Displaying 1 To 11 Of 11 Comments Good Or Bad? Infinite Scrolling There are some sites and implementations where infinite scroll makes sense. Pintrest. Twitter. Facebook. Forward-reading story sites (start at page 1 and read to page 200). There are also implementations where it makes no sense … like the traditional reverse-chronological feed of a blog/news site home page. Or a resume. Or anything really that silos content by page. Does it make sense to enable infinite scroll by default in a WordPress theme? No. It all depends (as always) on what you’re using the theme to power. » Posted By Eric Mann On March 30, 2012 @ 11:15 AM Close Or Leave Comments Open On Old Posts? It really depends on the content of your site. If you’re truly writing timeless pieces (i.e. tutorials), then please leave comments open. The content is relevant today, 180 days from now, and maybe even 2 years from now. If you’re curating your content and keeping it up-to-date, leaving comments open on old posts is even more important. But if you’re running a news site and the content (and conversation) is outdated after a period of time, there’s no harm in closing comments. In the end, there’s no hard-and-fast rule that will fit for all sites. » Posted By Eric Mann On March 23, 2012 @ 1:22 PM A Closer Look At Brute Force Attacks Against WP Sites I think the concept of a “strong” password is a bit overrated. Yes, a long, hard to remember alphanumeric string is pretty secure. You won’t be able to hack my site just by guessing my password. But this kind of password is also hard to remember, so many users are tempted to either use the same “strong” password for everything, or outsource remembering their password to a 3rd party system. If you use the same password for everything, one website being hacked can open you up to problems. If you outsource to a 3rd party, once again one site being hacked opens you up to problems. I know it’s a comic … but the advice on http://xkcd.com/936/ is the best I’ve seen yet for creating truly secure (but still user-friendly) passwords. » Posted By Eric Mann On March 16, 2012 @ 1:46 PM Phoning Home To Plugin Authors Once upon a time, all of my plugins called home. I added an XML-RPC hook to my server to capture the calls that told me which plugin was installed, which version, what versions of PHP/WP/MySQL were installed, and the email address of the site administrator. They would also immediately send me any reports of crashes or errors so I could debug things proactively and release updates that targeted specific, observed user issues. The information was invaluable. But I gradually realized the problem with my system. I was, essentially, farming a huge email list on my site. I had contact information for thousands of users, the names of sites they administered, and detailed diagnostic information about their servers. And they had no idea. Then someone using a plugin I wrote in a tutorial found the code, loved it, forked it, and added it to a few of their own systems. Suddenly I had a flood of data from other plugins (they forgot to change the XML-RPC server endpoint) … again, without user input or permission. The thought that someone other than me could be collecting this data scared me to death. I trust me. But I also know some of the people who use my code, and I DON’T trust them. So, until I rewrite my API to allow anonymous, opt-in communication, I’ve pulled it from every system I write. I’ve also deleted any records I have on my end because, really, I don’t want to be responsible for holding on to an extensive list of other people’s email addresses. » Posted By Eric Mann On February 16, 2012 @ 2:15 PM Akismet Testing Out Partner Program I’m kind of skeptical about this program based on the fact that the single site option ($59/yr) and the multiple medium site option ($550/yr) have the exact same total cap on comments (80,000). There’s no additional overhead in processing requests from multiple domains … so if it’s the same account with the same activity cap, what’s the point of a ~$500 price jump between the two? It almost seems to be penalizing people who work with more than one domain. But I might be a bit biased in that regard because I split my personal blog across multiple domains to better segregate, style, and manage categorical content. At the same time, all of my sites are still a single WP network installation with a single instance of Akismet filtering comments … in this paradigm, I’d be limited to 80,000 comments no matter what, but would I end up paying $59/yr or $550/yr? » Posted By Eric Mann On November 4, 2011 @ 6:15 PM Please Don’t Use The Post Title As A Hyperlink Please don’t make the post title the actual link to an article