Read-Only Web 1.0 Blog: What I Learned Outside the Signal and the Noise

The Story

It started with server downtime, a WP upgrade that rewrote the database, and something that went wonky. It was almost fixed; then it wasn’t. No one could find the problem that caused my home page to want to download a file or why the database decided to allow only one-way communication with my blog.

Everyone who worked on it — WordPress gurus and geniuses, Server sages and savants — said they had never seen anything like it. My husband kept repeating his mantra, “When someone says ‘one in a million’ they are talking about YOU!”

In this case they were talking about MY BLOG.

Perhaps the database had decided it was done with social media. It would talk, but it wouldn’t listen. My blog could fetch information from the database, but it could not send any to it.

I was the proud owner of the singular READ-ONLY WEB 1.0 blog.

Fired by My Blog

I’d been busy preparing for the Blog Potomac and 140conf trip. So much to do before I left … suddenly I couldn’t do anything about any of it.
What future posts I had done were scheduled to run. I wouldn’t be adding any more.

It was as if a snow day, an unexpected vacation was forced on me –except it was the snow day that wouldn’t end. My blog refused to recognize me for more than a week.

What that meant to you was that it looked like I took time off. What that meant to me was that my dashboard didn’t work. I could log in, but every attempt to change, post, edit, or write was returned with a white screen message that said “action unknown.”

I’d been fired by my blog.

A friend asked if I used the time to get on Twitter to push out content.
Is that what I should have done?

I’m an introvert. I actually went to Twitter less. I didn’t feel much like talking about what was going on. An endless stream of support tickets got written to explain the problem. Friends were helping. Hours were invested by so many. Nothing was working. I did client work — I could put that in order before I left town.

DAY FIVE the feeling of being fired by blog started to sink in.

Every morning I logged in and clicked “Edit Post” to see the same no response. I started thinking of the investment my blog represents, what it take be to recreate it — yeah we had a backup, but who trusts that? — I had started to relate to my blog the way I used to relate to my job.

The same friend said, “But did you post on your other blog?”

I didn’t want to start posting over there. It would have been like admitting that this blog wasn’t coming back.

Weird. Huh?

Outside the Signal and the Noise

I decided to ride it out. I wanted to see what would happen if I lived outside of the signal and the noise. It wasn’t a clean experiment because I had uploaded four future scheduled posts. Still I didn’t add any new content for two weeks … I lived that.

Eight thoughts about what I learned …

• A community history lives in the comments of this blog.
• I can live without the content, but I’d miss the opportunity to visit the words of the people who have visited it.
• Being helpless to fix the tech is an abject lesson in patience, humility, and gratitude.
• People continued to read deeply into the pages even when I wasn’t adding new content for ten days.
• People continued to read deeply into the pages even when I wasn’t adding new content for ten days.
• I had some fine conversations without ever touching a keyboard.
• No one died. No one cried. Twitter and the blogosphere did fine without me.
• I am not my blog.

Though I was traveling and couldn’t comment, the future scheduled posts helped my blog keep moving. I soon snapped back to where it was tracking before it shut me out. Now I just have to show up again when folks stop by to comment.

It’s sort of like starting a new job … I’ve gotten used to like the habit of having time away, still I’m ready, so ready, to be back.

Weird huh?

What would happen if you had ten days locked out from your blog?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!