rustindy

I don’t know if this is on purpose or not, but right now the whole site is b0rked. There are missing end-tags, you’re using ID names multiple times, and it’s impossible to read black text against that background graphic – I’m assuming that your content background is a light colour? It doesn’t show up, so I don’t know 🙁

So I search for [ANN]. Perhaps I am looking for a quick list of plugins that have been announced old-school-like. Wait! Where’s that [ANN] Collapse It thread? It’s right here on the main support page, but why can’t I find it on the search page?

Bleh.

If we’re going to have to use Google Search for the support forums, at least make sure the results include recent posts. Like I said, using Google for sites that don’t change very often is fine, but for forums it sucks unless you’re looking for old posts or don’t mind that the most recent ones (what’s the refresh rate here, 1 day? 7?) won’t be included in the results.

If that issue can be solved, then by all means let’s embrace Google because it’s a good search engine. If there’s no way to fix that rather severe problem, then it’s obviously going to suck for these purposes.

The quote is pretty true, but I must’ve missed the voting. The first I knew the search function was going to be changed was the last time I used it – which is, incidentally, the last time I used it.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Google doesn’t refresh these pages very often, right? So a Google search is fine (great, in fact) for searching sites with content that doesn’t change often (Apache’s HTTPD documentation, for example). But for searching a forum, recent posts don’t show up, do they? If that’s the case, what good is it?

Deemed useful by whom? The community? Or the moderators? Admittedly, in a small (relatively) community like this, it doesn’t matter overmuch. But the community does like to have it’s say 😉

I propose this (partially because it could be useful, partially just for fun): ratings should be added to each thread, and the community decides whether the thread is helpful or useful or not. The search engine (whatever it may be) should then take those ratings into account, returning them above other date-ordered results. We could call it ThreadRank 🙂

You don’t need to upload the __MACOSX folder or the ._.DS_Store files at all, and I really wish OSX wouldn’t do that 🙁 Even Windows doesn’t do that!

The COPPA requirement lists an email address as personally identifying information, so if that email address belongs to someone under 13 (in the US, this would be), they (and it) falls under COPPA’s jurisdiction (so to speak).

If you want to bypass COPPA, then just put that little 1 line disclaimer on the comment form.

On the other topic here, what legal ramifications if it’s included with WP? If some asshat uses WP to spread his jewish-conspiracy/nazi-propoganda/pick-your-racism message, is Matt going to be sued for providing him the tools? If your car breaks down and causes you an injury, do you sue the company that made the wrench that the robot used to tighten the bolt that came loose? No, you sue the asshat. Or you sue the vehicle company. I don’t see how Matt could be held responsible for anything that anyone does with WP. Your logic (including COPPA would infer acceptance of responsibility by the tool-maker) could also mean that including a disclaimer of any kind opens the tool-maker to legal problems relating to everything they’re disclaiming responsibility for.

In other words, it’s a moot point. Content is ALWAYS (well, nearly) the responsibility of the content owner/writer, and WP (and Matt, by extension) cannot be held responsible for that unless he explicitly states that he will accept that responsibility. Including a COPPA agreement (or whatever) does not infer that acceptance.

So I stand (slightly modified to remove potential core bloat). WP *should* include any forms necessary to legally qualify for “reasonable effort” in the content owner’s legal region. This should be in a plugin form (a single plugin, say, with the different forms in 1 or more text files or database records), and allow the content owner to select exactly which (if any) of the forms need to be displayed.

WP is a tool, and every tool more complex than a hammer comes with safety intructions for the user’s protection. Why not WP? Like any other tool, include the standard disclaimer (“WP and it’s developers are not responsible for anything that happens because of your WP site” or some such) and provide safety intructions (in this case, privacy/child-protection guidance – not legal advice, though).

In the case of COPPA compliance, requiring an email address for the comment form is enough of a reason to either have the form available or completely disallow people under 13 (or 16, or 18, or 21, or whatever) from commenting.

And yes, simply adding the line “Persons under the age of XX are not allowed to leave comments on this page” is enough – it’s called “reasonable effort” and is usually enough to get your ass out of the sling if needed.

No, WP should not be core-localized to any specific location, but for things like COPPA, there should be a mechanism (either a core routine you can enable/disable, or an *included* plugin) to provide the necessary stuff. If this will be a plugin solution, the plugin(s) should be included with WP so people don’t need to put extra effort into their compliance.

Just my $0.02, IANAL, and YMMV.