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


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




















































";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:3:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16:"WordPress Planet";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:8:"language";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2:"en";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:47:"WordPress Planet - http://planet.wordpress.org/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"item";a:50:{i:0;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"WPTavern: WordPress.com Introduces Scheduling for Social Media Posts";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=73026";s: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:79:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-com-introduces-scheduling-for-social-media-posts";s: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:2916:"<p>WordPress.com is venturing into the realm of social media management applications with its latest feature that allows users to <a href="https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2017/07/13/you-can-now-schedule-your-social-media-posts-from-wordpress-com/" target="_blank">schedule Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn updates for individual posts</a>. This goes beyond the basic <a href="https://jetpack.com/support/publicize/" target="_blank">Publicize</a> functionality that automatically shares posts to connected accounts as soon as they are published, giving users the ability to automate their content marketing to social networks for the most optimal time for sharing.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/schedule-sharing.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s difficult to know how a post will appear on social networks once it has automatically been shared, which is one reason why many people choose to manually share a post for the best presentation. You want to ensure that the right thumbnail will show up with a message customized for each network&#8217;s particular audience. The new social scheduling feature on WordPress.com includes a built-in preview screen so users can see what the post will look like once it is shared to the network and then make any necessary tweaks.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/social-sharing-previews.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>Scheduling social media posts is available on WordPress.com for Premium and Business plan users and for Jetpack Professional and Premium users. On the Premium plan level, which comes in at ~$9/month, users pay less than they would for scheduling apps like Buffer, Hootsuite, or Sprout Social while also getting access to more commercial WordPress features.</p>
<p>To truly become a realistic replacement for these types of social media marketing apps, WordPress.com would need to offer better analytics tied into the new sharing feature to show how posts are performing at different times and networks. Although WordPress.com allows for unlimited scheduling and users, it would also need to allow sharing to more networks to be more competitive against these apps. For users who don&#8217;t need all of that data but just want the scheduling feature, a paid Jetpack or WordPress.com plan is a more affordable option.</p>
<p>Several other self-hosted WordPress plugins already <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/schedule+social+media/" target="_blank">offer scheduling social media posts</a> for free and some even integrate the social accounts with Google Analytics. The addition of this feature to Jetpack commercial plans may not be as compelling for self-hosted users who can already find this for free, but it adds value for existing Jetpack customers who may now be able to replace a plugin or third-party service.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 13 Jul 2017 19:59:47 +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:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:1;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:62:"WPTavern: WPWeekly Episode 281 – In Memory of Jesse Petersen";s: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:58:"https://wptavern.com?p=73045&preview=true&preview_id=73045";s: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://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-281-in-memory-of-jesse-petersen";s: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:2501:"<p>In this episode, <a href="http://jjj.me/">John James Jacoby</a> and I are joined by <a href="https://www.wpsteward.com/">Ben Meredith</a>. Over the past few years, Ben has established a friendly and professional relationship with <a href="https://twitter.com/jpetersen">Jesse Petersen</a>, <a href="https://wptavern.com/jesse-petersen-founder-of-genesis-the-me-passes-away">who passed away</a> due to complications from Cystic Fibrosis.</p>
<p>Ben shares his unique perspective on who Petersen was as a person and describes the challenges of taking over his business. We emphasized how important it is to create a file with passwords and other login information to help appointed people access a person&#8217;s digital presence. We also discuss if saying a person lost their battle with an illness is a negative thing to say.</p>
<p>To close out the show, we talk about net neutrality, 10up acquiring Lift UX, and Let&#8217;s Encrypt offering wildcard certificates in 2018.</p>
<h2>Stories Discussed:</h2>
<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/automattic-releases-net-neutrality-wordpress-plugin-ahead-of-july-12-protest">Automattic Releases Net Neutrality WordPress Plugin Ahead of July 12 Protest</a><br />
<a href="https://wptavern.com/10up-acquires-lift-ux">10up Acquires Lift UX</a><br />
<a href="https://wptavern.com/lets-encrypt-passes-100-million-certificates-issued-will-offer-wildcard-certificates-in-january-2018">Let’s Encrypt Passes 100 Million Certificates Issued, Will Offer Wildcard Certificates in January 2018</a></p>
<h2>Picks of the Week:</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.newlungsfor.me/">Newlungsfor.me</a> is a place to read about Jesse’s battle with Cystic Fibrosis along with <a href="http://www.cffatboy.com/">CFfatboy.com</a>.</p>
<h2>WPWeekly Meta:</h2>
<p><strong>Next Episode:</strong> Wednesday, July 19th 3:00 P.M. Eastern</p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: </strong><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wordpress-weekly/id694849738" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via RSS: </strong><a href="https://wptavern.com/feed/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Stitcher Radio: </strong><a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wordpress-weekly-podcast?refid=stpr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Listen To Episode #281:</strong><br />
</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 12 Jul 2017 22:00:22 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:2;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:97:"WPTavern: Sustain Event Draws 100 Attendees to Discuss the Sustainability of Open Source Software";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=73014";s: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:108:"https://wptavern.com/sustain-event-draws-100-attendees-to-discuss-the-sustainability-of-open-source-software";s: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:5136:"<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/sustain.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>More than 100 open source project maintainers and industry leaders gathered at the GitHub headquarters in San Francisco last month to discuss the long-term sustainability of open source software. The <a href="https://sustainoss.org/" target="_blank">Sustain</a> event, put on by a relatively new organization called SustainOSS, did not follow a traditional conference format with talks and keynotes but was intentionally left unstructured to foster open discussion.</p>
<p>Organizers expected 50 attendees but ended up with double their estimates. The $50 ticket price covered day care, travel assistance, food, and other miscellaneous event costs. Attendees shared insights from their diverse backgrounds and participated in collaborative working sessions and various discussions facilitated by organizers.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Defining a common unified theory of open source sustainability is super hard! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/sustainoss?src=hash">#sustainoss</a> <a href="https://t.co/2PznN2oZGM">pic.twitter.com/2PznN2oZGM</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Lou Huang (@saikofish) <a href="https://twitter.com/saikofish/status/876863604670304257">June 19, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>Co-organizer Alanna Irving shared in her <a href="https://medium.com/open-collective/we-gathered-100-open-source-sustainers-c24f571447a4" target="_blank">wrap-up post</a> how the team <a href="https://opencollective.com/sustainoss" target="_blank">used Open Collective</a> to make the event&#8217;s finances transparent and offer payment options for participants and sponsors. The service has recently added a new feature that allows collectives to communicate event info and sell tickets.</p>
<p>Representatives from large tech companies attended the event, as well as contributors from various open source projects and foundations, including Google, Amazon, Paypal, Airbnb, Red Hat, JS Foundation, Linux Foundation, Apache Foundation, npm, FontAwesome, GulpJS, and more. Irving published a few insights from the discucssions that she and her colleagues are applying to their work at Open Collective:</p>
<ul>
<li>Introducing money in open source is less controversial than we thought. The main issues are related to how.</li>
<li>The coder role is only one among many equally important roles: community builder (for onboarding and creating a healthy ecosystem), documentation writer, fundraiser, and public advocate.</li>
<li>Companies want to support open source communities. This is now more clear than ever.</li>
<li>It’s easier for some companies to make in-kind donations rather than cash. We’re working on making this easier, and will share more about it soon.</li>
<li>Projects that companies publicly support need to have accountability and respect codes of conduct, in order to avoid PR nightmares.</li>
</ul>
<p>On the day following the event, SustainOSS organizers tweeted out a link to <a href="https://github.com/sustainers/discussions" target="_blank">a new forum on GitHub for discussing open source sustainability</a>. Proposed topics include fundraising, governance, contributor retention, productivity, and managing corporate relationships. It was created to offer a safe place for open source sustainers to collaborate with each other in the open and contributors have already submitted some practical ideas for discussion, such as <a href="https://github.com/sustainers/discussions/issues/4" target="_blank">adding a standardized FUNDING or SUSTAINABILITY file to repositories</a>.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Busy day, got a lot done. Stay tuned. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/sustainoss?src=hash">#sustainoss</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/sustain17?src=hash">#sustain17</a> <a href="https://t.co/CtWs82FXAn">pic.twitter.com/CtWs82FXAn</a></p>
<p>&mdash; SustainOSS (@SustainOSS) <a href="https://twitter.com/SustainOSS/status/876996636391559169">June 20, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>Sustain was inspired by inspired by the <a href="https://maintainerati.org/" target="_blank">Maintainerati</a> event held in London in May 2017. The similarly unstructured event brought together open source maintainers who share similar challenges. GitHub also hosted the <a href="https://events.chef.io/events/wontfix-cabal/" target="_blank">Wontfix Cabal</a> event at its San Francisco headquarters in February, which highlighted some of the difficulties related to maintaining OSS projects. Events focused on maintaining and funding OSS have been popping up in the past two years, as more people become aware that open source infrastructure has a critical sustainability problem.</p>
<p>The SustainOSS organizers will be releasing a more detailed article on the event soon. They are also open to considering hosting other Sustain events in different locations. Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/SustainOSS" target="_blank">@SustainOSS</a> on Twitter for the latest updates.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 12 Jul 2017 20:38:14 +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:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:3;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:89:"HeroPress: How I found myself in WordPress – Как я нашел себя в 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:56:"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=1962";s: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:128:"https://heropress.com/essays/i-found-myself-in-wordpress/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-found-myself-in-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:22562:"<img width="960" height="480" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/071217-1024x512.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: WordPress remains the place where you can find yourself, and help make life a little better." /><p><a href="http://heropress.com/feed/#russian">Это эссе также доступно на русском языке.</a></p>
<h3>About Russia and familiarity with technologies</h3>
<p>Russia is a very large and very different country. The basic population, as well as technological development, is concentrated in the central part of the country, in &#8220;city-states&#8221;: Moscow and St. Petersburg. Other regions are much less developed: lower wages, worse and more expensive infrastructure, fewer IT-vacancies and activities.</p>
<p>I was born and grew up in a remote part of Russia &#8211; in the Far East, in one of the industrial cities, which is located in 7 time zones and 9000 kilometers from Moscow. The Internet, like other technologies, reached there with a significant delay and for a lot of money (unlimited Internet at a speed of 64 kb/s appeared only in 2007), Therefore, at first, the basics of site building had to be learned in snatches with the help of dial-up.</p>
<p>The first site I did in school. It was built using simple HTML and CSS. But even in this form, it was very impressive and exciting. Then such sites were popular and periodically on the Internet I <a href="http://softphoenix.narod.ru/about.htm">met guys</a> of my age who like me comprehended the science of site building.<br />
I was lucky to find a like-minded person, with whom we were able to develop together for some time and even launch a joint website.<br />
<a href="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img1-min.png"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-1963 size-full" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img1-min.png" alt="" width="962" height="637" /></a></p>
<h3>University and start of work</h3>
<p>Admission to the computer faculty of the university allowed to more specifically address the issues of web development: to learn PHP and MySQL, to get acquainted with a couple of CMS and to make <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20100207131804/http://www.compnot.ru:80/">my first blog</a> on WordPress :). As far as I remember, the blog worked on some WordPress assembly using version 2.9. If you count from that moment, it turns out that I somehow have been working with WordPress for almost 8 years.</p>
<p>In those days, <a href="http://ru.wordpress.org">ru.wordpress.org</a> was just born and there was no main site on the Russian-language Internet. It was a time of amateur assemblies, amateur translations and even <a href="http://book.max-3000.com/page/istorija-sozdanija">alternatives of WordPress</a>, aimed to the Russian segment of the Internet.</p>
<p>By the will of fate, my first place of work related to website development was the web studio that used Joomla and Drupal. Then there were a few more places of work, during which time WordPress then turned into the main working tool, then returned to the category of extra work and hobbies.</p>
<p>The turning point was the decision to move to Moscow and a full transition to WordPress in freelance format.</p>
<h3>Moving to Moscow</h3>
<p>The scenario of moving to Moscow or St. Petersburg is quite popular among IT specialists of my native region. This is a great chance to find interesting and highly paid job, get acquainted with a lot of IT specialists, including narrow ones, and develop in the area of interest.</p>
<p>In Moscow, I moved with remote work and I do not have personal experience of employment in this city, but my wife and most of the acquaintances were satisfied with the options found.</p>
<p>After about six months of living in Moscow, I was even more thirsty for adventure — to become a freelancer and completely concentrate on WordPress. The ability to plan time independently gives additional space for maneuvers and time for reflection. In my case, this led to an increase in activity in the WordPress community.</p>
<h3>Participate in the WordPress community</h3>
<p>Actively participate in the life of the community, I started about 1.5 years ago. Initially, these were the replies at the support forum, then the development of my plugins, after which I decided to try myself in translating the extensions into Russian and recording training videos for Russian-speaking users.</p>
<p>Over time, it turned into a kind of hobby or even a way of life. Every day I read a lot of posts from users on the support forums and try to help resolve their issues, check and correct the added translation lines, periodically record and post training videos.</p>
<p>Communication with users is very helpful. You are one of the first to learn about the problems and ways to solve them, you can quickly correct some incorrect or incorrect translation. Also, over time, a list of popular questions accumulates, which can be turned into training articles and videos. In turn, the creation of articles and videos helps to structure knowledge and understand the details.</p>
<p>On <a href="http://ru.wordpress.org">ru.wordpress.org</a> a great team of moderators and translation editors has gathered. We regularly communicate in Slack, some I meet on WordCamp.</p>
<p><a href="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img2-min-1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1967" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img2-min-1-1024x768.jpg" alt="Denis and Sergey" width="960" height="720" /></a></p>
<p>In November 2016 I took part in the Global Day of Translation 2. It was an unusual experience: broadcasting from around the world, feeling the scale of what was happening and the excitement of the translation. At that time we took 6th place as the most active locale and attracted 7 new translators.</p>
<h3>Meetups and WordCamp</h3>
<p>In Russia there are not so many cities where WordPress-meetups are held, and WordCamp is held only in Moscow. But despite all this, these events are a great opportunity to be among WordPress lovers, to see live people with whom I have only spoken on the network before, and just feel the spirit of WordPress :).</p>
<p><a href="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img3-min.jpg"><img class="aligncenter wp-image-1968 size-full" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img3-min.jpg" alt="Three big cheery guys at WordCamp" width="1000" height="667" /></a></p>
<p>This year I plan to visit WordCamp Moscow for the third time. I visit WordCamp as a participant, but I hope someday I will find a topic close to me and I will decide to apply for a presentation :). I think it will be interesting.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>At the moment I&#8217;m a full-time freelancer. This allows me to quite well combine work and activities in the community. I like to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLkgL32ycnfl1hs0nJJD6Og">share knowledge</a> and make WordPress more accessible for Russian users.</p>
<p>Many resources of WordPress are dominated by English, and some, for example, as <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/">developer.wordpress.org</a> or &#8220;Handbook&#8221; are not available for localization. I hope, in the future this will change and we will be able to expand our activities.</p>
<p>In any case, WordPress remains the place where you can find yourself and help make life a little better for yourself and the rest of the participants.</p>
<hr />
<h1 id="russian">Как я нашел себя в WordPress</h1>
<h3>Про Россию и знакомство с технологиями</h3>
<p>Россия очень большая и очень разная страна. Основное население, как и технологическое развитие, сосредоточено в центральной части страны, в &#8220;городах-государствах&#8221;: Москве и Санкт-Петербурге. Остальные регионы развиты значительно слабее: ниже зарплаты, хуже и дороже инфраструктура, меньшее количество IT-вакансий и мероприятий.</p>
<p>Я родился и вырос в отдаленной части России — на Дальнем Востоке, в одном из промышленных городов, который расположен в 7 часовых поясах и 9000 километров от Москвы. Интернет, как и другие технологии, доходили туда с существенным опозданием и за большие деньги (безлимитный интернет на скорости 64 кб/сек появился только в 2007 году), поэтому, по началу, азы сайтостроения приходилось познавать урывками с помощью dial-up.</p>
<p>Первый сайт я сделал ещё в школе. Он был построен на простейшем HTML и CSS. Но даже в таком виде, это было очень впечатляюще и захватывающе. Тогда такие сайты были популярны и, периодически на просторах интернета, я <a href="http://softphoenix.narod.ru/about.htm">встречал ребят</a> моего возраста, которые, как и я, постигали науку сайтостроения.</p>
<p>Мне повезло найти единомышленника, с которым мы смогли некоторое время вместе развиваться и даже запустить совместный сайт.</p>
<p><a href="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img1-min.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1963" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img1-min.png" alt="Very old style web site." width="962" height="637" /></a></p>
<h3>Университет и начало работы</h3>
<p>Поступление на компьютерный факультет университета позволило более предметно заняться вопросами веб-разработки: изучить PHP и MySQL, познакомиться с парой CMS и завести <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20100207131804/http://www.compnot.ru:80/">свой первый блог</a> на WordPress :). Насколько я помню, блог работал на какой-то сборке WordPress, использующей версию 2.9. Если вести отсчет с того момента, то получается, что я так или иначе работаю с WordPress уже почти 8 лет.</p>
<p>В те времена <a href="http://ru.wordpress.org/">ru.wordpress.org</a> только зарождался и в русскоязычном интернете не было какой-то основной площадки. Это было время любительских сборок, любительских переводов и даже <a href="http://book.max-3000.com/page/istorija-sozdanija">альтернатив WordPress</a>, ориентированных на русский сегмент интернета.</p>
<p>Волею судеб, моим первым местом работы, связанным с разработкой сайтов, стала веб-студия, использовавшая Joomla и Drupal. Затем было ещё несколько мест работы, в течение которых WordPress то превращалась в основной рабочий инструмент, то возвращалась в разряд дополнительной работы и хобби.</p>
<p>Переломным моментом стало решение о переезде в Москву и полный переход на WordPress в фриланс-формате.</p>
<h3>Переезд в Москву</h3>
<p>Сценарий переезда в Москву или Санкт-Петербург достаточно популярен среди IT-специалистов моего родного региона. Это отличный шанс найти интересную и высокооплачиваемую работу, познакомится со множеством IT-специалистов, в том числе узких, и развиться в интересующей области.</p>
