I am pleased to report that, so far, all of the trouble reported for this site has been resolved with user education, rather than by repairing a site development issue. In other words, the site has worked as it’s supposed to. Despite this, I still lack the confidence to address problems initially as a user problem. I have, too many times, been on the user side and wanted to strangle the technical support rep who just assumes that I’m the problem, as if I don’t know what I’m doing! Well, I now find myself in the technical support rep’s shoes and have developed some understanding of her point of view. Nevertheless, I vow to never take the annoying, superior, eye-rolling tone that I have been subjected to by these ‘support’ people in the past.
So I’ve been left with a challenge: how do I minimize the time I’m spending trying to fix a site that isn’t broken without jumping to the conclusion that complaints I receive aren’t valid? Here’s my first attempt at a solution. I wrote a page for site members called “How to use this Site,” an attempt at preventative education. How does it read? Does it make sense? Does it help?
As a Druid, I consider this web site to be part of my path. It’s one way for me to give back to the community that has given so much to me. As is true with so many things, I find that this act of giving has its own rewards. I am learning more about web site development, I’m learning more about others in the community, and I’m learning more about myself. I have a tendency to take things personally and feel defensive when someone complains. Intellectually, I know the complaints aren’t personal. So this is an opportunity for me to internally integrate this idea in my head with the feeling in my heart, in other words, an opportunity to work with Sky, Earth and Sea. As I work through this, I rely on you all to continue to support me and continue to present the issues you find in a kind and respectful manner.
Thank you all for the feedback on the site, and please keep it coming.
Thank you for all your time!
I have access again. Firefox claims it was a timeout issue, in other words, site too busy. IE just burped. I can understand and sympathize. I was trying to use SMF Forums for my celtic atlanta site which is more geared toward event notification rather than discussion and blogging. Had to lock it down and still spent too much time trying to deal with spammers wanting to join. So I killed it and went back to WordPress and a Web Calendar program at main menu level (of course, the first try at getting the calendar to work and it blows up). Plus I have been having ftp access issues around access rights. Used site to reset access to default. Fixed some issues and seems to have broken others. All of this frustration just to provide some basic functionality to my friends and guests.
Yes, I will need to meditate later to reduce my stress levels. Thank you for taking over the DOTR websites.
As I handle three sites that also use WordPress as their basis, I understand! Sometimes, though, configuration differences still have me scratching my head. The application of templates or plug-ins can change how the basic WordPress software works, and that can make it more difficult for the Admin/Webmaster, because each plug-in or template is often supported (if at all!) by someone different.
You have my condolences, and my congratulations.
I made the template, and so I worried that something won’t work and it’ll be my fault. I’ve been working on another WordPress site (which I will soon plug here as it’s Paige and Bob’s company site), and in so doing, I’ve learned a lot about templates, especially what I should and shouldn’t mess with. I feel pretty confident about the template stuff now.
I have lots of plugins here, and I also worry that they won’t work together well. So far, so good. I figure as long as I don’t add any more plugins or do any updates (I’m ignoring the WordPress 3.0 upgrade), I should be able to coast from here [fingers crossed].