[wp-forums] The "Changes" - PT2 - Let's get this together..

Sun Sep 17 05:27:32 GMT 2006

Quite some ago, when I was very involved in the support forums, I took it
upon myself to "go to the people" and ask them directly what kind of changes
or additions the forums could use. Whatever idea they had, big or small, I
asked for them. I did this by posting in the forums...ALL of the
forums...and got a gentle spanking for doing that. My post was deleted in
all but one forum -- fair enough, I was only a support maven, and not the
lead developer of WP, but I digress.

The post was made as a sticky, in the most active forum, so it was visible
to a LOT of people. There was a link there for them to contact me directly,
and I would post them for all to see. Can you guess how many suggestions I
got? A thousand? Five hundred? One hundred? I don't recall the exact number,
but it was less than two dozen. Eventually I had to go the route of sending
out emails to a random sample of regulars on the forums.

http://nuclearmoose.com/archives/2005/02/16/wordpress-community-feedback/ -
This was the post that I linked to in the WP.org forum post to get the ball
rolling.

http://nuclearmoose.com/archives/2005/02/20/cattle-calls-dont-work/ - My
frustrated response to the lack of feedback. Given the number of people who
chime in on the forums (why not phpBB?) I figured that I'd get lots of
ideas. But alas, we are, as a species, prone to be lazy, and while it seemed
perfectly okay to log in and bitch/complain/suggest/cajole/argue/discuss
ideas and improvements, people didn't feel strongly enough to bother taking
some time to REALLY sit down and think and pass along their ideas, save for
a stalwart few.

http://nuclearmoose.com/archives/2005/03/09/wordpressers-speak/ - This was
my compilation of things I got back from directly contacting people and
basically "interviewing" them.

My conclusion? Build something, run with it, adapt. Remodel, adapt. The
users will always tell you what they want when they are immediately affected
(effected? lol) and you'll get the feedback you want.

Then you have to try and get an audience and sit back to see if any of the
feedback will be accepted and implemented. It's the way things work. It's
neither bad nor good, it's simply the way of the WP world.

Craig.