<p>В Москву я переезжал вместе с удаленной работой и у меня нет личного опыта трудоустройства в этом городе, но моя жена и большинство знакомых остались довольны найденными вариантами.</p>
<p>Примерно через полгода проживания в Москве, меня обуздала ещё большая жажда приключений — стать фрилансером и полностью сосредоточиться на WordPress. Возможность самостоятельно планировать время дает дополнительное пространство для маневров и время на размышления. В моем случае, это привело к увеличению активности в сообществе WordPress.</p>
<h3>Участие в сообществе WordPress</h3>
<p>Активно участвовать в жизни сообщества я начал примерно 1.5 года назад. Вначале это были ответы на форуме поддержки, затем разработка своих плагинов, после чего я решил попробовать себя в переводе расширений на русский язык и записи обучающих видео для русскоязычных пользователей.</p>
<p>Со временем это превратилось в некое хобби или даже образ жизни. Каждый день я читаю множество сообщений от пользователей на форумах поддержки и пытаюсь помочь решить их вопросы, проверяю и корректирую добавленные строки перевода, периодически записываю и выкладываю обучающие ролики.</p>
<p>Общение с пользователями очень помогает. Ты одним из первых узнаешь о проблемах и способах их решения, можешь оперативно исправить какой-то неверный или некорректный перевод. Также, со временем накапливается список популярных вопросов, которые можно превращать в обучающие статьи и ролики. В свою очередь, создание статей и видео помогает структурировать знания и разобраться в деталях.</p>
<p>На <a href="http://ru.wordpress.org/">ru.wordpress.org</a> собралась отличная команда модераторов и редакторов переводов. Мы регулярно общаемся в Slack, некоторых я встречаю на WordCamp.</p>
<p><a href="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img2-min-1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1967" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img2-min-1-1024x768.jpg" alt="Denis and Sergey" width="960" height="720" /></a></p>
<p>В ноябре 2016 я принимал участвовали в Глобальном дне перевода 2. Это был необычный опыт: трансляции со всего света, ощущение масштабности происходящего и азарта перевода. В тот раз мы заняли 6 место как самый активный язык и привлекли 7 новых переводчиков.</p>
<h3>Митапы и WordCamp</h3>
<p>В России не так много городов, где проводятся WordPress-митапы, а WordCamp проводится только в Москве. Но не смотря на всё это, данные мероприятия — отличная возможность побыть среди любителей WordPress, увидеть в живую людей, с которыми до этого общался только по сети, и просто почувствовать дух WordPress :).</p>
<p><a href="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img3-min.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1968" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/img3-min.jpg" alt="" width="1000" height="667" /></a></p>
<p>В этом году я планирую посетить WordCamp Moscow в третий раз. Я посещаю WordCamp как участник, но надеюсь когда-нибудь найду близкую мне тему и решусь подать заявку на выступление :). Я думаю, это будет интересно.</p>
<h3>Заключение</h3>
<p>На данный момент я — фул-тайм фрилансер. Это позволяет мне достаточно неплохо совмещать работу и деятельность в сообществе. Мне нравится <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLkgL32ycnfl1hs0nJJD6Og">делиться знаниями</a> и делать WordPress доступнее для русскоязычных пользователей</p>
<p>На многих ресурсах WordPress преобладает английский язык, а некоторые, например, как <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/">developer.wordpress.org/</a> или &#8220;Handbook&#8221; вовсе недоступны для локализации. Надеюсь, в будущем это изменится и мы сможем расширить свою деятельность.</p>
<p>В любом случае, WordPress остается тем местом, где можно найти себя и помочь сделать его чуточку лучше для себя и остальных участников.</p>
<h2>участник</h2>
<p><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1961" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/photo-min-300x300.jpg" alt="Denis Yanchevskiy" width="300" height="300" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h3>Денис Янчевский</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://denisco.pro/">http://denisco.pro</a></li>
<li><a href="http://twitter.com/dyanchevskiy">@dyanchevskiy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wordpress.tv/speakers/denisco/">WordPress.tv</a></li>
<li><a href="http://profiles.wordpress.org/denisco/">WordPress.org Profile</a></li>
</ul>
<div class="rtsocial-container rtsocial-container-align-right rtsocial-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-twitter-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-twitter-horizontal-button"><a title="Tweet: How I found myself in WordPress &#8211; Как я нашел себя в WordPress" class="rtsocial-twitter-button" href="https://twitter.com/share?text=How%20I%20found%20myself%20in%20WordPress%20%2D%20%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%BA%20%D1%8F%20%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BB%20%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%B1%D1%8F%20%D0%B2%20WordPress&via=heropress&url=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fi-found-myself-in-wordpress%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-fb-horizontal fb-light"><div class="rtsocial-fb-horizontal-button"><a title="Like: How I found myself in WordPress &#8211; Как я нашел себя в WordPress" class="rtsocial-fb-button rtsocial-fb-like-light" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fi-found-myself-in-wordpress%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-linkedin-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-linkedin-horizontal-button"><a class="rtsocial-linkedin-button" href="https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fi-found-myself-in-wordpress%2F&title=How+I+found+myself+in+WordPress+%26%238211%3B+%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%BA+%D1%8F+%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BB+%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%B1%D1%8F+%D0%B2+WordPress" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Share: How I found myself in WordPress &#8211; Как я нашел себя в WordPress"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-pinterest-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-pinterest-horizontal-button"><a class="rtsocial-pinterest-button" href="https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://heropress.com/essays/i-found-myself-in-wordpress/&media=https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/071217-150x150.jpg&description=How I found myself in WordPress - Как я нашел себя в WordPress" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Pin: How I found myself in WordPress &#8211; Как я нашел себя в WordPress"></a></div></div><a rel="nofollow" class="perma-link" href="https://heropress.com/essays/i-found-myself-in-wordpress/" title="How I found myself in WordPress &#8211; Как я нашел себя в WordPress"></a></div><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com/essays/i-found-myself-in-wordpress/">How I found myself in WordPress &#8211; Как я нашел себя в WordPress</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 12 Jul 2017 12:00:13 +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:17:"Denis Yanchevskiy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:4;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"WPTavern: Automattic Releases Net Neutrality WordPress Plugin Ahead of July 12 Protest";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72930";s: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:97:"https://wptavern.com/automattic-releases-net-neutrality-wordpress-plugin-ahead-of-july-12-protest";s: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:2074:"<p>Automattic <a href="https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/join-us-in-the-fight-for-net-neutrality/" target="_blank">announced</a> its intent to protest the FCC&#8217;s attack on net neutrality today by making a way for the millions of WordPress.com users to join in. The company&#8217;s logo has been listed on the <a href="https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/" target="_blank">Save Net Neutrality</a> event website for some time but it had yet to announce how it would be participating. WordPress.com users are encouraged to send a message to the FCC and also enable the Fight for Net Neutrality Plugin via the dashboard Settings screen.</p>
<p>The plugin is open source and <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/net-neutrality/" target="_blank">available to self-hosted users on WordPress.org</a>. Unlike the existing plugins that support the event on July 12 by presenting visitors with a banner to raise awareness, Automattic&#8217;s plugin simulates what life might be like in the &#8220;slow lane&#8221; if the FCC abandons the principle of net neutrality. It replaces a few of the posts on your site with a “Still Loading” spinner. This plugin doesn&#8217;t seem to offer a way to test it ahead of the event, but it essentially displays a message at the bottom of your website and slows down some of your posts.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/net-neutrality-plugin.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>The plugin will automatically be disabled after the event has concluded, so both WordPress.com and self-hosted users do not have to worry about turning it off and can remove it later. If you are uneasy about slowing down some of your posts as part of the protest and feel more comfortable displaying a modal or a widget, check out the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/cat-signal/" target="_blank">Internet Defense League Cat Signal</a> or the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/fftf-alerts/" target="_blank">Fight for the Future Alerts</a> plugins as alternatives.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 12 Jul 2017 05:07:23 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:5;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"WPTavern: VersionPress 4.0 Beta Adds User-Editable Location for Plugin Definitions";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72939";s: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://wptavern.com/versionpress-4-0-beta-adds-user-editable-location-for-plugin-definitions";s: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:2944:"<p><a href="https://github.com/versionpress/versionpress/releases/tag/4.0-beta">VersionPress 4.0 beta</a> is available for testing. It includes a number of improvements, most notably, the ability to load plugin definitions from a user-defined location within the wp-content directory.</p>
<p><a href="https://github.com/versionpress/versionpress/blob/aba96d3f63bc5d84d49019bffa47252f87734288/docs/Plugin-Support.md">Plugin definitions</a> are files used to understand data, actions, shortcodes, and other things plugins do in order to automatically provide version control for them.</p>
<p>According to Borek Bernard, co-founder of VersionPress:</p>
<blockquote><p>If you create a folder WP_CONTENT_DIR/.versionpress/plugins/woocommerce and put <a href="https://github.com/versionpress/versionpress/blob/aba96d3f63bc5d84d49019bffa47252f87734288/docs/Plugin-Support.md">definition files</a> like schema.yml or actions.yml there, VersionPress will use and actually prefer it over the bundled definitions if they exist.</p></blockquote>
<img />User Defined Location of Plugin Definition File
<p>Support for WooCommerce and Jetpack are included in 4.0 Beta 1. VersionPress will automatically detect the definition file as long as each plugin has a .versionpress folder in it.</p>
<p>With the release of 4.0 Beta, Bernard says a <a href="https://github.com/versionpress/versionpress/issues/1243">repository</a> containing plugin definitions is next on the list and is encouraging plugin authors to contribute to the project.</p>
<p>&#8220;The final step is to have an online repository of the definitions,&#8221; Bernard said. &#8220;It will be open to anyone to contribute, not just plugin authors, and used by VersionPress transparently.&#8221;</p>
<p>For insight on how to create definitions, developers can look at <a href="https://github.com/versionpress/versionpress/tree/aba96d3f63bc5d84d49019bffa47252f87734288/plugins/versionpress/.versionpress">WordPress core</a> and <a href="https://github.com/pavelevap/versionpress-for-woocommerce">WooCommerce</a> for real-world examples.</p>
<p>Other major changes include full support for WordPress 4.7 and 4.8, adoption of <a href="https://github.com/versionpress/versionpress/projects/2">GitHub projects</a> to help manage the development process, and <a href="https://github.com/versionpress/versionpress/issues?q=project%3Aversionpress%2Fversionpress%2F2+sort%3Acreated-desc+label%3Abug">a number of bugs fixed</a>.</p>
<p>Developers and users can download <a href="https://github.com/versionpress/versionpress/releases/tag/4.0-beta">4.0 Beta</a> from GitHub. Users are encouraged to test the plugin in a staging environment as it&#8217;s not ready to be used on live sites. If you encounter an error, you can report it by creating a new <a href="https://github.com/versionpress/versionpress/issues">Issue request</a> on the project&#8217;s GitHub page.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 12 Jul 2017 04:26:31 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:6;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"WPTavern: 10up Acquires Lift UX";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72917";s: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:42:"https://wptavern.com/10up-acquires-lift-ux";s: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:4294:"<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/10up-logo.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>10up, a leading WordPress design and development agency, has <a href="https://10up.com/blog/2017/10up-acquires-lift-ux/" target="_blank">acquired Lift UX</a>, a smaller user experience design-driven agency that will bolster the company&#8217;s existing Experience design team. Lift founders Chris Wallace and Brad Miller will join 10up&#8217;s 120+ person distributed team, along with Lift&#8217;s director of technology, Christian Chung, and front-end developer Anthony Garand.</p>
<p>10up is acquiring the Lift UX brand, hiring four team members, and will also take possession of <a href="https://remotejobs.com/" target="_blank">RemoteJobs.com</a>, which will continue operating independently as a remote job board. The Lift UX brand will be dissolved and clients and projects are in the process of transitioning over to 10up.</p>
<p>&#8220;We were always looking for agencies to partner with and when I reached out to 10up I was looking to build a relationship to help work on UX design projects,&#8221; Miller said. &#8220;10up has a strong engineering background and I felt like having them as a partner would be huge for our agency. Jake and I quickly realized that Lift UX and 10up had so many similar processes that it sounded like our two companies were the same but just different in size.&#8221;</p>
<p>With similar expertise serving large clients in the WordPress space, the two companies were bound to end up competing on different projects, which happened during the course of their conversations spanning a year leading up to the deal. Miller said 10up founder Jake Goldman proposed a merger/acquisition type of approach.</p>
<p>&#8220;I ended up speaking to them off and on for the next couple of weeks and things got pretty serious when we were competing for some projects,&#8221; Miller said. &#8220;I was of course flattered by the offer. Jake and John were awesome. We enjoyed our conversations and decided to do an onsite to discuss things in more detail. They made an offer after our onsite and Chris and I decided to accept it.&#8221;</p>
<p>In 10up&#8217;s announcement, Goldman said it &#8220;takes a special kind of chemistry and alignment for a deal like this to work.&#8221; The company&#8217;s acquisition of Lift is one of the biggest design-driven acquisitions in the WordPress ecosystem in awhile.</p>
<p>&#8220;Adding more experience design expertise to our company DNA enhances our empathy and ability to collaborate with design partners in an era of interactive, responsive design where divisions between &#8216;design&#8217; and &#8216;engineering&#8217; have eroded,&#8221; Goldman said.</p>
<p>Miller, who has worked with Wallace to build Lift into a top-notch design and user experience agency, said that securing design talent is a challenge in the industry. 10up adding a fellow competitor to its team is a stretegic move when design talent is in short supply.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s certainly hard to find quality talent that&#8217;s interested in a full time position,&#8221; Miller said. &#8220;There are some amazing designers out there but a lot of them are contractors/freelancers. 10up wanted to find a team that had a big focus on quality design and UX. It didn&#8217;t hurt that we were big on WordPress either.&#8221;</p>
<p>Miller and Wallace founded Lift UX in 2009 and will be closing out a chapter of their entrepreneurial lives as the brand dissolves into 10up.</p>
<p>&#8220;Basically we&#8217;ll fade into the 10up brand bringing along our team, portfolio, accolades, and ultimately our personality,&#8221; Miller said.</p>
<p>Wallace said closing out this chapter is &#8220;definitely bittersweet,&#8221; but the team is excited to transition into 10up.</p>
<p>&#8220;As a 6-7 person agency, we were all constantly being pulled in a million different directions,&#8221; Wallace said. &#8220;Joining 10up allows us to focus on our individual areas of specialization and excel in each. I love many aspects of entrepreneurship and small agency ownership but the idea of focusing on the success of the experience design team at 10up is something I am looking forward to.&#8221;</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 11 Jul 2017 22:02:27 +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:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:7;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Donncha: Thank you Translators!";s: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:"https://odd.blog/?p=89500320";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50:"https://odd.blog/2017/07/11/thank-you-translators/";s: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:1384:"<p>Well, well. <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/wp-super-cache">WP Super Cache translations</a> are coming along well. 100% of strings in the development version are translated into Canadian English and Romanian! (That might change over the next few days as I have a couple of UI changes in mind, sorry!)</p>
<p>Other languages like Persian, Japanese, Spanish, Russian and Italian are roaring along and sometimes only need a handful of words or sentences translated to hit that magic 100% too. The next version of the plugin will grab translations from WordPress.org if they&#8217;re available which is awesome for users around the world. We&#8217;re still shipping translation files but I think the release after that may ship without and rely entirely on the up-to-date online translations.</p>
<p>So, thank you so much to the translators. Code is nigh on useless if the user and developer don&#8217;t speak the same language and the interface is incomprehensible. WP Super Cache has lots of technical language which must be a pain to translate. Your work is invaluable!</p>
<p>Mulțumesc! متشکرم! ありがとうございました！¡Gracias! Спасибо! Grazie! Hvala ti! 谢谢！Vielen Dank!</p>

<p><strong>Related Posts</strong><ul><li> No related posts</li></ul></p>
<p><a href="https://odd.blog/" rel="external nofollow">Source</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 11 Jul 2017 10:44:49 +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:7:"Donncha";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:8;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:90:"WPTavern: Interview with WordCamp US 2017 Organizers Dustin Meza and Laura Byrne-Cristiano";s: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:58:"https://wptavern.com?p=72903&preview=true&preview_id=72903";s: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:101:"https://wptavern.com/interview-with-wordcamp-us-2017-organizers-dustin-meza-and-laura-byrne-cristiano";s: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:2252:"<p>While at WordCamp Europe I had the opportunity to interview <a href="https://twitter.com/dustinmeza">Dustin Meza</a>, lead organizer of <a href="https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp US 2017</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/newyorkerlaura">Laura Byrne-Cristiano</a>, who is part of the marketing team for the event. The two are members of a 20-person team of organizers who will welcome an estimated 2,500 attendees to Nashville in December.</p>
<p>Although the maximum capacity of the <a href="http://www.nashvillemusiccitycenter.com/">Music City Center</a> venue is much higher than what is required by WordCamp US, the organizers want to make judicious use of the event&#x27;s resources to put on the best possible event for those who make the effort to attend.</p>
<p>"At the end of the day, it&#x27;s going to be the right size for the event," Byrne-Cristiano said. "You could say, &#x27;Hey, we want 10,000 people, but that&#x27;s not the right size for the event. The right size is probably somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500. The venue can do more than that, but I don&#x27;t know that that&#x27;s the main goal. Bigger isn&#x27;t always better. Your main goal is the best event and quality for the people who are already there."</p>
<p>Meza said he considers WordCamp US to be the premier event for North America and that it is there to represent the communities located in this area. He couldn&#x27;t share the full details of the unique things they are working on, but organizers plan to display and exhibit more information about the the various WordPress communities throughout North America.</p>
<p>In the interview below, Meza and Byrne-Cristiano share a little bit about why they believe Nashville was selected and how welcoming the city is for people from different cultures. </p>
<p>"No matter where in the world you are coming from, there&#x27;s a place for you at WordCamp US," Byrne-Cristiano said.</p>
<p>"This is, by far, the best technology community I have ever been apart of, seeing how much everyone involved embraces new people &#8211; to me that is the big reason why I got involved," Meza said. "I want to give this community the best event that we possibly can."</p>
<p></p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 11 Jul 2017 02:16:14 +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:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:9;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54:"WPTavern: WPCampus 2017 Will Be Streamed Live for Free";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72896";s: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:65:"https://wptavern.com/wpcampus-2017-will-be-streamed-live-for-free";s: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:1020:"<p><a href="https://2017.wpcampus.org/">WPCampus</a>, a conference focused on using WordPress in higher education, takes place this Friday and Saturday in Buffalo, NY. If you&#8217;re unable to attend the event, WPCampus will be <a href="https://2017.wpcampus.org/watch/">live streaming the sessions</a> for free.</p>
<p>Visit the <a href="https://2017.wpcampus.org/watch/">streaming page</a> on July 14th and 15th where viewers can choose between <a href="https://2017.wpcampus.org/schedule/">three tracks of sessions</a> to watch. Viewers can also hang out in the <a href="https://wordcampus.slack.com/messages/C65Q1LHB9/">#discuss-wpc17</a> Slack <a href="https://wpcampus.org/get-involved/">channel</a> to discuss sessions with other people.</p>
