Plea for EE Redux
First apologies to those of our readers who have no interest in ExpressionEngine. We’ll return to our regularly scheduled nerding here shortly, but the article I wrote had a pretty interesting effect.
Second, if you’re still with me, please take a moment and think very deeply about what you want from EllisLab. What are your burning questions? Then remove any and all feature requests and bug reports from these. Finally, go here and leave a comment.
There have been many replies/responses/conversations
- I Hear You by Leslie Camacho. From the boss man himself, explaining he is being attentive and reading what he can.
- The full story of my ExpressionEngine 2 design involvement by Veerle. An interesting look into the initial work on the control panel’s look and feel.
- EllisLab Responds & Other Thoughts by Ryan Irelan. An insightful and wonderful piece written by one of the community’s chiefs.
- 2.1.1 Release - What Will Be There, What Will Not by Derek Jones. An excellent first step into the level of communication I’d like to start seeing, personally.
- It’s a three step process: Step 1: Fix. Step 2: It. Step 3: FIXIT. by Leslie Flinger. Flinger reminds you to remember the humanity of her team. Some of you should be slapped for your comments, by the way. Commencing shortly.
I was surprised by the reaction to my Nerdary article. I was trying to capture the mood at EE/CI in blog format.
There is certainly a lot to take in with 163 (and shrinking as I close many of them) comments. One of my personal lessons learned is that all comments on this site are now moderated pre-comment-publication, instead of post-publication. Thanks to those who took the time to add value to the conversation.
If there was one item I could take back, it’s this bit:
EllisLab didn’t solve problems from EE1. In fact, EE2 didn’t solve anything and its been a year. Member templates are still stuck in some weird limbo when they should be html files. MojoMotor was nice, but a bitter pill to swallow at the wrong time. We also don’t know why they weren’t solved. Autosaving isn’t great.
The way that’s worded is unfair and as pointed out to me by Ryan and an email from Leslie himself, factually inaccurate. Conceptually, this point was oversimplified so much it lost its point, and the actual feelings I have for EE2’s new features and fixes. I apologize for that, and I also apologize to how it lead some of the commentators to make our blog a feature request forum for EllisLab. What I was trying to communicate wasn’t about features.
EllisLab is a business with great, smart (lovable) people behind it. They will do what makes sense for their business, just as you should for your employer or business. I think Mr. Irelan hit the nail on the head: “What is important is whether we can continue to put our own reputations behind EE 2 and sell it to our clients and customers.” That’s what I hope we find out.
In conclusion, let me also state that for the record you anonymous commentators who chose to talk unwarranted trash to good people are the scum of the earth. I pity you if your life is as sad as your poorly thought-out sentence structure and your inability to create something of value. I wish you all success as social media experts or that little rat creature from Jabba the Hut’s palace.
October, 17th 2010
Comments
Unwarranted comment followed by a wall of text. Then maybe onto an unfair and unflattering analogy.
Question of personal morals and/or motivation then another wall of text. Concluding with general hole digging.
Little man, loud voice syndrome. Very easy to criticize, hard to create.
... Oh sorry, this comment was meant for the other post.
Posted at 08:23 AM on October 18, 2010
Nearly four years ago, I put my company on the line with a CMS platform that I have since introduced to numerous clients. Adopting ExpressionEngine and becoming an “ExpressionEngine Pro” was no small decision and only happened after countless hours working with and testing every other CMS available at the time. I still love this product and appreciate what it has enabled me to accomplish as a small business owner.
Yes, improvements can always be made.
That said, I tweeted a comment last week that bears repeating, “If you use EE for your business, you owe it to yourself and to your colleagues to support positive improvements to the product as well as positive improvements within the community.”
As a community, our actions and opinions, when forced into the twittersphere and blogosphere, will have an impact. It is up to us to make sure that the impact is a net positive for the community and for Ellis Lab.
Unprofessional, juvenile sniping only weakens the foundation upon which we all stand. Especially, if our clients happen to be following the conversation — Get this fact through your opinionated melons.
If you have issues, be respectful and show everyone you have the capacity to be an upstanding community member. If you are incapable of behaving professionally, please discover Drupal, Joomla, or Wordpress.
Posted at 09:00 AM on October 18, 2010
Ryan Ireland said: “What is important is whether we can continue to put our own reputations behind EE 2 and sell it to our clients and customers.”
I think that’s a good summary—that’s really the essence of it.
But additionally, I know for myself, with EE 1.6, I felt like I could strongly recommend it to clients over other CMSs / engines. And, one of the selling points was the promise of EE 2—like, “you’re going to be getting a platform that’s viable for the next 5+ years—EE 1.6 is good now, and EE is still getting better—EE 2 is coming soon.”
So, I feel like EE 2 challenges my reputation for those past (recent!) recommendations to clients, as well. My work / word is my responsibility, but I have to figure out if EllisLab cares to get people transitioned from EE 1 to EE 2 at low cost (i.e., development / configuration / training time) and high value. Because, if not, it’s more and more going to be a better deal to move to a different vendor / CMS / engine.
Posted at 12:28 AM on October 19, 2010
So more than a year down the line, does anyone feel we are in a significantly better place with EE? I know you posted a “Thanks” after the initial plea but did the plea to Ellislab have any tangible benefit? Forecast came and went. There was a load of chat on the EL blog about this and that. Lately - ghost town - everywhere.
Reactor? Sure? Free labour though and initially focused on hooks. Hooks equally more add ons and sketchy upgrade paths. Feature Request forum is full to bursting again and I laugh when I see a cheery “No, EE can’t do that, but shall I move it over to the Feature Request forum? That will be a GREAT feature request? Oh yes please. Done :D (sucker).”.
The product is still the same product. We have a better file manager. Not bad for a year.
I feel the EE team are running around patting themselves on the back. People are being promoted from Support Exec, to Manager to Director to VP in a year but nothing is actually happening with the core product. Do I really pay $300+ a license for a small team of people to support everyone else?
Sorry to come across a bit snarky - but damn it annoys me to see something with so much potential driven in the ground from a product point of view even if some politician is using a 5 entry EE site and EE’s userbase is growing. Are they in Hawaii with suitcases of money?
Posted at 05:15 AM on January 09, 2012
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