Lately, I’ve been a bit bummed. Our stats show people have been reading (or at least visiting) the blog, but no one has been commenting. As the new guy around here I was starting to take it personally. How could my writing inspire absolutely no response? At least on my personal blog people tell me when they can’t stand my way of thinking.
Today, I think we found (at least part of) the problem. At some point, probably in the wake of one of our many spam attacks, BlogJunction was inadvertently configured to require readers to log-in before commenting. Anyone who even tried received a not-so-subtle go away message:
Now, maybe this wouldn’t be such a huge deal if we were using wordpress.com or blogger.com. Zillions of people have accounts for those. However, this setting required a BlogJunction-specific account, effectively reducing the number of potential comment makers to the high teens.
Yikes!
Worse yet, the log-in page provides no mechanism for creating an account and (some of you probably know this by now) your regular WebJunction account doesn’t work here. Who knows how many of you tried and failed to fill out that account box.
By urging you all to an impossible task (over and over again), I’ve committed a major user-experience faux pas. I apologize for that. I care deeply about building a dialog among WebJunction members and hope (at least moving forward), the blog can once again be an integral part of that.
So, at the risk of still not attracting any comments (at which point we can just chalk it up to the writing and forget my little confession about the technical boo-boo), I invite you back into the conversation. Have the BlogJunction comment settings ever kept you on the sidelines? We’d love to hear about it.
PS — comments will remain moderated to give us at least a fighting chance against the spammers, but I promise we’ll approve your comments quickly.
We found that the BlogJunction Connecticut settings were also set to require the log-in. Oops. And I thought our topics were just too boring for comment. Well, of course they might still be…. Maybe all the BlogJunctions should check their settings as well.
C’mon Tim, it was your writing. Don’t blame the technology.
I always look forward to and enjoy BlogJunction posts!! Thanks for making it easier for us to comment now.
Occam’s Razor! Why isn’t anyone commenting? (uh, because they can’t) Sweet simplicity
Gee whiz - there really is no registration required!
Revolutionary, isn’t it? Next thing you know we’ll be giving folks an email address and phone numbers!
I’m trying to find a quote to use for a City Council presentation about how libraries contribute to economic development. It seems I’ve read this any number of times that businesses and homebuyers look for “quality of life” as much as job income, etc. in making a decision to re-locate. If I’ve posted this in the wrong place, please forgive me, but it’s the only place I could find ot post. If it’s inappropriate, please let me know. I’m just seeking the collective wisdom of the huge audience of WebJunction! WebJunction rules!
Thanks for the comment, RoseAleta!
There are a couple places you could post something like this on WebJunction. First is in the Advocacy discussion area. Another spot where you might get a different spin is in the Friends/Trustees area. Some folks feel the “Friends” angle is highly effective when trying to lobby elected officials. I don’t know why for sure — maybe it’s because to those officials “Friends” are citizens and librarians are employees.
Anyone out there have a good quote they can pass on to RoseAleta?
RoseAleta,
You might want to check out the Library Use Value Calculator from the Maine State Library or some of the other Impact Measurement Resources. Be sure to share what you end up presenting to your city council…it will help someone else do the same!