The reason I chose WordPress is the same reason I continue to publish content through the software and that is through ease of use.

The publishing process in WordPress was simple when compared to Joomla or Drupal. The process is in a logical order and doesn’t provide 100 different things I should do before I actually hit the publish button. This process has been refined in the two years I’ve been using WordPress so it’s even better today!

Later on in the comments, there is one by Ozh that I whole heartily agree with.

Interesting to see how many different paths lead to the same WP

I have one question for those who have used WordPress for over a year. Is the initial reason you choose to go with WordPress the same reason you continue to use it today or has that reason changed? After you read their responses, feel free to come back and keep the conversation going in the comments.

On December 9th, Matt published the chat log to the first bbPress meetup that occurred in the bbPress IRC channel. The attendees were made up of folks who volunteered to keep the project going. Here are some of the tidbits I learned while reading the archive.

There was a great debate amongst those in attendance on whether to continue bbPress as a standalone product, a dedicated plugin, or both. As far as I can tell, a concrete decision has not been made but quite a few leaned towards making an awesome bbPress plugin.

bbPress will become a registered trademark under the WordPress Foundation.

One of the biggest weaknesses of bbPress right now is documentation. Therefor, a documentation team has been put together comprised of Tom39Away, pmall, justintadlock, and Nightgunner5. For the first time, access to the bbPress.org website will be given to outsiders such as the documentation team.

Hajii who has been a long time moderator on the bbPress.org forums will be putting together a state of the forums where he will be stating where the forum needs help the most. If you’ve been looking at being more active on this particular forum, keep an eye out for the announcement for more moderators.

I was wondering when the name _ck_ would be mentioned which it was 37 minutes into the meeting. For those that don’t know, _ck_ was a very active bbPress contributor by being a forum moderator, producing a number of bbPress plugins and was recently brought on by Sam Bauers to help out with the project. But, after Sam left, _ck_ also left. There is some controversy as to why she left the project but Matt himself said he was surprised to find out she left the project.

I was very surprised when _ck_ left, I hadn’t heard anything from her like an email or anything — anyone know the story there?

Everyone took a stab at guessing why she left but the only one who really knows is _ck_. She had a loyal following and many in the bbPress community enjoyed her contributions.

The next big topic was plugins. There are many plugins for bbPress that only work up to 0.9. It looks like there will be a survey published on the bbPress.org blog in the coming days asking users what type of functionality they would like to see in the software which would not only generate core functionality ideas, but plugin ideas as well.

It’s also worth mentioning this information as well.

hajii: yes and to clarify just like wordpress.org, bbPress is not owned or operated by Automattic, it’s separate. Just because I saw a lot of people conflating them in the forums.

I own bbPress.org just like WordPress.org — separate from Automattic — and the plan is to run it in the same fashion. We’ll register the bbPress trademark under the pending foundation

Last but not least, the survey I mentioned previously has since gone online. The poll focuses on ideas and features that you think should be in 1.1.

So in the end, Matt is spearheading the project once again as he did when he created the software over a weekend back in 2004. In fact, this Christmas, bbPress will turn five years old. If you are interested in being a part of this renaissance, now would be a good time to head on over to the bbPress.org forums and make your presence known.

Despite everything that is going on within the world of content publishing, the fact remains that WordPress is still the easiest way to publish content onto the web. For that alone, I think is worthy of being thankful.

If you feel thankful for WordPress or any aspect of the project, join in the tradition of giving thanks by means of commenting. Tell us what it is your thankful for as it relates to WordPress.