a:4:{s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:3:"rss";a:1:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:3:"


";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:7:"version";s:3:"2.0";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:7:"channel";a:1:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:61:"
	
	
	
	




















































";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:1:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16:"WordPress Planet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"language";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2:"en";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"item";a:50:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50:"WPTavern: Creative Commons Search Is Now Openverse";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126990";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:145:"https://wptavern.com/creative-commons-search-is-now-openverse?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=creative-commons-search-is-now-openverse";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3812:"<p>The Creative Commons search engine has been rebranded to Openverse and now redirects to its new home at <a href="https://wordpress.org/openverse/">wordpress.org/openverse</a>. </p>



<p>Users will find the revamped interface maintains the ability to search the same collections, narrowing results by use case, license type, image type, file type, aspect ratio, and more. The Openverse search engine is also now <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/meta/openverse/">available in more than 10 languages</a>, with more translations approaching completion. This update includes access to images from <a href="https://wordpress.org/openverse/search/image?q=water&source=stocksnap">StockSnap</a> and new  <a href="https://wordpress.org/openverse/meta-search">Meta Search </a>providers <a href="https://images.all4ed.org/">EDUimages</a> and <a href="https://www.imagesofempowerment.org/">Images of Empowerment</a>.</p>



<div class="wp-block-image"><img /></div>



<p>&#8220;We’d like to once again express our thanks to WordPress for carrying forward the important work of providing the open community with a search engine to find works to remix, reuse, and openly enjoy,&#8221; Creative Commons COO Anna Tumadóttir said in a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/2021/12/13/dear-users-of-cc-search-welcome-to-openverse/">post</a> passing the torch of CC Search to Openverse.</p>



<p>In April 2021, Matt Mullenweg <a href="https://ma.tt/2021/04/cc-search-to-join-wordpress-org/">announced</a> that CC Search would be joining the WordPress project. Automattic hired key members of the CC Search team in support of its continued development and sponsors their contributions to the project as part of the company’s <a href="https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/automattic/">Five for the Future commitment</a>.</p>



<p>Beyond hosting the search engine, adding Openverse searching and image downloading is on the roadmap for WordPress core. When asked in the comments of his blog if the WordPress media library can be integrated with Opeverse, Mullenweg <a href="https://ma.tt/2021/04/cc-search-to-join-wordpress-org/#comment-590381">confirmed</a> that is the plan. Users may also be able to share their own works back to the commons in the future.</p>



<p>In an <a href="https://creativecommons.org/2021/08/30/open-minds-podcast-matt-mullenweg-of-automattic/">episode</a> of the Open Minds podcast published in August, Mullenweg elaborated on one of the motivations behind bringing Creative Commons Search into WordPress. In the early days of WordPress, GPL-compatible images were not easy to find. Mullenweg said he had even shared his personal collection of 30,000 photographs as open works that anyone could use for designs and themes, to spur on creativity when CC0 images were more scarce.</p>



<p>&#8220;I also really want to make it easy for people within WordPress to license their images in a way they can be accessible to others,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Now it&#8217;s exciting to know that there&#8217;s going to be open-source-compatible images across any number of sites, to any number of people building things for the web, whether that&#8217;s on WordPress or something else.&#8221;</p>



<p>Mullenweg is expected to speak more about Openverse at his annual <a href="https://wptavern.com/state-of-the-word-2021-will-be-broadcast-live-from-new-york-city-on-december-14">State of the Word address</a> tomorrow, which will stream live from New York City with a small studio audience.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested to contribute to the maintenance and the  future of the Openverse project, you can connect with the team at <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/openverse/">make.worpress.org/openverse</a> or in the #openverse channel on WordPress Slack.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 14 Dec 2021 04:30:59 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:1;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:89:"WPTavern: The Next Generation of WordPress Theme Authors Will Design From the Site Editor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126691";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:223:"https://wptavern.com/the-next-generation-of-wordpress-theme-authors-will-design-from-the-site-editor?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-next-generation-of-wordpress-theme-authors-will-design-from-the-site-editor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6193:"<p class="has-drop-cap">Last week, I played around with a new plugin that allows users to export a custom <code>theme.json</code> file. The project is still a little buggy at the moment, but I look forward to covering it in more detail soon. The export function was more of a secondary objective for the plugin, but it represents a feature I look forward to landing in WordPress one day.</p>



<p>While tinkering with the plugin, I reminded myself to check on the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27528">progress of a related ticket</a> for Gutenberg. Currently, the site editor feature allows end-users to export their theme templates. However, there is still no way to do so for global styles.</p>



<p>Essentially, block themes need two components: templates and a global styles configuration. There are other pieces. The <code>functions.php</code> file is increasingly unnecessary, and the standard <code>style.css</code> file is often used for adding theme data instead of CSS. There is talk of adding both <code>/patterns</code> and <code>/styles</code> folder support for automatically registering block patterns and global style variations, respectively.</p>



<img />Twenty Twenty-Two theme folder and file structure.



<p>WordPress theme development already looks different than it did just a few years ago. Soon, old-school themers will hardly recognize it.</p>



<p>That is not necessarily a bad thing. The ongoing mantra is that the platform seeks to democratize design much as it did for publishing. I have often wondered how feasible such a goal really was. I would see sparks of genius littered throughout the project in the past few years. It took a while for all the moving parts to become a well-oiled machine. There are still some missing components, but the platform&#8217;s promise is becoming a reality.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-neutral-200-background-color has-neutral-200-color is-style-tavern-separator" />



<p class="has-drop-cap">Over the weekend, I happened across an old friend&#8217;s Facebook profile. He is one of the few bloggers I began following in the early 2000s. I noticed he had shared something from his blog, and I checked it out. He has a background in journalism, and he has always had unique insights into what most of us might consider the mundane, day-to-day life stuff.</p>



<p>I continued reading other posts. It was a welcome change of pace to pour through thoughts from someone who is simply blogging for the sake of blogging, even if still on Blogger and not WordPress. The site does not look any different than it did years ago. He even has a blogroll. I spent about an hour going from site to site, reading the ramblings of other passionate bloggers, most of them on the self-hosted WordPress software or WordPress.com. It was a reminder of why we continue building this platform.</p>



<p>Of course, we all have different reasons for coming to the same place. We must also have a healthy economy behind WordPress, which helps fund the project&#8217;s more altruistic mission. At the end of the day, the goal is to provide free software for the masses, offering an alternative to the gatekeepers and walled gardens elsewhere on the web.</p>



<p>Theme design needed to be shaken up. I enjoy finding the odd diamond in the rough. But, it has been a long time since the average end-user has had true freedom with their website&#8217;s design. Kubrick was fine in the mid-2000s. WordPress catered to a DIY crowd that was OK with making CSS changes to get their desired outcome. However, in the 2020s, the platform must bring a new set of tools to a wide-ranging audience. That is what the global styles feature is all about.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-neutral-200-background-color has-neutral-200-color is-style-tavern-separator" />



<p class="has-drop-cap">When WordPress 5.9 launches next month, many users will get a taste of the site editor. Users who switch over to the upcoming Twenty Twenty-Two theme will have more design power at their fingertips than ever before with stock WordPress. From templates to styles, they will change the front end of their sites to whatever they dream up.</p>



<p>Some will undoubtedly stumble upon the &#8220;Export&#8221; button in the site editor:</p>



<img />Exporting the site&#8217;s templates.



<p>It is a handy tool for theme authors transitioning to block theme development, but that little button has a world of potential. Right now, it spits out an <code>edit-site-editor.zip</code> file with a <code>/theme</code> sub-folder. Within that, sits <code>/templates</code> and <code>/parts</code>.</p>



<p>What is missing is the <code>theme.json</code> file, which represents the global styles. When that lands, users will essentially be exporting an entire theme. Well, minus a screenshot and required legacy files like <code>style.css</code>.</p>



<p>Part of democratizing design is not just handing over the ability to customize the site. Fulfilling the mission means people can share those designs. The next generation of WordPress themers will not be stuck in a code editor like those of us today. They will cut their teeth on the built-in site editor. Some will graduate to more advanced development, but others will have everything they need to publish their themes on WordPress.org or even venture out and build their own businesses. In part, it will level the playing field for those with an eye for design but not the coding chops to create those projects.</p>



<p>Exporting global styles cannot get here fast enough. Then, we need to add pattern exports to the equation, but the mission requires we take it one more step.</p>



<p>I look forward to the day when a user can build an entire theme from scratch in WordPress. Then, they submit it to the theme directory without writing a bit of code. Could one of those &#8220;average&#8221; bloggers find a talent for web design they never knew they had? Could someone who always wanted to learn but did not have the time/resources/privilege create the next most popular theme? I like to think so.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 14 Dec 2021 00:37:22 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Justin Tadlock";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:2;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"BuddyPress: BuddyPress 10.0.0-beta1";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://buddypress.org/?p=322432";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55:"https://buddypress.org/2021/12/buddypress-10-0-0-beta1/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5913:"<p><strong>BuddyPress 10.0.0-beta1</strong> is finally available for testing! <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f384.png" alt="🎄" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



<p>Please note the plugin is <strong>still in development</strong>, so we recommend running this beta release on a <strong>testing site</strong>.</p>



<p>You can test <a href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/buddypress.10.0.0-beta1.zip">BuddyPress 10.0.0-beta1</a> in 4 ways :</p>



<ul><li>Try the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/bp-beta-tester/">BP Beta Tester</a> plugin.</li><li><a href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/buddypress.10.0.0-beta1.zip">Download the beta here</a><a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/buddypress.8.0.0-beta1.zip" target="_blank"> (zip file)</a>.</li><li>Check out our SVN repository: <code>svn co https://buddypress.svn.wordpress.org/trunk/</code></li><li>Clone our read-only Git repository: <code>git clone git://buddypress.git.wordpress.org/</code></li></ul>



<p><strong>The current target for final release is early next year : January 5, 2022. That’s only 3 weeks away</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f631.png" alt="😱" class="wp-smiley" />, <strong>so we would appreciate your help making sure this next major version of your community engine is as good as it can be.</strong></p>



<p>Please note BuddyPress 10.0.0 <strong><a href="https://bpdevel.wordpress.com/2021/11/08/wordpress-required-version-update-3/">will require at least WordPress 5.4</a></strong>.</p>



<p>As usual, <strong>testing for bugs is the key to a safe upgrade</strong>. It’s the main reason we actually package beta/RC versions <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f449.png" alt="👉" class="wp-smiley" />  so please give us a few minutes of your time to make sure this pre-release behaves the right way with your specific WordPress configuration, your theme, and the other WordPress plugins you are using. Try to use a testing site which is very close to the one you are using in production. If you find something weird (aside from the great new features below), please report it on <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">BuddyPress Trac</a> or post a reply to <a href="https://buddypress.org/support/topic/buddypress-10-0-0-beta1/">this support topic</a>.</p>



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



<h2 id="around-70-changes-to-expect-in-10-0-0">Around 70 changes to expect in 10.0.0</h2>



<p>You can check out <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/query?milestone=10.0.0&group=resolution&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&order=priority">this report</a> on Trac for the full list of them. Below are the ones we believe will improve your BuddyPress experience in the most significant way.</p>



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



<h3 id="site-membership-requests"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f6c2.png" alt="🛂" class="wp-smiley" /> Site Membership Requests</h3>



<p>Site Administrators wishing to have more control over who can join their community will be able to enable site membership requests from their BuddyPress Options Administration screen. Once done, BuddyPress sign-ups are transformed into membership requests to be manually reviewed and approved by an Administrator to validate new user accounts.</p>



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



<h3 id="more-engaging-logging-activities"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f5de.png" alt="🗞" class="wp-smiley" /> More engaging logging activities</h3>



<p>These simple activities about specific user interactions or events (e.g.: <em>a user became a friend of another user</em>) will be more visually attractive to improve user engagement in your community. The most impressive new activity is that which is generated when a user updates their profile photo: it will include the profile photo that spurred the creation of the activity item, even if it has been updated since <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f4f8.png" alt="📸" class="wp-smiley" />!</p>



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



<h3 id="wordpress-full-site-editing-compatibility"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f3a8.png" alt="🎨" class="wp-smiley" /> WordPress Full Site Editing compatibility</h3>



<p>You&#8217;re beta testing <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/12/wordpress-5-9-beta-2/">WordPress 5.9</a>: first thank you, second please take a few more minutes to check the improvements we&#8217;ve made to our BP Theme Compatibility API to play nice with themes supporting Full Site Editing such as the next WordPress default theme: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/10/06/introducing-twenty-twenty-two/">Twenty Twenty-Two</a>.</p>



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



<h3 id="a-new-place-to-easily-discover-our-next-buddypress-add-ons"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/2795.png" alt="➕" class="wp-smiley" /> A new place to easily discover our next BuddyPress Add-ons</h3>



<p>BuddyPress Add-ons are side projects/projects as features/next BuddyPress blocks maintained by the BuddyPress development team we&#8217;ll soon make more widely available by publishing them on the WordPress plugin directory. When BuddyPress 10.0.0 is released, you&#8217;ll find a new tab to your &#8220;Add Plugins&#8221; Administration screen. On it, you&#8217;ll see a new add-on for a potentially upcoming feature: <a href="https://bpdevel.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/bp-rewrites-1-0-0-alpha/">BP Rewrites</a>. We think this will bring more contributions to the BuddyPress project as a whole.</p>



<p><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f3ae.png" alt="🎮" class="wp-smiley" /> <em>Happy testing!</em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 12 Dec 2021 18:05:33 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Mathieu Viet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:3;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:97:"Gutenberg Times: Pattern Block, State of the Word and theme.json builders – Weekend Edition 196";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=19815";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:103:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/pattern-block-state-of-the-word-and-theme-json-builders-weekend-edition-196/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15872:"<p>Howdy, </p>



<p>it&#8217;s great to be home again! How are you? </p>



<p>We are coming up to the end of the year, and it&#8217;s time for the annual <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/state-of-the-word-2021/"><strong>State of the Word (SOTW)</strong></a>. <strong>Matt Mullenweg</strong>, co-founder of WordPress, presents the accomplishments and challenges of the outgoing year and of what&#8217;s to come for next year to the WordPress open-source project. <br /><br />The event will be <strong>live-streamed from New York</strong>, on Tuesday, December 14th, at  at 5 pm ET &#8211; 22:00 UTC. On the SOTW  <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/state-of-the-word-2021/">announcement page</a>, you can also find a <strong>list of watch parties from around the world,</strong> some in-person, some virtual. </p>



<p>After the two-hour event, the Post Status team will hold a live event on <a href="https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1YqGopbnDZjJv?s=20">Twitter Spaces </a> to discuss SOTW. I&#8217;ll be there to listen in. </p>



<p>Now, let&#8217;s catch up on last week&#8217;s Gutenberg news! </p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br />Birgit</p>





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<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#gutenberg-plugin-version-12-1">Gutenberg Plugin Version 12.1</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#plugins-and-other-tools-for-the-block-editor">Plugins and other tools for the Block Editor. </a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#building-custom-blocks-and-features">Building Custom Blocks and Features</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#creating-block-themes">Creating Block Themes</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#upcoming-wordpress-events">Upcoming WordPress Events</a></li></ul></div>



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<h2 id="gutenberg-plugin-version-12-1">Gutenberg Plugin Version 12.1</h2>



<p id="gutenberg-plugin-version-12-1">The new plugin version came out Wednesday Dec 8th, 2021, with plenty of bug fixes that made it also into WordPress 5.9 Beta 2. </p>



<p><strong>Riad Benguella</strong> published the release notes: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/12/08/whats-new-in-gutenberg-12-1-8-december/"><strong>What’s new in Gutenberg 12.1 ( 8 December)</strong></a></p>



<p><strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> took it for a spin. You can read his take in <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-12-1-fixes-block-appender-layout-shift-adds-template-list-views-and-enhances-global-styles"><strong>Gutenberg 12.1 Fixes Block Appender Layout Shift, Adds Template List Views, and Enhances Global Styles</strong></a>. And Congratulations to the WPTavern team to the <a href="https://wptavern.com/wp-tavern-is-sporting-a-new-website-design">new Site design</a>, released together with the WordPress Special Projects team at Automattic. </p>



<p><strong>Grzegorz Ziolkowski </strong>and I discussed the new Gutenberg version in our  <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-57-block-theme-json-builder/"><strong>episode 57 of the Gutenberg Changelog</strong></a> podcast. Lots of links in the show notes. </p>




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<h2 id="plugins-and-other-tools-for-the-block-editor">Plugins and other tools for the Block Editor. </h2>



<p>The agency, 10up published their <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/publisher-media-kit/"><strong>Publisher Media Kit Page plugin</strong></a> that created pre-configured media pages using Block Patterns. It works with Newspack and the Twenty-Twenty-one default theme. </p>



<p><strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> gave it a whirl. Here is his post: <a href="https://wptavern.com/10up-releases-the-publisher-media-kit-wordpress-plugin"><strong>10up Releases the Publisher Media Kit WordPress Plugin</strong></a></p>



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<p>The number of <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/tags/full-site-editing/">&#8220;Full-site Editing&#8221; Themes in the WordPress repository</a> increased to 31 this week. The newest Theme is <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/videomaker/"><strong>Videomaker </strong></a>by the designers at Automattic. It&#8217;s aimed at film directors and video creators.  Justin Tadlock posted this review: <a href="https://wptavern.com/videomaker-block-theme-targets-film-directors-and-video-creators"><strong>Videomaker Block Theme Targets Film Directors and Video Creators</strong></a></p>



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<p>In <a href="https://www.webtng.com/cwicly-gutenberg-toolkit-a-new-full-site-editing-solution/"><strong>Cwicly Gutenberg Toolkit: A New Full Site Editing Solution</strong></a>, <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/webtng">David McCan</a></strong> reviews the kit that includes a block-based theme, a Gutenberg blocks add-on, and Advanced Custom Fields Pro. McCan includes a video walk-through of this new tool.</p>



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<p>The team of Trewknowledge wrote <a href="https://trewknowledge.com/2021/12/08/the-future-is-coming-wordpress-5-9-anticipated-features/"><strong>The Future is Coming, Now. Watch and Learn About WordPress 5.9 Anticipated Features</strong></a> and summarizes the most important features coming to a WordPress instance near you in January 2022. </p>



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<p>In his article, <strong><a href="https://www.pootlepress.com/2021/11/custom-single-post-layouts-with-wordpress-gutenberg/">Custom Single Post Layouts with WordPress Gutenberg</a></strong>, <strong>Jamie Marsland</strong> covers the process on how to build a custom layout for your single posts using the WordPress Gutenberg Block Editor and Full Site Editing. He covers the dynamic post blocks and how to use the template editor. </p>




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




<h2 id="building-custom-blocks-and-features">Building Custom Blocks and Features</h2>



<p>This week, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> showed us <strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bE3J64brps">how to create a Meme Block</a></strong> on his live stream. <a href="https://github.com/ryanwelcher/twitch/tree/stream/dec-9-2021">The code is available on GitHub</a>.</p>



<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bE3J64brps"><img /></a>&#8220;I don&#8217;t always type badly, but when I do, it&#8217;s during a live stream&#8221;.



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/phil_sola123">Phil Sola</a></strong> and <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/jkoussertari">James Koussertari</a></strong> are the <em>WPBros</em> and started their YouTube Channel with episodes covering <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp__xlX9hHT3oPbnxK-Ch_g/videos"><strong>Gutenberg Block Development</strong></a>. The first four episodes are already available. Check them out. </p>



<h2 id="creating-block-themes">Creating Block Themes</h2>



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/richard_tabor">Rich Tabor</a></strong> has been a giant fan of Block Patterns. This week, he wrote a tutorial on <a href="https://richtabor.com/pattern-block/"><strong>Building WordPress Block Themes with the New Gutenberg Pattern Block</strong></a>. </p>



<p>The Pattern block renders a pattern — typically used within a template from a block theme. The main advantage is that it allows for translatable templates in themes. </p>



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<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/dgwyer">David Gwyer</a></strong> has been working on a <strong><a href="https://themegen.app">Block Theme Generator</a></strong> and the first version is already online. It offers HTML form and some tools to select all the settings you would want to configure for your theme in the theme.json file, assembles it and lets you download the file to add to your theme. It&#8217;s a first version, but already quite nifty. I, for one, had great fun playing around with the color pickers for all kind of features. </p>



<img />Screenshot: <a href="https://themegen.app">Block Theme Generator by David Gwyer.</a>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p>On a side note, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> is also working on creating a theme.json generating tool within the block editor. You can watch the progress on this <a href="https://github.com/ryanwelcher/theme-json-builder">GitHub repository. </a></p>



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<p><strong>Jeff Ong</strong> and <strong>Jason Crist</strong> picked 4 topics to highlight in the post  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2021/12/10/gutenberg-themes-week-of-dec-5/"><strong>Gutenberg + Themes: Week of Dec 5</strong></a>. </p>



<ol><li>New Color Picker is coming to Gutenberg</li><li>There is an ongoing discussion on how best to add global padding, and still allow for full-width alignment. Check out the ideas that are tested. </li><li>Opt into block styles via theme.json. This is to allow wp-block-styles support via theme.jscon. </li><li>Contrary to other styling, it seems Global link styles override block-level styles. Chime in on the issue. </li></ol>



<p>I am a big fan of the digest form of their weekly round-up post.</p>



<p>As always, the weekly round up also lists Overview issues for various feature in the works, like the Typography Tools, the Global Styles interface, the Default theme and a few more items.&nbsp;</p>



<p>And lastly you find a list of General Resources to documentation and tutorial. </p>



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<p>Block Themes were also a topic for the Ask the Bartender column at the WPTavern: Justin Tadlock answered the question:  <strong><a href="https://wptavern.com/ask-the-bartender-is-there-a-starter-for-building-block-themes">Is There a Starter for Building Block Themes?</a></strong></p>



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<h2 id="upcoming-wordpress-events">Upcoming WordPress Events</h2>



<p>December 13, Monday 1pm ET / 6pm UTC<br /><strong>WordPress Trends to Watch in 2022</strong> <br />Discussion with <strong>Paul Lacey</strong>, <strong>Ronald Gijsel</strong>, <strong>Cami MacNamara</strong>, and <strong>Anne McCarthy</strong>. <br />They&#8217;ll share ideas about emerging trends beyond WordPress 5.9 for:</p>



<ul><li>Full Site Editing</li><li>Block Themes</li><li>Where Gutenberg goes from here</li><li>Performance improvements and more</li></ul>



<p><a href="https://events.godaddy.com/events/details/godaddy-events-godaddy-pro-emea-online-presents-wordpress-trends-to-watch-in-2022">RSVP now to attend or catch the replay</a> (GoDaddy Pro Online)</p>



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<p>Post Status is not the only team getting the hang of Twitter Spaces. <strong>Ellen Bauer</strong>, friend of Gutenberg Times and co-founder of <strong>Elma Studio</strong>, also started informal audio-only discussion. Bauer shared her schedule for the next few weeks: </p>



<ul><li>16 Dec, Thursday, 6pm UTC / 1pm ET<br /><strong>Thoughts on Matt&#8217;s &#8216;State of the Word&#8217;</strong></li><li>22 Dec, Wednesday, 9am UTC / 4am ET, <br /><strong>How to prepare for FSE &amp; the WP5.9 release</strong></li><li>30 Dec, Thursday, 6pm UTC / 1pm ET, <br /><strong>Casual End of 2021 WordPress recap/chat</strong></li></ul>



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ellenbauer">Follow Ellen Bauer on Twitter</a> to get the links to the Twitter Spaces events. </p>



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<p><strong>December Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at on 10:00 AM ET / 15:00 UTC</strong><br /><a href="https://twitter.com/kylevandeusen"><strong>Kyle Van Deusen</strong></a> will host a live event and show people interested in building blocks how he rebuilt the WaveApps homepage with his favorite block packages, He will answer viewer questions. <a href="https://calndr.link/event/gFoMETWPPl">Add the event to your calendar</a></p>



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<p class="has-drop-cap">On the<a href="https://wpcalendar.io/online/">&nbsp;<strong>Calendar for WordPress Online Events</strong>&nbsp;</a>site, you can browse a list of the upcoming WordPress Events, around the world, including WordCamps,  WooCommerce, Elementor, Divi Builder and Beaver Builder meetups.</p>




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<p>Featured Image: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/61859230@N00/491988738" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">&#8220;LetterPressBlocks_RT5&#8221;</a> by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/61859230@N00" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fiveten</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/?ref=openverse&atype=rich" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CC BY-NC 2.0</a> via Openverse</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:18:22 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:4;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:110:"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog #57 – Gutenberg 12.1, Block Theme.json Builder, WordPress 5.9 Beta 2￼";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?post_type=podcast&p=19822";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-57-block-theme-json-builder/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48664:"<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack and Grzegorz Ziolkowski discuss Gutenberg 12.1, Block Theme.json Builder, WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 and Twitter Spaces</p>



<ul><li>Music:&nbsp;<a href="https://soundcloud.com/xirclebox">Homer Gaines</a></li><li>Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/">Sandy Reed</a></li><li>Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://markuraine.com/">Mark Uraine</a></li><li>Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://paulisystems.net/wordpress-consulting">Pauli Systems</a></li></ul>



<p><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-57-block-theme-json-builder/#shownotes">Show Notes </a>/ <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-56-Gutenberg-12-wordpress-5.9-Ryan-Welcher#transcript">Transcript</a></p>



<span id="more-19822"></span>



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



<p>David Gwyer has been working on a <a href="https://themegen.app">Block Theme Generator</a></p>



<p>Ryan Welcher is working on a <a href="https://github.com/ryanwelcher/theme-json-builder">Theme.json Builder</a></p>



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ellenbauer">Follow Ellen Bauer </a>to learn about upcoming Twitter Spaces </p>



<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ0cG47msEk&list=PLNG_1j3cPCaZZ7etkzWA7JfdmKWT0pMsa">Recording of this year&#8217;s React conference</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/12/wordpress-5-9-beta-2/">WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 released</a></p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/12/08/whats-new-in-gutenberg-12-1-8-december/">What’s new in Gutenberg 12.1 ( 8 December)</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-12-1-fixes-block-appender-layout-shift-adds-template-list-views-and-enhances-global-styles">Gutenberg 12.1 Fixes Block Appender Layout Shift, Adds Template List Views, and Enhances Global Styles</a></p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2021/12/03/new-directory-names-for-block-based-fse-themes/">New directory names for block-based (FSE) themes</a></p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2021/12/10/gutenberg-themes-week-of-dec-5/">Gutenberg + Themes: Week of Dec 5</a></p>



<p>Follow Twitter Bot <a href="https://twitter.com/GoodFirstBugs">@GoodFirstBugs</a></p>



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



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



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, hello and welcome to our 57th episode of the Gutenberg Changelog podcast. In today&#8217;s episode, we will talk about Gutenberg 12.1 release, block theme.json builders and WordPress 5.9 Beta 2, and Twitter Spaces. I&#8217;m Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times, and Developer Advocate at Automattic. And I&#8217;m here with my co-host Grzegorz Ziolkowski, JavaScript developer at Automattic and WordPress core contributor. So how are you today, Grzegorz?</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Oh, thank you, I&#8217;m great. Winter is already in Poland. We have a tons of snow outside, so we were outside with my daughter today doing angels. That was fun, so yeah.</p>



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



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowsk</em>i: It&#8217;s pretty surprising that it&#8217;s so early, because usually it&#8217;s in January. Anyway, how is it at your place? How are you?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, in Florida, it&#8217;s really warm. It&#8217;s 70 degrees Celsius, so I&#8217;m not going to complain about anything. And I just got back from Germany where it was really cold and I got to test all my winter clothes configurations, and yeah, it was end to end testing and it worked.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Thank you, all good. We are prepared.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: We are prepared. Yeah. And we have to, because we are heading out to Vancouver for the holidays and visit friends. So there is going to be snow in the forecast as well.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Yeah, so we have a great episode today. No guest, and is also the last one from 2021, the last episode for 2021, because we are going for holidays and there is a release, the Gutenberg release 12.2 is scheduled for December 22nd, but that&#8217;s so close to the Christmas holidays that we said, okay, let&#8217;s push it into January and we will do two releases with the episode 5.8.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. I&#8217;m not sure if there is, will be all on, like the way you said like on time, I mean on time, like at this time of the year. So the Gutenberg core team, there&#8217;s always discussion whether to postpone some of the releases or not. So I&#8217;m not sure this type of discussion already happened and it can be on 22 because it&#8217;s just before major holidays for most of the contributors, so it should be good. But I remember that there was a time when we had three weeks between releases and maybe even once we skipped one of their releases. So it&#8217;s something that&#8217;s unclear in my opinion.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Okay. So if you want to subscribe, dear listeners, to the Gutenberg Weekend Edition, we will keep up during the holidays, maybe not every week, but definitely more often than the Gutenberg Changelog Podcast. You will learn the newest about the release schedule for the Gutenberg plugin to come.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="community-contributions"><strong>Community Contributions</strong></h3>



<p>So today I also wanted to, we don&#8217;t have any announcements or listener questions, but I found on Twitter that David Gwyer has been working on a block theme.json generator, and I connected with him and it&#8217;s still in preview, but it&#8217;s a next json, next JS application that he&#8217;s building with a form, and then you can then download the theme.json for it. He has different tabs that you can see. So it&#8217;s not yet out, but I&#8217;m just announcing that it&#8217;s something you could keep an eye out for when it comes out. And if you are nice to him maybe, and ask him for a preview link on the Theme.json Generator. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. I think it&#8217;s a very nice idea. It&#8217;s something that, it&#8217;s been on my mind as well, that we should have something like that already in WordPress core. So I&#8217;m glad that the community, as usual, is ready to jump in and accelerate all the explorations in that regard. So that&#8217;s brilliant. I&#8217;m looking forward to see how it plays out. And yeah, it&#8217;s something that we wanted to mention that Ryan Welcher from Automattic, he is already looking into something similar. I don&#8217;t know more about the approach he took in his tooling.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. He&#8217;s building a plugin that you can install on a site and then you would use the block editor, the forms will show up in the block editor. So you can then do the configuration for the styles, the color settings, and all that right in your block editor. So he is also, he&#8217;s not that far yet either, but it&#8217;s all something, the two tools to watch evolve and see what is a solution that you would want to use in that regard. So I&#8217;m glad that this is going to be a thing over the holidays. And I know that John Q at one point had a site where he started something similar and both Ryan and David knew about that before they started it. But in the meantime, John Q took it offline because it wasn&#8217;t updated anymore. The theme.json schema has changed quite a bit since he started that and he wasn&#8217;t working on this project anymore. So there are two new initiatives around it. Pretty cool.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. It reminds me a little bit jQuery UI. So in the past, when jQuery was everything, you could use this library for components, and then there was this page that you could tweak the styles using the controls and it would generate CSS files for you. So I think standalone apps is great because of that experience that you have call canvas for you, and you can play with everything and see how it changes. Whereas the approach of using the site editor, it&#8217;s a little bit off because you don&#8217;t have all the components presented on the page. So that might be a challenge for some of the folks to use a plugin version for that. But it&#8217;s like maybe there is something in the middle, that you can combine those two and have this nice experience of using WordPress core and having the standalone experience of the next JS app that you gives you the power of all the components that you could style.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. It&#8217;s interesting, different approaches, to see how they evolve and how they probably fit different use cases as well. And Ellen Bauer of Elma Studio, she&#8217;s a good friend of the Gutenberg Times, has been on multiple live Q and As for theme as a theme builder, and also has a great block theme in the webpress.org repository called Aino that&#8217;s A-I-N-O. And she started with Twitter spaces and having discussions around theme building, freelancing, and she sent us the dates for her next events and she will have them&#8230; so she will have one on December 16th. And that&#8217;s on the topic after the State of the Word from Matt Mullenweg, kind of discuss the thoughts from the community there. Then on December 22nd, that&#8217;s a Wednesday, it&#8217;s probably too early for US because it&#8217;s at 9:00 AM UTC, Ellen Bauer is from New Zealand. So she&#8217;s kind of very flexible in her time, but sometimes it&#8217;s going to be a real rough thing.</p>



<p>So 9:00 AM UTC, that&#8217;s 5:00 PM Eastern. I know people who are up there, I&#8217;m not. So how to prepare for FSE and the WordPress 5.9 release, which is going to be quite interesting. And then on December 30th at 6:00 PM UTC, 1:00 PM Eastern, it&#8217;s a casual end of 2021 WordPress recap and chat. Now I would love to give you links to all of those, but it seems that Twitter Space still has a few restrictions, and one is that you can only schedule one event in advance. So I would suggest you follow Ellen Bauer @Ellenbauer, E-L-L-E-N-B-A-U-E-R on Twitter. So you get the notification for her next events. So Twitter Spaces has kind of come really around in the WordPress community. I know that Post Status is doing quite a few Twitter Spaces. Have you any experience with Twitter Spaces?</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: So I participated yesterday, I mean, for 10 minutes maybe, but there was a React conference and afterwards they were doing as well, the session with speakers. So they were discussing some key topics that were covered during the day and discussing how the community fits in, all that pictures, other frameworks and libraries. So that was quite interesting, but I could join only SLD center, but still something that I just joined randomly because it&#8217;s like there was this blue button on the top with all the faces of participants and that caught my attention. So I like that. But as you said, the fact that you don&#8217;t know upfront, that something like that is happening is a bit annoying, I think. Although it has also some benefits because maybe that&#8217;s the whole idea to have it to something that just started because people exchange opinions on Twitter and then suddenly they can just jump in and start talking about the topic.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So I like it as a more casual way to connect with other people that are in your Twitter stream, or you are part of it. One restriction is that on your desktop, you can only connect as a listener. If you want to be a part of the&#8230; in speaking with the other people and have your input, you would need to be on the mobile app, the Twitter mobile app. So I don&#8217;t know if you said it, but Twitter Spaces is just audio. So that is also a lower barrier than a live stream because you don&#8217;t have to be on video. It&#8217;s almost like a group phone call, so to speak, with other people listening in, and it&#8217;s much less formal. And I like that part. Yeah. Oh, speaking of React conference, I think that we have the link for the recordings in our show notes, if you&#8217;re interested in what&#8217;s happening with React. Are there anything that stood out for you, what WordPress developers would need to know? I know I&#8217;m throwing that at you right now.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: So one thing that they are introducing new features and they&#8217;re introducing many changes, although the way how they approach it is very nice because everything will be backward compatible, so they just follow what WordPress does in that regard, which is amazing. And they had some other plans for the next major version, which is 18, that should be released early next year. And what I found very interesting is that initially they wanted to have some sort of switch for new features that is you need to apply for a whole application, however, they changed the plan. And it&#8217;s very interesting that you will be able to just pick a subset of your application and enable one given feature.</p>



<p>And there&#8217;ll be a few features that you will be able to use concurrent mode, those are very technical things, but in general, they are saying that your application will work exactly the same in 99,999 percent of time, which is great. And yes, I think that there will be a few improvements that the block editor would benefit from. I cannot confirm that because we don&#8217;t have any numbers for now, but I think that in terms of performance, there will be some benefits. And yeah, and also Diego Haz had a presentation about accessibility and he was showing his Reakit library that is used inside WordPress.</p>



<p>So that&#8217;s an interesting part. And he also was presenting the composite component that we use in the block inserter. And he showed how the new APIs will benefit that. And so one thing that I like the most is that there will be some sort of behavior that allows you to show loaders in a very smart way. So for instance, when you show the results for the blocking set, and the block patterns, you will be able to still present the previous set of results while the new is loading and assume that&#8217;s ready, then it&#8217;ll replace that. And it&#8217;s like very nice APIs for us. So that&#8217;s very technical, very deep. And I think the block editor will benefit from that in the next releases in 2022.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So sounds like everything is really evolving. So now let&#8217;s get back to our immediate release.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="what-s-released-wordpress-5-9-beta-2-and-gutenberg-12-1"><strong>What’s Released &#8211; WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 and Gutenberg 12.1</strong></h3>



<p>So what&#8217;s released section in the Gutenberg Changelog is, well first, WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 was released on Tuesday, December 7th and the community is going to yeah, asked to really stress test this because it&#8217;s one of the latest releases and there are not a whole more to come. There is probably a Beta 3 in the works, but it&#8217;s still unclear if there should be a January 4th Beta 4 release before the release candidate comes out. But yeah, so we have the news item, the news page about the release in our show notes. And it gives you great instructions on how you can test things, especially the bug fixes that came in late there.&nbsp;</p>



<p>And that brings us to the Gutenberg plugin release 12.1. So some of the changes were back boarded to the 5.9 WordPress core. But yeah, so what&#8217;s in the Gutenberg, 12.1? Do you want to start us off?</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowsk</em>i: Yeah. I&#8217;m just thinking about that, if everything was back board, I mean, it will be back boarded as far as I understand that, or no, it might be already there. Yes. It it is already, sorry. I had to think how the process goes and because we are using RC of the plugin when we start cherry picking comments. So that&#8217;s like already happened this week on Monday and yeah. So I think the biggest change is that one of the blockers that was right during the time when the release date was postponed, was the experience around picking templates. And now we have a separate page for templates and it contains the list view, that contains the name and the source of the template, whether it comes from the team or maybe whether that was created by the one of the users from the site.</p>



<p>So that shows the list, and on the same screen, there is also a new button that is on the top right side. And it allows you to create a missing template. So let&#8217;s say you don&#8217;t have a 404 page provided by the theme, and you can just use button to create that one, that experience. Yeah. I mean, it&#8217;s like that&#8217;s the biggest change. That was something that was missing. I mean, that was in the plugin to work different in a different way. So there was a sidebar on the left side that allows you to do all those things. However, I don&#8217;t know. Do you remember why it was not included?</p>



<h3 id="enhancements"><strong>Enhancements</strong></h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: It was in 5.8. There was a template section in the right hand sidebar. Yes. But that was because the full site editor didn&#8217;t have all the right workflow. So you are only able to edit the template that you were on though, the post or the page template, but now they have this under appearance, the additional menu. And that&#8217;s where you can look at templates as well as template parts. It&#8217;s a separate menu. And that is now available for WordPress 5.9. Another big change is, or what was missing, was that in the site editor, you were able to add blocks as well as block patterns. But now you also can add reusable blocks that you already built to add them to a template. So that was a missing piece right there. And I&#8217;m glad that&#8217;s in there now for 5.9.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. I think that for sure was overlooked at some point, because there&#8217;s so many features already in the post content editor that it wasn&#8217;t so easy to bring them to the site editor and it was like, each feature needs to be also evaluated, whether it makes sense in that context.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And I can understand that, yeah, that some features are not finished until they are evaluated for a broader usage. Like if it works in a post edit, it doesn&#8217;t mean it works that way in the site editor, so some things need to change to actually make it work for the site editor, which also kind of updates the UI or something like that. So it&#8217;s quite a complex system that is back and forth from new features to old features, to new features kind of way. It&#8217;s almost like a feedback loop that you also have with users, and you introduced few new features.</p>



<p>So yeah, in the global styles now it&#8217;s also possible to opt out of the default palette for the interface. So if a theme and theme JSON opts out in the default colors for a site, then those colors are not shown in the site editor sidebar, which, yeah, certainly that was a big complaint that people said, well, I don&#8217;t want users to actually be using those colors. But on the other hand, you need those colors when there is no color palette from the theme. So it, yeah, it kind of offers something, yeah. So it&#8217;s kind of an interesting problem to solve.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. But I guess the stats, they still exist because you could change teams and you could be using one of those core colors. So they need to be there in case you use them in one of the overridden templates or template parts, or reusable blocks or whatever. But yeah, I think also on the feature section, it&#8217;s something that is more like a developer experience. So we were talking about the schemas for theme.json that helps developers and designers when they building their teams have this hints, what given property could be, or just showing the list of possibilities. And there was change other that allows to use custom blocks. So not only the core blocks, but if you have a custom block and you could apply some style changes and do the hints, because it&#8217;s now smart enough to figure out that that&#8217;s also a block that could have some styling. So just a handy improvement for-</p>



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



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: &#8230;that use, because if you are not playing with the block Theme.json generators….</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And that&#8217;s certainly a challenge for the Theme.json generators, to keep up with the new changes in the schema. And that&#8217;s an ongoing story about Gutenberg development that every person involved in it needs to kind of keep up with it, being theme developers or plug-in developers now, tool developers it&#8217;s&#8230; yeah. I hope it slows down a bit in, I don&#8217;t know, three or four years.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. At least because of backwards compatibility, some of the existing features will stay there. So that&#8217;s one good thing, but there&#8217;s so many new features coming every two weeks. So yeah.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: And so there was one other improvement, is the position of the block appenders and the behavior of it, which is really, it was a long ongoing problem for the last two or three years.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yes.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: That the layout kind of jumped a little bit when the appenders come in. Appender is the plus sign where you can then add new blocks to it. And now that&#8217;s the little plus button and now you can, they are now, what is it, fixed in their positioning. And then so with the relation to the block, so they&#8217;re not underneath the block where they created those jumps and that alone is a feature that actually makes the block editor less awkward, I say, yeah.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yes, yes. I mean also that helps you to, because it&#8217;s now on the bottom right side of the space that the block occupies, the parent blocks that can have blocks inside, which is really good because you exactly know where are you adding this block. Whereas before the plus sign was in many cases it was positioned in a way that you weren&#8217;t sure whether that goes to the block you want to add or just is outside. So yeah. I like that a lot. I must admit when I saw that for the first time I was a bit lost. I didn&#8217;t know what this icon is all about. I was thinking that something is misplaced, but once you learn how it works now, it&#8217;s so much better.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree. Yeah. Good job everyone. And there is now a keyboard shortcut to double escape unselected blocks.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: No, no. So you need to press escape twice.</p>



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



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: So because now alt select all blocks, whereas one escape just makes you go out on the edit mode. So it goes outside of the single block.</p>



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



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski:</em> So it just….</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Does that take care of, sometimes it happens that I&#8217;m not getting out of select. I cannot edit things. And is that….</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yes.</p>



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



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski:</em> Yeah, because we have two modes. One is for browsing. I know, it&#8217;s like, what&#8217;s the name, but the idea, yeah. The one is that it&#8217;s for accessibility. When you are contained in a blog that you are editing and then when you tap, it goes to the sidebar. And when you tap it just go to the toolbar, like there&#8217;s a cycle inside the single block, whereas when you escape and you can just use arrow up down just to navigate between blocks. So that makes you faster to move between blocks if you are using keyboard a lot.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. So I&#8217;m going to test this out over the weekend when I do the weekend edition, because that&#8217;s where I sometimes got trapped and I got out of it by just reloading the page.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: When you keep press enter, then you go again in the edit mode so that&#8217;s&#8230; You need to learn some of those shortcuts and just use mouse and&#8230;</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: So the next thing is adjust the order of theme blocks and reorder the inserted items, the inserter items, sorry. And that has to do with the site editor and the theme blocks that are available. So the order is adjusted so you might find it on a different spot if you have been testing this before.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: There are now so many theme blocks and you know, some of them aren&#8217;t that important. so that&#8217;s why you can see now, like on the top of that is the navigation block or site title, site logo, or the logo that you would rather prefer to use when you start thinking about building the design for your template.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And also, so it&#8217;s more the, oh, I did not know that it was actually a login logout block there. I just saw that because it&#8217;s now on the top.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yes.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Yeah. What&#8217;s next?</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. In the block library, there is now a new block, which is comments pagination blocks. So just to explain, there is now an ongoing quark on the comments query loop, which is like more or less the same concept, like query loop, which is a technical name for the list of posts or pages or whatever post type you pick. And the idea is to replicate the same capability for designing how comments look and that pagination is one of the things that you can have with comments in the classic themes. So it&#8217;s there and the next and previous blocks for the pagination are missing still, but they should land soon. So in general, this comment square look, I would consider that very experimental in the WordPress 5.9. There will be a different block that is just wrapped around on the comment form or comment template. I don&#8217;t remember the name, but it&#8217;s just the PHP function that does everything for you and shows you the comments that you see on the single post page.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right. Okay, cool. Yeah. So the comments pagination block and all the other single comments blocks that are in the works, or have been released with the plugin will be in WordPress 6.0, because it&#8217;s still all experimental.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yes. I mean, if everything is done, which is most likely, yes.<em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Okay. All right. So then there were some updates on the navigation block and now it shows its changes to the sub menu options to show an error button when relevant and then implement suitable fallback to a navigation block on the front end when there is no menu yet selected. That was something that the team experimented with quite a bit, and there are four or five PRs that are related to that. It certainly is&#8230; that&#8217;s part of the backwards compatibility also for the navigation block that if there is no menu, because it&#8217;s a new site, yeah, you still can use the navigation block and get hints on that. But it also shows you a fall back. I tested this and it was quite interesting to see that it kind of took over and showed me all the pages if I wanted to, the navigation block is coming along quite nicely. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. I think they also added PHP filter in case someone doesn&#8217;t like the default behavior for the fallback. So you can opt out with that. The filter name is block under score core underscore navigation underscore render underscore fallback, quite long one. And yeah. And basically you can just opt out or just provide your own way of doing that, which is pretty nice. And also there&#8217;s a technical change, which is less important, but they decided that instead of having the navigation menu ID attribute, there will be a ref which is aligned with how usable blocks work.</p>



<h3 id="bug-fixes"><strong>Bug Fixes</strong></h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Awesome. Yeah. So next item that we want to point out is the template part block that when you convert it to a reusable block, it kind of removes the color space and layout options of the template block. That&#8217;s very interesting to kind of test out if on&#8230; I&#8217;m kind of wondering, the interesting part is because I&#8217;m wondering about the use case for that, but I think the more you use it, the more you kind of understand it much better, then there is a change to the gallery block. That&#8217;s the refactored gallery block. And now they turned on the auto migration from our version one gallery block to our version two format when the post is edited. So that&#8217;s quite nice so you don&#8217;t have to physically do anything when you open up a post or a page that has a previous gallery version. It automatically converts it to the gallery version that has each image as an image block and uses the inner block. So you have all the features of an image block also available to your gallery.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah, it&#8217;s interesting. Although, I guess you still need to save it just to make sure that the version two is stored in the database. Although if you don&#8217;t change anything, that&#8217;s probably not that important. So, I mean, when you don&#8217;t change anything in the gallery, so you probably don&#8217;t have to save it. I haven&#8217;t tested that yet. I&#8217;m just wondering whether the save button just immediately marks itself as actionable, but you need to do something, whether just something behind the scenes until you don&#8217;t change any attribute it is just invisible. So that&#8217;s the only thing that….</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. I&#8217;m glad you mentioned that because I&#8217;m going through a few tests for the gallery block just to see how it works. And that&#8217;s certainly something to test some more. All right. What&#8217;s next? We talked about this post featured image to move the width and height controls into the dimension panel.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. Although this, this sounds quite technical. I mean, because it was moved to the dimension panel, is like in a different place now, I mean the width and height is just better organized now. So there&#8217;s one important things for the themes. And the change is that when you are creating the structure for the theme, before you would use block templates and the block slash template slash parts folders for your templates and template parts, and the decision was to rename those folder, the old folders you can still use them as long as you use, like you cannot mix.</p>



<p>So you cannot use the new name and old name, as long as you use the old names or new names everything should work as before. And there is, yeah, I think I see that you, I think that there is announcement post for that, that we will link in the notes and yes, so templates and parts, new names, shorter and better. And that is because there are upcoming features coming. It&#8217;ll be possible to have a folder for styles and folder for patterns, which is quite interesting, the patterns part, in my opinion that will be great. And yeah for styles, do you know what the plan is for styles? Would it be in there?</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Well, I think it&#8217;s a separate PHP file where you register them, and then they&#8217;re also talking about variations folders. So yeah. So if you have a block that is an image block, and you want to add additional styles, like frame to it, or a different shape of it, then those don&#8217;t have to be in the functions PHP, you can create for each pattern your own file and then have them be added to the theme rendering kind of part. Yeah. So its styles, it&#8217;s variations, and it&#8217;s block patterns that get a little bit of a better folder structure like that.&nbsp;</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. But it&#8217;s far in the future as I understand it.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Right. Yeah. But the only part that is now in Gutenberg is the renaming of the folders for the template parts and the templates, because you don&#8217;t need the block in front of them. Yeah. There was another change that is interesting for those who use the appearance menu, that as soon you use a block-based theme that is built for full site editing, the current theme editor, where you get access to the file system on your site will be under tools. It will not be showing up in the appearance menu. It&#8217;s not disappearing, but they decided it to hide it or move it to the tools subheader so it&#8217;s not confused with the site editor template, editor, it all looks kind of the same. Naming things is really hard. And it was always a little odd that that was actually available for a user to edit the PHP files on your site and kind of render them. If you make a mistake, you render the whole site with a white screen of death, so to speak. So hiding is probably a good, or placing that under the tools menu is probably a good decision.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. So I just wanted to also mention from the&#8230; going back to the global styles and changes apply there. So there was one thing that is quite interesting. So there was a change to the typographic panel, so it&#8217;s now better organized. So now they call it elements. So by elements, I means there&#8217;s text, but other elements can be a link. So now they are separated in a way that you can drill down into the link and see only settings related to the link, like colors, like, I mean, in this case it&#8217;s typographic.</p>



<p>So you can change font size, you can change font weight, and so on. And that&#8217;s also a preparation for future changes so you will be able to register your own elements, so let&#8217;s say when you have a blog that contains a few visual parts, so that you will be able to mark that. So let&#8217;s say in the bottom, you will be able to say, I want to have special, maybe for typographic it&#8217;s not the best, but for colors there are a lot of requirements like navigation and then it can have now nested menus. So you could just start differently nested menus. And that would be like using this API. So that&#8217;s really interesting how it evolves.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. And looking at the PR giphy that the designers use there though it has menus and submenu, or panels and then subpanels, so if you want to change the text, you click on text and then you get an additional panel. If you want to change the link, you click on link. So a it&#8217;s a multilevel user interface now, and you need to really know where things are to actually change them. But it&#8217;s going from the top and global thing to the yeah, single element part.</p>



<p>And yeah, it&#8217;s going to be really interesting to see what people do with that and how they find things. I know that the learn team, the learn.webpress.org team is already looking at creating videos for tutorials for all these features. So I hope&#8230; it&#8217;s unclear if they will make it to the release, but shortly after, definitely. Yeah. They will have something. It&#8217;s a whole new way of editing your site. So we all have to learn how to use it. And sometimes you don&#8217;t pick up on the interfaces intuitively unless somebody points you to, well, what was the thinking behind it, you know? So. Yeah, so what else?</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. It&#8217;s also so powerful that the organization for that needs to be really, really complex, but it&#8217;s like as long as you use good workflows that are the same for every block, it&#8217;s something that you should learn quite quickly.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Consistency is definitely key for that. Yes. We talked about things, bug fixes, there are plenty of navigation block bug fixes and also for the gallery block that came out of the testing but nothing really major.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah it&#8217;s quite expected because the navigation block is the biggest feature that is in there that was also iterated for two years. And yes, it should be in very good shape now. So I think it&#8217;s fine to have those bug fixes because it improves the experience further.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So there&#8217;s one change in the components bug fixes that daytime picker is now setting PM hours correctly. I don&#8217;t know what was wrong with it, but it sounds like times are really hard.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: No, that one is really annoying. I think two weeks ago I ran into this issue that I wanted to post something in the afternoon, but it was published in the future, set in a few days in the morning because it wasn&#8217;t working correctly. So that&#8217;s a very important feature. So I&#8217;m glad that is fixed now.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. Announcement. Now you don&#8217;t have to double check your times on the publishing things.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="experiments"><strong>Experiments</strong></h3>



<p>Yeah. And after, aside from that, there is under experiments, we find an experimental confirm dialogue. Did you see what that was about?</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah, because the browser, I mean, it&#8217;s mostly from as far as I understand that they want to remove the confirm function. That is the one that blocks you, that shows you a big popup. You need to click yes or no. It&#8217;s like the one that comes from the browser that doesn&#8217;t look good. And I guess that is one of the reasons why they want to remove that and there&#8217;s ongoing work to prepare a replacement for that. I&#8217;m not quite sure if that&#8217;s going to work in exactly the same way, because the good part about this confirm dialogue is then when you have unsafe changes in your editor, when you try to close the tab, it will just prevent that and ask you whether, are you sure that you want to continue, and I hope that this is going to be possible to replicate that using Java script. So let&#8217;s see how it goes.</p>



<h3 id="documentation"><strong>Documentation</strong></h3>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Yeah, I understand. Cool. And then we come to the documentation piece, documentation PRs that are in Gutenberg 12.1. And there&#8217;s some information about the block gap to theme.json and there have been improvements to the greater block tutorial in the handbook. Well, the developers responsible for the documentation also alphabetized the how to guides section, which is probably an improvement. So you can find things. And then that&#8217;s pretty much, oh, for the tools panel it&#8217;s updated the panel and read me and the stories all have been updated. And there&#8217;s also updated documentation for the pattern block category.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: I see that there are also changes to the history page. Interesting. Just there is just a news section explaining what it is about. But yeah, if you want to check something the block at your handbook, the history page, that could be interesting to learn about inspiration and like some world post explaining the block editor, and you can learn how far it&#8217;ll….</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</em> Yeah. It was interesting. We had a discussion when we were at the theme meetup that the interest in the block editor comes in waves. Yeah. And I&#8217;m thinking now we are in the fourth waves of having new people coming into the block editor for the first time. And it&#8217;s hard for those of us who have been with it for four years to kind of go back in three years and kind of think, okay, what was published back then that would help anybody now three years later to get started with a block editor? And it&#8217;s quite an quite a hard thing to solve when you have been so far ahead of those who are just coming in, to kind of think back into the shoes of someone who experienced the block editor for the first time. So yeah. Having a history where people can go back to read those posts is really good and helpful. See anything else that you want to talk about?</p>



<h3 id="code-quality"><strong>Code Quality</strong></h3>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. There&#8217;s also got quality section as usual, but that are some minor changes. I think the biggest change is the reorganization in how the PHP files are structured. So there&#8217;s an ongoing effort to move some of the functions to folders that are related to the WordPress major version, because we have so many features that we still support for WordPress 5.8, 5.7, and it becomes a pain to make sure that the same features work in older version, even though the code is not in WordPress core, but yes, that helps a lot. And that help also to catch a few smaller bugs that some features weren&#8217;t fully backboarded to work with 5.9 release. So I hope that this will prevent some surprises.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: All right, well, and this concludes our Gutenberg Changelog, going through the Gutenberg plugin release.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="what-s-in-active-development-or-discussed"><strong>What’s in Active Development or Discussed</strong></h3>



<p>There are a few things I wanted to point out in the active development or what&#8217;s discussed. There is the Gutenberg, the themes team on WordPress, they actually, every Friday they publish a weekly roundup of theme-related discussions. And this week they published the 75th weekly roundup edition. So if you haven&#8217;t followed up on that or followed that particular way, Jeff Ong and and Jason Chris picked four topics to highlight in the post.</p>



<p>And so one was the new color picker that&#8217;s coming to Gutenberg. And then the online discussion on how best to add global padding and still allow for full width alignment. There are some ideas that are tested and in the post you find the links to the GitHub issues about that. And also how make the WP block style support available through the theme.JSON, to opt in instead of the functions PHP support, and then contrary to other styling, it seems that global link styles override block level styles.</p>



<p>So they try to find a solution for that as well. And as always the weekly roundup has a list of overview issues for various features that are in the works like the typography tools, the global styles interface, and the default theme, for instance. And then it ends with a general resource section with links to documentation and tutorials. So if you are a theme developer and you want to keep up with the Gutenberg development and the discussions around it, signing up for the theme team make blog would definitely keep you in the loop on that. And of course we have the link in the show notes.</p>



<p>So before we leave, I want to point out that the Twitter bot is called good first bugs, which is maintained by Ryan Welcher and it has been updated. And now you can follow along as it tweets out all the GitHub issues that are labeled good first bugs. And for the Gutenberg group, as well as for the tags in the WordPress track. So if you are ready to contribute to Gutenberg and don&#8217;t know where to start, follow that Twitter handle @goodfirstbugs and it tweets out, yeah, I don&#8217;t know how often, but several times a day, the links to those issues that are good first bugs to tackle.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Yeah. I&#8217;m seeing those tweets from time to time. I don&#8217;t follow the account, but it looks like it&#8217;s popular because Twitter somehow is deciding to show it. So yes, it&#8217;s a definitely very good way to identify some areas where you could contribute.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. Of course there is a label on GitHub, so we can also share the link to the label. There&#8217;s also a good first review label, if you want to review some code, that you can do that too. You could learn a lot by reviewing somebody else&#8217;s code. And have a discussion with the developer around it. Yeah. All right. So this is the end of our show today. Let me wish you or us wish you wonderful holidays when you celebrate that and a wonderful new year. Prosperity and health to everyone. Yeah.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski:</em> Yeah. I also wanted to wish everyone happy new year and happy release in January and all the best, by using a full site editing experience in 2022 on your WordPress websites.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yes. Yeah. That&#8217;s the big feature for 2022. Yes. So as always, the show notes will be published on <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/">guttenbergtimes.com/podcast</a>. This is the 57th episode. And if you have question suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to <a href="mailto:changelog@guttenbergtimes.com">changelog@guttenbergtimes.com</a> that&#8217;s <a href="mailto:changelog@guttenbergtimes.com">changelog@guttenbergtimes.com</a>. That&#8217;s an email address. You could also reach out on Twitter, and the links to that are in the show notes. My Twitter handle is @BPH, like my initials, on Twitter. And what&#8217;s your handle?</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: My handle is G-Z-I-O-L-O so if you miss us, because we don&#8217;t record in two weeks, you can just hang out with us on Twitter.</p>



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



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Or on GitHub, or WordPress Slack.</p>



<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em>: Yeah. WordPress Slack, definitely. And my DMs are open. Feel free to contact me. I might not respond right away, but asynchronous, is it. All right. That&#8217;s it for the year 2021. I can&#8217;t believe it&#8217;s over. It&#8217;s not, yeah. It&#8217;s still three weeks, but yeah, it&#8217;s been a great experience. Well, thanks for listening and goodbye.</p>



<p><em>Grzegorz Ziolkowski</em>: Thank you everyone. Goodbye.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 11 Dec 2021 22:44:43 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:5;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"WPTavern: 10up Releases the Publisher Media Kit WordPress Plugin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126899";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:173:"https://wptavern.com/10up-releases-the-publisher-media-kit-wordpress-plugin?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=10up-releases-the-publisher-media-kit-wordpress-plugin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3381:"<p class="has-drop-cap">Earlier today, version 1.0 of 10up&#8217;s <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/publisher-media-kit/">Publisher Media Kit</a> went live in the WordPress plugin directory. It is a preconfigured set of blocks and patterns for jump-starting a media kit page for small and medium-sized publications.</p>



<p>When I first noticed the plugin, my mind immediately jumped to press kits and branding pages for businesses. Not enough companies within the WordPress space have such pages, and it can often be hard for journalists and other writers to find information. While this plugin is geared toward publications, small businesses can still get some use out of the plugin with a few changes.</p>



<p>Given that WP Tavern just <a href="https://wptavern.com/wp-tavern-is-sporting-a-new-website-design">launched its new design yesterday</a>, this might be an opportunity for us to lead the way. The plugin does give me a few ideas on what we could do with a similar page here on the site.</p>



<p>Publisher Media Kit has been tested with Twenty Twenty-One, Newspack, and several Newspack child themes. I did run it through most of those to check for compatibility, and the plugin worked admirably. However, I primarily tested it with Twenty Twenty-Two, the upcoming default WordPress theme. Aside from a few layout alignment quirks, it worked well.</p>



<p>The plugin automatically creates a new &#8220;Media Kit&#8221; draft page on the website once it is activated. The content is a set of pre-defined sections built from eight patterns and an accompanying Tabs block.</p>



<img />Partial screenshot of Media Kit page.



<p>This allows users to quickly fill in their own content and make customizations. Once done, it is just a matter of hitting the publish button.</p>



<p>However, end-users can take things into their own hands by using the various patterns on any post or page of their site. The cover, stats, and questions/contact patterns work well as general-use patterns.</p>



<img />The plugin&#8217;s custom block patterns.



<p><em>Note: I deleted a couple of the patterns from the screenshot above. For some reason, they were rendered invalid in the patterns explorer but worked fine when inserted into the content canvas.</em></p>



<p>I would love to see a standalone version of the Tabs block included with the plugin. It is showcased in the rates and digital ad specs patterns, but it is so easy to create new tabbed content that I cannot help but want to use it with other projects.</p>



<img />Tabs block in the editor.



<p>It could become a popular tabs solution with a few design options like colors, borders, and typography. It is minimal at the moment, but its user experience would make for an ideal foundation for a single-block plugin.</p>



<p>One of my favorite things about the block system is that it makes plugins like Publisher Media Kit feasible. In the past, it was virtually impossible to ship a content-focused plugin and expect it to work with most themes, at least not without a lot of custom design work. That meant that solid solutions would often stay in-house with agencies with no ideal way of shipping them.</p>



<p>The standardization of blocks has bridged much of that gap. As the system continues evolving, especially with more design options, I expect to see similar plugins in the future.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 11 Dec 2021 01:23:57 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Justin Tadlock";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:6;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:37:"Matt: State of the Word… in person!";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=55181";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50:"https://ma.tt/2021/12/state-of-the-word-in-person/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1534:"<p>I&#8217;m very excited that <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/state-of-the-word-2021/">we&#8217;ll be broadcasting the State of the Word &#8220;live from New York City&#8221; this coming Tuesday, December 14th</a>! There will be a very small &#8220;studio audience&#8221; of community members there in person. </p>



<p>Recording <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2020/12/state-of-the-word-2020/">the solo version last year</a> was actually one of the hardest things I&#8217;ve done in a long time. It&#8217;s funny, with a live audience I can comfortably present for an hour no problem, but recording that 25 minute presentation, alone in a room staring at a camera, was an excruciating process over two days and dozens of takes. I got the advice afterward that even if you&#8217;re just staring into a camera, it can be helpful to have an &#8220;audience&#8221; of a few friends in the room.</p>



<p>Even more than that, though, I&#8217;m positively giddy to see some of my friends from the WordPress community in person for the first time in several years. Please join via streaming on the 14th, and also <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/watch-state-of-the-word-at-a-watch-party-with-your-wordpress-friends/">there will also be at least 20 watch parties around the globe</a> if there&#8217;s one in your neighborhood. Looking forward to catching up, celebrating the community&#8217;s accomplishments over the last year, and hopefully raising a torch for our march toward freedom on the web in 2022.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 10 Dec 2021 23:08:24 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Matt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:7;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:92:"WPTavern: More than 200 Local Newspaper Publishers Are Suing Google and Facebook for Damages";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126851";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:229:"https://wptavern.com/more-than-200-local-newspaper-publishers-are-suing-google-and-facebook-for-damages?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=more-than-200-local-newspaper-publishers-are-suing-google-and-facebook-for-damages";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4058:"<p>A group of 30 companies that own more than 200 local newspapers have formed a coalition against Google and Facebook in <a href="https://www.axios.com/1-local-newspapers-lawsuits-facebook-google-3c3dee3a-cce3-49ef-b0a2-7a98c2e15c91.html">a newly consolidated antitrust lawsuit</a>, alleging the tech giants have manipulated the digital ad market to the detriment of local news.</p>



<p>The Charleston Gazette-Mail, a small West Virginia newspaper, was <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/small-west-virginia-publisher-launches-antitrust-fight-with-google-and-facebook-11612453879">the first to file suit in January 2021</a>. Doug Reynolds, managing partner at the holding company that owns several West Virginia newspapers, gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal, comparing Google and Facebook to last century&#8217;s robber barons.</p>



<p>“These companies are more powerful than Standard Oil in its heyday, so no one wants to be the first to take them on,” Reynolds said. “We felt the political and legal climate have moved in our favor and are ready to go ahead.”</p>



<p>In May, the News Media Alliance successfully filed a <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.newsmediaalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/NMA-Brief-JPML-venue.pdf" target="_blank">declaration</a> to consolidate the newspapers&#8217; cases and they were consolidated by a judicial panel shortly after that in the Southern District of New York.</p>



<p>Clayton Fitzsimmons, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, told Axios their objective is &#8220;to recover past damages to newspapers&#8221; and <br />to &#8220;establish a new system going forward in which newspapers aren&#8217;t just competitive again, but can thrive.&#8221;</p>



<p>The newspapers&#8217; collective suit echoes many of the same allegations of the antitrust suit filed against Google by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and nine other state attorneys general. They make a strong case for the myriad of ways that Google and Facebook have had a damaging impact on the publishing industry.</p>



<p>The <a href="https://wptavern.com/unredacted-antitrust-complaint-unsealed-google-internal-documents-show-amp-pages-brought-40-less-revenue-to-publishers">recently unredacted complaint</a> references internal Google documents which show that AMP pages brought 40% less revenue to publishers. The documents show that Google acknowledged that its fees are very high but the company can demand them because of its market power. One Google employee explained that &#8220;smaller publishers don&#8217;t have alternative revenue sources,&#8221; when commenting on the lack competing ad networks. The suit also alleges that Facebook and Google colluded to manipulate header bidding auctions, among many other anticompetitive practices.</p>



<p>Many of the small newspapers among the 200+ included in the consolidated antitrust lawsuit are using WordPress, such as the <a href="https://bcdemocrat.com/">Brown County Democrat</a>, <a href="https://www.delgazette.com/">The Delaware Gazette</a>, <a href="https://wrcitytimes.com/">Wisconsin Rapids City Times</a>, <a href="https://waupacanow.com/">Waupaca County News</a>, and the <a href="https://www.fairborndailyherald.com/">Fairborn Daily Herald</a> — to name just a few. They are doing important work, keeping their elected officials accountable and their communities informed. </p>



<p>As the slow death of the American newspaper <a href="https://wptavern.com/finding-wordpress-in-the-post-print-news-era">forced more publications to go online-only</a>, digital advertising was the only lifeline for these outlets. The effects of collusion and manipulation of the digital ad market fall heavy on the already beleaguered local news industry. </p>



<p>The consolidated cases are currently pending and could go a number of different ways. Fitzsimmons said the court could select some as bellwethers, opt to test all cases for the individual claims, or send them back to the states of origination to be tried. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 10 Dec 2021 22:37:01 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"WordCamp Central: WordCamp Sevilla 2021 in-person! Last Tickets!";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:39:"https://central.wordcamp.org/?p=3143567";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:90:"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2021/12/10/wordcamp-sevilla-2021-in-person-last-tickets/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2437:"<p><span>Only 2 days left for the first in-person WordCamp after pandemia!</span></p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="https://sevilla.wordcamp.org/2021/files/2021/12/Screenshot_37.png" alt="" /></p>
<p><span>At WordPress Sevilla, we have put hands-on work to get back together and fill the space and distance that has left us this big parenthesis opened by the pandemic.</span></p>
<p><b>On next December 11 and 12, the WordPress Sevilla community invites you to participate in the first in-person WordCamp, an event to meet again.</b></p>
<h2><span>Requirements to attend</span></h2>
<p><b>To attend </b><span>WordCamp Sevilla 2021</span><b>, you must meet at least one of the following requirements:</b></p>
<ul>
<li><span> have </span><b>a complete vaccination schedule</b><span>,</span></li>
<li><span> have </span><b>a recent negative PCR</b><span>,</span></li>
<li><span> </span><b>or having passed the COVID-19 less than 3 months ago.</b></li>
</ul>
<h2><span>The program</span></h2>
<p><span>On this occasion, our program is designed to take a look at the community&#8217;s past, to see how this time of pandemic has affected us, and how we have adapted to this new future.</span></p>
<p><span>We will discuss in an informal way, giving the word to anyone who, from their experience, wants to contribute new ideas for the relations, meetings, and spread of WordPress and its community.</span></p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="https://sevilla.wordcamp.org/2021/files/2021/12/Screenshot_38.png" alt="" /></p>
<p><span>But the highlight of this first in-person event is the special Community Day that we have prepared for Sunday, December 12. The details are yet to be defined, but if I were you, </span><b>I wouldn&#8217;t miss it!</b></p>
<h2><span>Your ticket</span></h2>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="https://sevilla.wordcamp.org/2021/files/2021/12/Screenshot_39.png" alt="" /></p>
<p><span> </span><b>For only 18 €</b><span>, you will enjoy:</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span>Breakfast, lunch, and even dinner.</span></li>
<li><span>Live an authentic after-party.</span></li>
<li><span>Great gifts.</span></li>
<li><span>And the human and professional warmth from the members of one of the best technological communities.</span></li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://sevilla.wordcamp.org/2021/entradas/"><b>BUY YOUR TICKET</b></a></h2>
<p><b>Welcome to the first in-person WordCamp since the beginning of this pandemic!</b></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 10 Dec 2021 08:51:48 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Ana Gavilán";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:9;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"Post Status: Post Status Excerpt (No. 36) — Help Needed: WordPress Docs Team";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=90881";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34:"https://poststatus.com/excerpt/36/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3991:"<h2>&#8220;The best documentation is written by people who are using it.&#8221; —Milana Cap</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, <strong>Milana Cap</strong> tells David about the stark reality of the near-overwhelming workload facing the <strong>WordPress Documentation Team</strong>. Currently, about four sponsored volunteers and fewer than 10 volunteers in total make up the Docs team — a team that is assigned to manage documentation for software that powers over 43% of the web. If you have ever complained about outdated documentation or a lack of documentation for WordPress, listen to this episode.</p>



<p><strong>Also</strong>: Milana shared some encouraging projects and efforts — much of which is recent and associated with the upcoming <strong>WordPress 5.9</strong> release. Writers &#8220;shadowing&#8221; developers could be one of the keys to improving the quantity and quality of documentation in the future.</p>







<p class="has-background">Every week <strong><a href="https://poststatus.com/podcast/the-excerpt/">Post Status Excerpt</a></strong> will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/26a1.png" alt="⚡" class="wp-smiley" /><br /><br />You can listen to <a href="https://poststatus.com/podcast/the-excerpt/">past episodes</a> of <strong>The Excerpt</strong>, <a href="https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/">browse all our podcasts</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/1m3xwXbe0MG5BzFVPtB0A7">Spotify</a>, Amazon Music, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://castro.fm/podcast/c53552c6-1ee0-4fc4-9de4-08ed6bf1ee4d">Castro</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus">YouTube</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://player.fm/series/wordpress-post-status-podcasts">Player.fm</a>, <a href="https://pca.st/05rR">Pocket Casts</a>, <a href="https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/">Simplecast</a>, or by <a href="https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P">RSS</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f3a7.png" alt="🎧" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



<h3 id="h-mentioned-in-the-show"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f517.png" alt="🔗" class="wp-smiley" /> Mentioned in the show:</h3>



<ul><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/handbook/">Docs team handbook</a> (if anyone wants to join)</li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/docs/handbook/">Developer Docs (DevHub)</a></li><li><a href="http://wordpress.org/support/">End user docs</a> (also known as HelpHub in Make teams)</li><li><a href="http://twitter.com/djevaloperka">Milana Cap (Twitter)</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/dimensionmedia" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">David Bisset (Twitter)</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/post_status" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Post Status (Twitter)</a></li></ul>



<h3><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="🙏" class="wp-smiley" /> Sponsor: <a href="https://poststat.us/sandhills" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener sponsored nofollow">Wordfence</a></h3>



<p>Who can afford downtime, a black mark on their brand’s reputation, or the SEO impact of getting hacked? That’s why so many WordPress sites rely on the real-time protection provided by <strong>Wordfence Premium</strong>. Now, <strong>Wordfence</strong> Central offers Premium subscribers a powerful and efficient dashboard to manage security for all their sites from one central location. Try <strong>Wordfence</strong> today!</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 10 Dec 2021 07:00:12 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"David Bisset";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:10;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:52:"WPTavern: WP Tavern Is Sporting a New Website Design";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126832";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:149:"https://wptavern.com/wp-tavern-is-sporting-a-new-website-design?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wp-tavern-is-sporting-a-new-website-design";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5761:"<p class="has-drop-cap">We are back with a brand-new edition of WP Tavern. Technically, we have a spiffy new coat of paint that I hope you all can see if viewing from your browsers. If you are reading this post via a feed reader, email, or something else, hop over to the site and check it out.</p>



<p>The Tavern received a few updates under the hood too. I will not go into those details, but some of you may have noticed that we are now hosted on <a href="https://pressable.com/">Pressable</a>, a hosting service owned by Automattic. Thus far, things seem to be going off without a hitch.</p>



<p>For posterity, the following is a screenshot of the old homepage design along with the new one:</p>




<img />



<img />
Old Tavern design vs. new design.



<p>This is as much your home as it is ours. We just write the articles, but you are the ones who spend time browsing the front end &#8212; actually using the website. Constructive feedback is always valued and taken into account.</p>



<h2 id="a-yearlong-design-project">A Yearlong Design Project</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">It is hard to imagine the last time WP Tavern was not running a WordPress theme that I built. Before joining the staff here in 2019, the website had almost always had a little piece of me tucked in.</p>



<p>I would have to dig back into the archives, but I know for sure it used to run a modified version of the Hybrid News theme I released in 2009 and eventually a custom child theme on top of Stargazer years later.</p>



<p>I created our last theme in the middle of the early block editor days, and the changes over the past two years have been like running a stress test against my skills as a developer and designer. For the most part, it held up well as we ran the latest version of the Gutenberg plugin in production. I had to fix a <s>ton of</s> few things here and there, but I am happy to say that the site kept chugging along.</p>



<p>Our last theme was aging, though, and we needed to freshen up the place. We had ideas dating back to late 2019 that we had not implemented, and it is always tough to squeeze in the time for a full-blown redesign when there is so much going on in the WordPress world. Our first priority is always sharing the news.</p>



<p>We were fortunate that the WordPress.com Special Projects team contacted us in November 2020 with a proposal. Their mission:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-default"><p>We help interesting people, organizations, and projects to have an excellent experience with WordPress.</p></blockquote>



<p>It did not begin as a new site design project. The team had actually reached out about building a feature that I would like to bring back to the Tavern. That part of the project is not quite ready yet, so we will hold it as a surprise for the new year. Folks are gearing up for the holiday season, and there is no reason to rush it.</p>



<p>Our team had planned on redesigning the site ourselves. We were just waiting for Full Site Editing to launch alongside WordPress 5.7 &#8212; <em>so, that did not happen at all.</em></p>



<p>After some back-and-forth, a group call, and a leap forward to January 2021, we were looking at design tiles. Our plans had changed. And that is part of the magical process of keeping communication open. When you surround yourself with smart people who excel at their jobs, you can end walking a path far better than the one you first set foot on.</p>



<p>Let us fast forward beyond logo decisions, design mockups, and the constant FSE changes throughout 2021. It was a long journey, but we finally arrived at our destination of a new and improved version of WP Tavern.</p>



<p>From the Tavern to the WordPress.com Special Projects team: thank you for your work and professionalism throughout this entire process.</p>



<h2 id="from-the-outside-looking-in">From the Outside Looking In</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">Admittedly, I had reservations about the project from the beginning. I look at other developers&#8217; code almost every day, and I usually prefer to do my own thing. It is one of the reasons I never took any of the dozens upon dozens of agency job offers over the years. I would be that one employee who would want to uproot everything on Day #1. By the end of the first couple of weeks, I would be &#8220;let go,&#8221; my employee file labeled with &#8220;does not work well with others.&#8221;</p>



<p>The team provided me with committer access to our development repo and used my preferred commands for the build process. It was a welcome gesture, and I was happy to know that I could change anything I needed.</p>



<p>But, I have not once used any of the power at my disposal.</p>



<p>I was comfortable feeling like we were in a partnership. Plus, every ticket I opened in the repository was handled &#8212; <em>and I absolutely opened plenty of issues</em>.</p>



<p>Relinquishing development control was a weight off of my shoulders. I quickly learned that this was a team of professionals who knew what they were doing.</p>



<p>Sure, there were some things I would have done differently with the code, such as modernizing some of the PHP (something that was unnecessary in the context of the project). I would have probably reorganized a few folders too. At the same time, this was an opportunity for me to learn, and I absorbed as much as I could.</p>



<p>Aside from wearing my student hat, I also kept my client cap on. This was the first time I had ever gotten to play that role. There were moments where I worried whether everything would work out as I scanned an unfinished project. However, most of the time, I was able to sit back and watch in awe as the team put this whole thing together.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 09 Dec 2021 22:59:42 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Justin Tadlock";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:11;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:24:"Gary: WordPress and web3";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:25:"https://pento.net/?p=5539";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://pento.net/2021/12/10/wordpress-and-web3/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:20381:"<p>Blockchain. Cryptocurrency. Ethereum. NFTs. DAOs. Smart Contracts. web3. It&#8217;s impossible to avoid the blockchain hype machine these days, but it&#8217;s often just as difficult to decipher what it all means.</p>



<p>On top of that, discourse around web3 is extremely polarising: everyone involved is very keen to a) pick a team, and b) get you to join their team. If you haven&#8217;t picked a team, you must be secretly with the other team.</p>



<p>Max Read made a compelling argument that the web3 debate is in fact two different debates:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-default"><p>But, OK, what is the root disagreement, exactly? The way I read it there are two broad &#8220;is web3 bullshit?&#8221; debates, not just one, centered around the following questions:</p><p>Can the blockchain do anything that other currently existing technology <em>cannot</em> do and/or do anything <em>better or more efficiently </em>than other currently existing technology?</p><p>Will the blockchain form the architecture of the internet of the future (i.e. &#8220;web3&#8221;), and/or will blockchain-native companies and organizations become important and powerful?</p><cite><a href="https://maxread.substack.com/p/is-web3-bullshit">Max Read — Is web3 bullshit?</a></cite></blockquote>



<p>I&#8217;m inclined to agree with Max&#8217;s analysis here: there&#8217;s a technical question, and there&#8217;s a business/cultural question. It&#8217;s hard to separate the two when every day sees new headlines about <a href="https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/126367/crypto-exchange-bitmart-reportedly-hacked-for-100-million">millions of dollars being stolen or scammed</a>; or thousands of people putting millions of dollars into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConstitutionDAO">highly optimistic ventures</a>. There are extreme positives and extreme negatives happening all the time in the web3 world.</p>



<p>With that in mind, I want to take a step back from the day-to-day excitement of cryptocurrency and web3, and look at some of the driving philosophies espoused by the movement.</p>



<h2 id="philosophies-of-web3">Philosophies of web3</h2>



<p>There are a lot of differing viewpoints on web3, every individual has a slightly different take on it. There are three broad themes that stand out, however. </p>



<h3 id="decentralised">Decentralised</h3>



<p>Blockchain-based technology is inherently distributed (with some esoteric caveats, but we can safely ignore them for now). In a world where the web centres around a handful of major services, where we&#8217;ve seen the harm that the likes of Facebook and YouTube can inflict on society, it&#8217;s not surprising that decentralisation would be a powerful theme drawing in anyone looking for an alternative.</p>



<p>Decentralisation isn&#8217;t new to the Internet, of course: it&#8217;s right there in the name. This giant set of &#8220;<strong>inter</strong>connected <strong>net</strong>works&#8221; has been decentralised from the very beginning. It&#8217;s not perfect, of course: oppressive governments can take control of the borders of their portion of the Internet, and we&#8217;ve come to rely on a handful of web services to handle the trickier parts of using the web. But fundamentally, that decentralised architecture is still there. I can still set up a web site hosted on my home computer, which anyone in the world could access.</p>



<p>I <em>don&#8217;t</em> do that, however, for the same reason that web3 isn&#8217;t immune from centralised services: Centralisation is convenient. Just as we have Facebook, or Google, or Amazon as giant centralised services on the current web, we can already see similar services appearing for web3. For payments, Coinbase has established itself as a hugely popular place exchange cryptocurrencies and traditional currencies. For NFTs, OpenSea is the service where you&#8217;ll find nearly every NFT collection. MetaMask keeps all of your crypto-based keys, tokens, and logins in a single &#8220;crypto wallet&#8221;.</p>



<blockquote><p>Centralisation is convenient.</p></blockquote>



<p>While web3 proponents give a lot of credence to the decentralised nature of cryptocurrency being a driver of popularity, I&#8217;m not so sure. At best, I&#8217;m inclined to think that decentralisation is table stakes these days: you can&#8217;t even get started as a global movement without a strong commitment to decentralisation.</p>



<p>But if decentralisation isn&#8217;t the key, what is?</p>



<h3 id="ownership">Ownership</h3>



<p>When we talk about ownership in web3, NFTs are clearly the flavour of the month, but recent research indicates that the entire NFT market is massively artificially inflated.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Analysis of 6.1 million trades of 4.7 million NFTs shows that the top 10% of traders have traded 97% of NFTs which definitely puts meat on the bones of the hypothesis that a lot of NFT trades are wash sales intended to artificially boost prices. <a href="https://t.co/ufgmhE2iBi">https://t.co/ufgmhE2iBi</a></p>&mdash; Dare Obasanjo (@Carnage4Life) <a href="https://twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1465811132954800131?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 30, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>Rather than taking pot-shots at the NFT straw man, I think it&#8217;s more interesting to look at the idea of ownership in terms of <em>attribution</em>. The more powerful element of this philosophy isn&#8217;t about who owns something, it&#8217;s who created it. NFTs do something rather novel with attribution, allowing royalty payments to the original artist every time an NFT is resold. I love this aspect: royalties shouldn&#8217;t just be for movie stars, they should be for everyone.</p>



