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Jeff Chandler

Some Orgnizations And WordPress Just Don’t Mix

The days of KevinJohn Gallagher and his company using WordPress are over, according to him. Within the post, Kevin covers a number of reasons as to why WordPress will no longer be used for client projects with the biggest reason being that it’s not a full fledged CMS like some of its rivals. Check out his post for 15 things that WordPress has either no, or severely limited functionality.

For the entrepreneurs/developers out there, I’d think about turning each one of his 15 points into an awesome plugin that excels with that particular functionality and then charging for it. You could become the person that is known for turning WordPress into a ‘proper CMS‘. It would also give you a chance to test out the market to see how much demand there is for those types of plugins.

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98 responses to “Some Orgnizations And WordPress Just Don’t Mix”

  2. As much as it pains me to say it, I agree with a lot of his points to why it’s not a full-fledged CMS.

    One major pain point we have with using WordPress, is version management; both from a code and content perspective.

    WordPress does a horrible job of allowing version control and moving between environments; ie having a staging environment, testing the code, making sure the content looks good, then pushing to a production environment.

    WordPress was and is, largely designed for a single-instance, running on a single box, with not a lot of moving parts. Where that simply isn’t, or at least shouldn’t be, the case in the corporate world.

    Corporations don’t have the luxury of editing code live on a website, or developing a theme, taking down the site, then pushing it up afterwards. It needs to happen seamlessly.

    WordPress has gotten a lot better in the past few years, but it’s still a ways off from where it needs to be for full corporate backing and usage.

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  3. @Jonathan – I completely agree with you and Kevin – WordPress has come a long, long way – and can be considered a CMS at some points, but in no way, shape or form can it be considered a fully functional out of the box CMS. Sure, these plugins would be great and amazing, and I would surely use them – but that being said (as Kevin said) – for certain corporate users WordPress simply isn’t the best option when there are other CMSes that do exactly what users need it to do from the core. :(

    All said and done I still love WordPress and use it every chance I can – when it’s appropriate. Otherwise, until they fix all or most of the points mentioned (and then some!) I can’t promote it to certain business and other users.

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  4. Some of the items in his post simply are not true. “0 project managers” – that would be Jane. “They didn’t test the beta in IE” – also not true.

    The part for having a user moderate comments? Role Management plugin. There’s more plugin I can think of for pretty much every item he said was lacking. That’s kinda the point in WP – if it’s not in core (and if most people won;t use it, it does not need to be) then it’s a plugin.

    eh, if a software no longer meets your needs, there’s no need to hate on it. It is kinda sad to see all the enterprise-usage type people not help out n core and get involved with the direction.

    I was going to suggest an enterprise edition but that term evokes a lot of things counter to the general philosophy so what I mean by that is basically a plugin bundle to add on to WP and a manual for best practises in the enterprise. Seeing a LOT of supposedly enterprise people who know nothing abut have a dev install and pushing to production. (not necessarily this guy).

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  5. Fundamentally, WordPress has failed to make good on the ‘plugin-promise’.

    You cannot fix or enhance WP to resolve KevinJohn’s 15 points, as Jeffro exhorts, because WP in fact cannot run the arbitrary selection of plugins that you will need, to turn it into what you want.

    In theory, WordPress’ strategy to maintain a simplified, small “service” core, and to then add functionalities with plugins, would allow it to be all things to all users. In Theory.

    In reality, you can’t add more than a couple dozen plugins, without begining to notice issues. A (very) few dozen more, and you are engaged in heroics.

    I assumed long ago that at some point a facility to ‘compile’ one’s plugin selections would become part of WordPress, and that … Matt Mulllenweg would then go Super Nova.

    Plugins can only work, in ‘toy’ cases.

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  6. @Ted Clayton – Part of the issue is that plugins are user submitted. Some, not all mind you, are from people who are JUST learning. Those I would not use in Enterprise.

    But you know, if I were a dev in enterprise, I would know how to code and I would either fix those plugins I needed or roll my own.

    For the original author’s needs, he has something highly specific and that requires a lot fo code, a lot of moving parts and hella hardware to boot.

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  7. Plugins can only work, in ‘toy’ cases.

    @Ted Clayton – Wow. I’ve never actually seen a comment before that I disagreed with 100%.

    Toy cases? WordPress can’t run the number of plugins? That’s entirely incorrect. The amazeballs part of WP is that WordPress lets you run (pretty much) any combination of plugins you want. Forums, ecommerce, off-site comments, auto-tweet, whatever. And to the people who need those features, those are certainly not ‘toy’ cases.

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  8. I’d love to see a list of KevinJohn Gallagher’s WordPress contributions.

    Has this guy, or his company, contributed any patches to WP core, or added any plugins to the repository?

    Has this guy, or his company, helped test WordPress during one of its beta or RC releases?

    It’s fine point out flaws for contructive criticism, but what’s been done on their part to help the WordPress community?

    WordPress is FAR from perfect. No secret there. But lots of people seem to forget that it’s an open-source project. Anyone can help make WordPress better, if they feel so inclined.

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  9. @Andrea_R – For sure, the inability of the WP core to run ‘many’ plugins efficiently is only one part of the picture. Any given plugin can generate too much overhead; as you say, they are often ‘learning exercises’ (with all that implies), etc.

    Then, yes, there are people (and businesses & corporations) who’s needs can be met with a ‘modest’ collection of plugins. They just need a couple tweaks, and they’re good to go.

    But that we accept the ‘modest’ qualifier transparently, and arch our eyebrows at someone with 100 plugins … that is a basic ‘clue’.

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  10. It’s a pity Kevinjohn Gallagher didn’t mention which CMS he’ll be switching to. Out of the most popular open source CMSes out there, none of them fulfill all of his requirements out of the box, and I’ll be damned if any of them have such an extensive plugin architecture as WordPress so that they can be made to do so. If he’s switching to a proporietary CMS then that’ll be fun getting it to do what he wants.

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  11. @Ipstenu – I don’t mean to be running WordPress down, or disparaging the millions of WP installations that do what is wanted.

    On typical hardware, one can run 3 or 4 dozen plugins, without getting too-awful bogged down. Experimenters often run 100-150, to study the operation. It can’t be recommended to do that in a production environment.

    To restrict oneself to 30-40 plugins, means to forego a large number of plugin-functionalites that would be valuable, worthwhile enhancements.

    But in the Extend Repository, there are 17,000 plugins … for good reason. There are many 100s of entirely different classes of functionality that … are meeting real demands.

    It is easy to install a new WP, go to Extend and in an hour or two have the new site overloaded with plugins, each of which is selected to do something good & useful. There may well be further enhancements or desired features which cannot practically be selected, because the platform is already excessive burdened.

    That is what ‘toy’ means: the deployment of plugins can only proceed within quite-limited bounds.

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  12. I currently run development for a large hotel chain’s internal employee social site. Stats as of this morning:

    2098 Blog Posts
    184 Pages
    2322 User-submitted Posts
    6044 User-submitted Galleries (not images, galleries of images)
    1090 User-submitted Videos
    32,167 Comments
    35,689 Users

    With the exception of a few custom Widgets and Meta Boxes, the customizations to the site are handled by a handful of custom plugins I developed.

    Needless to say “not a full-fledged CMS” is a pretty inaccurate statement.

