I had to search to find this. Are you aware of the changes to the WP Reader? They are compressing and chopping posts in the Reader to accomplish what they call “streamlining” so the viewer can scan more posts more quickly while seeing less of your content in their reader. What WP is doing is giving your post much less than half the room it used to have in the reader, sometimes only two lines of text if you don’t have photos.
They are also now inserting blogs they promote in your Reader. So they are taking up the room they are saving by compressing your posts in the Reader with blogs you are not following and they are promoting.
This seems manipulative and non-transparent on WordPress’s part and not in the best interest of bloggers.
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Reblogged this on Betcha Didn't Know!.
Thank you for spreading the word. Maybe we can restore the old reader and get more transparency on how and why WP promotes certain blogs.
I agree
Couldn’t agree more. It’s very annoying! For the first time I think about getting out of WP. Awful.
I hear you and I fully understand! They have us by the short hairs to some degree. Our friends and community is here.
They sure do… 🙁
Thanks for this news. I clearly don’t understand the mindset at WP – It seems like, every now and then they gather and think “how can we mess with our loyal customers a little more?”
Well it is good to know I am not the only one who has noticed this. They have significant customer relations deficits. They need human interaction training starting with an intro session entitled, “What is respect and why should I care?”
Laughing…..I’m not teaching it. I’m retired. 😉
First there was cranberry sauce made from cranberries and sugar.
Then they added orange juice.
Then they add lemon zest.
Then they added cinnamon.
Then they added ginger.
Then… after many years… they went back to…
Simple cranberries and sugar. That was always the best!
Laughing. So incredibly apropos! Thank you for starting my day with a smile~
The Forum Thread is
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/new-reader-look?
Thank you Graham. I don’t appreciate WP putting hitches in our giddyaps~
Yee ha. 😀
Forum thread is now
https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/reader-update
Thank you Graham. I left comments on both forums and noticed one forum closed rather quickly. I also am directly giving feedback to WP. They pushed the envelope too far this time and a lot of people are feeling the burn~
**** Dear Cindy, ****
I cannot see any of your comments on either of the threads, can you ? Are WP censoring ? .
OMG! This is so much worse than I imagined! I will put them back. What recourse do we have with this?
Both of my comments were removed! I reposted this:
You are removing and censoring my comments in two forums! The WP reader is supposed to be for blogs we follow to make reading the blogs we follow easier. It is not supposed to be for WP to push blogs we don’t follow down our throats. You are taking space in the reader away from blogs I follow and using this space for blogs you promote. Blogs with no photos get two lines. Blogs with photos get their photos and layout mangled. And now you are removing my comments? Readers, please go to cindyknoke.com and see the overwhelming negative reaction from bloggers to these changes.
Let’s see how long they let it stay. This is cowardly and appalling behavior.
Your comment is now present dated Dec 16 at 1:04 am. I have screen shots to show that it wasn’t there at 11:00 am and I know it wasn’t there a few minutes ago.
I have a gmail address for you. May I use it.
Please do and do me a favor and hold on to those screen shots. I am getting my blog backed up now.
I will certainly keep them and be in touch within the hour. 🙂
Thank you Graham. I received your email and greatly appreciate your help. Please see this comment I just received and my reply:
pelly*made says:
December 16, 2016 at 10:13 pm Edit
Hello Cindy,
I read your message in the forum and we are on the same page. My comments in their announcement post were also censored!!! And although I have the forum page open all day since yesterday, it’s 10 minutes ago that I saw your comment… it wasn’t there before! This is more serious than I thought, why do they do it?
