[deadlyhifi]

Just spotted the foliowing on Twitter by @petemall:

bbPress plugin is born… http://trac.bbpress.org/changeset/2463

bbPress plugin is born… http://trac.bbpress.org/changeset/2463

— Pete Mall (@petemall) July 13, 2010

Not done any investigation yet…

[gswaim]

At the end of the day it’s free, open source software. Polarized or not, bbPress has a team now. If this can just be summed up as a years worth of pent up frustration coming out, I can understand that, but we’ve all been going at this for almost 3 days now, and I’d rather write code and fix stuff and make progress than rehash bbPress’s tumultuous existence.

Exactly. There comes a time when it is time to move on. IMHO that time is very near.

JJJ has patiently articulated, to this group, the mission he was commissioned to handle and IMHO it is time to code. As I watched this thread, I feared that he would get bogged down and burnt out trying to make everybody happy. However, he seems to be keenly aware of this and has done a good job of keeping his eye on the prize.

I am a WordPress user that has been waiting for a core forum plug-in for well over a year. As soon as it is available I am installing it, and I suspect I will not be alone.

If only 10% of the WordPress.org-powered websites install this plug-in, the bbPress plug-in user base would dwarf the stand alone bbPress user base. Making bbPress available to a much larger audience cannot be a bad thing, in the long run.

[_ck_]

@gswaim, except history is about to be repeated with nothing learned. “Very near” is also not likely this year. Completely different people worked on 0.9/1.0 and now the plugin version. There is going to be a learning curve.

The plugin version is going to have the same tumultuous development pattern that bbPress 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, 1.0 did and probably take a couple years to get stable and feature rich. It will probably also suffer from what I call the “kitchen sink” syndrome of WordPress where massive chunks of code are added as features which should have been plugins. But Automattic in general has a “not invented here” attitude towards plugins – if it’s not in the core, it doesn’t count.

There is also the problem that anyone on a shared host will unlikely be able to run WP 3.0 with the bbPress plugin unless they have a very small forum/memberbase. The resource demand is going to be massive and require hours of fine tuning which most novices will not be able to do. Forums cannot be heavily cached like blogs can.

Then you are right back to the same old WP problems which will be introduced into bbpress after avoiding them previously, plopping regular users into confusing WP admin menus to change settings and completely different than the site theme.

For the casual WP user that has a few dozen members and wants a simple forum, the bbpress as plugin will be very handy. For those with thousands of members and end up with a very active forum, they will spend a great deal of time dealing with the resource loads.

Remember, there are already a couple of plugins for WordPress that bring forum functionality – go look at their problems to foresee what is going to happen. That’s how I ended up adopting bbPress standalone in the first place, I decided it was the best way to deal with the problems (work AROUND wordpress, instead of through it).

[Peter Westwood]

It will probably also suffer from what I call the “kitchen sink” syndrome of WordPress where massive chunks of code are added as features which should have been plugins. But Automattic in general has a “not invented here” attitude towards plugins – if it’s not in the core, it doesn’t count.

Firstly, it’s not “Automattic” that decides what ends up in the core of WordPress – we have open discussions to set the feature lists for each release and the decisions are driven based on input from a large base of regular contributors.

Secondly, I strongly disagree with the implication that WordPress has a “kitchen sink” feature set – in fact we try very hard to only bring in the things which have a wide audience and leave the more niche things for plugins.

One of the factors which helps a feature come into the core is the existence of a plugin which is popular showing a clear demand for a feature and sometimes providing a starting point for the implementation as well.

[kevinjohngallagher]

Morning Peter,

It’s cool if you disagree. I’m confident we could all pick something in WordPress in the core that we think should still be a plug-in; and of course there is no right answer. What I’m not sure you’re aware of though, and you might be, is just how different the “overhead” between bbPress and WordPress is.

bbPress0.9 loads and runs at 10 or under SQL queries per page. Including the front page. Thanks to certain DB/query tweaks, and some wonderful _CK_ code, I have that at 8 SQL queries on one of my smallest intranet forums.

