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The widget I have on my blog for following through email subscriptions now just has a rectangular box that says follow with a plus sign next to it, which is not how it has looked up to this point. I can't figure out how to fix it.
The blog I need help with is macguffinmovies.wordpress.com.
The + button shows up for a Logged in WordPress.COM user. If a person is logged out or does not have an account then the button looks like it has for some time. It looks like the staff is making the email subscription integrate a bit more with other parts of WordPress.COM.
It looks like the Staff is making some changes to things.
Just noticed the same thing. Advantage? ... takes up less vertical space in the column.
more changes, ok i think it should be about twice the length its very small.
Note the staff: I don't like this.
A subscriber is different than a follower, because a subscriber gets a post through e-mail and sometimes (in the case of my blog) gets an e-mail newsletter.
That is not the same as a follower. Followers can come and go, but a subscribers stick with the blog.
I think it is a big mistake to change subscriber to follower.
I don't know, maybe I'm overreacting but I don't think it's the same thing. What do others think?
Personally, I'm not happy with the change.
And right now I logged out and basically the Follow Button is still the same and does not look like it previously did. Which is going to be real confusing to potential new subscribers.
I am also disappointed with this change, especially without warning. I used to have customised text explaining what it was for (receiving new posts via email) and how they could opt out.
This is not Facebook - if I wanted a Facebook presence I would create one. Next thing we'll have ways for people to poke us and send us crappy virtual trees.
I have a loyal collection of subscribers - those who have chosen to have every new post I write delivered to their inbox. They don't simply follow this blog, they have chosen to subscribe.
I follow a number of blogs, I read them via RSS feeds, or visit their sites when I choose. Of those, there are only two that I have subscribed to - those I have chosen/elevated in importance that what they write is significant enough that I receive it in my email inbox irrespective of where I am at the time.
And I expect readers of my blog to have that same choice, as they did in the past. I may only have 130 or so subscribers, but each one of them has been earned through consistent postings to the point that they have chosen to have my content delivered directly to them. I have a following of 5-10x that. There is a significant difference between the two concepts.
I am EXTREMELY upset about this change. One of the reasons I use WordPress is the email subscription widget. "Follow" is not going to get me any more email subscribers to my blog, because people do not know what it is. You guys are something else.
As my widget heading is "Follow our new life" I might be relatively lucky, but the fact there is NO indication this is an email subscription button simply means, in my opinion, that most non-WP readers will simply think it is a follow button for WP members and ignore it.
Very bad usability design!!!
Defintiely needs to indicate to non-WP members that it is an email subscription available to non-WP members.
I would like to echo the sentiments of those above - I think this is a very big step backwards. Recently I compared WordPress's email subscription with Feedburner's and despite the recommendations of many, determined that the WP email subscription was superior. Now it's gone! Please, PLEASE put it back! My readers already have plenty of Follow options - they don't need another.
I have just noticed the same thing. I am really cross as many of my subscribers, subscribe by email not by RSS feed. Some people do not even know what RSS feed even is. I personally always subscribe to other blogs by email
This blue dot is a pathetic replacement and is not at all clear.
Please can we have our subscribe by email box back? If we did not want it we would not have added it to our sidebar.
I was looking for the link to this for you Pip, and saw you found it! :)
Another not so happy blogger here. Don't like the 'follow' button whatsoever. Like someone said above, it's like facebook. Most of my readers have subscribed by email and receive my posts in their inbox, this follow nonsense is useless.
Might be time for a Moderator to flag this thread for staff attention, I think.
I hate the new button. Like everyone has said, a follower is not the same as a subscriber. People who might subscribe in the future now won't, because there's no subscribe button.
Come on WordPress: listen to us. Fix this.
Oh dear... I have several blogs of interest to older people, usually newcomers to the Internet and blogs in particular. A new visitor to my site will now just see my widget header that says 'Subscribe Today!', but they will not see the subscriber explanation or my instruction to click 'Sign me up' unless they click this silly new 'Follow' button beneath it. To the less Internet savvy, the word 'Follow' conjures up ideas of social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook and I honestly feel some of my visitors will not feel inclined to click it!
