What's happened to the more tag?
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The more tag isn’t working in the reader anymore, why not?
Clicked on my post from the reader and it opens in that awful white viewer page but instead of only showing the first few lines and a link to view the full post on my personal blog page – you know, the one I chose for myself as a frame for MY writing and pictures – like it used to, it now ignores the more tag and display’s the whole post against that stark white background.
I am not happy.
Why have you deactivated the more tag and I assume this also means reads won’t now register against my stats which isn’t too serious for me but for bloggers who get paid for advertising, this is bad, really bad.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Staff have made changes to the Reader. From what I read yesterday and it sent me right up the wall, they are now displaying full posts whether or not we want them to.
I will type modlook into the sidebar tags on this thread for a Staff explanation. How do I get a Moderator/Staff reply for my question? https://en.support.wordpress.com/getting-help-in-the-forums/#how-do-i-get-a-moderatorstaff-reply-for-my-question Please subscribe to this thread so you are notified when they respond and be patient while waiting. To subscribe look in the sidebar of this thread, find the subscribe to topics link and click it.
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Hello –
Thank you for the tag @timethief.
Yes, we’re currently conducting a test of full text posts in Reader to improve the experience for readers.
I’ve provided your feedback to the team. Please let me know if I can help with anything else.
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Thank you for your reply Liz. Surely the choices and decisions of bloggers should be the driving force behind design decisions and if bloggers are choosing to utilise the more tag, then that means they want readers to experience their posts against the theme THEY chose to represent themselves and NOT the sterile and boring white background of the reading pane. Sort it out please.
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P.S. The gallery function doesn’t work in the reading pane btw – you have to click on each picture in turn.
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P.S. The gallery function doesn’t work in the reading pane btw – you have to click on each picture in turn
Can you link me to an example of this on your site?
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Okay this is my blog and the gallery doesn’t appear to work at all:
And this is my husbands’ site. He uses a different type off gallery:
https://mud4fun.com/2016/10/13/airfix-148-land-rover-snatch/
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I’m furious with this change.
I do not want people to read my posts in the sanitised screen, I want them to come into my blog which is why I put the more tag in.
Also the numpty that authorised this change failed to have it tested properly. The gallery thumbnails no longer launch the carousel viewer in Microsoft Edge browser when viewing via the awful sanitised page but work fine when inside my blog. I guess the WP developers only tested it on iphones and failed to test on a browser that is used by 250 million windows 10 users!!
Disgusted by this change, worst by far in my time with wordpress. I will not be renewing my premium package in December. Not prepared to pay for such poor service and lack of customer care.
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Please pass on to the ‘happiness’ engineers that I’m so UNHAPPY with their change that I have cancelled my subscription and I will be moving my blogs (and my wifes) to another platform.
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staff-zinnia
Yes, we’re currently conducting a test of full text posts in Reader to improve the experience for readers.
Understand that I have endured 10 years here and I have deliberately toned down my response below.
WordPress.COM does not own our content and has not provided an option for us to exclude our posts entirely from their Reader.
We bloggers own our content. We own the right to display either full posts or excerpts in the Reader.
Driving traffic back to our own sites via use of the more tag creating post excerpts in the Reader to where our full content is available, means our themes can be seen, our Pages and policies can be read, and our older content can be accessed, and that is a normal expectation.
What has been “decided” by those who have chosen to ignore our preference is an abnormal arrogant disregard for our choice of how and where to display our content and insult to our intelligence.
I no longer blog here for good reasons and this is among them.
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I’ve just noticed this ‘improvement’ to the Reader and I’m not happy. All my blogs are set to display an excerpt NOT the full post. Please respect the choice I’ve made and change the way my posts display in the Reader.
I want readers to come through to my blogs to read my posts. I don’t spend hours setting up my sites to work the way I want and look the way I want just so they can be ignored.
If my choices aren’t respected I will move my blogs elsewhere.
My main blog is: http://jessicadavidson.co.uk
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Just noting that when viewing Posts in the Reader in a web browser, the “Visit” site link is still available (bottom left in the card), and opens the post on your site in a new window. It’s only when someone clicks on the post title that the post opens in the Reader. (temporary screenshots)
I also want to make the distinction between the “More” tag and full post or summary in your site feed.
