Do Not Delete Comment Spam. Mark Spam as Spam.

Is comment spam one of the things that gets you down? Are you taking it personally? Are you confused by comment spam and how to handle it?

I’ve been speaking at a variety of meetups lately on web publishing, blogging, and podcasting, and the topics often turn to managing comments and comment spam. “I’ve started getting a lot of porn comments lately.” “I’m so sick of all those credit card spammers.” “I spend too much time and energy on comment spam, I just don’t know what to do.” “I seem to spend all my time deleting comment spam and it just keeps coming back.”

My answer is always the same: Use the Akismet WordPress Plugin on WordPress, Movable Type, Drupal, phpBB, Joomla, and other web publishing platforms. Mark comment spam as spam and do not delete it to help Akismet do its job.

It appears that I have to be more blatant. If you delete comment spam, you make matters worse, so let me make myself clear.

DO NOT DELETE COMMENT SPAM. MARK COMMENT SPAM AS SPAM.

Akismet works if we all work together. It’s a crowd sourced project. I mark a comment as spam and the data is transferred to Akismet’s database. You mark a similar comment as spam and Akismet begins to do the work of processing the data and filtering out comments across everyone using Akismet, thus, you don’t get the comment spam that I and some others got, and I don’t get the comment spam you and others marked as spam. Together we make the world a safer place to blog.

COMMENT SPAM IS NOT PERSONAL.

While there might be some jerk who likes sniping at you on your blog, comment spam is not personal.

The majority of comment spam is created by two different methods. The first and most common is by automation. A “bot” follows links to and from websites with comments to leave comments. Some bots are highly sophisticated and target sites by content related to subject matter and topics, which explains why that credit card or mortgage post receives more credit card and mortgage comment spams than your other posts.

A growing percentage of comment spam is created by humans called human spammers. Many of these are people moving up in the world from email spam to comment spam, all the same thing. Using low paying incentive sweat-shop projects to get people to search for high traffic and/or related content sites and putting on comments with links to their employer sites.

Akismet deals with both.

When you start to take comment spam personally, you may choose to put roadblocks in the path of your legitimate commenters and audiences. Don’t. CAPTCHAs are usually the first choice, the dumb number and spelling tests you have to fill out to prove you are a human being. Since most automated bots are programmed in very short time to break through every road block put in their path (if they didn’t they’d lose money), and human spammers can solve these in seconds, CAPTCHAs have been proven repeatedly to not work. Someone is always coming out with a better mouse trap, but trust me, Since about 2005, nothing has worked better consistently than Akismet.

Matt Mullenweg and his Automattic team came up with a powerful process of collecting comment spam data from every Akismet user and collating it into prevention filters. Take advantage of them and help them do their job to protect sites from comment spam.

Consider this a public service announcement. DO NOT DELETE COMMENT SPAM. MARK SPAM AS SPAM. If we all work together, we can make the world a happier place to blog.

Related Articles

• It Really Is Spam? – Akismet
• What is Comment Spam?
• Mean Spirited Comments and Blogging
• Monitoring Blog Comments
• Reporting Spam Blogs – Splogs
• How NOT to Comment on Comments
• Editing Your Blog Comments
• Do You Care Enough To Keep Your Blog Comment Spam Free?
• I’m Winning the Battle Against Comment Spam
• Are Blog Comments Getting You Down?
• Can We Work Together To Stop Comment Spam?
• Comment Spammers Never Stop, Even When Your Blog is Down
• Protecting Your WordPress Blog
• Attack of the Mean Commenter: Blocking Commenters and Comments on Your WordPress Blog
• What Will Stop Comment Spam? | The Blog Herald
• Checking WordPress for Comment Spam That Slips By You
• Fighting Comment Spam: WordPress Comments Mass Edit Mode
• When Akismet Goes Bad: What to do when Akismet starts spamming your own comments
• Blog Struggles: When Are Too Many Comments Too Many Comments?
• Are You Willing To Go Naked For One Day For Akismet?
• When a Comment Requires the Honest Truth
• Comment Spam Alert: I Read a Similar Article
• Blog Struggles: Trackbacks Count
• What are the Essential WordPress Plugins You Can’t Live Without?

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

WordCamp San Francisco August 4, 2012

WordCamp San Francisco 2012 is set for August 4 this year at the Mission Bay Conference Center.

A developer hack day is scheduled for August 5th, and a survey looking for the best WordCamp speakers is open for recommendations. I know it’s me, but who’s counting. Honestly, if you have attended a WordCamp in the past and fell in love with a powerful speaker, please let them know and they may be invited to speak before thousands at WordCamp San Francisco.

