E-drama, served daily

Those of you who used to think that e-drama is property of the teeny website scene: You are wrong. WPdesigner.com, a popular WordPress design and tutorial blog, formerly owned by Tung Do, aka Small Potato, seems to be the place of the WordPress community’s most recent e-drama. Wanna read it act by act? Here we go:

March 28, 2008

The first post by the new owner Pawel Ciszewski, after having bought the blog for 65.000$. A post, shortly presenting himself, indicating he would not personally write or create themes, but hire blog designers and post authors. First doubts came up: What is he going to do with the site? Will it continue to be like it was before? At least Pawel promised to keep the 5$ Theme Club up.

March 29, 30, and 31, 2008

Many more are leaving comments, welcoming Pawel to the WordPress community, some offering themselves as future theme creators and post authors. However, some complain about Pawel’s post to be too short and doubt whether someone “money oriented” is appropriate for running WPdesigner.com. Some are already predicting the death of the blog, while others tell people to calm down and wait. Small Potato leaves a comment on March 29, asking the commenters to please calm down.

April 1-April 7, 2008

Voices are getting louder. More than a hundred comments have already been posted, but no reaction yet from Pawel, no reply to the comments, no new posts so far. Some are just asking for updates, some announce their intention to unsubscribe from the sites feed, some predicting the site’s death already.

April 09-April 14, 2008

What about the Theme Club? Those who signed up during the “SP era” keep asking how the Club will be maintained. And there are even new club members, who had signed up just a few days ago and anxiously wait for their accounts to be activated…Wrong choice? Still no word from Pawel yet. While others still ask everyone to chill and take it easy, many more are already doing intensive research on who Pawel is. A casino owner? Google makes it possible.

April 15, 2008

Rumour is spread about Wpdesigner.com being for sale again. Some mysterious blog agent is hovering around looking for a possible new seller. A fake? Nobody knows. Voices blogging about this remain sceptical.

April 16-April 19, 2008

Still no updates by Pawel. The choir of voices gets louder and those defending the owner get more and more quiet. People are expressing their thoughts in written posts and in more comments, which have accumulated to over 150 by April 20.

April 20, 2008

Finally, a comment from Pawel, indicating that WPdesigner.com is about to be closed. But wait! Isn’t the name spelt wrong? Yeah, indeed, the commenter’s name is Pavel, but it’s PAWEL, actually… Who is the mysterious comment writer? Is it the shady blog agent?

Today

Those who believe that WPdesigner.com will be closed, claim their money back, accompanied by the sceptical crowd of the choir, which says, there won’t be nothing refunded anytime.

My opinion: For me, WPdesigner.com has been an institution, a great place for themes and tutorials, and, I loved SP’s writing style. It would be such a pity to see this great place die, but I think, the energy put into asking for updates from Pawel should be put into new WordPress projects, such as themes and tutorials for all those out there looking for resources to learn more about WordPress. What do you think?