O:9:"MagpieRSS":17:{s:6:"parser";i:0;s:12:"current_item";a:0:{}s:5:"items";a:10:{i:0;a:13:{s:5:"title";s:22:"WordPress 2.8.1 Beta 2";s:4:"link";s:64:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-2-8-1-beta-2/";s:8:"comments";s:73:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-2-8-1-beta-2/#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:06:31 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:10:"Ryan Boren";}s:8:"category";s:8:"Releases";s:4:"guid";s:39:"http://wordpress.org/development/?p=801";s:11:"description";s:346:"2.8.1 Beta 2 is ready for testing.  Download it, check out the changes since beta 1, and review all tickets fixed in 2.8.1.  We especially suggest, recommend, and beg that plugin developers test their plugins against beta 2 and let us know of any issues.  Notable fixes in beta 2:

Translation of role names fixed
wp_page_menu() defaults [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:1210:"<p>2.8.1 Beta 2 is ready for testing.  <a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8.1-beta2.zip">Download it</a>, check out the <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/log/branches/2.8/?action=stop_on_copy&amp;mode=stop_on_copy&amp;rev=11654&amp;stop_rev=11622&amp;limit=100">changes since beta 1</a>, and review <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&amp;group=resolution&amp;order=priority&amp;milestone=2.8.1&amp;resolution=fixed">all tickets fixed in 2.8.1</a>.  We especially suggest, recommend, and beg that plugin developers test their plugins against beta 2 and let us know of any issues.  Notable fixes in beta 2:</p>
<ul>
<li>Translation of role names fixed</li>
<li>wp_page_menu() defaults to sorting by the user specified menu order rather than the page title</li>
<li>Upload error messages are now correctly reported</li>
<li>Autosave error experienced by some IE users is fixed</li>
<li>Styling glitch in the plugin editor fixed</li>
<li>SSH2 filesystem requirements updated</li>
<li>Switched back to curl as the default transport</li>
<li>Updated the translation library to avoid a problem with mbstring.func_overload</li>
</ul>
<p>Thanks again for testing WordPress.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:69:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-2-8-1-beta-2/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:2:"39";}s:7:"summary";s:346:"2.8.1 Beta 2 is ready for testing.  Download it, check out the changes since beta 1, and review all tickets fixed in 2.8.1.  We especially suggest, recommend, and beg that plugin developers test their plugins against beta 2 and let us know of any issues.  Notable fixes in beta 2:

Translation of role names fixed
wp_page_menu() defaults [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:1210:"<p>2.8.1 Beta 2 is ready for testing.  <a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8.1-beta2.zip">Download it</a>, check out the <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/log/branches/2.8/?action=stop_on_copy&amp;mode=stop_on_copy&amp;rev=11654&amp;stop_rev=11622&amp;limit=100">changes since beta 1</a>, and review <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&amp;group=resolution&amp;order=priority&amp;milestone=2.8.1&amp;resolution=fixed">all tickets fixed in 2.8.1</a>.  We especially suggest, recommend, and beg that plugin developers test their plugins against beta 2 and let us know of any issues.  Notable fixes in beta 2:</p>
<ul>
<li>Translation of role names fixed</li>
<li>wp_page_menu() defaults to sorting by the user specified menu order rather than the page title</li>
<li>Upload error messages are now correctly reported</li>
<li>Autosave error experienced by some IE users is fixed</li>
<li>Styling glitch in the plugin editor fixed</li>
<li>SSH2 filesystem requirements updated</li>
<li>Switched back to curl as the default transport</li>
<li>Updated the translation library to avoid a problem with mbstring.func_overload</li>
</ul>
<p>Thanks again for testing WordPress.</p>
";}i:1;a:13:{s:5:"title";s:22:"WordPress 2.8.1 Beta 1";s:4:"link";s:64:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-2-8-1-beta-1/";s:8:"comments";s:73:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-2-8-1-beta-1/#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:05:14 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:10:"Ryan Boren";}s:8:"category";s:19:"DevelopmentReleases";s:4:"guid";s:39:"http://wordpress.org/development/?p=794";s:11:"description";s:321:"We&#8217;ve started work on the first maintenance release to 2.8.  2.8.1 will fix a handful of bugs that turned up in 2.8.  Today we&#8217;re releasing the first beta of 2.8.1.  Download it, and check out the bugs fixed so far.  Here are some of the notable issues that are fixed in beta 1.

Certain themes were [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:1371:"<p>We&#8217;ve started work on the first maintenance release to 2.8.  2.8.1 will fix a handful of bugs that turned up in 2.8.  Today we&#8217;re releasing the first beta of 2.8.1.  <a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8.1-beta1.zip">Download</a> it, and check out the <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&amp;group=resolution&amp;order=priority&amp;milestone=2.8.1&amp;resolution=fixed">bugs fixed so far</a>.  Here are some of the notable issues that are fixed in beta 1.</p>
<ul>
<li>Certain themes were calling get_categories() in such a way that it would fail in 2.8. 2.8.1 works around this so these themes won&#8217;t have to change.</li>
<li>Dashboard memory usage is reduced.  Some people were running out of memory when loading the dashboard, resulting in an incomplete page.</li>
<li>The automatic upgrade no longer accidentally deletes files when cleaning up from a failed upgrade.</li>
<li>A problem where the rich text editor wasn&#8217;t being loaded due to compression issues has been worked around.</li>
<li>Extra security has been put in place to better protect you from plugins that do not do explicit permission checks.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you would like to automatically upgrade from 2.8 to 2.8.1 Beta 1, follow <a href="http://wordpress.org/download/nightly/">these instructions</a>.  Thanks for testing WordPress.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:69:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-2-8-1-beta-1/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:2:"57";}s:7:"summary";s:321:"We&#8217;ve started work on the first maintenance release to 2.8.  2.8.1 will fix a handful of bugs that turned up in 2.8.  Today we&#8217;re releasing the first beta of 2.8.1.  Download it, and check out the bugs fixed so far.  Here are some of the notable issues that are fixed in beta 1.

