Monday, June 6, 2016

Pattern & Fabric Giveaway Winners and No-Reply Bloggers

First of all, thank you SO MUCH to all the lovely comments about my pattern and the quilting!  Pshaw.  I truly appreciate your kind words.  So, without making you read to the end to find out, the Custom Random Number Generator picked the following three winners of the 84 comments that were there at 9 am this morning when I picked.  All three winners have been emailed.

The first pick was fabric and it went to Leanne Parsons at Devoted Quilter:

The second and third picks were for copies of my pattern Blue Skies & Sunny Days, and it has been emailed off to:

and
Congrats all three of you!

I have 21 photos ready to go for an update to my binding tutorial and I had originally thought that would be the second part of this post.  I had really great comments on the tutorial, but for one person, who got lost and is confused at the final join part.  It has niggled at me, and so when I did my Uncle Frank's quilt, I took a bunch more photos at that point in the hopes of un-confusing her! Hope you're reading and will watch for that update this week, Janice! ;-)

No, today I want to address the No-Reply Blogger issue, which seems to be on the increase of late; a few of us have noticed.  I do not mean in any way to sound snarky towards no-reply bloggers here; any snarkiness is directed at Blogger/Google+/Yahoo.

I thought that Cindy of Stitchin' At Home had a good idea when she showed a screenshot of what we see when we click the 'hot' linked name for a comment, whether it's in our email (most of us have our blogs set up that comments go directly to our email), or by clicking on the name in the comment box.  Here is what I got when I clicked on Steph, one of the winners.
There is no way of contacting her.  None.  I can't click on Steph Smith; I could Follow her, but I'm not really interested in adding every person to my Google who wins a giveaway or leaves a comment and I am wanting to respond to that person, nor does that guarantee me a way to get in touch with her.  In giveaways, bloggers are being nice enough to give something away for free; why should we also spend a bunch of extra time trying to locate a winner?  Luckily, Steph must know she is a no-reply blogger, because she left her email within the body of her comment.  If you choose to do that, great, but I'd suggest writing it like this:

stephquilts65 at gmail dot com

so no trawlers can grab your email and add it to their spam databases.

The other place I get taken to is those of you who have set up a Blogger profile so that you can comment on blogs.  You think you've done everything right, but this is where I get taken to when I click on your name:
There is nothing I can click on to get your email.  You aren't a blogger, so I can't try to find you through your blog.  Look how many profile views Sam has gotten!  Could he/she have won this many giveaways but been disqualified because the blogger cannot contact Sam?  Even if only 10% of those clicks were wins, that's 9 lost prizes...
YOU CAN FIX THIS EASILY!!  Click the link below. This is also the link I have at the bottom of the comment box.
No-reply Blogger fix by Sew At Home Mummy

Once you've fixed it, this is where I will be taken when I click your name:
Yay! Susan has a hot link "email" that I can click and I will be able to email her.  It isn't visible until I click the link and get the draft email where I can write to her.  You can also see how private you can keep your Blogger profile; you don't have to put where you live, blogs you like, other interests, nothing but an email, and your name or a made-up name or part of your name.

UPDATE:  When I replied to Angela's comment (see it below; it's very good) I hit send, and immediately saw she was a no-reply.  I thought that odd because of her comment, so I clicked her name and sure enough, was taken to her Blogger profile which looks just like Susan's above.  So I emailed her what I had send out into pixel universe.  I told her it was so good she had the Email button but so weird that she still comes in as a no-reply.  I sent her this link to see if it might solve her problem, and it DID!!  It's old, but it will still do the trick.  Karen's post is worth the read so here it is in URL form:

http://sewmanyways.blogspot.ca/2012/07/no-replypublic-service-announcement.html

Now. One more scenario.  Karen Rowland left a comment as well.  When I click her name, this is where I am taken to:

As soon as I see Google+ I think, great, no-reply blogger, BZZZ.  However, with Karen, it caught my eye that it appears she has a blog, so I scrolled down....
and sure enough she does have a blog, Front Porch Quilts.  I'm not feeling too confident when I see her last post was March 2014, but I'll click on her blog.  So I do, and here is where I get taken to:

Notice that there is no 'email me' button.  However, there is an "About Me" button, so I can click it.  And?  It takes me to her Google+ page, because she has linked her blog to Google+.  So I am back at square 1.  Now, I could leave her a comment on this 2 1/4 year old post, on the chance she may have her comments set up to go to her email and that she may still check those comments...

Are you picking up what I'm laying down here?  Look how much effort is involved in trying to find Karen, if she had in fact been picked? She wasn't; she was in a lump of 5 no-reply comments, and you should know that there was another lump of 17, SEVENTEEN, no-reply blogger comments in my gmail from this giveaway!!!  Some, yes, are smart, like Steph, but the majority have no way for me to get in contact with them, and they think I don't care to, which is entirely not true; replying to comments via email has brought some wonderful and lasting friendships.

To be brutally honest, it takes me a TON of time writing up posts, too much I know.  I belabour semantics, I wordsmith, I proofread, I finesse...the cray-cray English teacher in me wanting it just so (yet my sister, Linda, still finds the odd typo or error of omission and I thank her for being my final editor), I take photos, edit, watermark, crop, maybe make a collage... so, like the vast majority of other bloggers, I am not about to devote a whole ton of time trying to find a winner's email.

So, puh-LEEZE look at your Blogger profile.  Make sure there is that blue Email button under Contact Me.  If you're linked to Google+ find out if there is a way around having your Profile in Blogger linked to Google+.  If someone knows how to have Google+ and Blogger without becoming a no-reply, then tell me in the comments.