Details about the specific speakers, topics, and workshops are coming, but the WordCamp San Francisco 2012 blog has announced that 2012 WCSF sponsorship packages now available to help support the event, listing some of the event sponsors already in place.

WordCamp San Francisco is considered the main event of the year for the WordPress Community even though there are WordCamps around the world most weekends, bringing WordPress fans together to share tips, tricks, techniques, and showcase the many ways WordPress can be pushed and pulled in every direction. People come from around the world to WordCamp San Fransciso, but don’t forget your local events and user groups, too.

I’ve spoken at dozens of WordCamps since 2007 including some WordCamp San Franciscos, and they continue to be some of my favorite conferences in the world. I love the WordPress Community and meeting and sharing with them is truly a treasure. You can check out many WordCamp speakers and event videos on WordCampTV on WordPress.tv. It’s a huge library of some of the most brilliant minds around WordPress.

May Day Protests: Having Your Say Beyond the Web

Yesterday was the annual May Day protests across the United States. I stumbled upon the Portland, Oregon, May Day protest parade on my way to meet with the panel members for the WordPress Theme Panel at WebVisions 2012.

The power of the blog is the ability to have your say. A blog doesn’t guarantee the right to have that say, but it is a vehicle millions use around the world to let their voice be heard.

With the power of web publishing and social media to let your voice be heard, to defend your right, stand on a soap box, and blow some whistles, clearly the past two years have shown us that physically visible protests continue to carry weight when it comes to changing the world, or at least being heard.

The three block long protest march was small compared to other cities and past marches, but the passion was still present. Representatives from unions, immigrants, and workers of all types along with Occupy members peacefully, and slowly, moved through downtown Portland with an amazing array of police escorts and aerial surveillance. I spotted three helicopters and two airplanes circling over the heads of the sign carrying crowd.

If you want to be heard, use the web. It is a powerful vehicle. However, never forget that your physical presence in protest can speak much louder, especially when joined by like minds walking arm in arm.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

WordPress Theme Panel at WebVisions 2012

Webvisions is in Portland, Oregon, May 16-18, 2012, and I’ll be there presenting “Crank WordPress to 11” featuring four top WordPress designers and developers showcasing how they have pushed WordPress beyond traditional limits and taking your questions about how they do it and if WordPress can take it.

Friday, May 18, at 1:30PM, I’ll be rocking the Portland Convention Center with Mike Bijon of Metal Toad Media, Jeremy Wilson of Gravitate Design Studio, Taylor Dewey of 10up, and Don Elliott of Elliott Design.

For over eleven years, Webvisions has been a powerful conference for exploring the future of design, content creation, user experience, and business strategies on the web, bringing in people from around the country to this huge event.

Scott Frangos will be there presenting “WordPress, G+ Combo for Content Marketing.” I’ve listed the reasons I’m going and how hard my decisions are, debating between all the powerful speakers on UX, HTML5, CSS3, mobile, content strategies, and social media.

Registration ends soon and is available for the entire event or by the day.

The panel of local web developers and designers will specifically cover:

• Understanding and defining the “dynamic” elements in a WordPress Theme.
• Examples of truly rule breaking design tips and tricks in WordPress Theme development.
• How WordPress Plugins influence design and functionality and when to code within a Theme and when not.
• Exploring the process of Wireframes to Frameworks to WordPress Themes.
• Exploring the future of WordPress Theme development, integrating mobile, HTML5, CSS3, and beyond.

There is a free, open to the public hack-a-thon on Tuesday that usually generates some amazing projects and has launched a few startups. The top names in web publishing, coding, programming, design, and development will be there and all week, along with some powerful people rarely seen or heard that are the movers and shakers of the web today.

WordPress Theme Panel Speakers

The following are the amazing WordPress designers and developers panel members:

Mike Bijon of Metal Toad Media
A creative developer, Mike feels the best technology projects result from a balance of left and right brain perspective. Working with agencies, startups, and now Metal Toad Media in Portland Mike has led the technology side of projects for clients across many industries. He has helped and learned from Google, Lucas Arts, The Emmys, Lexus, and many other great companies. Now a believer in the open source community and a WordPress core contributor, Mike merges skills learned from enterprise CMS systems with first-career process design & machine learning skill from Chemical Engineering and graduate Applied Mathematics work. And, the human machine interface for Dreyer’s Ice Cream manufacturing system that started his tech career would have totally rocked if logic controllers could be fronted with HTML5 back then. Metal Toad Media is a design strategy agency, and clients include The National Parks, InFocus, The Emmys, HTML Cross Platform PRoject, Cisco YouTube Channel, Point Loma, Health Research for Action (UC Berkley), Verizon, Levis, and Zing.

