It also got mentioned in early March on one of the wp mailing lists, but again, there was no response.

Mike

Correct me if I’m wrong (and I may be: I haven’t spent my day looking into that), but here is what you see on that forum thread:
– last comment made by a user regarding the matter: Posted: 2005-02-21 18:18:52 #
– reply from Matt: Posted: 2005-03-24 15:00:41 #

Basically: one week ago, more than one month after the original inquiry, and most likely after Andy told him it would be published anyway. And Andy mentions that until that point, the thread had been closed without notice by a moderator.

In my book, “being open” about it (in a very limited way, since we are basically talking about a small blurb at the end of a month-old support thread) because you are about to be publicly called on it, is not really being open about it…

Don’t get me wrong: I fully understand why he would want to do that, and, to some extent, I understand the decision (if only by giving a look at the incredible blogosphere circus this thing has become). But I can’t bring myself to find that OK.

Otherwise, I agree with you regarding what this is about and what this is not about. But it’s impossible to fully separate wordpress.org from the product: one definitely affect the other. Decisions on one affect the other.

Dr Dave,
you missed the timestamps on those events. The forum thread and Matt’s response were more than a month ago. Andy explicitly says he IM-ed Matt last week to say he was going to run the story.

Everyone,
Please understand that this not about WordPress the product, or WordPress developers, or even WordPress Inc. It is about Matt Mullenweg allowing someone else to game Google’s search engine on the WordPress.org site.

Why do these problems always pop up when the big boss is on Vacation?
PLEASE PhotoMatt — send a message to clarify this!

The hidden links was the shady part. I have stumbled upon some of the articles in question and wondered about the /articles/ folder because I hadn’t seen a link on any WP pages. I didn’t take note of it at the time, nor did I know he was using hidden links to build popularity. I honestly thought it was just another part of the WP site he was developing.

The two articles I read were on hosting and SEO — they were in no way “spammy” in my opinion, and were actually well written for a newbie looking for info.

If only Matt had just placed a visible link (even if he added a little “sponsor” tag to it), all would have been peachy keen and good…but then there’s that pesky problem with the duplicate content…

It’s a good idea to generate some extra cash IMO, but it just needs to be executed with a little more forethought.

That being said: here are the few points that bother me (admittedly nowhere near deserving the kind of crucifixion some are trying to put together here):

1) Indeed, very bad judgement. Then how comes absolutely *nobody else* seems to have been involved in this decision. I know Matt is the “lead developer” and probably WordPress’ Public Figure, but we also both know very well that he is only one of a team, and that many other people should have at least a small say in such a decision (If Matt had consulted a few people, even if he hadn’t listened to them, we probably wouldn’t be there now). Unfortunately, this sounds rather typical of many of the project decisions I have witnessed.

2) As you say, along with your link to his reply in the Forums, “The fact that he has already been open about it stands in his favour”…

Except he hasn’t.

Andy specify that this thread in the forum was originally “closed without comment by an unknown moderator”. It took Andy’s talking to Matt and basically making it clear he would disclose the details to everybody in the near future, that prompted Matt to write some sort of explanation. I am personally very annoyed by that.

All in all, absolutely nothing to get up in arms about. However, if there’s anything to be learnt from this, it’s maybe that a little bit more transparence couldn’t hurt.