This Week in WordPress #312

[00:00:04] Nathan Wrigley: It's time for this week in WordPress episode number 312, entitled, calm, peace, love, now what?. It was recorded on Monday the 21st of October, 2024. My name's Nathan Wrigley, and today I am joined by my cohost Michelle Frechette, but also by Amanda Gorman and Birgit Olzem.

We talk about WordPress because it's a WordPress podcast after all, but we do try to avoid the pitfalls of poking fun at each other, being nasty and mean, and generally we try to be as nice as possible.

So what do we talk about? We talk about the accessibility team and how they've had to pause things, as well as the fields API team.

We also talk about a new show that I've been doing called get optimized with remkus de Vries.

There's an event coming up in London with Tim Nash, WPLDN. It's a masterclass all about security. So we have a chat about that.

We also talk about a word camp that's happening in Romania soon.

A survey which you can fill out to help the WordPress press community understand all about the different bits and pieces of how you manage WordPress websites.

Spend a lot of time thanking the people at WordCamp Sydney, which is coming up soon.

And also an update mirror, so that you don't need wordpress.org to update your websites. Is this a new thing which is going to be happening?

Some plugins to mention. Forking WordPress and a whole load more.

And it's all coming up next on this week in WordPress. This episode of the WP Builds podcast is brought to you by GoDaddy Pro, the home of manage WordPress hosting that includes free domain, SSL, and 24 7 support. Bundle that with the hub by GoDaddy Pro to unlock more free benefits to manage multiple sites in one place, invoice clients and get 30% of new purchases. Find out more at go.me/wpuilds.

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Hello. Hi there. welcome, It is, what is it? It's the 21st of October, 2021. it's this week in WordPress, episode number 312. Thank you for joining us. we are gonna get stuck into the bits and pieces of the WordPress news in just a moment, but before then, you'll notice that there's, three of us on the screen.

And, we might well be joined by somebody a little bit later. Hopefully, we've got somebody coming. If they show up, then we'll just drop them into the middle of the show. And if they don't, then we'll continue with the three of us. And, let's go round the houses and, say hi. First of all, yes, over there.

It's Michelle Ette, co-host for this episode. How are you doing, Michelle? I'm good. How are you? Yeah, good. We're gonna get onto, to a story of Michelle's own and she can tell it in any which way she likes a little bit later. Probably be about halfway through the episode. But, I'll do your bio first if that's all right, Michelle.

So here we go. Sure. Michelle Ette is the Director of Community Engagement for Stellar, WP at Liquid Web. In addition to the work there at Stella WP Michelle is the podcast [email protected]. Co-founder of underrepresented in tech.com, creator of wp speakers.com and WP. Career pages.com. Also the director, executive director, I should say, at post status.com Co-host of the WP Motivate podcast and also the host of the WP Constellations podcast author, frequent organizer, and speaker at WordPress events.

We'll find out about one of those in a bit. she lives outside Rochester, New York, where she is a keen nature photographer. And the final URL, if you wanna just get a summation of all of those different bits and pieces. Head to meet Michelle online. Meet Michelle online. Have I got the correct bio there?

'cause yours changes fairly frequently, doesn't it? you do. You do. Oh, nice. Everything is up to date. Yay. I think I updated it fairly recently, Okay. That's great. thank you once again for joining us. And also down there, is bigot the other big, the other bigot. How you doing bigot? I'm doing fine.

[00:05:15] Birgit Olzem: Thanks Nathan. Nice to, nice to have you with us. so the bio literally does officially say the other big, so here we go. The other big is a creative polymath and advocates for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Besides her profession, as a personal branding consultant, she creates contemporary art and whimsical textile designs and surface patterns.

[00:05:38] Nathan Wrigley: She hosts a regular series about DEIB on do the Woo Podcast show the WordPress Way. So there we go. There's the panelists that we've got so far, and I'd notice that, we are now joined by Amanda. Amanda's off screen at the moment, so I'm just gonna give Amanda enough time that it takes, give us the thumbs up when you're ready.

Amanda, if you are ready. Okay. So she's ready. I didn't wanna just raise her if she was still getting everything all straightened out. So there we go. Amanda, how are you doing? Hi everyone. Thanks so much for having me. Oh, you're welcome. Look, it's Stella, WP on the right and the rest of the world on the left.

[00:06:16] Michelle Frechette: it's the US and Europe. That's right, yes. Alright, we'll go with that. With a go with the US and Europe, Stella, WP versus the rest of the world. Amanda, I don't actually have a bio for you. You may have noticed that I was just reading big. It's out. So am I able to just hand that ball to you and just say, can you just give us a quick bio, a couple of sentences or something?

[00:06:36] Nathan Wrigley: I'm sorry to put you on the spot like that. No, absolutely. No problem at all. Happy to, thank you again for having me. I'm Amanda, director of Customer Success at Stellar wp. we've got a family of brands and I actually started, as di customer success manager at Give wp and then that role evolved over time, where now I am director of.

[00:06:56] Amanda Gorman: Customer success. And I worked, directly underneath Michelle, for those first three years, three or four years. yeah, seemed like that. And that was, yeah, it was a wonderful time to like just build a department, build what customer success looks like for a WordPress brand, and then see that really take shape.

And now, we're doing it for all of the brands at Stellar. So that's really my journey, into WordPress as well, because that was my first WordPress job. so I was able to enter the community and previous to that I was building websites, really trying to find my way into this, space. And previously I'd had a lot of customer success, experience through, service related industries like restaurants and real estate.

So I was able to pivot that skill into what it would look like, training myself as. a WordPress expert and actually building websites and working with clients. So it was a, nice little transition and it's what I actually wanted to be doing. Nice. and then personally, I'm a, mom.

I've got a 4-year-old and a 16-year-old, and, lots of animals in the house and Yeah. Oh, about it. I hope we get to see some of the animals that's always there. Maybe you might highlight when the cat wanders across the, the keyboard, interestingly enough. here's a life hack for you. as with everybody in the WordPress space, I'm sure it's fair to say that quite a few of us have been down the X stroke Twitter rabbit hole recently.

[00:08:29] Nathan Wrigley: Okay? So here's what you gotta do, right? If you don't want any of the WordPresses stuff, getting into your feed and taking over your life, go and search for cat videos, right? And then just dwell on a few of them. I. For like just watch a couple, a sheep, anything. Basically cat videos is what I did.

Just a couple of them is all it takes. And then Twitter suddenly has the intuition. You wanna see more cats and the WordPress drama evaporates, and suddenly your timeline's full of cats. And it's, I'll tell you what, it's a lot more productive. So that's my, that's my top tip. Anyway, there's our little panel today.

I appreciate all of your time. I really appreciate it. Just a couple of bits of housekeeping before we begin. You, if you watch the show regularly, I apologize you've been through this a million times, but for those who are new, it's probably worth mentioning, depending on where you're watching this. The best way I should probably say to watch it is to go here.

that's, wp builds.com/live. Once more, wp builds.com/live. If you head over there and you're on the website on a desktop computer, you'll notice that there's comments on the right hand side. You have to be logged into Google. Because they're YouTube comments, you can pop it out and put it into a new chat window and what have you.

or you can just, click on the comments and it'll take you to the video and things like that. Alternatively, if you don't wanna do that, you can click the little black, button, top right of the actual video, and I think it says live chat, and that's anonymized. It's part of the platform that supplies the video, which is not YouTube.

It's a platform called Wave. So that enables you to comment without having to be logged in. So please feel free, to do that and fancy sharing this with your friends and colleagues. Go for that as well. in fact, pause your, pause it. Oh no, don't pause it. Just put it open on a new tab. Open up your social media thing of choice and paste wp builds.com/live.

And a few people have dropped in. Firstly, Taco. Tacho was with Yost and now is with Yost. And he's not with Yost. He's not with Yost. depends on how you spell it. Depends on how you spell it. but what a pleasure. I hope you'll be continuing to come on the show. That would be nice. Courtney Robertson's joining us, she's saying hello to Tacho and being it and Michelle and, everybody else, and then somebody new.

Oh, no, I recognize the picture, although I didn't recognize the name. web Squadron. Hi. how you doing Imran, I think. And then Rick is joining us as well. Lots of waves. Elliot just down the road from me. That's nice. Lawrence, all the way from. Australia. That was terrible, wasn't it? I tried to do an Australian accent with the word Australian.

Yeah, don't do that again. Don't do that again. That was just really bad. sorry. And in fact, all of Australia, I feel I. Bad. and Max is joining us as well, and obviously being it. There she is. She's joining us. cat video is right. You are right. The more cat, honestly, just do it. They're so entertaining.

