It is impossible to work comfortably with an Up-grade request for our plans plac
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I have a problem with another of my websites: aquiliteratura.wordpress.com (it’s in Spanish)
You have placed a banner asking me as a user to upgrade my plan to stop seeing it. This banner doesn’t allow me to work properly as it covers the Home option in the top bar. When we finally (temporarily) resolved the ads issue on one of my websites, you put an ad for me as a user on the other while I try to manage it as a webmaster. It’s one thing for you guys to put an ad there for the readers. A very different thing is to place an ad for myself as an administrator. Are you kidding me? I can’t see the “Home” option for my own website when I try to make changes. How do you expect me to work?
Now it turns out that I have to pay to have the right to see what my website design looks like? What do you gain by putting up a banner just for me as an administrator? The only thing I see clearly is that you don’t let me see the navigation menu properly. The “Home” option is completely hidden. Do I have to pay you to see it again and correctly manage my website? How are you guys supposed to talk me out of upgrading my plan if this is the way you treat those on a free plan?
I’ve lost patience with you. Please take the time to read and correctly interpret this email. It wouldn’t be the first time my words have been given a different meaning to justify your behavior.
I’m tired. It is too much to ask that you let us website administrators work in peace? We already know that there are different payment plans, there is no need to bother us with those reminders when we have to make adjustments to our websites. For the love of God!
PS: Do not bother to enter the website to check the existence of the banner, since it appears exclusively to me as the owner and administrator of the website. If you enter my website as public, readers, etc, you may see a banner (also hiding the start option) but it will be of a different nature since it will correspond to ordinary advertising
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Stop asking me for money. You certainly have more than me as a company. Or should I worry about you going broke?
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By the way, on this website I have also published the statement to my readers letting them know that I will probably leave WordPress.com: https://aquiliteratura.wordpress.com/2022/10/04/comunicado-a-mis-lectores/
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Hi, would you be willing to share a screenshot of what you’re seeing? I’m not familiar with a banner that covers Home. It sounds like a bug.
The site is beautifully done, by the way!
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Thanks for the compliment. It took me many hours of work and thoroughly studying all the free themes offered by wordpress.com
I have shared with you the screenshot, I suppose that while I have written it has gone unnoticed. It’s the following:
Banner that Covers “Home” in the Primary MenuIt is not a bug, since it includes the WordPress logo. The menu bar has two heights. At the top is “Home”, overlaid with the Header Image. In the second height, and on the white background, you can see the links to the other pages. The Banner, due to its height, covers the “Home” option.
But this is not the only issue. I should have the right to manage my site without seeing ads or banners on it while I manage it. Advertising and banners are for the readers, the public, the audience, not for me as an administrator when I am making changes to the web. I consider it an abuse that I have to pay to be able to see how the design looks on my website without banners asking me to Up-grade my plan so that I stop seeing them.
I must say that I do not like to get to these instances where I have to be quite categorical with my statements. I really don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I’ve had a lot of trouble with WordPress.com this year, and it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be an end to it. I’m losing the enjoyment of designing and uploading content to my websites, which was something I loved.
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@eleonornolan this does indeed seem an issue with the theme. Normally that banner “pushes” the rest of the site down. We’ll do more testing to see if we can spot the extent of it.
I can understand too what you’re saying about showing you vs your readers an ad for removing ads. I’m suspecting that’s there to preview the similar banner your readers see so you know how to remove it, but it shouldn’t be making your work more difficult.
Thank you for the thoughtful feedback, as always. I can’t speak for the marketing team on that, but I will share the feedback with them. Hosting free sites does cost money that isn’t necessarily covered by ads, so we do try to encourage our users to upgrade if they can, but it sounds like you’re more discouraged than encouraged. We can pass that along.
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I have always known that to remove the ads I should either Upgrade my plan, or pay for the no-ads extension. That’s no excuse to put a banner for me to see it as the webmaster, let alone the fact that it hides part of the Primary Menu.
I am still determined to migrate my sites from WordPress.com, unless this last issue is resolved (that would be me stopping seeing the banner while managing my site).