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  14. @John Blackbourn – Yeah, I kinda expected him to clue us in to the CMS that resolves WP-frustration. No great surprise he didn’t … the instant he names names, the counter-arguments start pouring in. ;-)

    The beauty of WordPress is that it has so few tables in the backend. When you are in phpMyAdmin looking at around 100 tables for one of those other ‘real’ CMS … the genius of doing it with a handful or two comes into really clear focus.

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  15. @Ted Clayton -we cannot fix lack of common sense. ;) I have a multisite install with somewhere between 60-80 plugins. But they are not all on for every site and also not on a shared host.

    There is not magic number of plugins here – someone can put 10 crappy bloated plugins on their site and crash it. Or my fave if one seo plugin is good, 6 is better, right? Now we can reasonable expect people in Enterprise do not do this. And that’s what we’re talking about here.

    If there’s a few dozen eyeballs on al the code going through multiple checks, on the right hardware, then the actual number of plugins is really irrelevant if they are all needed for functionality.

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  16. @Matt – if you read the previous post in his blog, it clearly states that he used to participate in beta testing, but had to give up because the core team had a different concept of what ‘beta’ meant and too much stuff was getting broken.

    As for the people demanding to know where he has switched his allegiance, I very much hope that in future he’s open to using a variety of tools, rather than simply trying to shoehorn his favourite software into every environment he comes across. It doesn’t sound like the latter approach has been working out that well.

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  17. I was about to say from my experience, the “perfect CMS” is as elusive as the “perfect woman (or man)”. But that will no doubt unintentionally offend someone. :)

    The point is that there is no existing CMS for everyone. I have clients that love it. I also deal with people daily that say “WordPress is not a CMS” even though their needs sometimes fall easily within what WP can do. I would say the only way to get one is to build it yourself – which is my guess as to what KevinJohn Gallagher will be doing.

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  19. @Andrea_R –

    Now we can reasonable expect people in Enterprise do not do this. And that’s what we’re talking about here.

    True – the article is about pro sites … and I’ve been allowing ‘mission-creep’ to drag in wider considerations. The pro folks can reasonably be expected to avoid ‘amateur’ pitfalls.

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  20. @Ted Clayton – The plugin architecture that WordPress employs is, IMO, second to none. To say that, because some people release poorly written plugins, WordPress has bad plugin architecture is like saying laws against homicide suck because murders happen.

    There is no system in the world that can handle an overwhelming amount of crap code. So let’s stop saying WordPress can’t run more than a few dozen plugins just because it can’t run more than a few dozen bad plugins.

    It’s just not true.

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  21. @that girl again –

    I agree that WordPress isn’t the best solution for everything. It’s important to find the right tool for the job.

    That being said, the plugin architecture is pretty flexible. If the functionality doesn’t exist and WordPress is still the best option, do your part and contribute / patch a plugin.

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  24. @Andrea_R –
    Plugins. Every plugin requires dependency on x number of people. You say a plugin for each of the items on the list. His list has 15 items. if each correlates to a plugin that means 15 plugins, each plugin is developed by at least 1 person. That means you have to rely on 15+ different people to release bugfixes for each of the 15 plugins in a timely manner.

    Jane? She is the project manager? Really? k
    Did test in IE? So you mean there weren’t malfunctioning menus in the Beta? Which should have been spotted before it even was a beta?

    @Matt – He shouldn’t have to contribute actual code. This fanboy attitude is just bad manners. Just stop doing it.
    Also the only way to get WP to do what you want from start is to convince the people working for Automattic. And that is in most cases a futile endeavor.

    @darrinb – Lots of content does not a CMS make.

    @John P. Bloch – Did you check Dev4press plugin performance table? Thats plugins written by people the community hold to high standards.

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  26. @Andreas Nurbo – Yes, I did read that post. His results were quite enlightening, really. I admire him for his rigor in benchmarking so many of the various aspects of the WordPress community. Although I have not looked at all of the plugins benchmarked in the post you reference, the ones that I’ve looked at that benchmarked poorly did seem to have generally messy and poorly written codebases.

    I would say the community holds those people in high regard; it’s not really true that they’re held to high standards. This gets at the real problem: there is no review process; essentially, it’s very difficult to actually hold plugin developers to high standards, or any standard at all. This results in a lot of bad code in the same place as some good code.

    I can hold someone in high regard without having any regard for their published code.

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  27. @John P. Bloch –

    To say that, because some people release poorly written plugins, WordPress has bad plugin architecture…

    I don’t think the limitations we see with the number of plugins that can be comfortably used in typical WP websites, is a reflection of a “bad plugin architecture”.

    While it is of course true that poorly-made plugins can cause a variety of problems, these days plugins that are hosted on the WP Extend Repository get at least a perfunctory vetting, and we see individuals ‘out there’ complaining about the amount of time and back & forth they have to invest in order for WordPress Dot Org to agree to host their code.

    The typical WordPress user who gets a bit ‘plugin-happy’, typically selects plugins that are popular, widespread, and among the better-proven titles. These collections tend to be better-behaved than what we find when we get ‘off the beaten path’ and select plugins that have small audiences and sparse update histories.

    Yet, common plugins that mostly observe good protocol, still begin to cause loading that soon ‘warns’ the would-be plugin-enthusiast to desist.

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  29. This article has finally flipped me on the idea of core or “canonical” plugins. 

    I opposed the idea when it was first raised – I believed it meant that, effectively, Automattic and Matt would play the role of king makers in the plugin space, rather than letting developers compete and win on their own merits.

    I now think it’s an idea whose time has come. 

    As David Bissett said, the “perfect CMS” is an illusion. I really *don’t* want the overhead of a document management system and complex workflow or language management system baked into core, even though I service enterprise class vendors with (yes) CMS class implementations, and have at least 1 who would benefit from each of those features (which I’ve had to develop “around”). I came from an “enterprise” CMS world before WordPress and there is never a day when I miss those bloated messes that seem to nothing very well. 

    However, these *are* genuinely important needs that are barriers to entry for some enterprise tier organizations. If you’re well educated about the “greater WordPress community” you’ll be aware of a few plugin solutions which range from worthwhile to barely passable, most of which have questionable support venues (a huge sticking point for large organizations). 

    Products like Gravity Forms have cracked the nut for their niche, but it’s not clear that there’s a viable commercial path for each of these needs. That, and leadership seems philosophically against “commercial plugins”. 

    Canonical plugins could solve this problem, if we have the resources and commitment. Officially endorsed and recognized solutions (as BuddyPress is to social networking) can plug some important holes without creating a bloated core product. I’d bet they would also force WordPress core to be even more extensible and prioritize its API to support the robust needs of things like a multilingual plug-in (take the nav menu system, whose lack of good hooks and API is a serious flaw for things like multilingual). 

    His argument is weaker when addressing non-feature concerns. I still do almost all of my work on Windows (never an issue), and WordPress has made the choice (in my view, correctly) to prioritize pace and modernity over infinite backwards compatibility. 

    Finally, the community should not dismiss anyone simply because they haven’t contributed. Many enterprises whom we should like to see adopt WordPress will never contribute, and nor should they have to (and I say this as someone who has contributed to core, pays a significant core contributor, and contributes significant time to free plugins). 

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  30. @Andreas Nurbo – You’re missing the point.

    “There are plugins out there that do some of this. Document Revisions and Edit Flow are great examples of how plugins are getting there. But frankly it’s not enough. So much of this needs to be driven by, or at least firmly dictated by, the core management team.”

    WP does not aim to solve every use-case within core.

