# Outside visitors can't read my blog



## TedeBoy (Apr 5, 2015)

My friends click on my journal link and they get a log in screen. 

Here is a screen shot of my settings. What else do I need to set so people not registered with this site can view my journal/blog?


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## az2000 (Apr 22, 2015)

I agree with this. The blogs should be visible to non-members if the author chooses. (The choice is there for "All Visitors" or "Members Only."). 

I think it would be good if they were indexed by search engines. Strain names, nutrient brand names, etc., would participate in search engine results.


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## az2000 (Jan 9, 2016)

I would like to revisit @TedeBoy 's topic. I document some things in my "blog" area which I would like to link to. But, RIU requires registration and login to view a blog.

I don't know how to say this without sounding disharmonious, but... grasscity respects the "All visitors." And, so, I'm considering moving my blogs there (I can link to them from here.).

I don't want to sound like "fix it or I'm leaving." But, I feel bad to move my stuff without trying to constructively raise this topic again. I would like RIU to get the banner-ad revenue. (IMO, it doesn't make sense to disable this feature to begin with. Something has been deliberately disabled because a blog's settings include the option "All visitors" -- distinguished from "Members only."). It seems like a potential source of revenue is being lost (people finding blog entries via Google searches), much more than a few hits to mine. If it were my site, it seems like a no-brainer. I can't imagine what the downside is. More views, more advertising revenue?

I hope that's constructive. I just felt I should try before doing it. I think it would look worse to do it without trying.


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## sunni (Jan 9, 2016)

az2000 said:


> I would like to revisit @TedeBoy 's topic. I document some things in my "blog" area which I would like to link to. But, RIU requires registration and login to view a blog.
> 
> I don't know how to say this without sounding disharmonious, but... grasscity respects the "All visitors." And, so, I'm considering moving my blogs there (I can link to them from here.).
> 
> ...


I hope you dont feel like were ignoring your requests. We arent. I have read the request when it was first published. I sometimes get absent minded and forget to reply sorry my bad!

The blog feature is an integrated add on from websites who switched from vbulletin to xenforo, it is a THIRD PARTY add on, and it is absolutely unmaintained by the party who created it and hasnt been updated in over 2 years.

If it wasnt for the fact that we had blogs on vbulletin prior to xenforo we probably would have never implemented the blog feature.
The blog feature on xenforo is terrible, it messes up the admin panel, its all poorly worded and all together I wish they would do away with it.

This is why the blog feature has a lot of problems and poorly worded choices like "all visitors" this isnt rollitups fault so much as the integration with xenforo for this add on is just simply terribly created
To put it short the blog feature completely messes with our admin panel, and even with full 100% administration rights on my account I still cant even delete some things from blogs.

I really wish people would stop using blogs personally as its nothing but a headache for me since the integration of it was so absolutely poorly done.


as for loss of ad revenue, i can say not really to that as blogs arent widely used here as you think they are a very small miniscule part of rollitup, and all of ad revenue comes from google hits but mostly from threads on the main forum.

Im sorry you arent going to receive the answer you wish for, should you feel this is a reason you leave rollitup Im sorry to see you go, but until the person who decided to create the integrated blog from vbulletin to xenforo switch over fixes their problems we cant fulfill or fix your request.


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## az2000 (Jan 9, 2016)

sunni said:


> Im sorry you arent going to receive the answer you wish for,


It's not a problem for me. If the feature was never intended to be relied upon or supported, I understand. RIU is a good community and the relatively light moderation is nice. It just seems too bad there aren't more features like this (for static, topical, non-conversation, structure content? Stuff that can be referenced instead of repeatedly typed in a conversation.).

I have moved one of my pages to Grasscity. I'll do the rest soon. Hopefully it's not a problem linking to another forum for this kind of relatively static, topical information. That's what I wanted to avoid (sending people to another forum just for static, topical/structured information). I.e., it seemed like it would be desirable to refer people here from other sites (without them having to register just to see the info.).

Thanks


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## sunni (Jan 9, 2016)

az2000 said:


> It's not a problem for me. If the feature was never intended to be relied upon or supported, I understand. RIU is a good community and the relatively light moderation is nice. It just seems too bad there aren't more features like this (for static, topical, non-conversation, structure content? Stuff that can be referenced instead of repeatedly typed in a conversation.).
> 
> I have moved one of my pages to Grasscity. I'll do the rest soon. Hopefully it's not a problem linking to another forum for this kind of relatively static, topical information. That's what I wanted to avoid (sending people to another forum just for static, topical/structured information). I.e., it seemed like it would be desirable to refer people here from other sites (without them having to register just to see the info.).
> 
> Thanks


I see no problem with you putting content on grass city and saying here I have a blog about that located here and linking it to grass city

If that's your concern don't let it be we won't get mad at you or tell you not to do that here

There's plenty of links here at rollitup about content and grow journals and photo logs all from other sources and our threads often are shared on other forums as well 

Knowledge is meant to be shared not privatized to one website 

As for the blogs sorry we can't help you 
The person who made the blog feature has failed at maintaining it 

The forums work great however for sharing information and there's plenty of sub areas for all things growing wise where you're absolutely welcome to make or create threads for tutorials or tips and tricks rather than using the blog system

If you notice we have a lot of older threads that are written "blog style " this is because we didn't have blogs back in the day


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## Oregon Gardener (Jan 9, 2016)

sunni said:


> I see no problem with you putting content on grass city and saying here I have a blog about that located here and linking it to grass city
> 
> If that's your concern don't let it be we won't get mad at you or tell you not to do that here
> 
> ...


