Ghost CMS CEO John O'Nolan Boots Honest Criticism: Has He Forgotten Its Roots?

Founder/CEO of Ghost CMS silenced us

I recently wrote a critical post about Ghost CMS. A link to the post was then listed on Ghost's forum for comments and feedback. A couple of Ghost users joined the discussion, mostly agreeing with me and contributing to the conversation with other issues they had experienced while using Ghost over the years.

As you can probably read in the forum thread (provided that it is still available), there is a general disregard for user feedback, even for long-standing issues. Issues are largely ignored. The Ghost staff and team basically adopt a "my way or the highway" attitude.

From what I've seen on the Ghost forum, there's a constant hope among users that long-standing issues will be addressed because they really want the platform to improve.

Nixsanctuary always puts the community first when it comes to publication. We aren't interested in affiliate links for quick cash, nor are we against Ghost. We just raised our voice in our own way, like other self-hosting Ghost users.

Sadly, even after there was good engagement in the forum thread, the respected CEO chose to close and delist it. He responded very diplomatically, expressing absolutely zero concern for the real issues mentioned in the thread or the original post.

Additionally, my other listing was also taken down.

It is a smart move to discredit and easily quash any voices—a classic move used by many corporations. Isn't it?

However, this doesn't align with the roots, values, and ethos of Ghost.

Ghost CMS and Its Forgotten Roots

Why are people raising their voices? What are the true causes of these open discussions and expectations? To answer these questions, we need to go back to the beginning.

The founder and CEO of Ghost may have forgotten how it all started and the words he chose back then. I am here to remind him. Not for myself, but for the community.

Remember the peach pitch?

Mr. CEO, I sincerely applaud the way you wrote it originally. I could never have pulled this off with such precision, capturing the essence of free and open-source communities in a few sentences. You covered everything from retaining and operating with values like Mozilla's to decision-making for the betterment of the software. Such a giving nature!

I fail to understand how issues raised repeatedly by real Ghost CMS users on forums, in blog posts, etc., are against improving the server software. Why do you now want people to hack their own way when you originally pitched it as having no learning curve? End users don't even have a plug-in system at their disposal.

While I understand why most CMSs, including Ghost, can't offer a truly open core to their end users with no predefined or hard-coded settings or bloat, many of the mentioned issues are long-standing and could have easily been addressed. If that were the case, no real Ghost user or admin would claim to be ignored by the staff or team.

To date, Ghost CMS has had identical text on their page:

How are you being true to your users by ignoring and silencing real Ghost users and admins with lame excuses? You seem to be ignoring your own words by operating in a classic corporate style. I understand the limitations you have in terms of team size, etc., and that you can't address every issue, but quashing real voices is not how you said you would do things with Ghost.

One last thing: What happened to the Promise of a Truly Open Development?

It doesn't really look like that in practice. You don't encourage good ideas from real Ghost users and admins. Forget about an honest feedback system or talking to real Ghost users and admins. You aren't even letting them voice real issues or have fair, open discussions.

If someone is spreading lies and making false claims, others will debunk them, and there is always moderation. This is a separate issue.

However, the strategy of silencing and/or disabling real Ghost users and admins amounts to outright user subjugation.

You are going against everything you originally pitched.

Do I dislike Ghost CMS?

In today's world of free and open software, why would anyone continue to use server software they dislike?

Neither I nor the other Ghost admins or users who have voiced their opinions in hopes of improvement dislike or hate Ghost CMS. What you call "dislike" is actually constructive criticism that you happen to cancel or reject entirely.

I also fail to see the motivation behind the "dislike" that you observed.

I don't have Google AdSense enabled. We got rid of it. Unlike most CMS-related posts, I don't have any affiliate links for these posts. I'm not here to influence users to switch to a different CMS. Apparently, according to Ghost's own forum, many of them are doing it themselves unless they choose to use Ghost's Pro hosting.

I don't earn any revenue from this post or other posts about Ghost CMS.

Technically, I am a truly not-for-profit individual here.