Tag: Tuesday Thoughts

And I in mine!

A little reminder of a Sunday school hymn

Jesus bids us shine,
With a clear, pure light,
Like a little candle burning in the night;
In this world of darkness, we must shine,
You in your small corner,
And I in mine. –

Jesus Bids Us Shine” is a children’s hymn with words by Susan Bogert Warner (1819-1885) and music by Edwin Othello Excell (1851-1921). source

Each of us in the blogging community have our own little piece of real estate – a place we call home under the guise of our blog’s name. You could liken us to the little ones singing about shining like a candle in the dark. We all have tales to be told about our lives, loves and interests. We might think we’re all different but we usually share something in our lives with someone else and one of the good things you’ll find is that (generally) we care for each other

Here’s a few bits about ’some’ of the bloggers I follow

Recently Sue (My quiet life in Suffolk) Angela (the aussie empty nester) Caroline (sparklingmerlot) had been wondering if their lives are boring.
Well if writing about your daily life and being grateful for many things is boring….then I’m a fan of it.

Retirement changes our lives as Andrew (& R) have found out, Debby is enjoying the freedom of life in retirement, Kathy has left her Kampground and retired to live in the mountains – and ’Frogdancer’s’ life also changed when as a proponent of FIRE she decided on early retirement.

Ms F & Mr Tigger live in Piraeus near Athens, Linda lives in a small village on a little nearby island not far offshore, NZ expats living very different lives – all at the moment trying to cool off as the scorching hot mediterranean summer continues.

The lives of Cathy, Rhonda as well as Sue changed when they became widows but they carry on adapting to all the permanent changes in their lives – Carol and Helen are adapting to the ever changing health issues of their husbands.

‘Wisewebwoman’, Joanne and EC ….living in three different countries have seen enough of the medical profession to last them a lifetime but they share a concern for seniors, women and the underprivileged.

Then there’s Mark, Cro and Nick, Ian and YP, not forgetting Clive, Dave & Tasker ….all blokes writing about ‘stuff’….music, memories, literature, walking, gardening, mental health issues, life in general

Do you find there are similarities in blogs you follow

Do they all cover the same subjects or do some talk about this and others that

Even though on the surface all these blogs are different, it turns out
Many share much more than I thought

(Following on from yesterday’s post – this is something I posted elsewhere a few years ago.
It was at the time I was thinking about shutting Still Waters down)

First published 2015.
Now June 2022, reading current comments it seems nothing has changed.
~ ~ ~ ~

There are so many ways to communicate with others these days
Instagram – Twitter – Facebook – Blogs are just a few

And this is where I start with no idea of where I’m going or where I’ll finish😊

I do have accounts on all of those with minimal……in fact no personal information apart from a photo in my public profile.  You’d probably glean a bit about me from reading the blog avatar.

My personal fb account was to allow me to join craft (and other) groups, a few family and friends ‘found’ me and apart from newly discovered extended family…(discovered via family research sites)…I don’t go around asking others if I can be their ‘friend’.

Anyway about a year ago I kept getting ‘friend requests’ on this account – the odd thing was these were from strange men as well as male members of armed forces (soldiers sailors airmen – in uniform with rank displayed)  Obviously those requests were deleted.

Then the same thing happened on twitter – a medium I used for a while for various reasons but haven’t looked at for well over a year.  Lots of messages saying ‘so and so is now following you’  Once again strange very well built men, many with no tweets recorded but following loads of women  Oh and also those new followers included women whose profiles described them as ‘se^xy’ looking for fun!  It took a while for me (not the most tech savvy person) to find the way to block them, unfollow people and sites I no longer had any interest in and to decide to make the account private.

My (rarely used) Instagram account was getting the same treatment so that went private as well….that didn’t actually stop them – they just put in follow requests

Then there were the strange ridiculous and at times confronting comments that were arriving on the blog.  They came in clusters thankfully stopping for some reason towards the end of last year.  Luckily they didn’t all make it onto the blog proper- w/press scooped them up as they arrived and put them into spam folder for me to decide yea or nay.

So after a break I start writing on Still Waters again and blow me down if I don’t start getting emails informing me – ‘people with very strange names @ outlook’ – have become followers. I consulted the help forums and lo and behold I’m not the only one getting them………WordPress were aware and were trying to (not sure what) do something about it.

I then discovered a feature available in the settings of my w/press blog  There is a way to remove/delete followers.  You learn something new every day  

I thought it was only the other party who could do that – you couldn’t block a follower.

So armed with this knowledge I went through my followers list checking their ‘credentials’ and deleting an enormous amount.  Most of whom were unknown to me.   People who hadn’t blogged for years, people whose blogs were closed/deleted,  bloggers from online courses never to be heard from since, others from ‘financial’ sites or travel places – you know all those people who follow because you wrote about something once (but never again)  I will admit to feeling a bit better once that had been done and of course if I’ve removed a live reader they can always refollow.

OK everyone, come on and help me here.  Am I the only one to have gone through all this rubbish – was I naive in thinking all those things couldn’t happen to me?  For a while there I even wondered if my name had been entered on a dating agency’s books

Public blogs are like open jars of jam waiting for nasties and other strange things to fly in and ‘spoil’ the taste so I can’t complain.

However I’m curious to know about other people’s experiences with followers on those other sites.

~ ~ ~ ~

First published (elsewhere) 2015.

Now June 2022, reading current comments it seems nothing has changed.