    The purpose of core is to contain the essentials, plus functionality that proves useful to the vast majority of users. The rest is plugin territory.

    The author claims that the right plugins don’t exist to fulfill his requirements. The logical conclusion would be to either (1) find a better solution for the job, or (2) build the plugins, or find someone who can.

    There’s really not much “fanboy” about it.

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  31. Keep the core clean. Those 15 features Kevin thinks are missing from WordPress are exactly that, features that HE thinks are missing.

    Does he also think that everyone should be driving Ferraris? You know, because those cars are faster, sound better and are better looking? The bottom line is everyone has different needs.

    The amazing thing about WordPress is that it has great APIs that allow you to do virtually anything with it if you’re willing to spend the time to extend and build upon it.

    In any case, what’s the alternative? You use a monstrosity of a CMS like Drupal/Joomla or you spend a few years rolling your own?

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  33. Putting aside the OP’s individual complaints, I see his main issue being that WP is straddling the line between blogging platform and CMS. It handles blogging just fine, and has enough flexibility to handle much of a “full” CMS requirement set. That is, until you get into the larger scale enterprise scope which often requires the things he talks about (document and version control, etc). But do the vast majority of WP users (or devs, for that matter) want that? Doubtful. Should it be part of core? Absolutely not.

    The plugin framework does allow you to do just about anything, for good or for bad. I’ve seen plenty of plugins that handle one task very well, however menial, and leave it at that. Where the problems come in are when they try to do a lot of things, and they end up with too many half-completed ideas and greater chance for conflict.

    As for his “I can’t / won’t recommend WP anymore” statement, he can’t see the forest through the trees. If WP isn’t the right fit, then fine. Regardless of the task at hand, there is rarely one single tool to handle every case. Certain tools are build for smaller items, some are built strictly for scale. That’s how tools work, and why there are more than one. Hell, I have a 24 piece screwdriver set, and at one point I’ve needed each one.

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  34. Dear mr Gallagher,

    Please let me know when you found an open source cms that supports the functionallity that you mention in your post. And please, make sure it’s user interface is dummy proof so all customers can work with it without 3 weeks of fulltime study..

    Please let me know! So I can get stinking rich in Q1 of 2012!!!
    Because every company wants a cms like that!

    Thanks in advance!
    Best regards,

    Bas

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  39. The only thing that fixes any of these issues is committed labor. “They” are us, let’s not forget that. There is no shortage of opinions, there’s a shortage of quality and committed laborers that are willing to put in the time and effort to complete tasks and create v2’s and beyond.

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  43. Never heard of KevinJohn before, and I really don’t know why all the ruckus over one guy’s post?

    He does know he could’ve written all those 15 points as plugins and showed all of us a thing or two? Anyway…sad to see you go bud. Take care.

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  44. Who/what is Kevinjohn Gallagher? Profile, Open Source Scotland:

    Programme Manager at R/GA
    Senior Project Manager at Fortune Cookie
    Head of Delivery at Pure Web Brilliant
    Solution Architect / Consultant at Heriot-Watt University
    Solution Architect at Whitespace
    Integration Consultant at Emap
    Senior Project Manager at Endemol
    Head of Delivery at 2m2r
    Project Director at Fullsix
    Programme Manager at WPP
    Project Director at Them London
    Head of Development at T101
    Project Manager at AOL
    Director at See The future of .com
    Specialist .Net UI Developer at Microsoft
    Developer at AKQA
    Information Architect at Sequence
    Devleoper at Technophobia Ltd
    Creative Technologist at LBi
    Information Architect at Scottish Natural Heritage
    UX Consultant at Edinburgh Napier University
    Senior Project Manager at Cisco Systems
    UX / developer at Bigmouthmedia
    Technical Project Manager at Scottish Executive
    Multimedia Strategist at Equator
    Senior Project Manager at Its-Interactive
    Digital Strategy Manager at 2001online.net
    Data Transformation Consultant at NCR Corporation
    New Media Manager at Beechwood
    New Process Manager / PSO at Standard Life
    Junior Interactive Manager at Arcas
    Flash / ASP Consultant at BlackiD Solutions
    Web Developer at Web Concepts

    Each of the affiliations listed links to a separate profile for the entity.

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  45. @Emil @Hyder

    I haven’t heard of KevinJohn before either that I can remember, but the article outside of the WP circles got a lot of quick exposure (was #1 on Hacker News) hence why I think some felt the need to give it more than some passing attention. Also I think some people always get tired of the “WordPress should never be used as a CMS” argument and wanted to vent. And admittingly KevinJohn did have some valid discussion points.

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  46. @Ted Clayton

    Good find, and although i can’t decide to be impressed or puzzled on the long list of positions that only lasted a few months (consulting gigs I assume) overall still doesn’t change my opinion or feelings about the writer of the post. But again, good find.

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  47. @David Bisset – Unfortunately, the link to the original Gallagher dissertation – and the rest of his site too – is not responding this morning.

    But I & others did prowl around on his stuff yesterday … and the strong impression is that he is an actual “businessman”, running a shop that takes jobs. That may account for the long list of gigs.

    Gallagher’s basic lament, in fact, is that his employees have been giving him negative feedback about the tasks they are assigned, to make WordPress products for clients.

    Kevinjohn, it appears, rides herd on a crew of developers.

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  51. @Andreas Nurbo – Thanks! Tonight I will try to have a listen to the 40 minute recording. It can be downloaded as an MP3, which is a help on my low-band.

    But Gallagher does seem quite interesting. He joins in on the ‘sarcasm game’ more than I like to have to immerse myself in (and I normally do not listen to prolonged recordings) … but for example he posts a rebuttal to previous ‘questioning’, and to ‘Kool-Aide enthusiasm’ more generally. [His site is now back online.]

    Again, KJG gets a bit more wound up with his message (reflecting/matching those he critiques for the same over-indulgence) than I really like to wade through … but the guy is a stark contrast to the sycophant problem, and he tables some weighty points.

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  53. @Hyder –

    I guess Jeff summed it up in the post title quite eloquently, some organizations and WordPress just don’t mix.

    For sure. Tool-users know the old saying, “The right tool for the job”.

    I like exploring WordPress’ potential in CMS roles, but it entails looking at ‘the data’ in a way that works within WP’ limits. For others, or for other techniques, WP would be simply the wrong tool.

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  58. @Emil – There are different ‘business models’, and this ‘hired gun’ role that KevinJohn Gallagher fills won’t suit everyone.

    However, in order to be able to play this role, KJG (and the people he employs) must possess a high level of training, experience & ability. I believe the expertise he has demonstrated with this inventory of professional tasks, qualifies him to lodge commentary on WordPress.

    We don’t need to become KJG groupies; we can winnow & filter his remarks. But he does appear to have the web-dev acumen to offer valuable insight.

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  59. @Ted Clayton – If someone possesses skills like that why not use them towards the improvements?

    If I knew how to customize my truck, (Pimp My Ride kind of thing) would I do it and get it done, or call Benz Headquarters and tell them that I am no longer willing to drive their product because the truck they made is no longer satisfying my needs?

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  60. @Emil –

    If someone possesses skills like that why not use them towards the improvements?

    We are often reminded, that there are different ways to contribute. “As many ways as there are people willing to pitch in!” Each according to her ability & resources.

    Personally, I am more like you. I’d rather do things myself … or more specifically, candidly, I lack some of the key traits & skills that make for a good team-leader. To be the Boss, the Manager, is difficult for me.