I’m sorry for being so blunt. But this last answer of mine is the one you should pass along.
You have no right to demand that I pay to see the full design of my website. It is abusive on the behalf of WordPress.com, and is not included in the terms that are accepted when making an account.
Unless I stop seeing that, and any other type of banner, that prevents me from seeing every little detail of my website, I will migrate my sites from WordPress.com
I’m done!
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Hey there,
As above, thank you for this feedback.
I’ve employed a fix for that menu item onto the site. May I ask you to refresh the page and let me know if you can see the home menu item please?
Many thanks in advance.
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Yes, I know I see the menu item. You should now remove the banner I see as a webmaster asking me to upgrade my plan. I am still determined to leave WordPress.com unless I can run my sites without any ads asking me to upgrade my plan on the screen. You have no right to do what they are doing. You guys are not allowing me to see what the full design of my website looks like. You can’t ask me to switch to a paid plan so I can examine every little detail of my website. So, you’ve fixed whatever was messing with the menu and now everyone sees the “Home” option. That’s great. Well done. But that was not the underlying problem.
I was determined to migrate my sites from WordPress.com two weeks ago because of Outbrain’s advertising. Automattic wrote me an email and persuaded me of it. My response was that I would stay on WordPress.com if there were no new issues and there was a period of stability.
Less than two two weeks this comes up. It’s great that now everyone sees the Home option. But I can’t contemplate what my site would look like without that banner asking me to Up-Grade my plan. And that is a right that cannot be taken away from me. You should think about it from a commercial point of view at least. Why would I decide to go for a paid plan without being sure of how my website looks like? It doesn’t matter if the banner no longer hides any particular items. This was never part of the deal when we became a WordPress.com users. This was what my website looked like before you put up a banner just for me as the admin. From this capture that I am sharing with you, I know that you have changed the rules in an illegitimate way since I can no longer contemplate what my website looks like in its entirety.
Screeshot: https://aquiliteratura.files.wordpress.com/2022/10/nueva-apariencia-inicio-1.jpgI am going to migrate from WordPress.com. I’ll manage somewhere else. And that “beauty” that you said characterized the design of this website will represent another platform, as I will make my site just as beautiful but in a different way. And with that beauty and quality of my website, I will bring new clients to my next host. Because people want what they see. If they see something well done, they will want to do something like that themselves. Well, you didn’t appreciate that about me. You didn’t notice how I helped bring new users to WordPress.com. Now another of your competitors will be the beneficiary.
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Yesterday I updated my current situation with WordPress.com in the “Communiqué to my readers” that I published on October 4 of this year. There I summarize all the inconveniences that users have endured in recent months. The topic that we have discussed in this thread, already appears among several others in a list that I have made.
This is the link to said statement (it is in Spanish): https://aquiliteratura.wordpress.com/2022/10/04/comunicado-a-mis-lectores/Enough is enough.
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I would appreciate if you could pass forward my complaint to the Automattic Staff who responds via email. I have written to them as well, and they have not even bothered to read my messages as they have given me an answer that does not apply to my case. I thank you @aleone89 and @supernovia for the support you have given me. I don’t blame any of you for the bad experience with WordPress.com.
Thanks in advance. -
Finally, and I will not add any more comments, I have noticed an attempt to censor my sayings. In the user panel of my account they have eliminated the possibility of sending a message directly to the forums in Spanish (which were the default ones in my case), being able to only send an email. I totally get the hint. It’s not a nice move on WordPress.com’s behalf.
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I have noticed an attempt to censor my sayings. In the user panel of my account they have eliminated the possibility of sending a message directly to the forums in Spanish (which were the default ones in my case), being able to only send an email. I totally get the hint.
There’s a misunderstanding here, as WordPress.com have never engaged in censoring our users.
The changes you see in the contact pages are there because we are renovating our Help Center, making it easier for each user to receive support in the quickest way available for their plan.I would appreciate if you could pass forward my complaint to the Automattic Staff who responds via email.
We have passed your feedback along to our marketing team – once again, thank you for sharing it.
