If..Else Log

I've purposely held off writing anything on the issue raging through the WP community till Matt returns from his vacation. However, the torrent of misinformed opinions is getting ridiculous and so I've decided to write a few words on the subject.

Firstly, before we go on, read Dougal Campbell's and Jonas Luster's posts on this subject. Secondly, here's a post from Matt before he went on holiday:

The content in /articles is essentially advertising by a third party that we host for a flat fee. I'm not sure if we're going to continue it much longer, but we're committed to this month at least, it was basically an experiment. However around the beginning of Feburary donations were going down as expenses were ramping up, so it seemed like a good way to cover everything.

Some things of note in Matt's response. The hot nacho marketing was an experiment devised to cover the ramping expenses. The sad reality of free community software is that, all things equal, expenses quickly outstrip donations. Matt was approached with an opportunity to trial a system which may have helped to address that balance.

The resulting debacle quickly destroyed any possibility of that experiment continuing. Let's examine what's the final outcome of all this publicity:

a) following Andy Baio's disclosure, Google quickly reacted with a fair response. WP's google rank was reduced to 0 and stripped from the DB. This has two consequences, one good and one bad. The good side of this is that the offending articles are no longer in the index and distorting the search sphere. The bad outcome is that neither is wordpress.org. While this is a reasonable (and justified) action for Google to undertake, it's debatable whether users benefit. What could be more relevent for a search for WP than wordpress.org. This is especially so with the potentially confusing (non WP-affiliated) wordpress.com sitting on top of the tree.
The offending pages have been removed and Wordpress.org is back with a pagerank of 8 and at the top of Google's WP search. I guess it's a case of "Nothing to see here Move along".

b) WP the software is still the same. This is what a lot of people are getting confused about. WP is the same (and this is where I show my bias) great piece of software that it's always been. The search distortion on wordpress.org is independent from the software itself. I chose to use the software because it was, by far, the best in it's class. Nothing that has occured since has made me question that decision.

c) Matt's reputation. I trust Matt before and I still do. The decision to undertake this advertising was, in reflection, a bad judgement call but in no way has this affected my opinion. His contribution to the community has been immense and his integrity & character has been immaculate. One poor judgement doth not a bad person make.

It is interesting to note that whilst many people criticise the decision that Matt undertook, that there haven't been that many alternatives offered. When all is said and done, WP will still need financial support.

Here's some suggestions that I've come up with less than 5 seconds of thought:

• Featured listings
  Donate some money (any amount, even $1) in a given month and your site will be placed on a queue of links that will be featured on the WP site.
• Responsible sponsors
  There are a number of companies that would be happy to have their name associated with WP. Matt's recent employment with CNet makes them a natural affiliate. The main difference with this will be that the sponsoring be ethically responsible. Nothing that approaches the taint of spam would be allowed. It'll be more like what John Gruber has done with a simple piece of text on the side that says "Sponsored by company x". Slashdot's affiliation with ostg is another example.
• Raise money through a community drive
  The main drawback with this approach is that it's a short term fix. Whilst they can generate a lot of money in a short period, it is less effective over the long term and doesn't provide the stability that WP requires.
• Wordpress shop
  Provide WP T-Shirts, mouse mats, caps etc… This provides a bit of reciprocity that would tend to make it more successful than donations

In any means, what should be have done was a solicitation and debate over possible choices. This was not undertaken, and in retrospect, has helped inflamed this whole scenario. Even more sadly, the reactions of some has left a very bitter taste to this story. I sincerely hope that Matt's return will help to defuse a lot of the emotion. In any case, I will continue to use WP and will continue to proudly proclaim that I do so.

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