Alas, my comment on Prologue was deleted for insufficient quantities of ‘OMG u r AWESOME!!!’, so here it is in full:
I know releasing themes is a new thing for Automattic, but I’m not sure SVN is really the most convenient way of doing it. Most theme authors use zips. It seems to work quite well.
Not mentioning the lack of an official theme respository to distribute it was really hard, but, you know, I need to accept the fact that themes.wordpress.net is dead and let it rest in peace.
wordpress™ wank 
brightfeather said
Sheesh … we must have had a whole 2 or 3 requests for this SVN theme. I’m not going to take the time to locate them and verify the number because even threads from December 1st, 2007 have been closed. Meanwhile the numerous of requests for photoblog themes, feminine themes, etc. have fallen on deaf ears.
JRSofty said
I’m not even sure what this Prologue is suppose to be about. The post made no real sense to me, and then went into the realm of weird when it started talking about Arizona. What the hell do I care about Arizona?
that girl again said
A girly or photo-friendly theme would not get linked by the tech blogs, therefore is not worth doing 🙄
Matt Algren said
I must confess, I don’t ‘get’ Prologue, but then I don’t ‘get’ Twitter, either. Nice use of Gravatar, though. Can’t blame them for playing that connection up.
I do think it would have been nice for Joseph Scott and Matt Thomas to spend the couple days they spent on Prologue cleaning up and fixing all the currently broken and nigh unusable themes that they already offer.
On another note, I don’t know if you saw this post, in which Ma.tt (wish I’d thought of that) says:
“I have no problem that they’re using Typepad, but for goodness sake put it on your own domain. When someone Google’s [sic] you the first hit shouldn’t be .typepad.com. Your name is the most valuable thing you have, and every day you put it off is more links to someplace you can never truly control.”
“…[in comments] Like I said, it isn’t about platform (though who wouldn’t want Seth on theirs) but just about building your house on a solid foundation, which I believe you can do equally well on either platform.”
I absolutely agree with Ma.tt (can you tell that I’m really envious of that domain?), but I’m not sure how it syncs up with how wordpress.com operates.
At any rate, this is one of the reasons I’ve moved from wordpress.com. It’s only about 90% like I want it design-wise (I still have to get the images to allow padding), but take a look. Opinions welcome.
Alan said
It seems very… Matt, to see something someone else is doing, then try to make his own equivalent, for better or worse. What a waste of time.
that girl again said
He’s just trying to flog domain mapping to any passing wordpress.com users who aren’t already giving him $10-$15 a year. In that respect it syncs up pretty well. 🙄
The site’s looking good (that blue on grey always makes me yearn for a Chaos Theory that wasn’t broken). Not too sure about the green comment links, it’s throwing another shade in there you don’t really need.
Kissing Bandit said
One thing, which is easily missed if you’re not looking for it, that I’d like to point out is that he says:
(Emphasis added.)
Why is that phrase important? Frankly, I don’t think Matt would want all those smaller bloggers to acquire their own domain names and map them through WP.com because it would be a huge blow to WP.com’s own ranking and branding.
All of these smaller bloggers are WP.com’s meat and potatoes…the larger bloggers (who already have their own domain) are just dessert.
-KB
Kissing Bandit said
And I’m still waiting to hear how those people who can’t even spell FTP are supposed to learn how to spell SVN.
(Okay, maybe the .org folks can spell FTP, but something tells me it would take them much longer to learn how to spell SVN. TGA, how exactly does one get the “rolls eyes” smiley in a comment because I could really use it right about now?)
-KB
sunburntkamel said
i don’t think economics or traffic would bear out smaller bloggers being wp.com’s meat and potatoes. $250 a month, vs $10-25 per year? smaller bloggers are more likely a drain on the system.
AJ said
KB,
Also don’t forget that having the “biggest” bloggers gives Ma.tt further bragging rights 😉
that girl again said
The smaller bloggers are needed to bump up the number of users they can claim (impresses potential investors and purchasers) and to pull in ad revenue (even if you’re only making a dollar per year per blog, the sheer number of blogs involved makes it worth your while). Also to boost the PR of wordpress.com in general and the ad-carrying global tag pages in particular. Also to act as unpaid beta testers.
Ah, it was a happy day when I figured out the rolleyes smiley. : roll : without the spaces.
Kissing Bandit said
TGA touched on why those smaller bloggers are considered the meat and potatoes…it’s not necessarily about being a drain on the system or the amount of money the domain mapping service/hosting brings in each month — it’s about branding and growth. Two things can be more valuable than the “drain on the system”, which is a small price to pay.
Those little bloggers who still have *.wordpress.com sites are building equity in the wordpress.com domain and brand — for free. With more visibility comes more market share…think of Blogspot for a moment.
If everyone who used the service had their own domain name mapped through the service, do you think it would have grown and caught on as quickly as it did. Nope. People see somejoe.blogspot.com and curiosity ensues; they’ll visit blogspot.com (without the somejoe) and see they can get a blogspot.com domain, too. Instant branding and growth.
As witnessed by Blogspot’s acquisition by Google, that kind of branding and growth can be quite valuable in its own right.
I could go a bit more in depth about it, but I have an appointment with a nap right now.
-KB
drmike said
Actually having a domain would also give some weight to the wp.com main domain as each site still contains links back to the wp.com site.
Category tag links as well.
timethief said
Anyone who has a domain and is considering a move ought to check this out http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=21532
drmike said
Maybe they’re fixing the issues I’ve been having with renewing my domains. (Yeah, right)
that girl again said
Why on earth would anyone who already has a domain want to register it here? They don’t allow private registrations and if anything happens to your wordpress.com account your domain could be held to ransom. Much better to transfer it to a proper registrar, then you can switch between hosts as you wish. I really should get around to consolidating all my domains over at GoDaddy.
drmike said
GoDaddy will hold your domain hostage as well if you “step out of line” with them. I’ve had clients who, having been joe job’ed by spammers have to pay a clean up fee to godaddy to get their domain back.
timethief said
There is such a person on the forum right now. http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=21585
Then there’s the paypal one http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=21586
The communication gap between volunteers answering forum questions and staff and/or Moderators seems to be growing wider day by day. It seems to me that the staff neither want nor are encouraging volunteer help but I could be wrong.
that girl again said
The community really needs to catch up with the fact that Automattic doesn’t want them blogging on weekends, and will not support them if they persist in such deviant behaviour. Don’t they know that blogging is work rather than a leisure activity? People irresponsible enough to blog on their own time rather than their company’s need to be taught the error of their ways! 😉
timethief said
Another Moderator comes out from undercover http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=21547&replies=5#post-162847
timethief said
I’m chuckling because the latest new Moderator, who boasts a 2 year history forgot two of the 1 column themes when he gave his answer to the OP. The complete answer would have also included the last two I inserted here in the string in blod lettering – Ambiru, Chaos Theory, Day Dream, Green Marinee and Supposedly Clean. I suppose this isn’t really surprising given that he doesn’t seem to have a wp.com blog that he can examine the themes in. Interestingly enough the link to his blog is not viable. 😉
Kissing Bandit said
Oh goodness. It’s happened. Sort of.
I just tried to leave an answer to one of the above linked questions (goodness me, trying to be helpful) and there was no resply box. I checked my account and it said I was still a member, but I don’t get a reply box?
Created a new WP.com account just to see if my eyes were playing tricks, but no…the reply box appeared for my new account. Logged back in under KB and reply box disappeared.
Apparently, I’m just one step away from being labeled a troublemaker and having my account rendered complete “Inactive” and this is Automattic’s way of trying to save me before I actually take that next step. 🙄
-KB
Kissing Bandit said
P.S. TGA, thank you ever so much for that roll eyes smiley. It’s already come in handy.
-KB
that girl again said
He’s been around the .org forums since forever. It wouldn’t surprise me if Automattic have used their recent influx of cash to hire him, but he’s mainly a plugin guy so I doubt he’ll be spending too much time around the forums. Hanni and Isadora still aren’t on the staff page, but Nick is a guy so they may not be ashamed to add him 🙄
Green Marinee is two-col (I remember this because it has stupid sidebar headers), and I don’t remember anything about Supposedly Clean other than that I dislike it intensely, but Iceburgg is definitely one-col. I know it’s a holiday theme but you can change the header to make it less so.
timethief said
Good catch times 3 {said she with a red face whilst looking for a rock to crawl under}. Do you actually think they would pay people to Moderate the wp.com forum? Are the Moderators of the wp.org forum on staff? If so, then I will be shocked to hear it as there were over 700 unanswered questions over there when I last checked it out.
timethief said
@kissingbandit
Congrats! on your “inactive” promotion. It means that you actually know something about wp and, of course, that means you are a threat to all the fan boys. It’s too bad that happened before we had a sock puppet sock hop in the off-topic forum. 😀
sunburntkamel said
+1 @ drmike. godaddy is teh ev1lz0rs.
Stevie said
🙄
I wonder if it took Matt to edit some code to render someone inactive or whether bbPress does have some sort of “inactivator” function to deactivate accounts. I suppose the fan boys are cumming in their shorts at this.
that girl again said
It’s a reasonable supposition that anyone you see referring to wordpress.com as ‘us’ is on the payroll, which covers both Hanni and Nick even though they are ‘Moderators’ rather than ‘Key Masters’. I have my doubts about whether Isadora is actually staff, she seems to have been roped in mainly to deal with CSS stuff. And Trent’s tone gets more pseudo-official by the minute so who knows? Maybe ‘Moderator’ now designates a junior employee rather than a senior volunteer. I have no idea why they are being so cagey about this. We all know they can afford to hire more support staff now, and it’s useful when asking questions to know whether the people answering you are staff with backend access.
As for the .org forum, pfft. I doubt Matt even knows who’s moderating over there these days. Like here, he only shows up to lock threads and insult volunteers.
Richard said
The other telltale with the moderator thing is whether their posts in the forum have a yellow background or not. Staff has always been yellow while Trent and Isadora do not have a colored background.
HandySolo said
No. Don’t be silly.
that girl again said
Good to know; my custom stylesheet doesn’t account for that. [looks at source]. Yes, their posts have a
keymasterclass attached, so they must have keymaster status, but for some reason they’re not being credited with it. Whether that’s because they’re new or because bbPress is broken, I have no idea.timethief said
I asked a question that I truly did not know the answer too:
HandySolo replied:
The primary way to get answers is to ask questions. Are your truly suggesting that I’m silly? If so, then please have enough courage to post a link to your blog so I can have a go at you there. Since my ‘deactivation’ I’ve been strongly in touch with my Irish and I would take great delight booting the ass off a squirrel or two. 😉
brightfeather said
OMG! sister. 🙄 You just put your foot in your mouth. Ya see, TT this is what comes from your earlier birth and your perpetual insistence on being “first” at everything.
I just cruised through the wp.org forum. Handy Solo is a wordpress.org Moderator. He’s even polite and helpful, unlike the others that I could but won’t name.
So, you will either have to suck it up and say you’re sorry or, I will have to ask all the questions at wp.org for you.
options said
> No. Don’t be silly.
ha, what a sweet and nice manners; carry on, Handy — very good job!
not in the least surpised, though — ain’t it that typical for the WP fora mods in general?
and yet .org mods are not staff, I think you should apply to — Automattic will definitely be needed in such very soon.
HandySolo said
I’ll respond, but please don’t assume I’m picking fights here. That is not my intent!
@TimeThief: I’ll concede that perhaps I was overly brief in my reply and offer a longer version instead.
Nobody’s paid to moderate at the .org support forums. Or if they are, I’ve missed it up to this point.
Now, I’d prefer to avoid you “getting your Irish up” and trolling my blog (trust me, my wife is Irish, I know how that goes!).
I’ll offer this last bit as politely as possible, but counter to your previous statement. Another way to get answers is to search 🙂
This is me at the support forums: http://wordpress.org/support/profile/38527
From there you’ll be able to find one of my blogs quite quickly.
@brightfeather: Thank you for the kind words. An apology from anyone is not necessary. I realize I’m a stranger on hostile turf, as it were! I’m not going to pop in and ask for concessions. I had only responded to indicate that .org mods aren’t staff.
@options: I’ll assume you’re leading with sarcasm. Nicely done. I’m wounded. Extra points all around 😉
However, in reviewing the thread you linked, I’m not sure I saw my performance as all that terrible. Which one of my responses did you not like? I do try to improve over time, so constructive feedback is always welcomed.
Keep in mind, we are all volunteers there. Hanging one for the actions of others is perhaps a bit unfair. That being said, we do try and contribute to the overall tone from time to time:
http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/wp-forums/2007-September/004610.html
You’re all welcome to join in with the support volunteering at any point. We definitely have more askers than answerers and folks certainly don’t need a mod tag to answer questions 🙂 That wp-forums mailing list is a good one to join if you’d like to get more involved as well.
As for joining the automattic staff? Thank you for your vote of confidence, but I currently have full time job. However, as it’s a small tech start-up, the future is always uncertain so who knows what could happen in the future?
drmike said
Per Matt, no we’re not.
timethief said
@HandySolo
Actually I was teasing when I posted above. I’m well acquainted with searchboxes as you can see from my wp.com profile. I have answered over 7,000 questions on the wp.com forum. http://en.forums.wordpress.com/profile.php?id=181325
I apologize for “pushing your buttons” because by doing so you fed me back all the things I have said many times to bloggers while I volunteered on the wp.com forum. Up until Matt’s Happy New Year purge of so-called “bad elements” I answered wp.com forum questions while I multi-tasking at work. Then suddely by Matt’s command options, wank, myself (and my alter ego brightfeather) were all officially “inactivated”. drmike was demoted and similarly inactivated way back last July. So, unlike all the other “members” of the blogging community here we are all being denied the opportunity to access the forums.
HandySolo said
Oh geeze, You’re Brightfeather?!? Sheesh, I gotta pay more attention when I lurk in the future 🙂
I knew you guys had been inactivated in .COM world. Are you blocked from .org support too?
timethief said
@HnadySolo,
We are blocked from posting to any of the wordpress.com support forums. Our avatars (in my case gravatars) have been removed and replaced by the generic shadow man on all existing forum threads and our usernames have been de-linked from our blogs. Lastly, instead of having “member” after our usernames indicating that we are part of the community we have the word “inactivated”.
In my case after Matt’s pronouncement came down and every comment I posted to a wordpress.com blog was scooped up by Akismet. With the help of other bloggers, we ascertained that when they used my login information to post comments to their own blogs as though they were me the comments posted instantly, rather than ending up in the Akismet spam filter. The only difference was that the other bloggers were not posting from my IP. My ISP would not give me a dynamic IP and as I have a wordpress install hosted at ASO as well and my comments under that username were likewise scooped up by Akismet.
In addition those “Happy New Year” gifts, posts I made to my wp.com blog, which contains blogging tips for wordpress.com beginners, disappeared from the global tagging pages and Matt admitted that he was aware of this, as well as, admitting that he was aware that the blog had no “mature” content.
The long and short of this is clear. Matt has made his decision that we are “bad elements” that required “purging” and any suggestion now that we would be welcome to become volunteers as any other member can do would be “silly”. 😉 This can be confirmed by carefully reading the comments Matt chose to post on about this matter to sunburntkamel’s blog http://archgfx.net/blog/2008/geek/blogging/desaparecidos-wordpresscom-sucks
Unlike the other bloggers who were “inactivated” as “bad elements” tooI have no geeky skills. I’m struggling to make the transition from wp.com to wp.org and hosting my own blog. Luckily I have made blogging friends who do have the skills that I lack and the patience to teach me what I need to learn.
I do not know whether or not I can post to the wp.org forums or not. I have ghosted those forums and what I witnessed did not assure me that the kind of step-by-step instructional support wp.com that bloggers making this transition need exists there.
Lastly, as you say that you knew that we had been “inactivated” I’m curious to know two things. Who told you about our change in status? What do think of this business model that incorporates the periodic “purging” of volunteers, who worked their backsides off providing community support to their peers?
HandySolo said
This very blog is where I read it — and the post you linked.
I’m a .org guy. I have no visibility into the .com world and certainly wouldn’t be receiving any communiques.
Heh. “Loaded question, yer honor!” 😉
Again, I’m just a .org volunteer. I still don’t even have a solid position on how I feel about the .com scene — let alone how it’s being ran. In fact, I strive to keep them completely separate in my tiny little brain.
Yes, I realize that makes me sound a bit like Pontious Pilate.
That being said, there’s lots of emotion in the posts and comments I’ve read and I do struggle to see both sides of the issue. So yeah, it sure seems as though things could’ve been handled differently… but that’s just monday morning quarterbacking.
I don’t know enough (and probably never will) to have a useful opinion. All I see at this point are the smoke clouds.
timethief said
@HandySolo,
All that’s left is to thank you for dropping in and blowing some smoke.
@wank,
I apologize for taking this post off-topic. The subject matter is the Prologue theme and it does seem to me that this staff designed theme it will be very useful to staff. I think Chris Brogan has it nailed what’ it’s all about. Prologue is (almost) Twitter BEHIND the Firewall.
http://wordpress.com/blog/2008/01/28/introducing-prologue/
options said
hi there Handy,
yes, I know sarcasm hurts, but so curtness does. being an ‘overly harsh’/caustic and overly sensitive as well myself (sometimes even both at the same time) I can tell this for sure.
