WordPress should be illegal for anyone except certified & licensed geeks

ebiladdress: absolutely agreed. I think the problems arise when it’s not made abundantly clear how much work is involved to make a particular type of feature work.

To paraphrase the old adage: “Easy, configurable, or extensible: pick any two”

Can’t please everyone, there’s always going to be a group of people not satisfied…

I personally don’t think WP could be much easier or more idiot-proof than it is already.

I picked up WP 2 months (give or take) ago, and i’ve encountered little problems in that time. Since i can only speak from experience then i’d have to say it’s straight-forward and easier to learn then any other CMS (closest thing) i’ve used previously..

I like the flexibility it has, i love the built-in functions, the only thing that frustrates me is the bloated admin section.

WP is easy, WP is configurable, and it’s extensible…. so why pick 2… you can apply all 3 to WP in my mind..

Don’t worry my friend … that pain you are feeling is just new neural pathways being created in your brain which is being forced to think.

I appreciate its probably a new experience but, trust me, it is good for you.

What concerns me though is that instead of ‘crying for momma’ you have thought of doing the adult thing and just offering to pay someone to do what you cannot do.

If you had any idea the real world financial value of your “free” wordpress application, nevermind what it would have been a few years ago, perhaps you would be a little more humble.

If you want real pain, I can recommend any number of other ugly blog or CMS packages … WordPress remains head above all others as flexible, easy to use, elegant and attractive. If WordPress was a woman, she would be headlining in her own action movies and been married off to a millionaire a long time before I found her.

To be honest, the type of responses or questions you are asking quite honesty betray a significant lack of basic understanding. I am guessing your are self-taught? You might not know it but you have been seduced by how easy it actually is into believing you are more able than you are.

I would agree with the others, unless you can accept the pain of learning, you would be better off with a managed package where you can forget the tech and just do your lobbying, something like https://www.ning.com to which you can add your own domain name. Or you can pick up paid tech help from $10 an hour upwards …

Its not worth your hours, just make a good business decision and get your dollars out of your pocket. Pay someone to do the grunt work.

I find all my answers on Google searches, its not instant and sometimes it just doesn’t work, but the reason its worth it is because of the ability to not have to compromise on simply if the site does what is needed.

The gain from a diverse package such as WP is immeasurable;
– more ‘bending’ brings more dev’s, resulting in more (and better) plugins & widgets.
– deeper change control accessibility gives larger, more _website engine involvement, resulting in far more powerful tools as they are now more accessible to sub-surface levels of the site.
– larger community in general, resulting in many more posters and experinced people to help support the community.

A number of years ago I started with PHP Nuke. It was a nice place to start but it was setup .. backwards from WP. Everything was static and you could edit the static areas, but the theme said where everything was and that was final.

Then I went to Drupal for a few years. That was nice but it was smaller in community, so where it made up for control and administration, there were few themes and plugins/widgets. This made it unattractive.

I really think that, even if its harder, WP is far more stable across the board. Easy stuff comes and goes but this thing is inching closer towards cms and soon will be the major name for being so dual platform.

Guh, enough of me ranting. :p

Here’s an example:
For a particular problem, in the troubleshooting section it says:
Download wp-config.php (if you don’t have shell access).
– without ever telling you where you go to find wp-config.php.

YES! and WP assumes that everyone knows what this stuff even means. Which I don’t!

I was reading this in the help section and was like “what is a shell access”?

This help info/directions need rewrote for a 5 yr old to understand – that way we ALL could understand it.

I too am ?ing the vale of learning this.

I could have had a new website open and running in frontpage by now ??

Shell access normally just refers to God level / Admin level access. More over it is speaking of the hosting account.

[signature moderated Please read the Forum Rules]

It’s 3:26 AM – does anyone know where my brain cells are? I have been studying this all now for about 6 hrs……

My suggestion: use another CMS if this one is too complicated for you.
Good luck with that.
I’m not a good programmer, I’m more of a programming designer. And even if some things seem ass-backwards with WP, it’s usually a good thing to do it that way instead of writing individual SQL queries since it’ll be future-proof.

As to your problem of the wp-config … you do know that there is a wp-config-sample.php in your package.
Open it up with notepad.
Look at the stuff it says you need to set.
Open the email you got from your host with all the passwords, links, configuration interfaces etc.
Type in all the necessary stuff
save as wp-config.php
upload to server
done.

If you’re stuck on the “open up” or “upload to server”, you really are in the wrong place and you should either get a site hosted on wordpress.com or pay a geek to set it up for you.

I wish I understood it, because if I did, I’d write documentation that anyone else, even a novice, could understand.

I really doubt that, because you would either be re-wording things that already have terms — ie, calling a shell “that thing you do when you make a wierd connection to another server”, which would be completely indistinguishable from other wierd connections to servers, like FTP connections, OR, you you wouldnt be writing accurately.

I love this right here:

I don’t think it’s fair to blame an application for being too complicated when you don’t understand the platform it’s running on.

and just because no-one else bothered:

On my webhost’s server, I assume. But that’s not enough to help me find it, since as a novice I don’t know what precedes /home/.

why do you need to know what preceded home? you dont, and you wont. you dont have access to those directories as a plain old user on a shared host.

nor would it help, and Im curious, why you assume, seeing that youve stressed not knowing anything, that having that info, would help.

it reminds me of the people that want to pay someone for a “quick wordpress fix” that they know will only take 15 mins.

if they know, why cant they come up with the fix themselves.

