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WordCamp Europe, the biggest WordPress conference in Europe, spent the first week of June in Kraków. The 2026 edition of this event filled the ICE Kraków Congress Centre from June 4 to 6, drawing 2,458 ticket holders from 81 countries to the south of Poland. Close to a quarter of them were attending their first WordCamp Europe.

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The city made it easy to settle in. Every attendee’s badge carried a transport hologram good for unlimited trams and buses. The Main Market Square, the largest in Europe, sat a short ride away, and the local food ran the gamut from pierogi to żurek soup to obwarzanek pretzels sold off the street.

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Kraków is beautiful, with history everywhere.
– Sebastian Miśniakiewicz, local team lead

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The program kept pace with the setting. Across multiple tracks, the schedule held 49 talks and eight hands-on workshops, grouped into themes that ran from core development and AI to business and the open web. Around them sat a full Contributor Day, a sponsor area, side events, on-site childcare, and an after-party the local team stretched to eight hours.

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Contributor Day Opens the Week

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As it does every year, the event began the day before the talks. Contributors filled the venue for Contributor Day, a working session where people work together to improve WordPress itself rather than watch a presentation about it. The morning started with registration and a welcome, the room split into teams, and a group photo broke up the work around midday. The afternoon ran a second working block before each team gathered to share what it had done.

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The range of tables is the clearest picture of how wide the project has become. Newcomers could sit down with Polyglots to translate WordPress into their own language, with Documentation to fix the pages people reach when they get stuck, or with Support to answer questions in the forums. More technical tables covered Core, Performance, Testing, Themes, and the Plugins team, whose reviewers screen every plugin submitted to the directory.

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First-timers were not left to find their own way. The day was built around onboarding tables, named table leads, and mentors, with an open invitation for experienced contributors to adopt a newcomer and walk them through their first patch, string, or ticket.

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People who could not travel to Kraków were welcomed to join remotely through the #contributor-day channel in the Make WordPress Slack, so distance was not a reason to sit the day out.

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The Birthplace of the Web

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It was fitting that the opening keynote came from CERN. The European Laboratory for Particle Physics, on the French-Swiss border outside Geneva, is where the World Wide Web was invented more than 30 years ago, and Joachim Valdemar Yde, who has managed CERN’s web team since 2021, came to explain why the laboratory had chosen WordPress to carry its web presence forward.

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Yde and Francisco Borges Aurindo Barros, who leads CERN’s WordPress infrastructure, framed the move as a chance to give a web presence built up over three decades a shared, modern foundation. After evaluating several leading content management systems against CERN’s needs, WordPress came out on top.

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Barros walked through what they had built. The guiding idea is that people at CERN focus on their content while the web team looks after the platform underneath. A self-service portal lets anyone request a site in a few clicks. Behind it, a shared distribution supplies a common theme and a set of approved, security-hardened plugins, and an in-house tool provisions each new site on Kubernetes in about a minute. In its first year, the platform has already set up hundreds of sites.

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Moving years of existing content onto the new platform is the other half of the work, and the team automated it: a single command lifts each site’s pages, headings, and images and rebuilds them as Gutenberg blocks, with no downtime. They plan to open source the tool.

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Then Yde delivered the line that the room had been waiting for.

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As of today, our main flagship website, home.cern, is now served on WordPress. It’s been automatically migrated, and it’s live.

– Joachim Valdemar Yde, Web Manager, CERN

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The rollout is on track to wrap up over the coming months, and early impressions, Yde said, have been overwhelmingly positive, with easy wins in responsiveness and accessibility. For those at the event, the keynote pointed the room toward a later talk by CERN’s Akanksha Chatterjee on building and maintaining the laboratory’s engineering websites on the same service.

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There is a neat symmetry to it. The institution that published the world’s first website now runs on the software that powers more than 40% of today’s web, licensed under the GPL and maintained by the people in the room.

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WordPress 7.0 and AI

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WordPress 7.0 was a throughline of the conference. Several sessions placed the release at the center, framing it less as a routine update than as a change in what the software is, and in what it makes possible for the people who build with it.

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The anchor for that conversation was a panel called “Inside WordPress 7.0.” It gathered contributors who worked on the release, among them Juan Manuel Garrido, Adam Silverstein, Benjamin Zekavica, Sarah Norris, and Milana Cap. It was framed around more than a feature list, setting out to cover how a release of this size actually comes together: the contribution workflows, the coordination, and the human aspects of shipping software in the open.

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What gives this release its weight is the work moving into WordPress’s core: a native AI client, a new Abilities API that lets plugins declare what they can do in a way other tools can discover, and a Connectors screen for wiring up providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google Gemini. The argument running through the AI sessions was that this belongs to everyone who builds on WordPress, not only to developers shipping their own integrations. Speakers got specific about how to put that to work.

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People stayed at the center of the conversation, too. Tammie Lister, in a talk called “Human in the loop means something,” framed the phrase as a real commitment rather than a checkbox. Humans and AI are each good at different things, and the products worth building let each do what it does best.

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Development and Craft

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The development sessions were where the craft lived. Dennis Snell, who co-wrote the HTML API and designed the block parser, devoted a deep-dive workshop to that API. Peter Wilson, a long-time Core committer on the Performance team, focused on how the WP_Query class has been made faster through better caching, and how site builders can take advantage of that at scale.

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Scaling got a hands-on session of its own. One talk set out to see how far a WordPress site can run on a twelve-dollar virtual server, profiling it under load in Grafana and tuning away the bottlenecks, with a GitHub repository so attendees could follow along at home. Fellyph Cintra focused on the latest in WordPress Playground, the browser-based tooling and architectural changes that the project credits with a real speed-up.

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Jessica Lyschik, a Core contributor and former default-theme co-lead, set out to make the case that accessibility-ready requirements are far easier to meet than most theme developers assume, drawing on real reviews of both block and classic themes.

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Two members of the Plugins team, David Perez and Fran Torres, framed their session as a practical clinic. Between them, they have reviewed more than 25,000 plugins, and they set out to name the common, avoidable issues that keep good plugins stuck in the review queue. For a first-time author, that is the difference between an afternoon and a month of waiting.

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The Business of WordPress and the Open Web

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The business and community sessions pulled the lens back to people, with a refreshingly unsentimental view of running a WordPress business. Debbie Levitt built her talk around a model for finding product-market fit at three levels at once, on the premise that teams celebrate one good metric and then wonder months later where their users went. Vassilena Valchanova took on a quieter problem: being good at the work is not the same as anyone knowing you are.

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There was a local thread here as well. Irfani Silviana, a full-stack developer at a Kraków-based agency, framed the Business Model Canvas as a translation layer that moves developers from shipping features to engineering business value, a fitting talk to give in her own city.

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The web’s standards, the argument goes, remain as open as the day Tim Berners-Lee created them at CERN.

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That idea carried through the rest of the community sessions.

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Running alongside the talks, the hands-on workshops were a chance to build something on the spot. In one, Ryan Welcher set out to build a touch-enabled gallery slider with the Interactivity API, while another centered on Full Site Editing, with a working portfolio theme attendees could reuse on their next client project. These were laptop-open, leave-with-working-code sessions.

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Closing Fireside Chat

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The closing session opened with a warm gesture from Kraków University of Technology. Representatives took the stage to thank the organizers and the community and to present Mary Hubbard, the Executive Director of WordPress, with a gift from their faculty of informatics and mathematics. They described what the university and the WordCamp community share: a love of learning and sharing knowledge, and an openness to new ideas, skills, and connections.

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Hubbard used the moment to share some news. Starting in October, the university will open a WordPress-specific course, which she called a trail-blazing event for Poland and for WordPress. Earlier that day, the program’s first cohort, around 20 students, had shown what they built, part of the WordPress Campus Connect and WordPress Credits education work.

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Hubbard then turned the stage into a conversation, inviting Matías Ventura, the lead of the Gutenberg project, and Rich Tabor, a WordPress designer and developer, to talk through where WordPress is heading and how AI fits in. WordPress 7.0 had just launched with Ventura as its release lead, and he asked everyone who had contributed to it to stand for a round of applause.

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Much of the chat explored the balance between building WordPress with AI, and building with AI on WordPress, without losing the human part. Ventura noted that WordPress’s long investment in its design system is paying off now that you can ask an AI to extend a menu or a control, and it reaches for the right components. He pointed to older primitives gaining new value, like WP-CLI, which AI models use fluently, and to Studio Code, an open source, agent-based coding tool the team has been building for WordPress. Tabor showed how he now ships many small editor improvements by talking to an agent instead of typing code, and Ventura demoed desktop mode and open-canvas experiments that reimagine the admin.

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On open source and AI, Hubbard argued that open source is why WordPress has thrived, that the same values should shape AI, and that the community should be far more vocal about it. As she put it, “We should be talking about it, and we should be much louder about it.”

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Audience questions pushed on multilingual support, unsticking long-stalled tickets, and reaching a younger, more diverse community. On that last point, Hubbard came back to education, pointing to a US pilot of an AI literacy micro-credential that uses WordPress as the playground, and made the case for it:

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I think that focusing in on younger generations, and bringing them into the project in a healthy way, with the dynamic of education as well as mentorship, and how we can understand and learn from them, as well as mentor them and adopt them as contributors, is very important.

– Mary Hubbard, WordPress Executive Director

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Beyond the Talks

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WordCamp is also about the corridor outside the talks, and Kraków gave people reason to roam. Between sessions, attendees moved through the sponsor area for product demos and conversations that often carried on over lunch.

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The after-party was the not-so-subtle flourish of a local team that doubled the usual length to eight hours, with Polish food and dragon-and-floral swag that nodded to the Wawel Dragon of Kraków legend. The nearby artistic Kazimierz district kept the evening going, and the trams, as one organizer had promised, were still running reliably afterward.

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What Comes Next

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WordCamps run on people, and 2026 was no different. The organizing teams, the speakers, the sponsors who funded the venue and the meals, the local crew who sorted trams and pierogi, and the contributors who arrived a day early to work on the project all built this WCEU together. The people watching the livestream from outside Kraków were part of it as well.

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For anyone whose appetite was only sharpened by three days in Poland, the calendar already has the next stop. WordCamp US 2026 (Phoenix, USA) runs August 16 to 19, with its own Contributor Day opening the week.

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WordCamp Europe will return next year (May 27-29, 2027) in Málaga, Spain.

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Photography by the WCEU 2026 photography team. See the full galleries on Flickr.

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tl;dr: Temporary 24-hour cooldown period for plugin/theme releases before auto-updates. AI can give defenders an edge. We want to secure all 78K plugins and themes on WordPress.org. 

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One of the things we’ve always striven to do as the developers of WordPress is to work harder so you don’t have to; we take technology that’s complex or inaccessible and make it available to everyone, running in as many environments as possible. It’s the Open Source way.

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Just last December there was a step-change in coding ability that rocked many developers, and since April’s reveal of Mythos, security activity has kicked into high gear. A few days ago, Chrome shipped a release with 429 security fixes! The threats and opportunities of these new capabilities inspired us to kick off an initiative we call Protect The Shire (hat tip J. R. R. Tolkien) with the aim of using our best minds and the infrastructure of WordPress.org to make all code in our directories and repositories as secure as possible.

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Much of this work was and will remain behind the scenes, and we hope its success is defined mostly by what doesn’t happen. However, while we reckon with our newfound powers, we need to make space for review.

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To Update or Not

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WordPress core updates go through multiple people and layers of review before they go out, a process we’ve polished to a high art in the 18 years since we introduced one-click upgrades in 2.7 “Coltrane.”

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Core is solid, and I’m so proud that over 50% of all WordPress sites have upgraded to 7.0 within two weeks! That’s the result of an unimaginable amount of work across thousands of hosts, developers, and teams across WordPress.org. We’ve pushed hard to make upgrades happen automagically, and as fast as possible.

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We’re in a liminal period now, and I believe 2026 will be a year of tension between two approaches: updating as quickly as possible to stay secure, and holding back on updating to stay secure.

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We’ve seen clever and dangerous supply chain attacks across the npm, PyPI, GitHub, and RubyGems ecosystems, and we even had our own mini-version with the Essential Plugins debacle, where good plugins were unknowingly sold to a new author who had malicious intent.

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How to balance security updates and securing updates?

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Mirkwood or the Wild West?

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Everyone knows the fun of WordPress is in its 78k+ plugins and themes. We have a rigorous, human-powered review process for theme and plugin submissions, but once you’re published in the directory, you’re on your own. Our update system currently distributes every plugin and theme release as soon as a developer presses the button. That’s what keeps the directory as robust as WordPress itself. There were over 3,000 commits to the plugin repository yesterday! 

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For now, each new plugin release will wait up to 24 hours before being distributed through auto-updates. This will give everyone, including a new Wapuu we call Gandalf, a chance to review changes.

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I expect 24 hours could be reduced to minutes as the process evolves, but we’ll err on the side of caution while AI models are advancing so rapidly.

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Our plugin review team seems superhuman, but still needs to sleep. But bots don’t, and a depth of review that seemed unimaginable before is now a matter of time and tokens.

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The security capabilities of AI are going to make the world weird and take a lot of our focus in the next few months, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

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Our Shire Is Special

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There’s no shortage of ways to find, install, and update plugins and themes for WordPress. For those who choose WordPress.org, though, we want to make sure that it feels safe and secure. That means staying strict about some things—like guidelines and Open Source licenses—while also remaining flexible enough to allow solo hackers, community projects, and for-profit commercial plugins and themes to thrive in our ecosystem.

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GitHub stars may get the hype, but if you add up all the numbers in our plugin directory, it’s over 400M installs. There are 78k+ extensions, many from solo devs, installed on over a million sites each! Now we need to learn from the best parts of GitHub and make that available to every developer on WordPress.org.

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Just because WordPress plugins have a reputation for vulnerabilities is no reason not to aim for the same security and stability we’ve achieved in core. We’ve done the impossible a few times already in our journey from a b2/cafelog fork to where we are today. 

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Freedom and security are not zero-sum. With Open Source, we can show how security comes from transparency, not obscurity. Collaboration over competition. What we accomplish when we come together is nothing short of incredible. Success always attracts bad actors, but we grow stronger through every adversity.

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The scale of WordPress can make some challenges seem too big to tackle, but given time, there is no problem that’s insurmountable. I’m reminded of the story behind the title of Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird:

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Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

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More to come, stay tuned. I wish everyone in Kraków at WordCamp Europe the best and hope to see you soon!

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WordPress at 23 is simultaneously both the strongest and most precarious it’s ever been.

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Last week, we shipped WordPress 7 to the world. In seven days, 46% of all WordPresses, tens of millions across countless different hosting environments, are already on 7.0, auto-updated with no breakage. From a Raspberry Pi to the most secure sites in the world, like WhiteHouse.gov. Sit with that for a minute when you think of all the resources and all the projects that have had security problems in the past few weeks. No supply chain attacks, no security problems, just a stable, secure infrastructure doing its job invisibly to power a huge portion of the open internet.

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I’m really proud of the capability and security of WordPress, and we should celebrate that. That accomplishment represents the work of thousands and thousands of people coming together to make the web a better place. Also, an iceberg of what is going on behind the scenes.

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However, the release was not what I hoped it would be because so much time from key people was taken away by WP Engine’s attacks.

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Silver Lake, in its immense 100B+ power, summoned a shoggoth in Quinn Emanuel that has been paperclip-maximizing legal torture that is not just going after Automattic and WordPress.org and me personally, but this Golem Jagannath is now trying to dissolve the WordPress Foundation itself, a non-profit with no employees or payroll that supports WordCamps and Open Source education around the world.

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If you know anyone at Silver Lake, Quinn Emanuel, or WP Engine in that order, please beg, plead with them to stop the violence. End this internecine warfare that is threatening to destroy one of the last stalwarts of the Open Web.

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It’s not fun and games anymore, not just business. This is having a real impact on people’s lives.

\n\n\n\n

It took every ounce of will in my body, and I am grateful to thousands of hours of meditation, to not explode in rage when asked about pineapple on pizza and debating the meaning of Jean Baudrillard and “bastardized simalcra” when miles away, my closest friend is in a hospital bed waiting for a heart transplant.

\n\n\n\n

I have colleagues LITERALLY DYING I can’t be with because Silver Lake / Quinn Emanuel / WP Engine shoggoth is trying to make it seem like I am hiding or destroying evidence because we rotate logs on wordpress.org or I have disappearing chats on Signal with romantic partners. I don’t curse, but this is so f-ed up I don’t know what to say.

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If you don’t know anyone at these entities, please pray, meditate, and call on whatever forces or divine interventions you can to bring this to an end.

\n\n\n\n

I reached out multiple times to resolve this with open arms; I’ve extended every olive branch; and I’ve even said positive things about Silver Lake and WP Engine in the press, trying to bring this to a close. Heather Brunner would not even come into the same room with me.

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All of this from a stupid presentation I gave at WordCamp US 2024 about how private equity can hollow out high-trust-based Open Source communities that in the past 19 months has only gotten 16k views on YouTube.  

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Silver Lake, you have already extracted all your pounds of flesh. I missed my Mom’s knee surgery. If you wanted me to suffer for my sins, I have, and probably deeper than you will ever know. WordPress and WordPress.org, and yes, even my flawed leadership, are at the heart of what has made WP Engine successful so far. You have so much money and power, you just got TikTok, the Trump administration loves you, you don’t need to control and take over WordPress, too. If you win, you destroy it, and then what? Please have mercy and stop trying to ruin people’s lives. Let’s move on.

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\"\"
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June 4-6, 2026 | ICE Kraków Congress Centre, Kraków, Poland

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WordCamp Europe 2026 will bring the WordPress community together in Kraków, Poland, from June 4–6 for Contributor Day, two conference days, and a program shaped by the ideas, tools, and people moving WordPress forward. This year’s schedule includes two official keynotes, hands-on workshops, panels, and sessions across development, accessibility, artificial intelligence, content, search, business, education, security, and community.

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The program offers a broad view of how WordPress is used today: as publishing software, a framework for building at scale, a tool for business growth, and a global open source project shaped by contributors around the world. Whether you build with WordPress, write for the web, support clients, teach new learners, or contribute to the project, WordCamp Europe offers a chance to learn from practical examples and connect them to the platform’s future.

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Get Your Tickets
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WCEU Schedule
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About WCEU 2026
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Keynotes at WordCamp Europe 2026

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The keynote sessions at WordCamp Europe 2026 will give attendees two ways to look at WordPress today: through a large-scale institutional adoption story and through a broader closing reflection on where the project is headed. These sessions anchor the program while connecting many of the themes that appear throughout the conference, from infrastructure and governance to contribution, innovation, and the future of the web.

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Joachim Valdemar Yde and Francisco Borges Aurindo Barros will share how CERN is adopting WordPress as its future content management system. Their keynote will explore the governance, infrastructure, and migration work behind moving more than 800 websites onto a customized WordPress Service, offering a look at WordPress on an institutional scale.

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Ma.tt Mullenweg will close WordCamp Europe 2026 with a broader look at WordPress, the open web, and the ideas shaping what comes next. As the event’s final keynote, this session will bring together many of the conversations happening across Contributor Day, sessions, workshops, and community gatherings throughout the week.

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Program Themes to Watch at WCEU 2026

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The rest of the WCEU themes are organized around topics that reflect the breadth of the WordPress ecosystem. These themes give attendees a way to follow the sessions most relevant to their work, from building better sites and improving content discovery to growing sustainable businesses, strengthening security, expanding access, and supporting the people and communities behind the project.

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Search, Visibility, and Discovery

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Search continues to change, but helping people find the right information remains central to the web. WCEU’s search and SEO sessions look at how AI-generated answers, generative engine optimization, shifting user habits, and new discovery platforms are changing visibility for publishers, businesses, and builders. Sessions include Panel: The Future of SEO, with Kacper Bartoszak, Pam Aungst Cronin, Alex Moss, David Cuesta, and Jovana Smoljanovic Tucakov, as well as Emma Young’s AI Search: Why Your Whole Company Should Care, which looks at why AI-native discovery now affects content, development, partnerships, and business strategy.

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AI and the Future of Building

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Artificial intelligence has a dedicated presence at WordCamp Europe 2026, with sessions that move beyond general discussion and into practical use cases for marketing, product work, development, and site management. Vito Peleg’s Agentic AI & WordPress: From Prompts to Tools & Systems will explore how teams can move from simple prompts to AI workflows that execute tasks, while Monika Dimitrova’s AI Won’t Save Your Marketing (but it might save your time and money) focuses on how small businesses can use AI without losing the strategy and identity that make their work effective.

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Development and Technical Practice

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Development sessions at WCEU will focus on how WordPress sites, tools, and workflows are built for long-term use. The program includes a Panel: Inside WordPress 7.0, with contributors discussing the release, its features, and the process behind it, along with sessions such as Anukasha Singh’s Smarter Plugin Permissions with the Abilities API, Ariel Ramos’s Headless WordPress API Security in 10 Minutes, and Dejan Rudić Vranić’s hands-on workshop Build Your Developer Portfolio: A Hands-on Guide to FSE.

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Accessibility and Inclusive Design

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Accessibility is part of building a better web for everyone, and WCEU’s accessibility sessions give attendees practical ways to make digital experiences more usable, inclusive, and sustainable. This theme connects directly to WordPress’s project values, from how content is structured to how themes, plugins, and interfaces are designed. For designers, developers, content creators, and project leads, these sessions offer a chance to make accessibility part of everyday decisions rather than a final step at the end of a project.

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Content, Writing, and Communication

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Content and writing sessions at WCEU will focus on how clearer communication helps users find what they need, teams share what they know, and communities make information easier to understand. Pooja Sanwal’s Why Writing Still Matters in a Video-First Internet looks at the role of written content as video continues to dominate online traffic, Fernando Tellado’s Do You Really Need an SEO/GEO Pugin for WordPress? explores what WordPress can already do for visibility, and Birgit Olzem’s Documentation as a Love Language for the Future You looks at how simple documentation practices can help teams and communities preserve knowledge.

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Security and Trust

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Security remains central to maintaining websites people can rely on. WCEU’s security-focused sessions look beyond basic reminders and into the risks, systems, and decisions that shape safer WordPress experiences. The broader program includes talks on AI-assisted spam and bot detection, plugin permissions, and secure headless WordPress architectures, giving attendees practical ways to think about resilience, trust, and responsible site management.

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Business and Sustainable Growth

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The business sessions at WCEU will explore how WordPress professionals turn ideas, services, and products into sustainable work. Debbie Levitt’s Three Levels of Atomic Product-Market Fit looks at how teams can understand product-market fit beyond a single metric, Irfani Silviana’s WordPress ROI Map: Engineering Business Value with BMC connects technical decisions to business outcomes, and Liza Bogatyrev’s Stop Positioning Into Obscurity to Unlock Growth focuses on how clearer positioning can support revenue and adoption.

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Education, Contribution, and Community

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WordPress grows when people can learn, participate, and find a place to contribute. WCEU’s education and community sessions include Panel: Rethinking Learning in WordPress, featuring Mary Hubbard, Rade Jekic, Klaus Harris, Natalia Basiura, and Benjamin Zekavica, along with Daniel Grzonka’s The New Engineer: Psychology, Systems, and Open Source, Ivana Ćirković’s What It (Really) Means To Be a Part of the WP Credits Program?, and Jörg Pareigis’s Sovereign University AI Tutors Powered by WordPress. Together, these sessions connect contributor onboarding, academic partnerships, open source learning, and the future skills people need to work with WordPress.

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Get Your Tickets Today
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Explore the Full Program

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WordCamp Europe 2026 will bring together many parts of the WordPress ecosystem in one place: software, publishing, business, design, education, and community. The keynotes and theme-based sessions offer a broad look at how WordPress is being used today and how contributors, builders, and users are preparing for what comes next.

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Explore the full WordCamp Europe 2026 schedule and choose the sessions that match how you use, build, teach, support, or contribute to WordPress. Tickets are available now for attendees joining the community in Kraków. All sessions will be live streamed. Keep checking back for updates. 

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Kraków is calling. See you at WordCamp Europe 2026!

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\"WP
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Every WordPress release celebrates an artist who has made an indelible mark on the world of music. Say Hello to WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong”, named in honor of “Satchmo” himself, jazz musician Louis Armstrong.

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Known as the “first great jazz soloist”, Louis Armstrong created ensembles that highlighted his own profound trumpeting skills, and in the process, transformed jazz from an orchestral art form into a solo art form. The master trumpeter also impressed the world with his signature vocals, introducing improvisation into Jazz, influencing every artist he worked with, and permanently changing the landscape of music.

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Louis Armstrong wove his personal touch into the world of Jazz. With WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong”, you can build with yours.

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Welcome to WordPress 7.0!

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WordPress 7.0 marks the start of a new era, laying the foundation for AI across the WordPress experience. Greeting you with a modern, more intuitive dashboard, 7.0 introduces enhanced customization and development tools that inspire creativity and tap into endless potential.

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Whether you’re a creator, business owner or developer – WordPress 7.0 let’s you create in a way that is uniquely your own.

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Download WordPress 7.0 now
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What’s inside

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Explore AI abilities directly in your website, all managed from a central hub. Slide seamlessly through the sleek, new admin theme implemented across the dashboard. Ignite creative flow with new blocks and design tools, and tap into an expansive developer toolbox that gives you more control than ever, letting you create your way.

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AI-Integrated WordPress

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Possibilities right in your hands.

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With AI integrated throughout WordPress the potential is endless. A new AI Client in Core lets WordPress communicate with generative AI models, while connections are easily managed from a single hub in the dashboard. The AI Client combined with the Abilities API makes a fiery duo that introduces new functionality, workflow automation, and creation tools to your website. Install the new AI plugin to expand your options even more: generate and edit images, create titles or excerpts, or even suggest alt text.

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7.0 also includes a new Client-Side Abilities package: a Javascript counterpart to the Abilities API, with a built in UI and command palette that delivers extensive new and hybrid AI abilities.

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Manage all your external connections in a central hub on the Connector’s screen. Easily dive in with 3 presets, or add your own connections. Authenticate and get started with AI abilities in just a few clicks.

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An AI-integrated WordPress promises infinite potential, ready to be discovered.

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Modernized Dashboard

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Elevate your admin experience.

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7.0 introduces a fully revitalized dashboard with a chic, modern new color scheme, and clean finishes throughout.

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Polished with smooth transitions that seamlessly shift as you move between screens, you’ll feel like you’re effortlessly gliding through the dashboard.

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Just one click of the new Command Palette shortcut, a ⌘K or Ctrl+K icon in the upper admin bar, lets you access your favorite tools from anywhere in the dashboard.

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Explore typography from one place, regardless of theme. Install, upload and manage your font collection from the new dedicated font management page, with support for block, hybrid and classic themes.

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Visually scrub through revision versions to see what changed at a glance, with markers that make editorial choices more intuitive. Easily pick the revision you want and restore instantly.

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Design, Create, Customize

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A simpler way to build.

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Let WordPress be your muse with new blocks, block supports, and design tools that add visual agility, granular control, and keep every element of your website on brand, with fresh new touches.

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Showcase your ideas in a lightbox slideshow with the new gallery block, and finesse your markup with the new Heading block. Deliver clear site navigation with the new Breadcrumbs block, and add more detail to your designs with the new Icons block.

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Enhanced responsiveness controls in 7.0 make your site more user friendly. Hide and reveal blocks based on device, without affecting other viewports.

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Design and build your menu overlay with blocks and patterns, fully customizable with the styles you want visitors to see. Add columns, stylize typography, or embed your own close button in the overlay. Start with a template or create your own menu from scratch.

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Fine tune page design and layout with Patterns that act as a single unit, detachable for more isolated control. Insert your pattern, swap elements and customize with ease.

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Style every detail of content with custom CSS at the block level, right in your post or page.

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Developer’s toolbox

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Advanced tools for building your way.

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WordPress 7.0 lets you build faster, better, stronger, and easier with an extensive set of  expanded APIs and enhanced functionality.

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Create blocks and patterns on the server level using only PHP, auto-registered with the block API.

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Explore a more extensible Site Editor, with routing, route validation, and a new wordpress/boot package that allows plugins to build custom site-editor pages.

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And much more

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For a comprehensive overview of all the new features and enhancements in WordPress 7.0, please visit the feature-showcase website.

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Check out whats new in 7.0

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Learn more about WordPress 7.0

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Learn WordPress is a free resource for new and experienced WordPress users. Learn is stocked with how-to videos on using various features in WordPress, interactive workshops for exploring topics in-depth, and lesson plans for diving deep into specific areas of WordPress.

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Read the WordPress 7.0 Release Notes for information on installation, enhancements, fixed issues, release contributors, learning resources, and the list of file changes.

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Explore the WordPress 7.0 Field Guide and learn about the changes in this release with detailed developer notes to help you build with WordPress.

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The 7.0 release squad

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Every release comes to you from a dedicated team of enthusiastic contributors who help keep things on track and moving smoothly. The team that has led 7.0 is a global, cross-functional group of contributors who are always ready to champion ideas, remove blockers, and resolve issues.

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Thank you, contributors

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The mission of WordPress is to democratize publishing and embody the freedoms that come with open source. A global and diverse community of people collaborating to strengthen the software supports this effort.

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WordPress 7.0 reflects the tireless efforts and passion of more than 875+ contributors in countries all over the world. This release also welcomed over 200+ first-time contributors!

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Their collaboration delivered more than 420 enhancements and fixes, ensuring a stable release for all – a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress open source community.

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Kabir · hack_nug · hanneslsm · Hans-Gerd Gerhards · Hardik Kumar · Hardip Parmar · Harshal Kadu · harshbhonsle08 · Helen Hou-Sandi · Himanshu Pathak · Himanshu Shekhar · hiranimahaveer · Hiroshi Sato · Hit Bhalodia · Hitesh Talpada · Hozefa Saleh · Hridoy Roy · Hugo · huubl · Huzaifa Al Mesbah · Héctor Prieto · Ian Dunn · Ibrahim Riaz · ierwira · iflairwebtechnologies · ignatiusjeroe · Indira Biswas · Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) · Iqbal Hossain · Isabel Brison · iseulde · itsyash1421 · Iulia Cazan · ivanbachev · Jabe · Jacob Cassidy · Jacob Smith · Jadav Sanjay · Jainish Brahmbhatt · James Giroux · James Koster · James LePage · James Monroe · James Roberts · Jarda Snajdr · jarekmorawski · jarodortegaaraya · Jason Adams · Jason Kytros · Jason LeMahieu (MadtownLems) · Jason Rouet · jaspercck · Javier Casares · Jaydeep Das · Jaydip Ahir · jcnetsys · jdoubleu · Jean-Baptiste Audras · Jean-Sébastien Mansart · Jeff Chi · Jeff Golenski · Jeffrey Carandang · Jeffrey Paul · Jennifer M. Dodd · Jenny Dupuy · Jeremy Felt · Jeremy Herve · jeryj · Jesse Dyck · Jessica Lyschik · jf1994 · JF::IA · jhtjards · Jigar Kahar · Jigar Panchal · Jim Nelin · jmarx75 · Joan Namunina · Joe Dolson · Joe Fusco · Joe Hoyle · Joe McGill · Joen Asmussen · joezappie · Johan · Johannes Jülg · John Blackbourn · John Hooks · John Jago · John James Jacoby · John Parris · John Watkins · Jomon Thomas Lobo · Jon Surrell · Jonathan Bossenger · Jonathan Desrosiers · Jonny Harris · joppuyo · jordesign · Jorge Costa · jorge1017 · Jos Velasco · Jose Varghese · Joseph Scott · Joshua Dwire · Joshua Goode · joshualipstone · Joy · jtquip88 · Juanfra Aldasoro · JuanMa Garrido · julianoe · Juliette Reinders Folmer · Julio Potier · Junaid Ahmed · Justin Tadlock · Jyotirmoy Roy · Jérill · K Keerthi Prabhu · kaelansmith · Kallyan Singha · Kapil Paul · Karin Christen · Karol Manijak · Karthick · Karthikeya Bethu · Kaspars · Kathryn Presner · Kausar Alam · Kaushik Domadiya · Kedar Joyner · Keith Murphy · Kelly Choyce-Dwan · kelvinballoo · keoshi · Kerry Liu · Kevin Batdorf · Khoi Pro · Khokan Sardar · Khushi Patel · Khushi Thakrar · Kira Schroder · Kirtikumar Solanki · Kjell Reigstad · kkmuffme · Knut Sparhell · Konstantin Obenland · kpapazov · kristastevens · Krupa Nanda · Krupal Panchal · Kunjan Gohel · Kyle Mott · l0id · Lae · Lakshyajeet Singh Goyal · Lance Willett · landwire · Lars Gersmann · Laura Sacco · Lauri Saarni · Leandro Amorim · leedxw · leemon · Lela · Lena Morita · leogg · Levin Baria · Liam Sarsfield (a11n) · Lidia Arroyo Vargas · liviopv · Lobsang Wangdu · Louis Chance · Louis Wolmarans · Luigi Teschio · luigipulcini · luisherranz · LukasFritzeDev · Luke Carbis · Lynn Bradley Griffith · Léa Prévot · maccyd · Madhavi Shah · madhavraj · Magalie Chetrit · Maggie Cabrera · Mai · Mainul Kabir Aion · Makarand Mane · maksvi · Malay Ladu · Malte · maltfield · Manhar Barot · Manish Dhorepatil · Manuel Camargo · Manzoor Wani · Marc Armengou · Marcin Pietrzak · Marcio Duarte · Marco Almeida | Webdados · Marco Ciampini · Marco Olmedi · Marcus · marian1 · Marianne · Marie · Marin Atanasov · Marine EVAIN · Mario Santos · Marius L. 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Stanko Metodiev · Stefan Pasch · Stefan Velthuys · stefanfisk · Stefano Minoia · Stephen Bernhardt · Stephen Edgar · Steve Burge · Steve Dufresne · Steve Mosby · Stoyan Georgiev · strarsis · Stuart Langridge · studio_m · styankov · Subrata Sarkar · Suhel-Shaikh-Mohammad · Sukhendu Sekhar Guria · Sumit Bagthariya · Sumit Singh · Sunil Kumar Sharma · sunyatasattva (a11n) · susiyanti · Swanand M · swoyamjeetcodes · Sybre Waaijer · Syed Tarikul Islam · Sérgio Gomes · Sören Wünsch · tainacan · Takashi Irie · Takashi Kitajima · Takshil Kunadia · Tammie Lister · tanbirali · Tanvirul Haque · Tapan Kumer Das · Tejas Gajjar · the.pro · thejaymo · thelmachido a11n · them.es · TheViv · Thomas Kräftner · Thorsten Frommen · threadi · Tim Wright · Timi Wahalahti · Timothy Jacobs · Tobias Bäthge · Toby Cryns (@themightymo) · Tom Auger · Tomoki Shimomura · Toni Viemerö · Tonya Mork · Torsten Landsiedel · Tosin Oguntuyi · Troy Chaplin · Trupti Kanzariya · Tsvetan Tsvetanov · Tung Du · TuomasL · Tushar Bharti · Tushar Patel · Ugyen Dorji · Ulrich · Umesh Nevase · Umesh Singh · up1512001 · Utsav Ladani · Vaibhav Singh Web · Valentin Grenier · Valérie Galassi · Van Ons Open Source · Vania · Vasco Daniel Baião · Velda · vgnavada · vietcgi · Viktor Szépe · Vincent Breton · Vipul Gupta · Vishal Kakadiya · Vishit Shah · vishnu prajapat · Vrishabh Jasani · Waqas Safdar · WebCartisan · webtasky · WebTechee · Weston Ruter · WFMattR · Will Skora · WinsleyJ · wiuempe · wolf45 · wongjn · WPExplorer · wplmillet · wpsoul · WraithKenny · X-Raym · xate · xavilc · xwolf · Yagnik Sangani · Yannis Guyon · Yash B · Yash Jawale · Yogesh Bhutkar · Yui · Yusuf Mudagal · zoe20 · Zunaid Amin · zuveria · Łukasz Strączyński

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More than 70 locales have fully translated WordPress 7.0 into their language. Community translators are working hard to ensure more translations are on their way. Thank you to everyone who helps make WordPress available in 200+ languages.

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Thank you to the more than 21 web hosts that have tested pre-release versions for WordPress 7.0, helping ensure that WordPress and hosting platforms are fully compatible, free of errors, and optimized for the best possible user experience.

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Last but not least, thanks to the volunteers who contribute to the support forums by answering questions from WordPress users worldwide.

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Get involved

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Participation in WordPress goes far beyond coding. And learning more and getting involved is easy. Discover the teams that come together to Make WordPress and use this interactive tool to help you decide which is right for you.

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\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:30:\"com-wordpress:feed-additions:1\";a:1:{s:7:\"post-id\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"20583\";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:78:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \";s: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:4:{s:0:\"\";a:6:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:33:\"WordPress 7.0 Release Candidate 4\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:69:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/05/wordpress-7-0-release-candidate-4/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 14 May 2026 16:47:15 +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:8:\"category\";a:8:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:11:\"Development\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:7:\"General\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8:\"Releases\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3:\"7-0\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}i:4;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:11:\"development\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:7:\"general\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"release candidates\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8:\"releases\";s: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=20570\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:1:{s:0:\"\";a:1:{s:11:\"isPermaLink\";s:5:\"false\";}}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:367:\"The fourth Release Candidate (“RC4”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing! This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC4 on a test server and site. Reaching this phase […]\";s: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:\"Amy Kamala\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:40:\"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/\";a:1:{s:7:\"encoded\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:6713:\"\n

The fourth Release Candidate (“RC4”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing!

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This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC4 on a test server and site.

\n\n\n\n

Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. While release candidates are considered ready for release, testing remains crucial to ensure that everything in WordPress 7.0 is the best it can be.

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You can test WordPress 7.0 RC4 in four ways:

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PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the RC4 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-RC4
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup required – just click and go! 
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The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is May 20, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

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Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.

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What’s in WordPress 7.0 RC4?

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Want to look deeper into the details and technical notes for this release? Take a look at the WordPress 7.0 Field Guide. For technical information related to the issues addressed since RC3, you can browse the following links:

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How you can contribute

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WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can get involved with the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

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Get involved in testing

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Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 RC4 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be.

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This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0. 

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For those new to testing, follow this general testing guide for more details on getting set up.

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If you encounter a potential bug or issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. 

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Curious about testing releases in general?  Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

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Help translate WordPress

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Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本語? हिन्दी? বাংলা? मराठी? ಕನ್ನಡ?  You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release milestone (RC4) marks the hard string freeze point of the 7.0 release cycle.

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An RC4 haiku

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Step into the next,

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bold, new era of WordPress.

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Seven-oh is blessed.

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Props to @chaion07 for proofreading and review.

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\"\"
\n\n\n\n

August 16–19, 2026, Phoenix Convention Center – Phoenix, Arizona

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Tickets are now available for WordCamp US 2026, taking place August 16–19, 2026, at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. The flagship event brings together people from across the WordPress community to learn, contribute, share ideas, connect with contributor teams, and help shape the future of an open source project that powers over 40% of the web.

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\"🎟\" Tickets are limited. Secure yours today!

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Get Your Tickets
\n\n\n\n
Sign Up For Contributor Day
\n
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WordCamp US is designed for people at many points in their WordPress journey, including contributors, developers, designers, marketers, publishers, business owners, educators, students, and anyone who wants to learn more about WordPress. This year’s event will include Contributor Day, where attendees can work alongside contributor teams and learn how to take part in the project; Showcase Day, which highlights real-world uses of WordPress; and two full days of sessions and workshops. The programming will also explore how artificial intelligence is changing the way people create, publish, build, and maintain digital experiences, with WordPress as an important part of that broader conversation.

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Gather in Phoenix

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This year also brings WordCamp US to downtown Phoenix, where the Phoenix Convention Center is close to restaurants, museums, theaters, galleries, live music, and the Roosevelt Row Arts District. Attendees can stay near the venue, meet with other community members between sessions, and explore a downtown area served by Valley Metro Rail. For those extending their trip, Phoenix also offers access to the wider Sonoran Desert region, including parks, gardens, and outdoor spaces that make the city a distinct setting for this year’s event.

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Choose the Ticket That Fits

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Several ticket options are available, giving attendees different ways to join or support the event:

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Get Your Ticket Today
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Full ticket details, including refund information, visa support, dietary accommodations, registration requirements, and other attendee information, are available on the ticket page. You can also follow the WordCamp US 2026 website for updates on the schedule, speakers, travel information, and more as the event gets closer.

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\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:30:\"com-wordpress:feed-additions:1\";a:1:{s:7:\"post-id\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"20548\";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:78:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \";s: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:4:{s:0:\"\";a:6:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:33:\"WordPress 7.0 Release Candidate 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:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:69:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/05/wordpress-7-0-release-candidate-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:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 08 May 2026 18:18:48 +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:8:\"category\";a:8:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:11:\"Development\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:7:\"General\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8:\"Releases\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:3:\"7-0\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}i:4;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:11:\"development\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:7:\"general\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"release candidates\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8:\"releases\";s: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=20538\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:1:{s:0:\"\";a:1:{s:11:\"isPermaLink\";s:5:\"false\";}}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:366:\"The third Release Candidate (“RC3”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing! This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC3 on a test server and site. Reaching this phase […]\";s: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:\"Amy Kamala\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:40:\"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/\";a:1:{s:7:\"encoded\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8801:\"\n

The third Release Candidate (“RC3”) for WordPress 7.0 is ready for download and testing!

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This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended that you evaluate RC3 on a test server and site.

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Reaching this phase of the release cycle is an important milestone. As always, testing remains crucial to ensure that everything in WordPress 7.0 is the best it can be.

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You can test WordPress 7.0 RC3 in four ways:

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PluginInstall and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)
Direct DownloadDownload the RC3 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.
Command LineUse this WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=7.0-RC3
WordPress PlaygroundUse the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser.  No setup is required – just click and go! 
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The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.0 is May 20, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who helps with testing!

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Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.0-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.

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What’s in WordPress 7.0 RC3?

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Want to look deeper into the details and technical notes for this release? Take a look at the WordPress 7.0 Developer Notes. For technical information related to the 143+ issues addressed since RC2, you can browse the following links:

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Note: Real Time Collaboration will not be included in the 7.0 release and will be re-evaluated during the 7.1 release cycle. Because of this, this RC3 version is no longer considered a “new Beta 1”.

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How you can contribute

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WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can get involved with the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

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Get involved in testing

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Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. Your help testing the WordPress 7.0 RC3 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be.

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This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.0. 

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For those new to testing, follow this general testing guide for more details on getting set up.

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If you encounter a potential bug or issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums or directly to WordPress Trac if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of known bugs. 

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Curious about testing releases in general?  Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

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Update your theme or plugin

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For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.

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Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 7.0 beta releases. If you haven’t yet, make sure to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 7.0.

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If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

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Test on your hosting platforms

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Web hosts provide vital infrastructure for supporting WordPress and its users. Testing on hosting systems helps inform the development process while ensuring that WordPress and hosting platforms are fully compatible, free of errors, optimized for the best possible user experience, and that updates roll out to customer sites without issue.

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Thank you to the Hosts who helped test variations of new RTC architecture: Kinsta, Bluehost, GoDaddy, WordPress.com, XServer, and Ionos, and to the hosts who participate in distributed testing regularly.

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Want to test WordPress on your hosting system? Get started with configuring distributed hosting tests here.