Jeremy Wilson of Gravitate Design Studio
Jeremy is the local WordPress Guru for Vancouver-based Gravitate Design Studio. With over 13 years of web development experience, he’s a big fan of building websites that work — especially for the end user — and not just something aesthetically pleasing for the client. When he’s not making WordPress bend to his will, he can usually be found immersed in a podcast or audiobook, or dredging the history of video games to find something enjoyable he hasn’t tried yet. Gravitate Design Studio combines interactive design, custom web, ecommerce, and mobile development with digital marketing and branding, and print. Clients include World Bank, Beyond Borders, Makebeer.net, Landerholm Law, Ad Council, Comedian Brad Garrett, Bowen Design comic book designer, and James A. Rohde Consulting.

Taylor Dewey of 10up
Taylor creates websites for 10up, LLC – a company focused on building awesome, custom WordPress installations. Along with his coworkers, he wrangles code, perfects layouts, and extends core functionality to create custom experiences for clients such as 9to5mac, TechCrunch, and Universal Sports. He chose to work with the web 13 years ago because it is a medium where creativity and technology synergize and, as a virtual product, is constantly evolving into something better. 10up is a WordPress design and development specialty firm specializing in contributing to WordPress core development as well as serving WordPress.com VIP clients such as TechCrunch, Bates College, NBC Universal Sports, Trulia, Global Marketing Ops, 9to5 Mac, Resolute.VC, MoFuse, Hip2Save, and Saturday Market Project.

Don Elliott of Elliott Design
Don founded Elliott Design, Inc. in 2008 with a focus on branding, print, and web design. Developing exclusively in WordPress his company has focused intently on building robust, interactive web platforms with simple and intuitive UI’s. Don’s has a 15 year background in brand development for small to medium size businesses, with a heavy focus on web presence. Some of his clients include Dry Fly Distilling, Adidas, Cliff Bar, Deep Green the Film, Foggia PR, Rylander Law, Almar Tools, Director’s Mortgage, Hasson Realty, Peaks Frozen Yogurt.

Register now and help me put these experts to the test with your great questions. See you there!

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

201 WordPress Books

As part of my project to bring WordPress into colleges nationally, I did a quick survey of how many books have been published about WordPress.

I was asked by several major publishers to publish the first book in English on WordPress but had to decline due to my traveling schedule and work load, so it’s exciting to take pause and look back at all the books that have been published about WordPress since, and all the creative angles and perspectives these books have taken to approach WordPress. Topics include basic WordPress instruction, WordPress Plugin development, WordPress Themes, security, monetization, autoblogging, content management and strategies, code, programming, tricks, tips, and techniques…with some surprises tossed into the mix such as using WordPress within a library system.

More 200 books have been published on WordPress since 2006 – as listed on Amazon.com. I haven’t researched the Library of Congress or international book publishers lists. I took the lazy way out. Amazon features WordPress books by major technical and textbook publishers as well as self-published books and a lot of self-published ebooks, proving that anyone with some simple computer skills can whip out a book on WordPress. This is delightful as one of the great joys in working with WordPress is helping people have their say, and a lot of people say it with and about WordPress. I also didn’t include DVDs and CDs, nor the multiple titles for the same ebook, and books which combined WordPress with too many other subjects, trying to stick to readable material fairly focused on WordPress.

The list is below the jump but here are some interesting bits of WordPress book publishing trivia I uncovered.

The first book in the world published exclusively about WordPress was “WordPress Compactly” (roughly translated) by Stephan Lamprecht in German consisting of 140 pages and published by Internet Magazines (IPro). The book featured the bare essentials of how to use WordPress and highlighted the the Witty Text and Spam Karma WordPress Plugins and how to modify the then default WordPress Theme, Kubrick.

The first book published about WordPress in English by a major publisher was “Building Online Communities With Drupal, phpBB, and WordPress” by Robert T. Douglass, Mike Little and Jared W. Smith on December 16, 2005. I’ve an advance copy of the book on my bookshelf that I can’t bring myself to toss, it’s such a part of WordPress history.

The first book published exclusively about WordPress in English is “WordPress 2″ by my friend, Maria Langer and Miraz Jordan. It was published July 9, 2006.

The largest book ever published about WordPress is the “sequel” book to “WordPress for Dummies” by Lisa Sabin-Wilson titled “WordPress All-in-One for Dummies.” Additional authors include Cory Miller, Kevin Palmer, Andrea Rennick, and Michael Torbert. The book has a shipping weight of 3 pounds, consists of 912 pages, and is a combination of 8 hypothetical (not previously published) books on WordPress covering everything from the basics to WordPress MS. My advance copy has served well as a door-stop, and making it easy to grab on my way to training and educational programs along with a stack of other examples.

In 2012, according to Amazon.com, 56 books are scheduled to be published, re-released as new editions, or have been published so far this year (as of today’s casual count). Seriously, how many books should their be on WordPress? Not enough it seems. How exciting to see such energy, enthusiasm, and demand for WordPress topics nine years after WordPress hit the web.

How to Set the WordPress Twenty-Eleven Theme Showcase Slider to Auto-Advance

Using the fantastic and flexible Twenty-Eleven WordPress Theme and its showcase template front page and slider? Wish the showcase slider would slide automatically? I’ve found the answer.

The Twenty-Eleven WordPress Theme features a pseudo-static front page template called “showcase.” When set as the “home” page template with the blog as “blog,” you have the option to add a slider with sticky posts. Add another and it automatically converts to a slider. Add a featured post image and your slider becomes highly visual.

By default, the slider must be changed manually by the visitor by clicking the “dots” over the right top section of the slider. In theory, this is preferred in order to meet some government laws for accessible websites where nothing should move, jump, shake, rattle, or roll without the action being initiated by the user. Regardless of the access laws, most people want the slider to advance automatically.

There have been quite a few attempts to pin down how to advance it safely across various browser issues with little success. Kevin Deldycke put together a solution for the slider auto-advance, and showcased a unique way of applying that solution.

Changing the Twenty-Eleven Showcase Slider to Auto-Advance

In a perfect world, you would copy the header.php template file into a Child Theme, protecting the original, and add the following JavaScript code within the head HTML section of the template file. For long time protection of the script and the Theme, this is the “right” way to add the auto-advance option.

Kevin came up with a simpler and faster way which works great if you trust yourself or your client not to mess with things. NOTE: This will not work on WordPress.com sites.

Instead of adding the the JavaScript to the header.php or other template file, paste the JavaScript into a text widget in the Showcase sidebar with no title. The Showcase page template on the Twenty-Eleven Theme can display different content than what is found on the main sidebars, thus restricting the JavaScript from loading on every page, just on the front page where it is needed.

For posterity, the script for auto-advancing the Twenty-Eleven WordPress Theme Slider is:

<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">
    // Auto-advance the Twenty-Eleven Showcase slider 
    // by Kevin Deldycke http://kevin.deldycke.com/2011/12/auto-advance-wordpress-twentyeleven-showcase-slides/
    // Source: http://pastebin.com/s6JEthVi
    jQuery(document).ready(function(){
        var change_every = 5; // The number of seconds that the slider will auto-advance in
        var current = 1;
        function auto_advance(){
            if(current == -1) return false;
            jQuery('.feature-slider a').eq(current % jQuery('.feature-slider a').length).trigger('click', [true]);
            current++;
        };
        setInterval(function(){auto_advance()}, change_every * 1000);
    });
</script>

To change the interval, edit the number on the line indicating the number of seconds the slider will auto-advance. I typically choose 8 as it gives people time to look, read, and decide, and it isn’t too annoying.

Kevin Deldycke has further instructions and the code is also stored on Pastebin for reference and usage.

Now, let’s look at some things you need to know about using the Twenty-Eleven Showcase Slider.

Using the Twenty-Eleven Showcase Slider

Posts are added to the Twenty-Eleven Showcase Slider by setting the Post Visibility to Stick this post to the front page.

The Showcase template file has a conditional tag post query that tests to see if the post is sticky. If it is, it displays it at the top of the front page. If there is more than one, it switches the display to the slider showcasing the sticky posts.

The Twenty-Eleven Showcase page template file also tests for a featured image, then applies a test for size.

If the image is the same size or larger than the header art, 1000 x 288 pixels for the Twenty-Eleven WordPress Theme, it displays the image the width of the slider area making it a background image with the post title over it. No post text is displayed, only the post title, so make it a good one.

If the featured image is smaller than the header art, it is displayed on the right side of the post with the post title and excerpt on the left side. This is exciting as it gives you options to create wide or smaller images in the slider. However, there is one small issue you might want to consider, and consider changing.

If the featured post image is the same size or larger than the header art, the Twenty-Eleven Showcase page template will the featured post image as the header art on the single post pageview. This means your header art, the one you worked so hard on for branding and site identity, will be replaced on that post with the featured post image.

