Wordpress

State of the Word 2021 is just around the corner! Although attending State of the Word in person would be ideal, not all WordPress community members get to enjoy the experience of attending the speech live with friends. This year, as State of the Word is streamed live for the second time, we want to restore that in person camaraderie through State of the Word watch parties for WordPress Community members around the world. We encourage WordPress meetup organizers and community members worldwide to (safely) host State of the Word 2021 watch parties —read this handbook to learn more. Why organize a watch party? If you are a WordPress meetup organizer, many folks in your meetup may be unaware of the State of the Word, and a watch party could be a great opportunity to introduce or remind them.As meetup organizers slowly bid goodbye to a tough year, the watch party could be an excellent opportunity to revitalize your group, especially if you haven’t had many events this year.Along with your Meetup group members, you get a platform to ask questions directly to Matt Mullenweg.And last but not least, even if you are not a Meetup Organizer, a watch party can be the perfect opportunity to reconnect and have a blast with your WordPress friends! How do I organize a State of the Word watch party? You can choose to host a watch party online or in person. Check out our handbook for detailed instructions on how to schedule an event (including event templates). Online The simplest way to organize an online watch party is to schedule an online event for your WordPress group and add the State of the Word YouTube streaming link directly on Meetup.com. Alternatively, you can schedule an online meeting using tools like Zoom and broadcast the live stream over there by screen sharing––thereby facilitating better engagement. Organize an Online Watch Party In Person If your region meets the guidelines for in person events (if vaccines and testing are freely available), you can organize an in person watch party event (for fully vaccinated OR recently tested OR recently recovered folks) for your WordPress Meetup! Group members can hang out together (following local safety guidelines of course) and watch State of the Word live. Plan an In person Watch Party NOTE: If State of the Word is happening at an odd hour in your timezone, you can still organize a watch party by organizing a replay of live stream, at a date/time that is convenient for your group. If your Local WordPress Meetup is organizing an in person watch party, fill out this form so that we can ship some swag for your group to celebrate! Deadline: November 30, 2021 What else do I need to know about organizing a State of the Word watch party? Excited? To help you get started, we’ve put together a few resources: Check out this handbook for detailed instructions on how to organize a watch party, be it online or in person.Looking for a Zoom Pro account to host your online watch party? Request a community zoom pro account for your event right away!We have prepared some email templates that Meetup Organizers can use to spread the word in their Meetup groups.Don’t forget to share on social media about your watch party events using the hashtag #StateOfTheWord so we can join in on the fun! NOTE: The guidelines in this post are primarily aimed at WordPress Meetup organizers. However, you do not need to be a Meetup organizer to schedule a watch party! You can simply hang out together with your friends online or in person (while following local safety guidelines) and catch the event live! Join a State of the Word Watch Party near you! We have compiled a list of State of the Word Watch Parties around the world. If you don’t see a watch party in your region listed here, check this page on Meetup.com to see if your local WordPress group is organizing one. If not, why don’t you consider organizing a watch party on your own? [WordPress NYC Meetup] An In Person MeetUp: The State of the Word 2021 is in Manhattan. [South Jersey WordPress Meetup] JerseyPress: State of the Word 2021 Watch Party [Morris County NJ WordPress Meetup] JerseyPress: State of the Word 2021 Watch Party [WordPress Montclair Meetup] JerseyPress: State of the Word 2021 Watch Party [WordPress Santa Clarita Valley] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party [The Houston WordPress Meetup Group] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [North East Ohio WordPress Meetup] State of Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Birmingham WordPress Meetup] State of the Word Watch Party [Lehigh Valley WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Metro Detroit WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Greater Milwaukee Area WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [The East Bay WordPress Meetup Group] State of the Word 2021 (Online) [Sacramento WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [WordPress Louisville] State of the Word Watch Party and Discussion (WP Louisville, KY) [WordPress Medellín] State of the Word 2021: Discurso de Matt & Fiesta de Comunidad (Online) [Port-au-Prince WordPress Meetup Group] Rejoignez-nous le 14 décembre pour regarder State of the Word 2021 (online) [WordPress Coventry Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [WordPress Exeter] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [WordPress Meetup Torino] State of the Word 2021 Video Party (Online) [Kigali WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Lagos WordPress Community] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Ijebu WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Jinja WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party – WordPress Community Uganda (Online) [Kampala WordPress Meetup] State of the Word Livestream [WordPress Meetups Lahore] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (In-person) [WordPress Bhopal] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (In-person) [Bengaluru WordPress] WordPress Meetup – State of the word -Watch Party [WordPress Singapore] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) If you are planning a watch party for State of the Word, and have questions, please drop us an email to: support@wordcamp.org if you have any questions. We are happy to help you in the best way possible. The following folks contributed to this post: @anjanavasan @eidolonnight @evarlese and @rmartinezduque View the full article

