Rethinking the Master List

Over the years, the Master List has served the support team well. It has been the goto forum topic to link users to for recurring issues, and general troubleshooting steps.

CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. has implemented a lot of checks and tests in that period to avoid breaking changes, and as core has gotten more and more stable with each release, the information in this list has been streamlined, to the point where it sees fewer and fewer entries for each release. As is evident by the historical Master List entries.

The list also includes a fair bit of work ahead of a release, which is now more or less literally copying a template, replacing the name of a release jazzer and listing items we think are noteworthy from the release or that may post breaking changes for users. This is all information that can be seen from the release posts and the releases about page though.

So with that in mind, I ask you;

Would we be just as well served with a fixed topic that outlines all the normal troubleshooting steps but doesn’t change between releases?

Is a Master List still relevant?

Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 4:56 pm on February 25, 2021

I am the ‘inventor’ of the list and I say … It may be time to end it.

My recommendation, and this is something I tried once around 3.5, is to prep but not post the post. If a bunch of stuff pops up, post it. If not, don’t. While WP has a bunch of mitigation tactics built in now, the unknown is still the unknown.

But the other option is this: Make a post here, on make/support, and use it instead of anything in the forums. Lock comments (yes I know) and pin it to the top. Then we can transition to pure vanishment 🙂

IMO what we really need is a reliable way to list “This very large pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party/theme breaks on this version of WP.” And that really isn’t the burden of Support, so hanging up the list is fine by me 😉
Joy 7:14 pm on February 25, 2021

As long as there is a place to send people to that lists everything, I suppose it doesn’t matter where it is.
I don’t subscribe to this blog, so I would never see it here, but if it’s in the forum with a link to here, that would work.
The Field Guide and dev notes are great summaries for those of us with inside information, but most users needing support don’t benefit much besides having a big list of changes all in one place.

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Rethinking the Master List

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