Some moments come fleetingly, and never again.
One such moment may be, when you receive a blog membership invitation.
The purpose of this message is to inform you that xxxxxxx has invited you to join their private blog "xxxxx xxxxx". To accept this invitation, click on the button below.
or
The purpose of this message is to inform you that yyyyyyy has invited you to contribute to their blog "yyyyy yyyyy". To accept this invitation, click on the button below.
Unless you know the blog owner, this may be your one chance.
If you get an invitation to be a designated reader on a private blog - or an author on either a private or team blog - decide, and act as soon as possible.
Any invitation that you get will be temporary. Blog membership invitations expire, after a fixed amount of time.
Accept the invitation, to view and note the URL.
If the blog is private, and you accept the invitation as a reader, make a note of the URL too.
Long ago, you might get a "preview link" in the invitation - allowing you to view the blog, and bookmark / copy the URL for later. The "preview link" feature was abused by too many owners - and appears to be gone now.
No preview = no URL until after you accept the invitation.
Become an author, on a team blog!
Become a reader, on a private blog!
There's a limited amount of detail, in the invitation.
How useful is either invitation, if you don't accept, when viewed later? You can get the owner name (as provided by the owner), and the blog title - and that's it.
- Invitations contain only the author name, the blog title, and a membership token.
- A reader invitation, for a private blog, may not produce an entry in the dashboard "My blogs" list.
- Both author and reader invitations will expire.
Act promptly, for best result.
If you get an invitation, and you file it away so you can "think about it", don't think about it too long.
Once the token expires - and if you don't know the owner - you'll not be able to contact the owner. And until you accept the invitation - and actually view then bookmark the blog - you won't find out the URL.
Act quickly - or never.
If you get an invitation to be an author on a private or team #Blogger blog, or a reader on a private blog, act promptly. Invitations expire too soon - they contain few details - and won't be very useful later.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/z-lKeqO-ssA
Some blog owners like to restrict access to their blog - and others want to have multiple people able to publish, or maybe to administer their blog.
A few even want multiple administrators, and restricted access. Both private and team blogs involve use of the Permissions wizard, and the membership invitation / acceptance process.
Making either a private or a team blog starts from the Permissions wizard. Just keep the multiple functions, and the different links, in mind.
The Permissions wizard, on the dashboard Settings - Basic page, is how we setup both private and team blogs.
You invite members - prospective authors and readers - using "Add authors" and "Add readers", respectively.
Start from the dashboard Settings - Basic page, in both cases.
Start from the Settings - Basic page.
Find the Permissions wizard.
The "Add authors" link is used for adding both administrators and authors.
Click on "Add authors", to add prospective administrators and authors.
Click on "Add authors", and add prospective blog authors.
Add a list of names / email addresses, with entries separated by commas.
Paste or type email addresses of prospective administrators and authors, into the "Add authors" window. Or use "Choose from Contacts".
The existing "Blog Authors" list is updated, and invitations are sent, when you hit "Save changes".
To make an administrator, wait until the invited author has accepted membership. Then, change "Author" to "Admin", in "Blog Authors". Don't change an author to administrator, unless you understand the risks!
The "Add readers" link is used for adding readers.
Click on "Add readers", to add prospective readers.
Click on "Add readers", and add prospective blog readers.
Add a list of names / email addresses, with entries separated by commas.
Paste or type email addresses of prospective readers, into the "Add readers" window. Or use "Choose from Contacts".
The existing "Blog Readers" list is updated, and invitations are sent, when you hit "Save changes".
Select either "Only blog authors" or "Only these readers", for private blogs.
You can make a blog private to Authors - or have both Authors and Readers. Select "Only blog authors" or "Only these readers", respectively.
Each prospective member must accept membership.
For an invited author or reader to become an active member, they must open the email and accept membership.
Prospective authors and readers are listed as "open invitations" - under either the "Blog Authors" or "Blog Readers" window - until they accept the membership invitation.
Accepting membership involves opening the emailed membership invitation, and clicking on the invitation link. The new member can use an existing Blogger account - or setup a new Blogger account, on the fly.
A GMail account is not required - just a Blogger / Google account - existing or new.
Remember membership limits.
Whether you are making a private or a team blog, remember that every blog is limited to an absolute total of 100 members.
- You.
- Any additional administrators.
- Authors.
- Designated Readers.
Designated readers (in a private blog) are part of the 100 member limit. Un designated readers (in a public blog) are not part of the limit. A public blog can have any number of readers.
Membership revocation may not be immediate.
You can revoke or update membership of an administrator, author, and / or reader - but membership changes don't always take effect, immediately.
Making a #Blogger blog with administrators, authors, and / or readers starts with the Permissions wizard - and continues with each prospective member accepting membership, using email sent by the Permissions wizard.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/blogger/Vd_L5xAtKFY
For some time, we've known about a problem with non GMail based Blogger accounts, and comment moderation / notification email.
