Account Owners Can't Maintain Their Reading Lists

We've been seeing suggestions, for years, that the Reading List is unreliable.

Many Blogger account owners have reported the mysterious disappearing Reading List. A few have reported a second problem - inability to remove blogs from the Reading List.

Few account owners connect the two problems. The two problems may each affect different account owners. Of the few affected by both problems, not many are likely to see them as having a common cause.

Aggressive cookie / script filters contribute to both problems with the Reading List.

Inability to identify the account owner affects using and maintaining the list.

Both the empty Reading List, and inability to remove Reading List entries, may result from inability to properly identify the account owner. Since the Reading List is unique to each account owner, lack of identification, caused by cookie / script filters, can lead to either problem.

Most account owners can recognise a problem with displaying the Reading List. This problem - even with the cause unknown - is obvious. It's not hard to recognise an empty Reading List.

What's not so obvious, though, is that an account owner, if not properly identified, can't successfully accomplish removal of a blog from a Reading List. Only the owner of the account can request removal of a Reading List entry for that account.

The dashboard Reading List - and the Followers gadget - complement each other.

The Reading List complements the Followers badge. The Followers badge, found on many Blogger blogs, lists everybody who Follows the host blog.

The Reading List, found on many Blogger account owners dashboards, list the blogs which an account owner is Following. In order to remove a given blog from the Reading List, the account owner must stop Following that blog.

You can use either a dashboard script, or a Followers GUI, to un Follow a blog.

The process for Un Following a blog starts from a link on the Followers badge, or in the Reading List. Both the link in the Followers badge, and in the Reading List, lead to scripts that are subject to cookie and script filtering.

In order for you to Un Follow a blog, using the Followers gadget on the blog, you have to identify yourself using the correct Blogger / Google account. When you remove a blog from your Reading List, you are identified by your login cookie - if the cookie is present and is readable - and if the script is allowed to run.

When the un Following is actually done will affect success of the process.

Some scripts run while the account owner is present - and those scripts may return an error message, while the account owner is watching, indicating a problem. Other scripts may run while the account owner is not present. Those scripts, when not successful because of cookie or script filters, can't display an error message, because the account owner is not watching.

In the latter case, the account owner starts the process of deleting a blog from the Reading List - and later finds that the blog was not actually deleted. And then wonders why the blog is still listed.

And this is why.

---

Account Owners Can't Remove Blogs From Their Reading Lists
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2015/01/account-owners-cant-remove-blogs-from.html
Account Owners Can't Maintain Their Reading Lists
http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2015/01/account-owners-cant-maintain-their.html

Confusion About GMail Vs Non GMail Based Email

Long ago, when diagnosing a problem thought to involve email, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue, we would ask a very simple question

Is your Blogger account based on a GMail - or non GMail - email address?

And we would carefully add

Please, do not state your email address, here!

The latter request was to prevent theft of peoples Blogger accounts.

Now, in many cases, we must qualify the question of email address. We also ask.

Is your email provided by your employer, ISP, or school network?

and even

Do you read your email in a browser window, or a local email client?

Modern email distribution is not always homogeneous.

Both questions reflect the complex nature of email delivery, that is a part of Internet reality.

Few people can accurately diagnose their problems, based only on the simple question

Is your Blogger account based on a GMail - or non GMail - email address?

The lines between GMail, and non GMail email accounts - and addresses - are not absolute, any more.

Both GMail and non GMail addresses may be used in a local network.

GMail, and non GMail addresses, alike, may use GMail browser based email, in delivery and display. And GMail accounts may use non GMail email systems, for addressing, delivery, and / or display.

These variations can lead to interesting scenarios such as mysterious loss of blog membership invitations, and of email subscriptions. And options for Blogger account recovery become more complicated - with password synchronisation issues, between the email account and the Blogger account.

Thanks to Google Apps based domains, and the ability to provide non GMail addresses which use GMail, anybody can use a non GMail address with GMail based delivery and display. Some people have even setup Blogger accounts, based on Google Apps based email addresses (again, appearing to be non GMail based) - though this is not recommended.

Managed domains may use GMail delivery, and a non GMail email address.

Corporate email systems, ISP provided email, and schools (of all grades, elementary through university) may use Google Apps based email. Many large local network based email systems have been "upgraded" to use cloud based email, such as GMail, for delivery and display. The results are not always beneficial.

And, thanks to "push / pull" GMail options, where an individual GMail account can be configured by a knowlegeable account owner, even individual account owners can use a GMail address, with non GMail delivery and display - or can use GMail display, for non GMail based address / delivery.

With computer owners who do not care or know about what email system they use, with where the individual messages may be filed, and with security filters that update without notice, loss of email messages is common.

Bounced email does not get dropped into the "Bulk" / "Spam" folder.