If you don’t mind having your header art switched on a per post basis, stay with this feature. If you do, see the instructions on replacing or removing the default header image on the Twenty-Eleven Theme by Piet Bos.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

Prove it! Kym Huynh Bio Reloaded

In my Prove It! campaign article series recently, by request I ripped apart the personal and professional site of Kym Huynh in “Prove It: Kym Huynh Exposed.” Using my advice, he’s updated the two key pages I attacked on his site, the front page and about page, and the results are spectacular.

The goals of the Prove It! campaign are to get you rethinking what you put on the web and how it represents you, whichever “you” you are on the web. It’s about publishing content with intent, community building, some SEO and traffic building exercises, but mostly it is about helping you expose yourself to your audience so they trust and respect you and what you have to share with the world

Kym’s bio and front page were packed with information about him, the things he’s been involved with, but it was confusing. The two pages said basically the same thing and didn’t reveal enough to make me interested from any angle. He did too much and it felt verbally cluttered and weak. While it was impressive, it didn’t compel me towards action.

As a reminder, my summary conclusion was:

As a clear welcome statement and landing page, Kym’s welcome bio is perfectly placed. It accomplishes its goals: Introduction.

However it leads nowhere. There are few calls to action and nothing to compel me to dig deeper and really learn more about who he is and what he does and why I must want to get to know him. It’s critical that some follow-thru be a part of the tweaks to his layout and design. I need more calls to action.

Who you are on your site is an integration of all the things you are, not just your bio. Kym is many things so why not celebrate them all and let us peek behind the scenes to see the real intelligence behind the pretty face and bio. Then the entire site, not just the bio, would meet his goals.

His follow-through on that advice was stunning.

Kym beefed up his front page with the complete definition of who and what he is and what motivates him in every decision he makes. He’s a driven man and he pulled the curtain back on his back story to help us understand the whole picture.

The front page now begins with:

WordPress Stats Infographic of WordPress World

Using some of the stats from my recent article on WordPress Stats, Yoast did some more research and created a new WordPress Stats Infographic to feature the statistical information on WordPress visually.

What is most interesting about the new research his team found, building upon my own research, are the following:

• 48% of the top 100 blogs use WordPress as their CMS. 39% are self-hosted and 9% are hosted on WordPress.com.
• In the United Kingdom, WordPress is ten times as popular as Drupal and Joomla, representing almost 54% as of March 2012.
• 93% of the websites in the United States are using WordPress, compared to 4.17% for Drupal and 2.34% for Joomla.
• ODesk lists WordPress as the fifth most requested skill for those offering or seeking WordPress jobs.

As we look at all the numbers around WordPress and the recent article in Smashing Magazine on the WordPress economy by Siobhan McKeown, we’re finding a seriously stable base of support and personal and commercial self-interest in continuing to use WordPress.

Are you making your living on WordPress? Share your story and I may feature it in an upcoming article series.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.

What are the Essential WordPress Plugins You Can’t Live Without?

In my WordPress session at Barcamp Portland this past weekend, one of my favorite questions started the discussion: What are the most essential, must-have WordPress Plugins?

My answer? None.

Okay, not really. My honest answer is one: Akismet.

Spam is the bane of our web experience. It comes in our emails and site comments. While filters have long been improving for email, it was the work of some amazing people behind Akismet who said we ain’t going to take this any more. Akismet is crowd-sourced spam control. You mark a comment as spam and another blogger flags it as spam…soon Akismet gets the message and the rest of us don’t get that spam comment. The 3-10 comment spams you have to deal with daily are nothing compared to the hundreds to thousands prevented from hammering your site each day.

That’s a WordPress Plugin I can’t live without, nor should you.

As for the rest of the essential, must-have WordPress Plugins, there are none. Honestly.

Here is a sample of those who disagree with me recently.

• 20 Essential WordPress Plugins to Turbocharge your blog in 2012 – MoneyCTL.com
• 10 Essential Plugins for Your WordPress Blog – SproutSocial
• 8 Essential WordPress Plugins for the New Blogger – The Next Web
• The 32 Essential WordPress Plugins to Keep Your Blog Amazing – Erin Smith
• Setting Up Your Site: 7 Essential WordPress Plugins – DNF Blog
• 5 Essential WordPress Plugins for Beginners – Fuel Your Blogging
• 10 Must Have WordPress Plugins Of 2012 Every Blogger Should Know About – Jeffbullas’s Blog
• 16 Essential WordPress Plugins Every Blog Must Have – OurTuts.com
• 19 Essential WordPress Plugins for Your Blog – @ProBlogger
• 10 Essential WordPress Plugins For Your Blog – Quick Blog Tips
• 11 Essential WordPress Plugins To Get Your Blog In Motion – Social Media Examiner
• 7 Essential WordPress Plugins for Your Blog – The Social Craft
• Top WordPress Plugins Every Blog Should Have – Yoast

Why do I disagree with them? Because your site is special and shouldn’t be treated like everyone else. The WordPress Plugins you must have are the ones you can’t live without.

