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WordPress-related jQuery questions are also cool. As to "everything related to WordPress" I'd say maybe "everything 'how to' related to WordPress?" – MikeSchinkel Jun 1 '10 at 23:09

Who is the audience for this site? Please edit the audience to describe the people who will come here, not the mission of the site. – Joel Spolsky Jun 2 '10 at 0:22

"Proposed Q&A site for WordPress development and administration. If you write plugins or themes, or administer your own WordPress site then this is the site for you." – WraithKenny Jun 3 '10 at 19:19

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119 Example Questions (9 closed)

active newest votes

up vote 1 down vote

added by MikeSchinkel, edited by Rob Hyndman Jun 3 '10 at 13:26

"pseudo" – Roger Pate Jun 3 '10 at 11:49

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added by davemac Jun 2 '10 at 12:43

Really more of a PHPdoc question, but I can see that this question could come up from time-to-time. – Dougal Campbell Jun 2 '10 at 14:26

@dougal: I'm not sure if wordpress follows the docblock conventions that strictly and if, the values used in conjunction with those tags are specific to wordpress. – hakre Jun 6 '10 at 20:54

up vote 1 down vote

added by Dougal Campbell Jun 2 '10 at 14:47

This isn't a WordPress question, technically. – John P Bloch Jun 2 '10 at 14:50

I'm conflicted on whether this is on- or off-topic. If I'm being pedantic, I'd call it off-topic. But OTOH, it is a pretty common question on the way to getting a local installation of WordPress running. I think I'd say it's on-topic. Grudgingly. – Dougal Campbell Jun 2 '10 at 14:50

I'm going to say refer the question to ServerFault or other. – MikeSchinkel Jun 2 '10 at 15:35

I think the scopes of serverfault and superuser have narrowed enough that it makes more sense to consider it an on-topic post here instead of them closing it as not on-topic there. – Chris_K Jun 2 '10 at 15:53

This is clearly on-topic. The answer can refer to any external MAMP/WAMP docs as needed for those bits, and simply give an explanation of what to do in regard for wordpress specifically. It IS relevant to wordpress because it is something most wordpress developers are going to HAVE to do. – eddiemoya Jun 2 '10 at 19:51

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up vote 1 down vote

added by rcdunnii Jun 2 '10 at 15:03

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added by curtismchale Jun 2 '10 at 15:28

up vote 1 down vote

added by Chris Hubbs Jun 2 '10 at 15:48

up vote 1 down vote

added by kevtrout Jun 2 '10 at 16:02

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added by kevtrout Jun 2 '10 at 16:08

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added by eddiemoya Jun 2 '10 at 20:57

up vote 1 down vote

added by Gelatin Jun 2 '10 at 21:38

Seems relevant, although certainly needs some specifics in order to really know - and to even begin to answer. – eddiemoya Jun 2 '10 at 21:40

Too broad, especially the clean up part. Best practices for prevention would be a better. Specific clean up questions, maybe. – MikeSchinkel Jun 2 '10 at 23:06

should this be a call to arms for Wordpress it's self to enhance security? It's often sited as a downfall of wordpress.... either way you guys are right it needs more specifics, but if your a noob to wordpress then it will be a little hard to say what they are?? – Share And Follow Jun 8 '10 at 8:29

Question is broad and tough to answer, but how would you suggest it be improved? Clearly it's on topic, and technical as opposed to design. A good answer may be to ask a couple questions/present a couple tests to show how to narrow the problem to answerable dimensions. – John Biddle Jun 9 '10 at 18:40

up vote 1 down vote

added by WraithKenny Jun 3 '10 at 18:39

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added by WraithKenny Jun 3 '10 at 18:41

up vote 1 down vote

added by nanda Jun 4 '10 at 13:17

Avoiding spam is a separate battle entirely. Besides, WordPress ships with Akismet out of the box. I think googling this would turn up easy answers. If someone has gotten to the point of setting up the system, creating content, and is receiving spammy comments, you should probably know how to set up a plugin to filter spam, or set up WordPress to properly moderate what kind of comments get through. – kevtrout Jun 6 '10 at 15:40