Certain themes were [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:1371:"<p>We&#8217;ve started work on the first maintenance release to 2.8.  2.8.1 will fix a handful of bugs that turned up in 2.8.  Today we&#8217;re releasing the first beta of 2.8.1.  <a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8.1-beta1.zip">Download</a> it, and check out the <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&amp;group=resolution&amp;order=priority&amp;milestone=2.8.1&amp;resolution=fixed">bugs fixed so far</a>.  Here are some of the notable issues that are fixed in beta 1.</p>
<ul>
<li>Certain themes were calling get_categories() in such a way that it would fail in 2.8. 2.8.1 works around this so these themes won&#8217;t have to change.</li>
<li>Dashboard memory usage is reduced.  Some people were running out of memory when loading the dashboard, resulting in an incomplete page.</li>
<li>The automatic upgrade no longer accidentally deletes files when cleaning up from a failed upgrade.</li>
<li>A problem where the rich text editor wasn&#8217;t being loaded due to compression issues has been worked around.</li>
<li>Extra security has been put in place to better protect you from plugins that do not do explicit permission checks.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you would like to automatically upgrade from 2.8 to 2.8.1 Beta 1, follow <a href="http://wordpress.org/download/nightly/">these instructions</a>.  Thanks for testing WordPress.</p>
";}i:2;a:13:{s:5:"title";s:37:"2.8 Release Jazzes Themes and Widgets";s:4:"link";s:54:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-28/";s:8:"comments";s:63:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-28/#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:01:39 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:4:"Matt";}s:8:"category";s:8:"Releases";s:4:"guid";s:39:"http://wordpress.org/development/?p=788";s:11:"description";s:366:"I&#8217;m very excited to announce to everyone that the latest and greatest version of WordPress, version 2.8 &#8220;Baker,&#8221; is immediately available for download. 2.8 represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. We also fixed over 790 bugs. This release is named in honor of [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:3161:"<p>I&#8217;m very excited to announce to everyone that the latest and greatest version of WordPress, version 2.8 &#8220;Baker,&#8221; <a href="http://wordpress.org/download/">is immediately available for download</a>. 2.8 represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. We also fixed over 790 bugs. This release is named in honor of noted trumpeter and vocalist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chet_Baker">Chet Baker</a>. Here&#8217;s a quick video overview of everything in the new release:</p>
<p><embed src="http://v.wordpress.com/Pu3T4X8l" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></p>
<p>The first thing you&#8217;ll notice is that visually 2.8 feels a lot like 2.7, just with some minor tweaks here and there. However once you&#8217;ll dig in you&#8217;ll begin to appreciate the changes.</p>
<h3>Major New Improvements</h3>
<p>First and foremost, <strong>2.8 is way faster to use</strong>. We&#8217;ve changed the way WordPress does style and scripting.</p>
<p>The core and plugin updaters in previous versions of WordPress have been such a success we decided to bring the same to themes. You can now <strong>browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click</strong> from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.</p>
<p>If you make edits or tweaks to themes or plugins from your dashboard, you&#8217;ll appreciate the new <strong>CodePress editor</strong> which gives syntax highlighting to the previously-plain editor. Also there is now contextual documentation for the functions in the file you&#8217;re editing linked right below the editor.</p>
<p>If you were ever frustrated with widgets before, this release should be your savior. <strong>We&#8217;ve completely redesigned the widgets interface</strong> (which we didn&#8217;t have time to in 2.7) to allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don&#8217;t lose all their settings. Developers now have access to a <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Widgets_Api">much cleaner and robust API</a> for creating widgets as well.</p>
<p>Finally you should explore the <strong>new Screen Options on every page</strong>. It&#8217;s the tab in the top right. Now, for example, if you have a wide monitor you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page.</p>
<h3>And Even More</h3>
<p><a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_2.8">You can read the full list of over 180 new features, changes, upgrades, and improvements on the Codex</a>. The list is exhausting!</p>
<h3>The Future</h3>
<p>We&#8217;re already thinking hard about the next versions, 2.9 and 3.0. Keep an eye out for improved media handling, better dependency checking, versioning of templates and themes, and of course the fabled merging of WordPress and MU announced at WordCamp San Francisco two weeks ago.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:59:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-28/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:3:"601";}s:7:"summary";s:366:"I&#8217;m very excited to announce to everyone that the latest and greatest version of WordPress, version 2.8 &#8220;Baker,&#8221; is immediately available for download. 2.8 represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. We also fixed over 790 bugs. This release is named in honor of [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:3161:"<p>I&#8217;m very excited to announce to everyone that the latest and greatest version of WordPress, version 2.8 &#8220;Baker,&#8221; <a href="http://wordpress.org/download/">is immediately available for download</a>. 2.8 represents a nice fit and finish release for WordPress with improvements to themes, widgets, taxonomies, and overall speed. We also fixed over 790 bugs. This release is named in honor of noted trumpeter and vocalist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chet_Baker">Chet Baker</a>. Here&#8217;s a quick video overview of everything in the new release:</p>
<p><embed src="http://v.wordpress.com/Pu3T4X8l" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640" height="360" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></p>
<p>The first thing you&#8217;ll notice is that visually 2.8 feels a lot like 2.7, just with some minor tweaks here and there. However once you&#8217;ll dig in you&#8217;ll begin to appreciate the changes.</p>
<h3>Major New Improvements</h3>
<p>First and foremost, <strong>2.8 is way faster to use</strong>. We&#8217;ve changed the way WordPress does style and scripting.</p>
<p>The core and plugin updaters in previous versions of WordPress have been such a success we decided to bring the same to themes. You can now <strong>browse the entire theme directory and install a theme with one click</strong> from the comfort of your WordPress dashboard.</p>
<p>If you make edits or tweaks to themes or plugins from your dashboard, you&#8217;ll appreciate the new <strong>CodePress editor</strong> which gives syntax highlighting to the previously-plain editor. Also there is now contextual documentation for the functions in the file you&#8217;re editing linked right below the editor.</p>
<p>If you were ever frustrated with widgets before, this release should be your savior. <strong>We&#8217;ve completely redesigned the widgets interface</strong> (which we didn&#8217;t have time to in 2.7) to allow you to do things like edit widgets on the fly, have multiple copies of the same widget, drag and drop widgets between sidebars, and save inactive widgets so you don&#8217;t lose all their settings. Developers now have access to a <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Widgets_Api">much cleaner and robust API</a> for creating widgets as well.</p>
<p>Finally you should explore the <strong>new Screen Options on every page</strong>. It&#8217;s the tab in the top right. Now, for example, if you have a wide monitor you could set up your dashboard to have four columns of widgets instead of the two it has by default. On other pages you can change how many items show per page.</p>
<h3>And Even More</h3>
<p><a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_2.8">You can read the full list of over 180 new features, changes, upgrades, and improvements on the Codex</a>. The list is exhausting!</p>
<h3>The Future</h3>
<p>We&#8217;re already thinking hard about the next versions, 2.9 and 3.0. Keep an eye out for improved media handling, better dependency checking, versioning of templates and themes, and of course the fabled merging of WordPress and MU announced at WordCamp San Francisco two weeks ago.</p>
";}i:3;a:13:{s:5:"title";s:33:"WordPress 2.8 Release Candidate 1";s:4:"link";s:75:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-2-8-release-candidate-1/";s:8:"comments";s:84:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-2-8-release-candidate-1/#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sun, 07 Jun 2009 23:29:49 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:10:"Ryan Boren";}s:8:"category";s:11:"Development";s:4:"guid";s:39:"http://wordpress.org/development/?p=783";s:11:"description";s:295:"With Release Candidate 1, we think WordPress 2.8 is ready and complete.  Download it, test it, and tell us what you think.  If you don&#8217;t uncover any bad bugs, 2.8 will be released on Wednesday the 10th.
