Displaying 31 To 60 Of 117 Comments 500 Plugins To Possibly Be Purged From The Repository Sorry that I seem to be sowing consternation, Don. I must make a quick reply now, to leave soon for an outdoor workday away from all comm. I’ll carefully address this tonight. As admitted, I have not used the SearchWPPlugins tool. And, conspicuously, no one else is reporting doing so, either – and until we are seeing a pattern of ‘satisfied’ user-reports (this is the ‘proof of the User Interface pudding’, as always … but Especially with database interrogation tools) we remain at the ‘Hmm! Interesting!” stage. I do think it is interesting, and from me, that is positive input! :) We are all familiar with the phenomenon of ‘Editor Wars’. This refers to differences of opinion, often very strongly held & defended, about the merits of different Editors – all of which may be fully professional, mature and polished software tools. Well, slightly less visible to the general crowd, is a much more severe conflict & struggle, over the tools & methods for getting what is wanted out of an existing Database. “SQL” itself is a direct acronym for the REAL challenge of preparing User Interfaces for databases. It’s ALL about trying to get what’s in there, the way you want it. I am thinking about, and I suggest others roll it around too, how to construct cases that will show in a reasonably ‘scientific’ way that the SearchWPPlugins does things better than the WordPress.org facility … and for extra credit, ‘vice versa’! We need ‘set-ups’ that will allow for ‘meaningful’ comparison of two different facilities. Of course, it will be necessary to FIRST actually learn to use it, and gain some minimum level of skill/competence with it. It may seem totally transparent to its creator & author, but that may not be what newcomers are experiencing. Later! – Ted » Posted By Ted Clayton On February 27, 2012 @ 9:42 AM @SearchWPPlugins - » Posted By Ted Clayton On February 27, 2012 @ 12:25 AM @Mike Schinkel - I have known of this general problem/issue/fear, since the early days of OS. I am aware that conflicts/incompatibilities with Apache have steadily become more prominent, and will get up to speed on the details here. I think we can take it, that DotOrg wants a plugin library that gives them recognition, and draws users, ‘in & of itself’. Ubuntu is pushing 40,000 Debian-vetted & supervised projects … “at the push of a button”. Apple, Google, Firefox … all the big kids are doing it, and it’s big. I think this is resolvable. I have a heavy money-day tomorrow, but will be back late in the afternoon (Pacific). Ted » Posted By Ted Clayton On February 27, 2012 @ 12:04 AMComments Posted By Ted Clayton
I tried 3 times to Subscribe, Don, but each returned a Captcha error. They were clear & easy to read. – Ted
Let me do some digging on this, and clue me further as you think is indicated. I would like to stay with this, and follow through on it. I will return to the Trac page, where I noticed you, and bear down on it.@Ted, what do you mean: “… but, but – has anyone actually tried using this thing??”
Don’t you like it? Am open to suggestions.
Don”
Hi Don! Good to see you on the thread!
There were several ‘levels’ intended in my theatrical question.
First, although several here have expressed pleasure at finding your site, praising it, none have related an experience using it. Have, indeed, these folks taken it for a test-drive? (And the corollary – is the site itself receiving growing & return-usage? Indicating that it is meeting needs & proving useful? I know too, that a ‘discovery’ process may be necessary, and your server-logs thus far, may not be a good reflection of potential.)
Second, the default search facility on SearchWPPlugins is only slightly different than what we have on the official WordPress plugin repository. (‘What’s all the excitement about’?)
Third, what is actually significantly different on your project, is the Boolean Operators option … which nobody has mention. “Holy cow! Didja get a load a that guy’s Booleans!?!?” Not a peep.
I’m seeing the Boolean cheat-sheet on the About page. I stumbled into it, snooping around. I have since flipped back & forth between the Home/Default Search, the About page (cheatsheet), and the Advanced Search page (which looks like the Default) … and I’m not noticing any other connection between the Search interfaces, and the Booleans-guide, other than by clicking on the About link. That is not real intuitive.