As much as it's a separate battle, that's a good beginner question. People will come to the site to ask this kind of thing anyway. – Ekevoo Jun 11 '10 at 4:41

up vote 1 down vote

added by Tim Jun 8 '10 at 18:11

Big question requiring a long answer, but right on topic IMHO – John Biddle Jun 9 '10 at 18:48

up vote 1 down vote

added by Davodm Jun 15 '10 at 11:51

up vote 0 down vote

added by Arlen Beiler Jun 1 '10 at 21:45

Some more specifics would be nice. IOW, "How do I display the value of a custom field in my theme" and "How do I add a custom field+value using PHP that will not be visible in the custom field editor?" – MikeSchinkel Jun 1 '10 at 23:58

Basic, even broad, questions such as this might be better directed back to the appropriate page on the WP Codex rather than be answered here. – davemac Jun 2 '10 at 12:36

Would it be appropriate to consider broad questions like this on-topic, and simply answer with a link back to the Codex/other referential source? – eddiemoya Jun 2 '10 at 20:59

I think the basics need to be covered somewhere. I find the WordPress site to be a very poor place to find out how to do things, unless you already know most of the answer. In the absence of anything else that's easy to find, fundamental questions like this can be expected. An answer pointing to relevant, accurate, helpful and up to date parts of the Codex would be a good response, if those conditions can be met. – efikim Jun 2 '10 at 21:46

Maybe the answer to this question could be a list of references, tutorials, etc. Changed my vote to "yes." – MikeSchinkel Jun 3 '10 at 2:24

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up vote 0 down vote

added by Arlen Beiler Jun 1 '10 at 21:57

	Topical.. but needs more information; incomplete as-is. – Roger Pate Jun 3 '10 at 11:43
	Very true, Roger, but it's a VERY common error, most likely caused by a theme or plugin file with trailing whitespace. This question would get asked A LOT and therefore having a ready-made landing page/question & answer makes sense. – ZaMoose Jun 3 '10 at 13:33
	Belongs on Stack Overflow because this is a PHP question. – hakre Jun 6 '10 at 20:50

up vote 0 down vote

added by Gnuget Jun 2 '10 at 4:25

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added by YOU Jun 2 '10 at 12:06

keeping in mind that wordpress.com users (as opposed to .org) can't use plugins, themes or other custom code beyond CSS... Is this question in scope? – Chris_K Jun 2 '10 at 12:40

As you can see at the top, Wordpress.com users are specifically excluded unless they are Super Admins. – Arlen Beiler Jun 2 '10 at 14:46

The only reason I think it might be on-topic is because of WordPress multi-site. I think it kinda is on-topic. – MikeSchinkel Jun 2 '10 at 15:48

Actually, the reason we exclude hosted sites like Wordpress.com, is because they should have a help section explaining that, this is not a wiki, remember. That is also why Wordpress.com Super Admins are included in this site, they are just like any other site manager and will have questions. – Arlen Beiler Jun 2 '10 at 17:55

It seems many questions could be considered on topic, but have an answer pointing to external resources, or other questions, such as go to WordPress.com for help specific to WordPress.com, or check out questions on WordPress multisite. It should probably be Off-Topic though according to this: "Off-topic questions are important, too. "They define the very outer boundary of a site. The ideal off-topic question is one that will likely be asked, but should be considered off-topic, nonetheless. Avoid posting silly, off-topic questions that do not help define the site." – WraithKenny Jun 3 '10 at 18:11

up vote 0 down vote

added by Dougal Campbell Jun 2 '10 at 14:59

I love asking these gray area questions. Even if I'm not sure which way I should vote, myself. – Dougal Campbell Jun 2 '10 at 15:00

This is gray area. I'd definitely vote yes if the question was "Does WordPress already have functions to prevent search engines from crawling my archives?". As it is, I don't know which way to vote... – John P Bloch Jun 2 '10 at 15:04

I vote yes. I suppose it's not entirely WordPress specific in that the question doesn't mention WordPress but I suppose one would assume that if they're here they're talking specifically about WordPress. – curtismchale Jun 2 '10 at 15:26

On the one hand, the typical answer to this question involves editing the robots.txt file, or other generic solutions. But there are likely several WordPress plugins which will do the job for you, and thus it could be considered on-topic. – Dougal Campbell Jun 2 '10 at 16:10

... and a checkbox in WordPress itself, right? (Privacy settings as I recall). Seems on-topic – Chris_K Jun 2 '10 at 16:13

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added by John P Bloch Jun 2 '10 at 15:30

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added by Chris Hubbs Jun 2 '10 at 15:46

closed as off topic by Dougal Campbell, hakre, prettyboymp, EAMann, WraithKenny Jun 9 '10 at 17:01

This question does not relate to the topic of the proposal.
It was closed as part of an automated migration of off-topic to close votes on September 29, 2011.

I'm split on this. It's more of a design issue. Really you could make any CMS look like a blog or visa versa. I suppose I'll vote now since it does seem to relate more to design than WordPress specifically. – curtismchale Jun 2 '10 at 16:37

I am split on this one. I would say it is on-topic but FAR to broad of a question. The question is definitely one of design. If you decide that putting your sidebar on this or that side, or having posts constructed differently makes your site look less like a blog - then how-to's on those specific question can be answered. – eddiemoya Jun 2 '10 at 19:56

Is theming allowed? Does this fall under theming? – Roger Pate Jun 3 '10 at 8:46

There are going to be many theme-related questions that will be off-topic (or at least gray areas). The crux is going to be how specific the question is to working with WordPress. – Dougal Campbell Jun 3 '10 at 18:58

The correct answer would be that there is nothing to do because a WordPress Blog is a CMS per-se. It's a (web) content management system, you can use it to manage posts/pages and even images. – hakre Jun 4 '10 at 9:23

up vote 0 down vote

added by eddiemoya Jun 2 '10 at 21:03

On-topic, but this is one of those questions that some people will answer without actually knowing all the facts. – Dougal Campbell Jun 3 '10 at 2:37

Is it worth trying to discourage questions that are really about WordPress licensing and focus on how-to type questions? – Anonymous Jun 8 '10 at 19:23

@user1648 - "Proposed Q&A site for wordpress developers and administrators. If you write plugins or themes, or administer your own WordPress site then this is the site for you. " - Idk.. i know its a little fuzzy (thats the point), but i think it falls on the side of on-topic. If nothing else because its something anyone working on wp professionally is going to wonder about. – eddiemoya Jun 15 '10 at 3:50

up vote 0 down vote

added by eddiemoya Jun 2 '10 at 21:29

This is a bit too broad a question. The topic is good, but the scope isn't. A better question would be "What are some good resources for learning how to make a plugin?" – John P Bloch Jun 2 '10 at 21:36

up vote 0 down vote

added by Ash G Jun 6 '10 at 2:02

Not sure why this is marked 'not a good example'. Its a common question that is poorly documented in wordpress – Ash G Jun 10 '10 at 6:47

@Ash G: good point. This is really poorly documented in wordpress official documentation and definitely something worth to put a good answer in here :) – hakre Jun 12 '10 at 20:00

up vote 0 down vote

added by Ash G Jun 6 '10 at 2:06

I think this will be adequately covered in Wordpress documentation and 'new feature' write-ups, and need not be covered in a place that seeks expert enthusiasts to contribute to unique high-level questions. – kevtrout Jun 6 '10 at 13:14

Makes sense. that being said, there are loads of low level questions that are getting 'on topic' votes. So it seems to be very subjective. – Ash G Jun 10 '10 at 6:55

WP 3.0 is not released yet, so no-one can tell. – hakre Jun 11 '10 at 18:08

This is a good example of the easy on-topic question that Joel warned about. It will make the site too much like every other site that answers WP questions. – John Biddle Jun 13 '10 at 22:01

