I really start to get annoyed by the constant changes here at WordPress.com. They surely should get rid of these disruptive kids of developers who mean to change things that looked and worked well for years. It’s not that I only see this behaviour here, I notice it everywhere on other social media platforms on other big websites and in computer games. I really like dislike these hipster developers.
Never touch a running system, is that an aged quote? I believe so. How can someone spend energy on things that work well? Beep beep boop was probably just the first step and I don’t want to know where it will end. Destroy the usability and make it look ugly. What did they change recently? Well, it’s not that disruptive as the “Beep beep boop editor”, however even if it’s a small change, it adds up…
Recently they changed the order of the content in the top bar that you can see when you log in to WordPress. They seemed to be so bored that they even changed the shape of the profile picture frame. It was once a square and now it’s round. As said, it’s not disruptive but it adds up with all the other changes that are pointless in my opinion.
Meanwhile, Google announced that HTTPS sites get a small boost in the ranking and yet we still can’t buy certificates for our domains here at WordPress even if it has been suggested. So, it’s clear, instead of working on very important things, they rather prefer to change the shape of a profile image and the order of the content that is in the top bar, and of course a whole editor that resulted in the most horrible editor that I ever seen.
Since this is a rant post, I repeat myself and say it again… I hope they get rid of those hipster developers. I would leave this host immediately if there wouldn’t be certain advantages such as free cloud hosting and so on.
I am not a big fan of changes. I dislike changes pretty much especially if the features worked earlier and if things just get changed for the sake of changing things.
Diary of Dennis 
You tell ’em, Dennis! I haven’t noticed these specific changes, & am overall happy with my WordPress experience, but they sure do fiddle with stuff constantly! Since you are a much more active blogger than I, it bothers you more and I hope somebody is listening!
Yep, I notice it often very early if something is changing. I really do understand that changes are sometimes needed but my logic says that you only should change things to improve them. I don’t understand if the changes are either visual or even disruptive for the long-time bloggers like it happened when they came up with the new editor that is basically downgraded compared to the old editor. Fortunately there is still a way to use the old one. In the case of the minor changes that happened on the top bar recently, it’s annoying because I now have to adapt to where I need to click when I want to open certain things here. Well but as you, I do have in general a positive experience here too since there are quite a lot of advantages here compared to hosting alternatives 😀
[ Laughs ] Dennis, it is not the first time that the engineers at WordPress changed the things that they shouldn’t have changed; my pet peeve is, the glitches that I experience when they are making those changes.
Maybe, you should start an addition blog on Blogger where they seldom make changes.
Yes you add a very good point. With changes there is also the possibility that certain things are broken later on. I agree, it happened quite often. 😀
At times I thought about creating a blog on blogger, however I have been there in the past and I dislike it there anyhow mainly because the UI is different. I know I could also install firefox extansions that allow to create blog posts and so, but I prefer to work withing the CMS and I still like the editor of WordPress (sure the old one that we fortunately still can access with some extra clicks) 😀
You are so right !
I think there are quite a lot of people who start to get annoyed by it. Saw similar topics and rants several time in the forums. 😀
Hi Dennis, I’m not a big fan of change either unless it’s a change that I personally want. I especially don’t like change for the sake of change which is what WordPress are doing lately. I always use the dashboard to write my posts anyway but i can’t honestly see how they can say the new one is better. It’s just something else to get used to.
Wordpress are certainly not the only culprits here though. It seems as if every company does it at some stage, annoying little tweaks to the way things look or work. Maybe they are afraid that if they don’t constantly change people will get bored with their product. Many companies seem more focussed on getting new customers than keeping the the old ones happy don’t you think? Being the sort of person I am (a Taurus) I like what is familiar and comfortable so if it is changed it needs to be a for a darned good reason and even then I’m not always happy about it.
Anyway Dennis keep perservering with WordPress, at least we are all in the same boat.
There. You made me rant now 🙂
Yes I think you are right with your assumption… I read all kind of tech blogs regularly and there is this trend that people think you would need to make changes to keep your users happy. This is why I mentioned “hipster”. When blogs like TechCrunch, Engadget or other popular sites mention it, it is for sure recognized by developers. Not only tech blogs but also marketing blogs came up with this regularly some time ago.
Your second point is true too I think. I remember the days when it took a lot of time to play through a computer game. These games were also more difficult. Most gamers loved it. Until game publishers found out that you can get the attention of John Doe too if you decrease the difficulty and if you develop less complex games. They also decreased the lengh of the playtime because, well, they want to sell you a sequel. Years ago this was a conspiracy theory but today it’s what most pc gamer think and most publishers don’t even deny it in their forums. Back to the point software and WordPress….
I think it applies here too. Remove a button here, remove a button there and you can attract people who otherwise never would have touched a blog. I think accessibility is the keyword but they take away complexity and to some degree also the usability. I think accessibility is not bad but they must be careful that they don’t scare away more advanced users.
Fortunately we can still access the old editor here. Also there are several advantages we have here. So, yes, I will stay I think 🙂 The free and fast cloud hosting alone is a big advantage. I sometimes just need to rant a little bit about problems I see. Makes me feel better anyhow 🙂
The changes here as well as on other social networking has been irritating the crap out of me as well.
What happened to the “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” guide line??
Great post and ranted superbly! 🙂
Good question. 😉 This is probably not the developer mantra anymore today. 😀
It seems that a lot of things these days are being “dumbed down” It’s a pet peeve of mine as well. I do think that things should be made easy to learn but also that there should be challenges to encourage you to learn more. I’m thinking of more examples of this so might have to go back to my blog and write my own ranty post.
True, I think it’s possible to give two options. You can design all kind of things for beginners but you can give advanced options for longtime users as well. The complexity just adds more work for the developers, which is probably why they dislike to offer two solutions in one system. In the case of the editor, a lot of people fought for the old one in the forums. The voice was clear and it is good that WordPress did listen, well, at least for now.
I have only been on wordpress for 2 and a half years and in that time I have felt that the owners want it to be more of a micro blogging platform and social media site instead of a blogging platform. I have never used the new editor as it gives me less freedom in crafting a post and have a link to my dashboard on the front page of chrome.
Personally the app is where most of the development time must be spent as it is bug ridden and even basic things like replying to a comment sometimes don’t work as well as refreshing notifications.
Thanks for ranting many have the same opinions.
True, the recent changes look as if they want to go the tumblr path. Yep, the changes also come often with new bugs that are quite annoying. It’s as if we would be beta testers 😀 Thanks for your comment.