The Software Is Wrong, Not the People  ## Metadata - Author: [[Joe Flood]] - Full Title: The Software Is Wrong, Not the People - Category: #articles - Document Note: Minor But Mighty: elevating WordPress one minor release at a time No major releases? No excuses. I’m proposing ways we can use WordPress 6.8.x minor releases to ship real wins like accessibility, internationalization, privacy, good-first-bugs, and more. Let’s mak… jeffpaul.com Jeff Paul 3 mins Apr 27th WordPress 6.8.1, Tabs and CSS Slider Blocks, Sticky Header, ThemeSwitcherPro and more — Weekend Edition 327 Hi there, With WordPress 6.8 out the door, I start getting deeper into Block themes. What are you working on in the upcoming two months? Below you find quite a few videos and podcast episodes for your Weekend entertainment. It’s hopefully a great mix, and you find something you are interested in. Have a fantastic… gutenbergtimes.com Birgit Pauli-Haack 5 mins Apr 27th EmailsIcon The Wired Word for 04/27/2025 A team of researchers has detected a possible signature of life on a distant planet, one that orbits a star 120 light-years from Earth. thewiredword.com The Wired Word 11 mins Apr 24th Reflecting I know there’s been a lot of frustration directed at me specifically. Some of it, I believe, is misplaced—but I also understand where it’s coming from. The passing of Pope Francis has deeply impact… ma.tt Matt 2 mins Apr 24th Matt Mullenweg Reverses Course on Blocking Accounts and Banning Contributors in Surprise ‘WordPress Jubilee’ WordPress co-founder walks back months of bans, citing personal reflection and the Catholic Jubilee tradition. therepository.email Rae Morey 4 mins Apr 24th ArticlesIcon The Software is Wrong, Not the People It was a small moment at the WordPress DC Meetup. One of the creators of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, was in town. He had come to this monthly meeting at Fathom Creative to learn what the local community wanted in the next version of his web publishing software. The media library in WordPress was discussed. Mullenweg … Continue reading "The Software is Wrong, Not the People" joeflood.com Joe Flood 3 mins Apr 23rd More Remove from Inbox Move to Later Archive Let's Talk Open Source - Prime Reacts Twitch https://twitch.tv/ThePrimeagen Discord https://discord.gg/ThePrimeagen Become Backend Dev: https://boot.dev/prime (plus i make courses for them) This is also the best way to support me is to support yourself becoming a better backend engineer. ### LINKS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxTdBkcn1jM Great News? Want me to research and create video????: https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePrimeagen Kinesis Advantage 360: https://bit.ly/Prime-Kinesis youtube.com ThePrimeTime 27:29 Apr 20th Wow Your Early Adopters with Excellent Customer Experience First impressions matter—and for WordPress product creators, early adopters are your first big opportunity to build a loyal fanbase. In this week’s WP Product Talk, we’re joined by Robbie Adair from OS Training to explore how excellent customer experience can turn those first users into lasting advocates. Whether you're launching your first product or refining your onboarding, this episode will offer smart, actionable strategies. Join co-hosts Matt Cromwell and Katie Keith live on April 17 at 11am Eastern as we dive into the mindset, systems, and touchpoints that elevate support and delight your earliest users. If customer experience matters to your business (hint: it should!), you won’t want to miss it. youtube.com WP Product Talk 38:29 Apr 19th How to make sense of your negative thoughts | Dr Yasmine Saad | TEDxOltrarno Your mind can be your greatest ally, or your harshest critic. But what if those persistent negative thoughts aren't your enemies after all? In this illuminating TEDx psychology talk, Dr. Yasmine Saad, an award-winning NYC psychologist, reveals why traditional approaches to negative thoughts, ignoring them, accepting them, or replacing them, often keep us stuck in internal struggle. Her innovative Inner Message Approach™️ shows how negative thoughts hold hidden wisdom about your desires, challenges, and motivations. Discover practical techniques for self-awareness, mental clarity, and transforming your relationship with negative thoughts. 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Discover how to leverage Obsidian and Excalidraw to self-publish your book or create professional documents effortlessly. Check out the links in the video description for all the files and resources mentioned in this tut... youtube.com Zsolt's Visual Personal Knowledge Management 34:30 Apr 19th How much can you make building WordPress websites? If you’re like most of us, you’ve only seen the inner-workings of one agency; your own. Have you ever wondered how much other agency owners pay themselves? How about where they get their leads? Or if they struggle with some of the same challenges you’re facing? 