This Week in WordPress #340

[00:00:04] Nathan Wrigley: It's time for this week in WordPress, episode number 340 entitled, I hate the term sides. It was recorded on Monday, the 14th of July, 2025. My name's Nathan Wrigley, and today I am joined by Michelle Frechette, by Tammie Lister and by Piccia Neri.

At the beginning of the podcast, we get into a few bits and pieces that the guests have brought.

for example, we get into the WP World and the fact that they are gamifying the platform over there.

We talk about a new show being conducted by Piccia and Michelle.

We also talk a little bit about Maintainers. You can find all of the links in the show notes, but it's stories about open source maintainers, and it's available as a PDF or an ebook, and it really, is very interesting. It's the kind of thing that you can dip in and out of, and it will give you some solace when you are not feeling healthy about a particular project in the open source community. You can dip into stories and find some truly inspirational stuff.

We then get onto the WordPress bits and pieces.

6.9 is looking for volunteers.

6.8.2, there's a release candidate for that.

We also talk about the fact that Matt Mullenweg has recently said that there was a lot of community feedback, which led him to begin the bruhaha with WP Engine back at WordCamp US in September, 2024.

There's a fabulous new initiative, at least I think it's fabulous. A contribution internship program. It's starting with the University of Pisa, but the hope is to spread it more widely. The panel have got some different thoughts on that.

There's a few non WordPress specific events that are being launched, one in Helsinki and one in Sydney.

And we also have a long talk about on activated WordPress contributors. Maybe that is the story of today.

Anyway, there's loads for you to digest, and it's all coming up next on This Week in WordPress.

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Hello, hello there. it is Monday the 14th of July, and it's this week in WordPress. We do this every Monday. mainly we do it every Monday unless something has come up or I've got, like a trip or a family holiday or something like that. This is number 340, which means we've done it rather a lot.

And, each week we sit here and we go on about WordPress and various other things. We've got a few other bits and pieces to talk about today, but it would be dreadful. If it was just me, it would be. Like mind numbingly tedious. So to, to remove the tedium, I'm joined by three, three other people. And as Michelle Frache is pains to point out quite often, is a bunch of blokes and, this week it's different.

So I'm, quite, pleased about that. And although Michelle's changing it a bit, you look like something from a 1930s sort of cop movie or something, perhaps. Yeah. Ot. and there we go. There's our first person that I'm gonna introduce today. It's Michelle Ette. She's joining, she's our co-host for today.

How you doing, Michelle? I'm well, thank you. How are you? Yeah, really, good. Thank you once again, you're here ever so often and I truly appreciate it. Let me just give Michelle the bio pleasure. Michelle is the executive director of Post Status and in addition to her work there, Michelle is the podcast barista, WP Coffee Talk, co-founder of Underrepresented in Tech, creator of WP Speakers and WP Career pages author and a frequent organizer and speaker at WordPress events.

She lives outside of Rochester, New York, where she is an avid nature photographer, and the URL, which you can use to contact her in all scenarios and learn all about. The other ones is meet Michelle. Online. We're missing something there, I feel. Aren't we? There was something that we brought up a couple of weeks ago that you had stopped.

Oh, I need to update it 'cause we have, sponsor me wp yes.com is another new one. And, speed network online.com is another new one. things I've been just projects I've been working on. Yeah. And I don't know how public it is now, but I'm also, I think we're, smithing the title a little bit, but program director for WP Includes, so I'm working on the next cohort.

Oh, that as well. Oh, there you go. Now it's very public. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it certainly is. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And, joining us over there, Tammy Lister. Hello Tammy. Hello, how are you? Yeah, good. Yeah, really good. I love how we do this, like we've only just started talking. We've been gassing on for a good 20 minutes, and, I learned things about Wimbledon.

[00:06:02] Michelle Frechette: I never knew Wimbledon and oh, before you joined the call, Michelle, we went through a whole list of. Kids TV programs. Yeah, there you go. Which is which is always good. in the UK we had this shared thing like unlike in America, and maybe it was different in Italy or Spain, wherever you were at the time, Peter, there was basically a very, tiny limited palette of Kelly you could watch.

[00:06:25] Tammie Lister: So you can literally say this program and you Yes, And you can list like 20 programs and everyone knows Yeah, it comes to school and you talk about the same exact TV program. 'cause that was the only thing on offer. And it was really nice. Actually. It was really good 'cause you'd always go through the same conversation anyway.

[00:06:43] Nathan Wrigley: there we go. Tammy is a product engineer and tinkerer. She is the co-founder of Gilberg and a poker of pixels and a flow herder in core. Oh, I like that. That's very poetic. she writes more frequently now at ate. thoughts.com. We might see that on the screen a bit later when not making or helping others create products.

She spends time creating art and wondering how many wild bonies are too many to have in her field? What do they do? Do they like destroy things? They exist. Really? How dare they?

[00:07:22] Tammie Lister: What did you say? I said how dare they? Yeah. How dare they exist? Dare. I know. the village I'm in is known for its bunnies. so you literally will get people walking past it has that s as well, but you get people walking past and just doing this double take. so it's a field and you just see, wild bunnies, they do lots of bathing at the moment.

Yeah. so you can't grow anything otherwise you have a Mr. McGregor problem. but they just. Exist. they, I think there was like 20 the other day. Oh, that's, yeah. That's quite a few. Yeah, we have a, near us, we have this roundabout. So we, call that like any roundabout. Yeah. This circular junction type of thing.

[00:08:03] Nathan Wrigley: I know that in the US you imagine the round. no. It's, an ordinary roundabout, but we call it the rabbit about, because like on it, it's pretty big and on it is this little really thriving colony of rabbits. But they're, because it's just road everywhere, they're basically isolated. I'm guessing the predators don't feel that confident walking over three lanes of time.

They have this, Trevor, Trevors have this perfect outdoor existence. Anyway, I never knew we would getting to that, but thank you. And finally last, but by not no means at least peach. Hello. Hello. Nice to have you. I actually just mentioned the magic roundabout before you met. You mentioned the bunny about Oh, so that's why I said is it magic though?

[00:08:50] Piccia Neri: Because talking about IT programs, we have it. No, I didn't connect with the TV program thing. 'cause there's also a magic roundabout in Hamel Hempstead, which is the devil's own creation, like seven Roundabouts joined into one. And I thought you were meaning that. And that's not gonna get talked about on this show.

[00:09:07] Nathan Wrigley: 'cause that thing is pure evil. anyway, there we go. And we're here to talk about bunnies. Yeah. And the weather and the magic roundabout. Yeah. Anyway, here we go. Pete Andary helps agencies, businesses, designers, and developers thrive and win on the web by putting their users at the center of that process.

She does this as a UX and accessible design consultant on projects as a course provider, trainer, coach, and workshop leader. She speaks at conferences globally on UX and accessible design. Peach's current main focus is on balancing creativity and accessibility without sacrificing either. And so there's us four and there's also you lot in the comments as well.

And in all honesty, the show, whilst it's fabulous to talk to these three people, it's way better when comments come in. It's really nice getting your perspectives on things. that usually begins with people telling us what the weather's that's how it goes. And here we go. influence wp.

So Ryan's joining us. He says it's sunny in, and mild in Charlotte. NC North Carolina? Yes, No. Yeah. Okay, great. us Thank you for joining us. Courtney Robinson's given us a variety of emoji. Oh, coffee cloud crying, and a hand wave. Oh, I'm guessing it's not, it's hot. It's still hot. Okay. It's too hot.

[00:10:21] Michelle Frechette: That's the sweating hot. Yeah. Michelle's telling us where she is. It's 76 degrees in that meaningless unit of measurement. 24 in the sense. No, I gave you the other. Yeah. No, it's, and I'm glad I gave you both. Yeah, it's great. It's great. I'd never get it. max is saying hi. Thank you, Andrew Palmer's joining us.

[00:10:39] Nathan Wrigley: Hello WordPresses. Hello. Everyone says Peach. Dave Gray. Top off. Oh, neighbors. Nabs was an Australian TV show that we. That we took in and, for some reason it really did get in intravenous into the consciousness of the uk. I don't quite know how it happened 'cause it was trash, but everybody loved it.

Courtney's saying kids programming from the uk. Can we get some Sarah and Doc here? That's not one I'm familiar with, but I'm guessing that was a popular TV show in the us. peach says the magic roundabout. Tim's arriving at the point of Bonnie's. Yes. Perfect. Thank you Tim. Patricia's joining us.

Hello? something about me saying Pictionary. No, I don't think I said Pictionary. I saw you said p Peachy. Ah, Tim. Yes. Hemel, Hemstead and Swindon. There you go. These are the original magic roundabouts. The junction I was on about Pictionary says Peachy is one of my favorite spellings of my what?

Pictionary is one of my favorite spellings of my name and surname, Andrew p Pictionary. Very, very man, that's so dense. I didn't, get that at all. That makes perfect sense. Are you with us now? Yeah, I'm with you now. Okay. So if you've got any favorite TV programs from your childhood that you wanna drop into the comments, that would be nice.

