Here we go again… the wonderful Happiness Engineers have been playing. I thought it had gone very quiet… and while I realise that it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the great outdoors may prove more alluring than the keyboard, it stands to reason that the Southern half of the globe may therefore be seeking shelter from less clement weather in front of a nice, warm screen. Yet, apparently, no one in the world has been posting anything.
Even my meagre powers of deduction can see that statistically, this is a little unlikely.
WordPress themselves boast of the staggering 58 million new posts a month that are being published globally by bloggers using their platform. They make mention also of the 409 million people who read more than 21.4 billion pages each month. So for everyone to have taken a break from blogging at the same time would seem a tad bizarre, even for WordPress.
I checked the spam folder in my email. Nothing.
I checked my ‘followed sites’. It wouldn’t be the first time they had all disappeared in an update. No… they are all there.
I checked my subscription to a site that posts daily, without fail… I am still subscribed. And then I noticed the small print… the bit that informs me that I ‘have blocked all email notifications’.
Let’s get this straight, WordPress… you may have blocked all my email notifications. I didn’t. In fact, I specifically, deliberately and quite unequivocally unblocked them last week when I noticed you had blocked them for me, without asking, and without permission. Again.
Now, you may, given the hectic nature of my days at present and the long hours I am working, have simply thought it a kindness to protect both my inbox and my much-needed beauty sleep by unobtrusively blocking said notifications. What you singularly failed to take into consideration with your well-meaning gesture is the amount of time, sheer frustration and footling about in your innards I wasted trying to find out why the blogging world had gone silent.
Eventually locating the source of the problem, I gratefully unchecked the ‘block’ box, clicked ‘save’ and thought no more about it.
Until today.
After a long day in the garden, shed and piles of boxes, I thought it would be nice to sit down with a coffee and read a few posts before settling in for the evening’s work.
No posts.
I trundled back to the spam folders, checked the subscriptions again…and lo and behold, ‘you have blocked all email notifications’ is staring right back at me.
Dear WordPress, I realise that it is, given your viewing figures, indeed a privilege to be part of this community. It is even more of an honour to be read when there are so very many excellent blogs out there and it is that sense of community that builds friendships, gives encouragement and support and makes blogging such an important and enjoyable aspect of writing.
However… the foundations of such communities are only built on mutual support.
We trust you, as you have asked, to let us know when a friend or fellow blogger has posted. We tick your boxes, press your buttons and take responsibility for dealing with the contents of our inboxes when they overflow with notifications. Frankly, I’d rather have too many and be spoilt for choice than not have enough.
Please…if your perfectionist leanings mean that you are going to break things every time you engage in a surreptitious tweak… LEAVE IT ALONE!
Disclaimer
No Happiness Engineers were harmed during the writing of this blog post.
If you or your inbox have experienced similar problems.
1. Hover over ‘Reader’ top right to bring up menu and select ‘Manage’.
2. Click right pointing arrow > to access notification settings on any blog you follow.
3. This takes you to where you can choose the delivery type and frequency for each individual blog you follow. If your settings are as you left them, fine. If not, a message will appear saying ‘you have blocked all email notifications’. Follow the link they give to Unblock…and Save.
This will correct the problem and your inbox will once again echo to the patter of notifications.
Till they do it again.
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
Sometimes I wish they would give me a break…. sometimes I wake up in the morning and have over 1000 emails! Now, not all of them are WordPress (I keep working on blocking myself from unwanted email, but some of them seem to change their address enough every time in order to push them through. I have started sorting by name and just grabbing whole sections and tossing them without even a blink! That allows me to actually read the stuff I want to – like your posts! 😉
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I know that feeling, Leiah. I opened a new email account a while back for emails I actually want/need to read and find that works well. Mass deletes happen here too with the unwanted stuff…which makes it even more frustrating when the stuff I do want doesn’t arrive.
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I can imagine. I need to do the same thing, but for the stuff that can wait. My work email keeps getting stuffed with stuff and nonsense, as well as things I do want to read, but can wait. Did you ever get your mail?
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It is starting to trickle through, but the volume still doesn’t seem right at all.
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I had to stop using email reading for mine. It became too many emails. Now I have a if I see it, I read it management style. Not enough time to read everyone’s posts, sadly.
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No, you can’t read everyone’s every post every day. I get emails for those blogs who are always excellent, for the bloggers that have become friends, and a few that hold special interest. The rest I have to find via the Reader. But I do want to get those I have subscribed to!
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This is exactly how mine is set up Sue. I regularly peruse the reader but have email subs for the blogs I know I do not want to miss. It’s the only way to protect my sanity!!
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Yup, completely understand that. 🙂
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🙂
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Hmmm… do you think Ani is trying to get more personal time?!
😀
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She’s already adopted the space under my new desk as hiding place from the mower, ball depository ( so I can’t miss them) and foot-sitting station 🙂 She’s never far away.
