I don't have many followers; I'm not trying to make money; I simply wanted a new way to connect with people who share my interests rather than being limited to a guild. Blogging gives me a small platform, flexibility in the length, frequency and amount of my writings with time to think before I publish. There's a way for me to quickly link to sites I like to read as well as a way for people to respond to my posts. I think of it as a modern combination of a diary and letters to friends. Reading comments and recent posts on blogs I follow has become part of my routine.
But I remain grateful to Google for this opportunity. So I've tried to repay them by trying out new features they publish. Just after I started my blog they came out with new templates and I switched to one. Not that I cared that much but it seemed a good way to give them more test subjects. About a year ago they suggested linking Blogger to Google+ and I went along with that. I lost some comments when I linked them. It didn't make me happy but I thought I was doing the right thing to help the company that helped me. But with that link I became a No Reply Blogger when commenting on other sites. Not what I wanted.
So I unlinked the accounts and thought that was done. Wrongo. BEFORE unlinking the accounts, I should have to gone into Google+ setting and unchecked the box to use Google+ comments. (It turns on automatically when you link the two but must be manually turned off.) Only after that is done will returning to the old Blogger profile have a real effect. See the post by PeggyK in Google's product forum here for a better explanation.
The downside is all previous comments on my blog have disappeared. Again. Somehow they were linked to Google+ and not to my blog. How sad. Some of the discussions we had in the comments section were better than the original post. It was like losing letters in a fire - there is no recovery.
I think things are set so you can now comment without being on Google+. I refuse to sign in on other platforms to leave comments and didn't realize I had this relic on my site. I'm so sorry all the old connections were lost but hopefully this will work equitably for us all in the future.
