It is with much sadness that I’ve made the decision to discontinue blogging, and am going to cancel my wordpress account. I used to get a lot of pleasure from blogging but that isn’t the case any more. I’ve never seen eye to eye with technology but the frustrations of trying to post blogs over the last few months has been causing far more pain than pleasure.
I’ve tried asking for help from WordPress, but I can’t even begin to explain what the problems are. When I try to explain it to them it’s like I’m speaking in a completely foreign language to the language they speak. The last problem I sorted out with them took literally months. I don’t think it was a difficult problem to fix, the only difficulty was getting them to understand what needed attention. And something at their end did need attention – but like all call centre staff, they listen, not to the full story, but for a key word and then go to their robotic scripting that relates to what they deem to be the key word.
Every time I try to complete a blog there seems to be more changes to the process. I try to add photos the way I added them the last time, and I can’t. So I click all over the place trying to work out the new procedure. I try to break my writing into paragraphs and to place images in the appropriate place between paragraphes. But no, it seems my two paragraphs are inside one block, so images will only go after the second paragraph. I try to change the blocks – but have no idea how to. I keep trying – the image appears irrelevantly at the head of the post. I re-click everywhere and keep trying. Another hour of trying passes. I put the blog aside and decide to try another day.
Another day comes. I try again. Sometimes it works easily, and other times I return to the same frustrations. I can’t get into the flow of it anymore. The blog post has taken me around two hours to write and to do a rough edit. It’s time to add images and getting it formatted for publication. And that’s when the problems start, and it can take me anywhere from one hour to ten hours, or not at all. Today I tried to add the images to a post I completed a few days ago. I tried, and I tried and tried. It was when I almost hurled the computer through the window that I decided this is madness. Enough is enough – the problems I’m encountering have taken all the joy out of blogging, and it’s ceased to be a pleasure.
So this will be my last post. Now all I have to do is work out how to cancel my account….
Life of Riley - on whatever 
Nice blog
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Hi Chris, I don’t want to press the like button either but I do understand the frustrations you are having. I’m managing OK with the changes so far but know how annoying and aggravating it can be when things that should be easy just aren’t. Thanks for all your lovely connections and I hope you can stay in touch with your favourite bloggers from time to time. Take care.
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I’m so sorry to hear that you’ll be stepping away. I understand your frustrations and when it is no longer fun, then why continue. You will be sorely missed. Wishing you all the best!
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Thank you Ingrid. I will still keep in touch via the blogs of the bloggers that I have become familiar with. Maybe I’ll even try again one day.
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Glad to hear you don’t intend to disappear! Maybe a start over would work. If you have a freebie site, don’t delete it. Therefore, you can retrieve older posts to copy, paste, and update to a new blog. Take care!
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Oh Chris I do hope we don’t lose you from our little community. Forestwood explains it just the way I was going to. All it takes is to hit + then select whether you want a Paragraph or an Image. Though I must say one must keep reminding oneself. I’ve become a bit paranoid about checking the Preview and I’m in an area with shocking internet at present. Take care, don’t stress and I do hope we don’t lose you.
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I have been doing that. But on this occasion the image just wouldn’t go into the right place. It either went in a couple of paragraphs past where I wanted to put it, or it went in right at the beginning of the post, before any writing. It was weird. I think I must have spent at least 10 hours between trying all sorts of things myself, and trying to get help from the help line, and that was just to input one photo into the right place. The help line was no help at all. I think it is just broken. I’ve been having lots of trouble now for several months. In the beginning I liked the new block editor, until they started playing around with it. Every second post or so will be fine, no problem at all. But then the next post – I’ll be doing exactly the same thing and it just won’t work. I’ve taken the automatic renew off my settings. Perhaps I’ll give it another go another time before it’s time to renew, if it seems to be fixed Maybe I’ll give it another go. But if it’s still going to randomly give me grief then it just has to go.
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Take care and don’t stress.
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One easy trick is to insert the “Classic Block”
https://wordpress.com/support/wordpress-editor/blocks/classic-block/
No need to stop blogging for this.
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I don’t think so
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Chris! All these problems seem easily solvable.
The paragraph thing. Jusy click the + sign to add another block. Not enter which will add another paragraph in your block.
You theme will determine whether the photograph or image appears at the top of the post. If you you dont add a featured image on the sidebar – it will Automatically default to the 1st image and put it at the top of the post.
To change the block type, click on first line in the block anda bar appears above. I will send you a screenshot on messenger. It will change your block type.
I sense your stress. I was like this trying to learn illustrator i gave up and found another solution.
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Thanks for the advice Amanda, but quite honestly,I’m just over it. I’ve just spent more than two hours trying to get the so called Happiness Engineers to help with it, and that’s after I’ve already spent many hours myself trying to sort it out. Of course they were no use at all. I didn’t mind the block editor when it first came out, but whatever they’ve done to it since I have no idea. I just don’t have the patience for it anymore.
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Hi Amanda, thanks for caring, but i think I will be giving it away. I am experiencing so many problems. There definitely is some sort of problem, there is just to many intermittent things wrong. For example, I know you put a second comment on this. I clicked to try and reply, but instead it went into spam. I recovered it from Spam and tried again. Same thing. This happens to at least one out of three comments that I try to reply too. It has become just to frustrating And difficult.Consequently all the pleasure I used to get out of blogging, and interacting with the blogging community just isn’t there anymore.
I often think that I’m the problem when it comes to technology, but that just doesn’t compute when things like what Ive just explained happen. I did exactly the same to reply to this comment as I did to reply to the second comment that you placed on. That comment has now disappeared. It’s not even in Spam now. It’s not me, or even my computer inadequacies, there is definitely something that needs fixing, but this definitely something that I don’t want to deal with anymore. I’ll still interact with the blogging community, but I just don’t have the desire to continue on with my own blog.
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Chris, I’m so sorry to hear that. Like Peggy I didn’t want to hit like on this post either. I can sense your utter frustration and can understand cos I’ve had issues in the past too. Even though I’ve been less active and read less on WP this past year it would sadden me to lose this community. So I try and persevere and push through. You’ve always been so kind when you’ve commented on my posts. Whatever you decide to do I wish you happiness Chris. By the way, have you tried to revert to the Classic Editor?
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I just tried to revert to Classic editor, and couldn’t. I contacted the help line, and it appears this isn’t an option anymore.
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Sorry to see you go but I fully understand your frustration.
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I used to love blogging, but the frustrations of using WordPress has taken all of enjoyment out of it. I used to find it easy, even when I changed to block editor initially. Then they made some changes and things started to go haywire. Now it seems like They change the system on at least a weekly basis. I just can’t get head around it. I’ve tried getting their help, but unless you speak computer speak they seem to have no idea. If I could speak computer speak I probably wouldn’t need their help. Mind you I feel like I’ve just said goodbye to my best friend.
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I didn’t want to click like. I’m letting you know that I saw this and I understand. WordPress is driving me crazy too, so I may be following your lead.
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Peggy I feel comforted to read that comment. You are much cleverer than I am with all this technical stuff, so if you’ve been having trouble with the site too, then it’s comforting know that perhaps I’m not going mad after all. I do exactly what I did last time, only this time it doesn’t work. It completely does my head in. It used to be relatively easy.
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