But also as the show progresses, feel free to just drop anything in the, and we'll try to raise them. And you three, the, guests on the show, if you see any that you want to yell about, that's fine. I often miss them 'cause I'm just concentrating on what I'm saying. So please bring those to our attention as well.

okay, let's get stuck in. So this is us, this is our website, wp builds.com. If you're fancy, subscribing to what we do, you'll get a couple of emails each week. One when this episode is pushed out as a podcast. That will be tomorrow. Usually about seven in the morning. God knows why I decided on that, but I stuck to it forever and I'm not letting out my cold dead hands.

7:00 AM tomorrow. You'll get that. And then the more sensible 1:00 PM on a Thursday is when we drop the regular podcast. What is the regular podcast? I hear you cry. No, I don't. Nevermind. it is this, it is 428 episodes of pure WordPress Joy, and, in the most recent episode, we spoke to, Katie, Keith, all about a new product that they haven't acquired but they've partnered with.

It's called Sety. And it enables you, to bulk edit your WooCommerce stuff. It's very interesting, a really interesting thing that they've collaborated in. You can obviously go to each individual episode and hit play and enjoy it. That one's about 50 minutes long. Also, if you didn't know, I'm lucky enough to, be the person responsible for the WP Tavern podcast.

And we're onto to episode 1 7 6 over there. And, and I chatted at Word Camp Europe a few weeks ago to Hector De Prada, who, is very, active in the Spanish duty. And he has set up a, meetup, he hasn't set up, I think it was going, but he's taken custodianship of a, meetup in, it feels like Spain is the, apart from India, it feels like Spain is the hotbed of WordPress community at the moment.

And he gives the story on what's going on there. And it's really interesting. in the UK it's, it feels like it's coming back actually. I think Brighton is about to reemerge from the, From the, the hiatus after COVID, but essentially most of it went away and very little of it has come back.

anyway, there you go. go and check that out as well. And then what we've decided to do, it was Michelle's idea and it was a good one. She said it's nice to get the guest stuff at the front of the show. We always used to bulk it to towards the back of the show, and it often ran outta time. Yeah.

And we always ran outta time, basically. So we're gonna put the, stuff at the beginning. And so it might be something that they have created themselves, or very often it's just stuff that they have seen out on the web, which might be WordPress or not. And Michelle, this was you, right? Yeah, so Marcus Burnett, I'm sure everybody knows Marcus.

[00:14:33] Michelle Frechette: he's been doing some amazing things with the WP world, and some of them are because people, put in requests for features. And I'm not sure if this was a feature request or not, but I think gamification. I love gamification. I am, 1600 days into learning Spanish because I refuse to lose my streak in Duolingo.

So it works. It does. So, yeah. So I also happen to be, number one on the leaderboard, as you can see. Oh, yeah, I didn't notice that. Mostly because I actually use the platform. So if, you are on the WP world and you go in and you like, check off all the, places that the word camps you've been to and.

Connect to all your things, you could probably overtake me on the leader word quite easily. I think people really need to lean into that and, do those kinds of things. But yeah, I think it's fun. I think it's, great. If you look at anybody's in, particular, profile, you'll see their badges there as well.

And, he's just done some really fun things with it. the WP world, as we know, Marcus has been on the show many times, but he's decided, oh, I'm guessing this is probably Couple of years, more than two years old, like two and two and a half, three years old. WP World is a really fabulous reserve.

[00:15:48] Nathan Wrigley: It's not though, because is it not, nobody has, nobody can have the two year pressor yet because it hasn't been around for Oh, okay. I don't have the two I, Marcus doesn't have the two year pressor. Oh, so the two year pressor related to your time on the WP world, not your time involved in Oh, okay. That's interesting.

Yes. So if you are, if you're keen to, I, don't know, be kept update because he sends regular emails out, be kept, update he does about, jobs. If you wanna be. Kept updated about events and basically he's, trying to corral the WordPress community, which is really admirable. So it's the WP world.

And in order to do that, in, they've decided to gamify it a little bit. So for example, you can get badges one year, two year press, a three year presser, badge collector, business casual camp Hopper. I'm just reading some off the screen. Event critic, fashion icon. I feel this is never one I'm gonna win.

all you have to do is purchase something from the WP World Shop. Oh, okay. That's not, I thought I maybe had to look good, in which case that was out of the question. recap, raconteur, say cheese, WP and others. And the idea, I guess here, is just to make your experience on the website a bit fun. All of that aside, seriously, if you haven't done it, go to WP World.

Go and sign up. There's a, it may be something that you really get stuck into. It may be something which is, useful at the point of an attending an event or something like that. But it's, really well thought out and a really nice community initiative. And, they're seeking, I think they're seeking sponsorship at the moment.

I don't know. they certainly have a lot of sponsors. Whether or not they're seeking out, I'm not entirely sure, but there's a little link down here if you, if you want to go and help out that enterprise. does anybody else wanna comment on that before we move on? Okay. In which case I'll take that as a No.

The, the next one kind of comes courtesy of Michelle, but as you'll see, almost immediately, it, comes courtesy. It looks very similar to something that we were both involved in about 18 seconds ago. Doesn't it? It looks almost the same as the screen we had a minute ago. There's feature and there's Michelle, either of you.

What are you up to? What are you doing here? I'll leave it up to Peach to tell. It's her idea actually. Oh, she's point. She's pointing at you. Oh, yeah. Because she's such a brilliant, flawless host. We basically, it's a 10, 10 episode limited series on accessibility, like 10 major topics that we were planning to keep at within 20 minutes.

[00:18:12] Piccia Neri: And of course, failed. Failed, massively because we went around, it's around 40 minutes and, yeah, it's just, it's podcast. It's broadcast rather live. On the post status channel every Thursday at 3:00 PM Central European summertime, which makes it 2:00 PM BSD. And what's the time, for you, Michelle?

Eastern time in the 9:00 AM. 9:00 AM okay. So it is a decent time and first episode was on HTML and we were, had been talking about it since March, and we kept, what was, were computer what with, live and so we haven't really promoted it, but we are doing that now. So now, and you can come and watch us live because.

It's, we like life. that's why we're here, isn't it, Michelle? Absolutely. And Michelle is a fabulous presenter, which I, who knows way more than about accessibility to think. So it, the, probably the best way to find it is because the URLs for YouTube are always just gobbly hoop. there's always that bit at the end.

[00:19:24] Nathan Wrigley: It's Google, I'm imagining is gonna be your best friend here. If you go to, search for post status, YouTube, that's probably gonna be the best way in. And then this part. Yeah, follow post status on any social account as well, because I post all the things there. Great. And this episode, if you wanna catch it, this is the first one you said, right?

this, which is why it was 42 minutes long, I think. Okay. Yeah. It, won't get any easier. this show started at about 30 minutes and now we're up to 90 every one. But I've figured that's about the sweet spot for this. the simplest way to accessible design is gonna be the, the thing that you're gonna Google and that will be it.

And, yeah, you'll find Michelle and, Peacher having a, natter about accessibility. And, just to say something, a couple of things that I have actually already edited the captions, Michelle, but I dunno if I gave you, so the, on my, 'cause it's also broadcast on my own YouTube channel, peach and Harry.

[00:20:19] Piccia Neri: But, and I was able to upload the captions to that. Transcript. Anyway, I'll give them to you, Michelle. Thank you. This is important because the autogenerated captions are known as captions and people rely on them. They like them very much. So I'm not saying that they will, my edit will be flawless, but it's been done already and it will be up soon for anyone who wouldn't be able to watch it without, proper captions.

[00:20:46] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, that's good to know. Yeah. Thank you so much. I'm just gonna put the screen away just for a quick, brief moment because, it, the, it's in, the community have decided, Sarah and Doc seems to be exceedingly popular. friendly web guy said it was a bit new, but, Courtney said, is my kid's era, and made by the B, BC, how can it be made by the BBC?

And neither Tammy or I know anything about it. I don't because you don't have young children now. Oh, I see. No, that's true. Okay. Alright. Got it. Maybe that's all it was. However, Andrew Palmer, I. Breathtaking addition to the, the thing. Tomorrow's world. Now, tomorrow's world is T, right? I read you the gr the egg race, the great egg race.

[00:21:29] Tammie Lister: There you go. They're great. I, can vaguely remember the name. Yeah. I can't remember much. We're just get an egg from here to here. Oh, that was it. Yeah. Yeah. There go. Yeah. It's to design like a system. Yeah. You literally system to transport the egg like mechanically. I remember honestly, what the heck was entertainment back then, so just trying to make engineers out of everywhere.

Cottage what the whole UK was. Tomorrow's world though, which Andrew Palmer is mentioning. Yeah. Was this TV show where they tried to. Predict what technology would look like in the distant future. And so, for example, they would have a CD 10 years before it became commercially available. it was this prototype technology.

[00:22:06] Nathan Wrigley: But it is so fascinating looking back at, previous EPIs episodes of tomorrow's world, because now everything that they talked about is way in the rear view mirror. But how profoundly wrong they were about literally everything. Nothing, that they said, just things like the internet and, how they predicted that would go.

