Getting Your WordPress Widgets In Order

WordPress widgets are like a litter of puppies. They pop up in groups of seven or more, and leave their caretaker in a glazed state of confusion, as they tear off the drywall, and tumble over each other in joyful play.

I blog on WordPress.com and WordPress.org and I still haven’t figured out how or why the dashboards are different, or even why there are two of them. Someone at WordPress headquarters had an argument and Paths Were Parted. Amicably, so it would appear, but they may be having a contest to see who can confuse their users more.

The dashboards of both are similar, although WordPress.org allows more sovereign movement around a site. The term ‘dashboard’ comes from cars and planes, but if I had to drive a car that ran on the mysteries of the WordPress dashboard, I’d be in a North Korean prison by now, for wandering over a border.

The windows and indicators of a car’s dashboard are cognitive. At least, they have become cognitive to those of us born since windows made the scene. (That’s a pretty good use of hippie terminology, if you ask me.)

You know what and where the speedometer is, where the fuel and oil indicators are, and whether your turn signals are working. I have had trouble figuring out how to operate the hazards and the windshield wipers in an unfamiliar vehicle, but eventually I find them. They are not located in the trunk, as a general rule.

The dashboard where I go to write is as murky as a car with wipers that are connected to the gear shift, with icons that have worn off with use. I don’t know what most of the tools on my site are for, or who these Users are that may be coming along looking to correct or disagree with my posts.

Every time I look at the Settings (is that the menu, or the sidebar?) they have added a new term that sounds like it should be on a Starfleet ship.

There are Webhooks and Export settings, and a Transporter to shoot those putative users right into space. There are ‘polls’ and ‘ratings’ and ‘feedback’. If I cared about all that, I wouldn’t have taken up blogging.

Writing is my chance to say whatever obnoxious thing I want, uninterrupted. There are widgets everywhere, and I still don’t know what they are, except that every time I turn around, I’m supposed to put one on my site.

WordPress Widgets are the equivalent of Smartphone apps. I don’t have a single app on my phone; I’m not even sure whether my phone is smart enough for one, never mind me. I have a flip phone, though, and what it lacks in applications, it makes up for in an authoritative flipping open, as I listen intently, with a concerned frown on my face.

I have a sneaking suspicion that not using all these things on the dashboard of my WordPress blog is like owning a Ferrari, driving it 20 mph, and never trying to impress anyone with it.

All I want to do is write, but nothing in life is ever that clear cut, even when you are involved in unpaid volunteer hobbies. When I was teaching, I couldn’t just teach; I had to make sure administration didn’t need me to check under the bathroom stalls, or sit in on an ‘individualized education plan’ meeting with parents.

This is teacher-speak for ‘There may be a reason your kid sits and stares into space during class, but we’ll try to work around it, and not fail him, so we don’t have to have any more meetings with you.’

What the dashboard really needs is a Holodeck and a tractor beam. That stuff’s the bomb, and I could really use it. I’d tow those widgets off, and shoot them right off into blackest space.