Welcome to Wordpress?

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EisenAndy has moved to Wordpress for a while, to see if it is better than Blogger: and I took the opportunity to get the name Schleckland back, yay!
The address is schleckland.wordpress.com
But I'm keeping Eisen Andy going for now, as it has the best SEO!
Click here for an easy jump to the new blog, see what you think of it.

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OK Schlecklanders, welcome to our new home: I'm not sure at this point if we will be here permanently, but let's give it a couple of weeks and see how it goes.

I have concerns about this re-blogging thing: honestly, what is the point of re-blogging? Someone is just stealing "my" stuff to make their dull, boring, empty blog look better: and anyone reading their blog is going to see, well, stuff by other people. So why would they bother going back to that blog?

OK, there is a valid point that someone might want to say "Hey, I found this really good blog the other day" but we already do that on Blogger, it's called "putting a link to someone else". Or we can just look at the profiles of other followers, and see what they follow, in case there's anything interesting there.

I just don't see the value in nicking other people's stuff entirely, to pad out your own blog.

Long-term Schlecklanders might even remember that back when I started the original Schleckland *sigh - "hold baby, throw bouquet" - ah, happy days* I used to assiduously ask photographers for permission to use their photos, as I despised the way that Tumblr people, in particular, used to re-blog, or "copy" as we call it, other people's photos.

I admit that I've learned not to do that anymore: anything published on the internet is fair game, it seems, but at least if people are cutting and pasting your content, they are putting in a bit of effort. To just click on a button provided by Wordpress - and worst of all, PROUDLY provided by Wordpress - seems to me to be sending out the wrong message entirely. And we, the blog writers, can't opt out: Wordpress say that re-blogging is a vital part of their package, and they want everyone to use the whole package in order to give the full experience to all users.

Well, maties, here is one use who will not be re-blogging, and who does not approve. Apparently, if you have a blog that is heavily weighted towards your own photos, and you want to stop people re-blogging them, you can start each post with a tiny, one pixel by one pixel picture. This is invisible to readers, but means that if anyone reblogs you, their system can't display the first photo as it is too small, and therefore none of the following photos are visible either.

I might try that, one day! Not that I have many original photos....

Right,  new blog: what features do we have?

This one doesn't have Followers as such, but you can click on the "Follow by email" button if you like - apparently it sends you an email when I put up a new blog or when new comments arrive. Which saves  you having to keep coming back and looking for new posts, as I am not the most regular of bloggers, sorry about that.

Comments are still freely available: as I understand it, I have to "approve" the first time you comment, but thereafter you are unmodified and can just say what you like (within reason).  Anyone using the F word will be blocked! You have been warned. Play nicely, everyone. Thank you.

The system seems to assign a random funny cartoon icon to commenters who don't have a wordpress account:  it seems that I get a choice of boring geometric patterns or cartoon monsters, so I chose the one that seemed more appropriate to Schlecklanders, ha! ha!

So, enough of the admin: today we are heading into the hills at long last, away from the long flat stages and the inevitable crashes.

I'm writing this before the stage starts, so I don't know if JVS is going to make the start line (apparently he lost consciousness briefly during the crash, and was "disoriented" immediately afterwards: no surprise there, then) but I have fingers crossed for him, and for everyone who was injured yesterday.

And oops, forgot to say CONGRATULATIONS, FABIAN!! for making it 27 days in yellow in his career so far, which is the most days in yellow for anyone who hasn't actually won the Tour. Yay, Fab!