Leave a Comment... Or Not.

My apologies to anyone who’s tried to leave comments here and found that to be more trouble than it’s worth. I’m not arrogant enough to believe lots of people read this blog and like it so much they want to be a part of it. But a few friends have told me they tried to comment and couldn’t get that feature to work.

Here’s what I think is going on:

My evil plot to rule the world through blogging has been co-opted by Google’s own (much more successful) plan to conquer the known universe with the help of bloggers like me. You could say I’m in their downline. Apparently you need a membership with Google (Blogger’s mother ship) to leave comments here. My friend Wayne didn’t have any trouble with it, but he’s a full-blown, card carrying tech geek, so he already has a membership to every online service that exists. The rest of us just want to go to the bottom of the blog post, type a few words of agreement, encouragement, hatred, confusion, or other feedback, then input that CAPTCHA thing to prove we’re not spambots, and voila!—comment added. Why is this so much to ask?

I wrote a letter to try to get help, but I’m not sure where to send it:

…

Dear Blogger/Blogspot/Whatever You Prefer To Be Called Now,

   I really appreciate your help setting up Unintimidated by Convention.  Since I don’t know anything about computers, I could never have done it without you. But my friends and followers (I use these terms very loosely) cannot post comments without becoming part of your virtual empire. Could you fix it so anyone who wants can comment without first getting a Google ID?

Your Humble Servant,

Brian

…

I’ll keep working on this. In the meantime, if you already have a membership, please comment. If not, it really doesn’t take long to set one up. I’m just sayin’…

P.S. You can always write to me by email. I'm at bchristensen1970@gmail.com
Yes, I'm aware that gmail is another Google franchise. So maybe it's a bit ironic that I suggest using it at the end of this post, but not really, because anyone can freely send a message to that address.


~ 24 October 2011 Edit: Good news! I've figured out the comments thing. I just had to poke around in the settings a little, and guess what? Under "Comments" I still had the default setting selected, which requires an OpenID membership, but you can also check "Anyone" or "Only members of this blog." I now have it set so anyone can comment. I take back everything I've said about Blogger's limitations in this area. ~ 


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Did you like what you just read? Why not join Unintimidated by Convention? There's no membership fee, you don't have to attend any meetings, and I promise not to send you annual renewal notices. Just click on the right where it says "Join this site" and then type in your stuff that it asks for. Do it now!