WordPress 5.9 is expected to be a ground-breaking release. It will introduce the next generation of themes with Twenty Twenty-Two joining the fun and over 30 theme blocks to build all parts of your site. In anticipation of the January 25th release, we hope you enjoy this sneak peek of 5.9. New design tools will allow you to create exactly what you want, from adding filters to all your images to fine-tuning the border radius on all your buttons. With WordPress 5.9 providing more design control along with streamlined access to patterns, you can easily change the entire look and feel of your site without switching themes. No matter what you’re editing, whether it’s crafting a new post or working on a header, improvements to List View make it simple to navigate content regardless of complexity. More improvements and features for everyone are to come in this release and we can’t wait to see what you create with WordPress 5.9! Stay Tuned Stay tuned for more updates as the date draws near. If you want to help, the best thing you can do is test everything! For all the details, check out this Make Core post. Video props: @annezazu (also co-wrote the post) @michaelpick @matveb @beafialho @javiarce @critterverse @joen. View the full article

As previously announced, State of the Word will be livestreamed from New York City. That means that you can join the fun either online or in person, on December 14, 2021, between 5 and 7 pm EST! To join State of the Word 2021 online, check your Meetup chapter for a local watch party, or simply visit wordpress.org/news, where the livestream will be embedded. If you would like to participate in person in New York City, please request a seat by filling out the registration form by Sunday, November 28. Not all requests will receive a seat due to venue capacity, but everyone who requests one will receive further notification on Tuesday, November 30. In person attendees will be asked to show their COVID vaccination card at the venue entrance, and are expected to follow the safety measures in place. Because of these safety measures, there is a maximum of 50 attendees. Request a seat Whether you participate in person or online, we are so excited to see you on December 14! Don’t forget, State of the Word will be followed by a Question & Answer session. If you have a question for Matt, you can send your question ahead of time to ask-matt@wordcamp.org, or ask during the event in the YouTube chat. View the full article

In this episode, WordPress’s Executive Director, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, answers two recently asked questions. Tune in to hear what those questions were and her response, in addition to this week’s small list of big things. Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording. Credits Editor: Dustin HartzlerLogo: Beatriz FialhoProduction: Chloé BringmannSong: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod References W3Techs WordPress Usage Statistics WordPress 5.9 Development Cycle Call for Team Rep Nomination Transcript Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:10 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’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go! Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:40 So I was in a meeting recently, which I realize isn’t saying much for me since I spend a quarter of my time in meetings. But in this particular meeting, I was asked a couple of questions that I absolutely loved. The first question was, “if there were one thing you could change in people’s minds about WordPress, what would it be?” And my answer, predictable though it may be, was that I want to change the idea that WordPress is just a blogging platform. Josepha Haden Chomphosy 01:06 WordPress has grown into a lot more than that. But the idea of a content management system, even now, sometimes gets a mental shorthand where content is a stand-in for the word writing or words. If you’re using WordPress today in an enterprise context, or as part of a governmental agency, or if you use it in a classroom setting, you know that your content cannot be confined that way. And if you’re supporting or building anything to hand off to clients, you know that timely, easy-to-ship changes on a site are considered a vital part of any overarching brand and marketing strategy. And when was the last time that any marketing strategy was literally only about the words? Josepha Haden Chomphosy 01:51 So that was the first question. And also my first answer. There is also this kind of annual, not fear, necessarily, but this annual question that is sort of related that is raised to me and has been asked of me recently, that I’m just going to give you a small answer to. One annual worry that I get every year around November and December is, “What are we going to do about the fact that the term blog and blogging are declining in search popularity?” And I was gonna say it’s been a while since I answered that in any sort of public format. But I think maybe I’ve never answered it in a public format at all. And so I’m just going to answer it here. Because I think maybe a lot of people have that same question. Josepha Haden Chomphosy 02:36 So number one, I think that the way that people search now is different. There’s a lot more semantic cognition. This is not the way to answer this — search engines are smarter now. So like, it used to be the case with early search engines that yeah, there was a lot of just like, individual search terms that were looked for. But now, people are asking full questions; they have, essentially, an entire sentence that they are searching for. And then, search engines are able to parse that information better and get more high-quality answers and information for them. So like, that’s one thing that I’m already not worried about. If people are searching for individual words anymore, it’s so that they can get a definition of that word. So I’m not specifically worried about a decline in search volume for the word blog or blogging for that reason. But the answer to my first question, if there is probably the real reason that I’m not actually super worried about any decline in search volume for the word blog, or blogging, is that WordPress has really moved beyond that. And since we have moved beyond that, then it doesn’t necessarily make sense for WordPress as an entity for WordPress as a project to get overly hung up on the idea that the term blog has gone out of fashion. Josepha Haden Chomphosy 03:52 Okay, now that I did my first question, and the answer, and then an additional question that only ever gets asked in private and is being answered by me for the first time in public, I will tell you now, the second question that I loved, someone