<p>Organizers are encouraging viewers to have watch parties at WordPress meetups and campuses. Sessions will be recorded and made available online at the end of the event. The stream starts on Friday, July 14th at 9 AM Eastern.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 10 Jul 2017 21:49:59 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:10;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"WPTavern: Episodes 271-280 of WordPress Weekly are Now Available";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72884";s: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:75:"https://wptavern.com/episodes-271-280-of-wordpress-weekly-are-now-available";s: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:1011:"<p>In the past two weeks, listeners have reported that recent episodes of <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-weekly">WordPress Weekly</a> are not available for download through Apple&#8217;s Podcasting app, Stitcher, and other applications.</p>
<img />Podcast Download Error
<p>I use <a href="http://vid2mp3.com/">Vid2MP3</a> to convert YouTube videos into MP3 files. Starting with episode 271, there was an error in the conversion process. It was difficult to diagnose since the MP3 played fine in some browsers and applications but not in others.</p>
<p>I have reconverted the affected episodes using a different service and uploaded the new files to the site. I confirmed that the episodes are accessible in Apple&#8217;s Podcasting application. If you still encounter a problem downloading these episodes, please leave a note in the comments along with which podcasting app you&#8217;re using. Thanks to all who reported the error and for listening to the show.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 10 Jul 2017 20:19:24 +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:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:11;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:131:"WPTavern: Automattic Joins Amazon, GitHub, Mozilla, reddit, and Twitter in July 12 Protest Against FCC’s Attack on Net Neutrality";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72799";s: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:135:"https://wptavern.com/automattic-joins-amazon-github-mozilla-reddit-and-twitter-in-july-12-protest-against-fccs-attack-on-net-neutrality";s: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:3713:"<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/day-of-action-banner.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>Major internet websites, companies, and organizations are banding together on Wednesday, July 12, to <a href="https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/" target="_blank">protest the FCC&#8217;s attack on net neutrality</a>. These include Amazon, GitHub, Kickstarter, Vimeo, reddit, Mozilla, Twitter, Etsy, Spotify, Netflix, and many others. Automattic is joining these tech companies in the protest, as it has several times in the past, including the <a href="https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/fight-for-net-neutrality/" target="_blank">Internet Slowdown event in September 2014</a>. The company also <a href="https://transparency.automattic.com/2015/09/21/defending-net-neutrality/" target="_blank">reaffirmed its commitment to net neutrality in 2015</a> by filing an amicus brief with the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in the case of United States Telecom Assn. v. FCC, joined by Medium, Reddit, Squarespace, Twitter, and Yelp.</p>
<p>Net neutrality is the principle that ensures people can communicate freely online by prohibiting Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and government entities from favoring, blocking, or throttling certain websites, or charging fees for premium content delivery. It guarantees individuals have free to access all content and applications, and forbids ISPs from discriminating against or prioritizing certain users, equipment, or types of content. Vimeo created a handy video to illustrate the importance of defending net neutrality:</p>
<div class="embed-vimeo"></div>
<p>Net neutrality is once again under attack as the FCC is planning to remove the Title II (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier#Telecommunications" target="_blank">common carrier</a>) protections established during the Obama administration.</p>
<h3>How to Join the Protest</h3>
<p>Self-hosted WordPress site owners who want to participate in the Internet-Wide Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality on July 12 can do so by installing the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/cat-signal/" target="_blank">Internet Defense League Cat Signal</a> plugin or the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/fftf-alerts/" target="_blank">Fight for the Future Alerts</a> plugin. Both support the upcoming Save Net Neutrality event and are based on the <a href="https://github.com/fightforthefuture/battleforthenet-widget" target="_blank">official Fight for the Future widget</a> for the campaign.</p>
<p>The widget will not display until July 12, so you can add a plugin ahead of time. If you want to test it to see what it will look like on the day of action, you can append #ALWAYS_SHOW_BFTN_WIDGET to your site URL after installing one of the plugins. See an example here: <a href="https://wptavern.com/#ALWAYS_SHOW_BFTN_WIDGET" target="_blank">https://wptavern.com/#ALWAYS_SHOW_BFTN_WIDGET</a></p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/battleforthenet-modal.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>The alert urges visitors to contact Congress and the FCC through the provided form. It can be displayed as a banner at the top of the page or as a modal (see example above).</p>
<p>Automattic may also be planning a way for WordPress.com users to opt-in to participate. We&#8217;ll update the post if that information becomes available.</p>
<p><em>Update:</em> Automattic has since created a <a href="https://wptavern.com/automattic-releases-net-neutrality-wordpress-plugin-ahead-of-july-12-protest" target="_blank">Net Neutrality plugin</a> for WordPress.com and self-hosted users who want to join the protest.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 10 Jul 2017 18:12:00 +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:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:12;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:114:"WPTavern: Let’s Encrypt Passes 100 Million Certificates Issued, Will Offer Wildcard Certificates in January 2018";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72805";s: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:121:"https://wptavern.com/lets-encrypt-passes-100-million-certificates-issued-will-offer-wildcard-certificates-in-january-2018";s: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:2660:"<a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/lock.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: <a href="https://stocksnap.io/photo/550FJBDFSW">Chris Anderson</a>
<p>Let&#8217;s Encrypt, the free and open certificate authority that launched in 2016, has <a href="https://letsencrypt.org/2017/06/28/hundred-million-certs.html" target="_blank">issued more than 100 million certificates</a> as of June 2017 and is currently securing 47 million domains. Earlier this year, the web passed a major milestone of getting <a href="https://wptavern.com/more-than-50-of-web-traffic-is-now-encrypted" target="_blank">more than 50% of traffic encrypted</a>. Let&#8217;s Encrypt has been a major contributor to that percentage growing to nearly 58%.</p>
<p>&#8220;When Let’s Encrypt’s service first became available, less than 40% of page loads on the Web used HTTPS,&#8221; ISRG Executive Director Josh Aas said. &#8220;It took the Web 20 years to get to that point. In the 19 months since we launched, encrypted page loads have gone up by 18%, to nearly 58%. That’s an incredible rate of change for the Web.&#8221;</p>
<p>Aas also announced that <a href="https://letsencrypt.org/2017/07/06/wildcard-certificates-coming-jan-2018.html" target="_blank">wildcard certificates are coming to Let&#8217;s Encrypt in 2018</a>. Wildcard certificates allow a site to secure an unlimited number of subdomains with the same certificate.</p>
<p>Currently, the process to get Let&#8217;s Encrypt working on a WordPress multisite installation is much more complicated than adding a certificate for a single domain. The <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-encrypt/" target="_blank">WP Encrypt</a> plugin claims multisite and multi-network compatibility but super admins have often run into failure on networks with higher numbers of sites. Wildcard support for Let&#8217;s Encrypt will provide a better way to secure multisite networks.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s Encrypt will offer the wildcard certificates via the new <a href="https://letsencrypt.org/2017/06/14/acme-v2-api.html" target="_blank">ACME v2 API endpoint</a> and will start by supporting base domain validation via DNS with the possibility of adding other validation options in the future. ACME is the protocol that Let&#8217;s Encrypt developed to allow subscribers to acquire and manage certificates. Those using the v1 endpoint are encouraged to move to v2 as soon as it&#8217;s available in January 2018. The v2 protocol was developed to be an IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) standard so that ACME can work with more certificate authorities in the future.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 07 Jul 2017 18:32:20 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:13;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:98:"WPTavern: WangGuard Plugin Author Shuts Down Splog Hunting Service Due to Trauma and Death Threats";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72733";s: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:109:"https://wptavern.com/wangguard-plugin-author-shuts-down-splog-hunting-service-due-to-trauma-and-death-threats";s: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:6853:"<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/wangguard.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>After seven years of developing and supporting the WangGuard/SplogHunter service, José Conti has <a href="https://www.joseconti.com/2017/07/03/la-verdadera-razon-del-cierre-wangguard/" target="_blank">shut down the server permanently</a> due to the stress and trauma associated with maintaining it. Conti is a WordPress plugin developer and consultant, and a member of the WordPress España translation team. His <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wangguard/" target="_blank">WangGuard plugin</a> identifies and blocks sploggers, unwanted users, and untrusted users on WordPress, Multisite, BuddyPress, bbPress, and WooCommerce sites. It is currently active on more than 10,000 sites.</p>
<p>Speculation about why the service shut down was running rampant after Conti had <a href="https://wptavern.com/wangguard-plugin-launches-indiegogo-campaign-to-fund-development-and-support" target="_blank">collected donations via an Indiegogo campaign in October 2016</a> to fund support and server costs. Since that time SiteGround stepped in to sponsor WangGuard, eliminating the server costs. The only costs that remained were Conti&#8217;s time and effort that he put into supporting the plugin.</p>
<p>&#8220;My purpose with WangGuard was never money,&#8221; Conti said in his post explaining the reason for the shut-down. &#8220;I could have made WangGuard a paid plugin at anytime, and actually had a plan for that for years. But I didn’t do it because there is something inside me that would never let that happen. It was never, I repeat, never my plan to get rich with WangGuard, and I assure you that I could have done it easily: simply charging each of my users 24€/year, would have meant an income of more than 2 million euros per year. I just had to distribute a version of WangGuard I had collecting dust, with a checkbox on WangGuard’s server administration options but I never got it done. No matter the other reasons, which only people very close to me know: I simply didn’t want to, nor did I want to be a millionaire.&#8221;</p>
<h3>Mafia Death Threats and Trauma from Exposure to the Dark Web: The High Cost of WangGuard&#8217;s 99.9% Accurate Detection of Splogs</h3>
<p>WangGuard has long been known for its nearly perfect detection of registration spam. Not only did it completely block unwanted users, it also removed them from the database. The plugin was unrivaled in both accuracy and price &#8211; all users got everything the service offered for free. In order for WangGuard to provide its 99.90% accuracy, Conti bolstered the algorithm with manual curation and reviews.</p>
<p>&#8220;WangGuard worked in two different ways: as an algorithm that I had been refining for seven years, and which was getting better as the sploggers evolved, so that it was always one step ahead of them, and also as human curation, in which I reviewed many factors, among them sites of sploggers to see if their content could improve the algorithm and make sure that it worked correctly both when it was blocking or not blocking a site,&#8221; Conti said. &#8220;The great secret of WangGuard was this second part. Without it WangGuard would not ever have become what it was.&#8221;</p>
<p>Because of how effective WangGuard was at stopping unwanted users, Conti said for four years he received &#8220;almost daily death threats from mafias for making them lose millions of dollars.&#8221;</p>
<p>Through the process of manually curating splogger sites, Conti caught a glimpse of the some of the darkest places on the web, which he said had a damaging psychological impact on him.</p>
<p>&#8220;For seven years, I have visited places where I saw pederasty, pictures, and videos of murders (by razor blades, by gutting live people, by beheadings, dismemberments, to name a few), real videos of rape of all kinds (children, women, boys), photos of accidents in which people were totally disfigured, bizarre actions that I did not even know existed, and a very long &#8216;and so on,&#8217; which I do not want to expand on,&#8221; Conti said.</p>
<p>The effects of viewing these types of websites every day took their toll and Conti decided to close the splog hunter service.</p>
<p>&#8220;Finally, a few months ago, I broke down,&#8221; Conti said. &#8220;I disappeared from everywhere and fell into a depression. The seven years of working at WangGuard finally took a toll on me. I had nightmares because of all the macabre deaths I had seen, an obsession with protecting my children from pederasty, OCD, depression, and many other symptoms. It took me about 6 months to recover (and honestly, I may be deceiving myself, since I do not think I completely recovered my life).&#8221;</p>
<p>I asked Conti if clicking through to the websites was necessary for maintaining the service. He explained that while WangGuard blocked emails, domains, IPs, and ISPs, without his manual curation of visiting the domains and clicking the links, users could get a lot of &#8220;sleepers&#8221; &#8211; registered and active accounts that remain silent until one day with a 0day vulnerability or a bug fix, they attack thousands of websites. The sleepers also wait to perform actions like create millions of sites on thousands of WordPress multisite installations in order to create a lot of bad content/links.</p>
<p>&#8220;Visiting many domains, I was able to minimize this problem,&#8221; Conti said. &#8220;The way I worked not only fixed the current spam / splog problem, but the wizard and database also fixed any future problems with sleepers.&#8221;</p>
<p>Another reason he visited the domains was to figure out what he needed to block, whether it was an email or a domain. The domain could be a spam domain or possibly a free email service.</p>
<p>&#8220;By visiting a website, I could detect whether it was a phishing website or a site camouflaged as an email service in order to try to cheat WangGuard,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I saw a lot of &#8216;techniques&#8217; for trying to cheat WangGuard at Black Hat specialized forums. I had been subscribed to many spam/sploggers forums for investigation. Every time that a user described a real technique for cheating WangGuard, it was fixed immediately.&#8221;</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re still using the WangGuard plugin, it may continue to work but not nearly as well as in the past. Conti said that some parts of the code work without the API, but the most important parts require the WangGuard/SplogHunter server. The plugin is open source, so anyone can fork it. <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/topic/why-wangguard-was-closed/" target="_blank">An English translation of his original post</a> is available on the WordPress.org plugin forums.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 07 Jul 2017 00:36:12 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:14;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"WPTavern: WordSesh Asia Now in Planning for 2018, WordCamp Asia Targeted for 2019";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72742";s: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:91:"https://wptavern.com/wordsesh-asia-now-in-planning-for-2018-wordcamp-asia-targeted-for-2019";s: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:4161:"<a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/wordcamp-asia-meeting-group.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: <a href="https://sakinshrestha.com/events/wordcamp-asia/">Sakin Shrestha</a>
<p>Yesterday Sakin Shrestha <a href="https://sakinshrestha.com/events/wordcamp-asia/" target="_blank">announced</a> that WordCamp Asia is now in the preliminary planning stages. Shrestha is a key reviewer on the Theme Review Team, translates WordPress to Nepali, and organizes meetups and WordCamps in Nepal. He and other members of the WordPress community in Asia, including representatives from India, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Nepal, had the opportunity to meet at WordCamp Europe.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have been talking about WordCamp Asia informally when some of us attended WordCamp US for the first time,&#8221; Shrestha said. &#8220;That’s was in 2015, where I met Naoko Takano. She is the one with the main idea as the Japanese WordPress community was already doing well. Then we started meeting more people from Asia at WordCamp Europe 2016 and had an informal meeting there.&#8221;</p>
<p>After this meeting, Rahul Bansal created a Facebook group for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/wpasia/" target="_blank">WordPress Community Organizers in Asia</a> to support each other in a more coordinated effort. The first formal meeting happened at WordCamp Europe 2017 where the team decided that trying for WordCamp Asia in 2018 would be too soon. Instead, they are planning to host a WordSesh Asia event in 2018 to work on their coordination and teamwork. The team is working towards hosting WordCamp Asia in 2019.</p>
<h3>Organizers Consider Bangkok as a Possible Location for WordCamp Asia in 2019</h3>
<p>Shrestha&#8217;s <a href="https://sakinshrestha.com/events/wordcamp-asia/" target="_blank">post</a> identifies several challenges that are unique to hosting a large scale WordCamp in Asia, including the need for visas even for travel within Asia, political instability, and numerous currencies and languages in use.</p>
<p>&#8220;WordCamp Asia is really important for the WordPress community in Asia,&#8221; Shrestha said. &#8220;I am fortunate enough to attend WCUS and WCEU, which are some of the biggest WordCamps where we get to meet lot of WordPressers, share and exchange ideas, contribute to WordPress, start a new business, and think outside of the box. But for most of Asians, it’s really difficult to go that far and also it’s expensive to attain those. So, we are limited to WordCamps in our own country and neighboring ones. That is why we are thinking about WordCamp Asia in Bangkok, which will be really inclusive as it’s in the center part of Asia and it’s cheaper to go there and less time consuming for all.&#8221;</p>
<p>Shrestha also feels strongly about providing travel assistance for those with financial hardships, as the most expensive aspect of attending a WordCamp is usually the travel and accommodation.</p>
<p>&#8220;WordCamps are not just for the rich,&#8221; Shrestha said. &#8220;The primary motive of WordCamps is to grow the local community. So, WordCamp Asia’s mission will be to influence the community of WordPress Asia and help it to grow. That is why, instead of planning for a grand and pompous event, we need to make sure it is affordable and reachable to people of all financial backgrounds.&#8221;</p>
<p>Shrestha said he has seen major changes in working with the WordPress community in Nepal from 2012 &#8211; 2017, which he attributes to having a stronger local presence with the WordCamp. India has also benefited from hosting WordCamps and has approximately nine happening in various cities. They are working towards hosting a WordCamp India in the future. There are also emerging communities in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Vietnam.</p>
<p>&#8220;It’s time for pursuing WordCamp Asia,&#8221; Shrestha said. &#8220;We really have good talents here in Asia but we lack exposure. WordCamp Asia can create buzz and make more people aware, inspire, and provide opportunity.&#8221;</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 06 Jul 2017 18:10:55 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:15;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"WPTavern: Jesse Petersen, Founder of Genesis The.me Passes Away";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72772";s: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:73:"https://wptavern.com/jesse-petersen-founder-of-genesis-the-me-passes-away";s: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:8085:"<img />Petersen Family
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/jpetersen">Jesse Petersen</a>, founder of <a href="https://www.genesisthe.me/">Genesis The.me</a> and <a href="https://www.petersenmediagroup.com/">Petersen Media Group</a>, has <a href="https://www.newlungsfor.me/2017/jesse-petersen-has-passed-away/">passed away</a> at the age of 38. Petersen had been battling <a href="http://www.cffatboy.com/what-is-cystic-fibrosis/">Cystic Fibrosis</a> for the past several years and suffered a massive lung bleed earlier today. He passed out before paramedics could reach him and could not be revived at the emergency room.</p>
<p>Petersen was on a double-lung transplant list with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_allocation_score">lung allocation score</a> of 38.859. The LAS is a score used to prioritize waiting list candidates based on a combination of wait list urgency and post-transplant survival. Last month, Petersen received the phone call he had been waiting for.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">I got the call! Getting ready to leave to go to the hospital for testing and waiting.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NewLungsForJesse?src=hash">#NewLungsForJesse</a> <a href="https://t.co/hCCJik05MY">pic.twitter.com/hCCJik05MY</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Jesse Ⓦ Petersen (@jpetersen) <a href="https://twitter.com/jpetersen/status/873074034065391619">June 9, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>Unfortunately, the lungs were determined not to be in a suitable condition for transplant.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">No go. He didn't like the look of the lungs. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.3/72x72/1f629.png" alt="????" class="wp-smiley" /> No new lungs for Jesse today. Maybe tonight the phone will ring again.</p>