Learn from them. Listen to their advice, but decide for yourself which WordPress Plugins are most essential to your site.

Help Needed with WebVisions WordPress Theme Developers Panel

Webvisions is in Portland, Oregon, May 16-18, 2012, and I’ll be there again this year leading an awesome panel of WordPress Theme designers and developers, and I need your help.

For over eleven years, Webvisions has been the go to conference for exploring the future of design, content creation, user experience, and business strategies on the web. The world flocked to Portland, Oregon, to enjoy the multi-day WebVisions event with thousands of attendees and dozens of top notch developers and designers sharing their visionary expertise. This year, WebVisions was in New York in January, and will be in Barcelona July 5-7, and Chicago and Atlanta this fall. Executive Director Brad Smith is making his personal vision and dream come true and bringing his innovative creative web conference to an international audience eager to help shape the future of the web.

Registration is open with an early bird discount ending very soon, so put this on your schedule, vacation plans, and agenda now. Portland is a great place to visit, too.

I will be hosting a panel of WordPress Theme designers and developers covering the cutting edge techniques of design and development. We’ll be talking about how design meets code to generate powerful integration and content management with WordPress.

The panel of local web developers and designers will specifically cover:

• Understanding and defining the “dynamic” elements in a WordPress Theme.
• Examples of truly rule breaking design tips and tricks in WordPress Theme development.
• How WordPress Plugins influence design and functionality and when to code within a Theme and when not.
• Exploring the process of Wireframes to Frameworks to WordPress Themes.
• Exploring the future of WordPress Theme development, integrating mobile, HTML5, CSS3, and beyond.

How Can You Help?

The recent Portland WordPress Meetup discussed how to hire a WordPress developers and a lively part of the discussion was on defining the differences between a designer, developer, programmer, and coder. Is it possible to specialize in WordPress Themes without familiarity with the code?

I’d like your help in defining the spirit and skills of a WordPress Theme designer versus developer to add to the conversation for this panel.

How do you decide to choose a WordPress designer or developer? What are the skills that qualify someone to be one or the other? Do you have a checklist that defines a web designer or developer? If you call yourself a WordPress designer, developer, programmers, or coder, how did you make that decision? Do you specialize or do it all? What defines these titles?

Your input will help to define the panel topics and help us give WebVisions a rousing dose of the BEST of the WordPress Community.

WordPress Stats and Numbers: Breaking Their Own Records

Working on developing a core of WordPress classes for Clark College and preparing for the next “Introduction to WordPress” college course in a couple weeks, I’ve put together some statistics on WordPress you might find helpful – and stunning. WordPress continues to break records set by others, but more often lately, break records set by itself.

As of 2011, estimates are that 25% of all websites are published with WordPress. As of March 2012, WordPress is on 72.4 million sites in the world. WordPress.com hosts about half of them.

As of a moment today, WordPress 3.3, the latest version, has been downloaded 12,179,538 times, continuing to break previous version records for downloads and upgrades. There have been 98 version releases of WordPress, and the release numbers have stayed fairly consistent since the version 1.2 to 1.5 jump.

Key releases of WordPress are named for jazz musicians and so far include Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, Billy Strayhorn, classical, Ella Fitzgerald, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, McCoy Tyner, John Coltrane, Chet Baker, Carmen McRae, Thelonious Monk, Django Reinhardt, George Gershwin, and Sonny Stitt. Among all the jazz legends is the name Ronan Boren. This was the first child born within the WordPress core development team family, son of Ryan Boren. He was born October 10, 2006, and WordPress 2.0.5 was released October 27, 2006, and named for this future WordPress developer. Few people also know that WordPress 0.71 was named “gold” and version 1.0 was named “platinum.”

WordPress is an Open Source web publishing, content management system platform. It consists of a free self-hosted version for those with independently hosted servers known as WordPress.org, a free hosted version on WordPress.com, and a WordPress Multisite (MS) version for publishing multiple sites under a parent site, such as WordPress.com and many companies and educational institutions use to offer “departmentalized” content under their umbrella. WordPress installations are extended by the use of WordPress Plugins which add additional features and functions, and WordPress Themes, the easily set design layer for the site.