That problem, though mildly annoying to the blog owners affected, has an easy workaround - use a GMail based email address, for comment moderation / notification. That's a quick 15 minute fix.- Setup a GMail account, if necessary.
- Change the comment moderation / notification email addresses, for the blog(s) affected, to use the GMail email account.
GMail email accounts are, after all, free.
Besides the ease of putting a workaround in place, that problem is not all that severe. The problem with comment moderation / notification email, being filtered, only affects blog owners who moderate before publishing. Owners who moderate after publishing can always use the Blogger dashboard Comments wizard, at their convenience, to moderate.
This week, we realised that the base problem - rejected email because of non GMail based Blogger accounts - may also affect owners of private / team blogs, who have prospective non GMail members. This specific problem probably affects less blogs - but it won't have as easy a workaround.
Owners of private / team blogs, who use non GMail based Blogger accounts, may not find an easy workaround for the problem of Blogger blog membership invitations being rejected by a non GMail email system.
The base problem, as it affects comment moderation / notification, is obvious. The owner of an affected blog will see all comment moderation / notification email, sent to him, rejected by his own non GMail email system. Anybody who owns a blog that's affected will be sending all comment moderation / notification email to the non GMail email system.
The base problem, as it affects private / team blog membership invitations, is more subtle. This problem will affect blogs owned under non GMail based Blogger accounts - and / or when sending invitations to prospective members who use non GMail email systems. Email within Google - Blogger to GMail - should not be subject to the same filtering, since the email will actually originate from a Google server.
With all that, this problem will be more annoying, in that it will involve email rejected by the prospective member email system - not by the blog owner email system. Prospective blog members won't likely be receptive to changing their email addresses, just to receive a membership invitation. Also, the blog owner may not always see the email rejection - and may not know that the invitations are being dropped - and may not be found in the "Bulk" / "Spam" folders.
To avoid this problem, membership invitations, from any affected blogs, will have to have be sent from a GMail based Blogger account. This will require a GMail based Blogger account, added as an additional administrator - and it will involve the known risks of having an extra administrator account. Only administrators can send membership invitations.
This problem will probably have less exposure than the one with comment moderation / notification email - but to the blog owners affected, it will seem more severe. It will actually prevent prospective members, using non GMail based email systems, from joining the blogs affected. And, it will require a blog owner to add a GMail based Blogger account, as a blog member.
Last year, in Private Blogs And Commenting Policy, I documented a private blog conundrum.
I had discovered the oddity that designated readers in a private blog are unable to publish comments, when commenting is authenticated as "Only members of this blog".
At the time, I merely suspected a design oversight on the part of Blogger engineers, in deciding that designated readers to a private blog were not afforded the courtesy of being allowed to comment.
The comment authentication choices (for the blog owner to select) appear to include- Require no additional authentication ("Anyone - includes Anonymous Users"), presumably because ability to access the comments wizard requires authenticated access to the blog.
- Accept "OpenID" authentication ("Registered Users - includes OpenID").
- Accept Blogger account ("Users with Google Accounts") for designated readers.
- Accept author members only ("Only members of this blog").
- Eliminate the "designated readers" distinction altogether, and make all members "authors".
In further retrospect, I see that this "oddity" allows blog owners an additional level of control - whether or not to have a blog that allows some people to only view the blog, and to not publish comments.
It would be possibly more obvious, if private blogs were to have an additional selection, in Settings - Comments, for "Who Can Comment?". This would, preferably, include a setting "Designated readers may post comments". This would save blog owners from the uncertainty, that allowing anything less than "Only members of this blog" to publish comments, may bring.
It's also possible that understanding of the choices which exist now may be sufficient. Your comments are welcome.
(Update 2015/06/24): Blogger has reduced the confusion, by eliminating non authenticated ("guest") access, to private blogs. All private blog access will require Blogger authentication.
When you invite a designated reader to your private blog, or invite a member to your private or team blog, you use the Settings - Permissions wizard to send an email to the prospective member or reader. You select the email address to send the invitation to, based upon the known address of your prospective member or reader.
The prospective member / reader, upon receiving the email, is free to send it on, to any other email address that he or she uses, and to accept the membership by using any Blogger account - current, or setup at the time of accepting the invitation.
This allows anonymity in membership, by permitting somebody to accept membership, period. You have no way of knowing, nor should you know, what account or what email address your new member uses to accept membership. The only thing that you know is that a membership invitation was accepted, by a given prospective member.
Unfortunately, just as you don't know what account the membership was accepted under, you have no way of knowing how many people other than your targeted member were sent a copy of your invitation. That's a possible reason for some blogs mysteriously exceeding the 100 member limit.
The bottom line here is, just as you must choose your blog administrators wisely, so should you choose your members and readers. Don't just send an invitation to somebody, without considering the possibilities.