They're so good. and Peter Ingersol. Amanda. Every week Peter Ingersol joins us and tells us what the weather is like in Connecticut. It's become a thing, and here it is. it is eight 10 degrees centigrade, 50 degrees Fahrenheit. it's heading up to 20 degrees or 80 degrees. it will be like this all week.

Oh, that's nice. That's really warm here. It's rubbish in comparison. I'm quite jealous. we're gonna get, we're obviously doing cats, aren't we now? I'm so sorry. my two kittens spend 95% of their time sat or sleeping on my desk. Pity that one of them likes too farts with a featured cabbage smell. I saw something and it the other day, and it was somebody who just basically made a little perspec shelf right?

And it was big enough to go over their keyboard so that they can put their hands under it. And then the cat sits on the little perspec shelf. I've seen those above the keyboard. And, it was brilliant. Really nice. And Marcus Barnett is joining us all the way from Orlando another Monday. So of course it's time for WP Bells.

Thank you so much. I'm still with Yost. I know, You've got a few more days, haven't you? But then you'll be with Yost, which is entertaining, completely entertaining. 21st is the last day, and a few other people joining us as well. Okay. Oh no, no worries about the accent. That's good. okay. Okay. I don't, that's alright.

Okay. I'm designing this show going forwards to be a bit of the antidote to the WordPress drama, right? So as with the previous two weeks when we could have dug deep and enraged ourselves and made ourselves terribly cross, about everything that's going on, I, you know what?

I've got better things to do, with my life, and one of them is to be happy and polite. And all of those kind of things. So if that's what you want, honestly, just go watch something else. 'cause you're not gonna, you're not gonna get that frenzy of stuff here. the intention is to raise the stories.

If some of the stories are about all of the stuff that's going on in WordPress at the moment. It's really gonna just be commentary. We'll just say it as it is. but what I have noticed, and I dunno if this is true for you panelists as well, I know it's partly because I'm watching CAT videos, but seriously, I have noticed that in the last week things have.

Calmed down a little bit for me. I know it's still simmering under the surface, but I have noticed that, things have calmed down a little bit. And also I'd like to make it very clear at the beginning that not everybody is entitled to give their free opinion and still remain employed. some people do have the embargo of, what their work has said is appropriate or what have you.

And I dunno if that applies to anybody on this call. I'm just saying it. so just bear that in mind when you go out there. Some people silence might be deafening you, but it doesn't mean that they've got, intuitions, which are not, not the same as you, WP. Not drama. That's it. I like it.

We're going with that. All right. That's perfect. Okay, so with that said, let's get stuck into today's stuff. So this is us, wp builds.com, and we have dropdown menus apparently. There you go. It's gone there. and I just wanna say that if you, like what we're doing and you wanna be informed about what we do, put your email address in here and click this little subscribe button.

And I will send you two emails a week, one when this show goes out as a podcast. That will be tomorrow. So we strip out the audio and put it onto the podcast feed. and then we also do a podcast episode, which is typically an interview or something like that. I'll show you one in a minute on a Thursday.

So we'll just notify you about those. And in order to keep the lights on over here, we are very lucky to have some fabulous sponsors. And at the moment, those sponsors are the following companies. GoDaddy Pro. Thank you so much, blue Host. Thank you so much. And Omnis send three fine companies, thanks to all of them.

And if you ever do go lurking around on their website or talking to them at Word camps or anything like that, and you fancy sort of drop in the bomb that you discovered them from WP builds, that would be amazing. Thank you very much to those companies. another thing that we're doing at the moment is we're running a Black Friday deal.

Every Black Friday, we try to get about, I don't know, it ends up being about 400, something like that. WordPress deals all collated onto this page. Made a bit of a start. You can see here, there's a whole bunch of them. I essentially wait for people to send them to me and then they go onto this page. And you can see people have been busily filling out my form.

If you're in the WordPress space company, if you've got a plugin, theme, block hosting, whatever it may be, you can click this little button here, add a deal. and you'll fill out the form and so long as it all makes sense and checks out, I'll put it on the page. And one of the things that you've gotta do is classify it.

Tell me how much you are offering off for, black Friday. I don't know, three people have identified themselves as hosting companies and there they are. and so you can filter and search and things like that, and do all of that. And then if you're interested in sponsoring that page, a bit like these two companies have done WS form and gravity form, then yeah, you can click on one of these little get started buttons here.

Got one of the big spots left, and then we've got four of these little spots running at the bottom. So feel free to fill that out. Okay. That, by the way, is at wp builds.com/black. All right. Okay. started a new show this week with Mku Dre. we're calling it Get It Optimized Every About a Quarter, once a quarter, something like that.

Mku is gonna come on the show and give us some top tips about how to, manage your WordPress website to make it speedy performance and, as quick as possible. And he lays the groundwork on this episode where he's talking about hosting and the various different options you've got, just the bare bones, the 1 0 1 if you like.

So that was episode 394 of the podcast. And, go and check it out. And, we'll be back in probably about three months time for the next episode. And last, but by no means least, I started a show and this feeds into the first story started another show which isn't in the podcast feed 'cause it's more of a video thing.

started a show with Joe Dolson, the Ever Cool Joe Dolson. And if you don't know Joe, has made it his mission in life. To make the web accessible. And what we've been doing, this is the second episode, is we've been going through the WordPress showcase, which is a website showing off some of the, the top in air quotes, WordPress websites.

And he's been dissecting them and he's gonna be doing one particular thing at a time. So for these first two shows, he's just been looking at menus. And so if you fancy, about 30 minutes, some top tips on how to make your menus accessible, you can find that by going to the archives section and then go to the accessibility show.

And if I click on that and wait a moment, then yeah, you'll see episode one and two right there. Okay. Now that leads me to some sad news about Joe. it's actually not sad news about Joe. It's some sad news, which features Joe, and this is a, consequence of the bits and pieces that have been happening in the WordPress space.

The accessibility team meetings are suspended at the moment. Joe has obviously posted this. He's big into this. And it says, as neither of the current accessibility, teams, representatives are able to log into wordpress.org team meetings are suspended until further notice, bug scrubs will continue to run as normal.

So here we have the first thing that we might get into, if you wish to, we're obviously seeing a bit of drainage in the WordPress community, and sadly, some of the projects that are being affected are things, a little bit like this. I dunno if anybody's got anything to say. All I'm gonna, the, way I'm framing this story is that has happened.

It's a crying shame, but if you want to step into the shoes of the people who have removed themselves from the community or whatever language you want to put around that, or have, just decided to move away, then maybe contact Joe, directly. you can definitely find Joe, online.

There's obviously a link there, on that post if you feel that you could help with that endeavor and get those meetings started up again, feel free, I've talked for what seems like forever. I apologize about that. Does anybody want to comment on that one, or shall I move on? it's not the only team that's affected.

[00:20:06] Michelle Frechette: Of course, we've had people step back from moderating, photos on the photos team as well, and I'm sure that it's affected other teams. it's been a large number of people. so if you're interested in getting involved and you can log in, I suggest now's a good time. Nice. Thank you so much.

[00:20:27] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Do you know off the top of your head, can you name any of the other teams, just off the top of your head? 'cause I actually, I think you're right. I've got the same intuition that it's more than that team, but I can't actually remember any off the top of my head. So if you can't either, then we'll just assume the community between us can, but yeah.

Okay. Yeah, I think the community team has, a few people as well. like I said, photos, but those are the teams that I'm on, so I'm not really sure. beyond that. Yeah. the incidents response team, for instance, had also faced some contributor churn. certain other teams I have seen are also limiting in their ability to contribute at the moment.

[00:21:12] Birgit Olzem: And I think, many of those who I've spoken with want to wait and pause for a moment to see how things are wo, so yeah. it's, I think we need to have some form of patience, on the one hand. But on the other hand, I really am feeling sorry and sad for everyone who sees themselves in the situation to leave this project.

I. It's currently. So it's, yeah. Yeah. Heartbreaking. But yeah, we need to keep the spirits uplifting as good as possible. Yeah. We are where we aren't we? And I think it's fair to say that the four of us probably, between us, don't fully understand everything that's going on. And even if we did fully understand it, we don't have the magic wand to, to make it go away.

[00:22:05] Nathan Wrigley: But I appreciate that sentiment. Big it, that's really nice, just, we'll have to recalibrate, won't we, really? And see where we're at. And, and a, comment which kind of fills. Which fits right into that narrative is this one. come from Imran. I do apologize, Amanda, when we've got this kind of view, your face doesn tend to get, consumed by, actually, I can make that go away.