<p>Comparing that to the current web, take the 3 paragraphs written by Max Read that I quoted above. I was certainly under no <em>technical</em> obligation to show that it was a quote, to attribute it to him, or to link to the source. In fact, it would have been easier for me to just paste his words into this post, and pretend they were my own. I didn&#8217;t, of course, because I feel an <em>ethical</em> obligation to properly attribute the quote.</p>



<p>In a world where unethical actors will automatically copy/paste your content for SEO juice (indeed, I expect this blog post to show up on a bunch of these kinds of sites); where massive corporations will consume everything they can find about you, in order to advertise more effectively to you, it&#8217;s not at all surprising that people are looking for a technical solution for taking back control of their data, and for being properly attributed for their creations.</p>



<blockquote><p>The interesting element of this philosophy isn&#8217;t about who owns something, it&#8217;s who created it.</p></blockquote>



<p>That&#8217;s not to say that existing services discourage attribution: a core function of Twitter is retweets, a core function of Tumblr is reblogging. WordPress still supports trackbacks, even if many folks turn them off these days.</p>



<p>These are all blunt instruments, though, aimed at attributing an entire piece, rather than a more targeted approach. What I&#8217;d really like is a way to easily quote and attribute a small chunk of a post: 3 paragraphs (or blocks, if you want to see where I&#8217;m heading <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f609.png" alt="😉" class="wp-smiley" />), inserted into my post, linking back to where I got them from. If someone chooses to quote some of this post, I&#8217;d love to receive a pingback just for that quote, so it can be seen in the right context.</p>



<p>The functionality provide by Twitter and Tumblr is less of a technologically-based enforcement of attribution, and more of an example of paving the cow path: by and large, people want to properly attribute others, providing the tools to do so can easily become a fundamental part of how any software is used.</p>



<p>These tools only work so long as there&#8217;s an incentive to use them, however. web3 certainly provides the tools to attribute others, but much like SEO scammers copy/pasting blog posts, the economics of the NFT bubble is clearly a huge incentive to ignore those tools and ethical obligations, to the point that existing services have had to build additional features just to detect this abuse.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content"><a href="https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/art-theft-nfts">Digital Bandits: The New Art Thieves Selling Stolen Works As NFTs</a></blockquote>
</div>



<h3 id="monetisation">Monetisation</h3>



<p>With every major blockchain also being a cryptocurrency, monetisation is at the heart of the entire web3 movement. Every level of <a href="https://web3.foundation/about/">the web3 tech stack</a> involves a cryptocurrency-based protocol. This naturally permeates through the entire web3 ecosystem, where money becomes a major driving factor for every web3-based project.</p>



<p>And so, it&#8217;s impossible to look at web3 applications without also considering the financial aspect. When you have to pay just to participate, you have to ask whether every piece of content you create is &#8220;worth it&#8221;.</p>



<p>Again, let&#8217;s go back to the 3 paragraphs I quote above. In a theoretical web3 world, I&#8217;d publish this post on a blockchain in some form or another, and that act would also likely include noting that I&#8217;d quoted 3 blocks of text attributed to Max Read. I&#8217;d potentially pay some amount of money to Max, along with the fees that every blockchain charges in order to perform a transaction. While this process is potentially helpful to the original author at a first glance, I suspect the second and third order effects will be problematic. Having only just clicked the Publish button a few seconds earlier, I&#8217;m already some indeterminate amount of money out of pocket. Which brings me back to the question, is this post &#8220;worth it&#8221;? Will enough people tip/quote/remix/whatever me, to cover the cost of publishing? When every creative work <em>must</em> be viewed through a lens of financial impact, it fundamentally alters that creative process.</p>



<blockquote><p>When you have to pay just to participate, you have to ask whether every piece of content you create is &#8220;worth it&#8221;.</p></blockquote>



<p>Ultimately, we live in a capitalist society, and everyone deserves the opportunity to profit off their work. But by baking monetisation into the underlying infrastructure of web3, it becomes impossible to opt-out. You either have the money to participate without being concerned about the cost, <em>or</em> you&#8217;re going to need to weigh up every interaction by whether or not you can afford it.</p>



<h2 id="web3-philosophies-in-wordpress">Web3 Philosophies in WordPress</h2>



<p>After breaking it all down, we can see that it&#8217;s not all black-and-white. There are some positive parts of web3, and some negative parts. Not that different to the web of today, in fact. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f642.png" alt="🙂" class="wp-smiley" /> That&#8217;s not to say that either approach is the correct one: instead, we should be looking to learn from both, and produce something better.</p>



<h3 id="decentralised-1">Decentralised</h3>



<p>I&#8217;ve long been a proponent of leveraging the massive install base of WordPress to provide distributed services to anyone. Years ago, I spoke about an idea called &#8220;<a href="https://wordpress.tv/2016/07/02/gary-pendergast-connected-wordpress/">Connected WordPress</a>&#8221; that would do exactly that. While the idea didn&#8217;t gain a huge amount of traction at the time, the DNA of the Connected WordPress concept shares a lot of similar traits to the decentralised nature of web3.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m a big fan of decentralised technologies as a way for individuals to claw back power over their own data from the governments and massive corporations that would prefer to keep it all centralised, and I absolutely think we should be exploring ways to make the existing web more resistant to censorship.</p>



<p>At the same time, we have to acknowledge that there are certainly benefits to centralisation. As long as people have the freedom to choose how and where they participate, and centralised services are required to play nicely with self hosted sites, is there a practical difference?</p>



<p>I quite like how <a href="https://solidproject.org/">Solid</a> allows you have it both ways, whilst maintaining control over your own data.</p>



<h3 id="ownership-attribution"><s>Ownership</s> Attribution</h3>



<p>Here&#8217;s the thing about attribution: you can&#8217;t enforce it with technology alone. Snapchat have indirectly demonstrated exactly this problem: in order to not lose a message, people would screenshot or record the message on their phone. In response, Snapchat implemented a feature to notify the other party when you screenshot a message from them. To avoid this, people will now use a second phone to take a photo or video of the message. While this example isn&#8217;t specifically about attribution, it demonstrates the problem that there&#8217;s no way to technologically restrict how someone interacts with content that you&#8217;ve published, once they&#8217;ve been granted access.</p>



<p>Instead of worrying about technical restrictions, then, we should be looking at how attribution can be made easier.</p>



<p><a href="https://indieweb.org/">IndieWeb</a> is a great example of how this can be done in a totally decentralised fashion.</p>



<h3 id="monetisation-1">Monetisation</h3>



<p>I&#8217;m firmly of the opinion that monetisation of the things you create should be opt-in, rather than opt-out.</p>



<p>Modern society is currently obsessed with monetising everything, however. It comes in many different forms: hustle culture, side gigs, transforming hobbies into businesses, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme_stocks">meme stocks</a>, and cryptocurrencies: they&#8217;re all symptoms of this obsession.</p>



<p>I would argue that, rather than accepting as <em>fait accompli</em> that the next iteration of the web will be monetised to the core, we should be pushing back against this approach. Fundamentally, we should be looking to build for a post scarcity society, rather than trying to introduce scarcity where there previously was none.</p>



<p>While we work towards that future, we should certainly be easier for folks to monetise their work, but the current raft of cryptocurrencies just aren&#8217;t up to the task of operating as&#8230; currencies.</p>



<h2 id="what-should-you-do">What Should You Do?</h2>



<p>Well, that depends on what your priorities are. The conversations around web3 are taking up a lot of air right now, so it&#8217;s possible to get the impression web3 will be imminently replacing everything. It&#8217;s important to keep perspective on this, though. While there&#8217;s a lot of money in the web3 ecosystem right now, it&#8217;s dwarfed by the sheer size of the existing web.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re excited about the hot new tech, and feeling inspired by the ideas espoused in web3 circles? Jump right in! I&#8217;m certain you&#8217;ll find something interesting to work on.</p>



<p>Always wanted to get into currency speculation, but didn&#8217;t want to deal with all those pesky &#8220;regulations&#8221; and &#8220;safeguards&#8221;? Boy howdy, are cryptocurrencies or NFTs the place for you. (Please don&#8217;t pretend that this paragraph is investment advice, it is nothing of the sort.)</p>



<p>Want to continue building stuff on the web, and you&#8217;re willing to learn new things when you need them, but are otherwise happy with your trajectory? Just keep on doing what you&#8217;re doing. Even if web3 does manage to <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3887767/understanding-gartner-s-hype-cycles">live up to the hype</a>, it&#8217;ll take a long time for it to be adopted by the mainstream. You&#8217;ll have years to adapt.</p>



<h2 id="final-thoughts">Final Thoughts</h2>



<p>There are some big promises associated with web3, many of which sound very similar to the promises that were made around web 2.0, particularly around open APIs, and global interoperability. We saw <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal">what happened when those kinds of tools go wrong</a>, and web3 doesn&#8217;t really solve those problems. It may exacerbate them in some ways, since it&#8217;s impossible to delete your data from a blockchain.</p>



<p>That said, (and I say this as a WordPress Core developer), just because a particular piece of software is not the optimal technical solution doesn&#8217;t mean it won&#8217;t become the most popular. Market forces can be a far stronger factor that technical superiority. There are many legitimate complaints about blockchain (including performance, bloat, fit for purpose, and security) that have been levelled against WordPress in the past, but WordPress certainly isn&#8217;t slowing down. I&#8217;m not even close to convinced that blockchain is the right technology to base the web on, but I&#8217;ve been doing this for too long to bet everything against it. </p>



<blockquote><p>Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent.</p><cite>—A. Gary Shilling</cite></blockquote>



<p>As for me, well&#8230; <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f604.png" alt="😄" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Web3? Pass.<br /><br />I’ll wait for Web 3.11 for Workgroups, thanks. <a href="https://t.co/bauv3rH4bh">pic.twitter.com/bauv3rH4bh</a></p>&mdash; Gary (@GaryPendergast) <a href="https://twitter.com/GaryPendergast/status/1467017336121004035?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 4, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>I remain sceptical of web3 as it&#8217;s currently defined, but I think there&#8217;s room to change it, and to adopt the best bits into the existing web. Web 1.0 didn&#8217;t magically disappear when Web 2.0 rolled in, it adapted. Maybe we&#8217;ll look back in 10 years and say this was a time when the web fundamentally changed. Or, maybe we&#8217;ll refer to blockchain in the same breath as pets.com, and other examples from the dotcom boom of the 1990&#8217;s.</p>



<blockquote><p>The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.</p><cite>—John Gilmore</cite></blockquote>



<p>This quote was originally referring to Usenet, but it&#8217;s stayed highly relevant in the decades since. I think it applies here, too: if the artificial scarcity built into web3 behaves too much like censorship, preventing people from sharing what they want to share, the internet (or, more accurately, the billions of people who interact with the internet) will just&#8230; go around it. It won&#8217;t all be smooth sailing, but we&#8217;ll continue to experiment, evolve, and adapt as it changes.</p>



<p>Personally, I think now is a great time for us to be embracing the values and ideals of projects like <a href="https://solidproject.org/">Solid</a>, and <a href="https://indieweb.org/">IndieWeb</a>. Before web3 referred to blockchains, it was more commonly used in reference to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web">Semantic Web</a>, which is far more in line with WordPress&#8217; ideals, whilst also matching many of the values prioritised by the new web3. As a major driver of the Open Web, WordPress can help people own their content in a sustainable way, engage with others on their own terms, and build communities that don&#8217;t depend on massive corporations or hand-wavy magical tech solutions.</p>



<p>Don&#8217;t get too caught up in the drama of whatever is the flavour of the month. I&#8217;m optimistic about the long term resilience of the internet, and I think you should be, too. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f973.png" alt="🥳" class="wp-smiley" /></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 09 Dec 2021 21:16:29 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4:"Gary";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:12;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:87:"WPTavern: Surge: A New Page Caching Plugin for WordPress with No Configuration Required";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126693";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:217:"https://wptavern.com/surge-a-new-page-caching-plugin-for-wordpress-with-no-configuration-required?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=surge-a-new-page-caching-plugin-for-wordpress-with-no-configuration-required";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3597:"<p>WordPress Core Contributor Konstantin Kovshenin has <a href="https://konstantin.blog/2021/surge-page-caching-plugin-wordpress/">released</a> a new page caching plugin called <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/surge/">Surge</a>. Searching the WordPress plugin directory, you will find hundreds of caching and cache purging plugins, but this one stands out from competitors in that it requires no configuration. The plugin starts working as soon as it&#8217;s activated, and there are no options. </p>



<p>What kind of performance improvements can you expect with Surge activated? Kovshenin&#8217;s tests indicate that WordPress site performance on cheap hosting can be significantly improved with the plugin:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Surge stores cache files on the filesystem, leveraging the Linux kernel page cache for efficient in-memory caching and invalidation. In various load tests, Surge has shown to easily handle 1000-2500 requests per second at 100 concurrent, on a cheap single-core virtual server with only 1 GB of memory. That’s over 70x faster than a stock WordPress install with a default theme and no plugins. </p></blockquote>



<p>Kovshenin built Surge because he could not find a suitable plugin to work well with <a href="https://wptavern.com/konstantin-kovshenin-launches-sail-a-cli-tool-for-deploying-to-digital-ocean">Sail</a>, the CLI tool he has been developing for deploying WordPress apps to DigitalOcean.</p>



<p>&#8220;The biggest blocker for me was the configuration, screen after screen after screen, the amount of hoops I had to jump through just to get things working,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And sure, there are on-screen guides and wizards, video tutorials, hundreds of documentation articles, but all I wanted was a page caching plugin, not a rocket (no pun intended). I had to roll my own.&#8221;</p>



<p>In the interest of simplicity, Surge doesn&#8217;t even come with a &#8220;clear cache&#8221; button. Kovshenin said the plugin will automatically invalidate cached entries on various different events, such as when content is updated. He said you can toggle the plugin off and on if for some reason you need to clear the page cache. </p>



<p>&#8220;If you have to flush the cache, it means my invalidation is not good enough for you,&#8221; Kovshenin said in response to Twitter inquiries about no button to purge the cache. &#8220;If you do find yourself flushing the cache every once in a while, do let me know why. I&#8217;m sure there are plenty of cases I haven&#8217;t considered yet.&#8221;</p>



<p>When asked if Surge works with sites that have lots of dynamic content, Kovshenin said only anonymous requests are cached right now. Surge also forces some requests, such as robots.txt and favicon.ico, to be anonymous for better cacheability. </p>



<p>&#8220;Expanding into logged-in territory is something on my list to look at, but not going to make any promises,&#8221; he said.</p>



<p>I tested Surge on a few simple blog sites and found that it works as advertised. On one site it took the GTMetrix Performance score from 91% to 99%. Please note that the plugin requires PHP 7.4+.</p>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/surge/">Surge</a> is available for free on WordPress.org. If you are already using a page caching plugin, you will need to deactivate it if you want to try Surge. Kovshenin cautioned in his announcement post that many managed WordPress hosts already have some built-in caching in place, so it may be a good idea to check with your host before adding a caching plugin.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 09 Dec 2021 02:22:30 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:13;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:112:"WPTavern: Gutenberg 12.1 Fixes Block Appender Layout Shift, Adds Template List Views, and Enhances Global Styles";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126698";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:265:"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-12-1-fixes-block-appender-layout-shift-adds-template-list-views-and-enhances-global-styles?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gutenberg-12-1-fixes-block-appender-layout-shift-adds-template-list-views-and-enhances-global-styles";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7784:"<p class="has-drop-cap">Earlier today, Gutenberg 12.1 landed in the WordPress plugin directory. The <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/12/08/whats-new-in-gutenberg-12-1-8-december/">latest release</a> was heavy on improvements to the user experience, including a fix for the block appender layout shift, new global styles features, and improved templates list view. Theme authors also have a new flag for enabling all appearance-related tools.</p>



<p>WordPress 5.9 was slated for launch today, but it has been <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-5-9-revised-release-date-confirmed-for-january-25-2022">pushed to January 25, 2022</a>. Contributors needed more time to refine the site editor and related tools bundled alongside the release. Thus far, they are using the extra time by fixing bugs and creating an overall better user experience.</p>



<h2 id="no-more-layout-shift">No More Layout Shift</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">If this was the one and only change in Gutenberg 12.1, I would have been the happiest user in the world. Fortunately, there are other nice-to-have items, but my biggest pet peeve in three years of using the block editor has now been fixed.</p>



<p>The block appender (those little <code>+</code> buttons) in the content canvas are now <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/36605">shown using fixed positioning</a>. This means that when you select blocks, particularly those nested within others, the screen no longer bounces around, shifts the layout, or leaves gaps of whitespace in an otherwise-perfect section.</p>



<img />Appender button does not shift layout.



<p>I know from talking to others that this has been a pain point when building complex layouts in the past. For some, they would not use the block editor at all because it was so irritating. If you fall into this camp, it is worth giving it a try once again. It is a marked improvement in the user experience.</p>



<h2 id="global-styles-improvements">Global Styles Improvements</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">Users can now <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/36820">define custom gradients</a> via the color palette section in the global styles sidebar. These will be available throughout the site and are not tied to the theme.</p>



<img />Creating a custom gradient.



<p>The palette also <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/36920">shows duotone colors</a> under the same gradient section. However, there is not an option for creating custom duotone filters yet.  It is a read-only section.</p>



<p>The global styles panel also <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/36718">splits typography options</a> between text and link elements, opening the door for other HTML elements in the future.</p>



<img />Link typography section.



<p>Users probably should not change this for links. Instead, they should generally match the surrounding text. If we get text-decoration or similar options in the future, the separation might make more sense. However, altering settings like the font-size or line-height would likely be detrimental to the design.</p>



<h2 id="templates-and-template-parts-views">Templates and Template Parts Views</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">Gutenberg 12.1 introduces a new templates and template parts list view from the site editor. The UI for this feature has jumped around over the past few plugin versions. The list was available via the left slide-out panel in the editor for months. Then, it was removed altogether in 11.9. It reappeared between that release and 12.0.</p>



<p>The panel has now been scaled back to include three links for Site, Templates, and Template Parts. The first link brings up the site editor. The others display tables of existing templates.</p>



<img />Templates list view.



<p>Switching between the screens feels slow at the moment. However, this is the 1.0 version of the site editor that WordPress users around the world will see. It will likely change over time. &#8220;The current iteration of the design favors simplicity and usability,&#8221; wrote Riad Benguella in the announcement post. &#8220;Iterations implementing client side navigation and mosaic view might be added in the future.&#8221;</p>



<p>There does not seem to be a way to add custom templates, such as a category or author archive. Clicking on the &#8220;Add New&#8221; button presents options for a Front Page and Search template when using the Twenty Twenty-Two theme.</p>



<p>However, adding a new template part is a much more refined process. After clicking the button to create one, users are presented with an overlay and form as shown in the following screenshot:</p>



<img />Creating a custom template part.



<p>Users can give it a custom name and choose between three allowed areas: general, header, and footer. After creating a new part, users are taken to the editor.</p>



<p>When viewing the template part list again, it displays the user who created it and has an options dropdown (ellipsis button). Currently, the only action is to delete the part.</p>



<img />Template Parts list view.



<p>I would love to see top-level templates receive the same treatment as template parts when creating a new one. While there are some slight differences between them, both are templates at the end of the day. The user experience would benefit if the creation processes matched.</p>



<p>Creating custom templates outside of the default list from this screen would also help designers build themes visually from the site editor.</p>



<h2 id="empty-navigation-fallback">Empty Navigation Fallback</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">The latest release introduced a fallback for empty Navigation menu block. Ultimately, if no menu is found, it will <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/36724">display the Page List block</a>. Depending on how many pages a user&#8217;s site has, this can quickly get out of hand, as shown in the following screenshot of Twenty Twenty-Two:</p>



<img />Navigation block fallback with long page list.



<p>Theme developers can <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/36850">overwrite this fallback</a> via the <code>block_core_navigation_render_fallback</code> filter hook by either returning a <code>false</code> value or a set of valid child blocks for the Navigation parent. Theme authors, I invite them to make generous use of this filter hook.</p>



<h2 id="noteworthy-block-theme-items">Noteworthy Block Theme Items</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">For block theme developers, the standard <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/36647">template-related folders have been renamed</a>. The old names will continue working, but authors should update the following in their themes:</p>



<ul><li><code>/block-templates</code> renamed to <code>/templates</code></li><li><code>/block-template-parts</code> renamed to <code>/parts</code></li></ul>



<p>This change cleans up the top-level theme directory, but it also creates a <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/36548">path toward more standardization</a> in the future. There is already an open ticket for <code>/patterns</code>, and a <code>/styles</code> folder is possible.</p>



<p>Gutenberg 12.1 also <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/36646">introduces an <code>appearanceTools</code> flag</a> for <code>theme.json</code>, allowing theme authors to enable support for all current and future border, color, spacing, and typography options. I covered this in more detail in the <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-12-0-focuses-on-cleanup-and-minor-enhancements">Gutenberg 12.0 post</a>, which had erroneously marked the feature as bundled with the last release.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 09 Dec 2021 01:03:45 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Justin Tadlock";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:14;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"WPTavern: Ask the Bartender: Is There a Starter for Building Block Themes?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126654";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:189:"https://wptavern.com/ask-the-bartender-is-there-a-starter-for-building-block-themes?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ask-the-bartender-is-there-a-starter-for-building-block-themes";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6328:"<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>I read some posts from &#8220;Ask the Bartender,&#8221; and I appreciate it a lot! Thanks. I have a question now. :)</p>

<p>I want to refine my WordPress theme development process, which is:</p>

<ol>
<li>To make a unique-creative design with Adobe XD or Figma.</li>
<li>To convert it to static HTML using VS Code with Bootstrap.</li>
<li>In WordPress, create custom post types with PODS.</li>
<li>To convert the static HTML in WP templates with Timber.</li>
</ol>

<p>Based on my experience, this process is the best for me, but I want to integrate my themes better with WP-Blocks.</p>

<p>So, my question is: is there some starter-theme ready to use with blocks as the main theme and later extend it with a child theme with my custom theme?</p>

<cite>Federico</cite>
</blockquote>



<p class="has-drop-cap">This question depends on one of two things: Do you want to build classic themes with block support or full-blown block themes? How you approach projects going forward will depend on the answer to that. It was unclear which direction you prefer from your question, so I will tackle both.</p>



<p>It also seems like you are more interested in child theming. For clarity, I consider &#8220;starter&#8221; themes a starting point for building standalone or custom parent themes. My guess is that you want something closer to a blank canvas parent theme that does not have an opinionated set of default styles.</p>



<p>As for your tools, I have almost zero experience with any of them. I suspect you can maintain a similar process by sticking to classic themes with block support. However, with block themes, you will likely want to switch over to visually designing in the upcoming site editor and exporting the templates. It would cut out a lot of the steps you usually take.</p>



<h2 id="classic-with-block-support">Classic With Block Support</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">I tend to hype WordPress theming with blocks, but let us be realistic. Most theme authors will not take that step forward when WordPress 5.9 rolls around. And, there is no reason for everyone to dive face-first into something that is not 100% on par with what you can build going the traditional route. So, classic themes are the safest bet for a while.</p>



<p>Starter themes or frameworks are a dime a dozen in the classic theming world. My advice is to continue using what suits you best. Adding block support is mostly a matter of some style adjustments and possibly a <code>theme.json</code> file.</p>



<p>If you want to ease yourself into integrating with blocks, start learning the <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/how-to-guides/themes/theme-json/">global styles and settings system</a> (i.e., <code>theme.json</code>). It works with any type of theme, so you do not have to transition entirely over to block theming if you are not ready. This also allows you to continue using whatever setup you are accustomed to with one additional file. It has also been a part of WordPress since 5.8, so you can use it now without relying on the Gutenberg plugin or waiting for 5.9 to launch.</p>



<img />GoDaddy&#8217;s Go theme.



<p>If you really need a starting point or parent theme in the classic + blocks space, I recommend <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/go/">Go by GoDaddy</a>. The block-first project gets routine updates, supports CoBlocks and WooCommerce, and has a large enough user base to keep the ecosystem around it going.</p>



<h2 id="building-block-themes">Building Block Themes</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">If you want to move forward and put yourself in a solid position for WordPress&#8217;s future, block theming is the way to go. Sooner or later, almost every theme author will need to build on top of it. In this context, it also makes it easy to answer your question. And, I have two options for you.</p>



<p>The go-to choice for many theme authors is to learn and build from the latest default WordPress theme. In this case, it is <a href="https://wptavern.com/first-look-at-wordpress-upcoming-twenty-twenty-two-default-theme-the-most-flexible-default-theme-ever-created-for-wordpress">Twenty Twenty-Two</a>. It was supposed to be ready by December 8, along with WordPress 5.9. However, the official release date is now <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-5-9-revised-release-date-confirmed-for-january-25-2022">January 25, 2022</a>.</p>



<img />Twenty Twenty-Two screenshots.



<p>While it has not officially launched yet, it is a solid starting point if you want to release a child theme in the next couple of months on top of the latest default.</p>



<p>The goal is for Twenty Twenty-Two to ship with <a href="https://wptavern.com/skins-are-back-in-style-proposal-for-themes-to-bundle-user-selectable-design-variations">alternate color palettes and fonts</a>. However, this feature is not ready yet. In the meantime, these custom designs are <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/theme-experiments/pull/292">available as child themes</a> that you can tinker around with. They are just as good of a starting point as any.</p>



<p>However, you may be looking for something a bit more mature &#8212; as mature as anything can be for something yet to officially launch. Automattic&#8217;s <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/blockbase/">Blockbase parent theme</a> is the easy choice.</p>



<img />Custom Blockbase child theme.



<p>Blockbase has a low-key design that makes it easy to overwrite via child themes. It was literally built for this purpose. The Automattic Theme Team rolled out the <a href="https://wptavern.com/videomaker-block-theme-targets-film-directors-and-video-creators">Videomaker child theme</a> for it yesterday. That makes six altogether, which are available via the company&#8217;s <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/author/automattic/">WordPress.org profile</a>. Not only is it a good starting point, but it has plenty of examples to learn from.</p>



<p>Plus, you do not need to dirty your hands with code if you do not want to. By installing and activating the accompanying <a href="https://wptavern.com/automattic-theme-team-releases-a-plugin-to-build-blockbase-child-themes">Create Blockbase Theme plugin</a>, you can build child themes directly from the site editor and export them.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 08 Dec 2021 00:42:21 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Justin Tadlock";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:15;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:154:"WPTavern: Vizio Responds to Software Freedom Conservancy’s GPL Compliance Lawsuit: Will Not Release Source Code, Files to Move Case to US Federal Court";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126529";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:341:"https://wptavern.com/vizio-responds-to-software-freedom-conservancys-gpl-compliance-lawsuit-will-not-release-source-code-files-to-move-case-to-us-federal-court?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=vizio-responds-to-software-freedom-conservancys-gpl-compliance-lawsuit-will-not-release-source-code-files-to-move-case-to-us-federal-court";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3735:"<p>In October 2021, the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) <a href="https://wptavern.com/software-freedom-conservancy-takes-on-vizio-in-lawsuit-alleging-gpl-violations">initiated a lawsuit against Vizio</a>, an American TV manufacturer, for shipping products with copyleft licenses but refusing to provide the source code after multiple attempts at contact since 2018.</p>



<p>The lawsuit is historic in its approach, because it focuses on consumer rights conferred by copyleft licenses and SFC is filing as a third-party beneficiary.</p>



<p>Vizio has responded by <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.837808/gov.uscourts.cacd.837808.1.0.pdf">filing a request to remove the case from the California State Court</a> and move it into US federal court. The company contends that the computer programs and source code at issue in VIZIO’s SmartCast operating system &#8220;fall within the &#8216;subject matter of copyright.'&#8221; </p>



<p>Vizio&#8217;s legal representation cited several past cases involving open source licenses that were litigated within the scope of federal copyright law:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>&#8220;Although plaintiff asserts claims against VIZIO under the guise of a breach of contract claim, that claim is based solely on rights that are qualitatively equivalent to those protected by federal copyright law. It is well established that exceeding the scope of a license by violating its &#8216;conditions&#8217; gives rise to a claim for copyright infringement.&#8221;</p></blockquote>



<p>The Software Freedom Conservancy published an <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/nov/30/vizio-update-0/">update on the lawsuit</a>, speculating on Vizio&#8217;s intent based on its initial response:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Vizio&nbsp;<a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.837808/gov.uscourts.cacd.837808.1.0.pdf">filed a request to “remove” the case from California State Court (into US federal court)</a>, which indicates Vizio&#8217;s belief that consumers have no third-party beneficiary rights under&nbsp;<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/glossary.html#copyleft">copyleft</a>. In other words, Vizio’s answer to this complaint is&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;to comply with the copyleft licenses, but instead imply that Software Freedom Conservancy — and all other purchasers of the devices who might want to assert their right under GPL and LGPL to complete, corresponding source — have no right to even&nbsp;<strong>ask</strong>&nbsp;for that source code.</p><p>That’s right: Vizio’s filing implies that only copyright holders, and&nbsp;<strong>no one else</strong>, have a right to ask for source code under the&nbsp;GPL&nbsp;and&nbsp;LGPL.</p></blockquote>



<p>SFC Executive Director Karen Sandler and Policy Fellow Bradley M. Kuhn, who co-penned the update, said they expected Vizio held this position since the company ignored their requests during discussions in the past years. They characterized Vizio&#8217;s recent filing as &#8220;a disturbing step further.&#8221;</p>



<p>&#8220;Vizio’s strategy is to deny consumers their rights under copyleft licenses, and we intend to fight back,&#8221; SFC representatives said.</p>



<p>If you want to follow the progress on the case, <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61578720/software-freedom-conservancy-inc-v-vizio-inc/">the filings are public</a>. SFC has paid the Pacer fees and used <a href="https://free.law/recap">the Recap</a> browser plugin to make all the documents in the case freely available via <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/">the Recap project archives</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 07 Dec 2021 22:53:31 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:16;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:40:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 5.9 Beta 2";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=11794";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://wordpress.org/news/2021/12/wordpress-5-9-beta-2/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6101:"<p>WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 is now available for testing!</p>



<p><strong>This software version is still under development.</strong> Please do not run this software on a production site. Instead, install it on a test site, where you can try out the newest features to get a feel for how they will work on your site.</p>



<p>You can test the WordPress 5.9 Beta 2 in three ways:</p>



<p><strong>Option 1:</strong> Install and activate the <strong><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> </strong>plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).</p>



<p><strong>Option 2:</strong> Direct download the beta version here (<a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-5.9-beta2.zip"><strong>zip</strong></a>).</p>



<p><strong>Option 3:</strong> When using WP-CLI to upgrade from Beta 1 to Beta 2 on a case-insensitive filesystem, please use the following command sequence:<br /></p>



<p>Command One: </p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>wp core update --version=5.9-beta1 </code></pre>



<p>Command Two: </p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code> wp core update --version=5.9-beta2 --force </code></pre>



<p>The current target for the final release of 5.9 is January 25, 2022, which is just seven weeks away. Your help testing this version is a vital part of making this release as good as it can be.</p>



<h2 id="some-highlights"><strong>Some Highlights</strong></h2>



<p>Since<a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/06/wordpress-5-8-beta-1/"> </a><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/wordpress-5-9-beta-1/">Beta 1</a>, <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&changetime=11%2F30%2F2021..12%2F07%2F2021&milestone=5.9&group=component&max=500&col=id&col=summary&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&order=priority">24</a> bugs have been fixed. Here are a few of the changes you will find in Beta 2:</p>



<ul><li>Block Editor: Remove navigation areas (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/54506">#54506</a>)</li><li>Block Editor: Navigation block view JavaScript error (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/54456">#54456</a>)</li><li>Block Editor: Block template theme error related to child themes (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/54515">#54515</a>)</li><li>General: Fixing existing links to Customizer when the Site Editor is enabled (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/54460">#54460</a>)</li><li>Media: Media library showing only the selected image (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/53765">#53765</a>)</li><li>Media: Fatal error uploading media on PHP8 (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/54385">#54385</a>)</li><li>REST API: Add Global Styles REST API endpoints from Gutenberg into Core (<a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/54336">#54336</a>)</li></ul>



<p>Also, note that some users testing 5.9 Beta 1 faced some fatal errors upon upgrade. In turn, these errors revealed the need for some extra work on the filesystem and upgrader.&nbsp;Those fatal errors are no longer a problem, and the enhancements will be part of version 6.0.</p>



<h2 id="how-you-can-help"><strong>How You Can Help</strong></h2>



<p><strong>Do some testing!</strong></p>



<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/testing/beta-testing/">Testing for bugs</a> is vital for polishing the release in the beta stage and a great way to contribute.&nbsp;</p>



<p>If you think you’ve found a bug, please post to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">Alpha/Beta</a> area in the support forums. If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/reports/">bug report</a>, file one on <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">WordPress Trac</a>. That’s also where you can find a list of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major">known bugs</a>.</p>



<h2 id="where-can-i-get-more-information">Where can I get more information?</h2>



<p>In the coming weeks, follow the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">Make WordPress Core blog</a> for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/5-9+dev-notes/">5.9-related developer notes</a> that cover these items in detail.</p>



<p>So far, contributors have fixed <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&group=component&milestone=5.9&resolution=fixed">305 tickets in WordPress 5.9</a>, including <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&status=reopened&changetime=..12%2F07%2F2021&type=enhancement&type=feature+request&milestone=5.9&group=component&col=id&col=summary&col=type&col=status&col=milestone&col=changetime&col=owner&col=priority&col=keywords&order=changetime">110 new features and enhancements</a>. More bug fixes are on the way with your help through testing.</p>



<p><em>Props to</em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/"><em> </em></a><em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/psykro/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>psykro</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/estelaris/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>estelaris</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/hellofromtonya/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>hellofromtonya</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/marybaum/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>marybaum</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/webcommsat/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>webcommsat</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>cbringmann</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/davidb/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>davidb</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/audrasjb/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>audrasjb</a>, and </em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/pbiron/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>pbiron</a><em> for contributions to this post.</em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 07 Dec 2021 22:02:19 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Jonathan Bossenger";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"WordCamp Central: WordCamp Taiwan 2021 is coming on December 11-12. Get Your Free Ticket Now!";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:39:"https://central.wordcamp.org/?p=3143489";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:119:"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2021/12/07/wordcamp-taiwan-2021-is-coming-on-december-11-12-get-your-free-ticket-now/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2919:"<img src="https://taiwan.wordcamp.org/2021/files/2021/12/WordCampTaiwan2021-KV-1.jpg" alt="" />



<p class="has-text-align-center"><strong>WFH (work from home) cannot stop us.<br />Let’s WFH (WordPress from home).</strong></p>



<p>Tickets for the <a href="https://taiwan.wordcamp.org/2021/">first-ever WordCamp Taiwan</a> are now available! WordCamp Taiwan is a regional online WordCamp happening on December 11-12, 2021. By purchasing a ticket, you can attend the event online OR participate in a local in-person watch party of the camp organized by a local WordPress meetup group in Taiwan.</p>



<p><strong>And yes &#8211; you guessed it right, tickets for WordCamp Taiwan 2021 are completely free!</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-buttons">
<div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link has-white-color has-text-color" href="https://taiwan.wordcamp.org/2021/tickets/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Get your Free WordCamp Taiwan 2021 Ticket!</a></div>
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<p>The following local meetups are organizing watch parties for WordCamp Taiwan! If you are based out of Taiwan, join us for one of these events:</p>



<ul><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://hyc.im/kaohsiung2112" target="_blank">12/11 Kaohsiung City</a></li><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://hyc.im/hsinchu2112" target="_blank">12/12 Hsinchu</a></li><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://hyc.im/tpms2112" target="_blank">12/11 + 12/12 Taipei</a></li><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://hyc.im/tyc2112" target="_blank">12/11 + 12/12 Taoyuan</a></li><li><a rel="noopener" href="https://hyc.im/taichung2112" target="_blank">12/11 + 12/12 Taichung</a> </li></ul>



<p>WordCamp Taiwan 2021 is a two-day event and has <a rel="noopener" href="https://taiwan.wordcamp.org/2021/schedule/" target="_blank">one session track and one workshop track</a>. You can also watch live streaming for the session track on <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLfbwVFPm9C8coz28qOudmA" target="_blank">YouTube</a>. However, our workshops are exclusive for attendees who have tickets. Check out our event schedule to learn about <a href="https://taiwan.wordcamp.org/2021/schedule/">all the exciting sessions</a> we have in store for you.</p>



<p>The online event including networking will also take place on <a href="https://gather.town/">Gather Town</a> (a virtual networking tool). By joining us on our Gather Town space, you will be able to roam in WordCamp virtual world and connect with fellow attendees while watching sessions online. You will need a free WordCamp Taiwan ticket to gain access to our Gather Town space.</p>



<p>We have sold most of our available tickets already and we only have a few more tickets left. So why wait, <a href="https://taiwan.wordcamp.org/2021/tickets/">get your ticket now</a>, and join us for WordCamp Taiwan 2021! </p>



<p>We look forward to seeing you this weekend! </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 07 Dec 2021 05:36:28 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:9:"Yuli Yang";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:106:"WPTavern: Gravatar Says It Was Not Hacked After “Have I Been Pwned” Service Notifies Users of a Breach";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126546";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:245:"https://wptavern.com/gravatar-says-it-was-not-hacked-after-have-i-been-pwned-service-notifies-users-of-a-breach?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=gravatar-says-it-was-not-hacked-after-have-i-been-pwned-service-notifies-users-of-a-breach";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8925:"<p>Gravatar is fielding questions today after &#8220;Have I Been Pwned,&#8221; a data breech checker service, <a href="https://twitter.com/haveibeenpwned/status/1467630383990640642">tweeted</a> <strong>&#8220;<em>New scraped data: Gravatar had 167M profiles scraped in Oct last year via an enumeration vector. 114M of the MD5 email address hashes were subsequently cracked and distributed alongside names and usernames.</em>&#8220;</strong> It claims 72% of these email addresses were already logged with the service.  </p>



<p>The tweet referenced a BleepingComputer article from October 2020 titled, &#8220;<a href="https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/online-avatar-service-gravatar-allows-mass-collection-of-user-info/">Online avatar service Gravatar allows mass collection of user info</a>,&#8221; which explains how the hashes were originally obtained. After Italian security researcher Carlo Di Dato was unable to get an answer from Gravatar, he demonstrated to the publication how one could access user data by using a numeric ID associated with each profile to fetch it. He then wrote a test script that sequentially visits profile URLs from IDs 1 to 5000 and said he was able to collect JSON data of the first 5000 Gravatar users with no issues.</p>



<p>Many Gravatar users were startled and upset by notices from Firefox Monitor and Have I Been Pwned this morning, stating that their information had appeared in a new data breach.</p>



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Oh cmon, way to ruin my day <a href="https://twitter.com/gravatar?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@gravatar</a> <a href="https://t.co/FsmxkL7zpq">pic.twitter.com/FsmxkL7zpq</a></p>&mdash; Lundy (@simplyeazy) <a href="https://twitter.com/simplyeazy/status/1467788669348036615?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 6, 2021</a></blockquote>
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<p>The BleepingComputer article has gained more attention after Have I Been Pwned&#8217;s disclosure today, spurring Gravatar to <a href="https://twitter.com/gravatar/status/1467769008963436548">respond on Twitter</a>:  </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Gravatar helps establish your identity online with an authenticated profile. We’re aware of the conversation online that claims Gravatar was hacked, so we want to clear up the misinformation. </p><p>Gravatar was not hacked. Our service gives you control over the data you want to share online. The data you choose to share publicly is made available via our API. Users can choose to share their full name, display name, location, email address, and a short biography. </p><p>Last year, a security researcher scraped public Gravatar data &#8211; usernames and MD5 hashes of email addresses used to reference users’ avatars by abusing our API. We immediately patched the ability to harvest the public profile data en masse. If you want to learn more about how Gravatar works or adjust the data shared on your profile, please visit <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://t.co/B5nhjnQolp" target="_blank">Gravatar.com</a>.</p></blockquote>



<p>Gravatar does not consider the incident to be a data breach, which is why the service did not disclose the changes made in response to the security researcher in 2020. </p>



<p>The Automattic-owned service is used across WordPress websites, GitHub, Stackoverflow, and other places online. Security researchers and privacy advocates have warned about privacy attacks on Gravatar for years. Many have demonstrated how readily available user information is and how easy it is to scrape it.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Someone did it a bit bigger recently. Seems there is nothing new in the world. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/gravatar?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#gravatar</a> <a href="https://t.co/5ZxyGYYBR0">https://t.co/5ZxyGYYBR0</a></p>&mdash; jasperwillem<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f69c.png" alt="🚜" class="wp-smiley" /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f3d7.png" alt="🏗" class="wp-smiley" /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f41f.png" alt="🐟" class="wp-smiley" /><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.1.0/72x72/1f696.png" alt="🚖" class="wp-smiley" /> (@jasperwillem) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasperwillem/status/1467675233662423043?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 6, 2021</a></blockquote>
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<p>In July 2013, Dominique Bongard spoke at Passwordscon in Las Vegas about <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdphoc3XUF8">De-anonymizing Members of French Political Forums</a>. He explained how a custom crawler could be written to acquire MD5 hashes for forum users and demonstrated that an attack with custom cracking software was able to recover 70% of Gravatar users&#8217; email addresses.</p>



<p>Bogard noted that de-anonymizing members of political forums can be particularly dangerous in places where the forums&#8217; users have no constitutional right to free speech, or where participants may be likely to get harassed or attacked. </p>



<p>Wordfence <a href="https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2016/12/gravatar-advisory-protect-email-address-identity/">published an advisory</a> regarding Gravatar in 2016, which referenced Bongard&#8217;s research, as well earlier work done in 2009 where a researcher proved that he could <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://www.developer.it/post/gravatars-why-publishing-your-email-s-hash-is-not-a-good-idea" target="_blank">reverse engineer ~10% of gravatar hashes into email addresses</a>.</p>



<p>Wordfence founder and CEO Mark Maunder explained how using email address hashes can lead to people to googling the extracted hash to find other websites and services that an individual is using. </p>



<p>&#8220;For example: A user may be comfortable having their full name and profile photo appear on a website about skiing,&#8221; Maunder said. &#8220;But they may not want their name or identity exposed to the public on a website specializing in a medical condition. Someone researching this individual could extract their Gravatar hash from the skiing website along with their full name. They could then Google&nbsp;the hash and determine that the individual suffers from a medical condition they wanted to keep private.&#8221;</p>



<p>Many Gravatar users were not satisfied with the service&#8217;s explanation that all of the information users entered was public, which disqualified the incident from being labeled a breach. In the same explanation, however, the service claims the API was abused, instead of admitting that it was vulnerable and could have been better protected. </p>



<p>After years of researchers demonstrating that this was possible, is scraping Gravatar an unethical data acquisition because the scraper is abusing the service&#8217;s architecture? Or is it unethical that Gravatar made it possible to harvest profile data en masse for years?</p>



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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">That sounds like your data was accessed in a way you didn't intend (if only there was a word for that), but you didn't mean to be?</p>&mdash; Christopher Foster (@CF99) <a href="https://twitter.com/CF99/status/1467818837810757636?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 6, 2021</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>&#8220;If someone is able to use an API for other than its intended purpose and can gather information which otherwise wouldn&#8217;t be available through &#8216;standard&#8217; means&#8230; it&#8217;s a breach,&#8221; Twitter user @RegGBlinker commented on the matter.</p>



<p>Gravatar undoubtedly wants to minimize the damage done by the breach notices sent out this morning to its users, but making this an issue of semantics was not reassuring. Most users did not intend to share their Gravatar emails with whoever has the motivation to scrape the data that was exposed for harvesting. Even if that data was dumped through &#8220;abuse&#8221; of their API, it feels like a breach to those who expected that user data would not be available for distribution elsewhere.</p>



<p>The incident serves as a reminder that, as Gravatar emphasized today, the data users choose to share publicly is made available by the service&#8217;s API and is not private. As a user, there are risks to enjoying the convenience of not having to upload your profile photo multiple times across various websites. Publishers who want their sites to offer a more privacy-conscious option should look to alternatives like <a href="https://wptavern.com/privacy-conscious-wordpress-plugin-caches-and-serves-gravatar-images-locally">Local Gravatars</a> or <a href="https://wptavern.com/privacy-first-gravatar-replacement-pixel-avatars-module-released-for-the-toolbelt-wordpress-plugin">Pixel Avatars</a>. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 07 Dec 2021 01:39:42 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"WPTavern: Videomaker Block Theme Targets Film Directors and Video Creators";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126558";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:193:"https://wptavern.com/videomaker-block-theme-targets-film-directors-and-video-creators?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=videomaker-block-theme-targets-film-directors-and-video-creators";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5273:"<p class="has-drop-cap">Automattic&#8217;s latest Blockbase child theme landed in the WordPress.org directory today. <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/videomaker/">Videomaker</a> is aimed at film directors and video creators. I have put it through its paces in the last week as it waited for approval in the review system.</p>



<p>At first glance, there is not much that separates Videomaker from any other plain ol&#8217; block theme. Aside from a different color scheme, it looks and feels like its parent, <a href="https://wptavern.com/the-automattic-theme-team-announces-blockbase-its-new-block-parent-theme">Blockbase</a>. It takes some digging to figure out what this theme brings to the table. Once you find its block patterns, it is evident that it would work well for indie filmmakers.</p>



<p>WordPress block themes have a pattern-discoverability issue. I have been noticing it for a while. So many often seem lackluster until you begin tinkering with their patterns, applying them to pages, and seeing what you can build. Custom patterns are where block themes will shine the most, and these need to be front and center when a user activates one.</p>



<p>The most straightforward solution is for themes to bundle a custom front page template out of the box, giving users a small taste of the included patterns. Starter content could also help, but the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/35680">ticket for making this compatible </a>with block themes is still open.</p>



<p>I almost bypassed Videomaker because I could not see its potential. After some time with it, I enjoyed how much thought the design team put into its patterns. While the theme can be used for anything, its block patterns are specifically geared toward film directors and creators in the indie space.</p>



<p>The theme focuses on two areas. The first is the creator. It includes a few layouts that allow the site owner to show who they are, such as the About pattern:</p>



<img />About creator block pattern.