It’s such a big relief to see so many fellow bloggers commenting here and agree that these changes are horrible; till now I felt like a minority, especially when I read all those comments in their announcement post giving them thumbs up! But I also feel that if there’s a chance to bring the old Reader back, then all of us who are strongly opposed must leave a comment not only here (or to any other post who deals with that issue – me included) but to their sticky post. They won’t pay attention to us otherwise
Thank you for bringing this up here and good luck to all of us…🙂
Pelly
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REPLY
cindy knoke says:
December 16, 2016 at 10:39 pm Edit
Yes good luck to all of us. Censoring dissenting opinions is serious business. Thank you for weighing in on this. May I suggest you copy your comment and leave it on Graham’s blog at:
https://freedfromtime.wordpress.com/author/grahaminhats/
He is extremely knowledgeable about these issues and would want to hear your feedback and co-ordinate with you. Thank you very much for sharing your expertise and for your support!
Wow, not good! It’s bad enough when supermarket websites remove items from your favourites list to promote goods you never buy, but I wouldn’t have expected this behaviour from WP.
Yes ! 🙂
Excellent analogy!
Good analogy and probably a similar motivation which is pathetic~
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I noticed this yesterday, and find it annoying! I dislike the WP Reader quite a bit, and now it’s gotten that much worse.
Usually when I log in to WP, I just go to my Admin site and close the Reader window – I go directly to the blogs I follow via the folder I created and have them bookmarked in. I’d rather read a whole post, not just skim or scan through them.
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who doesn’t like this ‘new’ feature!
You were smart to avoid the reader in the first place, you avoid all their shenanigins including their promoted ‘blogs of the day’ which they are now forcing into view in the reader.
Wow – that is really annoying! Makes me think of the Amazon.com feature that “recommends” things based on past purchases. I ignore those, also – I buy what I want, when I want to! Definitely don’t need things shoved at me in that fashion…what a pain!
“Shenanigans” is the perfect term for that, I’d say…
😉
The sad thing is I purposely avoid the blogs they promote because I disapprove of WP’s promotions which is unfair to the blogs and bloggers they push. However if I encounter these blogs like I do others, naturally in the course of blogging, I will follow them if I like them. I will not follow in response to a WP promotion ever. It’s an unstraight transaction.
I agree – I do the same thing.
🙂
Yes. I’m not impressed either. And whatever happened to Freshly Pressed ? WordPress is becoming increasingly fragmented and swamped in advertising.
Most businesses devote at least some attention to customer satisfaction and relations. WP doesn’t.
Ugh…
Big Brother is here and named wordpress~
Ew. I don’t like it.
Nope and it appears we are far from alone in this!
Hi Cindy – It is the way WP works, release the article about changes late in the evening when we are doing other things (and largely offline). I’ve never been a fan of Reader and do not use it. As a whole, it undermines the process of taking time to craft the layout and appearance. If they feel the clean, minimalist layout of Reader is so advantageous, they should not have a gazillion (yes, that is a number) themes for us to choose from and customize.
You are correct on all counts and smart to have never gotten involved with the reader. You are so right about the “minimalist” bs. What they are doing is editorial, altering content and controlling accessibility. And don’t forget they charge for upgraded “themes” that are not at all minimalistic. So minimalism is only practiced at our expense, less of us, more of wordpress.
Completely agree: it looks awful! Pip
It alters blog accessibility and visibility in a very negative manner.
Yes, what used to be attractive looks rushed and bitty. Horrid!
Precisely.
Thanks for raising this issue, Cindy. My Reader has now changed from what it was yesterday. I’ll be looking out for their sneak posts.
Blogs without photos are the most penalized in this new system. They get two lines of text~
Reblogged this on HermitCrab and commented:
Something doesn’t seem right…last I checked, people’s words here are more than just advertising clips to be scrolled through.
I couldn’t have said it more succinctly or better. Thank you~
Thanks for bringing it to our attention!
Thank you for responding~
Yikes! Thanks for bringing this to my attention, Cindy. I hadn’t known what the problem was.
Problems are never fun to have brought to one’s attention but in this case I felt it was necessary~
I have been away from WordPress for a couple of days. Thank you for the info. Will check out the changes.