<p>&mdash; Jesse Ⓦ Petersen (@jpetersen) <a href="https://twitter.com/jpetersen/status/873302087668576256">June 9, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.newlungsfor.me/2017/how-i-felt-on-dry-run-day-and-after/">shared his experience</a> in a raw, emotional post that describes the highs and lows he felt that day. &#8220;While the day was an emotional roller coaster, with the highs being WAY up there, the lows were surprisingly mild,&#8221; Petersen said. &#8220;They just weren’t the right lungs, and this protected me from years of issues, so it’s all good. The call for the perfect lungs for me will come in God’s timing. I am content to wait.&#8221;</p>
<p>On July 2nd, a patient with a higher LAS score than Petersen&#8217;s was taken into surgery to receive a double-lung transplant. This made Petersen the highest priority pending a match was found but a match wasn&#8217;t found in time.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">She was taken into surgery at noon, Tampa time. Surgery is 6-12 hours. I'm very happy for her because her need was more than twice mine.</p>
<p>&mdash; Jesse Ⓦ Petersen (@jpetersen) <a href="https://twitter.com/jpetersen/status/881549935405129728">July 2, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>I did not have the opportunity to meet him in person. From those who knew him personally, Petersen was a great husband, father, and a caring individual who despite his medical situation, would help out the best way he could. There are two stories that highlight the kind of person he was. The first is <a href="https://twitter.com/jpetersen/status/881974173085691904">a Twitter thread</a> he published two days ago.</p>
<blockquote><p>When you meet a 5 year-old who needs a heart and double-lung transplant but has been turned down everywhere, your situation doesn’t seem so bad. That family doesn’t care about politics, social class, keeping up with the Joneses, or whether their clothes match. They are enjoying life.</p>
<p>Because when it comes down to it, all we really need is to know our worth and love everyone else because they have equal worth. That doesn’t mean you have to agree with everyone, but you don’t have to seek out opposition or turmoil. Random acts of kindness rock.</p>
<p>Can you look over your life and say you’d be leaving those connected to you better off having known you? If not, start today.</p></blockquote>
<p>The second is <a href="https://www.facebook.com/jesse.dubyah/posts/238778876639367">from his Facebook account</a> about an encounter he had with a mother pushing her small boy in a wheelchair with a surgical mask on.</p>
<blockquote><p>I finally got out of the house to go do a God &amp; Country service followed by fireworks. While waiting to go outside, a mom I&#8217;d seen pushing a small boy in a wheelchair with a surgical mask and oxygen on him came over to me.</p>
<p>&#8216;I just wanted to say how cool I think your double tank cart is. I&#8217;m going to call my supplier tomorrow to get one for our wheelchair.&#8217;</p>
<p>We started talking (most unlike me) and she said her son needed a heart and a double lung transplant&#8230; but they&#8217;ve been turned down everywhere, starting with the very forgiving Pittsburgh center.</p>
<p>&#8216;I&#8217;m so sorry.&#8217;</p>
<p>[nodded her head with a pained look] &#8216;We&#8217;re just making the most of our time now.&#8217;</p>
<p>My heart broke. I&#8217;ve already lived 7 of his lifetimes. I&#8217;ve played sports, graduated from college, stood on the equator, married my best friend, and have two healthy boys.</p>
<p>So kick me the next time I complain about my wait, OK?</p></blockquote>
<p>Members of the WordPress community are using social media to share memories, grieve, and pass along condolences to his family.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">I first met <a href="https://twitter.com/jpetersen">@jpetersen</a> at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wcorl?src=hash">#wcorl</a> and was honored to have him at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wcmia?src=hash">#wcmia</a> 2015. Hope it’s ok to share his “speaker card” from <a href="https://twitter.com/wordcampmiami">@wordcampmiami</a>. <a href="https://t.co/R7czM5AV1h">pic.twitter.com/R7czM5AV1h</a></p>
<p>&mdash; David Bisset (@dimensionmedia) <a href="https://twitter.com/dimensionmedia/status/882711570899492864">July 5, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">RIP <a href="https://twitter.com/jpetersen">@jpetersen</a>, you were a great friend, and co-host. Gonna miss the great convos we had.</p>
<p>&mdash; The WP Crowd (@thewpcrowd) <a href="https://twitter.com/thewpcrowd/status/882708241532059648">July 5, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Met <a href="https://twitter.com/jpetersen">@jpetersen</a> on multiple occasions. Family man and proud dad. Always respected the hell outta that. See you on the flip side, buddy.</p>
<p>&mdash; Jared Atchison (@jaredatch) <a href="https://twitter.com/jaredatch/status/882714968990371840">July 5, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Terrible news, <a href="https://twitter.com/jpetersen">@jpetersen</a> will be missed. CF takes too many, too soon. Rest in peace, buddy.</p>
<p>&mdash; Brian Krogsgard (@Krogsgard) <a href="https://twitter.com/Krogsgard/status/882711331929022470">July 5, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>Petersen&#8217;s family has created a <a href="https://www.newlungsfor.me/2017/jesse-petersen-has-passed-away/">crowd-funding campaign</a> to help offset funeral and medical expenses. Since its creation, the community has donated more than $12K of $20K. If you are able, please consider donating as Petersen was the sole provider of income for his family.</p>
<p>My deepest condolences go out to his friends and family. Petersen is survived by his wife and two sons.</p>
<p><strong>Related Reading</strong>:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content"><p><a href="https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/2017/07/05/the-loss-of-one-of-our-own/">The Loss of One of Our Own</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 06 Jul 2017 02:09:25 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:16;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"WPTavern: WPWeekly Episode 280 – Behind the Scenes of Tuniversity";s: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:58:"https://wptavern.com?p=72768&preview=true&preview_id=72768";s: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:74:"https://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-280-behind-the-scenes-of-tuniversity";s: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:2595:"<p>In this episode, <a href="http://jjj.me/">John James Jacoby</a> and I are joined by <a href="http://kikodoran.com/">Kiko Doran</a> and <a href="http://www.travistotz.com/">Travis Totz</a>, Senior Web Strategist at Modern Tribe. Doran helped create <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=1235850828&mt=11&ls=1">Tuniversity</a>, a revolutionary new way of learning music through a highly interactive iBook.</p>
<p>The project was so large, Doran <a href="http://tri.be/case-study/tuniversity/">outsourced</a> some of the work to <a href="http://tri.be">Modern Tribe</a>, a web design and development firm. During the show, we learn the benefits of working with an agency you trust. Doran also explained what it was like to be a client as he&#8217;s normally fulfilling the agency role.</p>
<p>Two major takeaways from the Tuniversity project include:</p>
<ol>
<li>Work on things you&#8217;re passionate about with people who share the same passion.</li>
<li>Approach problems with a positive mindset.</li>
</ol>
<p>Near the end of the show, we discussed the news that WangGuard is <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/topic/why-wangguard-was-closed/">officially closed</a>.</p>
<h2>Picks of the Week:</h2>
<p><a href="http://wphierarchy.com/">WPHierarchy.com</a> is a WordPress resource<a href="https://wptavern.com/pretty-wordpress-template-hierarchy-diagram"> created</a> by Rami Abraham in 2013. The site is an interactive version of<a href="http://wpdaily.co/wp-template-hierarchy-chart/"> Michelle Schulp’s colorful diagram</a> of WordPress’ template hierarchy. Each template is linked to documentation that explains its function</p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzBixSjmbc8eFl6UX5_wWGP8i0mAs-cvY">Dr. Russell A. Barkley (30 essential ideas everyone should know about ADHD)</a></p>
<h2>WPWeekly Meta:</h2>
<p><strong>Next Episode:</strong> Wednesday, July 12th 3:00 P.M. Eastern</p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: </strong><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wordpress-weekly/id694849738" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via RSS: </strong><a href="https://wptavern.com/feed/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Stitcher Radio: </strong><a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wordpress-weekly-podcast?refid=stpr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Listen To Episode #280:</strong><br />
</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 05 Jul 2017 23:58:02 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:17;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:105:"WPTavern: Nadia Eghbal and Mikeal Rogers Join a16z Podcast to Discuss the Changing Culture of Open Source";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72702";s: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:116:"https://wptavern.com/nadia-eghbal-and-mikeal-rogers-join-a16z-podcast-to-discuss-the-changing-culture-of-open-source";s: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:6242:"<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/open-source.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/79777096@N00/6866996865">16th st</a> &#8211; <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/">(license)</a>
<p>Nadia Eghbal and Mikeal Rogers recently joined Sonal Chokshi for <a href="https://a16z.com/2017/04/08/culture-open-source-community/" target="_blank">an episode of the a16z Podcast</a> to discuss the changing culture of open source. Eghbal works in community programs at GitHub to better support people doing open source work. Rogers is the community manager at the Node.js Foundation. The episode focuses on the human aspect of the world of open source software and what inspires people to work together to give software away for free.</p>
<p>Through Eghbal&#8217;s research on sustaining open source communities, she found, as Rogers succinctly summarized on the show: &#8220;There&#8217;s no connection between the number of users and the number of people maintaining a project.&#8221; The <a href="http://heartbleed.com/" target="_blank">Heartbleed Bug</a>, which arrested public attention when it was disclosed in 2014, is perhaps one of the most critical examples of an open source project with a global user base and a grossly disproportionate number of maintainers.</p>
<p>As part of her research at GitHub, Eghbal is working on creating a vocabulary to explain things that are happening with open source projects. One example is the distinction between &#8220;popular&#8221; versus &#8220;healthy&#8221; when describing projects in terms of the communities behind them, governance, quality of maintainership, and other factors that influence a project&#8217;s condition.</p>
<p>&#8220;Because the dialogue tends to be set by popular projects, and those developers and their problems tend to dominate the story about this, you have these words and vocabulary like &#8216;drive-by-contributions,'&#8221; Rogers said. This often implies that maintainers are too busy to look at the code. Rogers advocated for changing this perception of &#8220;drive-by-contributors&#8221; to view them as casual contributors, people who show up and have value to add. If maintainers can seize these contributions as an opportunity, they will have a better chance of leveling up contributors to be a more active part of their organization.</p>
<p>The group also discussed how technology has caused a cultural shift among open source communities from the old world versus the new world of open source.</p>
<p>&#8220;In older open source, part of the barrier to entry that people went through before they were ever identifiable to any contributor was an acclimation to the culture and an acclimation to the tool chain and all this stuff,&#8221; Rogers said. &#8220;One of the things that GitHub has done is completely remove all of that cultural acclimation. There is one tool chain that you use to contribute to any project and when you show up you don&#8217;t have all of this cultural knowledge. You haven&#8217;t bought into any of these ideals about open source necessarily. You&#8217;re just there to contribute. We actually need to work with that.&#8221;</p>
<p>In the past, contributors informally acclimated to the culture through the onboarding process, and most software projects were more self-contained.</p>
<p>&#8220;Where that becomes awkward today is that so many different pieces of software depend on other open source projects, which wasn&#8217;t actually true 10 or 20 year ago,&#8221; Eghbal said. With so many projects fitting into others as dependencies, it becomes more difficult to actually remove a project from the public domain. Open source licensing ensures that these projects have a life of their own. This has democratized entrepreneurship, making it easy for people to piece together technology to build applications and businesses. It also requires a higher level of skills for people working together across various open source projects and cultures.</p>
<p>Eghbal and Rogers discussed the qualities of a healthy open source community, such as how welcoming the project is and how contributors speak to each other and resolve conflict. The ability to successfully resolve conflict can make the difference between a healthy growth of contributors or attrition on a project. Rogers mentioned a related conversation they had with Karl Fogel on their <a href="https://changelog.com/rfc" target="_blank">Request for Commits podcast</a> concerning conflict within projects.</p>
<p>&#8220;When we were talking to Karl, he has this view that &#8216;As long as a it has an open source license, it doesn&#8217;t matter how dysfunctional the project is, because we as a community always have this ability to fork it,'&#8221; Rogers said. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t agree with him on this, because the practical reality of forking a project is such a huge overhaul and you don&#8217;t necessarily have the right people to do it in your particular time. What you actually want are the healthy communities with healthy practices, what you want is to keep them going.&#8221;</p>
<p>Another open source predicament they discussed, which is fairly common in the WordPress ecosystem, is when a company releases a project as open source or &#8220;gifts it to the community.&#8221; Eghbal likened this to &#8220;sending your dog away to a farm upstate.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re really excited to announce this is now open source, meaning we don&#8217;t want to take care of it anymore,&#8221; she said. &#8220;&#8216;We&#8217;ll give it to the community,&#8217; (except they haven&#8217;t actually identified anyone in the community who wants to take care of it.)&#8221; This type of situation shows how &#8220;giving back to the community&#8221; isn&#8217;t always what it appears to be for those who end up using these projects that have been released into the wild.</p>
<p>The group also discussed how the incentives for people to contribute to open source have changed over the years and why &#8220;the GitHub generation&#8221; has more readily adopted the MIT license. Check out the full podcast episode below:</p>
<p></p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 05 Jul 2017 19:26:25 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:84:"HeroPress: How I tried, applied, got involved. Realizing one of my childhood dreams.";s: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:56:"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=1950";s: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:188:"https://heropress.com/essays/tried-applied-got-involved-realizing-one-childhood-dreams/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tried-applied-got-involved-realizing-one-childhood-dreams";s: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:15809:"<img width="960" height="480" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/070517-min-1024x512.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: It was so scary admitting my ignorance, exposing it in a remote environment where I couldn't see my teammates reactions live." /><p>When you’re born in an island, you usually grow up thinking about all the marvelous things awaiting for you on the other side of the sea. I was born in Sardinia, an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and as a child I dreamt about becoming an air hostess.</p>
<p>I wanted to travel the world and speak tons of foreign languages, to be able to communicate with local people everywhere I’d go.</p>
<p>But people kept telling me that I wasn’t going to become tall enough for that job (genetics don’t lie!), and I eventually listened to them. I ended up choosing a different path in life, following the Italian mantra: “You have to study something that will guarantee a stable and secure job for life”.</p>
<p>Even if I wasn’t that much convinced about the perspective of having the same job for all my life, as my parents did, at the same time I didn’t want to get stuck in the island forever: the unemployment rate in Sardinia is unfortunately really high and I didn’t want to risk to be part of that percentage.</p>
<h3>Crossing the borders of the island</h3>
<p>So I chose the Faculty of Economics and did my best to cross the borders of my island as soon as I had the chance: this happened when I was 22 and I moved to Siena, Tuscany, to finish my studies. That is also the time when I opened my first personal blog on an Italian platform named Tiscali, which I later migrated to WordPress.com.</p>
<p><strong>I’ve always loved writing</strong>, and since I was a little girl I used to spend hours in my room writing stories and poems. I was doing the same with the blog but with the advantage of reaching a much larger public, virtually meeting many people and getting inspired by their stories.</p>
<p>After 2 years in Tuscany I moved to Strasbourg, France. There I learnt French and did several little jobs, but I found my first important one in Milan, the big city shining with job opportunities for everyone —as Italians love to say.</p>
<p>There I was, fulfilling the dream of many young people of my age (and their families): I was 25, with an average-paid 40 hours/week office job in the marketing department of a big international company, and I was surrounded by ambitious colleagues and a boss constantly asking for extra —and free— working hours per day.</p>
<blockquote><p>I was feeling like a parrot inside a golden cage.</p></blockquote>
<p>It seemed to me I wasn’t going anywhere. I also gave up blogging because I wasn’t feeling inspired enough to write. People constantly repeated to me that I was super lucky to have a permanent contract and work in a marketing department; in their eyes I was all set for life, so —using some strange equation — I also had to be happy!</p>
<p>Of course I was luckier than many of my peers, but I kept asking myself if I really wanted to do that life forever.<br />
Did I really want to keep on working 10 hours per day under the neon lights of an office, annihilate my dreams and live waiting for the free time of the weekend?</p>
<p>The most vivid memory I have of that period is the overwhelming feeling clenching my throat on Sunday afternoons, when I started to dread the moment of coming back to the office the day after.</p>
<h3>Facing new challenges</h3>
<p>So I left and faced the change. At the beginning I gave myself the opportunity to test different office jobs. But the results were always the same: I kept feeling unsatisfied with my life, and I understood I had to respect my little girl’s dream and fly away from my golden cage.</p>
<blockquote><p>I opted for emigration and moved alone to Barcelona, Spain, in 2012.</p></blockquote>
<p>My first move was plunging myself into a few months of intense Spanish learning at the University, then I found a job in an international Assisted Reproduction Clinic.</p>
<p>My job title was “Patient Coordinator” and I was assisting international patients coming to Barcelona for their treatments: I was their translator, interpreter and administrative consultant. Patients were from Italy, France, England, Morocco, Senegal…it was a Babylon of people with so many different backgrounds that I felt really inspired by some of their stories.<br />
This inspiration led me to start writing again: <strong>I dusted off my WordPress blog</strong> and filled it up with stories about my new life in Barcelona and some of the women I was meeting at the Clinic. I was feeling stronger and more independent than ever.</p>
<p>The job at the Clinic lasted for 3 years. Even if it was really inspiring, it was also very stressful. Imagine being a 30-something woman speaking all day long about fertility problems with women struggling to have a baby.</p>
<p>I realized I was getting too involved and decided to look around to see what I could do next.</p>
<h3>How can I find a job like this?</h3>
<p>It was summer 2015 and I was at my desk, in my little tiny apartment in front of Barcelona’s beach. I was writing in my blog and I got stuck in a technical problem. While I was searching through the WordPress.com documentation, I saw a pop-up in the bottom right corner of my screen: an Automattician wrote me to ask if I needed help. I gladly accepted her offer, we chatted for a few minutes, the problem was solved and I could go back to my writing. But I also left the chat with one question: <strong>how could that person on chat find a support job with WordPress</strong>?</p>
<p>Curious as I am, I started looking for an answer and I stumbled upon the official WordPress job page: <a href="http://jobs.wordpress.net">jobs.wordpress.net</a></p>
<p>There I found a job offer that caught my attention: WP Media, a French startup, was looking for <strong>a polyglot and remote customer service teammate</strong> for one of their plugins, WP Rocket. I read their requirements: fluency in English, French and possibly another language, great experience with WordPress, some coding skills.</p>
<p>That offer was calling me, I felt it.</p>
<p><strong>I knew I didn&#8217;t have all the requirements</strong>, but hey, I could speak 4 languages, and I had a WordPress blog…right? Of course, I didn’t know anything about PHP, I had always been a WordPress.com user until that moment and I didn’t really know how to manage a self-hosted website or use a cache plugin…but I felt I was ready to learn all that. And moreover, what did I have to lose?</p>
<h3>I wrote my most inspired cover letter and sent my CV.</h3>
<p>With my total surprise, they answered me the day after and we set up an interview by Skype. My main strengths were the fluency in 4 languages and my previous experience in customer service, so I was really confident about those skills; yet I wanted to be totally honest with them: yes, I had been using WordPress for a long time, and yes, I was digital savvy enough, but I knew very little on the technical side. I had always worked on the front end of websites, writing, blogging, learning by myself; I didn&#8217;t know anything about the backend of WordPress sites.</p>