<p>The second focus area is on the art itself. There is a full-width homepage for showcasing a trailer or film, and there are patterns for the film description, credits, and more.</p>



<p>One of my favorite patterns was one for a film poster. This one stood out in particular because I could have used this back in college when I was going through my filmmaker phase &#8212; <em>no, do not ask to see my $0-budget, half-finished vampire picture</em>. I built my film posters in Photoshop back then via on-campus computers. It would have been fun to visually edit them in WordPress.</p>



<img />Film poster block pattern.



<p>The theme never overcomplicates things. It offers a variety of 16 patterns for quickly throwing together a film-related website.</p>



<p>I particularly like the addition of the seemingly-minor sections. For example, the Awards pattern is a simple columns layout that allows users to showcase their film&#8217;s awards:</p>



<img />Awards block pattern.



<p>There is nothing especially groundbreaking about the pattern. It is just a Cover, Columns, Images, and Paragraphs. Creating something like this in the classic era would have been overly complex. Users would have likely had to input a shortcode without any chance of seeing it live, at least until they previewed the page. Or, it would have existed as a customizer option and limited to wherever the theme allowed.</p>



<p>Looking back, it is crazy how something so simple was so complicated in the past. With patterns, theme designers can have a lot of fun adding these little touches to their themes, and users reap the benefits.</p>



<p>One area that could be improved would be the addition of featured media. Creators should not be required to manually edit their video list as shown in the following pattern every time they have an update. It should simply automatically show their latest video posts.</p>



<img />Video grid pattern.



<p>WordPress has allowed featured images for years, but video and audio are a no-go. I have a bookmarked ticket that proposes expanding into &#8220;featured media&#8221; from 2020. There has not been any movement toward a solution. It turns out, the Automattic Themes Team had <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/27617#issuecomment-918205913">commented about the need</a> for featured videos when they had started work on Videomaker.</p>



<p>This is not an issue that is best solved via the theme. While it was easier to do with classic, PHP-based theme projects, WordPress should provide the capability out of the box.</p>



<p>I only found one significant issue with the theme. Its default page template currently displays both the post date and featured image. I am hazarding a guess that this was an unintentional copy-paste error during development. Typically, these items are not desirable on pages. One of the best things about block themes is that users can adjust these problems &#8212; intentional or not &#8212; via the site editor. <em>Don&#8217;t want the post date and featured image on pages?</em> Just remove them.</p>



<p>Outside of that, I like seeing the continued experimentation from the Automattic Theme Team. I am waiting to see what they tackle next.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 07 Dec 2021 00:00:47 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Justin Tadlock";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:20;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"WPTavern: FSE Outreach Round #11: Going on a Site Editing Safari";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=125526";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:169:"https://wptavern.com/fse-outreach-round-11-going-on-a-site-editing-safari?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fse-outreach-round-11-going-on-a-site-editing-safari";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5744:"<p class="has-drop-cap">Anne McCarthy announced <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2021/11/08/fse-program-testing-call-11-site-editing-safari/">Round #11 of the FSE Outreach Program</a> on November 11. The latest test, dubbed Site Editing Safari, calls on volunteers to run through a step-by-step list to find strengths and weaknesses around the upcoming WordPress 5.9 site editor. Volunteers are still welcome to provide feedback until Tuesday, December 7.</p>



<p>This is actually my second attempt at Round #11. The first was right when the testing began nearly a month ago. As always, I was excited to jump in and contribute in some small way to the project. So, I made sure I updated everything and loaded up my test environment. Then, the entire experience rocketed downhill.</p>



<p>I became frustrated after the template navigation was removed from the site editor. So, I simply threw in the towel. The one feature I had been waiting on for months felt useless. I pointed out these frustrations in my review of <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-11-9-focuses-on-navigation-menus-and-block-theming">Gutenberg 11.9</a> &#8212; <em>let&#8217;s just say there were a few drafts of that post that were far less kind</em>.</p>



<p>Shortly after, template navigation was re-added to Gutenberg and should land in WordPress 5.9.</p>



<p>Calls for using the TT1 Blocks theme are also demotivating. I have become burned out testing it and hope to never see it again. On the other hand, <a href="https://wptavern.com/first-look-at-wordpress-upcoming-twenty-twenty-two-default-theme-the-most-flexible-default-theme-ever-created-for-wordpress">Twenty Twenty-Two</a> is far more exciting. Plus, it will be the theme that showcases what FSE can do. So, I installed it instead. Yes, I began breaking the rules before I even hopped over to the first step of testing.</p>



<p>The following is a screenshot of the final homepage customization after running through the tests:</p>



<img />Custom homepage design with Twenty Twenty-Two theme.



<p>I jumped ahead and started from the header-editing section at the end of the test. The header area is the first thing you see in the editor, so it felt natural to begin there.</p>



<p>I started by removing the Page List block from the Navigation menu in the header. I have 90+ pages on my install, and it is always irritating when themes list them all by default. There also does not seem to be a way to limit that to top-level pages or a max number. I opted for a few custom links instead.</p>



<p>Then, I added a Search block, but its options were far too limiting to fit it into the design. There was no way to edit the colors or typography of the input field. It would also be nice to have a search text input that expanded or popped up when clicking the search icon.</p>



<img />Trying to customize the Search block.



<p>Eventually, I just dropped it all and added a Social Icons block. They were a bit less boring than run-of-the-mill links.</p>



<p>The biggest issue I hit was with the Group block. By default, the Twenty Twenty-Two theme adds an <code>8rem</code> (that&#8217;s pretty big) bottom margin to one of the Groups within the header area. That pushes everything on the page after it down. The trouble is that there is no way to customize that space because the block still does not support margins.</p>



<p>I ended up adding an intro section to balance out all of the whitespace between the header and content areas:</p>



<img />Intro section between header and content.



<p>Based on the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/37105">current direction of an open ticket</a>, Group margin support is unlikely to land in WordPress 5.9. The suggestion is to rely on the Spacer block to do the work.</p>



<p>When I jumped back to the first section of the testing steps, I wanted to put the Post Featured Image block through its paces. It has improved, but it is still missing the vital <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/33789">Image Size option</a>, which would allow users to select a theme-registered size.</p>



<p>I also wanted to add a border, but the option does not exist for the block. Instead, I had to wrap it in a Group block to create the effect. I took it a step further by adding padding and background color, essentially creating a two-color border.</p>



<img />Grouping the Post Featured Image block for borders.



<p>The purist in me cringes at wrapping an image in a <code>&lt;div&gt;</code> element just to add a border. Users should be able to add it directly to the Image block.</p>



<p>This very much feels like where the state of the block and site editing is overall. Many pieces are exceptional, but after digging beneath the surface, you find that you need workarounds for some essential design needs.</p>



<p>During testing, I ran into a few features I would like to have, such as a word-count limit for the Post Excerpt block and a button-style design for the &#8220;more link.&#8221; I am sure there are already tickets to address these, so I did not dwell on them.</p>



<p>The biggest, <em>ahem</em>, hiccup that I ran into wiped all of my progress when editing my header. I tried to transform one of the outer Group blocks into a Cover to give it a background. It wiped everything in the header area clean, and the &#8220;undo&#8221; button did not seem to work. I just started over.</p>



<p>I ran through all of the tests without any other issues. The site editor and global styles interfaces feel close to ready for their version 1.0 release in WordPress. The system works well enough for those willing to accept some frustration to play around with a suite of new toys.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 04 Dec 2021 02:53:50 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Justin Tadlock";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:21;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:61:"Gutenberg Times: All Things Block Themes -Weekend Edition 195";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=19738";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/all-things-block-themes-weekend-edition-195/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:17224:"<p>Howdy,</p>



<p>For many of us it&#8217;s Christmastime, a time for family, friends, and love, anticipating the holidays and the New Year. As the German poet Erick Kästner wrote: <em>&#8220;Will it better? Will it be worse?, one asks every year. But let&#8217;s be honest: life is always life-threatening.&#8221;</em> <sup>1</sup> Happy 2nd Advent! </p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br />Birgit</p>



<p class="has-normal-font-size"><sup>1</sup> <em>&#8220;Wird&#8217;s besser? Wird&#8217;s schlimmer?, fragt man alljährlich. Aber seien wir ehrlich, Leben ist immer lebensgefährlich.” &#8212; Erich Kästner</em></p>



<p></p>




<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#wordpress-5-9">WordPress 5.9</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#gutenberg-12-0-1">Gutenberg 12.0.1</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#all-things-block-themes">All things Block Themes</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#full-site-editing">Full-Site Editing</a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#fse-program-testing-call-11-until-dec-7">FSE Program Testing Call #11 until Dec 7</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#building-blocks-and-developing-for-gutenberg">Building Blocks and developing for Gutenberg</a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#wordpress-social-learning-events">WordPress Social Learning events</a></li></ul></li></ul></div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />




<h2 id="wordpress-5-9">WordPress 5.9</h2>



<p>The release squad shipped <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/wordpress-5-9-beta-1/"><strong>WordPress 5.9 Beta 1</strong></a> Tuesday night. </p>



<p>The test team published instructions on how you can test this release and help ensure it&#8217;s the best version that can be shipped in January. <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2021/11/30/help-test-wordpress-5-9-features/"><strong>Help test WordPress 5.9 Features</strong></a>. The post covers the best test environment for all skill levels, and some tips for testing. For each feature, you can read a brief description with the suggested testing focus. As many features were built for users to build sites without touching code, the emphasis is on workflow and ease-of-use for WordPress users. Any feedback from this test will be welcome as it could improve the final version considerably. </p>




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



<p><img alt="GitHub all releases" src="https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total" /></p>




<p><strong>Nathan Wrigley</strong> hosted Marcus Kazmierczak, Zack Krida and yours truly for the episode <a href="https://wptavern.com/podcast/10-whats-in-wordpress-5-9-and-what-is-openverse"><strong>#10 &#8211; What’s in WordPress 5.9, and What Is Openverse?</strong></a></p>



<h2 id="gutenberg-12-0-1">Gutenberg 12.0.1</h2>



<p>From last week, Gutenberg 12.0 the release notes are now available on the Make Blog: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/11/29/whats-new-in-gutenberg-12-0-0-24-november/"><strong>What’s new in Gutenberg 12.0.0 ( 24 November)</strong></a> by <strong>Ryan Welcher.</strong></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> was also our special guest for the <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-56-gutenberg-12-wordpress-5-9-ryan-welcher/"><strong>Gutenberg Changelog episode 56 </strong></a>when Grzegorz Ziolkowski and I discussed the Gutenberg release</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p>If you are not a podcast listener, <strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> at WPTavern has the skinny for you.  <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-12-0-focuses-on-cleanup-and-minor-enhancements"><strong>Gutenberg 12.0 Focuses on Cleanup and Minor Enhancements</strong></a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<ul><li><strong>Gutenberg 12.0.1</strong> came out shortly after to add caching to&nbsp;<code>WP_Theme_JSON_Resolver_Gutenberg::get_user_data_from_custom_post_type()</code>. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/36584">36584</a>)</li><li><strong>For Gutenberg 12.0.2,</strong> the team fixed a bug with Block Styles: Check for existence of scroll container. (<a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/37010">37010</a>) </li><li>The next version is already in the works. <strong><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v12.1.0-rc.1">Gutenberg 12.1 RC</a> </strong>is now available, too.</li></ul>




<p class="has-normal-font-size">📢 <strong>New Episode #56 is now available! </strong>🎙️ <br />Birgit Pauli-Haack and Grzegorz Ziolkowski discuss Gutenberg plugin release 12.0 with their special guest Ryan Welcher, developer advocate at Automattic. </p>



<p> <strong>Subscribe to the&nbsp;<a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/">Gutenberg Changelog</a>&nbsp;podcast </strong><br />🎙️&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/620NwVKQJGdTupy36zYxvg?mc_cid=4b6c9f88fe">Spotify</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ndXRlbmJlcmd0aW1lcy5jb20vZmVlZC9wb2RjYXN0">Google</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gutenberg-changelog/id1469294475">iTunes</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://pca.st/podcast/f8445ec0-7508-0137-f267-1d245fc5f9cf">PocketCasts</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/gutenberg-changelog">Stitcher</a>&nbsp;|<br />🎙️&nbsp;<a href="https://www.podbean.com/podcast-detail/chi7j-9904a/Gutenberg-Changelog-Podcast">Pod Bean</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://castbox.fm/channel/Gutenberg-Changelog-id2173375">CastBox</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/gutenberg-changelog-878239/">Podchaser</a>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/podcast">RSS Feed</a>&nbsp;</p>



<img />




<h2 id="all-things-block-themes">All things Block Themes</h2>



<p>For the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/episode-21-all-things-block-themes/"><strong>Episode 21 of the WP Briefing podcast</strong></a>, executive director of the WordPress open-source project, <strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy</strong> invited <strong>Jeff Ong </strong>and <strong>Maggie Cabrera</strong> from the Theme team. They discussed the future of theme building and the upcoming WordPress default theme Twenty-Twenty-Two. They also clarify additional terms around themes. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Ben Dwyer</strong> of the WordPress Themes team compiled this week&#8217;s Digest: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2021/12/03/gutenberg-themes-week-of-november-29th-2021/"><strong>Gutenberg + Themes: Week of November 29th, 2021</strong></a> &#8211; the 74th weekly round-up of important theme topics, issues, and PRs that could use community input and review.  Dwyer changed the format a bit. Instead, a list of PRs and Issue titles and numbers, he provides a summary of the various topics, this is certainly helpful for theme developer keeping in touch with Gutenberg. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Alex Lende </strong>published more details on how VS Code works with <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2021/11/30/theme-json-schema/"><strong>Theme JSON Schema</strong></a> for Code Validation, Tool Tips with hints, and Auto-Complete. The demo GIFs also show the short-keys to use to make it all work. Very nifty! </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/michaelburridge"><strong>Michael Burridge</strong></a> informs developers via the WordPress Make Blog that <em>&#8220;the directory names in&nbsp;block-based (FSE) themes are changing. The name for the directory containing template files will be&nbsp;</em><code>templates</code><em>, and the name for the directory containing template part files will be&nbsp;</em><code>parts</code><em>.</em>&#8221; You can read more details in his article: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2021/12/03/new-directory-names-for-block-based-fse-themes/"><strong>New directory names for block-based (FSE) themes</strong></a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/courtneyr_dev">Courtney Robertson</a></strong> posted a tutorial on <a href="https://www.godaddy.com/garage/customizing-images-with-wordpress-duotone-filters/"><strong>Customizing images with WordPress duotone filters</strong></a>. Learn how to configure duotone settings for your client sites, to make images really shine. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/fklux">Fränk Klein</a></strong> shared <a href="https://wpdevelopment.courses/articles/hybrid-theme-learnings/"><strong>what he learned building a Hybrid Theme</strong></a>. After some definition of the terms, Hybrid theme, Universal theme and block theme, Klein takes you along his journey to explore how theme.json and PHP can mix.  How can WordPress 5.8 features help refactor existing themes and bring them more inline with the block editor? Even if they don&#8217;t fully embrace full-site editing, there are ways to make classic themes work better. It&#8217;s also not without challenges. Klein has some insight here, too. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/webtng">David McCan</a></strong> wrote in his article <strong><a href="https://www.webtng.com/full-site-editing-and-custom-post-types-what-you-need-to-know/" rel="nofollow">Full Site Editing and Custom Post Types: What You Need To Know</a></strong> about what tools you need to create the single and archive templates for Custom Post Types. McCan concluded: &#8220;The big deal with Full Site Editing is that the ability to create templates for Custom Post Types is being built into WordPress core.&#8221; You will still need third-party blocks that support custom fields, thought. McCan has tested a few shared what he learned. </p>




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




<h2 id="full-site-editing">Full-Site Editing</h2>



<p class="is-style-default"><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> published a walk-through the new, powerful Navigation Block site builders will soon us with full-site editing experience: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7NkL8YKfUA"><strong>Exploring the Navigation Block for WordPress 5.9</strong></a>. McCarthy wrote: &#8220;The Navigation Block is an advanced new block that enables you to edit your site&#8217;s navigation menu, both in terms of structure and design. This video seeks to give an initial look at this new block, provide a demo to help you explore it on your own, answer some top questions, and share some context around what&#8217;s to come next.&#8221;</p>



<h3 id="fse-program-testing-call-11-until-dec-7">FSE Program Testing Call #11 until Dec 7</h3>



<p>You only have a few days left to participate in the separate  <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2021/11/08/fse-program-testing-call-11-site-editing-safari/"><strong>FSE Program Testing Call #11: Site Editing Safari</strong></a>. Its deadline is December 7th, 2021.&nbsp;</p>



<p>If you prefer an <strong>Italian version</strong> of the call for testing,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/succoallapera"><strong>Piermario Orecchioni</strong></a>&nbsp;published the translation:&nbsp;<a href="https://it.wordpress.org/team/2021/11/25/chiamata-per-il-test-del-programma-fse-11-un-safari-nella-modifica-di-un-sito/"><strong>ESF Program Test Call # 11: A Site Editing Safari</strong></a>.</p>



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/atachibana"><strong>Akira Tashibana</strong>&nbsp;</a>posted the <strong>Japanese version</strong> of the FSE Call for testing #11&nbsp;<a href="https://ja.wordpress.org/team/2021/11/12/2381/"><strong>FSE プログラムのテスト募集 #11: サイト編集の探索</strong></a></p>



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/cdils">Carrie Dils</a>&nbsp;</strong>prepared a&nbsp;<a href="https://carriedils.com/local-import-for-wordpress-5-8-x-beta-testing/">one file import for LocalWP</a>&nbsp;to have an easy way to set up a test environment for the FSE Call for Testing.</p>



<h2 id="building-blocks-and-developing-for-gutenberg">Building Blocks and developing for Gutenberg</h2>



<p>The fantastic co-hosts of the <em><a href="https://twitter.com/WomenInWP">WomaninWP</a> Podcast</em>, <strong>Tracy Apps</strong> and <strong>Angela Bowman</strong> had <a href="https://womeninwp.com/podcast/071-an-honest-gutenberg-chat-with-tara-king/"><strong>an honest conversation about Gutenberg with Tara King</strong></a>, director of Developer Relations at Automattic. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p>This year&#8217;s array of year-end post starts with <strong>Brian Francoeur</strong>&#8216;s post <a href="https://convesio.com/blog/wordpress-ecosystem/wordpress-in-2022/"><strong>WordPress: Where It’s Headed in 2022</strong></a> He wrote: &#8220;WordPress is fighting back with genuine innovation, evolving the WordPress core and ecosystem to meet the needs of its users&#8221; and he doesn&#8217;t mean just the block editor. He gave us a view on all things that are happening in the space, including performance team, and decoupled WordPress (others call it headless). </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p><a href="https://twitter.com/ItsJustDJ"><strong>DJ Billings</strong></a> wrote about <a href="https://torquemag.io/2021/10/an-exciting-new-use-case-for-gutenberg-newsletters/"><strong>an exciting new use case for Gutenberg: Newsletters</strong></a>. She wrote &#8220;Newsletters are back, and they’re on the rise&#8221; and identified Gutenberg as &#8220;a powerful email builder&#8221;. You might have guessed it, Billings then turns fast to Newsletter Glue  as a Gutenberg-first tool to use WordPress to also composed emails. Full disclosure: For the last twelve months, we have been assembling the weekend edition also with <a href="https://newsletterglue.com/"><strong>Newsletter Glue.</strong></a> </p>



<h3 id="wordpress-social-learning-events">WordPress Social Learning events</h3>



<p><strong>December 14, 2021  &#8211; 3 to 4 pm ET </strong>/ <strong>20:00 UTC </strong><br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/282301699/"><strong>Create a simple block from existing blocks </strong></a><br />Host: Wes Theron<br />Speaker: Alex Standiford</p>



<p>The WordPress Learn team will schedule more <a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning"><strong>Social Learning events</strong></a> on its Meetup.com <a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning">space</a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



<p class="has-drop-cap">On the<a href="https://wpcalendar.io/online/">&nbsp;<strong>Calendar for WordPress Online Events</strong>&nbsp;</a>site, you can browse a list of the upcoming WordPress Events, around the world, including WordCamps,  WooCommerce, Elementor, Divi Builder and Beaver Builder meetups.</p>




<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />



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



<form class="wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait" action="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/" method="post"><div class="ngl-form-container"><div class="ngl-form-field"><label class="ngl-form-label" for="ngl_email">Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class="ngl-form-input"><input type="email" class="ngl-form-input-text" name="ngl_email" id="ngl_email" /></div></div><button class="ngl-form-button">Subscribe</button><p class="ngl-form-text">We hate spam, too and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay"><div class="ngl-message-svg-wrap"></div><div class="ngl-message-overlay-text">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input type="hidden" name="ngl_list_id" id="ngl_list_id" value="26f81bd8ae" /><input type="hidden" name="ngl_double_optin" id="ngl_double_optin" value="yes" /></form>



<hr class="wp-block-separator is-style-wide" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 04 Dec 2021 01:10:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:22;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:96:"WPTavern: Open Source Initiative Launches New Free Membership Level, Opens 2022 OSS Usage Survey";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126444";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:235:"https://wptavern.com/open-source-initiative-launches-new-free-membership-level-opens-2022-oss-usage-survey?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=open-source-initiative-launches-new-free-membership-level-opens-2022-oss-usage-survey";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2647:"<p>Open Source Initiative, the organization that stewards the <a href="https://opensource.org/docs/osd">Open Source Definition</a>, has launched <a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/openlogic-state-of-oss">a new survey</a> on the usage of open source, in collaboration with <a href="http://www.openlogic.com/homepage">OpenLogic by Perforce</a>. The survey takes a broad look at the trends and challenges organizations and users experience when adopting open source software today.</p>



<p>&#8220;In the 2022 State of Open Source Survey, OpenLogic and OSI will gather information about the use of open source software, the level of&nbsp;open source&nbsp;maturity and strategy within organizations, and the larger trends shaping the open source ecosystem,&#8221; OpenLogic OSS Evangelist Javier Perez said. </p>



<p>The survey takes approximately 7-10 minutes and is applicable to users at every level. A few of the questions are aimed at gauging participants&#8217; reservations about using open source software, which should yield some interesting results. It also asks about support challenges and reasons for adopting specific open source technologies.</p>



<p>As a small incentive, participants can enter an email address at the end for a chance to win a $200 Amazon gift card. The <a href="http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/openlogic-state-of-oss">survey</a> will close January 7, 2022, and the results will be published in the 2022 State of Open Source report at the end of January. This information will help OSI continue to be an advocate for a healthy open source ecosystem.</p>



<p>The organization has also recently launched a new, <a href="https://opensource.org/blog/2021-11-membership-drive">free membership level</a> with limited capabilities. </p>



<p>&#8220;Not everyone can provide financial support, but we want your participation, too!&#8221; OSI&#8217;s newly appointed Executive Director Stefano Maffulli said at launch. &#8220;Voting privileges are not included at this level, but you do receive the cool digital member badge to show your support of OSI.&#8221; </p>



<p>New signups will receive an email with discounts on open source technology courses and open source hardware manufacturers, and a link to a membership page with a script that generates a unique digital badge.</p>



<p>Full membership costs $40 per year and includes voting rights to influence OSI&#8217;s programs. Launching a free membership level on top of this is a strategic move for the Open Source Initiative that allows the organization to solidify its supporters and periodically appeal for financial support across a wider base.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 03 Dec 2021 23:04:45 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:23;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:93:"WPTavern: PHP Foundation Gains Momentum with $280K Estimated Annual Budget on Open Collective";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126007";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:229:"https://wptavern.com/php-foundation-gains-momentum-with-280k-estimated-annual-budget-on-open-collective?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=php-foundation-gains-momentum-with-280k-estimated-annual-budget-on-open-collective";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5270:"<p>At the end of November, prominent members of the PHP community <a href="https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/2021/11/the-php-foundation/">formed a new PHP Foundation</a> as a non-profit organization, &#8220;<strong><strong>to ensure the long life and prosperity of the PHP language.</strong></strong>&#8221; The founding members include Automattic, Laravel, Acquia, Zend, Craft CMS, Private Packagist, Tideways, PrestaShop, Symfony, and JetBrains—a group of companies with products that rely heavily on PHP.</p>



<p>In just 11 days, the Foundation has has secured <a href="https://opencollective.com/phpfoundation">an estimated annual budget of more than $280,000</a> through donations and monthly commitments using Open Collective&#8217;s transparent funding platform.</p>



<p>JetBrains, leading the charge with a promise to contribute $100,000 annually, announced the formation of the foundation. It stated that the organization will not seek to influence PHP language decisions but will leave those to the PHP Internals community. The donations will be used to fund developers to work on PHP:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Our initial scope of operations is narrow so as to maximize the chances of successfully addressing our immediate concern – that there are not enough core developers working on PHP.<br />In our first year or two, our only priority will be the hiring of core developers. Eventually, after our immediate concern has been resolved, the Foundation will be prepared to expand the scope of operations to include the hiring of developers dedicated to non-core projects. Beyond that, we may expand our focus to include community-oriented projects.</p><cite><a href="https://blog.jetbrains.com/phpstorm/2021/11/the-php-foundation/">The New Life of PHP – The PHP Foundation</a></cite></blockquote>



<p>The loss of a longtime prolific contributor Nikita Popov, who is moving on to work on  LLVM with significantly less time on PHP, was one of the major contributing factors for the formation of the foundation.</p>



<p>&#8220;Losing one of the main contributors to PHP is a blow to the community, because he is the bearer of a lot of knowledge and expertise,&#8221; PhpStorm marketing manager Roman Pronskiy said. &#8220;It puts the language that powers 78% of the Web in a fragile position. Not to mention an overwhelming burden on the maintainer, which unfortunately in the world of OSS often leads to people burning out.&#8221;</p>



<p>Despite enormous contributions from Zend by Perforce on various initiatives for nearly two decades, along with other corporations invested in the future of the language, PHP is too important to the web to risk going without vital support for its maintainers. </p>



<p>&#8220;By continuing to fund full-time and part-time developers on the PHP project, Zend has helped ensure the ongoing prosperity and modernization of the PHP language, and its continued use for mission-critical application development,&#8221; Pronskiy said.</p>



<p>&#8220;We were proceeding rather leisurely, thinking that the problem was not critical. However, Nikita’s decision forced us to intensify our work on the foundation.&#8221;</p>



<p>The 26-year old programming language continues to be immensely popular today, thanks to its easy learning curve and the relative ease of finding hosting for PHP-based sites. It powers 36% of the top million websites and 49% of the top 10K according to <a href="https://trends.builtwith.com/framework/PHP">BuiltWith</a>. With such a massive footprint, formalizing support for the future of the PHP project is long overdue.</p>



<p>&#8220;PHP quickly became my choice of language, and while some folks mock it for not being a &#8216;real&#8217; language – whatever that means – it can be strongly typed and structured if you choose – but more importantly, PHP has enabled the innovation and explosion of the web, largely through projects like WordPress, CakePHP, CodeIgniter, and Laravel,&#8221; Automattic engineer Jeffrey Pearce wrote in a recent essay about <a href="https://24daysindecember.net/2021/12/01/how-i-found-php/">how he found PHP</a>. &#8220;These projects all had a low barrier to entry and made writing software accessible to the masses.</p>



<p>&#8220;Hacking away through a PHP file, mixing classes and inline code, functional and object orientation, and discovering the joys of MVC frameworks – you could really move fast and break things.&#8221;</p>



<p>At WordCamp Europe in 2019, when Matt Mullenweg was asked how he plans to balance chasing the new and shiny with all of WordPress’ existing legacy APIs, he said, “PHP is going to be crucial to us for many years to come.” WordPress owes a great deal to PHP, which keeps getting faster and better with each release. Behind these releases is a community of people who need reliable support.</p>



<p>Any contributor can apply to the Foundation for funding part-time or full-time work. Positions are not permanent and can be canceled at any time. <a href="https://forms.gle/mk52v6FphaYr6yMS8">Applications are still open</a> for the next two weeks and the Foundation&#8217;s administration will use its expertise to decide which contributors will receive funding.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 03 Dec 2021 06:25:40 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:24;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:41:"Post Status: How Was Business This Month?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=90858";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:51:"https://poststatus.com/how-was-business-this-month/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4033:"<p class="has-background has-medium-font-size"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="🙏" class="wp-smiley" /> Please take <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeSFLww3tusSf06kxPNgGLLN4PqyAwxThw6tif12I9egBosdQ/viewform">the current survey for November</a>.</p>



<table><tbody><tr><td><strong>August 2021</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f4c6.png" alt="📆" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td><strong>Up</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f4c8.png" alt="📈" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td><strong>Down</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f4c9.png" alt="📉" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td><strong>Average</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f610.png" alt="😐" class="wp-smiley" /></td></tr><tr><td><strong>All responses</strong></td><td>4</td><td>3</td><td>3</td></tr></tbody></table>We floated this survey quietly in August with a single, simple question.



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



<hr class="wp-block-separator logo is-style-default" />



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



<table><tbody><tr><td><strong>September 2021</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f4c6.png" alt="📆" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td><strong>Up</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f4c8.png" alt="📈" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td><strong>Down</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f4c9.png" alt="📉" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td><strong>Average</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f610.png" alt="😐" class="wp-smiley" /></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Company</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f3e2.png" alt="🏢" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td>4</td><td>1</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Agency</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f9d1-200d-1f4bc.png" alt="🧑‍💼" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td>11</td><td>3</td><td>5</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Individual</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f469-200d-1f4bb.png" alt="👩‍💻" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td>7</td><td>5</td><td>6</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Totals:</strong></td><td><strong>22</strong></td><td><strong>9</strong></td><td><strong>17</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>48 people responded in September. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="🙏" class="wp-smiley" />



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



<hr class="wp-block-separator logo is-style-default" />



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



<table><tbody><tr><td><strong>October 2021</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f4c6.png" alt="📆" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td><strong>Up</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f4c8.png" alt="📈" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td><strong>Down</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f4c9.png" alt="📉" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td><strong>Average</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f610.png" alt="😐" class="wp-smiley" /></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Company</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f3e2.png" alt="🏢" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Agency</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f9d1-200d-1f4bc.png" alt="🧑‍💼" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td>2</td><td>0</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Individual</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f469-200d-1f4bb.png" alt="👩‍💻" class="wp-smiley" /></td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Totals:</strong></td><td><strong>3</strong></td><td><strong>4</strong></td><td><strong>8</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>The most common challenge mentioned this month was hiring — finding good talent.



