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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16:"WordPress Planet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"language";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2:"en";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"item";a:50:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:44:"WPTavern: WordPress Opens 2023 Annual Survey";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=149557";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-opens-2023-annual-survey";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2238:"<p>WordPress has <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/09/help-influence-the-future-of-wordpress-by-taking-the-2023-annual-survey-today/">launched its 2023 annual survey</a>, which is open to the entire community, including users, site builders, plugin and theme authors, and contributors. </p>



<p>The <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/05/2022-annual-survey-results-next-steps/">2022 survey</a> collected responses from roughly 3,400 people, including approximately 800 contributors, a decline in submissions from previous years. The 2022 survey introduced the Likert scale, a rating scale that quantitatively assesses opinions, attitudes, or behaviors. The total number of questions were reduced, with socio-economic questions mostly removed. </p>



<p>WordPress is still evolving the survey format to get a better understanding of the community&#8217;s sentiments and values.</p>



<p>&#8220;This year, like last year, the survey has undergone some improvements to the flow and question set,&#8221; Automattic-sponsored contributor Dan Soschin said. &#8220;A new platform is also being piloted, offering an updated interface, enhanced multi-lingual support, expanded analysis and visualization tools for the results, and more. The new platform also has built-in accessibility and privacy controls, ensuring the survey meets the diverse needs of the WordPress community.&#8221;</p>



<p>The 2023 survey takes approximately 5-10 minutes to complete. It collects information on some basic demographics, various community involvements, preferred WordPress editor, how and why you are using WordPress, and more. Several questions allow the community to weigh in on the most frustrating aspects of WordPress, areas that need more attention, and whether or not the current <a href="https://wordpress.org/about/roadmap/">WordPress roadmap</a> reflects respondents&#8217; needs and desires for the future of the project. </p>



<p>In addition to English, the survey is available in nine widely-used languages, which participants can select from a drop-down menu at the top of the page. All the data collected in the survey will be anonymized and WordPress does not associate IP addresses or email addresses with the results.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 27 Sep 2023 22:53:37 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:1;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"WPTavern: #92 – Juliette Reinders Folmer on When Contributions Need to Be Paid";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=149350";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/92-juliette-reinders-folmer-on-when-contributions-need-to-be-paid";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:49192:"Transcript<div>
<p>Juliette Reinders Folmer</p>



<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>



<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case when contributions to WordPress deserve payment.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice. Or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, well, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you, and hopefully get you all your idea featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox and use the form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today, we have Juliette Reinders Folmer.</p>



<p>Juliette is a highly experienced professional in the field of coding standards. With a deep understanding of industry best practices, she has dedicated herself for many years to ensuring code quality and consistency within WordPress.</p>



<p>Juliette acknowledges that coding standards encompass more than just formatting and white space, they also play a crucial role in maintaining compatibility and preventing conflicts between plugins.</p>



<p>By adhering to these standards, developers can minimize errors, and fatal issues for end users. To facilitate the implementation of coding standards, Juliette talks about the importance of automated checks and continuous integration.</p>



<p>We chat about her commitment to WordPress coding standards, and how the work that she&#8217;s done in this field have made her a trusted authority. Through her contributions and guidance, she has helped countless developers enhance their code quality, ultimately improving the overall WordPress ecosystem.</p>



<p>We talk about Juliette&#8217;s role as one of the maintainers of WordPress Coding Standards or WordPress CS. Discussing the importance of consistent code and the challenges of maintaining, and funding, open source projects.</p>



<p>Clearly there&#8217;s great value in tools like WordPress CS. Consistency is key for developers, and using a tool like WordPress CS makes it easier for them to meet expectations and be productive. It saves time by automating manual changes, and helps prevent conflicts and potential problems with other plugins or WordPress Core. Juliette emphasizes the continuous nature of the project. Where updates to a variety of PHP projects need to be kept in sync with the WordPress side of things.</p>



<p>All that said maintaining open source projects like WordPress CS comes with its challenges. Juliette tells us about the importance of financial support and adequate resources to mitigate business risk, as projects that go on maintained can create dependency issues and pose problems during corporate audits.</p>



<p>She speaks openly about her decision to step away from contributing. The project is so crucial, but underfunded and Juliette thinks it&#8217;s time to draw a line in the sand. It&#8217;s time for contributions in return for payment.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s not just about financial contributions though. Juliette asks us to support the WordPress Community Collective, and for us all to explore other ways to assist the project. She highlights the need for all companies benefiting from WordPress to contribute towards funding more broadly, rather than relying on one or two of the larger companies in the space.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re a contributor who was even pondered how much WordPress relies on volunteers, this podcast is for you.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Juliette Reinders Folmer.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Juliette Reinders Folmer. Hello, Juliette.</p>



<p>[00:04:41] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Hi Nathan. And you got my name right.</p>



<p>[00:04:43] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I appreciate that. Thank you so much. I&#8217;ve had a little bit of a practice, let&#8217;s put it that way. I appreciate you being on the podcast today.</p>



<p>This is going to be a really interesting subject. It could get a bit nerdy, but I suspect that we&#8217;ll avoid large proportion of the nerdiness. But we&#8217;re going to be talking today about something which I suspect a lot of the people who tune into this podcast regularly may not know anything about. Hopefully during the course of this podcast we&#8217;ll alert you to why you should know about it, why it&#8217;s important, what it is, what it does.</p>



<p>But before we get into that, WordPressCS or WPCS, let&#8217;s ask Juliette just to introduce herself. Tell us a little bit about her background, working with WordPress, what she does and all of that. So Juliette, if that&#8217;s okay with you, over to you, little bio moment.</p>



<p>[00:05:32] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Oh dear. I did not prepare for that bit. Basically I&#8217;ve been self employed for good 20 years now, and as a general rule of thumb, I do whatever I like and I hope that sometimes people actually pay me money to do it. Which is not always great from a commercial point of view but it keeps me happy.</p>



<p>[00:05:51] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Typically on this podcast we have people who are devoted to some aspect of WordPress. My understanding is that your technical expertise stretches beyond WordPress as well, PHP and various other different things. So is it true that you only operate in the WordPress space, or do you stretch a little bit further than that?</p>



<p>[00:06:11] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> I&#8217;m all over the place. I sometimes say for people who are really in the WordPress community, see me as the PHP community reaching out and helping.</p>



<p>[00:06:20] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Nice. So this podcast today is going to stem off a piece that I read on the WP Tavern. It was written by Sarah Gooding. If you want to find it I will link it in the show notes. But maybe for ease of use, it was published on August the 22nd 2023, and it&#8217;s called WordPress coding standards maintainer warns maintenance will be halted without funding, in quotes, this is an unsustainable situation.</p>



<p>That maintainer is you, and that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re going to talk about today. We&#8217;re going to talk about that unsustainable situation. But I feel that we can&#8217;t really talk about why it&#8217;s unsustainable unless we learn a little bit about what WPCS is, what it does.</p>



<p>I know that&#8217;s an enormous subject to deal with in just a few moments. But I wonder if you could paint a picture of what WCS is because I feel the listenership, there may be quite a proportion of us that don&#8217;t know.</p>



<p>[00:07:17] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Absolutely. Okay so WordPress, like most projects, have coding standards. And now when I say coding standards a lot of people think, okay this is about how code should be formatted, white space, whether things should have comments and doc blocks. You know, how code should look.</p>



<p>In part, yes that&#8217;s correct. We do have rules for that, because if code looks the same across your whole code base it makes it much easier to review code and only concentrate on the actual changes, instead of being distracted by all the inconsistencies in how the code is formatted. So, yes there are rules about code style, code formatting. But WordPress coding standards does much more.</p>



<p>It also encompasses a number of rules around best practices, just industry best practices. Best practices for how to interact with WordPress. So as a plugin you don&#8217;t want to conflict with other plugins. So there are certain best practices you can apply, like prefixing everything you put in the global namespace.</p>



<p>And if you apply those correctly the chance of your plugin conflicting with another plugin and creating a widescreen of death, fatal error, for end users is a lot smaller. And WordPressCS can help with that as well and has, on the one hand, has some rules for that. On the other hand, what you then get is WordPressCS as the package, because you have the written rule, but then you also have tooling which basically takes those written rules and codifies that into automated checks. Automated checks which can be run in continuous integration.</p>



<p>So every time someone puts some code online those checks can be run to make sure that the code complies with the rules you&#8217;ve agreed upon. And WordPressCS is one of those packages. It&#8217;s a package which takes those rules, codifies them in automated checks and then can be run on your code. And it doesn&#8217;t just check it and point out errors, it can actually auto fix a lot as well.</p>



<p>[00:09:29] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So the enterprise of WPCS, and I should probably say that CS is the acronym for Code Sniffer. The enterprise is to create this suite of tests if you like, so that whilst you&#8217;re writing code, if you&#8217;re using CI, it&#8217;s constantly giving you alerts as to whether or not there&#8217;s a problem. We&#8217;ve identified that there&#8217;s a little problem here, you can take a look at it, and thereby mitigate the problems, right?</p>



<p>[00:09:55] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> It can even do it even more directly. If you use a modern IDE, individual development environment like a PHP Storm or VS Code, it can even give you those notifications while you&#8217;re coding. It integrates with that kind of tooling. So while you&#8217;re typing your code, it can fix things for you and it can notify you of the things it doesn&#8217;t fix.</p>



<p>[00:10:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So given the open source nature of WordPress, and the fact that anybody can download it and anybody can write a plugin for it, an interesting comparison would be something like the Mac App Store, or the Apple App Store where Apple, in effect, is the custodian of the code. Apple will go to great lengths to make sure that your code is compliant and it&#8217;s completely the opposite model. You put stuff into their ecosystem, they&#8217;ll do checks and make sure that it&#8217;s all compliant with oh let&#8217;s say iOS or something like that.</p>



<p>[00:10:50] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> In a way a similar situation is in place in the WordPress ecosystem at large, because if you want a plugin to be listed on wordpress.org it goes through a list of quality checks as well. And they have some specific checks from that team, but some of the checks they use also are based on WordPressCS or are from WordPressCS.</p>



<p>[00:11:14] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah that&#8217;s a really good point. I was thinking also about the sort of third party plugin marketplace which exists in WordPress, into which anybody can drop their code. So it&#8217;s quite, you know, you can go to one of hundreds of thousands of websites and download a plugin which you can add to WordPress. And really there&#8217;s a bit of a gamble going on there. You&#8217;re hopefully able to determine that the code is good.</p>



<p>But a tool like WPCS will give you some guidance. You can run it yourself. It&#8217;s not like you have to trust the repo. If you went out and got third party plugins you could run these tests yourself. And just before we started the call, you were talking about if you were, let&#8217;s say an agency, and you had a particular need and you had three or four plugins that you thought might be useful. They would, all of them satisfy the requirements that you&#8217;ve got. But you could run them through something like WPCS, and get a real useful insight into well, whether or not they meet the standards, how compliant they are and so on.</p>



<p>[00:12:12] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Correct. You will get some noise messages about different white space requirements, for instance. But you will also get messages about, hang on, this is not prefixed and this could conflict. Or hang on, output is not escaped. This plugin may introduce XSS security vulnerabilities. There are actual sniffs in WordPressCS which scan your code for typical attack vectors, and whether your code is well enough defensive against those attack vectors.</p>



<p>[00:12:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And I&#8217;m guessing that the enterprise of keeping WPCS maintained is like a road that you never reach the end of. You are updating it but there&#8217;s always the next change out in the, I don&#8217;t know, PHP ecosystem, which means that you can&#8217;t ever say well it&#8217;s done. Because PHP 8 comes along, then PHP 8.1 and PHP 8.2 and so we go.</p>



<p>So would that be fair to say? What kind of things is it sniffing for? Are we just working in the PHP space, or is it working with other things as well?</p>



<p>[00:13:19] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Well PHP_CodeSniffer as the underlying tooling, at this point is capable of scanning PHP, CSS code and JavaScript code. For the most part WordPressCS just focuses on the PHP code, because by now if we look at the whole ecosystem in development, there is plenty of other tooling available for CSS and JavaScript. Which wasn&#8217;t available when PHP_CodeSniffer started, because this is an old project.</p>



<p>I mean this project got started in 2005. So at that time that tooling was not available. So this was one of the only tools which could do something like this. The intention of PHP_CodeSniffer, because there&#8217;s so much other tooling available now for CSS and JavaScript, is to actually drop support for CSS and JavaScript. So with that in the back of our minds, our focus is completely on PHP.</p>



<p>[00:14:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And so getting back to the question about how this is a never ending road, I&#8217;m assuming there will have been no point in the past, or predictably in the future where you&#8217;ll be able to say, okay this is done, because there&#8217;s constant work that needs to be done because the technology, the PHP, is always adding lots and lots of different things from year to year.</p>



<p>[00:14:34] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> And it&#8217;s not just PHP. I mean if something changes in WordPress, WordPressCS needs to take that into account. For instance one of the scans is applied to plugins but also I think to WordPress Core is, are you using deprecated functions? Because those functions are deprecated for a reason. So you should use something else. There&#8217;s normally an alternative available.</p>



<p>Or are you using particular PHP functions for which there is a WordPress alternative which should be used? So if WordPress introduces one of those alternatives then WordPressCS needs to be updated to add a new check. If WordPress deprecates functions, WordPressCS needs to be updated.</p>



<p>On the other hand, like you already pointed out, every year there&#8217;s a new minor release of PHP, sometimes a major. But at least every year there&#8217;s a minor and those introduce new syntaxes. And in the past three, four years PHP has introduced so many new syntaxes it became really hard to keep up. All those syntaxes mean that code can be written in different ways.</p>



<p>And sniffs basically look for a certain pattern of code. But if code can now be written in a different way, that new way of writing code needs to be taken into account. To prevent false positives, as in throwing an error when there shouldn&#8217;t be an error. But also prevent false negatives, for people using the new syntax and the sniff not being able to understand it and throw the error which should be thrown.</p>



<p>Every single sniff basically needs to be reviewed after every PHP release, to be checked if it needs to take any of the new syntaxes into account. But before we can do that the underlying tooling needs to be updated as well, because it actually needs to recognise the new syntaxes.</p>



<p>[00:16:26] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So a constant study.</p>



<p>[00:16:28] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Yeah it&#8217;s a whole domino chain of things and it&#8217;s basically a circle going round, because yes, we put dominoes in place and then we managed to get things merged in PHP_CodeSniffer. Then PHPCSUtils can update, and then we can update WordPressCS. And by that time a new PHP version has come out and we can start the whole circle again.</p>



<p>[00:16:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> We have this expression in the UK, &#8220;it&#8217;s like painting the Forth Bridge&#8221;. The Forth Bridge is a particularly long bridge in Scotland, and you begin painting at one end and by the time a year or so later they&#8217;ve got to the other end, well, the paint on the far end has now become corroded, and they&#8217;ve got to begin again so it&#8217;s this never ending cycle.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;ve heard of WPCS and have used it, I&#8217;m sure that you will recognise the utility of it. But if you haven&#8217;t, and as I said at the top of the show, I think there&#8217;s probably a lot of people listening to this who haven&#8217;t. How do we actually make use of it? How would a typical WordPress user get WPCS working, and giving them some insight into the suite of things that they&#8217;ve got in their WordPress site?</p>



<p>[00:17:32] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Okay. Well for people who are not used to command line, this might be a bit scary. You need the command line. Then again I mean, as I said, it integrates with IDEs so you can run certain things in IDEs as well. But as a general rule of thumb if you want to scan for instance, say you&#8217;re evaluating those four plugins to find out which one you&#8217;re going to install, like the example you used earlier.</p>



<p>The easiest way to use WordPressCS as part of your toolset when you&#8217;re evaluating, is to do so from the command line. And that means you need PHP installed. Well if you work with WordPress you generally should probably have PHP installed. You need Composer which is a package manager in the PHP world, like npm for JavaScript but then for the PHP world.</p>



<p>And then you need to install WordPressCS and that&#8217;s a Composer require. And if you don&#8217;t work with code yourself I would say use a Composer global require, then you can use it anywhere on your system without it being project specific. If you do work with code, please use it on a project basis and require it for the project, because it will also make it transparent for other contributors that you expect them to comply with WordPressCS.</p>



<p>So yeah, you can either install it globally or you can install it on a project base. And once you run the Composer require, it has all of that in the readme of course, so you can just copy and paste that command.</p>



<p>Once you run that everything is set up, and you can just run the commands to run WordPressCS which is vendor, bin, phpcs, dash dash standard is WordPress.</p>



<p>At the same time, most of the time, you will want to customise a little. For instance, I mentioned prefixing before to prevent conflicts with other plugins. If you want to check prefixes you need to tell WordPressCS which prefix to look for. If you don&#8217;t give it any prefixes, we cannot check whether things are prefixed. We need to know what to look for.</p>



<p>In the WordPressCS repo, an example rule set, which has some of the common things which you should add to a custom rule set to use. There&#8217;s also, in the wiki, quite a lot of documentation about what the various options are you can toggle on and off. That way you can set up a customer rule set and get yourself running in a more detailed way.</p>



<p>[00:20:08] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I suspect that the proportion of people listening to this podcast who really never look at the code, they are, I don&#8217;t know, you maybe call them implementers or something like that, might be thinking well, why does any of this matter? What is the point? And I guess that&#8217;s something that I want to tease out.</p>



<p>I want it to be clear that unless projects like WPCS occur and continue to occur, the bedrock of the software, which we&#8217;re all using for free, gratis, is not going to be something that you can trust as much, I guess.</p>



<p>So I don&#8217;t know if there&#8217;s anything you want to throw into the mix there. If somebody was to come to you and say well I just use WordPress, why should I care about this? Why is this of interest to me? It&#8217;s a bit like, if I never go to a hospital, it&#8217;s not well we shouldn&#8217;t have hospitals because I&#8217;m perfectly well. Something along those lines.</p>



<p>[00:21:01] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Yeah, well if your site&#8217;s never been hacked that&#8217;s the same comparison. Your site&#8217;s never been hacked. So why do we need security checks and security reviews?</p>



<p>[00:21:10] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So what would be the single, or maybe a couple of messages that you would tell people, this is why what I&#8217;m doing matters. This is why we all need to know that this project exists, and that it&#8217;s important.</p>



<p>[00:21:23] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> There&#8217;s different answers for different levels. So for developers it definitely makes it easier for them to be high productive. Because if code is consistent it makes it easier to work with, to know the expectations, to review code, et cetera, et cetera. So it&#8217;s a productivity tool for them, including the auto fixing.</p>



<p>Some of the changes which may need to be done, if you&#8217;d need to do those manually that would take you like a week or two weeks. And if you use the auto fixer, it&#8217;s done in five minutes for you. So that is literally two weeks of work saved. That&#8217;s on the development level and the management, the IT department level.</p>



<p>If you are an agency who normally doesn&#8217;t use code, it&#8217;s more about, okay if I install this plugin, will it cause problems with other plugins? Will it cause problems for WordPress Core? Because there are plugins which will gladly override a global variable from WordPress Core and then WordPress Core breaks.</p>



<p>WordPressCS has checks against stuff like that. I already mentioned the conflict. If there&#8217;s two functions in two different plugins which use the same name, you have a fatal error and a white screen of death. Do you want your customer to get a white screen of death? No you don&#8217;t. So this tooling can help guard against that, can help prevent those kind of situations from happening.</p>



<p>[00:22:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So I&#8217;m going to go back to the piece on the WP Tavern. I&#8217;m going to read the title again because I think it&#8217;s important for the next part of our discussion. WordPress Coding Standards maintainer warns maintenance will be halted without funding, this is an unsustainable situation.</p>



<p>So the person that is referenced in that article is you. You&#8217;ve obviously decided that this is an unsustainable situation. I think we&#8217;ve painted a picture as to why WPCS is an incredibly useful thing to have around. But i&#8217;m keen to know exactly how many people get their hands in the weeds with that tool? How many people do you have on your air quotes team? How many hours are contributed by those people per month, per year, whatever? Just give us an inkling as to how much goes into this important project.</p>



<p>[00:23:42] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> As I already mentioned, WordPressCS is not a completely standalone tool. It is built on the shoulders of giants. The underlying tool, PHP_CodeSniffer, needs to be maintained primarily before we can even do anything in WordPressCS. That tool currently has two maintainers and I&#8217;m one of them.</p>



<p>There are outside contributors, and quite regularly we get an outside contributor with a pull request. But if you look at the bulk, to be honest, I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;m saying anything silly if I say that for the past few years a lot of that has come down to me. So that is the biggest giant we&#8217;re standing on.</p>



<p>Then we have PHPCSUtils which is a layer on top of PHP_CodeSniffer which makes writing sniffs easier. Because writing sniffs can be pretty complex with all the syntaxes you have to take into account. Maintained by me, completely.</p>



<p>Then we have PHPCSExtra, which is an external standard which WordPressCS uses quite a few sniffs from. About, I think more than 50% of the sniffs from PHPCSExtra are used in WordPressCS 3. Again, I&#8217;m the maintainer.</p>



<p>Remember that I mentioned that you install everything via Composer? There&#8217;s a Composer plugin which makes sure that all those external standards get registered with PHP_CodeSniffer. I maintain that together with one other person.</p>



<p>And then we have WordPressCS itself. And we have a maintainer team of three people. I&#8217;m really, really happy that there&#8217;s three of us. At the same time the majority of the actual code work comes down to me. Dennis would love to spend more time, but he hasn&#8217;t got the financial safety net to be able to do so without funding. Gary hasn&#8217;t got the time to do so anyway.</p>



<p>So I&#8217;m really happy with Gary and Dennis&#8217;s support, and for all the code review they do. But if we actually look at the code changes, nearly everything comes down to me.</p>



<p>[00:25:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So we&#8217;re painting a picture here, and it&#8217;s a funny phrase to bring out but there&#8217;s this idea of the bus factor. And the bus factor is the idea that if, sadly, somebody was to be hit by a bus, and they were no longer able to contribute to the project. The bus factor being one is indicative that you only need to have one person removed from the project for the whole thing essentially to collapse.</p>



<p>And that&#8217;s basically what we&#8217;ve got here. We&#8217;ve got a situation where you are maintaining an awful lot of what you&#8217;ve just described, and you&#8217;re doing it, well, gratis. You&#8217;re doing it largely I&#8217;m imagining, and you can correct me if I&#8217;m wrong, you&#8217;re doing this in your own time for no financial benefit.</p>



<p>And I guess one of the things that&#8217;s come out of the article is that having done this for so many years, and contributed so many hours of your own time, you&#8217;ve reached the end of the road potentially about that and you feel that this situation is no longer sustainable. It&#8217;s a bit of a plea for help?</p>



<p>[00:26:56] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Yes. I mean basically over the past two years this has dominated my daily life, in a way which isn&#8217;t healthy anymore. It&#8217;s not you know a nice side project anymore. No, it&#8217;s literally what I spend nearly all my time on. And I&#8217;m lucky that I have a few stable customers where I can scrounge some hours here and there to be able to actually pay for my bread at the supermarket.</p>



<p>The balance is completely wrong now.. And I&#8217;m not alone. I mean this is valid for a lot of open source projects. But we&#8217;ve reached a point that the balance is so far off that this is just not sustainable anymore. I cannot afford to do this anymore. I cannot justify doing this anymore.</p>



<p>[00:27:44] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Forgive me asking this question, and I hope it doesn&#8217;t come out the way that it might, but I&#8217;m going to ask it anyway. Do you have regrets around the amount of time that you&#8217;ve contributed over the past? So you mentioned that it&#8217;s requiring lots and lots of your time, and you&#8217;re basically doing this as a, almost like a full time job really.</p>



<p>Do you have any regrets getting into 2023 and that situation being the way it was? Or do you wish that you&#8217;d have managed to have this inspiration, if you like, this epiphany about enough is enough, a few years ago?</p>



<p>[00:28:18] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> When it&#8217;s enough I say so. It&#8217;s felt like it&#8217;s been enough for about a year, and a large part of that is the fact that, in my perception, I think there&#8217;s a disconnect between the open source user nowadays and open source maintainers.</p>



<p>Open source users often don&#8217;t realise there&#8217;s no funding. They are not the product. And they come in with a sense of entitlements, and a sense of pressure which is being put on maintainers to release, and yes but you should do this. No, I shouldn&#8217;t do this. I&#8217;m doing this out of the kindness of my heart, and you should be a lot kinder to me if you want to make any suggestions for the project.</p>



<p>[00:29:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Can I just clarify, have you been at the receiving end then of things which you, in the way that you&#8217;ve described, you&#8217;ve had requests in well let&#8217;s not beat around the bush, less than polite, shall we put it that way?</p>



<p>[00:29:13] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> We actually at some point had to put, in a hurry, a code of conduct into the project. And we couldn&#8217;t wait for the WordPress project to get themselves sorted with a code of conduct, because we had an abusive user which was really going way too far.</p>



<p>[00:29:28] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah I mean like you said, I think the word surrounding that is entitlement, isn&#8217;t it? Somebody who believes that it is your role. You have become the person doing this and so well it must now be what Juliette does. Juliette must fix it at the moment anything needs fixing. And of course I think you&#8217;ve reached the end of the road there, and you&#8217;ve decided that enough is enough.</p>



<p>Does that mean that you are, well, let&#8217;s examine what that means. Let&#8217;s throw out a few scenarios. Does it mean that you would like more maintainers, so that you can step away from the project? Or is there a different possible outcome here where you would love to be continuing to work on this, but there needs to be some way of putting food on the table, i.e. payment in exchange for your time here? So I guess both of those options could coexist at the same time.</p>



<p>[00:30:16] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Yes, and that would be the ideal situation because the thing is, it would be great if we could get more maintainers interested and more people be willing to contribute structurally to the project. Except this type of work has quite a steep learning curve. So to get to the point where you can function as a maintainer for a project like this, and actually take it seriously in the way it&#8217;s been taken seriously over the past few years, that will require quite a lot of coaching, and guess who&#8217;s doing the coaching then.</p>



<p>[00:30:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. So let&#8217;s ask that slightly different question. Over the past several years, have you had people go through the project? You know, that they&#8217;re interested in it, but they don&#8217;t stick around or is it literally that the door is open but nobody ever steps through it?</p>



<p>[00:31:04] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> There&#8217;s a number of different types of contributors. You have the drive by contributor. We will say okay, we have this sniff which we use in our own company, I&#8217;m going to throw it into PR and just drop it in the WordPressCS repo, because it could be useful for other people.</p>



<p>You do an extensive review and give them feedback of you know, this needs changing that need changing. Because if you use it in your own company you can take some liberties because you know what the agreements are, what code is based on in that company. Except you can&#8217;t take those liberties with a project which has this many users as WordPressCS. So we require a higher quality. And the drive by contributor will just not respond to that review at all, and just let the PR rot and die. So that&#8217;s the one.</p>



<p>Then you have, and I&#8217;ve seen two, three people over the past five years maybe in WordPressCS like that, will come in and actually understand what they&#8217;re doing and how to do a PR. But then don&#8217;t have enough time or have a family, have a job and their employer doesn&#8217;t allow them to contribute to open source regularly, et cetera. Or they get moved into a different position in their job, and then don&#8217;t have time anymore.</p>



<p>Those are like the little jewels which I&#8217;d like to hold onto, and cherish and cuddle and watch to flourish in the project. Except they are rare and unfortunately we rarely manage to retain them.</p>



<p>And then you have the, oh gosh how should I call it? What&#8217;s that called again? That month of code thingy, Oktoberfest. Yeah, I&#8217;m going to make a one character change in your readme. Let&#8217;s waste maintainers time, kind of PRs. Just so they can get a t shirt kind of thing.</p>



<p>There&#8217;s a couple of different types of contributors. A lot of contributors, or people I talk with, will say like, oh I&#8217;d love to contribute. I&#8217;m going to write a new sniff. And I&#8217;m like okay but do you actually know what you&#8217;re doing already? No, you don&#8217;t. Okay. So now you&#8217;re going to write a new sniff, and that needs a lot of coaching to get to a point where it&#8217;s actually mergeable. Instead of helping with the grunge work which needs to be done every time, every year, at every WordPress release, every PHP release. And actually learning from the patterns you see in others existing code.</p>



<p>And I know that the grunge work is boring, but it needs to be done, and we need people who will put up with the grunge work because otherwise the code base will just grow with new sniffs but nobody&#8217;s maintaining.</p>



<p>[00:33:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. So I guess what we&#8217;re discovering here is, A the project is important. B there&#8217;s not many people meaningfully contributing to it, apart from the ones that you mentioned including yourself. I think you mentioned two other people.</p>



<p>[00:34:02] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> We do get some contributions which are meaningful, absolutely. I&#8217;m not dissing that at all. But it&#8217;s the exception not the rule, in my experience. And that&#8217;s a shame. I mean I really would love to see more meaningful contributions.</p>



<p>[00:34:16] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah okay. Thank you for clarifying that. That&#8217;s good. But it also sounds as if you&#8217;re not quite at the point where you want to completely distance yourself from this project and never touch it again. I think I&#8217;m right in saying that a possible desirable outcome would be that you found a way to make this work for your setup.</p>



<p>And really what I&#8217;m talking about there is finance. Am I right in saying that you would continue this work if you were able to make it a job, if you like, and be paid for it?</p>



<p>[00:34:49] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Absolutely. I mean I enjoy this kind of work. That&#8217;s obvious otherwise I wouldn&#8217;t have gotten involved in the whole stack, and even projects related to which I haven&#8217;t even mentioned yet. I do enjoy this kind of work, but I do not enjoy the abuse, and the abuse is something I will not put up with anymore. Only ever put up with if it&#8217;s paid, if I get paid for it.</p>



<p>[00:35:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So since the article was published on the Tavern, so we&#8217;re recording this just for context kind of probably about 20 plus days since that piece was published. There were a lot of comments, an unusually large amount of comments. So this topic is of great interest to people. And I wondered, given that there was great interest and a large amount of comments there, I wondered if anybody had figured out what your requirement was, and had approached you. In other words has anything changed or is it still the way it was?</p>



<p>[00:35:42] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> I can see some parties being interested in contributing to a solution, but I&#8217;ve not seen a solution yet. But one of the things which has changed, and which I think is an improvement, and i&#8217;m really hoping that will allow people to contribute to the funding of the project, is that the WPCC has in their open collective, has opened a project for WordPressCS and the stack around it, to raise funding for that.</p>



<p>[00:36:15] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So just for clarity, the WPCC is the WordPress Community Collective. And what you can do is you can go over there and they have a handful, at the moment, of projects which you can donate to. And it looks like you have been added to that, or at least the WPCS project has been.</p>



<p>Do you have an amount, like a target that you want to get to in order for this to be possible for you? Or is it more a, well let&#8217;s just see where this goes, and bit of blue sky thinking, hopefully some people will help me out?</p>



<p>[00:36:45] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> I have a target in mind. I&#8217;m not comfortable calling that out on air though.</p>



<p>[00:36:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> No that&#8217;s fine. So that&#8217;s where we&#8217;re at. As of the 5th of September 2023, we&#8217;ve got this incredibly important project which underpins the sort of security, the confidence that you can have in WordPress and the plugin ecosystem surrounding it. But we&#8217;ve got this one or two or three, but largely one person maintaining that entire project. But it looks as if, unless something radically changes in the near future, as if that whole edifice might tumble. How much more time are you going to give this before you actually finally call it a day? Maybe that&#8217;s not even in your thinking, and maybe it&#8217;s you know you&#8217;re hoping that it will change</p>



<p>[00:37:29] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Well I&#8217;m definitely hoping it will change. As a rule of thumb I&#8217;m basically not touching the code anymore. Not until there is sight of a solution.</p>



<p>WordPressCS is definitely not an exception. I mean I know open source projects where there&#8217;s much bigger problems with abuse than in WordPressCS. I&#8217;ve known people who&#8217;ve had death threats in their DMs, et cetera, et cetera. That open source and abuse is a whole different topic, but it&#8217;s definitely not isolated to WordPressCS. And WordPressCS need for funding is also not isolated. I mean the accessibility project also needs funding. There&#8217;s other projects in the periphery of WordPress which could do with funding.</p>



<p>I think that it&#8217;s very easy for people to think, like okay but WordPress is open source and yeah there&#8217;s some big companies earning money so they should pay for everything. I do not agree. I think we should as companies which earn money from WordPress, that all those companies should get together in something like the WordPress Community Collective and fund those projects.</p>



<p>It shouldn&#8217;t come down to one or two of the bigger ones. It should come down to all of us because all of us are making money off it. Well all of you, because I&#8217;m not.</p>



<p>[00:38:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Obviously the nuts and the bolts of that mechanism, the bits and the pieces that would need to be configured to make that work, i&#8217;ve come across that project yet. But that is a really interesting idea, isn&#8217;t it? The idea that there&#8217;d be somewhere, and the WPCC does seem the best bet we&#8217;ve got at the moment.</p>



<p>It feels a little bit like five for the future or something like that. But instead of it being time, it&#8217;s, okay we&#8217;re a big company we make money off these things. We use PHP, we use the code sniffing, we do these plugins that are open source and so on. So let&#8217;s just put our flag in the sand and say we&#8217;ll donate 5% of our resources, and then that organisation, whatever it was, the WPCC or something else that&#8217;s new, could then distribute those resources and people like you could dip into that pool. That seems eminently sensible.</p>



<p>[00:39:36] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> I&#8217;ve written about this years ago already. It&#8217;s also about business risk. If you run a business which is built on an open source project, and you do not contribute back financially, as well as with people. You run business on quicksand. You are literally running it on quicksand. Any corporate audit type of your company will say you&#8217;ve got an unmitigated business risk.</p>



<p>You have risk that those projects which you&#8217;re not contributing to, which you&#8217;re not paying for, for which don&#8217;t have a service contract, are just going to go unmaintained. And you are so dependent on these projects, you should mitigate that business risk. And one way of doing that is with funding. Another way is with resources, and preferably with both.</p>



<p>And it&#8217;s not just WordPress yes, it&#8217;s all the open source projects in the stack. Go through the whole stack. You have PHP Units probably in your stack. You have Apache in your stack. You have a Chrome browser in which you test things in your stack.</p>



<p>And Chrome, yes, everyone associates it with Google, but it&#8217;s built on top of Chromium which is open source. You might use Mastodon as a communication channel. Make sure you also fund your Mastodon instance. It&#8217;s the whole stack of all those open source projects which need funding. So go through your stack. Do a proper inventory and fund them. This is the only way to mitigate the business risk all of those companies are running.</p>



<p>[00:41:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I think you&#8217;ve made a really compelling case for this. In that, A, we&#8217;ve painted the picture of what it is that you&#8217;re involved in, and how important it is as a real bedrock of reliance and the ability for us to be confident in WordPress. And then we&#8217;ve also painted the picture of how the underpinnings of that aren&#8217;t very stable. Because all of us, unless we&#8217;re incredibly lucky, have to put food on the table and we have to be paid for our work.</p>



<p>And it does sound like the balance, certainly in your case, has gone really far in one direction, and you are the single biggest contributor to that project. And so it makes it all the more important that something like this gets funded, however that may be.</p>



<p>Now if you happen to be listening to this podcast and you feel that you are able to change the direction here. Juliette, what would be the best way? It sounds like WPCC, which I&#8217;ll link to in the show notes, may be the best way at the moment. But I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve got any other intuitions about how this project might be helped.</p>



<p>[00:42:07] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> Companies can always reach out to me, DM me, Slack, or DM the maintainers as a collective. Gary, Dennis, and me on the WordPress slack. Open Collective is definitely welcome to receive funding for us. Keep in mind, I look towards the companies. I do not look to individual developers to fund this. Because, yes, they feel it most if projects like this don&#8217;t continue. But they are the ones we should talk to management and tell management to fund it, because it shouldn&#8217;t come down to individual developers. And one time contributions are very welcome, but recurring contributions are what keeps the project alive.</p>



<p>[00:42:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Well let&#8217;s hope that there&#8217;s somebody listening to this for whom it has raised awareness enough. Let&#8217;s hope that we can come back in a year&#8217;s time, do another podcast episode and we&#8217;ll be talking about a different setup. Let&#8217;s hope that that&#8217;s the case.</p>



<p>Juliette, I really appreciate you being on the podcast today, and telling us an awful lot about your personal circumstance and things. So I really appreciate that. Thank you so much.</p>



<p>[00:43:11] <strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer:</strong> You&#8217;re very welcome. I enjoyed being here, and hopefully my bakery around the corner will enjoy it soon as well, because I can then actually start paying them.</p>
</div>



<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://twitter.com/jrf_nl">Juliette Reinders Folmer</a>.</p>



<p>Juliette is a highly experienced professional in the field of coding standards. With a deep understanding of industry best practices, she has dedicated herself for many years to ensuring code quality, and consistency within WordPress.</p>



<p>Juliette acknowledges that coding standards encompass more than just formatting and white space, they also play a crucial role in maintaining compatibility and preventing conflicts between plugins. By adhering to these standards, developers can minimise errors and fatal issues for end users. To facilitate the implementation of coding standards, Juliette talks about the importance of automated checks and continuous integration.</p>



