Kevinjohn Gallagher

Dear Joe,

I’m afraid you’ve made a number of presumptions in your article that aren’t accurate, and it’s skewed it to a place that really isn’t in anyway near credible. Frankly, it’s a poor hack-job.

To start with, I’d really appreciate it if you got my name right, I have no idea who this person “Gallagher” is.

If you’re approaching WordPress with the expectation that it’s the be-all and end-all of content management systems (CMSes) you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

Absolutely. But at no point in time, and we’ve been using WordPress for 4 years, did we approach WordPress as a high end swiss-army-knife CMS. I never said otherwise. I merely stated a list of things that it does not do. Something that Core Developers agree with (Andrew Nacin, Core developer, commented that 9/15 aren’t supported by WP at all)

I hope WordPress never tries to fit the ridiculous list of requirements that Gallagher tries to saddle it with.

At no point in time in my article, did I suggest that WordPress should adopt these requirements. I merely stated that by not having them, it made it increasingly difficult for us to use WordPress for our clients.

To be clear, because you wrongly say otherwise 6 times in your article, I have never suggested that these requirements be added to the WordPress Core. Ever. You’ve made it up that I did. It’s the first of many outright lies in the article.

And given that the basis of your article, I’d say it’s a fundamental thing to get wrong.

carping about lack of reporting and support for IE6 demonstrates criteria that are more than a bit out of whack

I’ve never once complained that WordPress doesn’t support IE6. I have stated that WordPress in the last year has moved a large percentage of people to “edge cases” that it isn’t going to support. Lets look at what I actually wrote shall we:

this causes immense trouble for our clients and users who WordPress consider to be “edge cases”, that they no longer cater for. That covers disabled users, colour blind users, those not using a mouse, those not using a desktop PC, those using a microsoft browser, especially those using IE6 or IE7, Enterprise clients, charities, or those with legal requirements around their website.http://kevinjohngallagher.com/2012/01/wordpress-has-left-the-building/

Is that carping about support for IE6 specifically?

As WordPress has grown, it’s cautiously taken on the CMS label, but it does not promise to be a full-blown content management system

More Bulls**t.
Core Team members constantly state that WordPress is a fully-fledged CMS. Heck, Matt even went on HackerNews yesterday to roll out the stat that 92% of WordPress users think it’s a CMS and are using it in that way, so it’s definitely a CMS, according to it’s co-founder and project lead.

So it’s not “cautiously taken on the label”, its shouting it from the roof-tops!

This hypocrisy is something I have an issue with. Anytime someone says WordPress is not a CMS, out comes the defence that it is a CMS. Anytime someone says tries to compare it to other CMSs, we get told that it doesn’t claim to be a CMS. Frankly, “s**t, or get off the pot”. I’m not going to think harshly of software for either being one thing or another, but don’t flip-flop across the line to suit your arguement.

Especially, and this I think is the kicker, when in the Related Articles under this hack-job is the link to: WORDPRESS AS A CMS!

Is true WYSIWYG editing really promised or required to build a Web site, or even necessary in any CMS?

Well, to many people, Yes. We’re working with one multi-national where it’s a strict requirement.

This is becoming more prevalent with adverts on TV promoting the likes of “1&1 hosting”, who have a drag and drop web page maker. Whether its realistic or not, many non-techies we speak to these days think the future is here, and everything is iPad swipable and drag and drop. The idea of having to call a developer everytime you want to change layouts (templates in WP terms) seems like a step backwards to them. And yes, we re-explain the limitations of software in the real world. It’s not that, it’s that the BASE PERCEPTION of people has changed. People want drag and drop and real WYSIWYG.

I can’t tell you how many clients have said to me in the last 2 years “Why is it called WYSIWYG when thats not actually true?”.

I’m not even sure what n-to-n sharing is, and trying to find that on Google didn’t help.

So you don’t know what it is, but you’re happy to suggest that what I said was “inaccurate”? How do you know? Maybe Joe, you’re not quite qualified to be writing about this if you don’t know what these things are.

