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WPTavern Watering Hole Still Open For Business

WPTavern Watering Hole Still Open For Business

By Jeffro on January 24, 2012

This is just a friendly reminder that the WPTavern watering hole also known as the forum, is still open for business. I have kept the forums maintained over the past few weeks and last night, I updated everything to the current version as well as cleaned up a couple of different spots. While the forum is not as active as it was two years ago, there are still new members registering to the forum and every now and then, a good discussion will pop up. If you are looking for a place to hang out and talk WordPress without the fear of being shunned into oblivion, this is the place to do it. I highly encourage you to browse through the archive of the forum as a number of interesting conversations have taken place over the past two years. The archive is a little bit like a WordPress museum.

WPTavern Forum

Registration is free as are the drinks. If you take this opportunity to register, be sure to answer the anti spam question during registration which asks, “Why would you like to join this forum?“. I’m looking for a short response that doesn’t look like spam. Once you register, consider leaving a message in the Tavern chat box located near the top of the forum. Or, introduce yourself to the community via the Forum Lobby.

If you’re already a member of the forum, stop by and check-in. Let us know what you’ve been up to.

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Theme Repository, EyeTracking And Free Themes

Theme Repository, EyeTracking And Free Themes

By Jeffro on May 21, 2009

tavernlogoDespite the Tavern forum being located on the same domain as the site as well as looking the same, the forum seems to be a different world when compared to the site. For instance, there are quite a few people in the forum who are active but don’t comment on the blog and vice versa. I think the major reason for this difference is that the forum provides an avenue for YOU to start discussions while almost everything on the blog is initiated by me. At any rate, here is what is happening around the forum.

Standard Theme Hook Names – As mentioned in a previous article, Dan Cole is trying to figure out if Standardizing the names of theme hooks would be a good idea. If so, what would those names be?

WordPress theme Repository – This has turned into two threads in one. Ryan Hellyer asks that because WordPress 2.8 will have a built in theme installer if that will lead to higher quality themes in the repository. Further into the conversation, we find out thanks to Otto what information is sent to api.wordpress.org when as it relates to checking for updates to an installed theme. I remember when WordPress 2.3 was released which first provided plugin/core update notifications and people started getting worried because they didn’t know how much or what data was being sent back to WordPress.

Eyetracking Provides Inside Look – Eyetrack 3 was released and the official website conducted an interesting survey of 46 people with the top major news sites on the web to figure out homepage layout effectiveness, the effect blurbs have on the homepage compared to headlines., when is multimedia appropriate, and a bunch of other useful data.

Free Themes – Chip Bennett asks if there would be any interest in packaging up his theme and putting it on the repository. The overall conclusion is that the more themes the better. For example, Chip may have accomplished something in his theme that someone else wants to do but can’t because they don’t have access to the code.

Abandoned Themes – Our resident WPMU guru Andrea seems to have a little project on her hands involving abandoned themes on the WordPress Theme Repository.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due – After reading into Andrea’s project, I thought about how cool it would be to take a few outdated themes on the repository and revamp them to make them compatible with the latest version of WordPress. But, how would I give credit to the original authors of the theme? Thanks to some great people in the community, I’m on my way to finding out.

Join In The Fun

As of this post being published, there are 468 threads, 3,818 posts, 213 members, and 102 active members. Awesome stats and we just keep trucking along. I want to thank those who routinely stop by the forums to share their knowledge or opinions on various subjects. Without you, the forum would simply grind away. If you’re not a member, signup and get involved in the conversations.

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Screenshot of Woopra stats takin on May 8th

We Keep Knocking Them Down

By Jeffro on May 8, 2009

wpthappyhour

Welcome to the Friday Happy Hour. Each Friday, this post will provide a summary of what is going on within the WordPress Tavern Community. I haven’t done of these in awhile so lets see if I’m a bit rusty.

From The Forum:

The forum this week has been rather active thanks in large part to a thread I started which highlighted the fact that the guidelines for the WordPress Theme repository in as far as themes which had advertising for non-gpl themes were not being accepted were being enforced. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out how that thread went. If you want to chime in, you can view it here.

One Peeved Off Theme Maker

Ryan started a thread earlier this week asking if we had any sites hosted on WordPress.com. When you think about $15 year or so for domain mapping and $30 for no-ads, that’s a pretty sweet deal for most of what you would need to publish content on the web.

Why Use WordPress.com

How do you know when you’re a WordPress Addict? Read the posts on the following thread to find out if you meet the criteria.

