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Matt Mullenweg deactivates WordPress accounts of contributors planning a fork

(techcrunch.com)
465 points impish9208 | 1 comments | 11 Jan 25 18:14 UTC | HN request time: 0.212s | source
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rmccue ◴[11 Jan 25 23:44 UTC] No.42669910[source]▶
This isn’t unexpected; I’ve been deactivated on Slack since very early in this dispute, and later banned from the issue tracker as well. I’ve been contributing for 20 years to the project, am a committer, and built several large parts of WordPress including the REST API.

Matt is banning anyone who speaks out at all, even when they agree with points he’s made. A large group of contributors felt they had to make an anonymous statement from fear of the same retribution I suffered: https://www.therepository.email/core-contributors-voice-conc...

(I am a less active direct contributor these days, so I’m still able to contribute even while blocked - but many people’s livelihoods depend on it, as sponsored contributors.)

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bachmeier ◴[12 Jan 25 01:52 UTC] No.42670549[source]▶
Honest question from an outsider. WordPress is open source, so why hasn't the project been replaced with one that doesn't include him?
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rmccue ◴[12 Jan 25 02:01 UTC] No.42670595[source]▶
The value of WordPress is in the brand, the ecosystem, and the community, and we’re all trying desperately to hold that together.
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Dalewyn ◴[12 Jan 25 02:44 UTC] No.42670843[source]▶
Maybe stop doing that? There's a reason revolutions usually involve total destruction at some point along the way.

Makes me wonder with the apparent lack of strong will just how much of the dissent is actually a (very) loud minority.

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1. jjulius ◴[12 Jan 25 03:11 UTC] No.42670976[source]▶
Tangential, but I see the same arguments being made as I discuss completely abandoning social media this week - "But where else can we go to find out about X/Y/Z?".

I dunno, but we can figure that out, we always have. Maybe, like you said, we should just start with not desperately holding something like that together. Maybe not everyone in the world needs to be in the same place at the same time, maybe a hodgepodge is okay. But people have the need to inform and be informed, so a solution will eventually crop up.