[michael3185]

Yes johnhiler! But without much extra work.

(My ‘Holy Cow inefficiency’ rant was fueled by a late night and beer – I finally got out of the house).

bbPress, and WordPress, need some standards for plugins. Think about it. I know there’s no perfect analogy, but let’s imagine it’s a car. Ford decide to release a twenty-first century car, and it’s damned cool. It has a chassis, steering, wheels and an engine, but everything else is bolt-on. You get to choose how it looks and works. Some people bolt on an aerodynamic shell and a blower, and achieve speeds in excess of 150mph. Others bolt on a big shell and wheels, and lots of seats to carry their kids around. Everyone has a hundred other options. Cool! However, anything you want to bolt on has either a) to be ratified by Ford, or b) noted as a user bolt-on from elsewhere. Ford has a main site/blog/forum where you can see authorised bolt-ons working and links to where to get them, but there are a thousand sites/blogs/forums where you can get ‘unauthorised’ bolt-ons. The world is, as Douglas Adams said, any mollusc you like. But at least you know the Ford authorised bolt-ons are going to work, because they’ve tried them, and all the screws fit the right holes.

Sam and other core developers need to do something similar. Set some standards. Many existing plugins may adhere to those standards already. Many won’t. They should do it across all systems they’ve created. They tell the world that these new standards exist, and that they’ve set a benchmark. The world reports that bbPress/WordPress has set standards other forums haven’t. They don’t need to do much more work, but lickety-split, they’re an authority in the blog/forum world.

When that happens – and it had better happen if the developers want to be taken seriously – users will do a few simple things. They’ll download and install, grab some certified plugins, and go. Sites will appear all over the world with comments like, “I clicked a couple of links, sent the package to my server, added a few certified plugins, and YAY!”

That’s what you folks developing the core of bbPress/Wordpress want.

Isn’t it?