[wp-hackers] Custom taxonomies for authors

[Mike Schinkel]

On Mar 13, 2010, at 2:33 AM, Dion Hulse (dd32) wrote:
>> At this risk of inciting a backlash, doesn't this give one good use-case (and I have many others of my own) why it would be a good idea to have users (and commenters) as a standard "person" post type, at least via a canonical plugin if not in core?
> 
> I dont quite get that, In reality, Users are a first class object, same as post_types (Which have children of posts, pages, attachments, revisions, etc), same as comments..
> What benefit would making users a post_Type (Even if as a linked object)?

From an earlier post [1] to this list I was advocating for considering creating a custom post type for anything where even a few of the following add value for the use case: 

-- Having a title/body editor for the item has value 
-- Having status workflow for the item has value 
-- Having visibility control for the item has value 
-- Having visibility control for the item has value 
-- Having revisions for the item would be valuable 
-- Having trash/delete management for the item would be valuable 
-- Having ability to schedule publish date/time would be valuable 
-- Having a web page of content about the item would be valuable 
-- Having ability to define a template for the content page would be valuable 
-- Having ability to set another content type as a parent of the item would be valuable 
-- Having ability to reference the item in a menu with a menu orderwould be valuable 
-- Having category-like terms associated with the item would be valuable 
-- Having tag-like terms associated with the item would be valuable 
-- Having comments associated with the item would be valuable 
-- Having custom fields (meta) associated with the item would be valuable 
-- Having images associated with the item would be valuable 
-- Having easy URL routing for the item in the form /item-type/%item-name%/ would have value 
-- Having an admin menu section for adding and editing would have value 
-- Having plugins that support custom content types would add valuable additional functionality "for free." 

It seems that managing people on a website would benefit from having all the features offered "for free" by being a post type. Users are people, Commenters are people, and frankly 100% of the website I've ever launched have needed to manage people as a first-class element in some form or another. It would surprise me if most people who use WordPress wouldn't really need the same assuming they really understand what having such functionality would allow them to do that they cannot do now.

-Mike
[1] http://groups.google.com/group/wp-hackers/msg/2a7b1f238ad85987