Thanks you Rebecca~
Right! I happened to see posts from other blogs for the last few days as ‘suggestions’. I think it shouldn’t be the case as I want to see more posts from the blogs I chose to follow.
Exactly. It is influence peddling.
Not fair… :/
I wish WordPress would quit changing things! The changes are never better, and we didn’t ask for them. I suspect they are “suggesting” blogs that pay the most….
I suspect you are right and there is some sort of quid pro quo going on and I don’t like it.
You are right, Cindy. I hope WP takes note of posts like yours and all these comments by users expressing discontentment.
I hope, but I am not hopeful!
WORDPRESS…is neurotic 🎅
Yes, unfortunately it is .
Thank you for explaining, Cindy. I was so confused…
Such a bad move for WP!!
You are most welcome. It is a bad move on their part. Unfortunately, I doubt they care about our thoughts on the matter~
Cindy, I found this post on Hermit Crab’s blog. I don’t have a word for marginalisation or censorship by random algorithm but this is certainly what it looks like. I note that WP has been promoting other blogs within posts in Reader for some time now. I am sure it is randomly generated, as some of the posts are as old as three years and not many of the blogs are currently active.
Interesting. Why would they do this? It creates distrust and disharmony. I was thinking it may actually create a backlash against blogs they promote which is unfair to the bloggers and their blogs.
So true about unfairness, Cindy. My follow list gets edited without my permission on a daily basis. Many of the blogs I want to read only appear under respective tags and not in my Reader. So, I find it strange that I’m being offered new blogs to follow when I’m perfectly happy with the ones I already selected.
Yes! I just checked and so many blogs I follow get unfollowed by WP without my knowledge or consent and they want me to follow their promoted blogs? I think they may limit how many blogs they will let us follow similar to how they are limiting space in the reader. This is disturbing behavior. People need to know that blogs get unfollowed without the followers consent~
Reblogged this on pensitivity101 and commented:
Thanks Cindy. Have checked your link and left a comment. Seems mine is the only negative as everyone elese is gushing praise. My reader is taking ages to laod, and I hate only having half an image on some of my favourite sites. Wish they’d leave well alone. It wasn’t broke.
Exactly! Please read the comments on this post. You will see that bloggers are decidedly unhappy with wordpress and their changes. I question the positive comments and wonder about quid pro quos, favoritism and toadyism.
I just received a reply from a ‘Happiness Engineer’ to my Support query about the new changes. I will try to post that here:
“HI there,
‘Let’s show photo snippets of headless people, birds, or
animals. Let’s show a patch of blue sky from a landscape. EQUALLY… UN…
APPEALING! Good job WordPress! NOT!!!’
I’m sorry to hear the reader update is not working for you.
It sounds like your biggest frustration is with how photos are handled–cropped in ways that don’t make a lot of sense.
Do you have any other specific, and actionable critiques I can pass on to our developers?”
MY REPLY:
It’s not just the photo cropping. Here are more specific and actionable critiques:
1. NOTIFY the community when a major format change is forthcoming.
2. Leave the post formatting alone, especially in the Followed list. People spend a lot of time crafting and formatting their posts using WordPress tools, then you reduce them to a very plain-vanilla, boring, bullet-list format. Even my most-followed and most-read bloggers look unappealing.
3. Remove the Recommended Posts from the Followed list. The old drop-down for Reader had a Recommendations option. I have no interest in seeing recommendations when I’m looking at my Followed list.
I’m all for innovative and constructive change. I don’t see the new changes as being either of those. I used to work in quality control and user tech support for a software company. I think you are losing or forgetting the users perspective.
Thank you.
Oh this is excellent John. Thank God they didn’t ask you to take screen shots to verify your points. Although they probably still will! They seem to always respond to criticism by asking the criticizer to do work, to supply them with more data, which is just a stop and stall technique. It didn’t work with you thank goodness. You gave them an excellent and measured analysis. I think the negative feedback at this point is overwhelming. I cannot remember a for profit company having this much customer dis-satisfaction, unless of course we go back to the days of the FORD PINTO!
