I'm Not Happy
I'm a little annoyed and frustrated today. See, I'm not a naturally good writer like some people here. I speak English like a native, because I've been speaking it most of my life and was educated in it, so I sound like I know what I'm writing about because I'm able to pick the most appropriate words in most instances.
Anyone remotely skilled in proper writing can immediately see a myriad of grammatical inconsistencies in my writings; mixed tenses, faulty conjugation and mixed American and British versions of written English.
What I'm getting at is that writing is actually a bit of an effort for me. As someone with reading difficulties, I haven't read as prolifically as I should have. I believe avid readers make better writers in general.
The blogging dapps on this platform have been behaving erratically of late. I'm not sure what the reason is. Busy.org for instance, which has been my favourite Steem interface until now, has really gone down the drain in terms of performance and reliability. My favourite Busy feature is the drafts feature, and it does and has always worked well. The post preview is also very clean and attractive to look at.
Lately, however, Busy has been behaving badly; logging me off randomly, crashing, refusing to load posts, e.t.c. I'm not quite sure what the issue is. The Busy team has said nothing about this and looking at the various profiles, it appears they haven't posted anything in weeks.
I've been using eSteem on and off for a few weeks but I wasn't happy with the word processing tool. Until the latest version there was no spell check function. This meant that I had to type out the post in an external word processor, spell check and then paste into eSteem. I found that a little tedious to move completely to eSteem. I really want to support eSteem mainly because they are doing very well on the blockchain. They run their own full nodes for instance, which means they will keep running if Steemit Inc kicks the bucket. That's great for the network.
I was excited to see spell check added to the word processor and decided to write yesterday's post entirely in the eSteem. The post was to be published tomorrow the 29th because it was my anniversary post! I spent nearly 5 hours writing about 4 thousand words complete with dozens of photos, videos, links and hundreds of people tagged in appropriate places. It was a good post and I was proud of it. It was poised to be my longest, most extensive and potentially best Steem post to date.
I'm using "was" deliberately because the post was lost, which is the reason for my annoyance and frustration.
The thing I didn't realise about the draft function in eSteem, in contrast with the one on Busy, is that it doesn't save your work automatically! You have to actively click "save draft" For this to happen. On Busy, your draft is periodically saved as you type, which is the behaviour we are I am now used to through years of using modern word processors. The way it is implemented in eSteem right now, with the manual save draft action, is from the 1990's. Basically all I did was click away at a notification badge, another shinny new feature introduced in the same version release as the spell check, without having clicked to save draft, and my 5 hour labour was lost forever.
This was mostly my fault, of course, for assuming a tool would behave the way I expected it to behave. Also for a post of that magnitude and importance, I really should have written it in an external word processor first. My bad 100%.
I guess because I'm also a Steem native blogger; I don't have it copied over from a blog via Steempress for example, so I'm more susceptible to this kind of thing. Perhaps I should consider getting back to blogging on Wordpress and having it copied over to Steem like many people do. That would have prevented this for sure. Or perhaps I shall step away from blogging entirely until Steem blogging dapps are ready for prime time.
Peace and Love ✌🏿
Adé
All copy and photos are original content by me.
© adetorrent.com
I've noticed some similar strangeness with Busy. I'm not sure what is up with it or if this is somehow related to blockchain changes on the back end, but of late, it hasn't been very reliable. Keep us updated on what you choose going forward and your experiences as I would be interested in what works best for you.
:) I sure will. I'm dreaming of the day Partiko for Mac happens.
UGH that sucks. I feel for you. I had no idea English wasn't your first language, must be because English is not my first language either (even wrote about writing in English as a Dutch native), so I'm not really the one to detect something like that ;-) What is your mother tongue?
Anyway, stepping away from Steem is not an option, maybe Steempeak suits your needs best - both auto save, drafts and browser-based (so spell check included).
I have no idea if you'll try to write the post again, I'm ready to read it anyway <3
Thanks. Actually the first language I ever spoke was Yoruba. I speak and write both at the same level. I was 9 before I started speaking English since I moved around the world a lot as a kid :)
I don't have the bandwidth and will to write it again. It'd never be as good :)
I understand, I do. <3
Oh man... I am so sorry. Happened to me way too many times so I feel your pain. Be it long important emails, parts of my university thesis, articles I wrote for websites... These mistakes have actually taught me to write everything longer than just a few lines in MS Word first and then just paste that in wherever it is supposed to be. That is also how I prepare my Steemit posts and sometimes even comments when they are longer. But five hours of hard work on such an elaborate post... mam that hurts :( Are you thinking about writing that post again?
Thanks. No chance haha. I'll just take that one on the chin and move on. Maybe I'll get back to making more videos too :)
That's because you don't use Partiko, that has the spelling and draft smoothly implemented :)) I cannot keep up with all the dapps that arise and because we are creatures of habit we tend to fall in love with one thing that app does and moan about rest of features not ready yet ;)
Posted using Partiko Android
I'd love to use Partiko more, but I type on a computer not phone. Hopefully one day :)
Oh yes I remember now, you are the old fashioned man that needs a keyboard to help him think ;)
Posted using Partiko Android
Aww Ade! That would be very annoying for me too...with busy recently, sometimes a few words get deleted as i type them..but since am cimfy with busy, am sticking there. Have you tried steempeak? Am getting the hang of it...and there is a draft button. Lemme try esteem.
Go chill mate.
Posted using Partiko Android
I think I'm going to go back to writing it on an external processor first and then copy it later :) Thanks haha.
Whatever that can save those long-hours posts😄🤣😆
Posted using Partiko Android
Wow, @adetorrent I consider your frustration. It is unfortunate that you have lost your publication, that usually happens when the inspiration arrives, a text is written with which we are happy, but we forget to save. It has happened to me many times, so I know how you must feel. My recommendation is that you don't even trust those who save automatically because you don't know what can fail and you end up empty-handed like now. But, I also tell you to try again because everything is in you and you can rewrite it. I encourage you, I would like to read that publication. A hug.
Thank you. I don't think I will write it again sadly. I don't have another 5 hours in the day. I may make a video instead. I'll try to remember what I said. Thanks for your encouragement :)
Sorry to hear this. It has happened to me several before on busy.Org and esteem, so I understand you.
What I do is anytime I use them, I normally copy my work and if anything happens that mistaken make my work disappear, I will just paste it back and it has been working for me so far.
Hahah. That's a good technique. I did that in the past as well.
I am so sorry to hear about your lost anniversary post, it can be so disheartening especially after putting all the effort to make it special!
You just have to overlook it and try to remake the post and be rest assured we are looking forward to it with a big smile.
Congratulations on your anniversary...Cheers!
I hope the maintenance issue on busy is completed soonest.
Thanks. Unfortunately I don't have the time or will to spend another 5 hours remaking the post. It will have to live eternally in my mind :)
Its well... I hope busy is back to full functionality soonest for your pleasure.
Regards always!
Give it a thought to make your post again when you get time. I know the same word and feeling will not reflect again.
What are you talking about busy is something same happening to all. I also stopped using it few days ago. Switched to Partiko now.
I have some similar experiences with esteem. But 4000 words is too much work. I can understand.
BTW Happy Anniversary.
Posted using Partiko Android
Thank you. I wish Partiko would do mac/windows app. I type on my laptop and not my smartphone.
Yeah, I got it from your writing.
And hope Partiko is working on it.
Stay blessed.
Posted using Partiko Android
A publication of 4000 lost words. I am very sorry for what happened to you, my friend, I also had problems with busy, but only how slow to upload the images. I hope this will not happen again.
Thank you. I hope so too.