Why remove useful functionality in Reader / tags?

  • Unknown's avatar
    gastephen · Member ·

    So, previously you could ‘like’ posts directly from a Tag subscription page in Reader.

    This has recently been removed. Why?

    Why put extra hurdles in the way, disincentivising readers from engaging with other blogs?

    WP.com: Yes
    Jetpack: No
    Correct account: Yes

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    Hi @gastephen, do you mean on the page that just shows the title and a little snippet for each post? I wonder if people were clicking like on everything without reading anything, and while that is one form of engagement, it can get spammy. I noticed the like option is still available on individual posts, though. Are you seeing those?

  • Unknown's avatar
    gastephen · Member ·

    Hi @supernovia thanks for your response and yes, that is the page I was talking about.

    “I wonder if people were clicking like on everything without reading anything“

    For photography blogs with tags like “wordless-wednesday” or “silent-sunday” all I need to see is the main image before deciding to “like” or not – there is nothing to read.

    “it can get spammy“

    I take your point that indiscriminately liking textual-article posts without taking in at least some of their content could be regarded as disingenuous, but with photography blogs you could hardly say that showing appreciation of the photographic content with a “like” is “spammy”.

    People have busy lives these days you know and messing with optimised workflows can be rather discouraging.

    WordPress has, however, managed to do just that by

    1. removing the like button
    2. making the preview image much smaller than before

    When trying to keep up to date with photography tags it really does slow the whole process down by having to click on snippets and then having to wait until each post loads before being able to like it.

    best regards

    Graham

  • Unknown's avatar
    aisajib · Member ·

    Hi Graham,

    I appreciate your feedback about this change and have forwarded this to the relevant team.

    Thank you!

  • Unknown's avatar
    gastephen · Member ·

    @aisajib 😌🙏✨

  • Unknown's avatar
    mhutchins61 · Member ·

    The whole formatting has changed. You cannot block, report or follow as well. You have to go to the site to follow it. And there is no way to block or report a post.

    The following list still has the old formatting.

  • Unknown's avatar
    gastephen · Member ·

    @mhutchins61 👍👍👍

    It really is hard to believe that they can get “improvements” like this soooooooooo wrong, isn’t it!

    The “tag” lists are unusable for me now.

    Perhaps none of their designers actually use their own products on a daily basis. Can’t see how else they could have made such an appalling usability blunder…

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