If you&#8217;re interested in what has changed since beta 2, consult the changelog.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:505:"<p>With Release Candidate 1, we think WordPress 2.8 is ready and complete.  <a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8-RC1.zip">Download</a> it, test it, and tell us what you think.  If you don&#8217;t uncover any bad bugs, 2.8 will be released on Wednesday the 10th.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re interested in what has changed since beta 2, consult the <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/log?action=stop_on_copy&amp;mode=stop_on_copy&amp;rev=11532&amp;stop_rev=11441&amp;limit=100">changelog</a>.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:80:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/wordpress-2-8-release-candidate-1/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:3:"105";}s:7:"summary";s:295:"With Release Candidate 1, we think WordPress 2.8 is ready and complete.  Download it, test it, and tell us what you think.  If you don&#8217;t uncover any bad bugs, 2.8 will be released on Wednesday the 10th.
If you&#8217;re interested in what has changed since beta 2, consult the changelog.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:505:"<p>With Release Candidate 1, we think WordPress 2.8 is ready and complete.  <a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8-RC1.zip">Download</a> it, test it, and tell us what you think.  If you don&#8217;t uncover any bad bugs, 2.8 will be released on Wednesday the 10th.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re interested in what has changed since beta 2, consult the <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/log?action=stop_on_copy&amp;mode=stop_on_copy&amp;rev=11532&amp;stop_rev=11441&amp;limit=100">changelog</a>.</p>
";}i:4;a:13:{s:5:"title";s:49:"Summary of #wordpress-dev IRC meetup for 20090603";s:4:"link";s:90:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/summary-of-wordpress-dev-irc-meetup-for-20090603/";s:8:"comments";s:99:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/summary-of-wordpress-dev-irc-meetup-for-20090603/#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:30:51 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:10:"Ryan Boren";}s:8:"category";s:11:"Development";s:4:"guid";s:39:"http://wordpress.org/development/?p=778";s:11:"description";s:358:"
Next Wednesday, June 10th, is the target date for the release of
WordPress 2.8.  Tickets against the 2.8 milestone that are not
blockers will be postponed to another release.
WP 2.9 will require MySQL 4.1.2 or greater.  This is raised from the current requirement of 4.0.
Checks will be added to the automatic upgrader that will prevent upgrading to [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:848:"<ul>
<li>Next Wednesday, June 10th, is the target date for the release of<br />
WordPress 2.8.  Tickets against the 2.8 milestone that are not<br />
blockers will be postponed to another release.</li>
<li>WP 2.9 will require MySQL 4.1.2 or greater.  This is raised from the current requirement of 4.0.</li>
<li>Checks will be added to the automatic upgrader that will prevent upgrading to 2.9 if  MySQL &lt; 4.1.2 is being used.  The upgrader will also issue a notice that suggests asking the host to upgrade MySQL to meet the minimum requirement.</li>
<li>In order to promote migration to PHP 5, the upgrader will suggest that those running<br />
PHP 4 switch to PHP 5. A link to a Codex page describing how to switch for various hosts should be provided.</li>
<li>The new weekly IRC meetup time will be every Wednesday at 9pm UTC.</li>
</ul>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:95:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/06/summary-of-wordpress-dev-irc-meetup-for-20090603/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:2:"64";}s:7:"summary";s:358:"
Next Wednesday, June 10th, is the target date for the release of
WordPress 2.8.  Tickets against the 2.8 milestone that are not
blockers will be postponed to another release.
WP 2.9 will require MySQL 4.1.2 or greater.  This is raised from the current requirement of 4.0.
