Divide! Divide!
I’ve been getting a fair amount of mail about Multiply, so I thought I should clarify some things. I wrote it mostly because I wanted to see if it could work, not because I wanted the functionality or thought that it was a good idea. It is not under active development — I’m not even using it myself.
It does work (for the moment), but there are pretty good reasons not to use it.
It works in a way I’ve consistently described as an abuse of the plugin system, by exploiting the way WordPress does things and changing things that weren’t meant to be changed. If WordPress itself changes enough, and there are some fairly big things coming in 1.6, then it will not work at all. In the very worst case, I’ll provide a script to turn all Multiply blogs into full WordPress installs, but then you’re in the same position as if you’d just used multiple installs in the first place.
The best reason is WordPress Multiuser. It’s official, supported, under active development, should scale better, and has more features. Where’s the bad? The changes to it since Multiply was released — global users table, phasing out reliance on the hated Smarty, etc. — have more or less invalidated every reason I had for not wanting to use it.
You can already fake alternate blogs by using category inclusion/exclusion (e.g., post your cat photos in the “omg i ♥” category and filter them out of the normal blog, then view them elsewhere). There are a couple of linklog plugins around if that’s all you need.
Multiply’s multi-user features are spotty, so it works best for a single user with multiple blogs. If you have more than a very few users, you’re definitely better off with WordPress μ. And don’t even think the words “weblog farm”.
Technical support is so limited as to be basically nonexistent. I haven’t been able to reproduce, let alone fix, most of the errors reported to me.
I still have pride in my work, of course, and if I were to start a second blog today then I’d be using Multiply, but I’m well aware of its limitations. Please, unless you’re sure you know what you’re in for, at least try WordPress μ (or one of the other solutions) first. I don’t want the guilt if something goes wrong… 
Thus far, 15 responses.
I can’t get it to install. It downloads as an html file and doesn’t show up as a plugin. If I change file ext to .php, it shows up in the plugins list, but when I try to activate it, I just get a page of the code. Various other things go squiffy as well.
Should it be a .php file?
Sorry Simon, it’s probably because I changed how .PHPS files are handled by the server. If you click straight through to the file instead of doing “save link as”, you’ll see a new download link.
Hey there, even though your plugin is pretty basic, I must say I do like it (and prefer it to Wordpress MU), simply because I don’t need to install so many files. 
My problem though is, that when I change wp-settings.php to your suggested version concerning plugins, my theme switcher plugin from Mr Peer does not seem to work out, even if I activate it separately on the new blog. Any hints on where I should go looking to fix that? Help appreciated.Thanks.
Hi, I am a happy user of your multiply plugin, however I would like to have flickr submit to both of my blogs. How do you set up multiple xmlrpc.php files?
james: you just need to make a new file in the same directory as xmlrpc.php (called, say, xmlrpc-3.php) with this content:
<?php
$mb_press_id = 3;
require('./xmlrpc.php');
?>
Hi Sam,
I was wondering how to have a blog and a photoblog at the same time.
e.g. Menu structure:
Blog1.com= Blog 1 (one installation of Wordpress)
blog1.com/Blog2= Photoblog (Another Installation of Wordpress)
I thought I better ask since you warned everybody to consider before downloading it How do I get the Menustructure working – does Multiply help me with that? Or should I use a static menu structure on both blogs using the same template?
Thanks for your time
Cheers Georg
Hey!
I just read your blog on reasons why NOT to use the multiply plug in. But I don’t se that any of them pertain to me or provide an adequate solution to my problem.
I am a filmmaker and I want to have a main blog for my entire site, but also a separate production blog for every film I make, that will allow me to post pictures and videos from each production as well. I also want each blog to have a separate look, based on the look of each film. So far, no other blog software can provide me with all this.
I use Multiply to create multiple blogs off of a single installation of WP, then create a separate CSS and RSS feed for each blog and then I am done! I use the podPress plug in to handle all the video stuff.
Please see what I am currently doing with Multiply @ http://www.eternalsky.us
Please also continue development of the Multiply pug in or join me to lobby WP to offer that feature natively in future releases.
Thank you so much for this plug in!!! It works great!
hi there. thanks for this plugin. looks great actually.
i have 2.1 latest wp and multiply.
i setup couple of blogs. all works. now i want to assign that a particular user only have access to a particular blog. as soon as i give them permission for one blog they have it across all blogs. i am not sure what i am doing wrong.
is this a feature or i am wrong?
any clue what might be happening?
thanks!
Chaz: thanks! Hope it works out for you.
Pirun: Mea culpa. That problem should be fixed in version 2.1.1. (On the download page now.)
thanks Sam! should i delete the old one? upgrade? i am running into some permission problems once i uploaded the new version. even the admin looses access
The permission problems are related. The issue was that all changes to roles/caps were being applied to the base blog; the issue now is that, because all roles/caps were being applied to the base blog, no-one (not even the administrator) has any permissions at all on the others!
You can either delete any Multiply blog(s) created with 2.1 and recreate them with 2.1.1, manually edit the permissions in the database, or you could try running the upgrade-multiply.php script, which I think will give user #1 admin privileges on all blogs.
i have to bug you again. i have Multiply and it works great. i also have FGallery plugin but right now it will not let me run on 2 different Presses. it uses the settings from Press #1 for Press #2 also. any knowledge on this particular issue?
much appreciated.
why orange? why not lime?
you rock, and your plugin is great. i haven’t got it to fully work yet, but i’m workin on it ;^)
keep the faith
Hello: I am not testing your plugin, jet..I read that you post on the upper part for this page…”why not use your plugin”
My problem is this:
I need:
One WP installation.
One database
5 blogs with diferent themes.
One panel administration.
The 5 blogs are all for me..I will be the admin.
I dont want use wordpressMU because I think that ver big for 5 blogs.
Greetings.
Leonardo Parada
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