What My First WordPress College Class Taught Me

As the last day of class approaches for the world’s first WordPress College Course at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, and the next one begins in a couple weeks (filling fast), I’d like to share some lessons my students taught me about WordPress – and teaching.

The first class on WordPress at Clark College, Vancouver, Washington

They taught me humility and pride. I stand truly humbled in front of them, dazzled at their brilliance in word, design, and code. I’m proud because in spite of me as a novice Adjunct Professor, they succeeded. Dazzlingly so. I will miss each one and the way they creatively attacked WordPress and made it theirs. Luckily, I will continue working with them as they now serve as the new leaders in WordPress education to help get WordPress into the core curriculum in Washington State and around the country and further.

I also learned a lot about WordPress, and teaching and training WordPress. After 18 years teaching and training content strategies, user experience, web design and development, and 8 years of WordPress, I thought I had it all figured out. The students and general public attending the WordPress class at Clark College challenged me with new ways of thinking about WordPress and web publishing.

The students came from a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. Some were on their last few months of school, ready to complete their two or three year degrees in web design, development, and programming. A few of these will make WordPress their design and development choice, counting upon WordPress for their future income. Some were business professionals eager to get more WordPress knowledge and experience and WordPress as a college course on their resume. Others were writers, authors, and editors eager to learn more about how to use WordPress in their jobs. Some had advanced technical code experience and some could barely use a web browser. It was all over the map and truly representative of WordPress users around the world.

In other words, a great ecosystem of WordPress users to teach me more about how WordPress works or should work.

Blogger’s Agreement

In 2005, the The Center for Teaching at the University of Iowa created a collection of PDF files to support their Social Media & Technology in the Classroom teaching resources. Among the well thought out documents on using blogs and podcasts in the classroom and how to incorporate social media is the Bloggers Agreement (PDF).

For posterity, I’d like to reproduce it here as I think it is one of the most valuable guidelines everyone who publishes anything on the web, including updates to Facebook, pictures and discussions of their lunch on Twitter, and great pontifications (and videos) on Google+, should have printed out and stuck to their wall where they can see it before they hit publish or submit. I use this in my WordPress and blogging training and workshops, as well as in my WordPress college course.

Blogger’s Agreement

Understanding that blogging is a real and important form of writing and self-expression, student and teacher bloggers must agree to be honest, truthful, and kind. Exchanging and publishing ideas can help people in new and important ways. But in this writing, there are risks and important responsibilities.

To be a responsible online writer, I promise that when I write, I will:

• honestly express truthful thoughts and ideas. If someone asks, I will be able to prove that what I write is true;
• always treat all people with respect. I will never write to cause harm or to hurt the feelings of others;
• never do anything to cause harm to computers I am writing on. I will set a good example for others;
• do my absolute best to write truthful and useful information. If I make a mistake, I will fix it;
• always write in a way that protects the identity of my classmates, my family, and myself;
• always write in a way that brings respect and honor to my school, my family, and myself;

It includes a signature spot for the instructor and the student along with the date as a commitment to follow the agreement.

Defying Brute Force Attacks on WordPress Logins

Sucuri, the web security specialists, published “Brute force attacks against WordPress sites,” an in depth look at not just the importance of a strong password but the brute force nature and anatomy of login and registration access attacks.

There is a technique known as brute-force attack. Like the name implies, access is gained to your environment through brute force. Often conducted by bots, these attacks will run through a compiled list of common passwords and their permutations (i.e., password, Pa$$w0rd, p@ssw0rd, etc..). Yes, the attackers know that you substitute ‘A’ for an ‘@’ and ‘S’ for a ‘$’. Using this method the attackers are gaining access to your wp-admin, this then allows them to serve spam via your posts, deface your home page like we recently saw with ServerPro, and inject any one of the other types of malware roaming the interwebs.

Because of the consistency and prevalence of these attacks, we decided to test it for ourselves. We created a couple different honey pots with the intent of identifying the types of passwords being used, and to better understand the anatomy of these attacks. It didn’t take long. Within a few days, we had captured so much data that we had to share it with you.

The article features a list of the most common passwords used across all secure logins as well as WordPress, and used in these brute force login attacks. By now you should all know that the most common password used worldwide is “password,” proof that we somehow never learn. I’ve written extensively on how to create a strong password, and it appears it’s time for another lesson, especially on how to deal with the famous “admin” login issue with WordPress.