I am sorry if the wound still bleeds, I did not mean nor expected it would that much.
while I’m flattered to recieve an extra points, I’d rather pass ’em to the someone else, whose sarcasm is much more finer and smarting than mine. just an example.
not sure if this could be counted as a consolation for your wound, but, actually, on the general sombre background of the said thread from .org fora, your performance is really *outstanding*, in all possible shades of the meaning of this word. so, perhaps, it might be not that bad at all for you that I linked here exactly this thread, eh? 😉
(btw, don’t you find it funny that this thread in the mailing list later refers to the very same forum topic I did?)
and, yes, I completely agree with you that hanging one for the actions of others is *totally* unfair — my bad and apologies.
OTOH, for the very long time already I do not follow .org support fora for any of the “community owned” Automattic Production. in the first place that is exactly due to the reasons you’ve expressed in your letter to the mail-list. as I realised that I cannot stand the heat, I thought I’d better be off that kitchen at all.
but also, I don’t fancy fobbing off the folks that, for instance, they need a “beefy (but pricey — options) dedicated server” [1] , or that they’d better to put up with TMCE or shut-up [2] — I should say that all that and similar kind of stuff has nothing to do with you in particular, just to bring a general idea of my discontent with .org fora decease.
> Are you blocked from .org support too?
not yet, all .org fora user tables are stored in the separate from .com DB. (but there’s always an almighty Akismet, ya know 😉
to get the idea of how .com is run and what its support fora are about, you’re welcome to join the wonderful world of .com fora where the support volunteering meets with “the business considerations” so closely, that “the bad elements” “should take a break” from it.
WBR
1. just because of the design flaws of the WP filtering system; and the idea/patch proposed by Mark Jaquith which aimed to remedy this issue is still pickling being shelved on the trac since 08/2005 — a really complex issue, in fact, which requires a dev feedback and I cannot see Mark around the trac for the last several months.
2. just because it’s implanted into the WP core so tightly that it cannot be pulled off and replaced with the another RTE via plugin.
disclaimer: these notes are purely for the illustrative and explanatory purposes, OS developement is a separate beast.
drmike said
I’m blocked across the board as well as my Akismet key stopped working months ago. Do note that has put my hosting business at risk as I’m no longer able to get help for when I or my clients have a problem with WordPress. We’ve been moving folks over to other solutions now.
Do also note that Matt and Toni has refused to discuss this matter with me, have refused to respond to any emails from me on the subject and have lied a number of times saying that they have done so. Do also note that I am not being able to renew my main domain that comes due to 2 weeks and they have refused to respond to support emails on that as well.
Nice how they screw over those who went out of their way to help them. I racked up a large number of responses with wp.com, wp.org and mu.
drmike said
Oh lookie. They got caught censoring again:
http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=21815
I looked at the Google mirror of the site in question and there’s no adverts or anything like that. Looks like it got removed for content.
Stevie said
Automattic are morons plain and simple. 😉
Now the question is how long before that thread disappears into oblivion.
brightfeather said
Well, thesacredpath got bitch slapped today. Here is the “sanitized thread”. http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=21769
Take note that the original incorrect answer from mtdewvirus and thesacredpath’s gentle post following it that pointed out the incorrectness have been “disappeared”.
Also note that all the old threads are being “sanitized” in the backroom, un-tagged or re-tagged and then closed. I happened on this when I could not find threads that I knew existed.
What happened in the off-topic music thread if it wasn’t sanitization? It was the one wherein Mark’s musical choices extolling the cunnilinguists (sp?) and sulz’s reply to him seem to have disappeared. http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic.php?id=20781#post-158182
Thumbz said
Richard, aka thesacredpath, now Thumbz was indeed “Wanked.” Since I didn’t think my response was snarky, I didn’t think of taking a screenshot. I’m sorry I didn’t know. Well no matter really, I am soooo out of there.
that girl again said
I wonder whether anyone would care to explain exactly how driving out people who actually blog on wordpress.com in order to replace them with rookies who know zip about the site is helping .com users? 🙄
The site drmike mentions seems to be back up, but it does sound like there’s a content crackdown going on. Wonder whether that’s NYT-motivated?
drmike said
And the first thing they did was move hosts. Hmm, I wonder why.
sunburntkamel said
a crackdown on a site posting lyrics might just as easily be RIAA/ASCAP motivated.