Re: Lets Talk about Facebook Connect
@ (my affable sparring partner) kevinjohngallagher:
1) re: the 350 million facebook users, there was just a story on Mashable ‘Facebook’s Road to 350 Million Users’: (http://mashable.com/2009/12/02/facebook-350-million-users/)
“Mark Zuckerberg’s note detailing Facebook’s latest privacy changes also contained an announcement about another important milestone for Facebook: 350 million users.”
Facebook’s own website: (http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics):”‘More than 350 million active users”
I’m just going with what they said 
2) I don’t have official ‘stats’ but can tell you Facebook connect is put to use on my site (I run Intense Debate, which offers various ways folks can leave comments). Twitter connect is occasionally as well (but not as much as FB connect) My general point is this: it’s optional and it and brings new folks into the discussion. IntenseDebate was smart to incorporate several different optional login methods! From my standpoint, I am very happy to offer FB connect to my readers
3) “So, who are these magical little elves that are going to build and then maintain all these features??” (BTW, I too am a South Park fan so I immediately got your reference):
Build and maintain all those features? You are missing my point…if existing popular plugins like ‘topic views’ or ‘bbcode’ are built into the core a third party no longer needs to maintain the plugin and make sure they don’t break in bbPress 1.0, bbPress 1.1, etc. They are STANDARDIZED and can be further fleshed out! (WordPress example: Just like WordPress did with the automatic updater and ability to thread comments…) _ck_ came up with some really slick and widely used plugins, and she is probably won’t be maintaining them from here on out. Maybe stuff like ‘BBcode Buttons’ should continue as a Core features?
Even though we both disagree on some of these things, we both want the same thing…bbPress to be more widely used & developed and the bbpress community to grow (those that make plugins, templates, etc). I would also like to see bbPress to emerge as a vBulletin alternative.
Again, things like Voices, gravatars, profile pics, profile occupation and location, tags etc could have all been simply left as plugins, but they were incorporated into the core. My overall point (forget FB connect for a sec) is that things like Voices, gravatars, profile pics, profile occupations, location, and other features are part of the core and that is a very good thing! It makes it easier for bbPress to be more widely used because a separate plugin is not needed for each (good for newbies, stability, and so community can further flesh them out via plugins or themes) There is less danger of those features breaking (they are now features of the Core, not separate plugins). The use of those features is standardized so plugins and themes can be developed to make use of those features without requiring a plugin to use each.
In a nutshell, I think things like bbcode, topic views, and some other plugins should sit alongside Voices, gravatars, etc as features that should be incorporated into the Core.
kevinjohngallagher, I love your passion. I am someone who is probably not as skilled as you are with computers and technology (17FB accounts…you sound busy!) I’m not a developer, just some newbie that taught himself how to run WordPress and bbPress by messing around with the stuff.
We aren’t going to agree on Facebook-connect (it’s a tougher sell than some of the others), but I would wager that there is probably a popular plugin or two that you might also agree should logically be part of the core for stability and out-of-the-box-feature issues. Thoughts?