<p>We chat about her commitment to WordPress coding standards, and how the work that she’s done in this field have made her a trusted authority. Through her contributions and guidance, she has helped countless developers enhance their code quality, ultimately improving the overall WordPress ecosystem.</p>



<p>We talk about Juliette’s role as one of the maintainers of WordPress Coding Standards (WordPress CS), discussing the importance of consistent code, and the challenges of maintaining and funding open source projects.</p>



<p>Clearly, there’s great value in tools like WordPress CS. Consistency is key for developers, and using a tool like WordPress CS makes it easier for them to meet expectations and be productive. It saves time by automating manual changes, and helps prevent conflicts and potential problems with other plugins or WordPress Core. Juliette emphasises the continuous nature of the project, where updates to a variety of PHP projects need to be kept in sync with the WordPress side of things.</p>



<p>All that said, maintaining open source projects like WordPress CS comes with its challenges. Juliette tells us about the importance of financial support and adequate resources to mitigate business risk, as projects that go unmaintained can create dependency issues and pose problems during corporate audits. She speaks openly about her recent decision to step away from contributing. The project is so crucial, but underfunded, and Juliette thinks it’s time to draw a line in the sand. It’s time for contributions in return for payment.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s not just about financial contributions though. Juliette asks us to support the WordPress Community Collective, and for us all to explore other ways to assist the project. She highlights the need for all companies benefiting from WordPress to contribute towards funding more broadly, rather than relying on one or two of the larger companies in the space.</p>



<p>If you’re a contributor who has even pondered how much WordPress relies on volunteers, this podcast is for you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Useful links.</h2>



<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-coding-standards-maintainer-warns-maintenance-will-be-halted-without-funding-this-is-an-unsustainable-situation">WordPress Coding Standards Maintainer Warns Maintenance Will Be Halted Without Funding: “This Is an Unsustainable Situation.”</a></p>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress-Coding-Standards">WordPressCS</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/">PHP Storm</a></p>



<p><a href="https://code.visualstudio.com/">VS Code</a></p>



<p><a href="https://phpcsutils.com/">PHPCSUtils</a></p>



<p><a href="https://getcomposer.org/">Composer</a></p>



<p><a href="https://opencollective.com/thewpcc/contribute/wp-php-63406">The WP Community Collective</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 27 Sep 2023 14:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:2;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"Akismet: 15 Best Practices to Create a Lead Capture Form that Converts";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://akismet.com/?p=255688";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"https://akismet.com/blog/lead-capture-form/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28508:"<p>Sometimes you hear about companies growing their email lists with huge numbers of new subscribers, and you look at yours that’s barely treading water and wonder — what are we doing wrong? One place to start is to consider your lead generation forms and the content surrounding&nbsp;them.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Assuming your websites are attracting a strong amount of relevant traffic, if not enough people are joining your email list, a number of potential sources could be the problem. These&nbsp;include:</p>



<ul>
<li>The lead capture form itself</li>



<li>The landing pages where the forms can be found</li>



<li>How well the rest of your site is directing people to the pages where they can subscribe</li>



<li>How well your external marketing is motivating people to subscribe</li>
</ul>



<p>This article will introduce 15 strategies you can use for conversion rate optimization on your lead generation forms. And while most of these strategies relate to the form itself, some of them relate to other content and marketing assets that may be placed near the form, but that still play a big role in motivating people to opt in to your email&nbsp;list.</p>



<span id="more-255688"></span>



<img src="https://akismet455732288.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/image.png" alt="WPScan landing page, which includes a form" class="wp-image-255690" />



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What is a lead capture&nbsp;form?</h2>



<p>Also known as an opt-in form, a lead capture form is any form on your website that offers site visitors an opportunity to submit their information or join your email list —&nbsp;often in exchange for access to a “lead magnet” like an eBook or other downloadable asset. Forms can ask for as little information as just the email address, or as much as names, phone numbers, birthdays, and industry-specific interests and&nbsp;information.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Lead gen forms can appear on homepages, blog posts, dedicated landing pages, and any other pages of your site. They can appear at the top of the page, in the footer, in sidebars, within the content, or as&nbsp;popups.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Forms can use just text with fields to fill out, or they can also include graphics. A lead generation form typically includes a button that the visitor clicks once they’ve entered their information and are ready to sign&nbsp;up.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What happens after someone fills out your&nbsp;form?</h2>



<p>This matters. Most companies will send some sort of autoresponder email to confirm that the subscription has gone through. To confirm the subscriber is a real person, some companies will require them to click on another link within that first email to confirm they really want to subscribe. This is known as double&nbsp;opt-in.&nbsp;</p>



<img src="https://akismet455732288.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/image-1.png" alt="Rigby email example offering free shhipping" class="wp-image-255691" />



<p><em>Example from Really Good Emails: </em><a href="https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/welcome-%2B-free-shipping" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer&nbsp;noopener"><em>https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/welcome-%2B-free-shipping</em></a><em>&nbsp;</em></p>



<p>But too many companies don’t take full advantage of all that an autoresponder welcome email can accomplish. Some just use what amounts to a robotic email that says something like “subscription&nbsp;confirmed.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Though this post is just about generating initial subscriptions, once you’ve followed some of these strategies and have seen your numbers swell, be sure to take the steps of creating an effective welcome series and consistent content that’s relevant and&nbsp;engaging.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How to increase conversions from your lead generation&nbsp;forms</h2>



<p>With all that in mind, let’s look at the 15 best strategies to check, “improve lead capture conversion rate” off your to-do&nbsp;list.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">1. Keep it simple — fewer fields, more&nbsp;conversions</h3>



<p>In general, you’ll get more lead capture form conversions if you ask for less information. The more fields you require, the fewer people will fill them all out. But, the quality of the lead tends to be higher with more required fields. What matters more to you — high quality leads or quantity? Use that to guide how many required fields you&nbsp;use.</p>



<p>Baseline information — the bare minimum — would be to ask for the email address and a first name. But sometimes, you do need a little more. A B2B company might ask for a company name, for instance. Or if you deliver segmented email marketing based on interests, demographics, or industry, you might include some checkboxes, so subscribers get added to the most relevant email list&nbsp;segments.</p>



<img src="https://akismet455732288.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/image-2.png" alt="form asking for name and email" class="wp-image-255693" />



<p>You can also include other fields but not require them. For instance, requiring a phone number will depress your conversions. But keeping it as an optional field may alleviate this problem, and still give people who are willing to supply their number the chance to do&nbsp;so.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">2. Don’t use CAPTCHA — Opt for non-intrusive&nbsp;anti-spam</h3>



<p>The data is in, and it doesn’t look good for CAPTCHA. These annoying little tests to verify you are not a robot mostly just tick people off, especially if they fail the test.<a href="https://medium.com/rareview/why-your-captcha-is-killing-conversions-f9be6fe17d1f" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> One study</a> found that 30% of users abandon lead generation forms during the CAPTCHA&nbsp;step.</p>



<p>That’s almost offensive. If you’re using CAPTCHA, that means a third of your potential lead capture form conversions are being lost to grainy pictures of fire hydrants and school&nbsp;buses.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Actually, according to<a href="https://web.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/burszstein_2010_captcha.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> another study</a>, it’s even <em>more</em> than a third. Only 71% of users even attempted to solve a CAPTCHA before quitting the signup process. That means lots of people won’t even attempt to solve the puzzles, and <em>of the ones who do</em>, 30% of those give up too. And audio CAPTCHAs are no better. They saw a 50% failure&nbsp;rate.</p>



<p>So, the verdict on CAPTCHA is pretty simple: It&nbsp;sucks.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Users hate it. It obliterates your conversion rates. And even worse, a lot of the spammers it’s attempting to block keep finding ways around it. So, it’s not even very good at doing the job it was created for. That’s why CAPTCHA keeps coming up with new puzzles —&nbsp;because spamming software has cracked the codes of the older&nbsp;ones.&nbsp;</p>



<p>What should you do&nbsp;instead?&nbsp;</p>



<p>You certainly don’t want email lists filling up with bogus subscribers. That wastes your email marketing dollars. It can also hurt your sender reputation if you keep sending emails to bad email&nbsp;addresses.&nbsp;</p>



<p>A better alternative is to use<a href="https://akismet.com/features/"> an anti-spam plugin</a> like Akismet that doesn’t require the user to solve any puzzles or tests. It happens in the background, blocks spammers from filling out your forms, seamlessly integrates with your lead form software, and thus optimizes your conversion&nbsp;rates.&nbsp;</p>



<img src="https://akismet455732288.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/image-3.png" alt="Akismet page with stats about the user experience and conversion rates" class="wp-image-255694" />



<p>Akismet was built by and for developers. It enables you to build its code into other applications and on pretty much any platform, not just WordPress, even though that’s where it originated. You can use it on unlimited numbers of&nbsp;websites.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Akismet has a 99.99% accuracy rate in identifying spam. It stops spammers from filling out your lead capture form, in addition to stopping spam comments on your web pages and blog posts. There’s even an<a href="https://akismet.com/enterprise/"> enterprise-level version</a> for large&nbsp;companies.&nbsp;</p>



<p><a href="https://akismet.com/blog/convertkit-customerstory/">Read a case study about ConvertKit</a>, and how Akismet saved more than 400,000 creators each up to 20 hours of work per month. And this was all while restoring their email reputation, which was under threat from the proliferation of spammers joining the email lists of their&nbsp;customers.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">3. Use motivating button copy, not technical&nbsp;terms</h3>



<p>Developers are not typically marketers. When developers write software, they use computer code language that makes sense to them, even on user-facing portions of their work. And the “Submit” button is a classic&nbsp;example.&nbsp;</p>



<p>While “submit” makes sense to developers, it’s not how your customers&nbsp;think.&nbsp;</p>



<p>This is marketing: Filling out lead capture forms is optional. You have to make prospects want it. Be excited about it. Feel good about agreeing to receive emails from your&nbsp;company.&nbsp;</p>



<p>And “submit” isn’t going to get the job done. Many tests and studies have been conducted on this. <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6737/don-t-submit-to-landing-page-button-text.aspx?hubs_content=blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/28472/the-5-critical-components-of-fantastic-lead-capture-forms.aspx&hubs_content-cta=Buttons%2520labeled%2520%25E2%2580%259Csubmit%25E2%2580%259D%2520had%2520lower%2520conversion%2520rates" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">One such study</a> found “submit” to be the worst performing button copy of all the choices in the&nbsp;study.</p>



<p>You won’t likely do much better with boring and generic terms like “join our list” or&nbsp;“subscribe.”</p>



<p>Use language that’s fun, engaging, or specific to your company or the offer made on the lead capture form. Use language that fits your&nbsp;brand.&nbsp;</p>



<p>For example, if your lead generation form strategy is to offer a coupon reward to everyone who joins the list, then make the button copy something like “Claim your discount!” or “Send my&nbsp;coupon!”</p>



<p>If you’re offering a free guide or report, then say “Get your guide,” or “Access the free&nbsp;report.”</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">4. A/B test for&nbsp;success</h3>



<p>As long as your lead capture form pages are getting enough traffic to collect valid data, A/B testing can help you optimize your lead capture form conversions over&nbsp;time.</p>



<p>And button copy is just one thing you can test on your lead gen form using A/B testing. You can also test many other items on this list, including headline, form design, button color, and location on the page. Find out what works best and build from&nbsp;there.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">5. Use headlines to communicate&nbsp;value&nbsp;</h3>



<p>Yes, your lead capture form should have a headline. Use a headline to express, concisely, why your ideal customer would want to join your email&nbsp;list.&nbsp;</p>



<p>A typical form tool will let you create a headline, or title, in large text and with colors you can manipulate. You should also create a subtitle that complements the main title with an additional&nbsp;incentive.&nbsp;</p>



<p>As with button copy, your headline should not be “Subscribe to our&nbsp;newsletter!”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Why?</p>



<p>Again, this is marketing. No one has to join your email list. They didn’t start their day thinking about how much they look forward to finding a company whose email list they haven&#8217;t joined&nbsp;yet.&nbsp;</p>



<p>You’re asking them to do something they didn’t plan on doing. You must give them good reasons for doing so if you want to optimize your lead gen&nbsp;forms.&nbsp;</p>



<p>You do that by telling them why they should join. Pick one benefit, or two if you can fit the second in the subtitle, and use those to motivate more signups. Use action-oriented&nbsp;language.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Tell them what to do, and why they should want to do&nbsp;it.&nbsp;</p>



<p>And as with the button copy, the headline should relate to the main incentive you’re offering to new&nbsp;subscribers.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">6. Make it pretty — design&nbsp;matters</h3>



<p>Your lead generation form should stand out from the rest of your page. Design doesn’t just refer to the form itself, the colors, the sizes of the fields, the field label text, colors and fonts, or the shape. Yes, it includes all of&nbsp;that.</p>



<img src="https://akismet455732288.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/image.jpeg" alt="color swatches on a desk" class="wp-image-255695" />



<p>But design also refers to how the form interacts with the rest of the page. Is it set apart from the other content on the page to distinguish it? Can it be easily overlooked because it blends in too well? Is the rest of the page too crowded, so the form is getting lost? This, too, is&nbsp;design.&nbsp;</p>



<p>As for the form itself, many companies are tempted to use their brand colors on their lead capture forms. But is this smart? Again, if the form blends in <em>too</em> well with the rest of the page, site visitors will miss it. We’re not saying to use colors that completely conflict, but you can use design strategies that draw attention to the form and set it apart from how the rest of the page&nbsp;looks.</p>



<p>The fields and other elements can also be designed to look modern and appealing, not&nbsp;dated.</p>



<p>Many lead capture form templates can deliver effective design without a huge time commitment. And many of these can also be customized too, as you see&nbsp;fit.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Remember, you can A/B test all of this. If your marketing department has a disagreement about the color or some other design aspect, do both and see which form gets more&nbsp;conversions.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">7. Keep it visible — make sure customers can find your&nbsp;forms</h3>



<p>A lead capture form that’s hard to see or find on your site isn’t going to convert very many people to sign up. You have to make it a priority for your company to grow your email list. That means, make sure they can find your opt-in&nbsp;forms.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Too many websites just slap a form in the footer and call it done. Or, they stick one on their homepage, and nowhere&nbsp;else.&nbsp;</p>



<p>But that’s not how everyone finds your site. Not everyone makes it to the footer. And not everyone who does find your home page will return there after browsing other&nbsp;pages.</p>



<p>You need lead forms all over your&nbsp;site.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Put them in the sidebars of articles. Embed them in key webpages. Use popups, some of which are triggered by time on page, and others of which are triggered when the user clicks on a relevant link. Create special landing pages and link to them from other pages using graphics and&nbsp;text.&nbsp;</p>



<p>It should be almost impossible for anyone to visit your website and not see a lead capture&nbsp;form.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">8. Create marketing for your lead capture&nbsp;funnel</h3>



<p>Joining your email list shouldn’t depend on customers coming to your website first. You can also create external marketing specifically for the purpose of gaining new&nbsp;subscribers.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Create social media campaigns that link to landing pages containing lead capture forms. This could include posts, ads, graphics, and videos that aren’t selling products, but are offering incentives for joining your email list. Promote a 20% discount for new&nbsp;subscribers.</p>



<p>The landing page these posts and ads link to will sell the value of subscribing to your list, and the discount is just their first&nbsp;reward.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The point is, if you want more conversions from high quality leads, create marketing that will go after your target&nbsp;audience.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">9. Make sure your forms are&nbsp;responsive</h3>



<p>This should go without saying by this point in the digital marketing world, but your forms need to show up and function on all devices, not just desktops and laptops. If users can’t see or easily navigate your lead capture form on their mobile device, they won’t complete&nbsp;it.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">10. Use social&nbsp;proof</h3>



<p>This is less common to see within lead generation forms. But fitting a short testimonial within your form can make people more excited about signing up. This could even be your subtitle. You could also fit it below the fields and above the button, or below the&nbsp;button.&nbsp;</p>



<img src="https://akismet455732288.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/image-4.png" alt="example of testimonials near a form" class="wp-image-255696" />



<p>You could also include testimonials near the form, but not within it. This way, someone looking in the direction of your form will see what other people like about being on your list, and consider&nbsp;joining.</p>



<p>Do your testimonials have to be about the actual email list subscription? Not necessarily, but that’s the best possible version. If you send out a quick survey to your existing email list, you could probably get some great responses about why people like being on your&nbsp;list.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">11. Give your email list a&nbsp;name</h3>



<p>Exclusivity sells. Generic doesn’t. “Join our email list” is&nbsp;boring.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Create a name that makes your list feel more like a club, or a community, or a place where the smartest, most motivated, most clever, most successful, happiest customers can be&nbsp;found.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Whatever describes your ideal customer persona, try to come up with a name for your email list that will appeal to those&nbsp;people.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">12. Break up the form into multiple&nbsp;steps</h3>



<p>If you need to collect more than just a couple of pieces of information, you may earn higher conversion rates if you break the web form up into steps. The first page might just ask for their name, or zip code, or email address. The second one might ask for more information specific to them. And the third might ask for a few more&nbsp;things.&nbsp;</p>



<p>You can also create multistep forms that store the information entered on previous steps, so if the person abandons the form at a later step, you still have the data they already&nbsp;submitted.</p>



<p>But multistep forms feel faster to the user, and they look less intimidating. It’s less daunting to fill out two fields in three steps than to fill out six fields in one step. Same number of fields, but broken up into bite-size&nbsp;steps.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">13. Use a progress bar to encourage&nbsp;visitors</h3>



<p>If you do use a multistep form, use a progress bar to show how far along they are toward completing the&nbsp;process.</p>



<img src="https://akismet455732288.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/image-1.jpeg" alt="colorful progress bar" class="wp-image-255697" />



<p>People like to feel like they’re getting things done. Watching the progress bar move along the top of the form motivates them to want to finish it. Online surveys have used this tool with great success to increase survey completion rates. It works just as well with lead generation&nbsp;forms.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">14. Clearly state your privacy policy and compliance&nbsp;information</h3>



<p>You can do this in one of two ways. First, simply include a short statement with a link to “view our privacy policy.” Second, you can ask users to check a box saying they have read and agree to your&nbsp;policy.</p>



<p>Either way, the main idea is to communicate that you <em>have</em> a privacy policy. This shows their data is important to you, and that they can trust you to handle it&nbsp;respectfully.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Unless you specifically need to for legal or compliance reasons, you may not want to require users to check a box. Otherwise, they’ll find themselves wading through a page with legal jargon and privacy language that has nothing whatsoever to do with the benefits of joining your email&nbsp;list.&nbsp;</p>



<p>So, it may be better to simply include the link for anyone who wants to see this information. You want them thinking about joining your list, not their data&nbsp;privacy.&nbsp;</p>



<p>And, you can also include a short statement about how your email list complies with GDPR and other relevant email compliance&nbsp;regulations.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">15. Close the deal with&nbsp;video</h3>



<p>If you really want to optimize your lead capture form conversion rate, have the face of your company or someone else your customers will admire, appreciate, or relate to, create a video that extols the benefits of joining your email&nbsp;list.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The video should make joining seem desirable, appealing, and advantageous, with no risk and no downside. You can always remind people that they can unsubscribe at any&nbsp;time.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Once this video is ready, place it on the landing page of your lead capture form. You can also put it on other web pages, your home page, and even post it on social media and on YouTube as a means of externally marketing your email&nbsp;list.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Which of these strategies is the easiest to start using&nbsp;now?</h2>



<p>Some of these tips require a little work on your part, and you can have your marketing or sales team get going on&nbsp;those.</p>



<p>But one of the most effective strategies to optimize lead forms for a higher conversion rate is one you can start using today. If you’re still using some version of CAPTCHA, <a href="https://akismet.com/features/">Akismet will reduce</a> your lead generation form abandonment rate by leaps and&nbsp;bounds.</p>



<p>As you saw earlier, with such high rates of people quitting the process when they run into these nonsensical puzzles, you’ll see far more signups simply by eliminating this needless&nbsp;barrier.</p>



<p><a href="https://akismet.com/enterprise/">Use Akismet</a> in place of CAPTCHA, and your lead conversion rate will&nbsp;increase.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">FAQs related to lead capture form&nbsp;optimization</h2>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">How many fields should I include on my lead capture&nbsp;form?</h3>



<p>While there’s no set requirement or ideal number, the fewer form fields you require, the more people will complete your web form. However, the quality of your leads tends to increase as you ask for more fields, so the balance may be somewhere in the&nbsp;middle.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What information should I ask for on my lead capture&nbsp;form?</h3>



<p>This depends on the goals you have set for your email list, and on your industry. If you are creating distinct marketing for different segments of your audience, you might ask for information on your form that will funnel people into the correct&nbsp;groups.&nbsp;</p>



<p>At a minimum, you should ask for their email address and first name. This protects their privacy but gives you enough to start the&nbsp;relationship.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">How can I make my lead capture form visually&nbsp;appealing?</h3>



<p>Use modern lead capture form templates that are both visually appealing and responsive to different devices and platforms. Use colors that are unique from the page it sits on, but that coordinate with your brand and overall site design. Add graphics and images of people, when appropriate, to humanize the form and make it feel a bit less&nbsp;transactional.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Should I use a single or multistep lead capture&nbsp;form?</h3>



<p>If you’re only asking for first name and email address, you only need a single-step form. But if you’re asking for four or more fields to be filled out, you might consider a multistep form, along with a progress bar, to encourage more users to complete the steps and fill out the entire&nbsp;form.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What are common mistakes when creating a lead capture&nbsp;form?</h3>



<p>The most common mistake is to require too much information, especially phone numbers.<a href="https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/how-to-optimize-contact-forms/"> One site that changed its phone field</a> from required to optional saw its conversion rate go from 42.6% to 80%. There’s a sizable subset of people who simply will not give out their phone number in a lead capture&nbsp;form.&nbsp;</p>



<p>A second common mistake is to not think about who your ideal customer is when creating these lead gen forms. The language of the offer, any incentives, and the button should appeal to your ideal customer, subscriber, or&nbsp;lead.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Should I use CAPTCHA to protect my form from&nbsp;spam?</h3>



<p>No — CAPTCHA increases frustration and dramatically increases form abandonment.<a href="https://medium.com/rareview/why-your-captcha-is-killing-conversions-f9be6fe17d1f" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> A MOZ study</a> found that 30% of lead capture form users gave up while trying to solve these annoying puzzles. That’s a lot of lost&nbsp;subscribers.&nbsp;</p>



<p>A better approach is to use anti-spam tools like Akismet that run in the background and use AI to identify and block spambots from completing your&nbsp;forms.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What is Akismet, and how can it improve my form conversion&nbsp;rate?</h3>



<p>Akismet is an anti-spam plugin built for marketers and lead generation. It’s an open-source tool created by WordPress that can work on almost any website platform because it was written by developers, for&nbsp;developers.&nbsp;</p>



<img src="https://akismet455732288.files.wordpress.com/2023/08/image-5.png" alt="Akismet homepage with the tagline " />



<p>Akismet improves lead capture form conversion rates because it identifies and blocks spam without requiring your actual users to do anything. There are no annoying puzzles to solve or grainy pictures to scour through. All the anti-spam work happens in the&nbsp;background.&nbsp;</p>



<p>That means it protects your site and your email list from spammers, but doesn’t hinder anyone you want to join your list from doing&nbsp;so. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What types of companies generally use&nbsp;Akismet?</h3>



<p>There are over 100 million sites currently using Akismet. There is a<a href="https://akismet.com/features/"> free version</a> for non-commercial blogs, reasonably priced paid versions for commercial businesses, and<a href="https://akismet.com/enterprise/"> an enterprise version</a> for large&nbsp;companies.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Happy Akismet customers include Microsoft, Bluehost,<a href="https://akismet.com/blog/convertkit-customerstory/"> and ConvertKit</a>, whose senior engineer John Lunsford said, “With Akismet, we don’t really have to think about spam prevention, which allows us to work on other things. We moved from a place of putting out fires to now things are automated. We’re tracking stuff, we’re alerting on stuff. So now we know across our whole surface area if we have bot&nbsp;attacks.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Instantly improve your lead capture form conversion&nbsp;rates</h2>



<p>You can spend hours optimizing lead generation forms, designing custom graphics, and tweaking copy. All of those things will pay off with incremental increases in conversion rates from your target&nbsp;audience.&nbsp;</p>



<p>But what if you need results <em>right now</em>? The quickest way to boost results is to eliminate annoying CAPTCHAs and use Akismet instead to protect your site in the background while letting real users pass right&nbsp;by.&nbsp;</p>



<p><a href="https://akismet.com/pricing/">Get Akismet&nbsp;today.</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 27 Sep 2023 13:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Jen Swisher";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:3;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"HeroPress: My Journey as a Teacher and Engineer";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=5915";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:146:"https://heropress.com/essays/my-journey-as-a-teacher-and-engineer/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=my-journey-as-a-teacher-and-engineer";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13299:"<img width="1024" height="512" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/092623-min.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: I only knew I had teaching skills, but WordPress taught me to be versatile." /><p>I always wanted to be a teacher from my childhood days. I have seen my mom giving tuition. My aunts, uncles, sisters-in-law, and cousins were all in the teaching field. Since I grew up observing them all teaching, I also envisioned myself as a teacher. I believed there was no better profession in the world, and I still do.</p>



<p>As I grew older, my goals shifted slightly. I started to see myself as a lecturer rather than a teacher. I was the first girl in my family to become an engineer. </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>During my studies, I never thought about working in the IT field. </p>
</blockquote>



<p>I had a narrow view that IT or Computer Engineering meant only for coding. The employee has to work around the clock and move to another location. So, I had enough reasons to convince myself to pursue a career in teaching. Even today, if someone asks me in the middle of the night to explain how to debug a program using a loop, I can do so happily.</p>



<p>After completing my engineering degree, I started working as a lecturer. After getting married, I moved to a new city but continued working as a lecturer. During that period, my husband went to Singapore for work, and we all moved to our native place. I could not find a lecturing job as there were no engineering colleges. And other colleges only offered positions as computer lab assistants, which I declined. I began providing private tutoring for engineering students, and my life seemed settled.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-discovering-passion-through-writing-my-journey-from-boredom-to-blogging-bliss"><strong>Discovering Passion Through Writing: My Journey from Boredom to Blogging Bliss</strong></h2>



<p>Then, a turning point occurred in my life. Within five months, I also moved to Singapore. I managed to find a job in marketing, which was outside my skill set. I soon realized that it did not bring me joy. And without joy, there was no fulfilment.</p>



<p>I left that job after three months. I started getting bored. I did not have much to do except grocery shopping and household chores. One day, my husband suggested trying something new! It can be writing or documenting or anything that could help to stay content. I had never considered writing before! He suggested some blogging platforms like Medium, Tumblr, Blogger, and WordPress. I created accounts for each of them and started publishing articles. </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>WordPress turned out to be the most engaging platform, and I decided to continue writing a blog on WordPress. </p>
</blockquote>



<p>That was how I started <a href="https://krupajnanda.wordpress.com/">my blog</a>, out of boredom, which became a passion later. I connected with hundreds of fellow bloggers. I also started participating in various blogger events and started getting recognition. And this was something I could do for hours.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Crossroads and Choices: Navigating Career Transitions from Teaching to Testing</strong></h2>



<p>In 2015, we returned to India. We settled in Pune, which presented a new challenge for me in finding a lecturing job. Some institutes only offered me positions as visiting faculty. And pursuing further studies seemed impractical at that time. So, I had two options left. Either continue writing blogs full-time or join the IT sector. I enrolled in a testing crash course, which I would not recommend anyone to do. The institute focused on theory more and minimal practical knowledge. I also cleared my ISTQB certification.</p>



<p>And you won&#8217;t believe what happened next&#8230;.!</p>



<p>After a few months, I landed a position at rtCamp as a <em>QA Engineer</em>! It&#8217;s fascinating to think that I initially used WordPress as a consumer to publish my blogs, and now I find myself testing websites built on the WordPress platform. </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>Like many others, I once considered WordPress to be exclusively a blogging platform, unaware of the efficiency and sophistication of the entire WordPress ecosystem.&nbsp;</p>
</blockquote>



<p>Back then, I had little technical knowledge about WordPress, but I became familiar with the plethora of terms specific to the WordPress environment and other technical nuances. I delved into concepts ranging from the Dashboard to slugs and post metadata, among other things. Initially, I conducted manual testing of websites, but over time, I acquired proficiency in various automation frameworks. At rtCamp, we have explored a multitude of frameworks for comprehensive automation, covering areas such as end-to-end testing, visual testing, acceptance testing, API testing, and more. If you&#8217;re interested in learning more about our QA services, you can explore them <a href="https://rtcamp.com/quality-assurance-services/">here</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>COVID19 &#8211; A Journey of Career Break, Home Schooling, and Life Lessons</strong></h2>



<p>Fast forward to 2020, a year we remember as a pandemic! I took a career break around June 2020 for many reasons. I decided to home school my son. Teaching a preschooler is quite different from teaching a college student. I had no idea how I would be able to make homeschooling happen. I come from a traditional school environment. </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>To understand the depth of homeschooling was also a challenge for me. I had no idea where to start! </p>
</blockquote>



<p>I started following many such accounts dedicated to homeschooling. But it did not go well initially. We took multiple breaks. I kept revisiting my failures in homeschooling strategies, what went well, what could be improved, and how can I make more engaging things like that!</p>



<p>I also started reading many parenting books. My son became more comfortable with the time. It was a journey filled with various gaps and learning experiences! I started documenting <a href="https://musingsonparenting.com/">my parenting and homeschool journey</a>. I also share bits of it on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/musingsonparenting/">Instagram</a> too.</p>



<p>During those years, we traveled to many places around India. And homeschooling became more like <em>school on the road</em>. It was not only about learning ABCs and 1, 2, 3. Homeschooling meant acquiring life skills. We traveled to different places, immersing ourselves in local cultures and food. We worked and improved on many aspects during our home school journey. Apart from academics, we learnt gardening, composting, eco-friendly practices, reading books, sharing toys/books and many more new things! My son never liked books but we ended up visiting the library twice a week!</p>



<p>My husband and I considered extending homeschooling, at least for kindergarten. But there are always pros and cons to everything! Home schooling is blissful yet it comes with challenges for parents and kids. I also wanted my son to attend a real school and want him to understand the difference between homeschooling v/s going to school every day where school follows a fixed curriculum. He is too small at this age to understand what is best for him. I wanted him to experience what school life is all about! Luckily, we found a good school in town that does not follow the traditional teaching approach. They focused on teaching children <em>how to think rather than telling them what to think.&nbsp;</em></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Emerging from the Comfort Zone: Rediscovering My Career Path After an Extended Career Break</strong></h2>



<p>As my son started school, I again had some free time but was unsure about resuming my career. I retreated into a cocoon of safety. Resuming work meant facing new challenges for which I wasn&#8217;t prepared. So, I took more time to adjust to the upcoming changes. I explained to my son why I wanted to work and prepared him. Today, I am proud of how well he has managed.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Overcoming Rejections and Career Break Challenges</strong></h2>



<p>During the second half of the last year, I began preparing myself. The job market took a hit due to an economic downturn. Layoffs and pay cuts were happening even at major companies like Google and Microsoft. Despite the challenges, I started looking for job opportunities. My journey was marked by numerous rejections, even after successfully clearing interviews. In several instances, when multiple candidates vied for the same position, my career break seemed to be a decisive factor in being overlooked. This experience was disheartening, as many organizations fail to recognize the value of individuals who have taken career breaks!</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>My Journey Back to Work with rtCamp</strong></h2>



<p>But fate had other plans. I reconnected with my former employer this year around April 2023, and they didn’t let me down. It gives me goosebumps even now as I write this. I resumed my career back at rtCamp this year in June 2023</p>



<p>Rejoining the same organization after an extended break gave me the feeling of returning back to home after a vacation! rtCamp is known for its motto of &#8220;<em>Good Work and Good People&#8221; </em>and they proven to stand by it!&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>From User to Contributor in the WordPress ecosystem</strong></h2>



<p>One of the remarkable aspects of rtCamp is, that we are encouraged to contribute to the WordPress ecosystem. I gradually began contributing to the WordPress Core, and it fills me with pride whenever even a modest suggestion, enhancement, or reported bug gets approved. Whether it&#8217;s a small or substantial contribution, each one enhances WordPress as a whole which millions of people use, resulting in continuous improvements. Being a part of the WordPress community brings me immense joy, and I consider myself blessed. Here are some of the tickets that opened and got fixed.</p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/44714">https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/44714</a></li>



<li><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/41648">https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/41648</a></li>



<li><a href="https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/4721">https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/4721</a></li>



<li><a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/8161">https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/8161</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Inspired to Speak: My experience of attending Speaker Workshop for Indian Women</strong></h2>



<p>Recently, I had the privilege of attending the Speaker Workshop for Indian Women in the WordPress Community, which took place on September 23-24. This workshop not only boosted my confidence but also shattered many myths. It made me realize that no one is an absolute expert, and nobody is perfect. Sooner or later, you break the cocoon to free your wings if you want to fly!</p>



<p>Regrettably, I hadn&#8217;t been able to attend any Meetups or WordCamps before. However, I am genuinely looking forward to participating in upcoming WordCamps and meetups very soon!</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>From testing exam papers to testing websites</strong></h2>



<p>I only knew I had teaching skills, but WordPress taught me to be versatile. One should keep exploring various opportunities rather than waiting for destiny to knock on the door.&nbsp;</p>



<p>By the way, rtCamp is always hiring. If you&#8217;re interested in working with rtCamp, visit their <a href="https://rtcamp.com/careers/">career page</a>.</p>



<div class="kb-row-layout-wrap kb-row-layout-id5915_81e43c-37 alignnone kt-row-has-bg wp-block-kadence-rowlayout"><div class="kt-row-column-wrap kt-has-1-columns kt-row-layout-equal kt-tab-layout-inherit kt-mobile-layout-row kt-row-valign-top">

<div class="wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column5915_38272e-59"><div class="kt-inside-inner-col">
<h2 id="work-environment" class="kt-adv-heading5915_69c4fb-d0 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading">Krupa&#8217;s Work Environment</h2>



<p>We asked Krupa for a view into her development life and this is what she sent! </p>


	<div class="hotspots-image-container">
		<img width="2346" height="2560" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Krupa-Desktop-scaled.jpg" alt="Krupa Nanda" class="hotspots-image skip-lazy" />
	</div>




<p class="kt-adv-heading5915_fdd08f-54 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading has-theme-palette-9-background-color has-background">HeroPress would like to thank <a href="https://wpdrawattention.com/">Draw Attention</a> for their donation of the plugin to make this interactive image!</p>
</div></div>

</div></div>


<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com/essays/my-journey-as-a-teacher-and-engineer/">My Journey as a Teacher and Engineer</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 27 Sep 2023 12:07:34 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Krupa Nanda";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:4;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:97:"WordPress.org blog: Help Influence the Future of WordPress by Taking the 2023 Annual Survey Today";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=15982";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:113:"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/09/help-influence-the-future-of-wordpress-by-taking-the-2023-annual-survey-today/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4608:"<p>Each year, the WordPress community (users, site builders, extenders, and contributors) provides valuable feedback through an annual survey. The results can influence the direction of the WordPress project by identifying areas that need attention. Annual surveying can also help track trends over time, with data points often finding their way into the yearly <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2022/11/state-of-the-word-2022/">State of the Word</a> address.</p>



<p>This survey helps those who build WordPress understand more about how the software is used and by whom. The survey also allows WordPress open source project leaders to learn more about our contributors’ experiences.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>To ensure your WordPress experience gets represented in the 2023 survey results, take the survey now (link).</p>



<div class="wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link wp-element-button" href="https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/7439442/2023-WordPress-Annual-Survey">Take the 2023 Survey</a></div>
</div>



<p>You may also take the survey in other languages by using the link above and switching to another language, thanks to the efforts of WordPress polyglot contributors.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The survey will be open for five weeks. Results will be published on the News blog in early December.</p>



<p>This year, like last year, the survey has undergone some improvements to the flow and question set. A new platform is also being piloted, offering an updated interface, enhanced multi-lingual support, expanded analysis and visualization tools for the results, and more. The new platform also has built-in accessibility and privacy controls, ensuring the survey meets the diverse needs of the WordPress community.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Spread the word</strong></h2>



<p>Please help spread the word about the survey by sharing it with your network, through Slack, or within your social media accounts. The more people who complete the survey and share their experience with WordPress, the more the project will benefit.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Security and privacy</strong></h2>



<p>Data security and privacy are paramount to the WordPress project and community. With this in mind, all data will be anonymized: no email addresses or IP addresses will be associated with published results. To learn more about WordPress.org’s privacy practices, view the <a href="https://wordpress.org/about/privacy/">privacy policy</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Thank you</strong></h2>



<p>Thank you to the following WordPress contributors for assisting with the annual survey project, including question creation, strategy, survey build-out, and translation:</p>



