July 21, 2013
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Word press Sucks!: A Xanga Public Service Announcement
Or course your mileage may vary, but the experience of this reasonably tech-savvy Xangan bears stating:
IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR AN EXCRUCIATING WAY TO DIE, CURSING YOUR BITTER FATE AND WISHING YOU HAD EBOLA, THEN GO TRY TO MAKE A WORD-PRESS SITE.No one can even repay me for the two nights I just spent exploring digital Hell. You will quickly re-discover how lovely Xanga is as a platform. And find the couple bucks it might take to keep it and your sanity alive.
Basically, nothing there works. Not that you can ever find it twice. The Editor for posting is a horror-show. One Theme I tried was readable only with an electron microscope, the other one a garish mess of out-of-position indecipherable icons. The photo I tried to post insisted on being basically a thumbnail in an ugly sea of WP-chosen background color I didn’t order and can’t return.
No way to ever know what’s where, or, where any of your posts went to die.
I was stuck in no-exit routines so many times; the only way out is to kill the program back to your desktop and start over. only to find what was supposed to have been your post printed upside-down. Seriously.
With Xanga I also, of course, remember a learning process; getting photos to the correct placement, learning the navigation. But good heavens, I never came even close to the WTF rage I feel toward WP so far.
I suppose the Bottom Line is: You never know what you had till it’s gone. Pray that won’t happen.
(I just posted this in four minutes… as opposed to nine WP hours last night with nothing but tears of rage to show for it.)
Comments (46)
Your experience with WP sounds like Alicia’s and mine trying to make an online payment to a health insurance company in Colombia. We never were successful, and had to leave the project of getting insurance for her 15-year-old son in the unreliable and unwilling hands of the boy’s father.
I usually write and upload photos in Xanga and then copy and paste the whole thing into WP. This usually works, although last time it didn’t want to show all of the photos. I have uploaded photos directly into WP but it was awkward and I had some misadventures. Their editing menu is woefully skimpy.
If Xanga survives extinction, it will still be powered by the Word Press engine. You see, you can’t win.
Now say it along with me, HEY YOU WORD PRESS, GET OFF MY LAWN.
Yes, Xanga made learning easy. I miss that.
This morning I read an entry by @christao408 about the orphanage he visited. I commented on it, but when I went to post it, I was asked to sign in..which I did, and then my entire comment which was several paragraphs long, died in cyberspace.
I am continuing to be optimistic about Xanga, but I hope WP will allow us the kinds of choices that Xanga has. I have signed in to Blogster, haven’t posted anything there yet. Just treading water.
I haven’t been to WordPress yet, but that’s what I was afraid of!Boo!
I realize everyone’s experience is different, but in my case, I have found wordpress to be very easy to use.
I went to their main page and was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of things you have to do to secure a site ad get it working… I’m hoping that Xanga 2.0 will come into being – a quick and painless birth. Even though they are going to use the WP platform that it will be (hopefully) like the Xanga we know and love. Too many people are worried about the WerdPress platform but as I understand it, it is just the gasoline to make Xanga go and not the car!
Hmm, the only way I can comment on Xanga these days is to click on the link, “Comment box not working?” I think maybe the bailing wire that has held Xanga together for some time now is about to snap, so probably a good time to move to a new platform – let’s hope the WP base works better than your recent experience!
I’m not bothering to set up an alternate site. I’ll worry about that if it becomes necessary because I like having a place to write, but I’m not going to rush into anything.
I found WP to be a bit cumbersome at first, but that goes with the territory of having additional features/functionality. For the same reason Xanga is “comfortable”, it’s also very limiting in what you can do.
The new Xanga will have more functionality and will no doubt be more complicated than what we have now.
I tried out WordPress several years ago. I got a couple of things posted but it wasn’t worth the hassle.
I continue to find wp frustrating and not fun to navigate. I have a site on Blogster and it is much easier to navigate and much less frustrating but a bit boring.
