WordPress MU

Hi at all, this is not a technical post but a "ideologic" post, excuse me if my english is bad but i'm an italian user .
So i use wpmu since october, and when i start to use it the support for wpmu is about zero : there was this forum, and there were many topics, but there were also many mistake about configuration/installation. So, at october, when i decided to set up my site with wpmu, i contacted a person in this forum and after a payment of 30/40 € he have installed wpmu on my server.

So from october to december 2005, wpmu works very good, i had some problems with upload and import system, but all resolved. So in december i decide to upgrade my version of wpmu : the beginning of the problems.

I upgrade the file ecc but many things don't works, htaccess ecc ecc...so at last, after many posts in this forum, mail at the precedent person who had contacted, i resolve the problems and my wpmu is updated and works.

Now i have a 18 december release of wpmu. Two days ago i tried to upgrade to the latest version : the hell !!!

Errors, page don't works, blog don't works ecc ecc .

So, i decided that i use the december release and stop !

But all these words why? Because i think that WPMU is not a good creation, for this reason :

- the support doesn't exist ! or best, the support is only this forum ! and in this forum there are only few users that help others users in some way ..,,,

Wordpress.com continue to release new features and upgrade, but nothing of that is released also for WPMU .

Also in the forum, the developer as Donncha or others don't help the users or solve the problems !

At this point, wpmu isn't a good platform for a "stable" site...is good for experiment ecc, but not for a good site if you don't fill that you will create some code to arrange your site and you will can't upgrading your version of wpmu, because there are many and many problems or difference from your precedent installation !

Wpmu is born in June 2005 right? also, after a year, nothing is changed i think . There are others system better and someone works, as wpmu, with wordpress !

Thanks for the attention, logically, these words are only "a my personal opinion" after a year working with wpmu .

Bye Ste

I agreee support is very minimal and we should have more devs to support the increasing interest in WPMU. If it's to grow, we need more people more heads to help it move on to the next stage. It's based on a popular and successful single user blogging platform and MU should do better than it is currently. :)

Upgrades are a problem... We need through instructions. I have an April release and I tried upgrading it too. Everything went fine with help from two post. But other than that I am getting some errors here and there. :(

thank samchng for your reply :) ....yes the main problem is the upgrading and with a "soft" support...it's hard !!
But what i say is that wp.com hasn't this problem and the developers don't upgrade wpmu as wp.com ....

I think it needs to be recognized that Doncha doesn't have a lot to personally gain from developing it, and so many people are using it as a sort of "experiment". I'm a little amazed it's grown as much as it has!

With that being said, everytime I pick up WPMU to try it out (again and again), I'm always disapointed, but I see what the developers are shooting for...and I think it's the greatest thing...Now if it could just get more support!

I'm not a programmer, but I do respect them greatly. I've ruined more code than I've created, although I'd love to try to develop some themes for it...when it's ready!

I can only encourage the developers to PLEASE work on making WPMU the kind of tool they want it to be. There are a lot of us waiting.

Thanks!

If it's so broken, how come over 220k users over at WP.com are using it fine?

Also remember that this is Open Source software. If you want handholding, there's always MT you could be running.

I don't think that the 200+k and growing users at WP.com has much to do with the original post. The original post is from the perspective of running a WPMU site. WP.com is a specific WPMU site, and many of the (probably quarter of a million by the time I type this) people blogging there are there because they want to blog, rather than run a site.

@greatbig47 - I think you're wrong in saying that Donncha doesn't have anything to gain from developing WPMU. He works for Automattic and they obviously have a lot to gain from developing it.

I do agree with most of the comments here though. I get a bit frustrated when development seems to stop, but I think the best thing to do is to log onto Trac and create/fix tickets. If you find a bug, you should report it on Trac, and if you're a devloper then you should have a look at Trac and see if you can fix any of the tickets there - I'm sure Donncha would appreciate the help. Both tickets that I've filed have been fixed, so even though I didn't create the patch it's good to know that I helped a bit.

That's the key thing with open source software - everyone should be helping out with development. Instead of complaining that things aren't moving forward, why not help out by filing bug reports or coding solutions?

My 2 cents...

Well, i´m a new user of WPMU, but the few things that i have seen , don´t like me. Otherwise, i was looking for another applications similars and i didn´t find any 100% stable.
i believe that all of us want don´t have problems with our sites, and also i believe that all think that wordpress is a wonderful tool for us. About this, I propose that we explain another similars aplications tested for us,and works!!, because we are looking for the same project, and internet is very big for us.
So, i start:
- Lyceum....i don´t be able to install it.
- B2evolution....works fine, but dosen´t like me the funcionality.

"If it's so broken, how come over 220k users over at WP.com are using it fine?"

Oh boy, I guess I'm stupider tah 220k wordpress mu users, I wonder how maney are on the other side...

Let's not forget that this is unstable software. Most of us encounter lots of bugs all the time - that's the joy of using alpha software! If you want to risk running this on a production site (as a lot of us are) then you should be prepared for the risks associated with it.

have only one thing to say: tried also Lyceum - install went fine, generic blog page shows fine - the rest = not so good either. No real support there except for actual developing. The admin panel is so minimal, that there is no access to customizing any themes. Each theme needs to still be maually changed to work, and on and on.
I went for Lyceum because I thought it may be better by now than MU, having taken all the base code from wordpress -
but, Lyceum may be good in another 2 years from now -
currently - nothing is really yet worked out properly.

Tried B2B also - it's rather "ugly" and definitely not for those that wish to customize. Their Support though is very good. Within minutes you get developer answers.
So, I guess, they may just outdo MU and Lyceum faster, but for now it's a rather generic cookiecutter also.

So - now, I am back to MU - and it seems still to be at least the better platform to run.
Considering that those are the 3 contenders for free systems.
Most of us can not afford what is charged on the market.
So, it would be good if the "community" joins in the effort to promote by using MU and ergo force fixing bugs, if enough of us stay on it.
Blogging isn't going away - so let's help each other by rather than complaining - to trying to make some fire for the developers - LOL

Also in the forum, the developer as Donncha or others don't help the users or solve the problems.

It's so false... I contact Donncha many times on email and via this forum and he always reply to me. I don't even know how he can do so much work and also for free.

@pleasehelp : in the last period : yes ! but when i start with wpmu, the support was nothing! i sent some emails to donncha without reply .....now the situation may be change...i hope this !