Codex chat

During our regular meeting in IRC we discussed some changes to the codex, based on the roundtable discussion at the WordPress Community Summit.

Before we started ripping things apart, I thought it would be good to look at some stats, if possible, and also to get community input. Because it’s one thing to come up with a good idea, but it’s another to make sure that’s what is needed based on numbers and user feedback.

So this is basically our gut check. ;)

To that end, here are the top 40 visited Codex pages in the last month or so:

/Function_Reference/
/Installing_WordPress,
/Template_Tags/,
/Version_3.4.2,
/First_Steps_With_WordPress,
/Class_Reference/,
/Editing_wp-config.php,
/Main_Page,
/Plugin_API/,
/Theme_Development,
/Using_Permalinks,
/Pages,
/WordPress_Lessons,
/Glossary,
/New_To_WordPress_-_Where_to_Start,
/Moving_WordPress,
/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory,
/Changing_File_Permissions,
/Child_Themes,
/WordPress_Backups,
/Getting_Started_with_WordPress,
/Using_Themes,
/Create_A_Network,
/Changing_The_Site_URL,
/Roles_and_Capabilities,
/Introduction_to_Blogging,
/The_Loop,
/Blog_Design_and_Layout,
/Conditional_Tags,
/Using_Custom_Fields,
/Formatting_Date_and_Time,
/Function_Reference,
/WordPress_in_Your_Language,
/Template_Hierarchy,
/Creating_a_Static_Front_Page,
/Post_Types,
/Writing_a_Plugin,
/Template_Tags,
/Excerpt,
/Updating_WordPress,

And for perspective, the top page (function reference) got over 1.9 million hits, while the second page was hit only 280,000 times.

To me this backs up our earlier conclusion of a divide between users and devs and where they go and what they look for. So the user handbook will likely be well received. Ipstenu made us a shortcode for the Codex so we can start marking pages that will considered for removal and send users to the user manual instead.

The other thing we talked about, before we go too far, is to create a poll to get feedback on codex reorganization.

Some suggested poll items:

  • I like the codex just as it is, it need some love!
  • separate user docs from dev docs
  • something else

Your suggestions for poll options are welcome! Without it turning into an actual poll here… ;)