I’ve had an old problem pinging Updating Services ‘cause I didn’t use WordPress index file name when I started using WordPress 1.2.1 on my personal website , From then I used blogrolling manual ping form.
When WordPress 1.5 released with its unique Theme system, upgrading was my nightmare because of complex home page index file situation on my site.
My site had an index file introducing myself , some bios and a little bit about my projects. Both my static files and WordPress files are in the root directory , in WP 1.2 I renamed the WordPress main file to weblog.php and used index.php for static pages index. After upgrading to 1.5 I used .htaccess to make home.php the start page. The wordpress index file is index.php and there is a rewrite rule /weblog for accessing that. I also set up weblog.manionline.org to be redirected to wordpress index file – so messy ? huh? – !
The problem started with Update Services, as people linked to my blog with different addresses through blogrolling, I should manually ping these addresses through blogrolling manual update form!
- www.manionline.org/weblog.php
- www.manionline.org/weblog
- www.manionline.org/index.php
- weblog.manionline.org
I finally decided to write a plugin to ping multiple URIs , After coding for couple of hours , the plugin was ready and worked properly , [I haven’t published that yet , I’ll do that in few days].
This plugin has an option page with a text box containg multiple weblog URI the user wants to ping when updating her/his blog. There also is an INSTANT PING button which can help user pinging Update Services instantly.
Now after testing plugin , I face to a question? Should we spread web application in depth like the job I did? Is it really necessary ? Should we force users to follow rules and standards or help them with adding such options to applications?
Mani on Wordpress 
I think you should feature your product as more as you can. Users love this.