After my post celebrating my Unbanning from the WordPress Forums (Out of WordPress Jail!) I wondered when I would get banned again and what would set it off. I figured WordPress would do something ultra-boneheaded and I’d say something in response and get ye olde ban hammer.
Well, it happened but I’m not sure exactly why. I have an idea and I’ll walk you through it. But first, Evidence of me being banned yet again from the forums:
When the WP Reader Changed on Me! last week and I posted about it, I went first to the forums to see if anyone else had noticed this change or complained about it. Nobody had and so I asked all of you in the post to confirm that my eyes hadn’t gone crazy. Enough of you confirmed the sudden change so I knew I was on firm ground. I have one of the paid plans (to get rid of the atrocious ads wordpress puts on the free sites) and that entitles me to email support. But I didn’t want email support. I wanted to post in the forum to get a public reaction. But I couldn’t find any way to start a new post. I could reply to other posts but I could not start one. So I caved and sent an email to the Great and Powerful Oz, or those shysters known ironically as “Happiness Engineers”.
I stated that the reader had become very narrow like the app and why had they changed it and why hadn’t they announced it. The Happiness Engineer replied back along the lines of “I understand you have a question about the reader, what can I help you with?”. Oh man, it was like they hadn’t read the email and were replying to some random keyword. I wrote back telling that person to read the initial email. They then asked me to take a screen shot to show the problem. At no point so far had this person acknowledged in ANY WAY that they were aware the Reader had been changed. I took a screen capture and gave it to them but told them since they didn’t seem to be aware of the issue that I figured they (wordpress) were lying to me and obfuscating the issue hoping I’d give up.
THAT is what I think got me banned from the forums. But what I don’t understand is why. How did what I wrote in the email translate over to the forums? And I made sure in the email NOT to claim the jerk engineer was lying or obfuscating, but WordPress as a whole. That way I was not attacking or “disrespecting” staff * epic eye roll *
So another Jerk Engineer replies back that he took a look at the screen shot and couldn’t see a problem. I replied calmly and outlined exactly what was different and that all I was looking for was the WHY of the changes, which were detrimental to all viewers who used a computer instead of a phone. I am so incredibly frustrated with WordPress right now.
I am looking into other RSS feeder options and come the New Year will be abandoning the WP Reader. I’ll still be using wordpress but I’ll access all the notifications via my own website instead of going to the reader. I’ll visit all of your sites via whatever rss feed reader I end up with. The problem is, one person’s site I regularly regurgitate upon (Aye laddie, your trossachs are totally pants’d! Begorrah!) has a problem where I can ONLY comment through the reader. As I am an avid commenter (not just on his site but most everywhere), this presents a problem to be solved. It just can’t be simple can it?
So the incredible Saga of The Bookstooge versus the Evil WordPress continues.