I’m considering changing my theme to a completely different look, but I have a question for WordPress bloggers who have done this.

I’m really nervous about changing my theme because I’ve heard horror stories of people losing their posts, comments, likes, etc. I’ve also heard you can lose all your widgets and have to start from scratch putting them back up. Is that true? That would be a heck of a lot of work and I don’t have time to do all that.

Also, because this blog is becoming so much more active and popular (and fairly soon I will run out of space if that continues), I’m considering switching from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, which would mean I’d have to find an outside host. How do you find an outside host? Is it expensive? Are there free hosting sites? If I have to use an outside host, then what becomes the role of WordPress?

Switching to a WP.org account makes me nervous. When you import from WP.com to WP.org, what happens to your blog while it’s importing? Is there a chance it could get lost in the ether and disappear? The prospect of that scares me a lot. I’ve heard it’s happened to people.
I have no idea how to save a backup copy of this blog while it’s importing, or is that automatically done as part of the import process?

What happens to the sense of community? One of the things I love about WP.com is that sense of community and the ability to follow other WP bloggers. With WP.org do you still have that capability? I’ve been told you do not.

If I use WP.org, do I need to know how CSS works? I am not a web designer and even though I have the upgrade that includes CSS, I have no idea how to use it. 😦

Is there a way to compress or put old articles in an archive or zip file, without having to switch over to WP.org? I know, so many questions.

Any advice anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated.