I’m Still Following You

Culture & behavior, Opinions, 53 Comments

I suppose I wasn’t the only one who woke up a few days ago surprised to find a new notification system.

In general, change doesn’t scare me nor bothers me, and often it serves me a purpose. I learn, grow, improve, and for that I see change as an essential part of my life. But this is applicable to personal changes.

Unsolicited change though, like a notification system on this blog, which brings with it new and useless problems, are not welcome. I call them useless because I may learn nothing from them except that I should not get irritated from events I can’t control.  But how could I not when I faced this since January 20th:

1. Many people I follow have been automatically un-followed .
2. I don’t receive instant e-mails anymore.
3. I have now to go through far too many clicks to get where I need to be.

If you saw this post: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/notifications-improved/ you may have noticed that they cared about celebrating ‘success’, but forgot this: first to inform and prepare all bloggers – the users and clients – about upcoming changes. Had they done that, that would have avoided or at least minimized all negative perceptions and resistance to change. This is lesson 1 for Dummies, on change management.

The notification system may be God’s gift to the world, but the implementation plan and process was poor. Was there a plan?

Sorry if I am ranting here. I posted a comment on the above post and got no answer. I went then to the ‘contact us’ tab on my blog, which I use to get help from the support team. I have just closed a chat thread with a Happy Engineer. Here are the answers:

1. Why have people been un-followed? Answer: “You may have done it accidentally”. Hello? Me? 

2. Why don’t I receive instant emails from WP anymore? Answer: “My service provider may have blocked them!” What? Has my service provider got privileged information before and knowing of it decided – on the day of the launch of the notification system – to block all my messages forever? I can only laugh about this one. 

This Unhappy Blogger kindly explained to the Happy Engineer that we were going nowhere with that conversation, if I was the one to blame for all problems created since the launch of the new notification system! She informed then that she will bring the issues to the developers. Back to square one and my problems not solved.

I have started re-following the bloggers that I noticed were not popping up on my reader anymore, and will check thoroughly the list of blogs I follow. So you know I haven’t given up on you!

So, what is the lesson of today?

Sorry, I have to stop. I’m going to the yoga class now. I need to relax!

 

Posted by

Sharing sights & insights captured with diverse angles. Ex-corporate, now my own boss. Cycling, hiking, cooking, reading, yoga, writing and photography, are no longer only hobbies listed on my resume. It's what I do when I want.

53 thoughts on “I’m Still Following You”

  1. I’m really sorry to read this 😦

    I’ve just had a look and it looks like the Block Emails from WordPress.com option might be ticked at the bottom of your notifications page here:
    https://wordpress.com/me/notifications

    Scroll down to the bottom of that page and make sure the box next to “Block Emails” is not ticked.

    If you didn’t tick it yourself, then it could be a bug and if I can reproduce it I’ll report it. One thing that can happen is that if WordPress.com emails are marked as spam then the Block Emails option gets enabled since we don’t want to spam users.

    Hopefully this is the reason you’re not getting any emails. Let me know if it doesn’t fix the problem.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Thank you so much, Rachel, you’re amazing!
      I have done that and will see what happens. The happy engineer said that over 100 messages had been delivered. I just don’t get any. And before i did.

      I will let you know! Thanks a lot!
      😀

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        1. Just would like to ask the following: i opted for default jabber instant messenger delivery.
          Then i have to choose an email delivery window. I can only choose one day of the week and not daily. This is contradictory.

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      2. If you choose instant delivery then this will over-ride the email delivery window setting so you can ignore that drop-down menu. It only applies for daily or weekly emails. It’s a bit unclear, I agree.

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      3. Ok, I’m not sure what they meant but if you’ve selected instant delivery, then you should receive emails the moment they are sent, regardless of time of day or day of week. Have any emails been getting through yet?

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      4. Any luck? I think it might be the jabber instant messaging setting. I have a feeling that this option will send new posts to your Jabber client rather than to your inbox.

        If emails still haven’t arrived then can you try disabling the Jabber setting here – https://wordpress.com/me/notifications ?

        The change should be effective immediately so if emails do not arrive then it could be some other problem. Let me know and I can investigate.

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        1. Hi Rachel, from 22.00 hrs onwards i started receiving messages from the blogs I follow and wordpress. I could not check if there was spam before, as i had an automatic rule to send junk to trash and delete them. The trash was empty.
          What i didn’t have before is the option to receive from all blogs I follow, because the dailypost messages come in thousands.
          I will disable this option and see what happens with the jabber msg. I will follow your instructions. Check the link and let you know.
          Thanks.

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          1. Ok, good. I’m glad the emails are working again. If you notice anything strange then let me know. It sounds like it probably had nothing to do with the Jabber setting so you needn’t change that.

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        1. Yes, the engineers are always helpful and kind, and are not involved in this mess. The problem, I suppose is not deeper down, but higher up.
          I worked for an IT services company in the past. I have seen clients doing this kind of ill-planned implementation, without having the skills to do so. Normally, those who take decisions like that have only technical skills and no idea about change management.
          And of course, they forget the users while playing with their toys and fixing things that aren’t broken. The appaling thing here is that these attitudes are dated. It would be normal to see this in the year 2000 when IT was developing, but in 2015?
          It is a shame.
          The issue here is these a

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    1. I am not talking about the notification system itself, which would be a content issue. I refer to the process used and the side effects of its implementation. I am happy for you for not having experienced any problems.

