Bad Blogger Koolaid
I have a definite burr under my saddle, thanks to the Blogger folks. They have been creepily pushing a "new" version of Blogger for months now, but I have resisted, based on instincts that include how crappy their help and other informational facilities have proved to be in the past and reports from others about how poorly their early roll-out of this new version was handled.
Alas the other night I found it impossible to avoid drinking the koolaid. They seem to have made the admittedly inevitable decision to bully everyone into signing up for their new "system," regardless of how unready it is.
Oh it's visibly different in some respects, alright, but it is also astonishingly cryptic, with even more lousy visual cues and the classic call-me-tomorrow approach to "help" than was the case with the old Blogger.
That signup had the immediate effect of apparently making it impossible (or at least savagely user-hostile) to even edit a prior draft post. I put the fundamentals of this post together while raging over the bullying and saved it as a draft and have yet to find a way to edit before posting, despite a multitude of cute "edit" buttons and chances to click on boxes. (I resorted to cut-and-paste start-over, annoying but workable.)
I'm probably just too set in my ways for these folks, hung up on relatively fixed - or at least mutually established - definitions for English words and expecting that there will be a camaraderie and give-and-take in these things. Of course the fact that there is NO obvious way to direct a specific question to any sort of help resource is a definite clue, too, although that was also the case with the Blogger of old. With a lot of tread off your tires you can perhaps find a way to address an email to Blogger, but then the responsiveness is a bit like the Department of Justice back in DC when Congress wants a few million emails turned over.
Perhaps the fact that it is a free service is finally coming home to roost? From what I can tell the new Blogger - coincidentally or not connected with Google purchase - is not within months of actual "beta" quality for a full public rollout.
So my question for you is do you know other blog systems that have been steady and predictable recently and that continue to actually maintain a user-friendly customer-service mentality? The conspicuous departures of big-time bloggers from Blogger recently should perhaps have been a warning to me. Unless things take a dramatic turn towards Positive User Service here soon I desperately need to find new digs.
Alas the other night I found it impossible to avoid drinking the koolaid. They seem to have made the admittedly inevitable decision to bully everyone into signing up for their new "system," regardless of how unready it is.
Oh it's visibly different in some respects, alright, but it is also astonishingly cryptic, with even more lousy visual cues and the classic call-me-tomorrow approach to "help" than was the case with the old Blogger.
That signup had the immediate effect of apparently making it impossible (or at least savagely user-hostile) to even edit a prior draft post. I put the fundamentals of this post together while raging over the bullying and saved it as a draft and have yet to find a way to edit before posting, despite a multitude of cute "edit" buttons and chances to click on boxes. (I resorted to cut-and-paste start-over, annoying but workable.)
I'm probably just too set in my ways for these folks, hung up on relatively fixed - or at least mutually established - definitions for English words and expecting that there will be a camaraderie and give-and-take in these things. Of course the fact that there is NO obvious way to direct a specific question to any sort of help resource is a definite clue, too, although that was also the case with the Blogger of old. With a lot of tread off your tires you can perhaps find a way to address an email to Blogger, but then the responsiveness is a bit like the Department of Justice back in DC when Congress wants a few million emails turned over.
Perhaps the fact that it is a free service is finally coming home to roost? From what I can tell the new Blogger - coincidentally or not connected with Google purchase - is not within months of actual "beta" quality for a full public rollout.
So my question for you is do you know other blog systems that have been steady and predictable recently and that continue to actually maintain a user-friendly customer-service mentality? The conspicuous departures of big-time bloggers from Blogger recently should perhaps have been a warning to me. Unless things take a dramatic turn towards Positive User Service here soon I desperately need to find new digs.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:31 PM
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