This post is about my WordPress Reader woes, and other computer related thoughts. This post is NOT about cats but there are cat pictures in it.  My helpers are here stimulating my thoughts on the problem.

Firstly, my WordPress Reader is malfunctioning.

Is this really a problem? It is not a big problem as I follow most of your blogs on two other feed readers, and I have every one of your web addresses bookmarked as well. The bad thing for me is that you do not know I am following you, even though I am! You follow me–I don’t follow you–what a rat! WordPress reader tells you this lie, WP bloggers.

So, what is the problem? Read what I say very closely. The list of WP Reader blogs I follow is posted on another person’s blog page in their widget “Blogs I Follow” in total. When I add or subtract a site, the site is added or subtracted IMMEDIATELY AUTOMATICALLY on the other person’s blog page. Is that weird or what? I researched the net for this problem to no avail, and contacted WP support. I await their advice. Is my list on other blogs I do not know about? Is my list on yours?  Fortunately there is no visible linkage back to me, so no one knows that the list is mine. I’ve been trying to figure this out, but I cannot do it.  This tool is not helping.

The only simple solution I have is to delete all the blogs on Reader I am following and the list will go to zero. I could follow you in other readers: in fact I do follow most of you in other readers.  You never know if I am following you or not, but actually you do, when a like or comment pops up from me. That’s the clue! So unless it is fixed, some of you will find me disappearing off your Followers list.

Speaking of the Followers list in Reader, I do not believe in the number of Followers that is given. I think 95% are “Ghost” followers who hit the follow button and never return, just in hope that I, or you, will return the “favor” and increase their numbers. That would explain to me the paradox why some people with thousands of “followers” get fewer comments than I do!

I have read occasionally of other people having WP problems. It reminded me how important it is for us all to “BACKUP” our blogs in case something catastrophic happens. Definitely have multiple backups of your photos! I backed up this WP site this week. In WP  “Tools” look for “Export”.  I had a Blogger blog, and before I deleted it, I backed it up to my computer, where it resides in it’s entirety! If I started a new blog, I could “import” it to the new site, and it would appear magically intact (in theory)! Just a thought. Maybe I will bring it back to life one day. Remember: Better safe than sorry. I have been thinking about changing the “theme” appearance of this blog, as it looks VERY old fashioned. On the other hand, when you arrive here you see old familiar territory and know where you are. What to do?

The mysterious object above is my old metal Pickett slide rule with the red leather case I attached to my belt to carry it with, when I was in college in the 60’s. Pickett slide rules were high quality items. Ordinary ones were white or plastic or both. Mine was metal with the eye-strain reducing yellowy green color. It was mainly used for multiplication and division, though there are higher mathematical functions that can be done on it with respect to trigonometry, reciprocals, square and cube roots and the like. The slide rule does no addition or subtraction.  Today they are only good for stirring paint.  Greg once the Science Guy

Problem Solved 24 hours later?

Letter received from WordPress:

“There was a glitch with that particular widget (on the other blog). I’ve fixed it on that page, so you won’t see your followed blogs there anymore.

To make you feel a bit better, the way the glitch worked everyone who visited the page saw their own followed blogs there.

So when I went to fix it I saw my list, not your list.

Which means the blogs you follow were not shown to everyone.

Let me know if you need anything else. Maureen C.”

I am impressed, at least momentarily. Thanks Maureen. I probably should retitle this post “Much Ado About Nothing” but I think that has been already taken. This is why I should only write cat posts. Remind me not to do this again.  Today I am dumping the WP Reader anyway!  I don’t really need it.  There are better ones.  Sorry to mess up your follower count–if you are a “counter”.  Better to just count “views” and “comments”.  Back to normal Wednesday with a Zeke exclusive.