Wordpress’ effective censors
Ooh, I hate spammers.
The Wordpress blog software has a nifty little feature called the Dashboard: a page in the administration section that will contact the wonderful internets and download Wordpress related news. Actually, all it does is slow down my accessing the administration interface for a few seconds every time I try to log in.
Today I broke the mold and actually went ahead and read what was so important that my enjoyment of this blog should be interrupted. The most recent item was a call for help; Matt Mullenweg himself asking people to contribute to the development of this blog’s underlying software.
I have often thought about doing just that, and although I think Wordpress is great, I still have many ideas on how it could be made even better. There is just an eensy-teensy little problem: Matt Mullenweg is a filthy little spamming scumbag.
So I followed the link to the item with the idea of writing a comment that said that I would be glad to help as soon as the spammers got kicked out. I wrote on the talk page of the linked wiki, because the blog posting that contained the original item lacked a comments section:
Hi,
I would love to help out with WordPress development, but the problem I have with that is that WordPress is run by a spamming scumbag. So please repeat any requests for help as soon as Matt Mullenweg has been kicked out of the project, and I will gladly comply.
Within minutes, my comment was deleted and my account blocked. The reason given? “Unprofessional comments.” A note said I could get the account unblocked by contacting the administrator who had blocked it, a Michael Hancock, it appears, but of course without giving me any contact data.
Unaware that only professionals are allowed to use the Wordpress wiki, I posted the following at Hancock’s blog, the address of which was suggested somewhere on his wiki page:
Hi there,
I see you blocked me from posting at the WordPress codex, stating as reason: “unprofessional comments”.
When trying to edit a page, it is suggested that I contact you. Without of course giving actual contact data, because that would probably be too easy. Feeling a little hostile?
Anyway, I do not know what was “unprofessional” about my comment, nor that there was a requirements for all comments to a FOSS project (presumably also open to non-professionals) to be professional at all times.
Please enlighten me what is defined as “professional” at the Wordpress codex, so that I can work hard to get the ban lifted?
Well, I posted it there a few minutes ago, and my question has already been deleted while writing this entry.
The Wordpress codex administrators could have simply berated me for the presumably inappropriate tone of my message (although it is hard to guess what is appropriate with spammer friends), and could have asked me to rephrase what I wrote in such a manner that people would actually want to read it, and consider the merits of its message.
So I was writing this just in case the blocking of my account was an indication that the Wordpress community is just hard at accepting criticism.Which I did not consider very likely, but at least this Hancock person seems to be having a problem with dissenting voices.
Admittedly, my comment was slightly inflammatory; I could have written my message without resorting to name calling. But when it comes to spammers, I find it hard to keep a cool head. I think name calling is the least their supporters should expect.
Apparently spammers can dish it out, but cannot take it.
People tend to get reactionary when you tell them things they don’t wanna hear. I would suggest checking out Textpattern. I’m not affiliated with them, but I recently installed their system for my (bilingual) footy club’s website, reason being the club wanted to switch from — here is where we practice — to adding content that will get people interested in learning and playing footy as well as attracting sponsorship.
I will be the first to admit that I am not familiar with WordPress beyond the point that a bazillion people use it for their blogs. And that’s great, but the administration for a lot of these things is almost always in English. I needed to have something that if I get had to hand off the site in a hurry my successor would be able to use the admin pages sufficiently — without having to reinstall or make major changes.
I’ll leave it at that, so as not to create another entry in your post! -N-
That’s cool Nadine. I have no problems with WordPress other than that they don’t see that spam is bad behaviour. I have considered using Drupal, but so far do not see the need.
[…] Memo to self; must keep track of the efforts of the Utnubu group, who try and keep track of the differences between Debian GNU/Linux and Ubuntu GNU/Linux, and integrate everything that is “good” into the former. Their experiences could help make maintaining forks easier, something I am looking forward to. […]