And another thing. What's with the subscription count that's now included once the 'Follow' button has been pressed? Do new subscribers really need to know how many other people have chosen to subscribe??
WordPress blogs used to outshine the rest... to see things getting 'dumbed down' like this is really disappointing.
Change the subscribe button to a follow button with the inability to add any CONTEXT like you could before without asking or warning or choice to keep things the way they were in order to improve things. I don't FOLLOW this line of thinking at all.
I liked the idea of a small button which takes up less space than how the previous version used to take up a lot of space with the widget. However, I'd prefer an option to rename this widget as I please. The term "Follow Blog" may not be appropriate for all blogs and I'd prefer to change it. At the same time, I appreciate the number of subscribers it shows. It is a welcome change, but needs a slight adjustment.
I am also curious as to whatever happened to the idea of an email subscription box outside of the widget area? I noticed the subscription box on the top right corner of the blog not too long ago for a day, but then it disappeared.
It doesn't actually show the number of followers anyway, at least not on my page!
I have another problem to add - I've received emails today about new subscribers, yet they are not showing on my list of subscribers nor is the number of subscribers rising accordingly in my Dashboard.
*sigh* My wordpress blog just received some attention on mlb.com, and I wrote a post welcoming all the new readers I was getting. In my post, I provided instructions on how to subscribe to the blog via email.
Now, with these (unannounced?) changes, my instructions are completely incorrect and confusing to new readers.
I've looked at my blog both while logged in and while logged out of my wordpress account, and I just see the "follow" button. There's no indication that this is going to send me the post via email until I hit the "follow" button (while logged out of my wordpress account) and get more info about signing up. While logged into my wordpress account, there's no indication.
Even worse, I tried to change the header from "Follow Blog" back to "Email Subscription" like it used to be, and it won't let me do that. Instead, it seems to think I meant to type "Follow Blog" instead and reverts it to that when I save it. It will let me change it to something else, but not the old "Email Subscription," that makes more sense. I was able to go in and change the option so it won't show my subscriber count.
This is very confusing, both to me and to my readers.
Please give us the option to have it behave the way it used to, the way we are familiar with it behaving, the way our readers are used to it behaving. Adding the "follow" functionality is fine, but doing so at the expense of completely breaking something that has been working great forever is ridiculous.
@teamoyeniyi, I subscribed your blog to check if the number of subscribers show up or not (they don't), then I unsubscribed.
I think the number of subscribers show up for users who are not logged in to the WordPress.com. This doesn't seem like a useful idea.
Damn right I'm upset about this.
My subscribe via email button handed out virtual cake before, now it doesn't hand out anything except some silly plus sign button.
Bad mistake wordpress, because followers (as has been said before) are not the same as subscribers.
One of my blogs got a lot of attention yesterday, and I was puzzled as to why I didn't get an email signup or two... until I saw that stupid follow button.
Obviously, WordPress does not care enough about its users to even respond to all of these comments. Time to switch to a new blog platform?
WordPress - your silence is starting to irritate! If this change is to stay - then at least allow us to edit the text on the 'Follow' button e.g. make it a little bigger and change it to 'SIGN ME UP!'
Agreed, this is an unnecessary and poor change and the silence from any WordPress support folks is quite frustrating. Hopefully they are all very busy correcting this and setting things back to the way they were.
Not a good idea, the Follow button. For those who pay for the sites on WordPress, we're now paying for something different, which won't increase loyal visitors. I know I "follow" blogs through Blogger and I don't have any inclination to read their posts because there's nothing to remind me that they exist.
What now happens to the previous subscribers? Are they out of the loop? At least educate those loyal WordPress bloggers what this means, WordPress. I've recommended several people who have joined the blogging community here and
the change has me rethinking referrals.
As usual, changes made that people are not happy with, will things change or go back the way we went them, no chance.
Do you think they will take notice, well up to now, no.
WP shouldn't need to try and adopt gimmicks from social networking sites. This is not Facebook. The "Follow" button looks tiny and irrelevant now. After the global tags fiasco not linking to similar blogs but looking back at the blog you're on, this is just a joke. I seriously hope WP take notice of the amount of people complaining about this.
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