WordPress Openness (was Re: [wp-hackers] UI development for 1.6)

[Joey B]

Just a couple of issues I want to address...

> No final decisions have been made for 1.6, it's all open to discussion.
> 
> Everything on all these lists is read. And blog posts. And IRC 
> discussions. And forum threads.

My first issue: if this is all open to discussion, then why have I
barely seen any outside of this mailing list? I certainly haven't seen
any official discussion on #wordpress, and I'm usually there. You also
told us to keep our mouths shut at the June 15th meetup about 1.6 on
the forums, so we can't discuss it there. The only place I've seen any
reference to it is the wordpress meetups and the Codex request page
and here-- three places where more than half of the "smart idea
contributing" community have no idea where is. If it's meant to be
open, than have something more open than half-closed.

Secondly, how do you read IRC discussions when you are rarely in
#wordpress yourself, Matt? Several good ideas pass through there on a
weekly, even daily, basis, yet I rarely see an "official
representative" of WordPress there to see these discussions. From our
previous private discussions, I think you see #wordpress as nothing
but a place to shrug off support questions to those technically-savvy
enough to run an IRC client, but it's much more than that, and I think
someone involved with Wordpress' codebase should be there from
time-to-time to actually see these discussions.

I'm also inclined to think this is becoming more and more a one-man
project. While I can certainly see the point in wanting a sole leader
who "has a vision and who will go ahead and implement it," there's
also the need to add to this vision with something better that Matt
himself may not have thought of-- isn't that the beauty of being open
and having a community base? And Fahim is right, you can go ahead and
modify Wordpress to your wants and go off and do your thing, but this
does very little. It will not change how Matt manages Wordpress, nor
will it have very much effect on the userbase.

And as a last note:

> I noticed you did not complain about the hundreds of thousands of WP blogs 
> that link to you out of the box.

Low blows don't become you.

-- 
Joey Brooks
Milk Carton Designs || milkcarton.protonage.net