Anyone using WordPress for their blog ever get the feeling that it's become too bloated to use comfortably just for blogging?

#wordpress #technology #blogging

@alexseifert Yeah, I felt that way awhile back when I realized I was doing more in the way of security updates than writing. I think they've been chasing more corporate and institutional customers.

@thudfactor That sounds about right. I've used WordPress since 2007, but it just feels like there isn't much focus on the actual writing/publishing experience anymore. I dislike the block editor because it feels clumsy and too much like something designed more for website-making rather than writing.

@alexseifert @thudfactor I feel like its fine tbh. I just don't use that Block editor (only in very select edge cases) and still use that classic editor.

There is a plugin Classic Editor which does exactly what it says. Great thing.

Otherwise upkeep for me is rather minimal anyway. I use a standard-Theme I have modified and not too many plugins. So maintaining that blog is easy. WP updates itself. Only the Plugins I do manually ever, now and then.

@stefan @alexseifert I guess the question is whether or not the features you don't use get in the way / use too many resources / slow things down for you too much.

For me the overhead was too excessive and I'd been burned enough by auto-updates to distrust them, so maintaining Wordpress became too high-touch.

@thudfactor @alexseifert Normally updates are only ever really problematic when WP is detached from its core with way too many plugins. The Problem is not WP I think its the sea plugins people love to use which break with updates.

There is not much stuff for in the way to get creating. Though my "workflow" might be different from yours.

I usually write my texts elsewhere, copy the into WP and do all the rest like add images and stuff. Though I could just login and just start typing as well. WP did not fail for me for a long time.

@alexseifert Yeah but at the same time mine does quite a few things I don’t think I can easily replicate elsewhere. Would be nice if it was always smooth though.

@stefan @thudfactor I've seen the Classic Editor plugin, but haven't tried it out yet. I probably should. I also have fairly minimal installs because I dislike plugins and the potential security/stability issues they bring. I make my own themes though because I haven't found a premade one I like. I'm a little picky as far as that is concerned.

@thudfactor @stefan The block editor is tedious to use and is overkill for just writing in my opinion. That's really what it comes down to for me. It does work, but I like things to be simple and clean which isn't the case with WordPress anymore.

@petecarr It definitely depends on your use case. WordPress is probably great if writing is only a part of what your website is used for and you need to manage several pages. For me, I just need a simple blog which WordPress does well, but with a lot of extra overhead. I've been thinking about moving to Ghost but I would have to reconfigure my server quite a bit to do that.

@alexseifert Its for you to decide if the classic editor is worth installing that plugin. I think its generally quite nice

@alexseifert I haven't used wordpress but for lightweight blogging, you can try a static site generator like 11ty, hugo or zola.

@bshankar I've thought about using a static site generator and even started to make my own, but my blogs need to be a bit more interactive with comments and such which means I'd have to find a solution there. I know there are several out there, but I haven't looked into it much yet.

@alexseifert yep. I use a terrible solution for comments: linking the mastodon post and email at the bottom.

I am planning to switch to giscus which uses github discussions for comments and reactions.

@bshankar That could also work. Comments could come in the form of "letters to the editor" rather than being posted on the post directly.