Have, there we go. Sit, taller, Amanda. Yeah, that's right. Has to make your head go really high. he's saying, calm down. Yeah, calm down. Because there's little that can be done, with accusations of bias or fuel or adding fuel to the fire. So let's just see how it pans out. and there's more in that I can see off screen and return to love WordPress, which is really nice.

Samia, Nasia, Sam, sorry, Nasia, organized the most successful Yost contributor today, ever last week. So there we go. There's some more positive news. That's right. I'm sorry. I haven't, it was awesome. I haven't featured that. I apologize. Tcho that somehow didn't get on my radar and it's so nice, to just work together with amazing people on.

And again, it's truncated, the project that we all love. So actually very similar sentiments. You both end basically with the word love at the end of your comment, which is interesting, isn't it? A nice, oh, and love that. Okay, so we've got an episode title. It's called Love. Already We know What's Going on.

okay, so here we are. Some more bits and pieces. The ally, A one y the Ally, team has meetings again. Oh. Okay. That's interesting. So things have moved in a positive direction there. That's great. And the incident response team has also had a few people leave. Okay. Yeah. As beer gets said. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly Okay. So thank you for the comments there. That's helpful. Thank you so much. in relation to that, let's just pop it, Amanda. Sorry, did you have anything you wanted to add to that? If not, I'll move on. I appreciate all the sentiment here, and I think it's just good to remember that anything can happen.

[00:24:07] Amanda Gorman: Like we, we can maybe assume that we have an idea of what could happen, but I, it's a practice I like to do in my life when I over assume things like I, I like to assume that I know what's gonna go on, and that usually gets me into trouble. So I try to check my assumptions and remember that literally anything can happen.

the possibilities are infinite. So holding onto that hope and holding onto that love is a great way to open up that opportunity for that possibility. Honestly, it w when I say those things to myself, I have to berate myself for being overly optimistic or something like that. But then I actually pause and think, wait a minute, h hang on.

[00:24:46] Nathan Wrigley: What is your actual handle on this community, Wrigley. and it's not, I don't really have a lot of purchase on it. And what I mean by that is it's huge. it truly is huge. You only have to go to the big, the big WordPress events to realize there's many thousands and they're just a teeny, tiny subset of the people who could attend.

and so that kind of like messes up my intuitions. And I end up thinking, I don't know how all this is gonna pan out. I really don't like, and something that we're gonna read that bigot has penned bigot, this bigot, has penned this week is the other bigot. Yeah. the other, bigot who's here.

So the bigot, is, is, stressing that, that optimism and maybe. Maybe we're in a period of profound and interesting and good change and it might at the moment feel like everything is chicken little and the sky is falling in. Who knows? I'm sure you've all been in periods of your own life personally, where at the time that it was going on, the world was gonna go pear shaped, everything was going wrong.

And then, with a few years, bit of hindsight, you think, okay, I'm not undermining the profundity of all of the things that people are going through. I am not. I'm just cautioning that, for me at least anyway, I. It's helping. If I say to myself, look, calm down, maybe the sky is not. It's the same.

[00:26:07] Birgit Olzem: I, I told my therapist today, when I was rambling about what's going on in my life currently, and it's, I was saying, we came together because of the software, because the software itself is great, but we stay for the people and I care deeply about the people. The software itself can be replaced anytime, but the community and the connection we have made, it is difficult to replace or when, as you mentioned, it is from the cows.

They can, accelerate something beautiful when we stay together and focus on the things we can have an influence on. I don't have any influence on what's happening beyond the pond in the us. I have only influence in my surroundings and how I approach things and yeah, that is. I think the spirit we need to, use and see what can we influence and where do we have impact on Yeah.

And other things we can't change. Yeah. Yeah. We can't just only observe. Yeah. and at the risk of sounding like we're avoiding the topic, we are avoiding the topic somewhat deliberately, but also maybe that's in all of our interests, in terms of our mental health at the moment, is let the, let the lawyers perhaps figure out the lawyery things and, we'll worry about the community things that we actually care about.

[00:27:35] Nathan Wrigley: I turn up to word presidents basically for the people. that's what it's all about really, isn't it? Just hanging out with the people who write the code and enjoy the community and do the things. and so hopefully that's the case. Okay. moving on from that, there is some more so slightly sad news, so just quickly put that back up and reemphasize, Despite what, we may have heard, maybe things are going in a better direction, but if you do wish to help out, I'm sure Joe Dolson, wouldn't mind, hearing from you if you feel that you've got intuitions in that direction. but something sort of Alli to that, this is over on GitHub.

This is the WordPress fields. API, is a bit technical. this is work that Scott Kingsley Clark has been doing, and I feel that in terms of code, this was one of the really coolest things that was coming around. And, but it's, again, the breaks are on. that me just see if I can read, I'm officially terminating.

So this was, a few days ago, 12th of October now. quite a few days ago, I'm officially terminating my core contributing, contributions and involvement with the WordPress project. This project was something that I pulled hundreds of hours into and it greatly pains me to just stop there.

anyone is, feel, free to lead this project in the Core Fields channel of Slack. and he says, I'm done making excuses for Matt's actions and will not associate myself with the core, with core any longer. And, I'm sure that if you follow the code and you're interested in, how to, basically get things on your website to come from other places.

And it's much more technical than that, but we'll ignore that 'cause it's hard to do on a podcast. The field API, as far as I know, is still in this pause status. And yeah, it would be nice if this work could carry on. So if you have those intuitions or know somebody that does maybe, maybe that's a project you could get right into.

Okay. Let's move on. WordPress does carry on. and here's a great example of it. this is Word Camp Romania. I was, I was looking through my inbox the other day and somebody from Word Camp Romania, had sent me an email, very nice email and saying, would you mind mentioning it on your channels?

And I said, yes, that would be great. So here it is. If you are in any way, shape, or form, close to Romania, and it says right at the top of the site, this event is bilingual, 14th to the 15th of October, 2024. You can find it at romania.wordcamp.org/ 2024. I know at the moment. The timing probably in terms of their organization and getting boots on the ground and tickets being sold and all of that.

I imagine that this is a profoundly challenging time for them to do that. so here we are. This is basically an advert for Word Camp Romania. If you in that part of the world, new fancy attending. romania.wordcamp.org/ 2024. I can't tell you a great deal more about it than that. there's obviously the menu items here and you can find out about the location and the speakers and all of that kind of stuff.

And maybe this one is the, one that I'm trying to push people to towards purchasing tickets. It's happening very soon, so I imagine that all of the organization has taking place, but life goes on. Look, there it is going on. So anybody got anything? Maya, says in the chat, she'll be happy to meet you there.

[00:31:07] Michelle Frechette: If you're going to Word Camp from here. There you go. There's Maya Long car. Hey, may. That's great. Hey, I saw some nice pictures of you. I dunno where you were, Maya, but some pictures of you, I guess it was Facebook or maybe Twitter or something the other day. You looked like you were having a, nice time.

[00:31:22] Nathan Wrigley: I saw those too. Yeah. Yeah, but it was a four letter acronym, LinkedIn, and I couldn't figure out what the event was. so anyway, Maya, if you're fancy, let me know. I can't wait for Word Camp UK in the O2 arena with 20,000. I can't wait for that 20,000 attendees. That's, yeah, I'll, ambitious. I'll make it happen.

I'll, I'll invite, I don't know, Coldplay or something. That'll guess. There we go. Look, there's the answer. it says word camp. Oh no. Have I got to say that word? I have to Jye. SJ ye. I'm going with that, in Macedonia. So there it was. That's the event. Okay. I'm glad. There you go. That you were there and having a nice time.

That's lovely. Anyway, there it is on the screen. Word Camp Romania. feel free to, to get in touch. I love their logo. Yeah. Isn't that nice? I love their website's. Lovely. Yeah, actually, seriously, I did actually spend quite, do you ever, find that something about a website just captures you and you end up staring at it for a while?

That picture captured me and I dunno if you can see it. It's lovely. Particularly well, isn't that cool? That Red Roof City just stretching around this hill, In the, isn't that beautiful. Just made me wanna go. Okay, then you should. yeah, sadly, I can't put that on me yet. I have children's birthdays, many children's birthdays at that time.

[00:32:51] Michelle Frechette: I understand. Yeah. Yeah. okay, so let's move into some other interesting stuff. We're gonna feature a range of things, but we'll spread them out of, people's sort of personal stories over the last few weeks. And I think the broad message is one of hope. Let's try and make it that anyway. ultimately, they, these people talk about the stuff that they're going through, and then ultimately it seems like there's a fairly hopeful outcome to it.

