@Ciprian I can see you are really obsessed with the mess WP added to the core, and you really want all that out in CP, but do know this is an open-source project, and if you wanna help, then please contribute ideas, instead of forking a whole CMS (it’s doable but I’ll say almost impossible). I love quotes, here we go again (re-worded to fit this context):
Contribute a little, it doesn’t look much but its sure worth something to someone. Together we can change CP, don’t be selfish, who will cry when you die?.
Stop checking the CP forums weekly to see progress, help make a progress. You know… short of words…
Ciprian, thanks for taking the time to post. It appears you are new here on the forums and you’ve chosen to make your introduction by expressing your disappointment in the project.
I invite you to get more involved here before passing judgement. This 100% volunteer community has done a lot of work and has undergone a lot of changes in the last year, and much of that is difficult to articulate in a blog post. If you’d been with us over the last year, you would have witnessed much of it.
Our community is what sets us apart from others in this space, and the responses you have seen from others on your post reflect a tight-knit, supportive community who is unified toward working toward a common goal. We warmly welcome others who share that same vision.
I invite you to learn more about ClassicPress – our vision and roadmap for the future, in particular. Petitions and code contributions from the ClassicPress community direct the path of future versions, so if you want to make a positive change, I’d encourage you to visit our Petitions page, begin attending #core meetings in Slack and visit our Github repo (Contribution Guidelines is a good place to start) to see how you can help.
Reading between the lines of your disappointment, it sounds as if you might have something of value to share with this community. If that’s the case, welcome. We’d love to have additional help.
Thanks for taking the time to post here. Any constructive feedback is always welcome and I know that others have shared your concern for what they perceive as a lack of “progress”.
There are a couple of points I would like to make in response.
First… it seems to me that the main reason for lack of progress is a shortage of core developers. If you have already been working on developing your own pruned-down version of WP then it sounds like you are well qualified to contribute to the work going on here. So, I’m curious to know… is there any reason you haven’t joined the community and started to actively work on ClassicPress? You say you had high hopes for it, but what has stopped you from getting in and helping make things happen?
And second, I should point that that not everyone shares your view of “progress”. I look after a good number of business and community sites and I can tell you that they are all humming along very nicely on CPv1.0.1. I really don’t care much if nothing is changed (apart from necessary security updates). And I can assure you that my clients have zero interest in all this, as long as their site is stable, reliable and secure.
Updates are mostly things that excite (some) developers and aficionados. Actual business people who just want a site to work yesterday, today and tomorrow do not care one iota whether it has emojis enabled, or XML-RPC, or REST API. I doubt they would even notice their logo on the login screen. Personally, I plan to stick to V1 for as long as possible, and I’m quite happy to see no major changes.
After all, it’s the major changes to WP that brought us here in the first place.
A lot of the changes listed in the OP are things I use and don’t want to lose. Major structural changes are for V2, not V1, which isn’t supposed to break plugins.
Why would I ever remove oEmbed (my site would break down), Gravatar (forget about Automattic, this is damn good), post formats (like seriously?), post via email (;/), Keyboard shortcuts (It’s better we drop the fork, and start a new CMS from scratch).
In addition to code changes, there were also policies and processes put into place, as well as the inftrastructure to run the show.
A little less looking forward and a little more helping out will take you much farther in open source.
If you don’t have time and motivation to maintain it, then you haven’t really forked anything…you just made a copy and stripped some stuff. It’s unclear to me someone would intentionally waste their time on this rather than just contributing to the project. And, lovely introduction to the community.
To be honest, I’m so with @Ciprian: “I was so looking forward to ClassicPress to actually improve the platform and remove legacy and useless code.”
Not everyone here is a coder. I’m a USER of ClassicPress, I’m not in any way skilled or interested in developing this CP fork of WP. For the simple reason that I don’t have those skills, but are very much interested in USING it.
However, it indeed takes a very - and I mean: VERY - long time to implement what seem to be quite basic tasks. That certainly doesn’t improve my trust in ClassicPress. Nor does it improve anyone else’s, I presume.
And THAT is what is important. However, I’m sorry to say, ClassicPress has failed miserably in that respect. In fact so miserably that I’m thinking of totally abandoning this fork.
You hit the nail on the head with the word seem. What seems easy to a non-coder isn’t as cut and dried as they would prefer. You have to consider the many things that can break. Like, the Uncategorized category… it seems like you could just rename it in 10 seconds and move on. However, that’s not the case since doing so will break other things.
If the project isn’t moving at the speed you prefer, or if you don’t trust it, then just move on. There are other platforms you can use. There’s no need to stick around and write posts to demean the efforts of others.
It amazes me that here’s another person who has joined the forums, just a couple of hours ago, merely to have a moan. Coincidence?
If CP isn’t for you, move on. Stick with WP or find a different CMS altogether. In the meantime, the CP community will carry on regardless and help each other to reach the common goal.
ClassicPress has not failed at all. It’s the most successful fork of WP to date. It may not be moving at a pace we’d all like but it is moving. At least we now have got a stable, Gutenberg-free platform to build on. And that is what is happening. We’re laying the foundations for better things to come. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither was WP come to think of it.
You see, @anon77835956, you say you are a user. Ok. That makes me say… Instead of criticizing, do please go elsewhere. CP might not be for you.
But in “being with @Ciprian” you miss an important point.
This last IS a coder. Attempted to make his own fork and discovered it’s not an easy task. He than behaved like the fox with the grapes, not being able to grasp it he criticized it.
Both of you have the right to your opinion, but, guess what? It’s not an opinion when one throws the stone and vanishes.
You may have a point, CP needs other devs to perform at a faster pace. Instead of criticizing… Maybe you can put your two cents in on how to attract the right people who may contribute and help the project advance?
Or are you here just to destroy?
Among other things this includes preparing thousands of sites to be able to quickly receive security updates in case a critical issue appears with the WordPress/ClassicPress code.
Doing the infrastructure-related tasks like this first is a much more responsible and stable approach to development than some other proposals, for example, removing lots of code without investigating who depends on it or what might break as a result.
Currently we have a small group of talented developers working on ClassicPress, all volunteers. If things aren’t moving as fast as you’d like, send more talented developers our way, or open a chat with me or the other directors about making a substantial donation so that we can work on ClassicPress full-time.
Just as remainder for everyone: ClassicPress, like WordPress, is not intended to be a personal project for a single person needs (also if the second one seems more for a specific company needs).
Also, we are talking about a project with a community so there are a lot of other needs that are not only the core and require, as @james said, an infrastructure to builds the package or doing tests, release the localization files (a common issue that we already saw in other people complaining of the “slowness of this project”, often someone doesn’t remember that the world is huge and English is not the only language available around), documentation, marketing, community and discussions and so on.
Also, as WordPress we don’t have any companies that can put their employees and paid them to work on the project. ClassicPress is full volunteers managed compared to the other one, we have a life, we have a job, we have other things to do, and so on.
Basically like a lot of the Open Source projects, they are made by volunteers, and as everything if there are very few people that works you cannot expect a lot of things. Companies can hire new people, projects needs to onboarding/mentoring/talent souting and this require time.
Funny enough, I suspect the same guy created both accounts, you all shouldn’t waste time replying. You can’t change the rude guys! Just accept the fact some peeps will strongly disagree or perhaps find a way to bring the good progress down, it is either you ignore stupid anonymous messages or you keep on arguing and explaining about the steps you took to do this and that (waste of time to me).
I think a lot of this discussion is not just people trying to convince this one guy. I think a lot of the people replying here want to show future readers why this person’s points are wrong and what is actually happening. In that aspect it’s not a waste of time. It shows the community is quite alive and that people continue to give it their best.
And if we omit the emotional level of the original post, it’s rather interesting. When I read it, I recall my own first impression when visiting classicpress.net for the first time. From that outside point of view things look quite different, that’s true. When you dive into the project you see the progress and it’s obvious. But when you spectate it from a shore it looks like being a bit… m-m-m… neglected? (Sorry, can’t find a proper word). I mean that the website and even forum demonstrate just a tiny piece of things that happen.
And although the opinion above is focused on dev aspects, I think the real deep reason of that impression is more emotional than logical. We probably just need some short “wow-effect” impulse that gives people some drive and refreshes enthusiasm. Maybe we should focus on some kind of single “killer feature” for next release (1.2.x)? Any ideas?
And, BTW, I don’t think we need to explain our speed of development at all. Meaning all that obvious things like lack of devs, volunteering, part-time etc. It’s a weak position. Let’s show some strength and self confidence instead) We produce quality — no excuses required. Tired to wait? Well, we understand that. Subscribe for a 2.0 release notification and feel free to come back later.
Still think the idea of building this fork is great and I’m pretty sure that CP has great future
Cheers!
The problem here is no matter how you try to persuade someone into believing what you are saying is right, the harder it gets, I am not saying you shouldn’t prove his point wrong, nor am I saying what you all are saying is a total waste of time. I just don’t believe or have faith in anonymous users (doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take input thou), and I currently feel we all have tried to respond kindly.
Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s
Anonymous: Cp is a big failure
Me: How do you want me to convince you CP is not?
Anonymous: You have to remove the bloats Wp added.
This is how I perceive the other guy’s thoughts, he isn’t adding any value or decisions on how to make Cp better, he just wants to remove everything and add a superfly feature '/.
About future reader - I respectfully agree, it shows the community isn’t just alive but one, irrespective of the culture or race.
I think that’s a good point @mathewcallaghan. CP may not be for everyone and I openly admit to having had my own doubts in the past. But it’s the strength of the community that has kept me going and convinced me that CP will be a success.
Just as a reminder, for any newbies or non-techies reading this, practically anyone can help move this project forward. Take a look here for more info…
I only created one account, the original one. The other one is not mine.
I’ve been coding for more than 20 years and I’ve been using WordPress for more than 10. I do know it’s hard work to build a product, especially a fork of WordPress, something that has never been attempted (successfully) before. It’s nothing personal, and I do admire your motivation.
I just want to see an actual future of CP, not just a fork which dies after a year. I have more than 200 sites with clients ranging from non-techies to tech-savvy. I don’t want to say, let’s move to CP, it’s better, and it’s going to be faster and more reliable, and then see how WordPress advances and progresses (even if we don’t agree with Gutenberg and all the fluff they’re pushing onto us). I want to be able to say, look, CP has done this and that and it’s actually faster. But after almost a year, I can change the login screen logo. It doesn’t feel like progress.
Again, don’t get me wrong, I do respect what you are doing, especially as you’re all volunteers. But there’s millions of us, developers, wishing for a better WordPress. And we don’t all want to contribute, as we don’t have time.
Keep going with CP, but I’ll take my time before migrating my clients and advocating for CP.
EDIT: I have a WordPress agency in Ireland, I don’t use anonymous accounts. I’m just saying my opinion. I’ll probably be back here in the future, adding more or less valuable contributions to the forums.
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