O:9:"MagpieRSS":19:{s:6:"parser";i:0;s:12:"current_item";a:4:{s:5:"title";s:26:"bbPress: 2009-12-09 Meetup";s:4:"guid";s:25:"http://bbpress.org/?p=280";s:4:"link";s:50:"http://bbpress.org/blog/2009/12/2009-12-09-meetup/";s:11:"description";s:7426:"<p>We just had our first ever IRC meetup for the new bbPress, here are the logs, sorry if they&#8217;re a little rough. If you&#8217;d like to join in next time <a href="http://bbpress.org/documentation/get-involved/">check out the Getting Involved page</a>.</p>
<p><span id="more-280"></span></p>
<p><code>[13:01] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; alrighty -- &lt;meetup&gt;<br />
[13:01] &lt;hajii&gt; dan milward == wp-ecommerce<br />
[13:01] &lt;Ryan_&gt; San is the WP e-Commerce developer<br />
[13:01] &lt;Ryan_&gt; *San = Dan<br />
[13:02] &lt;Michael_Rockett&gt; I see - thanks <img src="http://bbpress.org/wordpress/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" /> <br />
[13:02] &lt;jjj&gt; What's the first topic on the list of things to tackle?<br />
[13:02] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; well first up could everyone who's present introduce themselves?<br />
[13:03] &lt;jjj&gt; John James Jacoby - Core contributor for BuddyPress from Miami, FL<br />
[13:03] &lt;Ryan_&gt; Ryan Hellyer from PixoPoint.com. I don't have a lot of experience with bbPress but made a theme generator for it about a year ago. It's never worked as well as I'd like and I'm working on a new improved version now.<br />
[13:03] &lt;hajii&gt; chrishajer, bbpress.org moderator<br />
[13:03] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; I'm Matt Mullenweg, and I'm working on bbPress.org-the-website and hope to help organize some new momentum for the core software<br />
[13:03] &lt;justintadlock&gt; Justin Tadlock here.  You know, of justintadlock.com fame, of course.<br />
[13:03] &lt;hajii&gt; of course<br />
[13:03] &lt;hajii&gt; <img src="http://bbpress.org/wordpress/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" class="wp-smiley" /> <br />
[13:03] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; haha<br />
[13:03] &lt;pmall&gt; Pete Mall - WordPress puts food on my table<br />
[13:03] &lt;Michael_Rockett&gt; I'm Michael - pretty much new to bbPress. I'd like to contribute any any way I can - preferably in the visual/design area. My coding knowldge is not good enough to do much more. I will, however, learn in the future. <img src="http://bbpress.org/wordpress/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" /> <br />
[13:03] &lt;andrewpowers&gt; hey I've seen your site <img src="http://bbpress.org/wordpress/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" class="wp-smiley" /> <br />
[13:04] &lt;jjj&gt; Justin who?<br />
[13:04] &lt;andrewpowers&gt; (justintadlock)<br />
[13:04] &lt;tom_&gt; Tom de Bruin - been using bbPress for about a year.<br />
[13:04] &lt;jjj&gt; <img src="http://bbpress.org/wordpress/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif" alt=";)" class="wp-smiley" /> <br />
[13:04] &lt;benhuson&gt; Ben Huson from Camber, UK. Use WordPress a lot to develop bespoke sites - plugins and themes. Implemented bbPress a couple of times.<br />
[13:04] &lt;hajii&gt; michael rockett are you Michael888 at bbpress.org?<br />
[13:04] &lt;Michael_Rockett&gt; @Ryan_: Sounds interesting - I'd love to see the developments of that. <img src="http://bbpress.org/wordpress/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" /> <br />
[13:04] &lt;andrewpowers&gt; Andrew Powers from Pagelines<br />
[13:04] &lt;Michael_Rockett&gt; @hajii: Yes I am <img src="http://bbpress.org/wordpress/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" /> <br />
[13:04] &lt;hajii&gt; 10:4<br />
[13:04] &lt;andrewpowers&gt; how the heck do you create  link?<br />
[13:05] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; alrighty, anyone else want to jump in?<br />
[13:05] &lt;Ryan_&gt; @Michael - http://pixopoint.com/products/bbpress-forum-theme-generator/<br />
[13:05] &lt;andrewpowers&gt; "Everything you need to know about WordPress 2.9&rsquo;s post image feature<br />
[13:05] &lt;andrewpowers&gt; Everything you need to know about WordPress 2.9&rsquo;s post image feature" Good article Justin<br />
[13:05] &lt;jjj&gt; photomatt_sf, I'd like to talk about whether to merge into WP or keep a separate platform.<br />
[13:06] &lt;Michael_Rockett&gt; @Ryan_: Very nice - I will look at it in the morning. <img src="http://bbpress.org/wordpress/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" />  Thanks and good work, great site. <img src="http://bbpress.org/wordpress/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley" /> <br />
[13:06] &lt;jjj&gt; Seems there's pros/cons in both directions, and WP can't completely facilitate this until the post-types are readily available.<br />
[13:06] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; okay, let's make that the first topic<br />
[13:06] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; and give it a time limit of until 1:20 as a hard break<br />
[13:06] &lt;hajii&gt; 21:20 <img src="http://bbpress.org/wordpress/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif" alt=":D" class="wp-smiley" /> <br />
[13:07] &lt;Ryan_&gt; I don't think there is a problem with post-types, the standard WP post types could be used until more suitable ones are available (bearing in mind I'm somewhat of a PHP moron)<br />
