It all started quite early on Saturday morning, too early for my sleep pattern, but I had something like 30 minutes to get ready. Taryn Wallis and her husband Allen had kindly agreed to come and pick me up, they also had Martin Young too. I still can’t thank you enough for that! – Next stop was Surgeons’Hall to get setup for the day ahead.

We arrived in plenty of time to get things sorted before registration, so I took the chance to get connected to the WiFi, and charge my phone up too. I’d need some kind of power if I was going to Tweet during the day, not that I ended up saying much anyway.

Before long, people started arriving and taking their seat; I recognised a few faces!

Still don't remember Martin Young taking that picture!

I met some fantastic people throughout the whole day, Mike Little, Kevinjohn Gallagher, Donnacha Mac Gloinn, Michael Kimb Jones and Andy Gilpin, really just to name a few.

Having never attended an event like this, let alone a meet-up, and you can just forget about a WordCamp, you could say I was a little outside my comfort zone to start with!

So what did I think about the WordUp event itself? …

The Good

Without a doubt, the main event of the day was the sessions!

• Learning CSS Using WordPress
• WordPress In The Enterprise: Can It Work?
• WPTRT: How The Theme Review Process Can Benefit Custom Theme Design
• Panel Discussion: WordPress In The Voluntary Sector
• How Did You Do That?
• Managing Large Networks Of WordPress Sites
• Responsive Design
• How WordPress Themes Changed The World: Updated

I really liked Kevinjohn’s round-up, he summed my thoughts up nicely. For the first two sessions he did miss, I felt like I learnt something new. CSS is a wonderful thing, that I already knew, it’s quite powerful when you know what you’re doing. When you’re using WordPress in the Enterprise on the other hand, you get a whole new kettle of fish.

Did anyone mention the pizza we had for lunch, it went down a treat! While not all the toppings were right up my street, it was still pretty cool for that time of day. This was in part thanks to all the kind sponsors, of which I was one of them! :)

It was about 5PM before WordUp Edinburgh finished, we headed straight to Brewdog (which was only about a 10 minute walk away if that) for some socialising. I see what everyone says now with regards to this kind of event after, the different topics you talk about and food-for-thought conversations/observations; it’s crazy but in a good way!

The Bad (Improvement/Idea For Next Time)

I’d have liked if we’d went to a restaurant for a meal before hitting Brewdog. While yes we got a bite to eat in the end, it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. Going somewhere with more of a menu might have been a better idea; maybe something for next time?

The Ugly

Well that’s a good question, but did you see me in the photo above? ;)

Overall I had a blast at WordUp Edinburgh and would jump at the next chance to attend a similar event again. For anyone who’s never been to something like that before, you really need to get yourself along. My first time and I really would recommend it!

While I personally disagree that they’ve done most of what I had written about, I can’t argue the fact that things have already happened, the biggest change in my opinion being the new colour scheme you can now find. It matches in with 3.o now!

Already it makes WordPress.org more appealing and easy on the eyes. Plus we can’t forget the drop-down menu you now see when you hover over Extend, you know what they say about small and simple changes sometimes being the best! ;)

What More (Minor Changes) Would I Like To See?

For starters the development teams going to work on the redesign have been announced, and while I probably couldn’t help fully, I’m sitting on the sidelines here writing my thoughts and publishing them for all to read and use if they require?

Official WordPress News (http://wordpress.org/news/) – What was known as /development/ before it was changed, but a smart move which now makes it sound a lot more professional and more official looking!

The old slug didn’t quite describe what the WordPress Blog was all about in my eyes, and in the eyes of Matt Mullenweg and other developers too by the looks of it, as around July 8th 2010 Ryan Boren made a couple of changes to WP.org with this being one of them!

Extend WordPress (http://extend.wordpress.org/) – You’ll see it’s not a huge change, and wouldn’t really alter the setup currently being used, more or less just a little bit of a URL layout change, plus making sure it was the *real* hub for Extending WordPress through Themes and Plugins!

With over 100 Million Plugin Downloads I think it’s safe to say Extend plays a major part of WordPress, and at the end of the day, that’s going to continue long and hard into the future (both for Themes and Plugins!)

I’d like to think it would encourage other people to get involved in WordPress?

Make WordPress [...] (http://make.wordpress.org/) – Whoever thought that structure up should make themselves known, I’m due you a drink! :)

If you didn’t already know that we have Make WordPress UI (you do now) which deals with the User Interface of WordPress, where you’ll most likely find John O’Nolan hanging around as Deputy Head of the UI Team, with Jane Wells still in charge of it all. We’ll soon also have Make WordPress Code up and running for WP Code Developments!

Which got me thinking about the (redundant) Ideas Forum and how it really has no purpose under Extend! Please do call me crazy, but ideas are all about making things better right? – In which case why don’t we setup Make WordPress Better?

In Closing

We’re all different and we all think differently about things! :D Any thoughts?

Using WordPress Itself

You might have heard me saying this all before, I have been thinking about it for a while, and I also remember Jeff Chandler asking his WPTavern.com readers/followers if they knew what powered the main WP.org site? With not many people knowing, I think the majority were surprised to find out it was just HTML behind it.

With the release of WordPress 3.0 just happening today, and the huge success of the WP/WPMU merge that took place, wouldn’t it be the right time to harness all the new features and functionality that went into development of 3.0? :D

Not forgetting how it could act as another (major) site to help spot bugs similar to WP.com?

Switch The Codex Over To WordPress

At the moment they use MediaWiki for the WordPress Codex but just imagine how it would look if they ported it over to use WordPress instead? I know it would take a lot of work, the opportunity could be taken though to give the Codex a spring-clean for more of a better word!

It would just be another way for people to see how WordPress can be used for virtually anything at the end of the day, along with what can be achieved. I’d like to think it would also enhance the way others use WordPress?

The Single Login

As they’d say in Trac for a feature or idea they like +1, but in this case I’m sure +1000 would sound way more appropriate! :) When you visit WP.org you shouldn’t have to login to all the separate areas all the time, it’s not user-friendly! - Which is probably why you’ll not find me kicking about there as much?

Clean Up And Organise Extend

With the large number of Plugins and Themes available, sometimes I feel when you’re looking for a certain something it could be made a lot easier, fair point yes? If you take the Category/Section/Tag that can be picked from, cleaning that up is already half-way there, and half the battle!

Taking that a little further, I’d like to see it located at http://extend.wordpress.org/ instead because at the end of the day you are actually ”Extending WordPress” which fits better than the current format?!

WordPress Profiles

I know we have something for this at the moment but it could do with a little work, making it the central location on WP.org for the users to go and edit their details would be a great start. Then with the main WordPress.org site running WordPress too, it could all be integrated using the MultiSite/Network Feature! (The possibilities are endless!)

And That’s It From Me

Sure I could have probably expanded upon my thoughts above but I was just getting them out in the open, although I see they have been talked about on the WPTavern Forum which also includes MANY more ideas from others around the community!

For those of you not in-the-know, Samuel Wood (AKA Otto) has been hired by Matt Mullenweg himself to head up the WordPress.org Redesign, which I’m looking forward to watching and helping out however I can?