Goodbye and good luck to all.

I’m out of the blogging business. I’m through trying to manage a site using WordPress. It is no longer fun, and the constant maintenance of all the plugins (if you can find them) and the spam tools and the themes and everything else has made me realise that my online experience has become more about the tool and less about the community and the creative work that I wish to do.

I don’t code, nor create plugins or themes. My contribution was to try to help build a community, since I had no other skills to offer. I’ve been pushed to the periphery, and am simply ignored as a disgruntled user. So be it.

WordPress is a great tool. The developers are all very skilled and have worked very hard. The contributing coders and plugin writers and theme designers have done much to enhance the toolset. I sincerely thank them all for their dedication to the project. In addition to them, I’m very thankful for the many folks who have pitched in to develop Codex. What a Herculean effort they have made and Codex now bears the fruit of this oft-maligned and thankless task. I’m glad to be able to say that I enjoyed working with some of you on that project.

I’m saddened that many requests and suggestions have seemingly fallen off the radar, or appear to be ignored. The support forums themselves have been the subject of much criticism for a long time, and I don’t sense an urgency to deal with those issues. The push is to forward the toolkit, and, in my opinion, it’s at the expense of the users. Many people ask about and think about the next version of WordPress, and while that is always important to keep in mind, a pause and retooling of the WordPress community resources are long past due.

There are too many places to try and track all of the plugins, hacks, themes, tutorials, and documents associated with WordPress. I have become increasingly agitated by the difficulty of trying to find the right plugin here or the right setup information there. I can only imagine how daunting this must be for a new user.

I want to make special mention of one man who has done so much to help so many – Podz. Thank you so much for all that you have done, usually with little or no thanks or the recognition that is usually attributed to the coders. You are a credit to the community, and I’m proud to call you my friend. I wish you much success and happiness, Podz.

I extend my sincere thanks to all those who have ever visited my site, shared a laugh or debate, or have supported me in a myriad of ways during some troubled times. You are the essence of community.

To all who visit this forum and offer support, advice, feedback, and opinions of all kinds, I thank you as well. Keep up the good work, and don’t ever let the project become more important than those it serves.

All of my sites have been taken down. I am now totally offline, and at this time, I do now what the future holds for the online presence of Nuclear Moose.

Best wishes to you all.
Signing off,
Craig Hartel
a.k.a. Nuclear Moose.