[00:33:17] Nathan Wrigley: This one comes from, Jonathan Boer. Jonathan has been on the podcast several times. I don't think he's been on this particular show, but he is, from South Africa. he works for Automatic, and do you know what I think I'm gonna read? These bits, and I very rarely do this, but I think I'm gonna read what's in yellow, and I know that's gonna take a minute or two, but I hope you let me.

So I'm paraphrasing based upon what I'm seeing on the screen. the article by the way, is called Reflections on Being Employed to Work in Open Source, and it's on jonathan boser.com. The links will be in the show notes. so I'm expediting. Last Friday I started work with 159 less colleagues than I did that Monday.

Many of them I'd never met or worked with. Some I knew from various places around the work. Slack and others were an important part of my personal WordPress story or the work I do. Each one of those last ones hurt when I saw it. However, what has been worse has been the fear of talking about it publicly.

The fear of how the folks I interact with in the community would perceive my choices. What would they think of me? How would it affect their choice to start or continue to contribute to WordPress? Social media has probably been the worst place to hang out. The word doom scroll has never been more accurate.

You, you need more cats here, Jonathan. I've seen colleagues get slammed because they shared their opinions publicly. I've seen in inaccurate inflammatory posts about automatic by known bad actors in the community being shared as fact. I've seen individuals who I know would be in complete opposite camps, politically aligned on social media, the enemy of the enemy and all that.

Yet I still found myself at a loss for the right words. And then he goes on, I reflect, oh, this is a quote. It's about a T-shirt that he's wearing, which says, let's make the world a better place. I reflected on the reasons I joined the WordPress community, dedicated myself to its growth and prosperity, and ultimately joined automatic is because I want to use my skills to make the world a better place.

Far removed from the toxic environments of modern social media with its online harassment and promotion of lies and deceit. I want my kids to grow up with a web that nurtures and supports them, that provides them with avenues of learning, growth, entertainment, a stable career, happy families, whatever those things might look like.

I don't, okay. So at the moment I can feel some people getting triggered. It's okay, this is all very one-sided. Here's the counterpoint. I don't always agree with every decision that leaders in my division make, including my team lead, their lead, my division lead all the way up and including the CEO.

But I do think we're all aligned with the mission of making the web a better place, even if we don't go about it in the same ways. So ultimately, the desire to make the work, the web a better place combined with an amazing work environment, supportive colleagues and some of the best benefits I've experienced.

I chose to stay and I just thought that was a really nice encapsulation of what we're going through at the moment. And it was, it booked. Me was this little bit about this kind of fear of not being able to say what you think because you think on social media, you might get called out now. My content is very often fairly anodyne.

I describe it as I deliberately don't try not to step on landmines and I try to avoid all the trip wise. And, that leads to a certain, I don't know, maybe it's, lack of, oh, I don't really know what the word is, but I don't try to throw bombs around and things like that. And I think Jonathan is trying to play the same game here.

But that, sense of, I wanna say something, but I don't think I can. But then just painting it, look, I'm just here. I'm just here because I don't necessarily agree with everything, but I just wanna do the right thing. I want to create the web to be a better place. WordPress is the platform that I've chosen to do it on.

So I'm banging the same gong again, but I just thought that was a really poignant piece. So I'll throw it open to our panelists, see if any of you thought that was, interesting, moving, thoughtful, provoking. I don't know. I would say, I was thinking about, those articles a lot. and something which pops into my mind as always, words matter.

[00:37:40] Birgit Olzem: Words can hurt and also words can be a weapon. And that is why my, maybe some people choose to stay silent because they don't want to, or they can't process all the stuff going on and finding the right words for that. And I really cherish people find the courage to talk about it and, share their feelings with that, and also finding solutions.

but yeah, I can really imagine how hard it might be for someone who has, fears, especially on their livelihood, not only by an employee, but also employer, but also maybe on their own business. so they don't want to come into the crossfire, Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Michelle, Amanda, anything on that?

[00:38:34] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, it's been very polarizing, right? So if you follow the US politics at all, you know that we are very polarized here, between the two candidates that we have up for election in just a few weeks, I feel like this is polarizing in that way. it's if you are somewhere in the middle, then people are upset that you aren't picking a side.

[00:38:55] Michelle Frechette: and, for some of us, we just want the community to continue to move forward. We want everybody to continue to have jobs. We want people to continue to be happy to participate in the open source project and to see things move forward with WordPress, because we believe in it so deeply. And so it is very difficult to say anything one way or the other and to continue to be happily employed and to continue to want to work forward and write good things about the community.

And it's, it, and like you said at the beginning, it's, about. Avoiding those landmines and trip wires and it's, a very difficult field to traverse right now. especially if you are in a public position like you are, like, I am like everybody on this podcast today. And that makes it a little bit more difficult to, to navigate for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Amanda, anything before we move on? I agree with everything that's been said here today. I do tend towards the, being a little bit more quiet 'cause I do tend to want all the information before I make any kind of opinion or formulate any public opinion. Especially, I, like having one-on-one conversations.

[00:40:06] Amanda Gorman: I like talking with folks privately or, in my communities, the people I'm working with and communicating with them about how I'm feeling, how they're feeling. And that feels more important to me right now, than taking any kind of public stance. And I also do totally understand that also is part of this as well, because that's of the community narrative that's happening.

And I think it's important to remember that just because you don't feel like you have to say any, you don't have anything to say necessarily publicly, that's not necessarily bad. You can still have conversations in your own circles, in your own community and support the people around you. Yeah, I put a tweet out the other day, which, which kind of got a little bit of engagement.

[00:40:46] Nathan Wrigley: my Twitter account doesn't get a lot of engagement, but this one got a little bit and it was something along the lines of, doesn't matter what you said thought did, imagined over the last few weeks, I'm pretty sure that if we were to be stood next to each other in a Word camp or any scenario you like, we'd probably get along just fine.

and I think that's probably pretty true. I think it's really unlikely that the outrage that we see on social media would actually transfer itself into a conversation in a Word Camp corridor. I just can't imagine some of the people, who are getting really heated about all this coming up to me and yelling at me.

'cause it's just not what you do. But we do seem to have that kind of culture online where, we can type something, shut the keyboard, walk away from it. But I do think we have to. Encourage ourselves to be a little bit reflective of the, I don't know what the word is here.

The sort of the, damage that you can do to somebody who lives halfway around the world that you'll probably never meet and you won't see the impact of the words and You can, you, everybody's got a right to their opinion. I know that's the case, but I do feel, I feel like things are calming down at the minute.

And so I think that's really nice. And Jonathan has obviously felt that, maybe things have calmed down enough for him to put his head above the parapet and say that, but an important point, just because somebody doesn't speak publicly about something or take a side, doesn't mean they don't have very clever, carefully thought through cogent ideas about what their position is.

They just might not be willing to share it. They don't want to get into a bond fight. They might be employed and have an embargo from them, employee, employer, or they might just disagree with you, but not want to fall out with you. And, I'll just disagree silently, but I'll know that our opinions are different.

The only thing we've got as a species, and this in the most profound sense of the word, the only thing we've got is conversation. And if we stop talking. yeah. there's nothing else to do, really. yeah. Anyway, there we go. here's a comment from Tacho. to be honest, I've seen some people post things online that would make me slightly uncomfortable, around them until we've been able to discuss it.

Luckily, that's not a lot of people. Yeah. I feel, like social media does enable us to do that, doesn't it? We can throw those bombs and close the laptop, put the phone down, and then just not really think about the impact, but Yeah. imagine a scenario where you've said something to somebody and you reduce them to, let's say tears.

That would be a real visible sign, and, you'd have to be, a fairly callous person to see that destruction and not think, oh. I've stepped over a line because you never do see that, do you? online, right? So there we go. Let's, let's, imagine that the next few weeks are gonna be a lot calmer.

Gosh, I'm in like preacher mode. What the heck? The heck's gone on. I don't get it. I've, something's changed. we feel deeply about it and that's what's important, right? Every person sitting here today, we're here because we feel so deeply about this community and about the project itself. And it's easy to get in our feelings about it and I'm just really happy to hear that yours are positive.

Don't you think though, as well on that point? Don't you think that projects like open source projects like WordPress, I think they do attract a certain level of, I don't, I really don't wanna put my foot in it here, but I think it attracts certain people, but it also attracts a level of commitment.

I. That maybe a f like a full on like a corporate thing, for example, might not do. you go there to work for the money and the paycheck and what have you, but as soon as you clock out at five o'clock, you're done until you clock in again at nine o'clock. Feels like open source projects. You throw more of yourself into it, don't you?

