Yeah, yeah, I know I promised ‘no more habari wank’, but, while it sounds lovely and utopian in theory the issues with welcoming all comers with open arms are beginning to become apparent.
If anything I said here helped create the general impression that Habari is a refuge for abused fanboys rather than yet-to-be-released blogging software, I’m really sorry, OK? Because I don’t think that image helps anyone. It doesn’t help Habari, because it makes them look like a project inspired and driven forward by the personal animosity of a bunch of guys towards Matt, and that is only appealing to a very, very small subsection of their potential userbase. It doesn’t help WordPress, because it makes them sound like an evil corporate monolith tyrannised over by a dictator who is cruel to fanboys; but a) this is a slight exaggeration, and b) a couple of the fanboys may have deserved it. It doesn’t even help the still-loyal fanboys who are given to saying that Habari only exists thanks to the personal animosity of a bunch of guys towards Matt, because the loyal fanboys are strangely reluctant to give anyone their URLs and consequently get no Google love. I don’t know whether they’re keeping schtum because we will laugh at their content-free blogs, or at their Kubricks, or because they fear an onslaught of rabid Matt-haters. Perhaps they just don’t exist. That would be reassuring.
skippy 1:02 am on January 16, 2007 Permalink |
Habari welcomes everyone, and we will work to listen to as many voices as we can. Those people who contribute meaningful suggestions will be listened to with greater attention as they continue to make positive contributions. Those people who can help implement their suggestions will get even more credibility within the project. And those people who only grouse and complain will gain little if any clout within the project.
So, for those people who are solely Matt haters, very little will change for them: they won’t gain traction within the project, and if they won’t “put up or shut up” they’ll never reap the rewards of our meritocracy. For those people who only need a welcoming environment in which to demonstrate their aptitude, we hope to be pleasantly surprised by the improvements they bring to Habari.
It’s easy to run with the conclusion that we’re all bitter and angry. But when you look at how many people keep subscribing to the mailing list, and you read about the interest people express on their sites, I think it’s pretty clear that what people really want is an opportunity to meaningfully participate in the direction of the development of the tools they use. Clearly, a lot of people feel like WordPress doesn’t, or wouldn’t, give that to them.
Obligatory disclaimer: I can’t speak for everyone, but I know the current project owners and members (as listed on the Google Code site) are not seething with resentment and hostility. We’re interested in producing something positive and functional, and plan to get a developer preview release out soon!
scribez 6:39 am on January 16, 2007 Permalink |
“Actions Speak Louder than words”. i.e. those who contibute meaningfully i.e. not just coding, documentation, etc should be given more credibility. When I look at Habari it really reminds me Drupal.
Well said skippy.
Mark Jaquith 7:56 am on January 16, 2007 Permalink |
There’s a key ingredient for success within a meritocracy: merit. Positive contributions. Without that, it doesn’t matter how welcoming the mat (or Matt) is, you won’t gain any traction.
Root 4:21 pm on January 16, 2007 Permalink |
As a founder member of the embittered generals club I am watching all these developments with interest.
spencerp 3:03 am on January 17, 2007 Permalink |
For the record, I was never a “Matt hater”, and I never said I was either. Also, I’m still helping over at WordPress.org, I just haven’t been helping in the forums, because I’m busy with my own things.
I never said I would stop helping in the forums either. To be honest, I never really thought the Habari “project” was started up by a bunch of guys that are “against” Matt. I seen a few posts about it, and thought it was cool that a bunch of WordPressers were doing their own thing..
Rather then tearing apart everyones idea, goals, dreams, personal characters, blogs, and so forth. Why don’t you step in front of a mirror sometime, and ask yourself.. “How do I have the right to write smack on these folks?” And, “How am I so much better then they are, to write such crap on them?”
Yeah, your profile “number” at the WordPress.org might be in the low digits, but, when was last time you really stepped out to help anyone there? Where were you at when a lot of the stuff on the back-end was going down? Did you post anything constructive in nature, about anything?
To answer all of the questions above in one lump sum: You really didn’t do “jumping jack crap” contributing wise, for anyone, any where..
All you do, is, sit behind your desk there searching for more “dirt” to write about, while shitting on everyone’s misfortunes, screw ups, and personal characters..
I think it’s funny though, someone of your “stature” writing such crap on everyone, but yet you do nothing constructive for, or towards anybody to begin with.. Anyway, like I said before, at least I try to help where I can, and I’ll still continue to do so.. And that goes for both WordPress and Habari..
Keep writing up more crap on everyone and everything, it really only makes you look like the crap your feeding off of..
that girl again 4:30 pm on January 17, 2007 Permalink |
You know, spencer, nothing I or anyone else could say about you would ever give people quite such a bad impression as your own rambling diatribes. If you seriously wanted to be ‘constructive’, you’d think about the fact that every time you shoot your mouth off you hurt the reputation of wordpress support a little bit more. I would hate to see you perform the same wrecking job on habari, that’s all.