Note that "bounced" email may not be treated as spam. Some "bounced" email never gets as far as a spam filter - it may simply be rejected. You will look, in vain, in the "Bulk", "Inbox", and "Spam" folders.

This will interfere with account recovery - if you can't find the password reset email, how do you recover control of the account?

The simple question

Is your Blogger account based on a GMail - or non GMail - email address?

just is not accurate, when diagnosing all Blogger problems.

Tweak The Post Template, Only When Necessary

Occasionally, we see the query, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?

How do I change these captions? / Add this feature? / Remove specific components of this feature?

Conversely, we see in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken

Why does this new Blogger feature not work in my blog?

These questions, in many cases, may be related. We can see the connection, when we look closer at how the changes are applied.

Many changes to our blogs, that are part of the comments / posts / post header / footer, are made in the post template.

The post template is an unobtrusive section in the blog template, that lets us change the blog template as we wish - while allowing Blogger to update the comments and posts code, as they add new features, or update existing features.

Blogger lets us change the post template, using "Configure Blog Posts".

Blogger provides the "Configure Blog Posts" wizard - and lets us change specific features in the post template.

The options in "Configure Blog Posts" do not satisfy everybody - and here is where many problems start. Some blog owners want features or selections that are not provided by "Configure Blog Posts" - but are part of the post template.

Some features have to be installed as post template tweaks.

To install these features, the blog owner uses the Template Editor, and tweaks the "Blog1" template widget.

Once the post template is tweaked, by the blog owner, the blog has a non standard post template. When Blogger applies their next post template update, to install or update a Blogger supplied feature, against a blog with a non standard post template, they have 3 options.

1. Overlay the entire post template, with their updated post template. The blog owner sees all tweaks previously made, suddenly vanish. Some of the owner applied features simply disappear, others stop working - with no explanation or warning.
2. Overlay specific portions of the post template, with their updated post template changes. The blog owner sees some tweaks previously made, suddenly vanish. Some of the owner applied features simply disappear, others stop working - with no explanation or warning.
3. Not install the updated post template. The new Blogger feature doesn't work - and the blog owner is left complaining about broken Blogger updates, while other blog owners are enjoying the new feature.

When Blogger upgrades the post template, what happens to your tweaks?

If Blogger updates the post template, and some owner applied features disappear or stop working, the blog owner can simply install the necessary tweaks, again. Having kept the notes, or code snippets, from the original install, many blog owners simply install everything again.

Unfortunately, if the Blogger post template changes were applied in the same post template section as the owner applied tweaks, the owner retained notes or code snippets may be out of date - and installing them again may break one or more Blogger supplied features.

Some post template tweaks can have effects outside the post template.

Some owner applied changes, if installed improperly, can affect other sections of the template, in general - and cause mysteries such as problems updating accessory gadgets, and problems using the Template Designer.

The end result is that owner installed post template tweaks must be made, selectively - and any Blogger changes, publicised or non publicised, may necessitate re install of any owner applied tweaks. Owner applied tweaks must be re installed, character by character - and frequently with the readers complaining about an unexpected change or broken blog.

The post template is actually another example of "well enough", for many blog owners.

---

Tweak The Post Template, When Necessary - And Only, When Necessary

Your Blogger Account: Privacy Vs Account Recovery

Occasionally, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, we see questions about publishing a blog, anonymously.

How do I publish a blog, without having my identity revealed?

One of the best techniques for keeping yourself anonymous is to use different Blogger / Google accounts, for different blogs. But, there's a downside to that technique.

I can't regain access to my blog, because I don't remember the email address!

Sometimes, it's a bit more embarrassing.

I can't regain access to my blog, because I don't remember the GMail address!

And here, we see blog owners who took the need for secrecy a bit far.

Regardless of whether a Blogger account is based on a GMail, or a non GMail address, backup access - should one forget the account name or password - uses the email address.

You can't maintain anonymity, if you ever have to reveal your email address.

If you want to publish your blog without revealing your identity, that's fine - Blogger permits this - and even supports your need. In order to support this need, though, you have to allow them to refuse to disclose any personal details.

Neither the account name - or email address, should you forget either, can be disclosed, without revealing your identity.

If you maintain email account access, you can always recover Blogger access.

One of the reasons for using one's email address (Gmail, or non GMail) as your Blogger account name is so you won't forget the account name. If you forget your email address, you'll have worse problems than just inability to publish your Blogger blog.

You need your Blogger account based on an active email address.

Unfortunately, if you choose to use one "email address" to read and send your email, and a second "email address" (whether bogus, or genuine) to publish a Blogger blog, you are not as likely to remember your Blogger account name. That's a decision that you have to make. If you want to publish your blog anonymously, don't expect Blogger to gratuitously break your anonymity, later.

If you forget an identity detail, you must break anonymity.

In this case, you're going to have to hope that you can supply your email account hosts - either GMail, or non GMail - with enough personal details (anonymity not possible, now) so they can restore your email account, and / or recover access to your Inbox - and you can open the Blogger account recovery message, and regain access to your Blogger account.

If you'e forgotten the backup email address of the active account, again, don't expect Blogger to tell you what you need to remember. Now, you'll have do do some research, and hope that you can find the forgotten email address mentioned in email, in one of your remembered accounts - or maybe in a friends email account.

You'll have problem with a deleted / locked account or blog, without email.

This scenario will be intensified, when a blog is deleted for any of several different reasons - possibly including accused DMCA Violation.

There is one valid reason to have multiple email addresses.

There is one reason to maintain two (or more) email addresses. If you have a small business, or you communicate through your blog using email, don't use your Blogger account email for casual contact with the public.

Here, using two (or more) email addresses makes sense - but maintain Blogger account names and email addresses, constantly.

Use Google Two Step Verification, for extra protection.

At any rate, if you're able to recover access, this time, consider using Two Step Verification, for future protection. Especially if you travel.

Recovering Your Account Information

Blogger promises us that our blogs will be ours, forever, and that we are free to publish our blogs in privacy, if we so desire.

They do this by protecting our Blogger accounts behind Two Factor Authentication. Both the name of our Blogger account, and the password used, are our secret to keep.

Since both the account name and the password are secrets, you can't just write to Blogger Support one day and say

I forgot my account name - can you tell me what it is?

When you setup a Blogger account, you provide an email address, which will be used for recovering forgotten account names and passwords.

If you forget the account name, or need to reset the password, you can use the Forgot your username or password? wizard.

"Forgot?" has two options, which you use depending upon what you know.

The "Forgot?" wizard gives you two options, and sends a recovery email message accordingly.

• Recover access to an account. Provide the account name (the email address that you provided when opening the Blogger account), and the email goes to to the primary email address for that account.
• Recover access to the blog. Provide the URL of the blog in question, and the email goes to the owning account(s) for that blog.

There are several interesting details, with the "Forgot?" wizard.

• The wizard works only for BlogSpot URLs. If the blog is published to a non BlogSpot URL (as a custom domain), you will need to provide the original BlogSpot URL.
• The wizard works for all BlogSpot URLs - regardless of the Country Code alias which affects the blog owner. Whether the owner is in Canada (and seeing "xxxxxxx.blogspot.ca"), in Mexico (and seeing "xxxxxxx.blogspot.mx"), or in the USA (and seeing either "xxxxxxx.blogspot.com" or "xxxxxxx.blogspot.us"), you use only the "xxxxxxx" BlogSpot name, in this wizard.
• The wizard works only for active URLs. If the blog is deleted, either by you or by Blogger, you won't be able to recover access.
• You will only get the recovery email, when you login to the recovery email account. You have to use an active email account, for recovering your login information.
• Blogger will not tell you the email address, since the account name / email address is kept a secret.
• Blogger cannot tell you anything, if you have intentionally obscured your identity.

In cases where the account was last used under Old (Pre 2006) Blogger, the Claim your blog wizard may be used - but note that Legacy accounts are no longer supported, in general.

"Having trouble?" complements "Forgot?".

A third possibility would be the Google Having trouble signing in? wizard. You may also find Google Accounts: Secondary Email Address to provide relevant - if not welcome - advice.

In any case, your personal identity is kept a secret from others - as other folks identities are kept a secret from you. If you don't have access to the email account that's associated with the Blogger account, you don't get the email. That restriction leads to interesting scenarios - such as mysterious email received from the Forgot Password wizard, caused by desperation.

Whether you use either "Forgot?" wizard, when you open the email and login to Blogger as part of the authentication process, be sure that you provide / use the right Blogger / Google account. Alternately, clear cache, cookies, and sessions - then restart the browser - before executing either wizard. Do not claim or recover the blog, to an unknown or unexpected account.

Recovery is easiest done, using two browsers.

Account recovery will involve accessing two accounts, simultaneously - and is best done using two browsers.

It's possible that understanding the relationships between Blogger accounts, email addresses, and Google accounts may reduce your need to continue. If your account is based on a non GMail email address, you may wish to consider the special relationships.

Your next possible solution is to try using the Blogger "Forgot your password?" wizard. If "Forgot?" does not provide you enough clues, you're entitled to ask Blogger Support for help - but you need to understand the limitations of their ability to help.

If you choose to ask for help, consider making an effort to recover access to your GMail account, or to your non GMail account, as necessary. And when you check your email accounts, GMail or non GMail, check carefully.

