I must say that I am. Granted, WordPress does have the best admin layout of any blog/CMS platform that I’ve ever used, but I have had my share of picky points to complain about here and there. But yesterday, the folks at Automattic released WordPress 2.5, which they have deemed to be the biggest UI change since 1.5 came out three years ago. The main attraction of 2.5 is a brand new administration layout that is much more user-oriented. It has a much nicer, better-flowing layout that also permits a nice amount of customization. (And the Dashboard is actually useful now, woo hoo!)

So, the good news with WordPress 2.5 is that it’s got a lot of great new features. However, the bad news with WordPress 2.5 is that it’s got a lot of great new features. That means that if you’ve heavily customized your WordPress installation with plugins or theme tweaks, you may need to think a couple of times before you begin the 2.5 honeymoon. A wide number of incompatible plugins have been listed by the community, and if you use some of the more popular plugins listed at the bottom of the page, you may need to hold your horses for a week or two until the authors start rolling out some updates. I know that I’m going to be holding off for awhile until I have a significant amount of time to dedicate to updating. Also, due to the size of this upgrade, doing a very comprehensive backup will be HIGHLY recommended.

However, congratulations to Automattic on this release, and I look forward to examining it in more detail.

Tags: 2.5, administration, Automattic, backup, blog, Dashboard, layout, release, upgrading, user interface, WordPress

The title is a pun on the classic joke “Why does a fireman wear red suspenders? To hold his pants up!”. Except that the only problem with the joke, “Why does WordPress.com wear red suspenders?” is that I don’t know the punch line, and it’s apparently going to take me awhile to find out.

I woke up this morning, about a half hour ago, actually, wanting to update one of the blogs that I host on WordPress.com, when to my surprise, I wasn’t logged in. I went to try to login, and got a thing saying “Error: Account suspended.”

WHAT? WHY?!?

Now, I’m trying to figure out on my own why on earth my account on WordPress.com could have been suspended. The only blogs that I have on WordPress.com are Aragon Peace Club, which hasn’t been updated since August 30th (I was about to update it this morning, actually) and The Neglected Former Existence of Webmacster87 which hasn’t been updated since July 2nd! I’m also an admin on the Don Havis 4 SMUHSD Board site since I function as the webmaster, although the blog actually “belongs” to another user. Even then, that hasn’t had much updating in awhile. The only other blogs accredited to my WordPress.com username are my self-hosted blogs that plug into the WordPress.com Stats plugin.

Frankly, the only real recent activity that I’ve had on my WordPress.com username are the couple of guest blog articles that I’ve done recently on Lorelle on WordPress. I’ve even read all of the legalese on the fascinating terms of service and haven’t seen anything listed there that I’ve done that could prompt me to be suspended. Did someone hack into my account and do bad things? I haven’t seen any evidence of that, especially considering that all of my blogs are still intact. What is going on?

Well, I’d just love to send an e-mail to WordPress.com’s support to find out what the heck is going on around here, but check out their lovely support page which says that “Support is currently closed.” Now forgive me folks, but almost every website keeps a website contact form open 24/7 (as opposed to having limited hours for, say, telephone support). Is there anything wrong with keeping a contact form available, and then when support “opens up” on Monday, you can go through the queue of support requests that have been piling up through the weekend?

Apparently not. But do you know how inconvenient Monday-Friday, 9 AM-5 PM is for me? I have a little, minor activity I do every Monday-Friday called school which makes it really difficult for me to have to try to send in a support request during your limited hours. And I can only imagine what it must be like for people in other areas of the globe to try to get support, if they can only fill out the form during a working hours in the Pacific time zone. There’s 168 hours in the week, and WordPress.com only lets you TYPE in the contact support box during 40 of them–that’s less than 1/4 of the week!

So here’s my current situation. My account on WordPress.com has been mysteriously suspended. I can’t find out why it has been suspended for a few days at the least. And now I’m unable to post important, time-sensitive information on one of my WordPress.com blogs, which is going to be very bad news for something that I’m trying to get organized within my school this week. So, what does that mean that I’m doing about it? What any good WordPress blogger would do if he was cut off from any other means of action. Blog and rant about it! Which I’ve just done.

Please WordPress.com people, why is my account suspended, and could you please allow people to leave a message in your contact support box 24/7?

Tags: Automattic, Blogging, contact, Personal, rants, support, suspended, WordPress, WordPress.com