Sunday Musings #10

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no-one thinks of changing himself.

– Leo Tolstoy

In view of my recent grumblings about computing, word.press and the internet in general, I think I need to take a step back and implement the above.

After all, people are going to continue to change the world. All I can do is try to keep up!

 

POST SCRIPT: Below I am posting a comment by Rachel Squirrel, in response to my post yesterday Houston – It’s all you fault! It explained quite a bit to me, so I thought I’d share it with you.

“Perhaps I can write a comment about the reasoning behind the changes to WordPress at WordPress.com. The Dashboard area of WordPress – what we call WP Admin – hasn’t changed for years and it has some limitations. For instance, customisation isn’t that great and if you have lots of sites then you have a separate WP Admin area for each one. The people at WordPress.com have wanted to improve these things for some time but were limited by the old technology of WP Admin. So starting about a year ago we started to build a whole new Dashboard while retaining WP Admin alongside. The new Dashboard is still a work in progress and indeed it doesn’t yet have all the features of the old one but eventually we want something that is a one-stop shop for site management as well as offering superior customisation options for users – I’m talking about drag and drop type design options here too. There are many more changes yet to come as the system evolves – in part thanks to all the feedback we get from users.

We know that lots of users prefer WP Admin and that’s absolutely fine and people are free to continue using it for as long as they like. There are no plans to phase it out. But we’d also love people to try the new system and report feedback to us that we can pass onto our designers and developers so that we can make it better. But the feedback needs to be specific and not simply, “I hate the new admin area”. Explain what it is you don’t like about the new Dashboard and suggestions for improvement are even better.

How to contact us? The support forums is a good place to discuss the changes and there have been quite a few threads there about it already but feel free to start another if you have something to say – http://en.forums.wordpress.com

For bugs and things that just aren’t working right you can email us at help@wordpress.com “

33 thoughts on “Sunday Musings #10”

  1. Midwestern Plant Girl

    Thanks for sharing!
    I’m pretty lucky that I do understand HTML (language of the web). This helps a lot. However, it’s hard to understand WP at times!

    Liked by 1 person

  2. faburlifekhloe

    Thank you for posting the comment from Rachel! 🙂 It seriously cleared all the doubts I had. I appreciated the efforts they put into changing something for us, but I guess sometimes things are not always under control 😛

    Liked by 1 person

  3. mistermuse

    I can completely relate to Mike Fuller’s comment (and your reply to him). The simpler, the better – at least, when it comes to navigating websites.
    By the way, consider this a “Like” – your post is still “Like-less” on my computer, and I haven’t had time to follow-up on Rachel’s advice.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. scifihammy Post author

      haha Thanks for the Like 🙂 and comment. I did find when I was having trouble with my blog a while ago that it worked on a different computer, so in that instance – it was me! 🙂

      Like

  6. lauramacky

    They would do themselves a HUGE favor if they were to email Word Press users before making changes, what they intend to do, and why. It’s always better to soften the blow and communicate than for your customers to live in the dark.

    Liked by 2 people

  9. Mike Fuller Author

    It surprised me too. I thought I had “pushed the wrong button” again. I’m not very site savvy but, then again, I don’t work at it very hard. My home page is VERY simple and will likely stay that way. I am often surprised by the site gymnastics others provide. But sometimes I get lost or distracted by all the content. I think I’ll restrain myself from tinkering too much.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Rachel M

    Thanks for posting my comment! I hope it goes some way to helping people understand why there have been so many changes at WordPress.com in the last year. We’re not doing it to purposefully drive everyone nuts even though it might seem that way 🙂

    There are many things we could do better, like providing some warning before the big changes. But our goal is still to democratise publishing and we want to have the best tool possible.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. scifihammy Post author

      Thanks Rachel 🙂 I think communication is the key. Like when the new dashboard came out, there was a questionnaire to voice our opinions.
      And although I don’t like how the notifications are working at the moment, streaming down and not popping out to the side, (I get lost), and not showing when I have replied to a comment, or if a comment is still waiting for a reply ( the ! in the old one) – I am very happy with WP most of the time. 🙂 And it is free! 🙂

      Liked by 2 people

      1. Rachel M

        Can you give me a bit more information about the notifications? I’m happy to pass this on but I can’t remember exactly how it looked before. Do you want to see which comments you’ve liked and replied to from the top list without having to click on an individual notification? That would be good. What do you mean by “streaming down and not popping out to the side”?

        Liked by 1 person

      2. scifihammy Post author

        I’m sorry I don’t have the technical words, but in the old notifications, when you clicked on the bell in top right, you’d get a drop down list, like you do now. A comment awaiting moderation would be indicated with an exclamation mark, and when you replied it showed a bent arrow.
        When you clicked on a notice, a window appeared to the left of the list, and the list remained visible. You then liked, commented etc and pressed send, and then that window would go and you’d still have the list.
        Now, if I click on a notice, it opens that particular one within the list, as a drop down section and then you are stuck there, navigating with up or down arrows. To return to the main list I have to press the Bell button twice (to close it and then open again.).
        I can see the new notification has potential, but I find it difficult using it on a laptop (I don’t have an iPad or smartphone.)
        Some of my problems are probably just me – and other people like me – not really knowing what’s going on. I just found the old notifications easier to read and manage.
        Thank you for all the time you’ve put into this. I appreciate your help 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

      3. Rachel M

        Thanks, scifihammy. I understand what you mean and I’ve passed it on.

        You should be able to tell whether a comment is awaiting moderation because it appears with a yellow background in the list:

        When you click on an individual item in the list, there should also be a “Back” link at the top left which will take you back to the top level:

        I’ll let you know what I can find out about the pop-out to the left and also seeing likes and replies from the top level as well.

        Liked by 1 person

      4. scifihammy Post author

        Thank you so much 🙂 I can see the ‘Back’ link now, and also the yellow background behind a comment awaiting moderation – Not sure I saw that before, but quite possibly! As I said, it may be just me!
        A lot of people have thanked me for posting Your comment, and letting them know what is going on 🙂 And I do notice the new system is quicker 🙂
        Thank you again 🙂

        Like

      5. Rachel M

        I’m not sure whether you know about this link to the Notifications page but I thought I’d post it here just in case:

        https://wordpress.com/notifications

        It’s easier to see in that list which comments you’ve replied to and which you haven’t. I think our developers will find a way to add this functionality to the new notifications as lots of people have requested it.

        Liked by 1 person

      6. scifihammy Post author

        Thank you for sending this 🙂 This is exactly how the old notifications looked, so you can see it is easier to read.
        There was a WP post last week which presented the new notifications and asked for feed back. I felt very sorry for the guy, as the comments were very negative. I think bloggers want to be informed more, with communication both sides.
        I do find WP is running better – and it is free after all! 🙂

        Like

      7. Rachel M

        Yes, I just saw those comments the other day and had a good read of them last night. I do think we could do much better with communication, especially by providing some advanced warning. We’re a company mostly of geeks though, not PR people. Probably that doesn’t help 🙂

        In any case, the feedback is very useful and I know they’re working on improving things.

        Liked by 1 person

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