Thanks for this info I am so accustomed to clicking the visit site button that I wasn’t aware of this. I did notice that the page seemed a little different but did not pay it much attention.
It is particularly bad for blogs that don’t have photos. They get two lines in the reader which is so easy to overlook with all the data crammed in now and with the new wordpress promoted blogs added in to the mix.
Yes that is true this will cause some blogs not to get noticed at all.
Which is not right~
Maybe we should all go on strike and not post at all for a month. That might show as decreased ‘views’ and suggest that they’re losing their members. 🙂
Some sort of unified action seems called for. Certainly we can all start by letting wordpress know how we feel and give them an opportunity to correct their behavior.
I get the compressing and in a way if someone wants to read the post they can. What I don’t like is the idea of promoted blogs chosen by them. I want to read the blogs I like and not the ones they choose…
This is particularly irksome to me as well. It smacks of toadyism, quid pro quos, and favoritism. I resent having the blogs I follow compressed so they can shove blogs I don’t follow down my throat in my reader without my consent.
Yep, absolutely agree!
Thank you~
However, the Reader was previously crowded with just several authors’ “articles”, where, as now, one may scroll down and locate titles from more than just the prolific who post things all day long. It previously irritated me that a few jam the Reader each day. That’s difficult for others to get recognition. But, yet again, radical changes usually mean demise is on its way. Hope not! Thanks for creating this challenging conversation, Cindy! Maybe it will help!
“It previously irritated me that a few jam the Reader each day.” This is a problem. The only solution I have found for it is to unfollow a blog that I like which seems severe but I can’t have my reader jammed with tons of posts from one person daily. I try to visit these blogs on my own but don’t always have time. The reader is a time saver, which is it’s value, but not if it seems to be a propaganda tool for WP’s hidden editorial agendas. I don’t know if bringing this up will help, but I couldn’t just swallow it silently anymore.
Damned straight it’s manipulative.
Yes. I like straight forward, transparent transactions.
Hmm – I’ve never much liked the Reader feature anyway so this is another reason to avoid it – thanks for keeping an eye out for us.
Smart woman. I wish I had done the same but I can’t handle the mailbox overload.
I did notice this among the blogs that I follow. Thank you for pointing out how it affects my photos Cindy.
I don’t like seeing people’s carefully created work hacked to bits~
NO, I wonder why they changed the design?
Well Occam’s Razor would suggest it has something to do with M_O_N_E_Y and content control.
Sounds very likely..
I haven’t used the reader much for the blogs I really want to read because of many features I don’t like. Now it’s even worse, particularly for photographers. And adding “promoted” posts is completely shady. I can’t help but thinking it also encourages scrolling through and liking without actually seeing the post.
Chopping photos off mid photo, and reducing textual blogs in the reader to two lines is bad enough, but the forced promotion is just wrong. The reader is supposed to contain the blogs you CHOOSE to follow, not the blogs WP wants you to follow. Plus WP seems to unfollow us from blogs without our consent. Yikes~
Thank you Cindy for highlighting this change and bringing awareness to the not so subtle politics at play. I gave them a piece of mind. Let’s see if anyone is listening!
You are most welcome Linda. I did the same and still am.
I agree! I am not a fan of the new format!
It is claustrophobic and visually ugly~
It’s symptomatic of our times. Fewer people like to read (reading words and processing ideas is less strenuous than viewing images). People are absorbed by their gadgets (read: smartphones) and spend many of their waking hours scanning pictures and short bursts of silliness on their toys. A few seconds here, then it’s off to something else. No sustained concentration. I don’t have many people reading my blog, but those I do have hardly ever come from links on my Facebook page.
We’re dumbing down rapidly, and WordPress is joining the fray.