asking of me, and that question is this: “What is one thing you’d like people to see or experience, right when they first land on wordpress.org?” Now, I often don’t get asked questions about the wordpress.org website, like administrative tasks, things that we need to update, move around where they should go. Sure. But like, “Josepha, what’s the point and purpose of this site?” Never. I’ve never been asked that, and so I was really excited that someone asked me, and I’m going to give you a heads up. I think some of you might disagree with my answer. Josepha Haden Chomphosy 04:40 So the primary thing that I want people to see or experience when they first get to wordpress.org, the website is the depth of WordPress. Not which audience segment they should belong to or that we believe they should belong to or raw data about the CMS or even how much we care about the freedoms of open source. Now the first thing I want people to see on that site is that WordPress has not only 18 years of learned knowledge that every single new user benefits from, but that it also has 1,000s of really smart people making sure it works and gets better every day, now. Josepha Haden Chomphosy 05:19 WordPress is a Goliath in its field. I know that we cite this bit of context. Frequently, we say that we are 42% of the web. And that is true that is the percentage by usage. But in its field, which is websites that are using a content management system, we actually have a 65% market share. This is very easy to find. It’s on the W3Techs website: I can put a link in the show notes, but you could find it just by searching for it. Josepha Haden Chomphosy 05:46 So WordPress is a Goliath in its field of websites that are run using a CMS. Because we have always brought our learnings forward with us with the understanding that knowledge, when shared grows rather than diminishes. But open source, the heart of what defines this project, open source is not a Goliath; it’s barely even David somedays. Even though the web is built on scads of open source software, there’s a pervasive public perception that it is built by and for hobbyists or that it is inherently risky, and that if there were if it were worth something, then people would pay something. And I just know that if the first impression of WordPress, we’re, “we’ve got 18 years of experience and learning that brought us to today,” the rest of the sale to adopt software that protects other people’s freedoms would take care of itself. And I guess, to quote John Oliver, at this point, “And now this.” Josepha Haden Chomphosy 06:59 Alright, that brings us now to our small list of big things. There are actually quite a few big things on this small list today. So number one, we have reached the beta phase for the year’s final release, which means that WordPress 5.9 beta one is happening tomorrow, Tuesday, November 16. And then seven days later, I believe on the 23rd, if I recall correctly, comes beta two. Josepha Haden Chomphosy 07:24 The second thing on my list is that team rep nominations are happening all over the project right now. I’ve got a post that I will share in the notes below that I believe all the team reps have put their team’s nomination posts on. So if you have had an interest in learning more about that and what it means to help keep teams kind of running in the WordPress project, then this is a great opportunity to check those out. Josepha Haden Chomphosy 07:49 And the third thing, this last thing actually isn’t in the next two weeks, but it is very important, nonetheless. Matt’s annual State of the Word is coming up on December 14. So basically a month from today. It’s going to join the growing list of in-person events that are on the calendar. It will be in New York City but will also be live-streamed across the world as usual. Keep an eye out for additional updates about that for anyone who, like me, really looks forward to this particular presentation from our project co-founder every year. Josepha Haden Chomphosy 08:25 And that is your small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress briefing. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, and I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks. View the full article

Howdy, World! Mark your calendars; it’s almost time for State of the Word 2021! State of the Word is the annual keynote address delivered by the WordPress project’s co-founder, Matt Mullenweg. Every year, the event allows us to reflect on the project’s progress and the future of open source. This year will include that and more. Due to the pandemic, we moved the State of the Word online for the first time ever in 2020. This year, the event will be livestreamed from New York City. That will enable us to take as many folks as possible along for the ride! Join Matt as he provides a retrospective of 2021, discusses the latest trends he’s seeing, celebrates the community’s amazing wins, and explores the future. Expect to hear about a range of topics, from WordPress 5.9 and Openverse to Web3 and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). What: State of the Word 2021 When: December 14, 2021, between 5 and 7 pm ET/10 – 12 am (December 15) UTC How: If you’re watching from the comfort of your home or local watch party, the livestream will be embedded on wordpress.org/news. Have a question for Matt? State of the Word will be followed by a Question & Answer session. If you want to participate, you can either send your question ahead of time to ask-matt@wordcamp.org, or ask during the event in the livestream chat on YouTube. If you’re new to State of the Word, the previous years’ recordings (below) will help you get a sense of what the event is about. Check them out: State of the Word 2020 (online)State of the Word 2019 – WordCamp US, St. LouisState of the Word 2018 – WordCamp US, NashvilleAll recordings We hope to see you online on December 14th! Join a State of the Word Watch Party near you We have compiled a list of State of the Word Watch Parties around the world. If you don’t see a watch party in your region listed here, check this page on Meetup.com to see if your local WordPress group is organizing one. [WordPress NYC Meetup] An In Person MeetUp: The State of the Word 2021 is in Manhattan. [South Jersey WordPress Meetup] JerseyPress: State of the Word 2021 Watch Party [Morris County NJ WordPress Meetup] JerseyPress: State of the Word 2021 Watch Party [WordPress Montclair Meetup] JerseyPress: State of the Word 2021 Watch Party [WordPress Santa Clarita Valley] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party [The Houston WordPress Meetup Group] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [North East Ohio WordPress Meetup] State of Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Birmingham WordPress Meetup] State of the Word Watch Party [Lehigh Valley WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Metro Detroit WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Greater Milwaukee Area WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [The East Bay WordPress Meetup Group] State of the Word 2021 (Online) [Sacramento WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [WordPress Louisville] State of the Word Watch Party and Discussion (WP Louisville, KY) [WordPress Medellín] State of the Word 2021: Discurso de Matt & Fiesta de Comunidad (Online) [Port-au-Prince WordPress Meetup Group] Rejoignez-nous le 14 décembre pour regarder State of the Word 2021 (online) [WordPress Coventry Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [WordPress Exeter] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [WordPress Meetup Torino] State of the Word 2021 Video Party (Online) [Kigali WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Lagos WordPress Community] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Ijebu WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) [Jinja WordPress Meetup] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party – WordPress Community Uganda (Online) [Kampala WordPress Meetup] State of the Word Livestream [WordPress Meetups Lahore] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (In-person) [WordPress Bhopal] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (In-person) [Bengaluru WordPress] WordPress Meetup – State of the word -Watch Party [WordPress Singapore] State of the Word 2021 Watch Party (Online) If you are planning a watch party for State of the Word, and have questions, please drop us an email to: support@wordcamp.org if you have any questions. We are happy to help you in the best way possible. Thanks to @anjanavasan @eidolonnight @rmartinezduque for their work on this post. The featured image was created by @beafialho. View the full article

Each year, members of the WordPress community (users, site builders, extenders, and contributors) provide their valuable feedback through an annual survey. Key takeaways and trends that emerge from this survey often find their way into the annual State of the Word address, are shared in the public project blogs, and can influence the direction and strategy for the WordPress Project. Simply put: this survey helps those who build WordPress understand more about how the software is used, and by whom. The survey also helps leaders in the WordPress open source project learn more about our contributors’ experiences. To ensure that your WordPress experience is represented in the 2021 survey results, take the 2021 annual survey now. Take the Annual Survey! (English) You may also take the survey in French, German, Japanese, Russian, or Spanish. These are the top five languages (other than English) based on the number of WordPress locale downloads. For 2022, additional languages may be considered for translation. The survey will be open through the end of 2021, and the results will be published in a future post on this blog for anyone to view. Next year, there will be a new format for this survey, including which segments and questions are included, so that your valuable time spent responding results in equally valuable information. 2020 Survey Results For the 2020 survey, more than 17,000 responses were collected, representing the highest submission volume in four years, up three times from the prior year. In the inaugural year of the survey (2015), over 50,000 responses were collected. Given the reach and adoption of WordPress, there is a significant number we have not reached. As you take the 2021 survey, consider sharing the link on social media and with other colleagues who use WordPress. Gathering feedback from more folks who benefit from WordPress will strengthen our project. View the 2020 Survey Results (PDF) The 2020 survey results show that the pandemic has had a major impact on how we operate as a community. With few in-person events, many community members continue to find it challenging to balance community contributions with their own personal and professional obligations. Footnotes: Data security and privacy are paramount to the WordPress project and community. With this in mind, all data will be anonymized: no email addresses nor IP addresses will be associated with published results. To learn more about WordPress.org’s privacy practices, view the privacy policy. Like last year, the 2021 survey will be promoted via a banner on WordPress.org, and throughout the make blogs. However, taking a moment to amplify these posts through your own social media and Slack accounts will ensure broader participation. Each of the translated surveys will be promoted through banners on their associated localized-language WordPress.org sites. Thanks to @dansoschin for the initial draft of this post, and to @annezazu & @zackkrida for review! View the full article

WordPress 5.8.2 is now available! This security and maintenance release features 2 bug fixes in addition to 1 security fix. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 5.2 have also been updated. WordPress 5.8.2 is a small focus security and maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.9. You can download WordPress 5.8.2 by downloading from WordPress.org, or visit your Dashboard → Updates and click Update Now. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, they’ve already started the update process. For more information, browse the full list of changes on Trac, or check out the version 5.8.2 HelpHub documentation page. Thanks and props! The 5.8.2 release was led by Jonathan Desrosiers and Evan Mullins. In addition to the release squad members mentioned above, thank you to everyone who helped make WordPress 5.8.2 happen: Ari Stathopoulos, Bradley Taylor, davidwebca, Evan Mullins, Greg Ziółkowski, Jonathan Desrosiers, Juliette Reinders Folmer, Mukesh Panchal, Sergey Biryukov, shimon246, and Yui. Props @circlecube and @pbiron for peer review. View the full article

