WordPress is a great platform. It is open source, allowing many people select a theme and create a blog or website with minimal technical skill required. This is truly amazing and I’m all for it.

However, I take issue when individuals with minimal skills call themselves WordPress developers and charge others money. In just the last few weeks I have been contacted by:

  • Someone whose site was suddenly using the default Twenty Ten theme – the developer had just made changes directly to the theme and did not use a child theme. There is no backup and the site owner cannot get help from the original developer.
  • Someone who is the developer on a site but can’t figure out how to make basic CSS changes.
  • Someone whose developer abandoned her when she wanted changes beyond that developer’s capabilities. In this case, making a child theme with new fonts and a fun background.

Now, I am not saying that I am some super WordPress guru. After all, we all have things we can learn and improve upon. However, I am really surprised at how low the bar seems for people to set up shop as a WordPress developer.

Any thoughts on this? Please send me your comments