The claims that WordPress beta didn’t work in Windows at all is a gross exaggeration.

I never said that. Not once. Not anywhere. Never in my life. Again you’ve just made this up. I do notice you’ve not quoted me, so allow me to quote my article, which was actually quoting my developer, but lets not allow facts to get in the way of a good hack job.

Kev, they released a BETA version that they didn’t even load on Windows. - one of my staff members (not me)

Neither myself not my developer ever said that “beta didn’t work in Windows at all”, we said that it wasn’t tested. And it wasn’t. And yes, the MENU of WordPress didn’t work on Windows-only browsers that according to the core team they support. They didn’t even load the beta on a browser they support before releasing. If thats not scary to you, cool, but it’s scary to me.

Jane Wells, also blogged about the UAT she completed before beta, and every person she ran UAT with was on an Apple laptop and used the latest Chrome or Firefox. If thats not scary to you, cool, but it’s scary to me.

So what I said was accurate, what you said that I said was made up.

I suspect when Gallagher says “Windows” he really means “old versions of Internet Explorer.”

Thanks for suspecting that, but I actually meant what I said. Maybe if you suspected less, and quoted me more, this article might be semi-accurate. Then again, probably not.

WordPress also doesn’t make me waffles and wash my socks. Then again, I never expected it to.

Neither did I. I’ve never expected anything from WordPress that it wasn’t designed to do, and I’ve never said otherwise. All I said is that it didn’t have some features. Actually my quote was  ”WordPress has either no, or severely limited:” and then there was a list. At no point in time did I suggest or say that I expected it to have them. I just said that it didn’t.

Gallagher utterly failed himself and clients

Which of my clients did you interview before you wrote that? Actually can you name one of my client projects? Or have you just made it up? Ah, you made it up. Thought so.

I am glad to know that you think my clients have been failed. Having lost only one account in the last 2.5 years, and having grown quite a bit (we’ve doubled in size), I doubt thats the case; especially as we don’t pitch for work – it’s ALL word of mouth referels.

A large percenatage of our clients come from the Government, Education, and Charity sectors. Their requirements are generally relatively shallow, and for the most part WordPress was able to deliver what they needed. But the rate of change on the internet is growing, as have the complexities and frequency of change requests from our clients. For each change, the request is investigated for feasability, and options given to the client. This year, more clients chose the harder decision to change CMS and retrain their staff over another WordPress upgrade. My clients made informed decisions, and even with my love for WordPress, they chose to move away. They chose. Not me.

The idea that any agency could survive, and grow, by just forcing every client onto a platform regardless of requirements is absolutely ludicrous. And honestly Joe, given thats what you are suggesting, I think you should be ashamed.

the biggest failure here was in gathering requirements at the start of the project and ensuring that WordPress met them.

This is not even close to true. It’s made up, it’s a presumption, and it’s flat out wrong; and you really have nothing to base this on. It’s offensive to me that you’d suggest this without knowing anything about our business.

Gallagher plunged into recommending WordPress without really scoping his client’s requirements under the assumption that it can do anything.

This is not even close to true. It’s made up, it’s a presumption, and it’s flat out wrong (again); and you really have nothing to base this on. More importantly, if it was true, how the heck would we still be in business?

I’ve no problem with you being unhappy with me, and what I’ve written at any time Joe; but these assumptions about my business, procedures and practices of which you have NO KNOWLEDGE is poor form, unfair, and completely false. You should be ashamed and embarressed. I’m embarressed for you.

So much of what you’ve written in this article about me, my business, and my original article are absolutely wrong from start to finish. You’ve not even managed to quote me at each point where you’ve levelled things against me, you’ve just badly extrapolated comments and made things up, claiming I’ve said things that I clearly haven’t.

I am absolutely shocked and appauled at this “article”; and regardless of your opinion of me, my business, or WordPress; the sheer amount of innacuracies here is mindblowing.