During the past few days, I’ve been participating in an interesting discussion revolving around the state of documentation for WordPress, namely the Codex. The discussion centered around the fact that although the Wiki approach was good in the beginning, it simply doesn’t make sense today. Quality has gone way down, there is a ton of trash in the way of the good stuff, and in some ways, it’s difficult. At the end of the day, all involved in this conversation agreed that the Codex would not be the future for WordPress documentation. I leave it up to you now to place your vote and your opinion in the comments.
Do You Think The Codex Is The Future Of Documentation For WordPress?
Earlier this week while I was at work, I was thinking about WordPress Weekly and possibly recording the show at the same time but on a different night. I have a day in mind but without diluting the results, I won’t say which day that is. Instead, I want to see what you folks think before I possibly go through with the change.
What Day Of The Week Should I Record WordPress Weekly?
The poll this week asks what the most important selling point is for you when it comes to purchasing a theme. For me, the most important selling point is support. When ever I’m on the lookout to purchase a new theme, I do a thorough background check with sites I know are using the theme I’m interested in. I question those folks to ask them how easy it is to modify or work with. I also ask them their opinion of the support they received. I also browse through the support forums if they are available to the public as well as performing a few Google searches to see if any major issues had popped up with the company in the past.
I think many people undervalue support. Justin Tadlock on the Hybrid Forums has helped me out a ton of times already. Without his help, I’d be stuck at a roadblock with no way around it. If I can’t get a good handle on how good the support is for the product, I’ll pass it by.
What is the most important selling point for you when it comes to purchasing a theme?
The poll this week deals with bbPress because that’s what this weeks episode of WordPress Weekly will be about (hopefully). I’m wondering whether or not you think bbPress will someday change from being dedicated software, to a feature packed WordPress plugin. I can see the day when the architecture of bbPress reaches the point that most of it’s functionality can be placed into a plugin which is administered through the WordPress backend. Perhaps such an extended integration would be able to replace the commenting system in WordPress with one powered by bbPress which I think would be pretty cool. Of course, I say this without knowing anything about the underlying infrastructure of the bbPress software. What do you think?
Do You Think bbPress Will Evolve Into A WordPress Plugin?
Well, every time a change goes into the core of WordPress that is visual and is not liked by a vocal minority of people, the question of whether or not WordPress is a dictatorship or a community project comes up. Personally, I like having one person or a select few who guide the project along. I think if everything revolving around WordPress were community driven, it would actually hold the project back. I look at Matt and the core committers as the folks that stand by the side and say “move along now“. I will say that I don’t always agree with what goes into core and I exercise my ability to be vocal about those changes such as my stint against not having UI in the backend to control how post revisions work. I’m still upset by that but I’ve moved on, partially because a plugin exists which does it right. Also, by disagreeing with something that ends up in the core, I shouldn’t be told as a solution to fork the software and do it myself. While there is truth in that response, I don’t think that’s the way to approach disagreements.
In the end, Matt Mullenweg is the leader of the project but it’s development is largely community driven. Not everything the community wants ends up in the software but I feel the community plays a large role in which direction the software goes. Does that make it community run? I don’t think so. I think it’s more like community driven development with the final say coming down to Matt and the core committers.
At any rate, you can chime in on the discussion here in the comments after you’ve voted or in that forum thread. Interested to see where this goes.
Recently, it was announced that there is now a commercial GPL themes page that was added to the WordPress theme repository. Now, there is discussion that there should be a page on the plugin repository for commercial GPL plugins. While Matt has said that there is no need for this because the repository already has a number of commercial GPL plugins, not all GPL plugins reside in the repository. A great example of this is the Shopp e-commerce plugin. What do you think?
Should There Be A Page On The Plugin Repository For Commercial GPL Plugins?
Yes (73%, 27 Votes)
No (16%, 6 Votes)
Commercial GPL Plugins Already Exist In The Repository (11%, 4 Votes)
Just out of curiosity, I’m wondering how many of you out there know the difference between the two? In a recent article, Mark Jaquith commented on the fact that he sometimes hears people describe WordPress as feature limited when really they are talking about the hosted version of WordPress, that being WordPress.com. There is no such thing as a limited feature version of WordPress and this is where the idea comes in that WordPress.com may be hurting WordPress.org.
Do You Know The Difference Between WordPress.com And WordPress.org?
The Degusto theme review I recently published showed me that switching themes on an established site is not as easy as 1, 2, 3. I didn’t know whether I should write the review from a fresh install of WordPress or on an established site pre filled with content. This is where you come in.
How Should I Review A Theme?
Using A Fresh Install Of WordPress (52%, 12 Votes)
Pre Existing Install With My Content (48%, 11 Votes)
Total Voters: 23
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Personally, I think it’s a great idea if commercial theme authors provided an XML file which contained content exclusively for their theme preferably, the content I see on the demo site.
Time to get back on the bandwagon and get the listener poll on track. This was supposed to be the poll a few weeks ago but thanks to my new system of including the poll inside the post, I’ve been forgetting. Alas, here is this weeks poll question submitted by The WordPress Kid.
Are You Aware What A Child Theme Is And How It Functions?
One conversation point which was brought up time and time again before the core updater was implemented was the release cycle. Quite a few people believed that the cycle was too fast and upgrading all the time was too troublesome. Well, now that we have gone six months without a major release coupled with the fact that we now have a built in upgrader, I thought I’d ask how you feel going six months without a major version to upgrade to.
With 2.8 on the horizon, did you enjoy going six months without upgrading to a major version of WordPress?
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