No More Posts Until WordPress Gets Its Shiznit Together (Or February, Whichever Comes First)

Yep, you read that right. I’m fed up. If any WordPress users have seen what I’m about to describe, please leave your thoughts in the Comment section.

Here’s what’s happening: When I go into Editor now in WordPress, whether I’m starting a new post or editing one I’m already working on or have published, any existing text now looks like this:

Problem is, I can’t edit any of it. I have to hit “Edit” at the top of the page, and when I do that a new window pops up. Yeah. My existing text, if I have any, is just sitting there behind the window, but I have to open a new window in order to edit it. It looks like this:

Really, WordPress? Really?

This is exceedingly stupid and inefficient on the part of WordPress. One day, the Editor works just fine. The next day, I have to have to open an extra window every time I edit something. There’s no Autosave. If I manually save, the window closes and I have to hit “Edit” again to open it. I can’t keep track of my word count when the Edit window is open. I can’t keep track of formatting in the same way because I can’t watch the side Settings bar as long as the Edit window is open.

This happens with past posts as well, which is how I found out about it:

It would be one thing if the text behind the window looked the way the post is supposed to look once it’s published, but it doesn’t. It looks sloppy and cheap.

What especially sucks about this is that WordPress knows better. More than a third of all news sites and blogs are hosted by WordPress. Unfortunately those in charge have apparently bought into the idea that in order to stay relevant, they must keep making changes, and oftentimes those changes ruin functionality for users and readers.

Instagram does the same thing. Instead of showing posts from a user’s followers or promoting hashtags, feeds now show posts based on interests and past interactions. What’s the point of having followers or following anyone if your feed doesn’t show them?

This isn’t WordPress’s first offense, either. A few months back, the Calendar would show where I had posts scheduled and that feature is now gone, another dopey and inefficient decision on the part of WordPress. That change has been reversed, but only when the Edit window is closed. I also can’t see past years’ data in Stats anymore unless I enter a specific date range, and I have to do that every time I look at my Stats. Seeing past stats at a glance used to be the default setting. What the heck, WordPress?

Don’t get me wrong, not all of the changes have been bad. It’s now easier to find images in the Media library or posts in All Posts because we can search with filters. That’s good. The Block Editor isn’t so bad. As long as users can make features work for them, changes are no calamity. No harm, no foul.

However, if I can’t edit posts in an efficient manner, it hampers me both as a writer and as a site host. When you’re on a roll, having to add extra steps to the writing process is annoying and counterproductive.

So. What’s going to happen going forward? Well, I’ll keep checking on the Editor between now and February fifth, when my January Substack recap is supposed to come out. I’ll try to keep up with comments between now and then as well. If WordPress hasn’t resolved the issue by then, I will either decide to live with the window or seriously consider porting Taking Up Room to a different host. I don’t want to do that because this has been a WordPress site from the beginning. Changing hosts will change the way I interact with you all and vice versa. It also may mess up the way the site functions, and it might be hard for those of you who are subscribed through the WordPress Reader to get ported over.

We do what we have to do, though, and if WordPress is going to keep being stupid and ticking users off for no reason other than their software engineers want to look busy, then I don’t have much of a choice. We’ll see what happens in the next week or so. If I end up having to make a big move, I hope you all will stick with me. See you on February fifth, I hope. Thanks, everyone.

If you’re enjoying what you see on Taking Up Room, please look for additional content on Substack, where you’ll find both free and paid subscriber-only articles. I publish every Wednesday and Saturday.