Displaying 31 To 60 Of 210 Comments Update On My Use Of Limit Login Attempts Limit Login Attempts continues to be an awesome Plugin. I’ve noticed an uptick in brute-force attempts in the past couple months, too. I’m thinking about lengthening the lockout period, but otherwise I’m not worried. As I’ve said in the past, I intentionally keep the “admin” username around. It only has “subscriber” privileges, so 1) it’s there, so the script kiddies keep trying to brute-force it, rather than attempt a legit username; and 2) even if they manage to brute-force it, they can’t do anything when they do. » Posted By Chip Bennett On February 11, 2012 @ 12:25 AM Bad Behavior In The WordPress Community @Ted Clayton - No, WPTavern publishes plenty of posts, publicizes plenty of stories, which then go quietly into the long night, despite that WPTavern put them to the world. The WPTavern kiss does not make a great story from a trifle. Bottom line: if WPTavern had never linked/tweeted KevinJohn’s blog post, this blowup never would have happened. (That’s a credit to Jeff, by the way; the reaction to the story isn’t his fault.) » Posted By Chip Bennett On January 27, 2012 @ 8:05 PM @Tami - I’m coming into this late, but from what I’ve seen is KJG over-reacting and willfully inciting a flame war and then fanning the flames by claiming he’s personally been threatened and that the community and core team from WP are responsible. FULLSTOP. All KevinJohn did was poost a blog post to his personal blog. Period. That’s it. End of story. He didn’t invite anything. The story gained traction primarily because WPTavern linked to it, and discussed it. In fact, KevinJohn didn’t even enable the comments on that blog post. Further: where did KevinJohn accuse the core team of involvement? As for the community: the response of the community is prima facie evidence of the community’s involvement. So, what are you arguing? Should KevinJohn not be allowed to post a blog post to his own, personal blog, lest he incite the apparently powder-keg sensibilities of the greater WordPress community? Seriously? And by the way: did you even read his blog post? (I ask that question, rhetorically, of 99% of the people who have flamed him over it; because IMHO the response is out of proportion to the point of extreme hyperbole with respect to what he actually wrote.) If anything, your apparent ignorance of the situation merely epitomizes the apparent ignorance of the vast majority of people who flamed KevinJohn in the first place. This assertion is not intended as a personal insult. You self-admittedly “came in late” to the situation. Take the time to consider what actually happened, and the actual order of events. I watched this fiasco blow up from the beginning. primarily via Twitter. The vast majority of people who first reacted to Jeff’s article/tweet reacted not to KevinJohn’s words, but to Jeff’s tweet, and his blog post article. KevinJohn still wasn’t involved, except for a couple of direct responses to Jeff on Twitter. The Twitter mob vilified and crucified KevinJohn without even bothering to read the blog post they were flaming. And THAT is exactly the sort of environment that would produce the totally unwarranted, personal attacks that KevinJohn described. » Posted By Chip Bennett On January 27, 2012 @ 11:33 AM Matt Mullenweg To Be In Charge Of The 2012 Default Theme “Never listen to the Vocal Minority – even if they’re right.” I would love to hear the context for that statement, because I can’t really fathom what acceptable context there could possibly be. To ignore a correct perspective simply because it comes from the “minority”? Yeah, I’ll never agree with that mindset. » Posted By Chip Bennett On December 22, 2011 @ 9:17 PM @Castle - Fear not; there are plenty of people who are willing to be critical when necessary. Some of us *ahem* have just had to learn how to be smarter/wiser with regard to target, venue, and timing of such criticism.:) Also, as I’ve learned: #patcheswelcome. If during development (i.e. before the beta) you see something that could be improved with Twenty Twelve, create a patch, and submit it to Trac. Criticism accompanied by a contributed patch to fix the issue is generally much more well-received. I have suggestions for Twenty Twelve, and that’s exactly what I intend to do! » Posted By Chip Bennett On December 21, 2011 @ 12:56 PM Upgrading And Backwards Compatibility For Plugins @A4D [emphasis added] - I saw a direct value to wp 3… And I think that this is part of the problem, also: the WordPress version-number convention makes sense to us, but for the 99-percenters (no pun intended), WordPress 3.0 = WordPress 3. I’m quite sure that there are people out there who will wait three years for WordPress 4.0 to come out, before upgrading from WordPress 3.0. (I’m not suggesting that WordPress change its version-numbering convention, but rather that we need to do a better job educating users.) » Posted By Chip Bennett On November 30, 2011 @ 7:45 AM WordPress Gameshow Now