Wordpress -> WordPress in core?

[Ryan]

Interesting ticket in core:
http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/13971

It seems there's lots of people grumpy about this minor change.

[Otto]

I personally don't care either way, but I think that this needs to be removed simply because of the way it's clearly splintering the community.

Seriously. We could lose people over this.

It's not worth it. Especially for something so stupid and trivial.

[greenshady]

If they'd fix it to where it wouldn't break URLs, I'd have less of a problem with it. At least the developer side of me would be satisfied.

Coming from an English and journalism background, I can see the need for properly spelling WordPress. Heck, in journalism classes, you'd lose some major points from a paper that had "Wordpress" in it. I had nightmares about misspelling "Band-Aid" in college. But, this side of me tends to want to fight for the freedom to write whatever you want.

[chipbennett]

If they'd fix it to where it wouldn't break URLs, I'd have less of a problem with it. At least the developer side of me would be satisfied.

Coming from an English and journalism background, I can see the need for properly spelling WordPress. Heck, in journalism classes, you'd lose some major points from a paper that had "Wordpress" in it. I had nightmares about misspelling "Band-Aid" in college. But, this side of me tends to want to fight for the freedom to write whatever you want.

The issues are two-fold:

1) A CMS has *absolutely no right whatsoever* to modify (editorially, grammatically, or otherwise) end-users' content.

2) Matt's response is ridiculously inappropriate.

Here's what I wrote in response to the related WP-Hackers thread:

I believe that the issue here involves equally the underlying impropriety of
the filter and your perceived attitude toward those who are asking for the
filter's removal.

As for your justification for this function's inclusion in core: I find it
somewhat hypocritical with respect to the stated philosophy of WordPress to be
Free Software. May I remind you of this statement, which is part of GNU's
definition of free software:

"The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or
organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall
job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the
developer or any other specific entity. In this freedom, it is the user's
purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose; you as a user are free to
run the program for your purposes, and if you distribute it to someone else,
she is then free to run it for her purposes, but you are not entitled to
impose your purposes on her."

Reiterating:

"it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose"

By imposing on end users your purpose - regardless of how noble - of
correctly spelling "WordPress" you are violating the very freedoms you
espouse.

(And no: this issue has nothing whatsoever to do with protection or violation
of trademark.)

Saying that the imposition can be easily changed with a two-line plugin is
entirely irrelevant for the vast majority of users who do not have the
technical competence to write such a plugin. Adding a plugin to Extend is a
poor man's alternative to what is the only (technically and philosophically)
right course of action: if the function must be in core, expose a
configuration and set it to disabled by default.

As for the function itself: I find it difficult to reconcile adding such a
frivolous function to core, given the general philosophy of keeping so much
out of core. As such, its inclusion appears to be incredibly pedantic.

This function should have been written as a plugin from the very beginning.
Bundle it with core if you must (surely it is - at a minimum - more useful
than Hello Dolly, after all).

But it is less the function itself, and more the attitude in response to those
calling for its change/removal, that concerns me - and that prompts me to
respond.

Matt, it is your attitude - in turns arrogant, condescending, dismissive, and
snide - that is exacerbating the situation. You are the one who is
needlessly increasing the emotional appeal in this matter.

Can I suggest that perhaps this issue is best discussed devoid of snide,
arrogant, and dismissive remarks (from all parties)?

[Kevinjohn]

Does anyone remember the good old days that the folks at Automattic (and Matt especially), would listen to feedback and apologise if they/he made a mistake (after all, we're just human)?

Throwing the toys out of the pram worked so well with bbPress, maybe Matt's decided it's the best way forward...

I wonder will he call the WordPress community "rough around the edges" and "in need of more moderation" in a WordCamp KeyNote speech (while limiting the site to 1 moderator).

I might go home and read Animal Farm, when to paraphrase a little "Your GPL protected Freedoms Good, One less GPL protected Freedoms = better"

[WPblogger]

Especially for something so stupid and trivial.

+1

[chipbennett]

By the way: if this change is so critical (and popular), why does Ozh’ “Correctly Spell WordPress” plugin only have 334 downloads in the almost three years that it’s been in the repository?

[Jeffro]

Despite everything else you've said Chip, I'd feel pretty good with just saying what you said earlier regarding the function and it seems like that line has struck a chord with a few other supporters:

How about moving the entire function itself into a plugin, and see how many downloads *it* gets?

That deserves a Touché.

[Ryan]

The recent WP Hackers messages are becoming painful to read. Lots of rantings and lots of aggression from both sides of the camp.

I'd have thought that the shear number of negative comments left about this would make the core guys remove it, but it seems they're fairly entrenched in the idea of keeping it in core.

[Ryan]

Problem solved. We'll just spell it with a lower case "p" instead: