orangeguru

Since there is no data – try a clean fresh install.

Maybe a file is corrupted?

@macmanx: That is still an extremly high number of attempts!

It would be nice if the blogosphere/users would win at least one battle against spammers. *sniff*

Thanks for the feedback.

I was worried too – I guess we are all already so used to fighting spam that it is hard to believe when it gets less.

Let’s hope that they won’t come up something new and even nastier.

@lawtai: I said it was bad …

In the case of Doctor Matt – I actually don’t care much about the hidden links and such. I care about WordPress.

If the site needs money, then something needs to be done about it. Doctor Matt certainly tried one remedy, but the patient is currently sufferings some bad side effects: like anger, loss of trust and belief in the Doctor himself.

I am pretty sure that there should be a mixture that keeps everyone alive and happy.

@nuclearmoose

Thanks for that long response.

Well in some strange way WordPress gets haunted by the very brutal mechanism called blogging it so well supports. ??

So far I have to see an internet forum without any (personal) fights. I guess it’s a human thing – nothing a moose should be to concerned about.

@lawtai: Hmmm. As you already can see some people are ‘doing something’ about this’ – just because of the advertising links themselves or because their trust is shattered.

I truely believe that this threat will help people to decide what they want to do – if they have strong feelings about it.

The deciding factor will not be what Matt has to say – but how the matter is handled and if we as a community can cope with this and react to this unhappy event. Matt has done ‘his part’ – the story is out, some people are hurt or turned off by this.

If I may make a bad analogy here: When someone just got hurt or was shocked by something you just don’t stand there silent and wait for Doctor Matt to arrive. No, you will engage that person and go thru that ‘moment’ together – even when it is ‘not your pain’ …

That is the very essence of a community – that you share the good and the bad. Most of you support gurus here usually ‘hold hands’ when people go bonkers over browser errors or a damaged script. This is the very same thing.

@nuclearmoose: ‘business move’ – thanks for your feedback.

I am just wondering if there is a good way to organize a non-profit organisation around this project? Especially to deal with income and seperate it from any commerical WordPress enterprise.

I am not sure – aren’t there several OS projects that have a commerical and a non-profit side?

More and more I see this whole affairs as growing pains of an excellent and succesful project?

@nuclearmoose:

Too bad others have decided to be judge, jury, and executioners.

Hmmm. IMHO it would be nice to see some more shades of grey here, instead a kind of bunker mentality.

A so called OpenSource project and a community driven website with great support (from you and many others) – suddenly has hidden advertising links to some very strange products. As far as I know nothing of this was announced or ‘discussed’ with the community.

For example: when MeFi suddenly had nakked suicide chicks on their front page there was an OPEN discussion on MetaTalk. Sure it was nasty, often personal and ugly.

But Matt Haughey responded quickly and personally to it all – plus he found a solution that worked for him, his community, advertisers and brought in some cash.

So instead of polarizing this event into the True Believers of the Code Poet and the Evil Flammers of Freeloaders there should be an exchange to sort things out and find ideas to solve the situation. “Either you are for us or against us” attitude is really rather strange IMHO.

So when people are angry about this – one should stay open. Sure it sucks that you guys do great support, coding and design ‘for the rest of us’. And I can feel your pain – it sucks when your beloved project gets attacked for something as stupid as advertising links and sponsored articles.

If you read comments on Slashdot, Waxy and many other sides the tenor is almost everywhere the same: WordPress is a great piece of software, the support forum is really supportive and excellent – the only but is this advertising U-Boot that suddenly torpedoed the all around ‘clean’ and ‘open’ feeling for WordPress.

So all you coders, designer and supporters: we still love you and your great work. I guess most of the Evil Flammers & Freeloaders still like Matt – although he has been very naughty and broken some community porcellan.

But it can be fixed if we work together.

Amen.

From a different perspective:

As far as I can see there is no shared control or charter rulez how www.ads-software.com is run and which ‘deals’ are made in the name of the site? And nobody seems to be informed either?

I just wonder how open this open source project is? Or was this business move somewhere discussed or even announced?

Is there no self control / regulation in this project?

So in any worse case scenarios Matt is the one and only guy who can ‘do’ things?

In times of an external threat the troops rally around the flag and hail their leader.

@lawtai: I find this a bit strange. Maybe there should be a warning before the download: “You can use this free blogging software if you don’t intend to contribute either code or money to it.”

Everyone who uses WP benefits the project, because they promote it and add to the user base. In a cynical way they helped raising the page ranking of this URL and helped therefore making some money.

As a volunteer to any project you should only ‘give’ if you can cope with people ‘taking’ your stuff.

Even a lame flammer here loves WP.

@danielck: My inital posting was about not having a space to talk and no informations available. Thanks to podz tolerance we finally have a space … or call it waiting room … to wait for the Hero of Code Poetry and Links for a sort off official/personal answer.

IMHO it’s good to do some talking about this as well, since it’s on many peoples mind anyway. Better spell it out here, then somewhere elso on the net. www.ads-software.com should be able to face it’s own little sandstorm. Right?

@mtdewvirus:

Anyone else notice that all the flamers are people that don’t help out in the forums, fix bugs, release code, or do other things around WP?

Thank you so much.

If you ‘work’ for a free software project – please don’t complain about people who freely take free for free. Any voluntary work will always be ‘abused’ by people – especially when you tell them to do so.

Some people’s angry reaction is a result of disappointment – and because they are attached (read LOVE) WordPress. As any PR person would tell you people who care about your product is a good thing.

Without it’s passionate support base Apple would have never survived.

But let’s look back at the already mentioned other case of bad press, when SixApart did a bad job communicating it’s new price structure (Anil Dash where are you?!). Many MT lovers turned away in disappointment – and came to WP.

This thread has the in same strange way the function of a relationship counseling.

Another note: projects like WP grow one day out of a pure coding and design. Once you get popular you are also confronted with social and public relations issues. A good community is not just a forum that answers technical questions or adds same hacks or CSS fixes. It also helps people to bond emotionally and attach to their blogging software. Since blogging is such a personal people want to ‘feel’ good about their free software.

@macmanx: Until then, this thread will accomplish nothing. – IMHO it does – it helps the community to voice their opinion. This will help to cope with this unhappy affair. Listening to people is not such a bad thing – or is it? There are many companies out there, who don’t listen to their users feelings, complaints and wishes. Such a projects like WP should be better then that?

@podz: I am sorry for the pain I have caused you. Make it two beers of forgiveness. ??