Yes, the digital world is changing the way people process information. Information is gathered much more rapidly, no card catalogues, no trips to the book store or library. I understand and respect your thoughts, but I love the improved digital access to information and am happy to never slave over another microfiche or card catalogue. I love to read and I love getting books instantly in my Kindle. That said I don’t love FB but that is mostly due to often trite content. WP platform problems seem different and problematic in a more serious way than merely attempting to improve speed or access to blogs. They are exercising covert editorial control, altering content, influencing what we see and how we see it, and I do not approve of this.
Sure, I’m not anti-digital. The internet opened up a world of information for me and many others, and I wouldn’t have been able to write a book without it. What I don’t like is the obsession with leisure technology. It’s similar to television. TV can be both entertaining AND educational, but I know very few people who watch PBS. Marshall McLuhan warned of a “vast wasteland.” Social media has opened doors for people to express themselves and gain information like never before, but this luxury is too often abused. I agree with you about WordPress intruding on our essays and ideas. But I also see their changes as symptomatic of a culture that is hell-bent on de-emphasizing sustained concentration and critical thinking.
Ah, yes, I hear you, understand and agree, and I basically only watch pbs on my kindle. I am a pbs fiend, bring on Austen and Dickens and Hardy, oh yeah! Marshall was a genius and accurately predicted much of what is happening in our mass mediated culture. You are absolutely correct. This is why I so love blogging and bloggers. Until now, I thought we were free of the mass media control of information, unedited and fully free to express ourselves without any content control or undue preferential influence.
Completely agree. I don’t care for this new set up at all. Almost enough to give up WP!
I hear you. The community of bloggers is the only thing keeping me here. Certainly WP is not.
I noticed it, Cindy, when I started feeling claustrophobic using my reader. I guess WP is like every other big corporation: money before people. They’re caught in the wave of insanity sweeping the planet. This will eventually turn around. I just hope we all have the patience to see it through 💖
Yes to the ‘claustrophobic’ feeling of the new reader! Exactly! All these posts jammed together, and then every few posts these squished in wp promoted blogs so it is difficult to see who you’re actually following and who they want you to follow. It is a terrible dis-service to carefully constructed blog posts.
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i’m so glad you posted this..Normally I go to the site anyway, because when one views the reader the country of origin flag does not show up in site’s stats and I love to see where people are from, so I assume others do as well. With that said, I follow sites that post individual photos in many postings in one day — it is now tedious and stressful and time-consuming to go to the site to find all of those posts ESPECIALLY when I am a few days behind checking my reader. I sat down to go to my Zen blogging place — I guess I will have to seek peace in another way. 😀
Yes! I agree wholeheartedly. WP seems to operate in a customer negating manner deflecting rather than considering customer feedback.
Agreed, Cindy. I’m just now seeing it for the first time, and trying to give it a chance. We shall see.
We shall indeed!
Agreed. Struggling to get used to this – suddenly my reader looks really cramped!
Visuals are important to me and these are bad visuals!
Yes, I noticed the change yesterday. I didn’t quite understand why WP would want to clip the messages so much. It seems a disservice to the bloggers who spend so much time crafting the posts. Sigh. We’ll see what happens..
And now they are censoring dissenting opinions, read mine. It feels a tad totalitarian for my tastes. I’m backing up my blog……
Hello Cindy,
I read your message in the forum and we are on the same page. My comments in their announcement post were also censored!!! And although I have the forum page open all day since yesterday, it’s 10 minutes ago that I saw your comment… it wasn’t there before! This is more serious than I thought, why do they do it?
It’s such a big relief to see so many fellow bloggers commenting here and agree that these changes are horrible; till now I felt like a minority, especially when I read all those comments in their announcement post giving them thumbs up! But I also feel that if there’s a chance to bring the old Reader back, then all of us who are strongly opposed must leave a comment not only here (or to any other post who deals with that issue – me included) but to their sticky post. They won’t pay attention to us otherwise
Thank you for bringing this up here and good luck to all of us… 🙂
Pelly
Yes good luck to all of us. Censoring dissenting opinions is serious business. Thank you for weighing in on this. May I suggest you copy your comment and leave it on Graham’s blog at:
https://freedfromtime.wordpress.com/author/grahaminhats/
He is extremely knowledgeable about these issues and would want to hear your feedback and co-ordinate with you. Thank you very much for sharing your expertise and for your support!