Booleans are the potent stuff here. The rest is available on DotOrg.
Have you guys been using it? They didn’t answer, eh?
I am intrigued & hopeful, Don. “I provisionally like it!” I have not actually tried it. It needs to be compared with functionality already centrally available, and the Boolean tools require study, and testing. I’m not negative, but I am cautious. :)
Ted
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 26, 2012 @ 11:22 PM
If anyone is nervous about the IP endorcement drones overhead, blasting trademark-offenders off the web, the site in question is also available as:
SearchWPPlugins.comEvidently, having a modicum of self-preservation, themselves. ;)
… but, but – has anyone actually tried using this thing??
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 26, 2012 @ 12:26 AM
@Terence –
… the whole 18,460 item database is … endless crap which nobody downloads.Nobody has actually downloaded a plugin 270,661,532 times … a number that you saw right next to the 18,460 entries-count when you checked/verified it.
Would Mozzila, Firefox or Chrome plug-in users put up with only being able search by a text string?
Mozilla/Firefox has far fewer Categories than WordPress has Tags. Both will accept search-strings … tho only WP allows us to specify its field.
You’re right that there is a lot of room for improvement, but your implication that WP is a bunch of clueless code-junkies who don’t ‘get’ what needs to be done, is off the mark. Those who have been watching for awhile, have seen many changes. Work is being done, and the outlines of an ‘intentional’ structure & functionality are coming into view.
A big truth is, that an awful lot of plugin-finding takes place through well-known Search Engines. Why recreate Google locally, when the customer has the real thing default installed on their browser?
No … it isn’t that we can’t find stuff well enough in the repository – rather, it’s a surfeit of riches problem. We easily find many plausible offerings to fit our search … but then comes the real work, of making fine-grained assessments, and comparing them for suitability to our task at hand. Since our plugin-applications are specific to each user’s case, it is reasonable that such whites-of-their-eyes evaluations be performed not by marketing gurus, but by ourselves.
Are you wanting some particular kind of plugin, Terence? Give me half a clue, and I’ll do my little chaos-surfing trick for you. ;)
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 24, 2012 @ 5:00 PM
I returned to this topic to do more reading, and began with the “ongoing discussion” link in the Post. This is – cough – some “discussion”.
This is a page on the WordPress Core Trac site, in which several leading WordPress people expose a quite surprising (to me) degree of ‘confusion’ with respect to fundamental WordPress licensing considerations.
It appears that we are not so much looking at issues with plugin-author licensing choices, but rather that ‘events have overtaken’ WordPress policy & rules, themselves. Plugin licensing irregularities are almost a mere proxy for the real problem. (Indeed, again, most of these plugins in the List appear to have actually been licensed “in Good Faith”.)
This display of discord, misunderstanding and perhaps conflicting views & interpretations, within the upper echelons of the WordPress community, gives me a bit better insight into Andrew Naicin’s somewhat testy interjection. If he were interested to do so, I would be interested to read his further words, on the input that he would liked to have given author Jeffro, before this Post went to press.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 24, 2012 @ 11:42 AM
Thanks for the link to the spreadsheet on Google!
By far the most common/main irregularity with these ‘non-compliant’ plugins is that they are being licensed under GPL3, instead of GPL2. In a high portion of the cases, I will speculate that the author was being conscientious about licensing (but ‘in violation’), simply by adopting ‘the latest’ version of the GPL.
So … is the GPLv3 vis GPL2 question a problem that WordPress folk anticipating giving them a hard time? Or is it a fairly minor point that, while perhaps messy to address/resolve (due, say, to difficulty getting the proper notice/attention from all these different authors (an issue we see illustrated right here in the comments on this post)), shouldn’t be a big trauma?
Explosive headlines? FUD spin? It had not struck me that way, before I saw it asserted. In all candor, blogs that cover WordPress would probably be less useful to both the readers, and to the WordPress project, if they had to clear stuff with a honcho before publishing (or function as ‘mirrors’ or ‘echo chambers’?). Not to mention the colossal hassle it would be for DEVs …
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 24, 2012 @ 9:11 AM
The expression ‘Achilles Heel’ or ‘Nemesis’, etc, has been around for a long time, and for very good reason.
It is hard to exaggerate, or to fully convey how powerful, how much an agent of change the Hippie Movement was at its peak. Strangely, I can’t bring to mind any Hollywood production that has done better than vignettes or individual portrayals of it. Movies have done pretty good with the overall Vietnam ‘scene’, several times, and some of the right ‘feel’ for Hippies was invoked in these … but I can’t really say that the “Movement” was ever properly captured. Not afaik.
The last of the reverberations are only now finally dissipating to small potatoes status. ‘Occupy’ … and the Medical Marijuana Follies, etc. For 40 years, like the fractured pieces of Genghis Khan’s empire, Hippiedom has played out its energies, mostly headless.
The Hippie mantra was “Peace, Love, Dope”. It’s that last one that explains why the Movement failed to capitalize on its full potential. The affection for substance-indulgence, and the affectation that it made no difference, didn’t matter … was its Achilles Heel, and the Nemesis from within.
Exceptionally strong & potent movements are rarely done in, from without. When they don’t stick, veer off into the ditch or over the cliff, the basic problem isn’t their opponents. The unconquerable nemesis or the fatal vulnerability, is usually something from within.
When I should have been growing my hair long and learning to inhale, I was instead in the (high/uber-tech) military, leaning & practicing … Documentation.
It is now widely understood, that the West won the Cold War on the basis of, indeed, effective documentation.
When you watch & read about Astronauts engaged in their various exploits, you are observing the pinnacle of documentation … or, that is to say, what can be achieved with the organized & disciplined deployment of documentation.
It was the documentation of advanced & complex technical systems that enabled American teenagers in uniform to successful operate an array of systems which ultimately induced their adversary to … blink.
Open Source clearly has a major exposure, in its inadequate attention to the documentation-imperative that is its foundation & core. The situation isn’t hopeless; many recognize the danger, efforts are being made, and some progress is visible.
Bottom line: Everything that we hope & dream for Free Open Source Software hangs on large increases in the scope & quality of the Documentation that will, for real, ultimately make or break the enterprise … the Movement.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 22, 2012 @ 7:41 PM
Phoning Home To Plugin Authors
The article on interconnect/it that you link to, What Exactly Does WordPress Tell The World? describes the concerns/motivations, and the particulars of the technical tests selected to investigate those questions, very well.
The website itself, it’s homepage, has more in this general vein.
Those who provide services to ‘non-IT’ businesses, who want to use IT but are not especially ‘into’ IT themselves, are both somewhat obliged and so-to-speak ‘given permission’ to leave behind a lot of the usual ‘postures & dance’ of Computerdom, which themselves can be persistent issues.
I am not a business-person, and am not into IT business-services, but I am an experienced technical/systems person, and the way these tests were set up & described in the article is very good.
Thanks!
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 17, 2012 @ 10:29 AM
@Daniel -
Ted’s reply is typical whining from people who gladly take free software, complain when it’s not perfect, and expect not to have to contribute.Free Open Source Software is not the wilted lettuce and day-old bread that they sit out on the loading dock in the alley, for the unfortunate to pick through.
There is still a lively debate, whether closed commercial paradigms are inherently handicapped, in comparison to open & free … but GNU/GPL projects have stayed right at the front of the pack for long enough now that nobody mistakes it for second-rate.
No, the implication that of course one will pare off the moldy spots and pretend to prefer soft, rubbery greens, when he accepts free programs, misses the main facts about FOSS.
Matt Mullenweg gives the product away, not just to crummy people and ingrates, but to everyone. And inspecting it for bugs, rot and suitability to purpose certainly is an important role of those who put it to use.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 17, 2012 @ 1:19 AM
Ubuntu’s system is the best around.
Mozilla is walking itself out off a cliff.