It's just so far of the truth. It's always more chaotic than their kinda like little stifled version of what it looked like. But good catch, Andrew appreciate it. There, there was a snippet as well of like how they would have computers for men and computers for women and different things like that.

[00:22:43] Tammie Lister: Yeah, they, oh, no, It, was not. It was in Vera, let's just say it was the seventies, stuff like that was Yeah, it really was. Yeah. That was just common on British tele at the time. Tim Nash's in agreement, tomorrow's world was such a huge influence for me as a teenager. Me too. And is only with the benefit of hindsight that you look back and think, gosh, that prediction was weird, but at the time it felt absolutely brilliant.

[00:23:06] Nathan Wrigley: Michelle, you're getting a bit of a hand clap from, Marcus. Be says, thanks for shouting out the WP World. Yeah. Peak TV oh Bot Moon was a TV show entirely. Made with the budget, like of a Mars bar because the whole thing was shot on what felt like a video camera. And it was all done with just off the shelf wooden spoons where they stuck an eye on it.

It's some egg boxes in the background for the movie and just, and washing, was it washing up lid? Yeah. And like a walk. Honestly, you could make bottom moon within 10 minutes of visiting a supermarket. It was. Anyway, thank you for that. friendly web Dave, Gray. Appreciate it. Okay, let's get back to the show.

that was a fun aside. Keep the comments coming. it makes the whole thing interesting. next up though is a bunch of stuff Tammy has brought to our attention. the first one at least anyway, and then we, do a couple of others. So what's this? Maintain us So maintainers, but with a.rs at the end?

Yeah. So it's, imagine the word maintainers, but put a dot between the, after the e and before the R at the end. What is it? So I, had a, so May Hub had linked me into an email, and I was lucky enough to be asked by Nick to provide my story for this. I, was super interested to do it. little did I know it was collecting the stories of open source maintainers.

[00:24:30] Tammie Lister: Jonathan Roses was also, his story was collected. if you actually click it, it's so, many good stories of people sharing their experiences of what it's like. And it's gonna be hopefully a printed book, across multiple open source projects. It's not just WordPress. It's so many different. I feel like, a tiny little corner.

it's WordPress, which is really beautiful to see all these stories of open source. and hopefully, do you know? Yeah, no, just what's kinda curious as well is that the, the, whole collection of stories is available. So that you, have to give it proper attention, if Yeah. So it's not just okay, go to the webpage and off you go, no, this book you're gonna be read book. Yeah. You're gonna be reading this in like a Kindle or something like that. Or in PDF format. Yeah. And I think, that's quite, nice. It gives it the, yeah, attention it deserves. Plus you can style it, really within an inch of its life.

[00:25:26] Nathan Wrigley: And it feels almost like of a time as well, because open source, these people. Have given their time as well. it's, a bit of a coffee book, I think gonna be, because some of the stories are ab it's definitely dipp, inable that, that's so a word you, I like, you've just coined a word and I like that.

Dippable. Yeah. Okay. And it's all these faces, all it's basically people's stories and, their tales of, it's not just how they contribute, it's their thoughts on what AI is gonna do for contribution. What is the future of contribution, what are the hitches, all these different questions. And there were a number of different, questions you could answer.

[00:26:05] Tammie Lister: So not one story is the same as well. So that's also interesting and curious. And they're around the world. They're global as well. Yeah. Can I ask you a question outta there? And forgive me, this question might sound snarky and that is exactly the opposite of what I intended it to be, but I've got a suspicion it might come across that way.

[00:26:23] Nathan Wrigley: Why would you wanna read this? and what I mean by that is, is it that it gives you like, I don't know, you've just got this sort of companionship, you, understand their head? Or is it more you're trying to see where these people are going? So some of this is just getting, The perspective of people that have contributed for such a long time.

[00:26:41] Tammie Lister: Yeah. Nice. and if some of these people have contributed decades of their life and then some into open source. So been able to, hear the voice that we might never interact in these projects, but these projects relate to the work that we do. and we are in our little corner of where press, scribbling away doing all our work and that's great, but these stories are important for us to hear.

and someone's solved a problem in a different corner of open source, you can guarantee that. it also humanizes people Oh yeah. By hearing their story. Yeah. As well. I think it's really important. Other people, on this panel may have different perspectives, but that's what I think it's really important.

again. I wouldn't, I don't think it's a book that you'll sit down from page to page, but I think dip in and just discovering the stories. And has it ed you as you've been reading a few bits? Have you been, bu a bit by it and Oh, that's lovely. Yeah. Yeah. That's really nice. okay, just quickly, the URL again, and I'll put the screen back up.

[00:27:42] Nathan Wrigley: The URL was, maintainers and then just right at the end make it so that it's, I think Courtney's comment is, really summing up what I felt. Lovely. Lovely. There we go. so Courtney says, I love the learning from other os s projects, so open source software and it's really important because. I came from another open source project into WordPress.

[00:28:05] Tammie Lister: Oh, and I, never forget that. Like I was in Linux before I was in WordPress. and many people were in other WordPress projects before we were in, in projects, before we were in WordPress. That's like the way of open source. So just being able to stay connected with those and we'll be contributing to other projects after or during.

so it's just really important to learn. I think it's also easy sometimes to lose your way in open source software, isn't it? And to feel a bit demoralized or something like that. So maybe this could be a, good thing. I feel that it's only our project. Has this or only our PGE that has that.

No. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you. that's great. And I know that Michelle loves stories and narrative and stuff like this, so I'm guessing this would be something that might appeal to, you as well. Absolutely. Yeah. Michelle, sorry. Peach's, already said she might be dipping in and out 'cause she's, she's got stuff going on in the background that needs to be attended to.

[00:28:59] Nathan Wrigley: So if that's the case, just just forgive her. She's not dropped off the planet. Okay. So there's the first one that's maintainers. I will, I, in fact, I'm gonna put that. I'm gonna download it quickly again so that it's on my screen when this finishes. 'cause I wanna, get that onto my Kindle or something and check it out.

[00:29:16] Michelle Frechette: I've already done that myself. Yeah. Oh, nice. Nice. Okay. There we go. So the next one then, is interesting and I read this, I think it came from you, Tammy, and then it was interesting that there was a cross post to something that you had written. Jonathan, de who's, been on a variety of different podcasts that we've done in the past.

[00:29:36] Nathan Wrigley: He's, he works for Blue, he's a. He's a full-time, he's full-time, sponsored into the project and he works on core and, he's written a post, which I think is really worth a read. And it, fits very nicely with the last piece that we read. And it's about, activate or I suppose you could really classify that as anything, people who are just not quite able to see themselves into the project on a regular basis.

And he called it the ghost of Nonactivated contributors. And, to summarize, he's basically saying, there's a whole host of different reasons why you might want to contribute, but there might be a whole host of reasons why you don't feel able to or comfortable to you. Basically, you haven't got there yet.

And this piece is all about how we can make sure that massive untapped resource, which may or may not be tapable, could potentially be reached. And so he's got a whole piece about this and how people have got different paths. And I thought this was interesting, this congestion at the top piece That he talked about. Where, you often find that there's like a little cabal of people who are running things. And when you, actually start contributing, you feel that it's them and us a bit. And so how to alleviate that a little bit, don't meet at the top very much the same thing and so much more.

It's definitely worth a read, but Tammy, you brought it. So tell us why. Yeah. I think it's really, it's something that I, the, not, being a blocker at the top is, something so critical. learning when to main, to be a mentor and when to need to activate is something so critical. you don't get it right all the time.

[00:31:20] Tammie Lister: but I go back to, I actually was inspired, the, post I wrote that then inspired it. There was like we were having some ping pong of inspiring posts, and I love that when that happens. Yeah, that one. So I, love it when that happens online. It doesn't all happen that frequently. was from Jonathan's post, this post was from Jonathan's.

I fa in looking back at my own props, I discovered that the button I'm, I discovered that. It took me a while before I go to props and I actually went into Buddy Press before I went into Core and it made me reflect that there, it could have been very easy for me to just have never got activated in this project.

and that is something I reminded myself of again, and I really wanted to like pivotal for this. and that kind of maintainers was something that, props is just one measure and I think sometimes we get hooked up on it. It's one of the reasons I guess I subsequently didn't look it up, because not everyone will ever get props.

I didn't for a long time 'cause I was in other roads of the project. but it really is important to recognize people and recognize when they're ready to take action and also recognize when you are being a problem in there, in action. yeah, there's a lot of different thoughts there, but other people probably have lots more thoughts.

I keep you just hit that button. I keep regretting pressing the button because I think the previous one was always, I just, oh, there's always another one and I'm generating more. It's fine. No, I don't, I'm not so keen on nor that one. I want the bright. I want the bright green to come back.

[00:33:02] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, I'm not sure about that. No, that's not for me. Where's the next, are you suggesting I make a save function as well? Yeah. T am I gonna do revert button just in Nathan. This is, this was prompted by Tim now saying, press the button. Nathan, I'm assuming I'm not gonna make a revert button, assuming that's what he meant.

thank you Tim. but okay, so again, it sound, it, honestly it's definitely worth a read. I think this piece is aimed at people who are already in the project as much as it might be to people who are just skirting around the edges of the project and don't quite know the way in.

