Got suckered into helping a non-profit with their web presence, and of course, it was a Wordpress site (at least it wasn’t a Facebook page).

Everything about WP is mildly infuriating at best, just regular infuriating at worst. Everything. If you know, you know. It’s like they tried so hard to make it “easy” to use that it went full circle into a fuster-cluck of unintuitive and clunky everything.

With every facet of the experience being an upsell, is there a tier where it’s just not horrible to use?

Specific examples:

  • WYSIWYG editor doesn’t match the preview
  • Chasing the scroll point in the outline when moving elements
  • Can’t edit block properties after they’re added
  • Everything is a damn upsell
    • Want to remove the Wordpress footer? Upgrade to a paid plan (does not specify tier)
    • Okay, I’ve updated to a paid plan that meets our needs. Please remove the footer please.
    • “Oh, you have to have a plan two tiers up to do that”
  • General clunkyness
  • Only supports Apple map embeds which cannot find any of the addresses I need to enter
    • Cannot embed a Google map properly (doesn’t support percentage widths for the iframe element so I can’t make it responsive)
  • Changing the column widths on a layout grid block never releases the slider, so you have to mash keys until something else selects that locks it roughly where you want it.
  • Admiral PatrickOPEnglish
    4•10 months ago

    Yeah, they already had everything partially setup on Wordpress.com so I was more or less required to take over that. If I was brought into it from the get-go, rather than cleaning up that mess, I’d have spun up a VPS and built a proper static site for them (they’re not using it as a blog or any of the interactive features).

    • @PlutoniumAcidEnglish
      4•10 months ago

      You could still do that. If it’s not a huge site, that effort might be less than digging out of where you are now?

      • Admiral PatrickOPEnglish
        0•10 months ago

        The information would be easy to move over, but I have no idea how difficult it’ll be to transfer the domain away from WP (they registered it with the plan) or if that’s even possible. They also already printed the domain on their swag so we’re stuck with it.

        Probably just going to have to power through, though I may look into moving the domain and moving to a static hosting for long term once their 1 year is up with WP.

        • zeluko
          2•10 months ago

          idk about wordpress, but can imagine you can just get a domain transfer, pay another year with the new provider and then freely use it.

          • Admiral PatrickOPEnglish
            0•10 months ago

            Yeah, you’d think. But I’m not expecting it to be straightforward or easy (if it is, then yay). I’m definitely going to look into it.

            • @[email protected]English
              3•10 months ago

              Nah, I doubt it would be hard. Luckily there is a central body governing this and saying what they can, can’t, must and mustn’t do.

              One complication is if they recently bought the domain. I think you need to wait like 90 days or so after a domain purchase or transfer to be able to transfer it.

              • Admiral PatrickOPEnglish
                0•10 months ago

                I think you need to wait like 90 days or so after a domain purchase or transfer to be able to transfer it.

                They did about a week ago, and that’s what I’m assuming is going to be the hangup. I’ve just not ever messed with domains registered through WordPress, so I’m also unclear if there are any other restrictions or paywalls (everything is an upsell with them). I get mine directly from a registrar and am familiar with transferring those.

                • @[email protected]English
                  2•10 months ago

                  Yeah, that’s probably impossible. I think that’s an ICANN rule.

                  But I would assume that wordpress is a normal registrar, just one that’s highly integrated into their other services.

                  Edit: apparently the limit is 60 days, and a registrar can choose to transfer it anyways but they don’t have too. It’s an ICANN rule intended to protect the buyer.

                  Transferring a domain from wordpress seems to be pretty straightforward with no fees. If they are not too expensive you could also just change the nameservers or edit the wordpress DNS if that is possible.

                  • Admiral PatrickOPEnglish
                    2•10 months ago

                    Thanks!

                    I’ve got more than 60 days before they want to go live, so it’s certainly possible.

                    I hadn’t looked into it at all yet (have had other things on my plate today), but my main fear was that the domain was registered to WP and just assigned to their account (e.g. WP “owned” the domain and we wouldn’t have standing to transfer it). Again, I have done zero research on that front and was largely assuming WP would make it difficult.

                    I’ll talk to the stakeholders and see what they think. They’ve already paid for a year of hosting and additionally may want to stick with WP for “reasons” (in which case I’m stuck). They didn’t say why they chose it, so I dunno. We’ll see I guess. Thanks again.

        • @PlutoniumAcidEnglish
          1•10 months ago

          Again, if it’s not too much work, I would prepare a static site first and then, when it’s ready, work on just flipping the domain target to your new server.

          I cannot imagine that you cannot change the domain’s destination. You can still keep it registered at WordPress, that doesn’t matter.