Although I am not normally known in blogging circles1 for my wealth of technological wisdom any more than for my strenuous research practices or hard hitting journalism,2 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 InterviewerTM 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.3
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.
Check it out:
Letter To My Subconscious
My Subconscious Responds
Apology To My Subconscious
The Harsh Demands of Internet Explorer
A Furious Feed Of Fantastical Facts
- 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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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Oooo! Oooo! I know! It’s from the old Palmolive commercial.
“Dishwashing liquid?”
“You’re soaking in it.”
Is it “Australia, you’re standing in it”? I have to admit I cheated though. :)
“Good Heavens! - I see here that CommaCon stock is down by 50%. This may be the opportunity to recoup the losses I suffered on those Lobonia T-bills.”
Its probably still better than blogspot though.
I love that one too, but that’s not it.
That’s a new one to me.
Well Don, my broker E.F. Hutton says….
Why is everyone staring at me…
Like I’m really, really old?
It’s better in some ways, but in other ways it’s just more rope to hang yourself with.
Good yarn. Movable Type offers similar forays into “death by backspace” edit curiosities.
I don’t mind Blogger too much, but my demands are pretty low. I write in raw HTML; compared to these guys my blog is the equivalent of an angry child with crayons.
In 2006 I tried to “migrate” to Xanga for similar reasons. It took two weeks for me to finally give up … and now I’ve got twice the content. Plus it turned out that even a paid account has popups and a surprisingly inflexible framework.
When I guest posted for .45 I caught a brief glimpse of his control panel and hadda change my shorts -and then it took all but four seconds to mess everything up.
Brent’s right: no one host has it all nailed down yet. Still I think if I were to start over, I would do it in WP for the “comment nesting” feature alone.
Do you still have that box of unconverted Confederate currency? At this point it might come in handy.
Ok, what is it? Real Genius? Full Metal Jacket? Garden State? The Princess Bride?
Unfortunately, I seemed to have thrown everyone off the scent by misquoting my own quote.
I don’t whether to reissue the challenge or just clumsily give the the whole thing away.
This is quite possibly the largest failure to ever have occurred on this site.
Then again I might have a traumatic memory block from a previous disaster and just not remember.
Speaking of failure…this little treat you threw was the only part of your post I could comprehend and your telling me there is nothing really to comprehend!
Let’s just leave it alone…shall we?
No wait…I want to know…
Ok, never mind I’m fine I can handle not knowing.
Wait…
Man you are old!!