@buddy71- How much mingling have you done on Blogster? The more networking you do on it, the more you’ll be able to interact with people. I’m always going to other Blogsterians’ pages and joined a few blogrings. They’ve also posted on my wall.
I actually found it very easy to set up on Word press. Using the site has been less than satisfactory. I may just quit blogging if xanga bites the dust.
Glad I’m not the only one. I started one about a week ago, and while I’m sure it gets much easier as you get used to it, I was blown away by how poorly laid out everything is.
Not in love with WP to be honest >.>
I use Blogger. I didn’t find it to be much different to set up than Xanga. You have a Gmail account, so you have ready access to Blogger, all you have to do is activate your blogger address. I also use software called MacJournal to write and compose my posts offline, including pictures. Once I’m done, the software connects to my Blogger address and posts the new blog entry for me. Very easy, and I have an archive on my computer, plus a place where I can sketch out ideas prior to writing and posting. Since putting this system together, I’ve been posting everything on Blogger, then opening the editor, copying the post, and then pasting it into an open editor page on Xanga. Even the pictures transfer over from Blogger’s editor to Xanga’s editor with no additional work on my part.
Yes, I’m lazy. Lazy works in this case. There are similar journal programs for PCs that are cheap or free that you can use to post your blog entries.
I’ve looked at WordPress – I have to look at the backend of it once in a while at work – and I don’t care for it.
p.s. Feel free to contact me via message or via email if you want to discuss technical details in greater depth. scifiknitter at gmail dot com.
No one follows my Xanga OR my WordPress, so it makes no difference to me!
I’ll admit WP is a little daunting to those unfamiliar with it, but just give it some time. It only took me a couple days to figure out all the ins and outs and to make the final tweaks to make it feel like home.
I wish that WP would adopt the Xanga platform! I can only post pics in one size, for one thing.
My understanding is that while Xanga 2.0 would be powered by WordPress, we would have a lot of control over the look and feel. Hopefully this means that the interface is easier, because I have to agree that I’ve sunk a lot of time into trying to learn how to use WP.
I’m having some issues with WP, too, but I think I am slowly figuring it out. There is a way to make photos different sizes, though I can’t really tell you where it is. I just know that it’s on the right side of the page on which I write the posts. My big problem is with font size. I think the only way to change that is to find a theme that has a big font built in.
Well written. I spent just two hours today trying to decipher the madness. Props to you for lasting so long.
Well written. I spent just two hours today trying to decipher the madness. Props to you for lasting so long.
I just rejoined Xanga to find all this out. Here’s hoping it survives.
Well shucks, my friend, you’re front-paged on this here dying piece of crap web site run by a bunch of tools who can’t find their asses with both hands, a map, and a mirror. AND you’ve destroyed my identity, man. I can’t be an anachronism any more and have to content myself with just being freakish.
As has been pointed out, this version of Xanga is going to die no matter how much money is thrown at the tools who run it. I’ve reviewed the WP code many times because it’s part of my job… these clowns are not going to make much in the way of significant changes to how it works. I mean, hell, they’ve been at their own custom code for more’n a decade now and can’t make it do the things they and others want. You might as well take a brain tumor to a methed-up monkey with a high capacity semiautomatic shotgun. He might get rid of that pesky growth for ya but yer not gonna like the way he goes about it.
My WP blog is okay, to the extent that anything where my thoughts are compiled can be. The font doesn’t seem tiny to me and is larger than most I’ve seen… the theme is called Twenty Twelve. It’s boring but it works. Dunnit?
It takes some getting used to – I depends on what purpose you want to use it for. For professionals who want to plug their own content, it’s pretty good. As a personal blog, not so much.
i have trouble with it too. i’ve learned a couple back door tricks that get the job done, but not elegantly.
@MelFamy -
When you add a photo to a post, click on the upper left corner of the picture to reveal an edit icon. Click on the edit icon to change the size of the photo in the post.
Well, I do have to say that my own experience with WordPress wasn’t as bad… I’ve already posted a few things there (mostly reprints of older Xanga posts I thought worth sharing elsewhere) but kept it to a minimum. (I only posted 3 times… does that say anything?)
That said, I did manage to export my entire Xanga site over to my WordPress account flawlessly, complete with all pictures AND ALL COMMENTS MADE TO EACH AND EVERY POST. (Can’t say about the audio files though… seeing as I upload to Xanga… and doubt they’ll transpose them over to WordPress…)
I have over 1000 posts here on Xanga… and all of them exported flawlessly, even the private ones, which remained private. It wasn’t as painful as it would seem, took less than 30 minutes, and even retained the original dates of every post. (dating back to 2005 when I originally started.)
Can’t complain I guess… but I still find myself coming here to post anything new. I do prefer the format and the people / community.
Hang in there – the fat lady hasn’t sung yet =)
Seems like you had big issues. I did not have many issues blogging on WordPress but then again, my needs are bit simplistic. We will have to get used to WordPress one way or another since Xanga plans to use WordPress as base for Xanga 2.0
Yoinks. That all sounds awful (but I have some familiarity with WP and I know what you mean). Yes, xanga is a much simpler platform. It seems absurd it would disappear.
Thanks for your kind words on my last post. I would be happy to let you know where I’m going and to be able to have your contact info as well. I don’t subscribe to too many blogs–and I’m loathe to lose the handful of people (such as yourself) with whom I’ve been so happy to share ideas.
I’m also starting to feel as though this End of Xanga is dragging too long. Anticipation is dreadful!
g.
I don’t find WP as friendly as xanga. I’ve posted one entry on WP since then.
@Zeal4living - @HappierHeathen - Is your wordpress name the same or similar? I wonder if you don’t mind me posting your names on a list just for others to follow?
@PPhilip - Mine’s happierheathen.wordpress.com, though I don’t know why any who haven’t already followed me over yonder would want to.
I must say, I made my WordPress account years ago and it was a lot simpler then. They’ve certainly gussied it up since, and I do find it is next to impossible to navigate. In order to post a new entry, I first must log in (if I somehow got logged out), then go to my own blog and mouse over my icon in the upper right corner to get the menu that lets me post a new entry. If I try to do it from inside the guts of my account, I simply can’t. So yeah, WordPress has not improved for the better. There is also a reasonable site at Blogger, which is Google run. My two literary blogs are there as well but, as with the WP one, they were set up years and years ago and I haven’t bothered fiddling with their inner workings since. Good luck, my friend. I know you’ll find something that works.
@JulieMillerFan - I’m fascinated as to how you exported your entries! How did you do that?
I find wordpress to be extremely helpful in setting up a professional/pre-professional persona, so establishing a community-friendly interface will undoubtedly be difficult.
As a simple-minded non-geek, I find WP extremely unreliable and virtually unusable. Livejournal is a little bit better, but not much. Before you know it, I’ll be calling myself an ex-blogger.
ACK, I’m sorry for that experience and any computers you may have thrown out the window in the process. Hope you find a blogging platform that doesn’t suck…your loyal fans demand it!
@splork_splork - You in particular needn’t worry, dear. I’d as soon lose contact with someone sweet and talented like you as {to} lose my two front teeth. I’m working at present to corral jxsolberg.wordpress into a semblance of submission. But of course hoping I can stay with the beloved site which taught me that blogging can be easy and fruitful. Yeah, Xanga, if there were any doubt.
Do archive your own site though, Val, if you haven’t. There’s still time.
js aka {solberg73@g….mail, etc
@christykim - If you haven’t as yet gotten an answer to your question: As I understand, on the Save archives page (link on the latest Xanga team entry/front page) you select to download (for WordPress) the ‘XML’ file. WP will instruct you then as to how to import. I’m awaiting doing that as we speak. And thanks for your comment/JS
@jsolberg - Hey, no more detoothifications for you! Just did the “archive” thing, so don’t worry.
I expect you have done the same…
@splork_splork - Yes, although I already save everything independently.
Good for you, dear, and good news. You and I both have enough brushes with loss, don’t need to see one more. Do be in touch -solberg73 at the Google mail place/JS