Recovering from an unexpected error
-
Hello,
I have deleted a completely empty blog that I have just created, willing to recreate it again immediately with a new format (I thought it was the easiest way). At no point there was a warning that I would not be able to reuse that same blog name (URL), so I was confident in the process even when I clicked on the link sent by email.
Now I have “lost” my blog name, even if I didn’t even post an article. Since opening it again would have absolutely no impact on its referencing, is it possible to make it accessible again? I realized of my mistake only after searching the forums, which… is kinda frustrating :(
As an additional bonus, wouldn’t it be better to display a big red bold message that tells us the blog *name* will also be made unavailable? Sites tend to over warn users, but here it seemed to lack from the information :'(
-
At no point there was a warning that I would not be able to reuse that same blog name (URL)
As an additional bonus, wouldn’t it be better to display a big red bold message that tells us the blog *name* will also be made unavailable?
Those warnings appear in the system dialogue while you’re deleting the blog, in the confirmation email where you had to click on a link, and in the support doc on deleting blogs. See item #4: https://en.support.wordpress.com/delete-site/ The support doc also gives alternative links to instructions on how to simply empty the site of content or set it to private as alternatives to deleting, as does the system dialogue.
Since opening it again would have absolutely no impact on its referencing, is it possible to make it accessible again?
Afraid not. Once deleted, a URL is gone forever. See here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/recycling-blog-names/
-
Hello kokkieh and thank you for your reply.
This is a copy/paste of the email I received from WordPress.com. Now I kinda see the warning that the URL won’t be usable again, but I don’t think it’s as obvious as you want me to believe :P
“Howdy,
You are receiving this email because you clicked the “Delete Now” link for the site ***.
If you clicked that by accident or have changed your mind, ignore this email. Your site is still safe and sound.
TO PERMANENTLY DELETE YOUR SITE, click the confirmation link below. This immediately removes all your posts, pages, comments, and data, along with your site’s address. You won’t be able to recover them, and we will NOT ask you to confirm this again.
If you’re certain you want to delete your site, confirm now:
We’re sorry to see you go. If you want to try WordPress.com out again, come back any time — we’ll be here!
Thanks,
The WordPress.com Team
http://wordpress.com”In order to improve the experience for other users, what about putting in capitals YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RECOVER YOUR URL instead of using this unclear form of warning the user? I literally assumed that I would not be able to recover the posts, pages, comments and data, but I didn’t think it would also affect the URL (sincerely). Especially since other blogger systems do not do that as far as I know.
This means I will unfortunately won’t be able to use WordPress.com for my project, but that is a lesser issue as I fortunately did not loose any data.
Also, did you ever considered revisiting this decision that I find dubious (but that’s just my opinion)?
Thank you!
-
Please note I am only a volunteer in the forum and don’t work for WordPress, so none of these policies are up to me. All I can do is point you to them :)
This means I will unfortunately won’t be able to use WordPress.com for my project, but that is a lesser issue as I fortunately did not loose any data.
Don’t be hasty. There’s an infinite supply of addresses that haven’t been registered yet. I’m sure you could come up with another one that can work. And then you always have the option to buy a custom domain that has the address you want. If you do that, it doesn’t matter what the underlying free WordPress.com address is. See here for more info on Custom Domains: https://en.support.wordpress.com/domains/
In order to improve the experience for other users, what about putting in capitals YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO RECOVER YOUR URL instead of using this unclear form of warning the user?
A previous version of the delete interface did have the warnings in a bright red box, which I agree is much more visible. I haven’t deleted a blog in a while, but it appears to be gone. I’ll tag this for staff so they can see this piece of feedback.
-
Woops! Sorry, I thought only members of the staff could reply. Well, thanks even more for your reply then!
I know I have other options for the blog name, but I found another one that did have this one available. So I’m going to go for this other one instead. I really like WordPress for sure, it’s not a problem with the product!
I could consider taking a domain name, but since I do not know (yet) how much traffic I’m going to have on the blog, I want to keep a free version for now.
Agree that the messaging could be better. Thanks for tagging this thread!
-
Hi there!
The process to delete your site includes selecting one of these options:
We do this so we can give you additional information about what you can do instead of deleting your site.
We also require that you check a box next to this statement:
I want to permanently remove example.wordpress.com and I am aware I can never get its content or its address back.
Followed by:
All of my posts, images, data, and this site’s address (example.wordpress.com) will be gone forever.
The email also says (emphasis mine):
This immediately removes all your posts, pages, comments, and data, along with your site’s address.
We’re always iterating on our process, so I’ll pass along your feedback.
Let me know if you have any more questions!
-
Strangely enough, your posts are clearer than what I read during the deletion process. I’m not trying to say I didn’t make an error; I clearly did, but I missed the important information simply because I’m a software engineer and I tend to spend my days clicking on “Yes”, “Go ahead” and “Confirm”, assuming I know exactly what I’m doing (which is the case in 99% of the cases).
Since I was in the idea that deleting the site would not make the blog name unavailable, I didn’t bother reading everything fully (which is where I made a mistake), but it would not have been the case if there had been a bright red box somewhere (as mentioned by kokkieh), or to have the words you did put in bold actually in bold, better in bold red, on the deletion confirmation pages.
I do see the efforts you put to make sure this does not happen, but I’m not certain they are perfectly efficient. UI can be a difficult thing. And it seems I’m not the only one by reading the relevant posts of this search: https://en.forums.wordpress.com/search.php?search=recover+site&forum_id=2
Thank you for your reply, shawnajroberts, I really appreciate having an answer from the staff!
-
Thanks for your follow up! I agree that having the main highlight on the page be around “read this carefully” probably isn’t helping draw people’s attention to the important bits. :)
- The topic ‘Recovering from an unexpected error’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 