<p></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 03 Dec 2021 04:36:46 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Dan Knauss";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:25;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"Post Status: Post Status Excerpt (No. 35) — Challenges and Wins for WordCamp Taiwan";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=90144";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34:"https://poststatus.com/excerpt/35/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29209:"<h2>&#8220;We are trying to bring our community to the world.&#8221; —Eric Chuang</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, David chats with two organizers from the upcoming <a href="https://taiwan.wordcamp.org/2021/">WordCamp Taiwan 2021</a> — <strong>Eric Chuang</strong> 莊桓亦 and <strong>Hend Chen</strong> 陳瀚宇. Learn what the WordPress community is like in Taiwan, and how they've dealt with restrictions on in-person events. Eric and Hend crafted a “hybrid” approach to their WordCamp and hope having English sessions will bring more talent and influence to Taiwan's WordPress community.</p>







<p class="has-background">Every week <strong><a href="https://poststatus.com/podcast/the-excerpt/">Post Status Excerpt</a></strong> will brief you on important WordPress news — in about 15 minutes or less! Learn what's new in WordPress in a flash. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/26a1.png" alt="⚡" class="wp-smiley" /><br /><br />You can listen to <a href="https://poststatus.com/podcast/the-excerpt/">past episodes</a> of <strong>The Excerpt</strong>, <a href="https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/">browse all our podcasts</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/1m3xwXbe0MG5BzFVPtB0A7">Spotify</a>, Amazon Music, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://castro.fm/podcast/c53552c6-1ee0-4fc4-9de4-08ed6bf1ee4d">Castro</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus">YouTube</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://player.fm/series/wordpress-post-status-podcasts">Player.fm</a>, <a href="https://pca.st/05rR">Pocket Casts</a>, <a href="https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/">Simplecast</a>, or by <a href="https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P">RSS</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f3a7.png" alt="🎧" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



<h3 id="h-mentioned-in-the-show"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f517.png" alt="🔗" class="wp-smiley" /> Mentioned in the show:</h3>



<ul><li><a href="https://wpafrica.org/">WordCamp Taiwan 2021</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/dimensionmedia" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">David Bisset (Twitter)</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/huanyee_chuang">Eric Chuang 莊桓亦 (Twitter)</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/hendchen/">Hend Chen 陳瀚宇 (LinkedIn)</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/post_status" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Post Status (Twitter)</a></li></ul>



<h3><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="🙏" class="wp-smiley" /> Sponsor: <a href="https://poststat.us/sandhills" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener sponsored nofollow">iThemes</a></h3>



<p>Take the guesswork out of building, maintaining, and securing WordPress websites. Professional plugins and training from <strong>iThemes</strong> help you create and manage your sites. Secure, back up, and manage them quickly and easily. Master leading-edge WordPress skills to grow your business and make more money. Learn and grow with the experts at <strong>iThemes</strong>.</p>



<h3>Transcript</h3>



<p>Eric Chuang: [00:00:00] Yes, I'm sorry. I accidentally click leave the meeting.</p>



<p>David Bisset: No, it's okay. Some people get a look at me and then hear my voice and then they instantly dropped the meeting. It's fine. I'm not trying not to take it personally. Just think about how my wife feels. She can't do that. She lives with me. So it's been a while.</p>



<p>When's the last time that I've seen you at the virtual meetup.</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: About almost a year, I would say maybe, or maybe, oh yeah. Last year in November.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Yeah. how did I get involved in that. Did you invite me? You must have, because I really don't like sticking my nose in other people's business.</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: First I joined the mega meetup and yes, I thought it was brilliant.</p>



<p>So I just emailed you with, without any, without. Any notification, I guess I just emailed</p>



<p>David Bisset: you.</p>



<p>Yeah. Just like how my kids asked me for money. It comes out of the [00:01:00] blue and say, Hey, hi, I need some of, I need some of this blank. Yeah. The mega meetup was actually pretty. It was pretty good. We're still doing it off and on here and there.</p>



<p>What are, and I remember now you inviting me in, was a nice, great meetup that we had. I've been there. I think it was twice or three times over the. What are your local meetups like right now? Are you able, are you able to meet in person over there now? Or how what's the situation over there?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: So this year in Taiwan, we actually had raised our alerts from we have the level one to actually, we went to level three and oh, in person gathering. Abandoned. We're yeah. We're post. So we were not allowed to hand hold any in-person meetup, but things have been better now.</p>



<p>And now we have [00:02:00] restarted our Tahlia and meet up again. And we started, we restarted from last month. Yes. So now we can still. Present.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Oh, that's fantastic. And about how many people sh so you've had one since then one meetup or how many?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Currently in Taiwan we have one in-person meeting, but we have to, we actually have two this month.</p>



<p>So one in our place and the other is in the middle Taiwan.</p>



<p>David Bisset: And did you have meetups consistently through the pandemic? How is the strength of your local WordPress community?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Oh actually we try to make it virtual as well. We, yeah, we it was that time that I started to I started to I started to connect people virtually.</p>



<p>We used we used [00:03:00] virtual value, gathered how to make people participate and we can check. By groups. Yeah.</p>



<p>David Bisset: So what's your background? I'm sorry, go ahead. No. I'm interested a little bit about you. And I don't I don't know how many people know about you and hint. Hint is also on the call.</p>



<p>He's just very quiet. Care to just tell us a little bit about yourselves before we go into.</p>



<p>Hend Chen: About local meetup.</p>



<p>David Bisset: How did you, how long have you been in</p>



<p>Hend Chen: WordPress? I enjoy WordPress two years ago and I seen WordPress we're friends, like big family because we can help each other in emit app and social media.</p>



<p>Do you find it?</p>



<p>David Bisset: Do you find it's easy to find people, other people who know WordPress in your area?</p>



<p>Hend Chen: Baby, because we know each other big we joined meet app and know each other use pressed. [00:04:00]</p>



<p>David Bisset: Yeah. You say it's like a big family. You must not know my family. We constantly fight actually.</p>



<p>It's beginning to, yeah. It's beginning to get my, like my family in that a little bit. Eric, how long have you been in WordPress again?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: I would say maybe four years. Four years since I was, yeah, since I first joined a WordPress meetup in Taipei and yeah.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Oh, so did you start the meetup or do you in the one you're in</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: as, for, as for organizing meetups it has been three years, so I joined the WordPress community in 2017 and in 2018 we have, we had our first work camp in Taiwan.</p>



<p>And then after that we started our logo meetups.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Yeah. So what's the what's the word press community in the community that associates with you folks in [00:05:00] Taiwan? Is it like a lot of developers, a lot of WordPress, beginners or users? Are they people trying to build websites or just what's the mix like?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: I think. Most people or maybe hand can answer these questions.</p>



<p>Hend Chen: I think there are different job in our bid up that developer designer we, we Clare to different job join us. So in our bid, Oh one they are, they have different jobs. One is CIF and one is no year</p>



<p>David Bisset: oh, wow.</p>



<p>Hend Chen: So it's not the only</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: developer</p>



<p>David Bisset: you got your food and your legal needs taken care of right.</p>



<p>In your own meetup. So these people are from different backgrounds, not necessarily developers they're business owners. It sounds or they're working for themselves.</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Indeed. Indeed. We have [00:06:00] various people here in Taiwan.</p>



<p>David Bisset: So what subjects do you usually talk about at your meetups?</p>



<p>Is it more beginner stuff or is it Gutenberg or is it plugins or what's the usual, what's the typical?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: It actually depends on which meetups in our local meetup where in Korean. And usually we have some. Beginners oriented topics, like how to troubleshooting your website, how to install plugins or how to start with block editors, that kind of stuff.</p>



<p>But the Dean Taipei which is another meetup and Taiwan there are more like SEL managers or developers or. Plugin sharing.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Yeah. I'm really trying to interrogate you, you to please forgive me. [00:07:00] What we talk a lot about in the recent, the WordPress community has talked a lot about like young people in the next generation to continue to like WordPress getting bigger and growing.</p>



<p>Do you see a lot of young people in your communities and the last couple of years, or is it mostly old folks?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: By definition, I think David, you are, you're young people, correct answer,</p>



<p>David Bisset: but then now that you read the card I gave you correctly do you see like school, age, teenagers, college people.</p>



<p>Do you see any of that coming through or do you tend to. Do you see it? Do you see any trends in far as the age and the kind of people that come in, do you think its like a younger fresher crowd or do you think it's like an older, more mature? Oh</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: actually I recently I found there are couple of couple of younger generations join us.</p>



<p>For example, we have. We actually have a member, a young, enthusiastic who is in his third year of high [00:08:00] school. And he tried to, we actually have him to. Co-organized our local meetups. Wow.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Yeah. That's great. Young</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: blood. Yeah. So he, current he's currently helping us with the meetup venue.</p>



<p>Yeah.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Oh, wow. And hand, how old are you? Cause you looked so good.</p>



<p>Hend Chen: No, I'm older than Eric. I ordered it.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Whatever skin moisturizer you're using keep going, because wow. I think my kids are, my kids look older than you. Of course, maybe this, maybe it's the stress of being my, me being their father.</p>



<p>Let's talk about work camp Taiwan now. How many is how many work camp Taiwan's have there been? Is this the second? Did I remember that?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: With this third word camp or in Taiwan, but if the [00:09:00] first word camp Taiwan, we had two war camps type. Hey, before.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Ah, yes. So this means like this mean that covers the entire country.</p>



<p>Which implies that how did this get started? Especially with the COVID stuff coming through. When did you decide, or when was there a decision made that an in-person meetup was possible that it could happen and who was involved in that?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Actually I was inspired by a deputy work press community, deputy code Harry.</p>



<p>I'm not sure if</p>



<p>David Bisset: his name is.</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Hairy. Yes. H a R I Harry. Oh,</p>



<p>David Bisset: okay. Sorry. I was thinking Harry and the Hendersons for a second that this didn't take well. Okay. You were inspired by a deputy. And what did that deputy do that inspired you?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: He was asking whether Taiwan is doing, do you have a hybrid word camp?</p>



<p>Because in Taiwan our authority allows us to have [00:10:00] in-person gathering. Within 50 people and 50</p>



<p>David Bisset: people and under</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: 50 people in honor. So that means we can legally hold our in-person meetups while we make those meals. Watch show of a watch party of WordCamp fishing. So he was asking whether we can try this kind of hybrid format of four camp.</p>



<p>And I was, I w I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. So we started it.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Wow. So first before we go any further, what's the date of the word campus?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: It's December 11th and 20 and 12th, December 11th and 12th.</p>



<p>David Bisset: So I don't have a calendar in front of me. Is that a Saturday or a Sunday or is it a Friday or is</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: it yes it's a Saturday and Sunday.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Okay. Yeah. You still have Saturdays and Sundays over there, just like we do. Yes. Thank you. Thank [00:11:00] you, Mr. Lee. Thank you, Mr. Brain. So you mentioned before, I was about to ask you what the challenges for organizing and running events like this are not just because of COVID in health, but because of there are, I was, I'm glad you brought it up.</p>



<p>Cause I didn't know a way to bring up government the government. Every government's got something, no matter where you live, but I know yours was particularly picky in particular, and I'm guessing the number of physical people meeting together is one of those things. One of those challenges how are you going to do that with this work camp?</p>



<p>Are you going to have, who's going to show up physically and who's not, or how does that work?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Actually in our idea of hybrid war camp the men session will be online. It will be a virtual word camp as usual. It's still a virtual workload camp. So every everyone in the world can do.</p>



<p>Watch the word came online while [00:12:00] we use we asked some meetup organizers to organize their meetups. So there will be five meetups during the event and all meetups will be a watch party of our work camp session. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. In that case we can still have some offline interactions and while we make while we make sure that we fit the work camp sideline, because yeah, because it wasn't allowed before.</p>



<p>In prison, war camps were not allowed before.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Yeah. So it's kinda there's a hub of. Of a group of people that are meeting in person that are that's like a, that's like a work camp, but all the watch parties or the meetup groups are interacting with that. And that collectively altogether is where is the work camp?</p>



<p>Taiwan. It sounds like to me. [00:13:00] So the, you have these people, not only from around the country, but all the way around the world, whoever wants to join in yes. How many people from the meetups together about is that. 50 or a hundred or</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: it still depends on the location. Like the meetup type hate.</p>



<p>They estimate that there will be 20 or 30 people and we estimate how many hands you journey. Try</p>



<p>Hend Chen: and keep around 20 people.</p>



<p>David Bisset: A it's a nice, good social sizes, right? Yeah. So what are you planning on? Spoil us a little bit. What are you planning? What's your speaker lineup look like? Or what's your look like so far?</p>



<p>What you've got going on, what you have planned</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: work camp Taiwan is going to [00:14:00] be a few days after the release of word, press 5.9. We</p>



<p>David Bisset: actually, can we check the calendar on that? Cause that date's been shifting at the time of just, you may want to look at I'm not sure I'm a little foggy right now, but 5.9 has been shifted around a little bit but anyway, let's just assume, let's just assume so far.</p>



<p>Yeah.</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: And so we actually invite a member from core team too, to demonstrate what 5.9 is going to be. And it will be our keynote.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Oh, wow. You're not going to tell me a name. Aren't you. You're going to keep it a secret. Aren't you who that is? That's okay. I'm used to people keeping secrets from me.</p>



<p>Are you, is how many is it? Is it. It's two days. So is attracts both days. Is there are anything dealing with contributors or what's the schedule like?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: [00:15:00] We're going to have two tracks. One is the regular session track and the Ardagh is a workshop. So actually we have three workshops. So far, yeah, we have three, three workshops.</p>



<p>One is about localization. One is about security and cure two or four focusing on security. Yeah.</p>



<p>David Bisset: And then you're going to have like normal speakers, non workshop speakers, giving their presentations. Yeah. So on both days, Oh, so is it going to be how much of it is going to be in English and how much of it is your Nate is the native language.</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: So there will be four English speakers and one English workshop and the rest. They are Excuse [00:16:00] me that we calculate. So there are two Mandarin workshops and</p>



<p>David Bisset: excuse me. Oh, it's okay. I've run out of fingers to count on my own. I'm trying</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: to I'm bad. I'm bad at math. Okay. So we have 10 mandarins. We have 10 mentoring sessions and to two workshops.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Yeah. So you met her? No, go ahead. Go ahead. No, go ahead. No. So it's Mandarin and English.</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Mandarin.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Did I say Mandarin? I don't know. There's a show here called the Mandalorian. I'm just impressed. I didn't say Mandalorian. Why do you have English involved in your conference? Is there enough people apart of your groups that speak it or you, or are you doing it for the sake of the outside world?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: We're at [00:17:00] FC have, we're actually getting more. Foreign speakers involved because we try to get the Taiwan, WordPress community. We're trying to bring our community to the world. So yeah, one of, one of the purposes is to have other like foreign attendees to join our work camp.</p>



<p>David Bisset: And why do you, why is that so important?</p>



<p>I may know the answer, but I want to hear it from you.</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: You mean why bringing</p>



<p>David Bisset: Taiwan to no. Why bringing the speakers to Taiwan? Why is that important for you?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Because how do I elaborate lists? I think the main reason is just</p>



<p>Hend Chen: It,</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: English is still the most understandable language out around the world and having English speakers can [00:18:00] make can make this work camp more inclusive to people.</p>



<p>Speaking any kind of</p>



<p>David Bisset: language. Do you also think that it brings some knowledge. Bye. I can only speak from experience. I run board camp, Miami. It's an America, it's, the English is the only language, unless there's a little bit of Spanish in there, but one of the reasons why I like to bring people to work camps locally from out of town is because our local community doesn't have someone who knows about this subject.</p>



<p>Or this subject, we're a big, we're a bigger community, but that doesn't mean we know everything. And, there are people that are community that want to hear about developer topics, certain developer topics, or certain marketing topics. And they just don't get that from the local people in the area, because a lot of our people have been new their beginners or their users or their chefs or their lawyers.</p>



<p>They don't have. Yeah. They want some, they want to talk to [00:19:00] someone or see someone face to face who has this knowledge. So if we can't find it locally, we ship it in. We get people to speak. And a lot of those people are well-known in the WordPress community. We don't just grab people cause they're big names and put them on our stage.</p>



<p>We, just to make ourselves look good. Oh, look at who we have on stage. It's because our local community, we want our local community to have this, these talks and this information and it's online, but also it's better. It's also just as good as to have it inside the work camp in person, in front of everyone, in an audience.</p>



<p>Do you feel that, do you feel that way sometimes with your community? Like you like to bring in people because you want to expose the community to these ideas and these thoughts from these people?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Yeah.</p>



<p>David Bisset: You're a man of few words. I like highlight you. You agree completely. But no, from one word camp organizer to another, I think that's, if you're thinking about the good overall of your local committee, [00:20:00] Then, word camps are supposed to be highly local, but if you're stuck, not stuck, stuck as the wrong word, but if you're in a place geographically or language wise there's a little bit of a barrier, whether it's physical or language or something else, then how do you get your WordPress community to grow or in knowledge and in.</p>



<p>And I think you have one of, I think one of your ideas, pretty good. One, get someone from core to do the keynote, explain about WordPress, get people, making, by making some of it English at all. It's easier to allow certain speakers to be able to give talks at your event. I'm just glad that many people can understand and or translate that.</p>



<p>I listened to talk sometimes from speakers and my English. And so I'm, I almost need a translation and it's still English. So speaking of the global community what do you feel, how do you feel Taiwan has been [00:21:00] considered by the global WordPress community? Do you feel like it's been okay.</p>



<p>Or do you feel like there, there should be more attention to your general area of the globe? Do you feel like that there's, there's too much, there's not enough attention being put in your, in, in that area. I was talking with Mary from word camp network camp, Mary Jo from Africa last week.</p>



<p>And we had the same conversation, the same question about, do you do you feel like I'm a little underrepresented in the WordPress community globally? Are you, or are you happy or what do you wish. The WordPress community can do to shine a better spotlight on your area because there's some great talent everywhere, including your area.</p>



<p>Do you feel a little awkward or do you feel like you're not missing anything in Taiwan from the WordPress community standpoint?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: I think due to some. Language barrier. I think [00:22:00] Taiwanese people are nuts. Taking part into taking part in the global WordPress community proactively.</p>



<p>And meanwhile I think the world has a. Thing how the potential, what the potential of Taiwan community can bring. And that's the reason why we're, we are actually trying to bridge the global WordPress community and the local, the Taiwan, local WordPress community. Yeah. And But actually Taiwan is a tiny island.</p>



<p>And we're not a very big market here. I think we're a part of the Southeast Asia and I think, that's how did I say. I think that's also a chance for us to work with this [00:23:00] region.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Yeah. Yeah. There's, I've never been in that part of the world. I always wanted to though there's always some beautiful places in Taiwan and Japan and all those islands in that area, then there is what can, the people in the WordPress community do to help.</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: I think I think what you what people can outside can do is to. To join, to respond our invitations. If we try to reach, if we try to reach this like speakers and but actually I think the men problems is still inside. As I mentioned, we haven't been proactively participating in the.</p>



<p>So I wouldn't say, I think the [00:24:00] resource from the global community is currently I think it's enough because whatever I want to look for, I want to look for, I can get the answers. Yeah. So I think the support from outside is enough and. That's that brings to another point of mine.</p>



<p>I think what our local community country can do is to do more localizations, to to encourage people to encourage people to. Join to follow the guideline, to know what WordPress community really is and so on.</p>



<p>David Bisset: And if we, if anybody in the WordPress community can help to make that better and easier for you, that would be a good thing.</p>



<p>And I'm sure some of the speakers would like some of the speakers could Lost my train of thought, this will be edited out, but [00:25:00] some of the, some of those people that need to be able to hear your invitations to, to come that word can be spread. And there is a lot of whether you're a small island or your, a big continent, I think like Africa or Asia, I think there's enough diversity in thinking.</p>



<p>That we're missing so much potential in the WordPress community as a whole, and it can make us stronger if we listen to those voices and participate in those communities. That's, and that's why we did those mega meetups very early on because a lot of the meetup organizers with dealing with the first year of COVID, a lot of people had a lot of famous.</p>



<p>Things they needed to take care of, mental stress issues. So we thought, why don't we just get one virtual meetup together? And then once we figured out these people were coming from all these different countries like yourself, then you know it's a global community, but it's, it really puts the global and the [00:26:00] global community.</p>



<p>Because like before, before COVID we always could communicate with people outside of our local areas or our country. But some people now depended on it now in the last year or two, to be able to meet new people or explore or get new ideas. And I'm very happy to hear though that the WordPress information that you're able to find is available to you.</p>



<p>Not everybody has. That privilege, if I'm assuming that you mean you, is there, if somebody doesn't speak English and it's Mandarin, is there enough Mandarin information in WordPress for most people?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Not yet. And that's what we are</p>



<p>David Bisset: working on. That's the translation. Are you part of the translation team or work with them?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Yes. I'm yeah,</p>



<p>David Bisset: that's okay. I haven't had my coffee either. What time is it or.</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: You mean now it's 10 half 10.</p>



<p>David Bisset: Oh, wow. [00:27:00] See, that's past my bedtime. Yeah. How, if people wanted to sign up for work camp Taiwan, what's the best way to do it? Actually</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: we have our tweet account and people can also find us on the word.</p>



<p>I think people can find us on the WordPress dashboard because we're now on the dashboard. And if anyone wants to find us on the Twitter, Yeah, our account is word camp Taiwan. Straight-forward</p>



<p>David Bisset: oh, good. You didn't try any fancy, a naming convention. Sarah, you almost fit it perfectly.</p>



<p>We're going to drop a link for the Twitter account and the website into the show notes as well. So whenever people read the podcast, there'll be able to click on all of this. If you have personal accounts to both of you, please share them with me and I'll put them in. And the show notes as well.</p>



<p>[00:28:00] Is there anything else that you would like to share with the WordPress community?</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: Oh I want to make some, make a correction. I hate to do but I have to do yeah, we're actually working teed up. Yeah. It's the, ah, making the Taiwan. Yeah. Okay. MTW yeah, TW</p>



<p>David Bisset: it wasn't that long couldn't fit those characters in there after all.</p>



<p>Okay. That's fine. I'm sure people will figure it out. It's been a pleasure and an honor, and it's good to see your face. It's good</p>



<p>Eric Chuang: to see you and yes. And we are very, it's our honor to, to be on your podcast.</p>



<p>David Bisset: First of all, it's not my podcast. And second of all, I don't know what you call a definition of honor, but I'll let that stay.</p>



<p>I look forward to the time where we can see each other in person safely, whether that's at a work camp outs, in the west, or, there's some day, I truly believe. Not to say that you would go to Asia because I'm not, it's closer to you than it is to me. That's the reason why I bring it up.</p>



<p>[00:29:00] Working up Asia may be a reality someday. Again, they were close, they were closed before. But yes, I would love to be able to see you, both of you in person and be able to meet you and greet you and so forth.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 03 Dec 2021 02:45:09 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"David Bisset";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:87:"WPTavern: Hello Charts Launches a Native Chart-Building Experience for the Block Editor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126204";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:219:"https://wptavern.com/hello-charts-launches-a-native-chart-building-experience-for-the-block-editor?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hello-charts-launches-a-native-chart-building-experience-for-the-block-editor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7638:"<p class="has-drop-cap">Luke Carbis and Rob Stinson, two of the three-person Block Lab team that <a href="https://wptavern.com/block-lab-team-joins-wp-engine-looks-to-the-future-of-block-building">WP Engine picked up in 2020</a>, are back together on a new project. This time, they are joined by Byron Keet. The trio is taking on the WordPress charts space via a suite of blocks named <a href="https://hellocharts.co/">Hello Charts</a>.</p>



<p>&#8220;Some folks launch deals on Black Friday,&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/hellocharts/status/1464036577244434435">wrote the team last week</a> in only its second tweet since July. &#8220;We&#8217;re launching an entire product!&#8221;</p>



<p>Carbis pointed out that the team strived to create a block-editor native plugin. There are no admin screens or settings pages, and the user just works from the editor.</p>



<p>The marketing material on the website homepage claims that Hello Charts is &#8220;the first charts plugin built block editor first.&#8221; However, <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/sb-chart-block/">SB Charts</a> has been around for nearly a year, and <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/chart-block/">Chart Block</a> landed in the WordPress plugin directory several weeks ago. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/charts-blocks/">Charts Blocks for Gutenberg</a>, which supports CSV imports, got its initial release half a year ago but has not been updated since.</p>



<p>The claim of being first is, perhaps, a slipup in marketing. The only reason I spotted it immediately is that I have been keeping a close eye on similar plugins for a while, hoping to find a decent charts solution for the block editor. While Hello Charts may not technically be the first to land, it offers the best user experience yet.</p>



<p>For most cases, I rely on bar and line charts. However, the plugin offers five block types in total:</p>



<ul><li>Bar Chart</li><li>Line Chart</li><li>Pie Chart</li><li>Polar Area Chart</li><li>Radar Chart</li></ul>



<p>Each works almost the same when entering data and customizing the output. There are a few options and controls that are specific to each type. Plus, users can transform from one chart block to another and back again at the click of a button without losing data.</p>



<p>After familiarizing myself with the options, I built a three-year product sales data chart by month. I started with the Bar Chart Block, which made the most sense. Each of the blocks has an &#8220;Edit Chart Data&#8221; button. Clicking it opens an overlay on the screen that works like a typical spreadsheet program.</p>



<img />Chart data overlay.



<p>Users can tab through each cell, adding data and creating new datasets or rows. There are options for duplicating datasets or adding new ones before/after by clicking the ellipsis button. It all felt straightforward for someone who has not spent a lot of time working with spreadsheet software since high school computer class.</p>



<p>After a couple of minutes, I had a bar chart. All I needed to do was adjust it to use my theme colors.</p>



<img />Bar Chart block.



<p>The plugin&#8217;s customization options were plentiful but balanced enough to not become overbearing. I just wanted it to match my theme&#8217;s design without a lot of fuss, and it did not take long to make that happen.</p>



<p>I added a Line Chart block to the editor using my existing data. The only adjustment I needed to make was the &#8220;Curve&#8221; option. I wanted my lines to look straight instead of flowing in waves. I was already wondering if the team had thought of everything before I knew I even needed it at that point.</p>



<img />Line Chart block.



<p>For good measure, I tested out the Pie Chart block. It is a chart type that I may get the occasional use out of. Overall, it performed as well as the others.</p>



<p>The feature I missed was printing the data for each of the pie segments on the screen. The data is available via a popup on hover or focus, but visitors cannot see all of the segment data at once.</p>



<img />Pie Chart block.



<p>Admittedly, I did not spend much time with the Polar Area Chart and Radar Chart blocks. My experience with them is non-existent in real-world scenarios, so I do not have a solid grasp on whether there are features that others might want. I simply tested them to make sure they worked. Like the other blocks in the set, I hit no issues.</p>



<p>I would like to see a title or caption option integrated into the plugin&#8217;s blocks. However, both are easily added with a Heading or Paragraph block. To match the background, wrapping in a Group block helps, as shown in the following screenshot:</p>



<img />Grouping a chart to add a title.



<p>A couple of other welcome features would be color options for the X and Y-axis lines and the data text along with block-gap or margin support. The legend spacing left a little to be desired, often butting up too close to the chart output. It has several positioning options, but it needs some extra whitespace, especially when it sits at the top or bottom.</p>



<p>Overall, I could not find much to complain about. Hello Charts is a plugin I would recommend to anyone who needs a chart solution that works like it was built for the WordPress block system.</p>



<h2 id="purchasing-flow-and-setting-up">Purchasing Flow and Setting Up</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">You can get a bit of mileage out of the current free block plugins, but Hello Charts is well worth the <a href="https://hellocharts.co/#pricing">price upgrade</a>. It may even be underpriced for the value. If the team builds in CSV imports, it would be an outright steal.</p>



<p>Users can buy the five individual block types for $4 individually or upgrade to get them all for $16. These offer lifetime updates for a single site with no support. There is a heftier $199 tier for unlimited sites and a year of support.</p>



<p>There is only a single plugin that users must install. Each of the block types is bundled in the plugin. Users are technically buying a license key to activate each one.</p>



<p>Carbis offered me discount codes to test how this purchasing flow worked and provide feedback. The team wanted to take a different route with purchasing blocks. Instead of creating an all-or-nothing deal for users, they could just purchase what they actually need. &#8220;So if you need a bar chart, just buy a bar chart block,&#8221; said Carbis. &#8220;Or you can get all the chart types as a set.&#8221;</p>



<p>I had no problems going through the purchasing flow. I began with the Bar Chart, a block that I would need more often than the others. Then, I upgraded to the entire set.</p>



<p>The only hiccup I had at first was figuring out how to activate the licenses since the plugin did not have a settings page. The license field is actually on the Plugins admin screen.</p>



<img />License key field on Plugins screen.



<p>The downside to having separate licenses for each block type is that users must enter the key for one, submit it, wait for the page to reload, scroll down to the plugin, and start all over again with another license. The process was so painful that I wanted to forego testing the chart types I had no interest in. However, I pressed forward, entering license key after license key.</p>



<p>Yes, I am exaggerating a tiny bit, but it would be far easier to enter multiple license keys at once or not wait for the page load. This just happened to be one part of the experience that did not live up to the standard set by the rest of the plugin.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 03 Dec 2021 01:03:42 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Justin Tadlock";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"WPTavern: #10 – What’s in WordPress 5.9, and What Is Openverse?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=126316";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:167:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/10-whats-in-wordpress-5-9-and-what-is-openverse?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=10-whats-in-wordpress-5-9-and-what-is-openverse";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71879:"<h2 id="about-this-episode">About this episode.</h2>



<p>On the podcast today we have something new. Until now I’ve interviewed one person at a time, but today there’s three people on the call, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/bph/">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/mkaz/">Marcus Kazmierczak</a> and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/zackkrida/">Zack Krida</a>.</p>



<p>Birgit is a Developer Advocate for WordPress and is an ardent supporter of the Gutenberg project. She publishes the <a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/">Gutenberg Times</a> and co-hosts the <a href="https://wppodcasts.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog/">Gutenberg Changelog podcast</a>.</p>



<p>Marcus is a team leader at Automattic. His team is involved in Gutenberg, and has been working on it from the start. Marcus is also the documentation lead for the 5.9 release of WordPress.</p>



<p>Zack is the team lead of the <a href="https://wordpress.org/openverse/">Openverse</a> project, which will be the focus of the later part of the podcast.</p>



<p>So WordPress 5.9 is just around the corner. Initially scheduled for release in December 2021, it has now been pushed back until January 2022.</p>



<p>It’s an important release for a multitude of reasons, but perhaps the headline item is Full Site Editing. Full Site Editing, or FSE, will change the way that WordPress websites are built. Areas which were once the domain of template files and of developers will now be editable from inside the Block Editor.</p>



<p>The intention is to make everything much easier to work with, but it’s a big departure from how things have been done until now.</p>



<p>We’re moving into an era of Block Themes, Template Parts, Theme.json files and much more. But what does all this mean? Well, Birgit and Marcus are here to explain what’s coming in WordPress 5.9, why the changes have been made, and how you can make use of them.</p>



<p>Later in the podcast we pivot and have a discussion with Zack about Openverse. If you’ve not heard of Openverse, it is a search engine for openly-licensed media. It makes it possible to find media from a growing catalogue of freely contributed assets.</p>



<p>The project has been going for a while (it was previously called <a href="https://search.creativecommons.org/">CC Search</a>), but was recently brought under the stewardship of the WordPress Project. We talk about how you can make use of Openverse and what kind of media is available there. We get into how media is licensed and why this project is a good fit for WordPress, and we round off with some thoughts on how it will integrate with the Block Editor in the future.</p>



Transcript<div>
<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:00:00] Welcome to the 10th edition of the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the themes, the blocks. And in this case, the next release of WordPress and the Openverse project. Each month, we bring you people from that community and discuss a topic of current interest.</p>



<p>If you like the podcast, please share it with your friends, and you might also like to think about subscribing so that you can get all of the episodes in your podcast player Automattically, and you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to WP Tavern dot com forward slash feed forward slash podcast.</p>



<p>You can also play the podcast episodes directly on the WP Tavern website, if you prefer that. If you have any thoughts about the podcast, perhaps a suggestion of a guest or an interesting subject, then head over to WP Tavern dot com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox and use the contact form there. And we would certainly welcome your input.</p>



<p>Okay, so today on the podcast, we have something new until now I&#8217;ve interviewed one person at a time, but today there&#8217;s three of us on the call Birgit Pauli-Haack, Marcus Kazmierczak and Zack Krida. Birgit is a developer advocate for WordPress and is an ardent supporter of the Gutenberg project. She publishes the Gutenberg Times and cohosts the Gutenberg Changelog podcast.</p>



<p>Marcus is a team leader at Automattic. His team is involved in Gutenberg and has been working on it from the start. Marcus is also the documentation lead for the 5.9 release of WordPress.</p>



<p>Zack is the team lead of the Openverse project, which will be the focus of the latter part of the podcast.</p>



<p>So WordPress 5.9 is just around the corner. Initially scheduled for release in December 2021, it has now been pushed back until January 2022. It&#8217;s an important release for a multitude of reasons, but perhaps the headline item is Full Site Editing. Full Site Editing or F S E will change the way that WordPress websites are built. Areas which will once the domain of template files and of developers will now be editable from inside the Block Editor.</p>



<p>The intention is to make everything much easier to work with, but it&#8217;s a big departure from how things have been done until now. We&#8217;re moving into an era of block themes, template parts, theme dot json files, and much more. But what does this all mean? Well, Birgit and Marcus are here to explain what&#8217;s coming in WordPress 5.9, why the changes have been made and how you can make use of them.</p>



<p>Later in the podcast, we pivot to have a discussion with Zack about Openverse.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;ve not heard of Openverse, it&#8217;s a search engine for openly licensed media. It makes it possible to find media from a growing catalog of freely contributed assets. The project has been going for quite awhile. It was previously called CC Search, but it was recently brought under the stewardship of the WordPress project.</p>



<p>We talk about how you can make use of Openverse and what kind of media is available there. We get into how media is licensed and why this project is a good fit for WordPress. And we round off with some thoughts on how it will integrate with the Block Editor in the future. It&#8217;s a deep and broad discussion. And if any of the points raised in this podcast, resonate with you, be sure to head over and find the posts that WP Tavern dot com forward slash podcast, and leave us a comment there. And so without further delay, I bring you Birgit Pauli-Haack, Marcus Kazmierczak and Zack Krida.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by three guests. This is the first time we&#8217;ve had a panel discussion on the WP Tavern Jukebox podcast. So it should be something a little bit different. Firstly, I&#8217;m joined by Birgit Pauli-Haack. Hello Birgit.</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: [00:05:02] Nathan, thanks for having us.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:05:04] You are very welcome and I am also joined by Marcus Kazmierczak.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:05:09] Hello. Glad to be here.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:05:10] Thank you also for joining us. And finally I am joined by Zack Krida.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:05:15] Hey Nathan. Thanks for having me.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:05:16] You&#8217;re very welcome. Now, in order to give some context to this conversation it&#8217;s probably a good idea to go through the panelists. I&#8217;m going to ask because of time constraints that we just keep it fairly brief, but a little bit of a background as to what your position is at the moment regarding WordPress. I should also say that this podcast is going to be focusing on the upcoming release of WordPress 5.9. And that will probably represent roughly half of the content, maybe a little bit more than that, but we&#8217;re also going to stray into something totally different, which is called Openverse. So that being said, maybe if we go to Birgit first, could you just tell us what your position is in the WordPress community, your employed status, and so on?</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: [00:06:00] Yes. So I&#8217;m a developer advocate sponsored for WordPress, sponsored by Automattic. And I publish the Gutenberg Times. Co-host the Gutenberg Changelog podcast and run a YouTube channel for the Gutenberg Times.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:06:14] Thank you very much, indeed. Okay. Moving right along to Marcus.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:06:18] Hello, I&#8217;m a team lead at Automattic. I&#8217;ve been at Automattic for nine years. I&#8217;ve been working on Gutenberg now for three or four years. My team has been there since the start we&#8217;ve been greatly involved and this is my first lead role on a release. I&#8217;m the documentation lead for WordPress 5.9.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:06:36] Thank you so much. And finally, Zack.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:06:39] I am the team lead on the Openverse project. We&#8217;re a group of developers sponsored by Automattic to build Openverse. Which I&#8217;ll give you a lot more information on shortly.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:06:48] Yeah. Okay. It&#8217;s a really going to be a really fascinating project, an awful lot to go through. I wonder if we&#8217;ll pack in all of the things that we hope to pack in, but we&#8217;ll give it a go. So we were on the cusp of having 5.9, WordPress 5.9 in our hands. This was due to happen well, sooner than it&#8217;s in fact going to happen. I don&#8217;t know which of you want to field this question. Anybody following WordPress will know that there has been a delay in the advent of 5.9, as much as six weeks is what I&#8217;m hearing at the moment. And I&#8217;m wondering if it might be possible to explain why this has happened. People may be thinking well, if something&#8217;s clearly gone wrong. But there&#8217;s probably a logical explanation for it, I&#8217;m sure.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:07:32] Yes. I can start the answer and Birgit can add in any color if he likes the new schedule was just released yesterday. So if you look at Make Core site it has a full schedule. We&#8217;re looking at the beta was moved out two weeks and then the final then there&#8217;s going to be a set of beta releases and release candidates, with that final release scheduled for January 25th.</p>



<p>The reason it was scheduled so far out because it beta was only delayed two weeks, but the overall release is probably what was it? Mid December previously. So now maybe six weeks out. And that&#8217;s mostly due to holidays, the Thanksgiving holiday in America this week. And then there&#8217;s the slew of December holidays and New Year&#8217;s. So each of those kind of ended up bumping it extra weeks. It&#8217;s not, we needed six more weeks of development. It was, we needed one or two more weeks to get things all straightened up and cleaned up, so we had an excellent experience. And we wanted to make sure that it was fine, but with the holidays, it ended up moving out further.</p>



<p>The reasoning for the delays, more or less, it just wasn&#8217;t quite as ready. There&#8217;s a lot of late changes. The Full Site Editing, which we&#8217;ll get into is a huge set of features and a lot of them are interrelated and we really want it to be a great experience when we launch. And there&#8217;s a lot of late changes that just needed to be worked through a couple of times and get the flows really clean and nice. And we weren&#8217;t comfortable with that initial beta. So we wanted to move it back a couple of weeks and get all those others issues ironed out and straightened out.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:09:01] Birgit, anything to add to that?</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: [00:09:03] Yeah, sometimes when you have something like that, most of the time WordPress actually decides to take out the features that are not finished and then released without the feature and kind of put the features in the next time. But it was so intertwined that it was jeopardizing a lot more than just that one particular feature or module. Because it would have affected the whole Full Site Editing experience. There were design refinements, there were workflow issues, browsing issues, or block theme considerations. If you move one of that thing, that module, then you wouldn&#8217;t have a, it would delay also the default theme.</p>



<p>Everybody is waiting for a good, the community&#8217;s waiting for Full Site Editing that was promised for 5.9. And overall, I think it&#8217;s the best decision, that outcome from the release team to say, okay let&#8217;s just move the first beta two weeks. Even if it delays the whole release for five weeks instead of two weeks, but it&#8217;s a better experience that comes out of it and everything else falls into place.</p>



<p>And it would have, if I&#8217;m, what I&#8217;m reading also was that it would have been a similar, hard to pull out the features then to fix them. Yeah. So I think there was also a consideration there.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:10:24] Now there are some big releases of WordPress. When we do point releases, there are some that are certainly bigger than others, and the anticipation builds up. New features, think back to 5.0, which was a fairly sizeable release and, it was widely anticipated, and so on. This one seems to be on that level. It&#8217;s bringing new features and new capabilities to WordPress, which really are going to dramatically change the scope of what&#8217;s possible. And whilst we haven&#8217;t got time to cover every single feature, I&#8217;m just wondering if it&#8217;s possible between the three of you, if we can hoover up and mention the things that well, it may be that the criteria there is that the things that you&#8217;re most excited about, or it may be that you&#8217;re not personally excited about it, but you realize that for the project as a whole, it&#8217;s going to be a great addition.</p>



<p>So in no particular order, I wonder if you could mention some of the highlight items, the things that you believe are going to make 5.9 a released to remember.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:11:19] I can start. The 5.0 release introduced the block editor and introduced blocks, but it was maintained just around pages and posts. And what 5.9 is looking at doing is bringing all of that to the rest of WordPress.</p>



<p>At least from a theming standpoint. So from the page layout to page designs. And so the block theme is probably what I&#8217;m most excited about, but it&#8217;s not just the theme, but it&#8217;s bringing all the capabilities of blocks and the concepts of blocks to the rest of WordPress. And it all stems from a single block to expand out, and then you get into patterns which are sets of blocks. You get into a block theme, which is truly just a collection of patterns to a certain degree. You have like template parts, which is a collection of blocks and you can end up building on all these resources and building richer and richer interfaces all based upon just a single block.</p>



<p>And so it&#8217;s really exciting to see all of it somewhat coming together in 5.9. And the great thing about it is WordPress is still WordPress. You don&#8217;t have to use a block theme, you&#8217;ll still be able to use normal themes. There&#8217;s not going to be anything breaking in there. That&#8217;s going to be a big change. If you opt out of, if you use a existing theme or you&#8217;re not using a block theme, it will still be the great WordPress that you know. So again it&#8217;s a kind of an iterative approach of bringing it on, but once you start using block themes, it really does open up to a lot more use in a lot more capabilities, which is, I think it&#8217;s going to be really exciting.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:12:51] Great. So you covered a lot of ground there, Marcus. That&#8217;s fabulous. Thank you.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:12:55] I&#8217;ve got more to cover.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:12:56] I&#8217;ll tell you what let&#8217;s keep that in mind. We&#8217;ll circle back. Let&#8217;s go through everybody at least one pass and then perhaps a second pass as well. That sounds good. So maybe I could go to Zack next.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:13:07] Sure and again, I feel like this is something that Marcus can always speak to an even greater detail than I can, but I&#8217;m really excited about improvements made to the navigation block and there&#8217;s been a really tremendous amount of work done there, just streamlining those flows for users. And I think it&#8217;s a pretty core part of five nine.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:13:27] Thank you very much and Birgit.</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: [00:13:29] Yeah, I&#8217;m totally excited about it because as Marcus said, the block comes to every piece of WordPress now. So all the mysteries that user had to learn about like the shortcodes and the widgets and the menu items and the templates and theme, and then you switch a theme and your site is different and loses some content and all that.</p>



<p>That is going away, if you let it. Just to reiterate, unless you use a block theme that&#8217;s specifically built for Full Site Editing, nothing&#8217;s going to change with 5.9 for you. So there is not a whole, with 5.0, we actually had that the Block Editor took over the editing screen. This is not happening in with Full Site Editing or block themes.</p>



<p>But if you have it, once you get your feet wet, you like that you can change the header of your theme, that you can change how the post list, yeah, that&#8217;s on your front page or that&#8217;s on your news site, the information that&#8217;s there, everything that you can edit there, usually would require another plugin or another developer to go in there and help you to make that small change, like changing the format of the date or adding the avatar for the author or something like that.</p>



<p>You can do this all through the interface. And then you have the whole set of design tools that come with what was labeled earlier, global styles, that is in the, in 5.8, WordPress introduced the theme json file, which is our centralized configuration and settlings file for theme editors or theme developers, and now you also, 5.9 brings the interface, so that any user can use and change those settings. Be it the background, be it how each block looks in typography, color and layout as well.</p>



<p>So I&#8217;m really excited about that part, that there&#8217;s a lot of controls that come back to a user. And I know what designers are gonna say, oh I don&#8217;t want them to change things. Yeah, users normally don&#8217;t have a good feel for design, and that&#8217;s mostly true. But it also, there are now really good controls in there that a theme developer can apply to help a user with the choices of background colors, being a color palette, even switch out between color palettes. So that is certainly something that will come in 6.0, but we see the proof of concept already.</p>



<p>Yeah, so that is really exciting to me and the, what comes with it or the pattern enhancements, the block patterns, which are sections, as Marcus said, a collection of blocks that are specifically designed for a purpose, be it a header pattern, be it a gallery pattern, or just a call to action, like a pricing column pattern. Those on now prominently displayed in a better browsing experience.</p>



<p>So I really liked that. So the choices on pulling a page together you can now do in a few minutes instead of spending hours on it through template editing.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:16:50] Thank you. I&#8217;m going to swing around one more time, just in case Marcus or Zack or Birgit feels like missed anything or there&#8217;s something that we just left lying on the ground there. So we&#8217;ll take one more pass. Marcus, anything that you feel we didn&#8217;t mention so far?</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:17:05] A couple of things, just a couple of clarifications for the navigation block. If you&#8217;re not familiar, that is the menus block. So it&#8217;s a little more than just a menu. We renamed it to navigation because it&#8217;s a little bit clearer for say restaurant sites where you might have a menu category and it gets very confusing.</p>



