Blog to the Future Part II

Pardon moi:

>A posting which is written today and appears only on a future date assumes that:

1. You have specific information about the future and…
2. Nobody else should know about this information until the future date.

The latter item being most significant. By removing the ability display future-dated posts, you effectively cut the functionality of the calendar in half.

It baffles me that *programmers* would regress the capability of something so proven and simple as a calendar.

Well, you have some good points there – until you stop to consider a couple of things:

1. A blog by some definitions is a very CURRENT thing. It’s a diary (by definition, a daily record); it’s also a commentary (by definition, a current viewpoint).

2. While those who would like event-calendar functionality certainly exist (you, for instance) there are many more who don’t even use the calendar which can be used with WP. And there are very nice event-calendar plugins, as well as other php scripts which can extend this “missing” functionality.

vkaryl, I appreciate that WP is very extensible and there are many plugins out there. However…

To allow display of future posts (plugins or not), WP core code needs to be hacked.

This is unacceptable because when I upgrade WP, I need to remember every hack I made and re-implement the hacks (on new line numbers, with new code, in different files).

This is why I need basic past-present-future calendar functionality, built-in.

BTW, I do not dispute the intended purpose of WP. I do dispute WP’s selective exclusion of it’s own definition: A diary by definition is also, a record of events (not necessarily that day’s events).

As a counterpoint, if WP started showing my future-dated posts before that future date, I’d ditch it and move to a different blog package quite quickly.

For moi, I future-date posts frequently — perhaps I’ve had an idea at work, or I want to cover being on the road a few days yet keep a steady stream of posts trickling out. I sure don’t want ’em seen early!

Making that admin configurable would be useful, perhaps.

So let’s amend:

This is why I need basic past-present-future calendar functionality, built-in.

to include the word “configurable”.

Not to perpetuate this exercise in rhetoric, but WordPress is not being selectively exclusionary about its ‘definition’ as the definition of record is “…evidence of/or information about past events.” The key phrase is PAST events.

A future event (ie. a birthday) can’t be definitively predicted. If the person whose birthday you wanted to future post about passes on, then of course, it’s not their birthday, but would have been their birthday, if they had still been living. With no birthday, there is no event to make record of.

So, you see WordPress fits perfectly the definition of record of events or log or blog or diary.

Use a plugin, make a feature request or do a hack yourself. WordPress does what WordPress should, as it should be done.

Cheers,
Michael.

Thankyou HandySolo yes, “configurable” is the word.

niziol, perhaps a birthday was not the best example (it is still an event however) but I must disagree with you. WP is being selectively exclusionary with their self definition of “diary.”

As to what a record is:

>”…evidence of/or information about past events.”

This is certainly not the definition as you put it, so much as a definition of “record.”

To record simply means preserve in writing or some other form, information. Record itself does not imply or even make an allusion to what that information is, let alone meta such as future, past, present.

Similarly, the word event(s) makes no claims as to it’s own information or meta, other than “something that takes place” or an “occurance.”

Furthermore, a calendar may contain these events which have no chronological significance in themselves. Events become useful information when they are applied to a system of reckoning time such as a calendar. This is why WP does not fit perfectly within it’s own definition.

BTW, current event calendar plugins still require hacking WP core code to display future dated posts. This is a feature request and AFAIK this is the correct topic category for this post:

“WordPress Support ? Requests and Feedback”

We use a blog at work to keep track of production, and future date the post when the item is due. We wanted to use WP, but this is a serious impediment to that.