[13:07] &lt;justintadlock&gt; I'm all for making bbPress a plugin and using a "forum" post type.  We could use this as a launchpad to see what we need in WP to make post types work better.<br />
[13:07] &lt;Ryan_&gt; Then convert everthing over when most suitable post type setup is available.<br />
[13:07] &lt;hajii&gt; I will speak from the perspective of people. new people, coming to bbpress.org, since I see all the questions<br />
[13:07] &lt;jjj&gt; Ryan_, the problem would be with categorizing the data and making sure WP doesn't think topics are posts.<br />
[13:07] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; my opinion: let's put it on the roadmap<br />
[13:07] &lt;jjj&gt; ^topics are blog posts<br />
[13:07] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; I think to get things moving we should focus on a 1.1<br />
[13:07] &lt;Michael_Rockett&gt; I think that bbPress should be available both as a standalone package (for those who do not use WP, but want a forum on an already established site) as well as a plugin/merge-package for WP.<br />
[13:08] &lt;jjj&gt; photomatt_sf, good strategy<br />
[13:08] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; that fixes current problems, and maybe adds one hook feature like email notifications<br />
[13:08] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; show the community bbPress is still alive<br />
[13:08] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; and helps existing users<br />
[13:08] &lt;hajii&gt; many/most people want integration, and to them, that means they want the theme to look the same, and they want users to log in one time, and they want access to WordPress function (but that's only because they aren't running as a plugin)<br />
[13:08] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; then 1.2 we can focus on new folks, which to me the best strategy is WP integration<br />
[13:08] &lt;tom_&gt; and we need a 'lost username' feature in 1.1<br />
[13:09] &lt;hajii&gt; I can count on one hand the number of people who want a /standalone/ forum, separate from wordpress<br />
[13:09] &lt;andrewpowers&gt; Are people who aren't using WordPress really using BBpress for their sites?<br />
[13:09] &lt;Ryan_&gt; @Michael_Rockett - If bbPress were a plugin, it could still be used purely for standalone forums, it would just happen to be powerwed by WordPress<br />
[13:09] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; we can do much better integration without redoing all the data structure<br />
[13:09] &lt;photomatt_sf&gt; so I don't know if we should "couple" those tasks<br />
";}s:5:"items";a:4:{i:0;a:7:{s:5:"title";s:64:"Publisher Blog: Microsoft Partner Network Installs IntenseDebate";s:4:"guid";s:42:"http://publisherblog.automattic.com/?p=714";s:4:"link";s:96:"http://publisherblog.automattic.com/2009/12/10/microsoft-partner-network-installs-intensedebate/";s:11:"description";s:2710:"<div class="snap_preview"><br /><p>Excited to see that Microsoft installed <a href="http://intensedebate.com">IntenseDebate</a> on the <a href="http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com">Microsoft Partner Network</a> to power comments and develop their community.</p>
<p>IntenseDebate, as many of you know,  is a distributed commenting platform from <a href="http://automattic.com">Automattic</a> aimed at publishers looking to super-charge community engagement and is available for all content management systems out there including WordPress.</p>
<p><strong>About Microsoft Partner Network</strong></p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Community is the Foundation of the Microsoft Partner Network</strong><br />
With our more than 640,000 partner organizations worldwide, the network offers real-time connection and support through communities that spark innovation and help you discover opportunities. You can build the relationships that best serve your business and customer needs. Connect and collaborate with other great minds to deliver innovative solutions.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-715" title="Microsoft Partner Network" src="http://wordpresspublishers.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/microsoft-partner-network.jpg?w=640&#038;h=322" alt="" width="640" height="322" /></a></p>
<p>[ Visit <a href="http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com/">Microsoft Partner Network</a> ]</p>
  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/" /></a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godelicious/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/delicious/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/" /></a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gostumble/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/stumble/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/" /></a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godigg/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/digg/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/" /></a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/goreddit/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/reddit/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=publisherblog.automattic.com&blog=1470857&post=714&subd=wordpresspublishers&ref=&feed=1" /></div>";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 10 Dec 2009 22:19:30 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:2:"Mk";}s:7:"summary";s:2710:"<div class="snap_preview"><br /><p>Excited to see that Microsoft installed <a href="http://intensedebate.com">IntenseDebate</a> on the <a href="http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com">Microsoft Partner Network</a> to power comments and develop their community.</p>