Available To Play From Home Very cool! I think I missed four. :) A couple of pedantic nits: HistoryPress for 300, Bonus Question/Answer is wrong. WordPress is licensed under GPL, not specifically under GPL v2.0. That said, most of the time, the distinction is utterly irrelevant. Also, HistoryPress for 100: where’s the love for Mike Little? (As co-creator of WordPress, he would have made a far better Bonus Question here. » Posted By Chip Bennett On November 21, 2011 @ 7:36 PM Chip Bennett Working On New Template Hierarchy Diagram @John and @Rev: your comments are approved; thanks for the heads-up. I’ll try to figure out why the lack of feedback on-submit. Also: just added Rev 4, which addresses comments from John, Nacin, and others. » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 27, 2011 @ 11:08 AM There’s an error though (looking at rev 3). The is_tax() conditional isn’t true for category and tag archives as the diagram states. Oh, dear! Thanks for pointing that out. I inferred that from the is_tax() Codex page, which just states “Taxonomy” as opposed to custom taxonomy, and which also lists all of the core-registered taxonomies. (Note to self: update is_tax() Codex page to clarify.) The “Taxonomy Archive” block should be removed, and the “Category Archive”, “Tag Archive”, and “Custom Taxonomy Archive” blocks should be moved up to the same level as “Date Archive”, “Author Archive” and “Custom Post Type Archive”. Sure enough! Fixed in my working copy. » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 27, 2011 @ 7:58 AM Thanks for the shout-out, Jeff! Just FYI, I’m posting revisions here as I update the diagram. I think the third revision should be just about at the spit-and-polish stage… » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 26, 2011 @ 6:20 PM Checklist Of Things To Do Before Switching Themes @Ipstenu - Where do CPTs fall in? Plugins. ;) Or, custom/niche Themes – or, a stand-alone Plugin mated to built-in Theme functionality. Honestly, if one is using Custom Post Types, then this discussion by-and-large will not apply, since the CPTs will almost assuredly have been implemented via custom, client development. » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 24, 2011 @ 2:06 PM That’s why Theme-agnostic functionality such as tracking code should be added as a Plugin, rather than as part of the Theme, as well as why Themes should generally limit themselves to presentational, rather than functional, code. » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 24, 2011 @ 1:10 PM Chip Bennett Hits 1,000 Theme Reviews Thanks, Jeff, and everyone. I appreciate the shout-out to the WordPress Theme Review Team – but I think the best way to say thanks would be to come join us! The WPTRT is incredibly educational, fun (in a nerdy, Theme-developer sort of way), and a great way to contribute to the WordPress community. :) » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 20, 2011 @ 8:49 AM Prevent Skype Overwriting Phone Numbers In WordPress Themes I would say that this is a perfect example of an opportunity to follow Otto’s example of putting code in a site-specific Plugin. I created a Gist for the very simple Plugin drop-in code: » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 19, 2011 @ 1:48 PM How To Insert Links Inside Of Image Captions @Abhishek - I agree that this functionality is Plugin territory, but I won’t complain if it does make it into core. I would find it occasionally useful. It is deliberate design intent. WordPress assumes, and intends, that the user will choose either the Visual editor, or the HTML editor, but not both during the same editing session. If you want to be able to switch between the two, it is simple enough to filter the TinyMCE init configuration to prevent the wonky behavior caused by the switch. » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 18, 2011 @ 3:47 PM Validation And Sanitization Primer That’s a good post! Here’s how I describe the difference: Validation ensures that data are in the correct format/type, and within appropriate bounds. Sanitization ensures that data are safe, whether it is KSES-type scrubbing of malicious data, or escaping data appropriately for context. » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 17, 2011 @ 2:05 PM Some Not Happy With Flyout Menus @Bob De Young - Isn’t that enough said regarding the need for a per user option, as Blake Imeson said. It will certainly make admin operations on complex sites slower, not faster, as Justin Tadlock said. I think you may have mis-attributed a quote to me, but to answer your question: no; that’s not generally the way WordPress development works. I am reminded of the capital_P_dangit() fiasco, in which the Plugin to remove the filter had ten times as many downloads as the Plugin to add the filter (before the filter became part of core). At the time, I remember Matt (IIRC) saying that reversion of capital_P_dangit would be considered if the filter-removal Plugin had 30,000 downloads. So, while I