Andrew Nacin who is one of the core developers of WordPress has published a post that should have come with a package of Tylenol. The post goes into the reasons behind why the terminology within WordPress MU was changed and why it’s created a soup of confusion. I’ve read the post three times in a row and it still hurts my head to try and make sense of it all.
When the merge began, the core developers began to use multisite internally to mean many blogs (well, sites), shortened to “ms” where possible, thus removing the “mu” and “wpmu” prefixes on files and functions.
Surely, we can make this more difficult. And so, just as the UX decision was made to call a blog a site, we decided to call a multisite a network.
So if you’re wondering why things are named the way they are in the merged edition of WordPress MU, give his article a read. Bonus points if you can read it once and not get lost.
Been awhile since we’ve had something to vote on but I’ve finally found a topic where we you can weigh in on one side or the other. Recently, there was a discussion on the WordPress Hackers Mailing list that discussed the idea of changing the blogging nomenclature found within the administration panel of WordPress. The line of thought is that WordPress is constantly being used for more than just blogging but it will never be taken seriously as a powerful CMS until the blog nomenclature is removed in favor for something more generic. As for myself, I’m fine with both sides but I lean slightly more in favor of switching the words to something more generic because by having the word blog splattered everywhere in the backend, it gives the sense that WordPress is only meant for blogging and nothing else. That may have been the case when the project was lifting off the ground but these days, WordPress is powering some pretty hefty sites that blow blogging out of the water. It’s a simple change that I think would have a big impact on the software especially as it relates to perception. What do you think?
Should WordPress Change The Blog Nomenclature Within The Backend?