But Jonathan, definitely a pains to say. so in, in your case, Tammy, imagine that you didn't, if there was just something that put you off, can you, you've done a lot, right? Can you imagine like how the project would've, missed those contributions? We'll never know, but we know what you did.

And so we know that was all very valuable and that could be a thousand times over, right? Yeah. The thing is, the project will be always okay because it's an open source project and you have to, no one is, that special. As much as we like to think we're special, we're not that special.

[00:34:08] Tammie Lister: But, it's more someone might be able to empower in a direction that would be pretty cool to go in. and that's what you have to think about. And not that, oh my goodness, this person's gonna save something. So protect them at all costs. That's not what we're talking about here. It's more just like.

It would be a shame. It would be a waste. That's what we're talking about this, the, so inactivated is really the, good way to think about it. And, it's also just. We talk about, sustainability of contributors and it's just such a waste when people are just left there and they wander out and, I was, for a while I was pretty inactivated and I was just like, it's really loud over there.

I don't wanna be, so when I turned up to court, it was super loud and I didn't wanna be involved in it. Oh, okay. Yeah. And I ended up gonna bed press 'cause it wasn't loud. Yeah. Yeah. so Jonathan's, post, definitely worth reading. There's a lot of thought being put into that. And, well done to Jonathan as well on his family holiday, managing to stick much to the chagrin of his wife.

[00:35:16] Nathan Wrigley: It's a couple of thoughts if I could intervene here. First of all. I, my brain went inactivated as in deactivated, so that's not the same thing here. So I wanna make sure that people understand inactivated is not yet activated. there's so many ways to think about words like that, so I wanted to point that out first.

[00:35:35] Michelle Frechette: And then the other was, we talk a lot, at, events and in-person events especially about this band concept, which is leaving space open for others to join a conversation. And I think that there's some of that, that we not only do, I think we do that by default in some ways, but there are people for whom even if you leave this huge gap won't step forward unless they're invited.

So we need to really pay attention to the people who aren't loud, people like me. And look to others who are doing things quietly and invite them into spaces like these kinds of spaces to encourage them to activate, and become part of if they want to. There's people who don't want to and never will, and that's fine too, but we need to make sure that we are paying attention to those around us, not only to make room for them, but to know, to invite them in.

[00:36:26] Nathan Wrigley: I, I wanna draw attention to something you just said there, Michelle, because I, know that in our community, there's people like me, I'm quite gobby, I talk a lot and what have you, but I think we are, I think we are a community of. Predominantly quite quiet people agreed. when you go agreed to, when you go to WordPress events like word camps and things, there is a lot of politeness and deference and just everybody being, making sure that everybody gets a chance to talk.

What, I'm trying to encapsulate is that I think there's a lot of people who are quite quiet, maybe wouldn't wanna put themselves forward 'cause they're, they're just not boastful or confident in that way. And so I think this inactivated thing is actually Yeah, really quite important. And I hadn't really given it the same thought until you just said that.

So that was, I think I would also reflect that sometimes we can be too helpful and that of an open heart. Sometimes we can want to. Do all the things and be overly helpful and step into roles where we see there's a gap. But if we step into them, then there's not a gap for people to be able to take them.

[00:37:29] Tammie Lister: 'cause we are like, oh, I'll do this 'cause I'm going to be super helpful and I'm gonna take on things and I'm gonna be, but then that can tire you out. And then you can find out you are doing all the things and then suddenly you become a block and then you feel bad 'cause you are a block. So I think we're full of quiet, helpful people and that's maybe the worst situation.

'cause people will just take on burdens, to think that they're being super helpful. and it turns out if they, didn't need to take on all those burdens anyway. They, there's something coming up a little bit later, I can't remember when about that. And, actually a few of the, a few of the bits and pieces that we've got today really coalesce around this thing.

[00:38:07] Nathan Wrigley: So what Tammy was saying and what Jonathan was saying, and so I guess this is a fairly neat segue into this one. should you be looking for something to do when you don't have something to do? It may be that. WordPress, 6.9 is something that you want to get involved with in whatever capacity you feel able to, so if that were the case, and you're listening to this, here is a, Post it's by Jeffrey Paul.

It came out just the other day, so it's hot off the press. WordPress 6.9, which is gonna be the next, major release in December. Let me check that. Yeah, December 2nd. Hopefully, there is a proposal and call for volunteers. I, won't labor the point, but, you can see on the screen if you can see it.

But if not, throughout the latter part of this year, there will be a bunch of release candidates and a bunch of beta and alpha testing periods in which hopefully will lead up to the December release of WordPress. And that doesn't happen by accident. It's led by an army of volunteers, many hundreds in many cases.

And, if you would like to be one of those, this post, is available for you. And if you wish to. the easiest way to get involved is just to go to the post and submit a comment saying that you would like to be involved, some things that you may wish to know. for example, some of the leads that, are up for grabs are things like, some of the areas that are up for grabs are things like design, lead, tech, lead, triage, lead test, lead, release coordination.

So there's a whole bunch of different things. There's not too many boxes, but there certainly are, there's pretty much a box for everybody depending on your area of expertise and what have you. So that post was called WordPress 6.9 Planning Proposal and call for volunteers. And it's on. wordpress.org.

I, don't know if anybody wants to add to that. perhaps not. Great opportunity. The only comment is, if you've never done it before, you can say, Hey, I don't necessarily want to lead something, but I'd love to be mentored. Yeah. And that can be something that you can say, so you don't have to only be like, Hey, I'll lead it.

[00:40:07] Tammie Lister: And, in a real, great example of not leading from the top, this is fascinating to me. okay. There are some people in the WordPress community who in my head somehow are like superheroes. One of those would be Ryan Welcher, and here's Ryan dropping into the comments and he's saying he wants to help tech or triage, but exactly what you just said, Tammy, but he's never done it before.

[00:40:28] Nathan Wrigley: So he's saying, can I shadow somebody? and the same with, Jonathan Boser and a variety of other people. it doesn't matter how many times you've been around the houses, it may be that you, this is your first, your first rodeo if you like. So yeah, drop a comment and then if you want to be shepherded by somebody, you can certainly, certainly request that.

and there's you, Tommy. I'd love to be helpful in any way. No, that's nice. Anybody else? Shall we move on? Okay, we'll move on. very similar sort of thing really. that is just to say that WordPress 6.8 0.2 is at release candidate stage. This is actually a little bit stale now, so it may be that it's moved on from this at this point.

But, anyway, if you want to test the latest and greatest version of WordPress, we're in that period right now. I won't say anymore than that, but you can go and check it out, right? back to the story that since when it is it, September or something, 2024, it never ceases to keep on giving. This is the repository.

Matt Mullenweg says, WP Engine Fight came after a lot of community feedback. And so this is Ray Moray. writing a little bit about Matt. He came onto a, very popular podcast. I forget which. I think it was The Verge, which is a, it's like a tech publication that's not the WordPress space, but it does occasionally do WordPress stories.

But my understanding is it's massive. it's like really big. So if you get featured on the Verge, you, Your article is being read by millions of people. And Matt went on there and did a, a podcast episode and was pushed by the host, who's called Neli Patel. and he was asking how all the Bruhaha developed.

And, Matt made the point, he, made a point that as far as he was concerned, that it was, it was in the background in his head at least. Anyway, there had been a lot of community discussion. I don't know anything about that. But anyway, that was his point. And then also he was asked about some things that have happened since then.

And, he was making the point that he. I think this is quite interesting, making the point that he's made a few, gaffes since Octo since September, 2024. One of them he says is he wishes that he had, to paraphrase it, he'd not spoken as much, 'cause there was this flurry of, Matt wasn't there on social media in sort of October time.

And I think some of those things, he, I don't know if regret is the right word, but he's certainly saying, I've learned that you've got a. Not quite, not say quite as much, but also the other thing was around wordpress.org where he was making the point that although he did say it belonged to him or something like that, or he owned it or something like that, he feels that the context of that was take, that it was taken out of context.

And certainly from reading this, the, implication is that wasn't the context in which he meant it. Although I suppose technically speaking, if he's the person paying for the.org domain each year on a personal account, then it does in effect belong to him anyway. Whether you are on one side of this argument or the other, you'll no doubt draw your own conclusions about that.

But I thought it was worth mentioning. The article was called Matt Mullenweg says, WP Engine fight came after a lot of community feedback and it's on the repository. You can just Google it, but it's repository, the repository email. Anybody want to add to that? And there was deadly silence. yeah. let's move on.

okay. The next one, I think this is great. I'm just gonna say that right at the outset. brand new piece, 10th of July, ISOT Pereira. it's a community piece introducing WordPress credits, a new contribution internship program for university students. I don't know how long this has been in the making.