And it's more heart, more passion, more soul, more. Lived experience. yeah, Okay. And a comment here from, I don't know, this person El Stack. Thank you. it's so sad we cannot have and share different opinions. I'm interested in other people's opinions, no matter the distance from my own.

Yeah, that's, it isn't, it's conversation. Without the conversation, we're in a bit of bother. And, yeah. Anyway. Okay. Let's move on. But well done, Jonathan. I thought you encapsulated that just beautifully. so agreed. Congrats from me. Okay. this is really changing the subject a little bit.

We'll, we'll round back to something similar to Jonathan's post in a moment. This is to say that Maine wp, via Todd Jones have reached out to me and every year they do this, very short survey. In fact, you can see that the whole survey is on this Google form and. 15 questions, so it'll take you a matter of minutes.

and what they're after each and every year, they throw together a report, which is, called the Site Care Consultant Survey. And the idea is they would like to know, I'm guessing it helps their platform, but also, it helps to get this information out there. They, want information about people who take care of people's websites.

So whether that's you building it and then managing it, or whether that's you just managing it, perhaps you in a business of updating things like that. And so the 2024 survey is out. They're asking a few different questions this year, like they're asking demographic questions, so that'll give us some interesting information, as well as things like how many sites that you are managing.

And so if you want to give them, and then they'll publish it as a survey, information about, how many sites people manage and things like that, which could be a really interesting data point. Then go and check it out. It's on main, WP. Dot com. and the blog post is called October Main, main WP Roundup site Care Consultant survey.

And the link is, I actually can't remember where the link is. It's buried in there. Right there. We invite you to fill out the survey right under the, oh, there you go. Yellow parts. Yeah. There you go. Just there. And it'll take you to the Google form. And honestly, it's three minutes. there we go. Todd. I hope that, hope that gets you some, some, to be fair, they carefully assemble.

[00:47:01] Michelle Frechette: They do not just throw together their report. Did I say throw together? Yeah, you did. Okay. They carefully assembled, they scaffolded it beautifully. Yeah, they pour over the data and, that's, good. Thank you. okay. Oh, what a nice article. So Word Camp Sydney. it's coming up real soon, the second to the 3rd of November.

[00:47:22] Nathan Wrigley: Now, there is a slight story here, which I'll touch on and then I'll just leave it. there is some news surrounding, WP Engine's ability or lack thereof, to be a sponsor at this event. And again, you can have your opinion about that. whether they were a sponsor and have had to withdraw, or whether they have just been declined sponsorship, I don't really know.

But that's not what this piece is about. This piece is all about the bits and the pieces that go to make up, a Word camp event. Now, hand on heart, unlike many other people on this call, I've never organized a word camp. I help organize a meetup, but that's not quite on the same scale. So seriously, I know there's a lot of knots and bolts and bits and pieces going on, but this article just is really nice and it.

It paints the picture of what needs to be done, and it's called behind the scenes at Word Camp Sydney, and so it goes into who does what. And what they're doing. So for example, just the first section is all about sponsors. mark has dealt with sponsors since we announced Word Camp Sydney on April the 16th.

That's a six month marathon spent calling, emailing, collecting information, coordinating logistics, dealing with corporate payment systems, blogging and posting to social media. So I'm imagining Mark's fairly exhausted at this point. Joe, who's dealing with the speakers, is busy managing speakers, vetting applications, selecting speakers with help from D and others, emailing, calling, collecting info and bio managing questions, keeping them informed, creating personalized social tiles, and finding new last minute standing.

So I expect Joe is quite tired. D who we just heard about is dealing with the schedule and so it goes on, budget. Volunteers and safety, registration and help desk, social networking events, website and graphics, swag and merch, audio and visuals. And each time there's a name attached and I'm sorry I can't mention everybody's names, but if you go to this post, it's just a really nice insight and remember.

These people are doing it for the community. They're doing it because they love the project. All volunteer. All volunteer in their time. And and you need to scroll down the post and see what is Will doing.

So the person who wrote the post apparently is, yeah, just hanging out, kicking, their feet up, having a nice up writing blog post this one blog post. But I just thought it was really nice. It was a really nice way of celebrating. Yeah. Big over to you. Go, you tell us me. I love that post. when I saw that, I was really, that is really interesting to see how much work goes behind the wood camp organizing wood camp and.

[00:50:14] Birgit Olzem: Even if I was only once in a while time and co-organizer for WEC Camp, the local WEC camp, and I had a head on for running mostly everything on ground. I know a lot what behind the scenes are running, but every attendee or the most attendees maybe don't have a grasp of it, what it means to create an event like that.

And I really love that. And I think we, can, learn from that and share it with other we camps, to tell the audience, what is behind the WE Camp organization and maybe there's more appreciation for the work behind it, maybe. Because, but all the people who are volunteering, creating an event in their free time, unpaid unsponsored the most time, really care about the community.

So just tap them on the shoulder and say thanks for all the hard work they're doing. Yeah, we'll circle back to that when we get to your piece. So there's a bit of a, there's a bit of a, an eyeopener for what's coming up. We're gonna. Deal with something that big, has penned this week. And you actually do mention this, don't you, as one of your kind of bullet points.

[00:51:28] Nathan Wrigley: yeah, good point. And, this is part of the new WordPress maybe is just a conversation. There, it is that word again. about what, is the role of the community? What are the, the paid for things? What are the things that people expect to be remunerated from? What can be a, realistic expectation?

But I just thought this was lovely. Paint a picture of how much work has been done and and hopefully if you attend that event, as bigot said, not that you wouldn't have done, but now you've got, names that you can attach to faces and, and you can, who did what and thank them for it.

Michelle or Amanda, anything to add to that one? I agree with everything. Nice, Amanda. I love it. It's great to see. I think it's great to bring that transparency, 'cause then it might inspire somebody to make it a little bit more accessible too. 'cause they might be like, how can I be involved? How, where do I fit in with my skills?

[00:52:26] Amanda Gorman: I think this makes it totally transparent and able to just jump right in. Yeah. Thank you so much. here we are. This, oh, let me put that view so we're not chopping Amanda's head off again. so this is just circling back to an item from a moment ago, saying I agree that we don't have to share views or opinions, as we can't predict how people will respond, but some posts, lovely dovey messages that's in air quotes, bias to either party that direct, indirectly gaslights.

[00:52:58] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I guess if you are spotting that, then you just know it, don't you've got it in your head. You've understood that's what's going on. And, my intuition there would be to, I, I certainly don't feel the need to call that out. And, if you do, I guess you do it in the politest way that you can.

Yeah. love the Wap who. it says my, yeah, it is a nice one. It's holding the sit. Let's put it up quickly. It's holding the bridge. The, no, it's not the bridge. That's not the bridge. That's the Opera house. The opera house. Oh, dear. go to bed, Nathan. anyway, there we go. yet you volunteered to organize a word Camp O2 Arena.

Yes, I did. Yeah. I'll be the sole. Organizer of that event, it'll be a disaster. the best way to promote WordPress, best, sorry. Best they just, so I'm guessing this carries on from what you said a moment ago. Best that they just promote WordPress but not promote one person, because that opens the gate for nasty responses.

I hate nasty troll replies, but we need to consider likely responses. is there a word come coming to the UK soon? The answer to that is, as far as I know, no. There is no planned word Camp on a major, like a Word Camp, UK style thing? Not that I know of. if there, I would be there if it happened and he said he'd be there with 24 counts of Pepsi Max in the bag.

y yeah, not that I know of. word camps in the uk. I've definitely been on the back burner recently. However, if you want to attend, I'm just gonna quickly just post the URL. Let's just do it. W-P-L-D-N. this is happening if you live anywhere near London. Come coming up in 10 days time.

WordPress London Meetup from six 30 to 9:00 PM we're having it on Halloween. and, if you wanna attend that, it's free. You can come, but if you want to go the extra mile. Let's see if I can raise this URL up if you wanna come for the day. This bit isn't free, this is charged. if you wanna come and hang out with Tim Nash for a, security event, he's doing an in-person, security EV event.

I'll be there. The organizers will be there and some attendees will be there. And it's all about, auditing WordPress security like a pro. You can find this at wpdn.uk/masterclass. So there's two things for your dilatation. You've got the Wpdn, meetup, and you've got the masterclass here as well. Okay.

Where were we? We've done that one. Okay. This one's over to Michelle because Michelle penned this piece during the course of this week. there's a little bit that comes before this, and I'll let Michelle talk about that if she wishes to. But, Shall I just let you talk us through this one, rather than me trying to paraphrase that would make more I'm one of those people that people say, what do you think about what's happening in the community? And honestly, I have been, dealing with family issues. My stepfather, my mother's husband of 41 years and second father to me passed away on Friday. And prior to that we've, he's been in the hospital for five weeks, six, six weeks, something like that.

[00:56:11] Michelle Frechette: And so while I love WordPress and I said right in the article, I live, eat, breathe, sleep, dream it. I love our community. My WordPress friends are true friends that have been for me in been there for me in times of celebration and in times of need and grief. It's my career, my livelihood, my every day, but it isn't my everything.

And so I wrote a article called Big Pictures and how we need to remember that each one of us in the community has a life outside of WordPress. We have family. many have children, spouses, pets. just, hobbies, things that we do that are not WordPress related. This weekend I wrote an obituary.

I planned a cremation, I planned a funeral service. I ordered flowers, I ordered food. I did all of those things that need to happen outside of WordPress because there are things happening in life that, that have deeper meaning, that have bigger, impact on our lives, like grieving a family member. And so I have been grieving what's happening in the WordPress community because it's deeply personal to me.

But also remember that some of us are dealing with things that are even bigger in our lives. Amanda's raising a little one beer gets got grandchildren. We all have things going on in our lives that. That if we were to talk to those people about WordPress, they would give you the Oh, ah-huh? Yeah.

Okay. Kind of response because it doesn't mean as much outside of what we are dealing with. and so I just wanted people to remember that some of us aren't sharing. Yeah. You said some of us can't share because we work at places that don't want us to have a public opinion. Some of us have things that are happening in our lives that are bigger than that.

And for some of us, it's so deeply, we're so deeply ingrained in it that it's hard to even vocalize how we feel about it. And the last paragraph I say in there says, maybe people don't have the words to describe their own grief. Maybe they're still processing. Maybe they simply just wanna keep their thoughts to themselves and that's okay.

So, I wrote this piece just to remind everybody that there's more going on and to please, keep that in mind. Nice comments, from three very nice people, Kami saying, love you, Michelle. That's nice. And I love Kami. She's awesome. the other bigot who's right there with us. big hogs. thank you.

[00:58:32] Nathan Wrigley: And Michelle and Jess, Rick joining us. Hi Jess. this Thank you, Michelle. I love you so much. And then the tacos just reating echoing that sentiment. Do you know what can I just tell you, Michelle, the bit, like all of the bit that everybody's just said, first of all, enormous.

Sympathies, for thank you for what that's worth from somebody across the other side of the pond. And, I appreciate you've got a lot going on and, the, it was this last little paragraph and, I don't really, I hadn't really thought about it in these terms and so I, I apologize, Michelle. I'm gonna move on from your family stuff.

No, that's okay. Back into the world. Yeah, for sure. And, and simply say that I hadn't really thought that grief would be a word that you could apply to this. Just, I don't know. That's just the nature of my head and the way that I approach things. But when I read it, I thought, oh gosh, that's interesting.

Yeah. So grief, it suddenly felt different. you've, you're missing something. Your job has gone away. The friends that you knew have gone away. It does have all the hallmarks of that, doesn't it? And then it does. The fact that you said that p people are gonna process this in different ways.

it brought me up short anyway, and it made me think, gosh, okay, there's, more to this for some people than, I'm thinking about. yeah. I appreciate it. Nice article. just to be gentle with each other. Thank you. Yeah. It's that, it's the, that's the recurring theme this week, isn't it?

hope and being polite and gentle. Big it. Amanda, anything you wanna add? First of all, cocks again. thank you. I can't imagine how much you're going through, even if I experienced all of similar situations already, so But kudos for showing up and staying, in a good mood still.

[01:00:29] Birgit Olzem: You're gonna make me cry though. Yeah. Oh, no, but it's okay. It's also sharing the vulnerability. yeah. And that is what, it is, for me, the community. And that is why I absolutely agree with it, is a form of grief. We are grieving about the project we cared and how we know the project until certain incidents.

And that is also, we know we need to go through the five stages of grief. So it's the five stages is a denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, right? And people need their time to process this grieving moments. And and it is up to us to allow everyone to go on their own pace through grievance grief.

Yes. do you know what's interesting in what you've just said, BGE as well, is that people who are, who, whose opinions you may strongly disagree with about everything that's going on at the moment. They're presumably they're going through that same thing. It's like the grief, but they've just got a different angle on the grief.

[01:01:36] Nathan Wrigley: But they're having the same set of feelings. It just happens to be a, the cause of it is a, is the opposite of what you are thinking. But they're still going through that rollercoaster and probably. Because they've got deep feelings about the project. nobody's getting angry about what's happening at the moment because they don't care.

It's because they care a lot. And they may care about a different outcome to you, but the fact is there's a lot more in common than divides us perhaps is the best way of describing it. I'm sorry, Amanda, I've usurped what you may have been wanting to say there, so I'll back away and tell, say it's up to you if you wanna say something there.

[01:02:16] Amanda Gorman: No, I just, I think it's wonderful. The space that we can hold for each other in this community and how we are with each other at work or in these communities, is exactly how we are, like how I want to practice in every part of my life. I'm not necessarily trying to be different at work or in this community versus where I am at home.

Like my personality, my values, who I am as a person is coming forward in all of those things. And we're whole people. We're not like. Or separate. You can try to do your best to keep things separate, especially in a remote community, a remote job. try to keep your, lane separate for your mental health.

But ultimately you are like a whole person showing up at work with all of your grief, all of your sadness, all of your joy, all of what you've got to bring. And Michelle, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry about Ray. Thank you. Thank you. Gosh. agree with everything you're saying. Thank you. Nice comment. it's gonna be an interesting time.

[01:03:13] Nathan Wrigley: This isn't it? this is such an interesting conversation. I think we are on the press. Absolutely. Precipice is the wrong. What's the opposite? When you, it's like you're not gonna fall off it, it's like the, oh, the base of a nice new summit. Maybe that's a better description, but, okay. thank you Michelle, for having the courage to write that and, sharing it with us all, from one.

From one thing to a completely different one. This is, this is the WordPress developer blog, and I thought we'd drop this in when Justin Tadlock puts any ink on a page, I think it's worth mentioning. So here it is. I'm not gonna go into it. 'cause as you'll see, it's very long as it always is and very technical.

Just read the whole thing. Yeah, that's right. I'll read it word forward. but it's basically, just in outlining why you might want to, not de-skill yourself, but he's saying he's not using CSS as much anymore as much as it pains him because he does say that he actually really enjoys, writing css.

It's one of the things that he's always enjoyed doing, but now rolling everything up inside of a theme, JSON file and doing things that way with global styles and things. Anyway, if you are into, Themes and you are into new block-based themes and you haven't really experimented with this. Then this is a little, a primer.

You can probably have the whole thing read in, I dunno, 25, 30 minutes and there's a whole load of different examples of how you can do your CSS and essentially just hand it over to a client with the CSS done for them so they can, click buttons and, and have a, neat system for making their site look nice without having to worry too much about the CSS.

It's called mastering theme js ON You might not need CSS. It was published on the 17th of October. I don't suppose anybody's got too much to say about that, so I'm just gonna press on. so this is an interesting project and not something that I had expected to see just a month ago. this is by WP Remote.

Now, forgive me if I get the technical details of this wrong, which is fairly likely, but I'm gonna encapsulate it as best as I can. So when the WordPress repo, when. Advanced custom fields on the repo became secure custom fields. and WP Engine, was unable to use the repo was barred from that.

a variety of companies put out different, kinda like mirrors of wordpress.org, and this is one of them, and it's from the team at WP Remote. They do things like mal care and blog vault and things like that. And it's AK Chowdry who's the, founder of that company. It's a little bit old, but we didn't mention it last week.

And they've put something out called Morpheus. And it's a new update for like basically wordpress.org. And the idea here is that it's an insur, excuse me, it's an insurance policy. So if a plugin. I don't know. If the same thing were to happen again with another plugin, then this will make it possible for you to go around, go around that, and you'll be able to, this platform will enable you to get updates seamlessly inside your WordPress dashboard, by going through their update mirror.

Now, the point being, if everything about a plugin stays the same and it's still on the.org repo, nothing changes. You go there, you get the updates just as you normally would. But if a, company decides not to go with.org anymore and puts their product on their own hardware and then presumably reaches out to Morpheus, Morpheus can say, okay.

Future updates go this route instead. And so I just thought I'd mention that it's an interesting shift in the way things have done. Like I said four weeks ago, I didn't anticipate that any of this kind of work would be coming out there. I'm imagining it's, I'm imagining it's not the only product project that's doing this kind of thing, but it's trying to inoculate that problem of.org being the single dependency for plugin updates.