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Help translate WordPress

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Do you speak a language other than English? ¿Español? Français? Русский? 日本語? हिन्दी? বাংলা? मराठी? ಕನ್ನಡ?  You can help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages. This release milestone (RC3) marks the hard string freeze point of the 7.0 release cycle.

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An RC3 haiku

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By the tides of sea,
where wind moves gently through trees,
sprouts up RC3.

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Props to @desrosj, @peterwilsoncc for proofreading and review.

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\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:30:\"com-wordpress:feed-additions:1\";a:1:{s:7:\"post-id\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"20538\";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:69:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\n \n \n \n \n \n \";s: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:4:{s:0:\"\";a:6:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:45:\"Get Involved With WordCamp US 2026 in Phoenix\";s: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:58:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/05/wcus-2026-get-involved/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 04 May 2026 18:10:10 +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:8:\"category\";a:5:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:6:\"Events\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}i:1;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:7:\"General\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8:\"WordCamp\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:4:\"WCUS\";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:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:9:\"WordCamps\";s: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=20503\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:1:{s:0:\"\";a:1:{s:11:\"isPermaLink\";s:5:\"false\";}}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:355:\"WordCamp US 2026 will take place August 16–19 in Phoenix, Arizona, and applications are now open for sponsors, speakers, and volunteers. WordCamp US is the flagship gathering for the WordPress community in North America, where contributors, builders, and users come together to share ideas and help shape what comes next for the open web. Full […]\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Brett McSherry\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:40:\"http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/\";a:1:{s:7:\"encoded\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:33269:\"\n
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WordCamp US 2026 will take place August 16–19 in Phoenix, Arizona, and applications are now open for sponsors, speakers, and volunteers. WordCamp US is the flagship gathering for the WordPress community in North America, where contributors, builders, and users come together to share ideas and help shape what comes next for the open web. Full details are available on the WordCamp US 2026 site.

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Sponsor

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Sponsorships keep WordCamp US accessible. They fund the production and programming that make a flagship WordCamp possible while keeping ticket prices low for attendees, and, in return, sponsors gain direct visibility within one of the most engaged technology ecosystems. Packages support both in-person and digital participation, with opportunities to connect with agencies, developers, and enterprise teams that build on WordPress every day.

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Apply to Be a Sponsor
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Speak

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The organizing team is looking for strong ideas with practical takeaways from across the community, whether that means a personal story, a lesson learned in production, or a perspective on where publishing, AI, and the open web are heading. Sessions can take the form of traditional talks, workshops, or more interactive formats, and new or underrepresented voices are especially encouraged to apply. Prior speaking experience is not required.

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Apply to Be a Speaker
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Speaker applications due by May 29, 2026.

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Volunteer

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Volunteers are essential to the experience of the event. They welcome attendees and support sessions throughout the week, helping create the inclusive environment that defines a flagship WordCamp. Volunteering is also one of the best ways to meet people from across the global community and see firsthand how an event of this scale comes together. No prior experience is needed, and volunteers receive a free ticket.

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Apply to Be a Volunteer
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Volunteer applications due by June 15, 2026.

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Attend

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It’s the people. It’s the friendships and the stories.

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Matt Mullenweg, WordPress Cofounder

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WordCamp US continues a long tradition of in-person gatherings where contributors meet face-to-face to openly discuss the project’s direction. Whether you participate as a sponsor, take the stage, join the volunteer team, or help organize the event, your involvement shapes what the event becomes.

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To stay informed as ticket sales open and the schedule takes shape, subscribe to WordCamp US 2026 updates.

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WordPress Student Clubs are beginning to take shape as a new way to carry the momentum of WordPress Campus Connect beyond one-time workshops. What starts as an introduction to WordPress and open source is now continuing on campus through student-led groups that create space for learning, peer support, and early community participation. That shift matters because it gives students a more consistent path into the WordPress ecosystem while helping local communities build stronger connections with the next generation of contributors.

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Students showcasing a website they built during a club session
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When WordPress Campus Connect workshops first began reaching universities, the goal was straightforward: help students discover WordPress, understand the value of open source, and see that contribution can be part of their learning journey. In many cases, that first introduction created immediate interest. Students who had never worked with WordPress before started asking questions, exploring what the software could do, and showing curiosity about the wider community.

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That early response also revealed a gap. A workshop could spark interest, but it could not always sustain it on its own. Encouraging students to attend local WordPress meetups helped extend that first connection and, in some cases, brought new energy to existing local communities. Even so, it became clear that campuses needed something more consistent and closer to students’ everyday environment.

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WordPress Student Clubs emerged from that need. Instead of limiting engagement to a single event, these clubs create an ongoing, student-led presence on campus where students can keep learning, share knowledge with peers, and grow more confident over time. They also offer a practical bridge between first exposure and deeper participation, helping students move from curiosity to contribution through regular activity and community support.

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Learning What Sustains Participation

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As WordPress Student Clubs started forming across campuses, the early enthusiasm was encouraging, but sustaining that momentum proved to be one of the first real challenges. Student Club Organizers shared that interest was often strongest at the beginning, especially after a workshop or an introductory session, but turning that interest into regular participation required patience and experimentation. Like many community efforts, the clubs needed time to find a rhythm that worked for the students involved.

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One of the most common challenges was consistency. Many students were interested in learning WordPress, but regular engagement depended on more than initial curiosity. Organizers found that participation grew more steadily when activities felt approachable and useful, especially when students could learn by doing rather than only listening. Small learning sessions, collaborative exercises, and hands-on activities often made it easier for students to return and take part again.

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Organizers also noticed that some students were initially hesitant to engage actively. Asking questions, speaking up in a group, or volunteering to help lead a session did not always happen naturally. Building a club meant creating an environment where students felt comfortable enough to participate, try something new, and gradually take ownership of their own learning.

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Academic schedules added another layer of complexity. Because the clubs are student-led, planning around classes, assignments, and exams required flexibility. Keeping activities regular without overwhelming organizers or participants meant working within the rhythms of campus life. Those early difficulties became part of the learning process and helped shape how the clubs began to operate more effectively.

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Building Through Small, Consistent Activities

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As organizers worked through those challenges, certain approaches began to show results. Instead of focusing on large events, many clubs found momentum through simple, repeatable activities that students could join without feeling intimidated. Regular learning sessions, small hands-on workshops, and peer-to-peer discussions helped create an environment that felt both welcoming and practical.

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A Student club activity in a college led by a student club Organizer
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Students showcasing websites built during a club session
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That steady approach mattered. When students could return to familiar formats and see progress from one session to the next, clubs became easier to sustain. Organizers were able to build routines, and participants could join at their own pace. Over time, those small efforts started to strengthen participation more effectively than occasional large events.

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Student ownership also played an important role. As students began sharing what they had learned, helping their peers, and taking part in running sessions, engagement started to grow more organically. These moments helped shift the clubs from being simply learning spaces to becoming communities in their own right. Students were not only using WordPress in a classroom context. They were also beginning to understand it as part of a collaborative open source project shaped by people who learn together, build together, and support one another.

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Guidance from the local WordPress community helped reinforce that progress. Although the clubs are student-led, organizers benefited from having experienced community members available as mentors. Mentors helped them think through session structure, activity planning, and the practical challenge of staying motivated while balancing academic responsibilities. That kind of support gave organizers more confidence to experiment and keep building.

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Mentorship also connected campus activity to the broader WordPress ecosystem. Students were not learning in isolation. Through local community guidance, they were able to see how meetups, contributions, and collaboration all fit into a larger network of people who have been participating in WordPress for years. That connection gave the work happening on campus greater meaning and helped students see a clearer path forward.

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Early Impact Across Campuses

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Although WordPress Student Clubs are still in an early stage, signs of impact are already visible. Organizers have shared that more students are showing interest in learning WordPress and in exploring what open source participation can look like in practice. In several cases, students who first joined as learners are now contributing to discussions, helping peers during sessions, and organizing club activities themselves.

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That shift from passive participation to active involvement is one of the clearest signs of growth. It suggests that the clubs are beginning to create more than awareness. They are creating opportunities for students to build confidence, practice leadership, and develop a stronger sense of connection to the WordPress community. Even at this stage, that kind of change points to the long-term value of sustaining engagement on campus.

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One encouraging example came during the International Women’s Day celebration in Ajmer, India, where students participated alongside members of the local WordPress community. Organizers noted that the event included 100 female attendees, with around 50% of participants coming from student clubs. For many of those students, it was a first opportunity to take part in a broader community event, meet other contributors, and see how open source communities collaborate in practice.

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Women’s Day Ajmer 2026 Event, where more than 50% participation from student clubs
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Experiences like that show how student-led initiatives can extend beyond campus and begin contributing to the wider community. They also create space for new voices to participate. As students move from club sessions into local events, they gain experience not only as learners but also as community members who can help shape what comes next.

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The clubs are also creating leadership opportunities on campus. Organizers have stepped into new roles by coordinating activities, encouraging participation, and maintaining momentum over time. Those experiences help students build skills that matter both within the WordPress community and beyond it, including communication, organization, and problem-solving.

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“Being a Student Club Organizer helped me improve my leadership and communication skills.”
— Sanjeevni Kumari, WordPress Student Club Organizer, Mahila Engineering College, Ajmer

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Looking Ahead

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WordPress Student Clubs are still developing, but the journey so far points to a promising direction. What began as an effort to sustain interest after WordPress Campus Connect is gradually becoming a more durable model for ongoing learning and collaboration on campus. The clubs are helping students stay connected to WordPress beyond a first introduction, while also creating stronger links between educational spaces and local communities.

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That longer-term potential is one reason this work matters. With regular campus activity and continued mentorship, Student Clubs can help create a stronger foundation for future contributors. They can also help students build confidence before attending local meetups, contributing to community efforts, or participating in events beyond their campuses.

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“With regular on-campus activities through WordPress Student Clubs, the real impact may become visible over the next couple of years, as a stronger WordPress ecosystem begins to take shape within campuses.”
— Anand Upadhyay, Student Club Mentor

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As more students get involved and take ownership of these spaces, WordPress Student Clubs can continue to open pathways to learning, leadership, and community participation. For campuses, they offer a way to keep the momentum going after Campus Connect. For the broader project, they represent another step toward welcoming more students into the WordPress open source ecosystem. To follow this work and explore how it connects with the wider community, readers can look to WordPress Campus Connect, WordPress Meetups, and other education and community initiatives across WordPress.org.

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Note: Much of the credit belongs to @webtechpooja (Pooja Derashri) for help in writing this piece.

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Transcript
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Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.

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Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case using AI everywhere at rtCamp.

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If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.

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If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you or your idea featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox? And use the form there.

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So on the podcast today we have Rahul Bansal. Rahul has a long and accomplished history in the WordPress ecosystem. As the founder and CEO of rtCamp, a company he started 17 years ago, he’s led his agency through the rapidly changing landscape of the web, helping enterprise clients such as Google, Fortune 500 companies, and major publishers solve complex problems with innovative WordPress based solutions.

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rtCamp specialises in everything from large scale website builds, to more bespoke projects like Chrome extensions and SaaS connectors, and has grown to a team of hundreds over the years.

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Today’s episode takes a deep dive into Raul’s recent talk at WordCamp Asia, which focused on what it will take to launch and scale an enterprise WordPress agency in the future.

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The conversation focused on real, hard won, lessons from rtCamp’s journey, but also how rapidly the playbook is changing with advances in technology, particularly the explosion of AI tools and workflows.

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We discuss Rahul’s philosophy around hiring, namely building a team of people whose strengths complement each other rather than just replicating your own skillset. This approach has allowed rtCamp to adapt to new challenges, fill gaps in expertise, and whether major industry changes.

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We then explore how this idea of complimentary sets can also apply to choosing the right kinds of clients, those who value your expertise because they need what you offer, rather than simply hiring somebody who does what they already know.

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A theme that emerged in the conversation was specialisation. Rahul outlines how, whereas rtCamp’s earliest differentiator was a simple focus on WordPress, when virtually nobody else in India was, today’s agencies must drill down much further to stand out choosing niches within niches, such as WooCommerce, or payment gateway integrations, and becoming recognised experts in those areas in order to thrive in a much more crowded field.

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Towards the end of the episode, the discussion turns to what might be the most significant topic for agencies today, artificial intelligence. Rahul describes how recent advances in AI have not only altered his agency’s practises, but given them a firm mandate. If something in rtCamp can be done by AI it will be.

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We talk about how AI is being leveraged inside rtCamp to automate and optimise everything from sales and proposal writing to project management, and even technical proof of concept builds. With a unified platform for all business processes, the agency is now able to significantly reduce costs, speed up delivery, and focus on higher value consulting and creativity, reshaping roles and team composition as a result.

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If you’re interested in what it takes to stand out and succeed in the evolving world of enterprise WordPress agencies, how to confront uncertainty with both optimism and realism, and how AI can become not just a bolt-on feature, but the operational backbone of your business, this episode is for you.

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If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.

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And so without further delay, I bring you Rahul Bansal.

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I am joined on the podcast by Rahul Bansal. Hello, Rahul.

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Rahul Bansal: Hello Nathan. Thanks for having me here.

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Nathan Wrigley: You are very welcome. Rahul and I were both at WordCamp Asia and that is going to be the main focus of the podcast today. We’re going to be talking about agencies, growth in agencies, and then probably delving into AI a little bit at the end because of a recent announcement that came out of rtCamp, which is the company that Rahul founded many years ago.

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In order to, I suppose, lend credibility to a conversation about agency work, would you mind Rahul, just introducing yourself and tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do in WordPress, and maybe give us a few little interesting facts about rtCamp and what you do over there.

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Rahul Bansal: So I’m, as you mentioned, founder and CEO of rtCamp. We started this 17 years ago. We primarily help large enterprise client, sometimes we build websites for their marketing team, which is the most common use case of WordPress. But at the same time, we help large tech companies like Google communicate better with the WordPress ecosystem for their offering. Like sometimes we build products that includes neither thing, neither plugin, but something like Chrome extension. For large companies sometimes we build like SaaS connectors for technology companies.

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Yeah, so we work with, like a big companies really Fortune 500, and the idea is to deliver something related to WordPress in one form or another form.

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Nathan Wrigley: If you go to the rtCamp website, you can probably Google it I would’ve imagined, then you’ll be able to get some impression of what the company is like.

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I think last time we spoke you were into the sort of 200 employees level. I’m not sure if those numbers have gone up or down or what have you. But you get an impression of how large it is. And one of the interesting things that I spotted during my time at WordCamp Asia was just how vibrant the community, the WordPress community is. So maybe we’ll get into that a little bit as well.

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I’m going to concentrate to begin with on the presentation that you gave at WordCamp Asia. If you would like to see that, wordpress.tv will have a video. And if the video is already available, I will link to it in the show notes. But the presentation that Rahul gave was entitled, how to Start an Enterprise WordPress Agency in 2026. And I’ll just read the blurb that goes with it because it was fairly short and easy to manage.

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Building a WordPress agency business for large enterprises. In this talk, I’ll share the story of how rtCamp grew from a small WordPress shop into a globally recognised enterprise agency, trusted by Fortune 500 companies and major publishers. If you’re starting an agency today or looking to move up market in 2026, this session will give you a realistic roadmap building on real lessons from my personal experience.

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So I suppose what I’m going to do at the beginning, Rahul, if it’s all right with you, is just ask you to tell us some of the bits and pieces that you mentioned during that. Some of the advice that you would give an agency owner beginning in 2026.

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Rahul Bansal: Yeah. So first, like I deviated a little bit from the blurb because when I applied this talk I had a different frame of mind that, hey, I’m going to do this. And then as I was preparing the talk, and in during those months, especially like last few months, the AI has reshaped everything. And then I realised that a lot of what worked for rtCamp won’t work even for rtCamp if I start again today.

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Rather than making it as a nice story about what worked for us, I lean more towards practical advice, and that’s where the essence remained. But I focus more on the 2026 part, because when we started, it was 2006. The first time when I used WordPress was 2006. rtCamp started in 2009. 20 years is a big time. And then at the end of this 20th year, like we are going through this AI led change.

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So a lot of things that worked for me won’t work anymore. And that is how I restructured my talk to take enough from our history, enough from our learnings, what worked for us.

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The way we hire is very different. And after the talk, if that one line that stick with the audience, that many people told me that the hire your complementary set was the most different idea. And it’s timeless idea. It’s relevant in AI world also.

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So the idea was basically that we have this bias that when we try to scale, like basically when we go from freelancing to agency business, the idea of building a business, we try to find people like us. But my idea was that we should initially, especially, we should find people who are opposite of us. Like I was good at engineering, bad at sales, so my co-founder is sales heavy. My English was not good. His English was very polished.

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So I literally listed down my weakness and found people who were opposite of me. Even interesting part was that, to the few initial hires I asked the questions, whose answer I had no idea whether they’re saying right or wrong.

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So that was the most interesting idea and I think that’s still relevant today. I will do exactly same thing if I have to start building a new agency. I will build in WordPress, build in AI, any kind of business I will, my initial few hires will all together will cover each other’s weaknesses.

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It’s at certain scale then you need to replicate, like, you need 50 engineers, you need 20 React engineers, you need five people who can write same proposal. That comes much later. But starting is all about finding your complementary set. And this was inspired by a set theory from math class that I attended in when I was like some 12-year-old. That stuck around before the life. And that is what I put in this talk as a biggest lesson we learned and that worked.

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The second most specific thing that I would say, practical advice, like that was more about hiring advice, but that is not only hiring address, that is, I advise in many walks of life applicable.

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When you’re looking for your client, you have to look for complimentary set there as well. Because you are trying to sell to agencies like yours, your margins gets hit a lot. You need to find people who do not understand WordPress at all because then, that is why your expertise become more important and premium for them, because they need to depend on you. They value you more. You are not commoditised for them.

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So that hiring your complementary set works across the board. But then the most specific advice I gave that I didn’t follow myself, I would say. Actually there was nothing to follow that. When I started WordPress was just a blogging platform. There was custom post type were not yet part of WordPress Core. Everybody was just building blogs. We were playing around themes, and the race was to make our blog look unique. The metric usually was like traffic and how many email subscribers you got.

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So there was no niche to pick. Like, that was the only thing WordPress was doing. And after post type, people started building a lot more than WordPress. Actually people started pushing WordPress earlier, and as a result of that, WordPress created those APIs to make it easy to extend WordPress beyond blogging platform.

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But today, in 2026, there is so many things happening. And if you’re starting new and you do what rtCamp did on day one, like, hey, we are WordPress agency. That is not going to work.

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It worked for us 20 years back because we were like, probably only one in India at that time who said at that time that we will be only taking WordPress project. Because India was a land of outsourcing. Like in supply chain, it was like a, it’s like a Chinese manufacturer saying that, hey, we are only going to assemble if you are building for iPhone. So it’s like, hey, we are only going to write PHP if it is going to end up as a WordPress theme or plugin. We are not going to do what was Cake PHP project at that time. We are not going to write custom PHP script.

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So in a way we picked the whole WordPress as a niche among the largest set of choices available to us. But if your largest set of choices was building a iOS company, like mobile app company. Mobile app was big because with the introduction of iPhone, there was a sudden shift and huge demand for iOS apps, and we haven’t built one till 17 years. Like literally we built our first iOS app, public iOS app last month.

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That time we were like, well, we are going to only do WordPress. So now that advice translate into, pick a niche within WordPress because WordPress itself is the web now. That time, WordPress was very small. Now you can choose e-commerce. Within e-commerce then you can probably pick WooCommerce. Within WooCommerce then probably you can pick like, depending on your market, payment gateway specialisation, ERPs, back office specialisation, subscription based businesses.

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Start by picking a niche as small as possible and then go bottoms up, rather than starting with everything. So that was the key takeaway of my session, I would say that. Pick a niche, position yourself as a expert in the niche. Don’t just say that, hey, we build WooCommerce store, or we build WordPress site.

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Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Yeah, I’ve got all of that. So firstly, hiring. That’s an interesting one. Hire people that are different from you. I was imagining when you were saying that, I wonder how long you can do that, because you can’t, eventually, you have a company of a hundred people and all of them are not the same as you. Eventually it must be nice to find somebody who’s a little bit like you.

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But then also you mentioned picking clients who will trust your expertise, I think is a good way of describing that. Because they themselves are perhaps not expert within that WordPress platform.

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And now of course, moving forwards, what worked for you in terms of being a WordPress agency 17 odd years ago, that was, as it turns out, really successful. But now you are going to be amongst tens of thousands in India alone, if all you say is that you are a WordPress agency. So you need to go a little bit more specialised and niche down.

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I wonder, Rahul, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s always easy to look back and sort of see for example, from my perspective, I see rtCamp as an entirely successful enterprise. You know, you began all those years ago, and decisions were made and you grew and you grew and you grew and you grew, and now we are where you are now. Committing a lot to WordPress with incredible growth and a really amazing agency on your hands.

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But I’m just wondering, looking back, with the benefit of hindsight, were there any moments where you made some decisions where you were very nervous about how it was going to be?

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So for example, one of those could be WordPress. There was no writing on the wall that said WordPress will be the successful CMS. That really could have gone either way. It could have been Drupal, it could have been something that some kid in a basement created. So I’m just wondering, are there moments when you look back and you think to yourself, gosh, I am so glad that we did that random choice than all the others that we could have made?

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Rahul Bansal: Yep. So it’s a reality that, one of the co-founders we lost, within the first year of company formation was because, I refused to add Joomla to our offering. And Joomla I think was market leader at that time when we started. So we were like more like engineers, like some were good at sales, some were good at communication, but we were all from the same kind of school, like we didn’t know if there was any survey existed.

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So we didn’t back by any data. The only reason we chose to stay with WordPress or build this agency with WordPress because we were using WordPress. So rtCamp for the most part, people missed that. So rtCamp was not started as an agency. rtCamp was basically a media company, a blog network. And that blog network was running on WordPress. As a technology blogger. It’s like just imagine WP Beginners, like that is more relevant example.

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So by the way, we, and WP Beginner were operating at the same time, that’s the power of niche. Like say I chose to focus on WordPress and say very very well. And my technical blog was everything like from iPhone to Windows operating system to Mac OS update to web APIs, to HTTP2. Whatever, like it was a larger technology blog So we were more like a stripped down version of TechCrunch rather than picking a niche. And Syed picked this WordPress as a niche.

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Both were contemporaries in that same era. Now just imagine Syed in those days I started an agency. So we were using WordPress, we needed to stand out because, social network or blogging or web was still a fancy place. Like minimalism wasn’t the trend. It was how much you can push, like how you can make your website look different without using Flash. That was the coolest thing. Like how much you can push jQuery, how advanced CSS you can write. So all those things led to we customising our WordPress a lot.

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Another thing that worked in our part was, our blog was one of the biggest in India. Globally also, it had good traffic. In fact, it had so much traffic that one of the most Googled keyword in my name was Rahul Bansal, how much money this guy make. Like that was the first question I used to get asked because traffic was insane. We used to get a lot of traffic.

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That led us to writing nice WordPress code. In early days, like especially when I was freelancer, I had to write amazing WordPress code that will scale and host it in a way that it will also scale. So not only WordPress, we choose Nginx before it become a norm. Like before there was. anybody started any WordPress managed hosting company. We managed to scale WordPress at a very high level.

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And so now we, are this famous blog running on WordPress handling so much traffic, on Linode’s $10 something plan. Customising it. So we got this natural market. We got initial customers were technically our competitors, like other tech bloggers. It’s like TechCrunch hiring Mashable to customise their blog So something like, because Mashable has a tech team. So that was at early story of rtCamp.

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And then we realised that we are making more money and faster money via customising WordPress. So we started cutting down on our editorials. And then, slowly, slowly like the business has shifted from, being a blogging agency, to WordPress custom development agency. That’s why we chose WordPress.

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And that has been the principle since then, like we only sell what we use. That was the reason we didn’t, so it wasn’t any ideological decision. So the ideology is at open source level. So rtCamp is committed to providing open source solution to its client from day one.

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Joomla tick that box. But Joomla didn’t tick the box that we use Joomla. We don’t use Joomla. There was no reason for us to have our blog running on WordPress and website running on Joomla, and that’s why we stick around WordPress when there was no data, no trend. And I think in hindsight it was just luck. I would say like it could have backfired.

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Nathan Wrigley: Well, okay, I really like this story. Firstly, I like the fact that you are identifying luck as a component, because I think too often when you listen to people who have had success, they sort of chart this narrative of how brilliant the decisions were along the journey and how impeccable, you know, we did this and then we did this, and then we did this, and then we did this. But never a nod to luck.

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And of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we did this, we did this, we did this does lead to where you are now. But I really enjoy it when founders and people have that confession in them. Yeah, there was a bit of luck.

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But also, and we’ll get onto this in a minute, because a big part of what you are about to do, or have recently done with your business kind of leans into what you’ve just been saying.

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It sounds like you were led by what was in front of you, if you know what I mean? It doesn’t sound like there was a great big, okay, by 2016 or 2026, we want to be here. It was more like, okay, this is where we’re at now. These are the things that are coming to us. Okay, looks like WordPress, not only are we using it, but it looks like people want us to help them to use it. Well, let’s go there then. Let’s put the blogging to one side and let’s become more of a, I don’t know, a technical helper for you and your website.

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So there’s this sort of lucky piece, but also the willingness to steer into favourable winds, if you know what I mean? I love that story. Thank you very much for that. I also admire your humility in all of that. That’s lovely.

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So the next thing then, I suppose that I want to get into is some change in the landscape at the moment. And again, this maps to what you were just saying about move where the wind takes you. We all know that AI is a thing. You cannot have missed that. But I think a lot of people are taking nervous steps into their business and how they’re doing things with AI and maybe biting off a little bit here with AI and leaving the rest as it is, and biting off another chunk here, and leaving the rest as it is and slowly moving into AI.

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You have a very different approach. And I will link in the show notes to a blog post on the rtCamp website, which I read several weeks ago. I’ve got to say, I was a little bit, not surprised, that’s the wrong word, but it was written in such a way that I thought, gosh, now that’s interesting.

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Because in it you painted the case that rtCamp in the future is going to do AI everywhere. And I know we hear that all the time. You know, we’re going to use AI here, and we’re going to use AI there. You have painted your colours on the mast, and literally, I think you said, if it can be done with AI, it will be done with AI. There will be no stone left unturned.

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Okay. Firstly, why? Why have you got that approach? What’s the reason? Now, I’m sure it’s fairly obvious, but lay it out for us anyway.

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Rahul Bansal: Yeah. So I don’t know from where it comes, anytime I see things going south across industry like COVID or, like AI, like everybody was gloomy, my brain kind of think of opposite. So in my brain, I’m not building, I’m actually imagining an AI only agency with humans required to probably feel capture. That’s how my brain works. So it’s like AI first.

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Then again, like WordPress, so I have been lucky more than once in my life. So before this AI came, this famous saying by Steve Jobs like you can only connect the dots looking backward. Three to four years ago, riding on the digital boom, we survived the COVID, like all agencies grew. rtCamp grew a lot more, and a lot faster in very short span of time. And to manage this humongous workforce, we needed to refactor a lot internal tooling, softwares, processes, to the point that we have internally codified our mission that we want to build McDonald’s of consulting business, inspired by that movie Founder. That was also part of my talk at WorkCamp Asia.

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And in fact, I had somebody to literally a complimentary set example. I know we want to build this, but I don’t have that kind of mental model. So that’s the brief I give to our chief delivery officer that you have to give me this. McDonald’s of agency business.

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We start thinking of every process that we can repeat, and we realised that we need to take control of our software stack. And we ended up finding something, in open source. That’s, I would say truly a spiritually aligned to the WordPress ecosystem called Frappe ERPNext, which handle our accounting, payroll, project management, CRM. So many business processes in one single source of truth, like single source of truth for so many things. Earlier it was all siloed data.

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So this was started with a different intent, to scale rtCamp, 2000 people, 5,000 people, 10,000 people, because that was a business model then. Agencies growth with capacity. You want to sell more, you need to hire more. Basically agencies growth was limited by on one dimension, the inventory, human inventory you can have. So we started implementing this open source back office software automation with the idea that we will own, central piece of our operating system of connecting, getting thousands of people working together.

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Then AI happened, and then we realised we don’t need to hire those many people anymore. Year on year, we moved from 200 to 250, but I think next 50 will be very slow. Because, now we are no longer aiming to sell, or hire people. But as luck would’ve been, we ended up creating this system of record, which is unified and cleaned. When we think of a client or a project or a human. All aspect of their metadata is available in a single system.

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So that is why we can leverage AI more than a company, agency to agency. For agencies using say, Jira for project management. QuickBook for accounting, some other software. If their operations is scattered across 6, 7 software, we have leverage over them. Not only we are paying very less because all our software is open source. The data is first party. Like sitting duck there to query in any way we can. We are not limited by SaaS providers, enterprise plan or this AI capability.

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So that is where we realised that we can take this huge bet on AI where we can now build a lot more, in a lot less time using AI across the board. And if you look at a business like not just WordPress business, when you buy something, like you buy a car from a car company. You are actually paying for everything that company does, advertising, researching on the EV technologies, hiring a brand ambassador to put billboard, sponsoring F1. Anything that company does. every penny they spend on their business, the customer ends up paying it.

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So we thought like now we have a single stack, which technically takes care of 70 to 80% critical nature of our business operations. From when the lead enters the CRM, the project management, time entry, people’s new management, everything is linked. Everything is beautifully linked in a single unified interface and database. So why don’t we just use AI to cut down the cost.

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Because now we cannot charge by hours, we can try, but, it’s not making sense anymore for clients. They want us to commit to fix output bid. Now when we say, hey, we can migrate this thing for 100k, or we can build this website for half million dollars. So those numbers, traditionally, and actually all the time will include all the operation cost. Like my salary. I’m not doing any coding work, but my salary will be eventually paid by all the clients. Electricity bill that is also going to be paid by all the client.

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So we thought like rather than just thinking AI to build a website, let’s use AI to bring our operational costs dramatically down. Because we have single source of truth for maximum data we have, and that is where we went all AI in. Now it’s like we can submit a proposal in one third of the time.

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In old days we used to build PPTs. Now we vibe code a WordPress demo site and attach it to the proposal. Hey is this something that you want? Not just the screenshot, not just the Figma, like we are actually building Playground, like websites, and launching them and sharing those links to the client. Go play with it. We are even trying to copy the design systems if they’re migrating. So migration is a big category of work we do.

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So that is what we mean by going AI ready. So we are leveraging AI to reduce the cost of sale, increase probability of winning the project by pitching them something. And then while estimating the effort, like let’s say we would traditionally say, oh, this might cost us a thousand hours. Now we blindly said Make it 30% less, as if it will be done in 700 hours and it will be, sometimes it backfires.

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But then on some project it’ll be 500 hours. In some project it’ll be 900 hours, but average will come back to 700 hours. Then again, the idea is we have a central operating system, which gives us, like bird’s eye view of how healthy our projects education are. Are we getting returns on our AI engagement? And all this is possible because few years back we took a bet in different direction.

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Like we choose WordPress because we wanted to be a better media agencies, and that was what media agencies were doing in the early days. But we ended up building an agency business with the WordPress. Likewise we choose this Frappe ERPNext software. To operationalise our back office. But now it is starting out to be our advantage point in this areas like we are able to do AI a lot more. In the end, it’s all about bringing the cost down at certain quality. You have to keep the quality up, and just make it more affordable. If that is not. as a business you cannot do that with AI, then something is wrong.

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So AI is not about building something new. I have another approach. So if you’re an agency people are hiring you to move things from A to B, like you are the movers and packers of internet. I put crudely, what rtCamp does. We move things, like a shipping company who moves your house, remove you from Sitecore to WordSpace.

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And that’s still big part of our business. We don’t have to reinvent or reimagine different experiences all the time. Sometimes we have to just do what everybody’s doing, the boring part. Put AI there to make it efficient, more cost effective. And if you do that, that means more people wanting to shift to new house. Again, a different approach. People think that they need to build something out of the world to benefit from this AI way.

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My idea is that pick a boring thing and make it so affordable that people who were sitting on the fence, just imagine travel, Middle East travel. Like this is a very actually a bad example, might sound inhuman, but, say like X number of people wanted to experience Dubai as a destination, but let’s say, it was beyond their budget. For some even unfortunately now suddenly that comes within their budget, they will be able to do that.

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People wanted to move to WordPress Initially, agencies were quoting a hundred thousand dollars for that big shift. Now if you can, suddenly you can do it in 50k a lot more people will shift. So, you don’t have to do things like out of the world thing. You don’t have to invent new. You have to sometimes just make existing problem more efficient to solve.

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And it was not always about money, especially in large client. It was not always about 100k versus 50k versus half million versus 1 million. It was about timeline. It’s like you are refurbishing your home and it is going to take three month, then it’s a different mental model, like to put up yourself in a hotel or a second home for three months. If a magically a new company appears and hey, we can refurbish your home overnight. You don’t mind checking into hotel for one night. And that is where I feel like this WordPress will be net gain because of AI. Agencies has to be optimistic, and think differently to gain from AI.

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Like, what people are doing is everybody’s trying to act like a ChatGPT, OpenAI, it’s their job to invent AI algorithm. We are agency. Our job is to apply AI, not invent AI. We don’t have to think of what is Opus 4.8 will do. Let cloud engineers think of that.

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So we need to understand we are AI’s consumers or consultant, and that is where some people are getting it wrong by vibe coding things that they’re not able to sell to anyone. Then they will cry that, hey, six months later they will realise they built stuff nobody bought. Now they don’t have money to pay AI bills, or their developer salaries and then they will try that, hey, AI took over job, AI killed our business. No, think what existing problems we can solve with AI cheaply, efficiently, with better quality. And a lot of work is there to be done.

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Nathan Wrigley: There’s a lot in there, but one of the things that I’m taking out is. So prior to AI coming along and demonstrating to us all what it could do, which by the way didn’t kind of happen overnight, although it feels like it did, there was a sort of, a year in which we could suddenly see, oh boy, it’s getting much more performant and much more interesting. But prior to that, it sounds like post COVID, you kind of inspected your business and were thinking, okay, how can we refine everything that we’ve got in the business and how can we put it all into this one system?

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And again, with the benefit of hindsight, and I’m maybe going to use the word luck, maybe that’s not the right word. You, having done that work, then meant that when AI did come along, you weren’t trying to link up four or five or six or ten different things. You had this one source of truth. Which meant that you could cut waste, for want of a better word. You know, waste could be measured in terms of dollars or it could be measured in terms of time or it, whatever it may be.

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You happened to be in that place because you’d done that preparatory work, not necessarily knowing that AI was going to come along and make all of this fun stuff possible. But with the benefit of hindsight, that’s exactly what it did.

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And it’s curious, you said 70 or 80% of the business could be streamlined in that way. And I’m so staggered by that number. I thought you’d be in the kind of, I don’t know, 20, 30% or something like that. But a full 70 to 80%. So does that mean 70 to 80% of the things available, or do you mean that you were able to cut 70 to 80% of the cost or the time? Because I wasn’t sure which 70 or 80% you were meaning.

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Rahul Bansal: It meant different things. First like, as I mentioned that we are not thinking AI adds just something to sell, but something to consume first. Because, again, dog fooding principle. We managed to sell WordPress better because we were a blog network. That’s why we could understood publishers better. We got into this Frappe ERPNext consulting because we built our backend with it. Now before we make any promise with AI, we have to be net gainer with the AI. And we believe that our internally, we will be.

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So there are two parts, actual cost of building something and the meta cost. Like cost of sale, like the writing proposal. marketing costs, like case studies, going to even preparing for articles. Non build cost is definitely, we are able to bring, I would say it’s already half, but it’ll be, further down. I will give you a very simple example.

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Like in early days is when somebody used to submit rtCamps form, inquiry form, a human, would manually check like, Hey, what is the domain name of this email id? Are they on LinkedIn? Some 30 minutes and then they will write a note hey, this looks like a good quality lead. We are fortunate that we get a lot of inbound inquiries, so we had to have prioritise, like which leads we are going to respond first.

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Now, as soon as somebody submits a form an AI integration does that, within minutes. And the notes are much more details, it creates action items. Across like WordPress our Frappe CRM, our Slack, everything runs like a clockwork, and we don’t need a human. So that, junior human job is definitely gone. So in sales team, we used to have like this entry level job. That is no longer there. Some jobs are actually going to get vanished. So now going on a call, meeting notes, a lot of those things are getting automated. So the cost of sale has dramatically came down.

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What is the effect? Like, say we can now assume flat 10% discount compared to earlier pricing when we are thinking of a migration project. Like, let’s say, in early days, we used to think like hey, anybody wanting to migrate from Adobe Experience Manager? We must assume that they need to pay us 100k. On the initial call, we can say, hey, that would probably cost something like minimum 50,000 dollars.

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The minimums, the starting numbers has came down because we need less energy to have those pre-sales conversations. Less number of minutes of ours spent building those demos. Very fast discovery. Data mapping sometimes happens in minutes. In fact we did one 10 days to prepare this migration literally in five days, that was unthinkable. And that included data migration, QA testing, like automation testing where somebody built a bought in panel, which would randomly open a Zendesk ticket and verify that all metadata and deploys are migrated into new health desk system, all within five days.

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This is where I have been saying that the cost of building custom solutions will fail. For like so low, like it’s 60, 70, 58. Like definitely more than half. It’ll be reduced by half more. People will buy custom solutions. So agencies are going to grow from here in just these one or two years. Because agencies, to price something upfront, we need consistencies. Like I’m running an airline and if my jet fuel is my biggest cost, and that is out of my control. Then how do I price my tickets? That’s AI hallucination, which is, I would say the jet fuel version of aviation industry.

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Something happens in Middle East and fuel prices goes up. A war starts. So now when AI hallucinates so it’s like what we are internally tracking, or what we call as a KPI or internal metric is that, worst case, AI gains, that’s already 20%. Best case is more than 90%. In some cases it’s literally 90%. This range will keep compressing and that’s what I think 70% is my expectation in two years. We will have that maturity that, the build time will fall by 70%. That means. the client companies will hire more agencies to do more work.

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WordPress will emerge as a winner, not only for its ecosystem, but its ability to expose structured data without any proprietary walls. AI was so fast that only an open source can keep up with it. In fact, we are seeing more migration inquiries with with the AI boom.

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Nathan Wrigley: Oh, interesting. I was going to ask a sort of follow up question. Do you think that you, so you were mentioning, how to describe it, a rising tide carries all boats, or you certainly implied that the pie is getting bigger, if you know what I mean? So you are getting more phone calls, more migrations, more work, and you can obviously do that more affordably. And because you can pass on some of those savings to the clients, the price point lowers and so you get more inquiries because there’s this virtuous cycle of price going down, but quality staying the same or getting better.

\n\n\n\n

I wonder if you, given your success in the past, I wonder if that transition will be easier for you, because the phone is already ringing, than it would be for somebody who was beginning in 2026? Because we all know when you begin, getting the phone to ring is probably the hardest thing. You know, getting those first 5, 10, 15 reliable clients, whatever it is that makes you work.

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I wonder if you are in a uniquely good position, having a history of clients, a roster of clients that will come back to you. And also just being famous, for want of a better word, in the WordPress space, for doing the kind of things that you do. I wonder just what your thoughts are on that.

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Rahul Bansal: They’re both pros and cons. The only con for rtCamp is that our business model, a big part of what’s traditional like setting our flagship revenue stream for last 8 to 10 years was staffing solutions. We used to provide engineers, sometimes to other agencies, sometimes to publishers. So usually they used to have the leadership layer with them. We were more of executors, and if AI within the IT industry, the first casualty of AI revolution was that people who code, or people who can only code but cannot think. But luckily our hiring was very different.

\n\n\n\n

While it is taking time, so as I said, net headcount addition has been slowed down. I think this is probably first time rtCamp’s career site doesn’t have any engineering opening. If we would’ve been like a publicly listed or like a shareholder owned company, we might have got mandate to fire a hundred people right now, because we have already gained by, so much that, our one third of our WordPress engineers are currently out of work when the work is rising.

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Because traditionally, when we needed eight people, now we were able to do in four people. But now we are using this. We have our own challenges, going from one kind of business to another kind of business model. The switch is causing some friction, but we are communicating it openly. We are giving people like more freedom. You give us ideas like which part of the entire business equation you can optimise. Is it editorial experience, is it migration cost? Is it data mapping, visual testing? So people are constantly building.

\n\n\n\n

So change is there. Change is scary. It is scary for us also because we don’t want to fire people. We don’t want to lay off people. We want to return this team. From here onwards, we don’t see we are hiring more engineers for at least a year, because we have enough of them. But, we are so optimistic about this WordPress growth and the pie getting bigger.

\n\n\n\n

We are hiring more sales and marketing team. Two days back I was telling like traditionally, we had this 90 to 10% ratio, like in 200 people, our headcount team, we would have 20 people. That would be, we can call as a sales and marketing department, I think next 50 hires will be only sales and marketing.

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Nathan Wrigley: Oh, that’s a big skew, isn’t it? So you’ll go to more like 30% marketing as opposed to 10% marketing.

\n\n\n\n

Rahul Bansal: Yeah sales and marketing. By the way, when we say sales, sales in rtCamp means slightly different. It’s more of a initial consulting, basically making those solid promise, which can be backed by engineering, not over promising. So our sales team needs are more like a WordPress consultant, but we have a category within rtCamp which we call Growth Engineers, who are some of our best coders. But rather than writing code, they go on the first client call and make promises on behalf of WordPress which are practical, feasible, and real.

\n\n\n\n

That is what our internship look like, because coding is race to bottom. Eventually the cost of building will shrink to the point that you don’t need many, you won’t need many traditional developers in any agency. You will need people who can imagine what needs to be built. There might be 20 different ways and which way this project should be executed. That prompt engineering, context in engineering.

\n\n\n\n

So the value is shifting and it’s definitely shifting away from people who can only code. That is why, probably from two years now, we might be at 300 people. Hundred of them will not be coding at all. But they will be prompting AI. They will be building vibe coded prototype in pre-sale stage to gain that customer confidence like early on that day. What you want is possible with the WordPress. It won’t cost that much. It’ll be given you fast enough that your life won’t be disrupted for many months, like your business operations won’t be disrupted for many months, so this is a thing

\n\n\n\n

Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, nobody could deny that we’re in interesting times. I think a lot of people are very confused by what’s going on at the moment. You know, they’re trying to figure out a path. They’re trying to figure out how it affects their business. They’re probably in, I would imagine, quite a lot of cases, quite keen to stick to the ways that they’ve done it in the past. But certainly the picture that you’ve painted over at rtCamp is that you are aligning yourself with a very different future, kind of embracing AI, seeing where it can take you, trying to adapt your business. Being optimistic about it rather than pessimistic. Because I think there is quite a lot of pessimism around there at the moment. But seeing the opportunity and seizing it.

\n\n\n\n

Absolutely fascinating. There was so much to unpack there. I feel like we could talk probably for another nine hours about this because it genuinely is never ending. I would love to prize back the curtain a little bit more. However, time allows only this much. So what an interesting conversation. Thank you very much, Rahul.

\n\n\n\n

Just before we end, could you just tell us where we can find you online, should somebody want to, you know, maybe they’re experiencing a bit of anxiety of their own. Their agency is in a rudderless ship at the moment and they’re trying to figure it out. Where can people get in touch with you best?

\n\n\n\n

Rahul Bansal: I am actually available on all social networks. I use LinkedIn least and email is most level way, I’m a bit old school there. But, yeah, Twitter. I check daily.