<p>IntenseDebate, as many of you know,  is a distributed commenting platform from <a href="http://automattic.com">Automattic</a> aimed at publishers looking to super-charge community engagement and is available for all content management systems out there including WordPress.</p>
<p><strong>About Microsoft Partner Network</strong></p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Community is the Foundation of the Microsoft Partner Network</strong><br />
With our more than 640,000 partner organizations worldwide, the network offers real-time connection and support through communities that spark innovation and help you discover opportunities. You can build the relationships that best serve your business and customer needs. Connect and collaborate with other great minds to deliver innovative solutions.</p></blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com/"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-715" title="Microsoft Partner Network" src="http://wordpresspublishers.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/microsoft-partner-network.jpg?w=640&#038;h=322" alt="" width="640" height="322" /></a></p>
<p>[ Visit <a href="http://www.microsoftpartnernetwork.com/">Microsoft Partner Network</a> ]</p>
  <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gocomments/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/comments/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/" /></a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godelicious/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/delicious/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/" /></a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/gostumble/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/stumble/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/" /></a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/godigg/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/digg/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/" /></a> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/goreddit/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://feeds.wordpress.com/1.0/reddit/wordpresspublishers.wordpress.com/714/" /></a> <img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=publisherblog.automattic.com&blog=1470857&post=714&subd=wordpresspublishers&ref=&feed=1" /></div>";}i:1;a:7:{s:5:"title";s:29:"bbPress: Version 1.1 Features";s:4:"guid";s:25:"http://bbpress.org/?p=282";s:4:"link";s:53:"http://bbpress.org/blog/2009/12/version-1-1-features/";s:11:"description";s:340:"<p>If you have some ideas about what features should be in 1.1 <a href="http://surveys.polldaddy.com/s/D26F9CAB472338C3/">take this survey and let me know</a>. The survey is open until Saturday, and then on Monday will put up a poll for people to vote on what they like. I&#8217;ll share the results at the next IRC meetup on Wednesday.</p>";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:59:39 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:4:"Matt";}s:7:"summary";s:340:"<p>If you have some ideas about what features should be in 1.1 <a href="http://surveys.polldaddy.com/s/D26F9CAB472338C3/">take this survey and let me know</a>. The survey is open until Saturday, and then on Monday will put up a poll for people to vote on what they like. I&#8217;ll share the results at the next IRC meetup on Wednesday.</p>";}i:2;a:7:{s:5:"title";s:46:"Weblog Tools Collection: Is WordPress Spyware?";s:4:"guid";s:40:"http://weblogtoolscollection.com/?p=7337";s:4:"link";s:74:"http://weblogtoolscollection.com/archives/2009/12/10/is-wordpress-spyware/";s:11:"description";s:6523:"<blockquote><p>Spyware: Spyware is software that gathers information about a computer user, often without that person’s knowledge or consent. Spyware watches what users do with their computers (such as what websites they visit), and sends that information back to a central location (usually the company that produced the spyware). This information is often given to other companies, who then target the user for their advertisements. Especially bad spyware can gather information about email addresses, passwords, and even credit card information and transmit it to other companies. Spyware is often installed as bundled software. Under StopBadware.org’s guidelines, spyware is considered badware if it does not tell the user about the data that it will collect and how it will use that data.</p></blockquote>
<p>I started using WordPress back around version 2.2 in 2007. Shortly after, <a href="http://wordpress.org/development/2007/09/wordpress-23/">WordPress 2.3 was released</a>. This version of WordPress introduced the pre-cursor to automatic plugin upgrades in the form of plugin upgrade notifications. I thought this was an awesome feature but some in the community raised their eyebrows as they discovered the type of data that was being sent from WordPress to API.WordPress.org. Apparently, it was more than just version numbers. You can view the debate that took place around the privacy issues in September of 2007 <a href="http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/wp-hackers/2007-September/014832.html">here</a> along with the <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/5066">corresponding ticket</a> in Trac which has since been reopened by a community member.</p>
<p>Fast forward two years later and the privacy concerns have been raised again. Here is the data that WordPress sends back to API.WordPress.ORG in order to check for plugin, theme and core upgrades.</p>
<ul>
<li>Your IP</li>
<li>Blog URL</li>
<li>WordPress version</li>
<li>PHP version</li>
<li>Locale setting if there is one</li>
<li>Plugin title, description, author &#8211; including all URL&#8217;s that form part of this.</li>
<li>Full list of all plugins on your site, whether they are active or not.</li>
</ul>
<p>This happens every 12 hours or when you load the plugin page if its been over 12 hours. The sticky point that some folks are arguing is that, the Blog URL should not be part of the information sent back rather just the IP address or some other unique identifier.</p>
<p>Matt has chimed in on the issue of disabling update checks with <a href="http://lists.automattic.com/pipermail/wp-hackers/2009-December/029145.html">a response</a> on the WordPress Hackers Mailing list that you can read here. Disabling update checks is a bad idea. It&#8217;s not the version number checks that are the problem, it&#8217;s the Blog URL that goes along with the checks that is the problem.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://wordpress.org/about/privacy/">WordPress.org privacy policy</a> does mention that the WordPress software performs checks to API.WordPress.org to look for new versions of WordPress and plugins. However, the privacy policy does not go into detail into what information is sent from the WordPress software back to api.wordpress.org.</p>
<p>It would be in good faith to outline this information in the privacy policy so everyone is on the same page. It&#8217;s also good PR. Not doing so just stirs the rumor mill and leaves people asking more questions.</p>
<p>While there are plugins available that disable the ability for WordPress to phone home, one of the <a href="http://lists.automattic.com/pipermail/wp-hackers/2009-December/029228.html">best ideas</a> proposed thus far is by Chris Jean.</p>
<blockquote><p>To me, the only solution for plugin updates is for the server to send what it has since any other option would be highly inefficient or very error prone. So, why not add the ability for a plugin to opt out of having its information included in the update request? This should only require a minimal change to the update code and won&#8217;t require any changes to the update servers.</p></blockquote>
<p>I know other software programs give the end-user a chance to opt-in to data collection/usage statistics but with WordPress, it appears you opt in when you install and use the program and the software does not provide a way of opting out. Some have mentioned that the plugins which strip out the identifying information are equal to an opt-out mechanism but I disagree. When you think about it, the only thing a WordPress powered website needs to send for core, theme, and plugin updates are the version numbers. Everything else just makes up the bigger picture.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s pretty simple to me what needs to happen but all of the proposals thus far have met strong opposition that anything is wrong with the way things are currently.</p>
<p>There needs to be disclosure to users of WordPress as they install the software so that they know upfront that their site will be sending data back to the mothership. Most software ships with a long EULA that users agree to by check marking a box. I think it might be time for WordPress to have a page added to the install process but instead of the EULA, make it the WordPress privacy policy. This policy would outline what data is collected, how often its collected, what the intended use of the data is, etc.</p>
<p>Check marking the box would signify that the end-user has opted-in to the data being sent home. No check mark means that the end-user has opted-out. Opting out should not put those users at risk by not receiving plugin, core, theme upgrade notifications so the process of opting out means that only version numbers of those three things will be sent. If someone wanted to opt-in at a later date, the option could be added to the <strong>Privacy Options</strong> page in the backend of WordPress.</p>
<h2>Thoughts, Ideas, Suggestions</h2>
<p>I don&#8217;t think WordPress is anywhere close to being spyware but according to the definition of the term by StopBadWare.org, WordPress seems to perform a few of the things mentioned.</p>
