Dallas WordCamp Day 2

By Daniel Dessinger

March 30, 2008

We're live at Day Two of Dallas WordCamp.The WordPress Podcast is recording live from Frisco Town Hall. On the panel is Jonathan Bailey, Charles Stricklin, Mark Jaquith, Lorelle VanFossen and Mark Ghosh.

Matt Mullenweg just showed up to join the panel discussion about WordPress 2.5 and plugin performance.

Matt: To determine which plugins to use for which versions, be sure to review the ratings and number of downloads on the Plugin Directory and also check the Support Forum.

Matt: On issues of security, the best thing you can do is to keep your WordPress version up to date.

Discussing the future of WP themes and quality control… look for theme ratings coming soon.

Matt: Truemors, Rolling Stone Magazine, People Magazine, About.com blogs, NASA, Harvard, Flickr and hundreds more sites you wouldn't guess all run on WordPress.

Mark: Apple's students blog runs on WP too.

Question: why do i have to select the wordwrap check box in order to see the html version of the post i'm writing?

Matt: let's take a look at that after the podcast.

Mark: The Sandbox theme is really cool because it tags every post with days, weeks, and months.

Matt: Sandbox is incredibly detailed, which is its weakness for new users. If you download Movable Type today, it's 4-5 MB. I think we're around 2. I want to see WordPress remain small and easily downloadable.

Matt: I'd be open to a new stylesheet to the Classic theme. I'm personally fond of Regalus. You can do really deep sites with it. It can work well for a CMS type blog.

Matt: things I hate about WordPress… I'd like to make the navigation setup easier to modify.When you click on an image popup on the WYSIWYG, you should be able to add captions and creative commons license more easily.

Question: is the Digg Effect too big a problem for WordPress?

Mark: it's definitely a problem, especially if you're on a shared host and/or you aren't using Super Cache plugin or WP-Cache plugin.

Matt: i'm in an unusual position because i now know a LOT about traffic on WordPress blogs. The problems with going down due to spikes in traffic are caused by web server configurations. TechCrunch had this issue a year and a half or two ago, and since we modified their web server settings, they've had no problems.

Mark Ghosh: In my experience, it's 99% of the time a server problem and not the code. If you keep things simple and you don't have really intrusive plugins like the Bad Behavior plugin. Their tables need to be optimized EVERY HOUR on heavily trafficked sites. I would be very careful with some plugins on heavily trafficked sites. I personally don't think that the Digg Effect has anything to do with WordPress code.

Matt: if a host shuts you down due to the Digg Effect, let me know. Their are hosts that are shutting sites down for NOTHING. So let me know. The hosts that we partner with are well configured handle the Digg Effect. I don't know if every hosting company we partner with is 100% optimized to handle this issue, but they WILL be within a few months.

End of WordPress Podcast session. Break.

Aaron Brazell from B5 Media on WordPress FAQ