I have a problem with my blog. Some of you might have already guessed, especially if I left you comments on your blogs. Here is the thing.When I created the domain elenaknits.wordpress.com I did it under another username. It was an old name from an old blog I used to have in a previous life. When I realized my mistake, I tried to correct it by creating the username elenaknits to match my current domain. But it was not possible because it was unavailable.
I found a quick fix by creating elenatheknitter as a username, but that only made things worse. That created a new domain elenatheknitter.wordpress.com that I’ve never used and I don’t mean to.
Reading about WordPress policy, I discovered that you can change your username but then you will never be able to go back to a previous one. It’s kind of protection to avoid somebody using your domain and name in the future in case you’ve deleted yours. But my problem is that elenaknits as a username was never used. I don’t know if it was even created with the domain, because I could never use it.
I have a free account, therefore I don’t have support, and the only thing I could do was going to the forums. I asked there two days ago and the only answer I got was that what I want is simply not possible, and if the OpenID doesn’t work as a consequence it’s not important, because (in their words) it fails more often than it works.
I thought about upgrading to premium to solve this issue, but I don’t even know if fixing this will be possible, so I’m still doubting. I also thought about redirecting elenatheknitter.wordpress.com to elenaknits.wordpress.com, but there is not a free way of doing it. It just costs $12, but I am not sure yet if I want to spend money on this blog. I could start from scratch on a different domain, but I’m afraid of loosing the few visitors I have. I have made in the past a personal site with Drupal and I’ve given some thought to moving this blog to Drupal and to my own domain, but WordPress has nice features that make it easier to interact with other WordPress and blogspot users giving a more or less seamless experience.
Has any of you had similar problems in the past? How did you solve it?
I think a lot of bloggers run into similar problems. A lot of times we outgrow our blog or, as in my case, wish we’d gone somewhere other than blogger, but if your blog isn’t tied to a business, I say do what serves your purposes best. For me, staying where I am is the right choice. I wanted a place to put my thoughts and images that I can browse thru like an old journal. And like an old journal, there are limitations. I don’t really love my blog name. I just slapped it on as a joke when I thought no one would ever read it. Older posts can be embarrassing, just like older journal entries. But I feel sad about changing it now, because that’s who I was at the time. And, like you, I want a free blog, so I don’t think I can export my old posts to another domain. Unless something changes, I’ve decided to stay put. Hope you find a way to resolve your dilemma.
I’ve discovered that not even getting a pro account would solve that problem because the root reason is just a design problem of wordpress. What a shame. At least I changed something that improved the situation a bit but did not completely solve the issue.
Thank you so much for commenting here and letting me know that I’m not alone. It’s true that similar issues should be happening to a lot of people because when we started this we didn’t really know where we were going. I think staying were I am is also the best thing I can do, at least for the time being. I had to close and let die an old blog after finishing an important episode in my life, but it was more of page turning than anything else. I’m comfortable where I am now, exploring this world around yarn, knitting and ravelry fellows; and I foresee a long and gratifying journey.
I don’t think it’s impossible to export your blog contents. At least it’s possible in wordpress, so I’m sure blogger will have something similar. I’ve never restored a blog, but I have a couple of friends who’ve done it successfully. Just let me know if one day you’re interested in it. But anyway, let me tell you that I love your blog, the design, character and content. And the name has a funny reference to a show. I think it’s lovely.