<p><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/adamsilverstein/">adamsilverstein</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/audrasjb/">adurasjb</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/alvarogois/">alvarogóis</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/atachibana/">atachibana</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/bjmcsherry/">bjmcsherry</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/">chanthaboune</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dansoschin/">dansoschin</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/eidolonnight/">eidolonnight</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/fierevere/">fierevere</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/fxbenard/">fxbénard</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/hassantafreshi/">hassantafreshi</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/juliagasparyan/">juliagasparyan</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/kittmedia/">kittmedia</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/manudavidos/">manudavidos</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/nao/">nao</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/nilovelez/">nilovelez</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/rmartinezduque/">rmartinezduque</a>, and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/tobifjellner/">tobifjellner</a>.</p>



<p>Thanks to <a href="https://www.hostinger.com/">Hostinger</a>, <a href="https://cloud.jetpack.com/">Jetpack</a>, and <a href="http://wordpress.com">WordPress.com</a>, for assisting with promoting the survey to their respective clients.</p>



<div class="wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link wp-element-button" href="https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/7439442/2023-WordPress-Annual-Survey">Take the 2023 Survey</a></div>
</div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 27 Sep 2023 10:52:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Dan Soschin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:5;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:39:"WPTavern: WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 Released";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=149512";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-6-4-beta-1-released";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3558:"<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/09/wordpress-6-4-beta-1/">WordPress 6.4 Beta 1</a> was released today on schedule, led by an <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/" target="_blank">underrepresented gender release squad</a>. It includes the last five releases of the Gutenberg plugin (<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-2-12-july/">16.2</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/">16.3</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/08/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-4-9-august/">16.4</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/08/23/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-5-23-august/">16.5</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/06/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-6-06-september/">16.6</a>) along with the upcoming 16.7 release and <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&milestone=6.4&group=component&max=500&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&order=priority">190 tickets for core</a>.</p>



<p>If you are following Gutenberg development, many of these features have already been released in the plugin. The most notable highlights of features and improvements coming in 6.4 include the following:</p>



<ul>
<li><strong>Font Management</strong> &#8211; allows users to manage a <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/59166">font library</a> independent of their active theme, along with <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/59165">Font Face</a> support for server-side <code>@font-face</code> style generation and printing</li>



<li><strong>Block Hooks</strong> &#8211; enables developers to automatically insert blocks into content relative to another block</li>



<li><strong>Lightbox for Images</strong> &#8211; core support for <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/51132">lightbox</a> functionality for image blocks</li>



<li><strong>Expanded Design Tools</strong> &#8211; background images for Group blocks, aspect ratios for image placeholders, alignment settings for synced patterns, and more</li>



<li><strong>Command Palette updates</strong> &#8211; <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53117">improved design</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/52509#top">new commands</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53496">better consistency across existing commands</a></li>



<li><strong>List view enhancements</strong> &#8211; usability improvements allow for renaming Group blocks, viewing media previews for Gallery and Image blocks, and duplicating blocks with a keyboard shortcut</li>



<li><strong>New Twenty Twenty-Four default theme</strong> &#8211; a multipurpose block theme that will ship with a collection of templates and patterns that lend themselves to a wide variety of use cases. See a demo at <a href="http://2024.wordpress.net/">2024.wordpress.net</a>.</li>
</ul>



<p>WordPress 6.4 will also include many accessibility and performance improvements that will improve workflows and speed for all users of both Block and Classic Themes. A <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/09/26/help-test-wordpress-6-4/">detailed testing guide</a> is available that covers all the key features and how to test them, with video demos for each.</p>



<p>Beta 2 is expected on October 3. WordPress 6.4 will be the third major release of 2023, and is scheduled for November 7. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 27 Sep 2023 03:04:37 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:6;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:92:"WPTavern: WordPress.org Expands Two-Factor Authentication Interface to Include Security Keys";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=149493";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:103:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-expands-two-factor-authentication-interface-to-include-security-keys";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2442:"<p>WordPress.org began <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/05/31/two-factor-auth-available-to-test-on-wordpress-org/">testing two-factor authentication</a> (2FA) as an opt-in feature in May 2023. The interface and functionality are still in beta but it&#8217;s operational. This week contributors have <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/09/26/set-up-two-factor-authentication-wordpress-org/">expanded support for 2FA</a> with a new interface for adding security keys, which are more secure than the one-time passwords.</p>



<p>A logged in user can set up the keys by visiting their WordPress.org profile, scrolling down to the &#8220;Security&#8221; section, and clicking on the support forum profile link. </p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1964" height="644" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Screen-Shot-2023-09-26-at-3.24.29-PM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-149522" />



<p>Users who have two-factor authentication set up can click on &#8220;Two-Factor Security Key&#8221; and follow the instructions to set them up. </p>



<p>This update to the interface also adds Time-Based One-Time Passwords<strong> </strong>(TOTP), which are generated from the user&#8217;s chosen authentication app on their device and changed every 30 seconds. WordPress.org currently defaults to using security keys over the time-based on-time passwords, but contributors are <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/wporg-two-factor/issues/249">working on making that configurable</a> in the future.</p>



<p>Additions to the interface also include the ability to generate backup codes, which enable access when users don&#8217;t have their 2FA security key or app configured. The backup codes come with a note of caution from Automattic- sponsored Meta contributor Steve Dufresne, who has been working on the 2FA project:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>Regardless of whether you are using security keys or a Time-Based One-Time password, <strong>make sure you generate and print backup codes</strong>. If you lose your primary key/device and don’t have a backup code, you will lose access to your account forever.</p>
</blockquote>



<p>Dufresne encouraged WordPress.org users who haven&#8217;t set up 2FA to go ahead and do so. Any bugs can be reported to the project&#8217;s <a href="https://github.com/wordpress/wporg-two-factor">GitHub repository</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 26 Sep 2023 21:02:22 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:7;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:40:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.4 Beta 1";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=15994";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/09/wordpress-6-4-beta-1/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18114:"<p>WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 is ready for download and testing!</p>



<p><strong>This beta version of the WordPress software is under development</strong>.<strong> </strong>Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended you evaluate Beta 1 on a test server and site.</p>



<p>You can test WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 in three ways:</p>



<ol>
<li><strong>Plugin:</strong> Install and activate the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin on a WordPress install (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).</li>



<li><strong>Direct download: </strong>Download the <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.4-beta1.zip">Beta 1 version (zip)</a> and install it on a WordPress website.</li>



<li><strong>Command line:</strong> Use the following <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/cli/">WP-CLI</a> command:<br /><code>wp core update --version=6.4-beta1</code></li>
</ol>



<p>The current target for the final release of WordPress 6.4 is <strong>November 7, 2023</strong>. Your help testing this version is key to ensuring everything in the release is the best it can be.</p>



<p>The WordPress 6.4 release is brought to you by an&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/" target="_blank"><strong>underrepresented gender release squad</strong></a>&nbsp;to increase participation&nbsp;of and partnership with&nbsp;those who identify as gender-underrepresented in the WordPress open source project.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p class="has-extra-large-font-size">Get an overview of the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-4/">6.4 release cycle</a>, and check the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">Make WordPress Core blog</a> for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/6-4/">6.4-related posts</a> in the coming weeks for further details.</p>
</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How you can help: Testing</h2>



<p>Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute—whether you have experience or not. <strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/09/26/help-test-wordpress-6-4/">This detailed guide</a> will walk you through testing key features in WordPress 6.4.</strong></p>



<p>If you encounter an issue, please report it to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">Alpha/Beta area</a> in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">file one on WordPress Trac</a>. You can also check your issue against a list of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major">known bugs</a>.</p>



<p>Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/">testing initiatives in Make Core</a> and join the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/core-test/">#core-test channel</a> on <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/">Making WordPress Slack</a>.</p>



<p>Learn more about Gutenberg updates that have debuted since WordPress 6.3 by reviewing prior editions of <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/gutenberg-new/">What’s New in Gutenberg</a> posts for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/14/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-2-12-july/">16.2</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-3-26-july/">16.3</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/08/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-4-9-august/">16.4</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/08/23/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-5-23-august/">16.5</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/06/whats-new-in-gutenberg-16-6-06-september/">16.6</a>, and 16.7 (release pending).</p>



<p>WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 contains over 400 enhancements and 370 bug fixes for the editor, including more than <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&milestone=6.4&group=component&max=500&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&order=priority">190 tickets for WordPress 6.4 core</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Vulnerability bounty doubles during Beta 1</h3>



<p>Between Beta 1 and the final release candidate (RC) for each new WordPress version, the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/security/2023/09/26/bug-bounty-for-wordpress-6-4-beta/">monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities is doubled</a>. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the <a href="https://hackerone.com/wordpress">HackerOne page</a> and in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/about/security/">security white paper</a>.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A first look at WordPress 6.4</h2>



<p>WordPress 6.4 will introduce a versatile default theme, new features, and numerous updates designed to enhance your WordPress experience across multiple areas—from writing and design to workflow efficiency. All while the foundational work continues for Phase 3 of the <a href="https://wordpress.org/about/roadmap/">WordPress roadmap</a>. Read on for some highlights.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Meet the Twenty Twenty-Four theme</h3>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/08/24/introducing-twenty-twenty-four/">Twenty Twenty-Four</a> is a new default theme that will launch with 6.4. With a versatile collection of templates and patterns, this theme covers a diverse range of use cases, from entrepreneurs to small businesses to artists and writers. Twenty Twenty-Four also emphasizes the latest design tooling and site editing features, enabling you to leverage the flexibility of blocks and unlock numerous creative possibilities with just a few tweaks. Follow the theme&#8217;s progress and report any issues on <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/twentytwentyfour">this GitHub repo</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Manage fonts across your site</h3>



<p>WordPress 6.4 will introduce new font management features:</p>



<p>The <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/59166">Font Library</a> enables you to handle fonts across your site, regardless of your active theme—just like you manage assets in the Media Library. Easily install local and Google Fonts and choose which to activate for each theme. This new font manager is a powerful way to control a fundamental piece of your site&#8217;s design and branding without coding. Thanks to its <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/53307">extensibility</a>, custom typographic collections can expand your font choices.</p>



<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/59165">Font Face</a> provides server-side <code>@font-face</code> style generation and printing support. It introduces a new global function called <code>wp_print_font_faces()</code>, which processes font data received from styles set in the editor or by the active theme.</p>



<p><strong><em>Please note: The Font Library is slated for inclusion in upcoming 6.4 beta releases</em>.</strong></p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Add lightbox functionality to your images</h3>



<p>Showcase your images in an interactive fashion with <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/51132">lightbox functionality</a>. This new core feature will be available for Image blocks, allowing visual assets to be opened and enlarged on top of the existing content.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Enjoy new writing improvements</h3>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/53305">Many enhancements</a> in 6.4 will ensure that your WordPress writing experience remains smooth and enjoyable, from new keyboard shortcuts to more reliable pasting from other sources. Moreover, a fresh toolbar experience will be available for the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53697">Navigation</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53306">List</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53699">Quote</a> blocks, making working with their tooling options more efficient and intuitive.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">More design tools, greater creativity</h3>



<p>New design tools will improve the overall creation experience with WordPress while providing greater layout control and flexibility. Some updates include:</p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53934">Background images for Group blocks</a>, allowing for creative and customized layouts.</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/54216">Aspect ratios for image placeholders</a>—a new feature that’s particularly useful when creating and using patterns. After setting a placeholder’s desired aspect ratio, you can drag and drop an image, which will adjust to maintain the design consistency.</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53667">Button and heading color customization in Group</a> and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/54104">Columns blocks</a>, enabling you to define the appearance of these elements when placed within these container blocks. This feature takes a step towards allowing <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/40318">section-specific styling</a>, which will continue to develop in upcoming releases.</li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/54416">Alignment settings in synced patterns</a>. When creating and converting a synced pattern with wide, full-width, left or right-aligned blocks, this improvement ensures alignment attributes remain intact for a seamless site editing and pattern creation experience.</li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Upgrades for smoother workflows</h3>



<p>As the Site Editor continues to evolve and expand its capabilities, so do the interface and tools that support it.</p>



<p>First introduced in WordPress 6.3, the <a href="https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/site-editor-command-palette/">Command Palette</a> helps you perform actions, search, and quickly navigate your site&#8217;s content and settings. It will receive significant updates in 6.4, featuring an <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53117">updated design</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/52509#top">new commands</a> to accomplish block-specific actions, and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53496">better command language and action consistency</a>.</p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/list-view/">List View</a> provides a great way to browse and work with the blocks that make up your site. This release will introduce enhancements to its interface and usability, making it even more powerful. You can <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53735">rename Group blocks</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53381">view media previews for Gallery and Image blocks</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53559">duplicate blocks with a keyboard shortcut</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Pattern advancements</h3>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/site-editor-patterns/">Patterns</a><strong> </strong>play an essential role in site editing, and its importance remains prominent in the upcoming release.</p>



<p>6.4 will allow you to better organize <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/53835">your synced and unsynced patterns with categories</a> as part of the creation process. These categories are available for sorting within the insertion flow to make discovering and adding patterns easier. In addition, you can conveniently access all your custom patterns from the same place—the Patterns section of the Block Inserter, which removes the separate tab for synced patterns.</p>



<p>Other improvements include <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/54337">importing and exporting patterns as JSON files</a>, ensuring backward compatibility with Reusable blocks, and enabling pattern transfer across sites.</p>



<p>Lastly, this release will improve <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/52150">compatibility with Classic Themes</a>, building on the groundwork laid in WordPress 6.3 for pattern creation and management. A new <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58827">Patterns tab</a> under the Appearance menu of your dashboard will grant access to the pattern interface available in the Site Editor.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Introducing Block Hooks</h3>



<p><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/59313">Block Hooks</a> is a new powerful feature that enriches the extensibility of block themes, drawing inspiration from the familiar WordPress <a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/wordpress-filter-hooks/">Hooks</a> concept. Upon activation, plugins can automatically insert blocks into content relative to another block. For example, a &#8220;Like&#8221; button block can automatically be inserted after the Post Content block.</p>



<p>While developer-centric, Block Hooks enhances the user experience by making block usage more intuitive and allowing for further customization and control over where and how the auto-inserted blocks appear. A <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/52969">new block inspector panel</a> named &#8220;Plugins&#8221; is designed to respect creators&#8217; preferences, ensuring you can add, dismiss, or relocate Block Hooks as desired.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Accessibility</h3>



<p>WordPress 6.4 has 70 accessibility improvements slated for inclusion, 60 of those are included in Beta 1. Notable updates focused on enhancing the user interface (UI) experience include <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40822">better button placements</a>, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/47125">improved context for “Add New” admin menu items</a>, and <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58573">upgraded spoken messages in Site Health</a>.</p>



<p>Additionally, fixes for <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58756">image editing in the Media Library</a>, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/30685">error reporting on the login screen</a>, and <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58756">&#8220;no motion&#8221; settings for GIFs</a> have been implemented. The cause of some <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/58703">false positives in automated UI tests</a> has been corrected, and users without JavaScript now see a <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/59229">direct link to install the Classic Editor plugin</a>. Learn more about these changes and other accessibility improvements for 6.4 on <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?focuses=~accessibility&milestone=6.4&col=id&col=summary&col=status&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=priority">WordPress Trac</a>.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Performance</h3>



<p>WordPress 6.4 will include more than 100 performance-related updates, including <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?focuses=~performance&component=Themes&milestone=6.4">improvements to template loading performance</a> for Block Themes and Classic Themes, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?focuses=~javascript+performance&milestone=6.4">usage of the new script loading strategies “defer” and “async”</a> in core, blocks, and themes, and new functions to optimize the use of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?focuses=~performance&component=Options%2C+Meta+APIs&component=Database&milestone=6.4">autoloaded options</a>.</p>



<p><strong><em>Please note that features in this list are subject to change before final release.</em></strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A haiku for 6.4</h2>



<p>Inline fonts, lightbox<br />Command blocks like CLI<br />Almost to 6-4</p>



<p><em>Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/meher/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>meher</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/sereedmedia/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>sereedmedia</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/meaganhanes/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>meaganhanes</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/rmartinezduque/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>rmartinezduque</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/annezazu/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>annezazu</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>cbringmann</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/flixos90/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>flixos90</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/richtabor/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>richtabor</a>,&nbsp; <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/francina/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>francina</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/joedolson/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>joedolson</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/priethor/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>priethor</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/davidbaumwald/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>davidbaumwald</a></em>, <em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>chanthaboune</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/luminuu/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>luminuu</a>.</em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 26 Sep 2023 20:21:22 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15:"Reyes Martínez";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"Do The Woo Community: A 3m x 3m Grid Planet Wide Geocoding System with Phoebe and Jash";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=76597";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"https://dothewoo.io/phoebe-and-jash-what3words/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:431:"<p>what3words, a unique geocoding system that represents any location on our planet, divided into 3 x 3 meter grid, and identified by three words.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/phoebe-and-jash-what3words/">A 3m x 3m Grid Planet Wide Geocoding System with Phoebe and Jash</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 26 Sep 2023 08:23:40 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:9;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:58:"WPTavern: Matthaus Klute Acquires Social Link Pages Plugin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=149460";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"https://wptavern.com/matthaus-klute-acquires-social-link-pages-plugin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7042:"<p>WordPress developer <a href="https://gelform.com/">Corey Maass</a> has sold his <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/social-link-pages/">Social Link Pages</a> plugin to Matthaus Klute, an independent WordPress consultant and developer with Alpha Particle. It&#8217;s another story of small plugins changing hands, where developers get the opportunity to test ideas and business models. Even the most modest creations have value in a thriving marketplace where business owners are willing to invest in these types of assets to expand their own offerings.</p>



<p>In 2019, Maass created Social Link Pages after taking a course on how to market himself as a musician and DJ. The course required him to sign up for <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://linktr.ee/" target="_blank">Linktr.ee</a>, a popular &#8220;link in bio&#8221; landing page service.</p>



<p>&#8220;In typical developer fashion, instead of paying $8 a month, I thought &#8216;I should build this,'&#8221; Maass said. &#8220;So I spent hundreds of hours building Social Link Pages for WordPress.&#8221;</p>



<p>Initially, Maass built the free version with most of the basic bells and whistles found in other link-in-bio page builders. After getting some pushback from the Plugin Review team, who Maass said were &#8220;skeptical about why we needed a &#8216;mini WordPress inside WordPress,&#8217; the Social Link Pages plugin was approved for the directory.</p>



<p>Over the next year he added features that he needed while figuring out the right extras for a Pro version. </p>



<p>&#8220;Along the way, a user contacted me, asking if the plug-in could be white-labeled and used to build her own SaaS,&#8221; Maass said. &#8220;Shortly thereafter I released the Pro and Community (i.e. SaaS) versions of the plugin.</p>



<p>&#8220;Then I took a day job and stopped working on it for about a year and a half. I took the commercial versions offline. I barely looked at the plugin because there were almost no support requests.&#8221;</p>



<p>When Maass&#8217; day job ended 18 months later, he went back to the plugin and was pleasantly surprised to find it had 1,000 active installs. This encouraged him to make some major updates and add new features.</p>



<p>The first marketing effort he made was to put Social Link Pages on AppSumo. At that time they were just opening up their marketplace.</p>



<p>&#8220;In the marketplace, you don&#8217;t benefit from AppSumo&#8217;s larger email campaigns, but I think Social Link Pages got a lot of eyes from people looking for good lifetime deals,&#8221; Maass said. &#8220;I sold about 80-lifetime licenses and was surprised to find that only two or three were ever actually claimed. I&#8217;ve since heard of other plugin developers who have had the same experience. Apparently, a lot of people collect lifetime deals, but never actually use them. So in the end it was free money.&#8221;</p>



<p>Over the next few years, Maass continued to add features but his interest was waning. </p>



<p>&#8220;The plugin did what I needed on my own sites, so I was not inspired to keep adding features just because I could,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I also saw a lot of new link-in-bio apps come online, though none were specific to WordPress. And I wanted to move on to new ideas.&#8221;</p>



<p>At the beginning of 2023, while considering all of his projects, Maass said he &#8220;could not find the willpower to market Social Link Pages as it should be.&#8221; He knew he was no longer the best owner for the plugin, so he listed it on a couple of sites dedicated to selling small software products.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Social Links Plugin Sells for $3K</h2>



<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d always heard the correct pricing for a software product is 12-18 months of revenue,&#8221; Maass said. &#8220;Social Link Pages was only making about $125 per month at the time, but I was selling a complete business, already set up with e-commerce, multiple products, email automation, and more.</p>



<p>&#8220;I listed it at $5000. I heard from a dozen or so potential buyers, all of whom asked for charts and spreadsheets I did not have. I&#8217;m a developer and guilty of ignoring a lot of the standard sales and &#8216;biz dev&#8217; practices. As I was asking too much based on what was &#8216;on paper,&#8217; I did not find a buyer. I unlisted Social Link Pages, figuring I&#8217;d try again in the future.&#8221;</p>



<p>Maass tried again in the summer, listing the plugin in Post Status and a couple of other solopreneur-focused communities. He also dropped the price to $3,000. </p>



<p>&#8220;Immediately I heard from a number of interested buyers who saw the value in what I was selling,&#8221; Maass said.&#8221; I probably could&#8217;ve brought the price back up to $5000 again, but I wanted to see the plugin go to a new, better owner.&#8221;</p>



<p>Two years ago, <a href="https://wptavern.com/alpha-particle-and-flowspoke-acquire-kanban-for-wordpress-for-15k">Maass sold his Kanban for WordPress plugin to Keanan Koppenhaver</a> at Alpha Particle. After discussing with Matthaus Klute, a developer who works with Koppenhaver, Maass knew he had found the right buyer. </p>



<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a thoughtful developer with WordPress experience interested in building a product business,&#8221; Maass said. &#8220;We met up in person at WordCamp US in DC in August 2023, and spent a few hours moving all accounts to his name and getting him set up. It was a fun experience to do in person.&#8221;</p>



<p>Klute said Maass came to him highly recommended from others who had purchased plugins from him in the past. After he spoke with his lawyer, they proceeded to do an in-person asset transfer at WordCamp US (WCUS).</p>



<p>&#8220;I wasn’t actively shopping for a plugin, however I’ve always had a passing interest in asset and/or small businesses acquisitions,&#8221; Klute said. &#8220;Corey&#8217;s plugin caught my attention for several reasons. It fit well within my budget, boasted an active user base, and generated consistent recurring revenue.  </p>



<p>&#8220;With my 9 -5 spent coding, the prospect of having an existing solution that I could focus on marketing rather than building was enticing. Lastly, I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the plugin ecosystem.&#8221;</p>



<p>Klute said Maass&#8217;s experience played a crucial role in ensuring a smooth transfer. He had all the plugin&#8217;s accounts and services separated from his other entities, making it easily transferable. While at WCUS, they conducted a few Zoom sessions to explore the plugin&#8217;s codebase in-depth.</p>



<p>&#8220;Despite the focus on marketing, I do have a few ideas for the plugin roadmap,&#8221; Klute said. &#8220;I&#8217;m looking at the possibility of a digital business card functionality similar to Blinq and also exploring ways to enhance the plugin’s compatibility with WooCommerce for my dynamic shop functionality for e-commerce businesses.&#8221;</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 25 Sep 2023 17:44:34 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:10;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:124:"Gutenberg Times: Hallway Hangouts Galore, Recipes in the Block Cook Book, Default Theme and much more—Weekend Edition #269";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=25652";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:130:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/hallway-hangouts-galore-recipes-in-the-block-cook-book-default-theme-and-much-more-weekend-edition-269/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18934:"<p>Howdy, </p>



<p>We are running towards WordPress 6.4 Beta 1! Gutenberg 16.7 RC candidate was released this week.  What are you most excited about for this major WordPress release? For me, it&#8217;s the Block Hooks that allow you to auto-insert blocks and the font library it empowers users to manage local fonts for their site that are independent of the design of the theme. </p>



<p>The best way to learn how all the new features with WordPress 6.4 work is to follow along with the 26th Call for Testing coming out of the FSE Outreach program: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/09/18/fse-program-testing-call-26-final-touches/"><strong>FSE Program Testing Call #26: Final touches</strong></a> by Anne McCarthy. </p>



<p><strong>Congratulations</strong> to the <strong><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/09/openverse-wins-the-2023-oeg-open-infrastructure-award/">team of Openverse for winning the Open Infrastructure Award!</a> </strong>Many of our featured images originate at the directory of Creative Commons licensed assets. Did you know that you can search the directory directly from your image block? Try it out. </p>



<p>And as always, there are more updates in this edition. Enjoy! </p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>




<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-word-press-6-4">WordPress 6.4</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-gutenberg-16-7">Gutenberg 16.7 RC </a></li></ul></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#4-new-tutorials-on-learn-word-press">New tutorials on Learn.WordPress</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor</a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#5-🗓️-save-the-date">🗓️ Save the date: Hallway Hangouts Galore</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>
</div></div>




<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>



<p>Next week is release week! WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 will be released on Tuesday, September 26th, and Gutenberg 16.7 on September 17th, 2023. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="1-word-press-6-4">WordPress 6.4</h3>



<p>Apart from the gazillion &#8216;quality of life&#8217; improvements of site editor, writing flow, list view and blocks, there are four big features coming to 6.4:  The Font Library and Management, Block Hooks, user added categories for Patterns and the image Lightbox feature </p>



<ul>
<li><a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/54169" rel="noreferrer noopener">Font Library</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/51132" rel="noreferrer noopener">Image Lightbox</a></li>



<li><a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/53987" rel="noreferrer noopener">Block Hooks</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/53164" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Pattern categories</a></li>
</ul>



<p>As mentioned above, <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> published <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/09/18/fse-program-testing-call-26-final-touches/"><strong>FSE Program Testing Call #26: Final touches</strong></a>. The instructions lead you through the array of new features for WordPress 6.4: You get to learn how to manage fonts, get your side organized using the Command Palette and rename Group blocks. Then you are asked to create a new Pattern and finish a Portfolio page. You also get to swap out patterns, and handle the display of a like button. It&#8217;s a fun call for testing for sure and the deadline for feedback is October 9th, 2023. </p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="1-gutenberg-16-7">Gutenberg 16.7 RC </h3>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v16.7.0-rc.1"><strong>Gutenberg 16.7 Release candidate </strong></a>is now available for testing. It&#8217;s the last release before WordPress 6.4 Beta 1 and all new things should be already in there, except for three features, Lightbox for image blocks, Block Hooks and Font Library. Additional refinements will be made in upcoming Gutenberg releases that will be synchronized with the WordPress 6.4 release cycle all through the Beta period. </p>



<p>Gutenberg 16.7 has a whooping 290 PRs merged. When you consider that there has been an additional week to merge new code, it maybe isn&#8217;t so much. But of course, the changelog is again a mile long. <strong>Sarah Norris</strong> handled the release as part of the Editor Tech lead role on the underrepresented led WordPress 6.4 release. </p>



<p><strong>Tammie Lister</strong> is Norris&#8217; co-lead and joined me again for this week&#8217;s Gutenberg Changelog recording. We discussed the most important PRs during the recording of the <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-90-new-testing-call-for-the-fse-program-gutenberg-16-7-and-wordpress-6-4/">90th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog</a> podcast on Thursday. The episode will arrive at your favorite podcast app over the weekend. We also discussed the features that will make it into WordPress 6.4 and what we are excited about. </p>



<img width="652" height="198" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Screenshot-2023-09-21-at-13.43.00.png?resize=652%2C198&ssl=1" alt="Tammie Lister and Birgit Pauli-Haack recording Gutenberg Changelog 90 " class="wp-image-25710" />



<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p class="is-style-no-vertical-margin"><strong>🎙️ </strong> Latest episode:  <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-90-new-testing-call-for-the-fse-program-gutenberg-16-7-and-wordpress-6-4/">Gutenberg Changelog #90 – New Testing Call for the FSE Program, Gutenberg 16.7 and WordPress 6.4</a> with Tammie Lister as special guest, hosted by Birgit Pauli-Haack</p>
</div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>



<p><strong>Nick Diego</strong> announced <a href="https://blockvisibilitywp.com/block-visibility-3-1-0-introducing-woocommerce-and-edd-controls/"><strong>Block Visibility 3.1.0: Introducing WooCommerce and EDD controls</strong></a>, after improving the WooCommerce and EDD integrations for  sites with large product/download catalogs. Diego mentioned a notable change to the product-based rules. &#8220;Previously, you had to select which product you wanted to target with the visibility conditions. While this is still possible, Block Visibility can now detect the current product.&#8221; he wrote. </p>



<p>With this version, the migration from Pro features to the free version is complete. Once you update to 3.1.x it&#8217;s safe to deactivate and uninstall the Pro edition. The <a href="https://github.com/ndiego/block-visibility/releases/tag/v3.1.0">complete changelog is available on GitHub</a></p>



<p><strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> has a <a href="https://wptavern.com/block-visibility-3-1-0-adds-woocommerce-and-easy-digital-downloads-controls">reported on the plugin update</a> for the WPTavern, too. </p>



<img width="652" height="341" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/detect-current-product-example-1024x535.png?resize=652%2C341&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-25708" />



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Jamie Marsland</strong> interviewed <strong>Mike McAliste</strong>r creator of the <a href="https://olliewp.com/">Ollie theme</a> on <a href="https://www.pootlepress.com/2023/09/wordpress-block-themes-versus-classic-themes/"><strong>Will WordPress Block Themes ever be as popular as Classic Themes?</strong></a> They discussed some reasons for a seemingly slow adoption of block themes. <br /></p>



<p>Right on cue, <strong>Fränk Klein</strong> <a href="https://twitter.com/bph/status/1705873655782092955">tweeted </a>about the key benefit of Block Themes and Full site editing: Interoperability. </p>



<ul>
<li>Content written with blocks is stored as HTML. So you can transfer it to another CMS. </li>



<li>Plugins that use blocks work with all block themes. Without needing an extra compatibility layer. </li>



<li>These plugin blocks, if written the right way, inherit theme styles. </li>



<li>And in the near future patterns (previously called reusable blocks) will be portable between themes. </li>



<li>There is no page builder, theme framework, or metabox plugin that can do the same.</li>
</ul>



<p class="has-light-background-background-color has-background"><strong>What do you think are the biggest hurdles for you</strong>? Hit reply on the email or share in the comments here. </p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="4-new-tutorials-on-learn-word-press">New tutorials on Learn.WordPress</h2>



<p>The WordPress Training team released new tutorials for WordPress users: <br /></p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/intro-to-the-site-editor-and-template-editor/">Intro to the Site Editor</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/scheduling-posts-and-pages/">Scheduling posts and pages</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/creating-your-own-custom-synced-or-non-synced-patterns/">Creating your own custom synced or non-synced patterns</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/using-block-patterns/">Using Block Patterns</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>



<p>The new default theme: <strong>Twenty-Twenty-Four</strong> is progressing fast, too. You can follow along via the demo site, the Slack channel, the GitHub repo and via the meeting notes:  </p>



<ul>
<li>Demo Site on <a href="https://2024.wordpress.net/"><strong>2024.wordpress.net/</strong></a></li>



<li>Meeting in <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02RP4VMP">#core-themes </a>channel</li>



<li>GitHub Repo: T<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/twentytwentyfour">wentyTwentyFour</a></li>



<li>Meeting notes on Make Core blog: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/twenty-twenty-four/">#twentytwentyfour</a></li>
</ul>



<a href="http://2024.wordpress.net/index.php/patterns/"><img width="652" height="439" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/twenty-twenty-four-full-page-patterns.jpg?resize=652%2C439&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-25745" /></a>Screenshot Demo Site <a href="http://2024.wordpress.net/index.php/patterns/">Full-Page Patterns</a>




<p><strong> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2022&#8221;</a> </strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2021 on. Updated by yours truly.  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/"><em>The index 2020 is here</em></a></p>




<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor</h2>



<p><strong>Matthias Hunt </strong>and <strong>Michelle Schlup</strong> released their VS Code <a href="https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=matthiashunt.wordpress-syntax-highlighter"><strong>WordPress Syntax Highlighter</strong></a>. This extension provides syntax highlighting for the following WordPress syntaxes that exist inside traditional comment blocks:</p>



<ul>
<li>Plugin header fields (PHP)</li>



<li>Block pattern fields (PHP)</li>



<li>Theme header fields (style.css)</li>



<li>Block markup (HTML + JSON)</li>
</ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> started a series of twitch streams working on <strong>Block Developer Cookbook</strong> recipes. The first few broadcasts are now available on YouTube: </p>



<ul>
<li>🧑‍🍳 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpOIO1V0KlM"><strong>Block Level Validation</strong></a> &#8211;  How to create block level checks to ensure that button blocks have text in them before the post can be published. </li>



<li>🧑‍🍳 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtVRifFbUaQ"><strong>Connecting to Post Meta</strong></a> &#8211; How to create a block that can read from and write back to WordPress custom post meta. </li>



<li>🧑‍🍳 <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1931306774"><strong>Block Variations</strong></a> is the latest in the series, streamed last Thursday and is only available on Twitch</li>
</ul>



<p><em>Every Thursday at 10:30 ET / 14:30  UTC Ryan Welcher goes online on Twitch with live programming sessions. </em></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="5-🗓️-save-the-date">🗓️ Save the date: Hallway Hangouts Galore</h3>



<p><strong>September 27th, 2023 at 14:00 UTC</strong> <a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/295482707/"><strong>Developer Hours: Building better blocks with the &#8216;create-block&#8217; package</strong></a>.  Ryan Welcher and Nick Diego will be diving deep into the functionalities of the <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/packages/packages-create-block/#available-commands" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">create-block</a> package. Developed to simplify and accelerate the process of building custom WordPress blocks, this package has become an indispensable tool for developers of all levels.</p>



<p><em><strong>WordPress Developer Hours</strong> are held regularly on the last Wednesday of each month</em> <em>(except October 2023)</em></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Thursday, October 12, 2023,</strong> <strong>at 18:00 UTC</strong> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/14/hallway-hangout-whats-new-for-developers-in-wordpress-6-4/"><strong>Hallway Hangout: What’s new for developers in WordPress 6.4</strong></a> Justin Tadlock, Ryan Welcher and Nick Diego  will host a casual conversation about the most important and exciting developer-related changes coming soon in WordPress 6.4. From Block Hooks and the Font Library to improved Editor flows and the new Twenty Twenty-Four theme, there is just so much to talk about.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Thursday, October 19, 2023, at 15:00 UTC <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/18/hallway-hangout-performance-improvements-for-wordpress-6-4/">Hallway Hangout: Performance Improvements for WordPress 6.4</a></strong> The hosts <strong>Emily Clark</strong>, <strong>Joe McGil</strong>l and <strong>Felix Arntz</strong> will go through quick intros (what each person does/focuses on) before reviewing WordPress 6.3 performance impact in the field, diving into WordPress 6.4 performance improvements and looking ahead at what can be learned for WordPress 6.5. </p>




<p><strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. <br />Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.</p>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>




<p class="has-text-align-right has-small-font-size"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">them via email</a> or send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>. </p>



<p class="has-text-align-right has-small-font-size">For questions to be answered on the <a href="http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />




<p>Featured Image: &#8220;<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/8455331@N08/35088954290" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Moveable type used on Hawaii&#8217;s first printing printing press at the Hale Pa&#8217;i Printing Museum at Lahainaluna</a>&#8221; by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/8455331@N08" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Kanalu Chock</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/?ref=openverse" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CC BY-NC-SA 2.0</a>.</p>



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<p class="has-text-align-left"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>



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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:115:"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #90 – New Testing Call for the FSE Program, Gutenberg 16.7 and WordPress 6.4";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?post_type=podcast&p=25736";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:128:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-90-new-testing-call-for-the-fse-program-gutenberg-16-7-and-wordpress-6-4/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:62664:"<p>Tammie Lister and Birgit Pauli-Haack discuss the New Testing Call for the FSE Program, Gutenberg 16.7 and WordPress 6.4</p>



<p><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-69-gutenberg-releases-wordpress-6-0-1-the-create-block-theme/#shownotes">Show Notes</a> / <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-69-gutenberg-releases-wordpress-6-0-1-the-create-block-theme/#transcript">Transcript</a></p>



<ul>
<li>Music:&nbsp;<a href="https://soundcloud.com/xirclebox">Homer Gaines</a></li>



<li>Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/">Sandy Reed</a></li>



<li>Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://markuraine.com/">Mark Uraine</a></li>



<li>Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://icodeforapurpose.com">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></li>
</ul>



<p class="has-larger-font-size" id="shownotes"><strong>Show Notes</strong></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Announcements</h2>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/12/core-editor-improvement-commanding-the-command-palette/">Core Editor Improvement: Commanding the Command Palette</a></p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/09/18/fse-program-testing-call-26-final-touches/">FSE Program Testing Call #26: Final touches</a></p>



<p><strong>Training Team</strong></p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/intro-to-the-site-editor-and-template-editor/">Intro to the Site Editor</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/scheduling-posts-and-pages/">Scheduling posts and pages</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/creating-your-own-custom-synced-or-non-synced-patterns/">Creating your own custom synced or non-synced patterns</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/the-wordpress-database/">The WordPress Database</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Community Contributions</h2>



<p><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/09/understanding-block-attributes/">Understanding block attributes</a> by Michael Burridge</p>



<p><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/09/whats-new-for-developers-september-2023/">What’s new for developers? (September 2023)</a> by Justin Tadlock and Birgit Pauli-Haack</p>