Thanks for the information, I thought it was just me.


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## az2000 (Feb 3, 2016)

sunni said:


> I see no problem with you putting content on grass city and saying here I have a blog about that located here and linking it to grass city


Hi Sunni, it appears someone deleted my links to GrassCity. I had all my blogs linked in my "personal info" section, and one in my signature. Those links are gone. Nobody PMed me to inform me of this.

You can imagine how this feels like a catch-22. I tried to improve the blog system but was told it's a dead-end. I put the stuff somewhere that it's accessible without registration -- and that apparently is a problem.

(I personally thought you guys would have a problem with that. If it were my forum, I would want people directed here, not elsewhere. I tried.).

Any suggestions?


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## sunni (Feb 3, 2016)

az2000 said:


> Hi Sunni, it appears someone deleted my links to GrassCity. I had all my blogs linked in my "personal info" section, and one in my signature. Those links are gone. Nobody PMed me to inform me of this.
> 
> You can imagine how this feels like a catch-22. I tried to improve the blog system but was told it's a dead-end. I put the stuff somewhere that it's accessible without registration -- and that apparently is a problem.
> 
> ...


im not aware of anyone deleting any links in your blog. infact when i go to your blog all i see are links to grass city.
so no one has touched your blog. and no one has touched your personal information link
could be a system glitch, or a mess up on your part when you edited those things. all i see if you editing the blogs 



however to let you know we dont have to inform you of any moderating duties we do to your account, thats stated in our tos when you sign up
in fact im pretty much the only mod on the entire staff who will inform users and it often back fires on me with death threats, personal threats to my security and name calling done to me.


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## az2000 (Feb 3, 2016)

sunni said:


> im not aware of anyone deleting any links in your blog.


""" my "personal info" section """"

I'm adding them back. We'll see what happens. When I saw my signature, I thought it was my mistake. But, everything deleted from my profile? That looked more like something else.

Hopefully I'm not stuck in the Catch-22 I mentioned. That would seem quite unfair when all I wanted to do was keep the info here.


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## sunni (Feb 3, 2016)

az2000 said:


> """ my "personal info" section """"
> 
> I'm adding them back. We'll see what happens. When I saw my signature, I thought it was my mistake. But, everything deleted from my profile? That looked more like something else.
> 
> Hopefully I'm not stuck in the Catch-22 I mentioned. That would seem quite unfair when all I wanted to do was keep the info here.


We have a grow journals thread area you're more than welcome to blog into ,.you have choosen not too.

It isnt really our fault that xenforo doesnt have actual blogs, nor is it our fault the third party who created the integrated vbulletin blog to xenforo doesnt maintain the third party option. We did however choose to import the blogs from vbulletin as an option for users to attempt to use. We are sorry they dont work well, but we have our hands tied, we cant force the third party to update it. 

Again, no one touched your account, I already stated that, but it is not our job to inform you when we mod your account, we do not have to do that.

If i had to send out a message to every single user whos posts, forum messages, pictures, blogs, etc i delete on a daily basis i would never ever ever get off this forum, you do realize the amount of effort into modding a forum this huge is massive, informing every single user of every action we take against their accounts would be an impossible task for us.


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## az2000 (Feb 3, 2016)

sunni said:


> You have choosen not too.


As mentioned a couple months ago in the LED forum's dustup about sticky clutter: forums excel at conversation, not topical, easily-discoverable structured information. For example, one can't go back and edit a topic after a day or two.



sunni said:


> It isnt really our fault...
> 
> nor is it our fault ...
> 
> ...


I'm sorry for the defensive tone this seems to have taken.

One thing I would like to mention is that there are other blog addons for Xen. Your first response to this thread made me wonder why these blogs aren't being ported to a new addon. I mean, if it's unsupported, that's going to eventually be a problem for upgrading Xen. (You stated it's even causing a problem now.).

It seems like a proverbial case of death and taxes. Someday the blogs will either be discarded, or converted to something else. (The problem won't magically disappear, right?). It seems like now would be a good time to convert. Or, users should be warned that the blogs are intended to be discarded. I.e., people might be unpleasantly surprised.

I wanted to raise that topic when I posted before. But, I figured if the answer is "direct people to another forum" then my thoughts wouldn't matter. I mean, I always see these topics (like far more outages than any other forum encounters) turns into "the people who make decisions aren't here. I'm not paid. It's not our fault." It seemed like it would be a pointless contribution since that seems to be the standard being targeted (i.e., not a better host provider, proactively solutions, etc.).

Since I've already triggered those responses, it seemed like it wouldn't hurt to mention my thoughts now. I hope this post hasn't made your job harder or less pleasant. I don't have anything further to say.


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## sunni (Feb 3, 2016)

Nope definitely not defensive just letting you know what I can and can't do
Being transparent in what I can and can't do physically on the forum is what I like users to know and understand

I only do my best to help and give you options of what you can do instead
I can only implement things that I have The physical power to do so

It's well know I'm just a forum admin on here and not the actual owner

I'm sorry you do not like what I have to offer you thread closed so the OP doesnt keep getting spammed with alerts on your personal topic , please make a new thread if you have more questions specific to your account
Have a good day


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