Not on my account
Occasionally I feel the urge to leave a comment on a website.
More often than not, it’s on someone else’s site [I’d be pretty fucking stupid to want to leave comments on my own site?], and sometimes it’s on a news site such as a newspaper.
The problem is that I can’t.
More and more sites are demanding that I ‘sign in’ to leave a comment, and then give the the only option of signing in using a Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin account.
Suppose I don’t have a fucking Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin account? There are a few of us left who aren’t sad enough to live our entire lives on-line.
And what if I don’t want to use my Facebook or Twitter account? Maybe I don’t want to allow that site to see if I have an account? Maybe I want to leave a snarky or abusive comment and don’t want to use my own account? This is discrimination against trolls.
What is so fucking trustworthy about Facebook anyway, that it is being used as some kind of Interweb passport?
As it happens I do have a Facebook and a Twitter account but I rarely if ever use them. As a result I haven’t a clue what my passwords are, so even if I want to use them it is damn difficult.
Another problem I have is with people who use WordPress.com for their sites. I try to sign in and it tells me I already have a WordPress.com username and password. This is true, as I once signed up just to see what it looked like on the inside. But when I use my own username and password the site then tells me that it’s wrong for that particular site.
I was poking around a new site yesterday that gives details of what people paid for their houses over the last few years in Ireland. That particular site let me in but insisted on throwing up one of those fucking captcha thingies. They really fucking drive me mad. They are supposed to be unreadable to a computer but they also happen to be unreadable for humans as well. Mind you, they are sometimes worth a chuckle –
No wonder house prices were so low in that area?
So if any of you ever wonder why I don’t comment on your sites, just check to see if I can only get in using some fucking account or other.
If you do, then you know why I don’t comment.
I’m proud to say I don’t have/require any of those any of those things on my site. Then again, I post so intermittently that most of my regular readers tend to wander off to do something else in the interim.
I do agree with your point about these sign-in services as I wouldn’t trust any one of them you mention. I do risk myself with Disqus though. I appreciate their comment service especially the feature where you can arrange the comment thread in logical, chronological order. I mean, who the hell wants to read a comment thread by “Best first” or “Newest first” for heavens sake! Can’t follow the arguments and flame-fests that way.
Kirk M – Hmmmmm. Disqus? One thing I thought this site would benefit from is “nested” comments. I think I mean “nested”? Where I can reply to someone where they comment and not down at the bottom? Would it work on this?
Grandad – Sent you an email.
The reason why sites want you to sign in with your Facebook account is so that they then can harvest/mine all your data from your account.
They then use this information to completely fuck you over with bullshit spam target you with advertising.
Bugger used the wrong bloody e-mail account so it went into ‘moderations’!
This one works so trying again
Nesting with Grandad
I claim 10% of all future sales of the book with this title!
Hi Grandad,
A puzzle:
Whenever I look at http://smokingoutthetruth.com/, the latest post appears as April 23rd 2012. I had assumed there were no more recent entries but today, via the Octabber facebook page, I discovered there was at least one new posting (http://smokingoutthetruth.com/the-laws/) and 2 new buttons at the top: ‘The Laws’ and ‘The Scientific Scandal of Anti-Smoking’.
Not sure if it is just me so I’ll ask around.
Kirk M – Thank you. I hope you put a stamp on it. You forgot last time.
Fuck it – They are more than welcome to my Facebook details. They’re all lies anyway. 😈
Bill – It sounds like a bird-watcher’s book? Aren’t bird-watchers called Twitters? That kinda brings us full circle….
Tony – It works perfectly for me, and judging from the fact that comments go in, it’s working for others as well. Try clearing your browser’s cache?
Thanks Grandad,
I’ve tried clearing the cache but no joy. I’ll do a little more digging.
Tony, perhaps you bookmarked the page on April 23rd, and your browser just takes you back to that page every time. I’ve made that mistake. I rectified it by going to the home page and re-bookmarking it there.
GD, WordPress drives me fucking bonkers sometimes. What really gets to me is when I’m prompted to sign in to my WP account, and when I do so with the correct username and password, it tells me
“You do not own that account”.
(Cue piss boiling and steam emanating from ears…)
“WHADDYA MEAN I DON’T OWN THAT FUCKING ACCOUNT YOU DUMB FUCK OF A SERVER? OF COURSE I OWN THE FUCKING THING! THAT’S WHY I’M SIGNING IN WITH THE RIGHT USERNAME AND PASSWORD. STUPID CUNT.”
I get really quite upset with that particular message, I can tell you.
I too refuse to sign in with Facebook. I have an account, which I never use, but I’m immediately suspicious when asked to do so. I use a live streaming site for football (personally I don’t give a flying fuck about football, but my wife is a Man U fanatic. No, I don’t understand it either.) which gives me streaming options, i.e. Sopcast, Veetle or ‘other’. Veetle used to provide good streams, but now they ask you to sign in with your FB account, so I haven’t used them since.
I think that Disqus gives you the option to answer comments as and when you like. It seems to work ok for DP, and appears to be quite a good system.
Nisakiman – Whatever Tony’s problem is, it isn’t bookmarking. [I have written to him privately to try to sort it] This business of trying to minimise logins by using existing accounts is kinda boiling my piss too. Facebook drives me fucking mad [Herself loves it though, for some reason] so in cases of dire emergency I have to resort to signing in using Twitter which also pisses me off.
I had a look at Disqus and if my information is correct, commentators have to open an account with them? Strangely I have commented on DP’s but don’t remember setting up any accounts to do so. Personally, I am happy to leave this site just looking for a username and an email. It hasn’t caused me any problems in the past anyway.
On that note, in the next day or two I am probably going to change the entire foundations of this site. Hopefully it won’t look or act too differently but will be more up to date and will allow for such things as nested comments.