This is in comparison to the same 8 queries generated by the new wp_nav_menu in WP3.0. In fact the wp_nav_menu calls a not totally-in-expensive INNER JOIN for each post-type reference in the menu. It’s not a set 8 calls, without judging anything based on what it will become, if wp_nav_menu starts to accept custom post types natively, that’s going to shoot way up.

In a flat comparison, the default theme of WP3.0 with no plug-ins running, generates 19 SQL queries. Twice as much as bbPress0.9.

As someone mentioned earlier, the new bbPress plug-in would be lighter or sleeker. If it takes more SQL calls to generate the header and footer of WP than it does to load an entire bbPress forum – how does that work?

(I do realise that not all SQL queries are equal, but I do think it’s quite a good initial benchmark. Especially if you look at SAVEQUERIES output and see what sort of query each is, and its execution time.)

Additionally, as someone with your background with WP, I would love to hear your take on the caching issue. For two of my websites that have relatively ok traffic, caching is essential on WP. There are plug-ins that do this brilliantly, so thats no worries. But thats very much a “1 to n” nature. Forums are an “n to n” nature; and really don’t lean well with caching, especially in the flat-file constant-updated format.

How would one percieve that to affect WP based websites with a forum plugin of this nature attatched?

=================================

I think there is a viewpoint that is being missed here.

People are falling into 3 groups:

1. Need a forum that works with WordPress
2. Need a standalone forum, but some WordPress integration is ideal (sign in/users)
3. Needs a standalone forum.

There appears to be a presumption is that we’re all in Group 1 and that we’re fighting change. That’s not the case at all.

I’m actually in favour of there being a WordPress forum plug-in. I think loads of people here will be. I also think that with JJJ working on it, and Justin Tadlock’s second attempt out there in the wild that it will go really well. I wish it the best of luck, and if we can offer advice or war stories or anything to help out – we’re here. We’re here because we support FOSS

The issue arises here is if you’re in Group 2, you have a decision whether to “upgrade” to running everything through WordPress or not. It’s just been presumed that’s your actual goal. At this point in time, we’d like some information (positives/negatives at a minimum) and info on how this decision has came about. People in Group 2 could move into Group 1 easily if given more information than:

“everything is going to be A-okay”

“Like it or not, this is the hand we’ve been dealt…”

But the users in Group3, the people who chose this as standalone forum software and didn’t make that decision based on WordPress – they’re being thrown out on their ear. With no warning. JJJ has stated, and I think we all appreciate that he’s taken the time to sit and answer some questions, that bbPress1.1 will be it’s last. Well, thats announced as bbPress1.1 is 1 trac ticket away from being released. How much warning is that??

If you’re in Group3, and large chunk of our support questions come from people who are, you will now be ‘forced’ to run WordPress if you want to stick with bbPress.

==============================================

I suppose what I’m saying is this. Changes in Life and in FOSS happen. Some we like, some we don’t. But there has to be a carrot with every stick, or people start to feel publicly flogged.

I want JJJ and Pete and anyone who helps them to succeed in achieving their goals. But I’ve scanned this forum page, and the emails they were kind enough to send me, and right now, if you didn’t come here specifically to use a forum inside WordPress… I can’t see the carrot.

There are people here alot cleverer than me, and alot better at wording than myself, so if i’m missing the carrot, please do a Denzel “explain it to me like a 3 year old”.

[_ck_]

With all the eyeballs looking at WordPress and all the new faces every few years, it’s amazing to me how much code optimization falls through the cracks and is never addressed.

bbPress as a plugin is now going to be exposed to that. In fact, ironically in 0.9 there are functions from earlier versions of WordPress that were never optimized and do “expensive” recalculations and yet it’s STILL significantly faster than 1.0 with the newer functions from BackPress.

WordPress still has places where it calculates kinds of conversion tables yet never stores them statically for when it will likely be used again in the same page load. All those eyeballs looking at the code never see it and never fix it.

WordPress after all these years STILL uses the poorly performing SQL_CALC_FOUND_ROWS, something that was discovered and fixed in bbPress 0.9 but ironically was re-introduced with BackPress in 1.0, and will likely continue as a plugin.

My problem with “progress” is regression. It happens often because no-one questions the bloat and then the bloat starts to hide mistakes because the code is too hard to follow and people forget the original purpose of a function.

