[This post and all prior to this are from my old WordPress blog]

I've been blogging with WP since Jun 2007. That's 14 years (not including the many years I blogged with the .org version). I've always liked how user-friendly the software is, and even though the .com version lacks the flexibility of the .org experience, it was still a solid, easy-to-use piece of software. And despite being annoyed by all the "upgrades", I've stuck with it.

And now it seems WordPress doesn't really want me here anymore.

The changes to the editor were the first push. But so far, I can still get the old editor to work, so I keep on blogging. But it's getting worse.

I tried to make one tweak to bring back the link to the Storytelling page in the sidebar, and my entire sidebar was gone. Despite assurances that my old widgets are safe, none of them were.

So while I do now have a (slimmed down) sidebar again, it was only by virtue of being on the Wayback Machine. I literally had to copy, paste and clean the code from the archived copy to get a sidebar somewhat resembling what I had. And it's so dumb and pointless and why do they insist on doing things like this?

When I say WP doesn't want me here anymore, of course I don't mean on a personal level. But with these stupid changes, like many others, I'm feeling increasingly tempted to jump ship, and I really don't want to have to do that. I like it here, and embedding a silverssimstuff.wordpress.com watermark on all my images is like an ingrained habit. This is my place, and I don't want to have to set up another site, and have my blog split in two.

I don't really know why it's such a big deal. I mean I've run several websites and had my own domain for many years, and it never bothered me too much losing those sites, but I guess it's just because I've been here so long, and this blog is more personal. I don't know. I just feel sad. Losing my sidebar was more upsetting than it should have been. It bothers me that they aren't dynamic widgets anymore, but static code. If I add a new category, it won't update automatically. I'll have to go in and edit the code manually and hope that it doesn't all delete again. It can no longer show the post count because it's just static code. It bothers me. I just want to be able to run my site the way I want. Is that really too much to ask?

Edit: Okay, my sidebar has been deleted once again. Maybe it is time to move on.