Who fed the Mogwai?

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Sue Vincent

You know the story… warm, fuzzy creature, gets wet and fed after midnight then turns into a destructive Gremlin? I’m fairly certain that WordPress must employ Mogwai and forget the bathing and feeding routine occasionally…

And every so often, I publicly tear my hair out over what they get up to.

This time, I don’t even know what they are playing at, but I know they must be Up To Stuff again.

It started the other day. The notifications drop down, up there on the top right? It is not as good as the old one…misses many comments… but it sort of works. Mostly. Until I clicked and it opened complex chat windows with HUGE avatar pics instead of the normal notifications.

It eventually went back to normal and I breathed a tentative sigh of relief.

Then the stats dropped dramatically… never a good sign. It didn’t seem to correlate with the traffic I can see… the likes, shares and comments. They all seemed about normal. But not the stats, which took a huge hit.

Okay, maybe people were just out enjoying the sun… maybe they had left ‘online’ to fend for itself for a while. I approve of that… and the stats themselves don’t really matter. I only worry when they go missing with no reason.It is normally a portent of things to come…

Same as I worry when my subscriptions to blogs get unsubscribed for no reason. I normally get a large batch of notifications in my email inbox every day, as well as instant ones throughout the day. Until they went missing.

After loooong, involved negotiations with the support staff a while back, it had been borne in upon me that they had no idea why it was happening. Meanwhile, I had worked out for myself how to reinstate the things when they disappeared wholesale. I can resolve it in a few clicks…no problem. I can live with that.

This time, however, it was more insidious. Most of the blogs I follow are still down for notifications. Only some have been unsubscribed…and if I had not wanted to check on a dear friend who also blogs, I probably would not even have known….

So now I face the task of going through all the blogs I follow, individually, and making sure they are all switched on for the right level of notifications.

And while I am about it, I daily release the regular readers who have been sent to spam….

It wasn’t all bad, though.

I noticed with a certain amount of gobsmackedness that my followers had crept well over the 14,000 mark the other day. I was, you might say, quite chuffed…

…except that a couple of days later, at one fell swoop, I lost over 300 of them.

Now, the whole followers count fails to reflect the true readers of a blog and the numbers alone are of no importance, especially when compared to the people you meet through writing and reading.

We all know that there are followers and followers…the ones who actually do come and read stuff, and the ones who only click in the hope of a follow back and never, ever visit a blog. There are many Twitter followers only after numbers and, if you don’t follow them back and promote their products (it is usually about products), and sometimes even if you do, you will be rapidly unfollowed.

We get that.

It is perfectly normal therefore to lose a handful of followers every day… and you usually gain a handful too. Fine. I’m down with that.

But three hundred in the space of a minute? Without even posting anything controversial?

I don’t think so…

I have to wonder if they have, or are planning to unlink some social media sites from the followers count. I can think of no other explanation…

…unless someone left the Mogwai out in the rain then fed them after midnight…

On a personal note, it was during all this kerfuffle, when I was tearing my hair out over the problems, that my computer, with a full complement of sparks, smoke and noise… exploded.

Now, I would never dream of  suggesting WordPress may have overwhelmed its limited capacity for stress, but it does make me wonder if Gremlins got to it…

The practical advice here is simple:

Check your spam folders daily for genuine comments.

Check you are still getting notifications for the blogs you follow.

Brace yourself, WordPress are playing again….

…and never let your Mogwai get wet.

About Sue Vincent

Sue Vincent was a Yorkshire born writer, esoteric teacher and a Director of The Silent Eye. She was immersed in the Mysteries all her life. Sue maintained a popular blog and is co-author of The Mystical Hexagram with Dr G.M.Vasey. Sue lived in Buckinghamshire, having been stranded there due to an accident with a blindfold, a pin and a map. She had a lasting love-affair with the landscape of Albion, the hidden country of the heart. Sue  passed into spirit at the end of March 2021.
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39 Responses to Who fed the Mogwai?

  1. Jessica Bakkers says:
    July 9, 2017 at 09:12

    There’s always gremlins Afoot when it comes to technology 😊

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    Reply
  3. Ritu says:
    July 9, 2017 at 09:22

    Gremlins!! Aargh!!!

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    Reply
  4. jenanita01 says:
    July 9, 2017 at 09:24

    I cannot cope anymore…let the Devil take the hindmost, whatever THAT means!

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    Reply

  5. Pingback: One Lovely Blog Award – A Writer's Beginning

  7. willowdot21 says:
    July 9, 2017 at 11:13

    I hate having problems with WordPress, especially when they send in the “Happiness Monkeys” I have banned all Mogwai from within fifty miles of my laptop or phone…. I know it’s no protection and if they decide to attack me I am as defenseless as you or the next blogger. I do hope you get sorted soon we don’t want to loose contact with you. 💜

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  8. robbiesinspiration says:
    July 9, 2017 at 11:48

    Very frustrating, Sue. One can just about cope with life when everything is going normally but when something goes wrong it definitely pushes us over the limit.

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  9. trentpmcd says:
    July 9, 2017 at 12:48

    Typically when odd things happen I find that a few days later WP puts out a major “improvement”. Friday was a very odd day for me stats-wise, and I am pretty sure it has to do with something WP is up to.

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    • Sue Vincent says:
      July 9, 2017 at 12:50

      That is exactly what is worrying me, Trent. Every other time this sort of sequence has occurred, we’ve ended up screaming about the so-called improvements…and they must be about due for something….

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  10. Mary Smith says:
    July 9, 2017 at 13:49

    Reading this has made me realise I’ve had fewer notifications of new posts over the last few days. I’m off to check. I really wish WP wouldn’t try to improve things. Has there ever been an improvement which was better than what we had before?

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  11. noelleg44 says:
    July 9, 2017 at 14:43

    Still here, but I’ve also noticed some of my favorite fellow bloggers have been dropped for unknown reasons. I’ve got to make a list to keep track of everyone!

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    • Sue Vincent says:
      July 9, 2017 at 16:08

      They should all be in your followed blogs lists…with luck… though I’ve seen them disappear completely before. It seems more frequently as if the notifications are just reset

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  12. The Story Reading Ape says:
    July 9, 2017 at 15:09

    Any time I’ve noticed a drop in followers, I’ve checked my Publicize media are all up to date – some of them, like LinkedIn, need to be refreshed every so often to confirm your blog is still live, Sue 😎
    Mind you, WP on ‘Enhancement’ mode is another reason for strange happenings 😳🙄😱

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  13. pensitivity101 says:
    July 9, 2017 at 17:39

    My figures have been bouncing again and some of those I follow have been dropped.
    My followers have increased significantly over the past month or so, but if I gain three in a day, next I’ve lost two. Hubby ‘follows’ me but my posts don’t hit his reaer, and if he finds me and likes, it doesn’t register. Funny things are happening again. We are not alone!!!!

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    • Sue Vincent says:
      July 9, 2017 at 17:43

      I only use the Reader to follow those I read on a more casual basis. I prefer emails… I don’t have to read them all 🙂

      I normally gain and lose a few followers a day, but three hundred in minutes is a bit unusual…

      I dread to think what they are up to now…

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  14. Penny Lane Writes says:
    July 11, 2017 at 17:18

    Thank you for the info! I wondered sometimes what was happening. I JUST discovered my Spam comments. I didn’t even know they existed before!

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  15. patriciaruthsusan says:
    July 12, 2017 at 13:08

    Great advice, Sue. 😀 — Suzanne

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