So, 2.4 ain’t going to happen because there’s no way they could implement even a botched admin overhaul by the end of this month. This is a relief. I shall refrain from mocking commenting on said admin overhaul until it actually looks like an admin overhaul. In the meantime, go and read what Khaled has to say. Also, much love for Joen’s cutting description of the burnt orange as ‘curry red’ . (I actually like the blue and orange combination, but we all know my taste in colours is not shared by the majority of WP users. And it’s a little dated. I mean, when did I design the current iteration of n(t)u? 2005?)
I can’t bring myself to blog about forum-related drama; it’s just too damn depressing. Basically the only thing that is keeping this blog on wordpress.com right now is the fact that if I moved, I would be giving them exactly what they want. I’m just going to point to this comment by someone who still believes wordpress.com is ad-free, and ask someone please to tell them the truth, because the people who would normally do that aren’t allowed to do so anymore.
wordpress™ wank 
drmike said
I still get a chuckle remembering that Matt stated adverts on the admin side of WordPress was “stupid” yet we had an advert to browsehappy, a site with affliate links. (Well used to have them. Now browsehappy’s got hidden sponsored links.)
If Matt can’t understand that, how do you expect other folks to?
sunburntkamel said
I still don’t see a point in discussing the new admin.
svn upthis morning revealed substantial changes to the main menu [*gasp* plugins, users, and settings are not the same sort of thing as write, manage, and comments. the dashboard comment in joen’s article isn’t relevatent (or at least not the same) anymore]. I think Mr. Messina’s post about the difficulty of doing design inside an open-source-code environment are pretty spot on.engtech said
I wonder how many of my Greasemonkey scripts are going to break with the admin overhaul.
judyb12 said
just saw your new avatar. I love it 🙂
Oh, and someone has put that poor, deluded blogger out of his/her misery.
Kissing Bandit said
Random tangent: I just love how all these people misspell AdSense, yet Matt hasn’t swooped in yet to poke fun at them.
-KB
Kissing Bandit said
Re admin overhaul, I’ll reserve full comment until it’s actually finished. However, based on how it’s developing, it still won’t be as polished or professional as Movable Type (or Shuttle).
Matt shouldn’t have burned that bridge because Shuttle was certainly a huge step up from what they’re working on, but at least it will look better (I pray) than what we have now.
(And I actually do like the blue/burnt orange color scheme.)
-KB
Danny said
The new administration are looks like crap. Plain and simple.
thesacredpath said
Kissing Bandit said:
Shouldn’t it be AdCents?
Kissing Bandit said
It may be cents for us mere mortals, but I’m sure it’s more like Ad-“I make more in a minute than you do in a year”-Sense for Automattic.
Just sayin’.
-KB
Joen said
The usability review posted on my site (http://www.noscope.com/media/wp25-usability-review/) was started immediately after seeing the pictures on Khaleds site. It was written quickly, because I knew that it was a nightly build and probably in a state of flux.
Why, you could ask? Because usability and conventions is NOT in a state of flux. Not even having seen those changes checked into the SVN, I feel like being arrogant to say the bulk of my feedback still applies:
The bottomline is: usability work is done PRIOR to doing HTML and CSS. I’ve worked with LEGO on various things, the process is to do photoshop mockups until a point of agreement, then move on to prototypes, then testing these prototypes on end users to then finally move on to actually building the result.
You can’t just jump in the sandbox and start playing. It’ll just be a new look, not a more usable look.
Joen said
Permit me to append to my previous comment this little extra writeup:
http://www.noscope.com/journal/2008/01/wordpress-habari-and-the-iphone
drmike said
I’m now listed as Inactive as well.
that girl again said
Ooh, wonder who’s next? adam? raincoaster? sulz? I still think thesacredpath is worth an each-way bet.
Kissing Bandit said
I wouldn’t put it past them to come out with an “I’m sorry your account was marked Inactive. We were doing an upgrade to some servers and your user accounts were accidentally deactivated in the process.”
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating, Matt is a master of spin. He should get an honorary doctorate.
-KB
thesacredpath said
I noticed on trac.wordpress that they now list a 2.3.3 update although there wasn’t a release date. I have a couple people I help out and they are both having a lot of problems since I updated them to 2.3.2. I’m thinking on rolling them back to 2.3.1 which may have security flaws, but at least they would be able to edit and post to their blogs.
Makes one wonder if that is why .com support is “temporarily closed” today. All hands on deck.
drmike said
tsp, see the sticky. It’s probably their twice a year get a way. (Not complaining as I think it’s a good thing to gather the employees to have a pow-wow like that.)
Kissing Bandit said
Wow. Support entirely closed and entire week? Wow. And what other professional companies do you know of that do that? Even when they’re taking a week long pow-wow to recharge their batteries? Not many. Most companies have the sense to know that people’s problems won’t end simply because they need a break and will assign someone (even on a rotating schedule) to man the support lines.
Wow.
-KB
drmike said
Actually quite a lot. Usually it’s more of a department instead of the entire company though. Strange to have it right after the Holiday break though.
Again, I feel that’s a good thing.
Heck, I’m supposed to get away for a week every year. I seem to remember trying to schedule that around WordCamp last year but couldn’t get any information out of staff in time to schedule it. (Thanks again, guys.)
that girl again said
It’s so staff have an excuse to crawl over the forums and delete anything that might scare our new robotic overlord or potential buyers. You know, like long-serving volunteers, or references to the same </paranoia>
Or, they just broke something really important and want to centralise all the complaints in one forum thread </cynicism>
yanis said
The last time I visited the WordPress forums I thought I’d miss-typed and ended up in the Apple forums. A leaf taken out of the Dalek play book perhaps? Suppress! Suppress! Suppress!
Those at the helm of WordPress stopped listening back before Shuttle came and went with little more than an untimely fart and uncomfortable glances. The .com juggernaut steams on dragging the platform with it.
It amuses me no end that “spin” is the only response to questions regarding future planning and direction. It will be more luck than design if the new UI actually manages to come together.
drmike said
Going back to your post though…
You’re right. All this crap is too damn depressing. It sucks. None of this had to happen and none of it should have happened.
Kissing Bandit said
Yes, Mike, entire departments will go off and do their thing. Got it. But an entire company (all staff included)? Do you think TypePad (although it may seem like it sometimes) shuts down their customer service because their execs need a break? Er, no.
I agree that everyone needs a break sometime, but frankly, if they’re actually running a Real Business™ here with a Real Service™, then they need to use some damn sense. Instead of completely shutting down support, use a rotating schedule. Or have some lower level minions handle it while the execs are off
playingbrainstorming somewhere.At this point, I’m inclined to agree with TGA’s assumption. Chances are they just want to weed whack a few threads/blogs without interruption.
-KB
Stevie said
The new admin interface is nice, but I am not crazy about it and I definitely think it does not follow in the footsteps of the Shuttle project, I mean they were supposed to eventually incorporate the mock ups of Shuttle into the real thing but we’ve been only getting some CSS changes here and there and thats all.
Matt and Co could have done a better job and give everything an entire overhaul and something that clearly resembles the Shuttle mock ups, if you know what I mean. They still use that crappy font that aliases on my non-clear type screen, they should of used an arial based font.