[wp-hackers] Differentiating nightlies and betas

[Podz]

 From Ryan
"Those people relentlessly asking questions are actually providing a
service.  Repeatedly reported bugs offer an indication that something
may need to be re-thought and re-designed.  Designs were changed a
number of times in 1.5 in response to relentless questions from those
who couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag.  They are our users,
and their input is valuable."

 From Carthik
"Nightlies are not friendly for the average end user, but if they want 
to break their boxes, who are we to stop them? We should stop feeling 
"guilty" or "responsible" for their problems, and use whatever inputs we 
get from them, and gently remind them that nightlies are not the best 
option out there."

And when someone downloads a nightly - and we do not have enough or 
sufficiently prominent warnings - and something does bug out, they post 
to the forum. Yet because no-one else in the same setup has had that 
problem, we can offer little advice beyond "roll back" - believe me that 
advice is not taken happily and they start ranting. Do we want that ? 
Should we point at Pivot ? bBlog ? pMachine ?
Some people have no idea if what they have is a bug or if it's a plugin 
gone wrong, or css gone bad or any number of other things but it does 
not stop them doing the [BUG!!!!!!!!!!] crap in the forums.

Yes it IS their fault if they download, but I still maintain that we 
need to make getting the download much much harder, and we have some 
very strong warnings along that path. This is not a lot to ask guys, it 
realy isn't. And please remember that at the very first whiff of 1.6, we 
will have people downloading it all over so they can have the latest and 
greatest. Fact is, no nightly really has destroyed a blog yet - your 
coding ability is both a success and a millstone - so they are trading 
on your past success.

Please:
- extremely warnings
- more clicks than now to get at anything other than Strayhorn
- clear instructions on where / how to reports percieved bugs

Wordpress just got bigger with 1.5 and it'll get bigger still. The forum 
supporters need your help in managing their workload now and in the 
future - it's not a nice place there right now.

P.


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