And I know that a few plugins have decided that they wanna be pulled from the.org repo. And so maybe this is a system whereby they can seamlessly be, be updating and it's a plugin. essentially you go and find this plugin. I dunno, maybe you have to get it from.org, which is interesting. bit meta that isn't it, but I dunno where you get it from.

But anyway, there's the idea behind that. Anything to say on that or should we just press on? Okay. In that case we will press on. I'll just do a few quick comments 'cause it's quite nice. I love it when the comments come in. leck, someone who has a different opinion is not a bad person, is not an enemy.

I hope the negative notion stops spreading. Yeah. I honestly, what have we allowed social media to do to us? why WP builds is so important. Six straight days of other WP YouTube is generating anger and views today, one hour of actual human beings being human to each other. You're all so appreciated.

Boom. That's the comment. Gosh. Thank you Nomad Skateboarding. That's. Ble, you've tearing me off, mark. That's really nice. Mark, Andrew. Oh, thank you Mark. I really appreciate that. That's the point, right? That's why we do it. We try to keep this ship steady and make sure not everybody's falling out. Hello, lovely people.

Hello Jerome. Nice to have you with us. ba and I'll just wait for the rest. We'll put the, we'll put the other bits and pieces up. Alright. Where are we? Update mirrors. We can move on from that. Oh, okay. So at the, this is just a plug. Forgive me, at the WordPress London Meetup the other day, wait, it was almost a month ago now, but it feels like the other day.

I met this lovely chat. He's called Chap, he's called Mark Wilkinson. And, he was doing, a presentation. This is it. By the way, it was called from projects to products, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Go check it out on the W-P-L-D-N website. But, I noticed that he's got this, better core video embeds, plugin.

I, I'm don't think it's particularly new and it hasn't got many installs, but it does one job and it does it really well. If you are embedding videos via a block, then you're essentially, you are doing loads of extra work. Your website is loading loads of external scripts and styles that don't need to be embedded.

What this plugin will do is replace the, video with the featured image until you interact with it. And then at that point, all of the resources will get downloaded and the video will play. your users might notice like a quarter of a second of something, but I just thought I'd give Mark a bit of a plug for his, endeavors there.

So better core video embeds. There we go. And now there it is. Sorry. Now we're here. Okay. this is so good. Love this. so I'm gonna have to scroll to the bottom because I can't remember who. Oh, it's Gary. Gary, Pendergast. is that right? If I've got his name right? It's at the top. Is it? Yeah.

Oh yeah. Look at that. Yeah. Yeah. So is, yeah, right there. Gary Pendergast, who I, he used to be an magician, like really senior core committer and all that, as far as I'm aware, I don't know that he is anymore. But, he produced this, piece today, which is like a salutary reminder that if you are gonna fort WordPress, make sure you know what you're getting yourself into.

nobody's saying don't do it. It's all cool. But he is, I'm just gonna paraphrase, congratulations on your decision to fort WordPress. You've taken on a math, a mammoth task. I'm impressed with your willingness to step up to the challenge of a lifetime. and then by point, he goes through, what it, what you're getting yourself involved in.

in all seriousness, if you are gonna do it, go for it. You could fork it just for your own. Pet project, but if you want it to be the thing that everybody's using in the near future, then you'll have to do a lot of work. And, time is fairly short. So I'll just say here, build a community, not an angry mob.

AKA, what we've been talking about for the last hour. don't call it something press, he suggests. Maybe just give it a bit more of a clever name than that, because in the future you might want to decouple from WordPress in particular. Get a circle of friends to try it and test it out with you. Figure out funding.

It's not gonna be cheap and it's gonna take you hours and hours So make sure that you've got community and funding in place. And then there's way more, but I won't go into it now, but I just thought it was, yeah. Last comment. Not every day is launch day, however, most of your days will be.

Kind of boring. So 4K Way would be the advice Gary's giving. But just read this article so that you know what you're getting yourself in for if you really, want to do that. Anybody wanna say anything about that one? God bless you if you try. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah. I can't imagine what would be involved, but it certainly isn't quick and easy.

Okey dokey. Okey dokey. Shall we move on? Here we go. Here's bigots piece. go to coach bigot.com. This post was on the 18th of October, so fairly fresh off the presses, just like I did for Michelle. There's no point in me trying to paraphrase it, although I have highlighted the bits that I was gonna mention.

Do you want to, do you wanna tell us what this one is? it has the same thread as Jonathan's piece and Michelle's piece and the comment from Noad Nomad skateboard in there. It's got the same thread. I feel so over to you. I just, I was elaborating on this, working on this piece for a while already, since the first incident happened and I had some rough nights because I care too much maybe.

[01:13:09] Birgit Olzem: But I was, thinking about how to find solutions on. Because to be constructive and use this kind of, turmoil, to get on board. But, Nathan, you have a nice voice and you are so soothing with your voice. So if you want to read out loud. What you have highlighted. I appreciate that. Alright, so forgive me if I've highlighted the bits that didn't entirely capture it, but are the bits that I thought would sum it up beautifully.

[01:13:42] Nathan Wrigley: So the piece is called Restore Trust, an open letter to the WordPress community. And Matt, I feel her. So it says, yes, I feel hurt as well. For the, for all of the stuff for which we know about. as many of my dear friends online have expressed publicly or in private, I feel hurt by noticing messages disappearing in Slack channels and seeing long-term contributors being abandoned or blocked after raising concerns.

The toxicity on social media has also been distressing for almost 15 years. I've poured my heart and soul as an active member, sorry, as an active contributor into this project. WordPress has been more than software to me, more than just software. To me, it's been a home, a passion, and a community. Then I'm skipping a lot.

yet amidst this chaos, I believe we have an opportunity. This is so interesting. I believe we have an opportunity to address the underlying issues that have. Have brought us to this point, namely the economic and social sustainability of our project. For too long, we've relied on the passion and goodwill of volunteers.

Look at the Sydney article perhaps from a moment ago. While critical contributor roles remain underfunded, this imbalance is not sustainable. It's time. We have an honest conversation about how we value and support the work that keeps WordPress thriving. And then big, it goes on to propose three possible, ways that we could move things forward.

Firstly, a sustainable funding model, let's explore ways to ensure critical contributor roles are adequately supported. And again, I'm missing context, output. I'll, in, in order to get through it. number two, governance reform. It's time to revisit our governance structure and there's a link to ensure it reflects the diverse needs and voices of our global community.

And number three, community healing. We must create spaces for open dialogue, conflict resolution, and rebuilding trust. Now there's way more including an open letter to, Matt, but that kind of summed it up for me. So am I all right to hand it back to you at that point. Bigge, is there anything you wanna add on top of that?

[01:15:46] Birgit Olzem: Yeah, thank you. since I started contributing to WordPress, I saw, that some people get got sponsored or hired, specifically contributing to WordPress. And over 14 years, I was always looking for someone who sponsor my work within the WordPress community. But I'm not a developer, so I can't contribute.

Substantially with code to the project and it is hard to find funding. And I would, and observed a lot of contributors really struggling doing their work besides any their, spare time and really want to make an impact positively to the WordPress project. but they can't afford it to contribute to WordPress.

And I was always advocating for proper funding and that is why I think I. Even if the form it was delivered was not really ideal, to be sugarcoating this all thing. but on the, substance, it surfaced exactly the issue we have within our community and with our workers project and the ecosystem.

We need proper funding for key roads with our project to be sustainable and move on the next 20 or 30 years with this project. Because when we lose our contributors who are bringing all the knowledge and value with, we can't sustain this project. And also this is also a risk for everyone who, makes a living with WordPress and also, makes a fortune with WordPress and using WordPress and selling services around WordPress.

All this has an Risk when we don't contribute back to the project, it can fall apart. And this may be also bringing your business on risk when we don't su, sustain this project on the long term. It's not the, it's not what, on a short term I'm looking for the long term solution. as Gary and also Jonathan Fact, we want to have an project with, for our children.

We want to, that they can have a livelihood based on an open source system and express their own opinions and on their all shares and still having, democratizing everything. But we are currently on a pivot and a crossroad where we see we need better structure because the waitress project has grown so much over the ne last 10 years.

I'm participating really actively, So we really need to rethink how we approach our project and the funding, but yeah. Did you by any chance I leave the small and of court? Yeah, no, I, think that's brilliant. You've served it up and obviously, everybody in here is, is bright enough to, have their own thoughts on it, and no doubt the audience members two, did you by any chance bigot see a really interesting piece by DRIs Bagar from Drupal, it was called Makers and Takers, and he offered it up as a, possible way forward for WordPress, because it's what the Drupal, I'm gonna call it the Drupal Foundation.