\n\n\n\n

Nathan Wrigley: I will link to your bio in the show notes, but also, I will link to the presentation that you gave and any other bits and pieces that we discussed that I can find links for. I will mention those well. So head to wptaven.com, search for the episode with Rahul in it.

\n\n\n\n

Thank you so much for chatting to me, and all I can say is all the best. I hope that all of the intuitions that you have turn out to bear fruit and be fruitful for you.

\n\n\n\n

Thank so much for chatting to me today.

\n\n\n\n

Rahul Bansal: Thank you Nathan.

\n
\n\n\n\n

On the podcast today we have Rahul Bansal.

\n\n\n\n

Rahul has a long and accomplished history in the WordPress ecosystem. As the founder and CEO of  rtCamp, a company he started 17 years ago, he’s led his agency through the rapidly changing landscape of the web, helping enterprise clients such as Google, Fortune 500 companies, and major publishers solve complex problems with innovative WordPress-based solutions. rtCamp specialises in everything from large-scale website builds to more bespoke projects like Chrome extensions and SaaS connectors, and has grown to a team of hundreds over the years.

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Today’s episode takes a deep dive into Rahul’s recent talk at WordCamp Asia, which focused on what it will take to launch and scale an enterprise WordPress agency in the future. The conversation focused on real, hard-won lessons from rtCamp’s journey, but also on how rapidly the playbook is changing with advances in technology, particularly the explosion of AI tools and workflows.

\n\n\n\n

We discuss Rahul’s philosophy around hiring, namely, building a team of people whose strengths complement each other, rather than just replicating your own skillset. This approach has allowed rtCamp to adapt to new challenges, fill gaps in expertise, and weather major industry changes.

\n\n\n\n

We then explore how this idea of “complementary sets” can also apply to choosing the right kinds of clients, those who value your expertise because they need what you offer, rather than simply hiring someone who does what they already know.

\n\n\n\n

A theme that emerged in the conversation was specialisation. Rahul outlines how, whereas rtCamp’s earliest differentiator was a simple focus on WordPress (when virtually no one else in India was), today’s agencies must drill down much further to stand out, choosing niches within niches, such as WooCommerce or payment gateway integrations, and becoming recognised experts in those areas in order to thrive in a much more crowded field.

\n\n\n\n

Towards the end of the episode the discussion turns toward what might be the most significant topic for agencies today, artificial intelligence. Rahul described how recent advances in AI have not only altered his agency’s practices, but have given them a firm mandate, if something within rtCamp can be done by AI, it will be.

\n\n\n\n

We talk about how AI is being leveraged inside rtCamp to automate and optimise everything from sales and proposal writing to project management and even technical proof-of-concept builds. With a unified platform for all business processes, the agency is now able to significantly reduce costs, speed up delivery, and focus on higher-value consulting and creativity, reshaping roles and team composition as a result.

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If you’re interested in what it takes to stand out and succeed in the evolving world of enterprise WordPress agencies, how to confront uncertainty with both optimism and realism, and how AI can become not just a bolt-on feature but the operational backbone of your business, this episode is for you.

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Useful links

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rtCamp

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Rahul’s presentation at WordCamp Asia 2026: How to start an enterprise WordPress agency in 2026

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The same presentation on WordPress.tv

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A year of reinvention as we turn 17

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Frappe tools mentioned several times during the podcast

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Rahul on X

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Rahul on LinkedIn

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It looks like Ubiquiti is coming for Sonos with its PoE Audio Port, a $199 device that closely resembles the $499 Sonos Port, and $599 PowerAmp. Sonos is going up-market with the Amp Multi.

\n\n\n\n

Sonos has had a rough patch, but I’m pretty ride or die for them, and some of my favorite people are there: Tom Conrad, the CEO, Hugo Barra on the board, and Mike Tatum in CorpDev (he’s the guy who got me to drop out of college and join CNET back in 2004!).

\n\n\n\n

The only time I don’t do Sonos in a home is for the amazing audio experience of Syng Alpha. The triphonic thing can be really magical. (Analog/vinyl is still Shindo Laboratories, but that’s just for special occasions.)

\n\n\n\n

For headphones right now, it’s either some custom Airpods Pro 3 or the Sennheiser HDB 630 (Hat tip: Pud, who is also making some crazy headphones).

\n\n\n\n

On the go, I love pairing two Logitech Megaboom 4s.

\";s: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, 17 Jun 2026 06:59:03 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s: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:4;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:\"Open Channels FM: Summer Updates New Features and Changes to Open Channels FM\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2555698\";s: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:84:\"https://openchannels.fm/summer-updates-new-features-and-changes-to-open-channels-fm/\";s: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:192:\"Bob Dunn updates on Open Channels FM\'s recent developments, including a homepage redesign, the launch of \"Do the Woo\" as a standalone podcast, and upcoming features like Open Channels FM Live.\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 16 Jun 2026 11:55:19 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";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:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:20:\"Matt: Assorted Links\";s: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:23:\"https://ma.tt/?p=153102\";s: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:39:\"https://ma.tt/2026/06/assorted-links-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:10496:\"

Sometimes you have to just start with beauty.

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Listen to Jon Batiste’s Beethoven Blues, then relish this interview, where he plays and talks about it. I can’t wait for Black Mozart, which is already starting to trickle on Spotify.

\n\n\n\n

Forget all that Ferrari stuff, what Jony Ive did with his LoveFrom Sailing Lantern is divine. I’ve now seen it in person, and it’s the light at the end of the tunnel.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

That led me to discover how awesome Balmuda is, and stumble upon the Japanese word Monozukuri, which, according to Google, “(ものづくり) is a foundational Japanese philosophy that translates literally to ‘the art and science of making things” It goes far beyond standard manufacturing or production, representing a deep, holistic mindset that embraces craftsmanship, a relentless pursuit of perfection, pride in one’s labor, and a deep respect for materials.” Look at how Toyota embodies it.

\n\n\n\n

Om has a beautiful and prescient post on The Myth, the Mythos and the Man. It predicted some of this Fable kerfuffle.

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Connection

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How amazing is tethering on Android? I have a Pixel 10 Pro with a USB-C Ethernet hub plugged into the WAN port of a Unifi Dream Router 5G Max because the Qualcomm chip Unifi uses is two generations behind what’s in the phone. (Hat tip: Jesse.) How amazing are the 10,653 Starlink satellites floating above us, providing broadband from space, from a company I heard might have had an IPO last week.

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I reconfigure ports, channels, and flows, as nurses do for arteries and cannulas.

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Numbers Don’t Lie, Check The Scoreboard

\n\n\n\n

Not just the Knicks. After a 3-year hiatus of Review Signal benchmarks, the headline was that Pressable dominated every category, and with perfect uptime. However, the real story is about WP.cloud, which is behind the top scores for not just Pressable and WordPress.com but also the Bluehost Cloud plans, beating Oracle Cloud and GCP-based solutions.

\n\n\n\n

WP.cloud is our AWS; Pressable is our demo site. We want every host to offer the fastest and most secure WordPress possible. I’m happy to focus on infrastructure and let others figure out marketing and such foofram.

\n\n\n\n

If you speak Danish and would like a random Radical Speed Month art project detour, check out Joen Asmussens’ Nima.

\n\n\n\n

Automattic has been shipping, shipping, shipping. Start a WP.com site from the terminal with Stripe Projects. Akismet PHP SDK. Fun experiments from Radical Speed Month like Studio Code, Stattic, Workspace Mac App, Cortext, Pressship, Wapuu Studio, Studio Write, Desktop Mode, FlavorPress, Concilium, WooCommerce insights in Claude, and the kaizen of hundreds of behind-the-scenes bug fixes and improvements across our product suite.

\n\n\n\n

Much of this came from those not historically in a product or engineering role, which we’re learning to navigate. I loved how customer-centric many things were. We also made a lot of rookie mistakes, but that’s part of how you learn, and I believe the acceleration of learning will be the biggest legacy of the Radical Speed Month experiment. That, and the fun games on our intranet. \"🙂\"

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

AI Hangover

\n\n\n\n

I have drunk from the sweet nectar of Waymo, and now find myself calling an Uber so I can talk to 72-year-old Antoly from Azerbaijan, whom I slip a hundred-dollar bill as I step out. I weep when I see talented colleagues speak and write with words not quite their own. I masochistically Pangram everything even though it sometimes mistakes my own hand-crafted prose for slop, or is that actually my soul being sanded down by consuming too many statistically probable next tokens?

\n\n\n\n

The uncanny valley of software, writing, products, and presentations so polished on the surface but built on thin foundations of understanding gives me an almost physical, nauseous reaction. I write this even as I listen to Claude FM music for thinking and building, probably Mythos-injected with subliminal messages to remind me of the hours of audio transcribed in minutes; the programs that would have taken a team months, conjured from my hand in hours; the way I feel like Neo in the Matrix, rapidly downloading new domains of knowledge.

\n\n\n\n

What’s the name for the paradox, like Jevon’s, that AI abundance and polish makes you crave messy, imperfect humanity even more?

\n\n\n\n

It’s good to debate and ruminate, but only in small doses. Like salt in a dish, a little goes a long way. Avoid the existential angst of charting new territory by getting your hands dirty and trying things. You learn the most from failures when you can laugh at yourself. Build one to throw away.

\n\n\n\n

Write Different

\n\n\n\n
\n

Writing is not the most important thing; thinking is. But writing is probably the best way to improve your thinking.

\n
\n\n\n\n

I saw this quote attributed to me and didn’t remember it, so I thought it might be an AI hallucination, but it’s actually something I said! In this early-years podcast with David Perell buried on some corner of his site. Now David’s production quality is stellar, and he gets amazing guests like Maria Popova to discuss their craft. I’ve enjoyed his rise and look forward to following him in the decades to come.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

I could edit and link much more, but sometimes you have to just press the Publish button and let go.

\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 15 Jun 2026 19:20:04 +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:6;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:\"Open Channels FM: The Balancing Act: Freedom, Convenience, and Open Source in an AI-Driven World\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2555638\";s: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:100:\"https://openchannels.fm/the-balancing-act-freedom-convenience-and-open-source-in-an-ai-driven-world/\";s: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:341:\"So many of us are in a evolving relationship between freedom, convenience, and open source software in the world shaped by AI. The promise of freedom which is central to the open web and open source movements has to be continually weighed against the growing demand for convenience and simplicity. While open source software offers […]\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 15 Jun 2026 12:16:00 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";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:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:49:\"Akismet: Introducing the official Akismet PHP SDK\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"http://akismet.com/?p=284799\";s: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:66:\"https://akismet.com/blog/introducing-the-official-akismet-php-sdk/\";s: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:4711:\"
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

For twenty years, Akismet has kept spam out of WordPress. But spammers don’t care what your site runs on and neither do we.

\n

Last month we launched the official Akismet Drupal module. Today we’re introducing the engine that powers it: the official Akismet PHP SDK, a first-party client that brings Akismet to any PHP application.

\n

What it is, and who it’s for

\n

The Akismet PHP SDK is a first-party PHP client for the Akismet API. It’s built for the platforms the WordPress plugin doesn’t reach: custom apps, SaaS backends, and PHP frameworks like Laravel and Symfony. (The official plugins are still the way to go for WordPress and Drupal.)

\n

Under the hood it’s built to feel at home in a modern PHP codebase:

\n\n

A two-minute quick start

\n

Install it with Composer:

\n
composer require automattic/akismet-sdk\n
\n

Then check a submission:

\n
use Automattic\\Akismet\\Akismet;\nuse Automattic\\Akismet\\DTO\\Content;\nuse Automattic\\Akismet\\Enum\\ContentType;\n\n$akismet = Akismet::create(\n    apiKey: \'your-api-key\',\n    site: \'https://your-site.com\',\n);\n\n$content = new Content(\n    userIp: $_SERVER[\'REMOTE_ADDR\'],\n    userAgent: $_SERVER[\'HTTP_USER_AGENT\'],\n    body: $formData[\'message\'],\n    authorEmail: $formData[\'email\'],\n    type: ContentType::ContactForm,\n);\n\n$result = $akismet->check($content);\n\nif ($result->isSpam()) {\n    // Reject it, flag it, or queue it for review.\n    // $result->shouldDiscard() marks the blatant spam you can drop outright.\n}\n
\n

That’s the loop: build a Content object, call check(), act on the result.

\n

Already running in production

\n

The official Akismet Drupal module is built on this SDK. The SDK handles the API contract and type safety, while the module handles Drupal’s service wiring, queues, and moderation UI. That’s the pattern for Laravel, Symfony, and anything else you build: the SDK owns the Akismet integration and your framework owns the glue.

\n

What’s new in 1.5.0

\n

We have just released v1.5.0, which is about giving Akismet more to work with, and giving you more back:

\n\n

Get started

\n

The SDK is open source and live on Packagist today.

\n\n

You’ll need an Akismet API key to make calls. Akismet’s Personal plan is pay-what-you-can and free for personal, non-commercial sites. If you’re running something commercial, pick a paid plan that matches your traffic. Either way your code stays identical, since the plan lives with your API key, not in the SDK.

\n
\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Derek Springer\";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:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:59:\"Open Channels FM: The Changelog: Still Here, Still Doing It\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2555551\";s: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:64:\"https://openchannels.fm/the-changelog-still-here-still-doing-it/\";s: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:305:\"A bit over four years ago, in 2022, I recorded an episode from San Diego. I was getting ready for an event, about to attend my first-ever Contributor Day (which, yes, felt a little absurd given how many WordCamps I’d been to by that point). To fill the time before things kicked off, I sat […]\";s: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, 12 Jun 2026 08:10:00 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";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:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:\"Dennis Snell: Gutenberg Package Activity\";s: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:36:\"https://fluffyandflakey.blog/?p=3901\";s: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:67:\"https://fluffyandflakey.blog/2026/06/11/gutenberg-package-activity/\";s: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:1001:\"

Last week at WordCamp Europe there was a get-together among WordPress Core committers and a question arose concerning the separate Gutenberg npm packages that are built and distributed. I was curious about how frequently they are updated and which ones are most active, so I asked Codex to review git commit activity, gather commits per package which touch files in that package, and then render it into a plot. It produced this.

\n\n\n\n

Also available as a PNG image.

\n\n\n\n

Script available in a gist.

\n\n\n\n
\n\n
\";s: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, 11 Jun 2026 20:34:47 +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:12:\"Dennis Snell\";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:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:\"Open Channels FM: WordCamp Europe Takeaways: Community Vibes, Tech Advancements and Smarter Tools\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2555456\";s: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:102:\"https://openchannels.fm/wordcamp-europe-takeaways-community-vibes-tech-advancements-and-smarter-tools/\";s: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:215:\"This Open Channels FM episode from WordCamp Europe discusses the event\'s vibrant atmosphere, the integration of AI in WordPress workflows, and the positive community outlook on evolving technology and opportunities.\";s: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, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8:\"Bob Dunn\";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:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:104:\"WPTavern: #220 – Cathy Mitchell on Why WordPress Events Matter: Community, Connection, and Giving Back\";s: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=204704\";s: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:115:\"https://wptavern.com/podcast/220-cathy-mitchell-on-why-wordpress-events-matter-community-connection-and-giving-back\";s: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:52587:\"
Transcript
\n

[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.

\n\n\n\n

Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, why WordPress events and community matter.

\n\n\n\n

If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.

\n\n\n\n

If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.

\n\n\n\n

So on the podcast today, we have Cathy Mitchell. Cathy has been working with WordPress since 2007. What began as a fun personal project during her maternity leave soon evolved into a fully fledged business with the launch of WPBarista in 2008. Over the years, Cathy has garnered extensive experience in the WordPress space, and is now working towards the 2026 WordCamp Canada.

\n\n\n\n

The conversation focuses on the powerful role of community within the WordPress ecosystem, something that Cathy is deeply passionate about. We discuss how open, welcoming, and international the WordPress community feels, compared to more traditional corporate or volunteer environments. A theme that emerged was how involvement in WordPress has provided Cathy, and many others, with a sense of belonging and fulfilment, especially after life changes like becoming an empty nester.

\n\n\n\n

The discussion explores the motivations for volunteering and organising within the WordPress community, both from the perspective of newcomers looking for purpose and connection, and business owners assessing the return on investment from contributing or sponsoring events. This includes how easy it is to get involved, the unique lack of barriers and red tape, and the value of altruism and camaraderie.

\n\n\n\n

Other topics we explored with a broader impact of technology and loneliness, the importance of service and community for wellbeing, challenges in sponsorship amid changes economic times, and the vital need to engage the next generation in open source.

\n\n\n\n

If you’re interested in the human side of WordPress, how volunteering shapes both individual and the broader community, and what the future might hold for WordPress events and contributors, this episode is for you.

\n\n\n\n

If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.

\n\n\n\n

And so without further delay, I bring you Cathy Mitchell.

\n\n\n\n

I am joined on the podcast by Cathy Mitchell. Hello, Cathy.

\n\n\n\n

[00:03:25] Cathy Mitchell: Hello. Thanks for having me.

\n\n\n\n

[00:03:27] Nathan Wrigley: You are very welcome. Cathy and I have been having, well, 15 minutes or so of chit chat just before we started the podcast. I’ve been learning a little bit about Cathy and we’re going to share all sorts of information.

\n\n\n\n

I think probably broadly we could talk about it as being the WordPress community, which is a subject which is dear to my heart.

\n\n\n\n

However, before we get into that, Cathy, I’ve had an introduction from you over the last few minutes, but would you mind sort of giving us your potted version of that, your shorter version, your bio if you like. Tell us who you are and how come you’re featuring on a WordPress podcast.

\n\n\n\n

[00:03:58] Cathy Mitchell: Well that’s a whole lot of imposter syndrome. Why I am featuring, because you’re kind enough to have me. I’ve been working with WordPress since 2007 and it was just something fun that I did to begin, much like you with podcasting.

\n\n\n\n

And then a couple years in, I told my friends that they’d have to start paying me, or I was going to go back to work, find a real job. This was during my mat leave, and so it kind of just took off from there in 2008, started WPBarista.

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And now I’m very interested in the community because I was looking for something to do in the WordPress community last year. Dan in the Canada Slack got a hold of me and said, hey, do you want to help with the WordCamp? And I said, sure. You know, I had time.

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And he got me in and brought me right up to like being on the organising team. And it was so fun but so shocking. Like, there is a lot of red tape in the corporate world before they let you do anything meaningful. Like you have to sweep the floors for a whole long time before they let you actually do something you’re good at. So this was remarkable. And this year I find to my surprise, I’m leading the 2026 WordCamp Canada.

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So that’s what I’m doing now. And we’re going to focus on community too. So I’m very excited about this topic, both from a corporate, like what do we get out of this? Or are we supposed to get something out of this? And from a personal standpoint, it’s been amazing to meet these people, and to be given a chance. And I found out I’m not the only one. This is like normal, which is bizarre and wonderful.

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[00:05:37] Nathan Wrigley: My experience of the WordPress community, so I started in WordPress actually quite a long time after you did. Maybe sort of six or seven years after you began using WordPress. I really didn’t know that there was a community at all. I just downloaded the software and used the software. And then I can’t even remember really how it happened. It might have been through things like Facebook Groups or something like that, where I was trying to learn a particular thing? Or perhaps there was something in the dashboard which indicated that there was an event nearby.

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But I found myself, to my own surprise actually, I found myself at a WordPress event in London, WordCamp London, which at the time was going really strong. You know, hundreds and hundreds of people would show up every year.

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And I remember purchasing a ticket and getting the train ticket and thinking, what am I doing? What am I possibly hoping to get out of this? And showing up and kind of being a bit like a timid rabbit sitting in the corner a little bit, and then it kind of worked out fairly quickly. Okay, this is all fairly benign. Nobody seems to be all that boastful. Nobody seems to be sort of shoving corporate speech down my throat, or trying to sell me anything unnecessarily.

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And during the course of a day or maybe a couple of days, opened up a little bit and got chatting to people. And lo and behold, within a couple of years, a significant proportion of my free time, let’s call it that, outside of the commitments of daily life and family and all of that kind of thing, was taken up with doing WordPressy things in my spare time.

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And so I, I don’t know if the story maps the same as you, I’ve shared mine, maybe you’ll share something similar in a moment. The community to me is much more than just, oh, there’s a community there. It genuinely is a seriously important part of my life. To the point where if that was to be sort of whipped away, or somebody like a Thanos type character suddenly clicked their fingers and that disappeared, I don’t know what I would do with myself. I would really have to go out there and find an awful lot of other things to do. Was it a bit like that for you?

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[00:07:41] Cathy Mitchell: Not at all. I went to the forums first. And in 2008, 2009, there were some big names nowadays that were just answering us in the support forums. And so I learned from the best of the best, I think. And they would answer my ridiculous questions. I had no idea about PHP. I didn’t even know HTML. I didn’t even know what the internet was, like as broad concept. I asked my husband at the time like, okay, I don’t understand how my computer is talking to someone else’s computer, like you need to draw me a picture.

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So anyway, I’ve only recently, I went to a couple of events, but I’ve always had the business mind. If I can’t see an ROI financially, I’ll say, from what I’m doing, then I don’t have time for it. But that was also during a time when I had a young family and then I became a single mum and then I had to work this business. And so it’s only really recently that I’m looking around and seeing people like you and going, this is unique.

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I’ve been in volunteer communities, and now that my kids are all grown up, I’m kind of looking for those opportunities. What meaningful thing can I do with my time? And this just seems so unique. Like I volunteered at other places and there’s so much red tape and there’s so much, I don’t know, different feelings than this one. This one’s very open.

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[00:09:09] Nathan Wrigley: I think the bit that is so curious to me is you can sort of dip in and dip out of it. Because, I don’t know, let’s say for example, you do something much more local, involved with your hometown or something like that. And you get involved in it and there’s a certain kind of, pressure is the wrong word, I suppose you can dip in and dip out of that as well, but do you know what I mean? You get involved in those philanthropic things locally and you get to know things and it becomes more of a habit, and you do the same thing over and over again. At least that’s my experience.

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What I quite like about this is the international flavour of it. The fact that I’m being introduced people from really different parts of the world and cultures. And it’s very, very open, and it’s a real contrast to the bit that you just mentioned, where the corporate bit, and obviously there’s a side of our community which is very much devoted to turning a profit and what have you. But there’s a significant proportion of the people who don’t have that metric in their head when they’re introducing themselves to people.

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They are just trying to be helpful and trying to deliver on the promise that the internet gave us back in the 1990s of, here’s the infrastructure to pass information around freely. Wouldn’t it be nice if everybody had the capacity to publish things, or to share things online without some sort of corporate overlord or paywall or algorithm? Which we’ve now probably regret deeply allowing that to happen to the internet.

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All of those kind of things come into play. I have constantly, for the last decade, tried to sum up and capture what this is. And I always fail. It simply feels nice, is all that I’ve got, really. This community, the people in it that I hang out with, it just feels like a nice thing to do. That’s all I’ve got. No wisdom beyond that. It’s bizarre, isn’t it?

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[00:10:53] Cathy Mitchell: I’ve been trying to quantify it too, and especially planning this next conference. I feel much like a student because there’s a large group, probably most people are not like me. Like they’re like you, at least the ones, in Slack that I’m talking to on a daily basis. And they’re the original nerds who are so happy, like were inspired and spent their free time, like this wasn’t their job. Promoting this and like answering my questions in forum as an absolute noob. So in that way I feel like I would really like to give back now.

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But the community, yeah, I can’t quite put my finger on. I just talked to a sponsor yesterday and she is of course wanting to get in front of her audience, which is agency owners. But there’s a real sense of promoting the community because the healthier the community, the healthier all of us are. Not just financially, but it creates the forward momentum, I think as far as open source as a whole too. Like there’s a bunch of us, me included, even though I kind of am taking a corporate angle that really believe that open source could change the world. I still do, maybe even more so because AI is, can actually talk to things that are open source. Less so if everything’s behind a paywall.

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[00:12:09] Nathan Wrigley: I think one of the things that you mentioned there, which suddenly sort of struck me is whilst there are a handful of people out there, and I say a handful, there’s obviously many millions of people. I think it’s fair to say that many people prefer to be in proximity to other people, to do things, to be in conversation with people, to have a shared experience. You know, we go to the cinema or the movie theatre to watch a movie. I mean I know the screen’s bigger and everything, but part of it is to be with other people and to go ooh and ah, at the same time and go to firework displays and concerts and things like that.

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Now all of that stuff can be done in an isolated environment in your house. You know, you can watch Netflix and you can watch the TV and get a similar kind of experience. But I think there’s some sort of core part of me at least, and the people that I hang out with at these kind of events and online who just enjoy that shared experience, that willingness to be involved in a similar task. Just to be pointing in the same direction as a bunch of other people, pulling together on the same team. And it’s unquantifiable. I literally can’t encapsulate it, but I think you and I are talking about the same thing.

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What’s interesting is I accidentally found it fairly early on in my WordPress journey. Serendipity played a really blinding hand for me there. But I think had I not had, bit like that film Sliding Doors, I could easily have missed the cues which sent me to that WordCamp or whatever it was that got me started. And I probably could have gone for a decade or more and not even noticed it was a community and maybe discovered it much more recently.

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And it sounds like that’s kind of happening to you. You mentioned that you are, I think in the show notes you described it as, it’s a lovely phrase, empty nesting. Does that mean when your children grow up and go away? Is that what that means?

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[00:13:53] Cathy Mitchell: Yeah. That’s a pretty common phrase over here.

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[00:13:55] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, okay.

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[00:13:56] Cathy Mitchell: This side of the pond. You know, you kick the little birdies out, and they’re spreading their wings. All of a sudden we’re left with, it’s a different life stage. I think we were talking a little bit about it. You’re getting there.

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[00:14:08] Nathan Wrigley: I’m going to there very, yeah, awh, it’s kind of filled with melancholy. On the hand, obviously I would love for my children to grow up, but on the other hand it’s, pulls all the heartstrings, doesn’t it?

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So you are finding space in your life to do this kind of stuff. I’m going to ask a question, which is maybe a little bit personal, I don’t know. Hope you don’t read it in the wrong way. Do you find this stuff like meaningful and significant? Do you get a sense of fulfilment and satisfaction from the work that you are doing? For example, with WordCamp Canada.

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Because there must be moments when it’s a real chore and, you know, you’ve got far too many tasks which are spilling over, and you think, gosh, I’m just a volunteer. There’s no quid pro quo here. I’m just doing it out of the goodness of my heart. But on balance, do you get that warm and fuzzy feeling from doing all of this?

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[00:14:54] Cathy Mitchell: That’s a good question. I had time, so I started volunteering at a bunch of things. I started volunteering teaching kids, and then to go the complete other end of the spectrum, I did a seniors class at my local college last month. I just started volunteering because in my opinion, as a little amateur psychologist, I think service, serving our community is kind of the best way to, like you said, pull alongside someone. And then when you have like a focused goal, there’s a togetherness and I really need to grow my community.

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Me, and I think quite a few other people, there’s this whole epidemic of loneliness to be frank. Having raised the kids and then having done the job, now all of a sudden it’s like, I have time to invest in a real community. And I really want it to be worthwhile. I don’t want to sweep the floors for, maybe it’s an age thing, I don’t know. I’m so, so grateful that they let me do something that I’m good at, as far as organising, because they didn’t have to. That’s a big responsibility to put on somebody. And I am praying it all works out in the fall.

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But it comes because of the huge number of volunteers that all work together. So my job’s just basically pulling all these people together, and making sure that we’re talking to each other. Because one person can’t possibly do all of the work that comes with putting on a conference. At least not part-time. But yeah, I’m finding it immensely rewarding because I also feel like I’m good at it. Everybody loves to do something they’re good at.

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[00:16:28] Nathan Wrigley: You mentioned something earlier where you sort of implied that you were very surprised that in the WordPress world, you were given a bunch of responsibility for an event. I mean, basically, I think a lot of that, isn’t there? There’s a lot of, whoever can show up does get the job really, because there’s a paucity of volunteers. And for an event of the magnitude of WordCamp Canada, if you’ve ever been to events like that, you sort of walk in and on every level it feels like a corporate event. You know, it’s very polished, highly polished. There’s catering, the venue’s all been booked, you’ve got name badges and there’s probably some translation going on, and there slides and every, there’s timetables and everything. And it’s all done by volunteers.

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And I remember the same sort of thing, being asked to do a variety of different things and thinking, wait, really? You don’t know the inside of my head. I will mess this up so badly. But that is such a nice characteristic of our community. And you’ll fail together, if you know what I mean? You know, it is not like anybody’s going to let you deeply fail. People will step in and help you, should you need to.

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[00:17:31] Cathy Mitchell: Yeah, we have to say yes, like it’s part of the culture is, if people volunteer, we have to find a way to say yes. Like our default is yes, not, well, have you done this first?

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[00:17:43] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. It’s interesting because you obviously have done a lot of this kind of corporate stuff, and so have the impression that you ought to be qualified, I don’t know, a decade or two decades of this particular thing in order to be trusted to do it. And this is just, yeah, this is so different. Anybody? Bueller. Okay, you’ll do it. Great. Fine. That’s great, yeah.

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[00:18:03] Cathy Mitchell: Yeah. You’re hired.

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[00:18:04] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that’s it. That’s I’ve never done it before. It doesn’t matter. You’ll be brilliant.

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[00:18:07] Cathy Mitchell: We’ll help you.

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[00:18:08] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. And that camaraderie of binding together on a particular thing, in your case WordCamp, but the broader project, you know, the WordPress project as a whole, I feel it’s full of these kind of people. And we will get into in a minute I’m sure, how that maybe has changed for some people in the more recent past, and about the fact that the community does feel like it’s in a bit of a challenging place at the moment.

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But I just want to go back a little bit because you mentioned, and neither of us I suspect will have the answer to this, but I’m interested in your intuitions anyway. You mentioned that people nowadays, maybe this has always been the case, but it feels like there’s been a change. Loneliness seems to be a very common thing now. And my sort of back of the napkin calculus points me in the direction of wondering if it is actually oddly technology. The very thing that we’re celebrating. If technology might be responsible for it.

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For example, I look around and I see a lot of people who give an awful lot of what would’ve otherwise been free time, time that they could have gone out and socialised and what have you. And, you know, you sort of end up sitting on the couch and scrolling through social media and things like that.

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Television has become so absolutely fascinating. You know, there’s like a billion different channels, and essentially there’s a thousand ways to keep yourself entertained all by yourself, and never speak to another human being, or be in proximity to another human being. There’s no question there, I just wondered if you had an observation or a similar thought process.

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[00:19:39] Cathy Mitchell: I looked up, because I knew we were going to talk about this, the stat on it. Because I know I’ve had the same feeling. And I’ve heard people talk about it, but I didn’t really know if that was like true or not, because whenever I am thinking or researching something, of course that’s what the algorithm shows me. So I’m always kind of hesitant, like is this actually real or am I just seeing this?

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But it did say in a 2021 report, the US Surgeon General, and this is in the States, no 2023, that the health impact of a loneliness epidemic. Okay, General Vivek Murthy declared a loneliness epidemic in 2023. And he said that the health impact is the same as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It’s not good for us. And that the biggest effect, 79% reported feeling lonely of the 18 to 24-year-old group, which is more like 40 some percent. What was it? 41% of 66 plus.

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[00:20:35] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, so the younger you skew, the more lonely you are likely to be.

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[00:20:40] Cathy Mitchell: Yeah. And we also see, now I don’t know if this is correlative or causative, but technology has also skyrocketed in that period of time.

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[00:20:48] Nathan Wrigley: Yes. Yeah, and also probably, again, I’m drawing conclusions which are not based in fact or research or anything like that. You and I were both born in an era where that technology wasn’t available. So I imagine patterns were set down in our infant brains, which are perhaps different to the patterns that are set down now.

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It’d be curious to see if there is a there, there. If the broad adoption, certainly in the UK, I can’t speak to Canada, but the broad adoption of technology to ever and ever younger children, to a really alarmingly early age. You know, you see children who are not even at school age who seem to have access to every technology under the sun, and who don’t seem to get that interaction from another human being. I wonder. And I’m going to sound all curmudgeonly and there’s probably going to be people shouting at me.

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[00:21:34] Cathy Mitchell: I have seen it change with the Gen Z that they’re talking about. And my kids fall in that category. Whereas I wanted to be, okay, it’s personal responsibility, so we’re going to raise them. It was new to me, so I raised my kids thinking, okay, tablets, I’m going to teach you how to use it, not restrict it. I was all open-minded about all.

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Now they’ve told me that if they have kids, they will restrict it far greater than I ever did. They were like, they won’t have nearly the freedom that I gave them in my open-mindedness.

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[00:22:06] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, well, but you are forgiven for your open-mindedness because I guess humanity perhaps needed more evidence to draw conclusions around that. And perhaps those conclusions are now landing.

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[00:22:16] Cathy Mitchell: I think so.

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[00:22:16] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, well, certainly as an example, I know that in Australia more recently, there’s now a widespread ban, I think under the age of 16, and I’m going to use the word illegal, maybe that’s the wrong word. Maybe there’s a technical definition, but social media is not permitted for children under the age of 16. And I think that there’s legislation being talked about in the UK of a similar nature, and some other European countries.

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I don’t know how much traction that will have because I feel that there’s a persuasive argument, much like you described of, it’ll all work itself out. You know, we don’t need the government to tell us what to do, and all of that, and that all makes sense.

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But my, I can well understand, I think in the UK also, there is a growing, a groundswell of this alternative way of looking at it. Like a rejection of the phones and the technology.

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Anyway, there we go. That was an aside. Do you want to contribute into that a little bit more before I push us back in the WordPress space?

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[00:23:11] Cathy Mitchell: Yeah, I don’t want to be all, it’s bad, it’s bad, but I think that we’re seeing an effect. I really do believe that volunteerism, whether it’s with WordPress or anything else, in my faith background, being a person, a Christian person, I grew up seeing the service as an answer, as just part of our lifestyle. You just serve others. But now I’m seeing it come in a secular sort of way as well, where service is an antidote to loneliness.

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And I think no matter where you’re serving, not the church or any, like just pick a service. Being that cameraderie with people, having a similar goal, going in the same direction, like I really do think there’s hope. There’s hope out there for all of us. And it’s a great way to do something meaningful. Like you get to do all those things. You get to practise a skill, you get to do something meaningful, you get direction, you get cameraderie all by serving.

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[00:24:03] Nathan Wrigley: I’m going to, say something now, and I’m going to caveat it heavily before I say it because A, it relies on my prodigiously bad memory, and B, it could just be fabricated anyway because the source could be utterly wrong. But it feels like there’s a kernel of truth in it.

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I was doing some research recently about happiness, that broad subject. You know, we would all like to be happy I’m sure. There’s a lot of people who spend a lot of time thinking about what this actually means, and trying to drill it down to some fairly basic maxims, if you like, for what leads to happiness.

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Two of the biggest indicators of happiness are really interesting. One of the two is how often you spend with other people basically. How much time you interact with other human beings. Now I know that that’s not for everybody, but broadly speaking, that seems to be a huge indicator. If you actually get yourself out and you do things with other human beings, there is a definite benefit.

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And the other one, which is very curious because I think it’s fair to say, you know, Canada and the UK, we’ve been brought up to worry about our own finances and amassing as much stuff as we can, and lining your nest for the future and everything. Well, this other one, controversially, the second one that I’m going to mention is the amount of stuff that you basically give away. And that could be time, or it could be finance, it could be any of those things. The more that you give away with no expectation of a return, that also apparently is a real indicator of happiness.

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And I think we can all identify that. That moment where you give somebody a gift and you’ve really thought about it, and you hand it over and you watch the face change as they unwrap it. And you think, they’ve loved that, haven’t they? And you’re not thinking to yourself, well, I did that. I made them happy there. You’re just thinking, oh look, they’re really happy. Isn’t that wonderful? So anyway, there’s my 2 cents of utterly unproven thoughts.

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[00:25:59] Cathy Mitchell: Okay. Learned something. Those are two, so the two things were being around people and altruism basically, with nothing expected in return.

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[00:26:08] Nathan Wrigley: And funnily enough, they map very closely to what we’re talking about, right? We’re talking about events and socialising with other people, but also that, in this case, it’s not a financial thing that you are giving away, but you are definitely giving away an awful lot of your time for doing these kind of things. And maybe, given that little bit of information, it kind of becomes a little bit easier to justify because if you can say to yourself, this makes me happy, it might not seem it in those stressful moments.

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[00:26:36] Cathy Mitchell: Yeah, today.

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[00:26:37] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that’s right. But ultimately that might be causing your happiness.

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Okay, so there we go. That was our little segue. Let’s sort of bring it back to WordCamps. You were very kind to write me a bunch of show notes, and they really drew me in as I was reading them. And I want to sort of dwell on a few of them because you.

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[00:26:53] Cathy Mitchell: Had to convince you to get me on the podcast.

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[00:26:54] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, no, there not a lot of convincing needed. I loved it. You’ve got some sort of bullet points if you like, not really bullet points. You’ve touched on different areas where you feel that you’ve got something to say about, I dont know, why people might contribute and why they might volunteer and what have you.

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So it’s things like, why might new people, newbies, as you’ve described them, volunteer and why might business folk volunteer?

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So the first one was, let me go back. So I’ll read into the record what you wrote because it makes a lot of sense. You said, in 2025 I helped the organisers for WordCamp Canada and this year found myself the lead organiser. And this has been consistently one of the nicest, most open groups, that I’ve ever been part of. And then you strayed into why other people, for example, new people and business people might like to contribute.

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So on the business side, you said, volunteers, boundaries when not getting paid, giving back, sponsoring folks, not necessarily a financial return on investment. And then for the newbies, you said, there’s other ways to contribute, for example, contributing in code or non-coding ways, and also just being a recipient of the open, friendly community that you encounter. So that was really it. Maybe I’ve said everything that you wanted to say.

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[00:28:07] Cathy Mitchell: Well, those are kind of questions that I had coming from a corporate, and I keep talking to different people trying to figure out, I guess I’m looking for something other than altruism when comes to the corporate people at least. Like why are they sponsoring? And I can see, the pessimistic, or maybe the pragmatic, side of me to be positive wants to know why. Why are they putting the dollars in?

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But then on the other side, I think, well, if WordPress doesn’t do well, then they don’t do well. Like, if their businesses are based on WordPress. But then I also saw something that, if you sponsor open source projects, it makes hiring people that much easier, and also vetting people that much easier. Because it gets you into the community and so it goes both ways. People will be more likely to apply for your jobs and you will be more likely to have a way to vet them. That’s one thing I saw.

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[00:29:04] Nathan Wrigley: I think there’s a lot of truth in that, or at least I’d like to believe there’s a lot of truth in that. That makes me feel happy about the whole situation. But what’s curious about what you’ve just said, and I don’t know how much of an intuition you’ve got on this, but if you were to go back to, let’s say the year, oh, I don’t know, 2018 or something like that, WordPress was experiencing this really stratospheric growth. You know, in terms of market share of the internet broadly, you know, the number of websites as a percentage, WordPress was going from sort of the low twenties to the mid twenties, high twenties, and then through the thirties, and then finally landing at this sort of 40%.

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And during that time, saying this phrase sounds ridiculous because it is ridiculous, WordPress could kind of do no wrong, I think. There was just growth upon growth upon growth and a lot of companies, I don’t think needed to explain themselves to their directors quite so much. The return on the investment didn’t need to be made. It was just, look, we’re part of this thing, and there’s this rising tide, and we are one of the boats. And look, we’re going up as it all goes up. So it just happened.

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However, during COVID, and then especially over the last few years, and then now especially the last couple of years, inject AI into the mix, I feel that that calculus has changed a little bit. And there’s this inkling when you speak to the same corporate people who a few years ago were willing to open their wallets to sponsor events, the wallets are much, much harder to open.

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Again, in much the same way that I don’t really know why the community is so fabulous. I don’t really know why the wallets are harder to open. But I think the landscape for sponsorship, and the requirement of a return on investment, as opposed to, well let’s just join in because WordPress is growing. I think that calculation is going to be harder and harder to make. And maybe you’ve got experience of this over at WordCamp Canada trying to gather sponsors. Perhaps you found it straightforward. Perhaps it’s been difficult. I don’t really know.

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[00:31:08] Cathy Mitchell: There’s almost like a perfect storm right now because wallets are tighter because over the last few years, at least in the States where my clients are, it’s become, economically there’s uncertainty. And so that trickles down and trickles up, right? And so more wallets are going to be a little bit more restrictive on what they’re going to buy, and they’re going to want to see more bang for their buck.

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Corporately, also there’s been this huge rise in competition in the corporate world. There’s just way more competition over the last five or six years for just about anything when it comes to agencies or plugins or themes or whatever, there’s a lot more great competition, like good products out there. But then there’s also a lot more competition to get the clients, like clients have a lot more options.

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And so I think it’s a perfect storm. Like, do you want to put your money into WordPress because is that the future? Is there money for sponsorship? Plus WordPress has become stricter on what they require to sponsor, as far as trademark use and different things that have been put higher on the priority list.

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And I kind of see it like a levelling off. Like not as a bad thing because every industry can’t just, go, go, go, go. Like there’s going to be a levelling, right? Can’t be that easy. When I started, I didn’t even advertise. And I’ve had this business for 19 years. I’ve never advertised. That is going to go away. Like it was just, you know, I lucked out starting somewhere, but that’s not realistic.

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[00:32:44] Nathan Wrigley: So what’s interesting in that is I think I am the same. The only period in which I’ve been in the WordPress community was during this stratospheric growth period really. Everything has been, you know, people have argued on the inside about this, that, and the other thing, and whether a feature should ship in Core, or whether or not we should do this thing at an event or what have you. So there’s been some minor disagreements.

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But broadly speaking, the whole project has just swelled and swelled and swelled. There’s this overarching sense of optimism and growth, and now the brakes are on. And so for me, it feels like unfamiliar territory. And because it’s unfamiliar, it feels a little bit scary because I don’t know what that means. I don’t know whether that means that things are going to just level out as you just described, or whether it means things are going to decline, or whether it means some of my friends are going to go away because the community, it’s no longer going to be something that they wish to frequent because their profitability is under question and they need to seek revenue from other different options. Maybe AI, maybe, whatever it might be. And so I think my concern just, it’s probably self-interest really. I’m just concerned because I don’t know what’s coming and that fear is, well, it’s fear.

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[00:33:57] Cathy Mitchell: I think this brings me perfectly into the WordCamp Canada thing that I wanted to mention. Just because I see this event, and even the community team, as a whole in WordPress. There are teams in WordPress, by the way, for people that don’t know, that help you get involved. It’s not just coders, like there’s all kinds of teams. And one of them is the community team, and all we have to know how to do is plan an event or host an event or serve coffee. It’s amazing. But anyway.

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I am excited about WordCamp Canada, and the reason I’m putting so much time and effort into this conference is because I really see it as a light at the end of this tunnel. Not at the end. Maybe midway. I have no idea what’s going to happen to my own business, to WordPress, I don’t know. But I think there’s one thing that I’m fairly certain of, even now, even in the midst of AI, and that’s open source. I really still believe that open source is the way of the future. I still think it is, open source and AI are probably the way of the future. Yeah, I don’t know how else to say it.

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And I think the exciting thing, and the thing that we need to do as people who got to take advantage of that uprise and that uptick, is you and I need to get young people involved. Like we need to get those young people involved in open source. I don’t even care if it’s WordPress or not, but they need to become part of a community that is exciting, that is beyond themselves. They need to see that we’re nice. We don’t bite. We’ll hire them. There’s just so much good that can come out of being together. And these are the nicest people. They’ll talk to people that are just standing around in the hallways with nobody to talk to, which is me. I’m an introvert, ironically.

