This is what WordPress updates look like if your site is on Godaddy hosting right now despite WordPress 6.4 coming out on Nov 7th.
OK as a registrar but THIS is part of why I move clients off of Godaddy hosting most of the time.
(This 1 stayed because they need someone onsite to reconfigure their email & they aren’t nearby.)
I’m writing this because I haven’t been following WordPress development closely for the last 3 years (hello 2020 pandemic & aftermath.) There is so much content out there for the classic templates & theme builders like Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder etc. that it’s REALLY hard to get a grip on the new direction that WordPress is headed especially since it’s still in the midst of development.
I initially couldn’t even find a good CLEAR & simple breakdown of the terminology I needed to know so writing this was partially in order for me to process and better understand what I was consuming and pull out some key things. My own Quickstart guide if you will but for the folks who have been using WordPress for over a decade.
Keep in mind that this is still evolving and the date I’m writing this is June 20, 2023. WordPress is currently 6.2.2. Things will likely change again for WordPress 6.3 which will likely be August 2023 based on the linked video & WordPress roadmap.
Gutenberg is the block editor for pages and posts. It is apparently no longer exclusive to WordPress and is also available for Drupal.
This link has the visual breakdown & screenshots: https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/
And this is the deeper dive: https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/explanations/faq/
But why is there a Gutenberg Plugin if it’s now built into WordPress?
The Gutenberg plugin is now early access to what’s coming to block and full site editing. Current version of the plugin is 16.0.0. Do not use this if you aren’t ok with beta testing.
Full site editor (FSE) is another name for WordPress block themes in WordPress. “Full Site Editing” is sometimes used as a verb.
Handy chart for Classic Theme vs Block Theme if you’re transitioning: https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/block-themes/#differences-and-similarities-between-classic-themes-and-block-themes
And crash course if you’re switching from a Classic Theme to Block Theme: https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/how-to-switch-from-a-classic-to-a-block-theme/
Good screen shot breakdowns of the full site editor (FSE) from Oct 17, 2022: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/10/wordpress-full-site-editing/
I highly recommend just diving in on a sandboxed / staging environment or demo site using Automattic’s blockbase so you familiarize yourself using a theme created as WordPress / Automattic intended:
And/or one of Automattic’s Blockbase child themes:
Linked them because they are harder to search for.
An excellent short summary from https://fullsiteediting.com/lessons/child-themes/
“If you change theme.json, HTML, CSS, PHP, or JavaScript files directly, you still need to create a child theme because these files are not protected when you install a theme update. There are also settings and styles in theme.json that you can not remove through the global styles interface. In this case, you also want to create a child theme and add your custom theme.json.”
But really when might I change these files? This video is about theme creation HOWEVER it’s the shortest video I found that helped me understand how themes are now being built:
Except this appears to be in flux & currently changing:
https://www.elegantthemes.com/blog/wordpress/wordpress-query-loop-block
These are some of the best resources I came across (this is also about where it becomes overkill):
https://drupalgutenberg.org/ • https://www.drupal.org/project/gutenberg
Too much has changed lately so I’m posting:
1) Literally watching some of the smaller (but good) social media management tools say that they think they are going to stop supporting Twitter integration soon due to increased costs. Private Facebook group posts where they are telling customers to get feedback on how to handle things. Workarounds such as creating ways within their tools so people can create their own API access if they want to pay the fee to just setting up reminders to post to twitter and skip any type of actual integration.
The API access price increases don’t sound bad until you realize Twitter wants a minimum of $42,000 per month.
2) I’ve also watched another larger management tool go from a freemium model to paid only and no legacy free accounts. I have my suspicions that this is in order to to continue to support Twitter integrations.
3) A portion of Twitter’s code was posted on GitHub this week & they seem to now being going after anyone who downloaded it.
4) The Twitter For You Page will show you is posts from only paid accounts soon. Because they’re trying to figure out ways to get people to get the blue check mark that no sane person wants anymore.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter-verified-accounts-only-on-for-you-feed-2023-3?amp
5) Free Twitter accounts can no longer use SMS for 2FA (and some people may have been locked out of their accounts but I’m not sure on that since I didn’t run a trial on this one personally. Twitter had already turned off SMS for most of my accounts with no notification back in Nov-Dec.)
6) Twitter’s $1,000 checkmark will be free for the 10,000 most-followed companies. Maybe because companies pushed back on paying & the platform would suffer without the largest accounts?
And I will not be posting online how I use Twitter simply because I believe Twitter is trying to grasp at straws on any way to try and force businesses into paying various fees.
I may start posting soon on some what I’m seeing within the social media landscape because the world is changing quickly at this point.
