[mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

Bloke · 2009-05-22 09:06:04

mrdale wrote:

I still think Wet should let a few of the heavy-hitters in the plugin arena in as devs, (bloke, steve, jmd, others)

Thanks for the vote of confidence :-)

Can’t speak for the others, but the core would be a right fricking mess if I was allowed in the sand pit! All the carefully crafted stability would go out the window, because I hack. I don’t code well. That’s part of the reason I pulled out of even considering being an xPattern dev. Would love to do it, but the likes of manfre, jm, net-carver, et al are several orders of magnitude above my station.

If it was up to me and TXP needed any extra help, artagesw, chriloi, gomedia, jm, and trenc would get honorary dev status because they produce blinding, visionary, clean code and have the mindset for the job.

So Thanks Wet, your attitude is appreciated. Don’t think we haven’t noticed…

Hear hear! The SVN dev branch continues to impress me daily — especially all the features that had “no chance, wait for crockery” status that have now been put in to 4.0.x. And more besides. Amazing work, wet.

Last edited by Bloke (2009-05-22 10:26:28)

Neko · 2009-05-22 09:34:29

I think every other discussion like this (and god knows we had our fair share of them in the past) just annoys the fuck out out of developers. Which is dangerous at the moment since there is only one. Now, it would be ironic to drive away the only TXP developer left, wouldn’t it?

Instead of ranting about the lack of direction, the scarcity of resources, Dean fucking Allen for Christ’s sake why instead don’t we simply praise all the terrific work that has been done so far? Admin themes? FTW! Supadupa tag parser? Damn right.

And if we’re not in the mood of praising, like we enjoy to carry the curmudgeon torch or something, there’s still the nifty PayPal donation option, which I guess can help boost morale in a very effective way.

mrdale · 2009-05-22 15:00:08

Er, Neko.

I thought I was praising, or at least trying to bend the conversation toward credit where it is due.

hcgtv · 2009-05-23 15:18:31

Neko wrote:

I think every other discussion like this (and god knows we had our fair share of them in the past) just annoys the fuck out out of developers. Which is dangerous at the moment since there is only one. Now, it would be ironic to drive away the only TXP developer left, wouldn’t it?

Neko, I think it annoys you more than the devs ;)

I remember when I first heard the news that wet was being given SVN access, it was in the thread that blasted Textdrive’s lack of funding for this project. Yes, it would indeed be ironic if wet left now, because there was more turmoil and uncertainty back when he wanted in.

Instead of ranting about the lack of direction, the scarcity of resources, Dean fucking Allen for Christ’s sake why instead don’t we simply praise all the terrific work that has been done so far? Admin themes? FTW! Supadupa tag parser? Damn right.

Yes, the core code is improving, in large part to Mr. Robert Wetzlmayr’s work, gracias wet. Now Robert, do you need permission from Dean to change the front page? Does Dean figure into anything these days, have we, the community, been given the keys to the kingdom? Because if we’re in charge, who’s in the committee, can I get in, who and where do I petition, how does this process work?

And if we’re not in the mood of praising, like we enjoy to carry the curmudgeon torch or something, there’s still the nifty PayPal donation option, which I guess can help boost morale in a very effective way.

I got an idea, let’s head over to welovetxp. Let’s go chronologically down the line of featured sites, and knock on their doors for contributions.

Or we can grow this community.

Neko · 2009-05-23 22:49:19

hcgtv wrote:

Neko, I think it annoys you more than the devs ;)

I don’t see how making fun of attention whores slash drama queens relates to this thread. If you just wanted to prove that you are proficient at using the forum search function for whatever reason… well, you sure rock, sir!

I remember when I first heard the news that wet was being given SVN access, it was in the thread that blasted Textdrive’s lack of funding for this project. Yes, it would indeed be ironic if wet left now, because there was more turmoil and uncertainty back when he wanted in.

Yeah, sure. 7 minus 1 is 6. 1 minus 1 is… gosh… you can’t fuck around when it comes to math.

Let me open up /textpattern/index.php, it says Copyright 2005 by Dean Allen, our leader!

Very insightful, thanks for pointing that out.

I got an idea, let’s head over to welovetxp. Let’s go chronologically down the line of featured sites, and knock on their doors for contributions.

