Search Results for 'bbpress'
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nobody cares if bbPress stable will be ready in many months _ck_. I think the biggest problem here is this:
The community: we, us, who use bbPress (alpha or not) report bugs, try all, use your plugins, make it public… we are also a piece of the “raise of bbPress”. We are all very thankfull for the work that you guys do, but what if nobody use it? It would be work for nothin. And it’s just a thing of respect and good will to get the community informated. So if e.g. you don’t know when its ready, dont write “stop asking” or “ready when ready”… try instead “i don’t know” …? So all of us will wait for a reply from someone that knows. Like Sam. And he replied. And it was really informative for us all. Lots of ppl like me are a little happier
now, so where is the problem? Chill…(sorry if you cant understand my english)
and just for my personal info: are you (_ck_) working on bbPress itself? or “just” the plugins? Because why reply you always to this questions if the question is not for you (when you’re not working on core product)?
I think we all love _ck_ for her plugins, and her attempts to help the community before and after she was made a Mod, but if she and other Mods have “had it up to here” with the same posts being made and the same questions being asked all the time; maybe it’s time to change the website which gives this the false /conflicting/confusing information?
We can’t tell people to look at Trac for info on bugs/releases/roadmaps, and then complain when they get confused by the conflicting information.
I’m also don’t find Joel’s blog too helpful, but that’s not to say that some project management isn’t necessary simply because it’s an open source project. But rather than taking the comments about leadership/ownership of the project on the chin, it’s apparently easier to discredit/deflect from the man making the comments – i mean, seriously, who cares if wikipedia doesn’t list Joel as a developer? Does that mean the man doesn’t know that keeping Trac/Gantt chart/documentation/bug list etc up to date greatly increases productivity and keeps a project focussed?
Or is it because he worked for “Microsoft, so he couldn’t be more opposite in thinking to open-source web based code development”. Are we just presuming now that if you happen to take a wage that you’re fundamentally against free or open source software? I take a wage for a company that wont be releasing it’s software, am i now in the “couldn’t be more opposite in thinking to open-source web based code development” simply because of my day job? Or is it easier to shoot down people making comments based on presumptions moderators have about anyone who places feeding their wives and children above working a 9-5 for an open source software foundation?
I see, it’s cos it’s easier to shoot down questions and comments rather than have a discussion.
(btw _ck_, the guy left Microsoft over 9 years ago. 9. years. maybe we can let that one go.)
Hey dude, can i ask where you got his info from:
Now Lorelle (from Lorelle on WordPress, a name many folks may be familiar with) has intimated that this will be a ‘big’ year for bbPress.
It seems great news, but in the same way that Sam lets us know that he’s been focussed on non-BBpress projects 7 replies down a random forum post; it worries me that finding out this cool info is getting harder and harder.
Follow the bbPress blog. You’ll get your answer when you do
I kinda hope that’s tongue-in-cheek , with 5 posts in 6 months (and 3 of them within 3 days of each other), the BBpress blog isn’t quite the bastian of information you might think. All it does it tell us when there’s a new release. It’s not not a blog as much as a list of release dates.
I suspect _ck_’s had it up to here with the same people asking the same questions. It does get a little wearing and if I were to link to every post that someone asked this ‘How long…’ question… well I may find the practical limit to post length
Exaggeration a little, yes, but not as much as you’d think.FWIW, I read Joel on Software frequently, but I disagree with him when it comes to the Open Source Solution. Locked Down software, like Office and such, are a totally different beast, and most Open Source developments start out herky-jerky (like BB and WP) and eventually smooth out into a sort of update schedule. But you can’t do that until you have a baked product, and when you’re re-inventing things, you can’t give a firm deadline because there is no way you can quantify the time it takes to be inventive. Open Source created a new development roadmap, and that map is still very young and very tentative. It took a decade or more to get commercial software where it is today. Open Source has been around since the 60s, but it didn’t really become a ‘thing’ until 1998. And Open Source development, where anyone can pitch in? Whooof! A lot of folks never even saw that coming as more than a passing fancy.
Now Lorelle (from Lorelle on WordPress, a name many folks may be familiar with) has intimated that this will be a ‘big’ year for bbPress. What does that mean? Dunno, but I suspect now that WP is a grownup, it’s time to burn creative juices over on bbPress. Which still does not mean you’ll get bb 1.0/release any time soon.
Be patient. Read the posts people have already made. Follow the bbPress blog. You’ll get your answer when you do
I have to say, i’m a little offended that my forum post has been closed, some 9 minutes after posting.
It is in the correct section (requests & feedback), doesn’t swear or flame anyone.
It gives high level list of where i think we are falling down (or as i call it feedback) and suggests ways we can improve upon that feedback (requests). While not praising everything BBpress, i felt the tone was one of how we can work together to improve this product.
Maybe i’m missing something, but i think closing down this sort of discussion, especially in the “Requests and Feedback — Tell us what you’re thinking” section is somewhat draconian.
I write this in response to the growing posts and their ever-increasing angrier responses from moderators, to people who are simply asking for clarification of (mis-)information.