But by all means, keep throwing junk into the core, don’t dare keep it isolated in a plugin where it can be examined and improved easily (ie. avatars, tinymce, phpmailer, etc.)

They never do version freezes for long periods of time to clean up and optimize code, they just pile on features in the name of progress.

Go install WP 2.1 and check the memory and query footprint.

Then install WP 3.0 and compare. It’s fairly disgusting in comparison.

[mr_pelle]

But the users in Group3, the people who chose this as standalone forum software and didn’t make that decision based on WordPress – they’re being thrown out on their ear. With no warning.

That’s exactly what I was trying to say!

By the way, http://twitter.com/petemall/status/18674039981

[deadlyhifi]

Can we focus on the positives:

bbPress was laying there dormant – it now has a future. This future isn’t going to suit everyone but that’s life.

I’m not at all surprised bbPress will become dependant on WordPress. People have wanted an easy to integrate solution for a long time. The majority of support posts on this forum tend to be about integration (if they’re not CSS based!). bbPress as a plugin will satisfy those needs.

Yes, there will be certain users that get burned, but there are ways around it.

People are falling into 3 groups:

1. Need a forum that works with WordPress
2. Need a standalone forum, but some WordPress integration is ideal (sign in/users)
3. Needs a standalone forum.

1. Satisfied customers
2. Satisfied customers – this will be easier than it’s ever been. I know, I’ve spent hours and hours theming bbP, making sure cookies work, and all the other hoops I’ve had to jump through.
3. Either run WP and don’t use it (just let it sit there, but really, how many sites don’t have some kind of blog associated with them?), and if it’s really not ideal or you’re completely against it there are plenty of standalone forum softwares out there.

At least we know what is happening and people can make informed decisions about which way to go with their site.

The decision has been made so accept it and use all this energy and knowledge to contribute to the project and make a great product.

_ck_, you know I always appreciate your efforts towards plugins and your extensive knowledge on bbPress, so why not use it to participate and keep the new bbP plugin streamlined – as much as it can be considering your comments on WP3.0 performance.

[Gautam Gupta]

Can we focus on the positives:

bbPress was laying there dormant – it now has a future. This future isn’t going to suit everyone but that’s life.

Exactly.

[_ck_]

By the way I want to address this quote:

…it’s not “Automattic” that decides what ends up in the core of WordPress – we have open discussions to set the feature lists for each release and the decisions are driven based on input from a large base of regular contributors.

You are kidding yourself if you think the community is given anything but choices on minor things. Major decisions that change the entire direction of these projects for Automattic are made every year by Matt. Changing bbPress to use backPress is the #-1 example of a single sourced decision done without any input from any contributors. bbPress as a WordPress plugin is another one.

The very first simple question I asked when I heard about backPress is “when will WordPress be changed to also use backPress” (to benefit from all the work needed and the theoretical savings from using a common function set). It’s a very easy problem to predict but was never asked and never answered, ending us up exactly where we are today.

[kevinjohngallagher]

Tom,

I totally agree with the premise.

Focussing on the positives is the way forward.

For those of us who make a living with bbPress, unilateral decisions made without visability and with no re-course for questioning nor appeal are scary. really scary.

I for one, am totally and 100% behind the separate forum plugin for WordPress. But I think it’s ok that we ask some questions about it, and while the thread’s not in the most positive tone, I don’t think anyone has asked anything from left field, nor said anything antagonistic or derogatory.

It’s not like we’re asking for info that won’t have already been discussed when making the decision about plugin vs. standalone.

There would have been bench tests, user experiences, requirement gather – y’know numbers and paperwork. I know we’re never going to see the full documentation, but I think it’s ok to ask for an overview. Not to pick holes in it, but to feel positive that the decision is a good one, and one that we can get behind/support/make better

=======================================================================

Andrew, Pete and JJJ and I have had a wee email conversation earlier in the week, before (and during) this thread started. There was some truly great info in that thread. Information that would appease some of the issues brought up here, quell some of the language & tone being used. It confirmed to me that these are the people to take bbPress forward. But that doesn’t mean I am going to put my own and my children’s livelyhood on the line and follow blindly.

everything is going to be A-okay

is alot like

Relax. We’ve done this before.

And man, that didn’t work out too well

I think people are allowed to be a little shellshocked at this bombshell; especially as it didn’t even warrant it’s own forum post, sticky or blog post. It just comes across as a footnote and unimportant. It comes across as “shit, you folks found out? um…” Now of course that ain’t true, but thats the base perception.

Apparently the scrapping of all current bbPress code and new of it’s replacement isn’t even important enough for someone to hit that “sticky” button at the bottom.

Because of this, some emotions will run high, but we’ve both been around the block enough to know that as long as people keep the conversation in house and try to resolve things then we’ll get there

Not everyone will agree with everything, but we’ll get there as long as no-one makes any derogatory comments about the software or community in a KeyNote speech or on an influential Twitter feed we’ll be grand at resolving this, and bringing folks tegether in a positive sense

The dudes who are now running the show just need to give out enough info to get control of the conversation. Once that happens, even more of life will be positive.

[Gautam Gupta]

Kevin my friend,

For those of us who make a living with bbPress, unilateral decisions made without visibility and with no re-course for questioning nor appeal are scary. really scary.

At least v1.1 is there for the time being, hopefully that would be released soon (after 2 bugs on 1.0.3 and 1.1 are fixed). It’s pretty stable and those who want to run a standalone, can run it and customize it with existing plugins/themes.

And about making a living, it can also be done with bbPress as a WP plugin

I think people are allowed to be a little shell-shocked at this bombshell; especially as it didn’t even warrant its own forum post, sticky or blog post. It just comes across as a footnote and unimportant.

The forum topic is this one and the announcement is here (I know no one told any of us about this blog).

For others – Justin just posted about the WP forum plugin that he has made on his own – http://justintadlock.com/archives/2010/07/16/a-wordpress-forum-plugin-using-custom-post-types

[kevinjohngallagher]

Gautam,

You’re words are astute as always.

1.1 is stable, and looking good

I doubt there’s one person involved with bbPress that isn’t looking forward to it’s alpha release so we can get some bug fixes, and then truly thank you and everyone else who added code to it.

Even the people still using 0.9 know and apprecaite how much works goes into it

And about making a living, it can also be done with bbPress as a WP plugin

Yes mate, no doubt.

But we’ve hit this scenario: http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2003-10-12/

The forum topic is this one and the announcement is here (I know no one told any of us about this blog).

You nailed the issue mate.

You and I, and those of us interested in WP development picked up on it. Those who use bbP as standalone, who are those most affected, won’t have. Hence, some of the backlash.

This could all be really positive, in an odd way I think the underlying desire for info is positive JJJ being here is positive Seeing old names and faces pop up is positive I’m confident if 10 of us were in a room right now, this would all be sorted and we’d be coding up a storm It just needs a controlled conversation, some community interfacing and ofcourse, no-one bitching about bbPress on twitter.

[_ck_]

If someone wants to start a “positive only” bbPress as WP plugin topic, I promise not to post in there.

People have the right to be blindly optimistic, regardless if there were not one but two different versions of bbPress that were never finished. I mean it should be different by the third time around right?

Seriously: I’d suggest starting with outlining how the Automattic version of the plugin is going to be different/better than the two other existing WP forum plugins, what audience it’s going to address, what it definitely will and definitely won’t do.

I’ve been around since WP 1.5 and when bbPress 0.80 was released, so it’s extremely easy for me to be jaded.

This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor by watching changes carefully here and reading every line of code submitted since it’s starting from scratch:

https://trac.bbpress.org/browser/branches/plugin

[citizenkeith]

I would just like to say that I am happy that JJJ and Pete have stopped in to keep us informed. This is great news.

That said, I’d like to say that I really, really appreciate Kevin’s posts here. He is speaking for a lot of people, whether he knows it or not. He does a great job of summing up a lot of the feelings us long-time bbPress users are feeling right now.