    That’s what this KevinJohn guy does. His company has a stable of hired developers. KJG accepts ‘jobs’ from clients, and hands them to his people to implement.

    He himself notes the challenge of being the person who makes decisions about others, in the original post, saying:

    I rarely claim to be a good boss, and I rarely actually manage to do whats right…

    Yeah … it’s easier to pimp our own ride, than direct a shop of people to pimp rides.

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  66. @Emil (and @Andreas Nurbo) – I think the point is ‘We’re not the boss of WP so we’re at their behest.’ Which … Okay, so what?

    You’re not the boss of Microsoft, Linux or Apple, but you use their products. You sure don’t direct their designs. Heck, my office is a MAJOR power user for a product (we’re the flagship example) and we still argue with the vendor all the time because they don’t want to do something we need. (I back the vendor in that fully, by the way – we are not the boss of them, and they should be able to decide what they support.)

    That you can customize them to suit your needs is a selling point, most of the time.

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  68. I didn’t really want to respond to this, but there’s quite a few inaccuracies flying around, and I wanted to clear them up. As always, i’m available on e-mail if anyone wants to talk to me, rather than about me.

    The days of KevinJohn Gallagher and his company using WordPress are over

    Ok, so the opening sentence is wrong. I, personally, will continue to use WordPress. My company won’t.

    Every company, if not individual, should use the best tools are their disposal for the job they have to do. WordPress just doesn’t meet that criteria for OUR clients anymore. It’s changed, we’ve changed, our clients have changed. The folks I worked with, just really didn’t like working with WordPress anymore, and neither did many of our clients.

    I’d think about turning each one of his 15 points into an awesome plugin that excels with that particular functionality and then charging for it.

    Jeff, I love your optimism. The reality is though, as I’ve said in my post, that some of these are so fundamental that they NEED to be driven by the core in order to be sustainable. Far too many of the issues I raised are architectural rather than features. “There’s an app for that” mentality isn’t going to cut it.

    And in fairness, WordPress the blogging platform, or WordPress the “blogging+” platform, doesn’t need many or these features to survive and grow. And thats cool. I’m sure Distraction Free Writing is very important in a CMS. Personally, I use Word ;)

    @Lindsey –

    All said and done I still love WordPress and use it every chance I can – when it’s appropriate. Otherwise, until they fix all or most of the points mentioned (and then some!) I can’t promote it to certain business and other users.

    Bingo. I love WordPress too. I’m not being down on it. It’s great at what it does.

    @Andrea_R –

    Some of the items in his post simply are not true. “0 project managers” – that would be Jane. “They didn’t test the beta in IE” – also not true.

    Ok, so I’m calling Kool-Aid drinking or BullSh*t here.

    Lets talk specifics. Jane is awesome, but last year Jane was Head of UX, Head of Project Management, Head of Release Management, Head of Community Management, Head of WP.org, Head of WordCamps, Head of the WP Foundation, Head of User Engagement, Head of Charity, Head of Money in WPF, Head of WCCentral, Head of… etc.

    Anytime there’s a job that isn’t covered by the WP team, it’s suddenly “Jane does that”.

    Oh, and if this image ( http://t.co/mVdB3i7I ) is an Agile Development project plan, then Jane’s not a Project Manager. Because I’m considering digging a grave in my back garden just to turn in it.

    And Andrea, we’ve had Core Team members, and people paid for by Matt on this very website tell us that the beta WAS NOT tested on IE7 because the plan was to drop support for IE7, but then they changed their minds; but never went back to test it. So I’m only repeating what we’re told by Otto. I’ve also raised this with Nacin and MarkJaquith on Twitter, who both joked that we should just use a different browser.

    Additionally, Jane blogged about the UAT that she did before the BETA was considered ready. Everyone used a Mac, Everyone used FireFox/Chrome. Every person.

    I’m only quoting what the core team say.

    The part for having a user moderate comments? Role Management plugin.

    No No No. Role Management plug-ins dont make any difference because IN THE CORE, without a filter to overwrite, in order to mark a comment as spam you need to ALSO have the capability to edit posts. It’s hard coded.

    Yes, with a plug-in I can give someone the capability to moderate comments, but the WordPress core ignores the action taken if the user doesn’t also have the capability to edit posts.

    It’s shit like this that causes issues. Things like that don’t cause issues if you’re blogging or a small company. We’ve been consulting with 1 company that receives roughly 2000 non-spam comments a day, and about 5-600 comments that it deems inappropriate. 3-5 volunteers work on it, and I live in fear of one of them having a bad day and changing the homepage – I have a horror story about that if you want to hear it offline (just e-mail me, it’s funny, and I promise you’ll laugh).

    If anything, it’s a great example of how WordPress doesn’t really scale. Can you make it scale technically? Sure. But People and Process wise? It gets very difficult once you get past 10 people.

    It is kinda sad to see all the enterprise-usage type people not help out n core and get involved with the direction.

    Respectfully, I’ve been talking about how to change this for years. I’ve offered my help countless times, spoken about the pain points, and offered solutions. I’ve been saying these things and giving PoCs for years, on sites like this, on my website, and at WordCamps and WordUps.

    But again, when Core Team members stand infront of a WordPress gathering and say “Don’t listen to the Vocal Minority, even if they’re right” it’s hard for us to help. The attitude is, You’re with us or against us. Other viewpoints are not welcome.

    Jeff and I have been over this for a long time.

    @ DarrinB

    2098 Blog Posts
    184 Pages
    2322 User-submitted Posts
    6044 User-submitted Galleries (not images, galleries of images)
    1090 User-submitted Videos
    32,167 Comments
    35,689 Users

    Ah, so you run a small website then.
    One of our blogs (just a blog) that we consult with has over 5million approved (non-spam) comments. 32,000 comments, dude, we call that December.

    One of Education Installs has about 8k pages. (and for the record, the permalink updates by Otto in 3.3 make life a hell of a lot easier on this site; thanks Otto).

    And this isn’t a P*nis measuring contest. There’s plenty of people with bigger, larger and more popular sites that what we deal with. But I do think it plays into the misconception of the pain points I’m talking about. That website you described, we consider that tiny.

    @ PeteMall

    Holy crap. I didn’t think you actually existed.
    I thought you were like the bogeyman, a story to scare kids. Be careful, or Pete Mall will kick start a project to replace your forum, and then run off when there’s work to be done.

    How are you enjoying bbPress Pete?

    @ Jake Goldman

    I still do almost all of my work on Windows (never an issue), and WordPress has made the choice (in my view, correctly) to prioritize pace and modernity over infinite backwards compatibility.

    I’m not against fast Updates. I’m FOR THEM.
    But they shouldn’t bring UI changes as well.

    WP3.3 Menu is inaccessible It can’t be used by Color Blind people, the same with the grey on grey buttons of the HTML editor. Navigating WP Admin without a mouse is a nightmare, but when I say that people think “iPad”. I don’t, I think, disabled person. We didn’t test the menu in IE7 before release, how confident are you that it was tested on a screen reader? How confident are you that it was tested for accessibility and usability for those not fully abled?

    For one one of our clients, and government based charity, we have to provide a report of any UI changes against the RNIB Disability Discrimination Act, and the WRIA’s AA and AAA standard. WordPress 3.3’s admin area was considered to be HARMFUL. Not “OK”, not “poor”, not “bad”, but HARMFUL. But thats ok, we tested it on Chrome on a MacBook Pro, with able bodied people all of whom speak English on a small website. Because thats indicative of the world, right?