Now, I am off to sew for the rest of this day!  I've had nothing but 'everyday crap' today in real life, a phrase I've borrowed from Kathy, who I met properly through Lara's Crafted Appliqué blog hop, now in its final stages, and WHAT a fabulous giveaway(!!!!!)  Anyhow, Kathy's blog, Sparkles, Sprinkles and Everyday Crap, I am now following.  She just made an adorable baby quilt!

20 comments:

  1. Everyday crap, eh? I certainly can relate to that. I'm jealous that someone has already grabbed that for a blog name ... of course I've never bothered to figure out HOW to actually set up and run a blog so I guess I shouldn't be jealous.

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  2. I know how frustrating it is to get a comment from a non-reply blogger. When I get a lovely comment, it is nice to reply but.......We don't need to know everyone's private details, just ab email address.
    In saying that, when I first started blogging, I was a non reply blogger too, until a lovely lady informed me and told me how to correct it.

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  3. Congrats to the winners! Yay!

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    1. And lol you're welcome for being the final editor LOL! :D

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  4. Please don't get me started on no reply bloggers. I have tried unsuccessfully to track down people and like you go around in circles. It is nice to reply but unfortunately we can't.

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  5. I had forgotten how much I like the word "wordsmith" . And tell Linda she does a great final edit . It's funny how you read , reread something yourself and a little blip still slips through .

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  6. Congrats to the winners! It does seem like there has been a rise in no-reply bloggers as of lately. I kept reverting back to one until I finally said enough and disconnected my google + and Blogger accounts. It really makes me sad when someone comments on my posts and I have no way to reply to them :(

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  7. Sandra, another brilliant informative post. Firstly, thank you so much for my prize, I am OVER the moon with happiness. It is the first thing I have ever won but that could have been due to my second point.... I was a no reply blogger, ignorant of the fact. Until you posted a reply back to a question I had asked, in your blog of course as you had no way of contacting me. It took some time to sort out but probably due to my lack of technical skills but I am so glad I did get it sorted because now I get replies to my comments. Instead of thinking people hadn't read them or weren't bothering to reply. Having seen this post, it made me realise just how much effort is involved for you lovely people who take the time and trouble to blog.... so I would urge everyone to check their reply status. Sorry for lengthy reply, it is probably the sun here in the UK, we are not used to it lol. Hugs Sue xx

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  8. OH, Sandra, I'm so sorry you have to put up with this CRAP about no-reply blog goers! I was one until about 6 months ago until someone tracked me down and let me know. I had no clue that I was a no-replier! Hopefully, this post will help those lost folks who've been missing out. Thank you, Sweetie, for the shout out for my little blog! I am going to scoop that everyday crap aside and write another post soon!

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  9. I have the same problem so have left messages on blogger plus and still have nit heard back

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  10. hope your day is better tomorrow :) I found out I was a no reply blogger through a friend - its something that Blogger did recently - so now I leave my email address just in case !! although I will take your advice and write it differently to stop those spam trawlers :)

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  11. Congratulations to your lucky winners Sandra!
    There is definitely something going on with Blogger and it is a real mess and a disservice to their users. There are more no-reply commenters than ever before. So many times in the hop I wanted to reply and thank people, but couldn't. A few people shared such beautiful stories about their first quilts, but they now probably think I didn't care. You did an excellent job showing exactly how this frustrating process of finding contact information goes.
    I hope the everyday crap you are dealing with isn't too crappy :(

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  12. Congrats to the winners! That's always fun! Great job explaining the 'no reply' issue!

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  13. It's so silly for blogger to allow comments with links to profiles, but then not provide a method for contact. When I checked for no-reply, I came across a blogger help post that stated blogger defaulted to no-reply on purpose. Has something to do with spam and what the help desk is receiving. Thanks to this blog I found the email option and hopefully fixed it!

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  14. There is definitely something going on with Blogger/Google/Gmail and no-reply bloggers - because many people who were not "no-reply" in the past have become so recently. I've also had trouble with not receiving comments in my email that were made by people with yahoo accounts. I'm not sure what the problem is (in my heart of hearts, I think it's that Google wants people to sign up for Google+ and set up circles, etc.) but I highly recommend leaving your email address on comments if you want a response!

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  15. Hi - turns out I was a no reply blogger but I had made sure before that I wasn't ! Sometimes I think the settings are undone so everyone should check them!

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  16. Hi - turns out I was a no reply blogger but I had made sure before that I wasn't ! Sometimes I think the settings are undone so everyone should check them!

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  17. Hi Sandra! I'm behind on my blog reading but YES I am watching!! Thank you so much, I am looking forward to reading the update!

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  18. Another problem that appears to be a no-reply blogger problem but is not is this: the comments from those of us who still use yahoo and aol are not sent to the blog owner's email. Yahoo and aol changed some settings (DMARC, maybe?) and our comments go nowhere. There are so many wonderful things about blogs, email, the internet, modern technology -- and then there is this one problem with comments. Things change often and maybe this will change one of these days and we'll be back to easy comments and responses.
    --Nancy. (ndmessier @ aol.com, joyforgrace.blogspot.com)

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I wholeheartedly appreciate you taking the time to leave a comment, as they make my day! I answer every one by personal email. :-) Unless... you are a "no-reply" blogger, which can occur for a few reasons. You can get around that by writing out your email within your comment so that I can answer you.