Very surprised at WordPress over this 'great new feature' - clearly not a universally held view...

Thanks to all for helping turn this thing off.

Note to WordPress:

1. You're getting a lot of feedback here that nobody appreciates what is essentially a spam feature magically appearing in their blog overnight. Some of us work hard to get our audience and present a certain face to that audience, and this Adsense for blogs can really alienate them. You will lose customers this way.

2. Whatever algorithm you're using, it's not working. I think that even though people were put out that they had to opt out of the feature, we might actually USE it if it functioned as it should - which is, presumably, that it would lead us to posts on similar topics. The ones I had, I couldn't even figure out what theoretical keyword matchup brought me there. The way it works currently, I can't even see the value to me of having my blog appear on other people's - because, presumably, my blog would be a poor match to their readers, and they won't know why they've been routed there.

I found my blog linked to another person's similiar post and came here to check out what's happening. So I followed the advice and went to the DESIGN > EXTRA to try turn off the feature but it reads: "Hide related links on this blog, which means this blog won’t show up on other’s blogs or get traffic that way" So turning this feature off means you won't get your blog to appear on other people's blog automatically BUT you will STILL get other people's blog AUTOMATICALLY appear on your own? I don't want other people's blog to appear on mine without me screening through them first...:( Correct me if I am wrong. Thanks.

The negative connotation applied "if I dare turn it off I'll loose so much potential traffic" doesn't work for me - if you want to find out stuff related to what I write about - do a search.

As for the randomness factor of U tube etc (and such as stumbleupon) if I was that desperate to be entertained that I needed to be presented random links in the hope something appealed, I'd turn off the computer and find something more productive to do.

If this feature (again as mentioned) was bringing up content solely from my site, and others I have specifically selected, then I'd definitely welcome it. (And vis-a-vis if I was reading a site, and there were links presented that I knew were to sites the author supported enough to include potential random links to their content, then I'd be more inclined to consider them)

Providing random links to encourage people to navigate away from my site (or to encourage people to leave the site they are reading to come to mine) seems as welcome as street spruikers. I may like getting new traffic, but I'm not that desperate. It's like google adverts of the blogosphere.

My blog is political and doesn't attract kids. I don't censor replies, including the use of profanity. As long as the responses aren't racist or homophobic, my readers are free to say whatever is on their mind.

But some blogs are run by youngsters and this terribly flawed feature could send a "related link" to a blog run by a person in the minority, AKA, a child. You really have to wonder if WordPress ever stops to think about these issues BEFORE they implement them? Apparently, they don't think about these issues.

Between global tags in posts and now this related links outside the post, it's clear that WP's mission is, for reasons I cannot fathom, to keep readers from staying at one site for any length of time.

Thanks for that. I think I'll do as so many others have done and turn it off. I figure I'm doing all right for traffic on my own, I don't need the occasional link from someone else's blog at the expense of deciding who I want to link to from mine.

Ka-Ching!

"Stealth" is the way WordPress works.

They just make the change (like the new, dreadful dashboard) and without polling the community to see if we're interested in a radical change or add-on.

As I said on several forum threads about the new dashboard, this is not the way to create a happy community of bloggers. Shame on WordPress.

@fracas: I have a screenshot of one of your blogposts, the one called "Looking for Miley Cyrus Underwear Photos?", in which you quite correctly call adults looking for pictures of a naked teenage girl gross.

link to your post: http://fracas.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/looking-for-miley-cyrus-underwear-photos/

link to a screenshot of the bottom of the post: http://betterlate.wordpress.com/files/2008/04/shot1.jpg

The first link is to a 404 page, which doesn't speak so well for the algorithm that wordpress is using.

The second link is more of a problem. It leads to a post that is nothing more than a link to a picture of Miley Cyrus (the 15-year-old) flashing her bra.

In other words, your post taking people to task for looking for a racy picture of a teenager LEADS DIRECTLY TO A RACY PICTURE OF A TEENAGER!

I went back through and edited my old posts to see if that would trigger it but it didn't. Dunno why some and not others. I figured it was because some got searched and some didn't.

A-bloody-men!

They could add another 200 features I don't want to use, and I won't gripe a word, as long as I don't log into my blog and see new contradictory crap festooning my posts as a surprise.

There is a thread here with nearly 100 posts requesting Sphere Related Content. Who knows how many other people contacted support directly, requesting it? And now we have it.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

That said, I do have Sphere on my self-hosted blog and have disabled this new feature on my .com blogs until it's more refined.

If I want to link to other people's blogs and content, I want control over what I link to. Through tags, links, and recommendations. A "possibly related" isn't good enough for me, nor should it be good enough for anyone. There are better ways of creating community within WordPress.com, and this isn't it.

I do hope many will complain loudly and the feature, which has been requested since day one, will be changed to link to our own posts and not random hits on other blogs which may lead our readers down an unwanted path.

1. I should chose who, what, where, when and why. That is what I paid for. Choice.
2 It was my opinion that hopefully someone would benefit from my musings or whatever, and that they would be encouraged to "stay awhile" and read some of the other stuff. Not just the current post. This looks like it will drive them away, not entice them to stay.

The links I saw today, my intial encounter, did not make sense to me. Some of them frankly were just plain stupid.

So does that mean others can see related links on my blog, but I can't? That would be worse.

I wish they would do a damned mail list or put notices more prominently at sign in!

@fracas -> Click on the title of one of your posts to read that individual post. Then scroll to bottom. That's when it shows up. Otherwise, like some bad virus, it's invisible!

I have no idea how long that crap was on my blog. I now wonder if that accounts for some strange outgoing links I've seen from my blog in the Dashboard!!

This should fix it.

I don't know what's up with WordPress and why they're torturing the community with unnecessary and unwanted fixes and add-ons. They seem committed to pissing people off and creating a pool of angry bloggers. I've never seen so many hostile and frustrated posts in the forum section.

I no longer recommend WordPress to friends using Blogger. I just can't in good conscience.

I hope the above instructions helps you guys to shut off the ridiculous "Related Links" feature that nobody wants and nobody asked for.