Monday is the day that many of us try to do a romantic post for Ed Hotspur’s ongoing series called ‘Romantic Monday’. Today, I am going a little off the normal beaten path… even for me… but try to follow along if you can.
First off, let me say that I do love WordPress. It has given me a place to projectile vomit my crazy ideas, my weird writings, my silly art and pictures and stories of my bizarre life. In fact, I may love WordPress a little too much, because my wife is starting to get jealous. I have tried to explain that my main purpose here is to get enough of a following that I can use my stats as leverage to impress a publisher to take a chance on publishing my novel. But I have gotten sort of addicted to the power that WordPress gives me to express myself to people all around the world. There is nothing like that feeling when a new person shows up and enjoys what I do here, and I try to romance them into spending more time reading my old posts.
That being said, WordPress is sort of getting on my nerves. I did a couple of posts in the last weeks about the changes WordPress has made. And all the comments I got on those posts seem to indicate that you don’t like these changes either. I thought maybe the new reader was just too complicated for a computer moron like me to understand, but people a lot smarter than me have come out against the changes as well. And that new thing in the stats that tells you that all your views are coming from just a few loyal people, well, that is just hurtful. In just a little over a year I have had, so I thought, 31,000 people stop by. Now I have to deal with the fact that it is the same 20 or 30 people who actually read all my stuff, and the rest of the views are people who come in, look around, and then take off just as fast as their little feet can carry them.
Don’t get me wrong. Knowing that there are even a few people out there who read my words and look at my art is still thrilling. I just don’t see how this extra information helps us. Nor do I see how making the reader into something new that nobody likes is a good thing.
So tomorrow, I am going to do a post asking all of you to comment on the changes brought about by WordPress, even if you commented on my earlier posts about them. And then I am going to ask you to all do a post telling how you do not like the changes, so you can also get lots of comments. See, I am trying to start a revolution, and I need your help. Because we all need WordPress, but WordPress also needs all of us. So maybe if enough of us talk, they will listen.
We live in an age where social media sites have actually contributed to real life revolutions in real countries around the world. But maybe, just maybe, this will be the first social media revolution that takes place that is aimed at overthrowing the very social media outlet in which the revolution takes place.
Join the revolution!!!
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Now, if you just want to read about love and flowers and kissing and stuff, written by some very clever people, go to;
Pouring My Art Out 
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I hope this post gets Freshly Pressed. I really do.
What are the odds? And I heard they don’t even have freshly pressed any more.
They do.
Well, the revolution will commence at dawn anyway. Bring torches, pitchforks, and some good wine, so we can sit and watch it happen, then take all the credit and have ourselves made the new leaders of WordPressania.
I’m not calling it that! How about Bloz. You can be the Wizard of Bloz.
The wizard of bloz is one with a cause… a cause a cause a cause a cause a cause… because of the wonderful things that he draws…
(ha)
Because of the wonderful thing in his drawers? ha ha
Good one, and more than a little complimentary as well…
Agreed.
I’m in.
Viva!
Red
Up the revolution!
There are a lot of things I don’t like but I am ill so I don’t have the time to catalogue them all. You are not wrong. I cannot commit to the revolution because I am ill; you’ll have to revolt without me.
If I feel better tomorrow I will revolt too.
I think that is exactly what George Washington said…
Paul Revere and Castro too!
But not Napoleon… he showed up with a bad head cold and dandruff!
Yeah and look where it got him.
Ruler of Europe, then a private island resort.
But we count on you… you are the most revolting of us all..,. wait… that sounded wrong.
Hey there Arthur. don’t mind those new stats, but I miss the Freshly Pressed page, I don’t like the new Reader at all, and I hate the way that you have to reload your page endless times to see your new comments. I heard it’s supposed to make it mobile friendly, and my number have gone up since the changes, which is great, but I’m finding it all hard to work with. Whether I’ll get used to it all, or just continue to be disgruntled remains to be seen. Just remember when you’re a famous author, that I was one of the one’s who read you all the time. 🙂
You know I will remember all the little people… dwarves, gnomes, hobitts, etc… but save a little anger for the revolution.
I already have my post for tomorrow scheduled because I was in a writing mood yesterday & got Monday & Tuesday’s posts done at the same time. My Tuesday posts are called “Tickle Me Tuesday” because I try to bring a little levity to my corner of the blogisphere.
I am a computer moron, so I don’t understand what half the statistics mean about my site, so I can’t really say it’s affected me all that much. But I am not happy about the changes to Reader. I didn’t even know I had a Reader because previously when I signed up to follow people (like you) it would automatically come to my email which is the way I like it. Then it just changed & I would sign up to follow someone but I wouldn’t get their posts. I thought there was something wrong with me. Then just last week I stumbled upon my Reader & was surprised to see all these posts I had signed up for in there. In order to get them to come to my email I have to go into a person’s post & tick the box to get follow up posts by email (which I cannot do unless I comment). Sometimes I don’t comment on everyone’s posts that I follow. If I enjoyed the post but really don’t have anything to add, I’ll just hit Like to let them know I was there. Maybe you could include this rant with your other messages of dissatisfaction?
It will be there in the comments, which I hope someone from WordPress will read. But when you only click like, you sort of get added to those people that just go down the reader topic walls and click like on hundreds of posts without ever reading anything. And you are much too special to be one of those people…
I have my pitchfork and flaming beaver at the ready, sir, to do battle in this revolution. I am just awaiting my orders.
Okay, the flaming beaver thing is a little weird. Is Home Depot out of pitchforks???
In Canada, it is normal to march into war brandishing a flaming beaver. It’s hell on the beaver population, though, I must admit.
I dislike the new WP stuff but in about three weeks will end up wondering what I was fussing about, I imagine.
This revolution might just fizzle out in a big pile of smoldering beavers…
Obviously you have never been accosted by a flaming beaver. It is a truly terrifying thing.
I play this computer game called Rome; Total War. In ancient times, the Romans used incendiary pigs… they lit them on fire and had them charge at enemy troops. So I could see how the idea would work…
Beavers eat pigs for breakfast. It’s called bacon.
Those damn carnivorous beavers…
You have no idea.
No, but I know all about crack squirrels… so…
I forgot to add I dislike other changes they have made. It’s a lot harder to find new blogs and vice versa.
Now we are getting someplace.
They updated things too where old browsers make it almost impossible to sign in. Freshly pressed means nothing and the forums have been shut down for months. Things like the humor wall are hard to navigate and not worth the time scrolling forever to find something good. Am I closer?
I knew you were a natural born revolutionary.
I actually really like knowing how many people are viewing. Most people come to blogs for pictures anyway.
Someday this week I’m going to pull a prank on you and get you extra hits. No one will be hurt so don’t worry.
Great. My first two responses are telling me I am wrong. Where were you when I needed you? But I still think people want to talk about this, so I am sticking to my guns.
Honestly, I would have to disagree with your position on this post. A lot of people install Google analytics on their sites to know as much information about their work and reader demographic as they can and WordPress is just trying to give you this information as part of their services. This doesn’t mean that you should change yourself to accommodate your readers, but that you can use the more detailed information to figure out how you can become a better you. Someone could have thousands of followers, but if they aren’t reading anything you are writing or engaging in your work then what good are those followers. The added information could help you understand why they aren’t sticking around. Attacking WordPress and their new statistical information probably isn’t going to help you much, but looking at their statistics and using them to improve yourself sure might.
If I was the only one who felt this way, I would be forced to agree. But so far you are the only one I have heard from that likes the new changes. I will admit that it makes me look like an idiot that the first person who answered this post thinks I am wrong, but that is the way my life always works, so I will just let the people speak and see what they have to say. Thank you for your input.