don’t agree with that filter, and am – to be completely honest – ambivalent toward the new flyout-menu change, I understand that what drives core development decisions isn’t necessarily incredibly vocal dissent, nor the emergence of Plugins to change (or revert) functionality. The WordPress user base is somewhere north of 50 million users, and the core developers generally make decisions based on what they believe will best-serve the vast majority of those users. Now, for better or for worse, WordPress.com drives a large part of that decision-making process, because it represents such a large percentage of the overall WordPress user base. I don’t particularly agree with using WPCOM users in this manner. Personally, I think using WPCOM as a testbed for stability, security, and scalability is fantastic; but WPCOM is a blogging platform, and if its users drive the overall development decisions, then blogging (and bloggers) will remain the driving emphasis of WordPress development. Honestly, I see that paradigm in play with this decision. The just write, baby! mentality is blog-focused, and myopic. » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 13, 2011 @ 8:13 AM @Eric Mann - I can see some of the arguments. A lot of the debate is descending into “I don’t like it, so it’s a bad idea.” That, and it’s beginning to get very charged emotionally, which is always a bad sign for what began as a rational discussion. That said, it does appear that this change has been implemented with an accessibility blind spot (pun intended). Kevin John Gallagher makes a great point. Accessibility may be an edge case, but as WordPress becomes more prominent as both a CMS and as a blogging platform, it is an edge case that can’t and shouldn’t be dismissed simply because it is an edge case. And that said, Jane Wells knows what she’s doing WRT usability, and I trust that she and the UX group will address this issue. As for the “I just don’t like it” crowd: if a Plugin hasn’t already been released, I’m sure one will be released sooner rather than later. (I always roll with the admin menu collapsed, anyway, so the loss of dropdown menus is no loss to me whatsoever.) » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 12, 2011 @ 12:01 PM Things To Look For In WordPress 3.3 Beta 1 @Chip Bennett - The new contextual help has no backward compatibility with the current contextual help. None whatsoever. I think this is a terrible decision, and am hopeful that it will be addressed during the beta phase. So, replying to myself: it looks like backward-compatibility has been restored for contextual help. According to Otto: The deprecation function call in those was commented out sometime recently, so I think they’re leaving full-conversion until 3.4 or later. So it probably won’t be deprecated in 3.3, just on the verge of deprecation. » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 12, 2011 @ 9:08 AM Another Very-Cool Feature: Contextual help is getting an awesome makeover that will make it incredibly more useful. Not-So-Very-Cool: The new contextual help has no backward compatibility with the current contextual help. None whatsoever. I think this is a terrible decision, and am hopeful that it will be addressed during the beta phase. » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 12, 2011 @ 8:25 AM Drupal And WordPress Founders Share The Same Stage @Pat in Michigan – hey, small world, if this is the same Pat in Michigan who comments at Gateway Pundit! Hey, how come my trackback ain’t here? *Grumble* I’m not sure Jeff displays pings; that, or he’s about as bad as me regarding actually moderating them! » Posted By Chip Bennett On October 14, 2011 @ 9:48 AM Removing Links In Favor Of Menus? I should have added: I’m really not enamored of using the Custom Nav Menu feature as an alternative Link Manager; however, it might be a perfectly viable alternative for others. » Posted By Chip Bennett On September 30, 2011 @ 6:46 PM +1 to making links a Custom Post Type. Perhaps it would make a good “Core Plugin” candidate? I’m also thinking that the Link-type Post Format could be massaged into a useful alternative, as well. » Posted By Chip Bennett On September 30, 2011 @ 6:45 PM When Will Automattic Be Acquired? @Ben Ackles - WordPress.org is owned by the WordPress Foundation. Are you sure about that? While I assume that such an ownership change is in the works, at current, Matt Mullenweg still owns wordpress.org. » Posted By Chip Bennett On September 28, 2011 @ 8:50 AM Reasons Not To Upgrade WordPress Please don’t misunderstand: I think that for the vast majority of the WordPress user base, keeping core updated is the correct approach. I don’t take any particular issue with having a little fun at the expense of the typically nonsensical excuses for failing to update. My point (which probably applies to a minuscule fraction of the overall WordPress user base) was just that I don’t think we should be casting a negative light on those who knowingly choose to modify WordPress, nor