<p>I think it&#8217;s easy to shrug off the privacy concerns that are being raised and call those people paranoid but the points I&#8217;ve seen being made for the ability to opt-out have been pretty good. I encourage you to continue the conversation here in the comments or in the following <a href="http://www.wptavern.com/forum/general-wordpress/1085-wordpress-phone-home.html">forum thread</a>.</p>";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:46:57 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";}s:7:"summary";s:6523:"<blockquote><p>Spyware: Spyware is software that gathers information about a computer user, often without that person’s knowledge or consent. Spyware watches what users do with their computers (such as what websites they visit), and sends that information back to a central location (usually the company that produced the spyware). This information is often given to other companies, who then target the user for their advertisements. Especially bad spyware can gather information about email addresses, passwords, and even credit card information and transmit it to other companies. Spyware is often installed as bundled software. Under StopBadware.org’s guidelines, spyware is considered badware if it does not tell the user about the data that it will collect and how it will use that data.</p></blockquote>
<p>I started using WordPress back around version 2.2 in 2007. Shortly after, <a href="http://wordpress.org/development/2007/09/wordpress-23/">WordPress 2.3 was released</a>. This version of WordPress introduced the pre-cursor to automatic plugin upgrades in the form of plugin upgrade notifications. I thought this was an awesome feature but some in the community raised their eyebrows as they discovered the type of data that was being sent from WordPress to API.WordPress.org. Apparently, it was more than just version numbers. You can view the debate that took place around the privacy issues in September of 2007 <a href="http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/wp-hackers/2007-September/014832.html">here</a> along with the <a href="http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/5066">corresponding ticket</a> in Trac which has since been reopened by a community member.</p>
<p>Fast forward two years later and the privacy concerns have been raised again. Here is the data that WordPress sends back to API.WordPress.ORG in order to check for plugin, theme and core upgrades.</p>
<ul>
<li>Your IP</li>
<li>Blog URL</li>
<li>WordPress version</li>
<li>PHP version</li>
<li>Locale setting if there is one</li>
<li>Plugin title, description, author &#8211; including all URL&#8217;s that form part of this.</li>
<li>Full list of all plugins on your site, whether they are active or not.</li>
</ul>
<p>This happens every 12 hours or when you load the plugin page if its been over 12 hours. The sticky point that some folks are arguing is that, the Blog URL should not be part of the information sent back rather just the IP address or some other unique identifier.</p>
<p>Matt has chimed in on the issue of disabling update checks with <a href="http://lists.automattic.com/pipermail/wp-hackers/2009-December/029145.html">a response</a> on the WordPress Hackers Mailing list that you can read here. Disabling update checks is a bad idea. It&#8217;s not the version number checks that are the problem, it&#8217;s the Blog URL that goes along with the checks that is the problem.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://wordpress.org/about/privacy/">WordPress.org privacy policy</a> does mention that the WordPress software performs checks to API.WordPress.org to look for new versions of WordPress and plugins. However, the privacy policy does not go into detail into what information is sent from the WordPress software back to api.wordpress.org.</p>
<p>It would be in good faith to outline this information in the privacy policy so everyone is on the same page. It&#8217;s also good PR. Not doing so just stirs the rumor mill and leaves people asking more questions.</p>
<p>While there are plugins available that disable the ability for WordPress to phone home, one of the <a href="http://lists.automattic.com/pipermail/wp-hackers/2009-December/029228.html">best ideas</a> proposed thus far is by Chris Jean.</p>
<blockquote><p>To me, the only solution for plugin updates is for the server to send what it has since any other option would be highly inefficient or very error prone. So, why not add the ability for a plugin to opt out of having its information included in the update request? This should only require a minimal change to the update code and won&#8217;t require any changes to the update servers.</p></blockquote>
<p>I know other software programs give the end-user a chance to opt-in to data collection/usage statistics but with WordPress, it appears you opt in when you install and use the program and the software does not provide a way of opting out. Some have mentioned that the plugins which strip out the identifying information are equal to an opt-out mechanism but I disagree. When you think about it, the only thing a WordPress powered website needs to send for core, theme, and plugin updates are the version numbers. Everything else just makes up the bigger picture.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s pretty simple to me what needs to happen but all of the proposals thus far have met strong opposition that anything is wrong with the way things are currently.</p>
<p>There needs to be disclosure to users of WordPress as they install the software so that they know upfront that their site will be sending data back to the mothership. Most software ships with a long EULA that users agree to by check marking a box. I think it might be time for WordPress to have a page added to the install process but instead of the EULA, make it the WordPress privacy policy. This policy would outline what data is collected, how often its collected, what the intended use of the data is, etc.</p>