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[00:35:38] Nathan Wrigley: You definitely don’t come across like that, just so that you know.

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[00:35:40] Cathy Mitchell: Well, we’re I’m pretending nobody else is listening.

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[00:35:43] Nathan Wrigley: The other thing that I would add, as you were saying all of those things, it occurred to me that, I would imagine that people in more senior positions, I don’t really know how to describe it in the WordPress world, have got a similar intuition to the one that you just described. In that they can definitely see that the future needs to be thought about in terms of the youth coming in. Because there’s an awful lot of work being done at the moment and an awful lot of hours being put into educational initiatives.

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And also, not just where you and I are living, but all over the world. And it was kind of interesting at WordCamp Asia recently, that was a big focus. A lot of people talking about exactly this thing and these kind of overlapping initiatives that are beginning to bear fruit. So people coming out of universities who’ve had experience of open source and WordPress in particular. And children at schools having experience of open source and WordPress.

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And I think, as much as we would like open source and WordPress to win, just from a moral point of view, wouldn’t that be a great thing if everybody just noticed it and got on and used it? I think we need to do a bit of work to make sure that it’s being put under their noses so that they can make those judgements for themselves. And that is definitely a part of the future.

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[00:36:57] Cathy Mitchell: Yeah, the Campus Connect and the Credits where they can university credits, like it is getting popular in other places we haven’t heard so much. But I really want to introduce it and bring it to the conference in Vancouver this fall. Because we can have universities in Canada and the US, on this side of the pond get involved in this and actually give kids credits that they can use to graduate.

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[00:37:21] Nathan Wrigley: It’s so interesting as well because it’s very hard to, how to describe this, that’s a difficult one to sell, let’s put it that way. The people that are really into those initiatives really love it, but it’s hard to get people to notice that that’s going on, and hard for people perhaps to notice how important that is. But without those little foundational bricks being put in place for the future, this rising tide carries all boats metaphor, that’s not going to happen. You know, I think maybe another good metaphor there is they’re kind of building the harbour wall to make sure that the boats have got something to rise against. And I think that’s really important.

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And your part of the world is definitely open to that, I’m sure. Seems to be that some European institutions, colleges, universities and South American institutions and parts in India and Southeast Asia and places like that are also beginning to bite on those ideas as well. So it’d be really interesting to see how that all goes.

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You’re painting a picture, Cathy, which makes me feel optimistic. Feels like there’s a lot of positivity coming out of where you are, yeah.

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[00:38:24] Cathy Mitchell: I’m probably going to get in trouble for saying this, but for all of the faults that Matt might be accused of, somehow he put something in place that became very, very popular. And the culture that I have been a part of, I haven’t worked for Automattic, but the culture at the WordCamp level and volunteering and the community team has been unbelievably positive, and foreign to me. Like I’ve had to learn this culture. What do you mean there’s no application process? How do I say yes? What are you talking about? So somehow this has grown. And he has had a lot to do with it. People don’t like that he’s had a lot to do with it, but there’s some truth there.

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[00:39:07] Nathan Wrigley: It’s really interesting and it doesn’t matter how many times I have conversations like this, I’m always confused by it. I can never get my hands around it and work out what the secret sauce is so that I could copy and paste it into a different locale or a different jurisdiction or different era. But there’s a there, there. There’s something very satisfying about this community. And from everything that you’ve said, it sounds like you are very positive about it. And I share your positivity, even though sometimes it seems quite hard to grasp in the more recent times.

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Oh, Cathy, that’s been absolutely wonderful. I’ve enjoyed chatting to you today. We’ve hit the sort of sweet spot of the amount of time that we’ve got, so if it’s okay with you, we’ll wrap it up there. Just before we go, if anybody wants to get in touch with you, or just sort of wants to pat you on the back for your wisdom there, where would we find you?

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[00:39:55] Cathy Mitchell: Well they can find me at WPBarista. And right now they can also find me at canada.wordcamp.org.

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[00:40:02] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Well I will make sure that that goes into the show notes. So if you’re listening to this, head to wptavern.com, search for the episode with Cathy Mitchell, that’s Cathy with a C, and you’ll be able to find the details in the show notes there. So Cathy Mitchell, thank you very much for chatting to me today. That was lovely. Thank you.

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[00:40:19] Cathy Mitchell: Thank you. I enjoyed it.

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So on the podcast today we have Cathy Mitchell.

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Cathy has been working with WordPress since 2007. What began as a fun personal project during her maternity leave soon evolved into a fully fledged business with the launch of WPBarista in 2008. Over the years, Cathy has garnered extensive experience in the WordPress space, and is now working towards the 2026 WordCamp Canada.

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The conversation focuses on the powerful role of community within the WordPress ecosystem, something that Cathy is deeply passionate about. We discuss how open, welcoming, and international the WordPress community feels compared to more traditional corporate or volunteer environments. A theme that emerged was how involvement in WordPress has provided Cathy, and many others, with a sense of belonging and fulfillment, especially after life changes like becoming an “empty nester”.

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The discussion explores the motivations for volunteering and organising within the WordPress community, both from the perspective of newcomers looking for purpose and connection, and business owners assessing the return on investment from contributing or sponsoring events. This included how easy it is to get involved, the unique lack of barriers and red tape, and the value of altruism and camaraderie.

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Other topics we explored were the broader impact of technology and loneliness, the importance of service and community for well-being, challenges in sponsorship amid changing economic times, and the vital need to engage the next generation in open source.

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If you’re interested in the human side of WordPress, how volunteering shapes both individuals and the broader community, and what the future might hold for WordPress events and contributors, this episode is for you.

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Useful links

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 WPBarista

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WordCamp Canada 2026

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WordCamp London

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 WordPress Campus Connect

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WordPress Credits

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In episode 131 of the Gutenberg Changelog, Birgit Pauli-Haack welcomes Isabel Brison to discuss the latest developments in Gutenberg plugin releases 23.1, 23.2, and 23.3, as well as progress leading up to WordPress 7.1. The hosts highlight recent calls for testing, including collaborative editing—previously delayed from 7.0 due to stability concerns—and the new media editor modal for the image block.

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Isabel Brison shares insights into the new responsive global block styles, allowing users to customize styles per device breakpoint, as well as updates to the layout and dimensions controls in the block editor. She encourages feedback from users as these features iterate for the upcoming WordPress 7.1 release. The episode covers stabilizations, such as the improved, more ergonomic media editor and cropper, and strides in accessibility, particularly regarding the tabs block.

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The hosts also discuss experiments in dashboard widgets, content type management, and empowering plugin developers with new admin UI components. Both stress the importance of community feedback and testing, given the ambitious new features arriving soon. The episode wraps with practical notes on documentation improvements, React 19 integration, and a reminder of the short summer break ahead.

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Show Notes / Transcript

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Show Notes

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Special guest: Isabel Brison

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Calls for Testing

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What’s released

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Gutenberg releases

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Stay in Touch

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Transcript

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: So welcome to our 131st episode of the Gutenberg Changelog. We will talk about Gutenberg plugin releases 23.1, 23.2 and 23.3. There are calls for testing out for WordPress 7.1 and we have more. I’m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and a full-time core contributor for the WordPress open source project sponsored by Automattic. Today, Isabel Brison joins me from Sydney again. Isabel is a longtime core contributor and JavaScript developer on the Gutenberg Project. Welcome back to the show, Isabel. Thank you for joining me. How are you?

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Isabel Brison: I’ll be good. Thanks for having me. It’s always a pleasure to be here.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, I’m so glad you’re here because you and your team have worked on some of the most exciting features that coming to Gutenberg. People have been waiting for quite a long time. So we will dive in when we get to the updates. How is Sydney?

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Isabel Brison: It’s winter, cold, rainy, you know, the usual.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: The usual? Yeah. How is the technology? I know you’re going to meetups there. Are these WordPress meetups or are these other technology meetups?

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Isabel Brison: I go to a variety of tech meetups. There’s not a huge amount, so I’ll go say to JavaScript meetup and there’s a good technology leaders one too. I enjoy going to the Python meetup even though I don’t work with Python. It’s just a lovely community and they have some interesting talks. So it’s sort of whatever’s on offer, I guess.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Oh, nice. Yeah, I found out in Munich to the technology community and I kind of connected with a local Claude meetup community and it was kind of interesting at the Technical university or the Design university, they switch around the places, but it was interesting. Yeah, they had some lightning talks. Yeah, like 20-minute talks and it was really cool. Yeah, I think we need to get out more.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, no, I like, I like going out after work and just, you know, even if it’s just to listen to some tech talks, you get a bit of air and meet new people.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, that’s good. Yeah.

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Announcements

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All right, so we have a few announcements. WordPress 7.0 has been released two weeks ago and we are heading big steps towards 7.1. Beta 1 is scheduled for July 15th. That’s kind of a little bit of ahh. It’s only six weeks away.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah. So we get going not long time at all.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: And contributors have been working on the next major version already. So the official roadmap planning post is in the works. The team is in the final steps to assemble the release squad and we do well from the Gutenberg plugin releases we get a pretty good idea what might come through also from what didn’t make it into 7.0 as well. So we will. But it’s the web, right? Web is translated for me in the Japanese kind of design thing. Yeah, it’s like wabi sabi. Nothing is finished, nothing is last, and nothing is perfect. So we always get work to do and it’s always getting better. Yeah.

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Isabel Brison: Yep. It’s a work in progress.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: It’s a work in progress.

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Calls for Testing – WordPress 7.1

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So there are two calls for testing out now. One is announcing the collaborative editing outreach effort for 7.1. Many of you dear listeners remember, okay, collaborative editing, real time collaborative editing was pulled from the 7.0 because it wasn’t stable enough for all the hosting environments that are out there. And there was this call for testing out for hosting and now there’s another one for outreach effort to make sure that everything is kind of caught for 7.1.

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And Anne McCarthy just published it on the Make Core blog so you can join it anytime. There’s a separate channel Collaborative Editing Outreach that you can. It’s kind of modeled after the full site editing outreach program that ran for two or three years. I hope this doesn’t run for two or three years before it’s released, but it definitely there are more people kind of discussing it and how it all supposed to work. Amy Kamala, who was the Release Coordinator for 7.0 and Justin Tadlock, who is a developer advocate at Automattic and Theme Team Rep are helping Anne to coordinate those calls for testing. And also some of the teams at Automattic who work with Enterprise level are also there. So yeah, it’s a bigger discussion on how collaborative editing works on all the levels.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, it’s a pretty big and complex piece of work.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, join the channel and dive right in if that’s a feature that you are excited about. I’m excited about it. But I also only have two or three people that handle my editing stuff. So I don’t have 10 or 15 editors in my post zone.

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Another call for testing is about the media editor Modal that has been added to the image block. Ramon Dodd published a call for testing about two weeks ago about the new modal for the image cropper. It’s kind of the bigger image cropping in the block editor, so you don’t have to. It’s a much easier way to get your images in line, but you can also rotate the images and resize them. And it has been merged with the Gutenberg plugin. It also, with 23.3, is out of experimentation. So anybody who has the Gutenberg plugin installed can be testers. And Ramon has some great details on how to test things and what to look for and how to share the feedback. It also has a little paragraph there on what’s out of scope. So for this version, we of course share all the links in the show. Notes. Isabel, you’re part of that project. What excites you about it?

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Isabel Brison: I haven’t actually, actually worked on it. Well, not I, I, I helped a little, a little bit at the very beginning when we were discussing sort of choice of libraries and whether to build our own or use a third party. And a bit with the initial testing, but it was mostly Ramon and Andrew’s work. This latter part, the bit that’s now in Gutenberg, in fact, it was all their work. And I think it’s super exciting because replacing the old, the old Cropper, I. I never liked it. I have to be perfectly honest.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: I hate the old Cropper.

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Isabel Brison: I never could figure out how to use it. It was not ergonomic at all. And this one is such a better experience. Aside from allowing us to do all the stuff that the old Cropper, the in Editor Cropper is what I’m talking about. The one that you can access from the Image block toolbar. It’s also on the site Logo block. So you can now access it from both those blocks and the new one, in addition to what the old one did, also allows you to do free cropping and free rotating. So if you want to rotate your image 3 degrees and if you want to crop it to whatever weird aspect ratio you like, you can do that, which you couldn’t on the old one. Yeah, and it’s. It’s just a much nicer experience. I believe it’s also more accessible than the old one in terms of the keyboard accessibility of it. It’s. It’s better too, so. All advantages. Yeah, they did a great job on it.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: I used it just for a little bit and I was so amazed how smooth it was. Yeah, I kind of. It was also much more intuitive. I never knew what to do with the Cropper when I was pinging it previously and said, so how do I do this now? Every. I had to think every time. And this one is very, very intuitive and very smooth also to use it and to see it. So I’m really happy about that. I’m hoping it makes it into 7.1. Yeah, so we have that.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, it’s, it’s on track, I don’t think. I mean, barring any major natural disaster, I don’t think that there’s any reason for that not to make 7.1. It’s a great piece of work. It’s really stable and now that it’s not behind the experiment flag anymore, real users are using it. I’m sure we’re going to get tons of feedback if there’s anything that’s not 100% perfect and we still have time to iterate on it until beta one.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: I really appreciate that Roman and Andrew went to the research portion and kind of looked at how other graphic programs actually are doing things and tried to get some of the experiences also into the blocked. So okay, yeah, so two calls for testing for those who want to dive in. It’s a very good way to contribute to WordPress because it’s so close to what you’re doing with WordPress. And not only developers but also content creators can help testers even better and those who work at agencies or work with clients at agencies to kind of see how that all works. Which brings us to what’s released. I mentioned it.

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What’s Released – WordPress 7.0

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WordPress 7.0 Armstrong was released. We talked about it in previous episodes on this changelog with various people from the agency view, from the designer view, from the content creators views. We will share in the show notes in case you need to catch up. The Field Guide the link to the official field guide for WordPress 7.0 as well as to the source of truth on Gutenberg Times that has all the user facing stuff in there. Those are the best information on 7.0. I have not seen in the last two weeks any major boo boos that came in. Yeah, it was such a great testing cycle with a delay of six weeks.

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Most of the bugs were actually caught quite early or in the loliso, I don’t think. I’m not sure when there will be a point release which normally happens within a few weeks of the major release, but I have not seen any planning for that. But it could be end of June after WorldCap Europe.

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So let’s dive into the Gutenberg releases. We start with Gutenberg 23.1. Oh, one question, Isabel, do you have a favorite feature that came into WordPress 7.0?

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Isabel Brison: Oh, I don’t know. There’s a bunch of interesting features and I worked on some of them. Of course I have sort of my personal favorites of the ones that I worked on of which one that is. It was very, very subtle or sort of low profile. We didn’t talk about it much, but I worked on a little handy addition to the grid block or the grid layout type, I should say. That allows us to configure a responsive number of columns. So by setting column count and a minimum width you can say I want my block to always have at maximum three columns but on smaller screens it can go down to two and even one. So that’s something we didn’t have before and I’m quite happy with it. I think it’s a good improvement. But compared to. Oh, there was. There was loads of stuff. The pattern editing work I think is going to be really handy. And what else? There was the notes feature.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: No, I was in 6.9 already. Yeah.

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Isabel Brison: Oh yeah. No, there was something about what? Oh God, I’m confusing my releases.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah, they’re kind of. They melt together once it’s released. They melt all together. It’s kind of. Yeah. Was it there or there? Yeah, sometimes.

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Gutenberg 23.1

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All right, let’s dive into Gutenberg 23.1. It was released on May 7, had 212 closed PRs by 49 contributors. So we are really wrapping up the releases or the work on Gutenberg and the block editor. It’s now not only the block editor, it’s also the site editor. It’s the data views, it’s the. The design system, those all. So the Gutenberg repo has kind of exploded in other areas for the WordPress ecosystem. So. But yeah, the first one on the list and it’s. It’s really interesting how these change logs are actually automated and coming together is the upload media and it enabling concurrent sideload uploads. That’s an interesting thing because it’s so performance issue to have multiple streams on upload on images so you don’t have to wait so long that the image shows up in your block canvas. And that’s a really good improvement for that.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, yeah. I’d imagine when uploading, when bulk uploading particularly.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: So when you copy paste content from another source it has this also a feature that you can download and upload the images that you connect there. And that also happens in this module stream uploads thing. So it’s really cool. You only know this because it’s faster but other than that there’s no disruption of your work or any of that.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, there’s a lot of good work. This was also the client side. This is part, I believe, of the client side media processing work that did not make 7.0 but is now being aimed at 7.1. That’s mostly Adam Silverstein’s been working on that. I haven’t kept a close eye on it, but it looks like, you know, very useful work and it’ll be good once we manage to get it in for performance.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, Adam Silverstein has worked on these image handling features quite a bit for 6.9 as well.

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Enhancements

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So yeah, there is an enhancement that I have flagged here, but I’m not sure how useful that is. It’s for the WordPress UI overlays and a global preview styles on the storybook. So the WordPress UI is the next level of components for WordPress.

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Isabel Brison: It’s sort of the successor of the components package.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And at the moment both are used, but I have seen now efforts to migrate, merge things, I don’t know how you call it, but to get it kind of in one thing. But the overlays, the preview styles is how you can show the preview in the storybook so you have a better inkling how it’s going to look later on.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, that should be good.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: And then there are tons of changes for the components, the admin ui, the UI components, dialogues. This is mostly for developers that are working with WordPress and creating their own either building WordPress or creating plugins for WordPress to have a unified design system, unified component system that they don’t have to kind of come up with their own interfaces. Those decisions are already made and you can kind of build on top of things before any of that, even the components, every plugin had to design their own interfaces and now this is really cool.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, it’s good to have a sort of a system that you can use when you’re extending and you need to build a new screen or something for your plugin, you can just use these components and everything looks integrated with WordPress.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: And it’s also good for the users because they don’t have to think about how do I use this tool now? Or how, how is. How do I filter now on this screen? Because it’s all a unified system and it’s all built out and stable. So the next thing is on the notes getting a few updates. So right now it’s in 23.1. It’s mostly refactors on the positions and the floating board. But we will see later in, in the other releases that there are some nice features coming in for the Blocked libraries. We have updates to the tabs block. I’m really hoping that it comes into 7.1. It’s still behind an experiment flag, but now it can handle duplicate tabs, meaning duplicate handles on the tabs. And it follows now WCAG tabs pattern for accessibility in the renaming of the blocks. So which is a. It’s a major step towards accessibility and acceptance for that. I’m really waiting for the tabs to come into Gutenberg or to.

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Isabel Brison: Mostly I think the renaming was about as I understand it, so that the blocks have names that match the accessibility standards or how these things are known as. There’s a WCAG pattern it’s linked to in the PR, and those sort of example patterns that the WCAG website has for people to know how to use ARIA attributes correctly, which is a whole science. And the idea is to have our tabs blocks match the names of that pattern so that it feels more standard and it’ll be more familiar to people who might have implemented tabs in other places.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And those are the standards also where screen readers kind of tap into and people are. That use screen readers kind of have a common pattern for that. Yes. So that definitely elevates the tabs block in its accessibility. Yeah.

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Isabel Brison: So it’s going to be pretty useful block once it’s stabilized. So I hope it is.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Yeah. I know that quite a few block collections have tabs right from the beginning in the last eight years. And they’re not going to go away because the first iteration of any of the core blocks will not be as feature rich as any of the block collections that have been developed for the last six or seven years. Yeah. The next one is tapping into the image cropper we talked about. So you can. And it was tapping into the keyboard actions with drag handles on the canvas. So you can use your mouse to do some of the actions that you want to do with the image cropper or the image tool. Yeah, if you say Image Cropper, it kind of reduces it to cropping, but yeah, it’s also the handling to rotate

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Isabel Brison: And all that too.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah. There’s a new API for the WordPress grid package, but that’s a different grid that you are working on.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, that’s not the layout. The block layout grid. This is something else. This is a grid that you can use for dashboard UI.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Exactly.

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Isabel Brison: Sort of admin stuff.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. That’s the new API that powers the new experiments that in Gutenberg. That is the dashboard widgets. We kind of talked about it a little later. You as a plugin developer or extender of WordPress, you can use them now as well for any of your dashboards. If you are having a plugin that has some data vising kind of, you can put them into these grid package and display them on your plugin settings pages. The guidelines is also a new API and it has now a public API method and the REST API route to it. There have been iterations after 23.1, so I think that that would be really helpful to look at later.

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New APIs

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The guidelines are actually a whole set of content types that are for AIs. Pretty much when your agents come to the WordPress site, you can tell them what to do with things. What’s the purpose of the site? The editing guidelines? Yeah, how, how you want AIs to behave on your site if you let them in. And it’s really important when you have other agents come in that you don’t control. Yeah, that sounds scary.

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But if you as a site owner connect your Claude to your website, you can have in the guidelines all the things that you want Claude to know about your site. So it’s. You don’t have to put it all in a prompt and it kind of finds all the things and it’s also your memory. So if you use an agent to do your SEO, to do your. Some of the content updates like headlines or tags, your policies on how to do tags and categories, that’s all things that you can solidify in your documentation in the guidelines for your AI. And it will remember that. But it’s also interesting to see the discussions about it. I had a short discussion with Grzegorz, who was a former co-host here on the Changelog, a few, I would say a few hundred episodes before, but it wasn’t that much. But he is now part of that team who thinks about AI and memory and all that. And it was really interesting to hear because if you are in an agency, you work on multiple different sites, but you have one Claude, so you don’t want things to bleed over from one site to the next. And these guidelines help you kind of keep track of everything. So it’s an interesting problem space that came out with AI.

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Isabel Brison: It’s like providing the correct context and the correct amount of context so that the AI can be maximally productive on your website, whatever you want to do with it.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Most people are really not all that into. Site owners are not so into AI, but it helps a few things quite nicely. I find it with SEO and with yeah, accessibility and all that. It’s really helpful to have a double check there. Yeah. All right, what’s next in 23.1? Do we have something?

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Experiments

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Oh yeah, there’s these custom taxonomies experiment in 23.1 with the custom post types and taxonomy management that started out as out of. I don’t know how that came about, but it probably is one of the radical speed month project as well that people say okay, we probably need to have content management when the APIs were in WordPress in 3.1. But there is no interface there and there were always plugins there to do this, be it custom UI, custom post UI or ACF or so. But there’s no interface for. And that’s where this experiment comes in to kind of push the envelope on that a bit. Have the REST controllers in there, have the interface in there. But it definitely is not the last word spoken there yet because that is a field where there have been a lot of extensions in the universe or in the WordPress ecosystem that might not fit in where this is going. So it’s just a. It’s a prototype kind of experimental way to do that. But check it out. You just have to enable the experiment in the Gutenberg plugin and then you can kind of try it out and work with it. It uses the common APIs.

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The other experiment is the dashboard. We talked a little bit about it because that’s the grid package was created for that. The dashboard to have administ page routes and sidebar menus as a shell to add additional grids on the dashboard. I’m interested to see. I haven’t played with it yet but I want to see if I can. So what are the dashboards? The dashboard right now is just a. The quick edit and the site health and the news that’s on your dashboard right now and a few other things and plugin kind of tap into that as well. But I have never have not seen yet and I’m still thinking about it to. Maybe Claude can help me with that. Having a quick edit that’s a block editor actually. So when you log in into your WordPress site you don’t want to kind of just do all the other admin stuff. You just want to create a new post. So why not have it on the dashboard and create a blog post right there from the quick edit. Quick Edit only gives you text based things but not block editor.

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Isabel Brison: So a block based quick edit, do you reckon all the blocks. I reckon it would need to be A very simplified version of the block editor.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Yeah.

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Isabel Brison: Maybe images, paragraphs, but yeah, that would be cool.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah. Lists. Yeah. Like an outliner kind of. Yeah. Very fast kind of. Yeah. Maybe come back to the white space, but kind of instead of having a classic editor, just build blocks with it. Yeah. So kind of a distraction free, quick edit, full set, toolbar on top kind of thing. I don’t know. When I’m bored, I’m gonna star B. Prototype it. Prototype it. Yeah. And get it in. Yeah. That. That was one of the things that a lot of writers said. I don’t want to deal with all the stuff I’m getting so distracted. Yeah. There’s announcements and all that. So let me just start my blog post. But anyway, and then there is a list of Media editor modal call for testing. We talked about it. There’s a whole in 23.1. There’s a whole list of bigger and smaller PRs that went in. I think the call for testing gives you all the ins and outs of it that I think was. Was it. Did you find anything for 23.1 that you wanted to talk about further?

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Isabel Brison: Not. Not really. Apart from the things that you’ve already highlighted. I just thought. I already mentioned that the media editor is also on the site logo block. So you can test it on both blocks and that’s it.

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Gutenberg 23.2

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: So right into Gutenberg. 23.2 was released on May 21st and also with 204 PRs by 50 contributors and there were four first timers there. Congratulations. You got your first contribution to WordPress core. Yeah. And you got your badge. Well, you got your badge when 7.1 is released, I guess the first feature that is listed is the responsive global block styles with states. This is so cool. Yeah. What does it say? Can you walk us through it?

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Isabel Brison: Yeah. So this was the first part of the work towards enabling responsive styles for blocks. And it’s with States because it leverages a style states API that was already built. So Maggie Cabrera was who did that initial work for the States API, and her part was just leveraging it for adding the ability to style pseudo states for very few blocks have pseudo states. Well, this might be extended, but it won’t be super extended because not all blocks need to have pseudo by pseudo states, I mean hover focus and things like that. So usually only interactive blocks would need those.

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And so States came about to cater to that pseudo element scenario. But it was always something that could potentially be extended further. And one of the use cases that had been thought out when this initial idea of having the states API was thought it was using it to be able to create responsive styles for blocks was one of the possibilities there. And I had been eyeballing all those issues that have been sitting in the Gutenberg repo for years about creating some mechanism that allows us to define responsive styles. And I finally had the opportunity to pick them up. And having that state’s work already partially done was great because, you know, sometimes it’s starting something is the hard part. And there were endless decisions in the repo about how should we build this and let’s do this and let’s do that and let’s not do that. And it’s like we should take this into account. You know, how you can talk and talk and talk and then it never actually starts because it seems like the problem is too big and too complicated. And the more that’s added to the discussion, the bigger and the more complicated it gets.

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But there was this little stepping stone. This states API had already been built. And so I thought, well, it’s already in there for pseudo states, let’s try building responsive. So we call them viewport states. I’ve been working on this with my teammate Dan Richards. We’ve both started working on this and thought, okay, let’s do as sort of a baseline for global styles, but then as a stretch goal, let’s try and do it for actual block instance too. So we managed to do both in the end, but for 23.2, it was only the global block styles that was ready. And this means when you go into the site editor and into the style section, where you have global styles, then you go into blocks. This only works for blocks. It doesn’t work for top level global styles yet. We’re not quite sure. Well, we’re not quite sure if there’s a need to add this to top level stars yet. It’s still something that’s being thought about because for a lot of them, so a lot of really sort of global basic elements like typography, you know, font sizes. Okay, we already have ways of defining them responsively even without using breakpoints. So we are using the clamp function. You can define a maximum and a minimum and you can pretty much, you know, manipulate it so that you get your different font sizes on mobile and tablet and desktop. So there is to some extent you already have that responsive functionality there. So that’s something that might be looked at later on for enabling actual breakpoints for those global styles. But for now it only applies to blocks so for each block you can go into the block, into the block’s global styles and you can pick a state. There’s a new little states drop down at the top and so by default you’ll be styling the default state that’s you know, no media query. And then you have a tablet and a mobile state and the tablet state is only, so it’s, it’s only from you know, the top level. Like what’s your maximum Breakpoint to the minimum, which is the maximum for mobile. So the tablet styles will only apply to tablet to that breakpoint and then the mobile styles will only apply to their own breakpoint. And that’s. Yeah, essentially that’s it.

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You can do anything color typography and spacing wise. So for most blocks you know, you have the typography, you have the colors, you have dimensions like not for most blocks you don’t have dimensions, you have, you know, margin, padding, block gap if the block has layout and you can define per break point what you want those values to be. And there are certain features that exist in global styles that do not yet work with, with that responsive logic and those. So when you enter that breakpoint you know, you get, you choose the tablet viewport and you’ll see that some of the tools might be hidden. So for instance, Duotone is one. You can’t set Duotone per breakpoint yet. This is something that will be worked on in the future but it feels like a bit like I’m not sure how many people will need to change the colors per break point. That’s not usually responsive styles are more about spacing dimensions, that sort of thing. So we focused more on those that felt like these are the ones that are really going to be used by most people and the more edge Casey ones if they don’t work out of the box, we sort of. Okay that, you know, that’s a problem for later. We’ll, we’ll figure it out later. And Duotone is one of those awesome.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Well a lot of people have been waiting for that a long time. So glad you, you finally started taking it.

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Isabel Brison: I hope it’s useful. I just hope that folks can take this and like ok, okay, I can finally build the thing and yeah, and it works. And please, please, to anyone listening and wanting to try this out, if there’s anything that’s not working, if there’s anything you don’t like or you think, no, no, this should be different because it doesn’t work. Just please give us feedback. We need feedback because this is in the plugin now it’s aimed to go into 7.1. We still have those six weeks until beta one. Those six weeks will be iterating on the feature. The earlier we get feedback the better so that we know if there’s anything that really isn’t working for anyone then we can change it.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So that’s a 23.2. There’s also a WordPress components called WordPress Theme and that’s actually the theme for the admin section. We have definitely confusion things going on because we use the same term for multiple things that are totally different and have nothing to do with each other except they are now motion design tokens for duration and easing in the WordPress theme component. So if you want to use those for your admin pages and plugins, go have at it. I am really because it kind of gets you a little bit more into a more interactive way to build websites and I think we really like those or I do. Yeah. Although I’m not a motion or animation kind of person. But yeah, I like when it’s nice.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah. Little bits of discreet smooth animation here and there can really make a web experience.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. It’s kind of a quality of life kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. What else is in the 23? Yeah, the content types. It was an iteration on. We talked about it on the content types experiments with various improvements and post type and taxonomy management, duplicate view, quick edit actions. A ton of PRs have been added to that so it definitely is maturing and you can with 23.2 also the media editor modal had matured and there is now. I also will share in the show notes a link to an overview issue on the Dashboard experiment so you can go back and read up about it, what it’s all about. Because there’s a whole lot of work still being done with that.

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Experiments

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There’s also an experiment on the classic block migration notice. I’m just pointing that out because you might see it that the classic block might get deprecated or might not be available in certain situations.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah. I believe the plan is to deprecate it and remove it at some point, but it’s a whole process because I guess lots of folks are using it. So it needs to be slow, give people time to adjust, choose alternatives.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, well it has been in Gutenberg for eight years and all that and actually what I found is that some of the AI tools actually create blocks that need to be. That are looking like classic blocks and need to be migrated to blocks before they can be in the block editor canvas. So, yeah, those things also need to be kind of tested in that space.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, that’s a good point. With AI, with AI tools increasingly being used to build websites and create and. Or move content across from other places, it. You don’t want AI sort of adding the classic block to its knowledge base and suddenly deciding that the easiest way to do anything is to just dump all the content into a classic block,

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Which what they’re doing right now. Yeah.

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Isabel Brison: So this is a good time to deprecate it so that. Okay, let’s. Let’s ensure that AI works properly, that it’s easier for AI tools to work properly and do things as we expect them to.

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Documentation

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: It hasn’t been merged yet, but there is also a documentation issue. It’s a big. It was a big undertaking that Juan Margarito took on, was that it was found that an AI can’t really find documentation on the block markup for each of the core blocks. And that was a documentation gap that was kind of found that none of the block library blocks had a readme so it wouldn’t. So what Guan Ma did, he created automatically from the block JSON files a readme for each block on documentation site and then created some tokens where you can have on the readme additional manual content that’s put in there and then have a parser go through that and put it into the block editor handbook. And that is a really. So it talks about the supports, it talks about the, the, the global styles design tool supports about the block markup and also the connection with other blocks. It’s a comprehensive documentation about each block and that’s in the block handbook. It will be merged. We had a hardware hangout on it. We had a proposal on MakeBlog, a core block about that. And I think it’s finally going to be merged within I hope a week, but maybe days.

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Isabel Brison: Oh, cool.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: That’ll be super useful. So it will be in the, in the block edit handbook. It has an additional 80 pages, of course. Yeah. But they’re all connected and categorized by blocks. And so now block developers and there were some comments from the community where people said, well, I wish I had that when I was starting out learning about block development and now it’s finally coming. But it was a huge undertaking because it kind of created a ton of new code and that all needs to be reviewed. And it was so. But there were a lot of people kind of working on that. Guided or spearheaded by Guan Ma but it’s now coming and it’s really cool. I’m so happy that it made it.

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Isabel Brison: I mean, you can never have too much documentation, but developers are crap at writing it. So, you know, nowadays we have tools to assist us in the creation of the documentation and we should leverage them.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah. And the hybrid version, automatic documentation plus a way to have also manual content in that is actually a good combination because for some of the blocks, Joe Dawson from the Accessibility team has said, okay, maybe we also want to have some documentation about the accessibility of blocks. And anybody who has comments on that can add it to the, the readme file of that particular block to elaborate on that. And that is outside of any automation. You can just add it to the page. And it was really cool to see that process working. I post a link to the proposal into the show notes just as a side note here.

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Gutenberg 23.3

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And now we’re coming to 23.3. That was just released a day ago June 3rd with 270 closed PRs and 57 contributors. So we are ramping up to 7.1 kind of thing. And the first item on that is really cool that you can now that the notes section. And I think it was Adam Silverstein as well who worked on that.

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Isabel Brison: Oh yeah, the multiple notes per block. Yeah. Oh, that’s cool. That’s really useful.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, so you can have multiple threads or comments per block. That’s also helpful when you work with AI that comes in and kind of reviews some of your post and posts notes in there. So yeah, it was really helpful. And it’s also. And he found it to be necessary to have that. So what’s missing in the notes in comparison to Google Docs is that you can highlight a section and then comment on that section. So yeah, like, okay, you probably can delete this half sentence or something like that. And that you couldn’t do that up until now. And with the multi threads on the notes for a block you can highlight a section because if the paragraph is, I don’t know, 10 lines or something like that, you might have multiple comments on the, on that block. And now you can have that. So it’s really cool.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah. So the note is attached to a part of a block and not to the block itself.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, yeah. The next sections are a continuation on your quest for responsive styles.

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Enhancements

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, that’s part two, part two of the work which is enabling responsive styles for block instances. So again this, this was a part. So Maggie Cabrera had worked on the sudo style states for global styles and she had an open PR to add them to block instances. And Dan and I basically hijacked her PR with her approval of course. We asked Maggie first, can we just take this work that you. She was off doing something else. She wasn’t actively working on the PR at the time. We thought ah, we could just take that over and finish it and then build the responsive styles on top of it. So we did and that obviously there was work already pre-existing so it sort of made it easier to build it step by step on top of it. And now we have in 23.3 the ability to add responsive styles to. So any block, open a post, pick a block, open the inspector controls and then at the top where you have the block name you have this little menu which has a drop down that has the states.

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So again just like with global styles we have tablet and mobile. The default is what you get by default what you already had. And then you have a tablet breakpoint and a mobile breakpoint. And for those again as in global styles there were a few things that didn’t really work out of the box, a few of the controls. So we decided to hide everything that doesn’t work. So for now what’s enabled is only the controls that you can actually create responsive styles with. Those are pretty much all the block supports, the standard block supports like color typography, dimensions, block gap. Now layout is also supported and we aside a sort of side effect of that was that we ended up moving the layout panel into the styles tab. And well that was sort of. I’d been wanting to do that for ages I have to say because to me it didn’t make any sense at all that layout was in at the same time. Settings tab and Dimensions, which has controls that are intimately related to layout such as block gap was in the styles tab. And so I felt the. The only thing that makes sense is to have them side by side. If it’s not the same panel, which I still think we could maybe make it the same panel. But that’s another different conversation. But at least they’re side by side. So now layout is in the styles panel. That’s the reason why it’s in the styles panel. So when we have a responsive state enabled we’re only showing the styles panel in the inspector and only the controls that work, which is most of them. There’s a couple of things that we had to hide again, you know, duotonethings like that.

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And for block instances there are some blocks have custom controls and some of those custom controls should probably become Block supports. Some are like aspect ratio is a block support, but there’s only one block using it and there’s a couple of blocks that have their own custom implementation of aspect ratio. This is something that should change. I have an open PR to try and enable aspect ratio to work responsively because I feel that that’s one of the important ones that people will want to change aspect ratios for different breakpoints. So that’s in progress and what our plan is basically to try to get as much as we can working until 7.1.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Awesome. So when I want to start testing this, I’m going to add a paragraph to my block canvas and then I go to the block inspector and say, okay, this paragraph, I want a different background for a different viewport. So on the mobile I want it green and on tablet I want it yellow and on desktop I want it gray.

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Isabel Brison: Yep, you can do that.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Okay. Yeah, so that’s how I will change it.

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Isabel Brison: You go into. So you give the default. The desktop is the default. I guess we’re not mobile. We were never mobile first really. I mean Gutenberg has from the beginning being a dev stop first experience. And that’s how it’s sort of turned out to be. So you have default desktop and then you can go into the tablet state, you can select the tablet state and then whatever you add to the visible controls in the block inspector in that state is exclusive to that state. And you can go into the mobile and choose a different color for that and save everything and then you can go and do the good old resizing. Well, in the block editor we leveraging the responsive preview, the sort of device specific preview to show you a preview of what the styles are as you’re editing them. And then once you go into the front end, you can resize your window to your heart’s content and see all the changes happening.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: All right, all right. So that is really cool and I’m looking forward to kind of testing it out and trying it out and have opinions.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, yeah, no, lots of opinions, I’m sure. And one of the things that I feel like we haven’t got 100% right is the previewing because you switch like you go enable mobile state for this block and it switches you to the mobile preview. But then you can select another block while still being in the mobile preview and then you’re not in the mobile state for that blocking. So I feel like this is something that we’re working on. We need to improve that experience and feedback. Again, very welcome. What are your opinions on this and how you think it would be the most intuitive to work with.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, awesome. Yeah. I’m thinking maybe we should actually have a demo hallway hangout about that somewhere. Let me think about that. Well, I have a time issue because I’m going on vacation.

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Isabel Brison: Okay. Yeah.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Coming back to the beginning of July, but yeah, definitely. Maybe find somebody to do a demo video or something like that. Well, the demos are all on the PR, so definitely check those out because they’re the best way to learn how to use that and how what works or what doesn’t work. Yeah. All right. What’s else in 23.3?

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Isabel Brison: There was so much. Well, the media editor was stabilized, so now it’s no longer an experiment. You get it by default whether you want it or not. Again, I mean, we hope to get feedback on that. I think it’s a pretty good piece of work, honestly.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Just wanted to. You said it in the. You talked about it. But if you are looking for the layout panel after 23.3 Gutenberg plugin install, it’s not hidden, it’s not lost. It’s in the Styles tab now.

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Isabel Brison: Yes.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Some content creators that are not interested in this, all that, they might have a little oops, where is it? Kind of thing. It’s in the other tab now. Yeah.

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Isabel Brison: And that is. It might be weird for blocks that still have a Settings panel. So, for blocks, what happened with the group block? For instance, the group block only had layout and position in Settings, so we moved position into styles. Because it makes sense. Position is a style. And now the group block doesn’t have a Settings tab. So you open the group. I think it’s much easier because you don’t have clicking, clicking, clicking. Everything’s there, everything’s visible. Layout, position, all the other controls in the same tab for other blocks. For instance, the navigation block still has a bunch of stuff in Settings. So if you put a navigation block on the page and suddenly you’re, oh, where’s the layout controls gone? Okay, they’re in the Styles tab. They’re no longer in the Settings tab.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: I just wanted to point that out. People kind of miss that part because they’re so excited about the responsiveness.

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And then there’s also. Oh, there was one thing that was fixed. It was a. I would say it was a bug, but it is an enhancement that the additional CSS. If there was an error in there, you wouldn’t see that when you get back into the post again, until you interact with the additional CSS field, you wouldn’t see the error message. So unless you interact with that, you wouldn’t see that it’s actually not working. That has changed. That now has a little notification that there is something in the additional CSS that’s not valid CSS for those who muck about with that. Yeah. And here it is. The PR78653 has the modal media editor, image cropper modal being the default experience for the block editor. It’s out of experiments in. Another thing for 23.3 is that Gutenberg upgraded to React 19. This is important for plugin developers and those who have a very tight handle on the dependencies for their work. React 19 is now the default and there might be dragons out there. Please, please, please, yeah. Give feedback on that. Create issues what works and what doesn’t work. Especially what doesn’t work. So those can be fixed PR 7.1 so you don’t have any surprises later on. What else? I think those were the, the big items.

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Isabel Brison: Yeah, I mean I’ve, I’ve been sort of like under, under my responsive styles rock for these past few weeks just working on that. Very, very fixated on getting this thing right.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: So I have to say nothing.

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Isabel Brison: I mean it’s definitely got a huge amount of attention to. Yeah. What else is out there?

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Definitely God’s work.

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Isabel Brison: Hopefully it’s worth it.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that’s it. As I said, there are 270 PRs. So. Yeah. And it just has been released for a while ago.

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Isabel Brison: There’s a lot of enhancements and bug fixes and stuff in here.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Yeah, that’s it. I think we are good. So, dear listeners, you will see on the Weekend Edition and the Gutenberg Changelog will pause during my vacation. I’m going on vacation next week, which is June 15th and I’m coming back in beginning of July. So in time for 7.1 beta, you’ll hear us again and you will read us again.

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I’m so happy, Isabel, you are here on the show to walk us through all the good things that come with Gutenberg to 7.1, especially the responsive parts. The responsive parts. I like that. Responsive parts. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy work schedule and be on the show and walk us through that.

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Isabel Brison: No worries. You always enjoy this show.

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Birgit Pauli-Haack: Well, thank you so much. And as always, dear listeners, the show notes will be published on GutenbergTimes.com podcast. This is episode 1311 31st. And if you have questions or suggestions or news you want us to include, send them to changelogutenbergtimecs.com that’s changelogutenburgtimes.com.

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Thank you all for listening. And until the next time, and I see you in July.

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Isabel Brison: Bye bye.

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WordCamp Europe, the biggest WordPress conference in Europe, spent the first week of June in Kraków. The 2026 edition of this event filled the ICE Kraków Congress Centre from June 4 to 6, drawing 2,458 ticket holders from 81 countries to the south of Poland. Close to a quarter of them were attending their first WordCamp Europe.

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The city made it easy to settle in. Every attendee’s badge carried a transport hologram good for unlimited trams and buses. The Main Market Square, the largest in Europe, sat a short ride away, and the local food ran the gamut from pierogi to żurek soup to obwarzanek pretzels sold off the street.

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Kraków is beautiful, with history everywhere.
– Sebastian Miśniakiewicz, local team lead

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The program kept pace with the setting. Across multiple tracks, the schedule held 49 talks and eight hands-on workshops, grouped into themes that ran from core development and AI to business and the open web. Around them sat a full Contributor Day, a sponsor area, side events, on-site childcare, and an after-party the local team stretched to eight hours.

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Contributor Day Opens the Week

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As it does every year, the event began the day before the talks. Contributors filled the venue for Contributor Day, a working session where people work together to improve WordPress itself rather than watch a presentation about it. The morning started with registration and a welcome, the room split into teams, and a group photo broke up the work around midday. The afternoon ran a second working block before each team gathered to share what it had done.