The problem we have, as a community, is that we have no communication nor project management involved with BBpress.
COMMUNICATION
A great example would be:
_ck_ rightly points out, and then gets angry at the poster, people are constantly asking the same questions. The bit _ck_ misses is that they are not pointless to a lot of people, or indeed one person, even if they are pointless to her. The point that hasn’t seen to be grasped by Sam/Moderators is that have an external facing Trac website that says one thing, when another is true, which is why people are asking the same questions over and over.
Instead of getting angry at people, why not change the date on Trac?? Even if you put it at 1st Jan 2010, it’s at least in the future and closer to being realistic than 1.0Beta 2 months ago.
I brought this up in October, and then again in December, and now again in February, but people who are new to this project or maybe not as involved ask _ck_ get their information from the website; but this info has been wrong for over 5 months. Which is why people are asking for clarification!
If you give people wrong/bad/out of date information, you have to accept that they will ask questions about it on the forum. It’s been the nature of humans throughout history, and we’re not going to change simply because it’s BBpress (sadly).
Given that the issue could be fixed by a BBpress person (not sure about user roles here so don’t want to presume that a forum mod could do it or if we need to wait for Sam); maybe we should stop being rude to people and fix it?
<u>A further example:</u>
It’s great that _ck_ knows that alpha 7 will break her plugins; but what about everyone else? Where is the blog post? Where is the forum post by Sam? Where is the sticky? Where is the announcement? Etc.
After much searching it turns out that 3 weeks ago _ck_ made a post about it, which has been off the front page of the forums section for the last 15 days. Brilliantly meaning that if you didn’t read the BBpress forums for a 5 day period at the start of February for any reason, then you won’t know about these massive changes. At the risk of appearing sarcastic, does anyone else think that maybe this should be the sort of thing we should Sticky/announce/keep on front page? Shouldn’t this sort of thing come from Sam?
But regardless it just re-emphasises the fact that communication about BBpress is close to non-existant.
TRAC
Devs and Moderators tell us to use Trac, and then are surprised that people are confused about the roadmap saying that Beta comes out 01/08/08 .
Either update Trac so that people don’t get confused, or inform people in some another way (which is a little redundant as that is what the Trac roadmap is for).
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
It somewhat goes hand in hand with the communication aspect, but as any developer knows, rushing head first into coding with no long term view quickly becomes fruitless.
As a community, and i’m in no way saying that Sam answers to us (really want to make that clear), we have no freaking idea what the heck is going on at any given time. We’re either given an ever changing answer by a moderator, or we’re told that Sam will tell us (like the voice behind the curtain), or we’re left with the (wrong) info on the website.
Every change comes out of no-where.
We have no idea what the short, medium and long terms goals are.
As much as this software is ‘free’, anyone planning to use it on a website at least wants to plan a little in advance.
It’s very difficult to want to help/take pride/give back to an open source project when we’re constantly told “it’s ready when it’s ready stop asking” – and in fact shows a total lack of project management and control.
Who runs the BBpress project?
Do they know/can they answer:
– how many scheduled man hours until alpha 7?
– are people assigned to work on it, or have they been moved elsewhere?
– what is the testing time on alpha 7?
– how long and we holding open bug acceptance for alpha 7?
– what is the due date for alpha 7?
– what is the likelihood of hitting that date?
– what are the dependant factors?
– what impact does alpha 7 have on existing installations?
– have the testers been informed of this?
– have the contributors been informed of this?
– what potential conflicts are there between current versions and alpha 7?
I’m not specifically looking for answers btw, as I said before Sam doesn’t answer to us, but I’m not sure I believe that ANYONE related with this project can answer those questions, and that is really really worrying.
IT IS FREE – THEREFORE IT IS OK.
Free is good, free we like.
Free means we accept bugs.
Free means we accept it’s not ideal.
Free means we know we wont get a 100% fit to what we need.
Free doesn’t mean we accept no communication.
Free doesn’t mean we accept what communication we get being wrong.
Free doesn’t mean we accept no management.
Free doesn’t mean we should get slapped down for asking perfectly legitimate and reasonable questions.
Free doesn’t mean we should accept instant yet wide sweeping changes.
Free doesn’t mean we should accept a total lack of respect.
AUTOMATTIC IS NOT A COMMERCIAL COMPANY
It is.
No, really… it is, so can we please stop saying that it’s not. Sam, while a loveable rogue to be sure (and he’s very cute in his picture), he is not fucking Ghandi – he does this for a wage.
Automattic is not building BBpress out of the goodness of their hearts to save all the wee orphans of the world, they’re a company making a profit and paying people’s wages.
Lets drop the humanitarian line when someone makes a good point and the moderators want to slap it down, eh? Or am I wrong, is BBpress ending world hunger as we speak? No? ok, maybe lets stop this one then. Just a thought.
HOW TO FIX THIS.
At the risk of opening up an old wound, I made a list at Christmas time (the oh so fun Facebook thread).
