I Wish I Knew How To Quit You
Tired of being automatically subscribed to comments on this blog and others? Thanks to Nancy Hatch at Spirit Lights the Way, I now know how to quit getting endless comment notification e-mails from the umpteen million blogs upon which I comment every day.
If you hadn’t noticed, WordPress.com made a change that makes subscriptions to comments AUTOMATIC…..meaning on chatty blogs like this one, many of my regular commenters ARE PROBABLY BEING DRIVEN INSANE BY E-MAIL COMMENT REPLY NOTIFICATIONS. Please understand that we bloggers did NOT implement this asinine policy, which is surely designed to bury readers in e-mail and send them screaming for a spot in the loony bin and chanting the refrain, “I wish I knew how to quit you!!“
Nancy’s informative post references the backstory on this change and provides instructions on how to opt out of comment reply notifications on a global level. Check out her post Disabling The Default Comment Setting for all the details. Follow this link to opt out of all default comment notifications by unchecking the box in the E-Mail Delivery Settings section. This strategy will also work for those of you who use your Gravatar or WordPress.com identities to comment, even though you may not actually blog.
If you’re like me, you are a busy person who already gets buried by e-mail. You likely do not have time to get an e-mail every single solitary time someone posts a comment or a reply on a blog. You want to decide on a case-by-case basis when you will remain on top of the conversation by subscribing to comments on individual posts. Changing the global default comment setting will return control of your inbox to you.
If you have questions, post them here in a comment today. We can work together to try to get everyone’s settings where they want them.
Thanks, Andra. I am really only interested in the comments of the beautiful women whose blogs I follow.
Har. There are many beautiful women who comment here.
You want to leave me?! I feel so unwanted. And abused. Sniff….
No, you can stay… good thing I got a noticed in my email of this comment… I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings or at least not know about it.
Given what you told me yesterday about your ‘administrative privileges,’ I don’t even want to know how you interact with this blog behind the scenes, Carnell.
I noticed the change – made me giggle because I had been trying to get the comments into my email but everytime I attempted that I had to “subscribe” and if I didn’t do it fast enough I missed comments (yes, I know, I just went back to the blog and read the comments, but hey…). Anyway, it’s a lot easier for me now.
Thank you Andra and MTM for your lovely responses to my comment yesterday. Very sweet.
I tend to just return to blogs and read the comments. The e-mail notifications were, for me, so disjointed that I could never figure out what was really going on. It is easier to read it on the screen in the context of the blog, at least for me.
Thanks, Andra. Let’s see if I can get it to work.
Penny, I hope you were successful.
Thank you. Thank you.
THANKYOU!!!
Because I’m clearly too lazy to look this up myself, and too forgetful to uncheck every time I comment.
I get your lovely replies from the wee box on the upper right, which suits me just fine
Exactly, Cameron. I don’t make a comment to start a big dialog, which apparently WordPress thinks we all want to do. If someone replies, I can catch it in the wee box.
The notification box in the upper right is a dramatic improvement, isn’t it? I LOVE it. This other change, though……….who’s telling them to do these things???
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. I didn’t realize this was happening to others. I thought it was a little gift left behind by the nasty Trojan I picked up. CHRIST.
I am sure I need to just stop resisting the requirement to subscribe to WP.com’s blog. They announce this crap there, but I never know about it, because it’s a little too much like reading instructions for me………thank God for Nancy sharing it.
Jes, when you find a nasty Trojan, DON’T TOUCH IT.
MTM and I are both screeching with laughter over here………
OMG . . . you are a regular fire quacker, Roxanne. That’s the funniest comment I’ve read this week!
This is a report to tell everyone that the fix works.
It has worked for me, too.
I noticed and was wondering about that! Thanks for the link.
You’re welcome, Annabelle.
Thank you for sharing this! Good God, that has been a pain in the *ss!
Hugs,
Kathy
Kathy, I tore my hair for several days trying to figure out what was happening. Nancy’s post was such a relief for me. I am glad it has helped others reclaim their inboxes, too.
WHEW! I HAD noticed, and I am relieved to know the fix.
I still see the box below checked automatically, but I’ll refresh the page to see if it goes away.
The Good Luck Duck
Hmm. Still there, which means it will be there with every WP blog I go to?
Confused Duck
Oh wait, I wasn’t following directions well. I’ll try again.
Don’t you wish you weren’t following this ramble by default?
Roxanne, I was……
. I get all of my commenter’s remarks in my inbox. It was a very entertaining read right after a nerve-wracking presentation I had to give to a client this afternoon. So, thank you.
Drove me nuts for a while, Andra! Must follow Nancy’s instructions. Thank you for networking like this to get everyone’s e mails going smoothly
For all the millions of folks who are subscribed to WP.com’s blog, I don’t know many people who actually READ it……..
At least, you can say you banished THIS headache, Kate.
You did your good deed for the day. Most of the blogs I follow are on wordpress.com.
Yeah, and I know with your current schedule, you have TONS of free time to read all these e-mails, don’t you??
I do like how wordpress.com shows me when someone has replied to my comment though. But I don’t need an email, too!
Shiny Happy People Smiling . . .
Thanks for spreading the good news, Andra.
It’s such a relief to be back in the driver’s seat instead of having the Auto Pilot sign me up for comment threads by default.
Nancy, seriously. If you lived anywhere near me, I would’ve come over and kissed you yesterday. I debated about reblogging versus writing a story and opted to write a story. Reblogged stuff often does get read as much as original content. It looks like you got a number of click-throughs today, and that makes me very happy. I hope some new readers found you.
Judging from the comments . . . you and I would have been SMOTHERED with hugs and kisses for sharing the good news.
I’m glad you didn’t reblog. Reblogged stuff is not read as carefully or as quickly as original posts with links. I wanted to GET THE WORD out to as many blogging friends (and friends of friends) as fast as possible.
On SLTW today:
#1 click “in” was from “search engines”
#2 was from “Andra Watkins
And . . . the #1 click “out” . . . to the Global Settings to disable the defalut.
BTW: IF (still a big IF) I drive to NJ this summer, I may swing by Charleston for that hug!
Oh, my, gosh!!! Thank you Nancy, thank you Andra!!
I was about to lose it on WP. I’ve been searching for this setting for days. Having to uncheck every single box after commenting was ridiculous.
I don’t rant, but this one got me going. What were they thinking??
Thank you, and thank you!
thankfully, since I don’t subscribe to emails when bloggers update, I have not been part of this deluge. I feared I would if I left checked, but not yet knock.on.keyboard. ~