Over 100! – Shaggy Dog

LM

Funny, but you can never gauge how ‘popular’ a post is going to be!

I know that I will get more likes if I publish a photo of food or a flower and that any posts and photos about Little Monkey my dog will fall way under the radar.

That’s fine!

I long ago decided to Blog for Myself!

Yes, I realise that might be considered selfish, but you have to ask the question, “Why am I blogging?

For me the answer is a resounding FOR FUN!

I don’t expect to generate income from my blog, so I don’t need to worry about what is popular (thank goodness!)

And I figure, if I am not having fun, how can I expect any readers to enjoy themselves?

So, regardless of the statistics that WP is so fond of broadcasting to us, I post what I find interesting. If my Readers also enjoy it, all to the good. If not, no worries; I had fun writing my post.

I put a great deal of time and effort into many of my posts; editing photos and supplementing the text with links to other info. Still, none of this matters in the real world! 

I am a small blog and my posts usually get around 50 likes; sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more.

My most popular post is (to me) a more boring post about afternoon tea, entitled Decadent High Tea. OK yes, the cakes did have gold leaf on them, but still – it’s tea and cake for Pete’s sake!

My dog posts usually fair the worst of all, in ratings.

So imagine my surprise on finding that a recent post A Shaggy Dog Story of my dog Little Monkey after her bath was now my second most popular post in January!

This is unheard of!

Decadent high Tea has 85 Likes

A Shaggy Dog Story is sitting at 82 Likes

Sooooo close!

Oh I’ve just now got to 84 Likes on Shaggy Dog! This is so exciting!

Further update.

Shaggy Dog has toppled High Tea and now stands as my Most Liked post at 90 Likes!

Whoa! Shaggy Dog is now at 95 Likes! What happened?

NEWSFLASH  Shaggy Dog has reached 100 likes!

Final tally as of going to press: Shaggy Dog has 114 Likes!

Wow!  This is great news. Little Monkey is overjoyed!

Hooray! 🙂

.

This poses further questions; such as why is the post still being liked many weeks after it was published? This is unusual for me, unless it is a topic that people might be expected to search for, such as Winter Solstice for example.

Perhaps WP has been putting my post out there, for some reason?

I have no idea. But Little Monkey and I are very grateful to each and every one of you who popped by and gave Shaggy Dog a Like.

Thank you!

 

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Why don’t you Count?

Frangipani flower 2

So what’s going on with WP these days?

I noticed, before I went on holiday, that my visitors and views were declining, after having risen slowly but steadily since I started blogging.

No worries, I thought, it happens; and I am not trying to be the most popular blog out there. (Yeah, yeah! Just as well, I know!)

But as nebusresearch has noted, it seems that WP may no longer be counting all the stats; eg from mobile devices?

I really noticed this on Tuesday, when a WP friend from India visited my blog to catch up, and liked and commented on lots of posts. None of this registered in my stats! It showed no visits from India whatsoever and the views/likes/comments also did not show.

Now, like I said, I’m not a big blog: I ‘know’ each and every one of my visitors. It sucks when they have taken the trouble to visit me and do not register. I wonder, am I doing the same thing over at their blogs?

What gives? Any answers anyone?

 

A Letter to WordPress

Red Red Rose

When my kids were young I read a few books on parenting and psychology. There I learnt that you are supposed to praise your child nine times for every one time you tell them off!

No-one does this; but I started making an effort. Instead of just taking it for granted that they would sit quietly reading a book, for example, I started saying, “You’re sitting there very quietly. Well done!” Or, “Thank you for helping me take the dishes out.” It definitely made a difference to the child; instead of only being reprimanded; to also be praised.

I do this to my dogs now, especially Little Monkey, oh she of little brain. I have taught her not to come charging into the house like a whirlwind, but rather to enter calmly and sit down on her mat straight away. Even after eight years, I still praise her when she does this, and say, “On your mat! Good girl!”

In similar vein, I have to say to Word.press, “Well done!” It seems you have listened to us; the bloggers.

I have noticed that your new Stats page is no longer one long scroll down, but the information is now presented side by side.

I have noticed that you have added a lot more information to the stats, to make it more in line with the old stats page.

I have noticed further, that your new notifications, that got such a bad rap when launched, has improved ten fold. It now indicates when we have replied to a comment, and more recently, a bar has appeared at the top that we can click on to select individually: “All, Unread, Follows, Comments and Likes.”

Since I have complained in the past about things on Word.press, it is only fair that I also now praise WP for a job well done. Thank You. Three Cheers for WP.

And it still costs me nothing!

 

 

Houston – We have a Problem!

There’s a glitch in the matrix! My follower count has got stuck at 120. When a new blogger follows me, one of my first followers is deleted. I have posted a question in the word.press forum, but no-one is reading it, or replying to it. It’s been 2 days now.

I have become rather attached to my little group of followers, though I am well aware that 90% of them do not actually follow me! I still follow the first person to like one of my posts and follow my blog; even though I know she only did it so I would follow her and she could reach her goal of 10,000 followers. I know she has never again visited my site, and probably promptly un-followed me as soon as I followed her. It doesn’t matter. I enjoy reading her posts every day, and commenting now and then. It is my choice to follow her. And I do follow blogs I enjoy, whether they reciprocate or not. It isn’t all about the numbers to me. I’d rather have a few friends who drop by now and then and have a chat, than 10,000 faceless followers with whom it is obviously impossible to keep in contact. (Which is just as well, really 😉 )

So, what about my technical difficulties? This post started out yesterday as a cry for help, but in the meantime I have since sorted it out by myself! (I know – gasp!!) I re-read stuff and saw they said to clear your browser cache and cookies. I hadn’t bothered with this before, because one: I have been blogging such a short time, how much baggage could I have acquired? and two: when I looked on line, previous bloggers with my problem had to get help from tech support.

Well, I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained and set about following their step by step instructions to delete my browser cache. (Note: They do say Not to delete your word.press cookies or your laptop will implode.)

Et Voila! My followers are all back; all 125 of them.

So then I un-subscribed from my support forums, where no-one was helping me anyway. It is as usual – if you want something done, do it yourself!

Being scifihammy, I wanted to know why this works. Apparently, your computer stores your blog info in a cache and then goes looking for it there, instead of online where it is up to date. So you end up with old info, or glitches, like I got.

post script: If you read this and shook your head at my ineptitude, that’s OK. I never claimed to be a computer whiz. I danced when I sussed out how to add photos to my posts! But I am willing to learn. And, just occasionally, I amaze my family with something I know that they don’t. So it’s all good.