Well, IIRC on We <3 TXP there are three sites I made, and every time I launched a client site published with TXP I donated as much as I possibly could via PayPal. They were just a few bucks but I tried my best. I’m sure you did the same every time you had the chance, and by every time you had the chance I mean during you spare time between a forum post here and there about the (so called, so perceived by some) sad state of TXP. ;)

Last edited by Neko (2009-05-24 00:18:47)

Mary · 2009-05-24 09:13:28

FYI

Back when I joined the team it was told to me that we shouldn’t f*** around with the homepage because Dean could swoop in. But it never happened, and is unlikely to happen. (For one thing he doesn’t have access to anything, and hasn’t for some time, so if he did ever want back in, he would have to actually ask first.) BUT, someone (Matthew, wasn’t it?) already is working on it, as I recall. Unless something has happened to change that.

It still has his name on Textpattern because you can’t just remove someone else’s copyright info, and there are still various bits and pieces that are his in it.

The biggest problem is that the devs are expected to both develop and support, and delegate and oversee. They get lots of praise when a new release comes out or when they debug a tricky situation. They get the occasional financial gift from a very small group of individuals – and one of the regulars was indeed Neko. All these things are lovely. But it’s not like the community blows sunshine up your ass. You get a hell of a lot of complaints and bitch sessions too, on the forum, through email after email. After a while it’s like your previous efforts, fine as they were at the time, have completely vapourized and the core is referred to like it’s complete crap, and that you’ve “forgotten where you came from”, as if that makes any bloody sense in this context. It takes it’s toll and you either get burn out or lose interest. Other things seem so much more worthwhile and rewarding.

WordPress isn’t immune to this, they just have a hell of a lot more people involved (because WP filled a popular niche at just the right time), so it’s not always obvious to the casual observer.

I’m not in contact with Ruud – he’s only an aquaintance that I worked with for a short while – so I have no idea if he’s actually gone, or just busy or whatever. Assuming that he is gone or leaving, my humble suggestion would be that Robert think about what one job he’d like to do best (coding? troubleshooting? something else?), and then find trusted people to oversee the other key areas. No johnny-come-latelys (we’ve watched those promise the moon and leave the community in record time, and that’s the reason why proving your reliability was always an important factor in joining the dev team) and no one doing more than one job, just the one that they both do and like best.

I’ll slink away now. Carry on.

hcgtv · 2009-05-24 14:19:59

Neko wrote:

Well, IIRC on We <3 TXP there are three sites I made, and every time I launched a client site published with TXP I donated as much as I possibly could via PayPal. They were just a few bucks but I tried my best. I’m sure you did the same every time you had the chance, and by every time you had the chance I mean during you spare time between a forum post here and there about the (so called, so perceived by some) sad state of TXP. ;)

If I was a prolific web developer putting up website after website, a portion of my proceeds would definitely go back to the devs. I did donate monies as soon as I started using Textpattern, a thank you for your efforts, as I do when I use any Open Source software.

To show my appreciation to the devs, I got involved in the community by answering support questions on the forum, I was a moderator for some time, and I tested SVN regularly and pre-releases. Wherever I went, I praised Textpattern, I could use my proficient forum search capabilities to provide you links if you so care to read them.

hcgtv · 2009-05-24 14:38:41

Mary wrote:

The biggest problem is that the devs are expected to both develop and support, and delegate and oversee.

I agree, that is the biggest problem. If you’re a dev, you’re close to the code, so you’ll take issue when someone blasts your efforts.

Devs should be shielded from the day to day support aspects, forum staff could ask the devs for advice should a question arise that they are having a hard time answering. Devs could post on the devblog, letting people know what they are working on or towards, so they don’t appear to be too distant.

In all my years in IT, the best coders, weren’t the best people persons, nor were they the best testers and you had to fight with them to document anything. This project needs coders, but we also need other specialties, as you so point out.

jsoo · 2009-05-24 16:48:17

Mary wrote:

It still has his name on Textpattern because you can’t just remove someone else’s copyright info, and there are still various bits and pieces that are his in it.

At all events, let us please preserve such gems as:

//  '&shy;&shy;' is *no* tribute to Kajagoogoo, but an attempt to avoid prematurely terminating HTML comments

Always brightens my day when I run across it.

wet · 2009-05-25 08:15:52

Everybody,

to clarify a few misconceptions I perceived:

If you want to contribute code which has a significant impact on the product (vs. a simple bug fix), send patches to txp-dev@lists.textpattern.com. Some of them are acted upon. If the “usefulness” of your patches reaches the range of “disturbingly overwhelming”, SVN write access will be a logical end result, not a prerequisite for contributions.
A large fraction of prolific web developers seems to lack the habit of donating “…a portion of […] proceeds […] back to the devs”. See extensive list of donors. We would probably make more money from this donor list if all links were “dofollow”, and/or we accepted payments from PPC advertisers for Google-juice-passing links. We do not, and it seems that we are one of the very last OSS projects to adhere to this outdated ethics.
There is close to no money to be made from working with the core code, at least if you keep the current “business model” and refrain from doing anything like “Txp Premium”. You will probably make more money if you build a much-requested plugin and release it as ransomware.
Els has agreed to bear the forum administrator duties, thanks for that, and I have invited another veteran member to become an administrator on whose reply I’m still waiting. The selection of these candidates was purely subjective, and all regulars who weren’t invited are entitled to be thoroughly embarrassed ;-)
textpattern.com, textpattern.net, textpattern.org are registered and held by Dean. The content on those domains is controlled by the sites’ administrators (Devs, Destry Wion and Nora Brown, Alicson).
I currently don’t care much about (and OTOH, I don’t think that we would need any permission to extend) the copyright notice in various source files. This might change.

Gocom · 2009-05-25 09:12:00

wet wrote:

If you want to contribute code which has a significant impact on the product (vs. a simple bug fix), send patches to txp-dev@lists.textpattern.com. Some of them are acted upon. If the “usefulness” of your patches reaches the range of “disturbingly overwhelming”, SVN write access will be a logical end result, not a prerequisite for contributions.

Somehow it seems that ppl on this topic have forgotten that Open Job Request is not the only way to arrange things. Patching is one of the ways to get help, plus it somewhat makes less work on wet than reading resumes. Even when it’s open source, it doesn’t mean it’s about friendhood and hanging out, it still is work and nothing personal.

You might be wet’s best insterweb friend and a great coder, but that doesn’t mean you automatically become a dev if ya ask permissions.

There is close to no money to be made from working with the core code, at least if you keep the current “business model” and refrain from doing anything like “Txp Premium”. You will probably make more money if you build a much-requested plugin and release it as ransomware.

Or donationware, or as a payed job. But you, wet, are correct, plugins can make several thousands in a year. In theory atleast, even as a donationware / ransomware. And… that is a lot more than the core gets.

You have to remember tho, that all of us don’t have credit cart, atleast currently, that is attachable to PayPal. For example I can accept donations, but I can not donate… because of that. Currently.

Els has agreed to bear the forum administrator duties, thanks for that, and I have invited another veteran member to become an administrator on whose reply I’m still waiting. The selection of these candidates was purely subjective, and all regulars who weren’t invited are entitled to be thoroughly embarrassed ;-)

~~I didn’t even want to.~~ (Gocom’s little soul inside cries a little).

We would probably make more money from this donor list if all links were “dofollow”, and/or we accepted payments from PPC advertisers for Google-juice-passing links. We do not, and it seems that we are one of the very last OSS projects to adhere to this outdated ethics.

I’m thankful of that, dear wet. Nothing sucks more than a large Viagra on the screen.

the_ghost · 2009-05-25 10:52:34

Why not to ad google links adv to the forum? For example, show links in a row after first message and before last one in topic? And show this adv to unregistered visitors, because CTR among registered is rather small. I hope this can earn some hundreds dollars a month.

wet · 2009-05-25 12:25:54

the_ghost wrote:

Why not to ad google links adv to the forum?

Low CTR, even lower eCPM. Trust me, it’s not worth the effort.

the_ghost · 2009-05-25 18:48:44

wet wrote:

Low CTR, even lower eCPM. Trust me, it’s not worth the effort.

Pity… We remain to hope t-shirts can help :)

hcgtv · 2009-05-25 19:57:30

wet wrote:

Everybody, to clarify a few misconceptions I perceived:

Robert,

I was writing a response to your post, it was rather long, but I decided not to post it.

The article that started this thread was about a lack of momentum.

Maybe we should all go back and read it again.

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#31 2009-05-22 09:06:04

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#32 2009-05-22 09:34:29

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#33 2009-05-22 15:00:08

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#34 2009-05-23 15:18:31

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#35 2009-05-23 22:49:19

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#36 2009-05-24 09:13:28

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#37 2009-05-24 14:19:59

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#38 2009-05-24 14:38:41

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#39 2009-05-24 16:48:17

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#40 2009-05-25 08:15:52

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#41 2009-05-25 09:12:00

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#42 2009-05-25 10:52:34

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#43 2009-05-25 12:25:54

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#44 2009-05-25 18:48:44

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

#45 2009-05-25 19:57:30

Re: [mention] Textpattern vs WordPress - a Lack of Momentum

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