Open Letter To WordPress — Can You Try to Be a Little Decent and Less Awful?
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I honestly don’t know what to do any more. I recently moved to a foreign country, and thought that starting a blog just to keep my friends and family updated on a new life far away would be exciting and interesting. Based on reviews and on your own documentation stating how easy the process was, and how WordPress help would be there “24/7,” I took the plunge and paid for an account. Admittedly, I’m not a giant corporation paying $1000s per month, nor am I a world-famous influencer with millions of followers. I’m just a regular person trying to share some simple news with his loved ones.
Then I actually tried using your site. I got as far as picking a theme, and could go no farther. Your interface is so complicated and unintuitive I couldn’t even figure out how to change the home image on my site, much less how to actually run a blog. I have undergraduate and graduate degrees from two major universities, and have worked in digital forensics for the past two decades — I’m not some technology novice or grandfather sitting down to a computer and not knowing where the “on” switch is.
And the technical support has been abysmal. I keep seeing these “we’ll be here for you 24/7” messages all over your support site. But when I try to reach someone by chat, I just sit there and never receive a response. As an experiment, while I was waiting for “help” from WordPress technical support, I actually called the DMV back in my home state to clear up an issue with my driver’s license and having an address in another country. I was able to reach an actual live person at the DMV *and* get the answer to my question; WordPress of course never responded. What I eventually got back — hours later — was an email containing links to a 45-minute video and a series of “guides.” I could have Googled any of that information. Telling a user to work through hours of material just to do something simple like create a blog is *not* technical support; it’s just passing the buck.
The worst part of it all is that my awful experience with WordPress has actually soured me on the whole idea of the blog. What seemed like a neat idea to keep in touch with my loved ones back home now just seems like a bad idea. I’m not enthusiastic about writing any more, because your platform is so awful and your technical support so nonexistent it makes the whole process seem depressing and Sisyphean.
So, I’m putting the ball in your court. Again, I know I’m just some small fry with a personal account, and since you already have my $60 for the year you probably don’t care any more. But this is your chance to actually do the right thing and come through on your “we’re here for you 24/7” promises. If I once again get some cut-and-pasted email with links to more videos or guides, I’ll have a really good idea of the character of the organization I’m dealing with.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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You haven’t launched your site yet so I can’t offer advice. I am an elderly WordPress.com user and find the place can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. To begin with don’t fret too much about the look of your site. If you want it to be a way of keeping contact with friends and family just WRITE. You can work on the finer details as time goes on. I click on the “plus” button and choose “classic editor” as that is more like using Word which everyone is familiar with. I don’t even pay money for my site. I’m quite happy with the free plan and an address ending in .wordpress.com. I’ve found no one cares about custom domains when they are just clicking on saved links in their browser (although having a paid plan means you’ll avoid annoying adverts). Don’t give up before you’ve even started
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And there are a number of learning resources, too, but I’d start with this one:
In this series of videos, we’ll walk you through the essentials of creating a blog. You’ll learn how to activate a theme, publish your first posts, and customize the blog’s design to match your vision. You’ll also discover how to organize your blog content, engage with your readers, and grow your audience for long-term success. Join us for this hands-on, practical course and take the firs -
That is exactly the link that WordPress “support” referred me to. When a user asks for technical support, “Go watch this 45-minute video” is not an answer.
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Re: “just write,” I tried. I got two words into the title; then I wanted to put a word in italics. I couldn’t find any options to do so. WordPress loves to tout how easy and versatile they are, and how anybody can design anything on their site. Well, I couldn’t even put a word in italics, and their technical support left me hanging without an answer.
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Hello @robertodueapi
While there’s currently no way to do customize the post title as you prefer, I appreciate you taking the time to let us know what you’re looking for—most of the improvements we make come from ideas and suggestions like yours, so thank you for reaching out!
I truly appreciate you bringing this to our attention, and I’m sorry for any inconvenience you experienced. Since we’ve already worked through this together in our live chat, I’ll go ahead and close this thread for now.
Sad to see you leave WordPress.com, but we’re happy to have you back at any time in the future!
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That is exactly the link that WordPress “support” referred me to.
Hello again, if WordPress.com’s introductory tutorial is difficult to follow or unintuitive, that is also valuable feedback.
to keep my friends and family updated on a new life far away
I suggest the following in the spirit of trying to help. If you write a blog post, how will they know when you publish something new? Creating a blog for them to subscribe to is an intermediary step to them getting an email notification of your new post. Why not send an email newsletter directly to your friends and family instead?
Best wishes for your new adventure.
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It seems a shame that someone would go to the trouble of paying for a plan and a custom domain and then leave outside the refund window just because italics isn’t available for a post title.
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It seems a shame that someone would actually spend effort to post a condescending and snide post which otherwise offers no useful information at all in a “help” forum.
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Hey there, @themagicrobot shared their opinion.
Again, if you already invested money for a year and aren’t eligible for a refund, you can walk away if you want or make the effort to learn more about working with the platform.
I really suggest working your way through the Intro course with your own site open in another window. If you have more questions, we have detailed support guides here https://wordpress.com/support/ and these forums are here to help if you can’t find what you need.
Cheers
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And I shared mine. By your definition, any statement that “shares an opinion” is valid, correct?
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I’m sorry, are you looking for help at this point? I don’t think I have anything more to add unless you do. Except maybe this https://wordpress.com/forums/topic/best-practices-community-standards/
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