<p>So navigation is a little bit clearer on the usage of navigation block is it&#8217;s. One of the really cool features for that is the ability to instantly create a responsive menus. So on mobile, you can have navigation automatically hide, and this just comes built into WordPress now in WordPress 5.9. So make it much, much easier. So like one of the biggest things talking about the theme developers, is navigation tends to be one of the biggest areas for development and like getting responsive writing, getting a lot of these features right, is difficult and time consuming and now becomes bundled in with 5.9. So there&#8217;s a greater ability to focus on actual design versus trying to get the CSS right for different break points and things like that. So that makes it much, much easier. Theme json&#8217;s so awesome. Like it&#8217;s going to be it&#8217;s really cool. I&#8217;m really looking forward. One of the designers Channing Ritter, had an example of switching out, testing out how switching out theme json&#8217;s will allow you to create multiple, like versions of a site very easily.</p>



<p>And it&#8217;s almost the, I think I Justin, might&#8217;ve had a comment about, it&#8217;s almost like the CSS Zen Garden ability for WordPress. I think there was an article on the Tavern about that too. It&#8217;s really powerful. And having that ability to switch it out in different themes, it&#8217;s really going to be a game changer of sorts. So that&#8217;s another piece.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:18:39] Yeah. That functionality in particular really reminds me of, much earlier days in my career where I was building WordPress themes for agencies and that ability to, as a theme developer, write one theme and then really make some dramatic changes just with configurating some color values or different styles is pretty cool.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:18:58] Yeah. I think that&#8217;s going to be for theme shops and things like that. I think that&#8217;ll be a powerful tool. And it might, a lot of this stuff too, we&#8217;ll take some time as it gets in the hands of people and we find it. It&#8217;s software, so it&#8217;s never quite complete. So there will probably will be things you want to do. Oh, I used to do this in a normal theme, and I can&#8217;t do it in a block theme. And those are opportunities to like, okay, file an issue in the Gutenberg, and we can, you can try and address it and try and get all those cases addressed. So we know it won&#8217;t be perfect, but it&#8217;s gonna be… cause it&#8217;s definitely changing the way themes and WordPress, the way you defined the theme is now going to be in HTML and blocks and not PHP.</p>



<p>So you lose a little bit of power that you might have in writing PHP functions or conditionals and things like that. And so we&#8217;ll have to… what you gain in visual design, you might lose in other areas. So as we work and edit and refine it, it&#8217;ll get better and better.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:19:49] Okay. Thank you for that. Zack, you&#8217;ve obviously had a little bit of a go there, but I don&#8217;t know if you wanted to add something new or if not, I&#8217;ll move on to Birgit</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:19:56] We could move on. So go for it Birgit.</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: [00:19:59] Yeah. So there was this time in WordPress where themes would do so much more than just theming or skinning a website and this brings, WordPress actually back to the beginning where. The theme would just the look and feel, and now you have some more control over it, but then the functionality that is added is now going back to the domain of a plugin. And when you switch themes, you are not losing that functionality that was built in into the theme before. So I think it&#8217;s Tammy Lister who was a, or is a core contributor and was the design lead for a while on Gutenberg. She really said it right with &#8220;let themes be themes again&#8221;. So I really liked that. I also wanted to mention that with the 5.9, all the features that came with the Gutenberg plugin, already released in the Gutenberg plugin between versions 10.8 and 11.9 will also come to the WordPress core. One of the features is the duotone feature, which was a little bit in 5.8, but now got a, quite a new iteration, and now you can do duotone on the backend or a background color on a background image on a foreground image. So you can do quite a few designs with that with a duotone as well as with gradients. So I&#8217;m a fan with gradients, but there are other features that I right now can&#8217;t name specifically, but it all comes together with that release.</p>



<p>And the other release item is the new gallery block. And there has been quite a few changes there. The biggest change is that the gallery block is now comprised of a single image blocks. Which brings all the image features or the image editing features the style changes and to the gallery block as well. So if you know how to do an image block or how to configure an image block, you can also do this and a gallery block.</p>



<p>And one feature, a lot of people had asked WordPress for many years, is that in a gallery block, you can add individual links to each different image has different links. So that is now possible. And if that&#8217;s only one thing that you take from 5.9, this is it.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:22:32] I was standing in a room the other day full of people who are not WordPressers. This room was filled with people who are very much into their own career. It has nothing to do with technology. And I stood in this room and I was confounded by the terminology that was floating about. And it just occurs to me that we&#8217;ve been throwing around a fair degree of technical jargon. And it may be one of the great things about WP Tavern&#8217;s audience is that there are some people who are just straying into WordPress for the first time.</p>



<p>So although you guys really know what it is that you mean by all of these things, I wonder if we might be able to go back and have a quick take on what some of these things are and how they might be useful to you in the near future. So I&#8217;ve written down more or less everything that we were speaking about over the last 10 minutes and very quickly. What are global styles? What&#8217;s the purpose of that?</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:23:21] So the global styles is for, I believe we&#8217;re just going to be calling it styles in 5.9. It is the overall, to a certain degree, just it&#8217;s the CSS. It&#8217;s a way of specifying the colors, typography, spacing, other items and properties that you would normally define in CSS and define it through the editor.</p>



<p>And then there&#8217;s a, there&#8217;ll be a new sidebar on the right. I believe it&#8217;s like an, a, like a double a icon. When you click that, you&#8217;ll see the different settings that you can have there, and that will, it ends up generating the CSS for both the front end view of the site, but also for the editor view.</p>



<p>And so it also gives a nice way to make sure that the two are consistent. So when you&#8217;re in the editor, it looks much more similar to the front end and it saves a ton of work for theme developers on creating you know, not having to duplicate a style sheet and a style editor sheet for the editor too. So it makes it much, much more consistent.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:24:24] And that ties in nicely with this theme dot json file, which is probably the most difficult one for people to parse, if they&#8217;ve no understanding of what that is, again, same question. What is it? What does it do?</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:24:35] Yeah, json just, it&#8217;s a JavaScript format. So the theme json is defining the styles and settings in a file format. It&#8217;s a text file format is, I don&#8217;t know, like a bunch of curly braces and strings. And then it&#8217;s not a thing to describe.</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: [00:24:53] It&#8217;s actually one of the more human readable code files in a theme and it has instant effect. If you want to change the color palette or two or three colors, just a tiny bit, you can do this in the theme json file, on that particular section. So it&#8217;s all kind of colors for backgrounds, colors, for texts, colors for them. If you want to change that one thing, you would get instant gratification because when you reload the page or the site it&#8217;s already changed. So it&#8217;s different from the other big elephant in the room, the build process on Gutenberg and block developing kind of things. So this goes more to the tinkerers amongst us who just want to change one little thing and they can do this in their theme json file without having to really know much about it.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:25:47] Theme dot json seems to be one of the things which just doesn&#8217;t seem to cause any controversy. I&#8217;ve yet to hear anybody thinking, no, this is not where we want to be. It just seems like such a sublimely good idea to be able to set something in that very simplistic, easy to read format, save it, and it&#8217;s just done, everywhere, once, and you can just take it and repeat it somewhere else, it&#8217;s brilliant.</p>



<p>Okay. So anybody using WordPress up until now will have been very familiar with the appearance and then menu section. And now we&#8217;ve got the option to, as Zack was mentioning, the navigation block. We&#8217;ll all understand the purpose of that, but is there any, is there going to be any difference in how it looks compared to what we&#8217;ve been using so far, is the interface dramatically different? Do you think people are going to stumble as they see, oh, this is not familiar, this is not what I&#8217;m used to.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:26:34] There&#8217;s two pieces to it. There is a navigation editor in that feature, I think we, it will not be making it to 5.9.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:26:41] Okay.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:26:42] And that was replacing the familiar menu screen with a block-based menu. There&#8217;s a lot of complexities. So the navigation, so that&#8217;s one piece is the editor and that&#8217;s the familiar menu screen, which builds a list of links, basically. And then the navigation block, which you&#8217;ll use in the block themes. And you can place inside of say a header or footer or any place within your block theme is a dramatically different, it&#8217;s a visual tool to create menus. But it&#8217;s not just a list of links. You can also have search boxes or site icons or page lists.</p>



<p>You get a lot more with navigation block, and that&#8217;s where the, it became very difficult to marry the old menus with the new navigation block, because the new block has so many richer set of features. It&#8217;s hard to figure out how to map the data and be able to switch. So as Birgit was saying, one of the great things about theming is you want to be able to switch themes and be able to keep as much as possible when you switch your theme.</p>



<p>And so that&#8217;s become of the challenges around navigation is trying to get the… how the data&#8217;s stored in a portable manner that it can go from, oh, we&#8217;re going from a block theme now back to a classic theme. What do we do with these search boxes inside icons that were in the navigation block and things along those lines.</p>



<p>And it just needed a little more testing, a little more refining to get that, those interactions. So that&#8217;s where the editor got removed, and now the interface will just be within the block theme itself. Did that does that answer? Yeah.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:28:18] Yeah, that was perfect. I want to come back to the patterns in a minute. That was one thing that got heavily mentioned. But before that, there may be some people who are wondering why there&#8217;s this new class of theme, we&#8217;ve been talking for the last 20 minutes or so about blocks and how blocks are the new paradigm for anything, possibly. But what is the difference at heart between a new block theme and the old traditional themes and Birgit was very careful at the beginning to point out that one is not being thrown out. The baby is not going with the bath water. If you&#8217;re happy with the current status, you can just carry on as normal and disregard block themes and all of this stuff that we&#8217;re talking about today, in fact, but what are the major benefits? How will you interact differently between a theme and a block theme? And how would you even know that you&#8217;ve got a block theme as opposed to a normal theme?</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: [00:29:10] It&#8217;s a very good question. So all of a sudden with a two, with the additional features coming with the theme json, there&#8217;s also a way to have the benefits of the theme json file with controlling the block editor for post and pages, also can be used in a classic theme. That&#8217;s I think the wording that is now a classic theme versus a block theme, and then there are two variations in between to confuse the whole thing is, so the hybrid theme is using theme json, but everything else is done in the theme. So you won&#8217;t be able to change the templates through an interface like the site editor.</p>



<p>You will still have the customizer where the theme developer provides you with specific ways to change some of the theme options, but you will not be able to override the theme developers choices through an interface and in your control. So that&#8217;s one big difference. Another difference is that you will see that the appearance menu will change when you have a block theme, because then the editor that allows you to edit templates and template parts actually becomes available to you.</p>



<p>And then when you click on it, you see all the other good features that come with it. And there&#8217;s also a additional admin bar there that gives you access to the templates and template parts, which are stored also in the database. From the front end view, you probably won&#8217;t be able to tell, is that a block theme or is it not? Unless you go into code and look at the HTML that is on the server.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:30:52] Essentially, there&#8217;ll be a moment in time where additional functionality in the future will be available to you. If you go with the block theme and there&#8217;ll be certain ways that path will not be available to you if you stick with the traditional theme, it&#8217;s not to say that everything that you&#8217;ve grown to use will suddenly stop because it won&#8217;t. It&#8217;s just that some of these new, newer technologies and newer ideas will not be readily accessible. Maybe that&#8217;s my way of taking that.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:31:19] A great thing too is the, and I don&#8217;t think we mentioned it by name the 2022 default theme is going to be a block theme. So it will ship, 5.9 we&#8217;ll ship with a new default theme. That default theme will be a block theme, so everyone will have the opportunity if they want to try that theme out, it is beautiful and they can use the new tools and play with it and see what it&#8217;s like. The main difference is, visual editing. So editing the headers, the footers, the layouts within the site editor, which in the site editor looks very similar to the post editor, as in you&#8217;re just manipulating blocks.</p>



<p>Whereas a classic theme required modifying and editing PHP files required knowing what functions to call and what variables to put in. And it works really well for people who understand PHP, but it&#8217;s not a, it requires someone to know that language and that knowledge versus the new tool, the new block themes allows anyone to modify a header and add pieces in and using the same tools you would for creating a post.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:32:21] Yeah. Thanks for mentioning that it was on my list, but probably wasn&#8217;t featuring the prominence that it has the new 2022 theme. It&#8217;s a beautiful piece of work. Isn&#8217;t it? I really liked the way it looks. If I&#8217;m allowed to chip into this conversation. I think my favorite bit is block patterns. I&#8217;m all about the page. That seems to be where I dwell. And I just love the ability to file away a design or a piece, a part of a page, a row, if you like that I&#8217;ve fiddled with, and I enjoy and I&#8217;ve created it. And the idea that I can then just bring that out at a moments notice with the click of a single button and, there it is on my page. And if I wish I can make it go higher or lower or change things at that point, and it brings to mind the features that you would have in proprietary page builders, the ability to have saved rows and so on. And that just speeds things up greatly for me, you settle on a design and a theme and a color palette, the things that you enjoy, save away, half a dozen things, which, you&#8217;re going to use all over the site and then you can just deploy them. You&#8217;re about to create a new page. And whereas before it would take a great deal of work now, available for all inside of the default vanilla version of WordPress, you&#8217;ve got the ability to just drag these things in and really massively reduce the amount of time it takes. So that&#8217;s my favorite bit.</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: [00:33:37] And to drive it a little further. So theme developers now are more inclined to give you a design system. Rather than just a theme and then you have to get with other plugins to get additional features in there. So you would have variations of headers that are available through the theme. Most block themes that I&#8217;ve seen in the repository, and right now there are 28 in there and the time yeah, that&#8217;s end of November, and all of them have additional dozens of block patterns in there for multiple scenarios what you could use. You have a menu for a restaurant. There are three or four different variations in how it can be designed and can look on your page or a footer or a a call to action.</p>



<p>Yeah. And before you, you would have maybe a plugin that would give you calls to action, which is a group block with background and then a headline, a text and a button, and you would still have to assemble that. But now the theme developer or yourself, you can create those patterns and then reuse it over and over again but have different variations of that available right now.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:34:51] Yeah. And we&#8217;ve seen a new marketplace open up for people developing these patterns. They&#8217;ve got expertise in this area, they can make things look significantly better than I can, and they can put together some templated things with holding images and so on. And I&#8217;ve seen two or three of these come onto the market. And by all accounts be very successful, a completely new ecosystem of selling patterns to the market, just to speed things up. It&#8217;s fabulous.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:35:19] Yeah. I think that&#8217;s a, it&#8217;s such a great addition and it allows like I&#8217;m a developer and my design sense may not be as great. And I can just grab patterns either from the pattern directory or one of these other marketplaces and be able to enter that into my page. And this is where also this ties together into the theme json and other pieces of the system, is, I want to use maybe your pattern in my site, but I want it to apply my style to it.</p>



<p>And so that&#8217;s where a lot of these pieces are all interconnecting okay, there are just blocks and we are just applying these different styles in settings. So you do want this cohesive ability to tie these things together. And I think that&#8217;s like the future looks really bright on being able to switch things. I want to be able to like, grab these pieces from other spots and be able to build a site using all these tools. It&#8217;s just going to be, it&#8217;s going to be great.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:36:06] Okay. So the annoying, difficult question is going to be, is there anything about this release that you don&#8217;t like that could simply be a sort of feature that got left? That&#8217;s probably the, the answer that&#8217;s going to get you in the least amount of trouble, but it may be that you, there&#8217;s something that you just wish had been done in a slightly different way. I don&#8217;t wish anybody to put themselves into a situation where they don&#8217;t wish to comment, but if you don&#8217;t wish to comment, that&#8217;s totally fine.</p>



<p>We&#8217;ll go to Marcus.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:36:34] Yeah, I don&#8217;t, it&#8217;s hard, it&#8217;s software, right? It&#8217;s the first version of Full Site Editing. Finally being released. Everyone is working really hard and trying to get it to a point that it&#8217;s going to be usable and functional. Is this something that if you&#8217;re running a huge site, you should immediately convert everything over? Probably not. There&#8217;s going to be issues. There&#8217;s going to be things I don&#8217;t have anything specific. Navigation editor was a big piece that we do want to get in. There&#8217;s others, there&#8217;s lots of small things and there&#8217;s going to be things that we don&#8217;t know that people want to do that we just don&#8217;t know, and it&#8217;s not going to be possible, but that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s part of the software. That&#8217;s probably been part of WordPress ever since, the very first release, you want to be able to do all these different things. And there&#8217;s a lot of people working hard to make it easy and quite usable. The nice thing is it&#8217;s still just HTML and CSS that you&#8217;re shoving out to sites and web browsers.</p>



<p>So if there&#8217;s something you can do in a theme setting, you can still write a, some CSS in a style sheet and do it how you want. You can still modify things. So it&#8217;s not completely limiting, but the power that&#8217;s going to bring is going to make it a lot easier for non-developers. The patterns is a great example. You can be a designer, you can design, you might have really good color sense, or really good layout sense or whatever it might be. You can build these patterns inside the editor, inside WordPress editor and create a pattern without writing any code at all. You don&#8217;t have to know this secret code behind PHP and what functions to call and all that stuff.</p>



<p>So to me, those benefits will outweigh the bumps as we go and grow. So I&#8217;m excited for it all.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:38:10] That&#8217;s interesting though, you&#8217;re exercising a note of caution. If there&#8217;s something terribly complicated and complex, maybe it&#8217;s a good idea to tread lightly around the first few weeks and see where everything lands.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:38:21] From what I&#8217;ve seen in using it for awhile now in the FSE, nothing is really broken. There&#8217;s not oh my God, this is just going to work one day and not work another day, or like it&#8217;s just unstable and broken. There&#8217;s going to be things like, oh, on this page. I want to do this type of thing, which I could do using PHP and pulling in whatever custom post type or something like there&#8217;s, people have built up a knowledge on how to do things in WordPress that may just have to get changed. Or maybe we haven&#8217;t built that part into FSE and it&#8217;ll need to be added. I don&#8217;t see it as being unstable or breakable, so it&#8217;s not like a, oh, we can&#8217;t use it this week and then, after the first point release, it&#8217;ll all be better. I think it will be, we can do a lot of stuff in 5.9 and we&#8217;ll be able to do even more stuff in six zero and even six one&#8217;s going to be amazing, it&#8217;s just going to be growing on itself. So it&#8217;s also like at what point can it do everything that you want? Does that make sense?</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:39:13] Yeah, that&#8217;s great. Thank you, Birgit. I don&#8217;t know if you want to answer that question or no.</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: [00:39:18] What I&#8217;m missing. There is feature plugin to add web fonts to WordPress core. And that was slated for 5.9 early, early on, but then it was decided it probably needs a little bit more refinement and usage in a Gutenberg block first or not Gutenberg block, but in the Gutenberg plugin exposed to a few more users to figure out before it goes into a WordPress core. And it was a little sad to see that is not going to come, but it will be in the future.</p>



<p>And those of listeners who use the Gutenberg plugin will certainly see an earlier version of that, relatively soon I would think. Yeah, that&#8217;s pretty much it. And the navigation screen definitely would need some more thinking. There has been thinking for two years now, and it&#8217;s really hard because it&#8217;s such a prominent feature. Many plug-in and extenders and theme developers have added their own little PHP code to it, and it&#8217;s very hard to grab all those use cases now with a new thing, with the new screen, and then also the thinking, do we really want that? Or it that like something like technical debt that we are introducing. So that&#8217;s the thinking behind that and it&#8217;s not yet fully fleshed out. So yeah, that was the problem there.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:40:43] WordPress 5.9 coming about fairly soon to the internet near you. You&#8217;ll be able to download it and make use of it. And obviously the intention throughout the whole project is to make the whole thing as easy as possible to use.</p>



<p>Is it perfect? Probably not. Is it the better than it was last time? Yes. And stay the course and have a play with it and report back to these guys about what you think about it and helping push the project forward and so no doubt at the end, we&#8217;ll manage to find some Twitter handles and email addresses and that kind of thing, but we&#8217;re going to change the direction of the podcast to something which I confess is really new to me.</p>



<p>And this is Zack&#8217;s chance to shine. Sorry, Zack, it&#8217;s almost like you&#8217;ve been locked in a closet for the last 40 minutes or so, but the closet is now firmly open, and you&#8217;re onto your area of expertise. So Openverse, I am fairly certain that a large proportion of the listenership of this podcast will not even know what Openverse is. So perhaps that&#8217;s the best he likes to begin.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:41:44] Oh I definitely think that&#8217;s the best place to start and that would agree. And yeah there&#8217;s a lot of history here, so I can try to step back without stepping too far back. So yeah, a good place to start is probably with our name change, the project was previously known as CC Search and was created by Creative Commons, which for anyone unfamiliar Creative Commons, you can find it Creative Commons.org.</p>



<p>They create open content licenses which you may have seen if you&#8217;ve, for example, uploaded photos to Flickr. There used lots and lots of places, but these are essentially licenses where the users of these licenses are giving up some level of copyright of their work to make those works easy for folks to use, reuse, share, remix is a popular term we&#8217;ll use and love to see happen, not just with audio. But yeah very similar to open software licenses, which folks in the WordPress ecosystem might be familiar with. But yeah you know, roughly, gosh, five years ago now, Creative Commons sat down and wanted to create a search engine to find and identify all of the Creative Commons licensed works on the web. Which is currently estimated to be nearly 2 billion works and a massive portion of that is images, which is one of, if not, perhaps the most common use of the licenses, but yeah, in any case, they began undertaking this massive journey of identifying and consolidating all of the metadata of all of these different works on the internet and making that accessible through a single search engine.</p>



<p>Fast forward to the end of last year, Creative Commons was having some issues as far as sustaining the project and started looking for a new home for the project. So I was part of those conversations and the, at the end of 2020, got to keep my timeline in order, but yeah for a number of reasons, we found WordPress and it was a very appropriate home, essentially the work of CC Search, and now Openverse is, to take a model, very similar to that of WordPress and apply it to, not just websites and publishing, but individual pieces of media, pieces of content. Just making it very easy for folks to make their works available to others.</p>



<p>So yeah, in that light, we really have two major audiences. We have the creators of openly licensed works and then the folks who want to use and find those works and the project serves both of those audiences. Yeah, we had… I think it was in April of this year that Matt announced that CC Search was joining the WordPress project on his personal blog, with the goal of creating a service to compete with some of these more restrictive photo directories and things like Unsplash obviously come to mind as places where you can find some really beautiful, really high quality stock photography, but where many folks don&#8217;t find their custom license, which is the Unsplash license, they don&#8217;t find that to be compatible with the GPL, which is the source software license that the WordPress code base is licensed under.</p>



<p>And therefore a lot of people are unwilling to use Unsplash images in their WordPress themes, patterns, blocks. Yeah, we&#8217;re, we&#8217;re really hoping that, one of the more common use cases of Openverse will be to provide creators of WordPress sites with these openly licensed photos.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:45:21] Yeah, we talk a lot about photos, but the project itself, it spans more than that doesn&#8217;t it? There&#8217;s obviously support for images of more or less every kind I would imagine. And also audio, video comes along as well. Is it just those three? They&#8217;re the ones which come into my mind, but there&#8217;s probably some quirky content that I can&#8217;t someone up at the moment.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:45:42] Yeah, no, there&#8217;s there&#8217;s a lot of things we&#8217;re really excited about. So right now the only thing live wordpress dot org forward slash Openverse, is images, but team has been actively working on audio for the past several months. Essentially we&#8217;re bringing in multiple sources of really high quality, openly licensed audio files. And that includes everything from field recordings of someone might go out and do a field and record crickets that they hear at night, music, podcasts, samples and sound effects, which are really wonderful for anyone producing music. So that&#8217;s the first non image media source we will be adding. Yeah. And then beyond there, the possibilities are pretty endless. There&#8217;s a lot we&#8217;re excited about, but yeah, naturally that includes video 3d models are of increasing interest to us.</p>



<p>We&#8217;re going to have some limited support for 3d models. They appear as images in the search results, but then when you arrive on an individual result, we show the 3d preview where you can actually click through and interact with the model. Most of those are hosted on Sketchfab, which is a really lovely source of 3d models. Yeah, there&#8217;s also just, several other media types that we&#8217;d ultimately like to include, which is, could be anything from fonts and educational materials, just things as simple as PDFs or text files. Yeah, really endless. And with that comes the possibility of exploring support for other licenses outside of the Creative Commons licenses, because there are a few domains where the Creative Commons licenses aren&#8217;t commonly used. Fonts, font faces, and typography comes to mind is as a good example, where there&#8217;s some custom licenses specific to fonts.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:47:29] You mentioned at the start that the Creative Commons Search wanted to be on a more stable footing. And presumably that&#8217;s where we now are. Could you explain if not the financial model that you&#8217;ve got at the moment, what is the bedrock upon which this is built? How is a service like this able to carry on without receiving payment for each image? Shall we say?</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:47:52] Yeah, that&#8217;s a really interesting question because there&#8217;s a couple angles to it. We have an interest in exploring ways of paying the creators of individual works in Openverse. That&#8217;s a ways away, but that&#8217;s something we&#8217;re really excited about. But yeah, as far as the actual funding and support of the project right now that falls under Automattic&#8217;s five for the future initiative, since Openverse is part of the WordPress open source project, the development, and, fundamentally the hosting of the search engine right now, falls under that.</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s really, and you can almost consider it a gift or a sponsored piece of web infrastructure for the WordPress community to use and have access to all these images and other content.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:48:40] So a philanthropic idea, isn&#8217;t it? People take their photographs and decide that they would like that to be available to all people go to your website, and you mentioned that there&#8217;s the creators on the one side and what I&#8217;m going to call users. The people like me who may wish to put those images onto my website, the process of uploading, I guess is fairy obvious.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:49:01] No, actually we currently don&#8217;t have a standalone upload mechanism to get works into Openverse. We&#8217;re collecting works from other platforms. Hypothetically, if you were to upload a photo to a Flickr in a matter of weeks, it would appear within Openverse. But yeah, we&#8217;re still a bit of a ways out from actually accepting our own content. That&#8217;s largely because there&#8217;s a whole host of issues with accepting user uploads around, obviously things like content moderation and verification of these works that they&#8217;re the actual creator. So yeah we&#8217;re a bit ways out from actually having our own upload mechanism.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:49:40] From my point of view though, I would be looking at these images. I&#8217;m wondering if we&#8217;ve talked about the different sort of licensing models and the fact that maybe this came about, because there was, suspicion is the wrong word, but there was something not quite right about the licensing that you might find elsewhere and something that you believe to be truly available for you may have been available to you at one point and then fast forward a few years, perhaps it&#8217;s no longer available to you. And how would you even know that it was no longer available to you? So, is the promise of this, that something that you find on Openverse, yours to do with, as you like with no constraints?</p>



<p>In other words, if I wish to use that for the next a hundred years, that&#8217;s fine. If I wish to modify it, that&#8217;s fine. If I wish to take it and send it to my friends, that&#8217;s all fine. Are there any boundaries with the licensing that we need to be mindful of or is it literally free as in totally free?</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:50:36] Yeah, that&#8217;s a great question. And I think fundamentally with a platform like this, it needs to be clear to the users that there&#8217;s a level of trust. For example, things like relicensing are extremely rare and actually aren&#8217;t allowed with the Creative Commons licenses. Although there&#8217;ve been some historical cases where that has happened, that are a bit contentious and unresolved.</p>



<p>Yeah. At the heart of something like this, we really believe that, users need to know how a piece of media or content can be used and know that is true forever. And to the point of possible restrictions of various pieces of media, we support every Creative Commons license. There&#8217;s several, and they vary in their constraints and restrictions on how they&#8217;re used CC0 is, it&#8217;s not actually a license. It&#8217;s a, what&#8217;s called designation. It expresses the intent of the creator of the work to make that work available to people with no restrictions and Openverse allows for . Very easy filtering of the images by any particular license. If someone was looking for a work that they can always use commercially, that they can always use, that they can modify, I would recommend using the CC0 license or the public domain mark, but something that we also make very easy in Openverse is actually, one click copy and pasting of image attributions.</p>



<p>So that licenses like CC BY which is a very common license that lets you do absolutely anything with an image, but you need to credit the creator for their work. So we have a tool within Openverse to make it very easy to copy and paste that attribution for use directly in an image block on your WordPress site or elsewhere.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:52:22] This is where the two conversations coalesce beautifully in a way, isn&#8217;t it. The idea of the image block with the Openverse search, just bolted onto it. And you&#8217;ve got that desperate urge to put a cat on your website and previously you have to go elsewhere and search through a myriad assortment of cats.</p>



<p>Whereas now, all of that cat-ness, for want of a better word is available inside the block editor. And the same obviously would be true for, in the future things like all the support for audio and the support for videos, maybe as a background to something, all of this will be rolled in and available inside the interface, instead of having to go somewhere, find it, download it, upload it to the media library, and then you&#8217;re off to the races. It&#8217;s going to be a much more seamless process.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:53:11] Yeah. That is perhaps our primary goal for early next year is actually building out our core integration in whatever form it finally takes. But yeah your fundamental vision of the flow definitely aligns with mine. Just making it super easy to search for that media and attribute it as easily as possible.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:53:29] If I could chime in, I&#8217;m also pretty excited for two way layer. So you can imagine that you have you&#8217;re, maybe a photographer, you want to upload your photos to your WordPress site, but also when you upload it, you check a box and say, yes, make this available to to other users of WordPress. And you can contribute directly from WordPress to Openverse would be a pretty exciting, I know, years off, maybe not years, but a ways off. But that&#8217;d be a pretty cool feature to grow the overall collection of openly sourced media. That&#8217;d be, I&#8217;m excited for it all.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:54:01] Zack, is something like that on the roadmap, because yeah, Marcus, that&#8217;s a stroke of genius if it&#8217;s not.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:54:06] Yeah, no, that&#8217;s perhaps what I&#8217;m where my personal interest lies the most and where I really think being part of the WordPress project enables so much potential.</p>



<p>Yeah. Fundamentally that model of allowing users to share media in the backend of their WordPress site with Openverse, really at the heart of that is turning every WordPress user into a WordPress contributor. It might not be through code, which is the standard thought of how to contribute to WordPress.</p>



<p>I&#8217;d be remiss if I didn&#8217;t mention translation as well as a really powerful way to contribute if you&#8217;re not contributing translations yet, please do and now, you with other directories, like the pattern directory, there&#8217;s more ways than ever to contribute to WordPress, even if you&#8217;re not a particularly technical individual or don&#8217;t work with code directly.</p>



<p>So yeah, it&#8217;s a very large technical undertaking and not without its challenges, but we are extremely excited by the idea of fundamentally making it easier for users to license their own works in their media libraries, give those the proper licensed attributions directly in WordPress. And then again, share those with the world through this directory.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:55:17] Absolutely fascinating. The idea of using this with patterns again, another master stroke, what a great idea. You can imagine just by ticking a box, the impediment to making things available. And I think that&#8217;s probably the problem, isn&#8217;t it? The impediment is that you&#8217;ve got to wrap it all up, parcel it up and then go and upload it to some sort of third party service.</p>



<p>If that third party service, if you like Openverse, is already baked into the thing that you&#8217;re already using, and it&#8217;s the only impediment is the ticking of a box. And obviously reading through probably some terms and conditions and making sure that you understand them. That has the capacity to spread virally almost and make the project much more useful.</p>



<p>But when you get into the, obviously images and video, that&#8217;s of great interest to a larger number of people. Where probably we&#8217;re all at, the WordPress side of things, the ability to upload block patterns and who knows, the theme json files that we were talking about a moment ago and your design assets and that lovely font that you created, that&#8217;s absolutely enormously powerful, and I confess I hadn&#8217;t twigged quite how powerful it was until just that moment. That&#8217;s really astonishing.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [00:56:30] Yeah. It&#8217;s amazing. How much of it all ties together? It&#8217;s a difficult challenge ahead of us too, because how do you get a font that&#8217;s openly sourced on Openverse to the theme json, right. There&#8217;s a lot of technical hurdles. So this isn&#8217;t, it&#8217;s not something that&#8217;s income in the next release or two releases or three, but it&#8217;s like something you can see, like looking out, you can see oh, I can see, like you have these open source fonts and you can apply it to your theme json directly. Or you can pull it into different patterns or create a set of patterns just around, say cats, but then go, I&#8217;m running a dog blog, and I want to see dogs and all these patterns, not cats, you switch, you can switch them out just with the switch of a search term or something like that.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s really, it&#8217;s really powerful. It&#8217;s exciting to see you know.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:57:13] Amazing. Okay. A couple of thorny questions, which I probably should throw in. Let&#8217;s say for example, that I&#8217;ve taken a photograph and I got it somehow into Openverse. Have you spent any time thinking about the option to roll that back?</p>



<p>And if that image turns out to be something that I decided, you know what I&#8217;d rather that was private once more. And I was the person who had custodianship of that. Is that going to be possible? Is there a way to flip the license at a moment or are you signing in effect something imperpetuity when you give it to Openverse?</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [00:57:47] Yeah. So what first comes to mind there is that by default, if you are the creator of a work and you don&#8217;t say assign a Creative Commons license to it, at least in the United States, you are already implicitly buying into the copyright system and that work already has these protections applied to it that you haven&#8217;t necessarily consented to.</p>



<p>So interestingly, that&#8217;s fundamentally true of anytime you create anything, you&#8217;re joining this whole large world of copyright that you might not be interested in. Outside of actual creators who might want to, relicense a work, we have already multiple reporting mechanisms built in, for example, for images that might not actually be under a Creative Commons license, but have been improperly labeled and uploaded to one of our sources. Flickr would be the most likely place something like that could happen or Wikipedia Commons comes to mind. Those are our two largest sources that are really, almost social networks. There&#8217;s a user uploading component there. A lot of our other sources are what we collectively refer to as GLAM institutions, which is galleries, libraries, archives, and museums that have decided to take their entire collection, and, essentially open-source that collection and make photographs of all the works openly, licensed and available to folks.</p>



<p>But yeah. If you went to Openverse and you saw a picture of your cat that you took, that you had never licensed under Creative Commons license, you just had it on your personal blog somewhere, and someone else had taken that and uploaded it. We have a very simple mechanism to report that. It&#8217;s immediately flagged in the system and taken down until it&#8217;s properly reviewed.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [00:59:27] My final question, I think is about the future, the longevity of the project. Obviously it ran into issues which as of now are being fixed by the purse strings, probably for want of a better word of Automattic. Are you confident? Do you have any guidance that this is something that the organization Automattic will be funding into the future?</p>



<p>Have they made any commitments around there? Because obviously, as this project grows and becomes bigger and is harder to police, the amount of effort and time and boots on the ground is only going to increase as well. And wonder if there&#8217;s any talks been had about the longevity of it so that we can all be satisfied, that the things that we take out from Openverse, we can keep taking out into the future.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [01:00:15] Yeah. I appreciate your frankness and asking that question. It&#8217;s a really important one to us. The folks on the team right now. There&#8217;s a few layers to that as well. One is that there&#8217;s a lot of redundancy already built into Openverse. We don&#8217;t actually host the works on Openverse. We only collect metadata about these works, so they all exist on other platforms that have their own mechanisms of backups and redundancy.</p>



<p>So there&#8217;s no opportunity to hypothetically put a work in Openverse and then have us lose it. We simply can&#8217;t do that from a technological standpoint. But beyond that, the entire project is open source, much like WordPress itself. So in the event of any kind of problems or downtime or anything like that, it&#8217;s actually quite feasible for other folks to migrate and host the project themselves.</p>



<p>A great example of this is that we did this upon joining the WordPress project was move it from one set of infrastructure to another, which, I&#8217;ll be the first admit was no easy feat, but is you know, something that we actively and consciously try to make easier over time for folks. Yeah and then beyond that, I just think Automattic has a really great track record of supporting and maintaining projects, obviously financially, but also just like maintaining the spirit of a project. We were very nervous leaving Creative Commons, which is a nonprofit and finding a new home for the projects that had more resources would be ideal. But again, also just the reach of WordPress as a piece of software was really exciting to us and some of the power and capabilities that, that unlocks</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [01:01:50] Well, I&#8217;m more or less certain that many people listening to this will be really excited about something that&#8217;s just come across their doorstep for the first time, best place to probably search for that would be wordpress dot org forward slash Openverse. Did I get that right?</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [01:02:04] Yeah, that&#8217;s right. And then, anyone who is more development minded or looking to contribute, we are a community project. So we have our own make site on the make network of blogs. So you can go to make dot wordpress dot org forward slash Openverse and join up with our community of developers.</p>



<p>And like I said, translation contributors, and a whole host of other folks designers. Yeah. One thing that we are really proud of is our volunteer community. We had a lot of folks over at Creative Commons working on CC Search and now Openverse. The project has really bridged those two communities and an interesting way. Yeah. We kind of straddle two worlds right now of WordPress and the massive world of copyright and licenses.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [01:02:51] I&#8217;m going to have to draw this to a close. I&#8217;ll just start with you Zack. If anybody was curious to get in touch with you individually, if there&#8217;s any place, contact form, Twitter handle, whatever that you&#8217;re happy to share now would be the time to do that.</p>



<p>Zack Krida: [01:03:06] Great. Yeah, I&#8217;d say the best place to find me would be in the making WordPress Slack actually, I&#8217;m not on any social media right now. So we have an Openverse channel there. You can also shoot an email to Openverse at wordpress dot org and myself or another member of the team will be happy to get in touch with you.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [01:03:23] Thank you. And the same questions go to Birgit first, if that&#8217;s all right.</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack: [01:03:29] I&#8217;m really fascinated by all the museums that have, if you click on the Openverse, WordPress dot org Openverse sources. Yeah, at this moment, the Smithsonian has all their pictures in there and as well as the Reich&#8217;s Museum in the Netherlands, or the Metropolitan Museum of Art program museum. It&#8217;s really fascinating what you can all find. The spirit of open web, but also have the creators be in charge of their own creations, but have this big search capabilities, is so early nineties, but it really keeps the web open. So that&#8217;s just a little comment on that. I&#8217;m so happy that it&#8217;s in there.</p>



<p>If you want to get in contact with me also WordPress Slack definitely at BPH is my handle there. That&#8217;s also the handle on Twitter @ BPH and my direct messages are open if you don&#8217;t want to do it publicly. Yeah. You can always catch me on a private chat on the Slack or on Twitter, if that is easier for you.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [01:04:32] Thank you so much Birgit, and finally, Marcus.</p>



<p>Marcus Kazmierczak: [01:04:36] Yeah. You can find me at mkaz, M K A Z on make Slack also mkaz dot blog. I write a lot about WordPress and tips and tech things there. You can also find me on Twitter, I&#8217;m not that great on Twitter, so make Slack is probably the best if you want to reach out to me directly, feel free to ping me there.</p>



<p>Nathan Wrigley: [01:04:55] Thank you very much. What a broad ranging conversation that we&#8217;ve had today. Thank you very much for joining us Birgit, Marcus and Zack, really appreciate it. What an interesting episode this has been.</p>
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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:60:"WordPress.org blog: The Month in WordPress – November 2021";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=11763";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"https://wordpress.org/news/2021/12/month-in-wordpress-november-2021/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16381:"<p>Despite the holiday season being around the corner, the WordPress project didn’t slow down. In a <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/episode-20-wordpressblogging/">recent episode</a> of <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/podcast/">WP Briefing</a>, Executive Director <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/">Josepha Haden</a> shares the first thing she wants people to notice about WordPress, which is also the heart of this open source project:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p><em>“Now, the first thing I want people to see on that site is that WordPress has not only 18 years of learned knowledge that every single new user benefits from, but that it also has thousands of really smart people making sure it works and gets better every day.”</em></p></blockquote>



<p>As always, contributors across various teams are working hard to ensure the upcoming release of WordPress 5.9 doesn’t disappoint. With State of the Word 2021 coming up soon, there are many exciting things in the works. Read the November 2021 edition of the Month in WordPress to learn more about what’s happening.</p>



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<h2 id="wordpress-5-9-expected-to-release-on-january-25-2022">WordPress 5.9: Expected to release on January 25, 2022</h2>



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<div class="wp-block-image"><img width="632" height="309" src="https://i2.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2021/12/5.9.png?resize=632%2C309&ssl=1" alt="" class="wp-image-11764" /></div>



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<ul><li>The Core Team announced the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/11/22/wordpress-5-9-revised-release-schedule/">WordPress 5.9 Revised Release Schedule</a>, and the release is now planned for January 25, 2022.</li><li><strong>WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 was recently released and is available for testing.</strong> This version of the WordPress software is under development. Check out the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/wordpress-5-9-beta-1/">release post</a> to learn more about what’s new in version 5.9 and how you can help testing.&nbsp;</li><li>Check out “<a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/a-look-at-wordpress-5-9/">A Look at WordPress 5.9</a>” for a first peek into the exciting features included in this major release.</li><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/wordpress-5-8-2-security-and-maintenance-release/">WordPress 5.8.2</a>, a security and maintenance release, was out on November 10, 2021. This release includes two bug fixes and one security fix.</li></ul>



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center"><p><strong><strong>Are you interested in contributing to WordPress core?</strong> Join the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02RQBWTW">#core</a> channel, follow the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">Core Team blog</a>, and check out the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/">team handbook</a>. Also, don&#8217;t miss the Core Team’s weekly developer chat on Wednesdays at <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?hour=20&min=00&sec=0">8 PM</a> UTC.</strong></p></blockquote>



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<h2 id="gutenberg-releases-11-9-and-12-0-are-out">Gutenberg releases: 11.9 and 12.0 are out</h2>



<p>Two new Gutenberg versions have been released!</p>



<ul><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/11/12/whats-new-in-gutenberg-11-9-0-10-november/">Version 11.9.0</a> brings new Gutenberg blocks for working with post comments, a fullscreen pattern explorer modal, further iterations on the Navigation block, and many other improvements.</li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/11/29/whats-new-in-gutenberg-12-0-0-24-november/">Gutenberg 12.0.0</a>, released on November 24, improves the Block Styles preview and includes featured image block visual enhancements, a site Editor welcome guide, official JSON schema updates, and much more.</li></ul>



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center"><p><strong>Want to get involved in developing Gutenberg? </strong>Follow <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">the Core Team blog</a>, contribute to <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/">Gutenberg on GitHub</a>, and join the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C02QB2JS7">#core-editor</a> channel in the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/chat/">Make WordPress Slack</a>. Follow <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/gutenberg-new/">#gutenberg-new</a> for details on the latest updates.</p></blockquote>



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<h2 id="state-of-the-word-2021-join-a-watch-party-in-your-local-community">State of the Word 2021: Join a watch party in your local community</h2>



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<div class="wp-block-image"><img width="632" height="422" src="https://i2.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2021/12/Web-—-Matt.png?resize=632%2C422&ssl=1" alt="State of the Word 2021 Announcement, which will take place on December 14 between 5 pm and 7 pm ET (22 - 00 UTC)." class="wp-image-11766" /></div>



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<ul><li><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/state-of-the-word-2021/">State of the Word 2021</a>, the annual keynote address delivered by the WordPress project’s co-founder, Matt Mullenweg, will be held on December 14, 2021 <a href="https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r/eventedit?text=State+of+the+Word+2021+livestream&dates=20211214T220000Z/20211215T000000Z&details=State+of+the+Word+is+the+annual+keynote+address+delivered+by+the+WordPress+project%27s+co-founder,+Matt+Mullenweg.%0AJoin+Matt+as+he+provides+a+retrospective+of+2021,+celebrates+the+community%27s+amazing+wins,+discusses+the+latest+trends+he%27s+seeing,+and+explores+the+future+of+open+source.%0AState+of+the+Word+will+be+live+streamed+from+New+York+City,+and+is+free+for+all+to+watch.%0Ahttps://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/state-of-the-word-2021/">between 5 and 7 pm ET/10 pm – 12 am (December 15) UTC</a>. The event will be <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/join-us-for-state-of-the-word-2021-in-person-or-online/">livestreamed from New York City</a>, and include a Question and Answer session.&nbsp;</li><li>Host or join a <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/watch-state-of-the-word-at-a-watch-party-with-your-wordpress-friends/">State of the Word watch party</a> to enjoy the event with your WordPress friends. Check <a href="https://meetup.com/pro/wordpress">Meetup</a> to see if a watch party is scheduled to be held in your local community!</li></ul>



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center"><p><a href="https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/r/eventedit?text=State+of+the+Word+2021+livestream&dates=20211214T220000Z/20211215T000000Z&details=State+of+the+Word+is+the+annual+keynote+address+delivered+by+the+WordPress+project%27s+co-founder,+Matt+Mullenweg.%0AJoin+Matt+as+he+provides+a+retrospective+of+2021,+celebrates+the+community%27s+amazing+wins,+discusses+the+latest+trends+he%27s+seeing,+and+explores+the+future+of+open+source.%0AState+of+the+Word+will+be+live+streamed+from+New+York+City,+and+is+free+for+all+to+watch.%0Ahttps://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/state-of-the-word-2021/"><strong>Add the event to your calendar</strong></a><strong> so you don’t miss State of the Word 2021!</strong> Want to ask Matt a question during State of the Word? Please send your questions ahead of time to <a>ask-matt@wordcamp.org</a> or ask them live during the event via YouTube chat.</p></blockquote>



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<h2 id="team-updates-nominations-for-some-team-representatives-are-still-underway">Team updates: Nominations for some team representatives are still underway</h2>



<ul><li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/Requests/releases/tag/v2.0.0">Requests 2.0.0 has been released</a>. This release is fully compatible with PHP 8.0 and 8.1, indicating that a legacy codebase can be modernized, made more stable and secure <em>without</em> breaking backward-compatibility. The Requests project is a dependency of WordPress core, which was adopted into the WordPress organization earlier this year.&nbsp;</li><li>The <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/files/2021/11/WordPress.org-2020-Annual-Survey.pdf">2020 WordPress Annual Survey</a> results are available to be viewed.&nbsp;</li><li>The Core Team added <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/11/08/new-committers-2021/">six new committers</a>.</li><li>Last month, the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2021/11/22/2022-team-nominations-for-marketing/">Marketing Team</a> opened its call for team representatives, joining <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/10/26/nominations-for-core-team-reps-2022/">Core</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2021/10/27/nominations-call-for-the-themes-team-representatives/">Themes</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2021/10/30/call-for-team-rep-nominations-3/">Accessibility</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/support/2021/10/team-representative-nominations/">Support</a>, and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/hosting/2021/10/30/nominations-for-hosting-team-reps-2022/">Hosting</a> from October 2021.</li><li>The <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2021/11/24/core-team-reps-for-2020-and-beyond-2/">Core Team announced its new Team Rep for 2022</a> (and beyond).</li><li>The <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2021/10/08/moving-to-bi-weekly-meetings/">Design Team</a> and the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/accessibility/2021/11/19/accessibility-team-meeting-notes-november-19-2021/">Accessibility Team’s</a> meetings will be held bi-weekly moving forward.</li><li>The Marketing Team published the latest edition of <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/people-of-wordpress-devin-maeztri/">People of WordPress, featuring Devin Maeztri</a> from Indonesia.</li><li>There’s an open call for suggestions for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2021/11/05/2022-goals-for-the-community-team-suggestions-invited/">Global Community Team</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2021/11/16/team-goal-setting-2022/">Training Team</a>, and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2021/11/11/2022-polyglots-planning/">Polyglots</a> goals for 2022. Please drop your ideas by December 6, 2021.</li><li>The Accessibility Team has opened 1-2 <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C037W5S7X/p1637775719355600">volunteer positions</a> for the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/tag/diverse-speaker-support/">#diverse-speaker-support</a> channel.</li><li>The <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/2021/11/22/polyglots-monthly-newsletter-november-2021/">November 2021 edition</a> of the Polyglots monthly newsletter is out.&nbsp;</li><li>The Marketing Team welcomes any help to <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2021/11/17/help-promote-wordpress-meetups-each-week/">promote WordPress Meetups</a> on a weekly basis and thus keep the community connected.</li></ul>



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center"><p><strong>We want to hear from you!</strong> Suggest your 2022 goals for the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2021/11/05/2022-goals-for-the-community-team-suggestions-invited/">Global Community Team</a> by December 6, 2021.</p></blockquote>



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<h2 id="feedback-testing-requests-test-wordpress-5-9-beta-1-take-the-2021-annual-wordpress-survey-to-share-your-experience">Feedback/Testing requests: Test WordPress 5.9 Beta 1; Take the 2021 Annual WordPress Survey to share your experience</h2>



<ul><li>WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 is now available for testing and we’d like to hear from you! Testing is vital to ensure the release is as good as it can be—it’s also a great way to contribute. Read the comprehensive guide, “<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2021/11/30/help-test-wordpress-5-9-features/">Help test WordPress 5.9 Features</a>,” to learn how to test WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 and report any bugs.</li><li>There’s an open call for testing for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/2021/11/16/call-for-testing-wordpress-for-ios-18-7/">WordPress iOS 18.7</a> and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/mobile/2021/11/16/call-for-testing-wordpress-for-android-18-7/">Android 18.7</a>.</li></ul>



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center"><p><strong>The </strong><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/take-the-2021-wordpress-annual-survey-and-view-the-2020-results/"><strong>2021 WordPress Annual Survey</strong></a><strong> is out! </strong>Please respond to the survey, so <em>your</em> WordPress experience is reflected in the results.</p></blockquote>



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<h2 id="keep-an-eye-out-for-wordcamp-taiwan-and-sevilla-along-with-several-wordpress-workshops-in-december-2021">Keep an eye out for WordCamp Taiwan and Sevilla, along with several WordPress workshops in December 2021</h2>



<ul><li>Several <a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/">WordPress Social Learning Meetups</a> were held in November by the Training Team, and there will be more in December 2021.</li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/tag/tuesdaytrainings/">Tuesday Training</a> sessions are paused until 2022.</li><li><a href="https://saopaulo.wordcamp.org/2021/">WordCamp São Paulo</a> was held online on November 27, 2021.</li><li>Get excited for <a href="https://sevilla.wordcamp.org/2021/">WordCamp Sevilla 2021</a>, coming up on December 11-12! Sevilla is the first in-person WordCamp happening in over 18 months, since WordCamps moved online in March 2020 due to COVID-19.</li><li>Don’t miss the following upcoming WordCamps: <a href="https://taiwan.wordcamp.org/2021/">WordCamp Taiwan 2021</a>, <a href="https://birmingham.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp Birmingham 2022</a>, and <a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp Europe 2022</a>!</li><li>Check out the latest episodes of WordPress Briefing with Josepha Haden on<ul><li>“<a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/episode-21-all-things-block-themes/">All Things Block Themes!</a>”</li><li>“<a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/episode-20-wordpressblogging/">WordPress=Blogging+</a>”</li><li>“<a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/episode-19-the-people-of-wordpress/">The People of WordPress</a>”</li></ul></li></ul>



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote has-text-align-center"><p><strong>Give back to open source. </strong>Please donate to<a href="https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2021/give-back-to-open-source-this-giving-tuesday/"> the WordPress Foundation</a>’s mission this holiday season.</p></blockquote>



<hr class="wp-block-separator" />



<p><strong><em>Have a story that we could include in the next ‘Month in WordPress’ post? Let us know&nbsp; by filling out </em></strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/month-in-wordpress-submissions/"><strong><em>this form</em></strong></a><strong><em>.&nbsp;</em></strong></p>



<p><em>The following folks contributed to November 2021’s Month in WordPress: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/anjanavasan/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>anjanavasan</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/harishanker/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>harishanker</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/rmartinezduque/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>rmartinezduque</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/callye/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>callye</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/jrf/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>jrf</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/webcommsat/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>webcommsat</a>, and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/nalininonstopnewsuk/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>nalininonstopnewsuk</a></em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 02 Dec 2021 11:30:09 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Anjana Vasan";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"Post Status: Post Status Comments (No. 3) — The State of the WordPress News";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=90563";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34:"https://poststatus.com/comments/3/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:89930:"<h2 id="h-wordpress-journalists-and-news-commentators-on-the-nature-of-their-work-their-views-on-the-community-and-the-future-of-the-project">WordPress journalists and news commentators on the nature of their work, their views on the community, and the future of the project.</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">In this episode of Post Status Comments, David and Dan host a conversation with several members of the WordPress news community: <strong>Matt Medeiros</strong> (Matt Report Media), <strong>Joe Howard</strong> (WPMRR), <strong>Birgit Pauli-Haack</strong> (Gutenberg Times), and <strong>Sarah Gooding</strong> (WP Tavern). Find out how these WordPress journalists and news commentators understand their roles, how they view the WordPress community, and what they see for the future of the project.</p>



<p><strong>Among the questions asked:</strong> What challenges exist for those of us who are following and reporting WordPress news? How can the WordPress project and and WordPress companies help improve communication? Where do we see WordPress heading — the software and it's community — in the short and long term? What are the biggest and most impactful stories of 2021, so far? What are the most significant but less noticed stories?</p>



<p>This engaging conversation was almost 90 minutes long! So we split it up into <strong>two</strong> audio parts. </p>



<p><strong>Here's the first part:</strong></p>







<p></p>



<p><strong>Here's the second part:</strong></p>







<p></p>



<p class="has-background"><strong>Post Status Comments</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f4ac.png" alt="💬" class="wp-smiley" /> is a stage for WordPress professionals to exchange ideas and talk about recent topics and trends.<br /><br /><a href="https://poststatus.com/podcast/comments/">Browse past episodes</a> and subscribe to <a href="https://poststatus.com/podcasts/">our podcasts</a> on&nbsp; <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/1m3xwXbe0MG5BzFVPtB0A7">Spotify</a>, Amazon Music, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://castro.fm/podcast/c53552c6-1ee0-4fc4-9de4-08ed6bf1ee4d">Castro</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus">YouTube</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://player.fm/series/wordpress-post-status-podcasts">Player.fm</a>, <a href="https://pca.st/05rR">Pocket Casts</a>, <a href="https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/">Simplecast</a>, or get them by <a href="https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P">RSS</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f399.png" alt="🎙" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



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<h3 id="h-mentioned-in-the-show"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f517.png" alt="🔗" class="wp-smiley" /> Mentioned in the show:</h3>



<ul><li><a href="https://wpafrica.org/">The WP Minute</a></li><li><a href="http://wptavern.com/">WP Tavern</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/">Gutenberg Times</a></li><li><a href="https://wpmrr.com/podcast/">WPMRR Podcast</a></li><li><a href="https://zipmessage.com/cory/november-8th-2021-conversation">ZipMessage &#8211; Submitted Questions</a></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/post_status" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Post Status (Twitter)</a></li></ul>



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<h3><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/13.0.1/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="🙏" class="wp-smiley" /> Sponsor: <a href="https://poststat.us/wplookout" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener sponsored nofollow">WP Lookout</a></h3>



<p><strong>WP LOOKOUT </strong>tracks the plugins and themes you depend on. Get timely info on new WordPress plugin and theme versions, security updates, author changes, mentions in the news and more. Set customizable notifications by email, Slack, webhook and RSS.</p>



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<h3>Transcript (Part 1)</h3>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> [00:00:00] So I want to set some ground rules, uh, before we officially get started. So first of all, everyone participating here, um, first of all, welcome by the way, I should say that first, everyone participating here, let's just pretend we're at a work camp. So we're bound by a standard work camp code of conduct.</p>



<p>That includes speakers participants, and me, your host, uh, will, won't be able to get to everybody's question on every topic that we're bringing up today. So I'll be. Going with the flow and also probably rotating some questions, a little bit to various speakers and speakers with your responses. Just be mindful of the time.</p>



<p>And if there's any in, we don't get to everybody's response and I'll mute that slack in a second. Apparently if we don't get to everybody's response, um, we can do a post follow up after the event. Our topic today is WordPress, the WordPress news space. So not, not specific pieces of WordPress news, it's the state of WordPress news, the people that [00:01:00] report the news, the news economy, and the thoughts along those lines.</p>



<p>And we appreciate questions that we'll try to stick to that scope. And if there's any good questions that fall out of that scope, we'll save it for another discussion. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns after this feel free to direct them to me. I am on post-data slack and also you can DM me on Twitter at dimension media.</p>



<p>And just to make this a completely transparent, this, this event, this audio is open, it's being recorded and will be shared, um, with the public, but also with our speakers as well for their own use. So can you go ahead and introduce yourself? And then Matt, can you go after her? And we'll just keep going in order here.</p>



<p>I'll just call you out. So go ahead, Sarah, introduce yourself briefly. If anybody doesn't know you already, but shame on them. If they don't.</p>



<p><strong>Sarah Gooding:</strong> Hi, I'm Sarah Gooding. I write for WP Tavern. I've been writing there for about eight years. I think I'm just [00:02:00] writing about WordPress news.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> And Matt, who are you?</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> Uh, who am I?</p>



<p>It's a great question. So I'm director of podcast or success at a company called cast is my day job. And my side gig is something called Matt report media, which covers Matt report.com and the WP minute.com.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Okay, let's see who else we got here. I'm trying to look for, and Dan, if you see any whales in here, let me know.</p>



<p>Forget why don't you introduce yourself?</p>



<p><strong>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</strong> Well, hello everybody. Well, thanks David. For inviting me. I. Curate on the Goodluck times for the last four years was a side gig. Now it's also my day job, which I really love. Um, I'm also a developer advocate for WordPress at automatic. Um, automatic sponsors that contribution and I also am a co-host on the good milk change law [00:03:00] podcast was uh</p>



<p>Um, and yeah, that's.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Oh, good. Well, great. Well now, well, while we wait for the others to come in, I wanted to get started with our first question. Um, again, this is about the WordPress space here for news. So Sarah, we'll start with you. The challenges of following and reporting WordPress news. What challenges do you face or you think the industry faces and.</p>



<p>And maybe including there, maybe how you might be able to see that improve or change?</p>



<p><strong>Sarah Gooding:</strong> Well, I think there are a lot of sources to follow and everyone has their own favorite way to, to get news. Um, I ended up spending a lot of time on social media, unfortunately, too. And it's, you know, I'm constantly going through tweets and [00:04:00] digging deeper into.</p>



<p>But, um, I would love it if there was a, a way to get your news in a more aggregated form. And I know there are some sites out there that do that, but you know, sometimes they come and go or they don't have like the latest news. Um, so was kind of a challenge, but overall, I don't feel. As challenging as I did, maybe, you know, eight years ago when it seemed like there wasn't always enough news to write about.</p>



<p>Sometimes it was like, there were a lot of slow weeks there and now it's just, this is hopping every day.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> How do you stay informed? Did you, so is it beyond social media?</p>



<p>Yeah, I, I mean, I read change logs. I, I follow a bunch of people on Twitter. Um, Reddit, Facebook groups. I attend slack meetings. I dig through, um, I dig through old slack meetings that I couldn't attend.</p>



<p>I get almost all the newsletters. I read almost everything. Everybody else writes though. That's, that's how I [00:05:00] stay on top of it.</p>



<p>And Matt, same question to you. Um, what are your sources? How do you gather the news and what D what challenges do you.</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> So like Sarah, it's obviously a lot of social media. It's looking at that from a 50,000 foot view and paying attention to.</p>



<p>You know, the most impactful, uh, headlines and Newsmakers that are out there. Uh, I take a slightly different tack with the WP minute as the community at the WP minute does contribute the news items, uh, that gets surfaced up. And we use that as, um, part of the foundation to the weekly newsletter and podcast.</p>



<p>So that's a little bit of an advantage, uh, for us and how we do that. And. Uh, sort of side stepping the hands are a little bit, what I would like to see is more, uh, uh, WordPress companies, organizations, service agencies really reach out to us [00:06:00] and let us know about things that they think are going to be newsworthy or really impactful.</p>



<p>Um, that would be a ginormous help instead of just having the Twitter stream, uh, and a few DMS here. Really having something like that in place and sort of letting them know that, look, you can level up your game a little bit, reach out to us, let us know if you have something that's. Um, my God, if you ever spent time in traditional businesses that do PR new, uh, PR uh, pieces, literally every single day for a single feature they've released, I'm not looking for, you know, stuff like that, but some level of surfacing that information up to us, uh, to us on the panel and others would be a tremendous help, but, uh, yeah, social media and a small community that I've gathered around the news on my side, uh,</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Okay.</p>



<p>Get, I think, you know, already know I'm going to ask you, so where do you get your news from and what challenges do you face? [00:07:00]</p>



<p><strong>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</strong> Yeah. Um, yeah, social media is a lot of, um, part of it, but I also use a tool that's called brain 24 4, and it's, um, More a way of listening tool and that surface does some keywords and it needs to be curated a bit, but it helps me quite a bit to also look at the corners where social media doesn't go because the authors are not that much on social media.</p>



<p>So I surface a few of those articles tutorials about the block editor and they go to McCombs is not so much about the news. It's more about. Um, w what's the latest feature in the Gutenberg or how can other people use it better developers, content, creators. Um, and there's a lot of, um, knowledge in the community already that is, um, sharing.</p>



<p>I crossed a few blogs. Um, I see Courtney here. She does a wonderful job. Um, and I see, um, others, [00:08:00] um, that, um, post quite a bit about it. The challenge that I see, especially with the full site editing coming out is that there is a group of users that has not had, um, a lot of coverage. Through any of those news items or news shows apart from high level?</p>



<p>Um, maybe, um, a little bit by Justin headlock from the Tavern was, uh, um, surfacing also some of the gluten, uh, Burke, um, features, but the group that I'm thinking about or what I'm kind of thinking about right now is. Um, site builders that don't use code to build other people's sites. Um, if they wanted to now co uh, they have been catered to by the, um, by elemental, by, uh, beaver builder by the Devi community.</p>



<p>And there are all these third party page [00:09:00] fillers had all their separate communities that has not. Um, come over to the open source part of it. And I think there will be some cultural. Um, shock or most because the concept of open source is not there when, um, third-party page builders, they are corporate they'll, um, to have, uh, a product oriented.</p>



<p>Um, a community they have as helping support and new features and also creating tools. Um, but that does not translate well into the open source community of WordPress core. So I'm kind of thinking about quite a bit about how to help them. And I'm glad that. Uh, leadership in retrospect, or also thought about it.</p>



<p>Um, so that all of a few teams that are, uh, will help with that one is the learn team. And the other one is to, [00:10:00] um, sponsor team members on the WordPress marketing team that will hopefully be stepping into that void a bit.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Oh, cool. Wow. That was a mouthful. You certainly am alive. That's great. You certainly have a lot of challenges though.</p>



<p>So, um, yeah, Lee, um, Matt, this question is for you. What do you define as a, um, now that we're, we're talking about the state of the WordPress news reporting in the past year, what has there been any, is there been any redefinitions of what WordPress news is? Um, how do you decide. If something is relevant to the space or not, or what you focus your attention on?</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> Uh, from my particular angle for years, I've been covering just like business entrepreneurship stuff. Um, that's been the angle I've, I've sort of worked with for a long time. Now recently with the WP minute, really more opening that up to community-based stuff. Um, You know, like the rest [00:11:00] there's while we feel like there's a ton of news.</p>



<p>There's also not a ton of news at the same time.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Let's assume acquisitions didn't exist. What else is left?,</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> yeah, you could have a whole podcast on that this year. Um, you know, for me, I look at it and my editor looks at it from the things that we think are going to make. Hey, the biggest impact on business or be the biggest impact on the community, or maybe there's a see also on the software.</p>



<p>So we look at it from those three angles first, um, long, unless it's a slow Newsweek, then we'll cover something that we might deem innovative, which falls into cool new feature, uh, which is still a challenge. Right. Um, You know, that's the lens that we look at, that we look at it through. Uh, and you know, there's, there's only so much stuff coming out of the fire hose that we can, that we can capture.</p>



<p>Um, but hopefully we're capturing the stuff that we deem [00:12:00] either the most impactful on business, on a business community or the software.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> And Sarah, when it comes to the Tavern, what, are there any specific things that you look for for your audience? Um, I, I think probably out of everybody here, the Tavern might have a larger, or at least a wider scope.</p>



<p>Maybe I know there's Gutenberg though. I know Matt does an excellent, um, business-related and startup related items. Um, where do you draw your lines for the.</p>



<p><strong>Sarah Gooding:</strong> Um, our, yeah, we're pretty wide open. We try to cover, um, WordPress core news business news, um, struggles that users are having, but we also reach a little bit outside and like GPL legal conflicts, I think are interesting and may impact the WordPress community.</p>



<p>Um, we. You know, what, what other companies are doing or how like social media companies are impacting workers because everything kind of ties together. These days away, people share their, they publish [00:13:00] their posts to social media, or they, you know, they should be publishing from their own website cause social media.</p>



<p>But you know, a lot of people, their businesses are built on social media and WordPress is just a smaller part of that. So there is, we just have such a large diverse audience that we try to hit everything, um, that we feel like is new.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> And special, special guest Joe Howard has joined us. Um, let's say, Joe, take yourself off of mute and say.</p>



<p>Yeah, that's okay. I'm sorry. Uh, we, uh, he got lost on the way over here was very big, heavy traffic and you need</p>



<p><strong>Joe Howard:</strong> the mobile app and not the desktop app. So really, I just don't know how to use Twitter spaces.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Oh no, let's let's blame Twitter because that's the platform we're currently recording on, uh, briefly introduce yourself and let us know how you decide your, what, what corner of the WordPress space?</p>



<p>Uh, your news, my primarily focuses.</p>



<p><strong>Joe Howard:</strong> Sure. Uh, I am [00:14:00] the former CEO of WPP buffs, uh, currently work over, uh, do some stuff over at WP MRR, uh, community podcast, uh, uh, all that sorts of stuff. Um, how do I find my news online? Uh, a lot of the times. Yeah on Twitter, but I feel like a lot of it's, uh, uh, people are usually talking about the topics of the day.</p>



<p>Um, aside from that, I used to get more from email. I used to subscribe to like every single, um, inbox or every single email newsletter. But these days, um, I don't, I'm not very good at checking email these days, but I also just, uh, I'm trying to be more minimalist about my, my inbox as a lot of people are these days delete selecting most and delete.</p>



<p>There's still a few that I'm, uh, that I, uh, pay more attention to and then I'll read through. Um, but for the most part, uh, um, um, I'm [00:15:00] unsubscribed via when it comes to email. So, yeah. Keep it simple. Those are the big ways.</p>



<p>How long have you been doing your newsletters, army or new, or your podcast too as well?</p>



<p>Everything your whole, your whole deal. Yeah.</p>



<p>PA podcast is the longest running thing over at WP MRR. That's been two and a half years, two years, something like that. 150 ish episode once a week. So, uh,</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Okay. No, that's okay. We'll do a state of the podcast stuff after this. That's why we have other people that we were going to be inviting to that.</p>



<p>Um, but I don't want to forget, in fact, I don't, because of, I forget this person that he's of shoot me, um, Dan from post statuses here. So, um, Dan, um, you're from post status, I guess we have established that, um, a little bit, a brief mention about yourself and where post status gets this news. [00:16:00] Just don't say me, you know?</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Right. Well, that's, that's fairly accurate. I've been working with David as editor at post status for quite a while and, and that</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> conventionally grown up being paid either to say this, but go ahead. Yeah.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Uh, yeah. Do we have a little bit of a different arrangement maybe than, than others?</p>



<p>David is kind of in a curatorial role. We do a lot of covered, a lot of different bases, but I'm going from essentially copyediting years ago to doing a much more of a kind of comprehensive general editorial role. So I do get, I do rely on David to kind of filter, be the filter and bring in a lot of stuff.</p>



<p>And we have a lot going to</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> get emails now.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Yeah. Well, you're, you're kind of the gatekeeper in a lot of ways, but we have a lot of other people to kind of throw in once in a while. We are [00:17:00] working with Bob Dunn now. And others out there. The more minds we kind of have filtering news and ideas together, the more it helps me.</p>



<p>Then I can kind of spend my time on higher level stuff and maybe get out of the echo chamber a little bit and think more broadly. But, um, yeah, I'm kind of operating in a different editorial role. I used to, I used to contribute more, um, original writing and interviews, but now we're often pushing that to, um, to those view, who do, like David and Corey, others working on a podcast and another recorded material.</p>



<p>So yeah, I guess if I was going to say, I follow pretty much the same, the same things as everyone else, I do try to read outside. Uh, general stuff and David will push me back, you know</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> I'm less relevant look, Minecraft can apply to WordPress tune in next week.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Yeah. [00:18:00] So yeah, that would be my answer there.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Okay. Well, great. Great. You can, uh, privately text me on the mistakes I'm making right now. In fact, you're doing, doing a pretty good job of it. So there's two areas in WordPress news that I thought we would love to tackle as a group here. Um, what we do, how it affects. Um, other communities or the parts within the WordPress community, the first one, um, is the new people into WordPress.</p>



<p>Is there been any, um, what are your thoughts on WordPress news and what it can do or what it has done already to create entry points for the new people that are, that are coming into coming into WordPress or supporting the. Uh, people that already have a career in WordPress, um, uh, forget we'll S um, start with you.</p>



<p>I think yours is more Gutenberg related, so maybe we'll focus on that. Um, entry points for new [00:19:00] people, maybe being, trying to lose Lauren Gutenberg or people who have that in their career. What are your thoughts on how we're doing in that?</p>



<p><strong>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</strong> That's a very interesting question. Um, and I've found that the new pupils come into Gutenberg or editor using the block editor in, in a few waves.</p>



<p>So there was a, uh, 2018, uh, wave. There was a 2019 rave, 20, and now was a full-sized editing coming. To WordPress. It definitely brings in another wave of new users to the space. So there is a, um, big push and, um, quite a few agencies, as well as, um, hosting companies do a, uh, a phenomenal job. Um, Picking up those topics, like how do I, um, get a content created?</p>



<p>How do I, um, um, yeah, uh, youth image blog, and all of [00:20:00] the, um, how tos of that, there is a user documentation on the web press.org. Um, and, uh, they have caught up probably, uh, to 5.7. Um, And the newest one is always a little bit like in behind, but I, uh, the hosting company. Yeah. If you follow Kim stir, if you follow, um, um, it escapes me now, but there were, uh, or WP beginner.</p>



<p>Um, I think there is a very good. Search searching those articles and publishing up in the thing, but it's not about the news media, then I have not found that that is really something, um, That is picked up by any of the, um, any of us. Um, I soon pick it up just for that particular idea that if agencies read the Gutenberg times and they get questions from their [00:21:00] content creators and their, uh, users that I have a.</p>



<p>A list of beginner tutorials, uh, where people can go or send their customers to. So they can kind of offset that customer support, um, a little bit to a material that's already out there. I wish we had a better, um, end user documentation on represent org</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> documentations and other things.</p>



<p><strong>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</strong> Yeah. I, I stopped.</p>



<p>Total different topic, but that's kind of, um, so, um, yeah, I think there is a new wave of, uh, new users coming in every eight to nine months. Um, kind of picking up on the, the buzz of new features in WordPress.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Do you think, do you think the news, do you think, all right now the state of the WordPress, um, the state of the WordPress news reporting is doing a good enough job.</p>



<p>Yes or no, regarding new Gutenberg stuff. Do you think there's. Is there a great [00:22:00] gap or yes or no on that one?</p>



<p><strong>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</strong> Oh, absolutely. Yes. On the new Gutenberg stuff, not on the new users, but the new Gutenberg stuff. That's definitely, um, um, uh, coming around on, on, uh, especially the top of your Tavern, um, of course, and, um,</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> speak of the Tavern.</p>



<p>I'm sorry. Speak of the Tavern. I do want to make sure we get everybody's comment on this, Sarah, what is your take on it?</p>



<p><strong>Sarah Gooding:</strong> I think it really depends on what publication you're running. I think with like something like the Gutenberg times, it's really important to, to get everybody along and, um, to, to get people on the same page and help people learn and move forward with, with convert.</p>



<p>But if you're just like a straight up news publication, then, um, I don't think it should be the goal of WordPress news to help new users necessarily. It's certainly a positive by-product, but the news should just serve the public interest and report on anything that's [00:23:00] newsworthy. So even if it doesn't on its face, seem like as a positive slant for new users or contributors or even WordPress itself.</p>



<p>Um, I think that if you're writing, you know, just WordPress news and you really need to stay. To, um, to just telling the truth. And sometimes that's going to be really exciting and positive and there's going to be big leaps for, for Gutenberg. And sometimes there are going to be major frustrations, but I think that that friction there, um, helps the project and refined it.</p>



<p>And the more we can have these kinds of discussions in a, in a transparent and honest way, um, including all, all people's voices. I know that there are contributors who put like hours and hours in. And so sometimes there's. It seems more valuable, but there are users who have spent five minutes on it and failed, and their input is valuable too.</p>



<p>So I think if we can be, you know, grab those diverse voices and put it together to form a narrative that helps people, then, then I think that. [00:24:00]</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Matt, you you're going to say something</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> I wasn't until Sarah just said it way better than I could have.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Great. Well, I know what order to put you in next time,</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> but like real quick on the, yeah, it totally depends on the publication.</p>



<p>It depends on the, the format as well. And this has been really interesting. Uh, because for years I run a podcast about business entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, and I would, uh, you know, in a, in a, in an effort not to get just like the same voices or just somebody who wants to appear on the podcast to promote their new plugin or theme, I do a lot of outreach into, into folks that I would, I deem interesting to not only me, but what would be interesting to my audience.</p>



<p>And the point that I'm getting at is, is not everyone wants. Quite literally talk to me and use their voice to get their message out. They, in other words, they don't want to be on a podcast. And one of the interesting things that I've found with the WP minute is now I do text [00:25:00] and audio. And while that sounds like, you know, kind of silly or kind of throw away on the surface, I have found people who are much more willing to do a written interview or to express themselves, uh, through text.</p>



<p>So that's. Uh, touching on just format of the news. Um, but what I've been doing a lot more with the WP minute is giving voices quite literally reaching out to people and saying, Hey, I think you've got a great story to tell. Do you have the confidence? Do you want to share this story? And I think to go back to the new people in the WordPress space, You know, leveling up your game a little bit, having some confidence to hop on a podcast or do an inter interview is something that you should do to get your message out.</p>



<p>If you want to. I have approached countless people who just say no. Um, they, they just don't want to have their voice heard, whether that's a confidence thing or confidentiality thing or [00:26:00] something like that,</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> maybe the wrong time</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> or maybe wrong time. Right. Uh, but I do see. You know, and poor folks who, who want to get a message out to, you know, to, to level up that side of their game, if, if they'd like to,</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> well, I, uh, we actually.</p>



<p>That's actually very good because you know, there's been a lot of discussion about how we get new contributors into the WordPress space, but not everybody's a contributor, they're a business owner, so it's, they rely if they come from the outside. So sometimes they have to figure out where their new sources are coming from, from inside the WordPress space.</p>



<p>So that's a pretty important demographic for, I think, for all of us now, speaking of. Well, I don't really have a good segue for this. So I'll just skip that attempt. Um, if I'm pronouncing her name correctly, Dan, correct me if I'm wrong. But Ray Mori from the repository newsletter, uh, was not able to make it here today.</p>



<p>Um, she did leave a video. I'll share with the link. I'll share the zip and message link in the show notes from this [00:27:00] episode. Live, um, all of you have, have had had opportunity to look at the page as well. So this won't be too much of a surprise, but I thought she had an interesting response into what improvements can be made into how news is reported.</p>



<p>And I thought, and hopefully you can hear this audio. I think we did the sound check and work. So after listening to what I would love to. One or two of your guest's feedback here. Um, let's see if I can play this it's what improvements can be made and how news is rewarded system.</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> Can you,</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> can we hear that?</p>



<p>Can somebody say. Yes,</p>



<p><strong>Rae Morey:</strong> reporting more independent reporting, even more journalists working at WP Tavern chalet. Matt could put up some more cash for a couple more riders, because there were a lot of stories going on reported for instance, this week, elemental who for transparency is one of my, uh, sponsors at their poetry.</p>



<p>Um, they launched a big budget marketing [00:28:00] campaign that I personally think is anything. This is better than anything that weeks or Squarespaces is doing. And it doesn't even mention WordPress is elemental trying to distance itself from WordPress. Maybe Sarah or Justin are already working on that story. I think it's a pretty big deal, but no, one's really talking about it yet anyway.</p>



<p>So I'll be looking out for that story in the next week. And as more and more people who speak English as a second language or not at all, here's where press it's becoming increasingly important that we engage with those communities and acknowledge their contribution contributions to the WordPress project, as well as the success of businesses and individuals who are using the platform.</p>



<p>Overall, I'd love to see more of a diversity of voices in the WordPress media.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Hopefully Sarah, didn't put you too much on this spot. On that. I kind of forgot. She, she mentioned the Tavern a little bit. Um, but there are, there are stories that. That some feel are or going, uh, [00:29:00] unreported, which is we can't cover everything. But, um, and she mentioned also something about language as well.</p>



<p>So, um, if anybody wants to comment on what improvements can be made into how you think general news is recorded, um, maybe what we can hit in terms of, I don't know, uh, we hit on it a little bit. Um, but it, does anybody have a specific frame on that? Or am I going to put somebody on the spot? I think I'm going to put somebody on that.</p>



<p>I tell you why proposed status. I can speak for post status on this a little bit. Um, improvements on how the news is report. Um, for, for post status is actually post status is not really much of a new sources, more of a Anil, uh, analysis type of that's what we that's, what post status does primarily. So the cha so the ways we can, at least personally, for me, we used can be improved in how news is reported, because while we give analysis, we also share news as well [00:30:00] is not to jump the gun too quickly for us.</p>



<p>Stories can be braking. And also there's a lot of emotion coming with some stories, whether it's an acquisition, whether individual expresses a certain opinion about a topic, Twitter gets hot, real fast, and sometimes I have to watch my reacts. Sometimes I don't want to give a reaction to something going on on Twitter because I think that's, that kind of starts to paint me into a corner a little bit and turns my, when we get to the post status, part of it in the analysis part of it.</p>



<p>So. For me personally, an improvement would be sometimes I shouldn't give a hot take and let other people converse and then kind of take a step back. Um, Matt, what are your thoughts? Well,</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> just to, first of all, she asked some amazing questions in that, uh, in that zip message that you have recorded, um, some fantastic stuff.</p>



<p>The, uh, and without trying to sound like a broken, broken record, but, uh, I'm not [00:31:00] worried. An element or story getting missed or not covered because it's elementary and they have a fantastic marketing team. And if they want to get heard, uh, they have certainly come across my radar and I'm sure they've gone across everyone.</p>



<p>Else's radar. That's on this panel today. Uh, and they have the resources. It's the small fry, uh, or the smaller solo blue collar digital worker. That doesn't have that chance or it doesn't have those resources and we can't catch everything. Um, I certainly can't because this is just a side gig for me. Uh,</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> it's not easy to get to that in a second. That's our next topic.</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> It's not a full-time job. So I know one of my. Tons and I'm sure Joe and beer get, get this all the time. Hey, I want to be on the podcast. We've got this thing. We want to pitch a very shallow, very just self-serving and those, I get a ton of those and it's just, I don't even respond.</p>



<p>But if you come to me with a great story to be heard, absolutely a hundred percent, [00:32:00] let's at least have the conversation, um, to get you to get you some airtime and we can't catch everything. Um, Sarah's one person. A small team and same with me. Uh, and it's, it's just so hard. So if you want to reach out and get that story heard again, broken record moment, reach out and let us know.</p>



<p>Okay. Yeah. I guess it is hard for the smaller fry so to speak. Um, and we kind of have to be open and receptive to that. That it's, that's a good point. So let's talk. Um, unless anyone else has something to share real quick, let's talk monetization. Let's talk about. Uh, Matt said this is a site gig. Um, um, I, Sarah, I believe correct me if I'm wrong, but I, our Eric, is it a, is it a site?</p>



<p>Is it a part-time full-time side gig? What, where do you fall on that? Because I'm about to push her out of the way</p>



<p><strong>Sarah Gooding:</strong> it's full-time.</p>



<p>Okay. So, um, and your employer, just to remind [00:33:00] everyone here is. Okay, so you have a full-time position. So this question may not, I'm not sure feel free to jump in, but I'm going to focus.</p>



<p>Um, Joe is, is your, do you consider what you do a side gig as well?</p>



<p><strong>Joe Howard:</strong> Uh, that's a really good question. I don't even know if I</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> have it. Yeah, because it's so melded together with WP and Mount with your business or your podcasts.</p>



<p><strong>Joe Howard:</strong> I'm trying to remember the name of the movie spotlight. Uh, there's a scene where Marty Baron is the editor in chief of the newspaper. He was talking to, um, someone in the church and the essence. He says, you know, we, we have to be a part in order to be our, you know, the best news organization we can, we can't be affiliated with anything.</p>



<p>So I think. To me, it's like speaks to [00:34:00] what Matt was talking about in terms of, uh, it's kind of like a side gig. And I guess for me, I'd say, yeah, it's like, you know, maybe it's part of WP buffs. Maybe it's not, who are we sponsored by? Do we have affiliate links pointing to different places? That's a big challenge in the WordPress news space.</p>



<p>I think, you know, how many of the people who are doing WordPress news who are really creating or news specific to the WordPress space or. Would consider themselves. Journalists would consider themselves full time employees or team members of a team where a hundred percent of their time and energy is put towards being a journalist.</p>



