What the hell is it with the sudden burst of people using the comment subscription tick box (plugin?) with WordPress? Is it really that prosperous for a website owner to have it automatically ticked? Does it benefit anyone? Do I care what other people are saying on your website? No, no, no! I really do not care what your sheep are repeating, please do not subscribe me to your comments.
That’s probably the most angry and aggressive sounding paragraph I’ve churned out in a while but I am getting seriously annoyed with leaving a comment and not noticing until after I’ve added it that I now seem to be subscribed.
Sure, I could pay more attention, but do I honestly have the time to inspect a page each time I want to say something? No, I do not. I’m a busy woman. I have things to do, blogs to read, websites to run etc.. I don’t want to have to go through the hassle of un-subscribing myself to sod knows how many blogs each and every week because someone decided it was a good idea to automatically select a checkbox.
06 May at 11:40 am
Who even knows what we’re agreeing to these days when we leave comments! *looks at your ‘remember me’ button*
06 May at 11:42 am
@Lindsey: Hah! That just remembers your details so you don’t have to re-type them — nothing sinister :3
06 May at 11:52 am
:D o i kno but imagine if the “remember me” button was actually sinister. and somehow got all your saved passwords, credit card numbers and history from you. o_o
06 May at 12:25 pm
If I remember right, Malin (Infektia) also made a post about this. It annoys me to hell too. I’ve talked with some online friends who have their checkbox ticked automatically. Blah.
06 May at 1:17 pm
I haven’t bothered to install that plugin for the same reason. What would be better if the default were to be unsuscribed.
06 May at 1:28 pm
Oh, by the way…that plugin is the featured plugin on the
06 May at 2:01 pm
I had that happen to me once, so I swiftly sent those notification to the spam are and never looked at the site again (’cause I forgot about it). I understand if this were the case with a forum. In that case if you started the thread you might want to know the follow-up comments, but in a blog? I wouldn’t quite say “sheep”, though. In short we’re all egoistical “brats” who only comment on stuff we can relate to, so we can tell you what WE (not you or anyone else) did in a similar situation. It’s not nice, but that’s just how it is.
06 May at 2:17 pm
That would be quite annoying. O.o I hate WP anyways, I just have nothing better to use because I don’t trust anything else enough. Some of the plugins are pretty useful, but most? No.
06 May at 2:33 pm
When I was searching for the theme switcher plugin I saw that plugin. Really, it’s pointless. A lot of them are, though. I only use the theme switcher and the Acronymer plugins.
06 May at 3:13 pm
I’ve only just noticed this new thing! I’ve been commenting on sites not realising until I saw that evil checkbox and thought ‘whoa there…’. It seems more than pointless.
06 May at 3:42 pm
I had that plugin when I used WP, but NEVER would I have set the notification to be ticked automatically. I hate that just as much as you. I hate receiving e-mails from some site I went to once and commented on, then realise I forgot to uncheck the box at the bottom for comment subscription, because either I thought it was a “remember me” box (like yours) or I just plainly didn’t see it. By all means use that plugin… But please don’t have the box checked by default.
06 May at 3:57 pm
unsolicited email, hmmm… isn’t there a word for that? :P
06 May at 4:37 pm
*is guity of having the subscribe to comments* but I dont *think* is automatically ticked – I havn’t asked it to be anyway! Its there for people to keep up with interesting posts.
06 May at 5:10 pm
Wow. I’m glad that I’m not one of the people who is doing this. NOTE: For those who are, I recommend stopping.
06 May at 5:17 pm
Yeah, my “notify me” box is unchecked by default cause I realize most people don’t care about other replies to most posts :P
06 May at 6:05 pm
Unlike most of the other comments, there is a valid point to subscribing to comments, especially if the blog provokes a discussion/debate in the comments, and you want to be notified. Considering that IS the point of them. Though I understand the bit about it being checked by default, which is a slight inconvenience but is easily avoided by just unchecking it. For some of the others that have left their opinions on it, I really don’t see how you should be marking it as spam, or reconsidering the site simply because you didn’t take the time to be aware of your surroundings. I think it’s lazy to blame the author, when it was you that decided to ignore it. Yes, it should be left unchecked by default, but it’s not. What’s your excuse for not unchecking it? It’s not like you have to search throughout the whole page. Most of the time the “subscribe to comments” option is right near the submit button, easily within “reach.” Meh, I like this plugin and the posts that brought in the most comments were the ones that were subscribed to the most, so I know it’s a useful plugin.
06 May at 8:59 pm
That is one thing that pisses me off so much. Like… baby punchin’ angry is what it makes me.
06 May at 10:06 pm
I remember I actively clicked one of those boxes for the first time a few months ago ‘notify me of follow up comments.’ I thought it meant if someone commented in response to my comment…! Phew! A load of spam later and I realised what it was all about. A simple ‘subscribe to everyone elses comments on my blog too’ would have sufficed! I also got ‘done’ by those automatically ticked boxes recently too… grr.
06 May at 11:06 pm
I use that box both on my blog and others that I visit and for the mostpart find it useful. Though I (now) know for sure that, on my site at least, the box is UNchecked by default. (Your post made me double-check ;) )
07 May at 1:46 am
Urgh – SO annoying! I’ve had to unsubscribe from around fifteen blogs recently. If I like a blog I will return; I don’t want to have to go the merely unsubscribe. It’s pointless and highly annoying.
07 May at 2:05 am
I actually do find the Subscribe to Comments plugin useful when I want to see what the author has to say in reply. But I agree that having it automatically ticked is annoying when you don’t want to be subscribed to the comments (there IS an option to have it unchecked by default).
07 May at 2:05 am
I agree! I have subscription checkbox on my blog but I’d never check it. Realistically not many people subscribe anyway, why force them to do so? That’ll just annoy your visitors and make your blog look bad.
07 May at 5:04 am
I’ve only really ticked that box a couple of times, when I was interested in reading further comments, however I was inundated with notification emails overnight and hence have stopped using the feature. If you really want to read follow-up comments, isn’t it just easier to go back to the site every so often?
07 May at 10:00 am
It’s very rare that those bloggers commentors have anything decent worth reading anyway. I can just imagine if I had that on my website, especially what with being a despair member.
08 May at 3:04 am
I agree; I just commented about this on atourworst. I don’t see the benefit of it, and I can’t imagine how many people are really finding it useful.
08 May at 10:48 pm
I thought it came with wp… It’s a plugin? I don’t have it. Please don’t say I have it. I don’t have it in my list but I have been so busy lately. I think however it is a good idea, but it should be defaulted to unticked. Just a thought to my friends who use that. It’d be grand for all you to listen to all of us who hate it. Sorry I kinda went off there. I hate that option.
06 Nov at 8:18 am
I haven’t noticed this “notify me” thing. See, I used to use my own PHP CMS, and now that I use EE there are many functions that are pre-installed that I wasn’t aware of. I find the same thing pretty annoying yet I was causing annoyance to my visitors. Thank you for letting me know. Even though this is an old post, it’s still pretty updated.