[wp-hackers] Future of wp-hackers

[Sam Angove]

On 9/26/07, Matt Mullenweg <m at mullenweg.com> wrote:
>
> Perhaps a new mailing list with moderated membership, or that was only
> open to those who had made substantive contributions to the codebase
> would be a good middle ground between private discussions, IRC, and
> wp-hackers. I honestly don't know.

wp-hackers must die. It's been a waste of time and space for years;
no-one even seems to know exactly what it's *for*. And I don't just
mean the idiots asking for help breaking into MySpace accounts. There
are always people asking for help with plugins, for example, wondering
out loud if it's the right place, etc. Is it?

We've got wp-testers, wp-polyglots etc. already, but there's
definitely scope for, say, a plugin development list. Perhaps other
special interest groups: security, privacy, accessibility, theme
development? A wp-users list? A wp-core-development list? A limited
wp-cabal list is guaranteed to offend some people, unless there's a
quantifiable criterion for membership, but we'll get over it.

Some other projects have formal systems for proposing new features,
e.g. Python Enhancement Proposals, the LiveJournal suggestions
community. I don't see why ideas like "upgrade to PHP 5" can't be sent
off to <http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/> or some place like it. A
easily navigable archive might even discourage people from raising the
same issues over and over, especially if they're clearly marked as
"REJECTED". It isn't always easy to find the official position on
something.

> People talking past each other about PHP5 (AFTER a decision had been
> made) generates hundreds of posts yet Alex's post about unit tests,
> which has the potential to have a real impact on the quality of WP in
> the future, thuds with nary a response.

Hmm, and there was such a tremendous response when Jacob Santos posted
*his* test harness. :P