    @ Norcorss

    But do the vast majority of WP users (or devs, for that matter) want that? Doubtful. Should it be part of core? Absolutely not.

    I absolutely agree. I don’t want a huge core with these features added. And I never once said that. But not having ACCESS to these type of features is a large issue.

    We have our own custom Document Repository. Frankly Doc Control is far better that what we were using (cos I built ours). Same with Edit Flow.

    But once you move past bloggings 1-to-1 architecture to complete a feature, then you need to have the ability in the core to write the plug-ins to solve the pain points. We don’t have that. The core is too singularly focussed for that. Hence why we’ve no good/scalable e-commerce solution, or a forum solution; y’know, simple stuff every other CMS has very easily. And thats ok, as WordPress is a “blogging+” platform.

    I don’t want these all to be core offerings. But I’d like the core to be open enough to allow us to code them without hacking it constantly. Thats what pissed my work colleagues off. Simply put, the architecture is not in a malleable enough state in comparison to other CMSs. There are positives to this, and there are negatives.

    436 days to get the bbPress plugin from first commit to release, with a paid Automattic developer. It’s also lambasted in the latest Dev4Press posts about overhead. There’s a reason why; and it ain’t down to the developer, who’s brilliant at this stuff.

    Konstantin Kovshenin

    I had developer folks whine about WordPress too some time ago, but seriously, tell me which CMS has got a better Visual editor.

    DAY for one.
    It craps on everything out there from a great height.

    @ JJJ

    The only thing that fixes any of these issues is committed labor. “They” are us, let’s not forget that.

    Dude, I’ve been a big fan of yours since bbpress0.9; but “They are us” only counts when we agree with the core team. I didn’t see you rolling out the “They are us” line when the core team went after Justin Tadlock for daring to be unhappy about Capital_P_Dangit.

    And if I’m really honest with you bro, commited labor isn’t something I’d struggle to rustle up. But its very hard for people to get engaged when WP’s focus changes so frequently. Remember we had a roadmap for 3.0 > 3.4 at the time of 3.0beta1. None of the planned features or architectural changes in 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 were made; instead we moved the menu twice, and added distraction free writing.

    Heck, we’ve not even nailed the MVC stuff. Plugins can’t activate bits of code on PCTs because the theme is meant to do that. Plugins can’t output code without writing their own mammoth workarounds for get_template_part. etc etc.

    I truly think you did a great job with the code on bbPress2.0. Yes it pained me that it took over a year and that we had almost 2 full years between a standalone release and the plugin release; but looking through your code you have so many workarounds built in to deal with functions/architecture that tied down to being 1-to-1 or “blog like”. Get template part is a great example.

    @ Kurt

    Maybe it’s all just for publicity. Any time WP is criticized there’s a big backlash from the community.

    Isn’t that sad?
    Why does the WP community need to mutually assure themselves that everything’s ok?
    If WP is working for you, awesome!
    Why should there be a backlash if it’s not working for us?

    And truly, if you’d see the hate mail I’m getting for MY company choosing which software ITs going to use, you’d be amazed. Bluntly, I dont really get why people care.

    @ Ted Clayton

    You’ve missed quite a few off the top of the list there bud:

    Business Transformation and Service Design Authority: BP
    Executive Director: Open Source Scotland
    Non-Executive Director: Pure Web Brilliant

    @ Ted Clayton

    Kevinjohn, it appears, rides herd on a crew of developers.

    I do actually code myself though.

    @ Ted Clayton

    Again, KJG gets a bit more wound up with his message (reflecting/matching those he critiques for the same over-indulgence)

    Heh, not really. Its more the celtic tone. If you listen to my chat with Jeff, you’ll hear the tone of voice I use and speak in. We Irish swear a lot, and speak in a certain way that many in… non-European countries have a tendency to misjudge the tone and inclination when reading on the web.

    People read in a perceived tone of voice. I’m blunt, sure, but I can’t remember the last time I wrote something on the internet in anger.

    @ Andreas

    People seem to react on their emotional reaction to what he writes than to what he actually wrote though.

    And the winner is… Andreas.

    I’m human.
    I’m wrong all the time.
    But there’s a large subset of this community that’s decided that I’m wrong before they read what I’ve written. Which in fairness is on MY blog, on MY website. If people don’t like it, they don’t have to read it. I didn’t cross post it anywhere!

    @ Emil

    Seriously, you just made things worse. Jobs that lasted 1-2 months!

    Thanks mate, this made me laugh.
    You know thats how contracting and consulting work though, right?
    Some gigs are long, some are short.

    If the platform no longer meets his needs and he wants to improve “roll up your sleeves and get to work”

    Yeah, but I’ve forced my staff to do that for years. They spoke loud and clear, they don’t want to do it anymore. I could force them, but why would I? We have the opportunity with no web builds this month to look at how we work, and in doing so WordPress is no longer our go-to-option.

    I’ve no idea why people are upset that WE have chosen to no longer use WordPress. You folks can still use it.

    In essence, this is what I won’t miss about the WordPress community. So many see things only in black and white. To not use WordPress is to hate it. To say that it doesn’t do somethings that other CMSs do, is to hate it. To no longer use WordPress means no-one ever tried to “roll up their sleeves and make it work”. I’ve said, quite openly, that we’ve changed, our clients have changed, and WordPress has changed. Which I think is ok, we’re all allowed to change.

    Again, maybe I’m missing the point, but I’ve no idea why so many people are upset that WordPress has 1 less agency promoting it.

    ======================

    For the record, my site was down twice in the last 24 hours.

    Once because it couldn’t handle the almost 30,000 hits in the space of an hour (it was down for about 25 minutes)>

    The other time was for hours, and was a ddos attack. I received an e-mail taking credit, in it, it said:

    No1 wants u 2 have ur own opinion.
    “In Matt we trust.”

    I wonder if they have WordPress tattoos… ;)

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  69. @Kevinjohn Gallagher –

    I wasn’t particularly upset about your original article, and thought you raised some valid points concerning a subset of enterprise features where WordPress doesn’t stand up particularly well, that we need to address.

    Reading your reply, here, however, I can understand why people are upset. You claim that you’re just saying “there are better choices in some case”, but really, you spent half that post trashing a CMS that many of us enjoy and find effective. Case in point: you’re doubling down here by repeating the myth that WordPress is just a blogging tool. It’s not the right CMS for your clients? So be it. WordPress wasn’t design for the blind or visually impaired, you’re correct (something a good canonical “visual impairment” plug-in should solve). It’s not a CMS? In the “penis size” contest I guarantee you that our clients, who use WordPress as a CMS and enjoy it, can easily match yours. You’re just instigating. It is a CMS, and in my fairly diversified CMS experience, a really good one. Not perfect, and not for everyone.

    In other words, I don’t think anyone is upset that you’re no longer promoting WordPress. Outside of the web developer bubble no one probably cares about or is influenced by your decision (other than your clients), and inside the bubble I don’t think anyone is switching platforms based on your post. People are upset that you’re crapping on WordPress on the way out the door.

    For the record, I agree that we’re “refining” and changing the up the UI side of things too often, mostly because it disrupts plug-ins that can solve things like disability concerns. However, that’s not detracting from functional advances. With few exceptions, the volunteers or paid core developers that focus on UI would not be spending their time on API type functionality or a multilingual module, and the code heads are not spending much energy on the UI changes.