<p>Learn more how to contribute to the Developer Blog</p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/how-to-contribute/">How to contribute</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/tips-and-guidelines-for-writers/">Tips and guidelines for writers</a></li>
</ul>



<p><strong>What&#8217;s released: </strong></p>



<p><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v16.7.0-rc.1"><strong>Gutenberg 16.7.0 RC 1</strong></a></p>



<p><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/call-for-testing-of-the-new-font-library/">Call for testing of the new Font Library</a></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What&#8217;s being worked on and discussed? </h2>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-4/">Underrepresented gender led WordPress 6.4</a></p>



<p><a href="https://github.com/orgs/WordPress/projects/127/views/1">Project Board of Editor Tasks for WordPress 6.4</a></p>



<p class="has-large-font-size">Stay in Touch</p>



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<li><em>If you have questions or suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. </em></li>



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<p class="has-large-font-size" id="transcript"><strong>Transcript</strong></p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Hello and welcome to our 90th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog Podcast. In today&#8217;s episode, we will talk about the new testing call for the FSE program, Gutenberg 16.7 and WordPress 6.4 of course. And I&#8217;m your host Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and full-time core contributor for the WordPress Open Source project sponsored by Automattic&#8217;s Five for the Future program. My special guest today again is Tammie Lister and she and I are working on the WordPress 6.4 underrepresented gender release team and she is the co-lead of the editor tech teams. She also works as a developer at Inpsyde and started our new writing project. You will hear about it maybe in a moment. So welcome to the show Tammie. How are you and have you recovered from the last WordCamp?</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Yeah, I&#8217;m doing really well. Yes, I had the pleasure of going to WordCamp with Lee Bay on Monday, a couple of days ago now. It was really nice. It was a small WordCamp at a tiny little beach place up in the northeast of England and it was a real pleasure to go there and talk about Gutenberg as a product. And you mentioned my new writing project. Yes. I&#8217;m just writing about how do all the various parts and patterns, templates, it&#8217;s at presselements.com kind of come together design system with surprise thinking. So I&#8217;m doing really well. Thank you for having me.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh yeah, well the WordCamp sounds lovely in the last summer days in a bay.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Yeah, it was lovely to just be at a single track was I think I&#8217;m correcting saying the first WordCamp since the events of the past few years for my country&#8217;s community. And it was really nice to just get together and just all be there. And there&#8217;s something about those small WordCamps that are really nice to have those conversations. At the end of it, everyone can go to the same restaurant and then kind of relax down, and it was a real pleasure to just listen to it everyone&#8217;s talks and just learn how everyone was using Gutenberg and what everyone was creating. I got to see what agencies were creating and what they were doing as well, which was really fascinating.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, I like the small WordCamps too. In July, I was in Leipzig, which is also very small one-track camp and it was a very good, I felt very welcome in the German community because I had just moved to Germany and it was the first time at the German WordCamp so it was lovely and we had some great conversations.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: You get to do those long lunches and just the pace seems, you&#8217;re not to kind of chasing to go and see everybody because there&#8217;s so many people in this space. You can actually have the conversations with everybody in the room and it was really nice.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And you don&#8217;t have to make a decision on which session you&#8217;re going to now it&#8217;s just one track.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: No, yeah, and it was super nice being by the sea so you could look out of the window and go by the sea and yeah, that was kind of nice.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Announcements</h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, nice, nice. So we have a few announcements to make. So one of the more hidden features that were part of the WordPress 6.3 release was the command palette and that can be invoked within the site editor and now also with the post editor using control or command K. And it gives you a quick access to various tasks and settings throughout the space and you don&#8217;t have to hunt down the third level menu item to get to places where you needed to go.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">FSE Program Testing Call #26: Final Touches</h3>



<p>And Anne McCarthy has published a great article on the Core Editor Improvement series, Commanding the Command Palette. So if you haven&#8217;t explored that yet, you definitely want to read that. And of course we show the links in the show notes and really it&#8217;s, well first of all the post editor I think is only coming with a 6.4. 6.3 was only with a site editor. But it&#8217;s such a lovely improvement if you are a power user you can get to places very, very fast. Have you tried it?</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Yeah, personally the command palette I think is going to be really powerful going forward, but I don&#8217;t think people are quite using it yet. So what I love is that we are creating more documentation and that we are starting to really show these articles and use cases because in the conversations I&#8217;ve had with people there, curious but don&#8217;t quite know yet how to utilize it, I absolutely have tried it but I&#8217;m also trying to find out how do I start to use this and where do I start to do it? So the more articles that we have on how to extend it, the more happy I am and I think we&#8217;re going to get to the massive docs stuff data. So I&#8217;m really excited how all these features we start having things like that as well.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, and if you want to really get into the what&#8217;s coming to WordPress 6.4, I really would recommend that you follow Anne McCarthy&#8217;s call for testing on the final touches because the instructions lead you all through the area of the features of 6.4. Among them, the command palette but also the group block and the new pattern. And you get to learn how to manage the fonts of course the big new feature and how to swap up patterns and templates and display like button on the portfolio page. And it&#8217;s a fun call for testing and make sure that you get your feedback in before October 8th. So all the feedback that you get in can be fixed in beta and release candidate for 6.4. So it&#8217;s kind of both. It&#8217;s a training on the 6.4 features but it&#8217;s also a kind of have more people find the bugs before we release. So I really hope you can make it and go through it.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: And that&#8217;s been one of the biggest comments from the phone library to the command palette that I&#8217;ve heard from people is where do I go for all this information? So having these hallway Hangouts to these posts I think is really essential. The moment I show someone one of these posts, their little eyes light up and they&#8217;re like, oh, I can go to one place and I can then follow these information.</p>



<p>Hallway hangouts are great for that as well for people where they can just go and then they can see a summary of links and they can just wander around without having to scour or use search, search inputs it really difficult to know to collect that information and not everybody can ask everybody and some people just want to at their own pace, discover these things. So again, that kind of goes back to finding that information. If you are in a release, you&#8217;re going to know I&#8217;m trying fonts because I&#8217;m in the release and it&#8217;s going to come up. I&#8217;m trying this because it&#8217;s in a release and it&#8217;s going to come out, but I&#8217;m not trying the things that aren&#8217;t in the release because I&#8217;m focusing on the release.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, we will share. Anne McCarthy also did a hallway hangout and going through the roadmap and just briefly said, &#8220;Okay, this made it, this didn&#8217;t make it, this made it.&#8221; And demo some of that as well if you don&#8217;t want to go through the call of testing. So I&#8217;m going to share that as well in the share notes. No show notes. Well share notes could be too. Right. And then a big shout-out also to the WordPress training team. They&#8217;re quite a productive bunch and their newest tutorials were, they&#8217;re not yet for the release of course because they don&#8217;t have all the information yet, but there&#8217;s an intro into the site editor. So if you haven&#8217;t gone and used those features, there&#8217;s a short intro. There&#8217;s also for those new to WordPress and how to schedule posts or pages. And one is also how to create your own synced or non-synced patterns.</p>



<p>Now that you can do it on WordPress patterns are really a great way to streamline your processes but also to help standardize your site production when you work within a team. And then last but not least, for this round of shout-outs, the WordPress database. And that&#8217;s a dive into, if you ever want to customize some of the WordPress, you need to know how the database is structured, how you can access it, how you can do all the edits, updates and deletes and what the actions and filters are. So this is, it&#8217;s a short intro but it&#8217;s really powerful so don&#8217;t forget to go to the <a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/">learn.wordpress.org</a> site to pick out all the tutorials that you need. But these are the four new ones from September, no, August. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: I think those are great. Someone could just be joining today and they turn up and they&#8217;re like what synced or non-synced? And we use language that we presume people know what they mean. I do all the time. So always. Yeah, it&#8217;s so good that we are actually correcting that by having these information resources.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And they mix the production of those resources between someone who has been in the community for a long time and just needs a new feature. And those who came in yesterday and need to know, okay, how to create your website, what&#8217;s the site? So it&#8217;s so important to have these resources.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: And there&#8217;s a lot of people who have a lot of knowledge on creating, if you are talking either not just an end user, but you&#8217;re also talking about someone who&#8217;s a developer. They may have used different systems and they may use the terminology synced or non-synced, completely different to how we use synced or non synced. So coming into our space and then we, because do use, we are adorable, but we do use terms in a very specific WordPress way for certain things. So having some clarity I think is great, because you never know what is your source of truth for a lot of these things. So I am so pleased to find this information.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Community Contributions</h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And we just talked about this, that the new WordPress Developer Blog, which has only been happening for the last nine months is not so known in the community. And I just want to give a shout-out to Michael Burridge. He posted a great tutorial for beginners on understanding block attributes, beginners being block development beginners, and there is more to block attributes that meets the eye and attributes contain data needed for your block or the data can be retrieved in multiple ways. And in this he walks you through a progressive kind of complexity way from the anatomy of a simple block to sources and selectors and HTML attributes and also how to use a query as the source of those attributes. And there were actually some great comments from block developers. One was, &#8220;I&#8217;ve been creating blocks since 5.0 and this is the first time that I actually understood how the query works. Thanks, man.&#8221; And then another one, &#8220;I always struggled with using HTML attributes as a source and this makes it so clear.&#8221; So it&#8217;s definitely a post to look through even if you&#8217;re an experienced block developer.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: I just adore this because really to me it does come back down to the visibility and in the olden days it was go to Make Core. It really, Make Core is not, it&#8217;s great, but it&#8217;s an information resource, and the Developer Blog is really where you are safe to, maybe it&#8217;s me, but I don&#8217;t think it is. You&#8217;re safe to Instapaper, you get your highlighter, your digital highlighter pen out and you sit down and you learn. And that&#8217;s what this is becoming. So when I&#8217;m talking to someone at a WordCamp, when I&#8217;m talking to somewhere, one of my first conversations with a developer is going to be, Hey, are you following this blog? Because this is just as if you&#8217;re following React or you&#8217;re following whatever your flavor of awesome that you&#8217;re creating with because everybody has their own pet scripts that they create with.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s like sports teams, are you following this? Because we always used to say, are you following Make Core if you are a developer, are you following Make Design? If you&#8217;re a designer. This should be on those lists of are you following this? I don&#8217;t actually just think developers. I think even if you are slightly interested in what&#8217;s going on because, and I think this is worth saying the scale of what has been put there, and this might be something to look at in the future is having a, you need to know because I think sometimes knowing what you need to know is curious on here and a lot of people are presumed knowledge. So that&#8217;s something as we&#8217;re kind of doing this, some people have incredible knowledge in PHP, but not the knowledge in JavaScript quite yet. And that&#8217;s great because this blog can give them that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: In multiple ways and also to keep up with what&#8217;s changing because Core and Gutenberg reapers are changing so much.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Theme Jsons, block Jsons, if you were making blocks before and then you went for two years to do something like life and then you came back the way the blocks are done now or the way that themes are done now, completely different from the way that they were being done.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s true. And there&#8217;s one roundup post on the Developer Blog that&#8217;s come out every month and Justin Tadlock just posted the one from September and it&#8217;s a monthly roundup post for WordPress developers working on plugins, themes, and agencies. And this edition has about 20-plus short updates that gives you an overview what&#8217;s released, what&#8217;s about to come out in future releases. And also for both the front end as well as backend, sometimes I use that distinction between Gutenberg and Core to make it more one thing.</p>



<p>And the monthly publishing frequency is actually more digestible, even if it&#8217;s 20 plus items. But you can decide, they are divided up into highlights and plugin and theme developers. So you only have to, if you&#8217;re a plugin developer, just do the 10 items from the plugin section, but it&#8217;s more or less digestible than the three times a year field guide that comes with, I don&#8217;t know, tons of updates that are, you never know from the one-liners if it&#8217;s really important to you personally or is it just something you can ignore and it&#8217;s really hard to keep track of it. So it&#8217;d always be published on the 10th of the month and we are working on the October edition. And it comes out October 10th.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: It&#8217;s a random suggestion, but this is not, I would love to see behind the scenes of the default being there or behind the scenes of releases, I don&#8217;t know, but I would love to see more community developer stuff there. But that happens with eyeballs on the blog. So I think that that happens as it grows. So more people pay attention to the blog and then more people can be there.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Right. And if you are a developer and you want to share your journey…</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: There you go.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: &#8230; on certain things, if you go on the WordPress, so it&#8217;s <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/">developer.wordpress.org/news</a> is the address of it. There are two things to contribute to. One is the tips and guidelines for the writers and the reviewers and the other one is how to contribute because it&#8217;s not only the writing part, it&#8217;s also, yeah, we need to organize it. We have editorial group meetings and all that. So this is all kind of laid out in two pages, well pages, they&#8217;re very long pages.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: I would love to hear more because there&#8217;s so many good stories and so many problems people are solving that they don&#8217;t keep to themselves in a bad way, but they keep themselves, they don&#8217;t have a place to put it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: To put it. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: And Make Core isn&#8217;t the place. This is the place. So I am so excited we&#8217;re talking about this.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Even if your personal blog is not the place because you&#8217;re talking to clients on your personal blog or the agency blog. Yeah, it&#8217;s a place.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: The personal blog is also sometimes one space and sometimes you might have like, Hey, I did this, I&#8217;d love other opinions about what I did, which is hard to do, but it&#8217;s also good to collaborate and share as well.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. But it&#8217;s more the exploration on the personal blog where you can collaborate with people, but then the outcome of it could be on the Developer Blog, on the official WordPress Developer Blog. So we have a discussion board on the Gutenberg, I share all those links of course in the show notes in the Developer Blog content repo on GitHub where we have discussions and we talk about those in the monthly meetings. So yeah, kind of hit me up either on Slack, WordPress or there in the meeting or in the channel we have actually a 4-dev-blog blog is the channel for all things Developer Blog. So yeah, come join us.</p>



<p>Excellent. Well, thanks for the ping here.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">What’s Released &#8211; Gutenberg 16.7</h3>



<p>Yeah, that brings us to our section, what&#8217;s released. And Gutenberg 16.7 had a three-week release cycle. And the change on is again about one and a half miles long with 290 PRs merged. Whoa. So Tammie and I, we have our work cut out today going over the most relevant parts. So Sarah Norris, your co-editor, tech lead, managed the release in preparation on the WordPress beta release that comes on Tuesday, September 26th, 2023. And 290 PRS, 72 of those are bug fixes, so it&#8217;s a really great release with some fixes as well.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Yeah, I think it&#8217;s worth saying that this is 6.4, it&#8217;s coming. We have the beta Tuesday? Always like to check. Calendars are hard and tricky and they see they&#8217;re popping up on my computer. With that, that&#8217;s why it took a little bit of a longer time. But those 72 bug fixes I think are incredibly important. We kind of get into that as well. Often we focus on the things we release, but the things we fixed and made even better and even more stable are incredibly important and this release has been a lot about that. So yeah, getting into that and getting into was Gutenberg for 6.4 is there, what now from Gutenberg? So I&#8217;m excited to dive into this and one day I&#8217;ll turn up and it&#8217;ll be a really short changelog for you.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, I don&#8217;t know, maybe 16.8 or so. Well let&#8217;s look at the November one because there&#8217;s not a whole lot of people, they&#8217;re all on vacation holiday.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: But then it opens up again and then everyone&#8217;s like, oh, put all the things in there.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Absolutely. Yeah. So tell me, what features are you most excited about for WordPress 6.4 to just derail us a little bit more?</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: I really, it&#8217;s not features, well default theme. I&#8217;ve always loved default themes, which is like, yes, it&#8217;s a Gutenberg, but it&#8217;s a tangent because I think now it showcases what can be done with the editing experience in its current incarnation, if that makes sense. Incarnation is a weird word, but that&#8217;s true. What it should do is showcase, oh goodness, if no one&#8217;s been following along, I&#8217;m very excited to deliver that Christmas present. It shows what you can do and empowers. So that to me is always powerful because you click it and it works for so many people and so many people turn it on from day one. So that and then just the fixing, it&#8217;s not a feature. And then I do absolutely have to say font library mainly because maturity of product, I feel that I always say there&#8217;s a checklist of modern editing experiences like yes, block editor, yes, collaboration, but honestly font management feels pretty standard, font management design, so that is really big. What about you?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, I&#8217;m definitely font management, but I&#8217;m excited of all of it, but it&#8217;s the font library, it kind of empowers the user first time that you are not having to rely on a theme to get you the fonts that you want. So you can do a theme selection outside of your favorite fonts and you can find fonts that can be decorative, and you can do a lot more with it as a designer with the site editor now than you could before because you don&#8217;t have to bundle all this, you can just kind of have it in there.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: We&#8217;re saying it&#8217;s not just that you have to rely on a theme, you also don&#8217;t have to rely on tutorials or plugins or something you might be trusting and it could not be great code. And I don&#8217;t mean to scare people, but the way that sometimes people have implemented fonts have at best not being performant and at worse, not being secure and not being performant and having these ways just helps everything from those angles. And I&#8217;m not going to be super scary, but the more holes we block from a performance and security angle, the better in that. And it just happens that it&#8217;s just better from a user journey perspective as well. Spoiler alert. It&#8217;s always better that someone doesn&#8217;t have to Google how to add a font and then put code. Yes.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And I also like that you can have the fonts stored locally on your site so you don&#8217;t have to go out to third parties and share your YouTube.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: It encourages good behavior, which I think is really, we kind of started that with the accessibility with the little nudge of like, hey, that&#8217;s not an accessible color combination. Do you really want to do that? And it&#8217;s doing that. It&#8217;s encouraging the best practices and I think the more that we do that, the better. It makes gentle, happy nudges to best practices is the best way.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right, let&#8217;s get into the changelog. So the first feature that I see on the changelog, but it&#8217;s not, is rename root blocks in the editor via a modal. And this is so powerful because it helps you as a site developer or even as a template developer to actually name the things, the sections that your template is for or if you have a long post you can easily see it&#8217;s not only just heading, heading, heading, heading. So you can actually name these things and find your way around much better. It also keeps the name, if you give it a name in the pattern, it keeps the name also there. So I really love that new feature. Yeah, I&#8217;m glad it&#8217;s coming to 6.4.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: So next we have font library, which you&#8217;ve already discussed I think, but really it&#8217;s a font collection backend and the front end. It seems a small feature but really I think in the importance of this is to do the call for testing again and say that because yes, something getting in but something getting in that has a really thorough call for testing and everybody has got their sticks and gone and tested it with everything and tested it with their existing implementations of fonts. I think is something worth calling because or tested, turning it off because quite a lot of people may have pretty established settings at the moment, so we need to know can you turn it off and particularly an agency setting, can you turn it off? All these kinds of things.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: So knowing how it works in your situation and being empowered to do that is really important.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, absolutely. Every new feature in WordPress comes with an off switch because that&#8217;s some people want…</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: But knowing how to do that now will super educate you for when 6.4 comes out and I think that&#8217;s my biggest reflection from working in that space is learn now at beta what you are going to be turning off going forward. Yes, it&#8217;s going to take you a little while to roll out those new features but it&#8217;s being able to know, and then pivot is really important.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And so for the user that are using the site editor to build themes, so you can upload the font management thing is you upload a font that you first have downloaded and then upload it to a site and then you can select the variance of it and then it will fill up the dropdown boxes for font management for blocks, elements and for even patterns and templates and all that. So it&#8217;s so powerful. It also lets you delete fonts that are already enabled, just delete them and not have your user use them. So it&#8217;s quite a big new environment.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Almost want to plug in where someone says, hey, you haven&#8217;t used that for, someone sits with fonts for a certain time, Hey you haven&#8217;t used it for a while. I&#8217;m sure someone&#8217;s going to create that. Would you like to remove it? Because you know humans, I&#8217;m going to try a lot of fonts.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I like the gamification kind of thing. So after six months if you haven&#8217;t used it, I need to use it in my closet as well, to have a person point out to me, okay, you haven&#8217;t worn that T-shirt for two or three years.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: But I think that&#8217;s something that we maybe can, totally going off track, but that&#8217;s something to look at as improvements to all of these kind of things is and that&#8217;s the evolution, that&#8217;s part of it. We&#8217;re putting these features in and then how do we build then giving the feedback. So part of this is also giving your feedback to all these features, so test it and then give feedback. This is the first pancake at font library and the best guess at what people are going to need, but it&#8217;s not going to be the ultimate, it&#8217;s going to be the first start of it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right, yeah.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Enhancements</h3>



<p><em>Tammie Lister:</em> Next we move on to enhancements I think. Is that correct?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: There are lots of enhancements and one I would particularly like to call out is improving error messages and codes and not because I am fixated on errors but mainly because I think it&#8217;s really important to call out anytime the errors messaging is really improved. Sometimes like copy errors and different things, just hard to improve. But that has happened with the desk console and match JS, along with there&#8217;s also been visual tweaks to specific block commands. So all of these things they really add up to just a better experience for everybody no matter what type of user you are experiencing the editor.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Awesome. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, there have been some component updates and if you are using many core components, you probably want to go through a whole list. We have about three to shout-out. One is the support controlling open and closed state for dropdowns and dropdown menu. This definitely helps with a standardized way on how to manage that state. And then there&#8217;s a popover update. You can update the position types now for popover component and make them more flexible in using, so it could be an overlay or floating or it could be anything that you want. And the documentation for that is definitely is in the PR. So if you go through the changelog and you&#8217;ll see the PR for that. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Another one I&#8217;d like to call out in there, to finally finish components is tooltip. So there actually has been a refactor using, I&#8217;m going to try and say this and see if it works, Ariakit and I think that&#8217;s it. Tooltip was kind of there, it kind of had bugs and it kind of was fixed but it was there. So this is quite a big one to do it. It means a lot of things, the biggest of those is it&#8217;s easier to create from and easier to extend from I think as well as you just get all the benefits of it being using that as well. So I think that&#8217;s really worth calling out.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, definitely. You don&#8217;t have to run your own tooltip kind of system, you can just tap into the WordPress one. Yeah, absolutely.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: And if you think about how many different tooltips have you seen over time. To me that is a strong thread leading into a lot of the phase three site admin, stroke design system stuff going forward is just how can we have lots of awesome things in our Lego Kit, going back to Legos, that we can start using foundationally. So if we have one tooltip system, we have one modal, we have one and then you can extend it, then you can bring your designs to it. I think that that&#8217;s really powerful. So I am delighted to see this. Shall we move on to block library? So block library has quite a few in, I want to call out first of all buttons. Buttons are a really powerful part of the block library and there&#8217;s two particular things I want to call out which is allow using a button element for button blocks and show inserter, if button has variations. Again, these are small but real quality of life fixes as well.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And what I learned, I don&#8217;t know if I learned it by reading through the PRs or by reading Nick Diego&#8217;s post on block variations on the Developer Blog. Sometimes you just don&#8217;t remember where you read things, but do you have it in your knowledge.</p>



<p>And is that you actually can replace a core block with your variation if you just use the is default and then the core block wouldn&#8217;t show up in the inserter but yours will replace that. So if you have a certain separator that you use throughout the whole site and you never want to see a different separator and whoever uses the separator has the right one, use that tool. Create a separator variation and set it is default and then it will automatically be the one that&#8217;s in the inserter for people to pick. And I think that&#8217;s so powerful and an easy way to extend the block editor for your client sites without having to do a whole lot of custom block development.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: We need that article linked in the show notes I think.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And speaking of buttons, what was missing terribly from the navigation block or the navigation menu item was that you could actually use a button in header in the navigation to call out a certain feature. If you look around and I saw that in the PR, how many sites actually are using having a button on the top in the header for navigating to a certain specific place on the site that everybody always wants to use like the login or the access your or Pay Now or these kinds of things. Now you can use it in the navigation block just as a block and add a button to it and style it of course. There&#8217;s a button, so I&#8217;m really happy about that.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: So moving on, we have one of my favorite sections, the design tool sections. This is a small but mighty section in the changelog. And the ones that I would like to call out is add a blockGap to post content block, that is really useful. It&#8217;s one of those small things that you&#8217;re just like, oh yeah, blockGap is an unsung part that really in design tours you don&#8217;t know you need it until you need it. I think whenever you&#8217;re creating something and add block, instant element support for buttons and headings. And block supports, add background image supports to group block, really interesting for that one. And columns adopt block and heading element colors.</p>



<p>Again, what this says to me and what it is really is just refinement and knowing where these blocks and where things are getting used and that will be from feedback and that will be from people using them. Probably in this context a lot of it, and I&#8217;m going back to what you&#8217;re getting for Christmas, which is a default theme. So default themes are great because what they do is they push the editing experience and that&#8217;s probably where a lot of this has come from in a beautiful way of, oh we can&#8217;t do that pattern or oh this agency has given this feedback. So keep the feedback coming and really keep trying to make patterns and breaking the editor because as you do, you&#8217;re going to get the design tools and the experience that you want from it. Is my best message around design tools.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Absolutely.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: And that leads on to patterns I guess.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, that&#8217;s another big feature, but I really happy about the background image for group block. Yeah, I just not always want to use a cover block for the whole thing.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Oh, I have so many sites where I just put cover block as the background before everything. It&#8217;s a horrible way, just so I can do that. So now I know I don&#8217;t have to be evil on my site.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And you just upload it, check it from the, and you have a little at a sidebar, you get a little note which…</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Don&#8217;t have to hack around it. We can actually use the editor how we wanted to use it, not how we were hacking.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And the pattern changes in this Gutenberg release is also something to now the developers edit categories to your user patterns, to the patterns that you all create. You also can create categories to it so you can cluster them, you can make them available, you have a little taxonomy to them and you can also filter by that when you look in inserter as well as on the pattern site editor section. So that&#8217;s so powerful. It also when you create a sync pattern, it offers you the category and I&#8217;ve been testing this and I really love how that works. And you can also have it when you edit it, you can add categories in the sidebar. So it&#8217;s a very thought through process in multiple ways. So I really, really appreciate that and you can use them for sync patterns as well as the unsync patterns or the sync patterns are what we call five years the reusable blocks. So it&#8217;s a new term for the same thing. So I really love it.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: So moving on, do you want to talk about custom pattern category management?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: You can change the categories of course. Actually using the WordPress native taxonomy management for the pattern category. So you can access it through plugins, your themes to anywhere where you use custom categories anywhere because it&#8217;s just a custom post type and then you have a custom taxonomy with it. That&#8217;s all what that was…</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Or you can just leave that out then confused.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And I&#8217;ll just leave it there.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister:</em> So moving on, I think we should be talking about the interactivity API and we have one particular bit that might seem a little bit unexpected, which we have with the image block and we have two. Which one is revise lightbox UI to remove behaviors and image block UI updates for the image lightbox. This shows just some thinking. Anyone that has experienced what the lightbox would say, one, lightbox is needed. Nobody is in doubt with we need it, but is it needed where it was? Is it needed to be called behaviors? Probably not. Was that the right place? Maybe. No, maybe not. So this shows reflection and what this shows is consideration and people taking feedback and something doing that. So I don&#8217;t know what you feel, but that&#8217;s what this shows to me is things should be released when they&#8217;re ready and when they&#8217;re in a place. One of the really key things is that this functionality is really wanted, but if we put it somewhere, everybody is going to learn that it is there. So where we put it better be the place we want it to be.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah. I think there were too many abstractions about the behavior thing, thinking about it, this would be an example, but at the end of the day it&#8217;s a feature for an image and that&#8217;s where you find it. You find it in your image settings, image box settings and in the sidebar and you can turn it on and off. What it does is actually, but it&#8217;s enabling that you can expand it on click the image that you&#8217;re looking at. So it fills up the full screen content if you want to and any user can, with the image decide if they want to enable it or not. So this is bringing something very complex to a very simple user interface and I really love that sometimes you take big detours.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: And the first version was quite complex and I think it&#8217;s really good because it&#8217;s basic saying, hey, what we put in, what&#8217;s not what we, and again it shows putting something in the plugin gets the feedback that then oh nope, reverse the car and that&#8217;s good. So now what we have is lightbox is going to be there and lightbox is going to just be a lot more minimal and it&#8217;s going to be exactly what it should be. Actually what it&#8217;s coming down to is exactly what most plugins have for it more or less, which I think is going to be a lot easier from a pitch perspective and easier from a user perspective of understanding and easier to onboard users into the native from the non-native, which is always what I think because there&#8217;s so many sites that I know that they already have lightboxes, but I so want to put them onto the new lightbox the moment it&#8217;s there.</p>



<p>So the closer it is to their current experience, the easier that&#8217;s going to be as soon. As it&#8217;s in a completely different postcode or zip code, depending on your own adventure, it&#8217;s going to be really difficult for that kind of adventure.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. But it also has the danger that a lot of people have used lightboxes before and have a lot of expectations to it. So this is…</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Lots of feelings when you talk about lightbox. Lightbox is one of those words that one, people will always visually see something. Two, people always have a favorite plugin and then three, people always have feelings.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: We have big feelings, yeah. And right now it&#8217;s the basic implementation of a lightbox for an image block. So if you expect in the gallery block that you all of a sudden can use it as a carousel, that&#8217;s an expectation that will not be met.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: It&#8217;s a great call out, because I think people are going to want that. In fact, I encountered that recently of that&#8217;s actually a common use case patterns. So where you&#8217;re going to have something, I think that that&#8217;s going to be a real expectation and until that that happens, spoiler, it probably will, because it&#8217;s a…</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Sooner or later.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: &#8230; natural progression. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Sooner or later it&#8217;ll happen.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: It&#8217;s a natural, but we need to get these things in. We&#8217;ve kind of spoken about that with the font library and everything. We need to get things in a simple form and then we can complicate, but sometimes it&#8217;s still tempting to be complicated to start.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Because we&#8217;re all human.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: We want all of it and sometimes…</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: We want all…</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All of it.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: &#8230; the cake&#8230; all the time.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So then another thing that&#8217;s in the plugin is in the page inspector, the ability to switch templates for pages. So right now in WordPress we have two places where you can edit pages. That&#8217;s the old way, the WP admin pages kind of section and add or edit. But the other one is that you can, through the site editor, you have a pages menu there and there you can also now swap out templates for that particular page. So you have multiple templates for maybe a service or maybe a portfolio or something like that. You can now switch in the page editing section of the site editor, the template. I&#8217;ve seen some implementation where you actually can preview the template in the sidebar, but I don&#8217;t think that made it yet. I was briefly testing it, so if you find it kudos to you, but I only saw it in a demo on the PR but in a discussion, but I don&#8217;t think that part made it yet into the plugin.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Moving on, I think we&#8217;re at block API, is that correct?</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">APIs</h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Oh yeah. We&#8217;re moving on to new APIs for the block editor and two of them are for the use case of Gutenberg as a framework. So using it outside the WordPress context and Riad Benguella has been looking into certain packages to decouple it for the WordPress backend and one of them is to extract the undo redo into methods and storage and all that into a separate package so it can be used outside the WordPress context and also introduce something like a block canvas to have the iframe, the block list and the writing flow kind of also in the framework rather than just in WordPress.</p>



<p>That&#8217;s pretty much all I wanted to shout out that that is coming. Somebody is taking a look at that. I got quite a few, when I&#8217;m at WordCamp Europe, I had some conversations on how that actually is more developed and there is a plugin by Automattic, like Gutenberg-everywhere or block editor everywhere, but it&#8217;s not yet fully developed. And I think having that in core would definitely be a better way to work with that. So if things are coming, please test it because as Tammie said, feedback is everything in this kind of line of work.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: I think something like that is also going to be curious as someone to test and think does it fit a use case from a pitch perspective? Is it something that you felt you were working around WordPress before? Would it fit into it, would it not? All these kind of things, because starting to see WordPress as that framework and WordPress as that foundation and Gutenberg as that kind of kit that you can build out from is a hundred percent what I&#8217;m kind of curious about. I mean it&#8217;s WordPress but the kit of WordPress is where all of this is going and it&#8217;s very, very exciting to me.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: For me too, we talked about it before on this changelog, but not very recently. So Gutenberg is used in Drupal. Gutenberg is used in Tumblr and Gutenberg is used in Day One, the journaling app.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Using it to build products, using it from, it&#8217;s such a hipster kind of word, but headless. And I mean that in an adorable way, but honestly choosing the right tool and the right foundation means being able to pick. And to do that we need things like having it as a framework. And we also need the other thing, curiously leading into the stabilizing block hooks feature, which is just having the right things in the right place at the right time, that&#8217;s kind of what it is. And marking things as experimental that should be and just being clean about a lot of what we do. A lot of the time we are just pushing to do stuff. So that is coming in here as well. It is going to be part of 6.4. There&#8217;s a lot of iceberg features that kind of go through, which is a stabilizing, block hooks feature is part of that. It&#8217;s where you are looking at a cross between core and also Gutenberg as well. I don&#8217;t know what you think about that?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well the block hooks feature was actually released in an earlier plugin version, but it was always hidden in the experiment section. And so if people don&#8217;t explore the experiment sections, they don&#8217;t even know if that&#8217;s what it is. And now for 6.4 there was the decision that, oh, we need this in 6.4. So before it can go into core, it needs to be stabilized, it needs to, all the experimentation code needs to be looked at. Is it something we want to support backwards compatibility for the next, I don&#8217;t know five years or 10 years or so. Yeah, so those are very…</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: And having that consideration, but I think it&#8217;s really important to have that consideration and go through as well. I haven&#8217;t explored too much really this, I think this feature is really about trying to get something in that also is going to be really powerful for the foundation.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So the block hooks features is actually the one that was previously announced on the auto inserting blocks. So you could add a like button to a comment block without having a user needing to put it in. They just can take it out from the plugin version. So it&#8217;s an extensibility feature that people have been waiting for quite a bit. Just to reiterate, what are block hooks? Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: It&#8217;s worth calling it out separately. I think sometimes a lot of this, again the iceberg, a lot of this stuff as you were saying, it didn&#8217;t kind of get seen because it&#8217;s in there. The experimental flag is amazing because there&#8217;s so much good stuff hidden under there.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And I&#8217;m calling out some of the bug fixes for the widget editor. Well that&#8217;s a blast from the past. We haven&#8217;t talked about widgets for quite a while, but it&#8217;s still very, very prominent in classic themes. And there were some broken layouts that had been fixed. The invisible area on the top toolbar, there was kind of a lot of white space there that had been fixed. And also the toolbar actually showing in the customizer, in the widget sidebar control, it has also been fixed. So if you are kind of waiting for those, it&#8217;s here now in the Gutenberg plugin and it will come to WordPress 6.4.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: That&#8217;s really important. A lot of people still use widgets.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Absolutely.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: So we have to a hundred percent still support that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And kudos to Aki Hamano who took those three fixes on and to push some over the finish line.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Documentation</h3>



<p>So now we come to a huge section in this release and that&#8217;s documentation. And there are multiple documentation updates, but I think we can cluster them into three kinds of categories or three sections. One is Gutenberg as a framework. So Riad Benguella has done Bootstrap, the documentation website that is geared towards the usage of Gutenberg outside of WordPress. Of course he hasn&#8217;t filled in the pages yet, but he did the architecture of it and also has one page in there to explain how to implement the undo and redo in a third-party editor.</p>



<p>And then Nick Diego and JuanMa Garrido and Ryan Welcher and some others have worked on the overhaul of the Block Editor Handbook to bring it up to date and rearrange some pages and also to delete pages like the outreach page, which was actually put in because there was the documentation missing, which is now in there. Or remove unneeded block theme documentation that is coming to the theme handbook very soon. So there&#8217;s some, so move the glossary and into a get it started, the FAQ and get the get it started section really robust. And also update how to set up a block development environment with some of the instructions that are much more geared towards and successful into implementation of a local development than before. Do you have any thoughts on that, Tammie?</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: I absolutely adore that we&#8217;re adding to our documentation. I think we don&#8217;t know what we don&#8217;t know about the weird statement, but the gaps. So if anyone is like, wow, I wish we had this resource. I think saying that, this is so great because many times you are even repeating the same information. I would love to have these resources to point to. So I am over the moon that we have these resources. So thank you everyone that&#8217;s doing them.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And then the third section that I mentioned was about documenting, the comment palette, which Riad Benguella has in these dev notes from 6.3, quite a few examples in there, but on the Make Core block buried under, I don&#8217;t know, 450 posts and they are brought now, those examples are now brought into the commands documentation to add more context and to help people to create new…</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: That&#8217;s really important.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: New comments.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister:</em> People are not using that enough quite yet. And that kind of goes back to the beginning when I was just, we were talking about testing and everything, but really it&#8217;s the chicken egg, whatever analogy that we used in your culture. Really having that, the people that create it really saying, hey, this is how you can do this. And then people exploring for themselves how to do it. So I personally am going to be checking out that documentation to see how to, because that&#8217;s not something that I&#8217;ve played with and I really want to play with, I really want to play with it, Clippy and all that, but just really trying to, but now we have these documentations and now we&#8217;re starting to have the Developer Blog. We can start going in and just having better resources to do it. So I&#8217;m very excited to see that.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Me, too. Me, too. And I just wanted to call out one update on the component changelog to mark the popover slot removal as a breaking change. So we mentioned that the had an additional placement there, but there&#8217;s also probably a little breaking change there. It&#8217;s documented in a component changelog, but I don&#8217;t think it made it into Block Editor Handbook yet. So I&#8217;m going to call that out in the show notes as well, just for those who use that popover component in their own apps. It&#8217;s a small thing, but it might trip up some people. So did we actually get through it?</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: We survived.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: We survived.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Go team.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.4 Beta Release</h3>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: All right. Tammie, it was wonderful to have you here and go through this. So what&#8217;s next for us? Of course, it&#8217;s the WordPress 6.4 beta release on Tuesday, September the 26th. And the release party is at 18:00 pm UT? No, it&#8217;s on 4:00 PM UTC. Join us in the core channel and have a party.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: I was meant to try to work out what time that was me for tea time. That&#8217;s just tea time for me, to bring tea and cake. And I think that&#8217;s really important to say, that for those working on 6.4, now we step, we&#8217;ve been doing stuff all along, but from beta choose own adventure. It really is where we start. Yes, we have been doing stuff. We have not been absent. We have absolutely been doing stuff, but really this is the hard end of the release where everything gets really like, ooh, and everybody starts doing lots of things.</p>