<p>You know? Uh, I think that's probably for most of us, that's probably, that's not the case.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Do you think that, do you think that's a big hindrance? The fact that we don't have more full-time people focused on news and WordPress or similar spaces. I know. In the recording mentioned that, um, you know, the, the [00:35:00] ability, you know, the existence of maybe a couple of more full-time writers, do you think that's a, that's a big hindrance right now?</p>



<p>Or do you think with the most people doing this on the side gig, that is sufficient? Um, what are your thoughts on that?</p>



<p><strong>Joe Howard:</strong> I think it's a hindrance. I think Ray is right. I think, I think about the monetization of. Tavern where it not, uh, owned and operated and funded by Audrey capital, would it have enough views? Would it have enough? Like how would it monetize itself where it not monetize that way? And I think that the answer would pro I don't want to speak without having any real knowledge of it, but I would say probably the viewership would not be enough to like fully fund the full-time team members.</p>



<p>They are just based on like a Google ad. You know, versus like, based on how many page views that Tavern gets. So I think that the, [00:36:00] yeah, in short, I think, yeah, we need more people who are doing full time journalists work, because I think that in my opinion, To do news on the side or news as kind of like part of something else.</p>



<p>There's always going to be a, well, how are they, how are you funding this? You know, like post status does it with like a membership, you know, I think that's a really cool way to like fund news, but, um, you know, if I'm writing like an article for WP bus and it's a news article and it's like the best website management company is like, well, if I have WP boss, the number one company, like.</p>



<p>Really news. Like, I don't think so. I think it goes back to what Sarah says sad about, you know, you had to put out the best stories that are the most important for people. Um, and I think traditionally news is really been about, you know, keeping [00:37:00] the it's about democracy. It's about keeping the, uh, keep giving us a educated.</p>



<p>That's really the that's why we, we have journalism. I think so. Um, yeah, sorry. A little bit of tension, but there some thoughts,</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> that's fine. I, I, you know what, um, there are times in wish, you know, some people, you know, we'd have a side gig and we say, wow, Could be paid to do this full-time and then there's I think sometimes I'm like, I rather, I'm very thankful this is a side gig.</p>



<p>Um, because I don't think</p>



<p><strong>Joe Howard:</strong> I could do I'm sorry, I just want one quick thing. If any other thing, anybody else here, any other speakers like to think differently? Like I'm super open to having conversation about this. Um, and I think the there's, there's always pros and there's always cons to whatever monetization you're doing or however you.</p>



<p>Go about reporting news, for instance, like, you know, however you set yourself up as a business or as an entity or as like how you're reporting the news. They're always going to be pros. There's always going to be [00:38:00] cons. But I think that I, I think that we, the, the, as WordPress gets more, as more money comes into the WordPress community and open source community, like we need more full time.</p>



<p>People who are dedicated to, uh, you know, democracy dies in darkness. Like we have to make sure we're keeping up with, uh, keeping shining light on every aspect of the WordPress community.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> So when it comes to, so when it comes to news, is that something we would treat as kind of like a contribution or contributors?</p>



<p>Is it, would it be possible for, you know, how the people, companies sponsor word sponsor contributors? Full-time. Would there be, let's pretend that a position exists for someone to be able to sponsor someone full-time to do the news or create content. Would that be a help or would that just be seen [00:39:00] as a, um, biased type of thing?</p>



<p><strong>Joe Howard:</strong> I th I think this is a key question and I see Matt with his hand up and I I'd be really interested to hear what Madison's. Yeah.</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Yes. Unfortunately, he's, it's more than one finger this time. So let me, let me ask Matt here.</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> Uh, so let me just restate that question. So the question is, if people are creating news, do you count that as a contribution to WordPress?</p>



<p><strong>David Bisset:</strong> Yeah. Plus, or more, more in the bigger question would be if we need more full-time efforts into WordPress or full-time people or full-time positions or whatever, or more smaller time positions, is that something that accompany could sponsor just like someone can sponsor a full-time.</p>



<p><strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> Yeah. Uh, I'm biased because I feel like 10 years of creating WordPress content is a healthy dose of contribution and from my point of view, um, so I think, yes, if you, if, if a company, a small company, a medium company, big company wants to sponsor somebody to do that, certainly.[00:40:00]</p>



<p>Absolutely. And I would count it as a contribution to the greater, um, ecosystem of, of WordPress. And I think folks who follow me know that the more we are rallying around WordPress, the more adoption WordPress gets and support, et cetera, et cetera. So, yes, I, I look at that as a contribution just to like put it in and I'll wrap this answer up super quick.</p>



<p>Cause Sarah has her hand up, um, you know, as. We are like the 1% of the 1%, the people who actually care about the inside baseball, the news of WordPress, the Watchers,</p>



<p>like I'm open to be challenged on that, but you know, I think more people care about the 50 new landscaping themes for 20, 22 than they care about some, you know, uh, analysis.</p>



<p>On automatic or whatever the space is, as big as we make, we feel like it is it's really, really small. And in order for it to be properly funded, yes. You're always going to, [00:41:00] you're going to have to have some large institution or some company that does sponsor it. It will always be this question of, are you going to be biased?</p>



<p>Uh, but you know, it's, it's totally. It's the trust that the journalist instills. And I think Sarah does a fantastic job with that. Uh, when look, my numbers are pretty public and I do talk about, I do talk about it in blog posts quite often, all you like. I sell my sponsorship through hu commerce store, and I have a membership that you can look at, buy me a coffee and see how many members I have the annual run rate for my sponsors.</p>



<p>It's about $40,000 a year is what I make off of that. And then I just plow that back into, um, reinvesting into the company. And this is from a part-time thing. If people can. You know, live on that as a full time, then certainly these things are doable. Um, I think [00:42:00] there are companies that will support, you know, for more money, uh, and give somebody a healthy, uh, career out of it.</p>



<p>And I think it's just up to the. The journalist or the blogger or the podcast, or who wants to step up and try to go and get that money and then have companies in the WordPress space that look at quality content, quality, journalism, and reporting, and want to support.</p>



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<h2 id="h-transcript-part-2">Transcript (Part 2)</h2>



<h1>Episode 3 &#8211; Part Two</h1>



<p>[00:00:00] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Hello, welcome to post status comments, where we had our third episode state of WordPress news on Twitter spaces on November 19th, 2021. We had some great guests, including Matt from Matt report media, Joe Howard, from doughy P M R R. Forget from Gutenberg times, Sarah, from WP Tavern and Dan from post status.</p>



<p>In fact, we had such an engaging conversation, including comments from the audience and pre recordings that it went about 90 minutes long. So we split it up into two equal audio parts. Before we go into this part. Now I want to thank a really great sponsor who really stepped it up and provided sponsorship for this entire episode.</p>



<p>And that's WP. Now WP lookout, what that does is attracts plug-ins and the themes that your WordPress site uses and probably depends on it's especially useful for getting timely info on the plugins and theme versions, security updates, author changes. Mentions in the news and more, there's probably not a good way for you to keep track of all of that yourself.</p>



<p>So WP lookout is an excellent tool, especially for important client sites that helps stay help you stay on top of things, especially for security updates. Plus it has great features, great customization. So you can be notified by email, slack, web hook, and RSS. So really great service. Chris is an awesome guy.</p>



<p>Go check them out at post EDIS docs. Slash WP lookout. And here's our episode well said, uh, Sarah what's, what's your take and then we'll move on to the next, uh, question.</p>



<p>[00:01:39] <strong>Sarah Gooding:</strong> Yeah, I think I just want to tag onto what, um, Matt was saying. It's really hard to do this without a contract, a conflict of. And I think I've seen, you know, hosting companies try to do it where they'll have people writing like a, what they'll call a news magazine and they'll, they'll post, you know, tons of, of news and really good articles actually, um, that investigate different things.</p>



<p>But then they're mixed in with like product updates or, you know, we're coming out with this new thing. And so it's, it's mixed. And you know, you, as the reader have to decide like how much of this is. Um, what I can trust and how much is this company trying to sell me something? So it's, it's really hard for a company like a hosting hosting companies have a ton of money.</p>



<p>So it's, you know, it's tough to be able to have them be completely independent, where they are allowed to just go write whatever they want. You know, there would have to be some, we'd have to have some kind of new, new way to do this. And it would be really interesting to see if something like that kind of.</p>



<p>Um, because we do need more diverse voices. We need a lot, we need voices coming from different publications. And, um, I mean, I remember back in the day when post status, he used to write more news and there were times when I was like, why isn't, why isn't posting. Mentioning like what this company is doing.</p>



<p>They're defrauding customers, or, you know, things like that. And I, and you realize that there are a lot of business relationships behind all of this. And at the same time, like some of these smaller publications, they're going to compromise their ability to stay afloat. If they, if they write news against, um, some of these people who are their partners are the people who, who fund what they're doing.</p>



<p>Did they have a chance to keep making a positive impact long-term or are they going to burn, you know, 50% of their sponsors by publishing a story about, you know, corporate wrongdoing. So it's, it's really, it's a tough balance, you know, so you can have independent publications that are sponsored, but they, they have a tough road to walk.</p>



<p>And then even with the Tavern, you know, we're constantly asked about the conflict of interest, uh, you know, being funded by Audrey capital. So. Um, yeah, everybody has a tough time and funding news as a, as an ancient problem. But I think, you know, maybe in the WordPress community, we could find some innovative way to tackle this where when you could get those independent people, those people who, I mean, it has to be people who love WordPress and who will write the truth and who, um, you know, at their core are wanting WordPress to succeed, but are able to discern what is this news or not.</p>



<p>And, you know, finding those people and people who actually want write. Every single day. It's tough. You know, I've had to look for them before, like when we got Justin, you know, this is a guy who can't be bought to say, you know, something positive or negative about anything that&#8230;</p>



<p>[00:04:26] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> &#8230;isn't true. I tried at a WordCamp and wouldn't tell me good things about myself. I gave him money.</p>



<p>[00:04:30] <strong>Sarah Gooding:</strong> So, you know, everyone, everyone who's doing it. They have a tough job.</p>



<p>[00:04:36] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Here's Ray here with her comment on that from, from the zip message. And then I'm going to move on to another question here.</p>



<p>[00:04:44] <strong>Rae Morey:</strong> I love this question because it's an easy one for me to answer no matter who sponsors the repository, I'm going to write about them.</p>



<p>Whether their activities are good or bad, um, Elementor as I've just mentioned, they one of my sponsors and they're going to be in the next upcoming issue of the repository. Um, one of our current sponsors he's good at he pro I've written about GoDaddy in the past when there was negative news story that didn't stop in sponsoring their pository.</p>



<p>I think it's crucial that we hold companies to account for their actions, particularly large companies that are sponsoring newsletters. We need sponsorship to keep the lights running, but we need to be able to ride. Um, you know, write independently of our sponsors, views and opinions. And if we're going to produce meaningful news content, we shouldn't be afraid of, of losing sponsorship.</p>



<p>Um, and that's something I make very clear to sponsors from the outset when they choose to sponsor the repository.</p>



<p>I thought that was a pretty good comment. If it more or less what we were talking about. So here's a question and feel free to raise your hand, um, panel here for this, but I'm going to start with Dan because I can put him on the spot.</p>



<p>We want to know. From the news world, the people that report the news. And we asked you this before, um, to give you, give you time to think about it. What was the single biggest news story? So far of the year 2021 in WordPress. Um, and already we already went through what defines biggest influential, whatever, how you for you to find it.</p>



<p>And, uh, and the, the game rule here is it needs to be a specific story and it can't be just. Acquisitions. So, um, Dan, if you're ready, I'd love to hear, um, give it, tell us briefly what you think the, um, in your opinion, the biggest news story. Sure.</p>



<p>[00:06:32] <strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Um, yeah, we've tossed this one around a bit. Um, I'm going to kind of bend that question a little bit.</p>



<p>I, I make a pretty hard distinction between news journalism. And then what we would say is analysis or trying to set a conversation is more of what we try to do at post status. So I, I, I kind of, uh, agree with some other things Rae said in what she contributed, that there's a lot, that's not being written.</p>



<p>And probably the biggest story is as a, not just a news piece, but a story that gives some, some deeper analysis is, you know, maybe the big, uh, big picture on, on acquisitions, multiple acquisitions, what it means for a specific industry or. The community as a whole, um, that hasn't really been done. Um, I think Sarah's amp piece is probably probably the biggest, the significant piece of journalism, um, to come along.</p>



<p>And that that's something that has a lot of implications and in, um, what we want to do with things like that is have, have a rich news and journalism ecosystem that's out there that. You know, David and I, and others that post status and things to chew on and, um, create the discussions that matter a little bit more reflective and slow.</p>



<p>Um, as we've posted status has really become more of a trade association at its heart, a membership community. Um, and I think people see. Think back to some old older days when, when there was, there was a bit of a journalistic quality to it. That's really rare for us to do at this point. So. Part think tank part, part association, um, with as many entry points now, as we can get to people who are at all different phases of their potential careers.</p>



<p>So, uh, communal. Within the community, I guess</p>



<p>[00:08:40] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> it was Matt. Oh, I'm sorry. Were you done Dan? I'm sorry. I'm juggling three different stages. Was there a single news story that you thought was likely could be a contender for the biggest, um, WordPress story related story of 2021 so far?</p>



<p>[00:08:54] <strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> Uh, I'm going to give you an interesting answer. But before I do, while I have an audience, I have to say that there's, I have a massive amount of imposter syndrome sitting alongside of Sarah. When you talk to journalists and quality of content and things like the amp story. I mean, people who are in the audience listening to this, you should just give her a round of applause with the emoji, uh, emoji icon thing in the</p>



<p>[00:09:19] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Twitter space .It might be hard to do the UI on this thing is nuts. But go ahead. Yeah.</p>



<p>[00:09:25] <strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> Um, so anyway, You know, I'm old enough to remember when Andrew Neeson was the biggest WordPress celebrity in the space and what I've witnessed over the last decade or so, or more at this point is that, um, a lot of celebrities that come and go and I think.</p>



<p>With all of the acquisitions, the results of all of the acquisitions. I think the biggest story that's actually being written right now are all of, and I don't want to use the word celebrities, but all of the next round of leaders in this space, uh, whether or not they're writing code, writing a blog post, doing a podcast, uh, training people contributing, uh, volunteering at word camps when they come back.</p>



<p>I think we're going to see a whole new wave of awesome WordPress leadership, um, coming out of all of the. You know, 20, 20, 20, 21, uh, acquisitions and just people, you know, bobbing and weaving out of the space for one reason or the other. So for me, it's the unwritten story. If I can cheat and use that really everybody's doing that.</p>



<p>I can't get a straight answer out of anybody, but that's fine. That's, that's how these things go. And, you know, we submitted my resignation later. Um, we're good. What's let's see if we can. Third. Time's the charm. What's, what's the biggest, but oh, by the way, this is all legit, by the way. And I'd rather have this than.</p>



<p>And pulling a URL out of, of some Mondays I'm rear end here, but I forget what is the single biggest news story? I'll ask you the same question of 2021.</p>



<p>[00:11:01] <strong>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</strong> Well, I have two stories. I'm sorry,</p>



<p>[00:11:07] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> real quick. Now, if you've got two you've got to give them out real quick. Go ahead.</p>



<p>[00:11:12] <strong>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</strong> So, um, WP engine did a study on the economic impact of her press and it's 509 5. 196 or something billion dollars. That is really big. Um, what I was missing on that story was how much of that money goes to hosting companies.</p>



<p>Um, but that's just a side effect of that. It's a really big, um, economic issue. And the second story, I think, um, it's, it's just totally self-serving, but I think having developer advocates for the WordPress open source project, going out in the community and helping developers and seeing developers and agency developers to, um, to get to wrap their head around Gutenberg, JavaScript.</p>



<p>Step over them, the hurdle to, I hate JavaScript too. Maybe I can work with it. Um, is, um, certainly for the impact that it will have on, um, the, uh, WordPress contributors might be, um, a good story too.</p>



<p>Okay. It was that both of them or is that one? Because my counting abilities ain't so good. These days. I was too.</p>



<p>Just making sure. No that's boom, boom, bang, bang, bang. All right. So listen, um, what I want to do now is I'm going to take a real quick pause here. And we were talking about sponsors a minute ago and just so happens. We have one for this podcast, and then I'm going to, I'm going to share that with you, but speakers and audience too.</p>



<p>Um, I would like to take the last part of this conversation into, I think, what is, uh, Could be an elephant in the room. That's kinda broken out a little bit. Um, the topic of acquisitions. Um, we have a question from one of our audience member or one of our zip message members, and we want to get everybody's take on the acquisition space that seems to have consumed most of the, a lot of oxygen in the news space.</p>



<p>Uh, this year. Um, first of all, though, I do want to thank though, um, WP lookout. Um, it's got a nice little tower as a logo. It's pretty, it's pretty nice. It actually tracks plugins and themes. So if you, uh, it'll actually was launched in August, 2020. Okay. It was providing a goal. It still is. It still is. It's present tense.</p>



<p>It's providing WordPress users with a better way to stay informed about what's happening with their WordPress sites. So if you need plugins or if you need notification sent to you by email slack, RSS, a carrier pigeon could be something on here. I'm very certain that if you want to know about security updates and everything happened to your website, check them out at WP lookout.</p>



<p>I'd actually like the tower to creme reminds me of, um, the forest lookout towers, which is probably what it's supposed to be. But anyway, let's talk last, last chapter here. Let's talk about acquisitions and Kim Coleman actually sent this real quick question in, and I want those who have a take, uh, feel free to share it here.</p>



<p>[00:14:13] <strong>Kim Coleman:</strong> Hey everyone. I'm Kim Coleman from paid memberships pro I just wanted to get everyone's perspective on what the benefits and downsides the users of our WordPress plugins will experience with all the acquisitions we're seeing in this space. Thanks so much.</p>



<p>[00:14:27] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> That is the most loaded question. I think I've ever put into a part, so we could go, this could be its own pockets in of itself.</p>



<p>So let's just focus from a news from a news. Perspective someone who reports on the news and seeds, it sees, uh, uh, various size of landscape. What are your thoughts on how the WordPress acquisitions may be affecting? I think she said users of plugins or developers of plugins. I can play this again if we need to.</p>



<p>It's only 15 seconds. Um, in fact, maybe you want me to re repeat the question? Let's repeat it one more time. Actually, I'm getting, uh, somebody didn't hear it. Hold on one sec. Just do it one more time. Hey everyone. I'm Kim Coleman from paid memberships pro I just wanted to get everyone's perspective on what the benefits and downsides the users of our WordPress plugins will experience with all the acquisitions we're seeing in this space.</p>



<p>So users and developers. So I, you know, me personally, um, short term for a lot of these acquisitions, it seems like nothing much is changing, but maybe. Maybe that's just me or I'm not looking far ahead enough, Matt, what are you? What's your take on that? Well,</p>



<p>[00:15:40] <strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> I'll take the easy answer before anybody else snags it for me.</p>



<p>[00:15:43] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> This is how you play monopoly. But</p>



<p>[00:15:45] <strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> the, uh, you know, I think look at the end of the day, that means that the users are going to get hopefully stronger, better, uh, options and less of them hold that thought they don't have to hold it. Yeah, they don't have to decide between a dozen forms or a dozen SEO plugins.</p>



<p>And they can just see some from brands that they like, they can get an all-inclusive turn-key solution and there, they don't have to search around anymore. They've got it. They figured it out. They got one easy tool to use, uh, flips. They have less choices and that's the beauty, or has been the beauty of WordPress is that so many of us have been able to make a, go at earning an income and creating products and serving a set of customers for so many years.</p>



<p>And, uh, it's been quite fun, but now we'll see that it's going to be a lot more challenging to stand out. And then as soon as you start to stand up, Uh, liquid web might knock on your door and ask about you, but, you know, it's,</p>



<p>[00:16:52] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> it's, she tutored two men to, to credit of that act. I've heard you on Twitter, say many times I'm looking to be acquired and I'm assuming it means your business and not your personal self, but I'm taking it to that mean that way I actually want to touch on the less choice thing, maybe in a second of anyone else as a comment on that, rainbow has a final comment here on this subject as well.</p>



<p>And I wanted to sneak this in before I got any more feedback. Um, let's see. oh, wait a minute. I think. Well, yes.</p>



<p>[00:17:24] <strong>Rae Morey:</strong> I tend to think there's not one standout story. So much as one standout theme when it comes to influential news story of the year and that's gotta be acquisitions. It seems there's an acquisition acquisition every week. Um, as big as companies like Yoast and Paisley that have been around since the early days of being acquired, both of which were.</p>



<p>Incredibly surprising you stories this year. Certainly changing the way we think about WordPress because it's no longer simply play open source project run by community of individuals and small businesses. So much as a it's project supported now by corporate interests.</p>



<p>That is an interesting take.</p>



<p>And Joe, you put up a hundred up there. Did you have.</p>



<p>[00:18:10] <strong>Joe Howard:</strong> I think Ray and I share, uh, some opinions on this. Um,</p>



<p>[00:18:16] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> oh, it's okay. You don't shine for another podcast, but yeah, it's, I've generally speaking from a, from a news reporter standpoint. Do you, um, how much of that do you gel with? And gel is a technical.</p>



<p>[00:18:29] <strong>Joe Howard:</strong> Ah, well, I don't really even consider myself a news person, someone who produces news more based, but I would agree with Ray.</p>



<p>Um, I think the shift is happening from being a true open source, um, community environment that we have to, I mean, if you look at the acquisition space, the people making acquisitions, you know, What three or four main organizations that are, that are making most of these acquisitions, um, and full transparency.</p>



<p>WP boss has an acquisition arm as well as discount myself from this. Yeah. Hey, there you go. Transparency. But, uh, but I believe. And Matt, what Matt was saying was really important because that choice of that people have is slowly going away because these corporations are saying, oh, don't go out and look for the plugins you want, like, just use ours.</p>



<p>And I think like today that doesn't have as big of an effect because the open source economy is still strong, but over time, you know, if we're not careful, You know, every, you know, everybody's going to be owned by five companies, you know? And then what choice do you really have? You know, who's really happy with like, you know, Comcast, you know, TV deal.</p>



<p>That's totally, they're paying way too much for, or, you know, the, these huge companies that, you know, you have to buy from them because they have monopolies over things. I mean, this is how it starts. Uh, so I think longterm, this is, uh, what we have to, what is open source? What is it really going to be in 10 years?</p>



<p>Is it going to be the same as it was 10 years? Um, I don't think so. And I think for, in some cases there'll be some improvements, you know, but I think in some cases, how</p>



<p>[00:20:33] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> do you, how do you think that fits into the people that we have here speaking today about their, their, their dedication to reporting news in terms of, if it is going to be, if there is a consolidation, does that put more importance on trying to find the independent developer or plugin and.</p>



<p>Or do you think that the pressure is on to kind of go with the flow in terms of, um, reporting from the bigger companies? I mean, where do you, where do you rank the efforts in terms of, do you, do you go, do you kind of fight against the grain that's taking what you said into account, or how do you go about finding independent people of that is what you see the future to be.</p>



<p>That is for you. If you want to answer it otherwise I can just dump it on myself.</p>



<p>[00:21:28] <strong>Joe Howard:</strong> Well, I'll just make a quick answer, cause I don't want to monopolize time too much, but the. I think we need more hard hitting news pieces, uh, in general. And that's not to say that I don't feel like the panel here does an excellent job, but a lot of that, I think we get a lot of good stories, but like I said before, like I would love if Tavern had like 10 people, you know, and I would love if they were, you know, I want more.</p>



<p>Of the hard hitting stories. Like I haven't heard a story about, you know, there's like an acquire out there. That's like own, like they've acquired a bunch of plugins and they are owned by, uh, a big, big investment firm and the what drives them at the end of the day, in my opinion, I would say is, is profits.</p>



<p>And that's. But I haven't seen that story written out there. So I'm not going to specifically name names there, but I, but I think there's room for a lot more storytelling in the WordPress community, both what you said, uh, about bringing smaller shocks to light, bringing smaller companies to light. Uh, but also, um, we need to be.</p>



<p>We need to be hard on these big, big entities. You know, a lot of whom are sponsoring events. And again, I, I'm not discounting myself in this either. You know, we had the WMR summit, we had sponsorship by some big companies as well. Um, and I've thought a lot about that. And I really questioning whether I want to even accept sponsorships again next year, because part of me, I just, it doesn't feel like the right way.</p>



<p>Separate yourself from these big entities taking their money. It's, it's a, it's a hard conversation. I'm not saying I'm right in that.</p>



<p>[00:23:14] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> I'm just saying you're describing is awkward. Not this, not your current conversation is awkward. I mean, the subject is awkward. Um, I, I,</p>



<p>[00:23:21] <strong>Joe Howard:</strong> but that's exactly why we need journalists in more journalists to help out, to have more of these awkward conversations because the awkward conversations and the hard conversations and the challenging conversations are always.</p>



<p>The ones you have to have, you must have in order to move conversations forward. And in order to, to, to shed light where it needs to be shed in order to, you know, make the WordPress community what we want to be, or else it'll turn into what prophet wants it to be. I don't think anybody wants that.</p>



<p>[00:23:53] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> I can tell you from a personal experiences, not as much as a, a news person, but as a WordCamp organizers sometimes. Um, and as somebody who blogs and tweets about stuff, And this is small time. This is small potatoes, right? But you have a sponsor. We actually had this happen one time. Somebody has a sponsor. They're big time sponsor. You're thanking them. And even though they're going through the foundation a little bit, um, some sponsors obviously are making a choice in many situations to sponsor your event.</p>



<p>You're very happy you get money, but then their company. Does something I don't know, awkward, or it was a blunder or something. And like right before the work camp, it gets out in the news. And as somebody who likes to tweet a lot or someone who likes to like keep people informed, sometimes I give pause in terms of, am I going to have to somehow subconsciously make an apology to the, somebody at the work camp?</p>



<p>Cause I'm, cause I'm a member of the community here, but I'm also a work camp organizer here and. It's like, I like, that's why I've picked the word awkward. Um, cause it kind of is, and I'm not sure if that's something that I would like to feel all the time. I'm not sure if that's something I can, I can get over.</p>



<p>Um, Dan, what is your feeling as we wrap up, wrap up this discussion here, what is your, um, feelings on the impact of acquisitions on the news space?</p>



<p>[00:25:15] <strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Well, yes, I've been thinking a lot about that as we kind of digest, you know, what the — what are the big questions we should be asking? In the wake of big M and A stories. We do need people doing the journalism and news reporting side to give us the stuff that David curates and work through editorially and have discussions, bring on guests and talk about the issues of the day.</p>



<p>Post Status traditionally has been very developer oriented. I'm glad we've really broadened and grown to cover really pretty much every aspect of every career and field in the WordPress space. But as Pippin Williamson told [Post Status Publisher] Corey [Miller] on his exit and referred to another conversation, I think it was Kinsta's podcast with Austin Ginter, that we should be concerned about big consolidation under hosting companies that are going to build their own beautifully smooth platforms for storefronts, for LMS, for vanilla WordPress. You know, making things work in a way that's very hard to do if you're integrating a lot of different plugins together, say an LMS or a membership site or something like that.</p>



<p>If you have some of the big players really offer an outstanding WordPress experience, but it's branded (with their brand) and unique, is that really WordPress anymore? What are the implications for confusion there and I'm interested in, how does that look when you have a corporate interest and competition? How well do you play with developers from the other team?</p>



<p>You know, which APIs get documented well, and you know, how much sharing and cooperation then really happens between these potentially more sectioned off parts of what is supposed to be a single ecosystem. So that <em>untold</em> story is one that, I think is a series of questions and conversations we all need to look at. </p>



<p>[00:27:25] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Okay.</p>



<p>[00:27:26] <strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> I think Sarah has, has a, a comment here too, and oh yeah. Don't forget. Daniel Schutzsmith in there too. How can, how can a, the community support all the many different things we do?</p>



<p>[00:27:39] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Yeah. There's we could go on for, for a very long time here. We're technically, we're a little bit over. What I want to do is I want to, um, Travis has requested, uh, from the audience has I'm Travis.</p>



<p>I'm really hoping it's brief not to put you on the spot, buddy, but I'm running already running over. And my wife's wondering why I'm not picking up the kids from school. Um, so, um, I'll let Travis on, in a second and then we're going to do a round room. A little bit, um, or at least, uh, everybody here has one minute to, um, summarize anything they would like to discuss.</p>



<p>Whether it's like, where do you see WordPress in the short term or longterm or how people can help the media community? Um, something like that, but whoops. Oh Travis, where'd you go? Oh, I guess maybe he was I'm S I feel bad now. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Maybe he'll maybe was it? Oh, Oh, God, the rollercoaster here is killing me.</p>



<p>I'm sorry. Hey, I'm here. I appreciate you. No problem. I'm sorry to say, to make a brief, but I don't have much of a choice. My kids are going to wonder why I'm not picking them up. Okay, go ahead buddy. Go ahead.</p>



<p>[00:28:45] <strong>Travis King:</strong> It was a quick comment to what Joe was speaking on about the corporations that are trying to figure out how are we, you know, do we feel okay taking, you know, the, the, the investments and doing sponsorships and just one thought on that idea was just rethink sponsor.</p>



<p>Because I'm someone that's in the community. I run media platforms, I host multiple podcasts. And the biggest thing that individual hosts and community builders struggle with is finding a thousand dollars to run an event. And corporations are putting 50,000 and for one sponsorship, we put their logo on the front to blast everything. What have you broke that up into 50 small micro things and distributed to solo preneurs.</p>



<p>[00:29:30] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> No. Okay. Could you do me a favor? I'm going to take that. And I'm going to, I'm going to follow up with you on that on Twitter or post-test or wherever it is you live, because I would love to have another discussion about sponsorships in general.</p>



<p>Um, but yeah, that's a very good, it's a really good point. And I think Joe and Sarah and all the little emojis are lighting up after that. So really appreciate your comment on that, Travis. Very much. And I'm not just saying that because I'm wondering where my kids wondering where. Um, but yes, we'll also, we'll also include your Twitter handle and the post status notes.</p>



<p>If you don't mind, that would be great. Okay. So let's go around the, uh, so-called virtual table here. One last time. Um, you got a minute or two on whatever it is you want to comment on. Um, we're good. Let's start with you. Am I, are you good to go?</p>



<p>[00:30:18] <strong>Birgit Pauli-Haack:</strong> I'm good to go. Sure. Um, I see a short term, um, hard time in veterans because of the transition, um, between the classic and the Gutenberg.</p>



<p>And that's going to be for another two or three years, um, until everything is kind of settled. And, um, the new things is actually on par with. The other thing, but I also see in longterm that they will, uh, so much more creativity come into the space because the scenes, um, is now, uh, for designers, let things be themes and make it beautiful, make them, uh, right.</p>



<p>Um, in the short term, it, we need to really alleviate all the pain that comes with change. And as it comes with learning new things, and that's the hardest thing you can do in a space like this.</p>



<p>[00:31:09] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Put that on a stone tablet hanging up on my wall. Cause I think that was for very well put, um, Joe, you want to bounce back to you? Um, you said, um, what you, you had a broad, you, we covered a few different things here, but in your particular space that you cover, what do you see the short term in terms of, um, businesses and then.</p>



<p>You know, Sass or whatever it is you want to talk about in that space for like what, the stuff that you usually cover on podcasts. If somebody asks you, what do you see the shorter longterm of WordPress in your space?</p>



<p>[00:31:45] <strong>Joe Howard:</strong> I think that the. Focus on running a good and competent business is never something that will get old, uh, or never something that will go out of style. Um, you know, focusing on building a good product, uh, focusing on subscription revenue, focus on, uh, getting feedback from users, making users happy and building something that users are actually.</p>



<p>Actively willing to pay for, you know, all these basic things. I think the, I think at the end of the day, you know, we could talk a lot about the future of the WordPress system and WordPress economy, but, um, uh, in terms of the, uh, uh, short term, uh, for folks doing that, uh, I think just keep doing good work.</p>



<p>Uh, and in terms of the, uh, folks doing news out there, People have already, you know, folks have already commended the folks on this panel for doing news, but I would like to commend them again for all the great news that they do. Uh, and I think that we should continue to find ways to get them more support, more resources.</p>



<p>Uh, you know, we have five for the future. Uh, why don't we have five for. The news. It's not a very good catch line go. So there's definitely some, I think there are ways we can do more crowdsourcing or, you know, have everybody keep be providing the folks who are already doing good work to do more good work and to support other folks who want to. Do we want full-time journalists doing this? Uh, like, you know, I want Matt to be able to go full-time on mat report.</p>



<p>If he, or, you know, uh, 15 his show, if he were to choose to want to do that. Um, Post status folks. I don't know if everybody at post-test is full-time, everybody should be able to go full time. Like, what do we need to do to get there that, uh, I see some, some, a hundred emojis coming up, so hopefully that people, but that should be the direction I think we should.</p>



<p>[00:33:42] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Yes. Well, yeah, that's fantastic. And just to be clear, I just want to make sure this was put on the record too. Um, Ray was, was kind enough to send a video. Uh, there were probably a couple of things that she said I wasn't able to work into here, but there are so many. Other people in the WordPress news space, outside of the people in this.</p>



<p>And it was just it. And especially on, in other time zones, they couldn't, they couldn't make it for logistics reasons or we were, we could only invite so many people into this conversation and maybe we'll have another conversation in the future for those maybe who specialize in podcasting and newsletters, that sort of thing for similar topics because you know, general news and then there's newsletters.</p>



<p>And then there's podcasting. There could be different ways to explore that, but I wanted, I wanted to make sure to thank everyone who covers WordPress news out there. Not just the people in this room, um, who are mostly also podcasters as well. So some of these people have great voices that I, that I know of anyway, but I would love to hear more voices, Dan, real quick here.</p>



<p>What is your, um, last take?</p>



<p>[00:34:45] <strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Um, I would say in, uh, you know, looking where do I, where do I see WordPress, in the big picture, short and long term, it's obviously we're, you know, something Brian Krogsgard predicted a while back, you know, period of intense consolidation and growth, but it's a big question of growth for whom and who, you know, how that pie gets gets cut up.</p>



<p>So there's a lot of anxiety about fragmentation — those left behind after the big fish scoop up a lot of established brands — and, and as you know, small even mid-sized and I would consider fairly large operations. They're wondering how do you, how do you compete? Is this the still the WordPress ecosystem we knew? Well no, it's always changing. So, as people exit, um, you know, that's been a question, a lot: opportunities and threats. I think those are the kind of questions that need to be asked on the business reporting side, and we need, we do need this kind of rich journalistic and news market and the ability to have these kinds of conversations and let the community feel that they have, they have some say in things. That's not exactly a prediction about the future for WordPress — it's where we are and what's needed now, to move forward. I will predict there's going to be a lot of further professionalization and WordPress companies needing to help create the kind of hires they need.</p>



<p>Um, you know, we've been trying to support that with our Get Hired project. How do you create a pipeline to employers and how does the community change and, and still feel like it's it's itself. Um, I guess I have more, uh, more questions really then I would, I would make predictions. I think you get a lot of both. In the e-commerce space, it's an easy prediction that big platforms, that hosting platforms will take an ever larger role.</p>



<p>But then you get these little startups, you know, or old timers like with Lemon Squeezy coming, coming out. I'm very interested in that. A little, disruptive, nimble play that can still possibly run circles around big established players, beating them on performance issues, by providing an alternative to platforms that you're locked into and make digital downloads really easy perhaps. Easier than ever. Um, that's, that's really an interesting play there. So I think there's always risks and opportunities. And we just need to keep, keep talking about it — as a space where anyone can get in and do great things.</p>



<p>[00:36:59] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Um, as things change, um, Matt, you, did you want to respond to Daniel's question in your wrap-up or was it, or did you want it.</p>



<p>[00:37:07] <strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> Yeah, no, just two super quick things to wrap up.</p>



<p>Um, I just want to respond to Travis who popped on super quick. He has a fantastic idea of, uh, the industry supporting what I'll call micro creators or smaller creators. Maybe people who don't have a complete platform yet. Um, I am. To be able to sell my sponsorship spots pretty quickly and fairly painlessly.</p>



<p>And I've done something called a content bounty at the WP minute where I've run two successful campaigns so far taking that same exact model that Travis is looking to do. Whereas if somebody wants to create a piece of content and get paid for it, I go out and grab a sponsor. For the last two, which was Paul Lacey and Michelle for chef have both earned $200 each to write their blog post.</p>



<p>And I'm happy to have that conversation for anyone, with anyone who wants to start, uh, as a small creator and get paid, uh, because I have the contacts and I know that we can get a smaller creators paint, uh, in this space. And</p>



<p>[00:38:07] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Daniel's question real quick. And then you can give you a quick answer. Cause he's the only one that hasn't gotten the audio.</p>



<p>[00:38:12] <strong>Daniel Schutzsmith:</strong> Covering the news, uh, can be a thankless job. I think, uh, in a industry like ours, that's a niche. It might be even more stressful sometimes. Uh, so I wonder, you know, how can the community help you, uh, be successful? What can we do to lift you up or to help you get to the next level of where you want to take your publications?</p>



<p>[00:38:33] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Okay, Matt, what's your response?</p>



<p>[00:38:35] <strong>Matt Medeiros:</strong> I hit the retweet button, smash the like button, subscribe to the channel. That's how the support, uh, to the content creators, give them, you know, real, uh, effective feedback, share their content, support, the voices that, uh, that you admire in the WordPress space are the ones that should be heard for sure.</p>



<p>Um, reach out if you're a company, a freelancer building something awesome. Reach out with a good solid pitch. Let us know why we should cover your. And, uh, be more communicative, more communicative on that side and just support us by sharing the news.</p>



<p>Oh, okay. Sarah, let's end with you on, on, on your one or two minute.</p>



<p>Take on anything you want to bring up.</p>



<p>[00:39:17] <strong>Sarah Gooding:</strong> I think I'll answer the question. Where do you see work rests in the short and the long-term workers is going through a transitional time right now with full site editing. There's so many moving parts. Um, that have to be brought together all at the same time, sometimes with deadlines.</p>



<p>Um, I think the experience of full site editing is going to be a little bit rough at first and people making WordPress. Like themes and plugins are gonna need to stay really connected to what's happening with the project because it's changing so fast and all the time, um, they might need to be ready to ride the rapids for the short term.</p>



<p>Um, speaking from the heart though, I think we need to really be there for each other and help each other succeed during this transitional time. But, um, as far as core development goes, WordPress, executive director, Josepha, Haden, she has her own podcast. Um, so he gives me a lot of hope for WordPress future because she.</p>



<p>Gracefully handling challenges and improving communication significantly across the board for the open source project, with a positive resilient kind of vibe that just tasks kids down to everybody under her leadership. So I think that even though we're going to have a lot of community challenges coming up with transitioning into full site editing, I think we have some good leadership that is going to provide transparent communication, which, um, is going to be a huge improvement for.</p>



<p>From previous years where I think a lot of us felt like we might've been in the dark or not sure what kinds of things are going to be happening next. Um, I think we're in a good space right now.</p>



<p>[00:40:51] <strong>David Bisset:</strong> Oh, actually we're in Twitter spaces, but yeah, I get your point. Okay. Well think, well that, and, and on that note, I, let me, excuse me, I'm going to punch slack in a second.</p>



<p>Okay. There we go. And on that. Uh, thank you very much for, um, coming today. I think this was a good, um, I learned a little bit more about how you all kind of view the WordPress news space a bit and what the challenges are and what would be helpful for everybody. So I'm looking forward to the feedback that we're going to get on this, and maybe we'll talk again.</p>



<p>Maybe we'll talk again on this same subject, maybe in a year with different people, um, different things to talk about. Um, maybe I'll be acquired and won't be able to talk about that, but who knows? I want to thank everybody here. I want to thank Dan. I want to think. Forget Sarah, Matt, and Joe, for, for being good sports and donating this large amount of their time.</p>



<p>Um, to have this discussion. I want to thank everybody here as well. Like I said, this is going to be, um, swimming, the recordings when success. Thumbs up there. Um, this will be available, um, on post dennis.com and also we are giving a copy or not giving. I mean, everyone will be able to share this throughout their news platforms because that kind of makes sense.</p>



<p>Um, thank you very much. And we'll look forward to, um, talking with you all again, have a good one.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 02 Dec 2021 06:31:39 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"David Bisset";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"WPTavern: WordPress 5.9 Beta 1 Released with Detailed Testing Guide";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=126311";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:179:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-5-9-beta-1-released-with-detailed-testing-guide?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wordpress-5-9-beta-1-released-with-detailed-testing-guide";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2523:"<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/11/wordpress-5-9-beta-1/">WordPress 5.9 beta 1</a> is now available for testing. With just eight weeks remaining until the official release lands, the team is focusing on testing, an important part of the development process that will keep 5.9 on track.</p>
