The Trouble With Tribbles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
My friends who do not blog…this post is designed as a pubic service announcement for all my blogging buddies. If you are not tied to WordPress through a blog of your own, just listen to me whine about inconvenience, and feel sorry for me! One of my stress relieving mechanisms is to clearly ask for what I need, so I’m asking you to be patient with me, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, and I really need to complain about it And I’m also asking WordPress just to STOP!
Presumably, most, if not all WordPress bloggers, have been inundated with hundreds of emails…some change/glitch/non-improvement sending us email messages of all the responses associated with blogs we follow and have also commented on. There was a time when I was impressed that some of you have as many as one hundred responses to a popular blog post…now I’m just annoyed!
What makes this even more frustrating is that although I have hundreds of unwanted emails, I haven’t received notifications of new posts from some of my favorite blogs! So if I haven’t commented on your blog lately, I may not have even known you posted. Cyberspace has gone haywire. Sun spots? The Super Moon? Someone asleep at the switch?
This was a tough weekend to have issues. My husband was out-of-town and I spent my weekend helping my parents with some things that also required me to stay closely connected to email. That is until my inbox blew up. Somewhere around this time I also broke my reading glasses. I took this as a sign that I had reached my limit. I couldn’t handle trying to keep up with my typical blog reading enjoyment. It was simply impossible.
But then, Chicago John at From the Bartolini Kitchens came to the rescue! John has posted what appears to at least be a temporary remedy to the problem. So if you have not figured it out on your own, go here and follow John’s clearly delineated directions. Be sure to say thank you! If you read some of the responses he’s received, you won’t feel so alone 🙂 Good thought, though, don’t respond unless you plan to follow his directions, because you’ll unleash a torrent of new emails in the process. Quite a conundrum!
So as I reclaim my volume control and move into a new week, I will also go back to see what I missed! I am quite sure many of you continued with your lives regardless of the overwhelming amount of email. I, on the other hand, was not as focused. But I did have a moment of humor when I recalled the now well-known Start Trek episode, “The Trouble with Tribbles.” I try to find the humor when I can!
Have a “tribble free” week, my friends.
Debra
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breathelighter 
Debra, I noticed this too! I keep emails for all the responses to the blogs that I have made comments, so what I have been doing is clicking on the unsubscribe link at the end of the email. And just noticed that we have to uncheck the “notify me of follow up comments” before posting a comment. Guess now we have to this manually
If I remember the click I’ll be fine, Marie! But it’s the remembering. LOL! I’ve been gone all day today and just got home a bit ago..but your book arrived today! Hooray! I have yet to spend any real time with it, but I will. My first glimpse, though, was to be very impressed. I’m so happy for you. Major accomplishment 🙂 Debra
Debra, I forgot to uncheck when commenting in another blog after making my post to you. LOL! Thank you for your support, it’s appreciated! 🙂
Meant to say “I keep getting emails”… 😉
Okay, when this started happening to me a couple of days ago, I reached out to support. Lo and behold, they had changed the comments notification system. Now when we leave a comment, before we hit submit, we must un-check the box below that says: Notify me of follow-up comments via email. If we forget, which I keep doing because we didn’t have to un-check that silly box in the past, we simply go to Manage subscriptions, select Comments, check all the comments we wish to unfollow, click the dialog box, select unfollow, then click apply and it deletes all of them Bingo! It is a bit of a hassle and until we get used to the idea, many of us will have to use the above approach. I figured everyone was hip to this already or I would have posted about it. I will add this not to my recent post. Cheers! 🙂
The Trouble with Tribbles was always one of my favorite episodes. thanks for reminding me of it, and perhaps I’ll take a break from my seriousness today and go watch it for awhile. The Trouble with the internet is that it all just keeps on changing — any spot you regularly visit will soon change somehow, no matter if it’s the email place, facebook, the blogging place or pinterest, twitter, youtube, etc. etc. It keeps our brains alive to keep up with the changes. I’m hearing the David Bowie song in my head even as we speak. “Ch ch ch changes. Time to face the strange…changes.” All good and peace to you today, dear. 🙂
It’s been dreadful hasn’t it and i don’t understand why it all happened without notification and warning. They surely could have left ‘good enough’ alone and if it needed changing, why not send out an email – we all know they have our email addresses. And they are such a nameless, faceless organisation – if you have grief, who do you call? I’ve had my worst few days of blogging ever – where is everyone? I don’t know if it’s related or not. Probably? And now when I do get a comment, the URL isn’t provided, just the email address so to go back and post a comment I have to google the name of the person’s blog. Time consuming to be sure. There has to be a better way – give me the old way! xx
Sure has been quite the hassle. I recall the first batch … Wow! Then I noticed the link on the email – which eventually got me to locate it on my dashboard.
See Dashboard” -> “Blogs I follow” -> “Comments”. Hang in there!