<p>It is a shorter release or the end of the year releases are always shorter. You always try and put everything in Santa’s stocking or whoever you&#8217;re going to believe in and it never fits. But from a Gutenberg perspective, that means that it&#8217;s kind of shipped for 6.4 and a plugin will be open for your happy things to go into 6.5, because Gutenberg time travels in the best possible way. So you will start seeing people starting to talk about wider projects and because of the gap, you&#8217;ll probably see people starting to talk about some of the wider projects around collaboration and some of those kinds of things. I don&#8217;t know what you think, but that&#8217;s kind of what the end of the year vibe is always. People take breaks, please people take breaks because you are human. But also people start thinking about some of the bigger projects. So I expect to see probably…</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: &#8230; some lovely in-depth project, make posts, Developer Blog posts and just follow, always the tickets I love on the GitHub are the tracking ones. Once they tracking, if you search for tracking in the GitHub repo, that&#8217;s one of my favorite things to search for.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, yeah. Tracking an overview. Yeah, those are the big items. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Tracking is like the new hotness over overview at the moment. It feels.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: We should unify that.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: I&#8217;m really looking forward to the next three, four weeks just because we&#8217;re going to see a lot of bug fixes coming into 6.4 from the beta release, and then the release candidate. Well release candidate one is the deadline for developer notes to come out and the field guide to come together. So have an eye out for that.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Yeah, you&#8217;ll start to see sources of truth posts come out, which would be like, here&#8217;s actually what was in, we&#8217;ve been talking a lot about here&#8217;s what&#8217;s going on, but say, I don&#8217;t know, the top toolbar focused outline. I&#8217;m literally looking at something in the changelog, turns out to hurt bunnies. I don&#8217;t know. Then that will be pulled because hurting bunnies is bad. So all those kinds of things is what will happen when it actually goes in and has more people testing it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So the final release, 6.4 is in November 7th, so it&#8217;s early Christmas this year to follow your metaphor there.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: This is early, everybody.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, it&#8217;s early there.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: &#8230; take a long, long break.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, after that a lot of people are going to take off because in America it&#8217;s going to be Thanksgiving, Christmas is bigger in Europe, Christmas holidays and all that. So in January…</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: But people also talk about, I think the other thing that people do over this time is think about a lot of the longer term projects. You&#8217;ll see a lot of housekeeping, a lot of tests, a lot of just general thinking about the bigger projects. So there&#8217;ll probably be, as I&#8217;ve mentioned, that the collaboration posts and things, which I think is always, you end on that and then you start afresh thinking about the roadmap. I love this time of year because, and this is one of my favorite releases because, and then you also get the default theme to play with. So you can start thinking about what you want to do and what you want to create with the editor. What tickets do you want in next year? What do you want to create? Sounds fun.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. Well, we always love to hear from you. So if you have things that you want us to know about, send us your questions or suggestions or the news you want us to include, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>, the <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. And as always, the show notes will be published on gutenbergtimes.com/podcast. This is episode 90. Wow. 90 episodes. Well, 10 more episodes we&#8217;re at 100.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Yay. You need cake for 100.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: I need Cake. Yes. Okay. So thank you so much, Tammie, to be on the show and make this a fun show again. And wishing everybody a nice start into the fall. And I hear you all in three weeks because 6.7 had a three-week week cycle. So 16.8 is not coming out until beginning of October. You all take care and I&#8217;ll be out of here. Bye, Tammie.</p>



<p><em>Tammie Lister</em>: Bye.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right, thank you.</p>



<p> </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 24 Sep 2023 09:51:36 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:19:"Gutenberg Changelog";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:12;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"BuddyPress: BP Attachments 1.2.0";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://buddypress.org/?p=331360";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:52:"https://buddypress.org/2023/09/bp-attachments-1-2-0/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1290:"<p>Immediately available is <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/bp-attachments.1.2.0.zip" target="_blank">BP Attachments 1.2.0</a>. This BuddyPress Add-on maintenance release main goal is to fix two annoying issues (one of them is a regression introduced in previous minor release). Please make sure to upgrade asap.</p>



<span id="more-331360"></span>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Changes</h2>



<ul>
<li>Make sure to only override the WP queried object if it is an Attachment one.</li>



<li>Only list the BP Attachments Add-on in optional components into the BP Components Administration screen.</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Please upgrade to 1.2.0 asap !</h2>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-6 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow"></div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content"><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-attachments/">BP Attachments</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow"></div>
</div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 24 Sep 2023 04:34:26 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Mathieu Viet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:13;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"BuddyPress: BP Classic 1.1.0";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://buddypress.org/?p=331344";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://buddypress.org/2023/09/bp-classic-1-1-0/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2331:"<p>Dear end users &amp; site owners,</p>



<p>If you don&#8217;t know yet what&#8217;s the purpose of BP Classic, we advise you to read the <a href="https://buddypress.org/2023/07/bp-classic-1-0-0/">Add-on&#8217;s first version announcement post</a>. In short: BP Classic is a BuddyPress Add-on that is being developed and maintained by the official <a href="https://buddypress.org/about/">BuddyPress development team</a>. It mainly provides backwards compatibility for BuddyPress 12.0.0 &amp; up in case your active BuddyPress plugins or theme are not ready yet for the great BP Rewrites API introduced in BuddyPress 12.0.0. It basically brings back the BP Legacy URL parser.</p>



<span id="more-331344"></span>



<p>NB: BuddyPress <strong>12.0.0</strong> is still under development and you can contribute to BP Classic as well as BuddyPress 12.0.0 improvements using the <a href="https://buddypress.org/2023/09/buddypress-12-0-0-beta2/">12.0.0-beta2</a> (or up) pre-version.</p>



<p>1.1.0 is fixing 2 issues:</p>



<ul>
<li>It makes sure BP Classic is activated at the same network level than BuddyPress (See&nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/buddypress/bp-classic/issues/21" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">#21</a>).</li>



<li>it improves the way the themes directory is registered (See&nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/buddypress/bp-classic/issues/23" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">#23</a>).</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Props</h2>



<p><a class="bp-suggestions-mention" href="https://buddypress.org/members/imath/" rel="nofollow">@imath</a> <a class="bp-suggestions-mention" href="https://buddypress.org/members/dd32/" rel="nofollow">@dd32</a></p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Please upgrade to BP Classic 1.1.0</h2>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-12 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow"></div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content"><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-classic/">BP Classic</a></blockquote>
</div>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow"></div>
</div>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 23 Sep 2023 08:05:37 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Mathieu Viet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:14;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"WPTavern: Block Visibility 3.1.0 Adds WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads Controls";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=149369";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:96:"https://wptavern.com/block-visibility-3-1-0-adds-woocommerce-and-easy-digital-downloads-controls";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3307:"<p>When WordPress contributor and developer Nick Diego released version 3.0 of his <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/block-visibility/">Block Visibility</a> plugin earlier this year in March, he <a href="https://wptavern.com/block-visibility-3-0-0-makes-pro-version-free-adds-browser-and-device-control-visibility-presets-and-more">made all the Pro features available in the free version</a>, with the exception of a few that would take more time. The plugin, which is used on more than 10,000 WordPress sites, allows users to conditionally display blocks based on specific user roles, logged in/out, specific users, screen sizes, query strings, ACF fields, and more. </p>



<p>In the latest <a href="https://blockvisibilitywp.com/block-visibility-3-1-0-introducing-woocommerce-and-edd-controls/">3.1.0 update</a> Block Visibility has added the missing WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads (EDD) controls. These features were originally planned to be merged into the free version in April but required more development to improve how they work on sites with large product/download catalogs.</p>



<p>The WooCommerce controls include 18 conditional visibility rules with full support for products with variable pricing. It allows users to show or hide blocks based on products, cart contents, customer purchase history, and more.</p>



<p>&#8220;There is one notable change to the product-based rules,&#8221; Diego said. &#8220;Previously, you had to select which product you wanted to target with the visibility conditions. While this is still possible, Block Visibility can now detect the current product.</p>



<p>&#8220;This functionality is extremely useful on product pages, single product templates, and product grids (Query blocks).&#8221;</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="500" height="425" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/detect-current-product.gif" alt="" class="wp-image-149400" />



<p>The EDD controls allow users to show or hide blocks based on downloads, cart contents, customer purchase history, and more. Since EDD doesn&#8217;t have as many block-powered layouts as WooCommerce, Diego did not include the &#8220;Detect current product&#8221; feature.</p>



<p>&#8220;The EDD visibility control currently has no product-based rules,&#8221; he said. &#8220;If greater block support is added to EDD in the future, such as an EDD Products block that supports inner blocks, expect more functionality.&#8221;</p>



<p>Block Visibility 3.1.0 also adds a new Command Palette command to &#8220;Manage Visibility Presets,&#8221; which requires WordPress 6.3+.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1372" height="985" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/command-palette-manage-visibility-presets.gif" alt="" class="wp-image-149403" />image credit: Block Visibility repository &#8211; <a href="https://github.com/ndiego/block-visibility/pull/84">PR #84</a>



<p>Diego said he doesn&#8217;t plan on adding any new integrations to the plugin but will continue improving existing controls. Now that all the features from the Pro version have been merged into the free plugin, users who have the Pro version installed can deactivate it after upgrading to version 3.1.0.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 23 Sep 2023 02:07:22 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:15;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:98:"WPTavern: WordPress Plugin Review Team Onboards New Members, Releases Plugin to Flag Common Errors";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=149346";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:108:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-plugin-review-team-onboards-new-members-releases-plugin-to-flag-common-errors";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3371:"<p>WordPress&#8217; Plugin Review Team continues to dig out from under a massive backlog that has grown to 1,260 <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/developers/add/">plugins awaiting review</a>.  Developers submitting new plugins can expect to wait at least 91 days, according to the notice on the queue today. </p>



<p>&#8220;<em>Currently there are 1,241 plugins awaiting review</em>,&#8221; Automattic-sponsored Plugin Review team member Alvaro Gómez said earlier this week.</p>



<p>&#8220;We are painstakingly aware of this. We check that number every day and realize how this delay is affecting plugin authors.&#8221; </p>



<p>Although the backlog seems to be getting worse, Gómez published an <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/09/19/update-turning-the-tide/">update</a> outlining new systems the team is putting in place to get the situation under control. He likened it to patching a hole in a boat, as opposed to simply prioritizing bailing out the water.</p>



<p>&#8220;During the last six months, the Plugin review team has worked on documenting its processes, training new members, and improving its tools,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Now, thanks to your patience and support, the tide is about to turn.&#8221;</p>



<p>The team has now onboarded two rounds of new members, with three more reviewers added recently, and has a system in place to make this easier in the future. After receiving more than 40 <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/handbook/apply/">applications</a> to join the team, the form will be closing at the end of September.</p>



<p>They also sent plugin authors still waiting in the queue an email asking them to self-check their plugins to meet basic security standards, as another effort to mitigate the growing backlog.</p>



<p>&#8220;We find ourselves correcting the same three or four errors on +95% of plugins and this is not a good use of our time,&#8221; Gómez said. &#8220;Once authors confirm that their plugins meet these basic requirements, we will proceed with the review.&#8221;</p>



<p>A new plugin called <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/plugin-check/">Plugin Check</a> has just been published to WordPress.org for plugin authors to self-review for common errors, which will eventually be integrated into the plugin submission process.</p>



<p>&#8220;Once the PCP is merged with <a href="https://github.com/10up/plugin-check">this other plugin that the Performance team has been working on</a>, it will provide <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2022/07/05/proposal-for-a-wordpress-plugin-checker/">checks for a lot of other things</a>,&#8221; Gómez  said. &#8220;When this is completed, we will be in a better spot to take in feedback and make improvements.</p>



<p>&#8220;In the short term, we are going to ask authors to test their plugins using the PCP before submitting them, but our goal is to integrate the plugin as <strong>part of the submission process</strong> and run automated checks.&#8221;</p>



<p>So far plugin authors have reported a few bugs and issues with the plugin not recognizing files or giving unintelligible errors. These issues can be reported on the <a href="https://github.com/10up/plugin-check/">GitHub repo</a>, which is temporarily hosted on the 10up GitHub account but will be moving to WordPress.org in the near future.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 22 Sep 2023 17:51:11 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:16;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:84:"Do The Woo Community: WooBits: Accessibility, Diversity, Community, WooSesh and More";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=76579";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:62:"https://dothewoo.io/woobits-accessibility-diversity-community/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:426:"<p>This week, diversity at WP Accessibility Day, WooSesh, Cart and Checkout Blocks and more WordPress and WooCommerce community.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/woobits-accessibility-diversity-community/">WooBits: Accessibility, Diversity, Community, WooSesh and More</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 22 Sep 2023 13:04:33 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:112:"WPTavern: WordPress Accessibility Day 2023 Announces Diverse Speaker Lineup, Doubles Sponsors from Previous Year";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=149315";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:122:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-accessibility-day-2023-announces-diverse-speaker-lineup-doubles-sponsors-from-previous-year";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6744:"<p><a href="https://2023.wpaccessibility.day/">WP Accessibility Day</a> (WPAD), an independent 24-hour virtual conference, has published its <a href="https://2023.wpaccessibility.day/schedule/">schedule</a> for the upcoming event on September 27, 2023. Co-lead organizer Amber Hinds reports that more than 1,248 people have registered for the event so far with attendees across 30 different countries. Approximately 50% of attendees are from the U.S. </p>



<p>WPAD has attracted an influx of new voices this year. All speakers, excluding sponsored sessions, are first-time speakers at the event.</p>



<p>&#8220;We were nervous initially about speaker applicants, but we actually received a lot more speaker applications than last year and also more applications that were higher quality than in previous years,&#8221; Hinds said. &#8220;It was hard to decide!&#8221;</p>



<p>The keynote address will feature a conversation between Jennison Asuncion, co-founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), and Joe Dolson, an accessibility consultant and co-founder of WordPress Accessibility Day. Attendees will learn how to perform usability and accessibility tests on their websites, how to build an accessible WordPress pages and posts using the block editor, simple ways to make email more accessible, how to understand color and contrast requirements in WCAG 2, and more. </p>



<p>Based on the stats for speakers (of people who opted to give the info), WPAD&#8217;s organizers have succeeded at recruiting a diverse lineup for the event:</p>



<ul>
<li>10 countries</li>



<li>67% female, 30% male, 3% Nonbinary</li>



<li>14% LGBTQ</li>



<li>41% non-white identifying</li>



<li>2 first time speakers who have never spoken at any event.</li>



<li>11 of the 27 speakers identify as having a disability. (41%) &#8211; There are speakers who identify as blind/low vision, deaf or hard of hearing, have limited mobility, and learning disabilities.</li>
</ul>



<p>&#8220;These were the hardest decisions we&#8217;ve had to make yet in selecting the WordPress Accessibility Day speakers,&#8221; Speaker Team lead Joe Dolson said. &#8220;There were so many truly excellent ideas proposed. As a result, our speakers include people who work across many different aspects of the web &#8211; inside and outside the WordPress community. I feel like we&#8217;ve ended up with an excellent cross section of topics, so we have something to offer for developers, policy makers, content creators, or community organizers.&#8221;</p>



<p>WPAD <a href="https://wptavern.com/wp-accessibility-day-secures-nonprofit-status-for-annual-event-calls-for-speakers-and-sponsors">secured non-profit status</a> earlier this year through a fiscal sponsorship partnership with <a href="https://knowbility.org/">Knowbility</a>, an Austin-based digital accessibility advocate and services provider. One of the reasons the organizers wanted to manage it independently of the WordPress Foundation was to reserve the option to do things like pay speakers for their time and expertise. Speaker pay is one expenditure for the event, which is supported by corporate and community sponsors.</p>



<p>Hinds said it was easier to attract sponsors this year and that the sponsors team received positive responses fairly quickly. They also added a microsponsorship option earlier this year (previously it was only on the registration form) and were able to recruit more businesses as microsponsors.</p>



<p>The team&#8217;s goal this year was to get enough sponsorships to cover the cost of the event itself, make a donation to Knowbility (part of the event&#8217;s fiscal sponsorship agreement with them), and have enough leftover to cover year-round expenses, such as Google workspace, Buffer, domain registration, and hosting.</p>



<p>Hinds said the organization met its sponsorship goals at most tiers, due to the hard work of the Sponsors team leads Bet Hannon and Joe Hall, along with the generosity of the community in supporting the event.</p>



<p>&#8220;We are thrilled to have doubled the number of sponsors this year over last year,&#8221; Hannon said. &#8220;I think this reflects the increasing awareness about accessibility as an issue to be addressed, as well as the wider WordPress community coming together to sponsor an event providing high quality accessibility education.&#8221;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">New in 2023: WPAD to Broadcast via Zoom</h3>



<p>In addition to a whole new crop of speakers this year, WPAD is offering t-shirts for the first time as a thank you gift to attendees who want to make a donation when they register. </p>



<p>&#8220;We had a lot of people ask us last year how they could get a t-shirt, but they were only available to organizers, speakers, and volunteers,&#8221; Hinds said. &#8220;This year they’re available during registration so anyone can get one.&#8221;</p>



<p>Last year the event was broadcast via an embedded YouTube video on the WPAD website with third-party embeds for chat/Q&amp;A and the live transcript. </p>



<p>&#8220;We got feedback from attendees that this did not work well because they didn’t have control of the layout of the video,&#8221; Hinds said. &#8220;It was particularly limiting for attendees who rely on the sign language interpreters; they needed the interpreter video to be larger. Other people said that they found the interpretation to be distracting or they needed the slides to be bigger so they would be easier to read.&#8221;</p>



<p>The 2023 event will be live streamed using Zoom, which recently introduced a sign language interpretation view that allows hosts to assign interpreters. </p>



<p>&#8220;Attendees can choose to view the sign language interpretation in a separate window,&#8221; Hinds said.  &#8220;With this new feature available, we decided to change to Zoom webinars. We have one long 24-hour webinar that people can jump in and out of as they see fit, and each attendee can set a view for speakers, slides, signers, and captions that works best for them.&#8221;</p>



<p><a href="https://2023.wpaccessibility.day/attendee-registration/">Registration</a> for the event is free and it&#8217;s still open. Attendees have the opportunity to receive virtual swag and win prizes from the sponsors. Organizers have also gotten the conference pre-approved for continuing education credits for the International Association of Accessibility Professionals <a href="https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/wascertification">Web Accessibility Specialist (WAS)</a> and <a href="https://www.accessibilityassociation.org/s/certified-professional">Certified Professional in Core Competencies (CPACC)</a> certifications.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 22 Sep 2023 03:49:28 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:97:"WPTavern: Community Team Invites Organizers to Apply for Hosting Next Generation WordPress Events";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=149225";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:108:"https://wptavern.com/community-team-invites-organizers-to-apply-for-hosting-next-generation-wordpress-events";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3017:"<img width="1600" height="792" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/wordcamp-bengalaru.png" alt="" class="wp-image-149298" />Attendees of NextGen WordCamp Bengaluru &#8211; image credit: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/09/19/from-japan-to-rome-recent-and-upcoming-next-generation-wordpress-events/">WordPress.org</a>



<p>WordPress&#8217; Community team is evolving the WordCamp format to  promote adoption, training, and networking for professionals, leaving the flagship events to focus more on connection and inspiration. This change opens the door for more creative concepts around  the events&#8217; new mission:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p><em>WordPress events spark innovation and adoption by way of accessible training and networking for users, builders, designers, and extenders. We celebrate community by accelerating 21st-century skills, professional opportunities, and partnerships for WordPressers of today and tomorrow.</em></p>
</blockquote>



<p>A group of <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-confirms-8-pilot-events-to-launch-the-next-generation-of-wordcamps-in-2023">eight pilot events were confirmed in June</a>, and two recent &#8220;NextGen&#8221; WordPress events have already happened, including a community-building workshop in Japan, and WordCamp Bengaluru, a one-day event featuring the local culture and a walking tour of the city.</p>



<p>The Community team has compiled a list of more than three dozen <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/08/30/the-nextgen-event-project-your-ideas-your-wordpress-community/">concepts to inspire NextGen event organizers</a>. The list spans a wide range of ideas, such as college campus based groups, sponsor networking days, show and tell night, job fairs, events for agencies, WordPress retreats, and many more. </p>



<p>Anyone who is interested to host one of these new event types is invited to <a href="https://wordpressdotorg.survey.fm/next-generation-of-wordpress-events">fill out a form</a> that the Community team has created to capture ideas for future events &#8211; either before the end of 2023, or during the first half of 2024. Organizers will be asked to identify a category for their proposed event from among the following:</p>



<ul>
<li>WP expertise level (beginners, intermediate, advanced)</li>



<li>Focused activity (training, recruiting, networking, contributing, conferencing, etc)</li>



<li>Job status (students, fresh graduates, job seekers, freelancers, business owners, etc)</li>



<li>Identity-based (women, castes, BIPOC, Latinx, LGBTQI+, tribes, age, etc)</li>



<li>Content topic focused (designers, block development, SEO, etc)</li>
</ul>



<p>Although the form is presented as a survey, it&#8217;s more of an interest form, which is why it collects the respondent&#8217;s contact information. Respondents who indicate they are willing to have a discussion about their ideas may be contacted by the Community team.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 22 Sep 2023 01:26:05 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:117:"Post Status: Plugin Team Sees a Shift Starting • Browser Interoperability Issues • WCUS Q&amp;A • Enterprise WP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=155074";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"https://poststatus.com/plugin-team-sees-a-shift-starting/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15207:"<h2 class="wp-block-heading alignfull" id="h-this-week-at-wordpress-org-september-18-2023">This Week at WordPress.org (September 18, 2023)</h2>


<div class="has-background has-theme-palette-8-background-color wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f50c.png" alt="🔌" class="wp-smiley" /> Plugin Check plugin is now available🛜 Browser Compatibility Issues<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2753.png" alt="❓" class="wp-smiley" />#WCUS Q&amp;A Continued<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3a7.png" alt="🎧" class="wp-smiley" /> Enterprise Clients and the Business of WordPress </p></div>


<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />


<div class="gb-container gb-container-5e804289">

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news"><a href="https://wordpress.org/news">News</a></h2>

</div>


<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/09/episode-62-enterprise-clients-and-the-business-of-wordpress/">WP Briefing: Episode 62: Enterprise Clients and the Business of WordPress</a></li>
</ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-community-summit-notes"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/summit">Community Summit Notes</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/summit/2023/09/21/community-summit-discussion-notes-creating-wordpress-curriculum-and-educational-experiences/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Creating WordPress Curriculum and Educational Experiences</a></strong></li>
</ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-2 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.4</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-4-whats-on-your-wishlist/">WordPress 6.4: What’s on your wishlist?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/">WordPress 6.4 Development Cycle</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/14/hallway-hangout-whats-new-for-developers-in-wordpress-6-4/">Hallway Hangout: What’s new for developers in WordPress 6.4</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content"><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/plugin-check/">Plugin Check</a></blockquote>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-5 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community">Community</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/09/20/attention-wordpress-women-in-india-and-your-event-organizers-this-important-workshop-this-weekend-is-for-you/">Attention WordPress women in India and those who support you: This important workshop this weekend is for you!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/09/19/from-japan-to-rome-recent-and-upcoming-next-generation-wordpress-events/">From Japan to Rome: Recent and Upcoming Next Generation WordPress Events</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/09/19/contributor-working-group-mentorship-chat-agenda-september-21st-0700-utc-apac-emea-and-1600-utc-amer/">Contributor Working Group: Mentorship Chat Agenda | September 21st 07:00 UTC (APAC/EMEA) and 16:00 UTC (AMER)</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-core"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core">Core</a> </h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/20/seeking-proposals-for-interop-2024/">Seeking proposals for Interop 2024</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/19/analyzing-the-core-web-vitals-performance-impact-of-wordpress-6-3-in-the-field/">Analyzing the Core Web Vitals performance impact of WordPress 6.3 in the field</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-developer-blog"><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/">Developer Blog</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/09/understanding-block-attributes/">Understanding block attributes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/09/whats-new-for-developers-september-2023/">What’s new for developers? (September 2023)</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meetings">Meetings</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/20/default-theme-chat-agenda-september-20th-2023/">Default Theme Chat Agenda: September 20th, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/20/dev-chat-agenda-september-13-2023-2/">Dev Chat agenda, September 20, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/19/performance-chat-summary-19-september-2023/">Performance Chat Summary: 19 September 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design">Design</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/09/11/design-share-aug-28-sep8/">Design Share: Aug 28-Sep8</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs">Docs</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/09/18/agenda-for-docs-team-biweekly-meeting-september-19-2023/">Agenda for Docs Team Biweekly Meeting (September 19, 2023)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2023/09/06/summary-of-docs-team-biweekly-meeting-september-05-2023/">Summary of Docs Team Biweekly Meeting (September 05, 2023)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/09/18/documentation-team-update-september-18-2023/">Documentation Team Update – September 18, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta">Meta</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/09/21/meeting-recap-for-september-20-2023/">Meeting Recap for September 20, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-openverse"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse">Openverse</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/09/18/last-week-openverse-2023-09-11-2023-09-18/">A week in Openverse: 2023-09-11 – 2023-09-18</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-performance"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/performance/">Performance</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/19/performance-chat-agenda-19-september-2023/">Performance Chat Agenda: 19 September 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/five-for-the-future/issues/230">Core Performance Team badge missing from org pages</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-plugins"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins">Plugins</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/09/19/update-turning-the-tide/">Update: Turning the Tide</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/08/21/xpost-wordpresscs-3-0-0-is-now-available/">WordPressCS 3.0.0 is now available</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/09/18/plugin-review-team-18-september-2023/">Plugin Review Team: 18 September 2023</a></li>
</ul>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-polyglots"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots">Polyglots</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/09/20/previewing-patterns-during-translation/">Previewing patterns during translation</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/09/20/agenda-weekly-polyglots-chat-september-20-2023-0700-utc/">Agenda: Weekly Polyglots Chat- September 20, 2023 (07:00 UTC)</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-project"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project">Project</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/09/15/wordcamp-us-2023-qa/">WordCamp US 2023 Q&amp;A</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-support"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support">Support</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/09/agenda-for-september-21st-support-meeting-2/">Agenda for September 21st Support Meeting</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability">Sustainability</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2023/09/20/sustainability-chat-agenda-september-22-2023/">Sustainability Chat Agenda, September 22, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2023/09/15/call-for-wordpress-sustainability-team-representatives/">Call for WordPress Sustainability Team Representatives</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-test"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test">Test</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/09/18/fse-program-testing-call-26-final-touches/">FSE Program Testing Call #26: Final touches</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/09/18/test-team-update-18-september-2023/">Test Team Update: 18 September 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-theme"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/theme">Theme</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/09/15/theme-handbook-overhaul-phase-3-publishing-content/">Theme Handbook Overhaul: Phase 3 (Publishing Content)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/09/19/themes-team-update-september-19-2023/">Themes team update September 19, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/09/13/themes-team-update-september-13-2023/">Themes team update September 13, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-training"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training">Training</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/09/21/proposal-updating-the-contributor-ladder-to-a-five-path-model/">Proposal: Updating the Contributor Ladder to a five-path model</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/09/19/training-team-meeting-recap-12th-september-2023/">Training Team Meeting Recap – 12th September 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tutorials"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials">Tutorials</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/using-block-patterns/">Using Block Patterns</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-online-workshops">Online Workshops</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=gpl-in-the-wordpress-training-teams-vetting-processes">GPL in the WordPress Training Team’s Vetting Processes</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wptv">WPTV</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-related-news">Related News:</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://blog.jquery.com/2023/08/28/jquery-3-7-1-released-reliable-table-row-dimensions/">jQuery 3.7.1 Released: Reliable Table Row Dimensions</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/main/doc/changelogs/CHANGELOG_V20.md#20.6.1">Node v20.6.1released</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-09-14-1">PHP 8.3.0 RC 2 available for testing</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-08-31-2">PHP 8.2.10 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.php.net/archive/2023.php#2023-08-31-3">PHP 8.1.23 Released!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/PHPMailer/PHPMailer/releases/tag/v6.8.1">PHPMailer 6.8.1</a></li>



<li><a href="https://dev.mysql.com/doc/relnotes/mysql/8.0/en/news-8-0-35.html">Changes in MySQL 8.0.35 (Not yet released, General Availability)</a></li>



<li><a href="https://262.ecma-international.org/">TC39</a></li>



<li><a href="https://github.com/composer/composer/releases">Composer </a><a href="https://github.com/composer/composer/releases/tag/2.6.3">2.6.3</a></li>
</ul>



<p class="has-theme-palette-7-background-color has-background">Thanks for reading our WP dot .org roundup! Each week we are highlighting the news and discussions coming from the good folks making WordPress possible. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, you need to be engaged with them and their work. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. <br /><br /><strong>Are you interested in giving back and contributing your time and skills to WordPress.org?</strong>   <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/article/contributing-to-wordpress/">Start Here ›</a><br /><br /><strong>Get our weekly WordPress community news digest</strong> — Post Status&#8217; <a href="https://poststatus.com/news/week-in-review/">Week in Review</a> — covering the WP/Woo news plus significant writing and podcasts. It&#8217;s also available in <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter">our newsletter</a>.  </p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile has-background"><a href="https://poststatus.com/"><img src="https://poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vertical-post-status-logo-250.png" alt="Post Status" class="wp-image-85823 size-full" /></a><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<p class="has-text-align-left has-normal-font-size" id="h-get-ready-for-remote-work">You — and your whole team can <a href="https://poststatus.com/join/">join Post Status</a> too!</p>



<p class="has-text-align-left has-small-font-size"><strong>Build your network. Learn with others. Find your next job — or your next hire.</strong> Read the <strong>Post Status</strong> <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter/">newsletter</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2709.png" alt="✉" class="wp-smiley" /> Listen to <a href="https://poststatus.com/podcasts/">podcasts</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f399.png" alt="🎙" class="wp-smiley" /> Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status/">@Post_Status</a> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png" alt="🐦" class="wp-smiley" /> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/post-status-llc/">LinkedIn</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4bc.png" alt="💼" class="wp-smiley" /></p>
</div></div>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 21 Sep 2023 18:30:34 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Courtney Robertson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:20;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"Do The Woo Community: Woo Agency Growth and Enterprise with Josh and Zach Webber";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=76568";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"https://dothewoo.io/woo-agency-growth-and-enterprise-with-josh-and-zach-webber/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:440:"<p>Zach and Josh from Big Red Jelly share insights on agency growth and enterprise as a WooCommerce and WordPress digital agency.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/woo-agency-growth-and-enterprise-with-josh-and-zach-webber/">Woo Agency Growth and Enterprise with Josh and Zach Webber</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 21 Sep 2023 13:00:03 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:21;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"WPTavern: WordPress.com Plugin Pages Add Download Link for Using Plugins on Self-Hosted Sites";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=149118";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:104:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-plugin-pages-add-download-link-for-using-plugins-on-self-hosted-sites";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4552:"<p>WordPress.com plugin pages have been updated to include a download link for WordPress.org  plugins listed in the .com directory. These are the listings that are scraped from WordPress.org. The plugins are available for free on WordPress.org for self-hosted sites but can only be used on WordPress.com with a paid subscription.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1792" height="1244" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Screen-Shot-2023-09-20-at-2.41.03-PM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-149200" />Logged out view of WordPress.com plugin pages



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<p>The text in the sidebar includes a link to an article explaining the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com. It appears on both the logged-out and logged-in views:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>This plugin is available for download to be used on your <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://wordpress.com/go/website-building/wordpress-com-vs-wordpress-org/" target="_blank">WordPress self-hosted</a> installation.</p>
</blockquote>



<p>Themes hosted on WordPress.com have a similar notice with a link to download the theme and use it on a self-hosted site.</p>



<p>This change comes as the result of developers <a href="https://wptavern.com/developers-raise-concerns-about-wordpress-com-plugin-listings-outranking-wordpress-org-on-google">raising concerns</a> about WordPress.com plugin listings outranking WordPress.org on Google Search in some instances. During that discussion, many developers were surprised to learn that their plugins created for WordPress.org were also listed on WordPress.com as only available with a paid subscription. Patchstack responded by <a href="https://wptavern.com/developers-claim-damaged-trust-following-public-confrontations-with-wordpress-leadership">updating its readme file</a> to ensure that WordPress.com users and visitors are made aware that the plugin is available for free in the official WordPress plugin repository. This response may not be necessary now, unless developers want to include a direct link to their plugins.</p>



<p>In a <a href="https://poststatus.slack.com/archives/CHNM7Q7T8/p1695076392811079">discussion on Post Status Slack</a>, some plugin developers said they would prefer a link to the actual plugin page where they can see and participate in reviews. The omission of a link back to WordPress.org may be intentional, as it would take users off of the .com site, which does not facilitate customers upgrading to paid plans in order to use plugins.</p>



<p>Some developers had also asked Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg to noindex those pages, but he said that WordPress.com users should also be able to search Google for the listings.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I think it should show up for .com users who are Googling, and Google appears smart enough prioritize correctly. That’s a SEO benefit, and not at the expense of any plugin authors.</p>&mdash; Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1704028824500146324?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 19, 2023</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Some developers have asked to know what percentage of their active installs come from WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org, or other hosting platforms. Mullenweg said there are currently no reports for this but that the data could be interesting. </p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">There are no reports currently for plugin installs by web host. I could see that being interesting, though, especially with how some hosts bundle.</p>&mdash; Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1703878877263917316?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 18, 2023</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>&#8220;If people are providing more distribution to unaltered plugins, I think that&#8217;s great,&#8221; Mullenweg said during the discussion last week. &#8220;Happy for all our plugins to be duplicated and distributed by every host and site on the planet.&#8221;</p>



<p>When asked if WordPress.org could extract the data for known plugin distributors, like WordPress.com, Mullenweg <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1704109689922027565">said</a>, &#8220;.com or any other host could share plugin info if it’s allowed by their privacy policy. Also it’s fairly trivial to get plugin info from crawling sites.&#8221;</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 20 Sep 2023 20:27:33 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:22;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"WPTavern: #91 – Vagelis Papaioannou on How to Learn to Use WordPress and Help With Events";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=148915";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:105:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/91-vagelis-papaioannou-on-how-to-learn-to-use-wordpress-and-help-with-events";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:49609:"Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast. From WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>



<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, how to learn to use WordPress and help with events.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice. Or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today, we have a Vagelis Papaioannou. Vagelis is a software engineer from Greece. His journey with coding began during his elementary school years. In an experimental coding class. This sparked a lifelong passion within him.</p>



<p>His love for WordPress dates back to the early versions. For the last eight to nine years, he has actively participated in the Greek WordPress community, engaging in various roles, such as organizing WordCamps and meetups. Vagelis also contributes to multiple teams, cherishing the small contributions that allow everyone to make a difference. He also serves as the project translation lead for the Greek language.</p>



<p>Vagelis, although a self-confessed introvert, shares his initial struggles with being a part of the community and attending local meetups. He encourages people to step outside their comfort zones, and attend events like WordCamps and meetups, where they&#8217;re likely to discover a welcoming and friendly atmosphere. Vagelis recounts his own experience of attending such events, initially feeling scared, but eventually having an enjoyable time, making many lasting friendships along the way.</p>



<p>He talks about how local meetups are more casual gatherings than WordCamps. People come together to talk about WordPress, learn, and spend time with like-minded individuals. From meetups by the sea to forest walks, these events offer opportunities for both education and social engagement.</p>



<p>On the subject of WordCamps, Vagelis unravels the magic behind these larger multi-day events, with presentations and a contributor day. He emphasizes that contribution to the community doesn&#8217;t necessarily require coding skills, and encourages more people to get involved. WordCamps are not only platforms for learning and exchanging ideas, but they also provide a space for attendees to have fun, network, and explore all manner of other opportunities.</p>



<p>We talk about the importance of the code of conduct at WordCamps. This code ensures that participants know that they&#8217;re going to have a safe and inclusive experience. With attendees joining from all corners of the globe, these events attract a diverse range of individuals who are passionate about the software and the community.</p>



<p>We then talk about the effort required to organize these events. Vagelis explains why he&#8217;s willing to dedicate his time and energy to be a part of such complex projects. He talks about the benefits participants gain from taking an active role, whether as an organizer, speaker or volunteer.</p>