October 2021 brought a lot of new things to WordPress, from release updates to new versions of Gutenberg. More notably, in the latest episode of WP Briefing, Executive Director Josepha Haden reminded us about the importance of freedom in open source platforms like WordPress. Free speech has with it a lot of responsibility, just like being a part of a community. Governments or communities, or in our case, this software is built by the people who show up. For WordPress, at 42% of the web, every small choice we make can cause huge changes in the way that people experience the web today and tomorrow. Josepha Haden, Executive Director of the WordPress project Last month was yet another chapter in this journey. So keep reading to learn what’s new. WordPress 5.9: All proposed updates will likely be included We announced the go/no-go for WordPress 5.9 features in mid-October. The release will probably include all the proposed features—though not all of them are ready yet, they should be by the proposed release date (December 14, 2021).WordPress 5.9 will include a new default theme called Twenty Twenty-Two! The theme’s foundation will be strong, and the unpredictable yet reliable behavior of birds inspired the intentionally subtle design. 5.9 bug scrub sessions began in September and will continue each week until the release on December 14, 2021. View the full bug scrub schedule. Many of you requested a few “must have” enhancements for the 5.9 release—follow the 5.9 Must-Haves project board to track their status.The Test Team shared an overview of the team’s approach to testing WordPress 5.9. Interested in contributing to WordPress core? Join the #core channel, follow the Core Team blog, and check out the team handbook. Also, don’t miss the Core Team’s weekly developer chat on Wednesdays at 8 PM UTC. Gutenberg releases: 11.6, 11.7, and 11.8 are here We released three new versions of the Gutenberg block editor between the end of September and October: Version 11.6 brings site logo cropping and rotation, block-level locking, improvements to Query Pagination block, support for child themes and thunks, template focus mode, and enhancements to the writing flow.Gutenberg version 11.7 includes bug fixes and polishes to the navigation block and editor, global styles and full site editing (including a handy back button that lets you quickly return to the site editor), and columns block support, among other improvements.Finally, Gutenberg 11.8 is the second to last version to make it into the WordPress 5.9 release, and it comes with plenty of developments to the editing experience: featured Block Patterns, new animations for a few elements (like Dropzone and Insertion Point), spacing tools for heading blocks, and a lot more. Want to get involved in developing Gutenberg? Follow the Core Team blog, contribute to Gutenberg on GitHub, and join the #core-editor channel in the Make WordPress Slack. For details on the latest updates, follow the “What’s next in Gutenberg” post. WordCamp US returned virtually this year with more than 3,600 attendees WordCamp US 2021 was on October 1, and it was online for the first time. The event drew more than 3,600 attendees, 27 sponsors, and 18 remarkable speakers on topics ranging from accessibility and sustainability to e-commerce, to name a few. Matt Mullenweg’s “State of the Word” is expected to be held as a separate event later this year, rather than being part of WordCamp US. If you missed the live event, you can still watch the Yukon Track and the Columbia Track of WordCamp US 2021. Team Updates: Polyglots monthly newsletter, a new Performance team, and more The first edition of the Polyglots monthly newsletter went out on October 15, 2021.The following teams opened up their call for team representatives last month, and more are coming soon: Core, Community, Themes, Accessibility, Support, Training, and Hosting.A draft of the 2022 Global Community Sponsorship program proposal was released on October 8, 2021. The October 2021 edition of People of WordPress, featuring WordPress e-commerce specialist Ronald Gijsel, went live.Following excellent responses to the initial proposal, members of the Core Team announced the next steps in launching a performance team that aims to increase the performance (speed) of WordPress.The Polyglots Team kicked-off bi-weekly Glotpress meetings aimed at improving the functionality of the plugin that powers translate.wordpress.org.A sprint is planned on November 10-12 to explore a dedicated volunteer program for the Training Team, similar to the Deputy program in the Community Team.WordPress.org profiles now display activity from the WordPress GitHub organization.The Test Team shared results of the tenth Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach Program: Pattern Party. Answers from the third round of questions from the FSE Outreach Program are now out!The Docs Team is consulting with independent legal experts to explore whether there are issues with having Gutenberg (which is dual-licensed GPL + MPL) coexist with other contents in WordPress (our documentation has a CC0 license and the code is GPL). The Themes Team shared a recap of work happening on automation and improvement processes for the WordPress Themes directory. The Team also shared a p2 post highlighting the performance impact of jQuery on WordPress themes.The Marketing Team participated in a contributor ladder workshop to help plan their future activities.The feature recap of the WordPress Translation Day 2021 is out from the Polyglots and Marketing teams, with the results of the Polyglots appreciation nominations 2021. Sign up for the Polyglots monthly newsletter, if you haven’t already. Feedback/Testing requests: Deadline for redesigned Gutenberg landing page is November 5, 2021 The Design Team is working on redesigning the wordpress.org/gutenberg landing page, and has already shared a prototype. The team has also shared a few other concepts where they have requested feedback from contributors:Site Editing iA Concepts: Part1 and Part 2Block theme switching conceptsVersion 18.5 of WordPress for iOS and Android are now available for testing!The Accessibility Team is requesting feedback on a new Gutenberg Pull request that announces formatting changes or screen readers. Share your feedback on the new Gutenberg landing page design in Trac or by commenting on the blog post by November 5, 2021. Keep an eye out for WordCamp Spain, Sâo Paulo, and Taiwan 2021 We had several WordPress events in October, and several more to look forward to the rest of the year: We’re seeking a new host city for WordCamp US 2022.WordCamp Europe 2022 has extended its call for organizers.WordCamp Italia 2021 was held online on October 22-23, 2021. The event had 23 speakers, 17 sponsors, and more than 1,000 registrants. Check out its YouTube channel to watch the event replay.Another highlight of the month was WordCamp Nicaragua 2021 which