Though it’s sweet (not to mention a little bit stalkerish) that you went through my .org profile reading five pages of threads to check you knew what the hell you were talking about. I mean, some of those replies date back to 0.72 and aren’t even relevant anymore. Don’t you think there might have been a better use of your time? Or did you decide not to bother with that rudimentary bit of research? Yeah, I may talk crap, but at least it’s informed crap that uses apostrophes correctly
that girl again 6:42 pm on January 17, 2007 Permalink |
And to those of you who commented civilly — you’re right, I should have more faith in the cream rising to the top, and I’ll try not to let the occasional nutter prevent me from participating
You seem already to have got a number of other women interested in contributing, which is hugely encouraging.
spencerp 9:05 pm on January 17, 2007 Permalink |
Uh, I never went through your .Org profile, I never seen how many pages worth of replies you had over there. I got the digit count from a previous post of your’s, which was made a few weeks back!
So what you’re saying is, every time I post a reply here, because I feel the need to defend myself from your belittling posts, I’m hurting the WordPress even more!?!? Yeah, that makes sense.
I guess defending oneself to a WordPress had-been, isn’t the best choice.. The question still remains though: Why post crap on everyone in the WordPress Community, if you don’t expect a person to defend themselves? Oh wait, I keep forgetting, it’s orgasmic for you…
P.S. Who cares if I use apostrophes correctly, I’m no grammar professional. And besides, it was done on a blog with a bunch of crap writings anyway!! What’s the big deal..
that girl again 10:15 pm on January 17, 2007 Permalink |
note to self: must quit feeding the trolls.
[goes back to fiddling with .htaccess]
spencerp 3:23 am on January 18, 2007 Permalink |
Yeah, I guess that would mean to stop posting crap articles (about the people/trolls) then! And at the same time, stop referring to others as being “stalkerish”! You were saying that I was being stalker like, now you know how I feel, when shortly after I posted that email to the Habari list, you included it into a post.. (Me now thinks: so every email I write, to where ever, is being tracked down by the Wank! Sure feels like it!).. It’s funny how you can refer to others as trolls and stalkers, but yet!, YOU’RE DOING IT TO OTHERS!..
Collin 12:00 pm on January 18, 2007 Permalink |
TGA – Are you going to have a play with Habari once it is released? Just a question as I am interested. I would like to hear your comments on the application if you do.
that girl again 5:25 pm on January 18, 2007 Permalink |
I’ve got Habari installed locally, but I can’t login, and I’m switching one of my Dreamhost domains to PHP5 to see if it works any better there.
First impressions are that the directory setup is pretty weird. Nothing in the root, and you have to guess which folder to do the install from. Then, my blog is sitting in htdocs. All of which is no doubt sortable if you have the mod_rewrite chops, which in my case I have not got. But the install is pretty smooth, and I like that you login from the blog itself. And this is incidental, but grabbing files from svn is so beautifully simple I wish I’d learned it years ago. I learned a lot of stuff from WP (php includes, excessive love of the unordered list, editing other people’s perfectly good code to produce the maximum number of parse errors) but it’s become so bloated now that I’m less inclined to play with it. The fact that Habari has introduced me to shell is good enough for me at the moment
Root 5:37 pm on January 18, 2007 Permalink |
If they kept the distro at svn it would keep out the hoi polloi.
svn is a whole lot easier than the iniquitous WP
Security fixupgrade anyway. The whole process induces a migraine before you get started.I need 4 fingers of JD, 2 prozac and a spliff to even get started.
skippy 6:33 pm on January 18, 2007 Permalink |
TGA: we have two open tickets regarding the SVN directory structure. Of course, the structure of the repository need not have any connection to the directory structure in a released tarball or zip file. Even if we don’t re-organize the SVN directories, we’d make sure that we distribute a clean structure for the released files.
If the structure really bothers you, you can use this command to check out just the contents of the htdocs directory into your current working directory:
svn checkout http://habari.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/htdocs .that girl again 7:51 pm on January 18, 2007 Permalink |
Good to know, thanks!
mark 9:05 pm on January 18, 2007 Permalink |
svn is a wonderful thing.
Makes all things easier and faster – and that . is really important
Collin 9:36 pm on January 18, 2007 Permalink |
Thanks for that TGA. I guess I’d better go try and figure out SVN. Got any good links, all I keep finding is stuff that’s far too technical.
Root 11:26 pm on January 18, 2007 Permalink |
Collin – first up install your svn client of choice. I am on Linux and cant advise. From then on its typical gui stuff.
that girl again 11:30 pm on January 18, 2007 Permalink |
Yes, this is one instance where Google is not your friend. I was lucky in that I’m on Dreamhost — svn is preinstalled, getting ssh access is a simple matter of ticking a box, and the information I needed to make use of it was on the wiki. Once I was logged in and in the right directory, I just had to copy the line of code they give you on the habari site. If your host doesn’t have svn already, this article on using svn with wordpress tells you how to set it up. And now, of course, I can take a long-delayed look at WP 2.1 without any unzipping involved. Bliss.
Collin 12:16 pm on January 19, 2007 Permalink |
Thanks guys and gals!
Root 11:20 pm on January 31, 2007 Permalink |
I am with you on that *I wish I’d learned svn years ago.*. These gurus have been bluffing. Its a doddle.