[01:19:13] Nathan Wrigley: It may not have that name, the organization behind Drupal, I think, I believe he owns Acquia in the same way that automatic, is to WordPress. I think Acquia is to, Drupal. But for the, Drupal project, they've got this idea that, That if you are a maker, then they offer up incentives for that.

as an example, only people who, are makers and have been, have gone through a, an independent panel to be certified, thus only they, for example, are allowed, to sponsor. Drupal events. So there's a wall of sponsorship. you can't be at Drupal Con unless you've already proven yourself to be one of these people that contributes back.

And, that could be financially or otherwise. And there were other things as well. for example, they get listed on the, homepage of Drupal and things like that. So they get that kudos. So you slap our back, we slap yours kind of relationship. And, I do wonder if there's some legs in that.

And, but I also do, I also understand that for the contributors, a lot of the, a lot of the things that contributors do will never be discovered because they might not be a shouty person. you might do something completely crucial, put hundreds of hours in, but not be the kind of person to, to mention it.

And so I think we need to be very deliberate in that as well, and make sure that those people don't slip through the net. And I don't know what that model looks like. I honestly don't know how we get. Money to them or whatever it is that they need. But I do think you're right. It feels like the, that conversation is that cat is out the bag, if That conversation is definitely gonna happen in some way, shape, or form. I have spoken with Matt and also was Joseph back in the day was under a Middleton about how maybe the WordPress Foundation can, act as an budget, as a fund, where contributors can be funded. As I was told, the foundation how it's currently set up is not able to hire or employ someone.

[01:21:26] Birgit Olzem: But I was thinking if there's any way to create some kind of an entity, which can, divert every funds to certain contributors, like the WP Collective currently is. Trying to, solve. but we, I. the issue on that might be if you want to have someone working full-time in a project, we are talking about global hr and it is just a bureaucracy, about that.

because you need to, if you want to hire someone, you have to obey certain rules, et cetera. So this is the difficult layer on that from my understanding. And that is why I'm thinking. And I'm calling all, all in the community to come together and find solution, which might be able to put in place today or in the next couple of months, or the next couple of years.

because, things have changed since 10 years ago, a decade ago. how things can be done. Today on the global level. And that is what I once was suggesting to think about it. I don't have any solutions on that, and I don't have any research in a deep end about that. But I want to, or raise the awareness about that, that, there's something we can, as a computer, community can contribute to, to create ways or research, at least for ways, how we can fund our contributors.

[01:23:08] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I don't think I've got the answer either, but I'm, interested that you've got the intuition that there's something that needs to be, changed there and having that conversation. Again, we're circling around the same subjects, aren't we? that conversation, is something that is perhaps something that's gonna be necessary, in the near future.

And there there must be interesting avenues for us to go down and try things out. and it'll be interesting to see if. October, 2024, November, 2024 will be a pivotal moment in our community or, whether we'll try to steer the ship down the way that we've been doing it for as long as we have thus far for the last 21 years.

Only time will tell Michelle, Amanda, anything on that? I think it's beautifully written. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Birgit. Amanda? Absolutely. Thank you for your contribution. It's a great conversation. Yeah. Yeah, it is so boils down to governance, sustainability, and community healing. And, I feel I.

I feel we're in this one, this community healing needs to be the, maybe in chronological terms, maybe that's the one that can, that can happen right away without any board meetings to take place. we can all start to be, to one another and, all of that. So thank you B again.

Really. Great, very thought provoking piece once more. Coach beard git.com. and then the slug for this is Restore Trusts, but the article is called Restore Trusts, an open letter to the WordPress community. And Matt, links to be in the show notes when it comes out tomorrow. okay, so now let's move away from WordPress just for a couple of moments before we end the show.

I just came across this week. It's called Cap. if you're into, taking screenshots and screen recordings and things like that, I've no idea if it's any good, but I saw it and thought, there you go. There's an open source variant of it, which is free, or you can pay them six, dollars a month.

And, I love tools like this, so I, I immediately snapped it up. It's, at the URL cap, so go and check it out and if you like it, let me know if it's any good and maybe I'll start using it. the other one. is this curious thing, gosh, what a story this is. if you've got a IO name, a domain like Google io have, it's perhaps going, away.

I would've thought this had nothing to do with a country. does any, do any of before I scroll, maybe you've read it already. do you know what the IO stands for? I see it in, on the screen ahead of me right now, but okay. yeah. so it's Indian Ocean and it turns out there's a British, forgive me, I'm gonna say the word dependency, that's probably the wrong word.

I dunno what the correct political way of saying that is. but there's a, collection of islands, in the Indian Ocean that have had their, let's just read it here. Last week, it was the sovereignty was transferred, to Mauritius for those islands. So rather than coming under the juri jurisdiction of the uk, they're now coming under the jurisdiction of Mauritius, which basically means that entity doesn't exist anymore.

So there's no reason for the IO domains to exist anymore. And I can, and actually it is not ican, it is, it's the IANA and I've forgotten what that stands for at the moment. in the past when this has happened. So for example, when Yugoslavia. Cease to exist. They, the domains go. They just go. And so if you got, if you've got a.io domain, panic, maybe, I don't know, or, or maybe the IA and a will turn a blind eye because it does seem that some fairly heavyweight, domain names have been set as the IO domain.

So maybe it'll just carry on. anyway, if you've got any IO domains, start thinking about it. 'cause you never know. They might just get switched off. Indian Ocean says, Nick, thank you so much. Except that isn't Oh yeah. But will it, okay. Andrew Palmer says it isn't, it'll be given to Mauritius. Yeah. But will it still be, That's the point. Or will it have to go to the Mauritius variant? I don't know. Andrew. Keep an eye on that story for us. Interesting. Yeah, it is interesting, isn't it? And this one, finally, we've had lots of stories about, equity, private equity in the WordPress space recently. Here's one, Squarespace has been acquired for a, fairly healthy 7.2.

Billion dollars and it's been, acquired by a, an organization, never heard of an equity firm called Perme. Premier. Premier, I'm gonna say that, they've been trying to do this for a long time. It, would seem they were offering a certain amount of money for the shares. $44, turned down and now $46.50 per share seems to have, seems to have got the nod.

And I don't know what this means for, for your Squarespace website. I don't know. But one thing about open source, no matter what argument is going on where, between who and for how much and when the, you can just get your backup and take your stuff elsewhere. If you've got a Squarespace website No, you've got a, now you are now your website is I guess owned by these people.

Let's hope. 'cause we don't wish Ill on anybody. Let's hope that all works out for Squarespace. But I just thought that was a kind of an interesting story. Yeah. and just before we end, TV is too oo, that's right. Yeah. yeah. Global warming. I'm, that's all I'm saying. let's just leave that one there.

Okay. That's it. I think that's everything I've got. We've rounded out perfectly. Yeah. That's all I got. Thank you so much. Firstly, thanks to my, my three esteemed colleagues, co-host, Michelle Frache, and Guess, bigot. And Amanda, really appreciate you coming on. Thank you for keeping it civil. Thank you for sharing your hearts.

which I think you've done, difficult subjects going on at the moment. And thank you to you commenters for not letting it all get outta hand for the third week in a row. Yeah, it could have gone all bizarre and weird and it didn't, and I appreciate that. it's just, I think we're a safe pair of hands this week in WordPress.

We're doing. All right. So Amanda, I'm sorry you probably don't know this, but we do this thing at the end of the show where we all put our hands up like this so that I can get a thumbnail image of everybody's hands in the air. It's a bit ridiculous, but if we can just do the Yeah. Big, get yourself. That's it.

That's it. Give us a wave. Thank you so much. we'll be back next week. I think, have I got a holiday? I might be on holiday. I don't know. I can't remember. we have an episode next week. Okay. I think we've got an episode next week, but I, this red rubbish, I don't know if I'm on holiday. It's an hour later in the us Yeah.

Okay. So what, wherever you are at the moment, Peter Ingersol in particular, you'll have to adjust it by an hour. Is it an hour later? so you get an hour x hour bed hour. Oh, nice. Yes. Okay. That works. It will start at 10:00 AM in New York time. Okay. That's nice. That's nice. But thank you so much to all the people that have come into today.

Thanks to my three guests. Do we wanna end with the cats and the things now? Let's just go back to our normal one. Sure do. No, I'll just go with the normal one now. I think we had a nice, calm, experience. We'll be back next week. We'll see you soon. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye.