[kevinjohngallagher]

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.

[kevinjohngallagher]

Apparently the post has now been removed also, which i must say is really odd.

For those interested, it was at…

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/how-to-help-us-help-bbpress

[chrishajer]

Interesting… ( I wasn’t the one who deleted it. )

[kevinjohngallagher]

Thanks Chris,

I’m not sure who did or why (and dont really want to get into ‘who’ did, as mud slinging never got anyone anywhere). But i do reiterate my point that even after re-reading in the cold light of day, the post has some really valuable points.

Given that I can’t find any posting guidelines to confirm what i might have broken, i can only assume it’s someone on a power trip. “tell us what you are thinking?” as long it’s something we want to hear apparently. Shame.

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

Don’t confuse ‘freedom of speech’ or ‘tell us what you’re thinking’ with ‘I can say anything I want and you have to keep the post up.’

I don’t advocate deleting a post without explaining why, however bbPress mods have the right to delete any post they don’t want to have on the site for any reason. I also don’t assume ‘they hate me’ or ‘they don’t want to hear this’ when I post feedback that is a bit of criticism and the post is deleted. There are a lot of reasons to delete a post. Maybe it was felt this wasn’t a post for public discussion, or they wanted to mull it over without having a deluge mud-slinging (which even if your post wasn’t offensive at all, we’ve seen how people get when they get riled up).

In lieu of guidelines, one can fairly assume only this, and little more: Posting is at the discretion of the people who own and maintain the site.

[kevinjohngallagher]

Hi Ipstenu,

Once again you are spot on mate.

I’m not in anyway suggesting that the mods/owners don’t have the right to close / delete a forum post, in fact i respect their right to do so. But i also think if someone’s taken the time to write a constructive post then there should be a common decency to at least tell them why it’s been closed and then deleted within 5 minutes of it being posted. Respect kinda has to go both ways.

I doubt the post is being “mulled over” though, as it’s been deleted and not closed. I know this because i went to fix a typo less than 2 minutes after posting (there’s a typo in the firs paragraph) and it was closed. So who every closed it, did so without reading the post. It was deleted not long after.

I’m not going to flog a dead horse, or push a personal agenda; the mods have a right to do what they want – but i would like to reiterate that if people still refer to this as an open-source project and us contributors as a community, then we have to accept that there will be voices out there that don’t 100% agree with us on everything. Deleting posts that detail such opinions only makes the consensus of a view point insular and narrow.

BBpress has amazing potential, I hope it succeeds, i want to help make it succeed.

If _ck_ isn’t updating her plugins for any of the alpha or beta releases, then we’re effectively given a free-er reign here to not worry about backward compatibility (as lets be honest, _ck_’s plugins are freaking’ awesome); then surely now is the time to ask the hard questions.

I am not, in any way shape or form, suggesting a complete rewrite or anything like that. But if we put our BA or PM heads on and ask ourselves:

1) Is BBpress moving in the right direction?

2) Is the legacy code from before Sam took ownership causing issues?

3) If we had a clean slate and unlimited time, what would be fix?

Now the answers may be 1) Yes, 2) No, 3) nothing it’s all working fine. And if they are that’s cool, but sometimes there is a big difference between am end-user view, a developer view, owner view and a Project Manager view. Even if everyone is in complete agreement (unlikely in any community), the right and ability to question can only help but guide the project and give reassurance to its contributors.

It might also end all of these timeline/compatibility/development/plug-in questions we’re getting (and going to get more) – thus making the lives of the mods alot easier.

BBpress has amazing potential, I hope it succeeds, i want to help make it succeed.

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

I doubt the post is being “mulled over” though, as it’s been deleted and not closed. I know this because i went to fix a typo less than 2 minutes after posting (there’s a typo in the firs paragraph) and it was closed. So who every closed it, did so without reading the post. It was deleted not long after.

As a fellow bbAdmin, I’m sure you know that a deleted post remains in the DB and can be read from the admin console. https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/how-to-help-us-help-bbpress?view=all will work for an admin/mod/key master etc.

i would like to reiterate that if people still refer to this as an open-source project and us contributors as a community, then we have to accept that there will be voices out there that don’t 100% agree with us on everything. Deleting posts that detail such opinions only makes the consensus of a view point insular and narrow.

I don’t feel the same, which is not to say I disagree with the sentiment. I can see how it could be viewed that way, but that isn’t how I see it. Nuff said, we can chat semantics of open-source ethics elsewhere!

Also to your three questions: No one can answer # 1. Ever. The ‘Right’ direction for you is different than for me and for _ck_ and for everyone else. ‘Right direction’ is way too subjective. And as a developer, I hate when people ask me ‘Would it be easier to start over?’ Maybe. But I can’t tell you how long it’d take to reinvent the wheel, and I’m sure that I’d have problems that other people have already solved. It’s a Catch-22 to the extreme.

I’d ask this:

1) Is bbPress moving?

2) Are you (developers) satisfied with the direction it’s moving in?

3) Are you (users) satisfied with the product, as it is? Does it live up to the goals, as expressed by the development team?

If # 1 is a no, then you leave the project or fork it.

If # 2 is a no, then you scrap and restart (or fork it).

If # 3 is a no, bear in mind I do not mean ‘Yeah, but I want built in smilies!’ That’s not a design goal. That’s a wishlist. Design goals are things like WP/BB integration (stated as a goal by the devs). But if it is, indeed, a no, then you really are left with the same choices. Leave or fork.

I think I’m just really keen on saying fork today *halo*