for either that i have no need of to use for my own blogs.
So in short, blogger has decided to make life difficult to do the basics when visiting other blogs and i am merely not prepared to cede to their demands. I am not going to organise a blogger boycott on a grand scale as its up to the individual if they want to jump through the hoops they are required to.
Ya it definitely was a foolish change on blogger’s part. Classic example of overkill.
No surprises here. Suspect it will take a week or so for the proper fix to get coded and submitted to QA; which will take another week to verify.
In the meantime, some poor schmuck is going to have to come up with a band-aid solution which only changes two lines of code but at least will get 95% of the sites running normally again. Just be thankful you’re not that poor schmuck. It’s quite stressful to come up with a good solution when you have millions of angry customers – not to mention all the VPs and marketing folks camping out in your cubicle.
Been there, done that.
Mike Macgirvin’s last blog post..Netscape won – well sort of
Oh, no! I just moved from multiply.com about a month ago since it was tedious for my readers to comment & now it’s happening to Blogger too? Thanks for posting this!
-MB-‘s last blog post..Short Cut Keys to Activate A Screen Saver Instantly..
[…] If you’re a regular reader of my blogs, you probably noticed that I have two related series going at once over at Facibus On Blogging – Get a real blog and the Flagship Blog Project. I’m using the birth of Intrapreneur Blog as the example for both at the moment. This is partially planned, and partially just plain serendipity – the Flagship Blog Project came along just in time to help contribute to Get a real blog. And both happened at around the same time that Blogger became less useful. […]
http://blogger.rssblogs.org/use-technoratis-openid-comment-blogger
I’ve just found this and it’s awesome
Karen (Misc Mum)’s last blog post..WW – The blank canvas which is our house, and other surfaces