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    1. Heartfelt thanks for the award. How considerate of you. My blog is indeed not specialized in anything but share my views on what I care about;that intention sits at the core of my writing or photographing.
      I had received the same award by another blogger this week. So I will add this to my awards page and refer to both of you.
      Have a wonderful weekend.
      Lucile

      Liked by 1 person

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  9. Lucile, I am in full agreement. It takes too many convoluted clicks now to manage my site. I’m perplexed as to why that think that some of these changes are actually good. They make me spend more rather than less time moving from one thing to another. They’ve also made too many changes in a short amount of time. It seems just as I adjust or mange to discover how to get to here or there, they alter it again.

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    1. Sally, I’m glad to read your comment. I didn’t want to be a whining voice here for my own sake only.
      I am sure there might be good things there but I see no benefit in creating complexity by adding extra clicks to bring us to wheat we need to do. Unless they are paid by the number clicks we deliver to WordPress.
      Thanks for your support. Let’s hope they listen, as we are not the only ones noticing this issue.
      Have a lovely weekend.
      Lucile

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  10. hey lucile, i too don’t mind the changes though i don’t think i had as much trouble as others – yourself included. but i do wish i could read about the changes either ahead of time or the day they’re released. i end up learning how things work on my own but i could just as easily have read about it and saved myself trouble wondering if i’m doing something wrong. hope things clear up soon.

    gonna go look for your answer to the photo challenge from awhile back. 🙂

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    1. He i.m. Good for you! No issues. I just cannot grasp why haven’t they make a post with a wrap up of all that was coming, highlighting the before and after features. It was a missed opportunity, also to see the benefits and improvements. Short sight combined with arrogance often results in mismanagement and miscommunication.

      The answer will be out tomorrow. You can still guess. So easy. Look at it again.
      Have a great weekend. 🙂

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      1. yeah i would like a thorough post that explains everything really clearly too. it would save me time wondering if what i’m looking for is even still there.

        i swung by again yesterday i’ll see if something comes to mind today!

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  11. I have stopped being confused by changes and updates made by free software…tomorrow most of them are not available. Like Vuvox or Masher.
    Or you have to pay for bad service.
    It is no job wonder
    changing the WP dashboard every day.

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  12. Oh thanks for posting this! I had no idea of changes… How did you find out?
    I saw the follow message this morning and wondered… But I knew it was a glitch of some sorts…
    Hmmm thanks for sharing this! I hope it’ll get worked out soon?

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    1. You were the first I noticed. You commented on my blog and then I saw under your name the tag FOLLOW…red lights started blinking! I had read on the new notification system’s comments thread that someone had complained about that. Bingo, me too!
      I don’t know if it is solved, but started following the people I noticed right back. But meanwhile I cannot know if it is still happening.
      That is why I posted about it as people like you, my dear friend, might have wondered why I had unsubscribed to your blog and got back in 3 days.
      Anyways, at least YOU ARE BACK! And it’s Friday! Let’s enjoy the weekend.
      🙂

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      1. Oh I see:)) I am glad to have seen your post yesterday since I was a bit confused:))) But let’s hope it is all worked out now? I will check on my side as well, but so far it is ok….
        I am glad to be back on your radar:) Stay tuned for more adventures in NYC:)
        Sending you much joy on this Friday!! Happy weekend indeed, my friend!!!!

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        1. I’m relieved you did. You were never out of my radar, my dear. Just on the follows. Today if I would have missed your NYC post, I would have gone to the mayor to look for you…
          Thanks Lia! You are a great friend.
          Cheers!

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    1. Carl, it pays off to still use old fashioned ways. It is safer. We cannot always trust that our data will be safe online. And that is why we need backups and backs ups for the back ups, and so on and so forth.

      I could see clearly that the ones whom write daily and who had been removed from my list, because they showed up commenting on my blog, and then I saw the tag FOLLOW> That is when I saw the issue, otherwise, I wouldn’t have noticed. It is embarrassing and upsetting as people may have been wondering why have I done that.

      Thanks for commenting.

      Have a lovely weekend.
      Lucile

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  14. Sorry Lucille…at least I’m still following you and you me…that should count for something you know! I hope the Yoga helped. Thanks @RachelM for helping her out.

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    1. Yes, they haven’t chosen you to be removed. You are special! When they saw your smile, they thought: wait a minute, not her!
      Oh yes, yoga and meditation are wonderful, and I practice it daily.
      Isn’t Rachel lovely and super professional? Kudos to her!
      Enjoy your weekend! 🙂

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      1. Wish you could take a picture of my smile but my son’s is to die for and my daughter’s. So i’ll smile often…smiling now.
        Glad you are much better. Hugs.
        Way to go Team Rachel!

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  15. Hi Lucile. I too woke up a few days ago to find the new notification system. I do not like it either. I think it is harder to read and I don’t see the archive they used to have. I used to click on message archive so I could see the whole list and then it told me if there were any missed. And the navigation between Reader to my Dashboard is unreal. I have to go all over to find my Dashboard. I liked the old Dashboard because it listed my drafts and scheduled posts and I could get into them. There is a saying ” If it aint broke don’t fix it.” I think it applies don’t you?

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  16. i have just been rolling with these changes. I put the wordpress changes into the leisure perspectives: my work from where I just retired is going through DRASTIC changes–whether they waited for me to leave or they made these sweeping changes–I’m talking people losing jobs, more retirements, etc. The small changes wordpress is making (albeit not receiving e-mails and unfollows is pretty drastic to me), well, they could be much worse. Being retired I have found that even some of this does not start my engine the way things used to when I was under so much stress.

    I really appreciate you writing about this and bringing is to WP attention. I hope other helpful hints are made available.

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