We’re sorry your experience with WordPress.com was not what you have hoped for. If you need help migrating your site to a self-hosted version of the WordPress software, this guide may help. We’re also here to answer any related questions.
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We did some digging re: your post not going to the es forum as you wanted it to: the fix my colleague applied made a small change in how your support requests get routed.
For now, you should be able to post directly at https://wordpress.com/es/forums/ if you’d like.
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I’m still having the same problem. I can only send an email. Although I must say that I really appreciate you trying to work it out despite the way this conversation ended. I really wanted to stay on WordPress.com. I felt comfortable and was considering switching to a paid plan when possible. You must understand that it is not something that can be done so easily for some of us. You didn’t give me time. It seems absurd to me that the theme of the banner is the reason why I am preparing to leave. It is curious that something that may seem insignificant to many, was for me the straw that broke the camel’s back. But after all the trouble I’ve had with Outbrain’s advertising on the two sites I run (aquiliterature.wordpress.com and hereliterature.wordpress.com), knowing that I’ll never be able to see what the layout of one of them unless I pay, it feels like a lack of consideration for free plan users (and it is). To top it off, no one has taken my complaint seriously. Even one of the Happy Engineers ignored what I was trying to saying. Unfortunately, things are as they are.
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Erratun: where it says
It seems absurd to me that the theme of the banner
read insted
It seems absurd to me that the issue with the banner
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Hello again,
First of all, I’m sorry to see this was the straw that broke the camels back here.
A fine balance is always being between trying to provide a free service, whilst also finding ways to keep those services free, among changes in technology, theme updates and so forth
I felt comfortable and was considering switching to a paid plan when possible. You must understand that it is not something that can be done so easily for some of us. You didn’t give me time. It seems absurd to me that the theme of the banner is the reason why I am preparing to leave.
When you say, we didn’t give you time – I’d explore this a little bit. What were you hoping for from WordPress.com in an ideal situation? We’re totally open to more feedback at this point. If we can reverse the leaving process, we will!
it feels like a lack of consideration for free plan users (and it is). To top it off, no one has taken my complaint seriously.
To reassure you here, this is not the case at all.
Internally this is being discussed on how to approach this scenario and use case.
I’m hoping the above proves useful in the meantime, and I’m eager to listen more about how to refine things.
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I had a very good experience with WordPress.com during the years 2020 and 2021. I knew in advance that the topic I would talk about on my websites would have a small audience since it is a very specific niche. Therefore, I had to see how readers would take my articles and reviews.
When I realized that my project wasn’t a bad idea at all, I began to consider the different payment options that WordPress.com offered at the time. I really liked the four plans. Among them, I was really fond of the Personal Plan.
A project is not built overnight. It requires months of testing. One cannot risk investing in it without considering a few factors. Among them, some are personal issues of each individual (which I will not discuss in this forum).
Everything was fine, until in April 2022 you removed all payment plans without prior notice, replacing them with just one. At that moment I thought “Well, it was nice while it lasted. I’ll have to go”
Interestingly, after two months, you reinstated the old payment plans. Although I was happy with the news, I remember thinking “How long is this going to last?” I started to feel like I was standing on shaky ground.
Everything got worse with Outbrain advertising. I still do not understand what led you to use this type of advertising. What I do know is that I began to feel the pressure to switch to a paid plan so that my work would not be affected by those offensive ads.
What did I expect from WordPress.com in an ideal scenario? Nothing much. Just the same service that I had during 2020 and 2021. At that moment I felt that I could grow my project by choosing WordPress.com. I didn’t feel judged, or belittled for having a free plan. But now I feel that you want to get rid of free users because they don’t increase your earnings. The situation has become an aggressive commercial tactic for users to Up-Grade their plans or to leave WordPress.com. Especially when you take away from us things that we previously had like being able to contemplate how the design of our website looks (the banner that I still have on one of my websites does not allow it)
I think you get my point.
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Hello there,
I do get your point and this feedback is valuable.
I’m really grateful of you for putting this together and this is something to be run up the flag pole for sure.
RE: the plans – we hear that feedback also.
Given your feedback, I’m going to reach out via email so we can help you with your account further.
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