[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #32396: Settings Reduction for 4.3

[WordPress Trac]

#32396: Settings Reduction for 4.3
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 Reporter:  chriscct7       |       Owner:  chriscct7
     Type:  enhancement     |      Status:  assigned
 Priority:  normal          |   Milestone:  4.3
Component:  Administration  |     Version:
 Severity:  normal          |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  needs-patch     |     Focuses:
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Comment (by chriscct7):

 Update before the core meeting. Due to lack of enough data for the media
 page, we're going to hold off on touching that tab until 4.4 (where we'll
 also look at reducing the number of discussion page settings).

 For 4.3 we are considering the removal of the writing and reading option
 pages.

 From these pages:

 Settings removed from other tickets:
 - mailserver_url (post to email leaving core)
 - mailserver_login (post to email leaving core)
 - mailserver_pass (post to email leaving core)
 - mailserver_port (post to email leaving core)
 - default_email_category (post to email leaving core)
 - default_category (moving to the post category page in #31483)

 Removed based on usage under 1% (from WordPress.com data, normalized) :
 - avatar_default
 - show_avatars
 - avatar_rating
 - default_post_format
 - ping_sites
 - posts_per_rss

 Additionally `rss_use_excerpt` would either need to be removed or
 relocated (probably to General). If you go by .com's statistics for that,
 it's 2%. However, as pointed out by @kraft, .com's numbers on this
 particular statistic are biased upwards as it serves a second usage as it
 controls how much of the post is displayed in the WordPress.com Reader.

 Settings Moved to General:
 - posts_per_page
 - page_on_front
 - page_for_posts
 - blog_public


 Now, for each option we remove we have 2 removal options:
 - Remove the setting (hide it) just for new installs (continue showing for
 existing installs), like we did with smilies + XHTML
 - Remove the setting for all installs

 For each setting, existing hooks can be utilized (as well as just a simple
 update_option call) to continue using the setting after it's been removed
 or hidden. Plugins that map settings to these pages will have the settings
 remapped accordingly, exactly the way it happened when (for example) the
 privacy option page was removed.

 The highest priority item on this ticket is the decision on whether to
 remove the settings from existing installs as well.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/32396#comment:20>
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