Checks will be added to the automatic upgrader that will prevent upgrading to [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:848:"<ul>
<li>Next Wednesday, June 10th, is the target date for the release of<br />
WordPress 2.8.  Tickets against the 2.8 milestone that are not<br />
blockers will be postponed to another release.</li>
<li>WP 2.9 will require MySQL 4.1.2 or greater.  This is raised from the current requirement of 4.0.</li>
<li>Checks will be added to the automatic upgrader that will prevent upgrading to 2.9 if  MySQL &lt; 4.1.2 is being used.  The upgrader will also issue a notice that suggests asking the host to upgrade MySQL to meet the minimum requirement.</li>
<li>In order to promote migration to PHP 5, the upgrader will suggest that those running<br />
PHP 4 switch to PHP 5. A link to a Codex page describing how to switch for various hosts should be provided.</li>
<li>The new weekly IRC meetup time will be every Wednesday at 9pm UTC.</li>
</ul>
";}i:5;a:13:{s:5:"title";s:20:"WordPress 2.8 Beta 2";s:4:"link";s:62:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/wordpress-2-8-beta-2/";s:8:"comments";s:71:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/wordpress-2-8-beta-2/#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sat, 23 May 2009 17:33:36 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:10:"Ryan Boren";}s:8:"category";s:11:"Development";s:4:"guid";s:39:"http://wordpress.org/development/?p=746";s:11:"description";s:45:"Download beta 2.  See changes since beta 1.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:264:"<p><a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8-beta2.zip">Download</a> beta 2.  See <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/log?action=stop_on_copy&amp;mode=stop_on_copy&amp;rev=11440&amp;stop_rev=11366&amp;limit=100&amp;verbose=on">changes</a> since beta 1.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:67:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/wordpress-2-8-beta-2/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:2:"91";}s:7:"summary";s:45:"Download beta 2.  See changes since beta 1.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:264:"<p><a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8-beta2.zip">Download</a> beta 2.  See <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/log?action=stop_on_copy&amp;mode=stop_on_copy&amp;rev=11440&amp;stop_rev=11366&amp;limit=100&amp;verbose=on">changes</a> since beta 1.</p>
";}i:6;a:13:{s:5:"title";s:20:"WordPress 2.8 Beta 1";s:4:"link";s:62:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/wordpress-2-8-beta-1/";s:8:"comments";s:71:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/wordpress-2-8-beta-1/#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sat, 16 May 2009 19:59:48 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:10:"Ryan Boren";}s:8:"category";s:8:"Releases";s:4:"guid";s:39:"http://wordpress.org/development/?p=744";s:11:"description";s:95:"Download it, test it, file bugs.
What&#8217;s new? All of this.
Good hunting, all you testers.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:333:"<p><a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8-beta1.zip">Download</a> it, <a href="http://wordpress.org/download/beta/">test</a> it, <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">file</a> bugs.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s new? <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_2.8">All of this</a>.</p>
<p>Good hunting, all you testers.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:67:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/wordpress-2-8-beta-1/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:3:"175";}s:7:"summary";s:95:"Download it, test it, file bugs.
What&#8217;s new? All of this.
Good hunting, all you testers.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:333:"<p><a href="http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.8-beta1.zip">Download</a> it, <a href="http://wordpress.org/download/beta/">test</a> it, <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">file</a> bugs.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s new? <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_2.8">All of this</a>.</p>
<p>Good hunting, all you testers.</p>
";}i:7;a:13:{s:5:"title";s:61:"Contributing to WordPress, Part IV: Ideas, Opinions, Feedback";s:4:"link";s:47:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/ideas/";s:8:"comments";s:56:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/ideas/#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Sat, 09 May 2009 16:20:53 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:10:"Jane Wells";}s:8:"category";s:19:"DevelopmentFeatures";s:4:"guid";s:39:"http://wordpress.org/development/?p=731";s:11:"description";s:396:"&#8220;I wish they&#8217;d implement feature x.&#8221;
&#8220;Why won&#8217;t they put feature y into core? It&#8217;s rated really high in the Ideas forum!&#8221;
&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter what I think, all the decisions get made by an elite crime-fighting squad funded by an anonymous millionaire. Er, I mean the four core devs.&#8221;
These sentiments, and others like them, are the [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:7489:"<p>&#8220;I wish they&#8217;d implement <em>feature x</em>.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Why won&#8217;t they put <em>feature y</em> into core? It&#8217;s rated really high in the Ideas forum!&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter what I think, all the decisions get made by an elite crime-fighting squad funded by an anonymous millionaire. Er, I mean the four core devs.&#8221;</p>
<p>These sentiments, and others like them, are the focus of today&#8217;s post. Setting aside the similarities between Ryan, Andrew, Mark and Peter to Charlie&#8217;s Angels for a moment, the question of how decisions about features are made needs to be addressed. There are a number of mechanisms in place for communication between the community and the core team, but with so many different channels, it&#8217;s hard to keep up with them all and still focus on production. Here&#8217;s where we are now&#8230;</p>
<p><strong>#wordpress-dev IRC channel</strong>: The IRC channel used to be more active. These days there&#8217;s rarely more than a dozen or two people online at any given time, and hours go by with no activity. When a question pops up, it&#8217;s often a tech question from a less experienced developer or site manager looking for help, as opposed to ongoing discussions about the best way to approach core code and features. When core-focused discussions do occur, they tend to fade out as time zone variances cause people to log off before a core dev enters the room.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/wp-hackers/">wp-hackers list</a>:</strong> The hackers mailing list reaches thousands of contributing developers, plugin developers, and lurking interested parties. Discussions range from how to use hooks to whether or not something in core should be changed to troubleshooting for other list members. Conversations on this list sometimes can get heated and occasionally stray into rudeness, which makes some people hesitate to utilize this communication channel.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://wordpress.org/development">This dev blog</a>:</strong> This blog is used mostly for &#8220;official&#8221; announcements, and more recently, for surveys and polls intended to give the core devs an idea of community opinion on things being considered for future versions. Posting is irregular, sometimes with new content every other day, sometimes with nothing for a couple of weeks.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/">wpdevel.wordpress.com</a>:</strong> Another blog, also an &#8220;official&#8221; outlet, in which the core team posts about any big code changes they&#8217;re working on. This gives plugin authors and contributing developers a heads-up, and provides a place for community discussion around specific issues like the new widgets API.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org">Trac</a>: </strong>The ticket system used for active development has gotten out of control. Hundreds of tickets are already lined up for future versions because they were punted from current releases; many aren&#8217;t even relevant anymore. Trac has wound being a place where people report bugs, suggest code changes, request features and debate methodologies; some of these conversations are years old. This broad use of the system makes it harder to power through tickets and get bugs fixed.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/">Ideas forum</a>:</strong> The Ideas forum is a place where anyone can suggest a new feature, rate features suggested by others, leave comments, and generally discuss the future of the WordPress application. However, like Trac, some of the items here are years old. Because of the way the rating system works, older items remain at the top of the list. Some threads are simply he said/she said preference arguments, as opposed to contructive discussions about the value of implementing certain features or changes. There&#8217;s no direct connection between the Ideas forum and Trac.</p>
