SO, I tried to change “permalinks” in WordPress and ALL the links broke.
I’ve been using WordPress for years – but to be honest I’ve never tried to do anything “complicated” (i.e. beyond the “content management” for which WordPress is designed).
Of course this “blog” thing isn’t making me an $$ so I don’t put a lot of effort into WordPress “customization” – i.e. it doesn’t REALLY matter what the “permalinks” look like.
“Optimized URLs” used to be a “search engine optimization” (SEO) thing (well, it probably still is a SEO thing) — so I’m not saying that “permalink structure” isn’t important. I’m just pointing out that I haven’t had a reason to change it from the default.
And Then…
Like I said, WordPress is great for the occasional “blog” posting – but then I wanted to do some “web 1.0” type file linking – and, well, WordPress ain’t built for that.
Yes, there are various plugins – and I got it to work. AND THEN —
I should also mention that I’ve tried launching various “Facebook pages” over the years. One is Old Time Westerns.
Now, Facebook as a platform wasn’t real sure what “pages” were for – my opinion is that they were basically TRYING to create a “walled garden” to keep users on Facebook – and then of course users see more Facebook ads.
No, I am NOT criticizing Facebook for offering new services trying to keep people on Facebook — but “Facebook pages 1.0” weren’t particularly useful for “page creators.” In fact Facebook wanted (wants) page creators to PAY to “boost posts” — which functionally means NOTHING goes “organically viral” on Facebook.
Again, I’m also NOT criticizing Facebook for wanting to make $$ – but no, I’m not going to PAY for the privilege of doing the work of creating a community on a platform, which can decide to kick me off whenever they like.
Did I mention …
… I have the required skills to do the “web publishing” thing – so for not much $ I can just setup my own servers and have much more control over anything/everything.
SO the motivation behind the “Westerns” page was more about me getting in my “amateur historian” exercise than about building a community.
Ok, sure, I would love to connect with people with the same interests – which is one of those things the “web” has been great at from the “early days.” Notice that I didn’t day “Facebook” is great a finding people of common interests, but the Internet/Web is.
Facebook is great to “reconnect” with people you once knew or have met – but not so good at “connecting” new people with a common interest.
Hey, if you are “company” selling “product” and you have a marketing budget – then Facebook can help you find new customers. If you are “hobbyist” looking for other “hobbyists” – well, not so much.
Yes, Facebook can be a tool for that group of “hobbyists” – but unless you have a “marketing budget” don’t expect to “organically” grow you member list from being on Facebook.
fwiw: “Facebook pages 2.0” has become “groups” or something – Wikipedia tells me Yahoo! pulled the plug on “Yahoo! Groups” in 2020. The “fun fact” is that the whole “groups” concept predates the “web” – that sort of “bulletin board” functionality goes back to the late 1970’s early 1980’s. Remember the movie WarGames (1983)? That was what he was “dialing into.”
ANYWAY …
I have various “example” sites out there – I’ve pointed out that WordPress does somethings very well – but doesn’t do other things well.
Yes, you could “extend” WordPress if you like – but it isn’t always the “right tool for the job.”
SO “data driven example” https://www.iterudio.com/us —
small “progressive web app”: https://media.iterudio.com/j/
Another “data driven example” – but this time I was trying to create a “daily reading app” from a few of the “wisdom books”: https://clancameron.us/bible/
A “quote app”: https://clancameron.us/quotes/
AND then the latest – which is just javascript and css https://www.iterudio.com/westerns/
The original plan was to just create some “pages” within WordPress – and I wanted the URL to be “page name” — which is why I was trying to change the “permalinks” within WordPress.
My guess is that the problem has to do with the fact the the “uniform resource locator” (URL) on my server gets “rewritten” before it hits the WordPress “permalink” module – which then tries to rewrite it again. The error I was getting seems to be common – and I tried the common solutions to no avail (and most potential solutions just made the problem worse).
To err is human; To really foul things up requires a computer.
Anonymous
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