<p>Check marking the box would signify that the end-user has opted-in to the data being sent home. No check mark means that the end-user has opted-out. Opting out should not put those users at risk by not receiving plugin, core, theme upgrade notifications so the process of opting out means that only version numbers of those three things will be sent. If someone wanted to opt-in at a later date, the option could be added to the <strong>Privacy Options</strong> page in the backend of WordPress.</p>
<h2>Thoughts, Ideas, Suggestions</h2>
<p>I don&#8217;t think WordPress is anywhere close to being spyware but according to the definition of the term by StopBadWare.org, WordPress seems to perform a few of the things mentioned.</p>
<p>I think it&#8217;s easy to shrug off the privacy concerns that are being raised and call those people paranoid but the points I&#8217;ve seen being made for the ability to opt-out have been pretty good. I encourage you to continue the conversation here in the comments or in the following <a href="http://www.wptavern.com/forum/general-wordpress/1085-wordpress-phone-home.html">forum thread</a>.</p>";}i:3;a:7:{s:5:"title";s:57:"Dougal Campbell: Suggestion: WordPress Option Namespacing";s:4:"guid";s:33:"http://dougal.gunters.org/?p=1692";s:4:"link";s:125:"http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2009/12/10/wordpress-option-namespacing?utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=rss";s:11:"description";s:6609:"<div><img width="150" height="150" src="http://dougal.gunters.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/wplogo-notext-rgb.png" class="attachment-post-image wp-post-image" alt="" title="WordPress" /></div><p>I happened to be poking around in my database a while ago, particularly in the WordPress &#8216;options&#8217; table for this blog. There&#8217;s an awful lot of cruft hanging around from old plugins that I don&#8217;t use anymore. I cleaned a few things out, but something hit me as I was perusing all those options: I can&#8217;t always tell which options belong(ed) to which plugins, themes, or to the WordPress core.</p>
<p>In many cases, plugin authors tag the option names in a way that you can figure it out. For example, Alex King&#8217;s <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/">Twitter Tools</a> plugin uses a prefix of <code>aktt_</code> on all of its options. And many other plugin authors similarly use a prefix of some sort that identifies the author and/or plugin. But it&#8217;s very inconsistent.</p>
<p>I would like to suggest a formal namespacing scheme which might help with option management in the future. The <code>option_name</code> field is a <code>VARCHAR(64)</code>, so there&#8217;s plenty of room for creativity in option naming. Also, there are not really any tangible restrictions on what characters can be used, though most of us tend to stick with identifers that would be legal variable names when programming.</p>
<p>My suggestion for a format is: <code><strong>area:plugin-slug:option-name</strong></code><br />
Where area is one of <em>core</em>, <em>plugin</em>, or <em>theme</em> (any others that should be separate?). The plugin-slug is the same as the slug used in the Plugin Repository or Theme Repository. For core options, the slug can be &#8216;_wp_&#8217; for normal options or &#8216;_trans_&#8217; for transient options, or they might even be broken down in to sub-areas (&#8216;general&#8217;, &#8216;writing&#8217;, &#8216;discussion&#8217;, etc.). For backwards compatibility as names are changed to the new format, core options could go through a deprecation phase where they keep the old names, but the get_option functions could be modified to check for the new names first, then fall back to the old.</p>
<p>Using Twitter Tools as an example again, the <code>aktt_last_tweet_download</code> option could be named <code>plugin:twitter-tools:last_tweet_download</code>. The core option <code>rss_excerpt_length</code> would become <code>core:_wp_:rss_excerpt_length</code>.</p>
<h3>Advantages:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Finding and deleting options based on their source would become easy. Need to get rid of some leftover options related to the Shazbot theme that you deleted? <strong><code>DELETE FROM $wp-&gt;options WHERE option_name LIKE "theme:shazbot:%"</code></strong></li>
<li>New standard option areas and slugs can easily be added in the future while retaining organization.</li>
<li>Less chance of namespace collisions between various plugins and themes.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Disadvantages:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Added complexity. Coders need to remember to use the new naming scheme, use new option get/set functions which take extra namespacing parameters, or we need to migrate to some sort of universal <acronym title="Object Oriented Programming"><span class="caps">OOP</span></acronym> plugin/theme frameworks in order to enforce consistency.</li>
<li>Plugins with longer names get less flexibility with the actual option_name. For example &#8216;plugin:all-in-one-seo-pack:&#8217; has already eaten up 27 characters which leaves 37 characters for the specific option name. Still not bad, but there might be cases where it could cause problems.</li>
<li>Without core buy-in, unlikely to to be utilized by the general plugin/theme codign community.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Other Notes:</h3>
