One of my dear readers asked me the other week what I thought about WordPress Stories posts. My first thought was, "What's that? Never heard of it." I was clueless until recently when I searched for the page that announced and explained it way back in March 2021. Else, I had a vague guess, based on Story posts I'd seen on social media.

I won't use the new format. Why?

One

I've never used any stories type posts on any platform, and I never look at them. I've never liked them on any level. It may be because I'm old school, but a vertical slideshow is not my thing. I like reading/scrolling text, left to right, top to bottom. The text can include captioned pictures or maybe even a video embed. The overall format must simply be a text-based document, even on mobile.

Two

Stories require the block editor or the WordPress app. I quit using the block editor altogether and never use the app to create posts of any kind. I use the Classic editor in plain text mode on the web in a browser. Like a neanderthal netizen.

Three

Stories are a strange format because, unless I'm mistaken, they are not a typical post-format or type like "Aside" or "Status." They're a new animal. So that's inconsistent and yet one more new feature to add to the pile of complexity that is WordPress. A Story also requires a workflow different from a regular post to create it, which increases complexity.

Four

While a Story has a permalink online, the Story is a proprietary WordPress format. I can't simply write or create a Story post locally on my computer and copy/paste the text or HTML (or photo, video, or slideshow file) in place. So I won't have my own copy of the Story on my hard drive to share anywhere else or just backup. Maybe if the Story post could be created in Keynote or PowerPoint, then I'd consider using it.

Five

Being a proprietary format, I also can't use Stories on my HTML site. Hosted by Neocities, it's a hand-coded static blog. No app. No block editor. Nothing fancy. Just old-school text posts with the occasional picture. Sublime simplicity. So whether I continue blogging on both sites or only use one, Stories are not a good fit either way.

There's one positive about Stories: they're permanent with a URL, not ephemeral. So if a person uses them, they can keep them and edit them. But you're totally dependent upon the host (WordPress) to keep your Story post intact online. If something goes wrong, you don't have a local backup copy or one hosted elsewhere.

Summary

So that's my story about WordPress Stories. I'm just not into quick vertical interactive slideshows. Multi-media is cool (shout-out to CD-ROMs in the 90s), but on the web (mobile or desktop), I prefer to read text, view a photo, or watch a horizontal video. Simple. I don't "consume" Stories. And I won't be creating them.