I also may delete all of this as I start refocusing my personal website.
This is a post for those who don’t know my last name but might be looking for me.
Yes, I’m married to Tim Knittel but my name is Hilary Baumann. Some of this about SEO, I’m not going to chew you out for getting it wrong but I will correct you. Just like I politely correct people on how to pronounce my last name.
Baumann is my last name, always has been and always will be legally and personal brand. I have never considered for even a moment changing it. Never seemed right or equal to me. And this is not a comment about your choice if you wanted to change your last name either.
I’m Hilary Baumann and I don’t really like titles like Mrs. or Ms. even because I’m a human being that’s not interested in spending time on focusing on my gender or marital status. Again, I’m typing this much more for the search engines more than anything else.
So if you go looking for Hilary Knittel or Hillary Knittle / Nittle if you spell it wrong you may still be in the right place.
Hilary one L.
Baumann two Ns.
And you’ve found me.
This is how I keep some level of sanity on Facebook. See the end of the article for some additional references on cleaning up your feed even more.
Identifying close friends will increase the number of posts you will see from them:
The Facebook “Close friends”, “Acquaintances”, “Restricted” breakdown:https://www.facebook.com/help/200538509990389?helpref=faq_content
See “Q&A” at the bottom of this article on how to batch add or remove people from various lists quickly.
This is the bulk of most people’s facebook friends. You make a friend request to someone and they accept. It defaults to “following” anyone you friend.
To snooze (or maybe you made a mistake and want to un-snooze someone before the 30 days is over) follow these instructions: https://www.howtogeek.com/338526/how-to-snooze-someone-for-30-days-on-facebook/
You can also do this to pages and groups you follow or are a member of as well: https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/14/facebook-snooze/
The person or group you snooze will NOT be notified of your decision to snooze them.
Unlike snooze, unfollow is not a temporary 30 days. It lasts until you decide to follow someone again. But again, the person you are friends with will not know that you are not seeing their posts. And like snooze, this can also be done on pages you’ve liked as well.
For people and pages: https://www.facebook.com/help/276458109035418
Often this is the result of someone being argumentative without listening or regularly being condescending. 75-100% of their comments are this way. And and sometimes the behavior is online only and they are very different IRL. And occasionally these are people worthy of unfriending but too integrated into friends groups to go this far.
See “Q&A” at the bottom of this post for instructions on adding people to the restricted list.
Examples:
a) someone has made a blatantly unquestionably racist post (and I realized don’t have their phone number and did not know them well enough to have a proper personal conversation about it)
b) someone regularly argues in a condescending manner and has no substantial ties to friends groups – aka doesn’t listen and brings no value to the “friendship.”
c) the person broke up with someone and got engaged to someone else so I know they aren’t getting back together with someone in my friends group (and honestly I found this person way creepy to begin with but didn’t want to unfriend them if they were going to keep showing up to parties or get back together with a certain someone.)
d) discussions aren’t possible without self manufactured drama.
How to unfriend someone (again, they won’t be notified):
https://www.facebook.com/help/172936839431357?helpref=faq_content
I ‘ve done this to only a few people but would consider doing it if someone who regularly says mean and condescending things were to persist in doing so regularly on my public and business posts even after being unfriended. Snots, trolls, bullies. (For business I would recommend inviting them into a DM to discuss and exhaust all options before resorting to this measure. Some people just need to be heard.)
How to block someone:
https://www.facebook.com/help/168009843260943?helpref=faq_content
Additional Reference material for possibly cleaning up your feed.
These two posts from Robert Scoble may still have some useful info despite their age:
Groups – turn off (or adjust) notifications:
https://www.facebook.com/help/187225274663021/
Keyword snooze: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/08/inside-feed-keyword-snooze-people-turn-down-the-noise/
Setting someone as an acquaintance will have them see fewer of your facebook posts. Not none, just fewer. Again, here’s the The Facebook “Close friends”, “Acquaintances”, “Restricted” breakdown:
https://www.facebook.com/help/200538509990389?helpref=faq_content
From a computer go to:
– https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/lists/
– Find the Acquaintances link and click it.
– Top right you’ll now see a manage list button. Click that and it will say “edit list” – click that.
– Then you’ll get a screen that shows you who is currently on the list.
– If you want to add people, top left of that screen will have a drop down and you should select “friends” from that and then you can add more people to the Acquaintances list.
IF you want certain people to only see your posts that are public, you’ll want to put a lot of people on the Restricted list instead of the Acquaintances list. Acquaintances only reduces the number of posts that people see unless you use the “Friends except acquaintances” option. You can follow the same process to batch add people to the restricted list as well.
Via computer or iphone app:
