Thursday, August 02, 2007

Dear Blogger-Blogging Friends:

The time has come again for another friendly public service announcement about privacy issues, email addresses, and commenting.

I have had a lot of comments over the past few months that I've been unable to reply to, because there is no email address left in the comments section of my blog.

I really want to communicate with you! And so does everyone else whose blogs you're leaving comments on ... but it simply isn't possible, because you haven't completed a few critical steps on your Blogger Profile in your Dashboard.

We all understand how important privacy is, therefor, before you proceed to do the following steps, please take a moment to analyze your email address. Is it going to give any personal information out that you don't want anyone to know? For instance, is it something like: Firstname_lastname@myemail.com ? Because you may not want anyone to know either your first or last name! If this is the case, I would strongly recommend that you open a new email account with Yahoo, or whatever free email provider you choose. Might I suggest that your email name look something like this? yourblogname@yahoo.com ... or yourcutenickname@yahoo.com .

Once you have that cleared up, it's really easy to change the necessary items in Blogger... Here are step-by-step instructions (with pictures!): (As always, email me if you need help!)

Step 1 -


When you are logged into your blog (in Google's Blogger), you will see three words at the far top/right corner of your window: Dashboard Help Sign out -- When you find those three words, click on the word DASHBOARD (see picture to right).

Step 2 -


Once you are at your Dashboard, you will be able to edit your User Profile by clicking on the words User Profile off to the right (see picture to right).

Step 3 -

Once you are in your Profile, you will see 9 major sections titled in Orange: Privacy, Identity, Photograph, Audio Clip, General, Location, Work, Extended Info, and a box that says Save Profile. You want to be in the "Privacy" section, and you want to click on the box next to SHOW MY EMAIL ADDRESS (see picture below).








Step 4 -

Now you'll want to go to the "Identity" section. You will see several options here. The first one is your USER NAME (which is your email address), and it is already filled out for you. The second one is requesting your EMAIL ADDRESS -- please fill this in! The third one is requesting your DISPLAY NAME -- please fill this in, too (this is where you'll put either your screen name, your blogger name, your first name, or whatever you want people to know you by).













Step 5 -

Your final step is to save your profile edits by clicking on the orange box at the bottom that says "Save Profile."

That's all you need to do.

Phew. I feel so much better ... and now, I can start replying to the wonderful comments you leave me! And as always ... rest assured that your information will not be sold, or miss-used in any way when appears in my email box (which no one can see) or blog comments.

Thank you!

33 comments:

merry said...

Thanks! I never thought about checking my profile!

Anonymous said...

Does anyone else think GiBee should have been a teacher?

You missed your calling, sweetheart!

JMR said...

Hello. Found your site through someone else and thought I would say hi!!! I'm just getting started blogging so I don't have much at my site yet but feel free to stop by and visit!!!

Shalee said...

You tell 'em GiBee. (No one seems to listen to me.)

Susanne said...

Thanks for putting this up!

Jennifer said...

YAY!! Thanks for this...I want to reply to comments, too, but I can't always find an email address. What a great public service announcement! :-)

Barb said...

Now, if people would just DO this, GiBee. It always upsets me when I see an email address that shows a person's first and last name. That's way too much information to be putting into cyberspace.

It's amazing. I don't think some people realize that they can't be reached through their comment. I can't count how many times I practically begged people entering a drawing at my place to make sure I can find them. During Shannon's carnival, I had at least 40 comments that led to absolutely nowhere.

I wish everyone who blogs would reach this post.

Laura said...

Fantastic explanation. I can't tell you how much I wish people would do this. I'm going to link to this. Awesome stuff!!

Pam said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Pam said...

Great job, you PSA guru, you! I always love hearing from you.

Praying for your sweet self this mornin', dear friend.

You make an incredible instructor, btw, I even understood it : )

Ladybug Crossing said...

I came here via Rocks in My Dryer. Thanks for the PSA. Do you mind if I send people here to read this? The no reply email thing makes me crazy!!!
LBC

Ladybug Crossing said...

I just went and checked my profile. I think that when booger swapped us all over to the new booger that option got changed...
xo
LBC

Dana~Are We There Yet? said...

For the record, I listened to Shalee. It is nice to get a personal response to the comments I leave.

And, I had to say that LadybugCrossing's comment about "booger" made me laugh! I'm mature that way.

Anonymous said...

Great tutorial.

Happy Sunday!

Meredith said...

THANK YOU!

I would love for my readers to read this, too.

Kathleen said...

I find that annoying too! Thanks for bringing it to everyone's attention. Quite a few times I've had to comment on one of their posts but my comment is about something else entirely because that's the only way to contact them.

I'll be featuring this post tomorrow on my blog.

Jane Anne said...

As elementary as it seems, I am so glad you wrote about this. I have wanted to add my email address to my blog site for a while but I just didn't want to have my personal email address available to the world. What a great idea to create a new with my blog name! Now, why didn't I think of that??!!

Liberty said...

That is a great idea....off to create a new email address.

Anonymous said...

I've done this. However, I like to link directly to my blog from a comment, and not my Blogger profile. There is a contact link on my blog, though. Do you think this is OK?

Bravo for the great directions and pictures!!

ZAM said...

Thanks a lit..This is very helpful..I changed mine as of this writing. GOD bless

Mrs Pretzel said...

I don't know you, but I read a blogger who reads you, and now you are forever linked on my latest blog post, because I have the same trouble! You've done a smashing job of explaining! THANK YOU!
~rachel

Shari said...

Cool! Thank you very much for taking the time to help. I am another newbie to blogging and there are so many new things to learn!

Christine Smith said...

way to go on this -- great post; I've linked it from my blog.

Anonymous said...

Hi! I clicked over through "Absolutely Bananas". Thanks for sending out this advice. I already had my e-mail out there for people to see... but it always drives me crazy when I don't have the option to respond to a comment. Thanks!

Deb said...

Also here from Absolutely Bananas - thank you so much for this tip! It's been driving me nuts not having a way to respond back to people who comment on my blog (other than leaving a comment of my own and who knows if anyone's coming back to check for those). I've enabled my e-mail and I hope others will as well! :)

Brandie said...

Thank you for sharing! I linked you up on my blog so others can read this! =)

Mayogi said...

Thanks for the tip! I never thought about that, so after reading your post I went straight to my Profile and changed the settings. Now you can email me if you want to. *lol*

Unknown said...

Thanks. I'll get a different email to use with my blogging account! I just started blogging. Feel free to check us out!

The Estrogen Files said...

Just leaving a comment to say I've linked your page in a post I'm doing next week about just this thing! Found you via Organizing Junkie. Thanks!

onemotherslove said...

OK, I think I fixed mine... Now, can you tell me how to use a signature on each post???

Sandy said...

You are amazing ...really, so helpful.
Can't wait to hear about your vacation!
Sandy

Uberly Ewe said...

I already had my account set up, but I didn't know it. Thanks for the instructions. Could you reply to my comment so that I know it is set upcorrectly? Thanks.

Peter Carey said...

I echo all of these comments; very cool and very helpful!

Thanks!!

Peter+