I am really perplexed by some of the actions and statements by Matt, and now Pete’s Twitter post. Maybe it’s because I’m not a coder and have never been involved with an open source project. But it seems strange that you’d allow a few passionate people with questions annoy you so much. Instead of wanting to give up on it, why not engage with us a little more? Why not ask a moderator to make a Sticky announcement? Why not write a blog post announcing the new bbPress plugin?

I repeat: I think the bbPress plugin is a great idea. I just feel we haven’t been kept in the loop very well.

[doobadabba]

I’m excited to hear that bbPress as a WordPress plugin is getting spirited attention and development!

I can also feel for all the contributors to current and past iterations of bbPress, who may have felt left in the dark, or unappreciated. Well, I appreciate you!

I’ve got a little niche community site right now. The site has a blog, and a classifieds section, and a bbPress forum. I’ve got integrated login working, but would love to have even more integration between bbPress and WordPress (especially shared header and footer, and it would be good to have just a single “profile” associated with members of my site).

As digging into code is not my most favorite thing, I’m hoping that bbPress-as-WP-plugin can simplify all of my WordPress projects.

I’m aware that some people may want to keep a standalone bbPress project going, even if only the maintenance of current and former iterations of bbPress.

And I can see that using the same name “bbPress” for both the upcoming bbPress-as-WP-plugin, and the current-and-former-standalone-bbPress-iterations that may be continually maintained, is potentially a source of confusion.

But, I don’t think it has to be confusing.

If a central location, such as this website, clearly presents and describes the differences between using the upcoming bbPress-as-WP-plugin and current-and-former-standalone-bbPress-iterations, then I think people will be able to decide what is best for them.

If I understand correctly, Matt was the original coder (and I’m guessing namer) of bbPress. And it seems that he is the top caller of shots for how bbPress goes forward. As such, I don’t think he should need to rename bbPress-as-WP-plugin to anything other than bbPress, even tho so many other people have been making bbPress what it is today.

But if he did rename it to something like pbPress (plugin-board-press), it might simplify things. How about ccPress (community-creation-press)?

That’s my though-gasm in this moment anyway. Thanks to all of you who have gotten bbPress to where it is today, and to all of you who are moving bbPress forward, and also to all who are mindful of moving forward in a fashion that is not unduly regressive

[Aaron Jorbin]

JJJ and Pete: Congrats and best of luck on the project. I’ll lend any support and help I am able to. I am excited and looking forward to this plugin.

_CK_ I’d really like to know why you think this is an auttomatic decision? Neither Pete nor JJJ work for Automattic. As far as WordPress goes, multiple lead developers/committers are non Automattic employees. WordPress is a Meritocracy. The more you contribute, the more you demonstrate an understanding of the philosophy, the more responsibility and influence that you have. If you find your opinions are being ignored, I suggest trying to influence those that have contributed diplomatically or contributing patches.

[Andrew Nacin]

Comparing bbPress frontend queries to Twenty Ten queries is like comparing apples with orange traffic cones.

[John James Jacoby]

Too much to address, but I’ll pick some points.

WordPress + BuddyPress + W3 Total Cache = less than 10 queries on a complete social network. If optimization is your cup of tea, there’s lots of ways you can achieve that. Core issues with WP should be directed over to those folks.

If you have a method to make it better, submit a patch. Then you can work your way up to being one of ‘those people’ that are making the decisions that you don’t agree with.

Pete’s status, isn’t any different than the way you all feel about things. If you can vent your frustrations, so can he.

Help me understand why we’re upset again.

1. bbPress 1.1 (standalone) – Still in active development

2. bbPress 1.2 (plugin) – Months before anyone should consider it stable, but you’re welcome to jump on the bandwagon early and help make it exactly the way you want it, side by side with Pete and myself, and anyone else that’s along for the ride.

Regarding # 1, what MORE do you want your lightweight standalone software to do? If you want it to be more efficient, spend some time walking through queries and making it that way. If you want something in the UI changed, do it; patch it; make it go, and I will review it, and commit it.

Regarding # 2, our goal is to have this usable ASAP as part of the 3.org initiatives, but I wouldn’t want anyone outside of that initiative using it for production until it’s released. I know we all like to live on the bleeding edge (I’ve always been that guy too) so now’s your time to start helping us weld things in from the very get-go. If you think the way we’ve doing it now is completely wrong, let us know and provide us a better way; I am happy to listen and make it right, because I want what you want; the best bbPress possible.