<p>Even so, they had faith in me and in a few days I had the confirmation: I was in! <strong>During the first days I felt so happy about this new major turning point in my life</strong>: not only had I found a job thanks to my primordial passion, speaking foreign languages, but for the first time in my life I could do that job from home or anywhere else I liked, instead of being caged in a formal office!</p>
<p>I got introduced to my remote teammates and I instantly felt welcomed.</p>
<h3>Learning by doing</h3>
<p>But, very soon, that initial enthusiasm started to struggle with another intense feeling: <strong>the fear of exposing my inexperience</strong>.</p>
<p>There were too many things I didn&#8217;t know!</p>
<p>Working in a WordPress backend was so new to me that I started studying like crazy and reading everything I could about WordPress for beginners. I went through some really intense months of learning by doing, supported by my teammates. Like a baby who start crawling and then taking little steps, I was initially answering the easiest tickets from our customers.  At the same my teammates were sending me useful material to read, setting up video-calls for 1to1 training, encouraging me every time they could.</p>
<p>After a few days I received the first happy comments by the customers I was helping in their mother tongue: until that moment the plugin’s support had been offered only in English and French, so it was the first time Spanish and Italian customers were being answered in their own language…and they appreciated that!</p>
<p>Even so, I can’t deny it, I was scared.</p>
<blockquote><p>It was so scary admitting my ignorance, exposing it in a remote environment where I couldn’t see my teammates reactions live.</p></blockquote>
<p>My first instinct was imagining the worst scenarios where they were secretly hating me for interrupting their work on Slack with my doubts.</p>
<p>But I had no other choice than to keep asking questions and learn from their answers. Not doing so would have been much worse: silencing my voice would have slowed down my learning process.</p>
<h3>Why don’t you try to contribute to WordPress?</h3>
<p>We were at WordCamp Paris 2016 when one of my teammates showed me how the WordPress community worked together and kept in contact through Slack.</p>
<p>“You speak multiple languages, why don’t you try to contribute to the polyglots team?” —he asked.</p>
<p>That thought never crossed my mind before, I knew very little about contributing to WordPress. I had been working for WP Media for 6 months and, while I was enjoying my new job a lot, I was just slowly starting to abandon that overwhelming feeling of insecurity I mentioned above.</p>
<blockquote><p>I didn’t feel ready to dive into a new challenge and start also contributing to WordPress, I thought I didn’t have the ability to do that. I was wrong, obviously.</p></blockquote>
<p>Curiosity won on me another time and I joined the two Slack channels <em>Making WordPress</em> (where all the WP global community meets) and <em>Italia WP Community</em>. I lurked the channels for a few months, until I went to WordCamp Milan and met some members of the Italian Polyglots team.</p>
<p>It was love at first string: Laura, one of the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/?locale=it_IT">General Translation Editors</a> (GTE) for Italy, taught me how to start contributing and translating following the polyglots guidelines. She also told me about the big effort the Italian community has been doing to work together, consistently, to boost WordPress related events in Italy and to grow up.</p>
<p>I wanted to be an active part of it and I started contributing.</p>
<p><strong>Now I’m a Project Translator Editor for the Italian polyglots team</strong> and I mentor new contributors: I love it!</p>
<p>Since the beginning of my journey into the WordPress world I traveled a lot, and also attended WordCamps in <a href="https://2016.paris.wordcamp.org/">Paris</a>, <a href="https://2016.europe.wordcamp.org/">Vienna</a>, <a href="https://2016.milano.wordcamp.org/">Milan</a>, <a href="https://2016.barcelona.wordcamp.org/">Barcelona</a>, <a href="https://2017.torino.wordcamp.org/">Torino</a> and <a href="https://2017.bilbao.wordcamp.org/">Bilbao</a>.</p>
<p>Following my teammates encouragement, <strong>I also started applying to WordCamps as a speaker</strong>, because I felt my story could be important for other people looking for new inspiration for their working and personal life. I gave my first talk in my adoptive city, Barcelona, in December 2016, then in Torino in April 2017 and I recently had the honor to tell my story also from the stage of WordCamp Europe 2017.</p>
<p>In a short glimpse of time I engaged in many activities related to WordPress which allowed me to meet very interesting and inspiring people from all over the world.</p>
<h3>I’m (not) lucky.</h3>
<p>People keep telling me that I’m lucky, and it’s true, I really am. But if I’m here, now, sharing my story (and thanks Topher for inviting me to write it!) is not because I live under a lucky star: I just used my previous skills and passions and adapted them to a new career and life path.</p>
<p>We all have some skills; and if we don’t know which they are exactly, we should take some time to make a list of the things we’re really good at. With that in mind, just try. Apply. Get involved. Don’t get stuck in the feeling of “I can’t do it because I don’t know enough”.</p>
<p>That is what I did: without even realizing it, I started putting into reality the dream of the little girl who was born in an island and wanted to travel and speak different languages.</p>
<p>WordPress made this possible: I’m part of a big community, and I am proud of it.</p>
<div class="rtsocial-container rtsocial-container-align-right rtsocial-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-twitter-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-twitter-horizontal-button"><a title="Tweet: How I tried, applied, got involved. Realizing one of my childhood dreams." class="rtsocial-twitter-button" href="https://twitter.com/share?text=How%20I%20tried%2C%20applied%2C%20got%20involved.%20Realizing%20one%20of%20my%20childhood%20dreams.&via=heropress&url=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Ftried-applied-got-involved-realizing-one-childhood-dreams%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-fb-horizontal fb-light"><div class="rtsocial-fb-horizontal-button"><a title="Like: How I tried, applied, got involved. Realizing one of my childhood dreams." class="rtsocial-fb-button rtsocial-fb-like-light" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Ftried-applied-got-involved-realizing-one-childhood-dreams%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-linkedin-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-linkedin-horizontal-button"><a class="rtsocial-linkedin-button" href="https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Ftried-applied-got-involved-realizing-one-childhood-dreams%2F&title=How+I+tried%2C+applied%2C+got+involved.+Realizing+one+of+my+childhood+dreams." rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Share: How I tried, applied, got involved. Realizing one of my childhood dreams."></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-pinterest-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-pinterest-horizontal-button"><a class="rtsocial-pinterest-button" href="https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://heropress.com/essays/tried-applied-got-involved-realizing-one-childhood-dreams/&media=https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/070517-min-150x150.jpg&description=How I tried, applied, got involved. Realizing one of my childhood dreams." rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Pin: How I tried, applied, got involved. Realizing one of my childhood dreams."></a></div></div><a rel="nofollow" class="perma-link" href="https://heropress.com/essays/tried-applied-got-involved-realizing-one-childhood-dreams/" title="How I tried, applied, got involved. Realizing one of my childhood dreams."></a></div><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com/essays/tried-applied-got-involved-realizing-one-childhood-dreams/">How I tried, applied, got involved. Realizing one of my childhood dreams.</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 05 Jul 2017 12:00:47 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Alice Orru";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:102:"WPTavern: WordCamp Europe 2017 Posts 24% No-Show Rate, Cites Early Ticket Sales and Expensive Location";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72644";s: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:111:"https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-europe-2017-posts-24-no-show-rate-cites-early-ticket-sales-and-expensive-location";s: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:3872:"<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/wordcamp-europe-venue.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: WP Tavern
<p>WordCamp Europe 2017 organizers have posted <a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org/2017/06/30/wordcamp-europe-2017-in-paris-its-a-wrap/" target="_blank">attendance and budget data</a> compiled after the conclusion of the event. Despite being <a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org/do-not-miss-the-biggest-wordcamp-in-europe/" target="_blank">promoted</a> as &#8220;the largest WordPress event to this day&#8221; with more than 3,000 expected attendees, WCEU 2017 fell short with 1,900 people on the ground. Attendees were 5% fewer than last year&#8217;s 2,000 in Vienna. Expectations ran high but organizers could not predict the 24% no-show rate once the event got started. This is more than double the 10% no-show rate for the previous four years.</p>
<p>The camp&#8217;s organizers do not have a simple explanation for the high no-show rate, but cite several factors, including a few dozen participants being <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-europe-attendees-are-being-denied-visas-because-conference-ticket-price-is-too-low" target="_blank">denied visas</a>, higher local sales, an expensive location, and putting tickets on sale too early. Approximately 60% of attendees were from nearby countries, such as France, Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.</p>
<p>Ticket sales for 2017 were open immediately at the conclusion of the 2016 event in Vienna. Organizers found that tickets sold in the first six months had a 34% no-show rate as compared to 20% for those sold in 2017. As the event has often sold out in the past, prospective attendees may have felt pressure to purchase a ticket in advance without confirming the ability to attend. </p>
<p>Posting increasingly higher attendance numbers isn&#8217;t one of the goals of the WordCamp, but planning accurately for the number of people who will attend is crucial for resource and budget planning. When one in four attendees is a no-show, the plans for food, swag, venue accommodations, and other aspects of the event are askew.</p>
<p>Organizers did not mention <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-europe-2017-kicks-off-with-contributor-day-focused-on-growing-wordpress-through-inclusion" target="_blank">Contributor Day</a> attendance in the wrap-up report, but this may have been one of the most successful aspects of the event. It was held prior to the main conference days, which may explain the event&#8217;s unusually high attendance numbers. Organizers hosted 473 attendees for the 500 available contributors slots. </p>
<h3>WordCamp Europe 2017 Cost 300€ per Attendee, Sponsors Covered 80%</h3>
<p>WordCamp Europe&#8217;s wrap-up report also includes a transparent breakdown of the event&#8217;s 700k€ budget. Catering costs for lunches, snacks and drinks, made up 50% of the budget. However, organizers were limited to the venue&#8217;s catering partners, which blurs the line between actual food versus venue costs. </p>
<p>The team was unable to sell all of the sponsorship packages and was forced to reduce the budget by 149k€ along the way. WordCamp Central subsidized 10€/ticket and covered the final deficit of 28k€. The cost breakdown per attendee was 300€ with sponsors covering 80%, WordCamp Central 7%, and tickets sales 13%. These numbers show that the 40€ ticket price is a small fraction of the total costs required for an event of this size. </p>
<p>Organizers said they felt it was important to share the data for educational purposes but also to &#8220;demonstrate to everyone who might have a doubt, that maintaining the ticket fee very low is meant to make our events accessible to all, but that the fee is not an indicator of the value of the conference.&#8221;</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 03 Jul 2017 19:06:00 +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:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:20;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:43:"Dev Blog: The Month in WordPress: June 2017";s: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://wordpress.org/news/?p=4865";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"https://wordpress.org/news/2017/07/the-month-in-wordpress-june-2017/";s: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:9049:"<p><i>We&#8217;re starting a new regular feature on this blog today. We&#8217;d like to keep everyone up-to-date about the happenings all across the WordPress open source project and highlight how you can get involved, so we&#8217;ll be posting a roundup of all the major WordPress news at the end of every month.</i></p>
<p>Aside from other general news, the three big events in June were the release of WordPress 4.8, WordCamp Europe 2017, and the WordPress Community Summit. Read on to hear more about these as well as other interesting stories from around the WordPress world.</p>
<hr />
<h2>WordPress 4.8</h2>
<p>On June 8, a week before the Community Summit and WordCamp Europe,<a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2017/06/evans/"> WordPress 4.8 was released</a>.You can read<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/05/26/wordpress-4-8-field-guide/"> the Field Guide</a> for a comprehensive overview of all the features of this release (the News and Events widget in the dashboard is one of the major highlights).</p>
<p>Most people would either have their version auto-updated, or their hosts would have updated it for them. For the rest, the updates have gone smoothly with no major issues reported so far.</p>
<p>This WordPress release saw contributions from 346 individuals; you can find their names in <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2017/06/evans/">the announcement post</a>. To get involved in building WordPress core, jump into the #core channel in the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/chat/">Making WordPress Slack group</a>, and follow <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">the Core team blog</a>.</p>
<h2>WordCamp Europe 2017</h2>
<p><a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp Europe 2017</a> was held in Paris between June 15-17. The event began with a Contributor Day, followed by two days of talks and community goodness. The talks were live-streamed, but you can still catch all the recordings <a href="http://wordpress.tv/event/wordcamp-europe-2017/">on WordPress.tv</a>. The organisers also published <a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org/2017/06/30/wordcamp-europe-2017-in-paris-its-a-wrap/">a handy wrap-up of the event</a>.</p>
<p>WordCamp Europe exists to bring together the WordPress community from all over the continent, as well as to inspire local communities everywhere to get their own events going — to that end, the event was a great success, as a host of new meetup groups have popped up in the weeks following WordCamp Europe.</p>
<p>The work that Contributor Day participants accomplished was both varied and valuable, covering all aspects of the WordPress project — have a look through <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/">the Make blogs</a> for updates from each team.</p>
<p>Finally, we also learned during the event that <a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org/2017/06/17/belgrade-serbia-to-host-wordcamp-europe-2018/">WordCamp Europe 2018 will be held in Belgrade, Serbia</a>, continuing the tradition of exploring locations and communities across the continent.</p>
<h2>WordPress Community Summit</h2>
<p>The fourth WordPress Community Summit took place during the two days leading up to WordCamp Europe 2017. This event is an invite-only unconference where people from all over the WordPress community come together to discuss some of the more difficult issues in the community, as well as to make plans for the year ahead in each of the contribution teams.</p>
<p>As the Summit is designed to be a safe space for all attendees, the notes from each discussion are in the process of being anonymized before we publish them on <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/summit/">the Summit blog</a> (so stay tuned &#8211; they’ll show up there over the next few weeks).</p>
<p>You can already see the final list of topics that were proposed for the event <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/summit/2017/06/10/community-summit-2017-final-list-of-topic/">here</a> (although a few more were added during the course of the two day Summit).</p>
<h2>WordPress marketing push continues apace</h2>
<p>As part of the push to be more intentional in marketing WordPress (as per Matt Mullenweg&#8217;s <a href="http://wordpress.tv/2016/12/07/matt-mullenweg-state-of-the-word-2016/">2016 State of the Word</a>), the Marketing team has launched two significant drives to obtain more information about who uses WordPress and how that information can shape their outreach and messaging efforts.</p>
<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2017/06/15/wordpress-case-studies-and-usage-survey/">The team is looking for WordPress case studies</a> and is asking users, agencies, and freelancers to take a WordPress usage survey. This will go a long way towards establishing a marketing base for WordPress as a platform and as a community — and many people in the community are looking forward to seeing this area develop further.</p>
<p>To get involved in the WordPress Marketing team, you can visit <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/">their team blog</a>.</p>
<h2>New Gutenberg editor available for testing</h2>
<p>For some time now, the Core team has been hard at work on a brand-new text editor for WordPress — this project has been dubbed “Gutenberg.” The project’s ultimate goal is to replace the existing TinyMCE editor, but for now it is in beta and available for public testing — <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/">you can download it here as a plugin</a> and install it on any WordPress site.</p>
<p>This feature is still in beta, so we don’t recommend using it on a production site. If you test it out, though, you’ll find that it is a wholly different experience to what you are used to in WordPress. It’s a more streamlined, altogether cleaner approach to the text-editing experience than we’ve had before, and something that many people are understandably excited about. Matt Mullenweg discussed the purpose of Gutenberg in more detail during <a href="http://wordpress.tv/2017/07/01/interview-and-qanda-with-matt-mullenweg/">his Q&amp;A at WordCamp Europe</a>.</p>
<p>There are already a few reviews out from <a href="https://kinsta.com/blog/gutenberg-wordpress-editor/">Brian Jackson at Kinsta</a>, <a href="https://daily.jorb.in/2017/06/random-thoughts-on-gutenberg/">Aaron Jorbin</a>, and <a href="https://www.mattcromwell.com/gutenberg-first-impressions/">Matt Cromwell</a> (among many others). Keep in mind that the project is in constant evolution at this stage; when it eventually lands in WordPress core (probably in v5.0), it could look very different from its current iteration — that’s what makes this beta stage and user testing so important.</p>
<p>To get involved with shaping the future of Gutenberg, please <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/handbook/call-for-testing/gutenberg-testing/">test it out</a>, and join the #core-editor channel in the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/chat/">Making WordPress Slack group</a>. You can also visit <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg">the project’s GitHub repository</a> to report issues and contribute to the codebase.</p>
<hr />
<h2>Further reading:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Bridget Willard <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/2017/06/21/proposed-wordcamp-editorial-calendar/">has proposed an editorial calendar</a> to assist WordCamp organizers with publishing content for their event.</li>
<li>A new kind of niche WordCamp, <a href="https://2017-denver.journalist.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp for Publishers in Denver</a>, has opened ticket sales.</li>
<li>The WordPress iOS app was updated with <a href="https://en.blog.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/an-all-new-media-library-for-the-wordpress-ios-app/">a fresh, new media library</a> this month.</li>
<li>It looks like <i>Underscores</i>, the popular WordPress starter theme, <a href="https://themeshaper.com/2017/06/26/the-future-of-underscores-and-a-new-committer/">has a bright future ahead of it</a>, with a renewed vision and new committer.</li>
<li>The always-inspiring Tom McFarlin <a href="https://tommcfarlin.com/simple-autoloader-for-wordpress">has released a simple autoloader for WordPress</a> that looks very useful indeed.</li>
<li>After a bit of a discussion on Twitter regarding the differences between WordPress.org, WordPress.com, and Jetpack, <a href="https://helen.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/restaurant-vs-meal-kit-vs-grocery-shopping-or-wordpress-com-vs-jetpack-vs-wordpress-org/">Helen Hou-Sandí came up with a great analogy</a> and an interesting post about it all.</li>
<li>If you’re interested in contributing specifically to the JavaScript or PHP areas of the WordPress core codebase, then the new #core-js and #core-php channels in the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/chat/">Making WordPress Slack group</a> are perfect for you.</li>
</ul>
<p><i>If you have a story we should consider including in the next “Month in WordPress” post, please </i><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/month-in-wordpress-submissions/"><i>submit it here</i></a><i>.</i></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 03 Jul 2017 11:42:11 +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:15:"Hugh Lashbrooke";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:21;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:97:"WPTavern: Gutenberg Contributors Explore Adding Drag-and-Drop and Multi-Column Support for Blocks";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72638";s: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:108:"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-contributors-explore-adding-drag-and-drop-and-multi-column-support-for-blocks";s: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:6817:"<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/building-blocks.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: ruudgreven <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/40811229@N07/6180817922">DSC_0012</a> &#8211; <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">(license)</a>
<p>The new Gutenberg editor has an open ticket for <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/38#issuecomment-309998712" target="_blank">allowing users to sort blocks via drag and drop</a>. Blocks can currently be sorted with up and down arrows located to the left of the content but the beta only allows for single-column stacking.</p>
<p>One of the goals for Gutenberg is to provide &#8220;a page building experience that makes it easy to create rich post layouts.&#8221; As far as layout building goes, the first planned versions of the new editor are very primitive as compared to Wix and Weebly&#8217;s drag and drop website builders where nearly every element on the page can be easily moved to a different position.</p>
<p>Contributors have been discussing the intricacies of adding this feature to Gutenberg since February. James Nylen <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/38#issuecomment-309984280" target="_blank">summarized some of the challenges</a> that make drag and drop more complicated to implement: </p>
<blockquote><p>Dragging and dropping a block is not really a one-step operation. It is more like 3:</p>
<ol>
<li>Press and hold mouse button or screen</li>
<li>Move to desired location</li>
<li>Release</li>
</ol>
<p>Step 2 is incredibly difficult to get right, and requires a lot of complicated behaviors like duplicating an item (or at least its general shape and size), scroll handling, and determining the intended new location, especially at the beginning and end of the content. We have all used bad drag-and-drop experiences, and I would argue they are worse than not having it at all.</p>
<p>That said, for two-dimensional movement with columns, I agree that arrows alone are probably not a good solution. Though mobile support for that is going to be very tricky no matter how it works.</p></blockquote>
<p>Several commenters on the ticket agree that repeatedly clicking arrows to move blocks is cumbersome and will become untenable in the future when multi-column support is added. This would require up, down, right, and left arrows to rearrange content. Users have come to expect a drag-and-drop interface, because nearly every page builder application offers it.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are thinking of drag and drop as a progressive enhancement for desktops,&#8221; Joen Asmussen said. &#8220;One that would be great to have, but we should build it after we have explicit button actions in place for doing the same, including splitting into columns in the future. This decision is based on a desire to ensure accessibility as well as mobile devices can play the same game.&#8221;</p>
<p>Asmussen marked the ticket priority as low in May and removed it from the beta milestone. At this point, users are not likely to see drag and drop in the first release that ships with WordPress core. </p>
<h3>Multi-Column Layouts Planned for Gutenberg V2</h3>
<p>The discussion surrounding adding drag-and-drop to the editor naturally leads into <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/219" target="_blank">adding multi-column support</a>. Limiting users to a single column is a one-dimensional approach to designing pages, but contributors don&#8217;t plan to leave Gutenberg without multi-column support for long. </p>
<p>Geoarge Olaru, a designer at <a href="https://pixelgrade.com/" target="_blank">PixelGrade</a>, shared a <a href="https://invis.io/3FAS8VQE8#/222711568_Creating_Columns_-_0" target="_blank">prototype</a> for adding a simple two or three-grid column layout to Gutenberg. </p>
<p>&#8220;Extending WordPress further from the default Blog Posts automatically implies the need of multi-column layouts for presentation pages,&#8221; Olaru said. &#8220;I would prefer to tackle this feature upfront, rather than letting every developer do it on his own (see the multitude of page builders plugins).&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/multi-column-mockup.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>&#8220;For the V1 editor, I&#8217;m afraid columns like this is out of scope,&#8221; Asmussen <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/219#issuecomment-285330922" target="_blank">said</a> in reply to a Olaru&#8217;s ticket with mockups and a prototype for multi-column support. &#8220;That&#8217;s not a &#8216;no&#8217; — rather, we need some technical foundations to be solid first, before we commit to the really interesting stuff. But it might be a V1.1, or at the very least something for the customization folks later on in the year. Even before that, it would be good to keep this UI in mind, so that perhaps a plugin can add this even earlier.&#8221; </p>
<p>Other commenters on the ticket feel more urgency about getting multi-column support into the first version of the editor. One of the concerns is that plugin developers will rush to add columns immediately based on demands from users, who will then have to migrate once core adds support.</p>
<p>&#8220;Multi column layouts are a must-have,&#8221; Anthony Hortin commented on the ticket. &#8220;At the moment, Gutenberg isn&#8217;t solving any issue. You still end up with one long column of content. The whole reason page builders are so popular, and why hundreds of thousands of people are using them, is because they provide the ability to easily make multi-column layouts. Without this functionality, you&#8217;re not providing any reason to use Gutenberg over a page builder plugin.&#8221;</p>
<p>One of the main challenges of adding multi-column support is figuring out what type of grid system to use and making sure that it scales from mobile to desktop. Weston Ruter joined the discussion to say that the foundational work for nested block support is being done now in version 1, but the UI for displaying them hasn&#8217;t been implemented yet.</p>
<p>&#8220;I appreciate the excitement and urgency to wanting columns,&#8221; Asmussen said. &#8220;We feel the same urgency. It&#8217;s not about not wanting columns, it&#8217;s purely about managing resources at this point.&#8221;</p>
<p>The good news is if you&#8217;ve been testing Gutenberg and wondering where some of these features are on the roadmap, they will be coming in later versions. While there may be disagreements about how much of a priority drag-and-drop and multi-column support should have for version 1, contributors agree that laying a solid technical foundation for these features is crucial for future extensibility.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 01 Jul 2017 19:06:17 +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:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:22;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:116:"WPTavern: Gutenberg 0.3.0 Adds Front-End Styles for Core Blocks, Notices Framework, and Text and Image Quick Inserts";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72646";s: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:125:"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-0-3-0-adds-front-end-styles-for-core-blocks-notices-framework-and-text-and-image-quick-inserts";s: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:4557:"<p>Gutenberg development is marching ahead with <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/06/30/whats-new-in-gutenberg-june-30/" target="_blank">version 0.3.0</a> released today. New releases are shipping out on a weekly basis, so testers will get to discover another round of new additions after updating to the latest. The <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/#developers" target="_blank">changelog</a> has a full list of the 50 additions and improvements included in this release, but here&#8217;s a quick visual tour of a few of the most interesting user-facing features added this week.</p>
<p>Gutenberg developers have <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/1418" target="_blank">added front-end styles for core blocks</a>, which means that content like cover images will now appear the same as they look in the admin in the editor. The demo content in the plugin has also been <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/1493" target="_blank">updated to display a full-width cover image</a>. Below is an example of a standard width cover image on the front-end.</p>
<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/cover-image-frontend.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>Version 0.3.0 also includes new <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/1553" target="_blank">text and image quick inserts</a>, which appear when hovering over the blank space beneath the post content. This makes it faster to add the types of content that are used most frequently.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/text-and-image-quick-inserts.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>This release adds a <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/1437" target="_blank">framework for notices</a>, which provides developers with reusable notices components, showing how to trigger notices and where they will show up. Gutenberg now displays <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/1564" target="_blank">notices on post save, schedule, and update</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/gutenberg-notices.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>Version 0.3.0 adds a new <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/1555" target="_blank">block descriptions component</a> to blocks with inspector controls. Several of the core blocks now display descriptions. These will be especially useful when plugin developers begin adding their own custom blocks, offering users a quick way to see the purpose of the block.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/block-description-e1498855903121.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>This release adds more placeholder text to various blocks, as &#8220;placeholders are key,&#8221; according to the newly added <a href="http://gutenberg-devdoc.surge.sh/?selectedKind=Gutenberg&selectedStory=Design&full=0&down=1&left=1&panelRight=1&downPanel=storybooks%2Fstorybook-addon-knobs" target="_blank">design blueprints and principles</a> included in Gutenberg&#8217;s documentation:</p>
<blockquote><p>If your block can have a neutral placeholder state, it should. An image placeholder block shows a button to open the media library, a text placeholder block shows a writing prompt. By embracing placeholders we can predefine editable layouts, so all you have to do is fill out the blanks.</p></blockquote>
<p>Version 0.3.0 also adds several enhancements that make it easier to edit and customize the image-oriented blocks with more options and settings: </p>
<ul>
<li>Added “edit image” button to image and cover image blocks</li>
<li>Added option to visually crop images in galleries for nicer alignment</li>
<li>Added option to disable dimming the background in cover images</li>
<li>Added option to display date and to configure number of posts in LatestPosts block</li>
<li>Added text formatting to CoverImage block</li>
<li>Added toggle option for fixed background in CoverImage</li>
<li>Added placeholder for all text blocks</li>
<li>Added placeholder text for headings, quotes, etc</li>
</ul>
<p>Active installs for the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/" target="_blank">Gutenberg plugin</a> have nearly doubled since last week and are at more than 900 sites. This is roughly 1% of the goal Matt Mullenweg set for testing on 100,000 sites before replacing the edit screen. The plugin may also be advertised in the dashboard in a future release, possibly 4.8.1, which is slated for the end of July.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 30 Jun 2017 22:07:36 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:23;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:76:"WPTavern: Popular WordPress Plugins Slow to Add Meta Box Support for Calypso";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=71527";s: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:87:"https://wptavern.com/popular-wordpress-plugins-slow-to-add-meta-box-support-for-calypso";s: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:3361:"<p>During the State of the Word at WordCamp US 2016, Matt Mullenweg <a href="https://wptavern.com/state-of-the-word-2016-mullenweg-pushes-calypso-as-future-of-wordpress-interface-proposes-major-changes-to-release-cycle">announced</a> that Calypso was <a href="https://youtu.be/Nl6U7UotA-M?t=37m1s">plugin aware</a>. Calypso is a REST API and React <a href="https://wptavern.com/early-reviews-show-applications-like-calypso-are-the-future-of-wordpress">powered application</a> for the desktop created by Automattic <a href="https://ma.tt/2015/11/dance-to-calypso/">in 2015</a>.</p>
<p>Developers with plugins active on 1M sites or more <a href="https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso/pull/10517">received an email invitation</a> from Andy Peatling to begin building support for Calypso.</p>
<p>&#8220;Calypso is now plugin-aware,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;This pull request was merged today, and as a way to bootstrap this, we’re opening up for what I just described for plugins to create Calypso interfaces for what they’re doing.</p>
<p>&#8220;Basically saying, if you’re using Calypso on a site that has one of these plugins, let’s say WooCommerce, all of a sudden in the interface, there will be all the WooCommerce stuff. It’ll talk to the API, it will run on the desktop just like the rest of Calypso, and it will only be loaded if the plugin is active.&#8221;</p>
<p>One of the major differences between <a href="https://developer.wordpress.com/calypso/">Calypso</a> and WP-Admin is that custom meta boxes added by plugins are not accessible in Calypso.</p>
<p>Nearly seven months since the announcement, popular WordPress plugins have struggled to add meta box support, including those maintained by Automattic. <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/">WordPress SEO</a>, active on more than 3M sites, is among the plugins that were selected to take part in the experiment.</p>
<p>When asked about the progress of making WordPress SEO Calypso aware, Joost de Valk, founder of <a href="https://yoast.com/">Yoast.com</a>, declined to comment.</p>
<p>Automattic has seen little progress on the initiative, &#8220;No news to report at this time, but hope to have some soon,&#8221; Automattic representative Mark Armstrong said. WooCommerce has yet to add meta box support and settings pages in Calypso.</p>
<p>Gutenberg, WordPress&#8217; new editor, is also built using React. One of the chief concerns expressed by users and developers is how it will <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/952">support custom meta boxes</a> built using the current PHP framework.</p>
<p>&#8220;I miss a lot of the meta boxes I’m used to seeing on the screen,&#8221; <a href="https://daily.jorb.in/2017/06/random-thoughts-on-gutenberg/">Aaron Jorbin said</a>. &#8220;Things like Yoast SEO (on some sites) and custom taxonomies are just not shown. If every meta box ever made for WordPress needs to be remade, it sure is going to make developers lives a living hell.&#8221;</p>
<p>I want to use Calypso as a replacement for WP-Admin because it&#8217;s fast and I like the interface. However, I can&#8217;t do that until it supports meta boxes for the plugins I rely on, such as Edit Flow. Is the lack of custom meta box support for Calypso a sign of what&#8217;s to come with Gutenberg?</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 30 Jun 2017 20:05:51 +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:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:24;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50:"WPTavern: WordCamp Netherlands Reinstated for 2018";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72624";s: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:61:"https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-netherlands-reinstated-for-2018";s: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:1924:"<p>At WordCamp Europe I had the opportunity to speak with WordCamp Netherlands organizers Marcel Bootsman and Luc Princen, along with WordPress Global Community Team members Josepha Haden and Andrea Middleton. The group has had several conversations about the future of WordCamp Netherlands, which was <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-community-support-shuts-down-wordcamp-netherlands-in-favor-of-city-based-wordcamps" target="_blank">shut down earlier this year in favor of city-based WordCamps</a>, and have decided to reinstate the camp with a few conditions.</p>
<p>WordCamp Netherlands organizers are now allowed to begin planning the event again based on the requirement that the country host three city-based WordCamps first. There are currently two local camps on the schedule and a few others in the pre-planning stage. Lead organizer Marcel Bootsman is aiming to have 500 attendees for the next WordCamp Netherlands in 2018.</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://torquemag.io/2017/06/matt-mullenweg-interview/" target="_blank">interview</a> with Torque, Matt Mullenweg indicated that the outlook is good for future regional WordCamps.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think we got to the point where we were too rules-based and now we’re starting to open up the process and be more agile in the approach to WordCamps,” Mullenweg said. “We can start to think about regional WordCamps and topic-focused WordCamp&#8230;we want to think about which WordCamps make sense to move the community forward.&#8221;</p>
<p>In our interview below, WordPress Global Community Team members said they plan to take similar country-based WordCamp proposals on a case-by-case basis. WordCamp Netherlands is pioneering the way for other countries with active local communities to continue to push the boundaries of the previously &#8220;one-size-fits-all&#8221; approach to WordPress events.</p>
<p></p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 29 Jun 2017 19:18:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:25;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"WPTavern: WPWeekly Episode 279 – The Future of Underscores with David A. Kennedy";s: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:58:"https://wptavern.com?p=72616&preview=true&preview_id=72616";s: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://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-279-the-future-of-underscores-with-david-a-kennedy";s: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:2442:"<p>In this episode, <a href="http://jjj.me/">John James Jacoby</a> and I are joined by <a href="https://davidakennedy.com/">David A. Kennedy</a>. Kennedy is a Theminator at Automattic and an accessibility advocate. Kennedy joined us to talk about <a href="https://wptavern.com/automattic-to-renew-efforts-on-underscores-retire-components-starter-theme-generator">the future of Underscores</a>, a starter theme created by Automattic in 2012.</p>
<p>We discussed how Gutenberg may impact theme development in general and some of the lessons learned from their <a href="https://wptavern.com/automattic-launches-components-with-5-new-starter-themes-based-on-underscores">Components project</a>. Kennedy tells us what trends he&#8217;s noticing with WordPress themes today and what the state of accessibility looks like for the theme landscape.</p>
<p>After the interview, Jacoby and I have a candid conversation about Gutenberg, what it means for WordPress, our experience with it thus far, and how it&#8217;s being developed.</p>
<h2>Stories Discussed:</h2>
<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-9-to-focus-on-managing-plugins-and-themes-gutenberg-targeted-for-5-0">WordPress 4.9 to Focus on Managing Plugins and Themes, Gutenberg Targeted for 5.0</a></p>
<h2>Links Mentioned:</h2>
<p><a href="http://a11yweekly.com/">Accessibility Weekly</a> &#8211; Kennedy&#8217;s hand-curated newsletter about web-accessibility delivered weekly.<br />
<a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/">WordPress Theme Review Team</a><br />
<a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-opens-up-more-channels-for-gutenberg-testing-and-feedback">Gutenberg</a><br />
<a href="http://underscores.me/">Underscores</a></p>
<h2>WPWeekly Meta:</h2>
<p><strong>Next Episode:</strong> Wednesday, July 5th 3:00 P.M. Eastern</p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: </strong><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wordpress-weekly/id694849738" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via RSS: </strong><a href="https://wptavern.com/feed/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Stitcher Radio: </strong><a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wordpress-weekly-podcast?refid=stpr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Listen To Episode #279:</strong><br />
</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 29 Jun 2017 01:07:31 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"WPTavern: WooCommerce 3.1 Adds New CSV Product Importer/Exporter, Improves Extension Management";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72604";s: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:104:"https://wptavern.com/woocommerce-3-1-adds-new-csv-product-importerexporter-improves-extension-management";s: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:3048:"<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/woocommerce-logo.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://woocommerce.com/2017/06/3-1-release-product-importer-shipping-service/" target="_blank">WooCommerce 3.1</a> was released today after four weeks of beta and RC testing. Although it is just a minor update, the release was a large undertaking with 1,600 commits from 84 contributors. </p>
<p>The most exciting feature in 3.1 is the new built-in product importer/exporter that supports CSV files, a feature previously offered through extensions. The importer makes it easier to migrate stores from other e-commerce platforms, as well as add and update product information for existing stores. Users can select whether to update existing products or create new products and can map the data against product fields:</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/woo-product-importer.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>The tool is also useful for those selling across multiple storefronts or marketplaces and is capable of matching up data based on product ID or SKU. Please note that it only handles products and not customers and orders. Store owners looking to import those additional items will still need to use an extension.</p>
<p>Version 3.1 also introduces the ability to manage WooCommerce.com extension licenses within WooCommerce core, eliminating the need to install the helper extension and copy subscription keys over. Customers can now connect their WooCommerce.com account to the site and download, manage, and activate extensions in the admin. Developers or agencies that have purchased extensions on behalf of clients will need to contact WooCommerce to transfer the subscriptions to a new owner in order for them to show up within the clients&#8217; admin. </p>
<p>This release also includes several other improvements, including the following: </p>
<ul>
<li>Add oEmbeds to the product short description, more useful error messages</li>
<li>More useful error messages</li>
<li>Add oEmbeds to the product short description</li>
<li>Customers can accept ‘Terms and conditions’ without leaving checkout</li>
<li>Set stock statuses for variations in bulk from the edit product screen</li>
<li>Small improvements to the setup wizard</li>
<li>WooCommerce Services Plugin: Add live shipping rates for USPS and Canada Post and print discounted shipping labels for USPS without leaving the store</li>
<li>New search helpers for orders to allow developers to query orders by multiple props</li>
</ul>
<p>Many WooCommerce store owners experienced considerable difficulties in updating to 3.0 due to extension incompatibilities. This is one of the reasons why WooCommerce recommends making backups of your store and testing the 3.1 update on a staging site to see how it affects themes and extensions. The changes in 3.1 should be backwards compatible with 3.0.x sites, but impact on extensions needs to be tested before pushing the update live.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 29 Jun 2017 00:30:38 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"WPTavern: WordPress Opens Up More Channels for Gutenberg Testing and Feedback";s: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:58:"https://wptavern.com?p=72583&preview=true&preview_id=72583";s: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://wptavern.com/wordpress-opens-up-more-channels-for-gutenberg-testing-and-feedback";s: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:3501:"<a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/testing.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: <a href="https://stocksnap.io/photo/23YKF6ZUWV">Vojtech Okenka</a>
<p>Gutenberg testing is in full swing and the WordPress Testing Handbook has a new page to help users <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/handbook/call-for-testing/gutenberg-testing/">get started</a>. It clearly defines the purpose of the new block editor as not just for writing content but also for creating layouts. Users are invited to offer general feedback or engage in specific task-based tests.</p>
<p>The new testing page erases boundaries for feedback by allowing users to submit their thoughts and suggestions using an <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdCVZ5ooeVYzjp26LAxKZVgkvcRraSTD6pRM_cjGuJfvLKQKw/viewform">online form</a>. Previously, the only way to offer feedback was by creating an issue on <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg">GitHub</a> or contacting the contributors on WordPress&#x27; #core-editor Slack channel. </p>
<p>At this stage in Gutenberg development, it may be difficult to discern what is a bug versus what is an unpolished feature. WordPress is using Storybook, an interactive development and testing environment for React and React-Native UI components, to create <a href="http://gutenberg-devdoc.surge.sh/">Gutenberg&#x27;s documentation</a>. However, this collection of documents focuses more on technical details for developers. The plugin&#x27;s <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/#developers">changelog</a> may provide some information about which features should be working. Before reporting an issue in the feedback form, it&#x27;s a good idea to review the project&#x27;s <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues">GitHub issues</a> to see if it has already been logged.</p>
<h3>Testing Gutenberg Outside of the WordPress&#x27; Developer Community is Critical to Its Success</h3>
<p>A few weeks ago I helped one of my friends migrate her personal blog from Blogger to WordPress. She had put off setting up her new site for months after checking out the admin and getting overwhelmed. Getting familiar with the post editor was enough of a hurdle, without piling on the idea of widgets and shortcodes and different screens and methods for inserting different types of content. The new editor can solve this problem with a unified method of creating content and placing it on the page.</p>
<p>Gutenberg has the potential to make WordPress content editing and layout building more user-friendly but only if it gets into the hands of non-technical users and those who are considering a switch from other platforms. WordPress&#x27; recurring <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-editor-experience-survey-shows-75-of-respondents-dont-use-distraction-free-writing-mode">failure to collect feedback beyond its own development community</a> needs to be addressed if Gutenberg is going to become a product that will attract non-WordPress users.</p>
<p>As the plugin is still in the very early beta stage, this is a crucial point in time when feedback can have a big impact on shaping Gutenberg&#x27;s development. Including non-technical users as early in the process as possible, as the new <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/handbook/call-for-testing/gutenberg-testing/">testing page</a> attempts to do, should provide a better overall picture of Gutenberg&#x27;s usability.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 28 Jun 2017 20:30:29 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:24:"WPTavern: Why Gutenberg?";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72563";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:34:"https://wptavern.com/why-gutenberg";s: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:7502:"<p>At WordCamp Europe 2017, Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of the WordPress open source project, <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-new-gutenberg-editor-now-available-as-a-plugin-for-testing">announced</a> that Gutenberg was available as a plugin for testing. In the past few weeks, members of the community have published their experiences with the new editor. Some of the reviews I&#8217;ve read so far include:</p>
<ul class="wp-block-freeform wp-block-freeform wp-block-freeform wp-block-freeform wp-block-freeform wp-block-freeform wp-block-freeform wp-block-freeform">
<li><a href="https://daily.jorb.in/2017/06/random-thoughts-on-gutenberg/"><cite></cite>Random Thoughts on Gutenberg </a></li>
<li><a href="https://joost.blog/gutenberg-and-yoast-seo/">Gutenberg and Yoast SEO </a></li>
<li><a href="http://gschoppe.com/wordpress/improving-wordpress/improving-wordpress-pt-4-where-project-gutenberg-lost-me-open-letter-to-core/">Improving WordPress Pt 4 – Where Gutenberg Lost Me (Open Letter to Core) </a></li>
<li><a href="https://wplift.com/gutenberg-editor-first-look">A First Look at Gutenberg Editor for WordPress: Mixed Opinions </a></li>
<li><a href="https://kinsta.com/blog/gutenberg-wordpress-editor/">Diving Into the New Gutenberg WordPress Editor (Pros and Cons) </a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.customerservant.com/gutenberg-screen-reader-initial-thoughts-reactions/">Gutenberg With A Screen Reader: Initial Thoughts And Reactions </a></li>
<li><a href="https://mrwweb.com/first-reactions-gutenberg-future-of-wordpress/">First Reactions to Gutenberg, the Future of WordPress</a></li>
</ul>
<p>There is one review in particular that has piqued my interest. Adrian Roselli not only <a href="http://adrianroselli.com/2017/06/first-reactions-to-gutenberg.html">shares his first impressions</a> of Gutenberg, but also asks a couple of important questions and raises some interesting points:</p>
<blockquote class="blocks-quote-style-1 wp-block-quote"><p>When I first heard about Gutenberg, I asked some people at WordCamp London and later at WordCamp Europe who had requested it. Remembering that WordCamp is open source, I then re-jiggered my question and asked what problem it was trying to solve.</p>
<p>Of the people I asked, I do not know who was a contributor. The answer I overwhelmingly got back was that Matt wanted it.</p></blockquote>
<p>There are two things that concern me about Roselli&#8217;s statement. The first is that I have a few quirks with the current editor but I don&#8217;t often use short codes, custom HTML, or use custom embed codes. Thinking about what <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/blob/aae8cdd1349c6af7a74e84174724526386643a6e/docs/design.md">problems Gutenberg solves</a> is somewhat perplexing if they&#8217;re not problems I encounter on a regular basis.</p>
<p>The second is that people at WordCamps are answering the question by saying Mullenweg wants it in core. Roselli states that he doesn&#8217;t know if the people answering the question are contributors or not. Because Mullenweg wants something in core should never be the primary reason it&#8217;s added.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s easy to see how one could come up with this answer. Earlier this year, Mullenweg took over core development as the project lead, and <a href="https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-announces-tech-and-design-leads-for-new-focus-based-development-cycle">assigned</a> Automattic employees Matias Ventura and Joen Asmussen to lead the development of Gutenberg. As project lead, Mullenweg can bypass the <a href="https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-discusses-core-focuses-downsides-of-a-consensus-driven-model-and-more-on-apply-filters-podcast">concensus-driven model</a>, and do what he thinks is best for the project without going through a committee.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://wptavern.com/state-of-the-word-2016-mullenweg-pushes-calypso-as-future-of-wordpress-interface-proposes-major-changes-to-release-cycle">2016 State of the Word</a>, Mullenweg announced that the Editor would be one of three core focuses for 2017. In January of this year, the team published a <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/01/17/editor-technical-overview/">technical overview</a> of what the new editor would encompass. A month later, the team <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/design/2017/02/09/initial-editor-blocks-prototype-editor-testing/">published an initial prototype</a> of a block-based editor.</p>
<p>The team is moving rapidly with <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-9-to-focus-on-managing-plugins-and-themes-gutenberg-targeted-for-5-0">plans to ship Gutenberg</a> possibly in time for WordPress 5.0 expected later this year or early next. If all of the work thus far had to go through a committee, it&#8217;s likely Gutenberg development wouldn&#8217;t be where it&#8217;s at.</p>
<p>Perhaps not enough people <a href="http://chrislema.com/misunderstanding-goal-gutenberg-writing-experience/">understand the &#8216;Why&#8217; behind the project.</a> Who can blame them? Outside of specifying that it will help WordPress <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-new-gutenberg-editor-now-available-as-a-plugin-for-testing">leapfrog its competitors</a>, there&#8217;s not a lot of information on official channels that concretely explains and supports the idea that Gutenberg is necessary for millions of users.</p>
<p>Mullenweg has a good track record of doing what&#8217;s best for the project. However, in the case of revamping the editor, which will radically change how everyone will create content in WordPress, it&#8217;s concerning that more user research, personas, usage data, etc. is not available to indicate such a major shift was warranted. There was an <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-editor-experience-survey-shows-75-of-respondents-dont-use-distraction-free-writing-mode">Editor survey published</a> earlier this year but the results were not representative of WordPress&#8217; global user base.</p>
<p>&#8220;A lot of assertions on ease of use are made on the Gutenberg plugin page, with nothing to back them up,&#8221; Roselli said.</p>
<p>Gutenberg is an exciting, ambitious project, but one that I&#8217;m not entirely sure is necessary. If WordPress core is going to fundamentally change the way I create content without giving me a choice, I want as much information and user research data as possible to convince me that it&#8217;s the better option.</p>
<p>It may seem odd that these questions and concerns are being raised six months into the project but at the same time, development has moved so fast, it feels like the opportunity to have them addressed at the beginning was missed.</p>
<p>Revamping the editor experience is a massive undertaking and, six months in, it&#8217;s not better than the editor I use today. I wrote this post in Gutenberg and it was a cumbersome, frustrating experience. It will need to address a lot of issues if it&#8217;s going to beat the current WordPress editor, let alone leapfrog its competitors. However, the team is <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/gutenberg/">making good progress</a> on a weekly basis.</p>
<p>Gutenberg needs as many testers as possible if it&#8217;s going to be the best editor in its class. For instructions on how and what to test, read the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/handbook/call-for-testing/gutenberg-testing/">Gutenberg testing guide</a> on the Make WordPress Testing site.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 28 Jun 2017 18:48:59 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55:"HeroPress: From Teaching Toddlers to Teaching the 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:56:"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=1940";s: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:138:"https://heropress.com/essays/teaching-toddlers-teaching-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=teaching-toddlers-teaching-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:9327:"<img width="960" height="480" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/062817-min-1024x512.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: My goal was to learn as much as I could about WordPress so I too, can teach." /><p>I did not pick the computer life. It picked me. I can remember the summer between kindergarten and first grade; I had a computer summer class that introduced me to my passion. The first day when my mother picked me up I exclaimed “mommy I want a computer for Christmas!” I was five and had no realization that in 1986 they would cost more than about everything I owned. I remember being upset that Santa did not bring me the computer that I had been wishing for since June. Growing up, any time I got the chance to sit in front of a computer, I took it for as long as I could. In high school, I even designed the website of one of the groups I was in. It was still online up until last year when CCHS did a website redesign. However, I never actively pursued a career with computers or even took a class for them since that summer. It was not until after I got into WordPress that I actually took a computer class, and now I have an associate&#8217;s in Information Technology.</p>
<p>My first career was as a preschool teacher. I loved teaching, loved the joy that it gave me, but it was a very under-valued career.</p>
<blockquote><p>Most teachers, who go to college to become teachers, make anywhere between minimum wage to a dollar over that with no insurance and maybe a week’s paid vacation.</p></blockquote>
<p>While spending 45 plus hours every week, I was dedicated to teaching our future, I was barely getting bills paid. So many times I would have to pay bills late, worry how I was going to make sure the next bill gets paid, and have enough gas in my car to make it to work the rest of the week. I devoted twelve years to teaching colors, shapes, letters, numbers, and how to get along with others. While I loved to teach, I needed more. Plus, if I wanted to be able to take care of my daughter, I needed to make a change or I would never even be able to have a savings.</p>
<h3>And Then There Was WordPress</h3>
<p>Around 2011, I got the idea that I wanted to write a blog. I had heard my friend Chris talk about blogging so I knew he would point me in the right direction. At that time he was working on a security plugin to help the sites he managed for work. He told me “if you want me to help you build a blog, I&#8217;m going to teach you so you can do it on your own later.” We bought a domain, set up hosting, and ran the install. I instantly became hooked. The more I built, the more I wanted to learn about WordPress, and the more I wanted to do.</p>
<blockquote><p>Almost every night, after my daughter would go to bed, I would spend working on my blog, reading about what one can do with WordPress, and trying everything I learned.</p></blockquote>
<p>Sometimes things would go great, and other times I would accidentally delete out my entire site on FileZilla without a backup and would start from scratch again. Most of my learning came from my failed attempts and what not to do. That is what was my first clue that I would like to be a “fixer” instead of a “builder”.</p>
<p>The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. By 2013 I decided that “I could actually do this. I could make money from WordPress” but I still had about zero clue of how to go about it. I decided to leave preschool for good. I took a full time job working for a local IT agency that also built sites on WordPress. I spent a year there but during that time Chris introduced me to Regina at WP Security Lock. We hit it off and I quickly became a part time employee in April of 2014 helping her with the sites she managed and then learning how to clean hacked websites.</p>
<p>I spent almost two years working for WPSL. The first part of them I was working for the local agency. Regina showed me another option for working in WordPress. It was the idea of working remotely. My daughter was still at the age where she needed after school care, and it is expensive. So with the support of my then fiance, I took the leap to work remotely in September of 2014.</p>
<p>Fast forward from working in with various plugin support teams and security support roles, to jumping into agency support that I did for almost a year, I am now at home with WP Media on their WP Rocket support team. While most do not feel that it is the most glamorous of career choices, I love fixing problems, finding solutions, and helping people. Most of all, WordPress and working with support, gives me many teaching opportunities to help out every person who asks.</p>
<h3>The Want to Teach</h3>
<p>My first ever WordPress Community event was WP Engine’s 10 year birthday party they threw for WordPress in Austin. The feeling the Austin WP community gave me led me to feel like this was really a place I wanted to be. After Chris saw how excited I was about the community, he asked if I would like to go to WordCamp Chicago. Coincidentally, four years ago today, I was attending my first ever WordCamp. How the speakers taught the attendees, my goal was to learn as much as I could about WordPress so I too, can teach.</p>
<p>Even though I no longer had the official title of a teacher, I still loved to teach. WordCamp Austin 2014 gave me the first opportunity to teach others about Jetpack. I was a nervous wreck! Not only was my best friend there who I looked up to in the WordPress community, but also one of the wonderful Happiness Engineers for the Jetpack team. I had Kraft go over my slides for me to make sure there was not anything I was sticking my foot in my mouth for and away we went. Afterwards I had people coming up and thanking me for explaining Jetpack in a way they could understand.</p>
<blockquote><p>After that WordCamp, I wanted to speak at all WordCamps.</p></blockquote>
<p>One of the many advantages of working for companies that have roots in the WordPress Community is that they allow me to attend, speak, and volunteer at WordCamps. I now have over 20 speaking opportunities under my belt, and have no want to stop for the unforeseeable future. I love having any opportunity to teach. I have now grown from only speaking at WordCamps to teaching beginner’s WordPress at our local community college, writing a book on beginner’s WordPress, and starting WP Kids Slack group to be a resource for KidsCamps and teaching our youth on the value and joys of WordPress. Now I am proud to say that I have taught WordPress to all ages from children to the baby boomers and it feels great! I have even had the opportunity to teach my own daughter WordPress and she loves going to the WordCamps. She has even helped others at Camps which for me is what it is all about. It is such a delight teaching Kids Camps and seeing their creativity blossom while building a site of their own. Plus, getting youth and teenagers interested in WordPress, coding, design, and more ensures that what we are building now, will only become better in the future.</p>
<div class="rtsocial-container rtsocial-container-align-right rtsocial-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-twitter-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-twitter-horizontal-button"><a title="Tweet: From Teaching Toddlers to Teaching the World" class="rtsocial-twitter-button" href="https://twitter.com/share?text=From%20Teaching%20Toddlers%20to%20Teaching%20the%20World&via=heropress&url=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fteaching-toddlers-teaching-world%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-fb-horizontal fb-light"><div class="rtsocial-fb-horizontal-button"><a title="Like: From Teaching Toddlers to Teaching the World" class="rtsocial-fb-button rtsocial-fb-like-light" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fteaching-toddlers-teaching-world%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-linkedin-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-linkedin-horizontal-button"><a class="rtsocial-linkedin-button" href="https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fteaching-toddlers-teaching-world%2F&title=From+Teaching+Toddlers+to+Teaching+the+World" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Share: From Teaching Toddlers to Teaching the World"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-pinterest-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-pinterest-horizontal-button"><a class="rtsocial-pinterest-button" href="https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://heropress.com/essays/teaching-toddlers-teaching-world/&media=https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/062817-min-150x150.jpg&description=From Teaching Toddlers to Teaching the World" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Pin: From Teaching Toddlers to Teaching the World"></a></div></div><a rel="nofollow" class="perma-link" href="https://heropress.com/essays/teaching-toddlers-teaching-world/" title="From Teaching Toddlers to Teaching the World"></a></div><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com/essays/teaching-toddlers-teaching-world/">From Teaching Toddlers to Teaching the World</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 28 Jun 2017 14:15:10 +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:21:"Michele Butcher-Jones";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"WPTavern: Automattic to Renew Efforts on Underscores, Retire Components Starter-Theme Generator";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=70860";s: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:105:"https://wptavern.com/automattic-to-renew-efforts-on-underscores-retire-components-starter-theme-generator";s: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:7346:"<p><a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/underscores.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>For the past several months we have received inquiries about Automattic&#8217;s open source <a href="http://underscores.me/" target="_blank">Underscores</a> starter theme. After six months of no commits to the <a href="https://github.com/automattic/_s" target="_blank">GitHub repository</a> and pull requests left unanswered, users and contributors were beginning to wonder whether the project was abandoned.</p>
<p>After contacting Automattic to get a status update on Underscores, the company confirmed that it is still an active project but would not explain why it had gone dormant for six months.</p>
<p>For the past couple weeks there have been a sudden flurry of commits to the Underscores repository, the first activity since December 2016. The project has come out of hibernation and Automattic announced its intentions to <a href="https://themeshaper.com/2017/06/26/the-future-of-underscores-and-a-new-committer/" target="_blank">renew its efforts in maintaining it</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;As we continue to push for consistency in themes and imagine what they might become with Gutenberg, we’re bringing our attention back to Underscores,&#8221; David Kennedy said. &#8220;In the last year, we’ve gotten a lot of questions from the community about Underscores and whether we had abandoned it. No way! It’s a stable project, and we enjoyed working on something new, away from it. It gave us better perspective and more ideas for the future of Underscores.&#8221;</p>