WordPress is well-loved, and has an inner circle that used to be so small as to be a singularity. So like your mother, it could get away with crap.
Just modify the current Update menu item in Admin so that it is the users de facto “Opt in” agreement. It works mostly this way now … except for that nagging issue of it taking it upon itself to check certain ‘vital’ WP info, just because you happened to log in to Admin.
WP gets away with it because they’re everybody’s trusted sweetheart.
As WordPress grows, as inner responsibilities & authority is distributed and delegated, practices like these become greater liabilities.
Facebook is sleazy. They’re successful, and powerful, and impressive. But they suck. Nobody feels sweet for Facebook; nobody trusts them to take out the garbage.
Downside, yes, the installed WordPress base ages & decays. There will be exploits, using stuff that has been fixed in recent updates … which some people can’t be bothered to check for on their own. That’s why WP does it for them … to protect WP’s good name, to minimize those painful security traumas, of which there have been a few.
Goose-stepping release cycles are a big part of the problem. Recently, we have watched it morph into an outright frenzy. Google goaded Mozilla into clinical hysteria, and they’re defending it to the hilt. Release-madness pushes coding, and deprecates testing. “Upgrades” replace validation.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 16, 2012 @ 5:00 PM
99 Different WordPress Related Websites To Watch
Thanks! The list is actually interesting, and will lure me off other things I was supposed to be doing. ;)
But there does appear to be trouble brewing.
Author Tom Ewer says the list is based on “publically available data”. He says the order of the entries is “completely objective”. And he mentions that there is an “algorithm”. But none of these aspects of the project are exposed or otherwise in evidence.
Read some of the comments, and it becomes clear that others are noticing.
Tom responds that he couldn’t rank any French sites, because he doesn’t speak or read French. If it’s data-based, and objective, how are his language skills an issue? If he has to read the site, that would be subjective, eh?
Repeatedly, visitors complain that his list does not reflect their impressions of reality. Tom responds, ‘Submit your site for consideration in the next list!’
But, but … wasn’t this already supposed be the real deal?
=====Hey, this is a valuable list – I don’t care if Tom pulled it outa thin air or from where the sun don’t shine. But Tom does appear to be playing ball … with a hornet’s nest.
Fugitabout the list. Go check out the comment-action.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 16, 2012 @ 10:23 AM
Determining Which Plugins Are Slowing Your Site Down
Potential Issue with P3 Profiler
I install plugins that seem interesting, play with them for awhile, and then move them to a /plugins-archive directory. I regularly rename directories, and Update my archive.
Recently, I butter-fingered the clean-out operation. Normally, I Deactivate All Plugins, log out, move plugin subdirectories between directories as desired, log back in, and Activate All Plugins. In the midst of the routine, I ‘spaced out’ and performed a spurious Deactivate Plugins, while they were all deactivated.
Next thing I know, I have a white screen, bearing the message:
Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in Unknown on line 0Fatal error: Unknown: Failed opening required ‘C:\wamp\www\wp3\wp-content\plugins\p3-profiler\start-profile.php’ (include_path=’.;C:\php5\pear’) in Unknown on line 0
I then could not bring up my site at all, getting only the white-screen msg.
Research yields references to (among other things) the .htaccess file. That’s an easy thing to check (on my WAMP Server localhost), esp. since I do nothing with htaccess. Oh – it contains:
# BEGIN p3-profiler
php_value auto_prepend_file “C:\wamp\www\wp3\wp-content\plugins\p3-profiler\start-profile.php”
# END p3-profilerJust those 3 lines in htaccess. After deleting them my page came up normally, no errror msg, and I logged into Admin ok. Everything appears to be fine.
If this incident seems of interest or importance, I will try to recreate/document it.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 24, 2012 @ 2:42 PM
@Michael –
Unlike others I think it’s a shame that elephant murdering Go Daddy is sponsoring the plugin.Ok … let’s take a look at why GoDaddy would decide to get into the plugin game.
