Photographers be aware, WordPress may convert your JPEGs to WebP soon: cdevroe.com

@cdevroe I was surprised by the push for WebP in WordPress. Some file formats (HTML, JPEG, PNG, MP3) are universally supported and should last forever. Replacing them just isn’t that important.

@cdevroe This is a daft move on WordPress’s part. I think we need a blog/CMS platform to replace Wordpress. Unfortunately I don’t see one right now.

@bradenslen yep, I’m of the same opinion … and I don’t see an alternative either

@bradenslen Is Joomla going anywhere these days? That was the first DIY CMS that I used. @jemostrom

@pimoore Anything invented and pushed by Google is suspicious by default and probably only benefits Google.

@manton the push for Webp appears to follow SEO recommendations related to page loading speed.

@odd @jemostrom I’m way out of date on Joomla. The beauty of WordPress is once installed a non-tech person like me can run it. Most people never have to mess with CSS, Php or directly edit themes. And it can be extended pretty painlessly with plugins. Most other blog platforms just are not as smooth as WP. The other problem is hosting support - every host pretty much has WP hosting perfected but with the other CMS’s each version update is like Russian roulette.

@bradenslen I see. I think I have forgotten about how Joomla just took more effort, and wasn’t as obvious. My domain host do offer both, but as you say, may not be as reliable with Joomla.

@bradenslen @odd I installera Joomla many, many years ago but I didn’t like it, it was full of bugs and general ugly (this was before 2010) so I used Drupal for a year or two. It had some features that I really missed when I switched to WordPress. The last 10 years or so I’ve been hopping between WP and various static systems. From what I’m seeing WP is moving in a direction I’m not interested it. So at the moment I’m using Blot, Micro.blog and BBEdit.

@manton I need to dig in a bit more, but this change must benefit large hosts like WordPress.com than it does individual WordPress users.

@alexink Abandon micro blog?!

@pimoore Should be called WebPooooooooop. amiright?

@bradenslen The thought of switching away from WordPress exhausts me!

@jemostrom @odd @pimoore This is the thing, I’ve got a couple of projects that I’d like to start but WordPress is not moving in the direction I want to go. I question if Wordpress will still be usable for me in 5 years. So I end up starting nothing new because I don’t trust WP.

@cdevroe Me too. I’ve looked at almost every blog platform out there until I can hardly see straight and none do quite what WordPress can do. The “light weight” are all missing one or more important feature. Of the heavy weight’s B2evolution might be best but there is a lot to learn.

@bradenslen I’d probably opt to build my own. I need so little.

@cdevroe that is bad.. I was playing with the idea of hosting a photoblog on wp.com instead of building something custom for microblog.. 🤨

@bradenslen I can’t see myself returning either. Have you tried some of the static site builders?

@JMaxB Yes, and I meant to write static site generator, not -builder. Still a site, but generated by tools.

@cdevroe I get the notion but WEBP is a good format, even if it’s not widely accepted. All browsers and all modern image editors support it.

@odd No. I’m a plug and play kinda guy and I wouldn’t know where to start.

@cdevroe @pimoore I’m now calling it WebP(oo) format.

@bradenslen Same here

@pcora I’ve tried that but it didn’t work at all for me, I’ve tried some gallery plugins but it’s still crap. WP and photos are a bad combination. In my opinion WP is really, really bad for managing media.

@pimoore @pcora yep, Glass is nice and I use it to share a photo or two. But personally I don’t want to “burden” people in general with my photos, I wanted a place where I can upload and only the people who are interested need to look at them. I’m using Smugmug for galleries, or for events I’m asked to photograph.

But I would love to have a CMS that would handle everything.

@alexink +1 for ClassicPress, although whether it will stay the course and mature is by no means certain yet.

@cdevroe WebPoop format sucks! Went to a site yesterday (using Firefox) and images are all WebPoop. Shifted to Safari and the images are now JPEG. Is there a plug-in that ditches WebPoop for other format?! :)

@alexink I agree, and was one of the first to offer concrete support via Open Collective. It needs a more reliable income stream than that though, like hosted WP.com but I have not yet seen that being discussed.

@jemostrom same feeling I had. I am trialing with Smugmug now.

@jemostrom @pimoore, I like Glass, but I want to publish on my own site, not on someone else’s. And I want to be able to post photo stories or some galleries from time to time. Glass is supposedly going to work on that in the future, which will be nice, but it will still be their site, not mine. And to be honest, ever since they started having “Appreciations” I started posting less.

@pcora @pimoore if you really want to host yourself you need to look at something like Piwigo (dynamic) or jAlbum (static)

@jemostrom @pimoore It can be done through a site like smugmug or even wordpress or squarespace, but I’like to be able to at least map to my domain.

@cdevroe There are a lot of responses on this… some I don’t see due to how Micro.blog works. But I will try to get to them all!

@JMaxB 😂

@alexink Ah yes!

@yurymol What notion? I hope my post does not make it seem I am against this change. I’m simply saying people should be aware. My opinion is not fully formed yet.

@bradenslen WebPuke?

I kid I kid. I don’t have an opinion on the format itself yet.

@jemostrom I agree. I’ve used it for nearly 20 years and it is a battle to use for media.

@alexink I will say, Gutenberg is amazingly good. I can see why some would turn it off. But for what it does, it is currently best in class. (And this coming from someone that spent $1M and 2 years building a WYSIWYG web site editor).

@rom I’m certain there will be by the time this ships.

@Mandalorian 😄

@cdevroe LOL! I don’t have an opinion on the format either and I do know that many webmasters upload way over bloated images for display on the web. They just don’t know any better. But if I upload a .jpg or a .gif file to my hosted, paid Wordpress instance, I expect it to stay a .jpg or a .gif. I don’t expect it to be changed into a different format without a by-your-leave. I consider that a hostile act. Unless WordPress is going to start paying my hosting fees.

That said, on WordPress.com it might make sense.

A lot will depend on the UI. If we can just check a box that says No WebP(oo) images and forget it then it might be okay.

@alexink How has Classicpress worked for you?

@alexink Thanks. I think there is a future for the ClassicPress fork. I’m seeing more and more WP plugins that only work with the block editor and I think that many more bloggers will migrate to ClassicPress as WP continues to morph into a marketing CMS.

@bradenslen So much of the US Government is on WP 5.9.1 and will not be moving on any time soon. Classic editor will be with us for a long time

@cdevroe GoDaddy Websites does that. Try to download an image from CeruleanSounds.com and it’s .webp