The More tag https://en.support.wordpress.com/more-tag/ is only visible on your site’s Posts page (where all the blog posts appear). It does nothing to shorten your post when viewing in a feed reader like the Reader or Feedly or in a subscriber email. In order to shorten what appears there, you need to set your settings in your WP Admin Dashboard>Settings>Reading>Feeds to Summary.
https://en.support.wordpress.com/feeds/
https://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/reading-settings/So you can’t really use the More tag and Feed Summary interchangeably. They are very different things.
The above is by way of explanation and of course does not influence or affect the changes that regularly happen here on WordPressdotcom.
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I understand the difference between the More tag and the feed summary. My problem is with the Reading Settings.
All my blogs are set up to show an excerpt in the Reader. The problem is that WordPress is ignoring that and displaying the full post anyway. This is unacceptable. I would like you to display my posts in the Reader the way I have requested. I don’t appreciate my settings being overridden arbitrarily.
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@jesdavidson your blog post does currently appear as an excerpt in the Reader (temporary screenshot). So what should readers see when they click on that Reader excerpt, another excerpt or the full post?
Again, the “Visit” link in the lower left corner of the Reader excerpt brings visitors directly from the Reader to the full post on your site.
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@justjennifer Yes, that screenshot shows the excerpt on the Reader, but if you click on that it takes you to the full post in the Reader. What it should show is the excerpt with a link to click to take you to my site. That’s how it used to be before they made this change.
I know you can still click on the ‘Visit’ link in the lower left corner of the Reader excerpt and that takes you direct to my site. But many people will now click on the post and read it in the Reader and not bother clicking through to my site.
I have my settings set to excerpt because I want people to click through to my site. With the Reader set the way it is at the moment – where it displays my full post – people don’t have to click through.
My settings are set to excerpt and that is what I want the Reader to display. At the moment the Reader is displaying my full post. This is what I want changed.
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Well said Jes, my point exactly. I think the mods and happiness engineers are getting confused between the main reader and the awful white viewing page 🤔
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@justjennifer my posts are set up to only show a short extract in the viewing pane and have always been so.
The changes that have recently been applied have over-ridden and disregarded my specific preference and that of like minded bloggers and demonstrate a total lack of thought, consideration and respect for the creative choices of bloggers. I never did understand what possessed the WP developers to foist the pointless white viewing pane onto visitors when they click on the reader extract, rather than take the viewer through to each blog site.
The sceptical me thinks it’s to prevent visitors from lingering too long at one blog site, reading post after post by the same author, rather than clicking their way through several different blogs which I suspect, bolsters a specific in-house target. But that’s just my paranoia ……
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Good Morning All –
Thank you for taking the time to voice your concerns. All of your feedback has been provided to the appropriate team.
Growing your followers in Reader is a great way to increase awareness of your site, and showing full text helps you do that.
That said, the Reader is functioning as designed. Viewers can still access your site to view the post there if they wish by clicking the View Site link in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Please note that your stats will not be impacted by the update as full post views in the Reader are counted the same as if they clicked through to your site:
A view is only counted for a post or page when the permalink URL is visited, or the full post is viewed in the Reader
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staff-zinnia Thanks for the reply, but it really doesn’t address my concerns.
The Reader may be functioning as designed, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have chosen to display a summary in my Reading Settings.
What is the point of giving bloggers the choice in how their posts are displayed if you’re going to override that choice?
For me personally, it probably won’t make much difference since I get most of my traffic through from Google anyway. But it might matter to people who want clicks to come through to their sites because they make money from advertising, or because they have products and services to sell.
I have a lot of archives and like to encourage my readers to explore my site. But they won’t know about the archives (or my books) if they don’t visit the site in the first place. The number of visitors to my site is low, but they do tend to stay on the site and read several posts. Now they might not and there’s nothing I can do about it because you have overridden my settings.
I’ll monitor the situation and see if there’s a change in my traffic, but in the meantime I’m going to avoid reading anything in the Reader. From now on, I’ll be clicking through to the sites of the blogs I follow – to support them and to be sure I don’t miss anything they might like me to see.
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