Maybe because they hate Freedom, and want to choke off all that Free Expression people are doing on the Internet? Why might they want to do that? Perhaps because they are in the business of selling connection to and bandwidth for unfettered expression on the Internet … and have an inexplicable need to damage their own interests?
Put into plain words, that doesn’t sound too likely.
How about, GoDaddy is in the web-hosting business and (uh-oh), they monitor the loads their clients are subjecting their servers to; they see people putting these WordPress websites online, loading them to the gunwales with keen plugins (until, literally, folks at home can see their blog slowing the entire GoDaddy server-farm to a crawl) … and they figure that maybe by handing out tools for measuring the loads imposed by plugins, and fostering an interest in the topic of load-monitoring, they might contribute to … yeah, their own interests as a web server rental business.
Just spelled right out like that, it sounds kind of obvious.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 16, 2012 @ 9:16 AM
Also, what do you think of the number for “Number of plugin function calls: 4,835 average“. Does that seem like a lot to you?
Every value in the WPTavern Advanced Metrics reports is labeled “avg.“. So is every value for my home-box server … tho my base performance numbers are 10-20 times slower.
Curiously, my Theme Load Time pushes 10 times faster (2011 Child w Dark out-call). My Number of Plugin Function Calls is 1/4th. I suspect my plugin inventory is mostly pretty low-ball stuff, compared to what WPTavern is running.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 15, 2012 @ 11:10 PM
I was curious whether there would be any issues running it on a localhost, but there weren’t.
I have 29 plugins on at the moment. P3 itself took almost half the runtime.
It is [ahem] instructive to compare my ‘dirt-bag’ desktop localhost server performance numbers to the professional server resources that WPTavern runs on. I had been wondering if it might be worth buying a new if modest-end server-configured box … looks like it’s time to move on to piggy-bank assault & battery operations now.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 15, 2012 @ 10:16 PM
Shopp Releases Version 1.2 Of Their E-Commerce Plugin
The role that the author of this post, “Jeffro” plays, by contacting 3rd-party providers of WordPress products & services (and other persons & entities of interest in the WP scene) is valuable to us, and a significant ‘expense’ for him.
I generally do not comment on Jeffro’s commercial product reviews, because I am mainly focused on the volunteer resources, and don’t delve much into this ancillary element of WordPress. (Yes, I think it is more ancillary than primary.)
Going on the previous comment by “rgregory”, it is possible that Jeffro’s product-piece here will prove to contain flaws. It is this possibility I’d like to touch on here.
In certain contexts/ways, when a commercial shop sees Mr. Jeffro coming, their awareness of his high-profile role in communicating with the wider WP community (and the “unique” link to his posts, on every installed WP Administration Dashboard out there…), can actually make it less likely that he will come away with the key information that will be of greatest interest & use to his readers. It could even turn out this way sometimes, with no actual villain anywhere in the story.
Jeffro does not deploy an advance staff for interviews, does not have a Research Department who spend a week before he meets with people or Companies. He is a One-Man newspaper, who must also tend his ‘real’ life … and when he’s lucky, an actual paying job.
So … I just want to note that I and others get a lot from WPTavern, that Jeffro’s efforts are of considerable interest & use … and that if on occasion the couple paragraphs he condenses an interview into miss something kinda crucial, or that he is a de facto ‘VIP’ of sorts who may be the recipient of a wee bit o’ spin now & then … I am neither shocked nor dismayed. :-)
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 14, 2012 @ 12:18 PM
Jane consciously & deliberately highlights that the daily baking chores will give her an ‘enforced’ breather from her official duties in cyberspace.
It’s common for many who are either professionally engaged with computers, or who are making high levels of personal, unrecognized effort to learn & create, to slip into the habit of spending too little time in the real world, doing real things.
Jane offers a good example for all, to keep one foot on solid earth … to develop one of our ‘humble’ interests & connections, and give a piece of ourselves to it. Good on her.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 13, 2012 @ 12:11 PM
Ian Stewarts Predictions On WordPress Themes For 2012
@Paying thePriceTwice – Most of the great unwashed should start their first theme-hunts in WordPress’ own Free Themes Directory.
