WordPress Wednesday News: WordPress Plugin Winners, 2.3 Beta, WordCamp in Beijing and Israel, WordPress.com Banned in Turkey, and More WordPress News

Lorelle VanFossen

Aug. 29, 2007
7 min read

Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition winners announced. WordPress 2.3 Beta is out. WordCamp Beijing is this weekend, and WordCamp Israel is coming in October. WordPress.com is now banned in Turkey and Thailand – are you speaking out against this? I’ve got information and news on Akismet, updated WordPress Plugins, Theme news, and a lot more news for WordPress fans.

WordPress News

International WordCamps: WordCamp Beijing is scheduled for September 1, 2007, this weekend, with Registration active now and an interesting Schedule of Speakers.

WordCamp Israel will be in October and there is now an English Version of WordCamp Israel. They are looking for sponsors and are lining up some top notch speakers. There is a huge blogging community in Israel, so this should be an exciting event.

Update WordPress: The latest beta version for WordPress 2.3 Beta 1 is available for testers. The final version of that release should be out next week. WordPress 2.2.2 and 2.0.11 are security-related upgrades, thus are mandatory upgrades for all full version WordPress users.

WordPress 2.3 News: The next version of WordPress 2.3 will be out next week and with it finally comes the long awaited built-in tagging functions, as described in WordPress 2.3 Taxomony Schema by Ryan Boren and by WPDesigner, Plugin and core update notification, faster javascript, and SEO-friendly URL redirection.

Winners of the Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition: The winners are in and they are:

Congrats to all! These are fantastic WordPress Plugins and we are all winners because of these creative and generous folks.

WordPress on Your Calendar: While these dates have been changing a bit recently, here are the dates as they stand today you might want to put on your calendar regarding WordPress releases, as found on the WordPress Roadmap:

WordPress 2.2.3 – September 5, 2007
WordPress 2.0.12 – September 15, 2007
WordPress 2.3 – September 24, 2007 (at least ready for testing then release) – to include tags and improved caching among many other new features under the hood.
WordPress 2.4 – January 15, 2008 – to include a new WordPress Administration Panel interface, improved caching, and a lot of bug fixes and improvements.
WordPress 2.5 – May 5, 2008
July 2008 – WordCamp 2008 in San Francisco (okay – this is speculative but it helps to plan ahead)

Browser Stats on WordPress.com: Matt Mullenweg shares the browser statistics for WordPress.com, and while it covers the more than million blogs there, it basically matches the numbers on my blogs with 62% Internet Explorer users, 30% Firefox, and the rest “other” browsers. The interesting bit in the statistics were that 64% of Internet Explorer users are using 6.0 and 35% using the latest version. So much for that “forced” upgrade that so many feared. Another interesting statistic was in operating systems, with Windows users at 90%.

Vote for WordPress Ideas: Did you know you could have your say in how WordPress works? I recently added an idea for consideration on blacklisting IP addresses from feeds to help prevent splogs and scrapers from stealing your content off your blog and using it. This would be invaluable for WordPress.com users, as well as non-technical WordPress users to help them have more control over who has access to their content through their feeds.

You can add your idea, too, and vote on any of the ideas to push them to the top in getting them added or removed from WordPress future versions. The WordPress Ideas section on WordPress is an open forum for you to have your say. Why not take advantage of it and add your voice to the vote.

WordPress.com News

Akismet Counts and Scores: If you are a WordPress or WordPress.com users and are annoyed by the occasional bug with Akismet where the “score” doesn’t match what appears in the Akismet queue, the answers to the Akismet count/spam queue issue is on the WordPress.com Forums.

In that discussion, you will also find answers to many of the questions WordPress.com bloggers have about Akismet:

Akismet cannot be turned off on WordPress.com.
Spam that sits in the spam queue for more than 15 days is automatically deleted. Forever.
On WordPress.com, ALL comments that Akismet thinks is spam should show up in the spam queue, irregardless of how old the post is that receives the comment.
The issues WordPress.com users maybe having with Akismet are associated with WordPress.com, so contact the WordPress.com Forums or WordPress.com Feedback for help, not Automattic.

No WordPress.com Access in Turkey: Matt Mullenweg has released an update on the blockage of WordPress.com blogs from Turkey by court order. In the first announcement of the ban, and the the follow-up explanation on why, it seems the blockage is due to a court decision in response to a “failure” of WordPress.com to remove blog content by and in reference to a “defamer” of Islam and Turkey. Instead of calmly requesting removal or action against the offending site in question, the courts issued a blanket penalty against the whole WordPress.com community. Now, they want WordPress.com (and all blog services) to be able to take action to remove all posts with a specific word or name within the content. CJ Writer shares an “open letter” to the Turkish Ambassador on behalf of all WordPress.com bloggers and bloggers in Turkey that might motivate a letter of your own. What are your thoughts on this? Should countries have the right to take such sweeping actions? What should WordPress.com do?

No WordPress.com Access in Thailand? According to Global Voices, WordPress.com is now blocked in Thailand.

Honoring the Languages of WordPress.com Blogs and Bloggers: As mentioned last week, the Turkish courts have banned access to WordPress.com blogs from within Turkey. To honor WordPress.com blogs written in Turkish, I decided I would list the top ten blogs in Türkçe in this week’s celebration of the international nature of the free WordPress.com blogging service. To translate these into another language, you may use Google’s Translate Tools by copying and pasting in the link into the “translate web page” option.

New Blog Statistics Charts: The blog statistics on WordPress.com blogs has been improved with the addition of three ways to view your blog statistics charts, by days, weeks, and months, giving you a better perspective on your blog’s activity and traffic.

What’s Hot on WordPress.com? The hottest blogs on WordPress.com were:

The hottest blog posts on WordPress.com were:

WordPress Plugins and Themes News

Fan of Viper’s Video Quicktags? The popular Viper’s Video Quicktags WordPress Plugin has been updated. This is a great Plugin for easy embedding of various video types into your WordPress blog using quicktag buttons right on your Write Post panel.

Urban Giraffe Redirection WordPress Plugin: The popular Urban Giraffe Redirection WordPress Plugin has also been updated. This Plugin helps you manage 301 redirections and keeps track of 404 errors, an important tool for helping you keep your blog posts in order and found on your blog.

Web Design Checklist: Smashing Magazine offers “10 Designer’s Checkpoints To Be Aware Of”, a great list of resources beyond using a validator for checking your web page design and WordPress Theme.

Fix for Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin: Quark-o-blog offers the Ultimate Tag Warrior fix for WordPress 2.2.1 which may allow the popular Ultimate Tag Warrior WordPress Plugin to work in the latest version of WordPress.

Security Vulnerable WordPress Themes: Blog Security has released their “Top 10 Vulnerable WordPress Themes”, a list of Themes which feature some of the common WordPress template flaws. Consider checking your WordPress Theme if you are a designer, author, or tweaker to see if your WordPress Theme is vulnerable.

WordPress Theme Tutorials: Blogging Bits offers “8 Wordpress Theme Tutorials You Don’t Want To Miss”, a good listing of “how to design a WordPress Theme” guides and tutorials that cover some basics and tweaks to building a Theme from scratch.

Tips on How To Find a Safe WordPress Theme: Pro Blog Designs shares “5 Steps To Test a Theme That Won’t Get You Banned From Google”, a good list of steps to check a WordPress Theme for inappropriate links and other unwanted elements.

Finding WordPress Plugins: For more WordPress Plugins see the official WordPress Plugin Directory, WordPress Plugins Database, and Weblog Tools Collection of WordPress Plugins released daily.

Most Popular WordPress Themes: The WordPress Theme Viewer has been cleaned up and now features 1,626 WordPress Themes with 6,596,776 downloads. The most popular WordPress Themes are:

WordPress Techniques and Tips

Here are some featured articles and videos from around the WordPress Community and the WordPress Codex, the online manual for WordPress Users, the source to turn to first for your WordPress help.

NOTE: If you would like your WordPress tip and technique included in this list, see Tips For Writing Good WordPress Tips.

WordPress Community News

Akismet as a Verb: One of the ways to determine when a brand reaches maximum exposure is when the brand name becomes a verb. We “google” to indicate a search on the web. We blow our nose with “kleenex” not tissues. And now, in My Sites Advisor’s post on comment policies, comes the following:

Of course, spamming would hurt you more and people would akismet you without a second thought…

Look out, your poorly formed comment could be akismetted. Or is that akismeted?

Mark Jaquith Needs a WordPress Title: Mark Jaquith, WordPress Code Wrangler (in my opinion), needs a title for his work with WordPress. So far, he’s come up with Code Mangler, but many are offering some interesting options. Want to help?

WordPress Jobs: WordPress Jobs is a new “service” announced by Weblog Tools Collection. It features jobs for WordPress experts and WordPress experts looking for work. Currently, the service is free as it is still in beta testing. Give it try.

WordPress Installed For Free: If you have problems installing the full version of WordPress, visit Installing WordPress for Free (aka Install4Free WordPress). This free, volunteer-driven service is limited to personal blogs only, and they help only with installations, not upgrades.

Looking for a WordPress Expert? Do you want a custom WordPress blog? Want to convert your website into a WordPress blog or use WordPress as a CMS? If you are looking for an expert in WordPress Themes, WordPress development, WordPress Plugins, or other WordPress-related expertise, check out the list of WordPress Consultants on Automattic, the parent company of WordPress, the WordPress Jobs listings, and the WP-Pro mailing list.

WordPress Events

The following are upcoming WordPress group meetings and meetups, and a few special blogging events you may want to attend. If you know of any I’ve missed, please post them or contact me on my WordPress Events Page or via email.

New York City WordPress September Meetup – September 15
Blog Business Summit – Chicago – September 17-19
WordCamp Beijing – September 1, 2007 – Registration and Schedule
The Baltimore-Washington WordPress September Meetup – September 20, 2007
WordCamp Israel – Information Coming Soon
WordPress Meetup in London after Future of Web Apps – October 4, 2007
Conservative Leadership Conference of Bloggers (RIGHTOBERFEST) – October 11-13, 2007

For a WordPress Meetup near you and other blogging events, check out the WordPress Meetup Group List.

Even More WordPress News?

For more news on WordPress, see:

Each Wednesday on Blog Herald is WordPress Wednesday, featuring the news around the WordPress Community. If you have a WordPress news item or tip to suggest, please contact me at this special email address: lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com

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Lorelle VanFossen

The author of Lorelle on WordPress and the fast-selling book, Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging, as well as several other blogs, Lorelle VanFossen has been blogging for over 15 years, covering blogging, WordPress, travel, nature and travel photography, web design, web theory and development extensively as web technologies developed.