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Jeff Chandler

ClassicPress: Gutenberg Not Included

Depending on how far and deep you look, there is not a lot of positive sentiment surrounding Gutenberg. For Scott Bowler, the notion of merging Gutenberg into WordPress 5.0 represents a shift so detrimental to the project, he has forked WordPress into a new project called ClassicPress.

“The team at WordPress have decided to force Gutenberg into v5 of WordPress despite massive push back by the WordPress community,” Bowler said.

“I’m in the ‘push back’ camp. After my feedback on Gutenberg fell on deaf ears I realized that WordPress is no longer a community led project — major decisions are being made by an elite few.

“Sadly, I decided it was time to move to a fork that doesn’t have Gutenberg as part of the core code. A quick search revealed nobody had taken the initiative so I decided to stop complaining and take action.”

In addition to ClassicPress, Bowler has filed a petition on Change.org requesting that Gutenberg not be merged into WordPress 5.0. As of publishing, the petition has 10 out of 100 signatures.

“This petition is to ask the WordPress team to keep Gutenberg out of the core of WordPress and instead keep it as a plugin for users to install,” Bowler said. “In addition, this petition asks that Gutenberg does not get integrated into the core until the community agrees that the time is right.”

Bowler is not the only one who feels this way. Matt Cromwell, Head of Support and Community Outreach at WordImpress, suggests that Gutenberg be bundled with WordPress as a plugin similar to Aksimet.

If Gutenberg ships with WordPress 5.0, Bowler says he is committed to maintaining compatibility with the WordPress ecosystem, keeping the project up to date with security fixes, and letting the community dictate its development.

ClassicPress is based on WordPress 4.9.8 and is not available to the public yet. It’s in a consultation phase that interested users can participate in through the ClassicPress subreddit.

Forks Are a Good Thing, But This One Doesn’t Make Sense

I used to think that forking WordPress is the equivalent of the nuclear option, but a presentation by John James Jacoby in 2016 during WordSesh changed my perspective.

Forking is a good thing as it allows people to take a project in their own direction. It opens the door for experimentation. If there are any lessons learned or improvements made, those can usually be pushed upstream to the main project.

There are solutions available that allow users and site managers to keep the classic editor in place until a transition can be made. There’s also a Classic Editor block within Gutenberg that provides a similar user experience to the Classic Editor.

With options available to not use or at least delay Gutenberg from becoming the new editor, and that’s if it’s merged into WordPress 5.0, ClassicPress isn’t so much of a necessary fork but rather, a last ditch effort to raise awareness to not merge Gutenberg into core. And that’s an unfortunate reason to fork WordPress.

*Updated 8/21/2018* First paragraph was edited to “For Scott Bowler, the notion of merging Gutenberg into WordPress 5.0 represents a shift so detrimental to the project, he has forked WordPress into a new project called ClassicPress.”

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100 responses to “ClassicPress: Gutenberg Not Included”

  1. Some of us never want to adopt Gutenberg (except as a plugin for a few special case sites), so a transition period won’t help us. One of the plugin reviewers suggested a Gutenberg fork called DesignPress, which seems right on the money. WordPress as it now stands, is great for text intensive sites that have a lot of textual content generation and changes. DesignPress would be for people who just want to create a home page or want to create their own page design without wanting to learn how to create themes.

      • Sorry, but no, it is not simply an “Editor”. There are blocks that provide layout structure (columns) as default options. If this was just a fancy way of creating paragraph tags, headings, and inline images – aka an editor – the whole conversation surrounding Gutenberg would be different.

      • Please read more about the planned “phases” of Gutenberg. Everything including page header, menus, widgets, footer is supposed to be blocks in future, that’s exactly the definition of a page builder…

      • This is incorrect. Gutenberg wants to replace the current editor at first. And then it will be merged into the Customizer that allows users to change the website layout in real-time.

        While the current phase focuses on the post content, it acts similar to a “page” builder. And the later phase makes it like a website/layout builder.

        Gutenberg is really an ambitious project!

    • I agree with Ahn, Gutenberg is an ambitious project and managed in the right manner had the potential to be very powerful tool.

      The problem is, the team and community behind it are operating in a silo manner and not thinking outside the box when met with feedback highlighting pain points and issues that seasoned WordPress users are experiencing in the multi varied workflows and use cases they employ with the current editor and just won’t work with Gutenberg in its current implementation.

      The Gutenberg team are focused on one singular approach to using WordPress.

      I have confirmed that this is the case. Having made some suggestions that would bring Gutenberg nearer to what we have with the current editor without undermining the concept of blocks I wasn’t very optimistic with the response I got. You can check out my suggestions on the GitHub for Gutenberg under my handle irishetcher. What’s more disappointing is the tag “Don’t fix this”

      I Agree with Matt Cromwell. The project would be better served with a more iterative approach taking into account all the possible ways that WorPress is used currently with a view to improving the the user experience with what nascent ideas and technologies used in Gutenberg.

      And, Gutenberg is really falling between two stools by pretending it isn’t a page builder. On the one side it is no where near as useful as what can be done with many of the page builders out there and to those who detest page builders Gutenberg is sacrillage. Well done Matt (Mullenweg) in creating the perfect storm to divide the WordPress community.

      As for a fork? I would need a knife to dissect that idea a bit more but I will be watching closely.

  2. As a user of WordPress. version 1x, and publish numerous news sites based on textual information with time sensitive turnaround, the Gutenberg virus does not hold promise to make our work easier, and I think quite the opposite. If you have a blog about foid and need to make 20 goofy design changes per page with different photos and fonts every few hundred pixels we get into the Microsoft Publisher curse of terrible design by those with no UX experience, and love to see how all that nonsense will play with AMP. A separate plugin fore Gute makes way more sense for iterative changes filter hooks and follows the long standing tradition of extensible page builders. Of course, This is just my opinion. We will keep using whatever version does not pollute our workflow with this new technology until it is mature and allows us to maintain speed, workflow and our existing pure HTML options without the QuarkXPress style box model.

  3. It’s great that the GPL allows this option but realistically the chances of this fork having any significant success in the long term are next to nil.

    • And that comment is brought to you by an impartial WP Moderator who posts freely on 1-star reviews of Gutenberg.

  4. Not all WordPress.org users are developer or programmer. I am, as a blogger with share hosting, very happy with Gutenberg and waiting for Gutenberg core.

  5. I wish they would add Gutenberg to WordPress.com websites only. Its a pity WordPress wasnt a democracy so we could hold a referendum on this.

    Most of my clients will want to have the old classic editor, because most of them don’t embrace change to well. Also that means i will have to train the few who will want to try it out or use it. More wasted time in my day i wont get back.

    • I wish they would add Gutenberg to WordPress.com websites only.

      Exactly this. The main reason Matt cites for the creation of Gutenberg is to compete with Squarespace and Wix. Those are WP.com’s competitors, not .org’s.

      WP is miles ahead in the CMS sphere – 60% market share compared to Joomla 6% and Drupal 4%.

      Matt can do whatever he wants with .com because that’s his company, but when it comes to the open source .org software, let the people decide.

    • No plans to ever have direct vote determine strategic direction in WP, but we are having a bit of a referendum in the adoption of the Gutenberg and Classic Editor plugins, people are voting with their usage. The people are deciding.

      • This comment by Matt is laughable. How many times have we been told by core devs that Gutenberg is full steam ahead whether we like it or not?

        And if you’re saying “people are voting with their usage” well Classis is at 200k+ active installs. That seems pretty clear…

      • people are voting with their usage. The people are deciding

        So I guess with the Classic Editor at 200k+ active installs, that’s a pretty clear message right??

      • Matt, take it from a Brit, referendums can be a dangerous thing!

        What happens if the number of Classic Editor plugin installs outweigh Gutenberg’s by 5.0 time?

        At that point would you reconsider the implementation plan for Gutenberg? Only activated for new installs seems a good compromise.

        However, keeping it as a plugin for longer whilst it can be further iterated seems the more sensible option. A wiser man than me once said:

        It’s: iterate in plugin with low stakes, or iterate in core, shipping to tens of millions of sites?

      • @Max, how can you possibly use the amount of active installs the Classic Editor has as an actual arguable point and evidence to support your argument. When Gutenberg launched, I hated it, however, l’ve now spent the last month doing some pretty intense work with it and I now actually really like it. It’s a great step forward, It does have it’s faults yes, but nothing is ever perfect and as long as they intend to fix bugs and add new features at their current rate of progress then who are we to complain?

        I like Gutenberg, and the majority, if not all of the news sites I build from now on with WordPress will be built around Gutenberg. But because I say that doesn’t mean that I’m not using the Classic editor plugin. I have to install it on around 30 websites. That’s not because I don’t like Gutenberg, thats purely to assure my/our clients that their website is still working and editable when v5 drops. Not everyone has the time or budget to go back and update them all. So there we have it, 30 classic editor installs from me alone. and not a single one because I don’t like Gutenberg or don’t want Gutenberg in core. We’re just embracing the future and continuing to support the past.

      • I wonder which of them are deciding. I’ve been with WordPress since it’s inception, and I’ve breathe through the days using and developing on WordPress. I’ve happily embraced every change that was pushed to us because they always made sense.

        Gutenberg is probably the first ever major push that I feel like it’s getting shoved down my throat. I dont like it. It’s not what WordPress was about. It feels like a page builder than content manager. The editor can be improved, but Gutenberg is definitely not the fix.

        But whose listening anyway, right?

      • A-ha, the decision is (or will be) skewed: ClassicEditor will be an option, Gutenberg will be already included. Like Internet Explorer and FireFox some years ago. I’ve said it in the past, and I’m saying it again: I love Gutenberg and I think is great, but I despise the way you people are introducing (more like forcing) it.

      • Henry Ford say:
        “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

        Gutenberg – it’s Great! But this is a new idea. People need time to understand and get used to.