I imagine something like this can't happen overnight. but this is the idea that the WordPress Foundation has launched this idea of WordPress credits, which is, I'll just read 'cause it's gonna be easier. a contribution focused internship program that brings university students into the heart of the WordPress Open Source project.

this is Nathan talking now. a very much needed thing. Young blood, I think we're, there's not a lot of youth in the WordPress. Project at the moment. So this is a quite a nice way to inject that right back to the article. While WordPress thrives on contributions from a global volunteer community, many students in newcomers face barriers to entry, such as a lack of structured guidance or real world experience in open source project.

This new program is designed to bridge that gap. The program, the pilot program developed in partnership with the University of Pisa was announced by Matt Mullenweg on the stage at Word Camp Europe, which, he was joined by Mary Hubbard. And, it's available to any student in any field of study, which again, is interesting.

That doesn't seem to be as okay, only computer studies graduates may, or, potential graduates may apply. and it involves, a whole bunch of things, but it amounts to about 150 hours of community contribution. And, the work which is being done is on the screen. It's things like translating interfaces or documentation supporting product development, or redesign writing or editing content.

And, student contributions. Whether code, translations, document or educational materials will be publicly visible. Maybe that's the bit that everybody actually cares about and integrated into official WordPress projects and resources directly benefiting the wider community. So it's now it's happening.

university of Pisa are on it and it sounds like there's a bunch of other, it says interested universities, can reach out with the form that's on the page. I just think this is really cool. I've never been through a tech program at a university, which would've required something like this. But Tammy, before the call you were saying internships in your experience anyway, they were like mandatory.

So something like this is a bit of a, would be very welcome, right? Yeah. So mine was quite a while ago, being older. but, When I studied software engineering, I had to, and I did it in a gaming studio, but honestly, this, the way that this is shaped up, it sounds way more practical than what I did.

[00:46:47] Tammie Lister: I ended up just working on a tool that, for gravity and it was just like shoved in a corner and it was learning experience, but it wasn't like real experience. So it, I, do think that those internships are, can be incredibly useful for people when they are proactive. we've also had Google summary of code before as a project, so I think it's important for us to remember that we have done tangent to this.

I think it's, really important. we are gonna work out how on earth this happens if, but, and wise. but for me, I'm really excited about, from a student perspective, I go back to when I was studying, if I'd have had this opportunity, it would've. I, was using early open source because it was, I could afford, I couldn't afford, yeah.

I couldn't afford a copier windows, and all those kind of things. it, will keep me able to work in these spaces and it will show me that I can have a career in these spaces and it will show the potential of that. So I'm really excited about that. I also love to see product development, design and, the wide ple of things there.

So I'm super excited about it. We're gonna work out the if, but, and whys, and I personally don't wanna ever presume that because I don't know. I, just raise a comment. Thank you, by the way. Sorry, Tammy. Thank you. It's okay. Courtney Robertson said, I love the internship initiatives. I do think it deserves a post on w Founda WP Foundation's own blog, too.

[00:48:19] Nathan Wrigley: what are you like, I really don't know anything about internships at all. What, are you, o obviously, apart from the actual experience, are you hoping out the back of this to get a piece of paper? Basically? Is that the idea that you can hold a thing or, have some official accreditation, which says you did this and you prove it.

You literally get testimonials of like your work, which you can then take to future employees. If an internship is done correct, you get testimonials and you get sample work for your portfolio. it'd be code, be it designer samples, whatever you have. So you don't just leave with just course samples.

[00:48:56] Tammie Lister: You leave with real world work and you can point to, so when I left, I could point to a product that I'd been part of, that I could say like that, product I'd worked on. and that is incredibly powerful for people. Yeah. Letters of recommendation for future employee. Employers. real world experience, which just counts for so much more than classroom learning.

[00:49:19] Michelle Frechette: I think is what is so important about it. Yeah. And it sounds so again, just to paraphrase the, only bit that I've highlighted here, and also I should have said that if you get into this, it's not one of a, it is a bond fight. Figure it out for yourself. It says here, interns are guided by an experienced mentor specific to their chosen area and supported by a dedicated WordPress foundation contact person throughout the program.

[00:49:45] Nathan Wrigley: And then again, all the contributions and the basically the work that you've. You have done will be publicly visible and integrated into WordPress projects, should it, I guess make it, and they're looking for not only institutions, educational institutions to become involved, they're also looking to roll this out.

it says on the article, if a company is interested, they can also get involved. So maybe that's something that you, or an organization that you work with could, help with. I love this. I just think it's great. Yeah. So could I'm just gonna be slightly the VO voice of dissent in this. Yeah, sure.

[00:50:24] Piccia Neri: I think, internships are great. I have never been lucky enough to do one, but I have been. I've given them, in various positions, even as my own solo self and the people that I, it was exactly as useful as you say, people who just say, I've only got a portfolio thanks to the internship that I did with you.

Or for instance, when I was at the BFI, the British Film Institute, most interns would get a job after with A BFI because the process was he was as good as that. So I think it's great that I have a couple of things I wanna say. One is, one is about the fact that I do feel that right now there is.

Still so much that it is unclear about wordpress.org, about the foundation, how they interact with one another. That I don't want this to be slightly sweeping under the carpet. The issues that a lot of contributors or ex contributors due to the recent, mayhem have. And if you don't wanna open this, I'm absolutely fine with it.

But the other thing that, I just wanted to say it because it's, it's a, it's been a, in the community, there have been various people that have mentioned that. And I think it's a very fair thing to mention 'cause it's not, we're not making it up. there is a court case, it's really unclear about wordpress.org.

I'm not even gonna go into what Matt said. Didn't say it. It's, I'm just, I'm not interested. But the other thing is that I really wish was made a bit clearer is that. Every time you have an internship, there are, it's regulated wherever it is. So for instance, my niece, who's a scientist, has decided to do her last year of Masters in France because she will get paid, she has to do an internship, and in France she will get paid.

in, in Italy, which is where this is happening, presumably. I don't know. 'cause we're in a global world. I dunno, what the rules are, but I know that in the UK there are very specific rules. It can't be more than longer than three weeks without pay, after which it has to be paid. You have to, provide lunch, dinner, whatever.

And even as my own little self, I would just do it by the latter because it's meant to not create a merit, a the opposite of Merito merit meritocracy. A situation where only the people who can afford to, do an internship do it, which is what? Used to happen in various sectors like journalism or art, the art world for instance, which are sectors that I have frequented.

So I'm just wondering how it's gonna be regulated because it does matter. And I think, yeah, that's curious works with the, three weeks because when you think about it with an, maybe it's a bit longer there, but anyway, so that's what I would like to find out. And how do we fit it with the, it is a, legitimate question.

There is lot still up in the air and how does this fit in? You are definitely not the only person. 'cause there was a few people on Twitter who in, I can't remember where I saw it or who it was, but there was a few people asking about something. Something, yeah, I can't remember. But something about that is, was this kind of like free, I think they classified it as like free labor or some, something along those lines.

[00:53:42] Nathan Wrigley: So my question about that would then be like, does it. does the jurisdiction of where your residing matter or is it the jurisdiction of where the qu, like in this case, the, so the, website which is pushing this out is obviously wordpress.org. I don't know which entity would be the deliverer of this, but would it matter where their position, if it was entirely free, but it was made clear?

But there's a number of different things there, right? Yeah. The, and, not. I, can't, I don't have your answers. I, get, things are gonna work out as we discover them, but also, this goes down to in general contributions. We need to identify the project areas overall to be able to match contributors, that is happening more and more, on a project basis.

[00:54:41] Tammie Lister: So the more that happens for me personally. Open brackets, personal opinion, this things like this make even more important and even more critical for us to do it as a project. so that is also why I'm even more pleased that something like this is happening because it adds more weight to roadmaps, to anyone drinking tea.

Please have a sip. 'cause I mentioned that word again. and for, organization of, those, that type of work, because when people turn up, there are requirements. you do have to have, when we do Google sum of code, you have to have, and projects we used in the post, we do need to match people to work.

We need to have mentors that can pick up things and not just go, here's a. Mass of tickets. And I don't think that's what is being suggested, or at least that is not at all my interpretation, that anyone is suggesting that we go, here's track yolo.

That feels cool, not an internship. but again, we've gotta work this out collectively. I do believe we can, but it involves everybody listening and everybody just sitting in a space of, we all agree we need to do something about learning. We need, we have an ability to provide educa, like a space where people can, I.

For their courses come and provide. They're gonna teach us just as much as we are gonna teach them because they know about practices that we don't know in this space. I, am so expecting to be put wrong. I'm gonna be like taught what I don't know. I'm gonna be taught how old I am in some of the ways that I know things.

I expect to feel very old very quickly in this process. but that's just part Nathan's very distracted by weather maybe. Oh yeah. Horrific. It's English person distracted by weather. You could tell I'm suddenly concerned that I've threw all the windows open before we start recording, and now it's utterly caning it down, and I'm wondering if I should go and close some windows less, I guess electric.

[00:56:53] Nathan Wrigley: I might decide on that in a minute. We are gonna shown the way going forward. I don't think that answers your questions though, but it just knows that I don't think anyone has the answers today, but I don't think we get there by closing to Eva's side of it. I, think peach though, she sh they're sounded peach.