    We’d still like to know which CMS, exactly, solves all of your problems.

    You told me that you’re in favor of a rapid release cycle, but other open source solutions that cater to some of your bigger concerns have releases of any significance maybe once every 2-3 years. There seem to be some respectable commercial solutions available these days, but you’re also more or less trapped by what they offer.

    The reality is that there *is* a trade off between very deep testing for disability compliance and browser backwards compatibility testing (especially if you want it at the *beta* phase) and rapid release cycles. Theoretically it can be solved with more man power, which is why @JJJ is absolutely right.

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  70. @Kevinjohn Gallagher – The KevinJohn Gallagher About page signs off with what can be taken as his byline:

    The down-side? He’s a little blunt.

    Not that you aren’t blunt, Mr. Gallagher, but that hardly covers the dynamic … or the downside.

    I accept that you are a skilled & capable software/web developer, and a business owner. And that you can make useful remarks about WordPress.

    But “blunt” does not accurately describe, is not the key part of, “the downside”.

    Yes, we know well the Irish/Scot/Anglo Celtic, Viking-infused propensities. There are more of us on this side of the pond than on yours.

    An’ ‘twer mostly the best o’ the best, who ventured o’er. :)

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  71. @Kevinjohn Gallagher – I decided to walk away from the bbPress 2.0 project in the early days because of some personal reasons and the warm welcome from people like you. I ended up contributing more to the WordPress core and ended up getting commit access to the project and everyone got the Network Admin Dashboard.

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  72. @Kevinjohn Gallagher –

    Every company, if not individual, should use the best tools are their disposal for the job they have to do.

    I completely agree. Use whatever will make your work easier and your life happier. Turning software preference into a cause for battle is just dumb. I have friends at Acquia, even. :)

    Jane is awesome, but last year Jane was Head of UX, Head of Project Management, Head of Release Management, Head of Community Management, Head of WP.org, Head of WordCamps, Head of the WP Foundation, Head of User Engagement, Head of Charity, Head of Money in WPF, Head of WCCentral, Head of… etc.

    I wasn’t all those things. I do a bunch of stuff that touches a lot of areas, but when someone asks what I do, I say I am the ux lead and I project manage the open source dev group. Matt is in charge of wp.org and the Foundation, Andrea is in charge of WordCamps (now being covered by Zé since A is on maternity leave), most of those other things don’t really exist as roles.

    Anytime there’s a job that isn’t covered by the WP team, it’s suddenly “Jane does that”.

    More like, “Jane will try to find someone to do that,” which sometimes takes a while.

    Oh, and if this image ( http://t.co/mVdB3i7I ) is an Agile Development project plan,

    Are you crazy? Of course it’s not! It’s something we came up with at core team meetup that is extremely specific to the wp core team members pairing up for 3.4, their schedules, our past weaknesses, ux bottlenecks, etc. The idea of a set cycle time is about the only thing that’s similar to agile.

    then Jane’s not a Project Manager. Because I’m considering digging a grave in my back garden just to turn in it.

    Sadly, yes, I am. It’s just not the most visible part of my job, and the level of PM that happens within WP is nowhere near the level that exists in an agency environment (which I worked in for years). When I started, no one wanted any kind of project management. Even making a rough schedule for a release took a few tries to be accepted by the guys.

    And Andrea, we’ve had Core Team members, and people paid for by Matt on this very website tell us that the beta WAS NOT tested on IE7 because the plan was to drop support for IE7, but then they changed their minds; but never went back to test it. So I’m only repeating what we’re told by Otto.

    For the record, Otto is not a member of the core team. Trusted contributor, yes, but not core team. There was no plan in 3.3 to drop support for IE7, so that’s incorrect. Mark said he wanted to, but we said no before the cycle was even scoped. The issue had more to do with some miscommunication around who was testing on what platforms and/or virtual machines, which is something we’ll hopefully be fixing in 3.4 with the introduction of a formal QA plan (post coming to wpdevel once I have time to write it).

    I’ve also raised this with Nacin and MarkJaquith on Twitter, who both joked that we should just use a different browser.

    Sometimes we joke instead of repeating conversations that have been had in irc multiple times. Also, yes: IE7 sucks. :)

    Additionally, Jane blogged about the UAT that she did before the BETA was considered ready. Everyone used a Mac, Everyone used FireFox/Chrome. Every person.

    It wasn’t formal UAT. I used to run a usability testing lab in NYC; I’m clear on what constitutes representative testing. This was just lo-fi UI reactions to confirm or reject some of the gut-instinct choices that had been made. I wrote about the difference on my blog at the time, and the whole platform/tools conundrum. The limited scope was highly intentional because it was very limited-scope testing.

    If anything, it’s a great example of how WordPress doesn’t really scale. Can you make it scale technically? Sure. But People and Process wise? It gets very difficult once you get past 10 people.

    Then someone needs better hires.

    But again, when Core Team members stand infront of a WordPress gathering and say “Don’t listen to the Vocal Minority, even if they’re right” it’s hard for us to help. The attitude is, You’re with us or against us. Other viewpoints are not welcome.

    You talked about that before, but the fact is that there are some heavy contributors that we don’t agree with on a lot of major things who still manage to make it onto the credits page b/c they continue to contribute and improve the product even though they won’t always get their way.

    Be careful, or Pete Mall will kick start a project to replace your forum, and then run off when there’s work to be done.

    That’s not nice.

    WP3.3 Menu is inaccessible It can’t be used by Color Blind people, the same with the grey on grey buttons of the HTML editor.

    As it happens, the style lead for WP, Matt Thomas, is color blind. That said, there is more than one type of color blindness, not to mention other visual acuity issues that have different contrast requirements. We count on the accessibility volunteers to test the admin for that kind of stuff. Recently I asked Mel (Esmi on the forums) to act as the go-to person for accessibility and take the disparate pieces of advice we get from the accessibility blog into discrete recommendations the devs can act on, and she said yes. So this, too, will hopefully improve.

    Navigating WP Admin without a mouse is a nightmare, but when I say that people think “iPad”.

    I don’t, I think keyboard access. As someone who loses the use of her hands/wrists every few days and has to rely on keyboard access about half the time because using a mouse or trackpad is too painful, I couldn’t care less about iPads (which, being basically the same as trackpads, are mostly unusable for me).

    how confident are you that it was tested on a screen reader?

    People who tested on screen readers posted their findings to the accessibility blog. If you know of something problematic for readers, making a trac ticket for it will at least get it on the radar.

    For one one of our clients, and government based charity, we have to provide a report of any UI changes against the RNIB Disability Discrimination Act, and the WRIA’s AA and AAA standard. WordPress 3.3′s admin area was considered to be HARMFUL. Not “OK”, not “poor”, not “bad”, but HARMFUL.

    If there’s a list of the specific things that caused that rating and what we can do to fix them, we would love to get a copy of it.

    But thats ok, we tested it on Chrome on a MacBook Pro, with able bodied people all of whom speak English on a small website. Because thats indicative of the world, right?

    No, but again, that testing was not meant to be indicative of the world. It had a specific, small purpose.

    436 days to get the bbPress plugin from first commit to release, with a paid Automattic developer.

    A paid Automattic developer who’s the lead for BuddyPress, a much bigger project with a bigger user base and more immediate needs, and who had a new job at Automattic that had nothing to do with building bbPress or BuddyPress. No harshing on Jtrip, please, he had way more work on his plate last year than anyone probably realized.