<p>WordPress is an open source project, successful because of the community that both develops and uses it. At the same time, some people find it difficult to become involved in the project, and are unsure of how to engage with the core team and community at large. The channels listed above can be overwhleming to someone just joining the community, and/or frustrating to longtime community members who feel like they used to have more influence. We need to fix this. The WordPress project needs to be welcoming, easy to navigate as a contributor, and provide useful feedback to help grow the expertise of its community members.</p>
<p>I think we should figure this out together. You, members of this community, know how you feel about the communication channels available to you. You probably have ideas about how to make it better. Some of you may even have sketched out digrams of systems that you think would work better.  Link Ideas to Trac? Change the Ideas rating algorithm? Close Trac tickets that don&#8217;t get resolved within a certain period of time? Just do everything through Trac? What do you think? What would make it easier for you to keep up with development progress and get involved with the varius contribution opportunities? I *know* you have an opinion.</p>
<p>Over the next few weeks, we&#8217;ll be gathering your input about how we can improve communication and participation, and then we&#8217;ll embark on a project to fix/create a system for collecting ideas, opinions and feedback that will allow WordPress to grow as an inclusive community. Here&#8217;s the plan: Gather ideas from people via IRC, forums, live chats, surveys, etc. Assemble a small group of interested parties to help figure out possible approaches, put suggested approaches to a community vote. If redesigning something (like the Ideas forum) is deemed necessary, utilize community designers to create layouts. Beta test it to see if it does work as hoped. Launch and make everyone happy with the new, improved communication/ideas/feedback system!</p>
<p><strong>Up First</strong></p>
<p>Use <a href="http://wordpress.org/support/topic/269201">this forum thread</a> to post your suggestions about this. What do you think needs to be changed or improved? How would you structure it? How do the existing channels fit into your suggestion?</p>
<p>On Tuesday, May 12 at 21:00 UTC (5pm New York time), hop into the #wordpress-dev IRC channel (irc.freenode.com) and talk about your suggestions for how to improve communication. I&#8217;ll be there, taking notes and answering questions, and asking follow-up questions when someone pitches a good idea. An hour later, I&#8217;ll be joining the <a href="http://wordcastpodcast.com/">WordCast Podcast</a> to talk about this issue. <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">They&#8217;re trying to set up a call-in format; if that pans out, we&#8217;ll post the call-in info in the dev channel. Otherwise, </span> A call-in number has been set up through TalkShoe.</p>
<p>1-724-444-7444<br />
Meeting ID: 50127<br />
Pin (if you don&#8217;t have a TalkShoe account): enter 1#</p>
<p>We&#8217;ll also read off suggestions being made in the dev channel and discuss them.</p>
<p>More opportunities to weigh in on this issue to come. Also, further investigation into the similarities between the core devs and Charlie&#8217;s Angels. <img src='http://wordpress.org/development/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:52:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/ideas/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:1:"5";}s:7:"summary";s:396:"&#8220;I wish they&#8217;d implement feature x.&#8221;
&#8220;Why won&#8217;t they put feature y into core? It&#8217;s rated really high in the Ideas forum!&#8221;
&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter what I think, all the decisions get made by an elite crime-fighting squad funded by an anonymous millionaire. Er, I mean the four core devs.&#8221;
These sentiments, and others like them, are the [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:7489:"<p>&#8220;I wish they&#8217;d implement <em>feature x</em>.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Why won&#8217;t they put <em>feature y</em> into core? It&#8217;s rated really high in the Ideas forum!&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter what I think, all the decisions get made by an elite crime-fighting squad funded by an anonymous millionaire. Er, I mean the four core devs.&#8221;</p>
<p>These sentiments, and others like them, are the focus of today&#8217;s post. Setting aside the similarities between Ryan, Andrew, Mark and Peter to Charlie&#8217;s Angels for a moment, the question of how decisions about features are made needs to be addressed. There are a number of mechanisms in place for communication between the community and the core team, but with so many different channels, it&#8217;s hard to keep up with them all and still focus on production. Here&#8217;s where we are now&#8230;</p>
<p><strong>#wordpress-dev IRC channel</strong>: The IRC channel used to be more active. These days there&#8217;s rarely more than a dozen or two people online at any given time, and hours go by with no activity. When a question pops up, it&#8217;s often a tech question from a less experienced developer or site manager looking for help, as opposed to ongoing discussions about the best way to approach core code and features. When core-focused discussions do occur, they tend to fade out as time zone variances cause people to log off before a core dev enters the room.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/wp-hackers/">wp-hackers list</a>:</strong> The hackers mailing list reaches thousands of contributing developers, plugin developers, and lurking interested parties. Discussions range from how to use hooks to whether or not something in core should be changed to troubleshooting for other list members. Conversations on this list sometimes can get heated and occasionally stray into rudeness, which makes some people hesitate to utilize this communication channel.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://wordpress.org/development">This dev blog</a>:</strong> This blog is used mostly for &#8220;official&#8221; announcements, and more recently, for surveys and polls intended to give the core devs an idea of community opinion on things being considered for future versions. Posting is irregular, sometimes with new content every other day, sometimes with nothing for a couple of weeks.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://wpdevel.wordpress.com/">wpdevel.wordpress.com</a>:</strong> Another blog, also an &#8220;official&#8221; outlet, in which the core team posts about any big code changes they&#8217;re working on. This gives plugin authors and contributing developers a heads-up, and provides a place for community discussion around specific issues like the new widgets API.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org">Trac</a>: </strong>The ticket system used for active development has gotten out of control. Hundreds of tickets are already lined up for future versions because they were punted from current releases; many aren&#8217;t even relevant anymore. Trac has wound being a place where people report bugs, suggest code changes, request features and debate methodologies; some of these conversations are years old. This broad use of the system makes it harder to power through tickets and get bugs fixed.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/">Ideas forum</a>:</strong> The Ideas forum is a place where anyone can suggest a new feature, rate features suggested by others, leave comments, and generally discuss the future of the WordPress application. However, like Trac, some of the items here are years old. Because of the way the rating system works, older items remain at the top of the list. Some threads are simply he said/she said preference arguments, as opposed to contructive discussions about the value of implementing certain features or changes. There&#8217;s no direct connection between the Ideas forum and Trac.</p>