<p>As Vagelis shares his personal experiences in organizing and participating in events like WordCamp, Athens, he strongly advocates for more community involvement, and highlights the need for new organizers to get involved, to allow the community to meet up once again.</p>



<p>We then get into a discussion of other ways that you can be involved. This time in the Learn project, which is making freely available materials so that people can learn about WordPress at a time that suits them. Vagelis talks about what the Learn team does, and how you can join them. He discusses how the team works using GitHub for collaboration and accommodating individuals with various skills and abilities.</p>



<p>From the educational content available on the learn.wordpress.org website., To the valuable connections made through hallway chats, Vagelis emphasizes the power and importance of the WordPress community.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re a seasoned WordPress enthusiast, or just starting your journey in contributions, this episode is for you.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast. Where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Vagelis Papaioannou.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Vagelis Papaioannou. Hello Vagelis!</p>



<p>[00:05:27] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Hello Nathan. Hello.</p>



<p>[00:05:28] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Very nice to have you on the podcast today. Just to give you a little bit of orientation, right at the outset we&#8217;re going to be talking about WordPress events. We might well dip our toes into WordCamp Europe. We might talk about local meetups and WordCamps in general. And then we might also pivot to talk about something which Vagelis is interested in, the training team.</p>



<p>But before that, just to paint a picture of who you are and what your experience is with WordPress. I wonder Vagelis if you wouldn&#8217;t mind just giving us your bio. You can start as early as you like. Anything you want to say about you and WordPress.</p>



<p>[00:06:04] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Yeah of course. My name is Vagelis, I&#8217;m from Greece. I was raised and born in Athens and I live in Thessaloniki for the last 21 years. I&#8217;m a software engineer and my journey with coding started at elementary school where we had this experimental class of coding and I got really into it. And then that just made my passion.</p>



<p>So regarding WordPress, I&#8217;ve been using WordPress since the version one point something, I can&#8217;t really remember. I was using b2 and then I jumped over to WordPress. The last eight, nine years I&#8217;ve been part of the Greek community of WordPress. I&#8217;m trying to go to build as much as possible I can.</p>



<p>And I&#8217;m a WordCamp organiser. I&#8217;m a meetup organiser. I do contribute across multiple teams like training, testing or photos and all that small bits that everyone can do. I&#8217;m also the P.T. for the Greek language translation. Yeah that&#8217;s pretty much it I guess.</p>



<p>[00:07:14] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah that&#8217;s a lot. That really is a lot. It&#8217;s an absolute pleasure to have you on. We didn&#8217;t discuss this in our pre recording chat, but I&#8217;m just wondering if you could paint the picture for us of what the state of the WordPress community in Greece is like. Just judging by my accent you can probably tell that I&#8217;m from the UK, and we might have a very different complexion here.</p>



<p>We&#8217;ve obviously just this year had a huge WordPress event in Greece. WordCamp Europe was held in Athens earlier this year. If I&#8217;m looking at it from the outside I get the impression that the Greek community is thriving because they put on events like WordCamp Europe, but I don&#8217;t know if that&#8217;s the case.</p>



<p>How is it being a Greek WordPress user? Are there plenty of events? Is the community thriving or is it in a different state?</p>



<p>[00:07:59] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Well the community is pretty big. We have a huge Facebook group with almost 20,000 people. We do two major events, two WordCamps, one in Athens and one in Thessaloniki. Sadly COVID 19 hit us really hard, so we had to stop for a while. We also stopped the meetups but we&#8217;re getting back to it. We&#8217;ve done like 10, 11 meetups the last year in Thessaloniki, and I know there are plans to do more meetups in other areas of Greece.</p>



<p>We also in planning of a special WordCamp. We try to figure out where to do that and how to plan it so we can apply for it on WordCamp Central. And yeah we have a lot of users, lots of people trying to translate, we have a lot of coders.</p>



<p>We also have a lot of people actually working in key companies regarding to WordPress, like Automattic and stuff like that. So yeah, we&#8217;re doing good I guess. But because I&#8217;m that kind of person, I know we could do better in some fields, but that&#8217;s a whole different story.</p>



<p>[00:09:10] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah I guess there&#8217;s always room for improvement. I can completely sympathise though with the whole COVID thing. I think it&#8217;s fair to say that it put the brakes on in the UK and I don&#8217;t think the community has quite got back to where it was. Things are beginning again. There are various different WordCamps and meetups and things like that which are coming back from being online.</p>



<p>Broadly speaking I think a lot of them carried on in an online way, but I&#8217;m not sure that the interest was maintained. And so a lot of them are now coming back and hoping to be in the real world once more. But the flagship event, one of the bigger events that we had in the UK was WordCamp London and, as yet, it has not re emerged. So fingers crossed.</p>



<p>[00:09:52] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Yeah. I&#8217;ve been on the last WordCamp London and I had a blast. It was a great event. We had great fun and I really hope that it&#8217;s coming back.</p>



<p>[00:10:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah fingers crossed for that as well. We&#8217;re going to talk a little bit about local meetups and what have you, and WordCamp Europe in particular. Let&#8217;s begin there. Let&#8217;s begin with WordCamp Europe and paint a picture.</p>



<p>Prior to that though I wouldn&#8217;t mind having a conversation around the fact that it&#8217;s very obvious to somebody like you and somebody like me, who probably obsess more than is healthy for us about WordPress, but we know that there&#8217;s a community. We&#8217;re well aware that these events take place. There was a time though when I was a user of WordPress, I was using nothing else, it was probably about two years into my journey with WordPress that I actually noticed that there was a community at all.</p>



<p>Prior to that I was simply going to the .org websites, downloading the software, using that software, and then you know rinse and repeat, building websites and so on. And then I can&#8217;t remember where, it was possibly on social media or something, I remember seeing a picture. The collection of people with WordPress T-shirts on standing in a hallway or something. And I was thinking well that&#8217;s curious, what are they doing?</p>



<p>And then obviously as time went on, it occurred to me oh there are these events. So given that the listenership to this podcast could be anybody, do you want to just talk a little bit about what WordPress events are? What they endeavor to do? How they are organised? Whether that be big events, little events, meetups and so on.</p>



<p>[00:11:21] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Definitely. Well first of all I need to reassure everyone that&#8217;s listening to this that I&#8217;m an introvert. So it wasn&#8217;t easy for me to be a part of a community, any community. Or just go in a random place in a local meetup, open the door and just stay there with a bunch of random folks.</p>



<p>So if you feel like that, just come to any event even if it&#8217;s a WordCamp, a meetup, gathering, whatever. Just come, say hi and we&#8217;re all really welcoming and friendly. And you&#8217;re going to find someone who can really make you feel comfortable.</p>



<p>I was aware of the community for a long time before I even managed to go on a local meetup here in Thessaloniki. And I remember me being there, just sitting on a chair, and I didn&#8217;t feel like talking to anyone. I was kind of scared. Scared grown up man, just in a strange place with other folks talking about software, which I love.</p>



<p>So the next time was better and I actually had fun. I made a few contacts which I can now call friends. And that&#8217;s pretty much what a local meetup is. It&#8217;s just a gathering. We just get a soda, we talk about WordPress. We may have a presentation, we may have snacks. It&#8217;s a cool two hours spending with friends around WordPress. That&#8217;s pretty much it.</p>



<p>I remember our last meetup, it was a month ago and we did it on Thessaloniki seaside. So we had like this beautiful sea view and we were just 20 people talking about random stuff. And then the idea struck, and someone said, shall we do another one? But like in Naousa, which is a different place, a different town. There&#8217;s a forest there. We can walk through the forest and go eat and do some stuff. And we agreed to do that. So that&#8217;s our next meetup. It&#8217;s on September the 2nd. So it&#8217;s pretty informal.</p>



<p>And the same goes for WorldCamps, but WorldCamp is a bigger event. It&#8217;s usually like a couple of days event. There&#8217;s the presentation day and then there&#8217;s a contributor day where we gather and contribute.</p>



<p>Just a side note, you don&#8217;t have to code to be a contributor. You can contribute in so many ways and we do need more contributors to help in so many teams.</p>



<p>So yeah WordCamps, like I said, WordCamps are informal. You can come to learn something but if you feel that you can&#8217;t learn anything you can just come and have fun with us. Have a nice lunch, meet new people, exchange ideas. And maybe at the end of the day you learn something new. I don&#8217;t want to digress so that&#8217;s pretty much it.</p>



<p>[00:14:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> No I think that&#8217;s great. That was a really nice summary. And I think a really important point that you made there, especially for people who&#8217;ve never been to these events before, is the no code piece. That is to say, you really genuinely don&#8217;t need to know a line of code, you don&#8217;t need to know any of that whatsoever to enjoy the event.</p>



<p>Because usually, especially at the larger events, there&#8217;s a whole broad range of things that are being presented, workshops that are being given. Yeah, some of it will be about the code but a lot of it will be about other aspects of life on the internet. So it may be SEO, or marketing, or design, or something like that. So there&#8217;s definitely something for everybody.</p>



<p>And also, I&#8217;ll throw into the mix, the somewhat undermentioned but very important hallway track. And this is simply when you&#8217;re not at a presentation. This is just hanging out, being in the corridor, chatting to people. And my understanding from chatting to people over the years is that quite a lot of serendipitous things happen during those hallway chats. You know friendships are created, businesses are formed, partnerships are made during those kinds of hallway random meetups. And it&#8217;s those things in particular are really nice.</p>



<p>[00:15:24] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> And you also get the vibe of the market. So if you&#8217;re into that market, you get the vibe of where are we heading to? And that&#8217;s a good thing to always stay up to date.</p>



<p>[00:15:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think also it might be worth mentioning that there is an enforced code of conduct. So there really are kind of rules and guidelines around what is acceptable. So if you have any fears or worries around that, what your participation would look like? How you would feel? How comfortable you would be or what have you, there are definite guidelines to make sure that your experience is as friendly as possible. Let&#8217;s put it that way.</p>



<p>So WordCamps are the big ones. Then we&#8217;ve got these more ad hoc local meetups where really you&#8217;re probably just capturing people from the local area. Maybe a few miles around, as opposed to people getting on aeroplanes. They typically happen more like once a month or something like that.</p>



<p>Why have you been so keen to contribute to these things though? Because my understanding is, especially an event like WordCamp Europe, you only have to attend to realise how breathtakingly large that undertaking is. The enterprise of putting on an event for several thousand people, coming from all over the globe.</p>



<p>The fact that it&#8217;s, the catering is done, the internet is provided, there&#8217;s AV, there&#8217;s translations, there&#8217;s people standing around with the correct T-shirt on, helpfully guiding people all over. What I&#8217;m trying to paint a picture of is just how breathtakingly large these things are, and complex are. So I&#8217;m just wondering, why do you give up your time in this way? What do you gain from it?</p>



<p>[00:16:57] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> It is indeed a massive event especially the Europe, US and Asia. I mean it&#8217;s about giving back I guess, to the community because we all get something out of it. I&#8217;m that kind of person that I believe we should always try to give back, even if we don&#8217;t get enough. We should give more than we get. This is how I work.</p>



<p>However, about WordCamp Europe, yes it was a massive thing. It required so many hours of work. Oh and I forgot to say that most of the times it is fun to get involved in these kind of stuff. And WordCamp Europe was fun for most of the time.</p>



<p>At the end of the day it is a massive event. It&#8217;s our country and we&#8217;re a bunch of people that we had to help to organise a good event, if you know what I mean. It&#8217;s always about giving back. I don&#8217;t have something specific in my mind. I never go out to try to find contacts. I never try to go out and do business or whatever. I just want to give back.</p>



<p>[00:18:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Certain sense of pleasure from being there, helping, making sure that it all runs smoothly. I can totally empathise with that.</p>



<p>Okay so again, thinking about the listeners who have never been to such an event as that. I described the kind of things that might be on offer. You talked about the fact that volunteers, community members, helping out at these events are a crucial part of that puzzle.</p>



<p>Are you able to just tell us some of the different roles? Now you might just cherry pick some that you know top of your mind. But just to give a flavor of the kind of things that you could be doing should you dip your toes into the water and offer your time at one of these events. What are the kind of things that you might find yourself involved with?</p>



<p>[00:18:45] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Well it&#8217;s easy to find something to do on these kinds of events. I mean if you can use Gutenberg you can join the website team. If you can design you can go with the design team. That&#8217;s pretty straightforward.</p>



<p>But if you just want to volunteer and that means that you will be there at the three days of the event, and you will all be spending time for the event while being there. Which is a different thing than being an organiser, because we had to work like months, several months before the event. So if you just want to be a volunteer you can do so many things from registration, or from helping the sponsors, from making sure everything is okay. From sitting on a corner and waiting for someone to ask you something.</p>



<p>There are so many roles, and I believe that volunteers are a huge part of any event, even if it&#8217;s WordCamp Europe or a local WordCamp. Without the volunteers we can do nothing. And also we need to make clear that the organisers are also volunteers. I had a chat with multiple people, and it looks like some folks believe that we&#8217;re getting paid or we get something like a benefit or I don&#8217;t know, whatever. But we don&#8217;t, we&#8217;re just volunteers just like the rest of the volunteers and we are all equal during this event.</p>



<p>[00:20:08] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> As one of the lead organisers, given that you probably have months and months of work involved in it, well probably years is more the correct way of describing it. But given that you&#8217;ve probably got to make trips to the event, now you mentioned that you don&#8217;t get paid, but is there a system whereby, if you&#8217;re at that level and you&#8217;re organising things and you have to, I don&#8217;t know, let&#8217;s say for example you don&#8217;t live in Greece so you needed to make a journey to Athens. Are there any scenarios in which those things are paid for? Or are you always dipping into your own reserves for the WordCamp organising endeavor?</p>



<p>[00:20:42] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> I guess you can just look for a sponsor for a company that would like to sponsor you to do that. But in my case I covered everything. I&#8217;m in Greece, I&#8217;m just 500 kilometers away from Athens, so that wasn&#8217;t a big thing. But for other people coming from other countries, and if you consider that this is during summertime, and summertime in Greece the prices are going high, because of the tourism and all that stuff. They have to book hotels just like did, so it&#8217;s a big expense to be fair. I mean, it&#8217;s a few thousand euros to be able to go to venue visits and then go to the event, and stay for a week.</p>



<p>[00:21:24] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah that&#8217;s interesting. I certainly have met people who have been sponsored to attend these events. Yeah thank you for that.</p>



<p>We should probably also talk about the affordable nature of these events, because typically if you were to go to a three day conference, well in WordCamp&#8217;s case it&#8217;s often two days, and then there&#8217;s something called a contributor day which we&#8217;ll get onto in a minute.</p>



<p>The cost of these tickets is really low. If you were to attend an event of similar size and scope elsewhere, I feel that you might have a very high ticket price. But WordCamps don&#8217;t have this ticket price. Now I understand that some of the money is offset from the sponsors, but typically they&#8217;re very affordable to attend in the region of, I don&#8217;t know 40, 50, 60 euros, something along those lines.</p>



<p>So I just wanted to raise that as a point. You don&#8217;t need to have deep pockets if you want to attend. And if you&#8217;ve got local WordCamps it&#8217;s very likely that the cost will be low as well. In fact, in many cases, I think it would be true to say that the cost of your ticket probably wouldn&#8217;t even cover the food.</p>



<p>[00:22:27] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> You always get your money back. And I mean our local WordCamps cost 25 euros. And you get lunch, you get swag, which swag is really, really important. And when someone goes to WordCamp Europe for the first time and you travel abroad, just bring an extra bag with you. You&#8217;re going to need it. I&#8217;m always bringing an extra bag when I go to WordCamp abroad.</p>



<p>So yeah you always get your money back. You get coffees, you get refreshments, lunch. WordCamp Europe was 50 euros. It&#8217;s really cheap because if you consider other events of that scale, the ticket could be like 600 euros easily. So yeah these are really cheap events.</p>



<p>[00:23:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;ll also point out the fact that there are, there&#8217;s quite a few initiatives. Many of them actually I believe begun by a previous WordCamp Europe over many years. So for example, if you have children that you need to be taking with you, that is also something which at WordCamp Europe at least, I can&#8217;t speak about the other ones, there are facilities provided for that.</p>



<p>And also great lengths have been gone to, to make sure that the events are accessible as possible. So by that I might mean that for example, if you need the use of a wheelchair or something like that, great lengths have gone to to make sure that you can access all of the different parts of the event.</p>



<p>But also that things like live translations are done, and not by an AI robot sitting in the corner but by a bank of real human beings, and all of those things really, they&#8217;re amazing. I&#8217;m quite proud in a sense that the WordPress community sees those things as important enough to spend the money on, to spend the time on, to get right.</p>



<p>[00:24:13] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Yeah that&#8217;s really great. And this is again done by volunteers, so we should just sit back and realise how much work we need to do in order to get these done. This year in Europe we had childcare and we also had workshops for children, which was really great. Every event should be inclusive, and accessibility should be our first concern.</p>



<p>However this is something that brings a lot of drama into the community for numerous reasons. But yeah we should all help everybody, everyone, every single one to come to WordCamp and have fun.</p>



<p>[00:24:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah nice. So I think we&#8217;ve painted a picture there hopefully of an event which is not only affordable, if you can make it there. The cost of the ticket is affordable, but also inclusive. There&#8217;s a whole variety of different things, you don&#8217;t need to be into one particular thing aka code.</p>



<p>If you want to attend, it&#8217;s very likely that you&#8217;ll meet some people, make some friendships. And in my case I think it&#8217;s fair to say that quite a lot of real, proper, genuine friendships have been built up from chatting to people who were stood next to me that I never knew just five minutes before.</p>



<p>So they&#8217;re the big events. Now I can&#8217;t remember whether you mentioned whether you&#8217;re a part of a more local meetup, but I think if we could just get into that quickly.</p>



<p>[00:25:42] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> I&#8217;m organising me and a few friends, I&#8217;m going to call them friends because after all these years I consider them to be my friends. We&#8217;re organising the Thessaloniki meetups, which is a monthly meetup. We try to do presentations. We also have a workshop going on about creating what we called the first community block theme, but we didn&#8217;t do it fast enough. Someone else did that, but that&#8217;s fine. And we also tried to do a few outdoors meetups. The next one is in a month or so in the city near Thessaloniki.</p>



<p>Local meetups are great. We just have a beautiful small place, sponsored by a local business here in Thessaloniki. We gather once a month, we have some snacks, we have some refreshments, we exchange ideas, we have a laugh, we do the presentation and then everyone goes home. And then we just wait for the next one.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s really hard to organise these kind of events. It really needs some time to get them done correctly, and it&#8217;s always done by our personal time, so it&#8217;s not that easy. But it&#8217;s fun, and people really like these kind of events.</p>



<p>Oh, I forgot to mention, these events are free, so anyone can just come and join us. There&#8217;s no ticket or whatever. We do have a sponsor which helps a lot for snacks and refreshments, and we do have another sponsor for the venue, so we&#8217;re pretty much covered and yeah, it&#8217;s fun.</p>



<p>[00:27:22] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah so much more frequent. The cadence is typically I think once a month, something like that. Much more local, so there&#8217;s no accommodation requirements. You just make your way there. Often in the evening when the work day is over. A couple of hours of presentation, like you said a few snacks and that&#8217;s the way it goes.</p>



<p>So a real nice way to keep up to date with your local WordPressers. And I think these things, once they kickstart themselves after the pandemic, I think really just events like that really do underpin the whole community. Without them I don&#8217;t know where we&#8217;d be in all honesty.</p>



<p>[00:27:55] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> It&#8217;s an important part of the community, the meetups, I believe.</p>



<p>[00:27:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah I think so too. Let&#8217;s move on. Let&#8217;s pivot because we&#8217;ve got something else to talk about. So this is something called the training team. Obviously it&#8217;s connected with WordPress but I wouldn&#8217;t really say that I know too much about this. During the process of this interview hopefully I will be learning a lot about it as well.</p>



<p>Let&#8217;s just lay the bedrock. What is the training team? What&#8217;s its purpose? How long has it been around? Any place you want to begin there really.</p>



<p>[00:28:23] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Well the training team is brilliant. There&#8217;s so much content for anyone and everyone in there. And how I met the training team. A year ago I wanted some resources about our local meetup, and I was talking with someone from the marketing team, and they told me just go to the training team and get some content.</p>



<p>What&#8217;s a training team? I&#8217;ve never heard of it. And then I joined the training team and I&#8217;ve seen that there are so much good content in there. There are courses, there are lesson plans, there is so much content for all different levels of WordPress users or developers. For the last year it grew so much.</p>



<p>There are two main things in training team, tutorials and lesson plans. You can follow a tutorial and then something new, or you can get a lesson plan and use it on a local meetup, or on your class and teach the others something new. And in order to do that there are a bunch of volunteers working day and night creating content.</p>



<p>But most importantly keeping the content up to date, because that&#8217;s the most important thing. Whenever a new version of WordPress comes out and there are changes, we have to go back, review the content and do the appropriate edits. And also because we&#8217;re trying to be inclusive, we want to translate that content, and this is where I fit in. I try to translate as much content as possible in Greek. And I also have on the website in order to do some patterns, to do that translation easier for the translators.</p>



<p>And now we&#8217;re in the state where we&#8217;re trying to find more people to contribute in translations because if we manage to translate all that content then there is no excuse for someone to say, I don&#8217;t know how to do that because everything is in there. So you can really learn something new every day from the training team. Which, by the way, can be found, this is confusing, at learn.wordpress.org. So training team is a team, but the website is learn, and this is where you go to learn WordPress. That&#8217;s the idea.</p>



<p>[00:30:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you know if there was a reason if you like, why the team was given a lot more focus and attention more recently? What I&#8217;m wondering is, we spoke a little while ago about the effect of things like the pandemic, and effect that that had on the community. I don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s coincidental or if it&#8217;s intentional that more effort seems to be being put recently into things like providing training materials.</p>



<p>There seems to be a lot more of that being created, but I see a lot more of it being mentioned in different parts of the WordPress ecosystem. So I didn&#8217;t know if it was an endeavor just to bolster what we&#8217;ve already got, or if it was trying to react to, I don&#8217;t know, community dwindling, something like that.</p>



<p>[00:31:21] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> It&#8217;s probably both. I also think that training team has more resources now. By saying resources I mean more people, and more people join every day, and the more people we get the more content we have. And it looks like it&#8217;s getting a lot of support from the community and also the team leads.</p>



<p>The previous ones,, and the ones we currently have did a really great job. I&#8217;m not going to get into names because I&#8217;m going to forget someone and it&#8217;s not fair. But they&#8217;re all great, and they all did so much about the training team. And I think this is part of the success of the team. It&#8217;s going to get better, I&#8217;m pretty sure about it.</p>



<p>[00:32:02] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah so obviously it&#8217;s putting out content, it&#8217;s keeping that content up to date. WordPress is going through, well certainly in the last several years has gone through some real transformational changes. And it does feel like we&#8217;re with the advent of WordPress 6.2 and 6.3 and probably 6.4, there&#8217;s going to be a lot of changes, made and so communicating those changes is going to be really important.</p>



<p>You mentioned that the team leads have been great. You also mentioned that there seems to be a steady trickle of people heading in your direction, wanting to help out with the team. How does that team organise itself? How do you come to decisions about, okay, we&#8217;ll make this piece of content, but we won&#8217;t make that piece of content just yet? Where do you meet? How often do you meet? What platforms are you using? And so on.</p>



<p>[00:32:47] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Well there&#8217;s a weekly meeting happening in the Make Slack of the training team. If anyone listening to this and doesn&#8217;t use Slack, just download Slack and join. How do we even call that? It&#8217;s always confusing. Well the Make Slack which is where all the WordPress folks are gathering around, and all the teams and all the info. And you can get really mad really quickly because of the massive amount of the information. But don&#8217;t worry about it just join training team. There&#8217;s a weekly meeting there.</p>



<p>And then we do use GitHub, but don&#8217;t be scared if you hear of GitHub. We don&#8217;t really use it only for coding, we also use it to raise issues. And by raising an issue it can be a lesson plan idea, or a content idea. And this is where all the review is going on, and all of the conversation. And then all of a sudden the content is getting published into the website. It&#8217;s really easy. Everyone can contribute.</p>



<p>I forgot to mention that I&#8217;m dyslexic. So it&#8217;s really hard for me to do many things related to languages and stuff, but I do manage to contribute successfully on those teams without any problem. And whenever I need a hand, a helping hand, there&#8217;s always someone to help you.</p>



<p>You can also facilitate an online meetup in training team. That&#8217;s another great thing training team does. We do online meetups, and you can learn how to code custom Gutenberg block using React or JSX. Or you can just learn how to use a block, like the very first steps and one to do using Gutenberg.</p>



<p>[00:34:29] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah I think it&#8217;s really remarkable the rate at which I&#8217;m seeing content being produced. And also a shame in a sense that it doesn&#8217;t get mentioned quite as much as I wish it did. I have to sometimes go looking for these things or subscribe to an RSS feed. But if everybody in the WordPress community was just familiar with that URL, learn.wordpress.org, I think you&#8217;d be hard pressed to find nothing there which should be of interest to you.</p>



<p>Whether you&#8217;re kind of an expert in building blocks, or whether you just want some primer, some kind of 101 of how to begin using WordPress. It is increasingly an amazing resource. And so bravo for all of the things that are being done there.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m just curious about the kind of jobs that might be needed, because I&#8217;ve seen video content. So obviously at some point somebody needed to sit down with a screen and record that stuff. But presumably there was some kind of script that was created for that. I&#8217;ve seen lots of written tutorials. I&#8217;ve seen things which you could describe as courses, where you know one thing leads onto another thing, there is isolated bits of content. What kind of tasks are in need of being done to keep that initiative going?</p>



<p>[00:35:43] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> That&#8217;s a really hard one. I mean everyone can find something to do. You can do the meeting notes, which I can&#8217;t because I&#8217;m dyslexic, but you can. You can do a translation. You can get a lesson plan and translate it. You can create a lesson plan if you have an expertise, or you can create a tutorial. Or if you can create a video tutorial you can get the video and do the transcript.</p>



<p>You can review the content and test what the lesson plan guides you to do and see if it&#8217;s correct or not. And then provide feedback for the author to correct it, or say, yeah it&#8217;s great just publish it. There&#8217;s so many things from the smallest to the biggest one. And it&#8217;s really easy, even with an hour per week you can really make the difference.</p>



<p>[00:36:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I guess the whole imposter syndrome thing may be something that people are concerned about. You know they&#8217;re listening to this and think, do you know what I think I&#8217;ve got something that I want to share, but there&#8217;s probably somebody out there who&#8217;s better at it than me. You know they&#8217;re a better writer or they&#8217;ve got skills for putting videos out there.</p>



<p>I guess we should address that. Are there any barriers to entry here in terms of the quality of what you&#8217;ve got to produce, or the level of expertise? You know if you are going to be writing or producing materials around, let&#8217;s say, something in WordPress Core, you probably do need to have some decent understanding of how that all works so that the content is actually useful.</p>



<p>[00:37:09] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Yeah definitely. Well if you get into coding, I mean if you do a coding tutorial I guess you should just follow the coding standards and all that stuff. But again, if you do a mistake it&#8217;s not the end of the world. Someone will point you out to the right direction and you&#8217;re going to figure it out.</p>



<p>And as you may already know, and I&#8217;m sure you do, the best way to learn something really deeply is by writing or teaching it. This is the best way if you want to master a craft. If you try to teach it to somewhere else, you get really deep into it. And at the end of the day you will realise your weaknesses and you get better. Or you will realise that you shouldn&#8217;t have that imposter syndrome, which I have really bad.</p>



<p>[00:37:55] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Amazing. You&#8217;ve come on this podcast. Thank you for that. Takes a lot of effort.</p>



<p>[00:37:59] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> I have to say it&#8217;s not an easy thing, but I mean I&#8217;m dyslexic it&#8217;s not something terrible. It&#8217;s just, okay I may read half your email and I may respond to half of it, or I may mess a few characters. But other people may get these as a weakness and step back because they have something like that. We have people in WordPress community that they can&#8217;t even see and they code daily, which is a massive thing.</p>



<p>If you consider that there&#8217;s a person without sight who can create some kind of code which is what they do for a living. Why should I stay back because I have that minor thing? And people shouldn&#8217;t just stay back. Just join the community. If you know one thing to do just say, yeah I&#8217;m good at it, and you&#8217;ll find someone to pair with and create something really good and helpful for others.</p>



<p>[00:38:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> What a cheery episode this has been. I really enjoyed this. And we talked about these fabulous events which you can get yourself involved in. Potentially make some real meaningful friendships and learn lots of things. But also pivoted to talk about the learn.wordpress.org, the training team if you like, and all of the free resources that are over there. A sort of sub community, if you like, of people there that you can also make friends with, and become part of the training team setup.</p>



<p>If somebody has been listening to this today and has thought to themselves, do you know what, maybe that&#8217;s for me, I&#8217;m going to give it a go. Whether that&#8217;s organising an event or becoming interested in training and all of that kind of thing. Let&#8217;s tackle the training team bit first. Where would you advise people to go? You mentioned obviously Slack but I wondered if there was somewhere else that you wanted to mention as well.</p>



<p>[00:39:44] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> If you don&#8217;t want to join Slack yet, just go to learn.wordpress.org, and this is the main website. And at the very bottom of your screen you&#8217;ll find the CTA. Have an idea for your content? Let us know. Apply to present a tutorial. Submit the topic idea. Just click any of those buttons. And on top of that there&#8217;s another block which says get involved, learn how to contribute. And you get all the info from there. It&#8217;s really easy. And there&#8217;s nothing scary into the process of being part of the team. There are all really welcoming and we&#8217;re really all good people. Well most of us.</p>



<p>[00:40:24] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah thank you. And then pivot that to events, meetups and WordCamps. Where would you point people if they want to begin that journey?</p>



<p>[00:40:32] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Well I guess from their local community. Also be aware that you may see that there are a few faces that are again and again on the same event. An example, I&#8217;ve done a presentation at WordCamp Athens 2022. I&#8217;ve done one in 2021 I guess. I can&#8217;t remember. And then I did one in 19.</p>



<p>This is not because I&#8217;m special or something. This is because you didn&#8217;t apply. If you apply. You may get up there. We need help. We need more people. We need more organisers. We need more people to do presentations, more speakers if you want to. Don&#8217;t block yourself, just find your local community, get in touch with them, apply to facilitate an event, apply as a speaker.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s really easy. And even if you don&#8217;t get approved at the first time you apply as a speaker just do it again. Try again. It&#8217;s not the end of the world and it&#8217;s not personal. It&#8217;s probably because that specific event had too many applications, or maybe your presentation was too specific to something.</p>



<p>I mean I&#8217;m a coder but I&#8217;m not going to do a really deep, deep coding presentation because I know most folks are not coming for that on a local WordCamp, and they kind of get bored and we need to sell these tickets. So we had to do some funny presentations coding wise, but not just open your terminal people, type npm install and do that stuff. Yeah you know what I mean?</p>



<p>[00:42:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> If somebody has been listening to this podcast, this is more particular to you, where, if you wish to share that is, where would people be able to contact you? Perhaps you&#8217;ve got a website that you want to mention or a, I don&#8217;t know, a social media handle that you feel is a good way for people to get in touch.</p>



<p>[00:42:25] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> I do have a website which I made at WordCamp Athens some year. I can&#8217;t remember. It was a presentation about headless WordPress, which was really good back then when people started to freak out about Gutenberg. And I don&#8217;t use it at all, so there&#8217;s no content in there, so don&#8217;t use that.</p>



<p>Find me on GitHub. My username is vagelisp. Or on Twitter, and my handle on Twitter, it&#8217;s VagPapDev. Yeah that&#8217;s hard. V A G P A P D E V. That&#8217;s my Twitter handle. You can find me there. And of course on any of the Make Slack channels as Vagelis. And on Greek community Facebook and Slack channels as Vagelis as well.</p>



<p>Some may spot it that my name is spelled wrong and you may seen this with an n, Vangelis. I just don&#8217;t like it with a name. It&#8217;s my name. I&#8217;ll write it however I want.</p>



<p>[00:43:20] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I do hope that you get some people reaching out. That would be really great. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.</p>



<p>[00:43:27] <strong>Vagelis Papaioannou:</strong> Thanks for having me. It was really fun. And I really hope someone got something out of it, and someone got the boost, they may wanted to join their local community.</p>
</div>



<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://twitter.com/VagPapDev">Vagelis Papaioannou</a>.</p>



<p>Vagelis is a software engineer from Greece. His journey with coding began during his elementary school years, in an experimental coding class. This sparked a lifelong passion within him. His love for WordPress dates back to the early versions. For the last eight to nine years, he has actively participated in the Greek WordPress community, engaging in various roles such as organising WordCamps and meetups. Vagelis also contributes to multiple teams, cherishing the small contributions that allow everyone to make a difference. He also serves as the Project Translation lead for the Greek language.</p>



<p>Vagelis, although a self confessed introvert, shares his initial struggles with being a part of the community and attending local meetups. He encourages people to step outside their comfort zones and attend events like WordCamps and meetups, where they’re likely to discover a welcoming and friendly atmosphere.</p>



<p>Vagelis recounts his own experience of attending such events, initially feeling scared, but eventually having an enjoyable time, making many lasting friendships along the way. He talks about how local meetups are more casual gatherings than WordCamps. People come together to talk about WordPress, learn, and spend time with like-minded individuals. From meetups by the sea to forest walks, these events offer opportunities for both education and social engagement.</p>



<p>On the subject of WordCamps, Vagelis unravels the magic behind these larger, multi-day events with presentations and a contributor day. He emphasises that contribution to the community doesn&#8217;t necessarily require coding skills, and encourages more people to get involved. WordCamps are not only platforms for learning and exchanging ideas, but they also provide a space for attendees to have fun, network, and explore all manner of other opportunities.</p>



<p>We talk about the importance of the code of conduct at WordCamps. This code ensures that participants know that they are going to have a safe and inclusive experience. With attendees joining from all corners of the globe, these events attract a diverse range of individuals who are passionate about the software and the community.</p>



<p>We then talk about the effort required to organise these events, Vagelis explains why he’s willing to dedicate his time and energy to be part of such complex projects. He talks about the benefits participants gain from taking an active role, whether as organisers, speakers, or volunteer. As Vagelis shares his personal experiences in organising and participating in events like WordCamp Athens, he strongly advocates for more community involvement and highlights the need for new organisers to get involved to allow the community to meet up once again.</p>



<p>We then get into a discussion of other ways that you can be involved, this time in the Learn project, which is making freely available materials so that people can learn about WordPress at a time that suits them.</p>



<p>Vagelis talks about what the Learn team does and how you can join them. He discusses how the team works, using GitHub for collaboration and accommodating individuals with various skills and abilities. From the educational content available on the learn.wordpress.org website, to the valuable connections made through hallway chats, Vagelis emphasises the power and importance of the WordPress community.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re a seasoned WordPress enthusiast or just starting your journey in contributions, this episode is for you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Useful links.</h2>



<p><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/">Learn WordPress</a></p>



<p><a href="https://github.com/vagelisp">Vagelis&#8217; GitHub</a></p>



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/VagPapDev">Vagelis&#8217; Twitter</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/WordPressGreekCommunity/">Greek Community Facebook Group</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 20 Sep 2023 14:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:23;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"WPTavern: WP Tavern Launches Forums";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=148993";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:46:"https://wptavern.com/wp-tavern-launches-forums";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2617:"<p>WP Tavern is <a href="https://wptavern.com/forums">launching forums</a> today. If you have ever sat up all night with a feverish infant, searching for answers on a mommy messaging board, hunted down solutions for obscure bugs, or wasted an entire afternoon on a subreddit, then you know that forums are not dead. </p>



<p>Since the early days of BBSes (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_board_system">Wikipedia link</a> for you young whippersnappers), which housed prototypical forums before the advent of the World Wide Web, modern forums have evolved and established themselves as a stalwart, timeless medium for asynchronous communication, fostering communities, and sharing knowledge among individuals with diverse interests and needs.<br /><br />Today we will begin exploring how forums can help expand conversations that originate on the Tavern, especially within the comments of a post. Our new forums are powered by bbPress, which enables readers to create discussions by visiting the comment section of an article and clicking on “Create forum topic from comment” based on comments that you find particularly insightful.</p>



<p>Under the forum called “<a href="https://wptavern.com/forums/forum/discussions">Discussion</a>” you will find topics that have been created based on article comments. This offers readers a way to engage further with comments that spark larger discussions, long after the article has been published and comments have closed. This feature is available alongside traditional bbPress forums where logged-in users can create topics.</p>



<p>If a forum topic already exists for a comment, a link labeled “Continue Discussion in Forum” will appear on that topic, leading to the ongoing forum discussion. This prevents people from creating multiple forum topics from a single comment. These topics will include a link back to the original comment at the top of the thread. It is also still possible to add regular (non-forum) replies to comments as usual.</p>