Having recovered the account, you should be able to find the blogs previously owned - and possibly un delete them - starting from the "Deleted blogs" dashboard list.


---

---

Some blog owners lose access to their #Blogger accounts - either forgetting the account name / password, or letting the blog go dormant and requiring demographic authentication when trying to access later. They expect that Blogger will just send them an access token, without verifying that they are the rightful owner.

They fail to observe that Blogger wants them to continue publishing their blog - and does not intend to let unknown parties have control of it, through failure to require verification of identity.

Blogger Doesn't Care About Frequency Or Quantity Of Blog Updates

The process of "bidding" determines who is best suited to take on a given task, in some multi party games and relationships.

In the game of Contract Bridge, the players of the game get a chance to assess their personal holdings of the cards dealt to them, and the probable holdings of their prospective partner and opponents - and predict the number of rounds ("tricks") that they expect to win, in the game to come.

In the "game" of construction bidding, contractor firms get the chance to predict how much funds they will require, to perform a given project, given the chance by the firm bidding the project.

In both cases, different parties bid for the right to perform a task. Some would be blog owners think that procedure should apply to blog ownership.

I want this URL - It's the perfect URL for my needs - for my blog. The URL is in use, but it hasn't been updated, recently. Why can't Blogger give me that URL?

In the Blogger Name Availability "game", the implication is

The current owner isn't using that URL properly, and I know that I can do a better job!

Unfortunately, there is no bidding process here. Blogger, in This blog has been abandoned and I want its address says simply

Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. Therefore, we can't take away somebody's blog address to give to you.

Blogger isn't going to setup a bidding process, or a courts system, to decide whether a given URL should be reassigned to you, or to some other hopeful party. If the URL is in use, it's not going to be available. The current owner of a blog has the right and responsibility to decide upon blog contents, including how often and how many updates should be made to the blog.

Not so long ago, with the owner given the latter choice to make, my advice for getting the blog well known would be to "publish, publish, publish" - because the more publishing that was done to a blog, the more random "Next Blog" traffic would be directed to the blog. In November, 2009, that changed. Now, your blog has an equal chance of getting random "Next Blog" traffic if you publish daily, as if you published once, 5 years ago - and never again.

The frequency and volume of updates, to your blog, are irrelevant to the validity of that blog. If you believe that your readers will be happier with you publishing daily, fine. If you believe that your blog is just as good as it's ever going to get, that's fine too. It's your blog, and it's your decision.

And somebody else's blog is their decision - and Blogger supports that decision.

Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire. Therefore, we can't take away somebody's blog address to give to you.

If you need a URL for your blog, pick one that's available, and make the contents of your new blog valuable. Value comes from the blog contents, not from the URL.

---

Some would be #Blogger blog owners would like Blogger to accept bids, for assigning the right to publish blogs to popular URLs. I've even seen the suggestion that bidding should be a paid feature, for Blogger URL assignment, with owner contact information for each blog being required.

Blogger provides blog names, on a "first come, first served" basis - payment is irrelevant. Blog names are available for eternity, poor or rich. And anonymous ownership is part of the promise.

Help Your Readers Search Your Blog

When your blog gets larger, you'll want your readers to be able to find the content easier - sometimes using more detail than can be found in the Archives index.

You can generally use Labels for a more comprehensive index of the blog contents - but both labels, and titles, index the posts based on your vision of the blog. What if you want your readers to view your blog, on their terms?

This is where the Navbar, with its search box, becomes useful.

The Navbar based search is a good choice, for most readers of the blog.

It's a good choice - assuming that you don't block the Navbar, and assuming that your readers like using the Navbar - and that the navbar based blog search is not broken.

You can use search accessories outside the navbar.

But you're not confined to using the Search box on the Navbar - you can make your own search box, and position it where you like.

Setup a new HTML / JavaScript gadget, to get a very simple search box for your blog. Use the "HTML/JavaScript" selection in "Basics".

Just copy the code - a simple 4 lines - to the new gadget.

<form action="/search" method="get">
<input name="q" type="text"/>
<input value="Search This Blog" type="submit"/>
</form>

You can add this gadget, in many places.

Having setup your new gadget, you can position it anywhere on the page. Or, you can have a search box inside a post, as I show above. See "Search This Blog", above - and "Search The Real Blogger Status", at the top of the sidebar?

And, there are still more possibilities.

You can get way more fancy, for instance search multiple blogs at once, using a Google Custom Search box, but for a 5 minute blog upgrade, this is all that you need.

• Search only the posts, in the one blog.
• Search your blog directly, not from search engine cache. No waiting for search engine updates.
• Search private blogs, with some chance for success.
• Display search results as part of the blog display, with all blog accessories and decorations visible.

This is very user friendly - your readers will appreciate it. And it's so easy to add.