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Clear Previous result Next result Done ⁠⁠It was a small moment at the WordPress DC Meetup. One of the creators of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, was in town. He had come to this monthly meeting at Fathom Creative to learn what the local community wanted in the next version of his web publishing software. The media library in WordPress was discussed. Mullenweg admitted that it is confusing and gets difficult to manage once you have lots of images in the library. A man in the audience brought up a technical issue he had with the library. Mullenweg explained that you could actually do what the man wanted to in WordPress but stated: This is a revolutionary statement. Mullenweg could have just told the man that “you’re doing it wrong” before telling him the “right” way to work with WordPress. Instead, the fact that users had problems with the media library told him that the software needed to be improved. It’s a contrary notion. We all adapt to clunky and ever-changing software, relearning the basic tasks needed to accomplish our work – where’d they move the print button? And we cope with this increasing complexity without complaint. Because no one wants to look stupid. You can’t figure out the ribbon in Microsoft Word? - Summary: It was a small moment at the WordPress DC Meetup. One of the creators of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, was in town. He had come to this monthly meeting at Fathom Creative to learn what the local community wanted in the next version of his web publishing software. The media library in WordPress was discussed. Mullenweg … Continue reading "The Software is Wrong, Not the People" - URL: https://joeflood.com/2011/07/13/the-software-is-wrong-not-the-people/ It was a small moment at the [WordPress DC Meetup](http://www.meetup.com/wordpressdc/). One of the creators of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, was in town. He had come to this monthly meeting at Fathom Creative to learn what the local community wanted in the next version of his web publishing software. The media library in WordPress was discussed. Mullenweg admitted that it is confusing and gets difficult to manage once you have lots of images in the library. A man in the audience brought up a technical issue he had with the library. Mullenweg explained that you could actually do what the man wanted to in WordPress but stated: This is a revolutionary statement. Mullenweg could have just told the man that “you’re doing it wrong” before telling him the “right” way to work with WordPress. Instead, the fact that users had problems with the media library told him that the software needed to be improved. It’s a contrary notion. We all adapt to clunky and ever-changing software, relearning the basic tasks needed to accomplish our work – where’d they move the print button? And we cope with this increasing complexity without complaint. Because no one wants to look stupid. You can’t figure out the ribbon in Microsoft Word? You must be the idiot, not the software. This is especially true in the world of content management systems for web sites. I’ve worked on large-scale web sites for more than a dozen years as a web editor, producer and site manager. I remember when we did things in HTML. I have fond memories for Claris HomePage. Compared to the complexity of [managing a large site in Dreamweaver](http://joeflood.com/2009/04/20/coding-html-by-hand-in-government/), a CMS seemed like a brilliant idea. Be careful what you wish for. Over time, I’ve had the fortune/misfortune to use nearly [every major CMS](http://joeflood.com/2010/04/22/whats-the-best-content-management-system/) out there. The simple publishing tools that we used back in the 90s “evolved” into massively complex structures requiring expensive experts to install and administer. CMS like SharePoint, Vignette and Percussion are punishing experiences for the user, turning the joyous task of writing into a machine-led death march. You enter your content and then engage in a series of database programming tasks, with the hope that at the end of it, if everything goes well, your article will appear in the correct format on the web site at the next publishing cycle. It’s no wonder that there’s so much bad writing online when the publishing tools are so lousy. WordPress is different. Being open-source, and closely tied to the community (would Steve Ballmer listen to your feedback?), it has a different philosophy – *“The software is wrong, not the people.”* Of course, it’s not perfect – the media library definitely needs some work – but it’s easy to use and adaptable. WordPress now powers more than [50 million web sites](http://mashable.com/2011/07/11/wordpress-50-million-websites/). And, most importantly of all, it’s software that people want to use. No one feels passionate about SharePoint. But they do about WordPress. This enthusiasm will lead to its greater adoption. Over time, the users will prevail. Joe Flood is a writer, photographer and web person from Washington, DC. The author of several novels, Joe won the City Paper Fiction Competition in 2020. In his free time, he enjoys wandering about the city taking photos. [View all posts by Joe Flood](https://joeflood.com/author/joeflood/), The Software Is Wrong, Not the People, Joe Flood, 01jsjfv4sp2hbafn96ha4dcehv.