Either pause development on BBpress 1.0alpha7 for a week, or engage someone else to do it but:
<u>Fix the website. </u> Seriously, spend time going through each static page (there are 20 of them) removing all the bogus/wrong/out of date information. Some pages are fine, some are really really out of date. Given how much has changed with BBpress since WP2.5 came out, if you haven’t updated a page since that time then you know it’s wrong before reading.
<u>Blog more. </u> Not in a twitter “I am eating an apple” way, but you’ve made 5 posts in over 6 months (and 3 of them were within 3 days of each other). That development blog is our window into the BBpress development. It says “hey, this project ain’t dead”; instead all it does now is say “we released this bit of software on this date”. It’s not a blog, there’s no info other than release dates of software that don’t work anymore (for the most part).
<u>Extend / Plugin section. </u> This drastically needs an overhaul. There needs to be an option to filter out plugins that either don’t work or haven’t been updated to the latest release. Lets be honest, some of these plugins are 2 years old, and as soon as you click into them that’s the first stat you see.
<u>Download section. </u> Kinda/probably/should/maybe say that if you download the latest version it won’t work with a wordpress install form the last 9 months. Even though it’s from the same company. And it says it does work in the About page. And says it again on the Integration page. Yeah, we should probably write the truth somewhere or people will keep asking…
<u>Trac. </u> Lets update Trac. If someone has an understanding of the project to the level that they can answer the Project Manager 101 questions above, then why not put some of that info into Trac? I’m confident (though it’s just my opinion) that people are more motivated to fix bugs if we know there are X outstanding before the next alpha, rather than a huge list that has be fixed in an unknown amount of time.
<u>Development documentation. </u> A tough one this, and time consuming. I get that, I really do. But it makes helping out really difficult. As someone with rusty PHP coding skills (I‘ve been a BA far too long), I find Navigating bbpress to be a pain, and while I understand wordpress comparisons aren’t favourable, documentation makes wordpress editing 1000 times easier.
<u>Give us an overview. </u> Sounds very simple, and most PM’s have an overview list for each project anyway (usually on a power point to fob directors off), but it would make life easier. Many of us still don’t know what ‘features’ are standard with BBpress and which will only be available via plugin. Many of us don’t know what features are intended on being added, or what direction BBpress is going to go in. These aren’t bugs, we can’t add them to Trac, but many good points have been raised on these forums in the past – and I don’t think it’s right of us to assume you missed them or have ignore them, simply because there’s no communication.
Last bug not least…
Any chance we could have a reigning in chat with some Moderators? It’s great that they give up their time to reply here, and help the community, but (and I don’t know if it’s just someone having a bad day) the comments are getting way more aggressive/argumentative/absolutist.
It’s not that the standard answers aren’t wearing thin ofc, it’s just that we know the answer is going to be:
- It’s free.
- Sam’s too busy to pass on info.
- Blame Matt.
- It’s free.
- Stop asking. It’ll be ready when it’s ready.
- It’s free.
- Automattic are here to save us all and do not make any moey at all ever and everyone works for free I loves them – please ignore the $29 million they got which included the development of BBpress in the pitch.
- Go to trac.
- Don’t believe Trac.
- Sam’s too busy to keep you lot updated.
- Microsoft.
- It’s free.
That’s said a little tongue in cheek, and I hope it caused no offence, but while the moderators are clearly trying to do a great job (and we thank them), rarely do we get answers or constructive conversation when we talk about things like this. We’re shot down very quickly that we dared to have a different view point, and then given one of the standard answers that blame someone else or that it’s free.
WE WANT TO HELP.
Anyone who takes the time to hang around this forum sees we want to help. Anyone who takes the time to write on the forum wants to support BBpress.
If you’re the only developer on BBpress, or the person making almost all of the plugins, or the moderator who slams anyone who asks a question: please let us help.
We can’t just rock up, roll up our sleeves and stick our hand up a cow’s butt (an old farming joke – sorry). We need some direction, we need to be able to ask questions, we need information. Once we know what stage BBpress is at, we can help in taking it forward – with you.
But right now, all we can do is right posts like these every 2 months.
@ _ck_
Thanks for the reply.
Nope, I don’t use plugins.
As for that topic, your response makes it sound like a large reason why bbPress is slow to release is due to the fact that plugins will break.
Maybe I’m a little confused here but what’s the problem with that?
Plug-ins are just that, “plugins”. They are not part of the core product.
Just an observation, but it seems to me that something that is not apart of the core product, like plug-ins, shouldn’t slow down the release of the core product.
(Especially plug-ins developed for a non-stable, non-1.0 release)
Just my 2 cents
Topic: Integrate deeper and deeper
hey guys, just another idea:
what about integrate bbpress and wordpress that far (maybe with a plugin) that if registered and logged in users post a comment at a wordpress blog-post, this comment will appear in the profile of bbPress users under “user activity”.
And related to that:
WordPress users doesnt really have a profile page, so it would be nice if a user register and post a blog-comment, his name-link would open his bbpress profile page.
Hope you understand what i mean. I think it isnt that difficult. But too much difficult for me
greetings
Sumit