You Know You Are A WP Addict When…

Last but not least, Conorp published a thread which linked to a great article by Ozh on how to find a job with Twitter. I find Twitter to be a great place to not only help people, but to receive help as well. By the way, look at this new WordPress domain that has a pretty parking page on it. WPHire.com

Find A WordPress Job With Twitter

Accomplishments:

Oh boy, where do I begin. Since the site launched officially in March, the sites traffic has gone up, not down. RSS subscriptions continue to increase, the content keeps flowing in from not only myself, but from awesome members of the community. So instead of telling you what’s happening, I’ll try to let the images speak for themselves.

Screenshot of Woopra stats takin on May 8th

Screenshot of Woopra stats takin on May 8th

Feedburner Stats

Feedburner Stats

I have Woopra on for quite a long time each day checking to see who is on the site in real-time. Often, I’ll see you publish the comment in which I’ll be able to immediately respond. That is one of the beauties of Woopra. Aside from that though, I’ve discovered that the people who are finding this site are sticking around. They are coming back multiple times per week and they are diving deep into the site. For example, I see people all the time clicking on categories to view posts or one thing I see alot of people doing is clicking on related posts which shows up in the sidebar. All are great to see if you’re a webmaster.

I would like to take this opportunity to give special thanks to Dan Cole for writing his guest post which compared three of the most popular theme frameworks. That thing has performed amazingly well and continues to do so to this day.

While recently this site has received quite a bit of traffic from Stumble Upon, the majority of social traffic comes from Twitter which is no surprise to me. But I want to thank all of you who follow the WPTavern account on twitter and for ReTweeting me every now and then. It’s pretty awesome to see a tweet spread like wildfire.

Other News And Tidbits:

So far, I’ve only had three advertisers step up to the plate to purchase advertising on the site. On the side, a few people have donated as well. If you’re interested in being in front of a passionate audience of WordPress faithful, now is a great time to make the ad buy as rates are anywhere from $25.00 – $30.00 which is pretty darn affordable if you look at the rates across the board. If you’re interested in advertising on WPTavern, check out the Advertising page to get stated.

If you don’t want to advertise but would still like to show your support through a monetary donation, you can visit the Tavern Tip Jar where any donations which are $10.00 or more you get to display a URL of your choosing on that page. Granted, it has to be safe for work.

Also, at some point or another, I will install the TDO Mini Forms plugin so it will be easier to submit guests posts to the Tavern. I’m hoping to have that installed by the end of this weekend. I’m really interested in any guest posts regarding BuddyPress, bbPress, or WordPress MU.

Conclusion:

That’s going to wrap it up for this weeks edition of the Friday Happy Hour. It’s been a busy time around these parts and I’m enjoying every minute of it. Stick around because you’ll never know what will be published next. Remember the drinks, are always on the house.

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Moving Domains, Beta Testers And More

Moving Domains, Beta Testers And More

By Jeffro on April 13, 2009

I haven’t published one of these posts in awhile so without further adieu, lets see what’s been happening on the forum as of late.

Checklist for Moving Domains -I’m thinking of moving everything from jeffro2pt0.com to jeffc.me. Instead of looking up all of the different guides to move the site, I’m looking to see what you would do in my situation.

Comment Filter Beta Testers Needed – Will Anderson over the Easter holiday took the time to create a plugin based on a request I had and some other feedback. Will needs some beta testers to try out the plugin.

Media System Revamped – While we have discussed the media system revamp on the site, we have also discussed it in the forum. Chime in if you can.

TalkPress – Conorp was the first to get this ball rolling and since then, we’ve discussed whether or not hosting forums is a viable business and who would do such a thing.

Long Term Consequences – Ever stop to think about what the long term effects from choosing one theme over another? This thread highlights things you should think about before deciding to go with a particular theme.

That about wraps up this edition of from the forum. Feel free to sign up and be part of the conversation instead of lurking. I don’t mind lurkers but trust me, it’s much more fun to participate in the discussions rather than read them from afar. We currently have 155 members, help us reach our Goal for the end of May at 200 registered members.

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Seven Days To Get Things Right

Seven Days To Get Things Right

By Jeffro on February 11, 2009

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that next week, I will be offline for the most part as I take this opportunity to Reformat my PC as well as my Notebook. It’s been a longtime coming and I need to get it done now rather than later.

Also, I need this week to refocus. January was a hell of a month for me and I’m so happy to see WPTavern succeeding right out of the gate. However, there are a number of things I must do that requires my full attention. It’s hard to provide that attention when I’m worrying about the next episode of WordPress Weekly or my pre-recorded segments that I do or the next episode of Perfcast etc.

You can read more information about my plans for next week here in the forum.

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