It appears I need to revisit some things from Saturday’s Weekend Web Developer post about Wordpress. The intention of my article was to provide some tips for making the Wordpress posting experience easier for bloggers new to Wordpress.com. As it turns out, two of my tips aren’t viable for Wordpress.com for a couple of reasons.
First, the version of Wordpress available on Wordpress.com isn’t a fully functional implementation of the platform (I still think the tips are worthwhile for folks using the fully functional Wordpress platform). Wordpress.com doesn’t allow plugins or themes created from scratch. I’m sure it’s because of the potential security issues that could arise from users uploading Javascript and PHP files to their servers. This is totally understandable from their standpoint, but in my opinion, it takes away the most alluring aspect of Wordpress: it’s ability to be customized. So, my tip about adding plugins to increase the platform’s functionality is totally wrong when it comes to Wordpress.com.
Secondly, Wordpress.com doesn’t include the theme editor, so my tip about adding a couple of CSS classes to your stylesheet won’t work. There is an option to pay $15/yr for the ability to customize your stylesheet, but this just seems ridiculous. I’m going to do some more research, but based on this, I’m starting to think that Blogger is actually more customizable than Wordpress.com. I’m going to start playing with Blogger some more to see if that’s true.
In conclusion, my tune has officially been changed when it comes to Wordpress.com. (Not Wordpress.org, which is the homepage of the open source community developing the platform. I still love the fully functional platform.) I just assumed that Wordpress.com would be a full implementation of the platform, but it’s not. I tried all Friday evening and all day Saturday to sign up at Wordpress.com, but I was unable to access the site. I should have waited until I had researched the site more before I wrote about it. Lesson learned: always do your homework!
I still believe that the Wordpress platform is the best blogging engine, but Wordpress.com is a bastardized version of it. So, to all you casual, part-time, weekend bloggers, I say stick with Blogger! Wordpress.com just isn’t there yet.
