Yesterday I made significant updates to the look and feel of this site. It was the first major structure revision since Fiend At Court was launched on New Year’s Eve in 2019. At that time, I had little experience with WordPress themes and even less of an idea what this blog would eventually turn out to be. Two plus years into this project, I now have a more refined sense of the content and flow. Improvements to the presentation and navigation features on the site were long overdue.
Probably the most significant rookie mistake I made was the selection of a WordPress theme that did not have built in navigation buttons for Next/Previous posts. For a site with daily content updates, that is an essential feature. It was a glaring oversight.
Once I recognized the problem, it somehow never occurred to me that some themes have the Next/Previous navigation feature built in. Instead, I elected to install a supplemental plug-in that provided that functionality. The one I selected worked well enough until a couple of weeks ago when pages on my site started crashing.
Some Words About WordPress
WordPress is an open source content management system that lets creators focus on content rather than the code required to implement the site. WordPress is elegant in it’s simplicity. It provides a framework of basic functionality with hooks to enable plug-ins for users who desire more advanced features.
WordPress is also frequently in the news for cybersecurity vulnerabilities. As a result, I use a managed hosting site that automatically applies all the security updates and patches issued in response to those issues. With all the other demands on my time, it is really the only sensible way for me to operate a public site.
It was one of the security updates to WordPress that broke my Prev/Next page navigation plug-in. Rather than casting about for a replacement, it seemed like a sign that it was time go ahead and migrate the site to a new WordPress theme that natively included that feature. Additionally I had a better sense of the look and feel that would complement what Fiend At Court had evolved to be.
Comments In Moderation
I was pretty excited when this site first started drawing enough traffic to attract spam comments. Initially, I tried to control those spam comments without holding comments for moderation. I tried many permutations of keyword filtering and attribute criteria. It was an exercise in futility.
To provide a sense of the volume of spam , those comments outnumber the legitimate ones by about 100 to 1. Every time I write about grass courts, there is a notable uptick in legal (in some states) CBD dispensaries. I also rue the day that I wrote about Gussie Moran’s panties due to the subsequent uptick in comments recommending… um… adult oriented sites.
I don’t recall ever sharing publicly that initial comments from unapproved users are held for moderation. There is a chance that I have marked some legitimate and well-intentioned comments as spam. If that is the case, I apologize and strongly encourage those people to try again. Real comments are easier to identify when there is specific tennis content and relevancy to the post.
More Changes Forthcoming
Now that I have (apparently? hopefully? successfully?) completed the WordPress theme update, it is my intention to create some additionally site pages that will further enhance navigation. There will also be some cleanup of some kludges that were put into place to make the previous theme work for me. I suspect that the majority of the additional changes will be transparent to most readers.
The updates will trickle out over the next few weeks while I rehab my foot and ankle.