when using the Link Post format. It prevents me from linking to you and it’s not the behaviour I’m expecting. I’m excepting to click the link to read comments or such on the post but because the title acts as a link, I pretty much have no way of getting there. It’s a frustrating experience and that’s why I agree with Mike! I already replied to the hackers thread, but since content is reproduced here I wanted to weigh in quickly in this space as well. If a link post is a blog post, then you and Mike are 100% correct. If a link post allows comments, sharing, and other blog post-type features, then the title links should take me to that post. But if a link post is really a link – as in a bookmark to external content, then I think making the title point to the content is the right way to go. If I’m linking to a 3rd party, then I want you to link to that third party … not to me. It’s a hassle to link to a link to a link to great content. You lose readers with every click, and if my post is really a bookmark I don’t want people commenting on it anyway. » Posted By Eric Mann On November 4, 2011 @ 12:47 PM Some are pretty useful. Some are outdated. Some, like this one, are kind of funny: “Matt Mullenweg” Not sure what the OP’s beef was exactly … but hey, the site doesn’t exactly ask for explanations. » Posted By Eric Mann On November 1, 2011 @ 2:44 PM Some Not Happy With Flyout Menus 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. Will the feature stay in 3.3? Yes. The point of a beta is to trouble shoot bugs and get a release candidate ready. Disliking a new feature is not a bug. Will everyone be happy with the feature in 3.3? No. And there’s already at least one plugin floating around that forces the menu system to display in the old-style all-expanded format. That’s the beauty of an open source project – if there’s something about it you don’t like, you’re free to make changes. » Posted By Eric Mann On October 12, 2011 @ 11:51 AM Should Automatic Upgrades Be Opt-In? Yes and No. Whenever we add a new setting to WordPress, my instinct is to make it opt-in for existing installations and opt-out for new installations. In other words, I think auto-update should be turned on by default for new setups (defined in `wp-config.php`) but be something you need to turn on for existing installations (i.e. after upgrading WordPress). This is a drastic enough change to the way we currently do things that it warrants educating users and clients about what exactly will happen. But for new sites … let’s just turn it on and move forward. » Posted By Eric Mann On September 8, 2011 @ 4:06 PM Software Releases And The Kitchen Sink Sadly enough, I have to admit that I’ve been sitting on 4-5 different projects that are almost ready for release but waiting for that 1 or 2 other “essential” feature to come of age. The problem I see, though, is that this is more of a debilitating issue for freelancers and single-developer shops than it is for organizations like Apple and Automattic. If a single developer ships a buggy 1.0 release, they have to handle the outcry and support requests from the community while working on a more polished 2.0 (or even 1.1) update. If it’s a team rather than an individual sharing the responsibility, you can isolate the developers from the support group and get things out the door while addressing the problems they cause at the same time. So, while much of my hesitation to release in-development projects has been symptomatic of one-more-thing syndrome, nearly as much of it has also been symptomatic of I’ve-got-too-much-to-fix-and-not-enough-time-to-fix-it syndrome. You can only respond to so many support and feature requests and continue to maintain a solid development cycle … » Posted By Eric Mann On November 9, 2010 @ 1:50 PM Should Easter Eggs In WordPress Be Removed? I’ll always enjoy Easter eggs … I’m actually disappointed that I haven’t found more of them in WordPress. Still, I know if I ever set up a blog for my parents (for example) I’d want to disable any that they might accidentally find. Certain demographics will never really understand an Easter egg. Whether it scares them (because it looks like a hack) or distracts them (i.e. the Facebook Contra code) I know just the presence of an Easter egg would be upsetting. Easter eggs that animate and display a self-destruct countdown are entertaining to those of us in the know, but they utterly fail the “would my parents understand this” test. I also don’t see the feature as unprofessional, but it can definitely be confusing to new/infrequent WordPress users. » Posted By Eric Mann On October 25, 2010 @ 10:27 AMComments Posted By Eric Mann
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