The WP Forum search function – what gives?

[nimmolo]

Does anyone find the forum search function useful in the least? There is no sorting results by date. There is not even a forum-specific searchbox on most forum pages. Just that “Search WP.org” box, which gives you the kitchen sink every time.

Tonight I was looking for suggestions for using the WP export/import feature in a way that might actually, say, export and import a WP database and its media files accurately, and the first 10 threads returned were from 2-4 years ago!!! YEARS!!! …And that’s not including the many results that were not even forum threads.

No wonder there are 1,000,000 duplicate threads. Who would wade through all that stuff just to find a relevant thread?!?

Folks, what year is it? Please, don’t anybody even dare to pretend this is close to contemporary standards of efficiency. Why doesn’t somebody at WP fix basic stuff like this? It helps people help themselves! It promotes the platform! I would gladly even pay for access to a useful forum – as it is it’s a royal waste of time.

It’s often hard to find the answer to a very basic question here. I have only been moved to post this after months of frustration trying to understand what I might be doing wrong in my searches.

[Helen Hou-Sandi]

As an aside about searching, since it is currently driven by Google, it may help to include more:recent4 as a keyword, which will sort heavily by date. You can also try recent1, recent2, or recent3 to see how those work out. No guarantees, but I find specifying that to be useful from time to time. Not making excuses, either, although I wouldn’t want to be tasked with writing a search engine and don’t really wish it on anybody else, either.

I do not understand why the people who make huge bucks off wp don’t invest in core development.

As Jane mentioned, some of us do, actually. But it could (and should) be more. https://ma.tt/2012/05/wp-businesses-and-contributions/

[Samuel Wood (Otto)]

FWIW, I’m currently sitting at a table with Nacin, Scott, and Matt. Matt just arrived, but me and Nacin and Scott have been working on nothing but this website (dotorg) all day today. We will be doing so for about half the week (then, admittedly, attending a BBQ Festival for the other half).

We do work on .org, but frankly, we have priorities. If you’re having problems then and we understand and want to help. But other people have problems too.

As to specifics, the WordPress Importer is open source. You have the code. It’s public, GPL, and free. If you or anybody else can figure out what the problem you’re having is specifically, then send it to me and I’ll be happy to fix it immediately.

But a lot of stuff on this site (www.ads-software.com) is not public and it needs some TLC too (today we’ve looking at the plugins repository and how it interfaces with the support forums). Our time is limited, we have to focus on areas that we think will maximize impact to the whole community.

[nimmolo]

Well this is generating some enlightening replies.

Helen – thanks. Noted!

As a matter of clarity, I have to say: No one in this thread said www.ads-software.com should hire anybody. We all know there are no hypothetical secret paid volunteers. I’ve read the wp.org website over and over. We all get the difference between .org and .com as clearly as the difference between a living room and a bedroom.

But – thank you Jane and Otto for confirming – just as I sometimes snack in my bedroom, of course it’s true that the WordPress geniuses at .com devote time to development of the core open-source project – and I now see it’s not a trivial amount of time. As well they should though – otherwise there wouldn’t be much forward momentum in wp core. It’s the workhorse of the entire ecosystem, and the ultimate engine for wp.com’s revenue.

As an outsider/participant who admires wordpress but is conscious of the marketplace of choices, I have to insist: it seems like the resources devoted to known problems in wordpress core are presently not quite enough. I’m addressing this statement to the WordPress.com devs. Not because i think you should do all the work, but because Automattic is in a unique position to take the lead and rally resources from the Strong Businesses and the Great Coders in the WP Galaxy.

You are in a position to shake some people down, if you will… To make it rain. Rain code. ?? Yes I know it’s not that easy, but it’s got to happen, or some other CMS is going to eat wp’s lunch. I like wordpress and I want it to thrive. Here’s where I’m coming from: in my personal quest to make working websites for people, I have often been embarrassed to discover that such and such a basic function is a bit lacking in WordPress. Like, say, the Media manager (ouch!). Or the importer, as mentioned.

The people who have led me to whatever wordpress enlightenment I have found have been mods and other unpaid altruistic angels of the forums, usually. And that’s good. As little money as I make with wordpress, I do also now pay people who helped me on the forums as consultants. I should – I owe them! But I’ve heard the reply a few too many times that “[that thing you’re talking about that thousands of people want] is on a long to do list and I have no idea when anyone will get to it”.

The only possible answer to that, in a software ecosystem where plenty of designers, developers, theme makers and whatnot are making money, is that somebody needs to rustle up the resources to get those problems worked on.