<p>Readers must be <a href="https://wptavern.com/register">registered and logged in</a> order to post on the forums. At this time, topics and replies will continue to be moderated before they are published. We have tried wild west commenting style in the past and it doesn&#8217;t work well for raising the level of discourse and engagement that we hope to have in our forums. Come <a href="https://wptavern.com/register">join us</a>, <a href="https://wptavern.com/forums/forum/introductions">introduce yourself</a>, and <a href="https://wptavern.com/forums">start some new topics</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 19 Sep 2023 17:48:22 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:24;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"Do The Woo Community: Elevating the Entrepreneurial Spirit with Colin Daniels";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=76563";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"https://dothewoo.io/elevating-the-entrepreneurial-spirit-with-colin-daniels/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:433:"<p>Colin, co-founder of FooSales and FooEvents, walks us through the product journey with his WordPress and WooCommerce plugins.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/elevating-the-entrepreneurial-spirit-with-colin-daniels/">Elevating the Entrepreneurial Spirit with Colin Daniels</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 19 Sep 2023 09:48:01 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:25;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"WPTavern: Openverse Wins 2023 Open Education Award, Seeks Community Feedback for 2024 Roadmap";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=148845";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:103:"https://wptavern.com/openverse-wins-2023-open-education-award-seeks-community-feedback-for-2024-roadmap";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3060:"<p>Openverse has landed an <a href="https://awards.oeglobal.org/awards/2023/open-infrastructure/openverse/">Open Education Award for Excellence</a> in the Open Infrastructure category. <a href="https://www.oeglobal.org/">Open Education Global (OEG)</a> is a non-profit organization that supports the use of open education to expand education access and affordability. Its annual awards recognize outstanding contributions to the Open Education community and its network of resources.</p>



<p>Openverse is one of 16 winners selected from more than 170 applicants. The award reviewers suggested Openverse &#8220;should be the primary recommended search for OER development,&#8221; due to its clear licensing and easy, one-click attribution, among other features:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>That easy attribution feature (one-click copy for a full formed Creative Commons attribution) might be reason enough for an award, but the features to filter searches by source collections and other parameters (image orientation, specific license) provides seekers of open content important affordances to find clearly licensed media they can reuse.</p>



<p>Openverse should be the primary recommended search for OER development, as the licensing is explicitly clear, not subject to third party owners writing their own license), being of great value for projects that mix content from multiple sources. </p>
</blockquote>



<p>Openverse has made significant progress since coming under the WordPress project&#8217;s umbrella. In the past year, the team has <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/openverse/issues/394">added usage analytics</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/openverse/issues/415">made major improvements to its user interface</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/openverse/issues/386">moved Openverse out of an iFrame</a>, <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/openverse/issues/377">added filtering and blurring of sensitive results</a> (nearing completion), among many other technical improvements. The team is requesting feedback as they begin planning the 2024 roadmap.</p>



<p>&#8220;This project thrives on collaboration, and as we begin plotting our course for 2024, we want to hear from <em>you</em>,&#8221; Automattic-sponsored Openverse data engineer Madison Swain-Bowden said. &#8220;Have an idea that could improve Openverse? Noticed a feature gap we haven’t addressed? Have suggestions to improve existing features? We are eager to hear all about it!&#8221;</p>



<p>Anyone who wants to contribute a proposal regarding Openverse&#8217;s future can publish a comment to the team&#8217;s blog <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/09/15/openverse-2024-planning-we-want-your-ideas/">post requesting feedback</a>. For more information about Openverse&#8217;s current projects and those that are on hold, check out the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/08/28/openverse-monthly-priorities-meeting-2023-09-06/">notes</a> from the team&#8217;s most recent monthly meeting.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 18 Sep 2023 22:00:45 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"WPTavern: New Plugin Adds Citations and Bibliography Block to WordPress Editor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=148756";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:89:"https://wptavern.com/new-plugin-adds-citations-and-bibliography-block-to-wordpress-editor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2984:"<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/citations/">Citations</a> is a new plugin created by <a href="http://www.wp-munich.com/">WP Munich</a> and the team at <a href="http://www.luehrsen-heinrich.de/">Luehrsen // Heinrich</a>, a German WordPress agency. It makes it easy to create in-text citations and assign them a specific source. Most of the existing plugins that do this are for older versions of WordPress. This one is created specifically for those using the block editor.</p>



<p>Citations introduces a new menu item to the rich text formatting toolbar. Users can highlight the text they want to cite, click &#8216;Cite&#8217; in the toolbar, and then define the source in the pop-up by inputting the source information into the fields provided.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/citations-plugin.png" alt="" class="wp-image-148946" />



<p>The Citations plugin includes one Bibliography block, which will be automatically populated with all the sources of the in-text citations added in the content. Citations are linked to the corresponding source inside the Bibliography block. The block can be positioned anywhere in the document, although readers likely expect it at the bottom.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1920" height="1080" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/bibliography-block.png" alt="" class="wp-image-148949" />



<p>Users can edit the citations and the sources in the Bibliography block by clicking on them.</p>



<p>What&#8217;s the difference between citations and WordPress&#8217; core Footnotes block?  Although both are used in academic and scholarly writing to provide references and additional information about sources used in a document, there are a few key differences. </p>



<p>Citations credit the original source of the information with all the source details in the bibliography at the end of the document. Footnotes are  more flexible in that they can include additional context or comments at the bottom of the document, to keep the text from becoming too cluttered with explanatory notes. They may also be used to source citations with the author, title, and publication details, but do not always follow the bibliography format.</p>



<p>The Citations plugin also includes a pattern that will insert some Lorem Ipsum paragraphs with citations and a sample bibliography with sources at the bottom. This gives users an idea of how the plugin can be used to structure a document for citing sources, if they are just getting started. Users can search for &#8220;Citations Demo&#8221; in the pattern search bar to find it.</p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/citations/">Download the plugin</a> for free from WordPress.org, or give it a <a href="https://playground.wordpress.net/?plugin=citations">test drive using WordPress Playground</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 18 Sep 2023 17:43:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"WordPress.org blog: WP Briefing: Episode 62: Enterprise Clients and the Business of WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://wordpress.org/news/?post_type=podcast&p=15971";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/09/episode-62-enterprise-clients-and-the-business-of-wordpress/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16346:"<p>Join WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy as she discusses the role WordPress Enterprise plays along with the WordPress community.</p>



<p><em><strong>Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to&nbsp;<a href="mailto:wpbriefing@wordpress.org">wpbriefing@wordpress.org</a>, either written or as a voice recording.</strong></em></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Credits</h2>



<p>Host:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/">Josepha Haden Chomphosy</a><br />Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dustinhartzler/">Dustin Hartzler</a><br />Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/javiarce/">Javier Arce</a><br />Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/bjmcsherry/">Brett McSherry</a><br />Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Show Notes</h2>



<ul>
<li>The 2023&nbsp;<a href="https://communitysummit.wordcamp.org/2023/">Community Summit</a>&nbsp;in Washington, DC</li>



<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/enterprise/">WordPress Enterprise</a></li>



<li><a href="https://beta.nasa.gov/">NASA Website (beta)</a></li>



<li><strong>A small list of big things</strong> (SLBT)
<ul>
<li><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/07/evolving-the-fse-outreach-program/" target="_blank">Evolving the FSE Outreach Program</a>&nbsp;&#8211; With WordPress 6.3 bringing Phase 2 to completion, it’s time for the FSE Outreach Program to evolve alongside the broader WordPress project and needs.</li>



<li><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/08/31/proposal-an-update-to-the-field-guide/" target="_blank">Proposal: An update to the Field Guide</a>&nbsp;&#8211; This proposal is one step, but not necessarily the only step, at improving communication around WordPress releases and making it easier for WordPress updates to instill confidence.</li>



<li>We are still looking to receive more&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://wordpressdotorg.survey.fm/next-generation-of-wordpress-events" target="_blank">ideas on the future of WordPress events</a>&nbsp;&#8211; We have brought this up in the past, but there is still time to submit ideas.</li>



<li><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/08/proposal-for-updated-support-guidelines/" target="_blank">Proposal for updated support guidelines</a>&nbsp;&#8211; As these result from work during WordCamp Us 2023, if you are at the venue and wish to discuss something, please feel free to reach out.</li>



<li>&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/05/call-for-testing-performant-translations/" target="_blank">Call for Testing: Performant Translations</a>&nbsp;&#8211; Provide your feedback; if you encounter any issues or have questions about the plugin, please comment or open a new support topic. In addition to that,&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://github.com/swissspidy/performant-translations" target="_blank">contributions can be made on GitHub</a>.</li>



<li><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/speaker-workshop-for-indian-women-in-the-wordpress-community-sept-23-24-tickets-633636773647" target="_blank">WordPress Diversity Training</a>&nbsp;&#8211; This is a 2-day workshop for women in India (other countries are welcome to join us, too) who are considering speaking at a WordPress Meetup or WordCamp.</li>



<li><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.meetup.com/antelope-valley-wordpress-meetup/events/295817501" target="_blank">Let&#8217;s talk about WordPress</a>! &#8211; The WordPress Community team is looking for some folks to take the lead in hands-on organizing your Meetups</li>



<li><a href="https://wpincludes.me/">WP Includes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://www.meetup.com/philadelphia-wordpress-meetup-group/events/296006705">WordPress Insights</a>: WCUS Recap and WCEU Vision with Ruth Kalinka</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Transcript</h2>



<span id="more-15971"></span>



<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Josepha:</strong> Hello everyone. And welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it. And get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I&#8217;m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go!</p>



<p>(Intro Music)&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:00:29] <strong>Josepha:</strong> In our last episode, we talked about the Community Summit and some trends that I was seeing. I&#8217;ve spent a lot of time since then summarizing the notes from each session, and I was processing notes from the session about aligning WordPress Enterprise and WordPress Community, which is a session that explored the various strengths and weaknesses of WordPress from an enterprise perspective, but especially when it comes to contributing to or communicating about WordPress.</p>



<p>Now, my vantage point on analyses like these is generally pretty different. Since I work mainly in an operations space for the project, I&#8217;m almost always looking at the health and safety of our ecosystem, product excellence, funding, things like that. So, I especially like to attend sessions that are from the vantage point of people who are much closer to the work than I am.</p>



<p>[00:01:15] <strong>Josepha:</strong> When I looked at the brainstormed list of things from the session, my first inclination was to catalog the relationships between what we saw as a positive or a negative and the things that we saw as intrinsic to us versus part of the environment. But the more I look at it, the more I see that there&#8217;s confirmation of what I have always known to be true. That WordPress is a valuable starting point for web-based solutions of all sizes and any purpose. Let&#8217;s take a look at some of the biggest themes that shine through from that session. I was able to distill them down to about nine primary themes, but I especially want to focus on some that come up year after year in talking with our community.</p>



<p>[00:01:57] <strong>Josepha:</strong> The first, of course, is the community and ecosystem. If you&#8217;ve listened to this podcast 62 times, then you&#8217;ve heard me say at least like 60 times that the community is what sets us apart from other open source projects. But, I would encourage you to expand that understanding to include the ecosystem that the community provides.</p>



<p>The community not only helps to plan and create WordPress, our primary software, but it also makes it distributable through the Polyglots team and Accessibility and Docs and Training. It also makes it extendable through plugins and themes and all of the work that goes into reviewing plugins and themes and the support that&#8217;s provided to people who come to the WordPress.org site, trying to figure out how to make this thing work for them.</p>



<p>And we also, this community, make it knowable, not only through the community part with our event series but also in marketing and the videos that we provide on WordPress TV and all of the training and learning cohorts that we provide on learn.WordPress.org, all of those teams make WordPress learnable and knowable and easy to use and usable to more people and available across the world, regardless of whether you speak English or not. And so yeah, the community and the ecosystem are some of the things that makes WordPress valuable for enterprise, but also WordPress valuable in general.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:03:24] <strong>Josepha:</strong> The second is the software&#8217;s usability and flexibility. I said at WordCamp US that we exist for as long as people want to use our software, and that&#8217;s a funny little two-sided coin for us. WordPress remains very usable for folks who come to it in the same way that I came to it, which is as a user who is trying to accomplish a goal unrelated to WordPress. I didn&#8217;t start using WordPress because I wanted to figure out how WordPress worked or because I wanted to figure out how to contribute to WordPress. I came to WordPress because I was trying to market something, and WordPress was the best choice for that. But it&#8217;s also flexible for our brilliant developers out there who are doing things like building a suite of sites for NASA or creating bespoke social networks. So, our usability and flexibility, both of those things working together, are certainly one of the things that make me know that WordPress is incredibly valuable for anyone who needs to use it.</p>



<p>[00:04:22] <strong>Josepha:</strong> But the final thing is WordPress&#8217;s longevity or our resilience. So, I used to work at a marketing agency that served enterprise-level clients. And any time we pitched a new site build to a client, one of the main elements of discussion during decision-making was how long the decision would last. Do you want a page that you can launch in a day, run a six-week campaign through, and then abandon it forever? Or do you want a site that can take up to six weeks to build but can be yours to refine and hone for years after that? I know this seems like a silly example, but when you&#8217;re looking at the potential for a long-term bet, what you&#8217;re worried about, what you&#8217;re asking is, is this a software trusted in my industry? Is it time-tested by those companies I aspire to be? Is the available workforce composed of seasoned professionals or flash-in-the-pan peddlers of the latest craze? And of that workforce, how many will still be doing this in five years? </p>



<p>The question of how long we&#8217;ve been doing this and why it matters that WordPress has been here for 20 years and has no intention of going anywhere should be so much higher on everyone&#8217;s list of reasons to use this software. Yes, the WordPress software is powerful enough to be everything you might want it to be someday, but the WordPress ecosystem brought to us by this community has shown resilience through major breaking changes in 2008, 2016, 2018, 2020, and probably a lot of things between there that we have forgotten. So, if I were hoping to hedge my bets on a long-term solution, I would absolutely place those bets on this community, this ecosystem, and this software.&nbsp;</p>



<p>(Music interlude)&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:06:17] <strong>Josepha:</strong> And now, it&#8217;s time for our small list of big things. I actually have a very big list today, so I&#8217;m just gonna break it out into two chunks. The first chunk is that we actually have a lot of calls for feedback and testing right now. We have six calls for feedback and testing that I really could use your input on.</p>



<p>The first one is that we still are having that discussion about how to evolve the FSE outreach program. That program started as a way to get faster, more fluid user feedback, specifically about full site editing inside Gutenberg. But there is a question now about where it needs to exist, how it&#8217;s serving current project needs, and what the future project needs will be. And so stop by that one. That should be a good, lively discussion.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:07:06] <strong>Josepha:</strong> Speaking of discussions that are lively, we also have an update to the field guide. We have a proposed update to the field guide. This is not something that we&#8217;re looking to put in place for WordPress 6.4, just because that is coming so quickly. But it is something that we want to look at for future iterations of the field guide that come out with every major release. We want to make sure that we&#8217;re getting valuable information to the right people at the right time without having so much that it&#8217;s overwhelming but also without having so little that we miss really important things.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:07:47] <strong>Josepha:</strong> There is another request for feedback, which is about additional ideas on the future of WordPress events. I brought this up in the past. I think I mentioned it on one other small list of big things, but there&#8217;s still time. So, if you&#8217;ve been shy about sharing your ideas, let this be your sign to get brave. Go share your thoughts on what events of the future should be for us.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:08:03] <strong>Josepha:</strong> There&#8217;s also a proposal for updated support guidelines. This proposal comes out of a discussion that was had at WordCamp US, and so there is a summary of the discussion and then also the proposal that&#8217;s out there. I think that for all guidelines like this, support guidelines, and probably all things that require some review from ourselves, we always could stand to take a look at where those are, what brought us to where we are today, and what we can use to be better and more current in our client&#8217;s needs and our customers needs users needs as we are looking through those guidelines I think that the deadline for feedback on that is around the middle of September as well.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:08:47] <strong>Josepha:</strong> And then the final bit of feedback/call for testing is on performant translations. That is a testing call for feedback. Contributions to that can be made on GitHub as well if that&#8217;s something where you test it and you immediately know how to offer some patches to make things better. That&#8217;s great, but you can always just leave your feedback in a comment or a new support topic.&nbsp;</p>



<p>[00:09:19] <strong>Josepha:</strong> Okay, so that was the first chunk of the small list of big things. We have the second chunk of the small list of big things, which is to say that if all of that was new to you and sounds a little bit daunting and, you need some support to get started. There are also a couple of kind of group things that you can do in the coming weeks to get you started on that.&nbsp;</p>



<p>There is a new WordPress diversity training session that&#8217;s happening. It&#8217;s a two-day workshop for women, specifically in India, but other countries are welcome to join us, too. We&#8217;ll be thinking about how to pull together your first presentation proposal, I believe.</p>



<p>The next one is that the WordPress community team is looking for folks to learn more about organizing meetups. And so, I&#8217;ll include a link to that in the show notes as well, but if you&#8217;ve never done this before and that did not sound like a getting started thing, trust me, organizing meetups not only is something that is easy to do because it&#8217;s kind of casual, you can get people together like in a coffee shop to talk about WordPress, but also the team over there has excellent onboarding. And so give it a try; at the very least, give it a read.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The third thing on that set of things is that there&#8217;s a new group called WP Includes working to pair women in the WordPress community with one another for support and advice along their career paths. I will include a link to that in the show notes as well.</p>



<p>And then the final thing is that there is a meetup event that&#8217;s focused on flagship events coming up on September 21st. It will recap WordCamp US and host an open discussion for ideas for WordCamp Europe as well. Like I said, that&#8217;s going to take place on September 21st. I will include a link to that in the show notes as well.</p>



<p>[00:11:04] <strong>Josepha:</strong> If you don&#8217;t know where the show notes are, if you, sorry, if you&#8217;re listening to this on, like, Pocketcasts or Spotify or any other thingy, and you don&#8217;t know what I mean when I say the show notes, and you&#8217;ve literally never seen them in your life. You can go to WordPress.org/news/podcast, and there are transcripts and show notes with every podcast I put up, and that&#8217;s what I mean when I say that. WordPress.org/news/podcast, and then you get a bunch of links. It&#8217;ll be great.&nbsp;</p>



<p>That, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I&#8217;m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I&#8217;ll see you again in a couple of weeks.<br /></p>



<p>(Outro music)</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 18 Sep 2023 12:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Brett McSherry";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"Do The Woo Community: AI, WordPress and Woo with Alain Schlesser, Bud Kraus and Mark Westguard";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=76557";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"https://dothewoo.io/ai-wordpress-and-woo-with-alain-schlesser-bud-kraus-and-mark-westguard/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:469:"<p>Bud Kraus and Mark Westguard chat with Alain Schlesser about his story, and a look at AI, from coding to ecommerce to the ethics.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/ai-wordpress-and-woo-with-alain-schlesser-bud-kraus-and-mark-westguard/">AI, WordPress and Woo with Alain Schlesser, Bud Kraus and Mark Westguard</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 18 Sep 2023 09:07:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:99:"Gutenberg Times: Block Art and Attributes, Gato GraphQL and Command Palette – Weekend Edition 268";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=25616";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:105:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/block-art-and-attributes-gato-graphql-and-command-palette-weekend-edition-268/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15759:"<p>Howdy, </p>



<p>Are you also enjoying that last few weeks of summer-like weather in Europe? How is the weather in your part of the world? After I finish this newsletter, I&#8217;ll take a walk through the forest. I haven&#8217;t done this for a long time: <em>shinrin-yoku</em> (<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/forest-bathing-nature-walk-health">Forest bathing</a>) is good for the soul.  The forest behind my mother&#8217;s house has been familiar and hardly changed since I was a kid and lived with my grandmother in the same house. What is your favorite ritual to recover from many hours of screen time during the week? <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">Hit reply</a> or share in the comments.</p>



<p>Today&#8217;s newsletter has a little bit about WordPress 6.4 and, block building, much more about theme building and also looking a little bit beyond WordPress with GraphQL and Transformer. </p>



<p>I hope you enjoy it all this week again! </p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br /><em>Birgit</em></p>






<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </a></li></ul></div>
</div></div>




<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-word-press-release-information">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>



<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> held a Hallway Hangout: To <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/09/13/hallway-hangout-lets-chat-about-the-wordpress-6-4-evolving-the-fse-outreach-program/">chat about the WordPress 6.4 &amp; Evolving the FSE Outreach Program</a> and published a summary with the recording. She goes over the roadmap 6.4 post and identifies the state of the features. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In his fortnightly updates, <strong>Joen Asmussen</strong> lists the work by the WordPress Design team. In <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/09/11/design-share-aug-28-sep8/"><strong>Design Share: Aug 28-Sep8</strong></a> he highlighted: </p>



<ul>
<li>Interface for unlinking a style from inherited source&nbsp;</li>



<li>Refresh of the Hosting page</li>



<li>Sketch of a dismissible notification that lets you install missing fonts from the library.&nbsp;</li>



<li>Templates table</li>
</ul>



<img width="652" height="367" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Screenshot-2023-09-16-at-12.58.25.png?resize=652%2C367&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-25631" />



<div class="wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p class="is-style-no-vertical-margin"><strong>🎙️ </strong> Latest episode:  <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-90-new-testing-call-for-the-fse-program-gutenberg-16-7-and-wordpress-6-4/">Gutenberg Changelog #90 – New Testing Call for the FSE Program, Gutenberg 16.7 and WordPress 6.4</a> with Tammie Lister as special guest, hosted by Birgit Pauli-Haack</p>
</div></div>



<p>In her post on <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/12/core-editor-improvement-commanding-the-command-palette/"><strong>Core Editor Improvement: Commanding the Command Palette</strong></a> <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong>&nbsp;dives deep into the latest updates to the Command Palette, a new tool available with WordPress 6.3 designed to speed up your workflow.&nbsp;With work underway for WordPress 6.4, she gave a peek preview of what&#8217;s in store for the next iteration of this new option in your WordPress creation experience and a reminder of what it’s capable of already.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="0-p">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>



<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> takes a behind the scence stroll on how the Museum for Block Art collaborated with the organizers of WordCamps to highlight some of the art. <a href="https://block-museum.com/2023/09/11/from-pixels-to-reality-celebrating-wordcamp-eu-wordcamp-us-exhibits/">From Pixels to Reality: Celebrating WordCamp EU &amp; WordCamp US Exhibits</a></p>



<img width="652" height="326" src="https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/you-are-getting-sleepy_screenshot.png?resize=652%2C326&ssl=1" alt="You are getting sleepy by Ramon James" class="wp-image-25624" /><a href="https://block-museum.com/2022/03/10/you-are-getting-sleepy/">You are getting sleepy by Ramon James</a>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>My long-time friend <a href="https://twitter.com/JenSwish">Jen Swisher </a>takes you along the journey of <a href="https://jetpack.com/blog/wordpress-switch-from-classic-to-block-theme/"><strong>How to Switch from a Classic Theme to a Block Theme in&nbsp;WordPress</strong></a>. She explains first the option you have, and more importantly why you might consider switching. Then she goes into more practical steps on how to accomplish a migration from your current classic theme to a block theme. Eventually, I will have to follow on a similar path when converting Gutenberg Times to a block theme. At the moment I am unable to focus on such a task, but maybe I can sequester myself for a weekend and get it done. Have you made the jump yet? What did you encounter, are there any pitfalls, that surprised you? </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Munir Kamal </strong>of Gutenberg Hub released the new <a href="https://shop.gutenberghub.com/query-taxonomy-filter-block/"><strong>Query Taxonomy Filter Block</strong></a> to provide users and theme builders a way to extend the functionality of the core query loop. It&#8217;s a premium plugin that expands the capabilities of the core query block for more complex layouts and multiple filter options. It also offers a variety of display controls or facets and customization features.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>



<p>On his podcast, <em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/within-wordpress/id1684480798">Within WordPress</a></em>, <strong>Remkus De Vries</strong> had a chat with <strong>Ian Svoboda</strong> about creating courses for the WordPress ecosystem and a lot more: <strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17KJ5TLfuVY">On Block Themes, Custom Block development and a whole lotta WP CLI</a>. </strong>The conversation about Block Themes starts at the <a href="https://youtu.be/17KJ5TLfuVY?feature=shared&t=788">13:04 timestamp</a> (On the YouTube version.) Happy to hear the shout-outs to Fabian Kägy and Aurooba Ahmed, as well as the HTML Processor. The discussion of static vs. dynamic blocks, nothing new, but always interesting to hear other developer perspectives. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> announced the next phase for the Theme builders documentation overhaul: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/09/15/theme-handbook-overhaul-phase-3-publishing-content/"><strong>Theme Handbook Overhaul: Phase 3 (Publishing Content)</strong></a> and asked for public review of the last drafts of chapters. The <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/Documentation-Issue-Tracker/issues/816">tracking ticket </a>leads you to the single chapters for your perusal. Helping improve documentation is an excellent way to take a deep dive into building block themes. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>On this week&#8217;s Loop podcast, host <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/cr0ybot">Cory Hughart</a></strong> talked to Justin Tadlock on <strong><a href="https://blackbird.digital/podcast/28-writing-block-themes-with-justin-tadlock/">Writing Block Themes</a></strong> about his series of articles on the WordPress developer blog about adding custom controls to core blocks, theme scaffolding, and workflow scripts. They also discuss above mentioned Theme Documentation overhaul. The show notes provide a ton of resources for theme developers</p>




<p><strong>&nbsp;<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2022&#8221;</a>&nbsp;</strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test and Meta team from Jan. 2021 on. Updated by yours truly.  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/"><em>The index 2020 is here</em></a></p>




<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor. </h2>



<p>Save the date: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/14/hallway-hangout-whats-new-for-developers-in-wordpress-6-4/"><strong>Hallway Hangout: What’s new for developers in WordPress 6.4</strong></a>. On <strong>Thursday, October 12, 2023, at18:00 UTC, </strong>Nick Diego, Ryan Welcher and Justin Tadlock will host a casual conversation about the most important and exciting developer-related changes coming soon in WordPress 6.4. From Block&nbsp;Hooks&nbsp;and the Font Library to improved Editor flows and the new Twenty Twenty-Four theme, there is just so much to talk about.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>This month&#8217;s <em>Developer Hours</em> will cover: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/learn-wordpress-online-workshops/events/295482707/"><strong>Building better blocks with the &#8216;create-block&#8217; package</strong></a>. Nick Diego and Ryan Welcher will host the event and it will take place on <strong>September 27 at 14:00 UTC.</strong> The two developers will take a deep dive into the functionalities of the&nbsp;<a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/reference-guides/packages/packages-create-block/#available-commands" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">create-block</a>&nbsp;package. Developed to simplify and accelerate the process of building custom WordPress blocks, this package has become an indispensable tool for developers of all levels.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/losoviz"><strong>Leonardo Losoviz</strong></a>, released version 1.0 of the<a href="http://gatographql.com"> Gato GraphQL</a> plugin. It&#8217;s a rebranded version of GraphQL for WordPress plugin. It brings plenty of improvements, including </p>



<ul>
<li>the&nbsp;integration with the (Gutenberg) block editor, </li>



<li>support for&nbsp;private and password-protected endpoints, and </li>



<li>the&nbsp;availability of (commercial) extensions&nbsp;to extend the GraphQL schema and provide further functionality.</li>
</ul>



<p>This version Gato GraphQL is also on its way to the WordPress plugin repository. On the <a href="https://github.com/GatoGraphQL/GatoGraphQL/releases/tag/1.0.6">GitHub space</a>, Losoviz shared that he based part of the block feature on the <em>WordPress VIP team&#8217;s <a href="https://github.com/Automattic/vip-block-data-api/">Block Data API</a>. </em></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Michael Burridge</strong> created a step-by-step tutorial on <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/09/understanding-block-attributes/"><strong>Understanding block attributes</strong></a>. There’s more to block attributes than meets the eye. Attributes contain data needed by your block, and that data can be retrieved from numerous locations, not just the block delimiter. This post shows you the ways.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>If you work in React and JSX you might enjoy this very nifty tool: <a href="https://transform.tools/html-to-jsx"><strong>Transform HTML to JSX</strong></a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/ritz078">Ritesh Kumar</a>. Just paste the HTML of your designs into one box and get well formatted JSX in the second box. </p>



<p>Kumar and 30+ other contributors created transform tools for all kinds of purposes, ie: JSON to JSDocs, JSON to GraphQL, CSS to JS Objects. </p>




<p><strong><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. <br />Have you been using it? Hit reply and let me know.</p>



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge" /></p>




<p class="has-text-align-right has-small-font-size"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href="mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com">them via email</a> or send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>. </p>



<p class="has-text-align-right has-small-font-size">For questions to be answered on the <a href="http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />




<p>Featured Image: Lego building block  <a href="https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/cc0/">CC0</a> licensed <a href="https://wordpress.org/photos/photo/366646a25b/">photo</a> by <a href="https://wordpress.org/photos/author/ekodesign/">ekodesign</a> from the <a href="https://wordpress.org/photos/">WordPress Photo Directory</a>.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p class="has-text-align-left"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>



<form class="wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait" action="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/" method="post"><div class="ngl-form-container"><div class="ngl-form-field"><label class="ngl-form-label" for="ngl_email"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class="ngl-form-input"><input type="email" class="ngl-form-input-text" name="ngl_email" id="ngl_email" /></div></div><button type="submit" class="ngl-form-button">Subscribe</button><p class="ngl-form-text">We hate spam, too and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay"><div class="ngl-message-svg-wrap"></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay-text">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type="hidden" name="ngl_list_id" id="ngl_list_id" value="26f81bd8ae" /><input type="hidden" name="ngl_double_optin" id="ngl_double_optin" value="yes" /></form>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 16 Sep 2023 11:17:50 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:98:"WPTavern: Developers Claim Damaged Trust Following Public Confrontations with WordPress Leadership";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=148825";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:109:"https://wptavern.com/developers-claim-damaged-trust-following-public-confrontations-with-wordpress-leadership";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13901:"<p>The WordPress community is ending two days of heated discussions that rapidly descended into a mire of unbridled emotional confrontations across multiple social channels, following a tweet from John Blackbourn that <a href="https://wptavern.com/developers-raise-concerns-about-wordpress-com-plugin-listings-outranking-wordpress-org-on-google">raised concerns about WordPress.com plugin listings outranking WordPress.org on Google Search</a>.</p>



<p>Developers expressed concerns about the SEO impact of the practice of cloning WordPress.org&#8217;s plugin directory for use on WordPress.com, with no backlinks to the original plugin. Another concern is that it perpetuates the longstanding confusion between WordPress.org and WordPress.com.</p>



<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think the SEO concern is real, and by that I mean that besides John&#8217;s screenshot, which I think is related to the .org en-gb subdomain decision/bug,&#8221; Matt Mullenweg told the Tavern when asked whether WordPress.com is considering not indexing these pages that duplicate content from WordPress.org. </p>



<p>&#8220;For general searches I&#8217;m seeing .com 5 pages down,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Just looking at traffic to those pages, they don&#8217;t seem to be getting much if any from search engines! So I&#8217;m not really concerned about SEO of those pages.</p>



<p>&#8220;The vast majority of the traffic to those is to logged in users. When they click &#8216;manage&#8217; they can easily install it across multiple sites or see where it&#8217;s already installed, which actually works across .com and Jetpack sites.&#8221;</p>



<p>He offered a similar explanation to Freemius founder Vova Feldman on X, who claimed that WordPress.com has an SEO advantage over independent plugins.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I think you're built on an assumption which is easily testable and false in my tests so far: "DOT com has an SEO advantage&#8230;"<br /><br />As an easy one to look at, I did a logged-out search for [seo plugin for wordpress]. First page of results is now ads, from WP Engine, SEMRush, AIOSEO,…</p>&mdash; Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1702346538339459518?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2023</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Plugin developers also expressed concerns about new users arriving to a plugin&#8217;s duplicated page on WordPress.com and seeing that the plugin is Free only on the (paid) Business plan. This gives the visitor the impression that the plugin isn&#8217;t available for free elsewhere, because there is no link back to WordPress.org with an explanation.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="2402" height="1118" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Screen-Shot-2023-09-15-at-10.26.00-AM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-148876" />



<p>Many WordPress.org plugin authors were not aware until recently that their plugin pages are being scraped for use on WordPress.com. Yesterday, <a href="https://patchstack.com/articles/patchstack-is-free-on-the-official-wordpress-repository/">Patchstack updated its readme file</a> to ensure that WordPress.com users and visitors are made aware that the plugin is available for free in the official WordPress plugin repository, using the following text: </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>This plugin can be downloaded for free without any paid subscription from&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://wordpress.org/" target="_blank">the official WordPress repository.</a></p>
</blockquote>



<p>&#8220;I was at a Python conference last week and a guy came to our booth and said he has a WordPress site but he hasen’t been able to purchase any plugins yet,&#8221; Patchstack CEO Oliver Sild said. &#8220;I told him that they are all free, and then it turned out he had a WordPress.com site where he has to pay to install any plugins. These people think that THIS IS the WordPress.&#8221;</p>



<p>When asked if WordPress.com could at least link back to the .org plugin for logged-out views to eliminate some of the confusion, Mullenweg confirmed that he told Sild that WordPress.com would work on adding links to the .org equivalent page this week.</p>



<p>&#8220;But that confusion that people claim is causing huge issues for WordPress isn&#8217;t supported by the numbers or growth of non-.com solutions over 17 years now,&#8221; Mullenweg said. </p>



<p>&#8220;So at some point we should stop accepting it as within our top 100 issues for WordPress.</p>



<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s much more likely like a road bump for some newbies, than an actual blocker, not unlike learning the difference between categories and tags, or how to identify a normal-looking comment that&#8217;s actually spam.&#8221;</p>



<p>In <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1702391616764289222">response</a> to WordPress developer Daniel Schutzsmith saying that WordPress.com is causing confusion for OSS, Mullenweg contended that it &#8220;creates a false dichotomy between WP on .com and &#8216;open source software.&#8217; Every site on .com is part of the OSS community as much as on any other host. </p>



<p>&#8220;When there is confusion, it assumes that it&#8217;s a top issue for WordPress. Nothing about WP&#8217;s growth, including vis a vis other projects, indicates that the existence of a .com and .org with the same name has held us back.&#8221;</p>



<p>In support of his claims about the growth of non-WordPress.com solutions, he cited a W3Techs report on hosting company usage stats with extrapolated revenue on <a href="https://poststatus.com/">Post Status</a> Slack.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1226" height="1634" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/image.png" alt="" class="wp-image-148881" />



<p>&#8220;On revenue: If you extrapolate out public domain numbers with plan pricing, and look at public filings like the amount GoDaddy makes from hosting and what % of that hosting is WP-powered, you pretty quickly see that GoDaddy, Newfold/Bluehost, Siteground, Hostinger, and WP Engine make more than .com from WordPress hosting.,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;You can check out those companies on the&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledges/?order=hours" target="_blank">five for the future page</a>.&#8221;</p>



<p>Mullenweg has <a href="https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-parasitic-company-and-an-existential-threat-to-wordpress-future">previously criticized large hosting companies</a> for what he perceives to be a lack of support for the open source WordPress and WooCommerce projects in proportion to how much they benefit from the use of these platforms. His comments in Post Status yesterday indicate that while he is still unsatisfied with their core contributions, he acknowledges these companies as important to WordPress&#8217; overall growth.</p>



<p>&#8220;By the way, despite not looking great for core contributions, I think each of those companies has been&nbsp;<em>essential</em>&nbsp;for the growth of WordPress, and particularly the work they invest into upgrade PHP, MySQL, core auto-updates, plugin auto-updates, and security are crucial for the health of our ecosystem,&#8221; Mullenweg said.  </p>



<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s &#8216;cynically cool&#8217; to hate on some of the bigger ones, but it&#8217;s a free and open market, none of their WP users are locked in and could easily switch to other hosts if they weren&#8217;t happy with the price and value they were getting. In fact by that measure, you could argue they&#8217;ve all done a much better job than .com at connecting with customers. Maybe I spend too much of .com&#8217;s engineering and investment on things like 2fa/passkeys, reader/notifications, stats, the mobile apps, Gutenberg, and Calypso and not enough on marketing or paying off affiliate host review sites.&#8221;</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The Damaging Community Impact of Public Confrontations</h3>



<p>Mullenweg continued to be active on Post Status Slack and X (Twitter) throughout the day, attempting to <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1702341579850055809">debunk claims</a> that Automattic is exploiting open source contributors for profit. These interactions included <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1702403896562352285">personal attacks</a> which followed after Mullenweg blocked WordPress Marketing Team co-rep Sé Reed who <a href="https://twitter.com/sereedmedia/status/1702032589287211305">claimed</a> that he is standing in the way of contributors improving the open source project and that he was &#8220;vilifying, dismissing, and insulting&#8221; the WordPress community. </p>



<p>Some perceived him blocking Reed as him shutting down criticism, despite the fact that he said this is the first person he has ever blocked on Twitter. Although her comments were tangential to the original issue (the impact of the WordPress.com plugin listings), they became a focal point after Mullenweg lashed out at developer and product owner Dan Cameron who accused him of &#8220;actively doing more harm than good.&#8221;</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dan, you've built the Search Everything plugin which was popular early on, at some point got sold to Zemanta and abandoned. Hasn't been updated in 6 years.<br /><br />You did "Smart eCart" for five years which lost to WP-eCommerce and Woo.<br /><br />You did Sprout Apps / Invoices which has 2k…</p>&mdash; Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1702403896562352285?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 14, 2023</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>I reached out to Automattic-sponsored WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden-Chomphosy who said she did not have additional comments about what has happened with the recent confrontational exchanges, nor the impact on the community. </p>



