Some comments on the comments and a few other small things

A view from a plane a few minutes after takeoff from Scottsbluff.

A few months ago, the folks who read my writings here started commenting to me via email. While that’s fine and it’s great people are reading my work, I wondered what had shifted. Why was no one posting comments anymore?

Unfortunately, I have been a bit sidetracked with life and did not have the time to figure it out. Still, the thought nagged at me. Yesterday, I had the time to dig around and try to figure it out.

The first step is not to be logged into your own website because it looks different from what everyone else sees. Once I remembered that simple, yet easily overlooked rule, I saw that the gigantic “Leave a Reply” and the comment box were no longer there. I thought to myself, “what…the…fuck?” It’s been there for more than a decade, what happened?

Last year, I moved to a new hosting provider on a new server. I think that is when the toggles in my admin menu got switched. I have come to that conclusion because it is also about the same time when people started emailing me instead of posting replies.

So, I fixed it. I’ve tested it in the following browsers on my desktop: Firefox, Pale Moon, Librefox, Thorium, Chrome, and Edge. On my cellphone, I only tested it on Firefox.

Let me tell you why it’s important to me. First, I want people to comment and I try to place as few barriers to that as possible. If commenting is a pain in the butt, no one will do it.

Second, I plan on posting the diptychs, triptychs, hermit crab essays, and other types of creative nonfiction I wrote last fall. While I think they are finished (nothing really ever is, but I need to let them go out in the world), I would enjoy feedback on them. I also plan to post them to my Substack account. Maybe someone will pay to follow me there or maybe some strangers will enjoy my work. Who knows.

Third, I enjoy seeing comments and that people are enjoying what I write.

I may also post some chapters from my memoir. One of the hardest things to admit is I don’t have the ability to query for my memoir. It is too difficult and sets off too many triggers, which, in turn, ruins any plans I had for the day for other things. I’ll write a longer post on that later, but I basically implode when trying to do this. It sucks, but I haven’t figured out how to overcome it yet.

Back to the commenting, there are several plugins I could use, which would “get new users and have current users engage more,” but that’s not why this website exists. These plugins also often require you to get an API code, which is embedded into your site so people can post using their Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and about a dozen other social media sites. By doing this, I would be allowing tracking cookies on my website. I also no longer have any social media accounts, so I couldn’t do this even if I wanted to.

If I used a comment system, such as Disqus or Thrive, I would not really be in control of my comments anymore and it would be an extra layer of tracking as well as ads on my site. I don’t want that either.

This is why I chose to remain with the comment system that comes with WordPress. It’s already robust for my needs. I control the comments and there is no tracking on my website. All my comments are also manually approved. If I am not home, they won’t appear right away. I actually need to be at my desktop for a comment to be approved. For me, this adds another layer of security to my site.

I’ve known for nearly two decades doing things this way means fewer people follow me. So be it.

If you’d like to leave a comment on my posts, please feel free to do so. If you don’t, that’s cool, too. Send me an email, text, shout at the sky and let the wind take your voice and carry it to me, or don’t comment at all.

I wanted to make it easier for you all in case you do have something to say and wanted to share it. Hopefully, I’ve accomplished this task. Now go enjoy what’s left of your day and thanks for reading.