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The range of tables is the clearest picture of how wide the project has become. Newcomers could sit down with Polyglots to translate WordPress into their own language, with Documentation to fix the pages people reach when they get stuck, or with Support to answer questions in the forums. More technical tables covered Core, Performance, Testing, Themes, and the Plugins team, whose reviewers screen every plugin submitted to the directory.

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First-timers were not left to find their own way. The day was built around onboarding tables, named table leads, and mentors, with an open invitation for experienced contributors to adopt a newcomer and walk them through their first patch, string, or ticket.

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People who could not travel to Kraków were welcomed to join remotely through the #contributor-day channel in the Make WordPress Slack, so distance was not a reason to sit the day out.

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The Birthplace of the Web

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It was fitting that the opening keynote came from CERN. The European Laboratory for Particle Physics, on the French-Swiss border outside Geneva, is where the World Wide Web was invented more than 30 years ago, and Joachim Valdemar Yde, who has managed CERN’s web team since 2021, came to explain why the laboratory had chosen WordPress to carry its web presence forward.

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Yde and Francisco Borges Aurindo Barros, who leads CERN’s WordPress infrastructure, framed the move as a chance to give a web presence built up over three decades a shared, modern foundation. After evaluating several leading content management systems against CERN’s needs, WordPress came out on top.

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Barros walked through what they had built. The guiding idea is that people at CERN focus on their content while the web team looks after the platform underneath. A self-service portal lets anyone request a site in a few clicks. Behind it, a shared distribution supplies a common theme and a set of approved, security-hardened plugins, and an in-house tool provisions each new site on Kubernetes in about a minute. In its first year, the platform has already set up hundreds of sites.

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Moving years of existing content onto the new platform is the other half of the work, and the team automated it: a single command lifts each site’s pages, headings, and images and rebuilds them as Gutenberg blocks, with no downtime. They plan to open source the tool.

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Then Yde delivered the line that the room had been waiting for.

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As of today, our main flagship website, home.cern, is now served on WordPress. It’s been automatically migrated, and it’s live.

– Joachim Valdemar Yde, Web Manager, CERN

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The rollout is on track to wrap up over the coming months, and early impressions, Yde said, have been overwhelmingly positive, with easy wins in responsiveness and accessibility. For those at the event, the keynote pointed the room toward a later talk by CERN’s Akanksha Chatterjee on building and maintaining the laboratory’s engineering websites on the same service.

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There is a neat symmetry to it. The institution that published the world’s first website now runs on the software that powers more than 40% of today’s web, licensed under the GPL and maintained by the people in the room.

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WordPress 7.0 and AI

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WordPress 7.0 was a throughline of the conference. Several sessions placed the release at the center, framing it less as a routine update than as a change in what the software is, and in what it makes possible for the people who build with it.

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The anchor for that conversation was a panel called “Inside WordPress 7.0.” It gathered contributors who worked on the release, among them Juan Manuel Garrido, Adam Silverstein, Benjamin Zekavica, Sarah Norris, and Milana Cap. It was framed around more than a feature list, setting out to cover how a release of this size actually comes together: the contribution workflows, the coordination, and the human aspects of shipping software in the open.

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What gives this release its weight is the work moving into WordPress’s core: a native AI client, a new Abilities API that lets plugins declare what they can do in a way other tools can discover, and a Connectors screen for wiring up providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google Gemini. The argument running through the AI sessions was that this belongs to everyone who builds on WordPress, not only to developers shipping their own integrations. Speakers got specific about how to put that to work.

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People stayed at the center of the conversation, too. Tammie Lister, in a talk called “Human in the loop means something,” framed the phrase as a real commitment rather than a checkbox. Humans and AI are each good at different things, and the products worth building let each do what it does best.

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Development and Craft

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The development sessions were where the craft lived. Dennis Snell, who co-wrote the HTML API and designed the block parser, devoted a deep-dive workshop to that API. Peter Wilson, a long-time Core committer on the Performance team, focused on how the WP_Query class has been made faster through better caching, and how site builders can take advantage of that at scale.

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Scaling got a hands-on session of its own. One talk set out to see how far a WordPress site can run on a twelve-dollar virtual server, profiling it under load in Grafana and tuning away the bottlenecks, with a GitHub repository so attendees could follow along at home. Fellyph Cintra focused on the latest in WordPress Playground, the browser-based tooling and architectural changes that the project credits with a real speed-up.

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Jessica Lyschik, a Core contributor and former default-theme co-lead, set out to make the case that accessibility-ready requirements are far easier to meet than most theme developers assume, drawing on real reviews of both block and classic themes.

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Two members of the Plugins team, David Perez and Fran Torres, framed their session as a practical clinic. Between them, they have reviewed more than 25,000 plugins, and they set out to name the common, avoidable issues that keep good plugins stuck in the review queue. For a first-time author, that is the difference between an afternoon and a month of waiting.

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The Business of WordPress and the Open Web

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The business and community sessions pulled the lens back to people, with a refreshingly unsentimental view of running a WordPress business. Debbie Levitt built her talk around a model for finding product-market fit at three levels at once, on the premise that teams celebrate one good metric and then wonder months later where their users went. Vassilena Valchanova took on a quieter problem: being good at the work is not the same as anyone knowing you are.

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There was a local thread here as well. Irfani Silviana, a full-stack developer at a Kraków-based agency, framed the Business Model Canvas as a translation layer that moves developers from shipping features to engineering business value, a fitting talk to give in her own city.

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The web’s standards, the argument goes, remain as open as the day Tim Berners-Lee created them at CERN.

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That idea carried through the rest of the community sessions.

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Running alongside the talks, the hands-on workshops were a chance to build something on the spot. In one, Ryan Welcher set out to build a touch-enabled gallery slider with the Interactivity API, while another centered on Full Site Editing, with a working portfolio theme attendees could reuse on their next client project. These were laptop-open, leave-with-working-code sessions.

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Closing Fireside Chat

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The closing session opened with a warm gesture from Kraków University of Technology. Representatives took the stage to thank the organizers and the community and to present Mary Hubbard, the Executive Director of WordPress, with a gift from their faculty of informatics and mathematics. They described what the university and the WordCamp community share: a love of learning and sharing knowledge, and an openness to new ideas, skills, and connections.

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Hubbard used the moment to share some news. Starting in October, the university will open a WordPress-specific course, which she called a trail-blazing event for Poland and for WordPress. Earlier that day, the program’s first cohort, around 20 students, had shown what they built, part of the WordPress Campus Connect and WordPress Credits education work.

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Hubbard then turned the stage into a conversation, inviting Matías Ventura, the lead of the Gutenberg project, and Rich Tabor, a WordPress designer and developer, to talk through where WordPress is heading and how AI fits in. WordPress 7.0 had just launched with Ventura as its release lead, and he asked everyone who had contributed to it to stand for a round of applause.

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Much of the chat explored the balance between building WordPress with AI, and building with AI on WordPress, without losing the human part. Ventura noted that WordPress’s long investment in its design system is paying off now that you can ask an AI to extend a menu or a control, and it reaches for the right components. He pointed to older primitives gaining new value, like WP-CLI, which AI models use fluently, and to Studio Code, an open source, agent-based coding tool the team has been building for WordPress. Tabor showed how he now ships many small editor improvements by talking to an agent instead of typing code, and Ventura demoed desktop mode and open-canvas experiments that reimagine the admin.

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On open source and AI, Hubbard argued that open source is why WordPress has thrived, that the same values should shape AI, and that the community should be far more vocal about it. As she put it, “We should be talking about it, and we should be much louder about it.”

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Audience questions pushed on multilingual support, unsticking long-stalled tickets, and reaching a younger, more diverse community. On that last point, Hubbard came back to education, pointing to a US pilot of an AI literacy micro-credential that uses WordPress as the playground, and made the case for it:

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I think that focusing in on younger generations, and bringing them into the project in a healthy way, with the dynamic of education as well as mentorship, and how we can understand and learn from them, as well as mentor them and adopt them as contributors, is very important.

– Mary Hubbard, WordPress Executive Director

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Beyond the Talks

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WordCamp is also about the corridor outside the talks, and Kraków gave people reason to roam. Between sessions, attendees moved through the sponsor area for product demos and conversations that often carried on over lunch.

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The after-party was the not-so-subtle flourish of a local team that doubled the usual length to eight hours, with Polish food and dragon-and-floral swag that nodded to the Wawel Dragon of Kraków legend. The nearby artistic Kazimierz district kept the evening going, and the trams, as one organizer had promised, were still running reliably afterward.

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What Comes Next

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WordCamps run on people, and 2026 was no different. The organizing teams, the speakers, the sponsors who funded the venue and the meals, the local crew who sorted trams and pierogi, and the contributors who arrived a day early to work on the project all built this WCEU together. The people watching the livestream from outside Kraków were part of it as well.

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For anyone whose appetite was only sharpened by three days in Poland, the calendar already has the next stop. WordCamp US 2026 (Phoenix, USA) runs August 16 to 19, with its own Contributor Day opening the week.

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WordCamp Europe will return next year (May 27-29, 2027) in Málaga, Spain.

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Photography by the WCEU 2026 photography team. See the full galleries on Flickr.

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Howdy,

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This is the time of the year when publishing on the Gutenberg Times becomes less frequent. I will be on vacation and back at the beginning of July with the weekend edition, just in-time for Beta 1 of WordPress 7.1. Three more Gutenberg plugin releases will happen before that.

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What also happened was that someone grabbed my instagram account in this AI hack at Meta. Although Meta reports this as resolved, I probably won’t get my account back. I am now actively looking for a better way to share my photos without the overlords that can’t keep things tight. \"🤦‍♀️\" It’s not that I didn’t know better. <sigh/> \"🤷‍♀️\" It’s a cautionary tale for what’s in store for all internet services handing over crucial business processes to a gulliable AI.

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I had the great pleasure of going on the OpenMakers show with Abha Thakor to talk through what WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” means for you. First, the safety bit: test on a staging site or Playground before updating, and check your PHP. Then the good stuff. Visual revisions show edits in context with color coding. Notes keep feedback inside the editor. Patterns gain content-only editing, blocks can hide by device, and new AI connector APIs give developers a unified foundation. Real-time editing waits for a later release.

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Yours, \"💕\"
Birgit

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WordCamp Europe LiveStream was up and running and Friday’s keynote can be watched online. Two worlds collide: WordPress at CERN with Joachim Valdemar Yde and Francisco Borges Aurindo Barros. The Livestream are all routed to the WordPress YouTube account. The schedule is posted on the website.

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Over the course of the weekend more recordings will be uploaded to WordPress TV > WordCamp Europe 2026.

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On Saturday, Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic will close out WordCamp Europe 2026 with his keynote. Afterward, the organizers will reveal where WordCamp Europe 2027 will take place. Tune in around 2:15 UTC / 8:15 am EDT.

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Developing Gutenberg and WordPress

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Arthur Chu walks you through what’s new in Gutenberg 23.3. The modal media editor is now the default for cropping. It pulls cropping, flip, rotation, and metadata into one place. The experimental customizable dashboard grows too, with five new widgets you can drag and resize. Responsive styles now reach individual blocks, so designs adapt per screen.

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Rae Morey reports that Gutenberg 23.3 brings an experimental, customizable WordPress dashboard. It’s the admin’s biggest structural shakeup in years. You can drag, resize, and rearrange widgets like Welcome, Activity, and Site Health to fit how you actually work. It’s the first testable preview of a long-discussed overhaul. Enable it under Gutenberg > Experiments to try it.

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Jarda Snajdr reports that the React 19 upgrade has been reverted in Gutenberg. Shortly after 23.3.0 shipped, many plugins built for React 18 started crashing. The APIs barely changed, but the runtimes clashed: React 19 rejects elements made by a bundled React 18 JSX helper. So 23.3.2 rolls back to React 18. The team still plans the upgrade for 7.1—this time with a feature flag and a compatibility layer.

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Isabel Brison and I chatted extensively about the latest Gutenberg plugin releases 23.1 to 23.3 and discussed the responsive controls now available in the Gutenberg plugin for desktop, tablet and mobile view ports. The episode will drop in your favorite podcast app over the weekend.

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\"🎙\" The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #131 – Gutenberg Plugin Releases 23.1 – 23.3, Calls for Testing for 7.1 and more

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Rich Tabor shares a few “little big things” for WordPress editing. The idea is simple: complexity has piled up, and small fixes can clear it. His PRs make block locking a one-click job in List View. They keep you in place when editing synced patterns, instead of whisking you off to another view. And zooming out reuses the familiar Patterns Explorer. He’s not precious about them—contributors are warmly invited to take them over the line.

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Dave Smith walks you through an interactive prototype reimagining the WordPress Site Editor around user goals rather than system architecture. Built during Automattic’s Radical Speed Month, it keeps the same blocks, templates, and data model intact while changing entry points, language, and defaults. Since internal research flags the Site Editor as the top driver of negative support outcomes, you’ll see how remapping it around what you want to do could ease that friction. It’s an experiment, not a roadmap.

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Calls for Testing for WordPress 7.1

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With WordPress 7.0 out the door, contributors shared a series of Calls for testing this week to prepare for WordPress 7.1. The schedule is tight with Beta 1 slated for July 15, 2026.

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Ramon Dodd puts out a call for testing the new Media Editor Modal. Cropping in the block editor hasn’t changed much in years, and the old inline tool leans on a limited third-party library. This new standard way of Image edition inside the Block editor replaces it with a WordPress-native one. You get freeform and aspect-ratio cropping, flip, rotation, and metadata editing in one place. The quickest way to try it is a ready-made Playground link. Feedback is welcome via the comments or GitHub.

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Anne McCarthy announced a collaborative editing outreach effort for WordPress 7.1. After real-time collaboration was pulled from 7.0, this gathers real-world early adopters across many hosting setups to find bugs faster. It lives in one Slack channel, #collaborative-editing-outreach. If you’d use collaborative editing regularly and run the latest Gutenberg, you’re invited—through the cycle, with a test team badge at the end.

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Rae Morey has the skinny for you in Contributors Launch FSE-Style Outreach Program to Get Real-Time Collaboration Ready for WordPress 7.1

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Adam Silverstein puts out a call for testing client-side media processing, now targeting WordPress 7.1. Here’s the idea: when you upload an image, your browser resizes and encodes every size locally using VIPS in WebAssembly, before anything reaches the server. That eases CPU and memory load on hosts and brings modern formats like AVIF, WebP, HEIC, and JPEG XL to every site. Browsers that can’t cope fall back quietly to server-side. Try it in Chromium with the latest Gutenberg.

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Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

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Brian Coords invites you to a live panel on practical AI workflows for WordPress and WooCommerce on Tuesday, June 30, 2026, at 10am PDT. Hosted with Shani Banerjee and featuring Nik McLaughlin, Kyle Runner, and Suzanne Kolpakov, the conversation covers WooCommerce MCP, the WordPress Abilities API, Pressable MCP, and making your own plugins more agent-ready. You’ll come away with practical ideas for managing stores and guiding cautious clients, plus open Q&A. Can’t make it live? Register anyway for the recording.

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Nathan Wrigley talks with plugin reviewer Luke Carbis about the future of WordPress plugins on the Jukebox podcast. Here’s the worry: plugin submissions have quadrupled in a year, largely AI-generated, so good plugins struggle to stand out. Carbis floats ideas you can test: logging into your site with your WordPress.org account, installing from your own Git repos, or a commercial marketplace funding contributors. They also weigh AI ethics, a generational backlash, and his proposed AI-disclosure header for the directory.

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Wes Theron published a new training video and you can learn how to customize your site’s navigation menus with AI. Once your site is connected, you describe the change and the agent makes it. You’ll learn to add a page to your header, remove an outdated link, and reorder items. It also covers building dropdown menus under an unclickable parent, adding a footer menu, and linking to blog categories. The point: clear menus help visitors find what matters.

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Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

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Ajit Bohra and the LUBUS team released Color Palette Block 2.0, a free plugin for building and sharing color palettes in the block editor. It grew out of their own client and internal documentation needs. It’s handy for brand kits, design systems, and style guides. You add swatches manually, pull from your theme, or generate random ones. Pick from four display styles—Square, Polaroid, Circle, or Droplet—and copy each color as HEX, RGB, HSL, or a CSS variable.

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Justin Tadlock shares a playful tutorial on registering custom icons for WordPress 7.0’s new Icon block. Since the public registration API won’t land until 7.1, you’ll learn a clever workaround using PHP Reflection to reach the protected WP_Icons_Registry::register() method, bundling SVGs in your theme through an Icon enum and registrar class. Built on work by Ryan Welcher and Nick Diego, it’s educational fun—not for production, where Nick’s Icon Block plugin still does the job properly.

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“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2025”
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. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. 

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The previous years are also available:
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

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Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.

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Casey Burridge introduced Block MCP, GravityKit’s open-source WordPress MCP server. The problem it solves is familiar: existing MCPs treat a post as one HTML blob, so AI edits strip block markers and break your layout. Block MCP exposes each block as an addressable unit with a stable ID. Your agent can make surgical edits, batch up to 50 changes atomically, and undo any of them. In their tests across Claude models, only Block MCP worked reliably.

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Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.

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\"\"
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Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience.

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Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.

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For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com

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Featured Image:

\n\n\n\n\n
\";s: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, 05 Jun 2026 23:14:00 +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:17;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:10:\"Matt: WCEU\";s: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:23:\"https://ma.tt/?p=152996\";s: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:27:\"https://ma.tt/2026/06/wceu/\";s: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:1597:\"

Cześć wszystkim, Kraków… I made the call not to fly to Poland for WordCamp Europe. I’m very sorry for the last-minute notice; I was really hoping to make it. I’m okay, but I want to stay close to loved ones going through difficult times.

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Seeing the pictures from Contributor Day warms my heart.

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\"\"
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Bardzo za Wami tęsknię. I miss you dearly.

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The Protect The Shire post on W.org contains what I planned to talk about, and Mary Hubbard and Matías Ventura will lead the Q&A keynote at the end.

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I’ll watch all the sessions so if any WordCamp speakers would like feedback on their talk, just fill out this form, and I’ll write something up and message it to you on the .org Slack. 

\";s: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, 05 Jun 2026 19:07:24 +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:18;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:\"WordPress.org blog: Protect The Shire\";s: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=20783\";s: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:39:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/06/pts/\";s: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:7893:\"

tl;dr: Temporary 24-hour cooldown period for plugin/theme releases before auto-updates. AI can give defenders an edge. We want to secure all 78K plugins and themes on WordPress.org.

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One of the things we’ve always striven to do as the developers of WordPress is to work harder so you don’t have to; we take technology that’s complex or inaccessible and make it available to everyone, running in as many environments as possible. It’s the Open Source way.

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Just last December there was a step-change in coding ability that rocked many developers, and since April’s reveal of Mythos, security activity has kicked into high gear. A few days ago, Chrome shipped a release with 429 security fixes! The threats and opportunities of these new capabilities inspired us to kick off an initiative we call Protect The Shire (hat tip J. R. R. Tolkien) with the aim of using our best minds and the infrastructure of WordPress.org to make all code in our directories and repositories as secure as possible.

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Much of this work was and will remain behind the scenes, and we hope its success is defined mostly by what doesn’t happen. However, while we reckon with our newfound powers, we need to make space for review.

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To Update or Not

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WordPress core updates go through multiple people and layers of review before they go out, a process we’ve polished to a high art in the 18 years since we introduced one-click upgrades in 2.7 “Coltrane.”

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Core is solid, and I’m so proud that over 50% of all WordPress sites have upgraded to 7.0 within two weeks! That’s the result of an unimaginable amount of work across thousands of hosts, developers, and teams across WordPress.org. We’ve pushed hard to make upgrades happen automagically, and as fast as possible.

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We’re in a liminal period now, and I believe 2026 will be a year of tension between two approaches: updating as quickly as possible to stay secure, and holding back on updating to stay secure.

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We’ve seen clever and dangerous supply chain attacks across the npm, PyPI, GitHub, and RubyGems ecosystems, and we even had our own mini-version with the Essential Plugins debacle, where good plugins were unknowingly sold to a new author who had malicious intent.

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How to balance security updates and securing updates?

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Mirkwood or the Wild West?

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Everyone knows the fun of WordPress is in its 78k+ plugins and themes. We have a rigorous, human-powered review process for theme and plugin submissions, but once you’re published in the directory, you’re on your own. Our update system currently distributes every plugin and theme release as soon as a developer presses the button. That’s what keeps the directory as robust as WordPress itself. There were over 3,000 commits to the plugin repository yesterday!

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For now, each new plugin release will wait up to 24 hours before being distributed through auto-updates. This will give everyone, including a new Wapuu we call Gandalf, a chance to review changes.

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I expect 24 hours could be reduced to minutes as the process evolves, but we’ll err on the side of caution while AI models are advancing so rapidly.

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Our plugin review team seems superhuman, but still needs to sleep. But bots don’t, and a depth of review that seemed unimaginable before is now a matter of time and tokens.

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The security capabilities of AI are going to make the world weird and take a lot of our focus in the next few months, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

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Our Shire Is Special

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There’s no shortage of ways to find, install, and update plugins and themes for WordPress. For those who choose WordPress.org, though, we want to make sure that it feels safe and secure. That means staying strict about some things—like guidelines and Open Source licenses—while also remaining flexible enough to allow solo hackers, community projects, and for-profit commercial plugins and themes to thrive in our ecosystem.

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GitHub stars may get the hype, but if you add up all the numbers in our plugin directory, it’s over 400M installs. There are 78k+ extensions, many from solo devs, installed on over a million sites each! Now we need to learn from the best parts of GitHub and make that available to every developer on WordPress.org.

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Just because WordPress plugins have a reputation for vulnerabilities is no reason not to aim for the same security and stability we’ve achieved in core. We’ve done the impossible a few times already in our journey from a b2/cafelog fork to where we are today.

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Freedom and security are not zero-sum. With Open Source, we can show how security comes from transparency, not obscurity. Collaboration over competition. What we accomplish when we come together is nothing short of incredible. Success always attracts bad actors, but we grow stronger through every adversity.

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The scale of WordPress can make some challenges seem too big to tackle, but given time, there is no problem that’s insurmountable. I’m reminded of the story behind the title of Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird:

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Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report written on birds that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books about birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

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More to come, stay tuned. I wish everyone in Kraków at WordCamp Europe the best and hope to see you soon!

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Transcript
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[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.

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Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, how AI is exposing hidden threats is WordPress plugin updates.

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If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.

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If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact forward slash jukebox and use the form there.

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So on the podcast today we have Austin Ginder. Austin has been involved in the WordPress ecosystem since 2010, and since 2014 has run Anchor Hosting, a business that manages thousands of WordPress websites. While he’s a developer and automation enthusiast at heart, in recent months Austin has found himself at the forefront of a burgeoning crisis in WordPress, security supply chain attacks targeting plugins.

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A chance discovery during a malware cleanup on a client’s site, propelled Austin into what would become a wider investigation of plugin vulnerabilities. What he uncovered is both alarming and timely. Bad actors aren’t just hacking sites directly, but are instead infiltrating the supply chain, either by purchasing plugin companies and weaponising them, or by hijacking plugins and pushing out malicious updates. These attacks are subtle, often shifting plugin update servers away from wordpress.org to rogue channels where malware can be distributed, leaving end users in the dark, and their sites at risk.

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We trace Austin’s journey from accidental security investigator to creator of the WP Beacon Project, a resource aimed at tracking, documenting, and alerting the WordPress community to known supply chain attacks.

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He shares how AI tools have radically changed what’s possible in threat detection and forensics, enabling individuals, and hopefully someday, the larger hosting providers to identify patterns and root causes behind widespread infections.

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We get into case studies of specific plugins compromised in recent months, the challenges of auditing over 60,000 plugins in the wordpress.org repo, and the complexities of stopping these attacks once malicious code is in the wild. Austin also discusses his hopes for greater collaboration with hosts and security researchers aiming for better automated monitoring and response.

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If you manage WordPress websites, create plugins, or just care about the future of open source security, this episode is for you.

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If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.

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And so without further delay, I bring you Austin Ginder.

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I am joined on the podcast by Austin Ginder. Hello, Austin.

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[00:03:40] Austin Ginder: Hey, good to meet you.

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[00:03:41] Nathan Wrigley: Very nice to meet you too. I was put in Austin’s way by I think Courtney Robertson.

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Thank you Courtney for that because, on a different podcast, which I do, we were talking about an item, which is very much in the news at the moment. It’s all to do with plugins and security. And whenever I say security, any of the people that I have on the podcast, I feel it’s pretty important that person gets a chance to stamp their credentials into the podcast about themselves. Because it’s one of those areas where a little bit of knowledge can go a long way. Tell us about your background, WordPress hosting, security, those kind of things.

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[00:04:16] Austin Ginder: Sure. So I’m a developer, first off. I’ve been running a WordPress hosting service since 2014, and I’ve been working in the WordPress space since 2010. A long timer. I love automation. WPCLI commands, bash scripts. I’m in the weeds on a technical basis.

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But in terms of security, I wouldn’t call myself a security expert, which is ironic for this conversation because of some of the things I’ve been finding over the last month or so. And it’s all thanks to AI. AI has been my friend. It’s just right place, right time, getting lucky and also just a mix of everything is changing right now in the world.

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[00:04:56] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Thank you for that. So as you’re about to hear, we’re not gonna be talking at from the perspective of Austin demonstrates how to fix a particular challenge in WordPress. It’s much more of a general thing, and an alert really. It’s a bit of a call to action about a problem which has been systemic in the WordPress ecosystem, well, forever really, since I guess, plugins came along.

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And this is all about really change of ownership of plugins, and I could do a job of trying to describe the scenario here, but do you want to just run through what you’ve discovered in the last few weeks, and the three or four incidents that you’ve uncovered and what they mean and how they’ve come about?

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[00:05:37] Austin Ginder: Yeah. So in particular, we’re talking about supply chain attacks, and a supply chain attack is a different kind of attack. It’s not a direct, my site got infected with malware or something like that. It runs a little bit more deeper. It’s a scenario where either it can happen a couple different ways.

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A hacker might get control over the plugin repo itself, maybe a credential breach, where they sign in and they are acting as the author, and they push out bad code. As a user, you just update your plugin and you don’t realise you’re updating to something that’s harmful for your website.

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So that’s one scenario. The other scenario which is crazy to me, but like hackers literally buying companies and then weaponizing the plugins themselves and distributing them through the official channels. So that’s the big story that I was covering this last month. That is just what possesses someone to spend six figures to buy a suite of plugins and then weaponize them and try to get away with it? No, that can’t happen.

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[00:06:42] Nathan Wrigley: Except, it does. So let me just reiterate what’s going on there. So if you’ve been to the wordpress.org repository, or indeed you’ve downloaded plugins from third party vendors, maybe a pro version of a plugin or what have you. Usually there is some aspect of the WordPress admin UI, which enables that plugin to be updated by clicking a link or perhaps automated, the update will happen.

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Increasingly, I think people are being, have been encouraged to click enable automatic updates. So it just ticks over in the background. Perhaps while you’re asleep, it gets updated to the latest version. This in a universe occupied only by honest people would be absolutely fine. We’d have no problem that.

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However, the scenario that you are describing is that kind of invisibly it’s entirely possible for somebody to sell their plugin or indeed maybe even have their plugin repo hijacked in some way. But let’s go with the sell their plugin scenario, because that’s the easiest one to get a hold of. Sell it to somebody.

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Obviously, I would imagine in most cases, assuming that person is a good actor, is just going to carry on doing the nice things that the plugin does, updating the code, and doing security updates and what have you. However, there is zero guardrail to stop them putting whatever they want into the plugin.

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And so overnight, a plugin which has been working for a decade or more, doing its job, now suddenly is masquerading. And it may be that the functionality of the plugin is also still there. It’s not like suddenly the plugin just stops working, or it’s really obvious what’s going on. It may be that just a few lines of code have been adapted, modified, there’s some backdoor smuggled in to the plugin. An end user would never know that this was going on. Have I summed that up? Is that about where we’re at?

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[00:08:35] Austin Ginder: Yeah, these are bad actors trying to hide themselves. They’re sneaky. They don’t do things that are obvious. Like they’re not just uploading malware to WordPress plugin repo. What they’ll do instead is they might slip a third party updater, which is against the guidelines, clearly. But they can do it a little bit more sneaky.

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So if they can get a third party uploader put into their plugin, then they can actually hijack the plugin. Meaning you download a plugin from wordpress.org, and you run auto updates, and it updates not from the wordpress.org version to the newest wordpress.org version. It offloads to their own compromised update channel.

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And then once it’s on the update channel, wordpress.org has zero visibility, and you’re just running a hijacked plugin and you don’t even know it. Unless you go in and you run a verify command, from the command line or, you’re scanning for things like this. And then after they get the plugin hijacked, that’s when they compromise your site.

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They could do SEO spam attacks, or display ads, or poison the search results from Google’s perspective. Many different things that they do to try to recoup their money in the investment.

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[00:09:50] Nathan Wrigley: So let me just run that by you again. So just to make sure I’ve understood. So in this scenario, the plugin, it is like a one time thing in a way, but we’ll explore that as well in a moment. The plugin is acquired by somebody else and potentially some of the behaviour that you’ve seen is that the only part of the plugin that they modify is the location of the update server.

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Now, typically that would’ve been over at wordpress.org, and every time you click the update button, you are receiving the repo version of it. However, this updated version will then offload to a third party server somewhere. And at that moment, wordpress.org loses all visibility of what’s going on. As far as they’re aware nothing has happened.

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You are now just getting updates from elsewhere. You would never see anything. But obviously whatever payload they wish to put into that plugin is completely invisible to wordpress.org.

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Now, I suppose the wordpress.org version, there’d be a telltale sign that this was happening because there would be new and modified code to indicate, oh, look, there’s a third party server in play here. But WordPress org has no visibility into what the malicious code being updated onto your website is. Again, is that about where we’re at?

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[00:11:07] Austin Ginder: Yeah. Everything on wordpress.org is open source. Even the platform itself is open source, so you can see the full code, how everything operates there. And in addition to that, all of the plugin activity happens on SVN, which is like the raw pipeline.

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So all of the data is there and available to anyone to go in and audit the data, but it’s, it’s an after the fact situation. Like after a situation happens, you can go back to the raw data and run a full audit to try to piece together all these missing pieces. And all these missing pieces would’ve been impossible to correlate together if it wouldn’t be for AI. Like now we have a superpower where we could just run AI through it all. If we feed it the right points, we can start to make the correlation after the fact as to what happened.

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[00:11:59] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, so essentially what you are saying, I think, is that the work of checking this, prior to AI, let’s go with that, it was just too humanly intensive. There were 60 plus thousand plugins on the wordpress.org repo, going back and having a human inspect every single update, every single file, every line of code is, as you can imagine, a completely unrealistic process.

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However, now AI really its superpower is its capacity to take a giant corpus of data, and then do things with that data. It’s almost like it can capture the entirety of the internet in one hit. And so that’s what’s enabled you to weed out this sort of stuff.

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I have to ask from a personal point of view, why are you doing this? And I don’t mean that the way it sounds, because obviously it’s philanthropic. I’m extremely grateful that you are doing this. But how did you end up taking this on as a, I don’t know, a hobby, a pet project, a sideline?

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[00:12:59] Austin Ginder: This is completely accidental, right? The backstory is in February, I saw a huge shift at my own customers websites, where sites that have been secure for years and years, all of a sudden was getting malware. The short version of it is while I was doing some malware cleanup for a customer, I uncovered one of these big back doors, and it was just like going through the process.

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So malware cleanup before AI was always a little bit of a dicey thing. You can check all the boxes, make sure everything looks good, but you never had the certainty that it was all a hundred percent clean. Did I miss something? But with AI it’s very easy to do a thorough, in depth, investigation.

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How did this happen? Where did it come from? Is my site actually clean now? It just crawls over all the files with Claude Code and other tools, and it gives you a nice report. When I had some recent, my own customers that got malware, and I ran through the forensics level style that AI can give, it uncovered some things that made me question, maybe I should look upstream, maybe I should look at wordpress.org. And I started to feed that into the AI and sure enough, there was something there and it was story worthy.

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[00:14:13] Nathan Wrigley: So presumably that was then bound to a particular plugin. So your customer, something went wrong, you pointed the AI at it, it gave you a report, pointed you to the wordpress.org repo. And that in theory could have been the end of that. You clean up your client website and move on.

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But it sounds like this became much more than that, because over the intervening days and weeks, you found that this was alarmingly, not just a one-off. This was a pattern. And I think the last time I was reading about this, I think you’d found four. I don’t know if four plugins is now up into some other figure or not, but certainly at the time I was reading you’d found four plugins with exactly the same strategy. I don’t know if they were from the same vendor or what have you. Just tell us where you’re at in the middle of May 2026.

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[00:15:07] Austin Ginder: Yeah, so I’ve now published four more or less in depth research. Now, I wasn’t the sole finder of all these, but I was the one who actually pointed the AI at it, and got to the root of it. And it uncovered some other things that previous folks hadn’t found. So the crazy thing is all four situations are completely different, and that’s the wild thing.

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So the one was, the source was the WordPress Plugin Team. So they saw there was some bad activity happening, with a set of the Essential Plugins package. So that’s like a 30 plus plugins. So they closed down all the plugins. They issued an alert, Hey, your site might be compromised. And they actually put code in the patch of the plugins that would check the wp-config file, was it tampered with by the plugin authors themselves?

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So one of my customers saw the notice flagged me. I scanned it, saw it was compromised, and then that’s when I uncovered how big of a deal it was, the Essential Plugins. It was actually a purchase of a company. That was just one of them.

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The other three situations, again it’s all kind of part, it stems back to me overhauling my security system for my clients. The other one was flagged by a new security feature I was implementing where I check all of my customers JavaScript embeds.

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I’m basically scanning changes over time, hoping to catch like a credit card skimmer, or something else like that for my own customers. Well one of them came back. Something’s weird. It was a widget logic plugin that was embedding some weird sports JavaScript code for one of my sites. And I kept digging and digging into it, and sure enough, it was another supply chain attack on that particular plugin.

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So, in all these instances, the WordPress Plugin Team has been fantastic. Very responsive and closing down the plugin, and applying patches, and getting the out there. Yeah, it’s weird. I had no plans to building something like this. I just stumbled upon it and every situation was a different story.

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The last one I’ll share is, I was messing around with this idea that, I wonder if I could use AI to hunt through my own customer’s plugins to detect plugins that are running different versions of the code base. You might have Jetpack installed with the latest version, but maybe there’s a variant version Jetpack’s running. That’s the core idea, or the core concept.

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So I built this tool with AI to scan my own customers, and it found a variant version of the Quick Redirection Plugin installed. I’m like, what’s going on here? So I dig into it and I had 12 sites running a version of the plugin that wasn’t on wordpress.org. So then I threw it through AI. It told me the difference. And sure enough, like you had to keep digging to get actually get to the answer what happened.

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But that was a situation where many, the plugin author themselves offloaded most of their customers to a hijacked version. And my own customers years later were running a hijacked version. So I wasn’t directly searching for this stuff, it just came up, and then I’m like, after you get three of them, it’s alright, now I just wanna see if I can find one.

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So I built the scanner and while I was scanning the top 2000 WordPress sites, I found one, and it was active. It was active, meaning the plugin, it’s called Scroll To Top. It was wired in to 20,000 sites, but it wasn’t active. So a lot of these bad actors, they will take their time, get a plugin that’s compromised in a lot of people’s sites, and then when the moment’s right, pull a trigger. And then at that point they can start to flow in bad content or SEO and actually do the compromise.

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The one that I actually found was a compromise scenario, from what I can tell, the bad actor hadn’t actually pulled the trigger yet. So it was a success story.

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[00:19:13] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that is really, kind of makes it more alarming in a sense, doesn’t it? Because once I suppose there’s an active exploit, and people are beginning to report what’s going on here? There’s some strange behaviour on a website, I presume at that point eyeballs will fall on what’s going on and work will be done.

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However, as you’ve just described maybe months, weeks, possibly years, a plugin can have incredible functionality. It might gain widespread adoption, because it’s doing this one thing particularly well. Just with this dormant code sitting there waiting for the moment that’s opportune. Maybe there’s some scenario in the real world in which it will become a timely thing to be able to deploy that.

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That’s really alarming, isn’t it? Because who knows how many websites are currently sitting there with as yet undiscovered, back doors, or problems that we simply don’t know about because they haven’t been triggered? Yeah, that one is really alarming.

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Austin, I’m going to give you a little opportunity because you keep saying my clients, and I don’t think we painted the context of that. Just tell us a little bit about what you do and how that aligns you to have, have an eyeball on so many websites. I think currently, when you say my clients, I think it’s true to say that you’ve got something in the order of 3000 websites that you manage. Now, if you were building those as client websites, that’s a lot of clients. Just tell us what it is that you do, and that might widen the debate a little bit.

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[00:20:39] Austin Ginder: No, I don’t do consulting work anymore. So back in 2014, I transitioned into web hosting full-time. I run Anchor Hosting, and my business is, it’s a pretty simple business model. I resell other managed WordPress hosting services, and provide all of the support and maintenance on top of it.

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So I primarily use web hosts like Kinsta and Rocket.net. They are larger companies. They have a lot more eyeballs on it. I like to layer as many layers between me and the web host infrastructure as I can, so that I can actually solve what I want to solve. And that’s the WordPress maintenance part.

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So I have a little bit more visibility than some. So that is more unique position than most. And I actually would say if there’s any takeaway from this conversation, the takeaway is any hosting company out there that has more data than me, they are sitting on a gold mine and they don’t know it.

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Because any site that gets malware, that is the gold. If you can point AI at every malware situation or attack, you can sometimes back channel it to figure out where it actually happened, and start to paint a bigger picture. I would love to get my hands on like a web host that has millions of sites and run some scans, because that’s how you’re going to discover it, weed it out.

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[00:21:59] Nathan Wrigley: And there’s maybe patterns going on. I don’t suppose every hacker of WordPress plugins is some kind of evil genius. They might just be, I think what’s often called script kiddies. The idea being that they are taking templates and copying and pasting these ideas far and wide.

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And therefore I suppose patterns would emerge and maybe as you said, some of these larger hosts would be able to spot that pattern, and get out in front of these different problems which have, as yet, been undetected.

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Okay, so you’ve then taken an additional step. You’ve got yourself a URL, wpbeacon.io. Dear listener, as is always the case, anything that we mention today, so the links to the articles which Austin has written, I will put those in the show notes, but also I’ll link to wpbeacon.io. Just tell us a little bit about that and that, how that’s helping the community.

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[00:22:52] Austin Ginder: So WP Beacon was again, an idea I threw together last month. Not a whole lot of planning. But it was just like, okay, I’ve got three of these now. These are basically in depth investigations. Where do you put it? Because this is different than a typical vulnerability database. Like a vulnerability database is really good about endeavour to find bad code.

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This is not bad code, this is bad actors. They’re two completely different problems. So I built WP Beacon as like my place to put all these findings. And the idea is actually have it be a legitimate feed for other folks, like another metric or another vulnerability database, but for supply chain attacks in particular.

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[00:23:39] Nathan Wrigley: And so I suppose the idea being that people who are, I mean obviously if you’ve got one WordPress website, it’s fairly unlikely that you’ll come across WP Beacon, because you’re not in the business of being in the community or what have you. But if you are somebody that’s, I don’t know, managing multiple clients, half a dozen or what have you’re in the WordPress space, this is the kind of thing you might want to know about.

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I suppose you are then hoping to be some sort of gatekeeper of knowledge around whether a supply chain attack has occurred. So let’s say for example, I’m considering putting a new plugin in. I find something on the wordpress.org repo, and it looks fine. Everything about it is screaming, yes, install me. I would go over to WP Beacon. I see that you’ve got a search on the homepage. There’s a list of the number of installations that have been covered, authors, tracked plugins that are being watched and what have you. I would be able to, in some way, interact with that website and gain an understanding of, yep, we’ve got nothing on them. Everything looks fine, or no, hold on, have a second thought. This thing happened last month. Is that again? Is that kind of what’s going on there?

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[00:24:45] Austin Ginder: I think end users might find value in it, but I think the better target audience is, this is missing security research that security people don’t have. I see it as that. It’s like when I do a report and I put it up on WP Beacon, those identifiers of these bad actors can then be, action can be taken on that by real legitimate security people.

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So I have a friend, his name’s Sal. He used to work at Kinsta. So when I was dealing with one of these cleanups, I was messaging him privately. I’m like, hey, Sal, look what I found. And he is oh, gimme a second. I’m going take their compromise server offline. I’m like, what do you mean? So he whips it out and he gets their domain suspended, website taken offline. And this is like the crucial gap, right?

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The research person wants to make people’s site safe. So if you’re out there and you’ve got a hijacked plugin installed and you don’t know about it, you need a research person, and a security person, to take care of the issue for you. And that is like taking down their infrastructure, taking down the bad actors infrastructure.

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[00:25:51] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, that is interesting, yeah.

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[00:25:53] Austin Ginder: My goal of WP Beacon is just like, this stuff needs to be more visible. We need to be drafting and documenting this is how the supply chain attack happened in this case. And here is all of the identifiers for the security firms to go for, and take down their infrastructure. To give some sort of incentive that like this kind of behaviour isn’t going to be tolerated or a signal to the bad actors like, we’re coming for you. We’re going to find you, we’re going to weed you out.

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[00:26:21] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, so that’s interesting. So connections with hosting companies would certainly be beneficial, wouldn’t it? Because let’s say a bunch of hosting companies are pointing their staff at the WP Beacon data, then you could probably satisfy, I don’t know, 60, 70, 80% of WordPress instal by communicating with the bigger hosts. Because I imagine that’s where the majority of WordPress websites occur. I presume another angle would be the .org repo itself. The team over there, the Plugin Review Team and the Security Team and what have you.

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One ray of light, I suppose is that if you fix this, then you have fixed it. Whereas a lot of security problems keep coming back. Well, no, that’s not entirely true, is it? Having said all of that, I was fairly confidently thinking if you can, if you can get the plugin turned off so that it can’t be installed anymore, that’s one thing. If you can switch off the supply chain server, that’s another thing. But there’s going to be loads of different scenarios. It might be that they don’t have a supply chain server. It might be that they’re just defacing your website. And how do we disable that that particular functionality and the plugin?

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I believe that wordpress.org has in rare situations deployed the, we will overwrite your plugin. I don’t know how to describe that, but I have a memory that in the past, something so catastrophic had happened inside of a wordpress.org repo, that there is the capacity for WordPress to say, okay, we’re taking command here, and we’re going to rewrite your plugins. I don’t think that’s very common, but I think that is something that can be done.

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[00:27:59] Austin Ginder: In these situations, that’s exactly what they did. They reverted a patch, closed down the repos, and their patch is what stands.

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[00:28:08] Nathan Wrigley: Right.

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[00:28:09] Austin Ginder: So I think a lot of what my, what I’m trying to do is complimentary to what everyone else is doing. And I think it’s a little bit more, it’s an unexplored area, what WP Beacon is exploring. We have all this data, let’s see what we can get out of it.

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But I do share your optimism, and also I would love this to just be a solved problem, and six months later we shut down WP Beacon, like it’s not even needed. But that’s just not how the world works, right? What I do hope will come from this is the bad actors that have been operating for years, 10 plus years, we make it harder for them to operate. I think that would be a more realistic success story of this project.

