// November 9th, 2009 // NaBloPoMo
I occasionally use my Vox blog as a place to put memes and other stuff I wouldn’t like to post on Wordpress (my blog is generally not treated as a MySpace bulletin). There’s not much difference between all the platforms where blogging is concerned – words are words no matter where they are – but the commenting systems and privacy options SUCK on both Vox and LJ.
You can’t comment on LJ and Vox blogs without having an account on there (or in the case of LJ, sometimes having an OpenID also suffices).
I don’t use my LJ account at all. I don’t need another blog to update, and I hate faffing about with trying to remember who my OpenID provider is. Also, my OpenID doesn’t link back to anything I want it to, which is annoying when you’re trying to get a friendship going via blog comments. “By the way, this is my blog URL, but this isn’t spam, honest! My OpenID doesn’t lead anywhere.”
Vox is apparently an OpenID in itself, but anyone who has a blog on Vox is restricted to only getting comments from other Vox members. So, in theory, I could comment on LJ blogs, but anybody who doesn’t have a Vox account cannot comment on my posts on there.
[I forget what happened when Six Apart owned both LJ and Vox, but I believe it was still strictly members-only; Vox wasn't even an OpenID then.]
Most of my friends are not Vox users. The community there is not for everyone. Ever since I started using it several years ago (beta testers FTW), not much has been done to it or changed. You still can’t make your own themes from scratch (you’re stuck scratching your head on the best size for your custom banner, and what colour of text will make your blog title show up), there’s no API, and it’s plagued with spam – even after a user is deleted for spamming, their comments are still around for people to delete manually.
Generally, it sucks.
And, like I said earlier, it excludes non-members. People who have blogs already don’t really want to sign up to another blogging service just so they can comment. If I didn’t have a Google account already, I probably wouldn’t even bother reading blogs hosted on Blogger.
I have my name, my email address, and my website URL. Surely that should be enough? I have difficulties commenting on others’ blogs as it is, and I’m not going to jump through hoops just so I can leave a comment.
I hate OpenID. I can’t put in my name or anything like that. Just my URL. I guess eventually I’ll get used to being known as “raisinganarmy”. Maybe.
Twitter: Rammi
says:
I need to get used to being known as Rammikins, twilight.lullaby or innocentsparkle.
For some reason, I can never remember what my OpenID is supposed to be, and alternate between several providers, depending on which one pops into my head first.
I really need to get around to setting this blog up as an OpenID one day. It has my name AND my website URL!
I’m so used to being known as “vonCookie” (or vC if you’re really lazy) that I almost don’t respond to my own name anymore, which is a shame because “vonCookie” smacks of Teh Cute, and I am certainly *not* that.
Love your blog, Rammikins.
I keep going to the OpenID site, looking around, glazing over, and leaving. I’m no good with numbers, but I think I’ve done this a billion times over the last few months. I’m simply not motivated enough to sign up for all sorts of other services to be able to comment.
I could set up OpenID for you here. Mine’s kathar.in. :p
(actually it’s supposed to be katharine.berry.sl, but either one is the same)
Twitter: Rammi
says:
Yay for Kathikins!
I made an attempt to set up one by sticking some stuff into the header, but I have a feeling that failed badly. >.>
Yeah, I post my blog on Blogger because of the ease of it, but I desperately want to move it off of there for the commenting reasons first and foremost.
I even own the domain to the site I WANT to set up as my new blog, but I haven’t decided on (read: I don’t know the first thing about) which hosting service to use.
At least Blogger lets people use Google accounts.
I have to admit that I would be completely lost without my livejournal… I’ve had it for 5 and a half years and I think it pretty much is my lifeline, its the thread that holds my sanity in place. I
I’ve met some of my best friends on there, met my girlfriend on there
Yeah, I had a Vox blog for awhile, but I hated that the only people who could comment were people who were Vox members or willing to sign up for an account. It ended up being pretty much my mother and some random stranger who ever commented.
(Visiting from the Comment for Comment group in NaBlo — Happy Tuesday!)