Blogger ditches outsider comments?

By thudfactor on December 3, 2007

I’ve hit two Blogger blogs today that won’t let me put my own URL in the comments block. I can either log in using a Google account, which links to my profile and then — in a generic and not very apparent way — back to here, or I can use a nickname with no space for a URL.

For blogging purposes, my profile is this website, not some generic thing Blogger has decided to put in the way first. I’m sorry, but if you’re using a Blogger weblog, I’m probably not going to comment again until they let me put my own web site address in again.

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1979CommentsBlogger+ditches+outsider+comments%3F2007-12-03+11%3A51%3A54thudfactor to “Blogger ditches outsider comments?”

Fred
December 3, 2007 at 11:09 AM | Permalink

I hadn’t noticed that. Blogger’s comments do leave a lot to be desired. I thought they were slowly moving in the right direction with the option of follow-up notifications, but I guess for every one step forward… That’s disappointing. Sorry if it’ll keep you from commenting.
Pstonie
December 3, 2007 at 11:50 AM | Permalink

It’s weird that Google hasn’t fixed this after they bought out Blogger. Next to Livejournal it’s the most tedious of the popular choices.
thudfactor
December 3, 2007 at 2:05 PM | Permalink

Fred, I’m sorry, but apparently Blogger doesn’t want to be part of the community any more. This walling-off of community is destructive to the whole process. Normally I don’t pick on people’s blogging tools, but given this I’d encourage people using Blogger to move to Wordpress or Typepad if possible.

Pstonie, this isn’t something Google “hasn’t fixed,” it’s something they broke as recently as last week.
Diesel
December 4, 2007 at 12:19 AM | Permalink

I didn’t like the lack of control over comments that I had with Blogger’s system (and I say this as someone who is working at Google…), so I built my own system. I never liked that Blogger links to the commenter’s profile — like you, my “profile” is my blog.
wyo
December 4, 2007 at 9:42 PM | Permalink

Hmph. I could probably document the system, but I can’t write my own. :\

Blogger is transitioning to something called OpenID (I’ll RTFM later). Blogger users can enable that, but I suppose it would still be a problem if you didn’t have an OpenID. Whatever that is.

Anyway, here’s what Blogger in Draft has to say for itself: http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com/2007/11/new-feature-openid-commenting.html
Cat Chapin-Bishop
December 5, 2007 at 12:41 PM | Permalink

Hi,
Thanks for the heads’ up on this change–but please don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater! At Quaker Pagan Reflections, we love your comments and input, and I enjoy feeling part of a community with Thudfactor, whether Blogger likes it or not!

This is one of a series of changes at Blogger that aren’t winning them any popularity contests, at least with me. But it’s tough to transfer a long-running blog from host to host, and it just isn’t a project I can even consider during the school year, when I’m lucky if I find the time to compose content, let alone play with the tech side of the blog.

I’ll check out the “Open ID” material, though, and hope it makes it less cumbersome rather than more in time. And, come summer, if Blogger continues its slide toward unfriendly blog hosting, I’ll probably relocate us; comments are important. But it’s not a light and easy project, for a non-techie writer like Peter or me.

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