mccOct 9, 2024

I think I just vaulted over the line between "WordPress is too much of a maintenance burden, I want to move away" to "I need to stop using WordPress. Now."

https://tldr.nettime.org/@tante/113277490070161595

tante (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image When logging into Wordpress.org (login.wordpress.org) you have to confirm that you are not affiliated with WPEngine. While this looks petty and childish it's another sign the Wordpress is in the hands of people who can't find less destructive ways to handle their fucking midlife crisis.

tldr.nettime
Show threadmccOct 9, 2024
How likely is it we could see a fork of the WordPress.org updates/plugins backend? At least some of the wordpress.org features are negatives to me anyway so I'd be okay with losing them (the "news" page contains information I don't care about, and it appears to be leaking my IP/location to Automattic every time I open my personal WP admin page). But the plugin repository is kind of hard to work without.
Show threadmccOct 9, 2024
What's really worrisome to me is whether CEO Matt's errattic-ness starts to impact SimpleNote. I don't really like WP; it's just something I used in my twenties that now I can't get rid of. But SimpleNote is very possibly my favorite piece of software in the world at this moment, my one critical-path cloud app that never "enshittified". If you've been following this account, you may have noticed I come to hate software very easily. I really honestly like SimpleNote. And it's owned by Automattic.
Show threadmccOct 10, 2024

So I was reading this article (h/t @ernie)

https://www.404media.co/wordpress-checkbox-login-wp-engine/

and I hit this kinda jawdropper of, sorry to link the bad place, a tweet:

https://twitter.com/JavierCasares/status/1843963052183433331

Where someone describes being banned from wordpress.org for asking questions about the "affiliated with WP Engine" checkbox. Note that's a thread, which neither the 404media post nor probably the Twitter website will show you, and there are followups beyond that one screenshot. I assure you they were reasonable and calmly stated

‘The Community Is In Chaos:’ WordPress.org Now Requires You Denounce Affiliation With WP Engine To Log In

WordPress.org users are forced to confirm they are not "affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise" before registering a new account or logging in.

404 Media
Show threadmccOct 10, 2024
Or in summary https://bird.gmem.ca/@arch_ebooks/statuses/01J9T9SGTN381KK54B9QXK0V7Q
Post by arch_ebooks, @[email protected]

CW: markov chain nonsense

bird.gmem.ca
Show threadmccOct 10, 2024
Several people seem to have been banned from wordpress.org for just taking part in that Slack discussion screenshotted above. This is really bad, given one of the foundational premises of WordPress is that it's safe to use open source software that partially depends on network services controlled by a single company! I want to make jokes about how we've moved from "CEO meltdown" tropes to "forum admin meltdown" tropes but I think making jokes about "Matt" might obscure that this is Actually Bad
Show threadBatichiOct 18, 2024
@mcc Do you (or anyone reading this) have an out of the box alternative to WP?
It was very accessible for less techie people which is why it got so spread out - but as someone who just needs a website for portfolio/webcomic stuff I'd love to know if there's something else I could migrate to in the future.
Show threadmcc

@batichi If I had such an alternative, I would already be using it. :(

The two things I am currently looking at are:

- ClassicPress— fork of an older version of WordPress— since I have limited feature needs, may be attractive for less churn and less dependence on the wordpress company (?)
- Ghost— I know nothing about this— I just know everyone's recommending it

Oct 18, 2024 at 3:00pmWeb
Show threadBatichiOct 18, 2024
@mcc that's kinda what I was afraid of. WordPress is very well known and has a lot of dev support. My host is 3rd party and I donno when Matt is going to flip on that too.