It’s also time to remind you to update WordPress whenever there is an announcement of a mandatory security release. Don’t wait. There are evil doers just waiting for security vulnerabilities on older, out-of-date versions of WordPress, PHP, MySQL, etc. Update immediately and don’t risk your site.

Spring Quarter Introduction to WordPress College Course Begins April 10

It’s hard to believe that the first ever full college course on WordPress is coming to an end, with a new one beginning April 10, 2012, but here we are, and time is running out to get your seat in this Introduction to WordPress course.

If you live in the Portland, Oregon, or Southwest Washington State area, or consider it worth the visit, the deadline is now to register for the Spring Quarter “Introduction to WordPress,” a four credit class at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon. Clark College has an amazingly low credit hour fee with discounts for Vets and refugees. The 10-week, 40 hour course is just over USD $400 for residents. Beginning April 10 through June 18, the class is Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6-8PM.

The demand for this type of college course has been incredibly high, with coverage in local newspapers and international websites and blogs. I’ve had requests from around the world to teach or help other schools bring such a course to their curriculum. It’s amazing!

The number of seats is limited to 20. We’ve only a few seats left and I wanted to open this up to non-students, to any business professional, small business owner, web designer, web publisher, or anyone who needs to get WordPress on their resume or learn how to create their own website or blog, so hurry. We might not be offering this course during the summer, so the next chance will be Fall Quarter.

Registration is through Clark College. Contact the Clark College Computer Technology Office (CTEC), Reesa McAllister at 360-992-2106 for details. You will need the following when you call: Item Number 6573 and Course ID CTEC 280.

What Will You Learn?

If there is a single testimony to be had from the first full credit college course on WordPress it came from student Leiulf Clausen of About Sound and Vision. He declared the best testimonial for the class was the fact that the same butts were in chairs at the end of the quarter as at the beginning. For most college classes, this is unheard of as the attrition rate is often high. I’m proud (and stunned) to say that we haven’t lost a single student during the entire course. They wanted this that much and were determined to see it through in spite of personal and family crisis, weather, hard work, and competing classes. I’m so proud of them all.

I listed all the details on what you will learn in my first announcement about the Clark College Introduction to WordPress class, and I want to expand upon that by showing off a little of what the students have done.

The students were required to get a blog on WordPress.com for the duration of the class. If they wished to continue it afterwards, it was up to them. While their sites exist, you can find the list at Clark College Student Sites on Learning from Lorelle. They were encouraged to find a WordPress Theme and customize it, and use all of the WordPress Plugins and features that come with WordPress.com.

The following are screen captures of the student sites to give you an example of the amazing creativity and diversity in the class. It’s also a great testimony to what is possible with WordPress.com.

As an introduction to WordPress, I taught the basics of how to set up a WordPress.com and WordPress site, how to blog with WordPress, editing and content management, analytics, basic SEO, managing multiple contributors, site customization, and an introduction to WordPress Themes and Plugins. This class will be a prerequisite for future WordPress-specific college courses dealing with Themes, Plugins, and site management. All the class homework and many of the notes and related information are found in my teaching blog, Learning from Lorelle (Lorelle Teaches).

This is an ideal class for those wishing to learn or expand their core WordPress skills, add them to their skill set, or earn ongoing education credit for work. With so many employers looking for WordPress expertise from their advertising, marketing, social media, web, and IT departments, this is an ideal program.

It is also a flexible program based upon student abilities. The students arrive with a huge gulf between expertise levels, extreme beginners with little or no familiarity with WordPress and others with WordPress and web design experience eager to get WordPress on their college transcripts and resumes. By the third week, most of the students are at the same core level and by the fifth week, the interests of the majority of students help direct which way the class goes, expanding more upon web publishing, multimedia content, Themes and Child Themes, and troubleshooting WordPress code, Themes, and Plugins, with something for everyone.

Clark College has one of the most amazing web design, digital graphics, computer science and technology, and computer and web programming programs around. I urge you to take advance of their low tuition and add some related courses such as HTML Fundamentals and Introduction to PHP to complement the WordPress class. Check their Course Catalog for more information.

This has truly been a dream come true experience. The first steps in bringing a full WordPress course into the curriculum is underway and I’ll more news on that soon, along with lessons learned, amazing revelations, and great tips for teaching WordPress. The popularity and enthusiastic support for the program from students, faculty and the business community is incredible. It’s exciting to see WordPress embraced as the key choice in web publishing today.

I hope to see you in class! Register now to get your butt in one of the precious 20 seats in the class. And thanks for helping to spread the word.

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen.