Global Hatred of WordPress 2.5?

Is it really that bad? I don’t think so. However, in my travels around the web it would appear that many many other people are dissatisfied with the upgrade (downgrade in some peoples’ opinion) from version 2.3.3 of WordPress.

Dougal made a post which appeared on every dashboard of every user of the WP application called Upgrade or Else!. Obviously this was meant to cause a fuss, and indeed it has.

I cannot understand these people that are still using old (older than 2.3.3) versions of WordPress. Either they can’t be arsed to upgrade, are scared of doing it, don’t know how to, or don’t want to break their blog by using broken themes or plugins.

It has been clearly proven and well documented that old versions of WordPress have security holes. If you don’t upgrade you are risking not only your blog’s integrity, but also the potential wrath of your host and possible (albeit temporary) removal of your domain.

One person in the comments on Dougal’s blog post said

Once I’m confident all 41 plugins I’m currently using will work or have suitable replacements, then I’ll upgrade. Until then, I guess I’ll have to remain at-risk.

FORTY ONE PLUGINS! Good god almighty. This really would suggest that if you have to use all those plugins to get the functionality you need you should really be looking at Joomla! or another CMS application.

OH yes, I upgraded one of my blogs to 2.5. Hated it. The admin inteface seems designed to favor promotion of the developers blog feeds over functionality to the nth degree. I’m staying with 2.3.3 on the rest of them unless they make some major changes in the 2.5x series.

That’s fair enough, but it brings me back to the title of the post. Many many people hate the new dashboard.

Although it’s not quite the same, have a look at the wordpress.com support forum. As I am writing this I see three threads which will have “I hate it” or “Go back to the old version” at least twice in every thread. wp.com “upgraded” to the 2.5 core code over the weekend and the fallout from the users in the forum has been huge. Ok, with the million+ blogs created on wp.com it’s not a massive amount in relation but the commenters are truly vocal and united in their loathing of the product. Look at this thread as an example of what is wrong on the wp.com system.

Unsurprisingly, the only comments on the Dashboard notification announcement are the positive ones. No “I hate it” posts got through moderation.

One interesting comment though is this one from Matt:

Sorry the old dashboard is gone forever. If you give this one a chance though it may grow on you.

He’s only talking about the .com version, the .org (downloadable) version may well change dependent on the community’s whims.

For the .org users that really hate the new design there’s plugins available to completely redesign the dashboard to your taste. Unfortunately I can’t find or remember any of them right now.

If the users really hate it THAT much then, there’s always Blogger (not), Habari (an excellent choice I’m told) or Typepad amongst a myriad other, lesser blogging applications.

For what it’s worth, I wrote this post using WordPress 2.5 and Firefox 3 Beta 5 on a Windows XP box.

The only issue I have right now is image uploading:

HTTP Error. An error occurred in the upload. Please try again later.

Huh? Not exactly a helpful error message is it!

Collin on April 10, 2008 | Filed Under Words

4 Comments

Trent on April 10th, 2008

Did this one get Dugg or something as it is offline….

http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2008/04/08/upgrade-or-else

Anyways, I really like the new admin myself and really look forward to rolling it out in my own WPMU when Donncha goes through the changes and gets a new download going. I don’t really mind waiting either as everything is finally working with WPMU 1.33 for me :)

As for the image uploading problems, I haven’t really looked into it, but I have no problems on my server with php and mysql 5 on it. Maybe it is using something that not all servers have installed by default?

It is interesting to me how many people do hate the new dashboard though. You are right that many people are not really interested in adapting to change this time. Interesting enough though, 2 months from now this won’t even be an issue but the growing and changing pains are around for awhile.

Nice new design Collin ;) Still love that tagline….

Collin on April 10th, 2008

I don’t know, it was on the dashboard and had a pretty flameworthy title so perhaps Dougal’s site just couldn’t handle the traffic.

I haven’t looked into the image upload problem either, will do soon. It’s entirely possible that it’s using something funky, won’t know until I investigate.

Glad you like the design – I worked hard clicking around the web trying to find a decent one! :)

Web Design » Global Hatred of WordPress 2.5? on April 10th, 2008

[...] Algorithm analysis, Web community relationship analysis, SEO practices and techniques, industry news… wrote an interesting post today on Global Hatred of WordPress 2.5?Here’s a quick excerpt Is it really that bad? I don’t think so. However, in my travels around the web it would appear that many many other people are dissatisfied with the upgrade (downgrade in some peoples’ opinion) from version 2.3.3 of WordPress. Dougal made a post which appeared on every dashboard of every user of the WP application called Upgrade or Else!. Obviously this was meant to cause a fuss, and indeed it has. I cannot understand these people that are still using old (older than 2.3.3) versions of WordPr [...]

Dougal Campbell on April 11th, 2008

Yeah, the server I’m on right now is pretty wimpy, so it doesn’t handle traffic spikes very well. But I can’t complain *too* much, because I’ve been hosted for free for several years now. But I’ve got a new host lined up on a much beefier server, so things should run more smoothly when I get everything moved over (probably within a couple of weeks).

I guess I knew I was being slightly incendiary with my “Upgrade or Else” title (and apparently my “get over it” remark struck some nerves, as well). But even so, I’ve been surprised at how much attention it got. That article has probably gotten three times the traffic of any of my other WordPress-related posts.

The sad thing is, some people still aren’t reading what I said. There are people thinking that I said tht they have to upgrade to 2.5 (no, 2.3.3 is fine, AFAIK). There are some who think that Technorati is de-listing any site running 2.3.2 or lower (no, only if they see actual evidence that the site has been compromised).

Anyhow, as far as the new admin interface goes, I love it. I didn’t at first, but it’s really grown on me. I actually wonder if they didn’t go far enough — they probably could have grouped the “Design” tab with the other lesser-used ones like Plugins, Settings, and Users. Once you’ve got your site up and running, how often do you tweak those settings?

People just don’t like change. When you try to take somebody out of their comfort-zone, most people resist. I think a lot of the nay-sayers will eventually get comfortable with the new interface and even begin to like it.

Cornell Finch