should we be casting a negative light on those people if they fail to submit patches for those changes, because doing so is contrary to the free software principles that WordPress so ardently espouses. We should instead celebrate that free software is serving its intended purpose. » Posted By Chip Bennett On September 28, 2011 @ 9:18 AM Is this a professional blog? If the Tavern doesn’t meet your clearly high-brow journalistic and editorial standards, I’m confident you can find another source for WordPress-related news. Or you can go take a long walk off of a short pier. Either way, you won’t be missed. » Posted By Chip Bennett On September 27, 2011 @ 5:00 PM @Jeffro - But it’s just bad practice to make modifications like that as it ruins the upgrade path. But that’s the point, isn’t it? Not everyone wants to maintain the upgrade path. They intentionally fork, in essence, to make WordPress suit their purposes. Granted, such users are a minuscule subset of the WordPress userbase. But they do exist. One such member even participates – or, used to – in the Tavern Forum. » Posted By Chip Bennett On September 27, 2011 @ 2:38 PM Actually, if someone chooses to modify core, then not upgrading is perfectly reasonable. (It may or may not be wise, depending on the ability of that person to maintain future bugfixes/patches/etc. – but that is another matter.) Given that a core component of free software philosophy is the freedom of the user to modify the software to suit his purposes, knowingly “hacking core” should not be given such a negative connotation. » Posted By Chip Bennett On September 27, 2011 @ 12:42 PM WordPress Has A Smaller Community Than Either Drupal Or Joomla @Brian Flores: I really wasn’t trying to say absurd statements for “link bait” purposes. I just wanted to stir it up a bit. Do you have a metric by which you compared the relative size of the WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla communities, or does your assertion rely solely on anecdote? See above. A quick search demonstrates that WordPress has twice as many community gatherings (counting only major “conference”-style gatherings, not local meetups); that WordPress has twice as many community-contributed extensions; that WordPress has roughly the same number of community support forum topics and posts, but five times as many registered forum users; and that WordPress has a well-established StackExchange presence that is twice the size of Drupal’s (and Joomla still hasn’t launched). So: on what are you basing your assertion, regarding relative size of the WordPress community (much less, the relative quality of community-provided support)? » Posted By Chip Bennett On September 26, 2011 @ 4:18 PM Hi Kevinjohn, First, I’m always up for having someone playing Devil’s Advocate! :) But I should note: I’ve actually got another comment held in the moderation queue (too many reference links), in which I compare WordPress and Joomla, with respect to Community Gatherings, Community-Contributed Extensions, Official Support Forums, and Community-Contributed Documentation. I merely left off the StackExchange comparison, and posted a follow-up comment – which currently appears rather out of context. Second: the premise primarily entailed not the quality of the help provided by the community, but rather by the relative size of the community. The assertion that WordPress has a small community relative to Joomla or Drupal is prime facie absurd. The relative quality of help provided by each community is another question entirely, and one that I wasn’t really attempting to address. But, to that point: In my experience, finding out answers to simple WP questions is very quick; but rises at an exponential rate as you move from simple to moderate to advanced. In large part due to the input/output of it’s community. That’s actually what prompted me to mention StackExchange. The relative difficulty of a typical WPSE question is considerably more advanced/complex than the typical WPORG support forum question – and in my experience, the answers are commensurately advanced and thorough. (Although, I would also counter that the problem with the WPORG support forums isn’t the quality of answers, but rather the quality of the original questions; people simply fail to follow instructions – instructions designed to help them get the best-possible answers to their questions. That is, in part, why I believe that WPSE is uniquely designed to help get answers to the more difficult WordPress-related questions.) » Posted By Chip Bennett On September 26, 2011 @ 2:09 PMComments Posted By Chip Bennett
<?php
/**
* Stop Skype from hijacking phone numbers
*
* Adds a META tag to the HTML document head, that
* prevents Skype from hijacking/over-writing phone
* numbers displayed in the Theme.
*/
function mysite_skype_meta() {
?>
<meta name="SKYPE_TOOLBAR" content="SKYPE_TOOLBAR_PARSER_COMPATIBLE" />
<?php
}
add_action( 'wp_head', 'mysite_skype_meta' );
?>
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