Like you were concerned that raising those questions would be a bit controversial. I, don't really think they are. I think they're exactly what everybody needs to be talking about, right? who's giving this out? How will people be paid for it? Will it be an entirely voluntary thing? What's the qualification that you get at the end?

Is it legit? I'm presuming it coming outta the University of Pisa. I'm presuming that there is some back and forwards, making it official. Yeah, and, I mean there's also, in my experience, whenever I've had an intern, my God, it's a lot of work if you want for it to be worth it for, them. As you were saying, Tammy, they need proper mentoring.

[00:57:48] Piccia Neri: It's a, it's almost a full-time job to be, to spend time after an intern. So there's that as well. But I am also, I don't want, I really want to say that, it is the, it is absolutely legitimate to say. Okay. It's great. Absolutely. And I totally agree with you, Tammy. We need young blood because of various conversations that have been on, we have been had on the subject, such as, it's hard work to set up a WebPress website.

Are we gonna be superseded by the one button, web micro website creation such as Instagram or whatever, or TikTok or whatever. So I completely agree, but at the same time, we do have issues. There is a contributor crisis in that kind of frame. I. I think it needs a, conversation that there's also that Yeah.

But in general, I would, in any other kind of situation, I would say Fab. Absolutely fantastic. And agree with all that you've been said, that all of you have been saying. It's but I, don't want for us to forget that there is, yeah. There is a crisis. Yeah. In the community. No, I think, that's why, it's important to have people with alternative opinions on shows like this and talking about it.

[00:59:02] Nathan Wrigley: 'cause it's good that you've raised it and you've obviously got legitimate concerns about that. so go to the story. I'll just pop it on the screen again, if you have any thoughts around that. It was published 10th of July. ISOT Pereira is called introducing WordPress Credits, a new contribution internship program for university students.

I can definitely say that on social platforms. There was, a certain degree of talk about exactly what you were talking about. Peter, I, Michelle, I was 25. I was, I worked in higher education for 25 years. Oh. in registration and, administration. And so I just wanna add that what we're seeing is.

[00:59:39] Michelle Frechette: The, news piece of it, right? This is the announcement piece. I have zero doubt that there is so much documentation that's piling up about how these things work, and it's just not public yet because it's still being worked out. And every university is going to have a slightly different way that they are going to interact with it because of their country or their even state and city here in the United States as far as regulations and things like that go.

So I think there's so much more to it. They can't possibly put in their initial, article that they're putting out to us. But I have zero doubt that there's a lot of documentation I. And that we will learn more as time goes by. Okay. So that then raises a question for me, which would be this one in order.

[01:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: So if, let's assume that what Michelle just said is true, that there's been a lot of backwards and forwards and there's documentation piling up in the background. do you think Michelle, and maybe Peach and, Tammy, all of you, do you think that it would be a good idea to share that stuff even though normally it would be slightly uninteresting to share it?

Like all of the due, I can't say due diligence won't be shared at this, right? I believe it will. And I think if you even were to click through and look at the applications, like if you're even interest forms, you're going to start to see some of the information being collected. There is information that's going to feed into the documentation and find those, matches and compatibilities.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and I think we need to be just, one thing. I think, and, it's not a counter, a balance, but using words like crisis, we need to be a little bit. Personal opinion, as someone that is a contributor, a crisis can feel differently depending on where you are. so I think that, that, is really Im important.

[01:01:23] Tammie Lister: I think just as you need to recognize that and, we need to keep projects perspective. I, think, yeah, these conversations should never exclude anyone. I hate the term sides 'cause that is not a word to use in this day and age. That is not like anything. 'cause the world out there is bad enough without us in our project doing sides and stuff, we don't need to do that.

I'll, just show my field bunnies if we start doing that. I have, I have rabbits and cats and dogs. Yeah. When, terms like that are used, it can be quite reactionary either side, I think. Okay. Though, just being cautious. I will raise it on the screen one more time. I don't think there were any commentaries more about that.

[01:02:22] Nathan Wrigley: No, I think that's fine. in which case we will just quickly move on. Is any about 25 minutes left? Okay. So this is interesting. This is an event that I had not heard of and then dig in a little bit deep. I hope you can hear me. The rain is. Literally brutal. That is, thank you. You hearing for me?

[01:02:39] Tammie Lister: Because I've got the dark clouds going on. Oh yeah. It's, really coming down in trouble loads. so this I had not heard of, and it's an event and I think the reason I hadn't heard of it is because it's not, and I'm gonna raise my, my, what, is that called when you do that? Air quote, bunny quote, air quote.

[01:02:56] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, there you go. Air quotes. That's funny. Quotes. Yeah. The bunny quotes, the, bunny air quotes. it's not an official, event, if So it's being organized by the organizers and they're sorting out sponsorship and selling tickets and all that kind of stuff. but I just thought I'd mention it.

So it is, it's called, WP, and forgive me for butchering the name. I probably am. It's called Swami, S-U-O-M-I. It's happening in, Later this year, will it Helsinki? Yeah. Yeah. Do you think I got that right? yeah. Helsinki. Yeah. So Finland and, if you want to get involved, you certainly can. This is the call for speakers that I'm showing now.

'cause obviously, they would like to have speakers, much like any event does, and they'll give you a bit of a rundown as to what you need in order to, to. Provide them with that information. but this is it. Yeah. WP Swami, it says, an IN is an independent volunteer organized event that brings together WordPress enthusiasts around Finland and Nordics.

It's happening on the 10th of October, 2025 in Helsinki. So I'm guessing it's a. It's an in-person event. I dunno what tickets cost or anything like that, but, I did wonder if this is more of a trend that we're going to see. what I mean by that is independently organized, events. I know that we've had these in the past and we continue to see them, but I wonder if we're gonna see more of them at the moment for some of the reasons that Peach was mentioning.

people are concerned about various parts in the community and the, way that things are co, held together, the cogs that move in the background and that kind of thing. So anyway, there is that, and then unrelated, but also related in that it's an event. I stumbled across this one as well.

somebody mentioned that they'd heard of Web Directions on our panel before we hit record. I, had not, but this is called Web Directions nq. it's happening in Sydney. I think I mentioned it on a previous episode, but because it Related to the previous one, I thought I'd mention it again. And, yeah, they're at the point where they're taking on sponsorships and all of that.

They look like a fairly robust organization. 'cause web directions seem to do conferences about all manner of different things, including, web developers, summits and, engineering AI and all of that kind of stuff. But if you are in the, district of Sydney, later in the year, it's gonna be, end of July is when they're closing the speaker submission process.

So anyway, there you go. Anybody wanna comment on those or shall we move on? I. I think that our ecosystem, just like we saw so many free plugins and then there was, the marketplace and people are able to make money off it. I think that's something we're seeing also, whether it's, whether it was a, catalyst of things that have happened in the past year or not, I think that we're starting to see people realizing that you can, yes, absolutely donate your time and efforts to these events, but you could also spin up events that could make money and you could make a living off of doing things like this.

[01:05:53] Michelle Frechette: And I don't think that's a bad thing. James Lau is joining us and he says, loves the growth of these alternative WP events. And it's, often said it's a good option compared to typical WP events. So that's quite nice to hear. And it reminds me of, WordCamp, is it Nordic? that was really nice back in the day.

[01:06:14] Tammie Lister: So I'm And was that again organized independently just by the organizers? No, I don't think so. It was a long time ago. it was in the before times before COVID? before time, yeah, time long ago. Okay. but, I also, I think it's a healthy thing. Like we got lup comp and different things happening.

I think it's good. I think finding a balance between them also helps, particularly if we're at. Relating to the other posts, having people in education, having the balance of both of the events. maybe we see more people coming to work camps. If we have more people coming from education that could see a resurgence in certain areas, we might actually be able to get some easier premises.

remember back in the day, we used to, particularly in England, we used to use like education for the hosting, and then it just became non affordable. Oh, great. So if we are having closer ties to education, that might be something that we can lean into again. So it could be good for the project all around there.

[01:07:21] Nathan Wrigley: Marcus, you have your orders from Patricia. She says you need to add it to the, the WP world if they're not there already or in pending status somewhere. So two events. This, in our web, directions, event, web direct. It's nice to see more events going on in different locations as well. Yeah, no, especially in, in Australia.

'cause Australia I think was one of the, that's where I'm going. bless 'em. They don't go much, ah, this, I know they had a recent Word camp, but, prior to that, I think basically COVID just put, the ice on apps absolutely everything. anyway, there you go, Marcus. Patricia says, pop that into the WP world.

Anything else or should we go on? Okay. I really like this and I have absolutely no idea. I. Why this hasn't happened. and obviously I know why it hasn't probably 'cause the idea didn't come up or there hasn't been any time to do it. But now that the idea has been suggested, I can't see why the heck this shouldn't happen almost immediately, if So this is being reported again by Ray in the repository it says, new proposal aims to bring phased updates to WordPress org plugins. So obviously if you get a free plugin at the moment, you've got a, as of now you've got a whole variety of options, what with fair and all that kind of stuff. But the sort of air quotes, again, traditional way of doing it is to go into the dashboard and install something out of the.org repo.