I think all this talk about Matt, and Automattic, should be redirected back towards Automattic the company, and not bbPress the open source software. I understand the two are perceived to be tightly integrated because mixing money and open source is mixing business with pleasure, and it’s always hard to explain or understand the difference.

I think the general negativism has taken its toll already, and it’s time to try to look at this glass as half full going forward. Please? Kindly?

Not trying to be a jerk here, but man… there is no end in sight here, and it just isn’t productive or helpful anymore. We need to tighten this ship up before it sinks itself. I say this, not from a “looking down” perspective, but from a “‘we’re in this together so let’s make the best of it” perspective.

[_ck_]

Holy cow, there is some serious kool-aid drinking going on.

You can’t just up-end a community and then ask everyone to be positive about it.

Zero consultation was done with the community/contributors, exactly the same amount that was done with backPress. Let’s be CRYSTAL CLEAR about that right from the start.

For the people showing up out of the blue and jumping into the bbpress project suddenly this year, having NEVER contributed in the past few years, and in effect telling us to “shut up and go along with it” – I am seriously not going to take that nonsense, even if you say “please”.

You don’t just take a project and completely re-write it into something else and take it’s name. It’s not yours, it belongs to the community who adopted the existing program and worked many hours to install it, figure out bugs and improve it. It’s not yours to show up late and completely re-invent after that.

You don’t wash away the years of forum questions and answers by intermingling them with a different, incompatible version.

You don’t just call it 1.2 when it will have nearly zero code/layout/theme/compatibility with 0.9/1.0/1.1 – I mean sheesh, even calling it 2.0 would have been a minimal effort to note it’s something different but no, 1.2 is to confuse as many as possible either on purpose or out of apathy.

You don’t insist it has nothing to with Automattic when the SVN/TRAC slots were decided and made by Automattic people on Automattic servers at Matt’s directive as a plugin for another Automattic managed product.

The main developer of bbPress 0.8/0.9 was an Automattic employee (Michael) under Matt’s directive, the main developer of 1.0 was an Automattic employee (Sam) under Matt’s directive. It’s an Automattic product, always will be. Matt has been trying to figure out how to monetize it for years which is why it keeps getting messed with, so he can make a wordpress.com equivalent for forums.

Even JJJ admitted a YEAR AGO, that it’s a good thing bbPress is separate from WordPress because of how blogs and forums are different even though they share similar data structures. But now it’s a 180 turn in the opposite direction because of Matt’s whim.

If you want me and the other people who have a problem with this to shut up, it is SUPER SIMPLE to end this problem:

1. don’t call it bbPress
2. start another Automattic site to build your forum plugin

   (or attach it to a wordpress.org subdomain which probably would have been more appropriate)

3. finish what was started: it’s too late for 0.9 to be properly finished as it should have been into 1.0 before the 180 with backPress but it’s not too late for 1.1 to be released and then matured into 1.2

Don’t just march into an existing community, take it over and change it’s course into another 180 turn for the second time in three years and expect anyone to just smile and go along with it.

What you aren’t seeing are the 10,000+ sites that don’t post here and have successfully adopted it, even with virtually no advertising or support from the WordPress community.

Ironically I would have far more easily accepted another forum project being started by Matt and unfortunately letting bbPress slowly die over what is being done now.

[Ryan Hellyer]

Why do the powers that be not see reason in what _CK_ says above?

Justin Tadlock’s forum plugin avoids these problems. Why can’t the new Automattic created one too?

http://justintadlock.com/archives/2010/07/16/a-wordpress-forum-plugin-using-custom-post-types

[mr_pelle]

Love you, _ck_! Here we’re suggesting 1.x users that they will be able to upgrade to 1.2, which is absolutely false!

Ironically I would have far more easily accepted another forum project being started by Matt and unfortunately letting bbPress slowly die over what is being done now.

Me too. I just hope, hope, hope we’ll close the missing tickets and release the next standalone version asap!

[kevinjohngallagher]

Pete’s status, isn’t any different than the way you all feel about things. If you can vent your frustrations, so can he.