@John: I did not read Joel warned about easy questions. Can you point to that? – hakre Jun 14 '10 at 6:14

up vote 0 down vote

added by John Biddle Jun 9 '10 at 19:18

up vote 0 down vote

added by Vortico Jun 11 '10 at 21:25

Yes. Or really good off-topic questions. – Vortico Jun 12 '10 at 13:13

The topic description says it's for Admins, coders...This is more of an end user question which I think would be off topic and better on wordpress.org which is where most of these questions are now. – curtismchale Jun 12 '10 at 16:15

Yes, the question is written from a user point of view,. It could be re-written from the admin perspective like "How would I enable users to ...". – John Biddle Jun 13 '10 at 16:49

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added by rexposadas Jun 13 '10 at 0:54

I am voting off-topic for this. Its much too vague - there are no predetermined steps for something like this. A better question might be something along the lines of "In .NET xyz function could do abc behavior, is there an equivalent in wordpress?" Even with that,.. you have to watch it, its a slippery slope to becoming a PHP tutorial. – eddiemoya Jun 15 '10 at 3:17

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added by rexposadas Jun 13 '10 at 0:58

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added by Mark Szymanski Jun 14 '10 at 21:03

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added by Armin Jun 15 '10 at 15:34

for great off-topic :D – Armin Jun 15 '10 at 15:34

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added by Armin Jun 15 '10 at 15:35

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added by Armin Jun 15 '10 at 15:36

up vote 0 down vote

added by Armin Jun 15 '10 at 15:41

up vote -1 down vote

added by Arlen Beiler Jun 1 '10 at 21:57

up vote -1 down vote

added by Arlen Beiler Jun 1 '10 at 21:58

off-topic, not about wordpress. It is about flickr – Arlen Beiler Jun 1 '10 at 21:59

I'm not sure what the question would specifically be about but it could be relevant to WP specifically. At least, we could give them advice like "put the small on in the post and link to the big one", or recommend they use the caption system. – jeremyclarke Jun 2 '10 at 14:19

Merits a polite response asking for more specifics. After more is understood, the question may be determined to be on or off topic. I could be that this person is casually mentioning flickr, but is really just having issues with getting images to show at the size he wants. – eddiemoya Jun 2 '10 at 21:38

up vote -1 down vote

added by scribu Jun 1 '10 at 23:49

Hmmmm. This is specific to a single WordPress plugin. It's not specifically core WP, but I'd imagine that this sort of question would get asked a lot. How do these ?'s get handled here? – ZaMoose Jun 3 '10 at 13:37

I think questions about existing plugins are not the most on topic of choices. Plugin support is usually available through the plugin authors forums etc. Questions about building plugins of your own on the other hand are what we're after IMO – Ash G Jun 6 '10 at 1:29

up vote -1 down vote

added by Krusty Ruffle Jun 1 '10 at 23:51

closed as off topic by MikeSchinkel, squircle, hakre, Ekevoo, Tadeusz A. Kadłubowski Jun 15 '10 at 6:44

This question does not relate to the topic of the proposal.
It was closed as part of an automated migration of off-topic to close votes on September 29, 2011.

This is not really about WordPress but instead about web hosting. The answer is different depending on each web host. – MikeSchinkel Jun 1 '10 at 23:52

Yet it gets asked and answered a LOT at the wordpress.org forums. Many of the larger hosts have well-known methods that are shared. – Chris_K Jun 2 '10 at 3:30

true, after all it is about wordpress. – Arlen Beiler Jun 2 '10 at 4:00

up vote -1 down vote

added by rcdunnii Jun 2 '10 at 5:47

I don't understand the question either. But it's clearly about WordPress. I think it's on-topic, but in need of clarification. – Dougal Campbell Jun 2 '10 at 14:34

Sorry - to clarify: I have a (wordpress) sidebar list of posts filtered by custom field/value. New posts appear in list only after long delay. why? Thx – rcdunnii Jun 2 '10 at 14:58

Now that we know what the question is, I can answer yes, it's on topic, as a hypothetical question. – John P Bloch Jun 2 '10 at 18:29