oops
It was bad enough when I accidentally hit PUBLISH instead of UPDATE for last month’s post, Speak No Evil / Hear No Evil / See No Evil. I immediately searched frantically for a way to un-publish it, but once a post is out there, it can’t be recalled (thanks a lot, WordPress). So then I was reduced to feverishly adding tags, doing quick edits, etc., in hopes that no one would see it before it had been “professionalized.”
I wasn’t quick enough. Within just a few minutes, I had my first comment on that post. I suppose I should view that as a good sign – my posts are just so enticing that people must read them immediately. (Or maybe Doobster was just bored and surfing the reader at the exact time I made my boo-boo.)
At any rate, since I now was one post short for my July schedule, I began scrounging around for a new topic.
The best topic I could think up on short notice was how I could maybe help newer bloggers realize that some mistakes are inevitable, whether it be publishing a post at the wrong time, publishing a post that has typos, accidentally using an incorrect link or reference, etc.
We are all human. Most of us bloggers work full-time jobs, sometimes two or three, and have very busy lives outside the blogosphere. When editing a post at midnight the day before its scheduled publication, it is just so easy to overlook a word or phrase, or to accidentally click on the wrong button.
Early on in my blogging career, I had the bright idea of purging my unused photos from the WordPress Media Library. I systematically went through the list and deleted any photo that was not “attached” to a post. Imagine my utter terror when I then went onto my blog page and discovered that I had deleted my header!
At first, I thought it was just a glitch in the system that gave me that ugly red flowery thing instead of the wonderful header created just for me. I waited a bit for the glitch to resolve itself and tried again – still there. I went onto a different computer in case the glitch was in my computer – the same red header appeared. Then it hit me that I had made a boo-boo to end all blogging boo-boos. I had deleted my unique blogging identifier.
It wasn’t an easy fix. First I had to find the header image stored somewhere on my own computer (don’t forget – I had to go way back to the beginning of my blogging experience, when I didn’t even know how to store anything). Once found, I had to re-crop the image and then re-load it to WordPress, and finally I had to re-designate it as the header image. My more experienced blogger-readers are probably laughing right now, but for someone who had an extremely hard time setting it up the first time, the second time was no less stressful.
And the entire time, I was praying that no one would read my blog during the interim and see that ugly red header!
Fortunately, this was early on in my blogging (as I said), and the one or two followers I had were probably already sleeping that evening. Apparently, no one noticed the error.
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I’ve seen mistakes in other people’s blogs, too. I hate the grammar police as much as everyone else, but sometimes a typo or mistake is made by a blogger for whom I have the greatest respect. In that case, I usually email that blogger and let him or her know that he or she might wish to proofread a certain sentence or paragraph in that post. I would certainly hope that other bloggers would do the same for me so that I would have a chance to discretely correct my mistake. I would hate for the whole world to think CookieCakes is poorly educated or just plain sloppy.
Anyone else want to share their special blogging horror story? It would make me feel so much better to know others are as inept at times as I am!
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I love to hear from my readers. You may comment on this post, comment on my Facebook page, or email me at cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com
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Images by: Esther Simpson, and Mixy Lorenzo, and Gwydion M. Williams, respectively
Cordelia's Mom, Still 
Good post. And thanks for the mention. Timing is everything and I must have just opened my reader when your not-supposed-to-have-been-published-post appeared. Something similar happened to me and what I did was quickly create a new post, copy and paste everything from my prematurely published post to the new one, and then moved the published post to trash. I’m sure it showed up in other people’s reader and probably, if anyone linked to it, they got that strange message saying, “Oops. Sorry, something must have happened but we can’t find that post.”
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Good thinking on your part – it never occurred to me to recreate it and then trash the original. I’ll keep that in mind for next time (and I’m sure there will be a next time!).
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I learn something new everyday. Thanks CM!
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What? You didn’t know bloggers are human? Or at least most of them are? Some of them I do wonder about. Thanks for joining me again today.
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I still make those mistakes as well. 🙂
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Thank you. That actually makes me feel better, OM. (Well, that and the fact that you are still reading my blog!)
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🙂
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Funny, I’ve been working on a post listing some of my own mistakes as a new blogger. And you hate me as much as anyone else does, eh?
=)
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No one could ever hate you, even if you are part of the grammar police. Feel free to email me any time I’ve made a grammatical boo-boo, so that I can change it. (Looking forward to your post on mistakes you’ve made – it will make me feel so much better about mine.)
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=)
Xxx
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When I first started blogging I discovered I didn’t see typos or problems with sentence structure until after I had completely checked the post and decided that it was ready to publish. I had to correct the typos and update the post–sometimes two or three times. I discovered to my horror that I was spamming anyone who had update alerts enabled. I’m glad that you point out that we are only human, and we are busy with matters of survival. Thank you for an excellent post.
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I sometimes find typos after a post is published, or sometimes just decide to re-word a sentence. It never occurred to me that people had update alerts, nor that anyone would ever want to look at one of my posts a second time (hard enough to get them to read the first time!).
Thank you for stopping by to read one of the older posts, and for commenting on it! It makes me feel very special this evening.
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Odd–I didn’t know it was an older post. It just showed up in my reader.
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Hmmm, interesting. That one was published last July. But good to know that it’s not only the most recent posts that show up. I learn something new on WordPress every day.
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It could just be me. I think on certain stays I throw off some kind of energy charge that gives my computer the vapors and or script errors…
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Ah, but if that energy pulls in MY posts, I think it’s wonderful thing. 🙂
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good point! (sticks thumb in socket for a recharge)
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BTW, you’re not the only person who viewed that particular post today. It does make me wonder what’s going on. No one re-blogged it (although you did re-tweet it, for which I thank you), and I haven’t been Freshly Pressed, so it’s a puzzler. Guess I should just accept my good fortune for today.
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If I wanted to indulge my grandiosity I would say that my energy patterns are global; but I think I’ll keep that one to myself…
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