<p>&#8220;I find it kinda refreshing to see Matt throw an elbow or two and stick up for himself,&#8221; WP All Import Product Manager Joe Guilmette said in Post Status Slack.</p>



<p>&#8220;It’s not the greatest look, but that’s for his PR people to sort out. I don’t have any idea how I’d handle being criticized so heavily for years by the people who built businesses and careers on a project that I helped bring in to the world, but it probably would be a lot worse than calling a few people out on Twitter.&#8221;</p>



<p>Others who gathered in various Slack instances, watching things play out on Twitter, felt collectively traumatized by witnessing the interactions between Mullenweg and different community members.</p>



<p>&#8220;I think Matt did way more damage this time than ever before,&#8221; one prominent WordPress consultant said, requesting to remain anonymous.  &#8220;It generated good but quite wearied and sad expressions of grief and anguish in my company Slack and no doubt many others.</p>



<p>&#8220;The instantly and deeply (however crudely researched) personal nature of Matt’s attacks leads people to paranoid fears that he has a shitlist of enemies who are just regular people, not giant companies etc. It’s a fearsome kind of punching down where the community gets stuck in the psychological position of the children of an abusive parent. Different personalities and different perspectives based on our own experiences lead us to different coping responses. But it’s very ugly now to have the paranoia confirmed as Matt basically taunted the fact that he feeds on what he’s told second or third hand about things others say about him in private.&#8221;</p>



<p>Matt Cromwell, Senior Director of Customer Experience at StellarWP, said that discussions that start and stay on X/Twitter generally have very little fruit, especially when resolving something as complicated as the WordPress.com plugins SEO issue. </p>



<p>&#8220;The community keeps leaning on this platform for these discussions but things like the impact of duplicate content on two sites both called &#8216;WordPress&#8217; requires more nuanced and trusting conversations which Twitter can&#8217;t provide,&#8221; Cromwell said. </p>



<p>&#8220;Mullenweg used the whole thing as an excuse to make so many of the plugin owners that drive WP adoption feel small. It was extremely hurtful to the trust product owners put into the leadership of the WP project. I expect to see more product owners prefer to build SaaS integrations with WP rather than dedicated products because they don&#8217;t trust that Mullenweg has their mutual interest in mind at all anymore – and I don&#8217;t see a way for him to ever put that genie back in the bottle after this behavior both on Twitter and in Post Status Slack.&#8221;</p>



<p>WordPress developer and contributor Alex Standiford said Mullenweg&#8217;s public confrontations yesterday are &#8220;a bad look for WordPress, and deflate the passionate contributors who genuinely believe in WordPress.&#8221; Despite recent events, he continues to believe in the larger impact of people building open source software together.</p>



<p>&#8220;I believe that WordPress isn&#8217;t software,&#8221; Standiford <a href="https://alexstandiford.com/micro/2294">wrote on his blog</a>. &#8220;It&#8217;s not community. It&#8217;s not a single person, no matter how significant that person thinks they are. I believe that WordPress is the manifestation of a belief that the web is at its best when it&#8217;s open. If I genuinely believed that forking WordPress would be good for WordPress, and the web, I&#8217;d contribute to it over the existing platform in a heartbeat.&#8221;</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 15 Sep 2023 21:34:22 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:119:"Post Status: Accessibility in Site Editor, Openverse Wins an Award, What’s New for Devs in WP 6.4, Fields API Summary";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=154835";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"https://poststatus.com/openverse-wins-an-award-whats-new-for-devs-in-wp-6-4-fields-api-summary/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18822:"<h2 class="wp-block-heading alignfull" id="h-this-week-at-wordpress-org-september-11-2023">This Week at WordPress.org (September 11, 2023)</h2>


<div class="has-background has-theme-palette-8-background-color wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt">Openverse Wins the 2023 OEG Open Infrastructure Award. Get a sneak peek into the exciting developments for developers in the upcoming WordPress 6.4 release. </p></div>


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<div class="gb-container gb-container-5e804289">

<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-news"><a href="https://wordpress.org/news">News</a></h2>

</div>


<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/09/openverse-wins-the-2023-oeg-open-infrastructure-award/">Openverse Wins the 2023 OEG Open Infrastructure Award</a></li>
</ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-community-summit-notes"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/summit">Community Summit Notes</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/summit/2023/09/15/community-summit-discussion-notes-increasing-contributor-recognition-and-celebration/">Community Summit Discussion Notes: Increasing contributor recognition and celebration</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/summit/2023/09/06/community-summit-discussion-notes-iterating-on-the-team-rep-role/">Community Summit Discussion Notes: Iterating on the Team Rep role</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/summit/2023/09/04/community-summit-discussion-notes-open-source-participation-in-global-legislation/">Community Summit Discussion Notes: Open Source participation in global legislation</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/summit/2023/09/03/community-summit-discussion-notes-communication-and-collaboration-finding-your-way-around-wordpress/">Community Summit Discussion Notes: Communication and Collaboration – Finding Your Way Around WordPress</a></li>
</ul>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-9 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress 6.4</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/07/18/wordpress-6-4-whats-on-your-wishlist/">WordPress 6.4: What’s on your wishlist?</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/06/05/wordpress-6-4-development-cycle/">WordPress 6.4 Development Cycle</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/14/hallway-hangout-whats-new-for-developers-in-wordpress-6-4/">Hallway Hangout: What’s new for developers in WordPress 6.4</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">

</div>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-14 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
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<div class="wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-12 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/09/14/xpost-hallway-hangout-lets-chat-about-improving-accessibility-in-the-site-editor/">X-post: Hallway Hangout: Let’s chat about improving accessibility in the Site Editor</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/09/13/accessibility-team-meeting-agenda-september-15-2023/">Accessibility Team Meeting Agenda: September 15, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2023/09/13/accessibility-office-hours/">Accessibility office hours</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-community"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community">Community</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/09/13/report-wpdiversity-inclusion-and-diverse-speaker-workshops-july-to-august-2023/">Report: #WPDiversity Inclusion and Diverse Speaker Workshops July to August 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/09/11/report-wpdiversity-inclusion-workshops-april-to-june-2023/">Report: #WPDiversity Inclusion Workshops April to June 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/09/07/resource-and-handbook-updates-in-q3/">Resource and Handbook Updates in Q3</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2023/09/06/community-team-meeting-agenda-for-7-september-2023/">Community Team Meeting Agenda for 7 September, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-core"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core">Core</a> </h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/14/hallway-hangout-whats-new-for-developers-in-wordpress-6-4/">Hallway Hangout: What’s new for developers in WordPress 6.4</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-developer-blog"><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/">Developer Blog</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/09/understanding-block-attributes/">Understanding block attributes</a></li>



<li><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2023/09/whats-new-for-developers-september-2023/">What’s new for developers? (September 2023)</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-meetings">Meetings</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/14/fields-api-progress-summary-wcus-contributor-day-2023-2/">Fields API Chat Summary: September 13, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/12/default-theme-chat-agenda-september-13th-2023/">Default Theme Chat Agenda: September 13th, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/12/dev-chat-agenda-september-13-2023/">Dev Chat agenda, September 13, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/12/dev-chat-summary-september-06-2023/">Dev Chat Summary, September 06, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/12/editor-chat-agenda-september-13th-2023/">Editor Chat Agenda: September 13th 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design">Design</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/08/28/design-share-aug-14-aug-25/">Design Share: Aug 14-Aug 25</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/08/18/design-specific-triage/">Bringing Back the Weekly Design Triage</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2023/08/10/admin-design-kickoff/">Admin Design Kickoff</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs">Docs</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/09/11/documentation-team-update-september-11-2023/">Documentation Team Update – September 11, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta">Meta</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/meta/2023/08/23/introducing-the-wordpress-org-github-invite-tool/">Introducing the WordPress.org GitHub Invite tool</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-openverse"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse">Openverse</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/09/15/openverse-2024-planning-we-want-your-ideas/">Openverse 2024 Planning: We Want Your Ideas!</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/09/13/openverse-wins-open-infrastructure-award-from-oe-global/">Openverse wins Open Infrastructure award from OE Global</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/2023/09/12/community-meeting-recap-2023-09-12/">Community Meeting Recap (2023-09-12)</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-performance"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/performance/">Performance</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/12/performance-chat-summary-12-september-2023/">Performance Chat Summary: 12 September 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-photos"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/photos">Photos</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/photos/2023/08/28/august-photo-directory-update/">August Photo Directory Update</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-plugins"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins">Plugins</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2023/08/21/xpost-wordpresscs-3-0-0-is-now-available/">WordPressCS 3.0.0 is now available</a></li>
</ul>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-polyglots"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots">Polyglots</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2023/09/13/agenda-weekly-polyglots-chat-september-13-2023-1300-utc/">Agenda: Weekly Polyglots Chat – September 13, 2023 (13:00 UTC)</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-project">Project</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/project/2023/09/06/documentation-translation-localization/">Proposal: Documentation translation/localization</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-support"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support">Support</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/09/agenda-for-september-14th-support-meeting-2/">Agenda for September 14th Support Meeting</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2023/08/proposal-for-updated-support-guidelines/">Proposal for updated support guidelines</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability">Sustainability</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2023/09/15/sustainability-chat-summary-september-15-2023/">Sustainability Chat Summary, September 15, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/2023/09/13/sustainability-team-in-the-wordpress-community-summit-2023/">Sustainability Team in the WordPress Community Summit 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-test"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test">Test</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/09/14/hallway-hangout-lets-chat-about-improving-accessibility-in-the-site-editor/">Hallway Hangout: Let’s chat about improving accessibility in the Site Editor</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2023/09/13/hallway-hangout-lets-chat-about-the-wordpress-6-4-evolving-the-fse-outreach-program/">Hallway Hangout: Let’s chat about the WordPress 6.4 &amp; Evolving the FSE Outreach Program</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/09/11/test-team-update-11-september-2023/">Test Team Update: 11 September 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-theme"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/theme">Theme</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2023/09/13/themes-team-meeting-notes-september-12-2023/">Themes Team Meeting Notes –&nbsp;September 12, 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/updates/2023/09/13/themes-team-update-september-13-2023/">Themes team update September 13, 2023</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-training"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training">Training</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/09/11/training-team-meeting-recap-5th-september-2023/">Training Team Meeting Recap – 5th September 2023</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/09/05/wordcamp-us-2023-contributor-day-recap/">WordCamp US 2023 Contributor Day Recap</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/09/05/lets-share-our-notes-from-the-community-summit/">Let’s share our notes from the Community Summit</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/08/24/information-sources-for-wordpress-6-4/">Information Sources for WordPress 6.4</a></li>



<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2023/08/24/looking-for-feedback-learning-pathway-outlines/">Looking for feedback: Learning pathway outlines</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-tutorials"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorials">Tutorials</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/the-wordpress-database/">The WordPress Database</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/creating-your-own-custom-synced-or-non-synced-patterns/">Creating your own custom synced or non-synced patterns</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/scheduling-posts-and-pages/">Scheduling posts and pages</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-online-workshops">Online Workshops</h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=common-apis-options">Common APIs – Options</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=hallway-hangout-whats-new-for-developers-in-wordpress-6-4">Hallway Hangout: What’s new for developers in WordPress 6.4</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=common-wordpress-apis-http-request-api">Common WordPress APIs – HTTP Request API</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=apac-creating-custom-patterns-synced-or-non-synced">APAC: Creating custom patterns: synced or non-synced</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=creating-custom-patterns-synced-or-non-synced">Creating custom patterns: synced or non-synced</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=getting-started-with-a-wordpress-org-account-4">Getting Started with a WordPress.org Account</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=getting-started-with-a-wordpress-org-account-3">Getting Started with a WordPress.org Account</a></li>



<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=how-to-contribute-to-wordpress-by-just-being-helpful">How to contribute to WordPress by just being helpful</a></li>
</ul>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-courses"><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/courses">Courses</a></h3>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/course/wordpress-community-team-supporter-basics/">WordPress Community Team Supporter Basics</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/tv">WordPress TV</a></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/tv/2023/06/15/enhancing-slide-management-for-video-publications/">Enhancing Slide Management for Video Publications</a></li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-wptv">WPTV</h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>



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<p class="has-theme-palette-7-background-color has-background">Thanks for reading our WP dot .org roundup! Each week we are highlighting the news and discussions coming from the good folks making WordPress possible. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, you need to be engaged with them and their work. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. <br /><br /><strong>Are you interested in giving back and contributing your time and skills to WordPress.org?</strong>   <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/article/contributing-to-wordpress/">Start Here ›</a><br /><br /><strong>Get our weekly WordPress community news digest</strong> — Post Status&#8217; <a href="https://poststatus.com/news/week-in-review/">Week in Review</a> — covering the WP/Woo news plus significant writing and podcasts. It&#8217;s also available in <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter">our newsletter</a>.  </p>



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<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 15 Sep 2023 18:54:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Courtney Robertson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"Do The Woo Community: WooBits, the First Look into the Do the Woo Network and WooSesh is Live";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=76541";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:65:"https://dothewoo.io/first-look-at-do-the-woo-network-and-woosesh/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:428:"<p>This week I focus on giving you a bit more news around our new Do the Woo network and our partnership with WooSesh.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/first-look-at-do-the-woo-network-and-woosesh/">WooBits, the First Look into the Do the Woo Network and WooSesh is Live</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 15 Sep 2023 14:00:08 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:72:"WPTavern: WooSesh 2023 Publishes Speaker Lineup, Launches Seshies Awards";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=148773";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"https://wptavern.com/woosesh-2023-publishes-speaker-lineup-launches-seshies-awards";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2446:"<p><a href="https://woosesh.com/">WooSesh 2023</a>, the virtual conference for WooCommerce store builders, will be broadcast live on October 10-12. This year&#8217;s theme is &#8220;Next Generation Commerce.&#8221; Registration is not yet open, but the speaker lineup and broadcast schedule have just been published. Over the course of three days, WooSesh will feature 31 speakers across 23 sessions.</p>



<p>The event will kick off with the State of the Woo address, delivered by WooCommerce CEO Paul Maiorana and other product leaders from the company. Speakers will cover a wide range of topics like complexities of sales tax and product taxability, accessibility, block themes, security, AI tools, and automation, with case studies and workshops mixed in.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">New in 2023: The Seshies</h2>



<p>WooSesh organizer Brian Richards is launching &#8220;<a href="https://woosesh.com/seshies">The Seshies</a>&#8221; this year, a community awards ceremony that will recognize the best examples of the WooCommerce ecosystem across six categories: Innovation, Store, Extension, Agency, Developer, and Community Advocate.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1414" height="596" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Screen-Shot-2023-09-14-at-11.00.46-PM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-148855" />



<p><br />The Seshies will include a community awards ceremony that will celebrate the winners. Anyone can <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfobtJGqOszioOSTM4IMkdDbiIi44OhTZgFg1PXidnwWksEsQ/viewform">nominate</a> candidates for the awards, and participants can even nominate themselves and their own WooCommerce projects. </p>



<p>&#8220;These awards are something that have been on my heart for quite some time,&#8221; Richards said. &#8220;And now, after 6 years of hosting WooSesh and 10 years of running WPSessions, I think I&#8217;ve amassed enough authority and (critically) a wide enough reach to deliver awards, on your behalf, that have real meaning.&#8221;</p>



<p>The week before the event, Richards plans to publish the top three nominees in each category. The community will vote throughout the first two days of WooSesh and the winners will be announced on the final day. Winners will receive a digital badge of recognition and Richards said he is also working on producing physical awards to ship to winners anywhere in the world.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 15 Sep 2023 03:34:32 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"WPTavern: ActivityPub 1.0.0 Released, Introducing Blog-Wide Accounts and New Blocks";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=148817";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"https://wptavern.com/activitypub-1-0-0-released-introducing-blog-wide-accounts-and-new-blocks";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3149:"<p>Version 1.0.0 of the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/">ActivityPub plugin</a> was released this week with major updates that make it possible to have a blog-wide account, instead of just individual author accounts, where followers receive updates from all authors. This new feature allows people to follow blogs on decentralized platforms like Mastodon (and many others) with replies automatically published back to the blog as comments. </p>



<p>In the ActivityPub plugin settings, users can check &#8220;Enable blog&#8221; to have the blog become an ActivityPub profile. Authors can be enabled at the same time as a blog-wide profile.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1662" height="914" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Screen-Shot-2023-09-14-at-3.15.41-PM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-148831" />



<p>Activities originating from a Blog profile can be further customized through the existing post content and image settings. Users can also set the activity object type to default, article, or WordPress post format which maps the post format to the ActivityPub object type. Supported post types include posts, pages, and media. Note that the blog-wide profile only works with sites that have rewrite rules enabled. </p>



<img width="1590" height="920" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Screen-Shot-2023-09-14-at-3.33.58-PM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-148832" />



<p>An experimental hashtags setting is also available, which adds hashtags in the content as native tags and replaces the #tag with the tag link. Users should be aware that it may still produce HTML or CSS errors.</p>



<p>ActivityPub 1.0.0 introduces two new blocks &#8211; one for displaying Fediverse Followers and the other for displaying a &#8220;Follow&#8221; button to allow people to follow the blog or author on the Fediverse. The Follower system has also gotten a complete rewrite based on Custom Post Types.</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<img width="1096" height="782" src="https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Screen-Shot-2023-09-14-at-3.57.41-PM.png" alt="" class="wp-image-148835" />



<p>Other notable updates in this release include the following: </p>



<ul>
<li>Signature Verification: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/spec/security/</li>



<li>Simple caching</li>



<li>Collection endpoints for Featured Tags and Featured Posts</li>



<li>Better handling of Hashtags in mobile apps</li>



<li>Update: Improved linter (PHPCS)</li>



<li>Fixed: Load the plugin later in the WordPress code lifecycle to avoid errors in some requests</li>



<li>Fixed: Updating posts</li>



<li>Fixed: Hashtag now support CamelCase and UTF-8</li>
</ul>



<p>Automattic acquired the plugin in March 2023 from German developer <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/pfefferle/">Matthias Pfefferle</a>, who joined the company to continue improving support for federated platforms. Next on the roadmap for the ActivityPub plugin is threaded comments support and replacing shortcodes with blocks for layout.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 14 Sep 2023 22:43:20 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"WordPress.org blog: Openverse Wins the 2023 OEG Open Infrastructure Award";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=15967";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:89:"https://wordpress.org/news/2023/09/openverse-wins-the-2023-oeg-open-infrastructure-award/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2336:"<img width="1800" height="1013" src="https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2023/09/openverse-image.png?resize=1800%2C1013&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-15959" />



<p>WordPress is excited to announce that <a href="https://openverse.org/">Openverse</a> has been awarded the <a href="https://awards.oeglobal.org/awards/2023/open-infrastructure/openverse/"><strong>2023 Open Education Award for Excellence</strong></a> in the <strong>Open Infrastructure</strong> category!</p>



<p>The Open Education Awards for Excellence, organized by the non-profit organization <a href="https://www.oeglobal.org/">Open Education Global (OEG)</a>, celebrate people, resources, and initiatives that have significantly contributed to the open education field and community. This year, they received 172 nominations across 16 award categories, representing individuals and projects from 38 countries.</p>



<p>This award honors Openverse&#8217;s work to make it easy for everyone to discover and use open educational resources. The award reviewers were particularly impressed by <strong>Openverse&#8217;s <a href="https://twitter.com/WordPress/status/1514349743144685577">one-click attribution feature</a></strong>. Moreover, they highlighted the tool’s ability to filter searches by source collections and other parameters, such as image orientation and specific license, which they noted “provides seekers of open content important affordances to find clearly licensed media they can reuse.”&nbsp;</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p><em>“This is an exceptional search engine for the open education community. The one click attribution copy for images makes attribution very straight-forward and easy, even for novice users. The design is excellent; the results are returned fast.”</em> </p>
<cite>Award reviewer for the 2023 OEG Award for Open Infrastructure </cite></blockquote>



<p>This recognition not only underscores Openverse and WordPress&#8217;s commitment to open content but also celebrates the work of their dedicated contributors, community, and partners in advancing open education and creative works.</p>



<p><a href="https://awards.oeglobal.org/awards/2023/open-infrastructure/openverse/">Learn more about this Openverse award on the OEG page</a>.</p>



<p><strong>Congratulations, Openverse!</strong></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 14 Sep 2023 18:04:57 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:20:"Madison Swain-Bowden";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:36;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:72:"Do The Woo Community: Always Practicing and Learning with Artemy Kaydash";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=76517";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"https://dothewoo.io/always-practicing-and-learning-with-artemy-kaydash/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:418:"<p>Backend WordPress and WooCommerce developer, Artemy Kaydash, shares his dev story and the importance of always learning.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/always-practicing-and-learning-with-artemy-kaydash/">Always Practicing and Learning with Artemy Kaydash</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 14 Sep 2023 13:05:46 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:37;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:88:"Do The Woo Community: A WCUS Recap with Topher DeRosia, Raquel Manriquez and Cory Miller";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=76507";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:36:"https://dothewoo.io/wcus-2023-recap/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:363:"<p>Our final recap of WordCamp US with Topher DeRosia, Raquel Manriquez and Cory Miller</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/wcus-2023-recap/">A WCUS Recap with Topher DeRosia, Raquel Manriquez and Cory Miller</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 14 Sep 2023 07:15:30 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:38;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:113:"WPTavern: Developers Raise Concerns About WordPress.com Plugin Listings Outranking WordPress.org on Google Search";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=148759";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:117:"https://wptavern.com/developers-raise-concerns-about-wordpress-com-plugin-listings-outranking-wordpress-org-on-google";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12039:"<p>WordPress core developer John Blackbourn sparked a heated discussion yesterday when he posted an image of his WordPress User Switching plugin ranking higher for the WordPress.com listing than the page on WordPress.org.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Why has <a href="https://twitter.com/wordpressdotcom?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@wordpressdotcom</a> replicated the entire <a href="https://t.co/oTA9NDVkFk">https://t.co/oTA9NDVkFk</a> plugin directory on its .com domain name? Searching for some plugin names now results in the .com page ranking higher than .org. Fuck the long term health of the FOSS project, let's make some money, right? <a href="https://t.co/UD40BN3Z6g">pic.twitter.com/UD40BN3Z6g</a></p>&mdash; John Blackbourn (@johnbillion) <a href="https://twitter.com/johnbillion/status/1701765939534893475?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 13, 2023</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Blackbourn later apologized for the inflammatory wording of the original post, but maintains that .com plugin listings being displayed higher in search results is not healthy for the open source project.</p>



<p>&#8220;This was a frustrated 2AM tweet so I could have worded it better, but the point still stands,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The plugin pages on dotcom are little more than marketing landing pages for the dotcom service and they&#8217;re strongly competing with the canonical dotorg pages. That&#8217;s not healthy.&#8221;</p>



<p>Several others <a href="https://twitter.com/konstruktors/status/1701851307454185628">commented</a> about having <a href="https://poststatus.slack.com/archives/CHNM7Q7T8/p1693475484734239">similar experiences</a> when searching for plugins, finding that the WordPress.com often ranks higher, although many others still see WordPress.org pages ranked highest. </p>



<p>Blackbourn <a href="https://twitter.com/johnbillion/status/1702035969237504140">said</a> his chief concern &#8220;is the process that introduced the directory clone on .com either disregarded its potential impact on .org in favor of inbounds or never considered it in the first place &#8211; both very concerning given the ranking power of .com.&#8221;</p>



<p>The tweet highlighted the frustration some members of the open source community feel due to the perennial branding confusion between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Nothing short of renaming WordPress.com will eliminate the longstanding confusion, but this is unlikely as Automattic benefits from tightly coupling its products to WordPress’ name recognition.</p>



<p>&#8220;Duplicate content confuses the human + search engines,&#8221; SEO consultant Rebecca Gill <a href="https://twitter.com/rebeccagill/status/1702022257533493726">said</a>. &#8220;Search engines won&#8217;t like it, nor will humans trying to find solutions to their problems. There is already enough confusion w/ .org + .com for non-tech folks. This amplifies it. Noindex .com content or canonical it to .org.&#8221;</p>



<p>Participants in the discussion maintain that the duplication of the open source project&#8217;s plugin directory &#8220;<a href="https://twitter.com/pedro_gaspar/status/1701907080997707966">creates ambiguity and confusion</a>&#8221; but WordPress co-creator and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg contends it also gives plugin authors greater distribution.</p>



<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s providing distribution to the plugin authors, literally millions and millions of installs,&#8221; Mullenweg <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1701973661110915205">said</a>. He elaborated on how the cloned plugin directory is integrated with Calypso, WordPress.com&#8217;s admin interface:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>.com has its own plugin directory which includes the .org one, it provides more installs and distribution to the plugin authors, which helps their usage and for commercial ones gets them more sales. The plugins are not altered. .com takes no cut for the distribution.</p>
</blockquote>



<p>When participants in the discussion suggested that other hosts doing the same thing would create a wild west situation for plugin rankings, Mullenweg said he would not mind if the plugins were &#8220;duplicated and distributed by every host and site on the planet,&#8221; as they are all licensed under the GPL.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">If people are providing more distribution to unaltered plugins, I think that's great. Happy for all our plugins to be duplicated and distributed by every host and site on the planet.</p>&mdash; Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1701983671832441290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 13, 2023</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Outrage against distributing WordPress.org plugins in this fashion was not universal in the discussion. A few commenters support this strategy and see it as beneficial for the long-term health of the open source project.</p>



<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m all for it to be honest,&#8221; WordPress developer Cristian Raiber <a href="https://twitter.com/CristianRaiber/status/1701993257717096738">said</a>. &#8220;Anyone could scrape those pages but not everyone gives back to WordPress and makes sure it&#8217;s here to stay for the next decades. Controversial, I know. But I prefer we build together instead of alone.</p>



<p>&#8220;I fail to see how this is not an advantage to anyone who hosts their plugins (for FREE) on w[dot]org ?&#8221; Raiber continued in a separate <a href="https://twitter.com/CristianRaiber/status/1701991457412767913">response</a>. &#8220;Is it about being outranked in Google&#8217;s SERPs for brand kws? Why has this generated so much outcry when the intent is clearly beneficial?</p>



<p>&#8220;This FINALLY solves a friction point for potential buyers. Streamlined plugin installation and usage vs &#8216;here&#8217;s a list of 55 steps you have to take to install my plugin.&#8217; Users want options, different uses cases and all. I want <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://t.co/lvD51DFwBI" target="_blank">wp.com</a> to make money so they keep growing this product.&#8221;</p>



<p>XWP Director of Engineering Francesca Marano suggested that WordPress.com has benefitted from the branding and reputation of .org, which is built by volunteers. She also <a href="https://twitter.com/FrancescaMarano/status/1701928039599219066">proposed</a> that Automattic &#8220;has the resources to do a whole rebranding which would ultimately benefit both projects.&#8221;</p>



<p>Mullenweg <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1701978533239640196">responded</a> to these comments, defending WordPress.com&#8217;s efforts in fending off early WordPress competitors and cited Automattic&#8217;s preeminence in contributing back to core, despite taking in less revenue than some larger companies making money from the software:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>Since its foundation, .org has benefitted from the branding and reputation of having a robust SaaS version available from .com, including a free version, something basically no other host does. Over 200M people have used it, and countless started on .com and then migrated to another host. The shared branding made it very difficult for services like Typepad to compete. You want to see what WP would look like without it? Go to Joomla. </p>



<p>.com has also been the source of countless performance improvements, we deploy pre-release versions of core to millions of sites to find bugs and do testing, making WP releases way more stable for regular users and hosts. <strong><em>No company contributes more, even though many make more from WP than .com&#8217;s revenue.</em></strong> It would have been way easier to fork the software, not merge MU. Most hosts (and many community members) bad-mouth .com while not contributing a fraction back to core. Hosts spend tens of millions a year on ads against .com. I get attacked constantly.</p>
</blockquote>



<p>In 2010, when the WordPress Foundation was created, <a href="https://wordpress.org/book/2015/11/the-wordpress-foundation/#:~:text=Automattic%20had%20always%20intended%20to,company's%20investors%20at%20the%20outset.">Automattic transferred the WordPress trademarks to the Foundation</a>, after having been the temporary custodian of the trademarks until that time. As part of the transfer, the Foundation granted Mullenweg use of the WordPress trademark for WordPress.com.</p>



<p>This trademark was deliberately secured, and the company does not appear to be open to renaming the platform. This doesn&#8217;t mean WordPress.com can&#8217;t do anything to mitigate the confusion that scraping the WordPress.org plugin directory creates. Participants in the discussion suggested that WordPress.com forego indexing the pages they created for plugins that developers submitted to the open source project.</p>



<p>&#8220;You can control SEO by telling search engines to not index those pages of open source software developed for .org on the .com domain,&#8221; WordPress plugin developer Marco Almeida <a href="https://twitter.com/Wonderm00n/status/1701905853165551802">said</a>.</p>



<p>&#8220;I have 20 free plugins on the repository and I don&#8217;t see how my plugins will benefit if we open this pandora box and normalize cloning these pages and diluting the WordPress.org importance on search engines.&#8221;</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Dotcom can help by using schema markup that points to dotorg as the authority (using the "about" and/or "sameAs" properties). The dotorg pages already have the schema markup in place, you'll just need to point to it from dotcom.<br /><br />This is helpful for dotcom too. Although Google…</p>&mdash; Jeff Matson <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f47e.png" alt="👾" class="wp-smiley" /> (@TheJeffMatson) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheJeffMatson/status/1701935427672764641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 13, 2023</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Developers who are just now discovering their WordPress.org plugins cloned to WordPress.com listings are also wanting to know how many of their installs come from WordPress.com so they can better understand their user bases. Mullenweg <a href="https://twitter.com/photomatt/status/1702001800520343848">suggested</a> developers who want a different listing for WordPress.com users can <a href="https://developer.wordpress.com/wordpress-com-marketplace/">sign up for the .com marketplace</a>.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">well, this could be true, but as plugin author I don’t know how many installations are on .com or .org, or how to show the plugin description/features in a different way to a .com user. I think that the main issue here is the directory cloning</p>&mdash; Simone Maranzana (@simo_m) <a href="https://twitter.com/simo_m/status/1701996397338190088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 13, 2023</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Tensions remained high as the heated discussion continued throughout the day and into the evening with criticism flowing across X (Twitter), Post Status Slack, and other social channels, as many developers learned for the first time that their plugin listings have been cloned on WordPress.com.  As long as a commercial entity shares the open source project&#8217;s branding, these types of clashes and friction will continue popping up.</p>



<p>&#8220;Personally, I can’t help but empathize with plugin authors that chose to support OSS and find the directory cloned in a commercial service, albeit free, with no access to stats,&#8221; Francesca Marano <a href="https://twitter.com/FrancescaMarano/status/1702001376442700283">said</a>. &#8220;As I mentioned before, the main issue is the confusion around the two projects.&#8221; </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 14 Sep 2023 04:05:39 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"Akismet: Version 5.3 of the Akismet WordPress plugin is now available";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://akismet.com/?p=281046";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"https://akismet.com/blog/version-5-3-of-the-akismet-wordpress-plugin-is-now-available/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1144:"<p>Version 5.3 of <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/">the Akismet plugin for WordPress</a> is now&nbsp;available.</p>



<p>The updated plugin has new easy-to-read notices. These are the messages shown when Akismet is successfully set up or there is an issue with your&nbsp;install.</p>



<img src="https://akismet455732288.files.wordpress.com/2023/09/image.png?w=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-281050" />



<p>We have improved support for RTL (right-to-left) languages like Hebrew and Arabic, and have made some accessibility improvements to help users enter their API key more&nbsp;easily.</p>



<p>Users of the <a href="https://fluentforms.com/">Fluent Forms</a> plugin will be pleased to know that the latest version of Akismet is now compatible with <a href="https://fluentforms.com/fluent-forms-5-0/">Fluent Forms v5</a> and&nbsp;above.</p>



<p>To upgrade, visit the Updates page of your WordPress dashboard and follow the instructions. If you need to download the plugin zip file directly, links to all versions are available in <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/akismet/">the WordPress plugins&nbsp;directory</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 13 Sep 2023 20:31:54 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:17:"Chris Rosser 🏔";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"WPTavern: #90 – Olga Gleckler on How Anyone Can Contribute to the WordPress Project";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=148683";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:99:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/90-olga-gleckler-on-how-anyone-can-contribute-to-the-wordpress-project";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:40576:"Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>



<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, how you can assist the WordPress project by contributing.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice. Or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you, and hopefully get you all your idea featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox, and use the form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today we have Olga Gleckler. Olga is a self-taught developer with many years of experience. After initially pursuing a career in marketing, she turned back to her passion for programming and became a full-time developer. She has been contributing to WordPress for four years, and is currently serving as the Core triaged lead for version 6.4.</p>



<p>In addition, Olga is a maintainer for two components in Core, and actively participates in various teams within the WordPress community.</p>



<p>Outside of work, she&#8217;s also writing a fantasy book, which has a significant personal project for her.</p>



<p>Olga has tried her hand in various teams within the WordPress community, ranging from Polyglots to Training, Support and more. She challenges the commonly held misconception that only coders can contribute to the WordPress project, highlighting the many different ways individuals can contribute without coding skills.</p>



<p>During our conversation, Olga shares some examples of non-coding contributions that can be made to the WordPress project. We talk about the process of submitting patches and contributions to WordPress, discussing the schedule for releases, and the importance of understanding the processes and deadlines.</p>



<p>Olga also emphasizes the essential steps of testing, reviewing for coding standards and ensuring correct documentation in order to make impactful contributions.</p>



<p>Olga&#8217;s journey and the WordPress community has been very varied. She discusses how being part of this ecosystem has improved her career prospects, and gained her trust from others. However she acknowledges that not everyone finds their place immediately and may struggle to get started.</p>



<p>She explores how to contribute without becoming discouraged, and shares her experiences in the mentorship program that paired mentors with mentees in navigating the WordPress community.</p>



<p>Throughout the conversation Olga shows a deep passion for the WordPress project and the collaborative nature of the community. She reminds us that contributing to open source projects requires patience and persistence and shares her insights on learning methods, seeking guidance and asking questions in order to make progress.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;ve thought about contributing to WordPress, but are not sure where to begin, this episode is for you. If you&#8217;re interested</p>



<p>in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Olga Gleckler.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Olga Gleckler. Hello, Olga!</p>



<p>[00:04:08] <strong>Olga Gleckler:</strong> Hi.</p>



<p>[00:04:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Very nice to have you with us. Olga is going to be chatting to us today about contributing to WordPress, probably specifically around WordPress Core, but we will no doubt in the introduction discover that Olga&#8217;s done a lot more in the WordPress space.</p>



<p>Olga, just before we begin, let&#8217;s orientate our listeners a little bit about you. This is a chance to give us your biography. Tell us who you are, how long you&#8217;ve been working with code and computers and in the WordPress space more specifically. You can go as far back as you like.</p>



<p>[00:04:43] <strong>Olga Gleckler:</strong> Sounds great. I wanted to be a programmer at school, but I messed up with my education and turned out to be a marketer. Then I was a bit disappointed in marketing because you cannot promise to deliver something and actually deliver it. And I switched back to my previous passion to development, and become a developer like a self taught.</p>



<p>And already nine years I&#8217;m working full time as a developer. And four years I&#8217;m contributing to WordPress. To find the WordPress community, it was a big discovery for me, and actually turning point for the whole experience, because WordPress is good, is great, and I liked it.</p>



<p>When I discovered the community, I started to love it. And since Berlin in 2019, I joined marketing team and several other teams. I contributed to polyglots team, to training team, to support, I love support. And some other teams. And right now I am Core triage lead for 6.4. I was Core triage co-lead for 6.3 as well.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m a maintainer for two components in Core, so I think I know a bit about how you can actually contribute to Core, and I still enjoying all the process.</p>



<p>Apart from full time job and contribution, I also want to mention that I&#8217;m writing a fantasy book. It&#8217;s like a big deal for me. It&#8217;s a draft, but it&#8217;s another passion I carry on with myself all around the world.</p>



<p>[00:06:25] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s really interesting. So you&#8217;ve been involved in all sorts of different sides of WordPress. You mentioned there specifically that you joined the marketing team, obviously based upon your past history with studying marketing and things like that. But you found that that maybe wasn&#8217;t the best fit for you. And I guess that&#8217;s going to be part of the conversation today, is that there&#8217;s a lot of different places that you can contribute. And if you join a team and it doesn&#8217;t seem to be the right fit first time, that&#8217;s not a reason to give up, because there are just multiple different ways that you can contribute to WordPress, right?</p>



<p>[00:07:02] <strong>Olga Gleckler:</strong> I love marketing. I cannot kick it out of me, and I still deeply involved in marketing team activities and most of my efforts I am making are between teams. For example, between marketing and mobile team, between marketing and Core team. It&#8217;s something inside me and I cannot kick it out, and I&#8217;m looking at Core tickets from the marketing point of view, and trying to find something significant, something to change, something to improve user experience, to deliver improvement and make a difference and impact.</p>
