Okay, this post is going to start with a question: why is my WordPress Reader filled with just 7 bloggers?
I know this can’t be some kind of weird timezone difference because Saturday morning here is still Friday in the Northern hemisphere. So how is it possible that out of all the people I follow, only 7 are active?
Fortified by a large mug of caffeine, I trolled through my Reader and came up with the following numbers:
Dream Big: 2
RGS: 26
The Mighty Mumford: 5
Venturebeat: 2
Wildsound: 2
Annas Art: 1
Christian Mihai: 1
I didn’t get to the absolute bottom of the list because…I lost interest, but the numbers are still significant in a ‘what the…?’ kind of way.
I do love tech related stuff, and there was a time when I’d look forward to seeing Venturebeat posts in my Reader. Now I rarely see them at all. Instead, I seem to have an overwhelming number of RGS posts. The RGS posts are mostly tech related too, but unlike the Venturebeat articles, RGS merely reblogs from other sites. So if this is an either or situation I’d rather have Venturebeat. Please.
But this odd imbalance in my Reader goes way beyond which brand of tech articles I get to see, it screams a deeper question – ‘Where are all my other blogger friends, and who gets to choose what I see in my Reader?’
I know my invisible blogger friends are posting because I get notifications about their posts via email, but I almost never see their posts in the Reader. Why not? Has the purpose of the Reader changed whilst I had my back turned? Isn’t it meant to be about all the bloggers I follow?
Math is not my strong suit, but this odd pattern in my Reader has been growing for some time, and it’s really starting to annoy the fecal matter out of me. Why can’t my Reader truly represent all the blogs I follow?
If anyone has an answer that doesn’t involved PhD level arithmetic, I’d really love to know.
Disgruntled.
Meeks
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NANO 2012
October 11th, 2015 at 7:52 am
I think you’re onto something… Reader is also behaving oddly when you click through on some links… fading out. And I’ve had a blog post from Practicing Resurrection go astray… got notification via email but not on Reader, and linking to PR’s site via previous post on Reader, the new post doesn’t appear either… Gremlins indeed.
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October 11th, 2015 at 9:30 am
Phew – thanks for that EllaD. I was starting to think it was all in my head.
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October 10th, 2015 at 11:07 pm
Strange and disconcerting.
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October 11th, 2015 at 12:14 am
Yup. Can’t work it out.
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October 10th, 2015 at 2:18 pm
Well WP does like to enjoy cutting people out of the Reader that I try to follow, but of late it hasn’t been doing that, hence, I saw your post 🙂 I don’t use email at all. I hate clogging up my email. You must have got EllaDee’s latest post, or did that go to your email? What on earth is RGS?
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October 11th, 2015 at 12:16 am
Yes, EllaDee’s came via email. Unfortunately I can’t get email notifications of everyone because my inbox would drown. Or I would. 😦
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October 11th, 2015 at 12:49 am
So would I. That’s why I use reader. It’s good enough.
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October 11th, 2015 at 9:33 am
That was my theory, but for me, at least, it isn’t working that way. I think I’m just going to have to go through the ‘Manage’ list to see what people are up to. 😦
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October 10th, 2015 at 1:29 pm
I saw David commented re similar in his last blog post… I follow via a hodgepodge of email notifications and reader. I checked my Reader and all are present and accounted for… I know it might sound predictable but have you tried logging out of WordPress and back in, maybe to reset it. Otherwise contact the WordPress engineers, they might be able to offer suggestions.
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October 10th, 2015 at 2:12 pm
Meh, contacting engineers? I’ll have to brush up on my Esperanto first. 😦
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October 10th, 2015 at 1:24 pm
Tweakers. That has to be it. The happiness engineers are messing with you.
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October 10th, 2015 at 2:11 pm
lol – I must have got on the wrong side of somebody then!
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October 10th, 2015 at 10:36 am
Hmm, my reader shows all the posts by bloggers I follow. (Well, occasionally one isn’t there, but usually they are.) Do you have your reader clicked on a list or a topic instead of the overall general list? Sounds odd for sure.
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October 10th, 2015 at 10:39 am
Oh…I have no idea. I can’t remember filtering the Reader in any way. Come to think of it I’m not even sure I know how to do that. But I will go look right now!
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October 10th, 2015 at 11:09 am
Just checked and no, can’t see any filters set up. Under ‘Manage’ I have some bloggers set for various types of notifications, but even the ones set for ‘Instant’ email notification don’t seem to appear in my Reader. Or perhaps they come and go so fast I don’t notice them?
But even if that were the case, I just checked Venturebeat and they have published at least 8 posts today – why did WP show me only 2?
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October 10th, 2015 at 11:45 am
Strange. And frustrating too, I’m sure!
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October 10th, 2015 at 2:10 pm
Just a tad. 😉
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