[wp-hackers] 2-3 plugins

[Owen Winkler]

I disagree with the suggestions for spam plugin bundling.  Why?

Spam Karma - Even if the default settings work well, the moment you need 
to configure anything you wade into a quagmire of UI that both isn't 
easy and doesn't look anything like the rest of WordPress.  This is too 
difficult to configure for beginning users.

Bad Behavior - Maybe the next version will suit me, but I think it's a 
major failing that it doesn't have any easy way for a user (visitor or 
admin) to deal with the problem of what to do when they're incorrectly 
blocked.  The logic that it uses to prevent spam works right now, but 
packing it with WordPress will only make the spammers write work-arounds 
faster.  It's also a bazillion files.

Akismet - As already mentioned; download Flock, sign up for a 
WordPress.com account that wouldn't be used, find the API key, insert 
the API key into the plugin.  If the plugin was modified to let you 
create new WP.com accounts on the fly, then maybe that would work, but 
it's still not exactly "set it and forget it".  Plus, the "high-earning 
blogs should pay" aspect of it being added to free software gives me the 
willies.

I don't think anyone has written a spam prevention plugin that addresses 
the needs of users who wouldn't think of reading this mailing list.  And 
I don't think that choosing a specific spam prevention solution is 
something we should do for everyone, given the specific downsides of 
each of these and each user's preference.  This is not to say that spam 
prevention should not be at the top of the list of plugins to include.

As far as suggestions are concerned, wp-db-backup is already in 
wp-plugins.org and ready to go, even with i18n support.  (An easy way to 
sift for qualifying plugins could be on whether they support i18n!)

And if you would allow me the hubris of recommending another plugin that 
I helped with, the search-docs plugin (also already in wp-plugins.org) 
could be very helpful, since it seems that all of our context-sensitive 
help links have vanished.

Both of those plugins have signifiant wow-factor with their ajax 
capabilities.  They both incorporate functions that users often wonder 
why they're not already part of WordPress, not just a nice/clever extra 
feature.  They're both reasonably established plugins, even though I 
would like to see more testing on any plugin that would be included with 
the distribution.

On a related tangent, has any more consideration been given to packing a 
different Default theme with 1.6?  This may be something to discuss 
further next IRC meetup.

Owen