<p>WordPress is an open source project, successful because of the community that both develops and uses it. At the same time, some people find it difficult to become involved in the project, and are unsure of how to engage with the core team and community at large. The channels listed above can be overwhleming to someone just joining the community, and/or frustrating to longtime community members who feel like they used to have more influence. We need to fix this. The WordPress project needs to be welcoming, easy to navigate as a contributor, and provide useful feedback to help grow the expertise of its community members.</p>
<p>I think we should figure this out together. You, members of this community, know how you feel about the communication channels available to you. You probably have ideas about how to make it better. Some of you may even have sketched out digrams of systems that you think would work better.  Link Ideas to Trac? Change the Ideas rating algorithm? Close Trac tickets that don&#8217;t get resolved within a certain period of time? Just do everything through Trac? What do you think? What would make it easier for you to keep up with development progress and get involved with the varius contribution opportunities? I *know* you have an opinion.</p>
<p>Over the next few weeks, we&#8217;ll be gathering your input about how we can improve communication and participation, and then we&#8217;ll embark on a project to fix/create a system for collecting ideas, opinions and feedback that will allow WordPress to grow as an inclusive community. Here&#8217;s the plan: Gather ideas from people via IRC, forums, live chats, surveys, etc. Assemble a small group of interested parties to help figure out possible approaches, put suggested approaches to a community vote. If redesigning something (like the Ideas forum) is deemed necessary, utilize community designers to create layouts. Beta test it to see if it does work as hoped. Launch and make everyone happy with the new, improved communication/ideas/feedback system!</p>
<p><strong>Up First</strong></p>
<p>Use <a href="http://wordpress.org/support/topic/269201">this forum thread</a> to post your suggestions about this. What do you think needs to be changed or improved? How would you structure it? How do the existing channels fit into your suggestion?</p>
<p>On Tuesday, May 12 at 21:00 UTC (5pm New York time), hop into the #wordpress-dev IRC channel (irc.freenode.com) and talk about your suggestions for how to improve communication. I&#8217;ll be there, taking notes and answering questions, and asking follow-up questions when someone pitches a good idea. An hour later, I&#8217;ll be joining the <a href="http://wordcastpodcast.com/">WordCast Podcast</a> to talk about this issue. <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">They&#8217;re trying to set up a call-in format; if that pans out, we&#8217;ll post the call-in info in the dev channel. Otherwise, </span> A call-in number has been set up through TalkShoe.</p>
<p>1-724-444-7444<br />
Meeting ID: 50127<br />
Pin (if you don&#8217;t have a TalkShoe account): enter 1#</p>
<p>We&#8217;ll also read off suggestions being made in the dev channel and discuss them.</p>
<p>More opportunities to weigh in on this issue to come. Also, further investigation into the similarities between the core devs and Charlie&#8217;s Angels. <img src='http://wordpress.org/development/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
";}i:8;a:13:{s:5:"title";s:54:"Contributing to WordPress, Part III: Usability Testing";s:4:"link";s:54:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/testing-opps/";s:8:"comments";s:63:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/testing-opps/#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Mon, 04 May 2009 13:57:13 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:10:"Jane Wells";}s:8:"category";s:25:"DevelopmentUser Interface";s:4:"guid";s:39:"http://wordpress.org/development/?p=724";s:11:"description";s:336:"One of the reasons WordPress 2.7 was such a success is the amount of usability testing that took place during the development cycle. Starting with testing 2.5 and the Crazyhorse prototype and following with the 2.7 beta, the testing program looked at almost every feature and function in the application. That kind of thing? Takes [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:6419:"<p>One of the reasons WordPress 2.7 was such a success is the amount of usability testing that took place during the development cycle. Starting with <a href="http://wordpress.org/development/2008/10/usability-testing-report-25-and-crazyhorse/">testing 2.5 and the Crazyhorse prototype</a> and following with the 2.7 beta, the testing program looked at almost every feature and function in the application. That kind of thing? Takes a lot of time. <img src='http://wordpress.org/development/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>For readers who aren&#8217;t familiar with the process behind usability testing, here&#8217;s an overview. First, determine the scope of your test and create a test protocol/script. Determine the audience segments to be included in the test group(s), and begin recruiting. Recruiting may mean hiring an agency to find participants, but for testing WordPress, it makes more sense to recruit from within this community, so that means making a screening survey, reading all the responses, segmenting the respondents into categories and contacting people until you&#8217;ve filled your desired quotas (for whatever segments you&#8217;re seeking, such as newbie, experienced user, developer, CMS user, photoblogger, mobile user, etc. ). Then come the test sessions.</p>
<p>Depending on what is being tested, these last anywhere from half an hour to an hour and half apiece. Sessions are generally recorded using screen capture and web cam, with a video camera for backup. The moderator(s) generally take notes during sessions and/or (depending on what software is being used for the session capture) set markers in the video to indicate task completion, comments of interest, etc.  In some cases, auxiliary test methods such as eye-tracking may be included. When the sessions are complete, the results are analyzed. All the notes and videos are reviewed, patterns are identified, and ultimately a report is written and the feedback informs the next round of revisions.</p>
<p>Some people think it shouldn&#8217;t take much time to do all this. I&#8217;ve lost count of the number of people who cite <a href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html">an old article by Jakob Nielsen</a> that says you don&#8217;t need to test with more than 5 users because usability issues become clear right away. While I&#8217;ve found that to be generally true, when your user base is as diverse in experience level, usage, platform  configuration, language (right to left languages have a pretty different experience) and demography as the WordPress community is, 5 users really isn&#8217;t enough to get a clear picture. We try to test with at least a dozen people each round, but then we are limited to a geographic region (test in NY, test in SF, or test wherever we can schedule enough people back to back to make it worthwhile), while WordPress users are located all over the globe.</p>
