Better collaboration in WordPress with Post Forking

Post Forking is a plugin all about collaboration. Released almost a year ago, the plugin introduces Github’s style of collaboration into the WordPress post editing experience.

The plugin works, and it’s awesome. The biggest problem is it’s not intuitive enough for non-developers, the people most likely to benefit from such a tool. Aaron Jorbin wants to change that.

Aaron would like to improve the user interface and overall usability of the Post Forking plugin, and he’s started an Indiegogo campaign to help fund it. The campaign is for a modest $5,000, an overall sum that would be a steal if we were to ask Aaron to do this work under his normal consulting rate.

Post Forking really can change workflows for thousands of publishers. Imagine publishing content with a team of people, and being able to iterate and approve content seamlessly in the post (or custom post type) editor, just like we can with code on Github.

And as Jorbin notes on the Indiegogo campaign, this is the sort of work that could someday, if the interface is intuitive enough for everyday users, could even end up in WordPress core as one of the “features as plugins first” model.

I asked Aaron his motivation for doing this project:

The motivation is that I think this is something that people want in WordPress.  The first two versions of the plugin have validated the idea. The issues people have opened have validated that we need to make it more usable.

And I agree. The plugin is awesome. I’ve used it for a couple of client projects. But it is confusing right now. You have to explain terms like “branching” to non-technical people. If Aaron can improve the workflow and make it simple for anyone who can write in WordPress to use, then it would be a huge win for the WordPress community.

You can contribute as little as $15 or as much as $1,000. Go check out the campaign, and help Aaron improve this plugin so a broader audience can benefit from its amazing features.