There are a bunch of folks who don’t get it or don’t like it, so I figured I would take the time to explain Planet WordPress to the extent that I can, since it seems that I’m the one that usually causes the most problems with duplicated feed items, etc.
Planet WordPress is a site that aggregates feeds from a number of users who have contributed to the WordPress Open Source project, or who provide good sources of information on WordPress, its themes, or its plugins. Planet WordPress produces a feed that is displayed in the Dashboard of most WordPress installations.
How you get your site listed on Planet WordPress is a mystery to me. I appreciate the exposure, but I didn’t originally ask to be added to the Planet site. Do not misunderstand, I’m not asking to be taken off. In fact, it is my suspicion that the Powers That Be added my feed to the Dashboard partially because I was publishing a good deal of informative WordPress information, but perhaps also a bit because at the time, I was advocating against the Dashboard feature and they wanted to shut me up. ;)
In the event that I fail to provide reasonable WordPress updates, then in all fairness, I would expect that the Planet maintainers would remove me. But I try to do two things to appease the WordPress gods - I restrict the feed to only my WordPress posts, and I only post to the WordPress channel when I think I have something of value to say to the community.
I grant you that there is some benefit to me for being on Planet WordPress. I’m getting more exposure for my site than I would otherwise. Still, my pagerank is probably not affected by being in your Dashboard because Google can’t spider inside your admin console to see my link. The only way my pagerank would increase as a result of being on your Dashboard is if you chose to link to me in a post. Considering that you have to first choose to read the Dashboard, then visit my site, then write about my site, I think that’s a fair arrangement.
Plus, you’re getting my updates on WordPress development for free. What a bargain!
Nonetheless, I realize that to many people the Dashboard is considered a nuisance. Especially when my site crashes and the Planet feed repopulates with all of my entries from six months ago (be glad I didn’t re-tag all of the restored WordPress posts since then, or it would have happened again). Let me give you a few helpful pointers if you find the Dashboard feeds especially irritating:
If you don’t like it, don’t read it. I’m sure that’s simpler to say than to execute, so let me provide this keen WordPress insight: Bookmark your Write Post page. When you click your bookmark, you’ll go directly to the page where you’re going to do most of your work, rather than the Dashboard. If you’re not logged in, you’ll get a login screen, then you’ll see the Write Post page. Simple.
Disable the blasted thing. As I said, back before I got added to the Dashboard, I was staunchly against the Dashboard. How do I feel about it now? Well, I like the occasional traffic boost, and while I’m understanding that many people don’t like the feature, I think it’s easy enough to do away with that it’s not worth complaint. So. If you don’t want it, install this plugin.
There are actually quite a few plugins out there that disable the Dashboard, but this is the one I wrote. I like it because instead of mangling your .htaccess, it just removes the menu and redirects the link.
Replace the Feeds. Some people don’t mind the Dashboard, but would probably like it better if my feed wasn’t one of the ones in there. There are a few ways to change the feeds that the Dashbaord loads.
To change the feed manually, you can edit a WordPress file. In WordPress 2.0.4, the file is /wp-admin/index.php. You’ll see something like this around line number 146:
$rss = @fetch_rss(‘http://planet.wordpress.org/feed/');
You can change the feed URL in that command to whatever feed you want and give that a shot. The changed feed should start to appear in your Dashboard instead of the Planet feed. There are also a few other link trinkets shortly after that line that point to Planet WordPress that you might also want to change.
Of course, there are two problems with this method. First, you can only load one feed. If you wanted to aggregate a few feeds into your Dashboard, you’ll need to use third-party software to produce that feed before you could display links from more than one site. Second, when you update WordPress, you’re likely to overwrite that change. What’s a better way?
Use plugins to change the dashboard. One plugin that I found that does the job is Dasher. Dasher replaces the whole dashboard with a configurable page that can contain feeds and “blocks”, which are kind of like widgets.
Another plugin that replaces the Dashboard is x-Dashboard, which takes a similar approach but has controls to rearrange the parts that appear. Both of these plugins work on WordPress 2.0.4.
There are a handful of other Dashboard replacements around if you look, some with more robust features, some with simpler features. In my opinion, there’s room here for a more customizable plugin that’s a bit more usre-friendly to operate. WP-Dash is another plugin might have fit the bill, but Robert’s site recently took a dive (he was hosted on this same server when it went down last week).
Note that if your main objection to the Dashboard is that it slows down your publishing process, then the best options you have are to use the bookmark or disable the Dashboard entirely. Replacing the Dashboard with another feed aggregator or replacing the feed used in the Dashboard will not make it any faster, and will probably make things very much slower.
I think those are plenty of options to choose from if you absolutely hate the Dashboard, from someone who has nothing to benefit from giving you that advice. So let me give you a few reasons not to ditch it.
First of all, WordPress announcements are widely made through the Dashboard. When a new version of WordPress is imminent, you can usually learn about it first by reading the Dashboard. This is important because many of the releases between major versions are security-related, and if you value your data, you’ll want to know when to upgrade.
The Planet feed at the bottom of the page is often just noise for most people. Every now and then, I hope that one of the items on Planet WordPress strikes your fancy. Personally, I find the droplets of development information useful, but that’s probably because I’m a coder. There may be certain items that interest you, too.
If nothing else, practically everyone on the Planet WordPress feed has contributed substantially to WordPress, either directly through development or indirectly through promotion. Consider their syndication a reward for their hard work. There’s nothing stopping you from contributing too, you know?
I suppose there will always be people who complain about the quality of the links in the Dashboard or their content (hey, I never, ever spellcheck!), but I do believe there is value there, and for the folks that don’t see it the same way, the options above should help mitigate their disagreement.