<p>Backwards compatibility for core options should be easy, for the most part. I am unaware of any code in the wild using the &#8216;foo:bar:baz&#8217; format for option names, so collisions with existing plugins is unlikely. The current get_option() function can be modified to match $setting against a regular expression to see if the setting being fetched is namespaced. If so, but the option isn&#8217;t found, un-namespace it, and look again. If the setting is not namespaced, and it&#8217;s not found, try looking for &#8216;core:_wp_:$setting&#8217; as a last resort. This behavior could be in place for a few version releases, then deprecated later.</p>
<p>Also, as mentioned on the wp-hackers mailing list, current &#8220;best practice&#8221; is for a plugin or theme to wrap multiple options up into an array, and save it as a single entry. In some ways, that in itself helps mitigate some of the options table clutter. But a consistent naming standard, if followed by enough developers, would make things even cleaner. And there are certain use-cases where it still makes sense to keep multiple separate options. <ins>(I&#8217;m guilty of not grouping my options in arrays, but I&#8217;m planning to re-vamp all of my plugins eventually)</ins></p>
<p>While I don&#8217;t really expect this idea to become part of core, I wanted to put it out in the wild for discussion. At the very least, we might be able to come up with some more solid &#8220;best practices&#8221; that can be documented on the <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page">WordPress Codex</a>.</p>
<h3><ins>Further Reading:</ins></h3>
<p>You can learn more about how to build options pages for your plugins, and how to deal with options cleanly from these two excellent articles:</p>
<ul>
<li><ins><a href="http://striderweb.com/nerdaphernalia/2008/07/consolidate-options-with-arrays/">Consolidate Options with Arrays in Your WordPress Plugins</a> &#8211; Stephen Rider</ins></li>
<li><ins><a href="http://ottodestruct.com/blog/2009/wordpress-settings-api-tutorial/">WordPress Settings <acronym title="Application Interface"><span class="caps">API</span></acronym> Tutorial</a> &#8211; Otto</ins></li>
</ul>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href="http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2008/10/15/wordpress-wednesday-kick-off" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: WordPress Wednesday Kick Off">WordPress Wednesday Kick Off</a></li><li><a href="http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2009/07/30/wordpress-packages" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: WordPress Packages?">WordPress Packages?</a></li><li><a href="http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2007/11/16/easy-gravatars-version-11" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Easy Gravatars version 1.1">Easy Gravatars version 1.1</a></li></ol></p>";s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:54:57 +0000";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:6:"Dougal";}s:7:"summary";s:6609:"<div><img width="150" height="150" src="http://dougal.gunters.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/wplogo-notext-rgb.png" class="attachment-post-image wp-post-image" alt="" title="WordPress" /></div><p>I happened to be poking around in my database a while ago, particularly in the WordPress &#8216;options&#8217; table for this blog. There&#8217;s an awful lot of cruft hanging around from old plugins that I don&#8217;t use anymore. I cleaned a few things out, but something hit me as I was perusing all those options: I can&#8217;t always tell which options belong(ed) to which plugins, themes, or to the WordPress core.</p>
<p>In many cases, plugin authors tag the option names in a way that you can figure it out. For example, Alex King&#8217;s <a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/">Twitter Tools</a> plugin uses a prefix of <code>aktt_</code> on all of its options. And many other plugin authors similarly use a prefix of some sort that identifies the author and/or plugin. But it&#8217;s very inconsistent.</p>
<p>I would like to suggest a formal namespacing scheme which might help with option management in the future. The <code>option_name</code> field is a <code>VARCHAR(64)</code>, so there&#8217;s plenty of room for creativity in option naming. Also, there are not really any tangible restrictions on what characters can be used, though most of us tend to stick with identifers that would be legal variable names when programming.</p>
<p>My suggestion for a format is: <code><strong>area:plugin-slug:option-name</strong></code><br />
Where area is one of <em>core</em>, <em>plugin</em>, or <em>theme</em> (any others that should be separate?). The plugin-slug is the same as the slug used in the Plugin Repository or Theme Repository. For core options, the slug can be &#8216;_wp_&#8217; for normal options or &#8216;_trans_&#8217; for transient options, or they might even be broken down in to sub-areas (&#8216;general&#8217;, &#8216;writing&#8217;, &#8216;discussion&#8217;, etc.). For backwards compatibility as names are changed to the new format, core options could go through a deprecation phase where they keep the old names, but the get_option functions could be modified to check for the new names first, then fall back to the old.</p>