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I just checked, just to be sure because it would not be the first (or last) time my setting have been reset on my behalf. I wish they would stop messing around. I’m still using the bypass to get the the old interface because there are things I still can’t do on the new one. If there were another game in town … but even then, I’m probably too burned out to start over. I’m more likely to throw in the towel. I’m impressed by you energy. I wish I had half as much!
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I still use the old interface too when I can…which is for most things. It isn’t just reactionary, I actually think it works better and does more of what I want it to do, not what they think I should want it to do.
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give ’em hell – and hell again
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It gets so frustrating when they twiddle the knobs willy nilly…
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Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie.
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I feel your frustration. I haven’t had it happen to me – yet. What I can’t do is get the LinkedIn share button to appear on the bottom of my posts. I have gone through the sequence of ticking and it tells me it’s there – but it isn’t!
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That one should be there as it is linked to your account. How weird.
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Oh how frustrating! I wish they would leave stuff alone at times as well as some of their ‘improvements’ are far from it! 🙂
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So far, I haven’t seen many ‘improvements’…just tinkering that serves no purpose.
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Apart from someone justifying their own existence, that is. 🙂
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You have a point there… 😉
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I couldn’t find the word reader anywhere 😦 Which page is it on? The one the readers see?
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Do you mean where you can read other people’s posts? Hover over ‘Reader’ top left and you can choose either your followed sites, recommended sites of the ‘discovery’ sites that replaced Freshly Pressed.
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Reblogged this on Don Massenzio's Blog.
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WP doesn’t seem to understand that ‘if it ain’t broke, why fix it?’ I don’t know if anyone noticed, but adding a link to a post has become twice as complicated as before. Apparently, WP is run by a large number of volunteers who, obviously, like tinkering.
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No they don’t. They may have some sort of bonus scheme in place for who can create the most unneccessary havoc…
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Very probable😋😋😋
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🙂
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
#Wordpress Woes?
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Thank you x
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Welcome Sue – I checked mine and everything is OK, but I’m still seeing a VAST reduction in the number of notifications! 😱
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Me too, even after sorting it. AND the orange notifications thingummy misses half the comments.
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I use only email notifications Sue, the RSS confuses my lonely little brain cell 😄
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I found the emails for comments a bit overwhelming. The little orange thing picks up a lot of them…but not as many as it should. The ‘Comments’ tab from the admin pages is just confusing.
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To cut down the number of email notifications, I cancelled any for ‘likes’, but still see them with the ‘orange thingy’ 🐵
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I tried that too, but with all the other emails I get, it was just getting silly. I try and spread the load now between emails and the orange thing.
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😃
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so frustrating! i think the wp engineers are like bad elves!
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Then Santa needs to fire them 😉
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Reblogged this because we all need to be reminded to do a little management from time to time. Thanks
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Thank you, Jean… we do, but I wish someone at WordPress would 😉
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Thank you for this advice Sue! I find the Happiness Engineers can be naughty. Perhaps they need a holiday to get their brains in gear! 😊
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A holiday sounds like a good idea. Mars would do nicely.. 😉
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Or even Venus?
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That would work too 😉
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Can I come too!
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Don’t see why not 😉
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Thank you
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Oh this would send me completely and finally round the bend.
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It wouldn’t take much in my case 😉
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That’s 2 of us–hurtling dizzily round the bend 🙂
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Fun though 😉
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Better than doing it alone 🙂
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Most things are 🙂
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🙂
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What a nuisance! I haven’t had that problem yet, but maybe next week! (knock on wood). Hope that’s the end of it for you!
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Still only a trickle compared to the usual, but at least some things are getting through. It is most annoying.
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Hi Sue,
Great article and so well-written I would have assumed nice weather too. I loved your tone, your voice. The most important part is you told people how to solve the problem. If I quote from it, I will link to you. Great to see you!
Janice
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Hi Janice,
the drop was too dramatic not to have a cause all its own.
Thank you.
Sue
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I hate big brother!
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Ditto 🙂
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Pingback: Have some of your favorites disappeared? – jean's writing
Thanks Jean 🙂
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Thanks for this. Just went through my followings and realised a few were mysteriously switched off. Ary odd.
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They seem to creep these things up on us without a word …
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Hi Sue, Thanks for visiting. I have not been able to keep up with you and many this summer. Life got in the way. Too much going on. Not a good soldier like you. It takes a huge toll on me. Hope to get back to reading and writing sometime. Take care, Ellen
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My pleasure, Ellen. I was glad to see your post in my inbox…and I’m not online much myself at present, fighting off a horrid virus. I’ll get there soon though!
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Hope you win the battle soon!! Viruses can linger so. Feel better. xx and a pat to Ani.
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Ani is looking after me well :0 x
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