Even before The WordPress Helpers launched, we were unloved in some corners of the established WordPress Community. There’s a certain irony in this when you consider that our position on WordPress’ continued growth aligns perfectly with that of Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg, but we understand that regardless of anything else when you question others’ methods there’s a potential to make enemies.

So be it. The WordPeess Helpers is here for you, not an old guard of people afraid to embrace change.

This week is shaping up as the week The WordPress Helpers poked a lot of eyes in the interest of helping you attain more and better options in how you get WordPress Help. And while we have large issues with StackExchange, and less-large problems with WordPress.org, it didn’t occur to us that paying a compliment to the folks at WPSiteCare could set off a Twitter flame war.

Whoops.

Click the link below and you’ll come to a piece we published earlier today. The image at the top reflects WPSiteCare’s Ryan Sullivan‘s request that we not use an image from a piece there to link TO that piece. We often use content as a means of attribution on things we reference here, and this was the first objection we’ve received. Our sister service Answer Guy Central has published our long-established position on the matter. Nevertheless, when Mr. Sullivan objected and made it clear that he wanted “his image” removed from our post, we complied.

But we didn’t exactly roll over.

We created an image based on the picture at WPSiteCare. As we understand it, this is protected action under the tenet of something called “Fair Use“. And interestingly, it was as a result of Ryan Sulllivan’s demand that we now have and claim copyright in the secondary image. (we hereby grant you or anyone the right to re-use that image, and request but do not demand attribution if you do so).

What does any of this have to do with the quest to get WordPress help?

[clickToTweet tweet=”Help us expand The WordPress Community” quote=”For the health of WordPress, The WordPress Community needs to expand!”]

We believe the WordPress Community needs to expand in a big way. This will help users. It will help “WordPress”. And while it may come as something of an ego-blow to the folks who up until now have viewed themselves as The WordPress Community, in the big picture it will help them, too.

So Jesse Petersen, if The WordPress Helpers needs to be a “Lone Ranger”, we’ll take on that mantle. We’d rather work with you, but if you choose to see us and our mission to make WordPress better for more people as a problem, we can stay on opposite sides of the fence.

Or as we told Sean Davis, you may not like our message, but Dialog is how broken things get fixed. Even when it’s contentious dialog.

Hi-Yo Silver!