Although I am not normally known in blogging circles* for my wealth of technological wisdom any more than for my strenuous research practices or hard hitting journalism,** every once in a while, in the heat of blogging passion I have been known to tackle the occasional technical issue.

Of course my efforts usually do little to stop these issues, or even slow their progress as they rampage down the field of digital mayhem, heedless of my attempts to reunite them with the tender embrace of gravity; but as a Licensed Internet Resource I am obliged to make the attempt.

That or face discipline from a panel of my peers.

Just one of the peers I’m not interested in facing.

So in this spirit of foundless optimism, I present my latest intra-personal conversation… interrogation in the hope of sparing you, my dearest of all readers any unnecessary pain in your blogging endeavors.

WordPress Woes - A Fictional Interviewer^TM Interview

Fictional Interviewer: Well Brent, it’s been a while since our last interview, good to have you back.

ME: Sure.

FI: So is it true that you have your own weblog now?

ME: Yes. We’re standing in it.***

FI: How exciting.

ME: Well, its somewhere between total ecstasy and a tooth extraction.

FI: What?

ME: Blog ownership. That’s how exciting it is…You did ask.

FI: It was more of a statement, actually.

ME: Suit yourself.

FI: So, back to your blog. You’ve been using WordPress for a while?

ME: Yes it’s been WordPress from the beginning here at The Ominous Comma.

FI: So then, you must be aware that when you delete an entire category of posts like say Navel Gazing, the actual posts under that category are not deleted?

ME: Yes.

FI: And that those same posts will instead revert to the next highest category that they are assigned to, or lacking another assigned category, back to being uncategorized?

ME: Yes, I’ve always thought that arrangement was fairly well idiot-proof.

FI: But were you also aware that when you delete a “parent” category like say Entertainment with dozens of “child” or sub-categories, that those same sub-categories are also deleted, dumping your posts into an unsorted pool of chaos that you can’t re-categorize because those categories aren’t really gone but instead lurking in the depths of your database, refusing to link to anything, invisibly blocking all attempts at salvage? Did you know that Brent?

ME: That fact has recently come to my attention.

FI: So would this discovery of yours have any connection to the Comma’s recent fifty-percent reduction in its overall number of categories?

ME: (Massaging temples.) Isn’t there some childhood trauma of mine you should be hiding under?

FI: I’ll take that as a yes.

Moral of the Story - Don’t Mess With The ‘Press

So remember friends:

When writing, strive to be in a category all your own.

And when mucking about under the hood of your blog, be careful, or that’s exactly how you’ll end up.

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*It is a little know fact that many of the basic functions of blogging circles, especially those consisting of maternal bloggers, are actually derived from sewing circles, a primarily American phenomenon in which women would gather together to discuss their kids, their husbands, their kids, local gossip, their kids, recent adventures, their kids, their kid’s recent adventures and occasionally produce an erratically stitched garment or two.

Today’s blogosphere is great improvement over that primitive network, as it involves fewer needle-related injuries.

** If I were to grace journalism with personal violence, however, I would probably start here.

*** For sixty-two and a third bonus points: Name that Quote?

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This program was sponsored by humor-blogs.com the most hyphenated name in humor bloggery.

Also sponsored by Alltop.com the most unspaced phrase in digital aggregation.

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