Hey all, I took a day off from this blog yesterday and enjoyed it! I took a ride outside the city for some photos, here are just three from then. I’m thinking about cutting back on uploads as I post too often here anyway… Do you agree? Yesterday on IG, a follower told me via IM that he’s unfollowing me as I post too often there too and was “filling up his feed.” What the hell? I though WP and IG were for sharing things?
[John, I couldn’t answer your last reply directly because it looks like it’s only embedded four or five deep. There was no reply button so that’s why I’m starting a new thread.]
Yes, Squarespace is an option as are Gator, Weebly, and since you’re familiar with the platform … WordPress.org.
I believe that I once mentioned that I had a Weebly account, but closed it after the company was hacked. The hackers stole all of my personal data.
I’ve checked them all out, and would be inclined to choose GoDaddy simply because they have a dedicated interface with WordPress blogs. Migration is done with the click of a button. A personal account is only $5.99 and first month free.
Please keep on posting John. It makes me full so much better when I overload my blog page every day!!! And, when in that desert of yours, watch out for SNAKES!!!
Why thank you Richard! I will be the first to admit that I post waaaay too much but darn I enjoy this! I was indeed watching for snakes and scorpions, gladly I saw zero of either. Nasty critters!
Can we talk? Blogging is a strange thing. On my other blog, I might spend a day researching, writing, and editing a 1000-word post that nobody reads. Well, if they read it, they don’t leave a comment, or even a thumbs-up.
Radio host Dave Ramsey once said, “Why do you blog? There are ten million bloggers out there, and no one reads yours. Why do you waste your time when you could be out making money?”
Sometimes — as in often — I’ll stumble across a blog that has no content. There’s only an About page with one disjointed sentence, but ten “Likes” and four comments. It doesn’t make sense!
Most (99%) of the blogs I follow on the other site don’t even post an original thought. They simply copy and paste articles from the Washington Post or New York Times. A few of these blogs have quite a following — over two million hits — posting other people’s work.
It freaking drives me crazy and I begin to think that Ramsey is right.
WordPress encourages bloggers to post often, if not daily, and on a regular schedule. I noticed that you didn’t post yesterday, and wondered if you were taking a break. It’s okay to take a break. I’ll go weeks, or even months without posting. I only posted one photo in 2017, and no one missed me.
So I find it amusing that someone would complain that you post too often. A girlfriend once said to me, “You better kiss me. cuz you’re gonna miss me when I’m gone.” I guarantee that if you stopped posting everyday, the commenter at IG would ask, “Where is John from Las Vegas Photoblog?”
Wow, thanks for this great comment Dave. The fella did follow me on his other IG account but still I was really shocked! People from several countries follow me on IG which I really like too except for the follow/unfollow bit, so stupid. Not many followers of this blog would miss me if I gave it up or took a month off. On IG? I get so much more interaction with followers over there vs WP which makes me wonder why I still keep this blog up and running… Those folks that copy and past are Content Thieves! Notice the Reblog button has never been present on this blog!
John, how long have you been on Instagram? I’ve never really checked it out, but may do so. I mean, the reason we post articles and photos is for people to enjoy and engage, but sometimes it feels as if no one is there.
With regards to the Reblog button, I used it for my last post to feature an amazing photo by Joshi Daniel. Most people, myself included, display a copyright notice on our photo blog. The Reblog button seems to violate the spirit of copyright protection — which WordPress enforces — but then I thought that the reblog is not really an infringement, but a recognition of someone else’s work.
Of course, no one wants to have their content stolen and displayed elsewhere without mention or compensation, but Fair Use — which WordPress upholds — does permit another person to use your work as long as it is properly credited, and there is no monetary gain to the user.
The WordPress reblog properly credits and links to the original content so that there is no copyright violation. People have reblogged my posts, and I was actually flattered. Plus, it exposed my work to a new audience and increased my follower count.
But I understand not enabling the Reblog button. It’s something that a lot of people probably don’t even consider when they choose their blog settings. Ron Dudley, an outstanding bird photographer, doesn’t allow likes or reblogs on his site. Doesn’t allow likes? No, because he wants people who really like his photos to engage and have a conversation in the comment section.
It’s all a matter of personal preference, and I hope people are sincerely flattered when their work is reblogged. For me, it’s a greater compliment than even a like, or comment.
I didn’t know that WP has links back to the author. Apparently didn’t check that out enough. More followers via the reblogs? Hmmm. I could enable it, see what happens… I’ve considered removing the Like button but I receive very few comments anyway. This blog is what I call Narrow Banded, the focus is 99% photography, one percent writing by me which is likely boring to a lot of folk. It frequently feels as though no none is on this blog except for people like you David. I’ve been on IG over one year easily, have 0ver 4000 photos up over there, over 4000 posts here too.
I have a vlogger friend who has 750,000 followers on YouTube yet only 30,000 bother to watch new videos. Of those, maybe 500 bother to like the video, and only 100 take a moment to leave a comment.
I can’t explain it, but only a very small percentage of people will like, or comment on a blog post or video. When I wrote editorials, I was told that only two or three percent of the readers would bother to write a comment.
It’s the same in talk radio. Out of 100 listeners, only two or three ever bother to call the host. Stats don’t really tell the whole story, but the WordPress Traffic tally can be somewhat discouraging.
Oh, boy! I had one visitor today! I could have spent that creative time researching stocks, or riding my bike. It’s basically a labor of love.
A labour of love indeed, and this keeps me out of trouble too! Those numbers are pretty staggering! 750K! Yet so few bother to interact. This is one reason why I remove businesses daily David, they have zero interest in my amateur photography. They are self-serving and not welcome…
I get lots of those, too. I’ll delete them and if they persist, I report them to WordPress. I think for most of us, we take pictures because we simply love photography.
Right on David! I just love taking photos. My
father said a long while ago that “I always have a camera in hand”! Still true. How do you report them? I would LOVE to know. I so detest them.
There are dozens of threaded discussions at the WordPress Forum from bloggers who are overwhelmed by spam. Turning on Akismet, moderating comments, and turning off the “Like” button are the typical solutions provided by WP.
This is a huge problem which WP has failed to address. The reason, they say, is because the spammer will simply open another account and continue spamming.
There are two ways to report them:
Go to the spammer’s website. If it is a WP blog, look to the bottom, right-hand corner and you should see a Follow button. Next to the button are three dots. Click on the dots which will bring up a list of reporting options. Click on “Report this content”.
Be advised that the website may not be hosted by WP so this option will not be available. Also, be very cautious when you link to a spammer’s website.
A safer option would be to go to the spammer’s Gravatar page. Many spammers don’t even have a WP blog. They simply use a Gravatar account to draw traffic to their self-hosted website which is why I don’t like the first option.
Gravatar used to have a similar reporting mechanism as WP. You simply clicked a button in the bottom, right-hand corner to report a spam, or fake account.
Alas, Gravatar removed that option, but I was told by WP to report the URL via the Contact Form:
https://wordpress.com/help/contact
WP has basically waved the white flag on this issue because it has become impossible to manage. Spammers will simply open a new account. One WP moderator said:
“We cannot have much confidence in the numbers of followers reflected in our site stats. Clearly, some are not motivated by a true interest to engage with the content they find on our sites. They are merely following and clicking like buttons to attract traffic back to their commercial sites.”
John, it’s an unwinnable war.
I mentioned earlier that Ron Dudley does not allow likes on his photo blog. WP recommends turning off the likes, and moderating new comments.
Akismet will block over 95% of spam comments, and the remainder can be held in moderation. In settings, you can choose to allow comments from people who have been previously approved. New comments can be manually approved.
Of course, we understand that this is a much bigger problem than comments. Spammers know about Akismet so they resort to passive spamming by clicking like on hundreds of blogs.
You can’t block, or filter likes. The only option is to turn off the like button. Dudley has found that this has actually created a safe and engaging comment section, and it’s the only way to remove the spam Gravatars from your like tab.
The other thing to be concerned about, though to a lesser extent, are pings. This is where the spammer posts a link to their website in your comment section. Akismet, or moderation should take care of that.
Facebook, with all of its security and privacy issues, actually has a more efficient filtering system than WordPress … which is kind of unnerving when you think about it.
The solution for some people is to ditch the blogging platform altogether and create their own hosted website through Wix or GoDaddy.
Well, WP sucks! I only hang on here for the wonderful community. Otherwise I’d be gone. I check for new followers a couple times a day. This morning I chopped off four businesses. An unwinnable war unless you stay after them each day. The same asswipes just keep coming back. Thanks for the tips, I will check them out. I’ve looked at other options such as Square Space…