I thank you back Cindy! I just finished a long reply to the sticky post and feel exhausted; they have a way of not answering your questions, neglect what they don’t like and make you feel like an idiot…
I see that you forwarded my comment to Graham, so there’s no need for me to do it.
I hope that some of your commenters will also comment to the sticky post though…
The aftermath of that hideous change are apparent to my blog already: My new post has a big decrease of views and likes and I’m convinced the “improved” Reader is to blame!
By the way, you have a beautiful blog!
I did some reading and found out that WP apparently owns the content of our blogs. We, it seems have no intellectual property rights to our blogs and according to their terms of service, “Automattic may terminate your access to all or any part of our Services at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. ”
This could explain their dismissive attitude and their censorship. We are gnats they can swat away at will and that is scary. It is exhausting going up against Goliath. Take care of yourself first and foremost. Time for some TLC and relaxation. I gonna watch a cheesy James Bond Movie tonight, That should fix me! I was at your blog and your photography and art is brilliant and it is a real pleasure to meet you! Take good care~
That’s a nightmare!!! It’s the reason why I may be the only person in the world who doesn’t have facebook… So theoretically they could ban me after all the negative comments I wrote? I read that you’re backing up your blog. How? I’d like to be prepared for such a contingency, but I don’t really know how.
Anyway, you’re right, it’s time to relax, tomorrow it’s the opening of our group exhibition and I must be in a totally different mood 🙂
Thank you so much Cindy for your words and feedback, it means a lot to me! And it’s my pleasure too <3
P.s.: I would like to ask for your email, I have something very interesting to show you, it's relevant to what we are dealing here…
If you feel comfortable leaving your email address here, I will reply and you will get my address. I would understand if your don’t want your email put here for all to see, so it is up to your discretion. To back up your blog and all of the comments, go to wp admin and rest your cursor on tools. You will see an export option. Click on that and your can download your whole blog and comments on your computer.
Your group exhibition sounds wonderful! Enjoy & cheers to you!
Thank you sweet Cindy )
Agree! Who is WP’s #1 competition?
I found out reading wp’s terms of use, that wp, according to wp, owns our blog content (of course this could be challenged). We seem, according to wp, to have no intellectual property rights to our own blog content and wp can:
“Automattic may terminate your access to all or any part of our Services at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately.”
They are magicians. They can make us disappear. I am impressed. It is so Valdemort of them.
Possibly this is why they are comfortable censoring constructive comments and selectively promoting blogs.
Here is a list of suggested best blogging platforms:
http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/best-blogging-platforms-121413634
Thank you, Cindy, I had no idea of this. There’s always something isn’t there.
There is.
I haven’t been in Reader for a long time. I have created a word document where I store all the links of the blogs I follow and am interested in. It is quite straightforward, and I add links to it as the time goes.
That sounds smart.
Hmmmm. I’m not sure that I know what the WP Reader is… I’m still in the 19th century again.
Oscar
Right now I think that is very smart of you!
Thank you for this awareness!
You are most welcome & I wish it weren’t so~
Yes, indeed this is frustrating!
<3
Email notifications eliminate the need for the reader altogether…
Reader takes too long take so load if you don’t have a super fast connection and the visuals take up a lot of data on a capped allowance.
I had that initially but my email got overwhelmed and the reader solved this problem~
I’ve been bouncing through the new reader tonight and I liked it. Enormous photos take ages to load and put me off bothering trying to plough through it as it was before. It’s a lot easier to find what I want to see now 🙂
Well, that is a good thing to consider. Thanks for sharing your positive perspective & Happy Holidays to you and the wolf-child!