I started posting weekly photos on the Saturday Photohunt three years ago this month. Although I really enjoyed “playing” it was always frustrating leaving a comment with a link to my photo on the Photohunt Blogger site. Then sometime in 2011 the person hosting Photohunt switched to a WordPress blog after many people on the Photohunt Facebook group complained about not being able to leave comments on Blogger. What a relief that was, though since many of the “players” use Blogger I still had to just view their photos without being able to leave comments. Occasionally I would go through the 5-6 tries before Blogger recognised my Open-ID, and then go through a few more hoops putting in the wonky letter thing and whatnot, but most of the time I couldn’t be bothered. But least I was finally able to leave my comment on the Photohunt site!
Then the original Photohunt host retired in December and there was a scramble for “ownership”, which ended up a bit messy with two people starting new Photohunt blogs … both on Blogger! Why? Apparently because they are used to Blogger. And so to hell with the rest of us who don’t want to have to open a Blogger account in order to leave comments. You would think that someone hosting something like this would want to choose the blogging platform that was most comfortable for all users, not just for the person hosting. Apparently not. So I am outta there. It’s no longer fun. Adiós Photohunt!
Aw shucks. I liked your weekly Photohunt input, the pictures were nice and always illustrated the theme in an interesting fashion.
Shame on Blogger who makes commenting difficult!
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I know! I liked doing them too. Past tense.
And I mostly like google products, but their Blogger blogging platform is awful. WordPress is far more intuitive, classy and – most importantly – user-friendly for anyone. They have a fabulous anti-spam programme that means you don’t have to set that annoying wonky letter step to prove you’re human, and if you don’t have a WP blog you just enter your info once and it’s saved for future visits. It couldn’t be easier. And since it only takes about five minutes to import a Blogger blog to WordPress…
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I have the same feelings about Blogger blogs. A couple of lovely people who use it visit me and I take the trouble to go through all those steps in order to return the visits periodically, but it really does seem absurd; the Blogger designer is like someone who laboriously booby-traps the door every night because they’re too cheap to buy a lock. Captcha is a great idea for account signups and other things you don’t want people to be able to do robotically, but there are obviously slicker ways of dealing with comment spam.
I think the WordPress dashboard scares people off initially, but really, there are a lot of tools there you don’t HAVE to use. And if you do decide to learn them, you can do so much more than you can with the Blogger interface.
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That is a real shame – it was you who inspired me to start this in earnest this year! But I know exactly what you mean about the difficulty of posting comments on particular sites.
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After 54 months and well over 200 entries, I too am quitting the Photo Hunt. I’ve discovered a lot of great photographers and had a lot of fun but Blogger is just too difficult to comment on. So often I would visit and have to leave without a word because that Open ID thing is a crock of excrement!
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Hmmm… maybe you should start a new Saturday photo blog? Eh, eh?
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I never had any complains about comments on my Photo blog. The linky is very simple without pictures and I have no word verification. I am very happy with Blogger had never had any problems since 2006 when I started and don’t like WordPress, which I have tried out at the very beginning when I started blogging. That’s why I choose Blogger.
Sorry that you have troubles in commenting, other WordPress participants don’t have. I don’t know why it doesn’t work for you.
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Clearly Blogger doesn’t not work just for me, based on the comments here. Most likely you have lost readers and commenters without knowing – how could they complain if they couldn’t leave a comment?
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