As of this evening, 1,475 theme-titles are listed there, and have been downloaded more than 43 million times. Obviously, the word is already out.
‘Frameworks’ offer advanced capability & features, at the price of added code-layers. They are not the right place for most of us to start learning.
The key idea of themes, is that one can change themes and all the website stuff is still there, still the same. There is no penalty for starting with a ‘basic’ theme, and then ‘refining’ our choice of theme as we go. (Just steer clear of unusual customizations.) It is easy to have several or several dozen themes installed, switching among them, learning the ropes. They’re free; take one – take 10 or 63!
Most of us are better-served to look through the free themes at WordPress, choosing from those that seem to ‘speak’ to our own ‘style’, and hunting for those that are made by ‘learners’ or ‘hobbyists’, themselves. Most of us will learn better from another student a little ahead of ourselves, than from a Professor speaking mainly to fellow professors.
Beware of extremely simplified themes, such as Sandbox. These projects often assume a level of insight into theme-principles & code-mechanics that beginners and the soap-averse do not have.
That the Great Unwashed are once again a driving force in society, does not mean that they are a homogenous mass. They assuredly are not, and the longer their tenure, the more differentiated they will become. Among the masses are those with aptitude, motivation and other resources, which in some cases will lead to significant abilities in persons & social scenes that are quite separate from the official WordPress community.
The prospects appear promising, for WordPress & the Great Unwashed. :)
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 11, 2012 @ 10:25 PM
@BJ Johnson – Knowledge & ability are empowering, even in the era of Facebook & Twitter. That, ‘The Pen is Mightier than the Sword’, does imply an element of or potential for ‘weaponization’.
As developers talk to developers about the standards that should be applied to themes intended for general (non-developer) audiences, I wanted to remind that it’s millions of folks looking for a theme for sites that run the gamut of 100s of separate classes of use & function.
‘Trimmed’-choice themes will be great for some uses, and for sure this category could stand with some enlightened attention. But Atahualpa & Co. has cleared a wide path through impenetrable jungle for an awful lot of well-pleased WordPress tyros, and I can’t sign on to now deprecate the high-option option, just because we have awakened to the value of well-made low-option theme-strategies, as well.
WalMart is huge today, because of what the population is today, and WordPress’ ‘customers’ are mostly the same as theirs.
Thanks for the good points & feedback!
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 11, 2012 @ 9:17 PM
However, the monkey wrench thrown into the equation is that themes are subjective and what looks great to one person may look like crap to someone else.
New websites going up on the Web were recently running over 20% WordPress.
Unless the Laws of the Universe have changed, statistically virtually of all of those new WP installs are trash. Throw-aways. And the more successful WordPress becomes, the more overwhelmingly it is dominated by the great unwashed … their view-points, their practices. Them.
It’s the profound tragedy of Democracy [sic]. From the perspective of the Responsible, Prepared and Expert Citizen, the voters as a whole have no business exercising the ballot franchise. /sarc
A community of a few hundred or thousand dedicated WordPress experts becomes less influential in determining the nature & policies of the product, as it is increasingly taken for granted by the masses. It becomes more theirs, and less ours.
WordPress is rightfully proud to itemize it’s Who’s-Who users … but it is the colossal installed base of casual, inexpert and transient dabblers, who really count.
It’s the Great Unwashed who must be catered for, firstly. Big-name websites running WordPress have their own in-house people to take care of things. Large frogs in small ponds can readily use their familiarity with the range of available tools, to adapt off-the-shelf pieces to whatever clientele they have.
It is the millions of web-serfs & peons, though, who make by far-and-away the overwhelming majority of all WordPress deployment and adaptation decisions, and they use their negligible abilities and scant familiarity to do so.
Websites or web-activities for MANY are simply fashion statements that have a lifetime of a season or two.
WordPress theme offerings must include plenty of unseemly stuff. In fact, per the real client-base, it should be mostly … nothing a self-respecting developer or informed user wants to be associated with.
It’s the ‘dirt’ in the theme-inventory, that will grow WordPress.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 11, 2012 @ 3:43 PM
Captial P Dangit Filter Does Not Apply To Crossword Puzzles
The problem facing WordPress & Co. in making an issue out of the capitalization of the “p” in WordPress, is that the practice of making up idiosyncratically (weirdly) constructed names has already relegated itself to ‘whatever’ status. You can’t look suave & in-control by making up a non-standard name and then getting pissy when people ignore how ‘special’ your name is, because we are swamped with corny-ass names, and have learned to ignore them.
Not that WordPress is an egregious example, because it isn’t, but because it is ‘yet-another’ flaky name that wants the Mountain to come to Mohamed.
In the USSR, the saying was; “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.”
In the full-of-yerself software & Web name-game, “They pretend to be innovative, and we pretend to give a shit.”
Is that really a worthwhile dynamic to encourage/foster? … that offers much to gain?
==========There are alternative ways to account for the Capital P Dangit initiative. It may not be simply a matter of petulance & peeve. If one or another of the more-significant (more-mature) motivations are at work, than fine & good.
However, I am not privy to any of the potentially redeeming subterfuges, and must in the absence of evidence assume that the simplest & most-obvious explanation for Cap-P is the most likely.
And that has to be, that Capital P Dangit is snit-ware. A sign of intemperance, sensitivity to aggravation, and a willingness/desire to be distracted from far more vital & relevant things, and instead take satisfaction in … glaring at/dominating the dog.
It’s like wetting your pants. There is an immediate sensation of relief from pressure, the glow of spreading warmth, and satisfaction in decisiveness. However, the downside is that one’s cloths are now wet, he smells suspicious, is getting cold, and looks foolish.
Capital P Dangit – taken at face value – casts a slight shadow over my (generally very high) confidence in the condition & capability of WordPress’ leadership. “Hmm”.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On February 11, 2012 @ 10:46 AM
WordPress Foundation To Foot The Bill For Meetup.com Organizer Dues
@Anonymouse -
Until the foundation ceases to be a dictatorship for life then I’m afraid I, like many others, will continue to be wary of it and its motives.I ask out of genuine concern…
Frustrations are understandable, but ‘giving in’ to them can be expensive.
One can have ‘genuine concern’, yet still indulge in unfortunate rhetoric. Often though, the rest of us must first deal with the adverse elements of the ill-considered rhetoric, while the positive elements in one’s view must take a back seat.
Being nasty usually trumps being concerned.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On January 31, 2012 @ 10:05 AM
I was going to pass on this post, since I am not involved with WordPress Meetup.
In her announcement, Ms. Wells gives a clear-enough peek at the Meetup future;
Over time, we’ll be talking to organizers and looking at what other expenses we can absorb and what other support we can provide to local groups. For now, we’re starting with the organizer dues.
With the “WordPress” moniker for the subdomain name on Meetup, how was this ever NOT going to be brand-compliant with the front office?
The vast, overwhelming part of the greater overall WordPress community & ‘world’, consists of a pristine Great Unwashed. Statistically, hardly any WP-users are actually involved with anything even semi-quasi-officially WordPress.
WordPress ‘horns in’ on a mere microscopic slice of the WordPress scene. Partly, it would be too big a job, to go Borg on it. Partly it really ‘works’, to let it be organic. Like compost … which is the base of the whole Biosphere. Humble, but effective.
Those who want/prefer to be independent … join the crowd. Easily 99.99% of us are, have been, and will remain so.
Anything branded as “WordPress” has to be kept on-message, and that message has to be centrally-managed.
The real action is on the outside.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On January 30, 2012 @ 7:21 PM
Uncensoring The Web With RePress
@Greenhost -
We think that there are better ways to ensure honest pay for honest work then blocking websites: not only a dumb solution but also highly ineffective as this plug-in shows.Aiding & abetting a criminal activity is of course a crime, itself.
To author code that “breaks” a high court ruling, is not an argument against that legal judgement.
To imply that each of us can decide independently what constitutes honest pay for others’ efforts, or how they will be compensated for use of their property, is not only ethically & morally suspect, it is a fair definition of anarchy.
The copyright laws that Greenhost and RePress aim to undermine, are the same laws on which Open Source licenses are based. Without effective copyright protection, persons & nations can ignore the provisions of the GPL.
Greenhost’s logic can be used to rip off Open Source, far more easily than it can be used to rip off musicians or the entertainment industry.
Our laws are imperfect, but not so much that wrecking them will help. Society is imperfect, but not so much that we need a Revolution.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On January 31, 2012 @ 12:46 PM
@OnlineDesign – I did not at all mean that you were embracing ill-advised foolishness … just riffing off your comment to put the spotlight on what strikes me as our collective weak & exposed flank.
Thanks. :)
» Posted By Ted Clayton On January 30, 2012 @ 8:56 PM
And don’t forget all the outlaws in China and Iran…
Excellent points, Brian! … Pretty tough for China to take our Open Source copyrights seriously, when they watch us not only celebrate piracy, but install tools on our own websites to run the pirate operation, ourselves.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On January 30, 2012 @ 8:50 PM
@OnlineDesign -
Okayyy – all you who are actually following this important discussion – make sure you have read the post at the top of the page, and are clear on what this is about … and what it’s not directly about. :)
To review quickly, this is about a WordPress plugin that you install to make your site become a proxy server, expressly to enable Piratebay to continue illegal operations, clandestinely.
Now I will go ahead and touch on what this post is NOT actually about, but about which many are of course concerned – SOPA/PIPA. We did good, agitating against this bad legislation. It was harmful to the Intenet … it seems possible to me, it may have been designed & intended to be so.
But if we now embrace tools designed & intended to subvert lawful court orders (to halt Piratebay’s illegal activity), that is the wrong response to SOPA/PIPA, and those other Bills that are coming down the pipeline behind it.
Indeed, doing this makes us the same as those Occupy Oakland people who we see going bonkers on the Law and tearing up the town. Taking their anger out, not on Wall Street and Fat Cats, but on regular people and local communities.
I’m sympathetic to the principles behind Occupy, but their behavior couldn’t be a bigger threat their own cause, if it was designed by undercover agents who’s job it is to ensure that their Movement dies in infancy.
If you’re good with WordPress & the Internet ending up on the Occupy road … if you’re cool with handing major ammunition to those who want SOPA/PIPA (and a puny Internet) … then go to the top of this page and click on that plugin.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On January 30, 2012 @ 8:40 PM
«« Back To Stats PageThe threat that Piratebay, Megaupload etc pose to commercial interests (copyright theft) is not that big a deal to me on the personal level (even though I recognize it as “wrong”), and I don’t see where it is that much of an objective threat to the commercial sectors they’re ripping off, either.
Where this gets more worrisome, is that when Congress etc watches us commit our talent & effort to building defenses to protect lawbreaking activities, sees us glamorizing & lionizing an aggressive anti-business deployment of the Internet to attack perfectly legal & ordinary commercial activity … we are allowing & encouraging a serious threat to our own interests. Things we care about and are excited about, are being exposed to increasing risk.
Congress progressively gains greater power & ability to take steps to ‘collar’ the Internet, as the public watches these clever maneuvers – at our initiative – to enable Piratebay etc to continue engaging in lawbreaking. We lose public support. Citizens & voters steadily come to see the problem as rooted in the Internet, and even the Open Source culture, per se.
We look more & more like Occupy Zuccotti, with a haircut and underarm deodorant.
WordPress, and various communities built on the open & free Internet, should publicly speak out against the protection of outlaws. Otherwise, we are handing a ever more-menacing club to interests & powers, who will use it against us.
» Posted By Ted Clayton On January 28, 2012 @ 4:45 PM