Dixon's Forum

Oops, you have caughten me unready, trying to hide from the Google Bots, learning to websitemake by trial and error.   So many trials, so very many errors.   So unfamiliar the territory . . .

The no-coding website makers I kept falling off the learning curves of offer Artificial Intelligence services, and promote them vigorously, subtly discouraging self-content-creating, like, “Use our A. I., it’s easier than brains!”

For my first test post, the “New Post” form wanted a brief description of the subject matter, I couldn’t imagine why.   Couldn’t imagine what, either — subject matter for a test post?   Really?   So I just typed, “blog test post blog test post” over and over until the string was long enough to ungray the “create content” button, which I took to mean I could now go ahead and create my content.

But instead of a blank blog post form, out popped a whole new post, complete with image, title, headers, and by-line, and completely not my style!   I had not noticed the tiny little “skip, I’ll write it myself” link at the bottom of what was really a “Create a Blog Post with A. I.” form.  (I must assume the A. I. Bot has the right to give me so I have the right to show you.)

Easily confused, easily amused . . .   Click here to see the A. I. Bot’s post.   Makes me look like a real Blog Posting Expert, right?

Intrigued, I fed the A. I. Bot “um duh biduh uh” over and over and got another complete post.   Click to see it.  It makes me, um, an expert effective, uh, . . . communicator!

Next, I tried “a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o  p q r s t u v w x y z” .   Now I’m all about maintaining order.

I like to be thorough so I decided to run a random matrix, sort of.   I  blindly gathered five words — rust, ship, forest, vision, finger —  from my magnetic poetry set and fed them to the A. I. Bot in various orders:

• rust ship forest vision finger  
• finger forest ship vision rust  
• vision finger rust forest ship  
• finger rust forest ship vision  

Who knew finger rust was a thing?   Then I fed it utter nonsense:   “g’blork altlogl blök flortz g’lbahtnl g’blork altlogl blök flortz g’lbahtnl . . . ” , for more A. I. Bot advice on effective communication.

Then I replicated its example placeholder text, “10 tips for creating marketing campaigns that skyrocket sales and strengthen your brand”, to feed it something more like a normal human would.   Not much different than the nonsense-inspired posts.   How like us is our A. I. child — we can sound convincing when we’re full of crap, too!

After all this, I learned that that particular website editor couldn’t handle blog post comments, which I’m hoping for a lot of, so I switched back to my first choice, and panicked when, before I even got started, it put up an entire live website , including a blog post .  Imagine my horror, this totally not-me website under my name for all the world to see, and me not yet knowing how to edit!   (I’ve since added the ←BACK and HOME buttons for you, though.)

Even with private pages, password protection, maintenance modes, whatever, the idea of having the website fully functional before going public fell flat on its face; backend services like Spam Filtering, Search Engine Optimization, Analytics and Tip Jars require a live website, so you have to go public before you’re ready, kind of like getting dressed in front of company.   So, here I am not dressed, yet forging boldly on.

I’ll be working on the backend stuff, completing and tweaking the frontend, dodging the Google Bots, all the development work I wished to do in private, meanwhile posting a new activity each week, to keep it interesting, in case you come back, and so the Google Bots won’t think I’ve disappeared.   Storytelling, artworks, lyrics, playacts, poems, works in progress, children’s books, random entertainment, informative, educational . . .   Pretty highbrow stuff, mostly, including, if I ever find it again, a long-ago considered and detailed essay on urination.

There’s no analytics yet so no cookies to worry about, that I know of.   But sooner or later I’m going to start counting my visitors.  I’ll let you know.   For now, the privacy policy is basically all I collect is your first name and email if you post a comment, meaning you gave consent, and somehow this website making system will keep track of it.  I still have to learn how to manage all that.   Also the spam filtration.  Until that time, please don’t troll me.

I really muffed up the tip jar thing, trying to hook it up without going public; fixing that mess will take some doing.   But it’s necessary in case somebody likes my stuff; imagine how sad they’d be if they couldn’t show how much.   Plus, things like Web Hosting and backend services cost money, so they could help me cover that stuff.   If they think I’m worth it.   Um . . . yeah.

Finally after everything works, I start pinging the Google Bots to invite everyone for a visit.

Click here for the first installment of my story entitled, “Unentitled”.   Let me know what you think.