The crew on wp-forums decide to launch their new service for non-sploggers too dim to master the intricacies of Fantastico by means of a newly-registered forum user called Install4free posting a thread about it at the .org support forums. Pointing to a wordpress.com blog with the same classy username.

And then they wonder why the ‘naysayers’ are a wee bit chary of handing over their usernames and passwords to this anonymous newbie, before shouting at them for not being regular readers of wp-forums.

Um, I’m a regular reader of wp-forums, and knowing that you were planning to set up a free installation service would not have made me one whit less suspicious of ‘Install4free’, seeing as how literally anyone can set up a new account on the .org forums and at wp.com, and there was nothing to tie that username to any of you.

The highlight, I think, is the argument that it must be official because it’s on wp.com. Quick poll: raise your hand if you think this site has Matt’s full approval. No? But it’s a wordpress.com subdomain! Matt knows everything that’s going down here and officially sanctions it all!

(Partial approval, yeah, OK — he’s a subscriber and he hasn’t ripped it down yet. Full approval is the day I pack up and leave.)

Anyway, in an email to wp-forums, Christopher Hradil says all the obvious and sensible things about the most egregious failure of common sense I have seen since, ooh, this morning; so rather than repeat them I’ll send you there instead.