"Just another WordPress site" might be seen as dismissive to users

[RanYanivHartstein]

The default tagline on all new WordPress sites is "Just another WordPress site".

This is obviously written in good spirit, and meant to encourage users to change their tagline. But not all users appreciate the humor. Some might feel it dismisses them and their sites, and even if it does get them to change the title, it leaves a bad taste.

I suggest we change this to "Another great WordPress site", "Another fine WordPress site", etc.

[jane]

I think maybe the tone doesn't come across right for you. I never saw it as being a push to change to change the tagline (though I'm in favor of updating it, or even doing rotating taglines), but as a carryover of the casual tone Howdy and some of our other text tries to convey. Saying it is offensive seems like a pretty aggressive statement.

[RanYanivHartstein]

Replying to jane:

I think maybe the tone doesn't come across right for you.

Exactly - it doesn't come across for me. I love the casual "Howdy" tone, but I don't see this as part of it. This is just rude :)

[RanYanivHartstein]

Replying to jane:

Saying it is offensive seems like a pretty aggressive statement.

Thanks for pointing this out - I changed the title.

[andrewryno]

I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but I know it's been brought up before. What about dropping the default tagline by default? Too many people never bother to change it because they simply don't know they have the option. 136,000,000 results for the exact phrase on Google:

​http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%22just+another+wordpress+site%22

Related to this opinion: #6479

[RyanMurphy]

Just posted a patch on #6479 that makes the tagline an install time option and sets the default tagline to (i.e. none).

[waclawjacek]

I like RanYanivHartstein's idea more - change the default tagline to "Another fine WordPress site" or something similar. Making it an install time option, thus having to set more things at install time, could be confusing at time of a first install, when one doesn't yet know what the slogan is in practice and might set it to none, not realising they have the option to put some text next to their site's title in some themes.

[youthgas]

Or you can go with something more whimsical, like "From us, to you. With WordPress." or "WordPress - helping the world talk." - that kind of vibe.

[jane]

Making it more positive wouldn't be bad.

"Not just another WordPress site!"

Props @matt for the suggestion. :)

[RyanMurphy]

Patch with Matt's wording

[RyanMurphy]

Attached patch changes it to Matt's wording.

[kovshenin]

Related: #6479

[ericlewis]

Replying to jane:

Making it more positive wouldn't be bad.

"Not just another WordPress site!"

Props @matt for the suggestion. :)

I agree a positive wouldn't be bad, however, this sounds a bit quirky and opinionated.

It implies there is a culture around WordPress being of subpar quality in mass quantity, of which your blog is not a part of. Your blog somehow is a cut above the rest. Although ironically, this will be the tagline for every new WP install, and seemingly every WordPress site will be better than that other blob of mass produced WordPress installs.

Let's leave this suggestion and move on to a basic, positive message.

I just came across WordPress.com's choice "A fine WordPress.com site," which I was pleased with. It's straight-forward, positive, and leaves the relation of your site to the greater WordPress ecosystem. We can modify it to "A fine WordPress site" for .org use.

[ericlewis]

in attachment:18552.1.diff​, "A fine WordPress site" for the default tagline.

[swissspidy]

Considering there are tons of tutorials for removing the "Just another WordPress site" tagline, changing the wording wouldn't really solve the problem.

What about removing the tagline completely? For example, Yoast SEO includes the following warning:

You still have the default WordPress tagline, even an empty one is probably better. You can fix this in the customizer.

Of course removing it could lead to users not knowing that this feature even exists. Therefore we could add a hint to the Hello World post, suggesting that they might wanna change it.

[karmatosed]

I'm not sure removing it is a good thing. Even adding it as a hint to the Hello World post, I can see a lot of people missing it. I'd raise a query as to how many people actually read that post for us to hide important information in it.

I do think we could have more positive phrasing than we currently have. I quite like the "fine" option as a small but friendly improvement.

[ericlewis]

Let's look into this, one way or another.

[voldemortensen]

To me, this is much ado about nothing. Many popular sites have little quirky things and it makes them what they are. I know that I haven't talked with every person who has ever used WordPress, and obviously there is at least a few individuals who feels this should be changed (or at least not against changing it), but this phrase has been in core for coming up on 5 years and this ticket is the only place I've ever heard mention of this.

Not that the decision is up to me, but I'd feel better about this if someone could point me to a forum or other public place where this has been discussed. Preliminary search engines queries aren't returning anything for me.

[chriscct7]

Wontfix per Slack discussion during the 4.5 milestone bug scrub meeting: ​https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/core/p1455642802000099