    Remember we had a roadmap for 3.0 > 3.4 at the time of 3.0beta1.

    Who’s we? We’ve never done a roadmap that far in advance that I can remember. Link? We might all talk about what things we hope we’ll get to next time around, or what we each think should come next, but there’s no roadmap until we scope each release, and we don’t plan further ahead than the current cycle in terms of features.

    I’ve no idea why people are upset that WE have chosen to no longer use WordPress. You folks can still use it.

    I’m not upset. I’d much rather see people happily using something else than be frustrated using a product that doesn’t serve their needs.

    No1 wants u 2 have ur own opinion.
    “In Matt we trust.”

    That’s lame and ridiculous. It certainly didn’t come from anyone on core team, and I’m sorry that happened to you.

    I wonder if they have WordPress tattoos… ;)

    I have tattoos, but have never understood why someone would put a product logo on their body permanently. I’ll stick to putting stickers on my laptop.

    Good luck with your new CMS!

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  73. I can see the issue with having many employees running around in a WordPress install and how it’d be a problem to manage those employees. Without getting into describing the issue overly (it’s trust), the three ways to address this are 1) by code, 2) by management, and 3) changing platform.

    1. There are places in WordPress that can’t be modified by a plugin without forking/reimplementing very large chunks of code to do so. Forking the core code in a plugin is still forking core code, along with all the costs associated with that.
    2. “Better hires” is a bit dismissive of the issue. This suggests restructuring the business might be easier then restructuring the software, LOL. If the current business structure does allow for highly paid competent and trust worthy, and this option is cheaper then 1 or 3, it’s still a business management decision, not a technical/platform decision.
    3. Changing platform to me would include comparing the costs involved with hiring staff to fork core code and maintaining it with the costs of technical support of a different platform. This falls under “best tool for the job” recommendation that you often hear about.

    It sounds to me like Mr. Gallagher found 1 too expensive, 2 not an option, and so went with 3 as does happen sometimes. As with most people, Mr. Gallagher prefers WordPress and was frustrated with having to go with another software, and so listed the faults/limitations that made him do it. What’s wrong with that?

    Cheers

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  74. It sounds to me like Mr. Gallagher found 1 too expensive, 2 not an option, and so went with 3 as does happen sometimes. As with most people, Mr. Gallagher prefers WordPress and was frustrated with having to go with another software, and so listed the faults/limitations that made him do it. What’s wrong with that?

    Exactly. Like I said before I prefer WordPress, just like @Kevinjohn – but there comes a time and point with certain clients and projects where it just doesn’t work effectively. I understand everyone is upset because it seems like he is trashing it as he moves on to a new system. Maybe it has to do with his tone, the language used… whatever. But the points he made are valid – and yes I agree a lot of his points would make good plugins (if well crafted), but I also think that some of these things should be included in the core.

    That being said – WordPress is what it is. It will progress and grow as it always has. The way it’s come along has allowed me to use it effectively on plenty of sites I’ve worked on for clients.

    I totally support WordPress, the community and the hard work behind it – just as I’m sure Kevinjohn does. I think he’s expressing his frustration and explaining on his own personal blog why he made the choices he did. In the end it’s no one’s business but him and his clients (and his employees) what CMS they choose to use.

    I’m just kind of sad that a certain sect of the community has chosen to create such a backlash against him (a ddos attack? really people?) and his opinion. WordPress is a tool with a fantastic community – not a cult ;)

    Let’s remember he’s running a business (just as a lot of us are) and if the tool no longer suits his company or clients he’s obligated to find something out there that they can use that makes everyone happy. I’m completely sure this wasn’t a light-hearted decision to change platforms AND publicly post about it realizing the amount of anger it would stir up.

    After all of that though I do have one disagreement – I consider WordPress a CMS not blogging+ platform. And I also consider it a fantastic one at that.

    To each his own, right? …Right?

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  75. @Ken Newman –

    … Mr. Gallagher prefers WordPress and was frustrated with having to go with another software, and so listed the faults/limitations that made him do it. What’s wrong with that?
    [emph. added]

    Mr. Gallagher asserts that he is going to resolve the (primarily business/personnel) issues he has encountered using WordPress, by using a different software solution in its place.

    Well. The current representatives of a long line of Celtic retrogrades assured me as a child; “If you salt a bird’s tail, you can catch it”.

    More than a scatter of those following this discussion, hear the leader of KevinJohn Gallagher enterprises claiming he is going to fix the problems he ran into with WordPress, by salting a bird’s tail.

    Drupal? Joomla? In-house roll-yer-own?

    There are certainly problems involved in deploying any of the alternatives to WordPress. It is always a mix of advantages & frustrations, with any solution that is chosen.

    If there is more than one personnel in an organization, any CMS-type tool that is deployed organization-wide will please some and not others. And if it is a one-person show, the solution will please her in some contexts, and have her hammer-throwing her monitor through the window, in other contexts.

    It is too convenient to assert that one has at hand a solution to fundamental/universal issues, which has eluded thousands of other top-level professionals, while demurring to reveal anything about the solution.

    As soon as Mr. Gallagher lets on what he will do instead of WordPress, his listeners will be able to table solid arguments that his selection will also be the source of friction & frustration within his organization.

    What is this alternative solution?

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  77. Jet lag has wiped me out this week, I’m afraid, and I’ve been unable to reply. What I will say is this, there are more posts on WordPress community sites discussing my CV and dyslexia than the actual content of my post.

    Worse of all though, is that the rhetoric of “there’s a plugin for that” is now so deeply imbedded in the WP community psyche that they constantly spout it without actually knowing if its true or not. And for the most part, it’s not true. Andrew Nacin and I had a wonderful discussion on that very point on this website last month:

    Me: https://www.wptavern.com/case-study-on-how-wordpress-won-the-crown#comment-16740
    Andrew: https://www.wptavern.com/case-study-on-how-wordpress-won-the-crown#comment-16756
    Me: https://www.wptavern.com/case-study-on-how-wordpress-won-the-crown#comment-16776

    For me though it comes down to this:

    at the 2 Drupal camps I attended last year people debated my content; at the Joomla meet-ups they asked questions; but at the 3 WordPress meetings they debated whether they liked me as a person- http://kevinjohngallagher.com/2012/01/listening-the-core-skill-learning/

    In the end though, it comes down to this:
    http://kevinjohngallagher.com/2012/01/the-butterfly-effect/

    Sadly in the last 7 days I’ve had 3 ddos attacks, 14 threats (4 “credible”) against myself or my family, multiple requests to have me removed from speaking at WordPress events to which I’m already signed up and personally sponsor, and 31 people roll-back their purchase for Open Source Scotland because I’m involved. All because my staff, not me, but the good folks I work with every day, don’t want want to use WordPress anymore. I’m being punished by this community, for doing the right thing: listening to my colleagues and my clients.

    Congratulations, you’re now the bullying jocks you never got to be in high school. Frankly, I think many of you should be ashamed.

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  78. @Kevinjohn Gallagher – You have my support in condemning the objective & subjective attacks & threats directed at your business & person. If I could intercede against those behind such acts, I would happily hang ’em.

    However … lots of software shops that are comparable to yours, implement their goals & services, using WordPress. This weighs against the idea that the problems you’ve had are the reflection of issues within WordPress.

    Lots of other software shops also switch to, and away from WordPress. Admittedly, most such migrations these days are to WP, but there are some that depart. There is no ‘WP-enforcement’ set up to detect defectors, and let loose the dogs on ’em.