<p>Using Twitter Tools as an example again, the <code>aktt_last_tweet_download</code> option could be named <code>plugin:twitter-tools:last_tweet_download</code>. The core option <code>rss_excerpt_length</code> would become <code>core:_wp_:rss_excerpt_length</code>.</p>
<h3>Advantages:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Finding and deleting options based on their source would become easy. Need to get rid of some leftover options related to the Shazbot theme that you deleted? <strong><code>DELETE FROM $wp-&gt;options WHERE option_name LIKE "theme:shazbot:%"</code></strong></li>
<li>New standard option areas and slugs can easily be added in the future while retaining organization.</li>
<li>Less chance of namespace collisions between various plugins and themes.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Disadvantages:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Added complexity. Coders need to remember to use the new naming scheme, use new option get/set functions which take extra namespacing parameters, or we need to migrate to some sort of universal <acronym title="Object Oriented Programming"><span class="caps">OOP</span></acronym> plugin/theme frameworks in order to enforce consistency.</li>
<li>Plugins with longer names get less flexibility with the actual option_name. For example &#8216;plugin:all-in-one-seo-pack:&#8217; has already eaten up 27 characters which leaves 37 characters for the specific option name. Still not bad, but there might be cases where it could cause problems.</li>
<li>Without core buy-in, unlikely to to be utilized by the general plugin/theme codign community.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Other Notes:</h3>
<p>Backwards compatibility for core options should be easy, for the most part. I am unaware of any code in the wild using the &#8216;foo:bar:baz&#8217; format for option names, so collisions with existing plugins is unlikely. The current get_option() function can be modified to match $setting against a regular expression to see if the setting being fetched is namespaced. If so, but the option isn&#8217;t found, un-namespace it, and look again. If the setting is not namespaced, and it&#8217;s not found, try looking for &#8216;core:_wp_:$setting&#8217; as a last resort. This behavior could be in place for a few version releases, then deprecated later.</p>
<p>Also, as mentioned on the wp-hackers mailing list, current &#8220;best practice&#8221; is for a plugin or theme to wrap multiple options up into an array, and save it as a single entry. In some ways, that in itself helps mitigate some of the options table clutter. But a consistent naming standard, if followed by enough developers, would make things even cleaner. And there are certain use-cases where it still makes sense to keep multiple separate options. <ins>(I&#8217;m guilty of not grouping my options in arrays, but I&#8217;m planning to re-vamp all of my plugins eventually)</ins></p>
<p>While I don&#8217;t really expect this idea to become part of core, I wanted to put it out in the wild for discussion. At the very least, we might be able to come up with some more solid &#8220;best practices&#8221; that can be documented on the <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page">WordPress Codex</a>.</p>
<h3><ins>Further Reading:</ins></h3>
<p>You can learn more about how to build options pages for your plugins, and how to deal with options cleanly from these two excellent articles:</p>
<ul>
<li><ins><a href="http://striderweb.com/nerdaphernalia/2008/07/consolidate-options-with-arrays/">Consolidate Options with Arrays in Your WordPress Plugins</a> &#8211; Stephen Rider</ins></li>
<li><ins><a href="http://ottodestruct.com/blog/2009/wordpress-settings-api-tutorial/">WordPress Settings <acronym title="Application Interface"><span class="caps">API</span></acronym> Tutorial</a> &#8211; Otto</ins></li>
</ul>


<p>Related posts:<ol><li><a href="http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2008/10/15/wordpress-wednesday-kick-off" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: WordPress Wednesday Kick Off">WordPress Wednesday Kick Off</a></li><li><a href="http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2009/07/30/wordpress-packages" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: WordPress Packages?">WordPress Packages?</a></li><li><a href="http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2007/11/16/easy-gravatars-version-11" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Easy Gravatars version 1.1">Easy Gravatars version 1.1</a></li></ol></p>";}}s:7:"channel";a:5:{s:5:"title";s:16:"WordPress Planet";s:4:"link";s:28:"http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:8:"language";s:2:"en";s:11:"description";s:47:"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"tagline";s:47:"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/";}s:9:"textinput";a:0:{}s:5:"image";a:0:{}s:9:"feed_type";s:3:"RSS";s:12:"feed_version";s:3:"2.0";s:5:"stack";a:1:{i:0;s:11:"description";}s:9:"inchannel";b:1;s:6:"initem";b:1;s:9:"incontent";b:0;s:11:"intextinput";b:0;s:7:"inimage";b:0;s:13:"current_field";s:0:"";s:17:"current_namespace";b:0;s:19:"_CONTENT_CONSTRUCTS";a:6:{i:0;s:7:"content";i:1;s:7:"summary";i:2;s:4:"info";i:3;s:5:"title";i:4;s:7:"tagline";i:5;s:9:"copyright";}s:4:"etag";s:25:""36bff-4b21aec8-5042b6"
";s:13:"last_modified";s:31:"Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:30:32 GMT
";}