was held on October 8-9, 2021.The #WPDiversity working group of the Community Team organized an Allyship workshop for event organizers on October 28. Sign up now for the diversity events planned by the team for November! A two-day contributor event focused on Learn WordPress, took place on October 29 and 31, 2021. There was also another contributor day on October 8, 2021, which involved working groups across the board, from accessibility to user testing.The Test Team organized the following Hallway Hangouts this week—check out their recaps:Pattern Party Testing Walkthrough 5.9 Go/No go, Site Editor Internal Audit, and more Don’t miss the following upcoming online WordCamps: WordCamp Spain 2021, WordCamp Sâo Paulo 2021, and WordCamp Taiwan 2021! Have a story that we could include in the next ‘Month in WordPress’ post? Let us know by filling out this form. The following folks contributed to October 2021’s Month in WordPress: @anjanavasan, @harishanker, @rmartinezduque, @callye, @webcommsat, and chaion07. View the full article

In the thirty-seventh episode of the WordPress Briefing, WordPress users and contributors reflect on how WordPress has changed their understanding of the web as we celebrate World Wide Web Day. Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording. Credits Editor: Dustin Hartzler Logo: Beatriz Fialho Production: Santana Inniss & Chloé Bringmann Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod Guests: Adam WarnerAlice OrrùDee TealFemy PraseethJill BinderMary JobOneal RoseroTheophilus AdegbohungbeUgyen Dorji References Diverse Speaker Training Group Support Underrepresented Speakers at WordCamp US Call of Speakers – WordCamp Asia 2023 Refocusing the WordPress App on Core Features WordPress.org Homepage and Download Redesign Transcript [Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:00] 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’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go! [Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:00:39] Today is one of my favorite niche holidays – World Wide Web Day – which serves to raise awareness about the origins of the World Wide Web project. WordPress, as part of Web 2.0, only ever had a chance to exist because the web, as we have come to know it exists. So in order to mark this nerdy day on the WP Briefing, I invited a number of community members to share a bit about how WordPress has been a part of their lives. But first, let’s do some introductions. [Adam Warner 00:01:07] My name is Adam Warner, and I’m originally from a small town in west Michigan, now residing in Orlando, Florida. [Alice Orrù 00:01:15] My name is Alicia Orrù. I’m Italian. I was born in the beautiful island of Sardinia, but I’ve been living in Spain in the province of Barcelona for 10 years. [Dee Teal 00:01:26] My name is Dee Teal; Dee is short for Denise. I’m from New Zealand, but I live In Melbourne. [Femy Praseeth 00:01:33] Yeah, my name is Femy Praseeth. I was born and raised in India and now live in San Jose, California, with my family and cuddly Doodle. [Jill Binder 00:01:41] My name is Jill Binder, and I’ve just moved back to Vancouver, Canada. [Mary Job 00:01:47] My name is Mary Job. I’ve been using WordPress since 2015, and I’m from Nigeria. I’m from the Western part of Nigeria. Ijebu precisely. [Oneal Rosero 00:01:57] Yes. My name is Oneal Rosero. I am from the Philippines and I’ve been using WordPress since 2007. [Theophilus Adegbohungbe 00:02:06] Thank you. My name is Theophilus Adegbohungbe . And I’m from Lagos, in Nigeria. [Ugyen Dorji 00:02:14] My name is Ugyen Dorji and I’m from Bhutan. And I’m working with WordPress for more than five years. [Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:02:22] One of the things I enjoy the most about being part of any community is being able to see how people change and grow over time as they learn and gain confidence in their own expertise. So a favorite early question is naturally, ‘How has WordPress changed your World?’ [Alice Orrù 00:02:37] WordPress changed my world in many ways. But, uh, starting from the moment, it allowed me to become part of a global connected and welcome community. I started using WordPress as a blogger many, many years ago, but it was in 2015 that I started working behind the scenes of WordPress with a plugin company. And that was the moment when everything changed, basically, because I realized that WordPress was much more than a CMS for creating websites. It was a world full of opportunities for networking, making new friends and walking a new professional path as well. [Ugyen Dorji 00:03:15] During one interview, I was asked many questions about WordPress and although I had a basic understanding of WordPress, I struggled to give detailed answers. After that interview, I resolved to develop my skills and learn as much about WordPress as possible. A few months passed and I received a call from ServeMask In, [who] had developed a plugin called All-in-One WP Migration plugin. They offered me a position which fulfilled my wish to work with WordPress full time. And because of that, I am now an active contributor to the WordPress community as bread and butter, with the best career in the world. [Theophilus Adegbohungbe 00:04:03] If you are very familiar with my country, Nigeria things here, it’s not as smooth as it is in other parts of the world. That is, when you are done in school in my university, you have to find means of surviving yourself. There is nothing like the government have work for you. There is nothing like you finish our institution and you get job instantly. So it’s very tough here. And, year by year, schools keep producing graduates with no companies to employ them and no government job again as well. So I personally, I was able to gain freedom from this with the help of WordPress. [Femy Praseeth 00:04:51] WordPress completely changed my work life. I started working independently. I started freelancing with agencies and designers and, uh, building websites from their web designs. And this was around the time my son was born. Actually, he was in elementary school and I think this was around 2014 or so. I started working remotely when remote was not even a thing. And there were very few companies that let you work from home and remote was not a mainstream thing at all, but with WordPress, I could set my own working hours while my son was in school. [Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:05:29] And of course, my preferred follow-up question of, ‘How did you hear about us?’ or ‘How did you connect to this global community?’ [Oneal Rosero 00:05:36] Yes, actually what I love about WordPress is that it’s a community. It’s not a business. It’s not a company. It’s a community. It’s a community that’s always ready to help support, teach and encourage people. That’s how I felt when I joined the community. There’s always somebody who has your back. There’s always somebody who’s going to guide you. There’s always an expert who will take your hand and lead you into the beauty that is WordPress. [Adam Warner 00:06:05] The way that I connect with the global community these days are one, of course, is .org Slack. Another of course is Twitter as there’s a very active WordPress community there. And then with WordCamps all over the globe. I’m lucky enough to have been able to travel to several hundred WordCamps through the years in the US and abroad. And that’s one of the most rewarding parts is meeting people from all over the world and you see really how small and the world really is and how similar we really all are. [Theophilus Adegbohungbe 00:06:39] So, not until 2020. I don’t know if you know this lady, a very vibrant lady in WordPress. She’s from Nigeria; her name is Mary Job, and she’s really promoting WordPress here. So it was through her that I got to know about the community. Yes. [Jill Binder 00:06:54] My work is the global WordPress community. So we hold our three programs for the global WordPress community, and we are always trying to reach more and more countries. For quite a while, it was very North America-heavy, and then I made some efforts to expand. And it’s very exciting that this year, some contributors in our team have actually launched an Asia Pacific branch of our group. And so we have two meetings every other week where we have the America/Europe and the APAC, and we’ve also been able to reach other countries as well, but we typically reach something like between 20 and 50 countries a year, depending on the year. So a hundred percent global. Yes. [Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:07:39] How has WordPress, either the CMS or the project, made you feel more connected? And are there any surprising connections that came from WordPress? [Dee Teal 00:07:47] I guess the surprising connections I think that have come from WordPress have been the fact that I feel like I’ve got friends all over the world. And a lot of those have come out of community involvement and from contributing. That I could go to a, a meetup pretty much anywhere in the world and probably find somebody I know, or at least a second degree connection of somebody that I haven’t, you know, that I might not have met, but know somebody that I know. And certainly that happens fairly regularly. [Mary Job 00:08:13] WordPress. The WordPress project, the community, has made me feel connected in a huge way, because I am literally surrounded by everything WordPress. So I like how, when you meet somebody who does WordPress, there’s this instant, ‘Oh, we’re brothers,’ or ‘Oh, we’re sisters!’ You know? There’s that feeling? That’s how I feel. So when I see somebody who does WordPress, as I do, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, we’re, kin.’ You know? We are family. That’s how I feel when I meet people who do WordPress. And I’ve met quite a number of people who do WordPress from like around the world. Like I have a friend here, he’s from the Benin Republic, and we host started a dinner on Friday night and one of my guests was asking me, ‘How did you guys meet?’ I was like, ‘Oh yeah, we work in the same WordPress ecosystem.’ He attended our WordCamp, we became friends, and we just literally became really good friends. So I have tons of people that I’ve met like that I hold in high esteem. [Ugyen Dorji 00:09:12] WordPress Meetups are the seeds that lead to the growth of WordPress communities. WordCamp is a platform for plugin and theme developers to meet WordPress users and website developers. It’s a great environment where many incredible discussions about WordPress takes place. With each WordCamp there is a “tribe” meeting, where I think people [can] get more connected. It’s a fantastic opportunity for aspiring computer engineers, generators and get to showcase their talent and meet each other. [Alice Orrù 00:09:51] On the project level, it has given me the opportunity to feel like an active part of a global project. The idea that I can give my contribution to making the web a better place – it’s amazing. And I do so with the Translation team, so making WordPress accessible to all the people that use the core plugins and themes in Italian, and prefer to do that in Italian. [Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:10:18] What area of the WordPress world is most important to you? [Jill Binder 00:10:21] I have a little bit of a passion for diversity in tech and diversity in WordPress, specifically around events. And so, here’s a chance to name the three programs that we’ve been working on this year. So as mentioned a few times, we have our Diverse Speaker Workshop that helps people go from not even having the thought that people could step up on stage. And then the second program is because of the pandemic. There was no longer the straight path from taking our workshop to speaking, because we used to hold them or people used to hold them for their WordCamps and meetups. And so it was like, okay, you’ve taken. Apply for our next WordCamp or meetup. But during the pandemic, that wasn’t a thing. So we have this amazing channel that we welcome everyone to join, allies and people from underrepresented groups who are interested in speaking or interested in supporting people and speaking. And that’s the Diverse Speaker channel diverse-speaker-support channel on the Make WordPress slack. And the third program is, and we, we went through a name change recently. So I’ll try to remember the new change it’s Organizing Inclusive and Diverse WordPress Events. And this is for WordCamp and meetup organizers to learn. We’ve learned over the last couple years, how important it is to create inclusive spaces and be good allies. But how do we actually do that? And a few of us created a very action oriented workshop in 2019 for WCUS, and that is now the basis of the work that we are bringing to people and people are loving it.. We’ve had people report a 40%, self-report 40%, increase in feeling prepared to create an inclusive event from before and after taking that workshop, which is super cool. Yeah. So, that’s my passion. [Oneal Rosero 00:12:13] I really love helping the WP Diversity team. I love running the