Here’s an example:
For a particular problem, in the troubleshooting section it says:
Download wp-config.php (if you don’t have shell access).
– without ever telling you where you go to find wp-config.php.

this is a very bad example for you to pick. why? because the example you chose, presupposes that people are actually looking at what they download. if you cant get that far ..

I mean the following in a general sense:

Im all for a thinning of the herd. if you cannot or will not learn — then pay someone else, or move along.

Finally:

LS, you are member 2,527,828 of this forum.

there are 242,836 topics on this forum. (right this second)

wordpress has been downloaded 4,663,487 times.

that’s a fairly impressive ratio of downloads to support topics, if you ask me.

—

Shell access normally just refers to God level / Admin level access. More over it is speaking of the hosting account.

Uh … No.

Shell access on a Unix-type server is access to a command prompt on the server itself. If you’re familiar with DOS, it’s the same thing, only for Unix ??

Now, on a dedicated server, you MIGHT have root access or admin access, but on most ISPs, you have user access and full control over your own folders, but that’s it.

Also, if you Google ‘Shell Access’ the very first link is helpfull.

@ L S

I really think your expectations are based on a false premise – that the software can or should be designed with the absolute beginner in mind. Unfortunately, setting up a self-hosted WordPress blog requires a certain level of knowledge at the outset, and to attempt to design the software and documentation for all skill levels below that would be inefficient and unsuccessful.

You would not expect for the owner’s manual of a Cessna to teach you how to fly, just as you should not expect the WordPress documentation to guide you through simple navigation of your server file system.

Certainly the WordPress docs could outline what comes before /home/ in your server directory filestructure. But then we’re on a slippery slope. Should the docs drill down even further and explain what a filesystem is? Should they be suitable for someone who can barely open up a browser and navigate to www.remarpro.com? Or someone who doesn’t even know what a server is? I would suggest that the answer is probably no.

Basic setup of a www.remarpro.com blog presupposes you have a certain level of skill. If you’re not at this level, you can certainly work up to it, but I don’t think it should be — or can be — the responsibility of the WordPress documentation to bring poeple of all skill levels below that up to speed.

So if you’re willing, keep at it and understand that for a self-hosted blogging solution, WordPress really is “easy,” compared to other solutions on the market. If you can’t or don’t want to put in the time, as others have mentioned, Blogger or WordPress.com are better solutions for you.

Being an anti-geek and having moved from Blogger (when it went Beta and offered 3 week support response), to WordPress.com to www.remarpro.com when I decided to set up my own domain, I have found the use of both WordPress.com and .org to be very intuitive.

LS, it sounds to me as though you want breakfast in bed. Don’t blame the software because it doesn’t bring you breakfast in bed.

Anybody who thinks I wanted breakfast in bed didn’t read my posts.

Anybody who thinks I don’t want to learn or am not willing to invest some sweat didn’t read my posts. I believe I did mention how many hours I’d spent, yes, searching Google, yes, searching the forums. I’m usually able to solve my tech problems this way. WP proved the exception, which says more about WP than it does about me.

To those who recommend a managed hosting solution, some of you meant well, but you didn’t really get the sense of what I’ve been saying. It should be obvious that I want to do this myself, that I want to learn and have put a good deal of effort into it.

I just want instructions that are clear, logical, start at the beginning and skip no steps. Why do I want this? Because I don’t want to waste time learning nothing when with proper guidelines, in the same amount of time, I could be getting somewhere.

For the fellow who decided he knew enough to pronounce that I *wouldn’t* in fact write better documentation myself, well, I do it all the time – not for WP, obviously, but when people come to me for a step-by-step to solve their program problem, that’s what they get. I know, because they’re thrilled. I take the time to understand their problem, which I think your post reveals you didn’t do before replying to mine.

To those who were helpful and made thoughtful recommendations or took the time to explain something as clearly as they could, I thank you. I’ll be studying your posts. People like you make the world go round. To those who just can’t be bothered and enjoyed a chance to get off on their technical superiority…

My $.02? Glad you asked.

WP is subject to the laws of reality just like anything else. The easier things are, the less powerful they are. You want power? Enter [some degree of] complexity.

It’s just the way things are. Usually we see “Cost” in the mix making three variables and you get to choose two, but since WP is free we’ll toss it.

What? You want BOTH POWER and SIMPLICITY? Solution -> hire someone.

(Please don’t take that the wrong way, it’s not meant to be snobby.)

Then you have power — WP set up exactly how you want it — and simplicity — you sit down with a dev and point to this n that on the screen telling him/her what you want.

Can’t pay someone? That there is no answer for. I want a helicopter and a pony, but likely I’ll only get one.

As for WP support, that’s a different kettle of fish, one that I’ve complained about. Search my profile posts. I rate it a solid “meh”. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. Could be better.

As for WP support, that’s a different kettle of fish, one that I’ve complained about. Search my profile posts. I rate it a solid “meh”. It’s not bad, but it’s not great. Could be better.

wordpress support is only as good as the people that reply. If youre not pitching in, you cant really complain.

Thats not me pointing fingers at anyone, i’m just saying..its kinda like people that dont vote, ya know?

way too many people come here and assume, incorrectly:

1. that moderators have special powers, or are being compensated to provide support

2. that wordpress guarantees some level of support that is provided on these forums.

Neither of the above is true.

As it stands now, and of course, things could change next week, support around here is user driven, like nearly every other opensource project.