        For example: https://tilda.cc/?lang=en

        It’s Russian Gutenberg :)

        And they made a revolution in the Russian market. Everyone now only talks about this. The competitors were left behind. Gutenberg will do the same. They are very similar.

      • Hi Matt
        First of all thanks for everything you have done for us(wordpress is the best thing happens to us).

        i am not a developer but i do have some suggestions in this regard but my suggestions might not be feasible in coding world but i will give them anyway.

        first point is the user like who chose wordpress over other editors were mostly because of its existing setup. if somebody wanted blocks would have already chosen wix or squarespace. i think you guys are not understanding this point.

        But i am ok with new developement but not a forced one. if you further want to target wix or squarespace customers then you have to come up with a middle way.

        1. divi way- like you keep classic editer setup, its ux, its functionality and add more features which are not available then add a link for visual editor which says want to add posts like medium or wix this is the way. all satisfied.

        2. at the time of setup only give the cusomers to chose their method. Ask questions like are you coming from wix or medium .
        give a small demo of classic builder setup and block based setup let customers decide. it will be like swith on swith off.
        or some customer will like both classic editor for posts, gutenberg for pages.

      • I am genuinely curious as to why all the work on putting Gutenberg into core was considered a higher priority than stopping the situation where an ‘out of the box’ installation of WordPress will..

        .. allow attackers to try as many username / password combinations as they like without doing anything whatsoever to slow them down or stop them;

        .. give the attackers a mechanism – an xml-rpc call with no legitimate use – that enables them to try hundreds of combos at once;

        .. allow people with accounts on a site to have a password of any strength they like, with nothing that the site administrators can do to enforce a minimum strength;

        .. etc etc etc.

      • @Ian:

        .. give the attackers a mechanism – an xml-rpc call with no legitimate use – that enables them to try hundreds of combos at once;

        That actually has not worked for several versions now. If you examine the code for the XML-RPC endpoint, it will stop checking passwords after the first failure. It doesn’t continue to retry “hundreds” of times, it simply fails the rest.

        I’m not sure exactly when that change happened, but it seems like a bit over a couple years ago now.

    • Your comment is absolutely the real true behind the decision about Gutenberg. It’s not about the future of WordPress, it’s about the future of WordPress.com. I wish the best for Matt, Automattic and WordPress.com but I don’t want that (respectable) company/competence decisions rule the future of WordPress.

    • Won’t you get paid for that time?

      If, not just install the classic editor and no one needs to learn anything new.

  6. I’m with those who believe Gutenberg should be an option (plugin), not part of core. I can already imagine the headaches my clients are about to have when confronted with an interface that they’re not familiar with.

    • While I can certainly see problems for a fork, a lack of themes is unlikely to be one of them.

      Gutenberg enables (perhaps even encourages) users willy-nilly to trample all over theme designs while they compose content. So the most successful themes for Gutenberg-enabled sites are likely to be stripped-down, minimalistic ones where such finger-painting will do least damage.

      Theme developers who really want users to enjoy their designs will develop themes for sites where Gutenberg is not enabled.

    • I’d assume that a WordPress theme would work with ClassicPress, or whatever other forks exist based on the current core.

  8. JEFF

    1. Thanks for this piece on ClassicPress and the ongoing Gutenberg conundrum.

    2. I signed the petition above.

    3. I am nonetheless excited about the potential of Gutenberg, having played around with it on a demo site. I look forward to its being included in WordPress as a plugin with a killer how-to video and text tutorial for all us tech-challenged bloggers so we can learn to use it while we continue to blog.

    4. Unfortunately, that doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen, so I have installed the Easy Updates Manager plugin and activated the Disable Core Updates option to keep Gutenberg at bay for the time being. This means I could be using WordPress 4.9.8 for a looooong time.

    Is this a good way to go, or should I install the Classic Editor now?

    Or should I wait for 5.0 and select the Classic Editor then?

    Keep on keepin’ on!

    NEAL

    • Is this a good way to go, or should I install the Classic Editor now?

      Installing the Classic Editor now is an easy & reliable way to opt out of using Gutenberg on any site until you want to switch.

      • NEIL

        Thanks for the response and advice!

        As for the advice, you are saying:

        1. I should deactivate the Disable Core Updates in the Easy Updates Manager plugin.
        2. I should install and activate the Classic Editor plugin and start using it now.
        3. When 5.0 arrives, I should reject Gutenberg and keep on with the Classic Editor plugin?

        Yeah, I like things spelled out . . .

        Best,

        NEAL

  9. The “classic editor plugin has 200k installs” isn’t really a good argument considering Gutenberg also has 200k active installs…just sayin

    • Nobody needs to install the Classic Editor now, so to measure it’s number of installs as oppose to the negative reviews of Gut., is such dishonesty, or lack of reasoning. The number of the Classic Editor installs + the people not upgrading to WP 5.0 to avoid falling victims to “software communism” will be astronomical. If there are 200k installs now, where it is not yet needed, wait for a shocker in a few months! And even then will be dishonest, since you can disable gutenberg with one line of code in a theme or plugin, so just counting the Classic Editor’s installs will be much smaller than the actual number of sites leaving this disaster behind! Oh…, just sayin!

      • To be fair, I have both Gutenberg and the Classic Editor installed on my sites. The Classic Editor plugin has a neat option where it will allow you to choose which editor you want to use on an individual post basis. It’s a good way to test and play with the new editor while still leaving the old one available as an optional choice.

        So, this isn’t really an either-or situation here. I really recommend for users to use both plugins at present, to try it out and really get the experience over time.

      • The fact that Widgets, Shortcodes, Meta Boxes, and Custom Fields are now considered legacy items, so it’s just a matter of time where they will stop working altogether. And this is totally unacceptable to me.

        I like the idea of Gutenberg, but it’s been executed so poorly, and is leaving so many “dead bodies” behind, broken themes and plugins, and all four things mentioned above.

        How can it EVER compete with the likes of Divi or Visual Composer where it can’t even compete with the worst page builders out there? And don’t say Gutenberg is an editor and not a page builder, it’s one of the lies and propaganda spreading around by these people also. Read the plugin’s description, page building will be coming in phase 2.

        Using terms like “democratizing publishing” while perpetrating “software communism” is truly shameful !

    • It is a perfect argument, to face the miscalculation about Gutenberg acceptance in the real world, where WordPress is used as serious CMS and not as a simple holiday photo blog with random colored textboxes.

  10. Also the Classic Editor is running at around 6000 – 12000 downloads per day while Gutenberg is around 20000 – 30000 downloads per day.

    So both are getting used & tested which is great to see.

    • I’m not sure about the above statements related to the download/install figures about Classic Editor and Gutenberg.

      Both plugins are completely different. Gutenberg is something new people might want to test, while CE is not really a plugin but rather a code that keeps status quo. But you also have the dismiss button. I can hardly believe that only about 400-500,000 sites updated to 4.9.8. That would mean that a lot of their admins just clicked on dismiss.

      Having the same amount of active installs for both, and an undisclosed amount of “dismiss” clicks seems to be telling that not many people are opening the doors of their sites to GB.

      Moreover, the overall rating of GB as a plugin speaks for itself.

      • the overall rating of GB as a plugin speaks for itself.

        I don’t think it does. Right now, the rating is somewhere in the middle but reviews are generally one extreme or the other. One thing is for sure is that negative feedback is usually much more common (in any situation) than positive. On top of that, we have 2 additional things to consider…

        1. Many of the reviews were much earlier when the plugin was in much more of a beta state
        2. Those currently trying the beta are more likely to fall into certain categories – when this rolls out to all users, it’s likely to give different results

        All of this means that it’s not as clear cut as the current overall rating for the plugin. What I don’t know it what it truly is – if I did I’d be in polling.

      • As it is often stated that many bad reviews were written much earlier in beta state before the call out was published, some facts checking:

        Gutenberg ratings at release WordPress 4.9.8:

        5: 182
        4: 39
        3: 38
        2: 35
        1: 284

        Now:

        5: 254
        4: 60
        3: 59
        2: 74
        1: 605

        Quick math, new reviews since release WordPress 4.9.8:

        5: 72
        4: 21
        3: 21
        2: 39
        1: 321

        Note that a significant number of 1 star ratings were deleted once in a while due to various reasons, as observed by many people.

      • As it is often stated that many bad reviews were written much earlier in beta state before the call out was published

        I think there’s been a confusion between ‘many’ and ‘most’ here – I very specifically used the former and that still holds here.

        Out of interest, where did you get these stats from (the pre-4.9.8 ones) – genuinely curious?

        Note that a significant number of 1 star ratings were deleted once in a while due to various reasons, as observed by many people.

        The forums mods have removed some reviews, but they were those that didn’t actually write reviews but, instead, decided to use it as a general diatribe. They don’t ask for much – maybe just say why you didn’t like it, that kind of thing, otherwise it’s not a review and rightly needs removing. However, the few that have won’t make any dent in the overall average,

      • where did you get these stats from

        From an excel sheet which automagically gets updated every 15-30 mins since a while before release of 4.9.8.

        The forums mods have removed some reviews, but they were those that didn’t actually write reviews … However, the few that have won’t make any dent in the overall average,

        Also regular and detailed reviews have been deleted, e.g. after some back and forth conversation with mods or other GB defenders. In the (not only by me) observed cases usually the complete review gets deleted, not only the “offending” reply. Just follow the numbers yourself, the 1-stars go up and down a lot, today e.g. 602, 603, 602, 601, 602, 604, 605..

      • Henry, if you don’t know why a review was removed, feel free to email me. I’ll look at it and either explain why, or restore it if I disagree. Happy to help in that respect.

      • For anybody that had their review removed for arbitrary reasons, I really would advise not engaging with the mods since it will just waste your time. They are not going to dialogue with you or be reasonable. If they don’t like what you wrote or how you wrote it, they will just stonewall you and throw you in the troll pile.

    • Comparing downloads isn’t very accurate. Gutenberg has new releases every week, while the Classic Editor hasn’t been updated in a month, so downloads should of course be higher.

  11. As much as I’d like to see a fork succeed, right now I think that the odds are against it. But, some day, I hope to see a new platform that is easy to work with and with a big community behind it and a core team that is not hostile to site developers and builders and no company like Automattic with that much influence over core development.

  12. Of all the improvements that can be made to WordPress that might require a breaking change a new page builder is not one of them.

    We are many that want to see radical refactoring in the WordPress core to support easier development and maintenance but that seems to be of no interest.

    If there is gonna be a fork its better to take it all the way. This has been discussed many times over the years maybe Gutenberg will make it finally happen.

  13. The Brexit of Web; and just like the real one is based on unreal facts and pushed with weak arguments.

    To ignore the fact that hundreds of developers, designers and community people are contributing to WordPress Core and that they are excited for Gutenberg to be released is a little bit of short thinking.

    WordPress is not only Automattic; this sentence is an insult to Yoast, HumanMade, XWP, 10up (and the list is longer); Do you know how much Gutenberg is based on REST API? How much HumanMade contributed and made decisions in this part of the project? Did anyone else notice how much the Yoast team is involved in the Core’s Javascript structure? Did you know that Gutenberg is 90% Javascript?

    All this negative arguing is dust in the eye. This energy could be used to give a constructive feedback and help move on.

  14. Ok, so one of the things I keep reading about is that Gutenberg is apparently a project for Matt to keep WordPress.com competitive with the competition – Wix, Medium, etc., normally get mentioned at this point.

    Except, with a CMS market share of 31.6% (as I write this), it’s abundantly clear that the real rivals to WordPress.com are going to be other WordPress hosts – WP Engine, and the such. So, in this case, why would you give the competition the same advantage? It would make more sense for this to be only for WordPress.com, and not add it to core, if that’s truly what this was about.

    This kind of talk also does a huge disservice to the many involved in the project who are not employees of Automattic, as if they’ve somehow been duped into working for it.

    The reality is that some people who don’t like Gutenberg (and that’s fine, nobody likes everything) think that because their individual voices aren’t being heard that the entire community is being ignored. This blatantly isn’t true and you only have to read the Trac tickets or get involved with the team on Slack to understand that feedback is being read and, where necessary, action is being taken. But a minority of voices asking for Gutenberg to not be included is not going to make this happen. If you don’t like Gutenberg, install the Classic Editor plugin and won’t have to use it. There’s no need to complain about having to train users or have additional work and you’ll get all the other benefits of 5.0, when it’s released.

    • The classic editor is a temporary thing. Sooner or later the Classic Editor won’t do it’s job, and we Will be stuck with Gutenberg, losing along all the now considered “legacy items”, like Widgets, Shortcodes, Meta Boxes, and Custom Fields… I got these facts from the plugin moderators responding to the negative reviews.

      • And if confusion is not already big enough, there are also contradicting responses, e.g. here the message is:

        The Classic Editor will be available and supported for as long as you need, so no worries about that.

        As long as there is no official roadmap (with no TBD entries) and Matt and others say about Classic Editor things like “for a while” or “for a period of time” or whatever, people will be even more against all this.

        Maybe Automattic should hire some people who know how communication and handling support really works.

        The current approach with a few “what Automattic does is 100% right” drones, some devs who speak a different language than writers and CMS editor, and some voluntary mods who try their best but sometimes only make it worse is not helping much here.

        • And applying UX in its broad sense to include customer support, this hasn’t been great for those with concerns about Gutenberg and there work using WordPress in the future.

          Personally I am ambivalent about the new editor. In terms of a stand alone piece of software I would rate it at 2 stars, 3 if tools such as some of the better page builders didn’t exist.

          As it is, taking into account that Gutenberg is being introduced in WP 5 as the de-facto default editor and, a lack of acknowledgement that Gutenberg can’t cater as well for all the use cases that the current editor and it’s back end editor can, I can only rate it as 1 star.

          I do agree though that determining what the true opinion of Gutenberg is will take a while longer to divine. Ratings and reviews are probably not the best measure that can be relied on at this early stage.

  15. We installed Classic Editor on about 50 sites. Only 2 sites are right now on Gutenberg, working on a 3rd. Just because we install Classic Editor, doesn’t mean we are not happy with Gutenberg or don’t want it in core. That’s a very wrong assumption.

    We just are prudent and give our customers peace of mind. No one depending on software for their business will update to the new feature right when it comes out new.

    So for our customers we will wait for WordPress 5.0.2 or 5.0.3, depending how our tests go. Almost every customer has now a staging site where we test Gutenberg and plugins for compatibility and publishing flow. That’s where we also do our customer trainings, if they want it already.

    At the moment, you have a parity in Gutenberg and Classic Editor, only means people are paying attention and do the prudent thing. The conclusion that everyone who installs Classic Editor is against Gutenberg is not a safe on to make. You just don’t know.

    As WordPress developers, who earn money within the WordPress ecosystem, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. Why would I leave it, when adjusting to Gutenberg has such a clear path, plenty of choices around the rough edges and brilliant people to help make the jump.

    • And when your customers say that Gutenberg is just making their page editing a pain, will you ask them what they feel is wrong and then force them to use GB anyways?

      The train is coming, right?

      • We will do what we always do we listen to them until we understand the pain and work to leaviate it. That’s the job. We don’t do worry work, though. We deal with what’s in front of us. Not what might happen in a year

        We ‘force tested’ Gutenberg (set CPTs to show_in_rest) an array of plugins that use the editor. We were delighted how many actually worked out of the box. There were a few quirks and Gutenberg team and plugin developers worked it out within one or two updates. It was quite a pleasant process.

  16. Has anyone heard plans for wordpress.com adopting gutenberg? My wife has a wordpress.com hosted site and she has not heard a thing about gutenberg or any up coming change to their platform. It seems that our wordpress is the test case while their commercial wordpress hosting is not going to touch it. If Gutenberg was a good idea and ready to become core shouldn’t Automattic want it for their version too?

  17. I disagree with Jeff Chandler’s conclusion that “Forks Are a Good Thing, But This One Doesn’t Make Sense”.

    A fork makes sense because this is not just about Gutenberg. It’s about the way it is being imposed to the community. It’s about the way decisions are taken despite the criticism, whether about the decision to integrate Gutenberg or about the path the editor took (which, afterall, is not only an editor …).

    It’s about a huge number of negative reviews, some unfounded (as with any plugin or theme), others well-grounded, although the review forum’s control is the tightest I’ve ever seen, with moderators responding to an absurd number of reviews.

    I’m sure WordPress.com will be a good place to stress-test Gutenberg, a place where the user doesn’t have a word on how it’s being built.

    You don’t need to force it to the whole community. Specially a community that, if you look to the plugin reviews, doesn’t want it and/or doesn’t like it.

    Also, don’t just account for Classic Editor installs only, Disable Gutenberg has more than 5K, Classic Editor Addon has more than 3K, Gutenberg Ramp (Automattic’s plugin) has a few hundreds.

    So, it’s a pity, but yes, a fork makes sense. At least until the lead takes a step back and realizes that this is not the way to make decisions about WordPress. I would prefer this to a fork, I confess. I would prefer a clear departure from WordPress.com’s objectives and needs, giving WordPress a simpler and more flexible approach.

    Gutenberg should remain as a plugin, adopted freely, not the way around. At least until the community – not the leadership – shows that Gutenberg is working, by adoption not by being forced to it.

    Despite my comment, I’m not against Gutenberg. I realize the WordPress editor needs to evolve. But I’m totally against a move that goes against the true spirit of WordPress. It is absurd (in WordPress context) to require an initiated user who wants to customize a WordPress site to master programming languages. Things you used to get with small snippets of code, a bit of CSS, and perhaps a custom field plugin, will now require you to have a development environment, dependencies, javascript knowledge. Or disabling Gutenberg (for how long?).

    It seems Gutenberg is as good for bringing new users onboard (albeit there’re a lot of critics of its UI/UX) as destructive for experienced users who based their activity on the flexibility and plasticity of WordPress.

  18. The fork would work if the developer would also focus on:

    – Removing all pre-PHP 7 support
    – Remove hardcoded jQuery
    – Remove oEmbeds, emojis and all useless content filters
    – Remove REST API
    – Remove XML-RPC
    – Remove the Customizer
    – Remove old code, old functions, deprecated function support
    – Add class autoloading support
    – Add composer support

    …and many more.

    • This is a good example of why each individual fork is likely to largely fall.

      It is extremely unlikely that those supporting a fork in general will be able to coalesce on the details of what is important to them.

      Vastly different viewpoints will likely lead to a small number of mostly inconsequential forks.

  19. Nearly all of the sites I build are using wordpress as a CMS.
    Our clients have a dificult enough time with just the standard content block and a few ACF fields.
    I’m scared as to how badly they will mess up things with Gutenberg.
    It should be an optional plugin, not core.
    Keep it simple.

    • I personally manage six sites, and I’ve been following Gutenberg since 0.2; I’ve watched over 30 revisions.

      I’ve installed Gutenberg on all my sites, and am quite excited to see Gutenberg coming.

      What eludes me is why the naysayers don’t just use the Classic block, or Classic plugin.

      Gonna fork it? Seriously? Why?!

      • Can you guarantee that the classic editor plugin won’t just break or disappear one day when Matt gets tired of waiting for people to willingly start using GB?

      • @Rod ….Matt even said during an event last year (trying to remember what one it was” about the classic editor will be available, and the reply came with a bit of a pause and then he said “…for awhile”. Basically that means the classic editor option is just temporary.

  20. I’m afraid that’s the consequence of using a free CMS. If you want more control build your own CMS (just kiddin’) or find yourself a nice premium alternative. Or fork one. Apparantly a select group of people decide what’s best for WordPress and if you don’t like it, look for something else. Or, in this case, install the Classic Editor. I will for sure.

    And for those who think their customers won’t understand how to work with Gutenberg.. many of these sites already have a horrendous page builder plugin installed, so compared to that editing content with Gutenberg will be easy.

  21. So because Scott Bowler didn’t get what he wants, an elite few are in control? He didn’t get his way, why should what Scott Bowler wants, should be the only accepted and when it doesn’t, no one is listening. There are more people than Scott Bowler in the community.

    Every time something big comes on to WordPress, some people will complain. I think Gutenberg is awesome and I will use it. Some people don’t like change and if they don’t get their way then they bitch about no one listening to them.

    Why should the no-gutenberg side be listened over what the yes-gutenberg side wants? Don’t like it, fork WP.

    • Interesting fact just to keep things honest: Gutenberg bad reviews Vs Good reviews : App. 70% – 30%, so it’s not SOME people, it’s BY FAR, MOST people!

  22. For those from WP saying that “The people are deciding.”
    – it doesn’t really seem so.
    A lot of bad reviews of Gutenberg are being deleted, either simply by removing them or by getting arrogant mods comments stating that “this is not a review”.
    I just want to remind you guys that this is NOT a plugin we are “reviewing” but a project to be integrated in WP core. So, please don’t play with words: when users reply “no thanks”, it means “no thanks” and is indeed a review!

    Here’s mine, that I submitted a couple of days ago and never got published:

    ****************
    Title: NO, NO THANKS, HORRIBLE, NEVER EVER, -0 STARS

    Yes, absolutely: this is called a review.
    Because this is not a plugin like the others, that you have the choice to install or not: this plugin is intended to be in core and you published it here in order to get users reaction (and you got them).
    And that’s the whole difference here.
    At this date, you simply have a very low approval rate and review score of 2.3/5.
    Just face it: it’s horrible!

    – Birgit Pauli-Haack (@bph):

    Why you always try to deviate the discussion and ask “what was wrong”?
    Please just read the titles, the global review score and what people say: we just don’t want this to happen. Full stop. No need to reply.

    – Tammie Lister (@karmatosed)

    Your canned replies make everybody laugh. How many original posters replied to them? Not only laughable, but pretty useless. You lose your time. Find something better to do.

    – Jan Dembowski (@jdembowski)
    – Samuel Wood (Otto) (@otto4)

    Your arrogant replies here don’t help.
    Just listen to what people who tried this monster have to say instead of trying to turn them down.
    The more you add your stupidly arrogant comments here the more you’ll get negative reviews.

    Just face it guys: not only the Gutenberg experience is horrible but your reactions are even worse.
    You are desperately trying to force something into core that MOST WP users simply don’t want.

    Just face it: you tried and you lost.
    Find something else to play with or just add this as free bonus in wp.com/jetpack.

    ****************

    This “review” has never been published but I don’t see those moderators signatures any more in recent replies. Are all gone on holidays?

    • Wow. It’s brave of you to post that up here.

      I’m no mod but they’re correct – your “review” isn’t one. It’s a rambling rant about Gutenberg in general which would be better posted as a post somewhere. Your replies to others are then rude.

      I can understand why this was deleted.

    • @Ganidoz: I saw your review public for a while, read it and applauded. Then it disappeared and I got a 404. That was when it hit me…
      It is an absolute reasonable review. Better than all the 5-star reviews only stating one sentence and where we all know what type of guys create them: people who have no clue, not the slightest about what WP is or better was to us, a framework where WE can decide what features we want to add.
      Having seen your review disappearing made me thinking. I’m having a hard time to trust this WP project any longer since:
      – people who speak their mind about this “forcing this baby tool on us” get their reviews deleted but no place offered to join a true discussion
      – there is no proof of any market research that this stupidity was ever needed
      – acceptance of this tool is measured on the number of installs (what? the latest core update made me install it, you better count the de-installs)
      – almost 1/3 of the internet is used as a crash test dummy
      – …
      My internal list of this bad business behavior goes on. This is unprofessional, undemocratic and a slap in the face to all of us who expect just one thing: having an option. Like with all other plugins.

      I’m all in for a fork that focuses more on security than on bloating the code.
      And most importantly, keeps the core being what it should be: the core – and not a playground for adult people wanting to play with blocks.

      … “let’s make shortcodes great again”

      And to the guys who complain about the so called “negativity” and claim that people hate change: you are wrong. In this case you are wrong. Only because you like to play with blocks does not mean that 1/3 of the web has to play with you.

  23. The copy of the review (& subsequent response) posted here by Ganidoz was highly offensive and clearly deserved to by deleted by the Forum Moderators.

    Hopefully it will also be deleted here.

    • Just to be clear, none of what he reposted was responses by us. He wasn’t quoting any others, that was his “review”, verbatim, as he wrote it originally.

      So, yeah. Those aren’t things we said. Not sure why he put my name in there, other than to call me and Jan arrogant or something, but there you go.

      People who are saying that some things we do not allow to be posted in the forums are correct. You now can see why. There is a fair amount of pretty horrible and toxic postings being made to the forums. We don’t remove words from the forums because people disagree, but we do remove those words that do not belong in a polite and decent community.

      You’re free to not like a thing, it’s just far more useful to say why you don’t like it, not to attack and belittle those that do like it.

  25. ClassicPress may be a problematic name, as there is a WP related product with this name already:

    ClassicPress – Responsive Magazine WordPress Theme – Mojo Themes

  27. Gutenberg is already a fork of WordPress.

    WordPress 5.0 / #Gutenberg introduces:

    new GUI paradigm,

    new programming language/framework/library,

    deep breaking changes,

    core deprecated features,

    new feature roadmap…

    that’s a fork.

  28. Just to be clear, me saying that the Gutenberg roll-out would be more effective as a plugin than bundled into Core was in NO WAY a suggestion that the answer to this is a FORK of WP. I don’t support that idea in any fashion whatsoever.

  29. We will see the true dissatisfaction when 5.0 will roll out. For now only early adopters have tried, and mostly hated, Gutenberg. When normal users will open up WP after the 5.0 update and won’t find the old editor, that’s when we will see the real freak out.
    I predict that Gutenberg will be removed by version 5.1 otherwise I think WordPress will soon begin to be abandoned.

  30. I think the idea of change is often harder to deal with than the actual change itself. Moving to Gutenburg will be like getting a shot at the doctors’s office . “No, No, No don’t do it!… oh… it’s done…” We all hate change, and then we do it and realize that all of the hype was just that… empty hype.

    I predict at the 5.0 rollout our average users will be like, “Whoa this is different… okay, let me figure this out… oh, that was pretty cool… this is better than that old clunky interface we had before.”

    Retraining? How much time have we spent training on the current editor?

    I do think that Automattic would be smarter to improve WordPress core, complete the REST API, and invest in making it a better tool for developers rather than the end users (give us what we need and we’ll create better tools for the end user). But to say that Gutenburg will fragment the community and that a fork is actually viable is ridiculous and short sited. It’s pulling an ember away from the fire… it can’t sustain on its own.

  31. This passage doesn’t make much sense: “With options available to not use or at least delay Gutenberg from becoming the new editor, and that’s if it’s merged into WordPress 5.0, ClassicPress isn’t so much of a necessary fork but rather, a last ditch effort to raise awareness”

    It tries to state there is ample time before any decision is made, there are options available, and it may not even happen, then immediately calls his fork “last-ditch.” Which is it?

  32. I’m saddened by the community of bitchers in WordPress who don’t write core code and sit around and bitch all day bad mouthing others hard and focused work. Since when did any of us have a say in what goes on with a release??? We never have, and now that a new Editor is coming you all think you have a say. I got news for you; you don’t have any decision making in the decision making process and you never have. This is why I have learned to trust the Core developers and Gutenberg developers to do a great job just as they have in the past and present. I’ve used Gutenberg for weeks and months now and have learned how to use it in our workflow. It works great,, warts and all. Can it be improved? Yes. Will it continue to be improved – it’s been hard to keep up with all the improvements but with each update it’s getting better and better. So quit your whining and disrespecting one another and help support the development of the editor and eventually the Customizer. Get behind our team and quit this Fork business – it’s like being a traitor to your own community. Stop it!

    • Wow. You know what, Marcus, I am saddened by the community of bitchers in WordPress who do not respect the hard and focused work (and time and money and inspiration and thousands of lines of code) I have put into my WordPress sites. A community who think that I have to swallow everything that comes from top down. A community who follow blindly each and every so called “modern feature”, just because we ought “to have no say”. What’s the point of open source software, if we have no say?
      Nobody of the (advanced) community asked the “Gutenberg into Core Mergers” to even start their “hard and focused work”, which you want us to praise.
      “Disrespecting one another” for me is if someone like you comes here asking me to keep my mouth shut. To stay silent about something that has a bad impact on my daily work. A bad impact on my property. Yes, my property. Because once the core files are installed it is my property that I build with a handful of excellent plugins and lots of custom code. My property. That is now taken over by something I do not need. Many of us do not need.
      And all we ask for is to keep this tool a plugin. To please both, website operators who run rather simple sites like you and on the other hand to let us advanced guys use WordPress in more powerful ways as we are used to.
      What’s the problem with this?
      Imagine the following situation: to be a modern future-proof citizen of the community it would be required to have a tattoo. But now some of us decide that everybody has to have a tattoo (ha, maybe the WP logo) on the forehead. And there is no way for you to say no to this. Why would you, it’s a modern approach, right? I believe you are the first who starts whining if I come knocking on your door with my tattoo machine under my arm.

    • Guess what, everybody I know who “bitches all day” about Gutenberg – with strong reasons – has been a multiple core contributor.

      Did you contribute anything?

      • This is bullcrap man. Just because someone doesn’t contribute to the project, doesn’t mean they don’t have a perfectly valid opinion; one which is worth hearing. I hate that kind of argument. It’s a rotten way to defend your own opinion, and its a rotten way to think about other peoples’.

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