[wp-hackers] Community Views on Now and the Future

[Craig]

/me tosses Kaf some bananas and recruiting forms.

<soapbox>
I think that the concept of an "inner circle" is more of an emotional
outburst of frustration than reality. I should know, because I've done it
myself. What brought me back to reality was how at one time, when I was very
active in the support forums, I was labelled as being part of the inner
circle itself, presumably because I had moderator privileges on the forums.

I was taken aback that someone thought that I was a member of the inner
sanctum when, in reality, it took forever and a month of Sundays to get
moderator status. Podz and I were relentless in bugging Matt for that, and
when time permitted, it was granted. I never had the inside track on version
releases or feature enhancements or anything else from the coding side. It
is, however, easy to understand why people think and believe that there are
some "blessed" individuals that make up part of an inner sanctum. It's a
natural human response to feel excluded when we are not in-the-know about
something.

I'm not here to apologise for anyone, but to be fair, a lot of really good
things have happened around WP, and that's due to the contributions of a lot
of dedicated people as well as many who contribute on a casual basis. There
are plenty of areas that need improvement, and as long as there are those
willing to express themselves, improvements will happen. It just may not be
at the speed at which many of us would like.

There was, and still is, quite a gulf between ordinary users and WP hackers.
How many calls for help has Podz posted in this mailing list when he
recognized that the community needed an answer he couldn't provide? It often
takes a lot of his time to get someone to respond, when it doesn't
necessarily require Matt or Ryan's intervention. It's time for each of us to
accept some personal responsibility on how the community has and will
continue to develop. There are a lot of good things, so let's not forget
those or, in some instances, ignore those things only to emphasize those
issues that are divisive.

We gotta keep banging the drums; we gotta continue pushing, and when our
ideas or other contributions are not accepted, we have to remember that it's
not personal, and that all of us are working towards the common goal of
having a great piece of software and a thriving community to support it on
many facets.
</soapbox>

Craig
Nuclear Moose