Have You Had Problems Commenting on Blogspot Blogs?

       It's come to my attention that some people may be finding it impossible to comment on my blogs.  This surprises me because other people seem to pull it off without difficulty.  So I'm setting out to analyze the problem.  I really would like to get more comments.

       I never have trouble commenting on other Blogger blogs.  I assume that's because my blogs are on Blogger.  When I go to Faith in Ambiguity (Tara Adams' blog, which I recommend highly, btw), for example, I get the same kind of comment box that I have here.  My name is already there -- it reads "Lorinda J. Taylor (Google)" and all I have to do is click on Publish.  In fact, I just put a new comment on her blog and it went right through.

       The Comment box gives choices:  You can post with Google, LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, AIM, OpenID, Name/URL, or Anonymous.  It doesn't give the choice of Twitter or Facebook.  I was told by the person having the problem that he tried all the choices and couldn't post with any of them.  I just checked out each of these choices; LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, and AIM require a User Name while OpenID requires an Open ID URL (whatever that is).  If you aren't registered with these sites, of course you can't use them to post (I'm not registered with any of them -- well, WordPress, but more on that later).  Name/URL requires you to have an URL of your own, and not everybody does.  But Anonymous doesn't require anything.  Spammers have no trouble posting with Anonymous, so I would think that option at least would work, but apparently it didn't.  

       What I think the real problem might be is this:  Blogger is a Google site, and so I think you have to be signed up with Google for it to work well (for your name to show up ready-made in the box).  I think that's why I have no trouble posting on Blogger blogs.  I suppose it's a Google trick to get people to sign up.

       I don't have a solution for you, except to sign up with Google.  So I'm sending out a request to people who often do manage to post Comments on my blogs.  To Kat Anthony, Sandra Tyler, Debbie Doglady, T. A. Miles, E. C. Ambrose, Joyce Lansky, Journey of Life, Chris Andrews, Fel Wetzig ... if any of you read this, tell me if you had trouble posting comments and describe the trouble.  Some of you have Blogger blogs and some have WordPress and some may have other hosts.  Most of those people are signed up for Google, because I've encountered them in Google+.   And for anybody else who can't post, contact me at Twitter (@TermiteWriter) or at Facebook or Goodreads or Google+ and explain the kinds of problems you're having, because I would really like to fix the situation!

 

       Now I want to talk about WordPress, because I have a similar problem posting comments on those blogs.  It's a bit of a long story (but when did I ever write short stories?)  When I first started, I had no connection with WP at all and I had no problem commenting on WP blogs.  Then I got involved with a project to share a themed blog with someone else, and that required me to sign up for WP.  Then that project fell through and the blog disappeared.  But apparently I remained in some mysterious way connected to WP.  This is compounded by the fact that I have a conlanging blog through the Language Creation Society.  It is WP-powered but through wordpress.org, not wordpress.com: http://remembrancer.conlang.org.  It's pretty inactive -- I haven't had time to post anything there for quite a while, but it has a lot of information about my conlangs.

       So now when I try to post on a WP blog, it will ask me to log in to WP.  However, it won't take any of my passwords, either for the defunct blog or for the LCS blog.  It inevitably tells me it's the wrong password.  So I have to resort to posting with Facebook, which requires me to enter all my information every time.  Gravatar also got into the mix somehow -- the Gravatar information pops up when I enter my email address, but if I try to use that URL, the request for the WP passwords comes up again!  At that point I lose the brilliant comment that I have just spent hours composing (ha, ha!)  So what I have to do is delete the Gravatar URL and type in my own blog's URL.  And also I have cultivated the habit of copying the text of the comment before I try to post it, so at least I easily can start over.
       But even that doesn't work all the time.  Occasionally, the comment just disappears into the ether, but when you try to re-enter it, it tells you it's a duplicate.  That happened yesterday.  I tweeted the blog owner and asked him if anything had gone to moderation, but he said, nope. 
      
      They say all lost objects end up on the moon.  There must be a special crater for lost blog comments!  Or else maybe we should all start praying hard to St. Anthony!

[On that note, a Google search turned up this amusing blog post by Nancy Mace (December 20, 2010): http://my1073fm.com/stanthony/
from which I took this image]: 

"Tony, Tony, come around, there's something lost that must be found!"

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