And then once you've got it, if it's updated, you'll get an update. And it's as simple as that. You can either do it automatically or do it manually, but the idea of this is sublime. So a new proposal, introdu, sorry, a new proposal to introduce phase. Phased plugin rollouts. So the wordpress.org plugin repo has sparked an active technical discussion on track.

The feature proposed by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, would allow plugin authors to gradually release updates to a subset of users before rolling them out to everyone. Mirroring practices used by Apple's App store. And Google Play. if you've got a Mac and you've got an app and you really like it and you want the bleeding edge, you can enroll in, I think it's called Runway or air something, I can't remember what it's called.

test Flight, that's what it's called. And if you are on the test flight program, basically you'll get advanced releases of that software and you can test it. And if you like, you're like a guardian, making sure that it works and submitting feedback. That's the idea here. Now, there is a. As far as I could read from this article, at least, anyway, it, doesn't say specifically how that would roll out.

In other words, would you have to enroll and say, for this plugin, I want to get the early updates or the phased updates or whatever it's called? Or would it be more like the plugin developer says, we want.org to roll out 5% on day one, another 5% on day two, and slowly ramp it up, that kind of thing. you've got a whole bunch of plugin authors who drop into the conversation.

So side bulky from, also motive says he supports the idea of 1%, 5%, 10%, finally building up to a hundred percent. And, and elemental same kind of thing, putting their weight behind it saying this would be a great idea. 'cause obviously if they put out a. A release where there's a problem that they didn't expect suddenly.

What is it? Elementor, I don't know, 30 million or something. Websites are experiencing a problem, which might have been avoided. So if anybody can come up with a reason why this isn't a good idea, speak now. But I think this is a good idea. what do you reckon?

Nobody reckons? Oh, I think it's a good idea point. Oh yeah. I phrased that question all the wrong way around, didn't I? yeah. I was just thinking back. Hang on. Why? Yeah. Anyway. Carry on. It's a good idea. would you wanna go for the kind of opting in thing? Would you want to declare yourself as a person of interest?

I wanna be the one for this plugin, or should it just be I think it depends on what you're doing. Yeah. Would you, it's that thing. Do you run, Do you run trunk on your client site and all those kind of things, would you put this on a mission critical site? Would you go live with different things?

[01:11:36] Tammie Lister: And, like you are gonna decide where you put this, right? But if you are, creating a product that is maybe focusing on the elemental ecosystem or, and you are not yet in their program and you want to aim for it, being able to do this. Could help you. things like that, like as you are aiming for these different ecosystems and I'm calling 'em ecosystem 'cause some of these are big enough to be ecosystems, they truly are, ecosystems in an ecosystem, dunno if there's probably a physics name for that, that I'm missing.

but yeah, I think it's great. It's also great from a usability perspective and testing from the company perspective. Like I would, if I was making a product, I would so want this to be easier on testing, load on support, load on feedback, all those kind of things. Yeah, I completely agree. and I suppose what I'm thinking as well is if I could nominate.

[01:12:28] Nathan Wrigley: Myself not to be on a particular, I don't know. I don't wanna be in the first 5%. I would also have that assurance that, okay, I know that the plugin update that I'm about to get has gone. Or maybe want one site. Do you want 5%? One site? You want 20%, right? You want, yeah. Yeah. but I would have that assurance that, okay, I'm pretty confident that this has now been bullet, tested for Bulletproofness on a variety of different sites.

Whereas every time a plugin update rolls out at the moment, all I know is they've got an update and whoever they've got And you hope they've got, yeah, and you hope, you hope that they've done their, testing. we all know that things can go wrong. So I think, it's a great idea, Michelle.

Yeah, I think it's great too. I, have a plugin at the repo that's very tiny and doesn't actually need that because it's simply a fork of Hello Dolly. But if it was anything more than 30 lines of code, I would be looking for something like that as well. Yep. Yep. Agreed. Peach, anything? No. Okay.

All right. There we go. So it's a proposal at the moment. Let's see if it materializes. I dunno what the technical burden will be on.org in order to pull that off, but that seems like a. Which I'm expecting that will drop at some point in the near future. block-based themes have been a thing for quite a while.

The, one that seems to be getting the most attention, and I would put this down to the developer, Mike McAllister doing a fabulous job of putting together, first of all, he is got a really amazing product, I think, but he's, he's also very proactive in terms of engaging on social media and putting together documentation and whole courses around full site editing to bolster that promise of Ollie.

The theme that we're talking about will be, great for you. he has released a post this week in which he goes into, the data, if you like, for one year of Oli Pro. So he brought Ollie out, managed to get a whole bunch of people on board, and then, you need to make a living out of it.

So Oli Pro came along, and if you're an Oli Pro user, you'll know what that does and if not, you can go and check it out on their website. But, the bits that I'm interested in here. Are, are the numbers really? And, and he was, he goes into what Olly Pro, has now managed to gather. And he says here, the numbers don't lie.

Before we dive into the features, let me start sharing some numbers that really show the impact Ollie is having in the WordPress community. The free Olly block theme now has over 5,000 active users. That's 5,000 people building beautiful websites with our little theme. And then he says, and Ollie Pro, we've crossed 500 paid subscribers, milestone, and we're growing more every day with the next target being, a thousand subscribers.

And then he goes on to list some of the other things that he's done to bolster his credentials, as a theme developer and somebody that's gonna support you through the transition over to full site editing and block-based themes and patterns and all of that kind of stuff. But, for me, the, numbers were quite interesting.

I. Because when you go to the, repo and download a theme, let's say a really, popular theme, something like Astra or something like that, you obviously see that the numbers are really, high, in into the many, millions. And so that's that's where my head ends up thinking, oh, these, some themes can get millions of downloads.

And so when I saw the Ollie Post, I thought, oh, that's not as many as I had originally thought. But obviously Mike is entirely content with it, really bullish about it, hoping to grow it, that it sounds like I'm being a bit of a curmudgeon there and I'm pouring water on his fire. I don't mean it to come out like that, but, Tammy, as somebody in this space, full site editing, block-based themes and all that, what do those numbers say to you?

Are you would, do you? So what are you thinking? So yeah, before I dive in, I think, Peter you had a comment about, this as well. You were had an instant reaction and then I'll go in. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Thanks for remembering that. I just wanna say publicly thanks to Mike, because I think that this theme is just so nice and easy to customize.

[01:16:40] Piccia Neri: It's, I teach, it's, a class here in a local business school and they do digital marketing. So I teach them a few things and part of that is building a WordPress page. And I use Ollie because it's the easiest that I've found to base. So there's a design that it's, that we look at and we try and find, I guide them to find a template that will I.

That we can customize based on the design that exists. And Ollie's just the easiest. So I just wanna, I, thought that the numbers would be higher as well, just because I think just we are so self-centered and I think I love using it. Therefore, many more people should agree. That's, yeah, exactly.

[01:17:21] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Yeah. But I just wanna, publicly, I haven't, I will have to buy it just outta saying thanks for making the teaching easier for me. So I think it's a, such a neat little, and if you're not familiar with the, with Gutenberg, it is a, an easy one to use. It doesn't make it harder at all. To even to delete a block or turn it into another block is just, it's great.

[01:17:46] Piccia Neri: So yeah, I would just add before Tammy joins in there, he's got this whole kind of academy where he's, yes. he's gone. Great ways to produce free avail, freely available content, not just spanning, it's not like I. Promotional Olly stuff is, there's a load of content in there about the general approach, how WordPress is, what the UI is like, and how to get to certain areas and, how patterns and all that kind of stuff.

[01:18:09] Nathan Wrigley: And that is, sorry, overview. Yeah, that's part of it. and I, just think, so to me. I, on my own sites, I'm going to do wackadoo or hand brewing. But if I have to, I've used this on sites, it's my go-to if I'm just like, grab a theme and go and I think that's a testament, can I, yeah. Will I on everything?

[01:18:31] Tammie Lister: No, I'm going to grab something that's doing it. and, doing it and native and working like, because it's light and because it, it does just enough. it, isn't a framework. It isn't doing extra. It's, that I am not. The, numbers feel about right to me and the, and I'm going to tell you that, and it might be because of the work that I do.

'cause I focus on distribution of plugins and themes. So that might also be why, it is because those numbers where you see the ridiculous numbers generally involve, they've got hosting contracts, so they're being, done as default with hosting or they've got other kind of agreements of distribution in place.

And that's how the numbers are increased or they've been around a lot longer. And you have to think that Ollie feels like it's been around a long time because Mike has done such a good job, but it hasn't been around that long because he is just done such a good job and, that's incredibly, important.

At 1.11 was not that far away from Ali. I also maybe don't even want Ali to have that number unless it's also that they're paid. Because I think, the, quality, the having that number and it being free is a entirely different problem that someone like Mike would have because what he's trying to do is, sustain a business from this.

yeah. So him having, a sustainable business from this and this being a product is what is really Im, I like personal opinion again. I is what I would think would be impro important. And again, what this shows me is that themes done in a productized perspective have a business. So he is doing what I always recommend, which is.

Not just have not just slap a style on it and call it like romance or call it like rose or boat. he is providing a system, it's a design system underneath that you can grow and extend, you can have patterns. Its longevity. He's creating an ecosystem of his own in doing this. And it is, tangent, to, it's running in parallel.

So tangents one word, but it's running in parallel to core. Incredibly native. He is, yeah. Yeah. Going to be able to partner in different ways. I'm excited what happens from here, considering one's a new recent, but yeah, it's, this is one year as well. Notice the title of the post. Yes, that's true.

[01:21:07] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. This is the provost one year. And I think that's the con the context here. I love this post as well. I wish more products would write as transparently as this, because this helps as someone that. I like, I, nerd out about product making. Yeah. I'm just like, ah, like this. the fact that there's a post like this, is, just great for other people when they want to, build products.

[01:21:31] Tammie Lister: They can see this and they can be like, okay, this is real. So yeah. being able to have stats and real realism for this and then the education, I think that's the key. It's an area that people don't know necessarily they've got a problem or they need a solution. Or they need a quality solution like this.

So he's now providing the education to show that they need the quality solution. So it's twofold. So I think the, bottom of it is well done, Mike, Yeah. The producing a very, very honest and he has franchise like was he a year ago at, where Can't You Ask? He had little Ollie boards. That's right.

[01:22:04] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. You did. Yeah. The best drag ever. Yeah. Yeah. That was pretty good. Those little finger things. Yeah, I remember those. so well done and, let's hope it continues to grow. Obviously, you're one year in, I'm imagining it will continue. okay. We are very short time, so we'll just quickly rip through the next view.

The first one is, we highlighted this very briefly last week, but WooCommerce 10.0 was delayed. Hopefully it'll be dropping. Today according to this article, there were some errors, that crept their way into the code base, let's just put it that way. And they have now hopefully been removed. So if you're a WooCommerce user, you can expect that this probably won't be of great interest to a lot of people.

But I use this on a very frequent basis, so I'm excited. This is, a plugin called Newsletter Glue. It was originally developed by Armored and, Leslie Sim. it's now been handed over to New Custodian, Tyler Chanel, channel Chanel, I'm not entirely sure how you pronounce it. And, they're obviously taking this in a different direction.

It's a plugin, which basically enables you to create a post in the WordPress block editor. And then what in the block editor, if you use their blocks, gets directly sent to your, I don't know, MailChimp active campaign. And you get a one for one copy so you can produce a WordPress post knowing that the exact same thing will go out, as an email.

'cause the, po the, the blocks that you can use will confine you into what's possible, to be read in an email client. it's brilliant. I really like it. And they've decided to add in some extra features if your, I don't know if your newsletter, for example, re has ads in it and you are getting sponsored that will hopefully be taken care of fairly soon, as well as, a bunch of analytics and yeah, merge tags, which haven't been available until Massey.

You can put this back. Is it worth saying that Leslie's doing event call now? Oh, it is. Yeah. So Leslie hasn't just abandoned the WordPress project. She's, she decided, they started working on it, I think before she sold, newsletter Glue. And there's a, there's a. Platform, a plugin that she's working on called Events KOI, which I think is if it's not released already, it's darn close to being released.

I think it might be in beta or very close. and that plugin is, I think, meet up, the idea is you'd be able to create, meet Up or Eventbrite or something like that, but all inside your WordPress dashboard. As always, she's doing it in the open, which is Brave of her. I think really, putting a plugin out, update by, update in on Twitter and things, that's, it's worked well for them, hasn't it?

Anyway, newsletter glue, there's the, there's that update. And what else have we got? This one I just thought was worth mentioning. If you've got a website and it is being absolutely hammered by ai, this plugin might be worth a lot. I've not tried it. I just came across it and thought it was interesting.

It's called Dark Visitors. Excellent. and the idea is that it will give you data, stats, analytics basically on which AI agents are pounding your website. And it makes the bold claim right at the top. It says, bots now make up half of your website's traffic. Honestly, please stop. and obviously, you know the environmental impact and all that.

No time you're shaking head, do not. I want them to stop to some extent, and this plugin will allow you to do it, have, a play feedback to me. You never know. I might get the developers on a podcast or something like that, but I thought that was worth mentioning. Jackon looks like toast. it does.

Yeah. Oh, it does a bit.

anything on that before I move on quickly? Last one, I recently invited people to check my 4 0 4 on my website, which drove up traffic to my 4 0 4 page by 436 visitors in one week. Ideal 4 0 4 what? Okay, I'm gonna go on a bit of a ramble, because, okay. This is fascinating. I know. I'm so sorry, Tammy.

the AI stuff, whilst Big Islanding is also like crazy making if you're a content creator, because the promise of Google was you let us scrape your site. We will return visitors, and it was more or less a one-to-one relationship. you, you create content, we'll send you visitors then like Google started to poison their own waterhole by scraping your content and surfacing it on their UI so that they didn't need to get to your content.

But now AI has really supercharge that and anthropic, so Google, if you imagine the fraction of one to one on Google, the, anthropic data is something like for 30,000 times that they scrape your website, they will return a visitor. and for Claude it's slightly, anyway, all the algorithms, all the different LMS have got different data.

But Anthropic is particularly bad. it does bring into question whether or not content will be something which is something that people want to consume or whether they'll just go and get it from an ai. We will see. but that's where this plugin idea came from. But they're still consuming it through ai.

[01:27:14] Tammie Lister: Yeah. They're just consuming it in a different. Yeah, but I suppose, the fear is, that if you, can't get visitors to look at your website and that really is how content creates it rules out the traditional mechanism Exactly. That delivering above your website.

Exactly. That they'll figure out. yeah, But that didn't originally exist either. No, Anyway, it's, it gives me concern and I think it's got quite a few people in, not just like in the WordPress space, quite a few people out there online just slightly concerned, sit, see in it as a, people are creating plugins like this for example.

[01:27:52] Nathan Wrigley: 'cause they obviously see that there's some harm to be mitigated. I have to see how it all falls out. okay. Last one then. Before we. Finally end it is, Bernard Ka, CAU. He's produced. I thought it was fascinating. I, this K Aau. KAU, that's right. KAU. he has produced a piece this week.

So Bernard's been in the WordPress space for ages and ages, and only figured out in the, in, like in the last few weeks that the, WordPress trash was. Something which WordPress gets rid of. it's not a place where you can store stuff that you don't wanna see, if you created a post. But it's just irritating you that you never finish it.

It's always in draft. His thought was that you could put it into trash and then resurrect it at some point in the future when you weren't tired of seeing it in pending status or whatever. But no, it gets deleted by default every 30 days. You can change that to what the heck you like. but don't use the trash as like a recycle bin that you can permanently bring back.

'cause I think to Bernard's disappointment, things that he thought were gonna be there maybe weren't there. So there's a salutary warming. I think there's room for a plugin to be built too. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Holding space. That's not a. draft, like a recycle bin that never goes away.

there is a, he does write, he shows you a little bit of code with a junk drawer, or, parking lot or shelf. So totally apropos of nothing. Do you all have a drawer in your house, which is the junk drawer? So only one drawer? Yeah, we call ours the draw of chaos. One of the office. Yeah, one of the kitchen.

[01:29:33] Michelle Frechette: One of the bedroom. Okay. Every room with a trunk. Okay. We call ours the draw of chaos. 'cause you never open, it twice and have greeted by the same, I think it depends on the neurodiversity in your house, how many drawers those you have. Yeah, we have the one draw. Very true. Pretty big.

[01:29:47] Nathan Wrigley: Very true. Pretty big. okay. Anyway, there's a bit of code on the screen. I will link to it in the show notes. You can go and re, set it to, I don't know, 7 million days or something like that if you really don't want it to go away. but there you go. That's it. That's all we've got time for this week.

Thank you for your. Comments. Oh, by the way, Patricia Marcus says that Omi, the event in, Helsinki is already on the site and the other one will be added by the end of the day. So that's good. Who's worse? Humans or bots. Now I will leave you to decide on the day. Yeah. And about ai. Can't wait for the open source and trained with multicultural, multilingual sets.

Open source ethic. Yeah, I agree. I like the idea of local LLMs. That's where I'm hoping to get to at some point. Thank you for commenting. Thank you to my three fabulous guests for joining me today. I hope that nothing burned down peach in the background soup. Is it soup your cooking? No, It is just, it's so delicious.

[01:30:48] Piccia Neri: I can't wait. It hasn't yet. Oh. But it's there in the background. It needed maintenance. Did it? It needed a stir or it need maintenance, but it's nearly there. Okay. Okay. I'm having. Very late lunch or early dinner. Who knows? That's nice. okay. Hopefully you'll enjoy that. Only one thing remains, and that is for us to, raise the, oh, I did a little flick there that was, I never done that before.

[01:31:14] Nathan Wrigley: there we go. Thank you much very much for joining us today. We will see you next week, or subsequent week on this week in WordPress. Take it easy if you want, guys wanna stick around and have a nata. I'll see you in a few seconds, but the rest of you, so I'll see you soon. Byebye. Bye.