@Peter Westwood -

Hi Peter,

Apologies for the slow reply, I've been enjoying Christmas with the family. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me :)

At the risk of arguing semantics, I never once stated that “Never listen to the Vocal Minority – even if they’re right” was in your slides. I've stated that you did in fact say it. Was it a slip of the tongue, an ad-lib? A Freudian slip? I have no doubt it could have been, and certainly wouldn't hold it against you if it was. But that is what you said.

You also said:

"The vocal minority should be ignored"

I Tweeted this: https://twitter.com/#!/kevinjohng/status/133545924894015489

Apparently I am "the vocal minority that should be ignored". Ha! Thinking of getting a T-shirt printed for the next event #WordUpWhitehall

And you Re-Tweeted it Peter! Though I imagined you had a wry smile on your face while doing so, and that made me smile too.

I didn't want to make this a "He said / She said" scenario. I didn't call you out on this, and nor did I use your name in my original post, as it has a tendency for people to feel like its a personal attack; which my original comment wasn't - and hopefully neither will this be perceived in that way.

The point I wanted to make was that we should be thinking about the majority group of end users who make up our user base

I agree. I'm ok with being in the minority mate, thats fine. But Automattician's have a tendency to say this, and then release a BETA without loading it on a Windows Machine; or release a function like capital_p_dangit(), or do something stupid like BackPress, or make a browser detect that doesn't correctly detect browsers on Windows, or make a hover menu that requires a mouse to use because, fuck it, it's only disabled people.

From a personal viewpoint, I've never once argued FOR a particular feature or functionality to be added to WordPress. But I do think I'm in the minority because I call people on their crap, as I'm happy for people to do to me. Here's an example from a recent WordPress event I attended:

- Person X: I saw your discussion on [.org] regarding the hover menus in 3.3. You made some good points, but, y'know, I see both sides of the argument.
- Me: Well, I'd actually love to know what your thoughts on that were.
- Person X: Well you made some good points about usability, accessibility, and specifically about less-than-fully-abled people, but on the other hand there's what the Core Devs think. I think its fairly balanced
- Me: Well what do they think, what bit of their viewpoint do you agree with?
- Person X: Well, they're the core devs. I just agree with them.

This "Person X", currently writes for a rather well known WordPress website.

Sometimes Peter mate, it's not that the Vocal Minority are intentionally shouting loudest just to make a point. It's that we're shouting louder to try and be heard over the sycophantic rabble from the masses of unquestioning followers that WordPress has amassed.

Since I'm already going to be bombarded with hate e-mails for disagreeing with a Core Dev (which does happen btw, to disagree with a Core Dev is considered sacrilege to some of WordPress' devout followers) I figure now's a good time to let you in on this little nugget. In our Office we no longer refer to Matt as Matt or the Community as the Community. Rather they go by Dune based names Matt'Dib (from Muad'Dib, a man who meant well, but who's every word is taken as Gospel an it is heresy to question), and the Community is referred to "Freemen" (from Freman, a people who consider themselves free willed, as long as they unquestioningly do everything Matt'Dib commands them). Personally, I thought that was a little harsh when the names were used last year after the bbPress debacle. Right now mate, they seem very very fitting.

I'll say now, what I've been saying for the last 3 years. What originally brought me to WordPress originally was the humility shown by the Core Team/Matt. I look back at Capital_P_Dangit, bbPress2.0, backPress, etc and I ask myself, where did the humility go? When was the last time someone said "Sorry, we got that wrong"?

I'm ok with being labelled a Jerk and thought of badly. But when people debate me on this stuff, I always ask, tell me where I'm wrong. I'm a human, i'm wrong all the time in life. But if you're simply not wanting to listen to what I have to say because you don't like me, then it's not a community, it's not Open, it's just a bunch of people talking with people who they know agree with them (or won't say anything if they don't).

"The vocal minority should be ignored" and “Never listen to the Vocal Minority – even if they’re right” are both very scary statements, outside of an Orwellian Novel that is.