<p>To address this, we&#8217;re introducing a set of new contribution opportunities to expand our usability testing program. As with development and graphic design, we&#8217;re going to create an infrastructure to allow community participation in usability testing on a regular basis and in a much broader capacity than existed before, when it was limited to announcements that we needed participants in <em>x</em> city on <em>y</em> date. We&#8217;ll be looking for volunteer moderators as well as participants, hopefully from all over the world.</p>
<p><strong>Moderators.</strong> Observational usability testing isn&#8217;t rocket science, but neither is it a simple task to reduce bias. Because of this, at first we&#8217;ll choose only moderators who have professional experience conducting usability tests. People who conduct testing for design agencies, software companies, usability consulting firms and the like will be our first round draft picks. In the future, when we have a group of regular volunteers and have ironed out any kinks in the process, we&#8217;ll ideally match up experienced testers with aspiring ones, using a mentorship model to increase the number of people who can contribute in this fashion.</p>
<p><strong>Participants.</strong> If you use WordPress, chances are you could participant in a usability test at some point. In some cases we&#8217;re looking for particular behaviors (people who upload large video files, people who blog from their iPhone, people who manage more than 5 blogs, etc.), while other times the behaviors we&#8217;re looking for are much more common (do you have widgets in your sidebar, have you changed themes in the last 6 months, is there more than one author on your blog, etc.).</p>
<p><strong>So how will these opportunities come into play, and how will it make WordPress better?</strong></p>
<p>We&#8217;ll start with the moderators, and try to get volunteers with a decent geographic spread. Then, we&#8217;ll start signing up potential test participants in those areas (though we&#8217;ll also allow at-large registrations, since traveling testing will still be happening). We&#8217;re working on a registration process for potential participants. You&#8217;ll enter your basic info (location, contact info) and answer some questions about your WordPress usage to be entered in the database, and when there&#8217;s a testing opportunity coming up that&#8217;s appropriate for you, a local moderator will get in touch to see if you&#8217;re interested. Further down the road we may experiment with remote testing and other methods, but for now, this approach will broaden the geographic scope of our testing.</p>
<p>All moderators will follow the same test protocols and script, and their results/reports/video will be reviewed and collated, with a composite report (including the protocol/script that was used) published to the community. This will provide designers and developers with broader feedback during the dev cycle, and will allow the wider community to both understand and participate in the testing program.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re interested in being a moderator during this initial phase (meaning you do it professionally), <a href="http://jane.wordpress.com/contact-me/">send me an email</a> and introduce yourself. If you&#8217;re interested in signing up as a potential test participant, watch this space. We&#8217;ll post a link to the registration survey once it&#8217;s ready.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:59:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/05/testing-opps/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:2:"18";}s:7:"summary";s:336:"One of the reasons WordPress 2.7 was such a success is the amount of usability testing that took place during the development cycle. Starting with testing 2.5 and the Crazyhorse prototype and following with the 2.7 beta, the testing program looked at almost every feature and function in the application. That kind of thing? Takes [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:6419:"<p>One of the reasons WordPress 2.7 was such a success is the amount of usability testing that took place during the development cycle. Starting with <a href="http://wordpress.org/development/2008/10/usability-testing-report-25-and-crazyhorse/">testing 2.5 and the Crazyhorse prototype</a> and following with the 2.7 beta, the testing program looked at almost every feature and function in the application. That kind of thing? Takes a lot of time. <img src='http://wordpress.org/development/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>For readers who aren&#8217;t familiar with the process behind usability testing, here&#8217;s an overview. First, determine the scope of your test and create a test protocol/script. Determine the audience segments to be included in the test group(s), and begin recruiting. Recruiting may mean hiring an agency to find participants, but for testing WordPress, it makes more sense to recruit from within this community, so that means making a screening survey, reading all the responses, segmenting the respondents into categories and contacting people until you&#8217;ve filled your desired quotas (for whatever segments you&#8217;re seeking, such as newbie, experienced user, developer, CMS user, photoblogger, mobile user, etc. ). Then come the test sessions.</p>
<p>Depending on what is being tested, these last anywhere from half an hour to an hour and half apiece. Sessions are generally recorded using screen capture and web cam, with a video camera for backup. The moderator(s) generally take notes during sessions and/or (depending on what software is being used for the session capture) set markers in the video to indicate task completion, comments of interest, etc.  In some cases, auxiliary test methods such as eye-tracking may be included. When the sessions are complete, the results are analyzed. All the notes and videos are reviewed, patterns are identified, and ultimately a report is written and the feedback informs the next round of revisions.</p>
<p>Some people think it shouldn&#8217;t take much time to do all this. I&#8217;ve lost count of the number of people who cite <a href="http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html">an old article by Jakob Nielsen</a> that says you don&#8217;t need to test with more than 5 users because usability issues become clear right away. While I&#8217;ve found that to be generally true, when your user base is as diverse in experience level, usage, platform  configuration, language (right to left languages have a pretty different experience) and demography as the WordPress community is, 5 users really isn&#8217;t enough to get a clear picture. We try to test with at least a dozen people each round, but then we are limited to a geographic region (test in NY, test in SF, or test wherever we can schedule enough people back to back to make it worthwhile), while WordPress users are located all over the globe.</p>
<p>To address this, we&#8217;re introducing a set of new contribution opportunities to expand our usability testing program. As with development and graphic design, we&#8217;re going to create an infrastructure to allow community participation in usability testing on a regular basis and in a much broader capacity than existed before, when it was limited to announcements that we needed participants in <em>x</em> city on <em>y</em> date. We&#8217;ll be looking for volunteer moderators as well as participants, hopefully from all over the world.</p>