So funny! Silly me, but for at least three days I thought it was just something I had done! I couldn’t imagine that WordPress had changed something so insidious! Now that I’m “on to them” I think I’ll be fine! This was just one of those weekends when it couldn’t have been worse timing…life is like that sometimes! Debra
I’m SO glad you posted this – I thought it was just a glitch with my WP account! I haven’t read John’s solution, but I found that the problem lies in the fact that WP has, for some idiotic reason, put an automatic checkmark in the box below the comment box that reads “Notify me of follow-up comments via email”. All I have to do is remember to uncheck that box, and I don’t get any of the follow-up comments. It was a really stupid move for WP to check off that box in the first place, I can’t understand their reasoning. All they’re doing is discouraging us from commenting on each others posts so we don’t get the torrent of unwanted emails, and I really don’t want to do that!
But I haven’t figured out why I, too, am not getting notifications of some of my favorite blogs. It’s very frustrating!
I have to amend my previous comment/solution – IT STOPPED WORKING!! Unchecking the “Notify me” box had fixed the problem, but today those blogs were added to my Follow Comments list anyway!! What’s up with that, WP?! ::starting deep breathing relaxation exercises….::
Oh no!! This is crazy! Breathe deep, and maybe a little garlic around the neck! Debra
Interesting! So you’re also not getting all your email notifications? At first I questioned that maybe I wasn’t paying attention closely enough, but then I would think of someone and go on a hunt, and sure enough, I’d missed not just one, but maybe two! When the furor over the commenting dies down I’ll probably lodge another inquiry about that, too! The best thing, though, is to discover that I really feel like I’ve missed someone when I can’t find them 🙂 I guess we all have to be our own detectives! Debra
Too funny, Debra. Tribbles are as good a metaphor as any for the mess WP created. Thanks for the kindly mention. I must admit to being amazed at how many people are/were affected. I hope WP gets this straightened out. I want my old, empty mailbox back again.
I am really just shocked that WP has done this. Can’t they just reverse the motion? Debra
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Interestingly I read the torrent of complaints in the WP Support forums last night, Debra, as part of my research into whether to make the move. In the past I have tended to check the box until I receive your response, then click on the email button to link to the Manage Comments page to unsubscribe. This is basically the same as what I do to follow comments on Blogger.
At present the vast majority of blogs I follow are Blogger ones, so this WP change doesn’t impact too much on me, but if I move and start finding more WP blogs to follow, I may end up with a inbox that’s chock-a-block too, unless the powers-that-be change their minds and reverse this rather silly “improvement”.
Perpetua, I just can’t believe they won’t change it back…there is too much displeasure! I am surprised they haven’t done it already! I do think I’d “stay tuned” before I changed, though. It’s that annoying!! You do have a good handle on the technologies work, though, and seem to take the time to do our research. I need to be more alert, I think! Debra
OMG! I thought it was just me! I have been know to unintentionally hit a key that changes everything and I thought I did it. I did figure out how to unsubscribe but it is a hassle. I actually thought my act of unsubscribing ended up without any notifications of new posts so I started crusing my regulars and there they were! WP does so many things right but sometimes they forget that there are older users who are a bit flummoxed when it comes to these things!
I haven’t done the unsubscribe yet, Kate, because I was afraid I’d lose notifications, so you’re saying that isn’t so! That helps! I just can’t believe WP hasn’t already changed back to the way it was. Someone didn’t do their own homework to look at possible impact before they started this up! We will need to keep asking them to “fix it” I think! I’m glad to know how it is working for you now. I, too, thought it was just me! LOL! Debra
I am also afraid it will discourage people to comment.
Thanks for the public service announcement, Debra. I, too, thought it was something I’d inadvertently hit. I was inundated, like everyone else, with email comments on every blog I subscribe to or commented on. I was able to do a few clicks and all seems right with the world at the moment.
I haven’t had too many problems with wordpress, though there have been some and this one was a jim dandy, wasn’t it? (and just when I started to get my bounce back – tee hee).
I am so glad to see you’ve bounced back a bit, Penny! You were missed! I haven’t previously had any WP problems, either, but this was crazy! I hope they just fix it. I haven’t had much time to check all my settings to be sure, but I have at least slowed it down! Debra
I almost always clicked the box before (to see what others had to say about topics of interest), so I haven’t really noticed/minded the change.
When the comments on a particular post are no longer welcome in my In Box, I go to Dashboard -> Blogs I Follow -> Comments -> and unsubscribe.
Breathe. Relax. Repeat. 😀
I’m getting the pointers and trying to follow through, Nancy! The unsubscribe previously concerned me as I thought it meant I was unsubscribing from the blog itself. I need to spend an hour or two with good settings and cleaning up a mess! Debra
When you get to “Blog I Follow” . . . there is a SEPARATE page for the “Comments” ~ that’s the one you want to focus on to solve this problem.
If you unsubscribe from a blog on the “Blogs I Follow” page, you will be unsubscribed from that blog.
Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much Debra! I was going MAD! I am so glad to quiet the craziness that was my inbox! you’re the best!
Yes! Truly crazy! You’re so welcome! Once Chicago John explained the problem I knew it was only right to pass it along…we were all sinking under the weight of too heavy inboxes! I hope things are calmer now 🙂 Debra
OMG I had the same issue and luckily went and changed it when I started getting all the emails! What a pain!
Ah, some of you are just too smart! LOL! I was just irritated, and didn’t get proactive and fix it! I’m glad things have calmed down, though! It was just too much 🙂 Debra
Whoah! Great post!
Thank you, Sarah! This was a crazy weekend of email, wasn’t it? I hope things have calmed down for us all 🙂 Debra
It was crazy wasn’t it?! Here’s to a tribble free week for you too my friend! 🙂
Thank you, Kristy! I even had a friend call me to tell me how to make adjustment to my gmail and put extra filters in place…and I still couldn’t calm it down! It was tribbles for sure! 🙂 You have a good week, too! Debra
You can also take the follow up option off your own comments section. (in the discussion menu) Thereby saving any of your friends who forget to uncheck the box, as the box will no longer be available. or is this what john suggests – I must read his again.. c
Oh, please don’t do that Debra. Some of us really enjoy subscribing to the threads on posts that are generating active discussion.
Or that are sharing tips and techniques (like this one!).
Debra, I’ll add my voice to those not wanting the option to subscribe taken away completely. I always check the box, as I too enjoy the discussion and if it all gets too much I can easily unsubscribe. I’ve now added a short cut to the Comments page of “Manage Subscriptions” to my Google toolbar, so all it takes is one click and I can unsubscribe very easily.
You’re quite wise to just move slowly! At this point I haven’t really made many changes other than just clicking the box at the end of each post 🙂 Debra
I agree, Nancy. I haven’t done much at all…just trying to think it all through anyway. I obviously hadn’t paid a bit of attention to any of it until it went haywire. My cousin called me yesterday after reading my post and suggested I just set some filters on my gmail account, so now I have even more options. LOL! Debra
That’s what I need to do, Celi. Thank you. I did notice you didn’t have one! 🙂
Dear Debra, . . . so sorry to learn of your difficulties with your blog server. Last week, I also had troubles–with my att.net mail account and with gmail. It took four days to solve the problem. Four days with a visit to the “Geniuses” at the Apple Store and 3 1/2 hours on the phone with four tiers of AT&T technicians and a cost of $50 to go from Tier 2 to Tiers 3 and 4. But all is well now. The stress gave way to euphoria!
Debra, I read on Penny’s blog (lifeonthecutoff) about your dad being in the hospital. I’m so sorry to hear that and I hope that all is well now and that he is home with no after effects. Please let us know if you so choose.
Peace.
All the technology can be so overwhelming, can’t it, Dee? Who has the time for what you just described. I guess we do when we want our problem resolved. Thanks for your thoughts on dad…he is doing well. Hospitals are just no place to be when you’e sick! 🙂 Thank you, I so appreciate your kindness. Debra
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Marie has a great term for this… “loco subscriptions”….that’s what happened in my email inbox..loco loco…and now that I figured out what’s going on, I keep forgetting to uncheck that comments box…this somewhat older dog is having a hard time remembering newer tricks! There are lots of good and helpful ideas in this comments section, the reason I enjoy comments, but not too many at a time in the inbox!
I am with you on that! I saw Marie’s comment and she is so clever! Loco ws definitely an apt description! LOL! I remember to uncheck the little box if I’m rested and not on auto-pilot, but I noticed when I read and comment later in the evening my brain goes to default…and the old dog isn’t working as swiftly! What an odd experience it was for us all last weekend, though, don’t you think? The funniest thing to me is that most of us thought we were responsible. What does that say? Ha! I’m so glad you stoppe by…I hope you will again 🙂 Debra
I thought I was going to go mad! I’ve been away from my blog because of University work, and just got back into things this afternoon. I comment on a couple of blogs, and whoosh! Millions of emails! What are WordPress doing lately?
Oh no! This came on you all at once! I think I’ve already trained myself to make sure that the little box beneath the comment box is unchecked. I haven’t had any problems since! Just had to be retrained to do it…I have no idea why they’ve gone this route, though. Made for a lot of drama for most of us. We learned, as though we needed the reminder, how important our inboxes are 🙂 I hope you get it straightened out very soon. You’re too busy for that ! Debra
I am having trouble following others on wordpress too
It’s really frustrating, isn’t it? I think I haven’t yet had time to notify WordPress “help” but I am going to follow through soon. I first want to document any patterns I’m noticing. If I learn anything at all I will let you know! Debra
Hi Debra,
I just realised I’m getting more comment box emails. I’m that busy, I hadn’t noticed. Usually I want them but on a very popular blog, not always! Thanks for highlighting the problem.
No box to untick… mmmm