[wp-hackers] Making it better

[Brian Dupuis]

Matthew Mullenweg wrote:

> I'm curious how the list thinks the community could be improved to 
> avoid the concerns voiced in comments like this:
>
> http://www.plasticbag.org/archives/2005/04/links_for_20050421.shtml
>
I had a big long response typed up and then realized it boils down to 
the universal axiom: you can't please all of the people all of the time. 
To get up and running with a functioning blog in WordPress is typically 
a 2-step process that no one can beat. People that want to do advanced 
things with no knowledge of PHP may have a hard time. Some plugins are 
easy to use and others aren't. The support forums are incredibly helpful 
and supportive, but few people are willing to write someone's site for 
them with every little quirk that they want so sometimes people will be 
disappointed at the level of support.

That said, some thoughts:

1. For plugins, turn wp-plugins.org into more. I know there are plans 
for that. Perhaps have it be more moderated, such that plugins are peer 
reviewed to certain standards before listed, standards that would 
obviously need to be defined (e.g. plugin doesn't diminish the security 
of the install). Perhaps more code sharing and discussion in terms of 
plugin functionality so that less user-level PHP diddling is required in 
some cases (e.g. some plugins have elegant ways of using filters to 
insert/manipulate data such that actual function calls aren't added to 
templates) for more "one-step plugin installation" situations. That 
doesn't mean that only certain people are allowed to write plugins, but 
plugins that aren't "on the list" aren't supported on the forums and 
will be handled by the plugin author.

2. Further support forum functionality would be helpful, as mentioned by 
others. If nothing else, paging through the "Latest Discussions" would 
make it easier to browse the entire list.

3. There is no three. Currently.

    Regards,
    Brian