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One of the bigger findings I found this past week, in the last few days, is this bad operator he’s been operating for the last 13 years. And what happens is his accounts get shut down, his plugins get shut down, and he just tries again. He opens up new accounts, new plugins, and he just keeps trying. We’ve got to make it a little bit harder for them.

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[00:29:09] Nathan Wrigley: And also what’s really interesting there is that this is not, for you at least anyway, this doesn’t feel like a finished story. This kind of feels like, for you, now that you’ve put yourself in this seat, if you like, it feels each week possibly something new will be coming along, something that you’ve explored? Is that the case? I would like for you to say no at this point, no, there’s nothing new happening, but I the feeling that there’s quite a lot that you are uncovering on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.

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[00:29:37] Austin Ginder: I do think it’s going to be harder and harder to find interesting things based on the raw data, using my technique of just going through and auditing things? That’s a good thing, right? If it’s harder to uncover these problems, that’s a positive indication that something’s happening.

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So I think I’ve been extremely lucky by reverse engineering a problem. Like, how does the malware get here? Oh, okay. So then figuring out that there’s a bigger issue at hand. And I also think it’s one of those scenarios that we all think people are searching through the data, but they aren’t. I’ve got a $200 month Claude Code subscription, and I can search through the data with that. It’s actually feasible for individuals to start auditing the data and to get more eyeballs on this in a way that would never been possible before.

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Yeah, I would encourage people to think bigger. If you’re an individual, you can take your site, download a backup and run it through Claude Code and do a file by file audit. It might take a few, Claude doesn’t like to do this, but it might take a few wranglings. No, look every line of code and tell me what you see. Do you see vulnerabilities? Do you see malware? Do you see any harmful things there? And an individual can do this, and they can get a very high level detailed report unique for their site.

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[00:30:55] Nathan Wrigley: That’s interesting advice. Maybe in the future, some of the pain that you’ve been through with Claude trying to get it to behave in the way that you expect, maybe that be interesting data to put out? What are the prompts which you’ve seen that work and so on?

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One thing which dawns on me, and I don’t really have the answer to this, because the wordpress.org repo, for good reason, has been wide open. What I mean by that is, lots of people can submit code. You don’t necessarily have to have a certain type of credential, or be a certain type of business and so on.

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However, if you look out there in the broader tech landscape, things like, I don’t know, the Mac App Store or the iOS App Store or Google’s Play Store. I wonder what their approach is to firstly the onboarding of new plugin developers. But then what the inspection is for updates. When code comes through and it’s purporting to make a minor change to a particular app on your phone, what is being done there?

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And I’m guessing that in the WordPress space, the fact that it’s run often by volunteers means that those kind of things are just going to be different. And perhaps those things need to be looked at. There needs to be potentially some more friction that’s added, or some more steps. And I know that a lot of work has been done by the Plugin Review Team to automate as much of that as possible, and to put some steps in place to make it so that those submissions get inspected in a more timely way. But I don’t have an answer. I’m certainly no expert. But it would be curious to see if there’s any lessons to be learned from the broader tech community.

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[00:32:30] Austin Ginder: Obviously the openness of WordPress is its power. App Store versus Android, right, kind of comparison? We’re more open source. You could just do what you want. There’s pros and cons, right? So how do we make what we have more safe? And I think the answer to that is everything needs a hundred percent code audited.

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How do we get there as quick as possible? That’s a token question. Like, how many tokens can we spend to audit everything? I have fairly good coverage now for my own customer base. What I do is whatever leftover usage I have, I’m auditing all of my plugins. And I do it in a way that’s efficient, meaning I only audit this one plugin version once. That gets assigned to a hash, a unique hash. Then I know, oh, okay, so all of my sites using that same variant are covered.

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So a hundred percent code coverage is what we need to do now. And then long term, also in concurrently, we need to start auditing any changes that come over the wire. It’s a lot, right? Like wordpress.org is very popular. There’s a lot of code, but I do think it’s in a realm of realistic. If you are able to shave out a lot of the noise, we don’t have to audit everything. We don’t have to see every CSS file you’re changing, or image you’re changing. But we do have to look over every PHP line, every JavaScript line, that there’s nothing harmful in there. And then eventually we’ll start to catch things.

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And I don’t think it’s necessarily a one off thing. We don’t have to wait around for Automattic to come up with a solution. The data is out there. Anyone with a laptop and a subscription could just create a mirror and see, what changed over the last, day, and then start auditing that. I think people think it’s too impossible.

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[00:34:18] Nathan Wrigley: It feels like a large cliff that you’re staring at, at the beginning of this. And certainly in the past before AI, that cliff was, I imagine, more or less impenetrable But now the way that you’ve described, perhaps AI can be co-opted to do a lot of this work for us?

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I wonder what you’ve got, if you’ve got any thoughts on the sort of permissions system. So I know that other, let’s say CMSs and certainly devices like Android devices and iOS devices, they come with permissions based systems. So for example, this code, it’s allowed access to the root file structure. Or it’s allowed access to the camera, or whatever it may be.

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And I know that there’s been debate in the WordPress ecosystem recently about whether something like that would be a good idea. At the moment, plugins, all bets are off. If you put a plugin in, it’s more or less got access to anything on your WordPress website.

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That’s an absolute strength of WordPress because it enables anybody to do anything. But I suppose given that it can enable any anybody to do anything, it also prevents a very large threat surface as well. I don’t really have the answer to that. I just think that’s a curious thing to raise and see if you’ve got any thoughts.

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[00:35:29] Austin Ginder: I guess my initial thought is I don’t necessarily want my WordPress site to feel like my laptop, where I’m constantly clicking things.

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[00:35:35] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Grant permission for this.

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[00:35:38] Austin Ginder: I don’t know what the solution is either. I think some of those ideas are great when you’re thinking about making something from scratch, but they are not as relevant when you’ve already have an existing ecosystem. Like you can’t, I would think it’d be very hard to bring some of those concepts into WordPress at this point. We’re already past that.

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[00:35:59] Nathan Wrigley: That ship has definitely sailed.

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[00:36:00] Austin Ginder: I want to be in the Wild West. I want to be able to code and do what I want to do. And especially with AI. If I got an idea, I just want AI to go to town, write me up the plugin to my spec, and not have to deal with some of those extra safeguards.

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It’d be great if we could find some way to make things more secure from an architectural standpoint, but that’s an architecture problem probably best suited for a new project.

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[00:36:22] Nathan Wrigley: The truth is that this will never, ever be solved. I mean security problems online. There will be a no point in the future at which everything is always safe, because humans are ingenious, and there are really credible, credible is the wrong word. There are ways to make money, or to make it worthwhile for the bad actors to be doing the bad things. And so long as those incentives exist, there will be people trying to hijack websites, undermine the security of your computer or phone or whatever it may be. But this is certainly an interesting one.

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And it’s such a shame because with the benefit of hindsight, this was so obvious, and yet it hasn’t been a news story. Maybe it has in the past, I’ve certainly not come across it. But this whole supply chain thing is fairly new to me, and fairly alarming in the simplicity of deployment.

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You literally purchase, or somehow get hold of, a popular plugin, not necessarily even a popular plugin, a plugin. And then instantaneously every one of those websites is up for grabs in whichever way you would like to grab it. Definitely something that the WordPress community’s going to have to wrangle with.

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Okay. I think we’ve hit the sweet spot in terms of time Austin. If it’s all right with you, we will wrap it up there. However, before we go, do you just want to drop a few little bits about where people could contact you? I am more or less certain that somebody listening to this podcast will have thoughts for you about getting in touch, helping out, or what have you. So tell us where you can be found.

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[00:37:55] Austin Ginder: You can find me just by searching for my name, Austin Ginder. There’s not many Ginders. I’m on X, that’s my main feed. And you can also read along on anchor.host. I do blog posts there pretty regularly.

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[00:38:09] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. In which case I will just point everybody to the wptavern.com website. If you go and use the search feature, search for Austin Ginder. Austin, spelled in the usual way. Ginder, G-I-N-D-E-R. You’ll find the episode and anything that has been mentioned, any links or what have you, we will link to there.

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So thank you for chatting to me today about what I wish didn’t exist, but it does exist. Austin, thank you so much.

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[00:38:34] Austin Ginder: Thank you. This was a pleasure.

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On the podcast today we have Austin Ginder.

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Austin has been involved in the WordPress ecosystem since 2010, and since 2014 has run Anchor Hosting, a business that manages thousands of WordPress websites. While he’s a developer and automation enthusiast at heart, in recent months Austin has found himself at the forefront of a burgeoning crisis in WordPress security, supply chain attacks targeting plugins.

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A chance discovery during a malware cleanup on a client’s site propelled Austin into what would become a wider investigation of plugin vulnerabilities. What he uncovered is both alarming and timely, bad actors aren’t just hacking sites directly, but are instead infiltrating the supply chain, either by purchasing plugin companies and weaponising them, or by hijacking plugins and pushing out malicious updates. These attacks are subtle, often shifting plugin update servers away from WordPress.org to rogue channels where malware can be quietly distributed, leaving end users in the dark and their sites at risk.

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We trace Austin’s journey from accidental security investigator to creator of the WP Beacon project, a resource aimed at tracking, documenting, and alerting the WordPress community to known supply chain attacks. He shares how AI tools have radically changed what’s possible in threat detection and forensics, enabling individuals, and hopefully, someday, the larger hosting providers, to identify patterns and root causes behind widespread infections.

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We get into case studies of specific plugins compromised in recent months, the challenges of auditing over 60,000 plugins on the WordPress.org repo, and the complexities of stopping these attacks once malicious code is in the wild. Austin also discusses his hopes for greater collaboration with hosts and security researchers, aiming for better automated monitoring and response.

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If you manage WordPress websites, create plugins, or just care about the future of open source security, this episode is for you.

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Useful links

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 wordpress.org plugin repository

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Claude Code

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WordPress Plugin Review Team Handbook

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Anchor Hosting

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WP Beacon website

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Austin on X

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Spelling bees have gotten a lot more intense. How many of these do you know?

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\n

torrone, enthymeme, iguape, Denebola, fais-dodo, cywyddau, pohutukawa, monadnock, émeute, nannofossil, tongkang, Natchitoches, flaith, semele, rusell, sawder, campernelle, Nicol, Zamenis, Tharparkar, tlachtli, madoqua, retiarius, balintawak, tessaraconter, taurokathapsia, rapakivi, uayeb, paroemia, melengket, teraglin, homelyn, chikungunya, bromocriptine (cashaw)

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\n\n\n\n

Check out the first 90 seconds of this video where Shrey Parikh gets 32 out of 34 correct to become the 2026 champion. That speed round is called a “spell-off,” and so many of the kids are getting all the words right that they use it to break ties. Lots of words to press. \"🤠\"

\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 01 Jun 2026 18:44:51 +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:25;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:55:\"Akismet: Introducing the official Akismet Drupal module\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:28:\"http://akismet.com/?p=284770\";s: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:72:\"https://akismet.com/blog/introducing-the-official-akismet-drupal-module/\";s: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:3010:\"
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

The official module is here!

\n\n\n\n

For two decades, Akismet has done one thing exceptionally well: keep spam out of WordPress. Now we’re bringing that protection to Drupal. The official module is here, built by the team behind Akismet as a native Drupal module. It guards your site with the same spam-fighting service that keeps comments, contact forms, and signups clean across millions of sites.

\n

Protection where spammers actually go

\n

Spam doesn’t stop at comments, so neither does the module. Once it’s set up, Akismet checks the forms spammers target most:

\n\n

It runs every submission through Akismet in the background and quietly filters the spam out, so you see less of it and your visitors never notice it’s there.

\n

Built for Drupal, the Drupal way

\n

We wanted this to feel like a first-class part of your site, not a bolt-on. The module follows modern Drupal conventions, and plays nicely with other anti-spam tools like Honeypot and CAPTCHA if you already use them. It also adds invisible bot-detection signals that catch automated junk before it ever reaches the API.

\n

Tools for moderators

\n

For the spam worth a second look, there’s a dedicated review queue and one-click actions on every comment. Each correction goes back to Akismet, so the filter keeps getting smarter about your site. An admin dashboard shows your stats at a glance, and built-in GDPR export and erasure tools make honoring data requests straightforward.

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\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

Getting started

\n

You’ll need an Akismet API key. Grab one at akismet.com, then install the module with Composer:

\n
composer require drupal/akismet_antispam\n
\n

Enable it, add your key on the settings page, pick which forms to protect, and you’re done. The module needs Drupal 10.3+ and PHP 8.1+, and it’s released under the GPL. You’ll find the docs and issue queue on the Drupal.org project page.

\n

We’re excited to bring Akismet to the Drupal community. Give it a try and tell us what you think.

\n
\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Derek Springer\";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:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:11:\"Matt: Maybe\";s: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:23:\"https://ma.tt/?p=152910\";s: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:\"https://ma.tt/2026/05/maybe/\";s: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:1540:\"

I think I heard this parable somewhere in the 14 hours of Alan Watts lectures someone recommended to me in 2017, but here’s a beautiful 2-minute version I’d love to share for everyone going through something.

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\n\n
\n\n\n\n

I really appreciate the love and support I received after the WP23 post, and I do want to tell people I’m okay, the post was part catharsis and part giving voice to what I see and hear privately from people who aren’t public figures.

\n\n\n\n

On weekends, I like to look back on the week and find a silver lining or learning from things that were challenging. It helps reframe things. After it was reported that I had 21 hours of depositions over 3 days, people were like “wow that must have been terrible,” but actually, while the prep and process were intense, I found it energizing and I learned a ton. Will post more about that later. You never know where things will lead.

\";s: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, 31 May 2026 04:49:08 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s: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:27;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:68:\"Greg Ziółkowski: Research: The Workspace Boundary for Agent Memory\";s: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:26:\"https://gziolo.pl/?p=14864\";s: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:70:\"https://gziolo.pl/2026/05/30/research-workspace-boundary-agent-memory/\";s: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:365:\"A clear pattern is emerging in how major AI and workspace platforms handle long-term agent memory. The core idea is simple: store memory in the smallest durable workspace that users already recognize, such as a project, repository, document, workspace, namespace, or site. Then, rely on the platform’s existing permission system to decide who can access […]\";s: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, 30 May 2026 13:18:27 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:17:\"Greg Ziółkowski\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:46:\"Open Channels FM: The Human Touch in a Podcast\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2555093\";s: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:53:\"https://openchannels.fm/the-human-touch-in-a-podcast/\";s: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:177:\"In this commentary Bob emphasizes the importance of blending human creativity with AI tools in content creation, advocating for authentic, human-driven commentary in their work.\";s: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, 29 May 2026 09:21:21 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";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:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:81:\"Open Channels FM: Solving the Identity Challenge in Decentralized Social Networks\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2554033\";s: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:88:\"https://openchannels.fm/solving-the-identity-challenge-in-decentralized-social-networks/\";s: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:206:\"Decentralized social networks face challenges in identity resolution, complicating user interactions across platforms. Ensuring seamless experiences without centralization is the key to mainstream adoption.\";s: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, 29 May 2026 09:07:33 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";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:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:83:\"WordPress Foundation: Open Horizons in Action: What Our First Cohort Has Been Up To\";s: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:42:\"https://wordpressfoundation.org/?p=1483843\";s: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://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2026/open-horizons-in-action-what-our-first-cohort-has-been-up-to/\";s: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:8463:\"

Important note: Programs like Open Horizons are made possible by the WordPress Foundation. Ongoing legal action by WP Engine threatens the Foundation’s ability to continue supporting scholarships, education programs, and community initiatives like this one.

\n\n\n\n

A scholarship is supposed to do more than cover a flight. Here’s what the first round of Open Horizons recipients have done since they came home from WordCamp US 2025.

\n\n\n\n

When we launched the Open Horizons Scholarship in May 2025, the goal was simple: help WordPress contributors get to the events that would otherwise be out of reach..

\n\n\n\n

Six recipients made it to WordCamp US 2025 in Portland – coming from Malaysia, Guatemala, India, Costa Rica, and across the United States. Several months later, we took a look at what they’ve been contributing to the WordPress project since the conference.

\n\n\n\n

The short version: a lot.

\n\n\n\n

Here’s the long version.

\n\n\n\n

Mainul Kabir Aion \"🇲🇾\"

\n\n\n\n

Organizer · @aion11

\n\n\n\n

Mainul has stayed remarkably busy since WCUS. He’s been mentoring organizers at WordCamp Barishal in Bangladesh, wrote a post for the WordCamp Asia 2026 site, kept up with users in the plugin support forums, and shipped multiple plugin releases through the WordPress SVN repository. (He commits regularly enough that “regularly” probably undersells it.)

\n\n\n\n

Frank Calderon \"🇬🇹\"

\n\n\n\n

Volunteer · @fgcalderon

\n\n\n\n

Frank came back from WCUS and went all-in on the Central American WordPress community. He organized and spoke at WordCamp Guatemala 2025, attended WordCamp San José 2025, was confirmed as a speaker for WordPress Developer Day 2026 San José, and joined the organizing team for Women WordPress Day Guatemala 2026.

\n\n\n\n

If you’re keeping score: that’s four events Frank has shown up for, in the year since one event helped him show up.

\n\n\n\n

Bigul Malayi \"🇮🇳\"

\n\n\n\n

Volunteer · @mbigul

\n\n\n\n

Bigul has contributed across just about every WordPress project that takes contributions. He joined the Photos team at WordCamp Asia 2026 Contributor Day, has been steady on translate.wordpress.org (dozens of strings translated and reviewed in recent weeks), and has uploaded 3,187 photos to the WordPress Photo Directory.

\n\n\n\n

Yes, three thousand one hundred and eighty-seven. We checked twice.

\n\n\n\n

Kinjal Dalwadi \"🇮🇳\"

\n\n\n\n

Volunteer · @kinjaldalwadi

\n\n\n\n

Kinjal has kept up consistent translation work on translate.wordpress.org in the months since WCUS; suggesting, translating, and reviewing strings on an ongoing basis, with her most recent activity just days before we wrote this post.

\n\n\n\n

It’s the kind of quiet, steady contribution that makes WordPress usable in dozens of languages, and it’s exactly the long-term commitment we hoped to see.

\n\n\n\n

Kelly Choyce-Dwan \"🇺🇸\"

\n\n\n\n

Organizer · @ryelle

\n\n\n\n

Kelly’s contributions span Core, Gutenberg, and community infrastructure all at once. Since WCUS, she has authored the Call for Organizers post for WordCamp US 2026 in Phoenix, merged pull requests into both Gutenberg and the wporg-repo-tools repo, contributed to the WordPress 6.9 About page, and closed related Core Trac tickets along the way.

\n\n\n\n

In other words, the kind of contributor whose name you see in a lot of changelogs.

\n\n\n\n

Elineth Morera Campos \"🇨🇷\"

\n\n\n\n

Speaker · @emorera

\n\n\n\n

Elineth has been turning her WCUS experience into a pipeline for new WordPress contributors. She completed the WordPress Credits Mentor’s Course on learn.wordpress.org, made WordPress contribution a required module in her curriculum at Fidélitas University, mentors students through the work, organized WordPress Campus Connect San José 2025, and contributed photos to the WordPress Photo Directory.

\n\n\n\n

She effectively built a feeder system for the next wave of WordPress contributors.

\n\n\n\n

What this tells us

\n\n\n\n

A few things stand out.

\n\n\n\n

Recipients keep contributing. Every WCUS 2025 recipient is still actively involved in the WordPress project, not as a thank-you, but because contributing is what they enjoy doing. The scholarship just removed the barrier to one specific event.

\n\n\n\n

Impact compounds. Almost every recipient has helped other people contribute since WCUS; by mentoring, organizing local events, teaching students, supporting forum users, or making contribution easier through tooling. The dollars don’t stop with one trip.

\n\n\n\n

Geography matters. Recipients came from countries you don’t always see well-represented at flagships, and the work they’re doing now is grounded in their local communities. That’s the whole point.

\n\n\n\n

The first cohort isn’t the only cohort

\n\n\n\n

We’ve also funded recipients for WordCamp Asia 2026 and WordCamp Europe 2026, and we’ll share their post-event contributions in future updates.

\n\n\n\n

In the meantime: if you’re an active WordPress contributor with a confirmed role at an upcoming flagship WordCamp as an organizer or speaker, we’d love to read your application.

\n\n\n\n

\"📝\" Learn more and apply: https://wordpressfoundation.org/open-horizons-scholarship/

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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:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 28 May 2026 20:12:35 +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:\"Harmony Romo\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:83:\"Open Channels FM: Navigating Neurodiversity in Tech: Why Sharing Strategies Matters\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2554067\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:89:\"https://openchannels.fm/navigating-neurodiversity-in-tech-why-sharing-strategies-matters/\";s: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:382:\"The tech industry is filled with diverse minds, and more people are discovering that neurodivergent perspectives, such as autism and ADHD are not just common in this field, but bring valuable strengths. Yet, many professionals grew up without a diagnosis or language to describe their differences. This can leave individuals navigating challenges without clear strategies, […]\";s: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, 28 May 2026 14:18:00 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:82:\"Open Channels FM: The Value of Small WordPress Events in a Changing Tech Landscape\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2555060\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:89:\"https://openchannels.fm/the-value-of-small-wordpress-events-in-a-changing-tech-landscape/\";s: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:246:\"In this epiosde, Adam Weeks interviews Joe Simpson about reviving local WordCamps, emphasizing their unique value in fostering in-person connections, empowering new voices, and adapting to technological changes like AI in the WordPress community.\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 28 May 2026 13:20:41 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:\"WordPress.org blog: WP23\";s: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=20747\";s: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:40:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/05/wp23/\";s: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:5639:\"

WordPress at 23 is simultaneously both the strongest and most precarious it’s ever been.

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Last week, we shipped WordPress 7 to the world. In seven days, 46% of all WordPresses, tens of millions across countless different hosting environments, are already on 7.0, auto-updated with no breakage. From a Raspberry Pi to the most secure sites in the world, like WhiteHouse.gov. Sit with that for a minute when you think of all the resources and all the projects that have had security problems in the past few weeks. No supply chain attacks, no security problems, just a stable, secure infrastructure doing its job invisibly to power a huge portion of the open internet.

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I’m really proud of the capability and security of WordPress, and we should celebrate that. That accomplishment represents the work of thousands and thousands of people coming together to make the web a better place. Also, an iceberg of what is going on behind the scenes.

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However, the release was not what I hoped it would be because so much time from key people was taken away by WP Engine’s attacks.

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Silver Lake, in its immense 100B+ power, summoned a shoggoth in Quinn Emanuel that has been paperclip-maximizing legal torture that is not just going after Automattic and WordPress.org and me personally, but this Golem Jagannath is now trying to dissolve the WordPress Foundation itself, a non-profit with no employees or payroll that supports WordCamps and Open Source education around the world.

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If you know anyone at Silver Lake, Quinn Emanuel, or WP Engine in that order, please beg, plead with them to stop the violence. End this internecine warfare that is threatening to destroy one of the last stalwarts of the Open Web.

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It’s not fun and games anymore, not just business. This is having a real impact on people’s lives.

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It took every ounce of will in my body, and I am grateful to thousands of hours of meditation, to not explode in rage when asked about pineapple on pizza and debating the meaning of Jean Baudrillard and “bastardized simalcra” when miles away, my closest friend is in a hospital bed waiting for a heart transplant.

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I have colleagues LITERALLY DYING I can’t be with because Silver Lake / Quinn Emanuel / WP Engine shoggoth is trying to make it seem like I am hiding or destroying evidence because we rotate logs on wordpress.org or I have disappearing chats on Signal with romantic partners. I don’t curse, but this is so f-ed up I don’t know what to say.

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If you don’t know anyone at these entities, please pray, meditate, and call on whatever forces or divine interventions you can to bring this to an end.

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I reached out multiple times to resolve this with open arms; I’ve extended every olive branch; and I’ve even said positive things about Silver Lake and WP Engine in the press, trying to bring this to a close. Heather Brunner would not even come into the same room with me.

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All of this from a stupid presentation I gave at WordCamp US 2024 about how private equity can hollow out high-trust-based Open Source communities that in the past 19 months has only gotten 16k views on YouTube.

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Silver Lake, you have already extracted all your pounds of flesh. I missed my Mom’s knee surgery. If you wanted me to suffer for my sins, I have, and probably deeper than you will ever know. WordPress and WordPress.org, and yes, even my flawed leadership, are at the heart of what has made WP Engine successful so far. You have so much money and power, you just got TikTok, the Trump administration loves you, you don’t need to control and take over WordPress, too. If you win, you destroy it, and then what? Please have mercy and stop trying to ruin people’s lives. Let’s move on.

\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 27 May 2026 17:40:10 +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:\"Matt Mullenweg\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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: #218 – Luke Carbis on the Future of WordPress Plugins: AI, Ethics, and New Directory Standards\";s: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=204450\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:117:\"https://wptavern.com/podcast/218-luke-carbis-on-the-future-of-wordpress-plugins-ai-ethics-and-new-directory-standards\";s: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:60724:\"
Transcript
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[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.

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Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, the future of WordPress plugins, AI, ethics, and new directory standards.

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If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.

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If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.

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So on the podcast today we have Luke Carbis. Luke has been immersed in the WordPress world for our round 20 years with experience touching upon many strands of the ecosystem. He started his own businesses, worked in agencies as a developer and product lead, contributed to WordPress Core, helped organise WordCamps, and is now a member of the Plugin Review Team. He also co-hosts the Crossword podcast.

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Recently Luke delivered a talk at WordCamp Asia titled, beyond the guidelines, it’s time to evolve our standards for a safer plugin ecosystem. And today he’s here to share some of those ideas with us.

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We start by talking about how WordPress.org’s plugin directory is facing a wave of new submissions driven largely by the rise of AI generated plugins. This has made it harder, both for quality plugins to stand out, and for users to find what they need, despite backend improvements and shorter review wait times.

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Luke discusses how the current discovery and ranking systems can be games, how active installs play a key role, and why there’s room for improvement in surfacing the best plugins.

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We also get into Luke’s suggestions for making the plugin ecosystem better, including ways to connect wordpress.org accounts with sites, streamlining discoverability and installation of both custom and premium plugins, and the idea of officially supporting a commercial plugin marketplace with proceeds potentially supporting Core contributors and community events.

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A thread throughout this conversation, is how WordPress should respond to AI, not just as a technology, but as an agent of change in the community. We look at the ethical implications, generational divides in attitude towards AI, and the importance of strong leadership as WordPress faces a period of challenge and uncertainty.

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If you’re interested in the future of the WordPress plugin directory, the role of commercial offerings, and how AI is reshaping open source communities, this episode is for you.

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If you’d like to find out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.

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And so without further delay, I bring you Luke Carbis.

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I am joined on the podcast by Luke Carbis. Hello, Luke.

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[00:03:38] Luke Carbis: Hey Nathan, how are you doing? I heard you had a great time in India.

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[00:03:41] Nathan Wrigley: I had a great time in India. I think you had a great time in India as well. Is that true?

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[00:03:46] Luke Carbis: Yes, I love India. There’s just something really special about it.

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[00:03:50] Nathan Wrigley: Yes. I came away with an enormously favourable opinion of my time in India. I kind of wish that that episode had not come to an end.

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We are back from WordCamp Asia, which is where I spent some time with you. You did a talk, presentation, over there, and it was entitled beyond the guidelines, it’s time to evolve our standards for a safer plugin ecosystem. Let’s get into that in a minute.

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Before then, can you just give us your little potted bio? I know it’s a bit of a pedestrian question, but can you just tell us a small amount about yourself, probably related to WordPress, I guess?

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[00:04:25] Luke Carbis: So I’ve been using WordPress for 20 years and also, you know, roughly there. And in that time I have done everything really from like starting my own small businesses, to working for agencies in developer roles, in product roles. Worked for hosts. I’ve worked for products and plugins, and I’ve started my own plugin businesses and sold them too. And now, after contributing here and there across a variety of different teams, I’m now part of the plugin team. So I’m spending a lot of time reviewing plugins.

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[00:05:02] Nathan Wrigley: So you are very much aligned with the mission of today’s episode. So I’m going to read the blurb that was included in your presentation, just to give some context to that.

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[00:05:11] Luke Carbis: I’ll tell you that I give this blurb to everybody who has to introduce me before a talk, and I get varying degrees of success in terms of their ability to reproduce the words written on the page. I’m eager to hear your rendition, Nathan.

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[00:05:28] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Here we go. I’m going to try it. I’m going to give myself one chance to get it right. It’s time to have a conversation about ethics in plugin and product design. We’ll learn that recognising and rejecting dark patterns isn’t about stricter rules, it’s about building trust through transparent, user centred design. How did I do?

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[00:05:46] Luke Carbis: Oh, you did good. That wasn’t the one I was talking about actually. I thought were going to read my bio.

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[00:05:52] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, well I’ll read your bio. Let’s move to there then.

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[00:05:54] Luke Carbis: I put so much effort into that.

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[00:05:55] Nathan Wrigley: This I’m definitely doing as a first pass. Here we go. Luke Cabris is a self deputised open source emissary and vigilante plenipotentiary for WordPress proletariat affairs. He’s one of the hosts of Crossword, and has been a part of the community as a plugin developer, Core contributor, release lead, WordCamp organiser, and member of the plugin review team. How did I do?

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[00:06:18] Luke Carbis: Amazing actually. And I think like a big part of that, you know, speaking about the silly words I’ve chosen to put in there around proletariat and so forth, that does come from a genuine place and why I got into plugin review in the first place. And maybe we’ll get into some of that in this interview.

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[00:06:37] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, definitely. Okay, so there’s obviously an identified undercurrent of, dissatisfaction is maybe the wrong word, but you’ve clearly got some kind of estimation that things are not all going well in the plugin space. Because your talk, as I said, was talking about evolving standards for us safer plugin ecosystem. And the word safer there, I presume, implies that things could be improved.

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So I guess I’m just going to ask you to lay out what it is that you believe the plugin landscape has a problem with, what’s going wrong? And then we can get into the remediation steps a bit later.

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[00:07:10] Luke Carbis: Yeah, so when I was laying this out, I was thinking about, a lot about what I would do with the plugin directory if I could, if I could come in and change a bunch of things. And I realised that a lot of my bigger ideas are just not realistic.

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So I would love to see maybe a plugin directory that was commercialised where plugins, you know, premium plugins could sell. But I think Matt’s been pretty clear that he’s not interested in doing anything like that, although maybe more recently had a change of heart on a bunch of things. So who knows?

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I tried to stick to the basics and really, the changes that I proposed in this talk, I feel like they can get done. In fact, I can probably do them myself with a little bit of community support. And that’s the purpose of the talk.

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And they’re really, mostly about this problem we’ve got with the directory at the moment where we’re just being inundated with loads and loads of new plugins. It’s becoming really hard to be able to stand out from the crowd as a product designer, and as a user, just figure out which plugin that I want to use. And of course, a lot of that is due to AI.

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Nathan, we’ve seen, in the last 12 months, something like four times the amount of plugin submissions than 12 months ago. Isn’t that nuts?

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[00:08:39] Nathan Wrigley: So I guess what I would say from there is, if I was to rewind the clock, I don’t know, let’s say three years, something like that, we had the same problem in that there was a deluge of things which needed to be approved from the plugin review team. A few bits and pieces were put in train, which actually appeared for a while to really get rid of that problem. You know, I think we got down to almost zero things in the queue for the plugin review team. And then coinciding almost perfectly, dovetailing into that came AI. The ubiquity of AI, the capacity of AI to create plugins and what have you. And that then presumably just turned that whole wheel back around.

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And now we’re at the point where it sounds like the majority of the things which are in the queue are supposed to be AI plugins. You know, the idea that you may be able to rattle off 10 plugins in half an hour. On the face of it, that sounds like a great idea. Look, we’ve democratised plugin development and what have you.

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But we have processes on wordpress.org which need to be satisfied and fulfilled so that they are measured, so that they are inspected, so that they pass the requisite number of tests and what have you. And we’re facing a problem just of numbers. There’s just numerically too many things happening all at once for the actual humans to take care of it. Does that sort of sum it up, or have I missed bits of that out?

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[00:10:03] Luke Carbis: I would make a slight change to what you said actually, because the humans are actually taking care of it. We have been adding new people to the team, we have been improving our tools, and we’ve been using a bit of AI ourselves to be able to stay on top of the queue. And right now we’ve got about a week wait time before your plugin is reviewed. Now that’s always, like if you look historically, that’s a pretty good number.

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Where you could be mistaken is if you look at the number of plugins waiting for review, right? You might see a lot, you might see 800, and that is much higher than it was two years ago, but we are getting through them a lot faster now.

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So I think the metric to keep in mind is the wait time before review. Obviously we want to keep that at zero. Our team, we go into a critical mode. We say, oh, things are really bad if it’s two weeks. And so at the moment we’re one week, we’re pretty happy with that, trying to reduce it, of course.

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The burden, there is a lot of burden on the Plugin Review team, but to me, that’s not the primary issue. The primary issue is if you create a product, if you create a plugin, then how do you stand out on the plugin directory amongst a thousand other plugins that do exactly the same thing? And if you are a user using WordPress, how do you find the right plugin for you? Or do you just give up on the plugin directory entirely and vibe code your own solution?

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[00:11:30] Nathan Wrigley: Do you believe that is in fact the case? Do you think that possible submissions, the developers of, let’s say, I don’t know, countless plugins out there have just decided to do exactly that? Because they feel that, you know, they get through the week wait, the two week wait, the five day wait, whatever it is, their plugin is finally authorised, it’s on the wordpress.org repo, but then just crickets because of the way that the repo is structured, the way it surfaces things, the way it, I’m doing air quotes here, favours certain things. Is that the gripe really, that really it’s an unfair playing field? It’s sort of stacked in favour of some players as opposed to others.

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[00:12:05] Luke Carbis: That’s been a long running gripe of the WordPress directory. That’s not a new gripe. That’s been around for a while. And in fact, we’ve really made some good progress towards changing up the featured plugins, for example. More the issue is the number of plugins. The number of plugins on the directory is growing just incredibly. And so it’s because of that it’s harder to stand out in the crowd.

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[00:12:30] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, the UI, I’ve always wondered how Google, for example, obviously billions of dollars spent fine tuning that algorithm. The anticipation, certainly when I’m using things like Google, is that it’s doing a credible job. But the truth is, I have no insight into whether or not it really is doing an incredible job, or whether I’m just missing out on a dozen things that would actually be superior given the search, and given the proclivities of Google to surface things based upon sponsorship or whatever it may be.

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What does the wordpress.org, and again, I’m using air quotes, what does the algorithm actually do at present, to present what is on the page in the repository when I first arrive for the first time, or subsequently with search?

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[00:13:15] Luke Carbis: One of the biggest differences between Google and WordPress search is that the, air quotes, algorithm is open source. And you can actually go on to GitHub now and have a look and examine exactly what it is. And it’s a whole range of things. I probably couldn’t do a good job of summarising it, but it takes into account recent reviews. It takes into account the plugin author’s ability to respond to support on the forums. And of course it takes into account keyword matching in the title and description and things like that.

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There is a cutoff, if I recall, on the length of the description that is included in the search thing to prevent people keyword stuffing. And that’s something we look carefully at during plugin review. There’s a whole heap of things, of course.

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[00:14:01] Nathan Wrigley: Are you satisfied that those whole heap of things that make up the search, or the display for whatever it is that you’re searching for, or the default when you first arrive at the page, do you believe that there’s room for improvement there or, yeah?

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[00:14:16] Luke Carbis: Oh yeah. Have you ever used the WordPress plugin search?

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[00:14:18] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I really have. But curiously, given my background, I’m not the best candidate for doing searches because what I’m usually searching for is the name of the thing that I’m searching for. For me, because I’ve been in the WordPress space for such a long time and frequent all these different groups and learn from other individuals at WordCamps and things, I’m usually looking for the name of a product. Or certainly searching for this very specific, tight set of words around which I know it will surface. And then I find it. And use it.

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However, if I was just, let’s go for example, with one of everybody’s favourites, SEO, if I just type in SEO and hit the button, I do not know what that would give me, and whether or not it would be a credible match for what I want.

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And one of the things that I would add into that is Google’s algorithm being closed source. Whilst we, as an open source community, we don’t like the idea of that. There is something slightly ungameable about it. You know, there’s a big barrier between gaming the SEO on Google which WordPress doesn’t have, because once the algorithm is open sourced, it becomes, oh look, this is what we need to do to achieve rankings and so on.

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[00:15:26] Luke Carbis: And there is a lot of attempts at gaming the algorithm. But one thing it’s really, really hard to game is active installs. And that is one of the big, big ranking factors. So if you have a plugin, if your plugin has risen to the top, then, yeah, it’s going to rank better. And that kind of makes sense from my perspective.

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But then again, if you know what you’re looking for and you search specifically for the exact word and it comes up second or third or tenth in the search results, because it doesn’t have very many active installs, that’s a hard problem to solve.

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[00:16:02] Nathan Wrigley: So what would be some of the remediation steps? It’s a bit of blue sky thinking this, and obviously everything that is about to come out of your mouth, caveat emptor, it might not happen, or it might be an idea which, you know, upon further reflection a year from now, you think, no, that wouldn’t have been a good idea anyway. But do you have some intuitions as to what you would like to try on the .org repo? You know, experiments to run for a short period of time to see what works and what doesn’t.

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[00:16:26] Luke Carbis: I do have one experiment in particular I would love to run, but I have to set it up with you, Nathan. There’s a first step and a second step.

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So the first step is, I want to be able to connect my wordpress.org account with my WordPress in install. So we’ve got this new Connectors API coming in WordPress 7, where we can connect our Open AI or our Anthropic accounts with API keys or whatever it is. I’d love to be able to log in with wordpress.org. I think that would be really cool. Now, have you ever tried going into the plugins, add new, and click favourites? What happens when do that?

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[00:17:04] Nathan Wrigley: I have not, no.

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[00:17:05] Luke Carbis: Okay. Well, I’ll tell you. Do you think it comes up with your favourites?

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[00:17:08] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, I see. Yeah, okay. Yeah.

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[00:17:11] Luke Carbis: You’ve just done it. It asks you to type in your username from wordpress.org. And that’s not a great user experience. And so if we were able to sort of connect up our wordpress.org account to our various installs, then at least we could have our favourites come up in our plugins. So that would be a step one.

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And then a step two is I would love to be able to store a list of GitHub repos, doesn’t have to be GitHub, just Git, Git repos, where I have my own set of custom plugins. Or maybe even authenticated via token, premium plugins. And add that into my wordpress.org profile so that whenever I’m creating a new WordPress site, I can go plugins, add new, click on my, I don’t know, we could call it like untrusted sources, that’s what some other app stores call it. And then see a list from wordpress.org of GitHub repositories or whatever, repositories on various different systems where I can just download the zip into my WordPress site just as though I’d uploaded, you know, I’d gone, upload zip via that menu.

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Why not? I think that would be a really cool experiment to run. That would allow people to run their own sort of alternative marketplaces in a sense. If they could get onto that untrusted sources list. And it also wouldn’t take away that control that wordpress.org really wants over the plugin directory, for good reasons. Because if there was an untrusted source that was nefarious or malicious, then we could just remove that from everybody’s profile also.

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[00:18:50] Nathan Wrigley: So there’s a couple of things there. The first one was, it felt like something akin, now I have an Android phone. I don’t have experience with the iOS app store on a phone, but the Google Play Store I have familiarity with. And because it knows things about me from my past and the things that I’ve done in the past, it begins to have some sort of idea of, okay, here’s the kind of things that you like.

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Now I’m not suggesting anything quite like that, but it feels as if there’s a step slightly towards that. In other words, given that your 10 sites that you’ve connected to wordpress.org, they all seem to have an SEO plugin in them, they’ve all got a forms plugin, they’ve all got some sort of caching solution. Those kind of heuristics might then say, okay, we know that you like those kind of things, here’s a bunch of stuff that’s around that. Did I get that right or have I sort of overstated what you were thinking?

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[00:19:42] Luke Carbis: Yeah. No, that’s good. And incidentally, it’s also the first sort of required step if we were to ever go ahead and make the wordpress.org plugin directory commercial, and allow plugins to sell, or sell subscriptions. That login with WordPress would be a necessary step.

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[00:20:02] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. And the next thing that you mentioned then was kind of like this idea of untrusted sources, or at least the capacity for you to say, I trust these things. And obviously, you know, we don’t want it to be that everybody ought to trust these things, so there needs to be a sort of volunteering in, or some sort of connection which you approve or something.

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How many people are these days going out to places like GitHub? I’m imagining newbies to WordPress, probably no. But I’m imagining experienced people in WordPress, developers and what have you are certainly doing that. You know, they’re finding plugins over on GitHub and downloading them and doing all of that unnecessary work.

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That is an interesting idea, isn’t it? Being able to bind it so that essentially it appears in the UI, you click a button, it just does all the things that you need to do. Yeah, that’s really interesting as well. And Git, you know, ubiquitously Git.

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[00:20:48] Luke Carbis: Yes. And it’s not just other people’s plugins that people are trying to access. It’s a lot of your own plugins. And talking to plugin developers, talking to people submitting their plugins to the directory, a lot of the time people would be actually just happy if they could easily install their own plugins on their various websites and on their clients’ websites. That’s a part of them pushing it into wordpress.org, into the plugin repo is just to have it there accessible. They don’t really expect a lot of users. They’re not really going for some big product launch. They just want it there and available for when they build their website.

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[00:21:29] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. And then let’s move on to what I think was the third of your points there, which was the more commercial side of things. The idea of putting premium plugins, let’s call them that. Essentially a plugin where there’s a fee in exchange for getting access to that code base.

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Do you think that breaks some kind of promise that the community over 20 years has opted into? I suppose the argument from the more open source side, if you like, let’s call it that, would be that it’s going to, in its train, bring all sorts of unexpected consequences. You know, the pressure to, I don’t know, raise a 3% fee for wordpress.org, which people would say, okay, where’s that going to? You know, on the Apple iOS store and on the Google Play Store. I think it’s around 30%. But, you know, I was just taking Stripe as an example. Something like a 3% fee, but it could be anywhere, right?

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And then of course you get into the whole argument of, okay, if there’s a fee attached to that and somebody’s getting paid for that, is there going to be a commercial pressure to promote only the ones where the fee is the highest, or the percentage that’s been agreed for that thing is the highest? You can see how it gets muddy basically fairly quickly.

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[00:22:32] Luke Carbis: Yeah. It does get muddy and it does get messy, and I think it’s a necessary evil. Now, let me just start by saying I’m not really proposing this because the first step towards anything like this happening would be that wordpress.org must be transferred to the Foundation. That would have to be the first step.

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And then the second step is, yeah, you’d have to charge developers a fee. I think actually 8% would be the right amount, okay? So we have 3% for payment processing and then Five for the Future. That’s always been the thing, right? So let’s stick with that. So let’s stick with 5% goes to the Foundation.

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And what happens with that money? Well, we’ve got a problem in WordPress, don’t we? We have this problem that people aren’t contributing enough, and people don’t pay their due. And some of that is big plugins.

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So what if we just put that into the foundation and use it to pay for WordCamps. Use it to pay for contributors. Use it to pay for the plugin review team. I’m not complaining. I’m a full-time sponsored contributor. But not all of the plugin review team are. So maybe use it to pay for some of those volunteer hours. I think that could be a really useful and helpful thing, especially if the Foundation has proper governance and proper oversight.

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[00:23:53] Nathan Wrigley: I have literally no idea what the WordPress plugin ecosystem is, and again, I’m doing air quotes, worth. And so what I’m meaning by that is, I don’t know how many dollars move around on planet Earth each year in order to get access to pro plugins. I’m imagining it’s not a tiny amount.

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[00:24:15] Luke Carbis: Not as much as WordPress hosting, but probably a lot more than people think.

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[00:24:20] Nathan Wrigley: Right. Because we are in a, an ecosystem now where $97 per annum for this thing, and $47 for this thing, or $399 for this other thing. These are not numbers which kind of shock anybody. And 8% of $399 a thousand times over, a million times over adds up to quite a lot.

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And so, again, I have no back of the napkin calculation there, but it does seem that that would be quite a considerable amount of money. The way that you’ve channelled it there, maybe that would be enough to satisfy people who don’t want there to be any commercial pressure inside of wordpress.org. I don’t know if you’ve had conversations with people who have a very different opinion, you know, you’re polls apart on this, and whether or not you’ve managed to persuade them with that argument or not.

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[00:25:07] Luke Carbis: Yeah, look, Matt Mullenweg himself is polls apart from me on this last time I checked, and that’s okay. I get that perspective too. Introducing money into WordPress will have some big effect on the project. Maybe it’s the shock the project needs. But I personally am a fan of an expanding ecosystem. I love the idea that someone can make a living off WordPress. That’s what I’ve done for my whole career.

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And if this goes another step towards enabling that for people, especially in the current climate where a lot of plugin authors and product companies and WordPress are experiencing a downward trends in terms of sales and conversions, then I think this could be a good sort of step in the right direction. Most importantly, it would give the confidence back into the market.

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So I’ve been sitting, actually, Nathan, I’ve been sitting on a plugin that I probably would launch commercially as well. I’ve had it ready to go for 12 months or more with a friend of mine. We’ve launched successful plugins before. And we just haven’t launched it because we feel the timing isn’t right. We feel the WordPress plugin, the ecosystem isn’t an exciting place to be. People aren’t really interested in new products in this space, especially if it has nothing to do with AI. It feels like there’s a lack of momentum, a lack of movement in the WordPress product space, especially when it comes to the new launches, right? The last big launch I can think of was Event Koi. Maybe you’re more in touch than I am.

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[00:26:45] Nathan Wrigley: No, that was a big moment for me as well, that did garner a lot of interest, yeah.

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[00:26:50] Luke Carbis: And it seems like there’s a general sort of crickets when it comes to product launches in WordPress. Maybe this could be something to generate a bit more excitement again.

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[00:27:00] Nathan Wrigley: I don’t quite know if it’s fatigue or what have you, but there’s definitely been a sort of slowing down of, maybe it’s because of, I don’t know, maybe people just more broadly are not kind of quite so into Facebook groups in the way that they were before, or maybe they’ve been used to unsubscribing.

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[00:27:17] Luke Carbis: Could be AI. Could be a ton of different things.

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[00:27:20] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I think all of those pieces play into it. But I do think you’re right. I think WordPress has got a bit of a fight on its hands in the future, trying to maintain its interest in what, for the younger generation coming up, will probably be a bit of an AI first world.

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I would imagine for developers, the idea of being able to gain revenue directly at the source, and being able to be discovered directly at the source is quite an appealing thing. You don’t necessarily have to have the most incredible website. You don’t have to have an incredible marketing team to be discovered out in Google if you’ve got fighting chance to be discovered inside the repo, which is serving up the plugins to everybody. I imagine that’s quite an exciting prospect.

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[00:28:05] Luke Carbis: Oh yeah. When was the last time, if you had to install an app for your phone, you went to a website? I don’t know what it’s like on Android.

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[00:28:10] Nathan Wrigley: Not ever.

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[00:28:11] Luke Carbis: No, you find it on the App Store. And not only that, but also if we did something like this, we’d have built into WordPress ways for developers to update their plugin. Right now, premium plugins have to ship their own updater, even though WordPress comes with one, right? Ways for WordPress to be able to handle a licence, or maybe not a licence key, but validate a purchase, right?

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Right now, every premium plugin has to do that validation step. Where did you get the plugin from? Do you have a valid purchase? So it makes a world of difference for product teams when they don’t have to distribute, when they don’t have to do quite as much marketing. And discoverability is much easier when they don’t have to worry about how they’re going to handle updates.

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Even just thinking through something like, am I going to have a premium plugin and a separate, a free plugin, or am I going to have a system where I have the free plugin and then my pro plugin extends that with actions, and so we have to have both active at the same time. Or am I just going to ship premium only and not have any free, and then I’m not discoverable on the directory anymore.

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Like all of that it’s sort of solved in one step. It just makes launching a product for WordPress so much easier. But I just, I’m sitting here talking about how good it is, but I just don’t actually think it’s a realistic prospect.

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[00:29:38] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, because I suppose what I’m imagining as you’re saying these words, all of it, the wall that you are constructing, all of the bricks that you are laying out kind of makes sense. It all adds up. It seems completely credible. But then in the back of my mind, I’m kind of imagining there’s quite a lot of people shouting at their podcast player at the moment. Luke, no. This is pure, you know, this is the antithesis of what we want in an open source project. Money should never be bound to it. It should be free at the point of use. And you can see how all of that goes.

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And those people, their message is clear. Their message is powerful. They’re very persuasive. They’ve equally got their wall that they’ve constructed, which is probably just as persuasive. I don’t know how you get these two sides to meet, because there’s no middle ground, right? You can’t have half of a paid for plugin ecosystem. Maybe you could, but that seems like destined to fail. It’s a bit of binary, isn’t it? It’s either, yep, we’re going to do it, or no, we’re not. And I can see that bifurcating the community in the way that almost nothing has in the past.

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[00:30:38] Luke Carbis: Nathan, I’ve been reflecting on Matt’s, let’s say, reintroduction back into the project. After WordCamp Asia, he suddenly has become super active, as I’m sure you saw on Slack, and he’s writing all of these like paragraphs and paragraphs of like to do items, and change this and update that. And not always in that careful, accessible language that we’ve cultivated on the WordPress project.

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But it’s been very clear. This is not good enough, this is what I want to have changed. And at first when I saw this, my reaction was frustration and even a little bit of anger. I don’t agree with your opinion. And after giving it a bit of time, what I’ve begun to realise is WordPress, I think it’s safe to say that WordPress has seen a little peril in the last little while, right?

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We’ve been coasting along, but there’s no guarantee that we are going to remain relevant in the discussion of, what am I going to use to create my new website, a few years from now? In fact, the answer to that question, it very well may not include WordPress, a few years from now. That is a realistic possibility. Something needs to change. And the only thing that can cause us, that can pull us unstuck from where we are right now is a strong leader, who has a strong direction.

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Now, that leader might take us in the wrong direction. That leader might come in with a strong opinion and we might just go off the deep end and the whole thing might just come crashing around down by our feet.

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But also, if we don’t do anything, I think that’s just as likely to end up in tears. On reflection, I’ve decided mentally to recast Matt in my mind from being this Elon Muskian figure, to being someone more akin to Steve Jobs, or DHH, or these figures that are known to be a little rough around the edges, you could say, but also visionary in terms of their product thinking.

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And so that’s the change in mindset that I’m intentionally taking now into the project, to keep me sort of a bit more motivated and to reframe just like the direction. What do we need as a project? And that’s what I think we need. We need clear, direct, active leadership.

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[00:33:14] Nathan Wrigley: It’s kind of curious because the more recent past has seen an absolutely logarithmic growth in WordPress. I don’t mean in the last year or two, but let’s go over the last 15 years or something like that. And particularly over the last, let’s say eight years or something like that, it’s just grown and grown and grown. And I think it’s fair to say, maybe exactly as you characterised it, we have rested on our laurels.

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And I think we could point the finger largely at AI, not entirely at AI. There’s a whole load of other things, history, politics, what have you, inside the WordPress space, which will have contributed. But there is definitely this inflexion point at the moment where a lot of people, I think, are questioning what is it that I need? What are the tools that I need to build a website? And so, like you said, there is this moment where there’s a precipice and that precipice seems to be getting a little bit closer.

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And it has been curious watching Matt’s reaction. I’m just reading the same things that you’ve been reading. The appetite that has been displayed there, and the expression of, you kind of need somebody to take the helm, and we need to make decisions. And it was all born out of this frustration at something, which on the face of it really ought never to have happened. You know, this capacity to commit a certain thing, which was not able to be committed because.

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[00:34:32] Luke Carbis: You talking about a Akismet?

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[00:34:34] Nathan Wrigley: Well, yeah, a whole committee needed to decide on whether this, that or the other thing. Again, it’ll be really interesting, in the way that we discussed earlier about the plugin repo becoming commercial. It’ll be interesting to see how the community reacts to that.

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I don’t know if you’ve got a, obviously you are leaning into that and thinking, okay, better to have a dictator that’s got a direction than just slowly withering away, the community dying over time and the project failing. It’ll be interesting see if everybody has that same reaction, or whether people regard that as something that they can’t tolerate. And whether or not indeed that itself will haemorrhage the community, you know, create another fork in the road if you like.

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[00:35:14] Luke Carbis: Let’s talk about that. Like, let’s talk about, is the direction, we agree I think that we need a direction, right? We need clear, strong leadership. What about the direction though? How do you feel about this focus in on AI? I’ll give you a hint. For me, it’s hard to bet against AI, but the core, if you had to boil WordPress’ sort of spirit down to three words, for me, those words would be, code is poetry. And I don’t see that reflected in the AI focus. What do you think?

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[00:35:51] Nathan Wrigley: My supposition is that when I got into any of the open source projects that I was ever into, there was this philanthropic bit of me which definitely got engaged by that. And so I loved that. I loved the kind of community side. I think it’s part of me as a human being. I’ve often, rebelled is too strong a word, but I’ve always managed to find my way away from situations where there was somebody telling me what to do. I’ve always enjoyed that capacity to do things on your own, or at least as a community to decide how things are going to be.

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However, the world really doesn’t seem to work in that way. You know, the world that we occupy is led by companies which have a strong direction. Governments which have a strong intuition on what their citizens want, and so on and so forth.

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And so I’m kind of drawn into the argument that you’ve just made. I think it’s worth a punt. I do not know what AI is going to do to our community. It may be that AI is going to upend everything so severely and so dramatically that no retrofitting of a CMS will be capable of stopping the inexorable rise of it, and we’ll all be using AI for everything from now on.

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But it does feel like the framework has been built to allow AI to be an integral part of a CMS, which people are familiar with and willing to use over and over again in the decades to come.

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But in terms of the leadership thing, I think it’s worth a punt. We know how in open source there can be atrophy. Things can just feel like you’re walking through molasses because the committee hasn’t decided the thing, and what have you.

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That’s been okay. The history of WordPress demonstrates that that has actually worked. We’ve been able to get through it in that manner. But I’m not sure that facing a fairly, apocalyptic is the wrong word, let’s go with seismic, a seismic thing like AI, we’re up against a bit of a different animal now. And maybe we need to adapt our strategy.

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And maybe it’s a temporary thing, you know, maybe that’s a way of dealing with it. I think, I could be wrong, memory could prove me wrong here. I’m pretty sure that in Matt’s Slack commentary that you’ve been referring to, I think it was a, it was a period of time, wasn’t, it? Wasn’t the proposal that I, you know, give me the reigns for a year, or something along those lines. I can’t remember. If I’m misrepresenting that, I’m sorry. But maybe it’s worth a punt. It certainly sounds like it’s convinced you anyway.

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[00:38:15] Luke Carbis: Yeah. And then when we come to like AI strategy, there’s really two different aspects of that, right? We’ve got, how is AI integrated into WordPress? And I’ve been actually really, really happy with the direction that like the AI plugin has been going in. Because it’s all built around this principle of it being an add-on, being optional, I don’t have to use AI in my WordPress if I don’t want.

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What worries me more is that there seems to be a real push from Matt and project leadership to be using more AI in our contributions, right? Using AI to create new pages on wordpress.org, using AI to create new plugins, right? Using AI to create pull requests and various other things.

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And so that part I’m a little bit more cautious about. And I’m especially cautious from the perspective of like the generational change that WordPress needs right now. We need more young people involved in the project. And every time I speak to someone from Gen Z, they are not interested in using any kind of AI whatsoever. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the same. But Gen Z seems to have this huge anti AI thing about them.

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I’m worried about pushing those people away, and also just anybody else who doesn’t want to use AI. So I do use AI, right? I use AI a lot. But there are real ethical concerns when it comes to AI. And to me, WordPress has always been this really welcoming, open, considerate, accessible community.

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I can go to a WordCamp and get a kosher meal. That’s pretty special. You can go to a WordCamp and you can get the audio translated into your language on your phone from the talk that you’re going to. All of these like accessibility concerns have always been forefront. And I feel like if I want to opt out of AI, I don’t have that option if I also want to be a WordPress contributor.

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[00:40:11] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, it’s really interesting. I think the words to some, well, singular word to sum up my relationship with AI is confusion. I’m really conflicted by it because I can see the productivity gains on the one hand, and then on the other hand, I can see how potentially dehumanising it could be. And I slightly worry that we’re going to paint ourselves into a future in which the dehumanising wins out. And that concerns me.

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I suppose the best analogy, and I’m just coming up with this on the fly, is it feels as if the aliens just landed and they’re now amongst us and there’s millions of them. And they’re just on our high street, and they’re walking around, and they’re in the supermarket, and there they all are.

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And last year they weren’t there and life was just a bunch of humans and the animals that, you know, evolved on Earth. And suddenly we’re trying to figure out, okay, what do we do with these characters who are now part of our lives? But they’re way quicker than us at a million tasks, and they’re way faster than us, and way more productive than us. But also they are not us. Confusion is what I’ve got.

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[00:41:19] Luke Carbis: I don’t think you’re alone. I think that’s a common feeling. The question I keep asking myself, keep coming back to is, are my children going to thank me for my AI contributions? Am I going to be like how I think of the, I don’t know, baby boomers? I look at the baby boomers and think, I’m a millennial, right? So I look at the baby boomers and think, oh, look, you wrecked the world with your corporate greed and pollution. Are our kids going to look at us the same way? Oh, you wrecked the world with your AI.

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[00:41:49] Nathan Wrigley: That is definitely an outcome which has a non-zero chance of being true. And curiously, I have multiple children, to my knowledge, none of them use AI in any way, shape, or form. Now, that definitely maps to the kind of things that they’re interested in, but I do worry sometimes that the tech bubble that I’m in leads me to have this conception that AI will actually eat everything.

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Whereas, AI is not going to get me to the swimming pool. It’s not going to get me to enjoy the view off the mountain nearby anymore than I enjoy already. You know, all these million things that it simply can’t do. But because I’m dwelling in a community which obsesses about it, and seems to portray the future as AI or broke, maybe I think about it too hard and maybe the breaks will come on because the next generation just won’t allow it, as you’ve described.

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[00:42:42] Luke Carbis: I kind of hope so. Is that bad to say that? I don’t know. I enjoy using AI.

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[00:42:46] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, you end up where you are. You haven’t gone anywhere new. So it’d be, I suppose it’d be a bit like having an iPhone four forever. Is that bad? No, because everybody’s got an iPhone four forever.

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[00:42:59] Luke Carbis: We just end up somewhere different though. We wouldn’t end up in the same place.

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Can I tell you an anecdote which really sort of informs a lot of my thinking around this? I was in a classroom, it was a media arts classroom of 15 year olds. And we were talking about referencing. And I suggested to these 15-year-old students, why don’t you just send ChatGPT all of your sources and get it to output everything in Harvard style so then you don’t have to do anything. Just paste that into your reference list.

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And a full half of the class stood up out of their seats and said, no sir, we do not use AI. That is bad for the environment. We’re going to get dumb if we use it. We refuse. I was shocked. And it was such a strong response.

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Now that’s an anecdote, right? Might not be universal, although the Verge published this article just recently talking about how such a high percentage of Gen Z feel really terrible about the direction that AI is going in. So that’s, I think it’s worth consideration. And I’m not saying let’s not use AI in the project. All I’m saying is I think we need to hedge a little bit more than we are.

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[00:44:14] Nathan Wrigley: What an interesting conversation. We started out with plugins and the plugin repository, and then we’ve smuggled in the conversation of our time, AI.

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[00:44:22] Luke Carbis: I can bring it all together for you. Let’s bookend it. One of the suggestions in my talk is I would love to see, and I’d love to get your feedback on, and listener feedback on AI disclosure, an AI disclosure on the plugin repo.

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So if you create a plugin, you can voluntarily opt in without anybody telling you that you’re lying or whatever. Let the market sort out whether people are going to try to game it or not, without any validation. You can just specify in your plugin headers that you used a certain level of AI. And it’s not AI, or no AI, because there’s a whole range, right? Might just use AI just for idea generation or auto complete. Or I might use AI somewhere in between. I might use AI just to vibe code the whole thing and never even look at the code.

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So I’ve defined these five sort of different levels. They align with more like academic literature around AI disclosure. And I’m suggesting that what we do is we provide just a simple plugin header for people to be able to specify their level of AI use in their plugin, and have that surfaced on the plugin directory, alongside user reviews and last time you updated the plugin and things like that, just as a little bit of extra metadata.

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It would do a couple of things. One is it would let us gather some data, first of all, about how many plugins use AI and how well they do. Maybe we find that plugins that use AI get frequent updates, and high reviews. And maybe we find the opposite. But we don’t have any way of knowing right now. We have no way of telling whether a plugin is using AI or not. So that’s the proposal.

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[00:46:05] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. No, it’s a really interesting idea because I know that in the podcasting space, which I’m familiar with as well as WordPress, that we have these 2.0 tags and one of them is this sort of declaration of whether or not AI has been used. But it’s not a sliding scale, it’s just sort of binary. I think there’s three choices. Yes, some, and the whole thing, or something along those lines. So it’d be interesting to see.

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I think that’s a really credible idea. I suppose my only concern is, in much the same way that when I visited the person on the corner of my street who sells eggs on the street and there’s an honesty box, and we go and buy the eggs and we pop the money into the little honesty box. I am well aware that most of those eggs go missing. Nobody puts money into the honesty box. It’ll be interesting to see how that in itself would get gamed. In other words, if the intuition was, okay, people now love the declaration of, there’s no AI.

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Let’s imagine a scenario where that turns out to be the popular thing, it would be an honesty box decision, wouldn’t it? Okay, I definitely built my entire plugin entirely with AI, but it’s going to promote much more effectively if I say that there was no AI used with that. You can see how the human in the loop is the weakest link there.

\n\n\n\n

Okay, I think we’ll knock it on the head. Luke, what an absolutely fascinating and broad ranging discussion. Just before we go away, do you want to tell us a little bit about what it is that you do with your Crossword podcast just so that we can maybe get some earbuds listening to that as well?

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[00:47:31] Luke Carbis: Yeah, absolutely. Jonathan Wold and I have been recording Crossword. It’s a WordPress podcast. We’ve been going for years and years, over a hundred episodes. We’re into season 11 now of Crossword, and love it if you would join us there and subscribe in wherever you get your podcasts.

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[00:47:50] Nathan Wrigley: What’s the URL for the website?

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[00:47:51] Luke Carbis: You can find us at crossword.fm.

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[00:47:54] Nathan Wrigley: Perfect. Well, Luke, what a fascinating discussion. I really appreciate it.

\n\n\n\n

Dear listener, we’ve been battling with the hail in Australia. We must have pressed pause a dozen times, and Luke’s had to repeat sentences over and over again. By the time this goes out, I’ll maybe have edited all of that away, but I appreciate your sticking power in what has proved to be a fairly fraught recording process. Thank you, Luke, for chatting to me today.

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[00:48:17] Luke Carbis: Thank you, Nathan. See you later.

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On the podcast today we have Luke Carbis.

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Luke has been immersed in the WordPress world for around 20 years, with experience touching upon many strands of the ecosystem. He’s started his own businesses, worked in agencies as a developer and product lead, contributed to WordPress Core, helped organise WordCamps, and is now a member of the plugin review team. He also co-hosts the Crossword podcast.

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Recently, Luke delivered a talk at WordCamp Asia titled ‘Beyond the Guidelines: It’s Time to Evolve Our Standards for a Safer Plugin Ecosystem’ and today he’s here to share some of those ideas with us.

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We start by talking about how WordPress.org’s plugin directory is facing a wave of new submissions, driven largely by the rise of AI-generated plugins. This has made it harder both for quality plugins to stand out and for users to find what they need, despite backend improvements and shorter review wait times. Luke discusses how the current discovery and ranking systems can be gamed, how active installs play a key role, and why there’s room for improvement in surfacing the best plugins.

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We also get into Luke’s suggestions for making the plugin ecosystem better, including ways to connect WordPress.org accounts with sites, streamlining discoverability and installation of both custom and premium plugins, and the idea of officially supporting a commercial plugin marketplace, with proceeds potentially supporting core contributors and community events.

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A thread throughout this conversation is how WordPress should respond to AI, not just as a technology but as an agent of change in the community. We look at the ethical implications, generational divides in attitude towards AI, and the importance of strong leadership as WordPress faces a period of challenge and uncertainty.

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If you’re interested in the future of the WordPress plugin directory, the role of commercial offerings, and how AI is reshaping open source communities, this episode is for you.

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Useful links

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Crossword podcast

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Introducing the Connectors API in WordPress 7.0

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Event Koi 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:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 27 May 2026 14:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Nathan Wrigley\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:43:\"WordCamp Central: Happy Birthday, WordPress\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:40:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/?p=14865555\";s: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:67:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2026/05/happy-birthday-wordpress/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5554:\"

Twenty-three years ago, a team of 2 friends released something into the world that they probably couldn’t have fully imagined the consequences of. Not just a publishing tool, though it became that for hundreds of millions of people but a reason to find each other.

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WordPress just turned 23. And if you’re not yet part of this community, I want to tell you what you’re missing. It starts, usually, with a problem you need to solve. A website. A blog. A business that needs a home on the internet. You find WordPress, and it works, and you move on with your life. That’s how most stories begin here.

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But then something else happens.

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You find a forum thread where someone spent three hours helping a stranger debug a plugin for free. You find a WordCamp in your city and you show up mostly for the tote bag and the discount codes. You end up in a conversation over coffee with someone who has been building on WordPress since 2007, and they treat your questions like they’re worth answering. Because to them, they are.

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That’s when the story changes.

\n\n\n\n

WordCamps are where this community becomes visible in a way that’s hard to describe to someone who hasn’t been. The person who wrote the code that quietly runs your website is sitting two seats away from someone who published their very first post this morning. A developer who has contributed thousands of hours to core is sharing a lunch table with a grandmother in Uganda who just launched her first online store.

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No hierarchy. No velvet ropes. Just people who showed up.

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You stay because someone grabs your arm at the end of a session and says, your plugin changed my business, and they mean it in a way that lands somewhere deep. You stay because the late nights and the loud rooms and the occasional quiet moment in a hallway conversation turn into something you didn’t expect: friendship. Partnership. For some of us, something that feels a lot like family.

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This is what open source looks like when it actually works.

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Not obligation. Not corporate mandate. Gratitude. People giving back because something was given to them first, freely, without condition, by people they may never meet. The whole thing runs on a kind of trust that shouldn’t work as well as it does, and yet here we are. Twenty-three years in. Still going.

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On this birthday, I want to name some of the people and organizations who make this community what it is, who show up, contribute, advocate, and remind the rest of us why we’re here.

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People wishing WordPress a happy birthday:

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@thehopemonger, @stephendumba1, @noelinenandago, @adityakane, @ssebuwufumoses, @kiviiri, @unintended8 among others

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And the companies whose work brings so many of us to WordPress in the first place:

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Jetpack, WordPress.com, Woo, Hostinger, Bluehost, WooCommerce, Akismet, Gravatar, Automattic, Forth Focus, miniOrange, Elementor, Green Geeks among others

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This list is not complete. It never could be.

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The next WordCamp is coming. The late nights and the loud rooms and the quiet hallway moments are all waiting for you.

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Don’t miss it.

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Happy Birthday, WordPress. Let’s keep going—together.

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#WordPressBirthday #WordPress #WordCamp #OpenSource #Community #Gratitude #Mukono #Kampala

\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 27 May 2026 12:40:37 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"Moses Cursor Ssebunya\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:36;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:86:\"Open Channels FM: Blackwall Sponsors Open Channels FM Founder for WordCamp Europe 2026\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2555007\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:93:\"https://openchannels.fm/blackwall-sponsors-open-channels-fm-founder-for-wordcamp-europe-2026/\";s: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:127:\"We are excited to announce that our founder Bob Dunn will be attending WordCamp Europe 2026 thanks to the support of Blackwall.\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 27 May 2026 10:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8:\"Bob Dunn\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:37;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:\"Open Channels FM: Get Ready for Open Channels FM Live, Our Upcoming Short Form 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27 May 2026 08:33:00 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:23:\"Matt: RIP Sonny Rollins\";s: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:23:\"https://ma.tt/?p=152849\";s: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:32:\"https://ma.tt/2026/05/rip-sonny/\";s: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:2329:\"

Sonny Rollins, the Saxophone Colossus, has passed. He is probably my favorite saxophonist, and while the aforementioned album is one of the five I would take to a deserted island, he has so many other good ones like The Cutting Edge which also has bagpipes, or Sonny Side Up with Sonny Stitt and Dizzy Gillespie.

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WordPress 6.7 in November 2024 was named in honor of Rollins.

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We rarely choose a living musician for a release so the team actually prepared a gift we sent to him with the names of all the contributors.

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Mr. Rollins,
Your immense contributions to music are a source of deep inspiration to the thousands of open source contributors to WordPress. We like to say ‘Code is poetry’, and we’re honored to pay tribute to you and your legacy of creativity and innovation by naming the 6.7 release of WordPress to you.

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It was sent to his publicist, so not sure if he got a chance to see it, but I hope it at least gave him a chuckle to have a random Open Source project celebrating him.

\n\n\n\n

He was the last surviving jazzer in the Great Day in Harlem photo.

\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 27 May 2026 01:21:17 +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:40;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:57:\"WordPress.org blog: Looking Ahead to WordCamp Europe 2026\";s: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=20721\";s: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:54:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/05/wceu-2026-sessions/\";s: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:14153:\"
\"\"
\n\n\n\n

June 4-6, 2026 | ICE Kraków Congress Centre, Kraków, Poland

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WordCamp Europe 2026 will bring the WordPress community together in Kraków, Poland, from June 4–6 for Contributor Day, two conference days, and a program shaped by the ideas, tools, and people moving WordPress forward. This year’s schedule includes two official keynotes, hands-on workshops, panels, and sessions across development, accessibility, artificial intelligence, content, search, business, education, security, and community.

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The program offers a broad view of how WordPress is used today: as publishing software, a framework for building at scale, a tool for business growth, and a global open source project shaped by contributors around the world. Whether you build with WordPress, write for the web, support clients, teach new learners, or contribute to the project, WordCamp Europe offers a chance to learn from practical examples and connect them to the platform’s future.

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\n
Get Your Tickets
\n\n\n\n
WCEU Schedule
\n\n\n\n
About WCEU 2026
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Keynotes at WordCamp Europe 2026

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The keynote sessions at WordCamp Europe 2026 will give attendees two ways to look at WordPress today: through a large-scale institutional adoption story and through a broader closing reflection on where the project is headed. These sessions anchor the program while connecting many of the themes that appear throughout the conference, from infrastructure and governance to contribution, innovation, and the future of the web.

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Joachim Valdemar Yde and Francisco Borges Aurindo Barros will share how CERN is adopting WordPress as its future content management system. Their keynote will explore the governance, infrastructure, and migration work behind moving more than 800 websites onto a customized WordPress Service, offering a look at WordPress on an institutional scale.

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Ma.tt Mullenweg will close WordCamp Europe 2026 with a broader look at WordPress, the open web, and the ideas shaping what comes next. As the event’s final keynote, this session will bring together many of the conversations happening across Contributor Day, sessions, workshops, and community gatherings throughout the week.

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Program Themes to Watch at WCEU 2026

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The rest of the WCEU themes are organized around topics that reflect the breadth of the WordPress ecosystem. These themes give attendees a way to follow the sessions most relevant to their work, from building better sites and improving content discovery to growing sustainable businesses, strengthening security, expanding access, and supporting the people and communities behind the project.

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Search, Visibility, and Discovery

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Search continues to change, but helping people find the right information remains central to the web. WCEU’s search and SEO sessions look at how AI-generated answers, generative engine optimization, shifting user habits, and new discovery platforms are changing visibility for publishers, businesses, and builders. Sessions include Panel: The Future of SEO, with Kacper Bartoszak, Pam Aungst Cronin, Alex Moss, David Cuesta, and Jovana Smoljanovic Tucakov, as well as Emma Young’s AI Search: Why Your Whole Company Should Care, which looks at why AI-native discovery now affects content, development, partnerships, and business strategy.

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AI and the Future of Building

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Artificial intelligence has a dedicated presence at WordCamp Europe 2026, with sessions that move beyond general discussion and into practical use cases for marketing, product work, development, and site management. Vito Peleg’s Agentic AI & WordPress: From Prompts to Tools & Systems will explore how teams can move from simple prompts to AI workflows that execute tasks, while Monika Dimitrova’s AI Won’t Save Your Marketing (but it might save your time and money) focuses on how small businesses can use AI without losing the strategy and identity that make their work effective.

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Development and Technical Practice

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Development sessions at WCEU will focus on how WordPress sites, tools, and workflows are built for long-term use. The program includes a Panel: Inside WordPress 7.0, with contributors discussing the release, its features, and the process behind it, along with sessions such as Anukasha Singh’s Smarter Plugin Permissions with the Abilities API, Ariel Ramos’s Headless WordPress API Security in 10 Minutes, and Dejan Rudić Vranić’s hands-on workshop Build Your Developer Portfolio: A Hands-on Guide to FSE.

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Accessibility and Inclusive Design

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Accessibility is part of building a better web for everyone, and WCEU’s accessibility sessions give attendees practical ways to make digital experiences more usable, inclusive, and sustainable. This theme connects directly to WordPress’s project values, from how content is structured to how themes, plugins, and interfaces are designed. For designers, developers, content creators, and project leads, these sessions offer a chance to make accessibility part of everyday decisions rather than a final step at the end of a project.

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Content, Writing, and Communication

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Content and writing sessions at WCEU will focus on how clearer communication helps users find what they need, teams share what they know, and communities make information easier to understand. Pooja Sanwal’s Why Writing Still Matters in a Video-First Internet looks at the role of written content as video continues to dominate online traffic, Fernando Tellado’s Do You Really Need an SEO/GEO Pugin for WordPress? explores what WordPress can already do for visibility, and Birgit Olzem’s Documentation as a Love Language for the Future You looks at how simple documentation practices can help teams and communities preserve knowledge.

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Security and Trust

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Security remains central to maintaining websites people can rely on. WCEU’s security-focused sessions look beyond basic reminders and into the risks, systems, and decisions that shape safer WordPress experiences. The broader program includes talks on AI-assisted spam and bot detection, plugin permissions, and secure headless WordPress architectures, giving attendees practical ways to think about resilience, trust, and responsible site management.

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Business and Sustainable Growth

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The business sessions at WCEU will explore how WordPress professionals turn ideas, services, and products into sustainable work. Debbie Levitt’s Three Levels of Atomic Product-Market Fit looks at how teams can understand product-market fit beyond a single metric, Irfani Silviana’s WordPress ROI Map: Engineering Business Value with BMC connects technical decisions to business outcomes, and Liza Bogatyrev’s Stop Positioning Into Obscurity to Unlock Growth focuses on how clearer positioning can support revenue and adoption.

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Education, Contribution, and Community

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WordPress grows when people can learn, participate, and find a place to contribute. WCEU’s education and community sessions include Panel: Rethinking Learning in WordPress, featuring Mary Hubbard, Rade Jekic, Klaus Harris, Natalia Basiura, and Benjamin Zekavica, along with Daniel Grzonka’s The New Engineer: Psychology, Systems, and Open Source, Ivana Ćirković’s What It (Really) Means To Be a Part of the WP Credits Program?, and Jörg Pareigis’s Sovereign University AI Tutors Powered by WordPress. Together, these sessions connect contributor onboarding, academic partnerships, open source learning, and the future skills people need to work with WordPress.

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Get Your Tickets Today
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Explore the Full Program

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WordCamp Europe 2026 will bring together many parts of the WordPress ecosystem in one place: software, publishing, business, design, education, and community. The keynotes and theme-based sessions offer a broad look at how WordPress is being used today and how contributors, builders, and users are preparing for what comes next.

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Explore the full WordCamp Europe 2026 schedule and choose the sessions that match how you use, build, teach, support, or contribute to WordPress. Tickets are available now for attendees joining the community in Kraków. All sessions will be live streamed. Keep checking back for updates.

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\"\"
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Kraków is calling. See you at WordCamp Europe 2026!

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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:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 26 May 2026 12:52:13 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Brett McSherry\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:\"Open Channels FM: New Tools and Updates in WordPress 7.0 for Developers and Content Managers\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2554888\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:99:\"https://openchannels.fm/new-tools-and-updates-in-wordpress-7-0-for-developers-and-content-managers/\";s: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:239:\"WordPress 7.0 \"Armstrong\" introduces significant updates including visual revisions, responsive block visibility, and enhanced workflow features, promoting collaboration among users and developers while emphasizing safe updating practices.\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Tue, 26 May 2026 09:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:8:\"Bob Dunn\";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:42;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:73:\"Open Channels FM: Why Structured Content Matters for Large-Scale Websites\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2553888\";s: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:80:\"https://openchannels.fm/why-structured-content-matters-for-large-scale-websites/\";s: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:386:\"Content management systems are constantly evolving to meet the growing needs of organizations with vast amounts of information to share. One topic that’s often overlooked until it becomes a problem is how structured data impacts editorial efficiency and long-term website success. When a site has hundreds, or even thousands of individual pages, keeping everything organized […]\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 25 May 2026 09:47:00 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";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:43;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:123:\"Gutenberg Times: WordPress 7.0 released, 7.1 in planning, Block Bits and WordCamp Europe coming up — Weekend Edition 366\";s: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=45672\";s: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:127:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordpress-7-0-released-7-1-in-planning-block-bits-and-wordcamp-europe-coming-up-weekend-edition-366/\";s: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:32338:\"

Hi there,

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It’s good to be home again. It was an unusually long break, but I appreciate the series of official bank holidays that morph into long weekends away from the computer.

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And of course, the catch-up is overwhelming. The creativity inside the WordPress community around content creation, development and design is highly energizing.

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And it’s WordPress 7.0 release week! It’s finally here!

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So don’t let me keep you any longer. Enjoy! \"🎉\"

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If you want to stop long enough to send me a note, I’d be delighted to hear from you.

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Yours, \"💕\"
Birgit

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WordCamp Europe is coming up fast. It’ll take place Jun 4 to 6, 2026. The schedule just was posted. If you still are on the fence about getting your ticket. Here are another 49 reasons to head to Krakow. The schedule lists 34 Talks, 3 Panels, 10 Workshops and 2 Keynotes.

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For armchair WordCampers, like myself, there will be a livestream. After the WordCamp recordings will be uploaded to YouTube and WordPressTV.

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A first selection of what I might watch:

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if you rather stay in North America, WordCamp US just opened up the online ticket booth. It’ll take place from August 16 to August 19, 2026, in Phoenix, AZ. The calls for sponsors and speakers are also available now. The deadline for speaker submissions is next week Friday May 29, 2026.

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Developing Gutenberg and WordPress

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WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong”

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After the decision to remove Real-time Collaboration from the release because it needs more time in the oven, so to speak, the release squad was really busy to produced RC 3 – 5 before the final release on Wednesday May 20, 2026.

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Read more via the WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong” release post.

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Justin Nealey product manager at GoDaddy breaks down why WordPress 7.0’s three new APIs matter far more than the headline features for plugin developers. The Connectors API means site owners manage their own AI provider keys centrally; WP AI Client gives you a single provider-agnostic call to invoke any model; and the Abilities API turns your plugin into something the site’s AI agent can reach for autonomously. Together, Nealey argues, your plugin stops being a destination users visit and becomes a verb the agent performs.

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Ronak Vanpariya, web developer on Gujarat, India digs into why Real-Time Collaboration was pulled from WordPress 7.0 with a five-point technical post-mortem. You’ll learn how RTC had to work across every corner of the Site Editor, how simultaneous edits triggered race conditions corrupting block data, and how the feature’s reliance on persistent server connections would have overwhelmed shared hosting environments. Memory bloat on older devices and recurring block-tree breakage uncovered by fuzz testing sealed the decision. The feature lives on in the Gutenberg plugin.

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Mike McAlister, creator of Ollie, released a video walkthrough of WordPress 7.0 covering the features he sees as most impactful for site builders. He walks through the new AI infrastructure — WP AI Client and the Connectors API — content-only pattern editing, customizable mobile menu overlays, block visibility controls for responsive design, per-block custom CSS, visual revisions, the new Icon and Breadcrumbs blocks, an upgraded Font Library screen, and a command palette shortcut.

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In other WordPress Core news:

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Immediately after the release of WordPress 7.0, Jeff Paul published the WordPress 7.1 Call for Volunteers. Work has already started since the firsty 7.0 Beta in February. The first beta for WordPress 7.1 is roughly eight weeks out and scheduled for July 15, 2026, and the final release for August 19, 2026 aimed at the last day of WordCamp US.

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In addition to the punted Real-time collaboration feature, I discovered a few tracking issue for WordPress 7.1 already:

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First-time release lead Paulo Trentin brought us the latest version for the Gutenberg plugin, 23.2. In his release post What’s new in Gutenberg 23.2? (21 May he highlighted: You can now style blocks differently for tablets and phones right from Global Styles, so your designs adapt to each screen. Pop-up dialogs slide up from the bottom on mobile, making them easier to tap one-handed, and animations across the editor now share a consistent feel. You’ll also see smoother Content Types management, friendlier Shortcode handling, clearer Revisions diff markers for better accessibility, and steadier real-time collaboration when teammates edit together.

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Justin Tadlock rounds up what’s new for WordPress developers in May 2026, with WordPress 7.0 landing on May 20. You’ll find early details on the Content Types experiment for managing custom post types and taxonomies in Core, a new @wordpress/grid package for building grid-based editor UIs, revisions support extended to templates and patterns, and a wave of block fixes covering the Tabs block, Image alignment, Search block styling, and Global Styles rendering.

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\"Screenshot
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If you are interested in learning more about this, the Content Types tracking issue outlines the experiment to bring custom taxonomy and post type management into the WordPress editor. The initial focus is on simple use cases — complex ones stay in plugin territory — with open tasks including a dedicated creation page, richer fields, a quick-edit versus full-edit distinction, and deeper DataViews integration. It’s a living issue and community input is welcome.

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\"🎙\" The latest episode is Gutenberg Changelog #131 – Gutenberg Plugin Releases 23.1 – 23.3, Calls for Testing for 7.1 and more

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John Blackbourn clarified WordPress’s PHP support stance in a post that’s worth flagging for developers and hosts. The “beta” label for PHP 8.x support has been retired and removed retroactively from all WordPress versions. It was discouraging hosts and developers from upgrading. In short:

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Jeffrey Paul recaps what’s new in the WordPress AI canonical plugin 1.0.0, a milestone release landing alongside WordPress 7.0. Two new governance experiments stand out:

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Beyond governance, you’ll find comment moderation upgrades with sentiment and toxicity sorting right in the dashboard, AI alt text generation baked into the media editor workflow, and editorial workflow terminology tidied up. Looking ahead to 1.1.0, the team is exploring type-ahead suggestions, focus-aware crop suggestions, an AI Playground, and C2PA content provenance tracking for both text and images.

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Rae Morey, editor of The Repository, took a deeper dive into this release: WordPress AI Plugin Hits 1.0 Milestone With New Request Logging and Connector Approvals Experiments

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Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners

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Jay Walsh, Director of Communications at Woo, announced that WooCommerce stores can now sell directly on YouTube via the Google for WooCommerce extension. You connect your store, tag products from your catalog in videos and Shorts, and they surface as shoppable cards while viewers watch — and also appear in your Channel Shopping tab. The same Merchant Center product feed that powers Google Shopping and Performance Max campaigns keeps everything in sync automatically, with AI-generated ad creative variations across formats included in version 3.6.

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Milind More, Senior WordPress engineer at rtCamp introduces three new connectors for the WordPress AI plugin:

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All three are built on the same PHP AI Client SDK heading into WordPress Core 7.0, so your setup today carries forward without code changes after the upgrade.

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Artur Piszek explains how he uses WordPress as a sync backend for Obsidian with PushMD. This plugin was created with Adam Zielinski, the maker of Playground. It allows you to treat your WordPress site as a git remote using the REST API. You can git clone your blog as plain .md files. Write in Obsidian and push updates to sync. This setup turns your site into a repository without needing an external service. It is also compatible with the upcoming Guidelines/Artifacts system in WordPress Core, which lets you store private notes and configurations there too.

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Seth Rubenstein at Pew Research Center shared a preview of PRC Block Bits, now open-sourced on GitHub. Block Bits solves a specific gap between block bindings and RichText: where bindings replace an entire block’s content with dynamic data, a “bit” lets you embed small dynamic pieces — an inline icon, a copyright year, live text — right in the middle of a paragraph or heading. You register bits via a PHP and JS API, choose between a pure-PHP callback or Interactivity API strategy, and an editor toolbar dropdown handles insertion. Built-in bits for icons and copyright ship out of the box.

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Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks

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Damir Tahiri of Rareview has open-sourced the WordPress starter theme that underpins every one of the agency’s builds. It’s Gutenberg-ready, ships with global style variables, includes a one-command Figma sync, and runs an interactive setup that renames and configures everything automatically. You can grab it on GitHub and use it as the foundation for your own projects.

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“Keeping up with Gutenberg – Index 2025”
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. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. 

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The previous years are also available:
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024

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Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.

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On the WordPress Developer blog, Róbert Mészáros shows you how to get started writing WordPress E2E tests with Playwright, using a book review site built on Block Bindings as the test subject. You’ll set up wp-env and Playwright, write your first test against the admin dashboard, then progress to inserting block variations, verifying patterns with aria snapshots, and testing front-end output by creating posts via the REST API.

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Also on the WordPress Developer Blog, Felix Arntz, Senior Software Engineer at Vercel, walks you through building a provider-agnostic image generation plugin using WordPress 7.0’s built-in AI Client. You’ll see how a single wp_ai_client_prompt() call handles provider routing, how support checks gate your UI gracefully when no image-capable provider is configured, and how the REST API and Media Library integration come together. The full source code is on GitHub at wptrainingteam/ai-client-imagegen.

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Sérgio Santos, Lead Engineer at 10up/Fueled, diagnoses three specific bugs you hit when using RichText outside a block — in InspectorControls or a Modal. The format toolbar fills route to the wrong slot, the inline toolbar is opt-in via inlineToolbar, and isSelected never turns true outside a block context. Each problem gets a targeted fix, and the pattern has since been packaged as a reusable component in 10up Block Components.

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Eric Karkovack walks you through using my.WordPress.net as a safe AI sandbox — no production site at risk. You install WordPress in your browser in two steps, add the AI Assistant app from the apps menu, connect it to Anthropic, OpenAI, or a local Ollama model, and start prompting. It’s a low-stakes way to explore what AI can do inside WordPress before committing it to a live environment, though API costs from OpenAI or Anthropic still apply.

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Fresh from last week’s WordCamp Portugal:

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Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg’s master branch?
Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review.

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\"\"
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Now also available via WordPress Playground. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? Email me with your experience.

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Questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Don’t hesitate to send them via email or
send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph.

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For questions to be answered on the Gutenberg Changelog,
send them to changelog@gutenbergtimes.com

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Featured Image:

\n\n\n\n\n
\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Sat, 23 May 2026 13:08:14 +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:44;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:142:\"Open Channels FM: BackTalk on Digital Patience, the Power of Story, Platform Longevity, and What Your Brand Says When You’re Not in the Room\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2554653\";s: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:143:\"https://openchannels.fm/backtalk-on-digital-patience-the-power-of-story-platform-longevity-and-what-your-brand-says-when-youre-not-in-the-room/\";s: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:145:\"BackTalk on topics like website wait times, storytelling in case studies, platform longevity, and brand positioning in today\'s digital landscape.\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 21 May 2026 13:27:00 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";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:45;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:48:\"Open Channels FM: Artificial [fill in the blank]\";s: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:34:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=2554596\";s: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:53:\"https://openchannels.fm/artificial-fill-in-the-blank/\";s: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:178:\"AI: super-smart guesser or just a robot with a flair for the dramatic? Join our hosts as they grill gadgets, predict the future, and ponder if their devices need bedtime stories.\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Thu, 21 May 2026 09:30:00 +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:8:\"Bob Dunn\";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:46;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\";s: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:49:\"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong”\";s: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=20583\";s: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:45:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2026/05/armstrong/\";s: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:75125:\"
\"WP
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Every WordPress release celebrates an artist who has made an indelible mark on the world of music. Say Hello to WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong”, named in honor of “Satchmo” himself, jazz musician Louis Armstrong.

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Known as the “first great jazz soloist”, Louis Armstrong created ensembles that highlighted his own profound trumpeting skills, and in the process, transformed jazz from an orchestral art form into a solo art form. The master trumpeter also impressed the world with his signature vocals, introducing improvisation into Jazz, influencing every artist he worked with, and permanently changing the landscape of music.

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Louis Armstrong wove his personal touch into the world of Jazz. With WordPress 7.0 “Armstrong”, you can build with yours.

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Welcome to WordPress 7.0!

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WordPress 7.0 marks the start of a new era, laying the foundation for AI across the WordPress experience. Greeting you with a modern, more intuitive dashboard, 7.0 introduces enhanced customization and development tools that inspire creativity and tap into endless potential.

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Whether you’re a creator, business owner or developer – WordPress 7.0 let’s you create in a way that is uniquely your own.

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\n
Download WordPress 7.0 now
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What’s inside

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Explore AI abilities directly in your website, all managed from a central hub. Slide seamlessly through the sleek, new admin theme implemented across the dashboard. Ignite creative flow with new blocks and design tools, and tap into an expansive developer toolbox that gives you more control than ever, letting you create your way.

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AI-Integrated WordPress

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Possibilities right in your hands.

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With AI integrated throughout WordPress the potential is endless. A new AI Client in Core lets WordPress communicate with generative AI models, while connections are easily managed from a single hub in the dashboard. The AI Client combined with the Abilities API makes a fiery duo that introduces new functionality, workflow automation, and creation tools to your website. Install the new AI plugin to expand your options even more: generate and edit images, create titles or excerpts, or even suggest alt text.

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7.0 also includes a new Client-Side Abilities package: a Javascript counterpart to the Abilities API, with a built in UI and command palette that delivers extensive new and hybrid AI abilities.

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\"\"
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Manage all your external connections in a central hub on the Connector’s screen. Easily dive in with 3 presets, or add your own connections. Authenticate and get started with AI abilities in just a few clicks.

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\"\"
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An AI-integrated WordPress promises infinite potential, ready to be discovered.

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Modernized Dashboard

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Elevate your admin experience.

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7.0 introduces a fully revitalized dashboard with a chic, modern new color scheme, and clean finishes throughout.

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Polished with smooth transitions that seamlessly shift as you move between screens, you’ll feel like you’re effortlessly gliding through the dashboard.

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Just one click of the new Command Palette shortcut, a ⌘K or Ctrl+K icon in the upper admin bar, lets you access your favorite tools from anywhere in the dashboard.

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\"\"
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Explore typography from one place, regardless of theme. Install, upload and manage your font collection from the new dedicated font management page, with support for block, hybrid and classic themes.

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\"\"
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Visually scrub through revision versions to see what changed at a glance, with markers that make editorial choices more intuitive. Easily pick the revision you want and restore instantly.

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\"\"
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Design, Create, Customize

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A simpler way to build.

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Let WordPress be your muse with new blocks, block supports, and design tools that add visual agility, granular control, and keep every element of your website on brand, with fresh new touches.

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Showcase your ideas in a lightbox slideshow with the new gallery block, and finesse your markup with the new Heading block. Deliver clear site navigation with the new Breadcrumbs block, and add more detail to your designs with the new Icons block.

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\"\"
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Enhanced responsiveness controls in 7.0 make your site more user friendly. Hide and reveal blocks based on device, without affecting other viewports.

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Design and build your menu overlay with blocks and patterns, fully customizable with the styles you want visitors to see. Add columns, stylize typography, or embed your own close button in the overlay. Start with a template or create your own menu from scratch.

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\"\"
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Fine tune page design and layout with Patterns that act as a single unit, detachable for more isolated control. Insert your pattern, swap elements and customize with ease.

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\"\"
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Style every detail of content with custom CSS at the block level, right in your post or page.

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\"\"
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Developer’s toolbox

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Advanced tools for building your way.

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WordPress 7.0 lets you build faster, better, stronger, and easier with an extensive set of expanded APIs and enhanced functionality.

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Create blocks and patterns on the server level using only PHP, auto-registered with the block API.

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Explore a more extensible Site Editor, with routing, route validation, and a new wordpress/boot package that allows plugins to build custom site-editor pages.

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And much more

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For a comprehensive overview of all the new features and enhancements in WordPress 7.0, please visit the feature-showcase website.

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Check out whats new in 7.0

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Learn more about WordPress 7.0

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Learn WordPress is a free resource for new and experienced WordPress users. Learn is stocked with how-to videos on using various features in WordPress, interactive workshops for exploring topics in-depth, and lesson plans for diving deep into specific areas of WordPress.

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Read the WordPress 7.0 Release Notes for information on installation, enhancements, fixed issues, release contributors, learning resources, and the list of file changes.

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Explore the WordPress 7.0 Field Guide and learn about the changes in this release with detailed developer notes to help you build with WordPress.

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The 7.0 release squad

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Every release comes to you from a dedicated team of enthusiastic contributors who help keep things on track and moving smoothly. The team that has led 7.0 is a global, cross-functional group of contributors who are always ready to champion ideas, remove blockers, and resolve issues.

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Thank you, contributors

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The mission of WordPress is to democratize publishing and embody the freedoms that come with open source. A global and diverse community of people collaborating to strengthen the software supports this effort.

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WordPress 7.0 reflects the tireless efforts and passion of more than 875+ contributors in countries all over the world. This release also welcomed over 200+ first-time contributors!

\n\n\n\n

Their collaboration delivered more than 420 enhancements and fixes, ensuring a stable release for all – a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress open source community.

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1000camels · Aakash Verma · Aaron Jorbin · Aaron Robertshaw · Abdullah Kaludi · Abdur Rahman Emon · Abhay Kulkarni · Abhishek Deshpande · acmoifr · Adam · Adam Silverstein · Adam Zieliński · Adil Öztaşer · adithyanaik · Aditya Singh · Adnan Hyder Pervez · adnan.limdi · adrmf25 · afwebdev · Agnieszka Szuba · Ahmed · Ahmed Kabir Chaion · Ajit Bohra · Aki Hamano · Akshat Kakkad · Albert Juhé Lluveras · Alec Rust · alecgeatches · Alex Concha · Alex Kirk · Alex Lende · Alex Stine · Alexander Bigga · Ali Aghdam · Alvaro Gómez · amanandhishoe · Amber Hinds · Ames Plant · Amibe Websites · Amin · Amit Raj · Amy Kamala · Anand Rajaram · Anastis Sourgoutsidis · Anders Norén · Andrea Fercia · Andrea Roenning · Andrei Draganescu · Andrew Duthie · Andrew Nacin · Andrew Ozz · Andrew Ryno · Andrew Serong · Andrew Wilder · Andrija Vučinić · André Maneiro · Anh Tran · Ankit K. Gupta · Ankit Kumar Shah · Ankit Panchal · Anne McCarthy · Anne-Mieke Bovelett · Anthony Burchell · Anthony Hortin · Antoine · Anton Vlasenko · anton7249 · Antonio Sejas · antonrinas · Anukasha Singh · Anup Kankale · Anveshika Srivastava · apedog · arcwp · Ari Stathopoulos · Arkaprabha Chowdhury · Armand MD · Artemio Morales · Arthur Chu · Artur Piszek · ArtZ91 · Arun · Arun Sathiya · Asad Polash · asadowski10 · atharvasagane · Audrey Soler · audunmb · awardpress · Azhar Deraiya · Azragh · BackuPs · badasswp · Ben Dwyer · Benedikt Ledl · Benjamin Gosset · Benjamin Zekavica · Benoit Chantre · benpinales · Bernie Reiter · Bero · Bhavik Panchal · Bigul Malayi · Billy Wilcosky · Birgir Erlendsson (birgire) · Birgit Pauli-Haack · BlackStar · bluefuton · bobbingwide · Boris Gherman · Boro Sitnikovski · brad hogan · Brad Jorsch · bradshawtm · brajdas0022 · Brandon Hubbard · Brandon Kraft · Brandon Payton · brbrr · Brian Coords · Brian Gardner · Brian Haas · Brian Hogg · Bridget Willard · brumack · Bruno Freiberger Garcia · buutqn · Béryl de La Grandière · Calin Don · Carlo Cannas · Carlos Bravo · Carolina Nymark · cbirdsong · cgastrell · Chelsea Otakan · Chi-Hsuan Huang · Chris Lilitsas · Chris McElroy SEO · Chris Zarate · chrisdotdotdot · chrispecoraro · Christelle Stasse · Christoph Daum · Christy Nyiri · Chuck Grimmett · Ciprian Popescu · clayray · Clément Polito · Colin Stewart · Copons · Corey Worrell · Cory Hughart · Courtney Robertson · crstauf · Cuong Le · czarflix · Dale du Preez · Damon Cook · Dan Knauss · Dan Luu · Dan Zakirov · Daniel Bachhuber · Daniel Jalkut (Red Sweater) · Daniel Richards · Daniele Scasciafratte · danieltj · dannyreaktiv · Darin Kotter · Darren Ethier (nerrad) · Darshit Rajyaguru · Dave Ryan · Dave Whitley · David Arenas · David Baumwald · David Bowman · David Herrera · David Levine · David Smith · David Stone · Dean Sas · DEBARGHYA BANERJEE · Deepak Gupta · Deepak Lalwani · Deepak Prajapati · Deepak Rohilla · Denis Žoljom · Dennis Ploetner · Dennis Snell · deoladev · Derek Hanson · Devang Vachheta · Dhiraj Joshi · Dhrumil Kumbhani · Dhruval Shah · Dhruvang21 · Dhruvik Malaviya · Diana Alviti · Diane Co · digamberpradhan · digitalblanket · Dilip Bheda · Dilip Modhavadiya · Dimitris Mitropoulos · Dion Hulse · divyeshpatel01 · Dominik Schilling · Douglas Henri · Dreb Bitanghol · Drew Jaynes · Drivingralle · drysand · Earle Davies · eclev91 · Eddy · Egill R. 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More than 70 locales have fully translated WordPress 7.0 into their language. Community translators are working hard to ensure more translations are on their way. Thank you to everyone who helps make WordPress available in 200+ languages.

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Thank you to the more than 21 web hosts that have tested pre-release versions for WordPress 7.0, helping ensure that WordPress and hosting platforms are fully compatible, free of errors, and optimized for the best possible user experience.

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Last but not least, thanks to the volunteers who contribute to the support forums by answering questions from WordPress users worldwide.

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Get involved

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Participation in WordPress goes far beyond coding. And learning more and getting involved is easy. Discover the teams that come together to Make WordPress and use this interactive tool to help you decide which is right for you.

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Transcript
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[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.

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Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, how to create affordable and accurate WordPress translations using AI.

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If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.

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If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox and use the form there.

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So on the podcast today we have Leonardo Losovic. Leonardo has been working with WordPress since 2012, developing plugins such as Gato GraphQL, a GraphQL server for WordPress, and more recently, Gato AI Translations for Polylang, a plugin that harnesses AI to streamline the process of translating WordPress websites.

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After giving a talk at WordCamp Asia on the invisible gotchas of WordPress translation, Leonardo joins us to discuss both the moral and practical arguments for making your site multilingual, and how the technology has changed the landscape for site owners and developers alike.

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I suspect that many listeners have considered translating their WordPress websites, whether for legal compliance or to reach a wider audience, but may be unsure where to start, or if the investment is worthwhile.

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As Leonardo explains, the ease and affordability introduced by AI powered translation tools have changed the landscape. What used to require costly human translators and time consuming workflows can now often be handled with a few clicks, and for a fraction of the price.

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Leonardo starts by sharing his background in plugin development, and the evolution of translation plugins over the

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decade. We then get into how AI translations work, why manual oversight still matters, and how the new features coming to WordPress, such as collaborative editing and deeper AI integration will impact workflows and user experience.

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We also discuss plugin strategies around managing multiple translations, SEO considerations, and the best practises for ensuring your translations are accurate and efficient.

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Leonardo gives practical advice on how to avoid wasting resources when updating posts, and offers his perspective on the arms race of translation, as AI becomes ubiquitous, and why as it gets easier, keeping up with competitors becomes essential.

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If you’re interested in making your site multilingual, or just want to hear how WordPress translation technology is evolving, this episode is for you.

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If you’re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you’ll find all the other episodes as well.

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And so without further delay, I bring you Leonardo Losovic.

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I am joined on the podcast by Leo Losoviz. Hello, Leo.

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[00:03:40] Leonardo Losoviz: Hello, Nathan.

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[00:03:42] Nathan Wrigley: It’s lovely to have you on the podcast today. Leo and I were hanging out at WordCamp Asia where you did a presentation, I think it’s correct to say. It was all about how you might translate things on your WordPress website, leveraging some of the solutions that Leo has built, but possibly just some things that might be baked into WordPress as well. So that’s going to be the discussion topic for today.

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Before we crack into that, Leo, can you just tell us a little bit about you, your background with WordPress, and probably the stuff that you’ve been doing recently, which touches on translations?

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[00:04:14] Leonardo Losoviz: Alright. So I’ve been working with WordPress since 2012, and I have a plugin called Gato GraphQL, which is a graphical server for WordPress. I’ve been working on that since like forever now.

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And then I upgraded to try to make plugins that can be used by the final user of the website, bloggers and marketing people, not just developers. And then I launched another plugin that is called Gato AI Translations for Polylang. It’s basically a wrapper of my other plugin that will help people translate their websites using AI. And I have been working with this plugin for over one year now. And, yeah, I mean this is what I’m doing.

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[00:04:54] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. And how did your presentation at WordCamp Asia go? Were you happy with the delivery and the attendance and things like that?

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[00:05:00] Leonardo Losoviz: Delivery. Yes. Actually, I think it came out quite good. You can check it out, it’s on YouTube. Attendance? Not really. My talk was the first one on the second day of the conference. It was 9:30 AM. Everybody was either sleeping or they were drinking coffee outside. We did have people showing up slowly. Maybe by the end of the presentation there were people who were like, hey, this appeared to be good. Too bad that I didn’t come here on time.

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[00:05:23] Nathan Wrigley: I hope you forgive me because I was one of those people. I dropped in towards the end. I certainly enjoyed the latter part of your talk. So you’ve built a whole load of solutions around the capacity, the capability to make your WordPress website go from language A to language, B, C, D, E, and so on and so forth. I will just read the blurb about what your presentation was called and also what it was about.

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And so the presentation title was The Invisible Gotchas of WP Translation. And then the blurb surrounding that was nice and short, and it goes like this. This talk walks through a practical checklist to turn, we should translate, into a precise plan that leaves no strings untranslated. Attendees will leave with a practical end-to-end approach to translating WordPress content that leaves nothing to chance.

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So my first question then is really focused on the, we should translate, that little bit. Let’s make the case for, I suppose the moral argument, not the technological argument. Now, it might be a moral argument, but it also might be a legal argument. I’m just wondering where you think we stand in terms of whether you have to, or should, translate things at this point in time.

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[00:06:34] Leonardo Losoviz: Well, I guess that if you have to out of legal requirements, then you will have to. So that is out of the equation. If you’re compelled to do it, then that’s part of your business. It’s a business requirement, so you’ll have to do it.

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The key question is, if you don’t have to, I mean, nobody’s forcing you to do it, should you still do it? And the answer is, yes, of course you should, because it will help you. Why wouldn’t you do it if you can do it? If you have potential visitors to your website speaking different languages, why wouldn’t you want to track them? Why wouldn’t you want to show your content to new, like a new user base? The key question is, as long as you can do it, do it.

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[00:07:13] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I think that’s an interesting point. So certainly in the part of the world where I live, there is a lot of legislation around what must be done. So for example, I’m in the UK and we have a variety of different languages spread throughout the country. And depending on where you live and what your business is involved in, you may be compelled to do it. And so, as you say, that’s just the way it is. You know, you don’t have any choice around that.

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But I think now, especially with the advent of technologies which enable translation to happen at the speed of light, more or less, it becomes increasingly a question of, well, why wouldn’t you do that?

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And so I’m kind of keen to explore the things that have changed over the last, let’s say decade. That’s probably a bit too long, but something along those lines, to make it easier to translate. In the past, I’ve interviewed lots of founders of plugins that do translations. Let’s say 10 years ago, this was a fairly lengthy, probably quite costly enterprise. Translating, let’s say an English site into, let’s say a German site.

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Because you had to figure out which bits of the website needed to be translated. You probably had to go somewhere to find a human that could do that translation work. You then had to negotiate the price for that, receive the translated text, and then somehow figure out how to make it so that the English string is converted into the German string, and so on and so forth. I’m imagining that’s no longer the case. Where are we at in April, 2026 in terms of the ease of getting things translated? And probably, I think we’re going to stray into AI here.

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[00:08:45] Leonardo Losoviz: Yes, the answer is AI. Truth is that with AI you can translate your content very easily and the quality is just excellent. I will not tell you to not engage a professional translator if you don’t speak the language, just to make sure that the translation is right. Mostly when we’re talking about technical terms, or when they refer to some industry that your website is targeting. Otherwise, the quality is just excellent.

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I would say that with AI, you can rely on it, I don’t know, maybe 99% of the translation seems accurate. If there’s some ambiguity around some technical term, then you might still want to have a professional translator. But even then, you know that you don’t need to engage the translator for the 100% translation. But only to pay attention to those details, possibly fix those errors, make sure the technical acronyms are correct and that kind of stuff.

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So clearly the pricing tag that now you have compared to five years ago has gone down dramatically. You have to pay for the tokens. Basically, when you engage one of these AI providers, either Open AI or Anthropic or Gemini, you are paying to them for tokens to perform the translation. But that is literally like very little money. It can be like cents on the dollar.

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In the past when you have, not just the past but also the present, you have company providing translation services. They will charge you much, much, much more than that. Maybe it will be like 50 USD per hour. Maybe it’ll be like 100 USD per hour for a professional translator. And then you have to engage them maybe five hours to translate one blog post, or, I don’t know, like five blog posts, it doesn’t matter. Now that the amount of work that you need to engage them just to double check, instead of five hours, will be maybe 30 minutes. So you are still spending money to engage the professional translator, but much, much, much less.

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And that means that if you do have the budget, now instead of translating one language, you are talking, Nathan, about legal requirements, possibly your country has two or three different languages. I don’t know, if you’re from Canada, you might speak English and French. Maybe they will ask you to translate your websites to English and French. But now you can say, okay, well now, if I had the money and it’s so easy to translate using AI, I can translate to many more languages and also target people, not just from Canada, but from other regions of the world.

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And then you can also translate to Spanish. Why not? And you can translate to Portuguese. So the situation now is that prices went down dramatically, the quality of the translation using AI is really, really, really high and you will need professional services only in those cases that you need to be 100% sure that translation is valid when it is a professional industry.

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[00:11:25] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I suppose the, as you described, the acronyms and things like that, the technical language, I guess if you’ve just got a blog where, in my case I’m just using plain English, an ordinary set of words, I’m not ever going to be delving into complexity, and that may be the case for many people. I think I agree with you that the AI will probably do an admirable job.

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But the minute you start to stray into unusual words, or technical things where, I don’t know, you’re referencing some aspect of physics or biochemistry or something like that, then I can see exactly why you might need to do that.

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But also, interestingly, the budget has obviously shrunk to get that translation done from perhaps many hundreds of dollars down to perhaps a handful of US cents. But still, if you want to be compliant and you’ve got an intuition that your language may be straying into a grey area where AI might not do a perfect job, that is now where the budget is going. It’s just sort of polishing it up a little bit and making sure that, okay, that actually is highlighted.

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Can I ask a question related to that? Do the AIs, when you ask them to translate things, do they come back with, okay, we’ve done our best, but we are confused by this portion or that portion? Or do they typically just hand back, this is our translation, go figure it out for yourself from there?

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[00:12:43] Leonardo Losoviz: When we’re talking about my plugin, Gato AI Translations, you get the translation straight because you’re not interacting with the AI. You are asking straight for the response and that response, you add it, you embed it into your blog post. There is no interaction with the person.

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So basically, you can do that, you could feed the content to ChatGPT and tell ChatGPT, translate it, and if you have any doubt, please ask me. And then ChatGPT will talk to you, and then we say, I don’t know how to translate this word. Should I say this or should I say that? But that is in the context of the interface when you’re talking to ChatGPT or you’re talking to Claude. In a plugin where you want to collect the string and just add it into the translated blog post, you don’t have that interaction. So it really depends on your use case.

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[00:13:29] Nathan Wrigley: The plugins that I’ve seen in the past that have been tackling this job in WordPress, and again, we’re going back many, many years prior to AI. There was a lot of UI involved. You would have to log into the WordPress website. Let’s say it was a blog post, you would go to the blog post and usually lurking somewhere in meta, so in a box somewhere else would be the original string and then the translated string. And that would typically have been done by a human. And you’d probably copy and paste that back, or maybe the platform, the plugin would actually facilitate the putting of that text into that box by somebody that’s logged into the platform who’s paid to do the translations.

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But the point being, there was a lot to look at. If you had a German translation and a Portuguese and a Lithuanian and Russian and, you know, on you go. Every time you add one of those in the UI becomes much more complicated and what have you. So I’m curious to see in 2026, how do you manage that? How is that all done? What does the UI look like? In an era of AI when we are increasingly typing and talking to our software, have you leveraged that and sort of tried to minimise the UI in a way?

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[00:14:34] Leonardo Losoviz: Okay, so there are two responses to this. One is what I’m doing right now, and what I expect WordPress to offer coming soon. So what I am doing now with my plugin is just to do the translation. And you have one blog post in, say in English, your origin language, and then you select it from the post list, and you have this dropdown in the bulk actions with all the actions that you can execute with the post. And you just say, translate. And when you do that, it will duplicate the post from the origin to all of the translations.

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You can have one translation, you can have 17 translations. It will create all of those 17 entries, and it will already translate all the content to the target language. So then if you want to edit the translation, if you want to fix it, then you’ll just edit the translation and then there you will see there’s something that doesn’t appear right, and then you fix it in the WordPress editor.

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In my scenario right now, we go from nothing to everything. There’s no in between. Now with WordPress 7.0, they’re adding two things. One is adding the AI Connector. So we will have more and more and more capabilities to interact with AI. And the other thing that we have that is unrelated, but I think it will end up being related is phase three, which is the communications in the WordPress editor, right? That two people can communicate with each other, like Google Docs style.

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And so we’ll have these windows on the right hand side from the WordPress editor, right? So you can add a comment. Somebody can add a comment saying, hey, do you think this is right? And the other person on the other side can say, yeah, this needs to be fixed. So they can communicate via the WordPress editor. Whereas right now you have two people interacting with each other. You can have one person and one AI.

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So then imagine the scenario where you translate everything and then you edit the translated post. And you might have those same windows with a kind of sticky post, and pointing an arrow to some word saying, hey, I’m not sure if this is the right translation. Please check it out.

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So I can see that WordPress 7.0 will give use the infrastructure to start adding this additional interaction. So then I could translate all the content as I’m doing right now. And if I find out from the AI that a world has not been, it doesn’t have 100% confidence that it’s the right translation, maybe we can use that phase three functionality to add a sticky post to have the AI interact with the person, say, hey, this translation, I’m not sure, please double check.

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[00:17:04] Nathan Wrigley: This leverage is so much interesting stuff. So again, just in case the user hasn’t been keeping up with the WordPress news, 7.0 has, or WordPress 7.0 I should say, has this capability which wasn’t quite ready for the WordCamp Asia release. The idea was to release 7.0 at WordCamp Asia, but because of technical reasons, there was something that needed to be changed and amended about the way that data was handled and stored in different tables.

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7.0 will bring the capability to have collaborative editing, so think Google Docs. And it really didn’t occur to me until quite recently, because somebody suggested exactly what you said, I was always imagining another human being, being in that interface. So it would be me and Leo having a conversation through comments or what have you in that same WordPress post.

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But of course now we realise, well, of course, the AI work, the MCP and the adapters and all of those kind of things allow that thing in the post to be not a human being, it could be an AI. And so that’s really interesting.

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So maybe we’ll come in, have a conversation, something along the lines of, please could you just check, this would appear to be fine but there seem to be a few errors here and there and everywhere, and it may be able to come back with a suggestion.

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That stuff is so powerful, but yet completely unrealised at the minute. It’s kind of just on the horizon, but when that feature drops, I think that will be quite an interesting experience. You’ll be able to talk about the content with an AI, based upon what is in the content area of WordPress. That’s going to be really, really fascinating. Gosh, wow. What a future.

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Is that stuff ready? Do you know if WordPress is going to ship with those kind of capabilities? So you mentioned things like the sticky post to sort of highlight, imagine a post-it note or something like that. Something which can highlight? Are all of those foundational pieces ready or were you just sort of blue sky gazing there?

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[00:19:02] Leonardo Losoviz: I haven’t seen it, but we can all picture that happening. So you know that 7.0 is giving us the foundation to build all of the things. Once the foundation is there, it’s up to the community to implement these use cases. So yeah, I’m quite confident that it will happen, but I haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen it yet.

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[00:19:19] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I do love the idea though, of communicating through that interface. That’ll be really interesting to see how that changes the calculus of how we write things and who we write them with and all of that kind of thing.

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So Gutenberg, which we don’t talk about too much really at the moment, but Gutenberg had four phases when it was first talked about. So we’re in phase three at the moment, which is this collaborative editing. Broadly it was collaborative editing was the poster child of that release.

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And the fourth one, so that may be many years away, I don’t know when phase four will come about, but the fourth one is bound very much to translation. Do you know if there’s any sort of foundational work being done over there? It may still be a complete black box. It’s just the word we’re going to deal with translations. Do you have any wisdom or insight into what’s happening over there?

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[00:20:03] Leonardo Losoviz: No. All I know is that Matt Mullenweg was postponing that for the very, very, very end. And since we’re still working on phase three, I don’t think that there will be any phase four work happening anytime soon.

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[00:20:16] Nathan Wrigley: No. Okay. So we’ll have to wait and see how that drops. But it could be another interesting phase. Let’s see what that does.

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So, okay, now let’s sort of dig into the weeds of how your system works. So you mentioned that if I’m in the data view for posts, one of the options that I have when I’m hovering over a post, you know, delete post, edit post, what have you. It sounds like in there somewhere you inject a translate. And presumably when you hit that button, automations that you’ve previously set up, say, translate to French, translate to Portuguese, translate to Chinese and Japanese, that would then be triggered.

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Do you then create separate posts? So that the post that’s now in Chinese is separate to the original one, or as some plugins handle it, do you take the original one and just inject metadata into that post?

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[00:21:04] Leonardo Losoviz: If we’re talking about my plugin, my plugin is called Gato AI Translations for Polylang. I depend on Polylang. So Polylang is a plugin that works by creating separate entries for each of the languages. So you have a post in English, and when you translate it, you’ll create another post in French and another one in Spanish and another one in Portuguese.

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Then you have a different plugin like WPML which has a different strategy, which is to have only one post and then all the individual strings are translated on runtime. So you’re not statically creating different versions of the post, but you have only one post and then you translate the strings, the actual content.

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It really is up to what is the best strategy for your site, what it is that you are most comfortable working with. There are other plugins, of course. There is TranslatePress, there is Weglot, MultilingualPress. They all have different strategies. I do like Polylang because the post is created in advance. Then all the same rules for your WordPress site apply. You can cache the page, you can export it statically, and it also is fast because you don’t need to translate the string.

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Like finding a specific string can be very expensive. Like a string, you know, that you need to find from English and translate to French. The string might be like, I mean 1000 characters long. You know, that can become very expensive. And if you do that on runtime, even if you cache it later, that can be very expensive. Yeah, my plugin is based only on Polylang, but it’s not the only plugin.

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[00:22:28] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. So there’s a whole range of different things out there, but you’ve obviously opted for Polylang. Is that a commercial kind of pro plugin or do they have a, is there a free version that you can leverage?

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[00:22:37] Leonardo Losoviz: Yeah. It’s free. And they have the pro version that is, I think 99 USD per year for one domain, if I’m not wrong. But it’s completely optional, you can use Polylang free and it’s more than enough. Actually, Polylang Pro, they have a few features and the main feature that they had historically is that you could use machine learning for translating the content.

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They use DeepL as a service, like Google Translate. Now the thing is that I wouldn’t use DeepL anymore. Even my own plugin, at the very beginning had, even nowadays, it has integration for Google Translate and for DeepL. But AI is so much superior than those. So you can still use Polylang Pro for the other features, but the machine translation one, there’s no need, Polylang free, more than enough.

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[00:23:23] Nathan Wrigley: So when, let’s say for example, that I’ve got a post and I’ve translated it. I’m just beginning my journey, figuring stuff out. And again, we’re talking about your solution here. So, you know, you can speak to how it works, not how all the other ones work.

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I click the translate button and I’ve now got six posts, the English original and then these five other languages. How does that surface? Are they like child posts of the original post? Is there an easy way for me to see, okay, here’s the German version of that, and it’s bound to this? Is there a filter system or what have you?

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And then how does that look on the front end? So if the original string is, I don’t know, example.com/post-one, am I from an SEO point of view, does that stay nice and tidy? Like, I don’t know, it goes example.com/g for German, forward slash post-one, or how does that all tie together?

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[00:24:13] Leonardo Losoviz: All right, so this is once again, a feature provided by Polylang. When you create the translations, all the posts, they’re all parallel to each other. They don’t have a hierarchy. They’re not like the child post from the origin post. And if you want to only see the post for one specific language, there is a switch, like a switcher button at the top menu bar, and you can select the language.

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So by default it says all languages, and then you’ll have all the posts. So in a way, if you have, say that you have 10 posts and then you have 10 languages, that means that you have now 100 posts. So it can be a bit clutter. So then you go to the top menu and then you select English, and then it only shows you the English ones.

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And the important thing is that, say you’re using AI to translate, you only need to deal with the origin post and nothing else, until you need to double check if the translation is right, maybe fix one thing here, one thing there. But otherwise, the whole time you are only dealing with the origin post.

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So what I do is I always have my selector in that origin language. So it’s in English and I only see the English post. So then I do translate, and I know that the translation will be created alongside all of the categories, and all of the tags and all the feature image, right? But I don’t need to deal with them. So then I also don’t need to see them on my screen. They create clutter, so then I remove them.

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And then to see them, to visualise them, yeah, once again, Polylang, it gives you the option of choosing the language by appending the language code in the URL. So mysite.com/fr/the-slug, that’s for French. Or you can also use subdomains. So you can have fr.mysite.com/the-slug. So that’s something that you can configure. And then basically when you go to that page and you add the language code in the URL, then you will see that blog post for the selected language.

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And the way that Polylang handles all of this is it connects a post to all of its translations via a specific taxonomy, like a tag that they created, I think it’s called language, if I’m not wrong, or language relationship, I’m not completely sure now. And so it ties all the post to all of its translations. And the thing is that then when you go to the post in French, it can add the href lang meta tag that is telling Google that this post is a translation of that post.

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So that is important for SEO purposes that these posts are not two independent entities, but one is a translation of that one for French. So Google will understand a lot of the relationships, and if the user who is searching for information, they’re searching for information in French, then Google will know to serve the French page. And if it is in Spanish, Google will know to serve the Spanish page.

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[00:27:01] Nathan Wrigley: It’s an amazing wraparound solution, isn’t it? In that all of this is just sort of handled and what you essentially end up doing is, the user that is, you click the translate button and once you’ve got everything set up correctly, it just, off it goes.

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I have a question though about amendment. So let’s say for example, I realised that my blog post was full of inaccuracies and errors and there’s just wrong throughout it. And I then go in and I make amendments. Do I then need to restart that whole translation process or can I rely on it kind of figuring out, okay, amendments were made, let’s just do that automatically for you? How does amendments to the original, in my case, English work?

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[00:27:37] Leonardo Losoviz: Yeah, well, I would change that. I would say do not do any translation until you’re 100% sure that the post is final. And that’s the main way to waste your time, and to waste money in tokens. Because you execute the translation, and then you realise that something was wrong. Maybe this H2 tag was supposed to be an H3, then you fix it, and then you run the translation again. And then you realise that was another mistake, there was a typo. And then you had to run the translation again. And then you’re like, oh, but that image has embedded text in the image. It doesn’t work on the translated post. And then you run the translation again.

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So all of these things are common sense, and you don’t think about them until you see the error happening time and again and again. So what I do is I have a checklist actually on my website. I have a blog post where I have every single item that we need to pay attention to in advance of executing the translation. So executing the translation is when you go to the post list, you select the post, and then you select translate. Easy, and it takes five seconds.

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But before you do that, you need to make sure that the post is final. That means no typos. That means all the headers are the right header. That means that all images are correct. They have alt attributes. They have the title that you need. There’s no embedded text in the image, even adding an embed from another source.

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Say that you have a YouTube video that you’re embedding on your content, and the YouTube video is in Spanish. When you translate that to French, maybe the YouTube video is not useful anymore. So all of these things you need to check from a multilingual point of view when you’re looking at your origin post. And then you’re like, okay, this origin post, now it’s okay. It’s perfect. You publish the post, then you translate.

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[00:29:26] Nathan Wrigley: I got it. Yeah, I mean that makes sense. But, should you need to, it’s a process of clicking the button again and kind of beginning that process. But yeah, good idea to have those checks and balances.

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I was at an event not that long ago in which AI was used inside of a WordPress plugin, inside of a post, to ascertain the content of things like images and infographics. So as an example, there was data held inside of a graph. So, I don’t know, whatever that data was, bar charts, pie charts you can imagine, but also just images and what have you. And although this may not be handled and maybe it’s blue sky thinking, I was wondering what the capabilities are for handling those kind of things.

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So in the case of an image with a chart in it, wouldn’t it be nice if we could replicate that chart, but instead of all the labels being in English, if they could be in German or French or whatever it may be. I don’t know if that’s utterly out of the scope, even in blue sky thinking in terms of AI and translations. But I was curious if you had an inkling whether things that were not just text-based content might be handled in the future as well by AI. Not specifically addressing what you do at the moment, but whether that seems to be on the horizon.

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[00:30:41] Leonardo Losoviz: Yeah, well, to be honest, I think technically it is feasible, but even if it can be done, I don’t think it should be done. And the thing is this, I’m promoting that we can translate our websites to as many languages as possible, only because we can. So you have your website in one language, then you can have it in two, then you will have it in five. You can have it in 30 languages. Why wouldn’t you do it? If you can target new countries and new visitors, sure, go ahead and do it. AI gives you the possibility.

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But now imagine that you also want to translate the images. Every single image on your website will be replicated 30 times. That sounds scary. I wouldn’t do that. What I will do is to have one single image that is language agnostic, that there’s no text inside. And if you had to add text, maybe in your page builder, maybe in Gutenberg or Elementor or Bricks, maybe you can create an overlay and place the text on top. It’s a more difficult solution and a bit more complex, but it’s clean because then you can translate that as part of text, and the image, you don’t need to replicate the image 30 times.

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[00:31:44] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that’s an interesting point. And that leads me to wonder whether it’s possible to, for example, an image caption. Whether it’s possible to translate that into 30 different languages whilst still referencing the exact same image.

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So, I don’t know, in English it might say, here is a picture of a dog walking by a beach, and then the French equivalent caption, and the German equivalent caption and what have you. Then in effect, you’ve recycled the same image, but you’ve also, the person viewing it in German would get the German equivalent of that. Again, I don’t know if that’s possible, but maybe that’s an interesting.

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[00:32:14] Leonardo Losoviz: Yeah, actually that’s how it is right now. So when you translate the post, you will also translate all of the entities associated to the post, the tags and the categories and the featured image. So the featured image will have meta data associated. So when you upload an image to the media manager, you add meta data, the title, you can add a caption. So all of that text, it’s in one language.

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Now, you can also translate the image by creating a new entry, once again using Polylang. The image has a language associated, so the origin image will be in English, and you can create a new entry in French, and the title will be translated to French and the caption will be translated to French. But the image itself is the same for both entries. So the JPEG or the PNG, that one is not duplicated. So you’re not increasing the size of your hard drive. You’re creating another entry on the database for the media entry, the custom post media, or the attachment, but not for the actual physical file.

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[00:33:11] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. So it’s much more lean, basically doing it that way, isn’t it? I didn’t actually know that it was done that way, but that’s certainly how Polylang handles that. Okay, that’s interesting.

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So you mentioned that, I think one of the through lines in what you’ve been saying is because you can do it, why not just do it? It kind of makes sense when you think about it like that, but I’m just wondering what the real world impact of this is. You know, in terms of things like discoverability, and whether or not it really genuinely does have an impact on your business. Let’s say for example, I don’t know, you’re shipping widgets from England to France, and suddenly you translate your site into Japanese and Chinese.

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I would assume that that could only have a positive effect, but also, equally, I’d want to know what the data was on that. And I don’t know if you have, given that you are in the translation space quite heavily, I don’t know if you have any data to hand which would compel people to do this, to prove, look, it really is worthwhile. Anecdotally, it feels like it would definitely be worthwhile. Why not, would be the way of phrasing it. But I don’t know if there’s any data lurking in your head which would categorically say, oh yeah, this is definitely it.

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[00:34:16] Leonardo Losoviz: Nathan, unfortunately, we’re screwed.

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[00:34:19] Nathan Wrigley: The answer is no.

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[00:34:20] Leonardo Losoviz: Because when it’s so easy, everyone will do it. And when everybody does it, you’re not moving forward. You’re just moving, you’re running just to be on the same spot. If you’re the only one who is translating your site to 20 languages, you will be far ahead from everybody else. But because it’s easy to you, it’s easy to everybody. And if everybody does the same, once again, you are not ahead of them. You’re on the same place.

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So this is the problem of technology, right? And the problem of AI. Now we’re all very productive with AI. I’m using AI to code my plugin, and I think I’m pulling ahead. But my competitor is also using AI to code his plugin. So we are both running just to stay on the same place. So in a way, unfortunately, it becomes a situation in which you need to do it just to not fall behind.

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[00:35:07] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, it’s kind of like the arms race mentality in a way, isn’t it? But also, that’s quite a compelling way of framing it, because you can be sure that, okay, if you’re writing a blog and you’ve got a limited audience, maybe there’s limited scope in that. If you are in a business and you are, certainly if you have pretensions of dealing over international borders and your competitors are doing this, it is exactly that arms race mentality, isn’t it?

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Then you are compelled to do it just to be ordinary, just to be the baseline. 20 years ago, would’ve been entirely different because of that would’ve been a very expensive calculation and translating into, let’s say, Japanese. If there’s no ROI on the Japanese translation, that is money which would’ve been probably wasted.

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Now, with AI costing literal cents to translate, it does feel like that is the calculus, right? We are doing it because it can be done and we know that the competitors will be doing it, so we ought to do it as well. Maybe that’s all the argument needs to be. It’s simply that, simply stated in that way.

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[00:36:12] Leonardo Losoviz: That’s a good reason to do it, which is that you want to target people in other countries, speaking other languages. So yes, I want to do it, but at the same time, if I see that my competitors are doing it, then I have to do it. I can see it both ways.

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[00:36:25] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Okay. It’s certainly been an interesting conversation. What I’ll do is I will ask Leo to provide me with links that are pertinent. Maybe we can get the wordpress.tv of the presentation that you did, plus links to the websites which have been mentioned in this podcast episode. If you go to wptavern.com and you search for the episode with Leo Losoviz. His name is spelled L-O-S-O-V-I-Z or Z, depending on where you live in the world. If you go and search for that, then you’ll be able to find a transcription of this as well as links to the various different bits and pieces that we have mentioned.

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Leo, before we wrap it up, is there anything else you wanted to say? If not, we will bid you adieu.

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[00:37:07] Leonardo Losoviz: No, not really.

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[00:37:09] Nathan Wrigley: You’ve got it. In which case we will call that a day and say thank you very much, Leo, for chatting to me today. Really appreciate it,

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[00:37:15] Leonardo Losoviz: Thank you, Nathan.

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On the podcast today we have Leonardo Losovic.

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Leonardo has been working with WordPress since 2012, developing plugins such as Gato GraphQL, a GraphQL server for WordPress, and more recently, Gato AI Translations for Polylang, a plugin that harnesses AI to streamline the process of translating WordPress websites. After giving a talk at WordCamp Asia on the “invisible gotchas” of WordPress translation, Leonardo joins us to discuss both the moral and practical arguments for making your site multilingual, and how the technology has changed the landscape for site owners and developers alike.

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I suspect that many listeners have considered translating their WordPress websites, whether for legal compliance or to reach a wider audience, but may be unsure where to start or if the investment is worthwhile. As Leonardo explains, the ease and affordability introduced by AI-powered translation tools have changed the landscape. What used to require costly human translators and time-consuming workflows can now often be handled with a few clicks, and for a fraction of the price.

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Leonardo starts by sharing his background in plugin development and the evolution of translation plugins over the past decade. We then get into how AI translations work, why manual oversight still matters, and how the new features coming to WordPress, such as collaborative editing and deeper AI integration, will impact workflows and user experience.

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We also discuss plugin strategies around managing multiple translations, SEO considerations, and the best practices for ensuring your translations are accurate and efficient. Leonardo gives practical advice on how to avoid wasting resources when updating posts, and offers his perspective on the “arms race” of translation as AI becomes ubiquitous, and why, as it gets easier, keeping up with competitors becomes essential.

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If you’re interested in making your site multilingual or just want to hear how WordPress translation technology is evolving, this episode is for you.

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Useful links

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The Invisible Gotchas of WP Translation – WordCamp Asia 2026 presentation from Leonardo

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YouTube video of the presentation above

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Gato GraphQL plugin

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 Gato AI Translations for Polylang plugin

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Polylang plugin

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 TranslatePress

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Weglot

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MultilingualPress

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WPML

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DeepL

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