I’d never like to step on Pete’s rights or freedoms. He can say what he wants when he wants. But it’s just shame he didn’t have the common decency or manners to tell us… before bitching to the world.

If Pete’s not happy about some of the things in this thread, and we’re the people he’s going to have to (or wants to) live with as we move forward “together”, then he should have commented here.

JJJ your comments and Q/A attempts have helped a great deal. Of course there is still some polorisation and discontent, this is heavy (and for some peole horrible) news; people aren’t going ot be ok with it as soon as somone says “everything’s going to be A-okay”. Even if thats true, and I think it is and eventually things will be ok, there’s still loads that needs to be talked out before people can make an informed decision.

But y’know, talk it out, address the issues here, and win people over. Making snidey remarks on Twitter in the hope that no-one from bbpress will see it is just… poor/childish/cowardly. Feel free to pick one, I pick all 3.

I’m vocal, and according to Sam Bauers I use “combative” wording (which is rarely my intention). I’ve agreed and disagreed with the same people here over the years; and I’m sure to many they hate to see my name appear in that last poster column But on the left hand side here where it says my name it links to my website, where my email/phone is listed. Many people here use it, and I am more than happy for them and others to do so – even if they disagree/like/dislike with me. If i have something to say about bbPress, i say it here. I say it to the people that are giving up their time for bbPress, and earned my respect by doing so, and JJJ that includes you

I suppose it comes down to this:

• When, in life, are people ok about being talked about behind their backs, instead of to their face?
• How on earth do you think this would help pull the community together?

1. bbPress 1.1 (standalone) – Still in active development

2. bbPress 1.2 (plugin) – Months before anyone should consider it stable, but you’re welcome to jump on the bandwagon early and help make it exactly the way you want it, side by side with Pete and myself, and anyone else that’s along for the ride.

1. But you’ve told us that, with 1 trac ticket to go, this would be the last to be supported and or maintained. You also told us that it wont be supported once the plugin comes out. Thats freaking people out.

I can understand your entusiasm at the newst version, but surely you can at least see this viewpoint (even if you odn’t agree with it).

2. Here’s the scenario: http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2003-10-12/

You’re the manager, we’re dilbert, our clients/users are the client.

Even if that wasn’t the intention, thats where we are bro.

[_ck_]

By the way, Matt owns talkPress.org and it’s not being used.

So there’s a solution. With a new name, it’s clearly a different product and there are no expectations and no conflict.

I’d promise not to join or comment on it in any way and you can start with fresh faces ignorant of any legacy baggage.

[yutt]

Just so the new developers understand, trying to have a discussion with kevinjohngallagher or _ck_ about the future of bbpress is an exercise in futility.

They are extremely vocal and belligerent members who have dictated the tone of the community for over a year. kevin smiles while talking over you, but it isn’t any less damaging.

Frankly if this site is moved to an alternate subdomain and they disappear completely, *that alone* would improve the bbpress experience.

Thank you for keeping us informed on the progress and your intents. Please focus on coding and not community management on this point. The only “community” here are a dozen diehard, entrenched and bitter people who have been too stubborn to adjust their vision over the year we have known this change was coming.

[_ck_]

Well actually I am typically fairly quiet about the back end stuff and community politics.

But I’ve regretted over the past year or two not voicing enough concern at the start over backPress so now I simply do not want to see another big mistake, the bbPress name hijacked for a third, completely different forum program.

My request is quite simple: do whatever else you’d like but please do not call it bbPress when it has no relationship with any previous version of bbPress.

If bbPress truly is an open source community project and not exclusively owned/managed by Automattic, well then here’s the chance to prove that.

If Matt suddenly announced that WordPress would radically change from 3.0 to 3.1 and out of the blue use a newly developed core that completely invalidated all existing themes, plugins, utilities and knowledgebase – wouldn’t you be just a little bit concerned and upset? Would you speak up or “go with the flow” ?

In the above scenario, if you were new to WP 3.1, you wouldn’t care and would wonder why people were complaining so much. But if you had a few years invested, maybe you’d feel a little differently. Maybe you’d ask them to leave the old version alone and call it something else.