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Thursday, January 15, 2015

Metapost: If your comment doesn't post tell me

With the exception of spam-bots who want everyone to click questionable links about Kim Kardashian and such, no one's comments have been intentionally kept off the blog.  I have in the past had cause to remove the comments of an actual human being (a couple of cases where people accidental posted the same comment twice, and one religious fanatic who kept on copying and pasting the same hateful violent pseudo-rhetoric) but that hasn't come up in a long time.

Any recent comments that have not posted are because something is broken.  The bad news is that there's nothing I can do to fix it.  I use Blogger's native comment engine and that gives me no control over the actual workings.  I can't troubleshoot.  The settings are such that everyone should be able to comment, that means that there's an actual error, and that's something I can't address.

But tell me anyway.

So how do you tell me that you can't comment if you can't comment?  If you were posting through a certain account* I'd like it if you'd try to comment again , this time as anonymous, just to see if the problem is that it's blocking you in general, or if it is instead blocking your means of commenting.

If that doesn't work, then email me.  [cpw (at) maine (dot) rr (dot) com]

I want two things.  First and foremost I want your comments.  If you're making comments and they're disappearing, that's bad.

The second is that I want to know precisely what is wrong.  Is it screwing up for certain people?  Is it screwing up for certain means of commenting?  What?

After I post this I'll go through the Blogger error reporting process (once I can figure out what it is again, it's been a long time since I had to do it) so they can get to work on fixing it (I hope.)

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When I go to comment my options are to do it through accounts on:
Google
LiveJournal
WordPress
TypePad
AIM
or
OpenID

Additionally I have the option of Name+Url and Anonymous.

I already know one person's OpenID comments aren't getting through, it would be a good thing to know if that's true for everyone with OpenID or not.  It would also be good to know if other methods are failing to get through.  So, if people could comment on this post with various methods (no need for much in the way of content, just say, "Posting via TypePad account" or something) to see what works and what doesn't, that would be nice.

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*  For example, it was someone's comments via OpenID disappearing into the aether that let me know something was wrong in the first place.

21 comments:

  1. Attemping OpenID comment with my old LJ....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Testing.

    (Trying to do Open ID seems to either leave me as anonymous or, if logged in, to want to use my Google avatar. I haz a confused.)

    -depizan

    ReplyDelete
  3. And now my open ID attempt (which appeared anonymous when previewed and then posted - I thought - with my dreamwidth name) has vanished.

    ReplyDelete
  4. And now it's back. I don't even know. *throws up hands*

    ReplyDelete
  5. And because I was an idiot and did that before I'd had my morning caffeine... that was name/url, then google, then open id, then google twice more.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hmm, OK, let's see if OpenID works for me. (I usually comment with just the name because it's less trouble.)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Didn't have any problems leaving comments lately, but let's see...

    ---Redcrow

    ReplyDelete
  8. Okay, the system doesn't seem to have problems with anonymous comments. That's... not really a solace for people who can't post non-anonymously, but, um, at least some results?

    ---Redcrow

    ReplyDelete
  9. I first logged into Livejournal in another tab, and then posed using my LJ profile.

    ReplyDelete
  10. (tested Anonymous, didn't display, or after refresh.)
    Testing Name/URL
    turned off adBlock/block popups/3rd party cookies.
    didn't do anything at all hitting Publish. Just sat there.
    It's now (spontaneously) showing one of my Google (or youTube) accounts. Hmmm...
    OK, will hit Publish.
    danR

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So, after several stabs at Anonymous and Name/URL, turning off stuff seemed to provoke a spontaneous Google/youTube account (in place of the chosen 'Name/URL'), and a successful posting. This time I saw it was displaying a 'Publishing...' notice, so I was (not deceivingly) encouraged then.
      Now we're getting somewhere, if at the loss of a certain amount of security.

      danR (tubeist- dan)

      Delete
    2. Same, adblock on, block pop-ups on. (The browser is Safari; Mac Yosemite OS, incidentally)

      Delete
    3. Next, I'll tighten up the cookies...

      Delete
  11. So OK, for me it's the cookies. "Allow for current website only" blocks posting and removes my google/youTube account option. Loosening that and refreshing automatically brings up the google account.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Now I'll try that cookies configuration with 'Anonymous' option (If it's selectable with that configuration; perhaps it will keep defaulting to Google account).

      Delete
    2. So Anonymous works with the cookies relaxed, but I get a Captcha. That ticked, hit Publish it worked.
      No image-selection was demanded (I HATE that Captcha variant), so it means I'm a trusted (non-robotic) poster. Perhaps my Google account is silently approving me in the background, even though I'm posting by 'Anonymous'.
      -danR (tubeist- dan)

      Delete
    3. I hope my posting all these tests will be of some use to the owner, and other posters here, and elsewhere for commenters where these third party commenting 'facilitators' aren't exactly facilitating anything. It's been a help to me anyway, and thanks for your patience.

      Delete
    4. Blogspot is a Google thing, so like anything from an adware company it wants to set all the cookies.

      So I let it , and as soon as I close the page all those cookies get deleted.

      Delete