<p><strong>Moderators.</strong> Observational usability testing isn&#8217;t rocket science, but neither is it a simple task to reduce bias. Because of this, at first we&#8217;ll choose only moderators who have professional experience conducting usability tests. People who conduct testing for design agencies, software companies, usability consulting firms and the like will be our first round draft picks. In the future, when we have a group of regular volunteers and have ironed out any kinks in the process, we&#8217;ll ideally match up experienced testers with aspiring ones, using a mentorship model to increase the number of people who can contribute in this fashion.</p>
<p><strong>Participants.</strong> If you use WordPress, chances are you could participant in a usability test at some point. In some cases we&#8217;re looking for particular behaviors (people who upload large video files, people who blog from their iPhone, people who manage more than 5 blogs, etc.), while other times the behaviors we&#8217;re looking for are much more common (do you have widgets in your sidebar, have you changed themes in the last 6 months, is there more than one author on your blog, etc.).</p>
<p><strong>So how will these opportunities come into play, and how will it make WordPress better?</strong></p>
<p>We&#8217;ll start with the moderators, and try to get volunteers with a decent geographic spread. Then, we&#8217;ll start signing up potential test participants in those areas (though we&#8217;ll also allow at-large registrations, since traveling testing will still be happening). We&#8217;re working on a registration process for potential participants. You&#8217;ll enter your basic info (location, contact info) and answer some questions about your WordPress usage to be entered in the database, and when there&#8217;s a testing opportunity coming up that&#8217;s appropriate for you, a local moderator will get in touch to see if you&#8217;re interested. Further down the road we may experiment with remote testing and other methods, but for now, this approach will broaden the geographic scope of our testing.</p>
<p>All moderators will follow the same test protocols and script, and their results/reports/video will be reviewed and collated, with a composite report (including the protocol/script that was used) published to the community. This will provide designers and developers with broader feedback during the dev cycle, and will allow the wider community to both understand and participate in the testing program.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re interested in being a moderator during this initial phase (meaning you do it professionally), <a href="http://jane.wordpress.com/contact-me/">send me an email</a> and introduce yourself. If you&#8217;re interested in signing up as a potential test participant, watch this space. We&#8217;ll post a link to the registration survey once it&#8217;s ready.</p>
";}i:9;a:13:{s:5:"title";s:28:"Make Friends with BuddyPress";s:4:"link";s:70:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/04/make-friends-with-buddypress/";s:8:"comments";s:79:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/04/make-friends-with-buddypress/#comments";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:24:44 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:4:"Matt";}s:8:"category";s:17:"Cousinsbuddypress";s:4:"guid";s:39:"http://wordpress.org/development/?p=719";s:11:"description";s:329:"What if there was software with the elegance and extensibility of WordPress but all the features you&#8217;ve come to expect from social networks like Facebook? Now there is: check out BuddyPress.
BuddyPress is an official sister project of WordPress. The idea behind it was to see what would happen to the web if it was as [...]";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:2004:"<p>What if there was software with the elegance and extensibility of WordPress but all the features you&#8217;ve come to expect from social networks like Facebook? Now there is: <a href="http://buddypress.org/">check out BuddyPress</a>.</p>
<p>BuddyPress is an official sister project of WordPress. The idea behind it was to see what would happen to the web if it was as easy for anyone to create a social network as it is to create a blog today. There&#8217;s been an explosion of social activity on the web, it&#8217;s probably the most important trend of the past few years, but there&#8217;s been a dearth of Open Source tools that enable the social web.</p>
<p>In WordPress we have a robust and extensible base that can scale to many millions of users, and BuddyPress is essentially a set of plugins on top of WordPress that add private messaging, profiles, friends, groups, activity streams, and everything else you&#8217;ve come to expect from your favorite social network, like a Facebook-in-a-box.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t think BuddyPress will be something you use <em>instead of</em> your existing social networks, I mean all your friends are already on Myspace, but if you wanted to start something new maybe with more control, friendlier terms of service, or just something customized and tweaked to fit exactly into your existing site, then BuddyPress is a great framework to use. Maybe even someday you&#8217;ll be able to connect your BuddyPresses to each other and to the existing monolithic social networks.</p>
<p>This is just a 1.0 release and it&#8217;s not for everybody yet, for example it currently requires using MU which is a bit trickier to get set up than regular WordPress, but regardless <a href="http://buddypress.org/">I&#8217;d recommend diving into the community at BuddyPress.org</a>, which is great example of the software in action.</p>
<p><a href="http://buddypress.org/blog/news/buddypress-10-has-arrived/">Here&#8217;s Andy&#8217;s official announcement post</a>.</p>
";}s:3:"wfw";a:1:{s:10:"commentrss";s:75:"http://wordpress.org/development/2009/04/make-friends-with-buddypress/feed/";}s:5:"slash";a:1:{s:8:"comments";s:2:"49";}s:7:"summary";s:329:"What if there was software with the elegance and extensibility of WordPress but all the features you&#8217;ve come to expect from social networks like Facebook? Now there is: check out BuddyPress.
BuddyPress is an official sister project of WordPress. The idea behind it was to see what would happen to the web if it was as [...]";s:12:"atom_content";s:2004:"<p>What if there was software with the elegance and extensibility of WordPress but all the features you&#8217;ve come to expect from social networks like Facebook? Now there is: <a href="http://buddypress.org/">check out BuddyPress</a>.</p>
<p>BuddyPress is an official sister project of WordPress. The idea behind it was to see what would happen to the web if it was as easy for anyone to create a social network as it is to create a blog today. There&#8217;s been an explosion of social activity on the web, it&#8217;s probably the most important trend of the past few years, but there&#8217;s been a dearth of Open Source tools that enable the social web.</p>
<p>In WordPress we have a robust and extensible base that can scale to many millions of users, and BuddyPress is essentially a set of plugins on top of WordPress that add private messaging, profiles, friends, groups, activity streams, and everything else you&#8217;ve come to expect from your favorite social network, like a Facebook-in-a-box.</p>
<p>I don&#8217;t think BuddyPress will be something you use <em>instead of</em> your existing social networks, I mean all your friends are already on Myspace, but if you wanted to start something new maybe with more control, friendlier terms of service, or just something customized and tweaked to fit exactly into your existing site, then BuddyPress is a great framework to use. Maybe even someday you&#8217;ll be able to connect your BuddyPresses to each other and to the existing monolithic social networks.</p>
<p>This is just a 1.0 release and it&#8217;s not for everybody yet, for example it currently requires using MU which is a bit trickier to get set up than regular WordPress, but regardless <a href="http://buddypress.org/">I&#8217;d recommend diving into the community at BuddyPress.org</a>, which is great example of the software in action.</p>
<p><a href="http://buddypress.org/blog/news/buddypress-10-has-arrived/">Here&#8217;s Andy&#8217;s official announcement post</a>.</p>
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