BLOCKED!

Acrostic, blogging, humor 1 Minute
Image from DLKR Life

B efore the WordPress genies
L avished us with New BLOCK Technology—
O verflowing with features galore that I
C an’t with my non-techie brain fully appreciate—-
K eeping to two longish posts a week was
E nergizing and whet my creative juices, but
D amn: as change is hard, my post, today, is short.

Note: I know the above will please the “don’t give me anything longer than 500 words” readers, but since there are actually more than a few of you who encourage my verbosity, I felt an explanation was in order.

My brevity for who knows how long (?) is due to my needing time to master this new editorial challenge—and not an abandonment of my desire to continue researching articles on topics that I always feel require more in-depth coverage.

In truth, WordPress gave us plenty of warning that this day would come, but I was too busy writing to pay sufficient attention to the looming new requirements. In greater truth, I pretended the warning would never really force me to stretch my meager techie talents. But as I sought to enter my new post, the page I opened scolded me: “Time’s up, kid. Get to it!”

Thanks for understanding—whether your tastes in my posts fall into the long or short of them!

Annie

Published by annieasksyou

I've been a nonfiction writer for many years, exploring diverse topics that pique my curiosity, as noted in my first blog posting (Greetings!). I'm seeking dialogue with others committed to joining me in this exploration, sharing my conviction that different views can be exchanged in a respectful, civil discourse where we can learn from one another and be agreeable, even when we disagree. These postings depend for their enrichment on your participation: your ideas, insights, knowledge, opinions, and personal stories.

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46 thoughts on “BLOCKED!”

  1. Interesting piece. It seems to me that so many people hate the block editor. When I began as a newbie with no experience at making posts I hated classic. Couldn’t make a nice post to save my life. Then block came a long a while ago and I panicked a bit but gave it ago. Now I can make all my post look good and it takes seconds to set them up and publish them.

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      1. My only gripe with it is, you cant change the size of individual letters in a block and so doing Acrostic poetry doesn’t work so well. More than it pretty well does what ever you need nice and easily.

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  3. It is the business model for just about all products and systems. Find something that works. Learn it. Then change it so the consumer/ customer must relearn how to use it. Imagine if every time they came out with a new model of car they changed how the brake pedals or steering wheel works? It’s the old adage: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. At least when they advertise “new and improved” laundry detergent you don’t have to relearn how to pour a liquid into a machine.

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    1. Aw, such dear compassion. In the scheme of things, it’s a temporary setback and a learning experience, so I hope your stomach pains go away. And so glad to see you overcame whatever technical glitch prevented your last comment. It means so much to me when I hear from you.

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  8. Annie, I have even more of a non-techie brain than you, so a lot of this is over my head. All I can say is that since my daughter switched me from Internet Explorer to Firefox a few months ago, I’ve had no problems with WordPress….and I hope it stays that way!

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    1. I hope so for your sake too. Maybe your daughter has some kind of preternatural link to the WP genies that is keeping them at bay.

      I’ve decided to spare you a description of my failed test to embed a video…

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  9. I hope one of the new benefits is limiting the spam comments, as I found I was getting so many more of them lately. Whereas before I cleaned out the folder maybe once a week; When they upgrade, they tend to not maintain the old stuff, so I guess we all have to get to it! I’m going to try the classic for a few weeks and if I don’t like it then tackle the block editor. I did write one post in blocks a year ago but don’t remember anything much about it…..

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  11. I’ve seen a few people chatting about the blocks and their dislike for them, but I particularly love your piece! I must admit, I was pretty reluctant at first but I’ve been using them for a while now, since they first became a ‘thing’, and I managed to get the hang of the block functionality after a little while. It then started to feel more convenient and efficient than the previous way of doing thing. But then – then – WordPress decided to do another update, which to me was a bad move because it made things less user friendly and too time-consuming. If they’re going to do the blocks then fine, but don’t keep making changes that hinder user experience to routinely annoy bloggers! For what it’s worth, I think you’ll get to grips with it just fine, it just takes some getting used to. xx

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    1. Thanks so much for your kind words, dear Caz—and for your encouragement! I didn’t know about the update to the update, which is quite a bummer. I realize I should probably go straight to Block and not work on Classic Block bc as soon as I get comfortable with that, I’ll be pushed onward.
      Oh, well; such is life! Not a big deal in the scheme of things, to be sure!
      Annie xx

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    1. Dear Wellspring of Encouragement: I doubt that’s the case, but I thank you as always! When I find I’m back to thinking I’ve gone well past anyone’s attention threshold and I better do some serious cutting, I’ll be more comfortable.

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  13. Please note I can comment but I cannot like and your posts are not appearing in my timeline. I’m still happily using the Classical Editor, I know it’ll come to an end soon but I’ve already dallied with the Block Editor and I’ll manage.

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    1. Thank you for letting me know—and for trying. When you say “timeline,” do you mean WP Reader? My posts are now appearing there. I’m finding some of these things are temporary glitches that resolve themselves. Here’s hopin’!

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  14. More block-heads fixing something that isn’t broken. On the Blogger platform I use, they introduced a new, cumbersome, hard-to-use, glitch-prone user interface a couple of months ago, and got a torrent of negative feedback about it. I tried it for a week and a half, then gave up in frustration and went back to the old one. Yesterday was supposed to be the final date when the old interface was finally taken away for good, but it’s still available this morning. Sometimes these platforms do respond to user complaints. Keep complaining.

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  15. We had several final dates pass—until one didn’t for me. Hope that won’t happen to you. Other WP bloggers say they’re still using the old way—thus far unperturbed.

    On a different topic, I tried to locate your Biden piece on your blog but couldn’t. I want to run it shortly after Labor Day—and now I need extra time for my techie challenges. Can you help?
    Thx!

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    1. I’m not sure exactly which post you’re referring to. Can you give a little more detail? Feel free to e-mail if you don’t want to take up space in the comments here (my e-mail is in the profile on my blog).

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  17. I have somehow hidden myself from the blockheads and continue to bask in Classic comfort. It will probably be like the old movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and one morning soon my WP will be turned into a Pod Program. But for the moment my luck holds.

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  18. I’m fairly techie, fluent in HTML, but the blocks plug my brain up in the worst way! I’m sure there’s some great way to use it but I don’t like what it does to my formatting. I’m really particular about my formatting!
    So far I’ve found it helps to copy my text into Notepad to clear the formatting, then paste it into a block.
    I’ve only posted a couple of things since the change though. I guess I just need to really mess around with it one day, with patience in mind. Tech doesn’t help anyone impatient.

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    1. Fluent in HTML, are you? The woman with the pigeon on her head? Ah, you’ve many talents. One of my pieces “Chaos in America…,” was a near-acrostic that a WP HE formatted so there were nice indents and you could still read the words. But it got screwed up. I wrote it a while ago but the title draws people every day now. Would it take a lot for you to tell me how to indent the long lines?

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      1. Heh… way to call me on it! Maybe not so much fluent as a bad second language… I was fluent once, when I worked hard to be smart… It’s definitely easier to be the woman with a pigeon on her head. I’ll look into it but, like I said before, I’m pretty well stymied by the new editor myself… Wish us both luck 😂

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