AN OPEN LETTER TO WORDPRESS

Dear Wordpress

On May 7th I made a bank transfer to you of £174 to obtain a Premium website account. At first it went well. I learned how to make pages and write stuff on them. I felt pleased with being able to make my own website about an important topic: world peace, no less. The website was called “A More Peaceful World” (morepeacefulworld.wordp…) and its aim was to draw together the hugely diverse crowd of peace activists and organisations in the UK and throughout the world around a website that would progress from a set of simple statements about peace that a child of 12 could understand, and progress in a structured way towards detailed, close arguments that academics could respect and politicians would feel compelled to act on.

The landing page started like this:

  1. We must effectively address the main causes of modern wars

1. Our choice is between military escalation and military de-escalation

2. Wars can escalate to global nuclear war - Nuclear deterrence is not infallible

3. Global nuclear war would mean the end of human civilisation on this planet

4. Therefore we must end the  nuclear deterrence strategy

5. Peace is Possible: a world  with far fewer and far less destructive conflicts is a realistic goal 

6. The culture that glorifies war must be replaced by a culture that supports sustainability and peace

Each of the links was spreading out to pages that developed the theme. It was going splendidly, and colleagues in the Nuclear Weapons Group of MEDACT were beginning to say nice things about it, ałthough it was only a work in progress. Already it had about 100 hits from Wordpressʼ excellent SEO facility. I was nearly ready to start writing to the many peace organisations I belong to, asking them to take an interest in this project to unite them around a simple website that sets out what we are all about.

Things were going so well I decided to migrate another of my websites, livingbrue.org.uk from wordpress.org to my Premium website on wordpress.com in case it would get better treatment there. Big mistake. It would take 3 days to do, during which the morepeacefulworld would be unobtainable, and then it would carry on, on Tuesday 12th May. Fair enough, I carried on thinking about peace and making notes about it.

But. Now if you try to get to morepeacefulworld.wordp… you get livingbrue.org.uk instead.

Hours and hours of “Help” followed, all to no avail. My work has ended up in a remote server in Phoenix Arizona last time I looked for it, on a blank page. Wordpress help is often unobtainable to me (maybe theyʼve given up). I cannot find my Preium WP account.

I read once about a philosopher who wrote a massive treatise, put it on the table and went out, presumably for a celebratory drink. While he was out, his housemaid used his treatise to light the fire. His reaction? He started to write it again. That is where I am at now.

The moral is, money spent on Premium does not necessarily buy you happiness.

Wordpress, thank you for reading this

(Dr) Richard Lawson