    Since people & enterprises around the planet do achieve pretty-much whatever they need & want, using WP, and abandon the platform at their own discretion … without fan-fare & theatrics, the high level of drama surrounding your case is unlikely to be explained as inherent issues with WordPress, or migration away from it.

    And that leaves us with “you”, as the dominant uncontrolled variable in this ‘experiment’.

    Taking a step back for a wider view, indications are that WordPress is weathering the Social Media onslaught at least ‘reasonably well’. If we accept as I do that social media are a high-frequency transient-spike that will dissipate sooner rather than later, it does seem probable that as we move into the coming decade, WordPress may very well enjoy a ‘second youth’.

    I see clear-enough signs that WP leadership is making preparations for the backside slope of the social-media spike, and that the product will go on to experience a dramatic surge, at about the time that it would otherwise begin showing it’s age a wee bit.

    So although I too have my gripes about WordPress … the right time to jump ship is always dependent on the availability of a better ship. There are alternative ships available, but they all come with alternative drawbacks … which the preponderance of the software world judges to be greater than those we tolerate, using WordPress.

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  82. @Kevinjohn Gallagher — That’s unacceptable behavior, and I thoroughly condemn any harassment you’re receiving. (Said as much here, and RT’d from @WordPress).

    To anyone who is participating in this kind of bullying: knock it off. I had some substantial disagreements with Kevinjohn’s post too, but this is not how adults handle disagreements. You’re making us all look bad. Stop it.

    Here are your options: ignore the post, rebut the claims in his post, or (if you think they’re valid criticisms and worth fixing in WordPress) make them obsolete by contributing to the project.

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  83. @Jane Wells – WHy should he contact you? Its your users and your fans that is doing this. You (WP leadership) have consistently approved of more and more extreme behavior. Matt has tried to get people fired. Has tried to bribe people to switch from one service to another etc. You have WC participants bashing people and not criticizing ideas. Etc etc. Its escalating cant you see that?

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  84. @Andreas Nurbo – You yourself said this:

    If the leaders in WP don’t go out and tries to mitigate this damaging behavior my hope for the leadership is over.

    So why are you turning around and pissing on an offer to attempt to do what they can?

    Your anger against Matt and the WP ‘leaders’ aside, people do things in the name of passion that are crazypants. They’ll use anything as an excuse, and that they’re using WP today doesn’t mean they won’t use Starbucks tomorrow. That doesn’t make either WP or Starbucks culpable for those actions any more than it’s Jodie Foster’s fault a nut with a gun shot Regan. Crazy is crazy.

    If you’re not willing to report a problem to the ‘authorities’ (and pardon me for using that word at all, it’s not right, but I’m sure you know what I mean), then you’re not helping make anything better for anyone and just ranting to the wind. Which, if that’s what you want carry on :)

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  85. @Andreas Nurbo -Why should he contact me? Because otherwise how would I know there is unacceptable behavior going on and/or that someone is waiting for me to do something about it? We don’t encourage extreme behavior, and Matt has never tried to get someone fired. Your comment is more extreme behavior than anything I’ve ever encouraged or approved.

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  87. @Andreas Nurbo –

    WHy should he contact you?

    Among other reasons, he is the only one who has the basic information that will identify the offenders.

    Its your users and your fans that is doing this.

    If you drink & drive in your GMC vehicle, do a hit-and-run, etc, will we then demand that General Motors explain themselves?

    The criminal is responsible for the criminal act.

    Now … you might have something, if you can show that use of the WordPress product leads to loss of self-control, legal insanity, etc … AND … that those who released the unsafe product onto an unsuspecting public, knew beforehand that it had these dangerous effects on the user.

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  88. Unfortunately this nastiness is detracting from the overall point being made (and made well) by @KevinJohn.

    However, WordPress’ leadership reacting like this is the first time a dissenter has been attacked or harassed simply for daring to question WordPress’ sanctity is laughable.

    Matt himself led the angry mob against Chris Pearson for daring to have a different legal opinion than the one WordPress put forward.

    As @Andreas mentioned, it was Matt himself who tried to have me fired for questioning his leadership of the WordPress project.

    The treatment of @Kevinjohn is reprehensible but it’s hardly surprising given the combative “with us or against us” culture WordPress leadership has cultivated.

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  89. @Ben Cook –

    However, WordPress’ leadership reacting like this is the first time a dissenter has been attacked or harassed simply for daring to question WordPress’ sanctity is laughable.

    You appear to have flipped forward a couple extra pages in your script. Nobody in this discussion is reacting like this is the first known attack.

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  90. @Ipstenu – She didn’t condemn the actions obviously. Compare her words to Mark Jaquiths

    @Jane Wells – My point is. You know now and you still don’t condemn it. You didn’t condemn the actions with one word. See comment by Mark. You do however show distrust. If you didn’t trust him you could have made a disclaimer. Such as “If this is what has actually happened we the WP leadership thoroughly condemn these actions. We would be very happy to help if Kevin would send the emails to us so we can take a look.”
    You didn’t even bother too direct a/the reply to Kevins comment. (sic).

    @Ted Clayton – They are doing it in the name of WP essentially. Then it is the leaderships business. If they don’t condemn it they stand behind the actions. Its how it all works.
    Your example is very bady. Its not even in a similar vain.
    If a bunch of GMC fans (employees?) attacked a reviewer or GMC business owner in the name of GMC. You honestly think that GMC would just stay silent and not say a word?

    It would be great though if Kevin could give example of a threat to a third party. Now it seems some people think he is making the stuff up.

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  93. @Andreas Nurbo –

    It would be great though if Kevin could give example of a threat to a third party. Now it seems some people think he is making the stuff up.

    If I believe that my Boss is looking at me in a sexually suggestive way, and then publically accuse her of staring at my crotch, it’s just my word against hers.

    If otoh my Boss plasters a high-vacuum lip-lock on the frontal aspect of my jeans, her saliva has embedded her DNA in the denim fabric.

    1.) I bring a complaint against her, with the vested authorities.
    2.) I convey the stained jeans to them.

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  95. This is ridiculous. I said someone writing nasty emails or launching ddos attacks was lame, that it wasn’t coming from core team, and that I was sorry it was happening. When he posted that people were threatening him, I said if I could get the info I would reach out and see what we could do to help stop those people. Not everyone spends all day on wptavern, so if something needs to be dealt with right away by the core team or project leadership, someone needs to contact us directly.

    I’m not going to get caught up in the annual trolling competition here. Kevinjohn, if you contact me or Mark directly, we’ll do what we can to help.

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  96. @Jane Wells – No one actually thinks the DDoS or the threats was coming from the core team. My point is that you as an organization ain’t vocal enough in the condemnation of the actions. Your outrage that fans could ever do this and damage the WP community image in such a way is limited with the basic “lame” comment.
    Lame is making a caricature of Kevinjohn getting spanked with a WP logo. DDoSing his website is beyond lame. Cybercrime, cyberbullying and cyberattacks is way beyond lame but thats just me.

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  97. @Kevinjohn Gallagher –

    What the hell? You are fully free to use any tool you find efficient for your work.

    Even the biggest Linux and Apple fanboys go to CES although Microsoft are there too.
    I like WP a lot. I’d still go to a Joomla presentation to listen.

    DDoS attacks and threat mails because you have an opinion about some computer software is really messed up. These guys must be mentally disturbed.

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