workshops. I love running the workshops for myself, because I used to do training for software back before the pandemic. I used to train up to a thousand people a year in person, sometimes like 500 people in a room at once. But of course I had to shift. I had to pivot to online training, which is what the training team has brought for me. And the focus on the diversity. I like running the workshops. I like running workshops for different groups, different countries, because it’s nice to meet new people. It’s nice to hear about their culture, about the limitations that people have in Africa with connectivity. So they, they resort to using WhatsApp on their phone in order to do a meetup. That’s how they do their, their meetings, their discussions. It’s unlike other countries where we can do video calls. They have to use their mobile phones because connectivity isn’t accessible. Places like in the Philippines that get affected when it starts to rain a little bit, we lose our internet. So we have backups and our backups have backups. So there are many things that you learn that are different when you’re living in the city, when you’re living in the provinces, in the country. So it’s so many things that you learn about people and how they’re able to adapt. [Adam Warner 00:13:35] Enabling end users to reach their goals. And whether that means participating in contributing to the software, to the Core software itself, in terms of UI/UX usability. That can include participating in the community and sharing your knowledge proactively with users who may be new to the platform, or have used WordPress for a while, but now want to step up their game, get a little deeper into using their websites as a tool for growth, for whatever business that they’re in. So, I mean, overall, the, the most important part of the WordPress world to me are the end users. And, you know, there, there is this quote unquote inner circle of WordPress community people. People who are involved in .org, people who contribute to the software, people who contribute to the 20 plus make.wordpress.org teams. Those we have to keep in mind, are not the average user by and far. They are not the typical user that hears the word WordPress and then goes out and searches it and then has to figure out how to use it. So I think user experience is probably the most important part for me and making sure that any of that innate knowledge that we have in that inner circle of WordPress because many of us have been using it for so long, keeping in mind that is not the norm. And it’s not the scale at which WordPress is used and, and making sure we translate complex concepts down to a layperson’s terms that might not be as familiar. [Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:15:17] One of the things that I have always found so fascinating about the web and WordPress’ role in it is how it has made the world simultaneously smaller and bigger. By giving voices to the voiceless we help each other find our community niches regardless of where they are in the world. Some of your closest friends could be people you would never meet in your own neighborhood. Well, let’s hear what some of our community members had to say about that. [Dee Tea 00:15:42] I think the thing that has been most empowering is, is coming into the project either in terms of contributing time and efforts to the community, which is where most of my contribution has been – has always been about this is a really cool thing, and I really want to build this. And so I’ll put my time and efforts into building WordPress. Not for me, but because I see its value and I see its community and I see that the contribution that it’s making to the world and I, and that’s really important. But finding that on the other side of that was a huge amount of personal benefit for me in my career, in the friendships that I’ve made. But I feel like if I had been approaching the community with, I want a better career, I wanna meet all of these people and I want, and I want all of this. From, “I want” for me, instead of, I want for this project, for the community and effectively for the world with that, you know, that whole democratized, the democratizing of publishing is this thing that serves the world. I think that’s been the key for me is that I absolutely have reaped amazing benefits from it, but it came out of that sense of, I see this value here and I want to contribute to that because it’s gonna have value, not just for me, but for a whole slew of people. And so, uh, you know, for much, much bigger impact than just on me. And so I think that’s the important thing for me is that sense of, if you approach it with that attitude of what can I do to help? It’s amazing what you will find yourself helped with in return. [Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:17:24] I hope that you enjoyed this tour of WordPress in the World Wide Web. I want to share a big thank you to all of the folks who contributed to our little WordPress Briefing celebration of World Wide Web Day today. And that brings us now to our small list of big things. So firstly, we’ve got a couple of updates from our upcoming flagship events. WordCamp US has announced a speaker support fund specifically for historically underrepresented speakers at the event. You can donate to the fund on the page if you’d like, and there are also directions on how to request support, if you are part of an underrepresented group. From the folks over at WordCamp Asia, the call for speakers is live. That’s taking place in February, 2023. But it’s never too early to brush up those presentations and get them submitted. Next big thing is that there are some changes coming to the WordPress mobile app. A lot of the Jetpack functionality will be removed from it, so this is going to have a little bit of an effect on daily users of the app, but it will also have an effect on regular contributors. I’ll have a link to the full write up in the show notes so that you don’t have to guess or hold it all in your memory. And finally, this excellent design that you see on wordpress.org/news is finally making its way out to the next parts of the wordpress.org website. Before you know, it, there will be a fresh looking homepage as well as few other pages and then… to infinity and beyond (or something like that). And that, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. And next up I’ll be taking just a mid-year break from the podcast. And so the next time that I actually see you again, will be in September. 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