Having Blogs "Approved"- Does This Annoy Anyone Else?

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

This a.m., I saw that I had misspelled "McDonald's" in my blog post from yesterday. Nit-picker that I am, this bothered me and I went into "Edit Post" to change it. When I hit "Publish", I got the message that the blog will have to wait for approval again, and it is now gone from the front page. I'm pretty disappointed about that, because if Adina is at work and having a busy day, it may not be back until tonight. If you're like me, when you publish a blog post, you want people to read it and comment on it, and you look forward to reading the comments. I know some of my East coast friends visit DK early in the day before work and now may not read it until tomorrow. I'm really sorry now that I had to be so anal and correct my little spelling error.

I know Adina made blogs subject to approval because a lot of people were confused about the difference between a blog and a discussion, and were posting blogs when a discussion would have been much better for purposes of getting a lively discussion going. But it seems ridiculous that just for changing one letter in an already published blog, I now have to wait for approval again. Sometimes people also want to update a blog, and this same thing would happen if you do that.

To be honest, I'm even annoyed at having to wait to publish my blog the first time. Sometimes, timing is everything, lol.

I'm not saying I expect Adina to be sitting by her computer ready to approve every blog the minute it's posted. I guess what I'm saying is, if a blog is going to disappear for hours just because you make a minor change to it, I'd rather have some blogs that should have been discussions get posted than have it the way it is now. Am I in the minority?

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

I'm with you. Everyone comments on blogs just like on Discussions, so they are really all discussions to me anyway. I don't like waiting either. Particularly since I'm East Coast and Adina is Pacific Coast time ..... sometimes there is a pretty good delay. However, I've never been known for my patience! lol :0)

[shelly]

Wait! She's NOT at her computer all day just checking on DK?! LOL This "East Coaster" was actually wondering WHY blogs had to be approved, but forum did NOT. At first I thought Adina wanted to check the content to be sure nothing was offensive, but we all know that can and does sometimes happen inadvertently on forum as well as any blog. Maybe because "blogs" are not those 'life or death' posing questions - those "I need help immediately" questions are usually posted in forum....And also, while we're on this subject ~ kind of... why do we have 15 minutes to edit on forum and not on blogs? Is your forum post not seen for 15 minutes? Sometimes I change something after I post it, but within my 15 minutes, and I do see the 'corrected' post... GREAT question, Karen! I'll be watching!
"Adinaaaaa!, Adinaaaaa", are you up yet?! It's 8 AM where you are, do YOU know where your DoodleKisses' friends are?

[Adina P]

You are not allowed to disagree with me... ;)  LOL
Yeah...If I could change the part where 'editing' required approval I would but it's just the way the system works.  Annoyingly.  I do check through the day for blog approvals in waiting.  I'll think about it :)   One thing that would help is if NOBODY responded to blogs that were along the lines of 'How do I potty train my dog?' or 'Who's a good breeder in AK?' kinda 'blogs'...then I could deal with those on an individual basis.  I can approve blogs forever from individual posters...but I didn't realize I could until too late for some members.  I need to look into whether I can backtrack that one.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Part of this is probably my fault, although I may be giving myself too much importance. I posted my Hopeless Doodle Addict discussion as a blog by mistake, and Adina really wanted those HDA posts to be discussions, because discussions stay on the main page longer and attract more interest. (Nancy, I really blame you for that, lol, since you did the same thing just before me, and I was copying you!) By the time Adina asked me to delete it and change it to a discussion, people had already made comments and it was too late. If she'd been monitoring blogs back then, she could have messaged me to change it to a discussion before it was posted. So I think that's one reason for the change.
But I do understand the difference between a blog and a discussion, and when each should be used, and I feel kind of like I'm being punished because others don't. After all, if someone posts a blog when it should have been a discussion and doesn't get the kind of responses they would otherwise have gotten, that affects them more than the rest of us. So I think each person should be responsible for learning the difference and if they use the wrong format, so be it.
(The fifteen minute time limit to edit discussion posts, and the lack of that option on blog responses is a "ning" thing, I believe, and not the choice of the site administrator.)

[Adina P]

Oh it's totally all your fault. If it weren't for that one incident...freedom would be had by all!!!!! ;-) Just kidding of course.

The reason blog comments are the way they are is just because that's how blog comments are. In other words...check popular blogs on the internet and comments are not editable and they are not tiered so you can respond to specific comments below them. Just one of those "it's the way it's always been done" and thus the way the system is set.

As I said above, I'll check to see if I can reinstate the option to approve ALL blogs from individual bloggers.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Oh, that would be nice. Or it would be fine with me if we could only have discussions going forward but leaving all blogs from the past intact.

[Vicky & Cassidy]

Sounds reasonable to me. I also tend to be a little nit-picky about spelling and grammar.
Is it possible to install a spell-check program?

[Adina P]

If you browse the web with Firefox it HAS spell-check...so anywhere you type on the web you'll get spell-checked. Perhaps other newer browsers or new versions of Explorer do it too, but I only know Firefox as that is what I use.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Spell check doesn't always help. With my hunt and peck typing I often leave out the T in the, but spell check thinks he is perfectly OK. Also, spell check often corrects words that it doesn't know sending me to look up perfectly good words that I have, in fact, spelled correctly. Still like the ability to go back and check my own work, the errors are most glaring when I see them on the front page.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Oh Karen, this is scary. We are more alike than not alike. I too struggle with typos etc. in blogs and comments.I really hate having blogs approved so I don't do any blogs. And it's amazing what can provoke discussion. I particularly like the ability to specifically respond to a response! I already complained about this months ago:
http://www.doodlekisses.com/main/search/search?q=discussions+versus...

[Adina P]

Is this because you feel censored?  Because I don't 'censor' ... I can tell in 5 seconds if a submission is 'blog-like'  and VERY RARELY do I read the whole thing before hitting 'approve'.

[F, Calla & Luca]

No, just a freedom of speech without permission thing. But I am an old rebel I guess. I know you don't censor. It is pretty amazing really that self censorship really works so well here. People could publish just about anything but everyone, except for the rare scammer (e.g. spell check doesn't like scammer), follows the DK rules. Occasionally someone doesn't know about rules advertising puppies or breeders etc. but generally it all works so well, a tribute to you Adina. Most particularly, I like the ability to respond to a particular part of the post, greatly increasing the clarity of what you're responding to and to whom. And who doesn't like immediate gratification?