Heavy handed moderation?

From your post:
“This is not an actual problem with WP or even related to WP code as such. However there are a lot of clever people out there who might be able to help.”

“I’ve been having a go at creating a Google Gadget which reads my feed content and displays it in a module (gadget) within the Google Personalized homepage.”

—

Google for Google gadgets

Here is what I wrote in response to a post which came to the forum list about that moderation:

I think Moshu made the right decision.

The WP forums are seen as quick and very knowledgeable – and rightly so.
We already answer a diverse bunch of questions but we have tried for a long time now to keep issues as close to WP as possible. While this particular post might be “okay, it’s only one” to answer, so will the next one. And the one following that. The forums must not become diluted by questions that veer off what is our core interest. It may well be in Misc but that was intended for WP issues still, not random “I’ll post there because they are good” questions. We know from experience that people will post to our forum simply because we are better than others and we answer faster. We owe it to all users of WP that we keep it that way and if someone wants to fish hoping for an answer then I think it is right that it is closed.

I realise that you wanted to use the WP feed. But you wanted to use it with Google Technology and on a Google page. You say at the top that you are after ‘clever people’ and indeed there are many around here – but there are lots lots more on the end of that google search.

I know you won’t like this answer either but we do have to act in a way that keeps things focussed on WP.
I would suggest that your issue would be better welcomed on the hackers list.
https://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-hackers

Your original post was actually quite relevant to WP, in that the fact is, that the WP feeds don’t always behave as we expect them to, I’ve looked into using the google gadgets personally, but it’s not too high on my priority list, it’s likely from my experiance, that we’ll need a “google-gadget” feed plugin to format a WP feed specifically for use with the google gadget API. As I mentioned, I have a number of more pressing projects going on at the moment, but when a client really pushes for it, we’ll get the plugin going, it shouldn’t be that hard, the gadget API is very well documented, and the “out of the box” WP feed isn’t formated to work exactly right with that from what I can tell. If I can come up with a quick solution I’ll let you know.

In a global sense as far as your original post, you posted under the misc. category, and the post is relevent to WP whether you intended it to be or not, since your feed isn’t behaving as you expected it to, and that’s something that we as a community should and will address. From a personal perspective, one of the reasons I’ve moved away from other communities/platforms and became more involved with WP, is that a) the software in general plays very well with others, and b) as a whole, the support and development community are not generally close minded, but rather forward thinking and progressive. So it does dissapoint me somewhat that someone would close your original post since it’s clearly not any violation of any kind, and the topic clearly relates directly to WP. The actual solution to the problem in my opinion will likely be a “google-gadget” feed plugin for WP.

As I suggested above, a post to the hackers list would:
– be more appropriate given the nature of the actual request
– would probably kick off a debate about feeds
– would probably generate an answer.

Believe me, coders tend to avoid these forums but they hang around in droves on the hackers list. Time it right and there may even be someone in #wordpress irc (freenode)

This gadgets idea sounds useful for a WordPress user like me, and very close to something I have been searching for on this very forum (a way to put my WP RSS feed on a MySpace page — so that I can continue using only my wonderful WordPress and not visit that wretched but necessary MySpace). Sorry to hear the original thread has been dismissed.

I’ve noticed certain people on this forum poo-poo’ing on people’s ideas and discussion threads (not Podz), in the last couple months. It’s a real turn-off, if it continues it would be difficult to brag on the friendly support community WordPress used to foster here.

Perhaps we could allow this is a Support Forum For WordPress Users and Related Issues, as opposed to strictly a forum for only issues within this codebase and this codebase alone. Most novice website makers (a major segment of the target market for WP) do not see their website as separate codebases, they see it as 1 project in marketing, design, writing, and publishing. People just want a place to talk with fellow users about similar experiences, find out what works, and check out links to other blogs that use WP for the foundation.

“Time it right and there may even be someone in #wordpress irc (freenode)”

Podz, that’s Greek to me. Haven’t seen IRC since the mid-1990’s. Also I don’t consider myself a “hacker” and wouldn’t think to join that list when looking for info to improve my WP. However I enjoy finding tips and innovations on this Support forum, as well as your website’s WP guides.