WordPress leaders just need to figure out how to incentivize the development of core as highly as, say, themes. Right now themes are incentivized way more than core development, and what do you have? A million themes, and a backlog in core dev.

You can’t tell me that’s right. I’m trying to motivate wordpress to be as awesome as it can be – to incentivize the right things.

Big love, nimmolo

PS I do want to add that I appreciate that theme development is rather easy compared to revamping this bb, or changing something in the way wp exports WXR files, or changing the architecture of WP in a backwards-compatible way. Still, I think these problems are all solvable; I think the talent is probably already visiting these forums if not moderating them, and I think developers need to be paid by somebody when they work all the time. And I think the money to pay them is certainly out there in the hands of people who ultimately need this work to be done. If you WP guys don’t figure out how to channel sufficient resources into your core open source development, I think somebody else will figure that trick out – and if they do, they will unleash a torrent of maybe-even-more-amazing creativity.

[Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)]

That means it’s time to break out the checkbook. If you mods haven’t thought of raising this issue with the WP money people, and I can’t fathom why not, I’m willing to raise it for you.

That was you. Back when you implied that .org and .com were the same. We took it to mean you thought .org should pay. If not, sorry. It was a seemingly logical follow through ??

Look, no ones making an excuse. We know it sucks, we all hate it, and we’d love if it was fixed. But if you haul me down a dark alley and tell me I get the guys who CAN fix it for 48 hours to write anything for WP I want… Well, search is low on the list because we have google. (And if I was going to get a fire in my elf hat over anything on .org it would be something else entirely, like plugins or other tools to make a mod’s life easier, and thus keep your experience better.)

The explanation for it is that time is limited, it’s on the list, and no, this isn’t a throwaway answer. If everyone had all the free time and money in the world to throw at problems, we’d be better off all around. We don’t, so we eat the elephant one bite at a time. We may even be at the front knees, hard to say. It’s a moving target.

I think developers need to be paid by somebody when they work all the time. And I think the money to pay them is certainly out there in the hands of people who ultimately need this work to be done.

I do get paid. Just not for WP. It has nothing to do with my ‘real job’ (ebook aside, which paid for my car insurance this year). Even if I sat and did nothing but WP all day, programing is as much art as music is, and it waits for the right mix of inspiration and passion and skill. We have to create something out of nothing. We have to visualize it and feel it, or we write bad code that doesn’t please anyone, least of all ourselves. Code can only solve the problem you can solve. But that’s a philosophical rant for another day ??

(Internal links don’t update because there’s no way to know if they’re internal or not. Logically, if I move from Lpstenu to Ipstenu, there remains the possibility I want to keep some content on Lpstenu, and so anything that points there may still be legit. It’s only me, with my brain and awareness, that can possibly know my intent. Our computer overlords still do exactly what we tell them. Use grep wisely ?? )

[esmi]

it seems like the resources devoted to known problems in wordpress core are presently not quite enough.

Then, without trying to be the slightest bit facetious, join and lend a hand. You don’t have to be a code guru. Anything that you can do will help and it will have a knock on effect by perhaps freeing up a little more time for those with the technical skill sets. Automattic contribute a great deal and they’re not the only ones. Other do too – from larger companies right down to freelancers.

Right now themes are incentivized way more than core development

I’m not sure that’s quite true. Core development and themes are handled quite separately. It’s just that the recent developments in WPORG themes generally have so much more visibility and even that is down to a very hard-working group of volunteers (aka the Theme Review Team) over a period of two years.

Core development, by its very nature, moves slowly if you want to maintain a stable system with a reasonable level of backwards compatibility for 18 million plus users. Got a problem with a theme or a plugin? Drop it and use another one instead. Can’t do that with core.

Then there’s the “you can’t please all of the people all of the time” syndrome. Sure there are things in core that you’d like to change or enhance as a priority but ask the developer next to you and s/he will have a slightly different list of priorities. All of this has to be balanced and mapped out. As a result, I’m not 100% convinced that throwing more resources at core development would result in the kind of progress/changes that you’d like to see.

[nimmolo]

Well, points taken.

You’ve also impressed upon me that in my imagination, I write much more clearly than in real life.

By “theme dev is more incentivized than core dev” I was talking about the incentive of money. The moolah to be gained by coders when selling a premium theme, not the incentives for the wonderful salaried work of Ian Stewart, which I’m sure is its own reward. ?? I was imagining my popularly-awarded stipends “incentivizing” core dev work.

I’d just like to say that I do not approve of eating elephants, Ipstenu. Either as a cultural practice or a practical emergency.