<p>Kennedy explained how the project&#8217;s maintainers have spent the past year and a half experimenting with <a href="https://wptavern.com/automattic-launches-components-with-5-new-starter-themes-based-on-underscores" target="_blank">Components</a>, a starter-theme generator that was created to provide a more modular approach to theme development with reusable building blocks. The team has decided to retire Components in favor of refocusing on Underscores and applying what they learned from the experiment.</p>
<p>&#8220;The generator we built to piece the different components together got complex quickly,&#8221; Kennedy said. &#8220;We created a plugin to test builds locally and struggled with a seamless way to make many starter themes from one code base. The original idea is still solid: make starter themes do more by crafting them out of building blocks. But we didn’t hit the mark, so we’re retiring Components.&#8221;</p>
<h3>Underscores Adds Ulrich Pogson as New Committer</h3>
<p>Automattic has named <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/grapplerulrich/" target="_blank">Ulrich Pogson</a> as a new committer to Underscores, the second non-Automattic contributor, <a href="https://themeshaper.com/2014/04/22/commit-access-underscores/" target="_blank">following Philip Arthur Moore</a>, to receive commit access. Pogson is a WordPress contributor and meetup organizer, a member of the Theme Review Team, and an independent voice for the Underscores community.</p>
<p>Philip Arthur Moore <a href="https://philip.blog/2017/06/27/wp-underscores-future/" target="_blank">said</a> he was excited to hear the news and thankful to Automattic for &#8220;not allowing Underscores to rot on the vine any longer.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;It’s fair to say that my involvement with the starter theme will likely come out of a coma and find new life,&#8221; Moore said. &#8220;This is exactly what the theming community needs right now, and I couldn’t be more excited to see what we come up with and create.&#8221;</p>
<p>In early January, the Underscores community shared concerns regarding the project&#8217;s general lack of leadership and transparency. Contributor Sami Keijonen wrote an article with constructive ideas for <a href="https://foxland.fi/underscores-development/" target="_blank">how Automattic could improve Underscores development</a>. One of his suggestions for the project was to identify leadership for moving forward, a person or group of people who could be responsible to review and discuss issues and pull requests more frequently. This would encourage more active discussion and testing of pull requests.</p>
<p>In the comments of this post, <a href="https://foxland.fi/underscores-development/#comment-22416" target="_blank">Pogson expressed similar concerns</a> and said he would potentially be interested in creating a fork of Underscores.</p>
<p>&#8220;Personally I am also hesitant to contribute as I am not sure when the PR will be merged,&#8221; Pogson said. &#8220;I would like to see regular feedback instead of instead of PR’s being merged in a merging spree. There is also a clash between _s fulfilling Automattic needs and at the same time as the community needs.&#8221;</p>
<p>Now that Pogson has been named a committer, he may be able to assist the team in maintaining active discussion on issues and keeping pull requests moving.</p>
<p>&#8220;A large number of people use Underscores as a base for their clients and for themes on w.org,&#8221; Pogson said. &#8220;I would like to bring in things that have made me a better developer and make it easier for others getting started.&#8221;</p>
<p>Pogson said he is still finding his position in the team and he anticipates he will most likely be merging simple PRs in the beginning. He enjoys working on Underscores and said he regularly likes to go through opened issues and give feedback.</p>
<p>Sami Keijonen said he thinks the addition of Pogson as a committer is &#8220;very good news.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;They are bringing the focus back on Underscores, and they can bring the best ideas of Components to Underscores,&#8221; Keijonen said. &#8220;Ulrich is the perfect choice as a new committer. He has been involved in the development for a long time and knows the big picture. It’s also good to see a committer from outside of Automattic. Different kinds of perspectives are always welcome.&#8221;</p>
<p>Keijonen said he is also optimistic that David Kennedy has taken a more active leadership role and hopes the project will continue to benefit from it.</p>
<p>&#8220;With all that said <code>_s</code> is still Automattic’s starter theme,&#8221; Keijonen said. &#8220;It can mean more wp.com related decisions in the future. That’s one reason why many have their own fork of <code>_s</code>.&#8221; He cited a few examples of companies that have active forks of Underscores to suit their particular interests, including <a href="https://github.com/WebDevStudios/wd_s" target="_blank">WebDevStudios</a>, <a href="https://github.com/ZeelandFamily/zf-theme" target="_blank">Zeeland Family</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/digitoimistodude/air" target="_blank">Digitoimisto Dude Studio</a>.</p>
<p>&#8220;It will be an interesting partnership as I am the only committer who has not worked at Automattic,&#8221; Pogson said. &#8220;I think there will always be a certain clash between what Automattic needs and what the community wants, just because of the nature of the project. Many plugin authors have the same problem where they get requests that are not ideal for the other customers. There is still a bit of uncertainty but I am sure these things will be clarified in the future.&#8221;</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 27 Jun 2017 21:01:09 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:144:"WPTavern: Catalina Alvarez is Conducting the First Occupational Psychology Study on Autonomous Motivation and Burnout 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:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=71964";s: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:155:"https://wptavern.com/catalina-alvarez-is-conducting-the-first-occupational-psychology-study-on-autonomous-motivation-and-burnout-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:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:1652:"<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/computer-paper-coffee.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: <a href="https://stocksnap.io/photo/JHJH4PS68L">WDnet Studio</a>
<p>While attending WordCamp Europe I met Catalina Alvarez, a Master&#8217;s degree student at Paris 8 University, who is studying Occupational Psychology and Human Resources. She is in the process of writing her thesis about WordPress community health, with a focus on &#8220;autonomous motivation as a moderator in the Demands-Burnout relationship.&#8221;</p>
<p>Alvarez is conducting a <a href="http://cataalvarezp.polldaddy.com/s/motivation-burnout-in-wordpress-community" target="_blank">survey</a> as part of her research and is inviting anyone in the WordPress community who has contributed, whether to code or community projects, to participate. One of the theories she is testing is that burnout is not the consequence of the demands of one&#8217;s work but rather the consequence of long periods of stress. She is also testing to see if autonomous motivation (when you do things because you are passionate about them) can reduce burnout and if external motivation contributes to burnout.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://cataalvarezp.polldaddy.com/s/motivation-burnout-in-wordpress-community" target="_blank">survey</a> takes approximately 5-10 minutes and will close on July 5, 2017. Alvarez plans to share her results with the community and will need at least 250 respondents to make any meaningful conclusions.</p>
<p>Check out our video interview below to find out more details and background on the study.</p>
<p></p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 27 Jun 2017 00:06:04 +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:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:121:"WPTavern: Matt Mullenweg Discusses Core Focuses, Downsides of a Consensus-Driven Model, and More on Apply Filters 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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72517";s: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:130:"https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-discusses-core-focuses-downsides-of-a-consensus-driven-model-and-more-on-apply-filters-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:6079:"<p>Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of the WordPress open source project and CEO of Automattic, joined Pippin Williamson and Brad Touesnard on <a href="http://applyfilters.fm/podcast/episode-81/">episode 81</a> of the <a href="http://applyfilters.fm/">Apply Filters</a> podcast. Apply Filters is a podcast dedicated to WordPress development.</p>
<p>During the interview, Mullenweg touched on a number of topics including, a progress report on the <a href="https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-announces-tech-and-design-leads-for-new-focus-based-development-cycle">three core focus areas</a>, why he stepped back into the project lead role, and what&#8217;s not being talked about enough in the WordPress world.</p>
<p>There are quite a few things in this episode that piqued my interest. Near the beginning of the interview, Mullenweg is asked if there was a tipping point that made him decide to take on the role of project lead again.</p>
<p>&#8220;I’ve been personally frustrated by how long it has taken to do some things that I think should be relatively simple,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;Hearing that from other release leads over the past few years, and seeing some of the frustration because we have this rotating release lead philosophy.</p>
<p>&#8220;So hearing them voice some of the same frustrations, I was like, okay, maybe this is something more with how the project is organized versus something that I personally am having trouble with.</p>
<p>&#8220;We had a couple of years of releases that were a little uninspiring from the point of view of moving the needle forward for its adoption, even though they did a lot of great things and people worked really hard on them, and we closed 700 tickets, and had 130 or 150 contributors.</p>
<p>&#8220;We were beating or we were doing a good job on a lot of metrics that we were tracking, but, on the whole, I think it really started to feel like WordPress was falling behind the state of the art in the world.&#8221;</p>
<p>It was interesting to hear Mullenweg admit that WordPress releases in the last couple of years have been a bit uninspiring. This is <a href="https://wptavern.com/the-wow-factor-in-major-wordpress-releases-is-getting-few-and-far-between">a sentiment I</a> and <a href="https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/wordpress-4-0-hugely-underwhelming/?utm_expid=3606929-74.aeX0WyvtRVa7qMe8Ph5smw.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F">others</a> in the community have shared in recent years. Development of Gutenberg, <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-new-gutenberg-editor-now-available-as-a-plugin-for-testing">WordPress&#8217; new editor</a>, has created a buzz around the project that I haven&#8217;t felt in a long time. It&#8217;s not surprising considering it is going to be the largest fundamental change to WordPress since its creation.</p>
<h2>Disagree and Commit</h2>
<p>During the discussions on whether or not to merge the REST API into core, Mullenweg argued that it shouldn&#8217;t be integrated until it was 100% complete. The core development team ultimately decided to merge it into core and iterate improvements. In the show, Mullenweg describes the disagree and commit principle.</p>
<p>&#8220;This idea that even though I disagreed with some of the things going in, the moment it was committed, I was advocating for it as strongly as anything else,&#8221; Mullenweg said.</p>
<p>&#8220;The historical thoughts or ideas or whatever I had don’t really matter at this point. It’s in, so I want to work to make it as widely adopted and successful as possible. That’s the commit part of it, which is funny because, in an open source world, commit obviously has a double meaning.</p>
<p>&#8220;But if you think about it, you can apply this to all parts of your life. Debate vigorously and have lots of arguments. Bring up all your worries or thoughts or concerns and hash it out. But once a decision has been made and the decision was made to bring the content endpoints in, don’t re-litigate it. That’s not really helpful to anyone.</p>
<p>&#8220;Most of all, don’t sabotage it. It’s in, so let’s make it successful.&#8221;</p>
<h2>Downsides of a Consensus-Driven Model</h2>
<p>Near the end of the interview, Mullenweg is asked what philosophy, feature, or topic in the WordPress world is not talked about enough. &#8220;The downsides of a consensus-driven model creating products,&#8221; he responded.</p>
<p>&#8220;I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I think that almost everyone at some point in their career has had a bad manager. And sometimes our reaction to that is to say that no one should be making decisions. There should be no managers, sort of like a more reactionary approach to it because that is true that it does solve the problem of the bad manager.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think what we miss is the only thing worse than a bad manager is 100 bad managers, which is sometimes what we get when we just try to make decisions or drive development of something like WordPress–which is, at the end of the day, a user product based on who shows up to a dev meeting that day, or what the loudest voices in the room might advocate for.</p>
<p>&#8220;Even policies that we’ve adopted in the past with WordPress, let’s say the 80/20 rule, which is on our principles page, can be misused and, I think, probably have been misused more the past few years than it has been used in the way it was intended.</p>
<p>&#8220;Just that kind of getting back to the question of how does this change a user’s life or not, and that reflects itself in an open marketplace through adoption. That is, I think, good to just remind ourselves of regularly because everyone, myself included, can get kind of down in the weeds of a particular ticket or idea we have or idea someone else has that might not be productive.&#8221;</p>
<p>To hear Mullenweg discuss these topics and more, I highly encourage you to listen to the <a href="http://applyfilters.fm/podcast/episode-81/">full interview</a> which includes a transcript of the show.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 26 Jun 2017 21:00:40 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";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:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:23:"Matt: Heroin or Aspirin";s: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://ma.tt/2017/06/heroin-or-aspirin/";s: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://ma.tt/2017/06/heroin-or-aspirin/";s: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:878:"<blockquote><p>The company Bayer is famous for inventing aspirin in 1898, which is arguably one of the world<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.3/72x72/2019.png" alt="’" class="wp-smiley" />s most beloved brands, and for good reason. But I was surprised to learn that just two weeks earlier, the same three guys who gave the world aspirin also created Bayer<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.3/72x72/2019.png" alt="’" class="wp-smiley" />s other big brand, heroin, which was marketed for about eight years as the world<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.3/72x72/2019.png" alt="’" class="wp-smiley" />s best cough medicine.</p></blockquote>
<p>From <a href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/18/books/andrew-essex-talks-about-end-of-advertising.html">Andrew Essex on his book about the End of Advertising</a>. <i>Hat tip: John Maeda.</i></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sun, 25 Jun 2017 13:45:03 +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:34;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"BuddyPress: BuddyPress 2.9.0 Beta 2";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://buddypress.org/?p=266659";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:55:"https://buddypress.org/2017/06/buddypress-2-9-0-beta-2/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2980:"<p>Today sees BP 2.9 move to Beta 2 ( Beta 1 skipped for technical reasons ) testing phase and we would request all plugin authors, theme developers and other interested parties test out this release and feedback any issues found to our <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/newticket"> trac ticket home </a>, or raise on the support forum.</p>
<p>Amongst other improvements and fixes to look out for are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fixing display of older activity comments.</li>
<li>Correction of message when removing friends that are not friends.</li>
<li>Group invites &#8211; omit sending to previously invited members.</li>
<li>Profile image upload fix for IE Edge breaksIOS fix.</li>
<li>Correct issue with hidden group &amp; CSS specificity.</li>
<li>URL compatibility for LightSpeed.</li>
<li>Fix inability resizing of member avatar for cyrillic character filenames.</li>
</ul>
<p>For a full list of commits see <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/query?keywords=~&milestone=2.9&group=status&col=id&col=summary&col=keywords&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&col=component&col=version&order=priority">2.9 tickets</a> A full changelog will be available when we release the final version.</p>
<p>You can download the plugin to test from the WP repo <a href="https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/buddypress.2.9.0-beta2.zip">BP 2.9.0-beta2</a> or grab a copy from our SVN repo.</p>
<p><strong>Template changes</strong></p>
<p>In this release there are a number of improvements to templates that add a level of improved a11y performance and markup changes for better semantics &amp; Standards.</p>
<p>Theme authors may want to pay particular attention to changes to profile field visibility links and the profile field descriptions where significant markup changes are made that effect positioning of these elements &#8211; changesets for these are <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/11617">r11617</a> &amp; <a href="https://buddypress.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/11618">r11618</a></p>
<p><strong>Nouveau &#8211; new template pack</strong></p>
<p>While we were definitely aiming for release of this feature for 2.9, the necessary final fixes and feature enhancements along with the necessary code reviews were going to prove very tight to get finished in time and would have likely meant a degree of rushing. We have decided that as this is such a major new feature, the first new theme in many years and that expectations will be high for it that we should not rush to put out a product that might be even slightly sub optimal.</p>
<p>However fear not we are very concerned that the project is focussed on through the last stages of 2.9 and has primary focus during the next release cycle to ensure an early completion.</p>
<p>It is further proposed that we&#8217;ll actually release Nouveau in a much shorter release cycle as 3.0, this way we can get an early release and not have the project just sitting in trunk until the end of the year.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 24 Jun 2017 20:17:56 +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:"Hugo Ashmore";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:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"WPTavern: Gutenberg 0.2.0 Released, Adds New Custom HTML and Cover Image Blocks";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72472";s: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://wptavern.com/gutenberg-0-2-0-released-adds-new-custom-html-and-cover-image-blocks";s: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:3385:"<p>The <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/" target="_blank">Gutenberg plugin</a> is moving fast with <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/06/23/whats-new-in-gutenberg-june-23rd/" target="_blank">version 0.2.0</a> now available. This is the first release since the plugin was added to the directory last week. It includes two new block types, along with other new features, improvements, and fixes for many bugs that previously severely impaired the editor&#8217;s usability.</p>
<p>A new <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/1391" target="_blank">Custom HTML</a> block allows users to add HTML and click to see a fast preview within the editor.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/gutenberg-custom-html-block.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/gutenberg-custom-html-preview.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>The new <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/487" target="_blank">Cover Image</a> block lets users place an image in the content with the background image fixed by default. Users can also specify text to have overlaid. Gutenberg developers emphasized that this feature should not be confused with the &#8220;Featured Image&#8221; panel which is already working in a similar way to how it has in the past.</p>
<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/gutenberg-cover-image.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>While testing the Cover Image block with Twenty Seventeen and Twenty Fifteen, I was unable to get it working correctly on the frontend. Within the editor it works beautifully but once I launched the preview I found that, regardless of which positioning option I chose, I could not get the full image to display. The size of the image&#8217;s output was only as tall as the overlay text. If there was a right way to position it, I was unable to discover it. I checked with the development team and Matías Ventura said they are not loading styles for blocks in the front-end yet. Blocks like Cover Image that need CSS to display properly will not look right at the moment, but the plan is to focus on adding CSS for these this coming week.</p>
<p>A few of the notable fixes and improvements include the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Added button to delete a block</li>
<li>Added button to open block settings in the inspector</li>
<li>Rename “Freeform” block to “Classic Text”</li>
<li>Added support for pages and custom post types</li>
<li>Added ability to select all blocks with ctrl/command+A</li>
<li>Automatically generate wrapper class for styling blocks</li>
<li>Avoid triggering multi-select on right click</li>
<li>Avoid being keyboard trapped on editor content</li>
</ul>
<p>As of today, Gutenberg has more than 500 active installs. The development team is planning on shipping weekly releases to the WordPress.org plugin. If you want to keep up with the releases, subscribe to the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/" target="_blank">make.wordpress.org/core</a> blog. Feedback is welcome on <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg" target="_blank">Gutenberg&#8217;s GitHub repository</a> as well as in the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/core-editor/" target="_blank">#core-editor</a> channel on WordPress Slack.</p>
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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"WPTavern: WordPress 4.9 to Focus on Managing Plugins and Themes, Gutenberg Targeted for 5.0";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72454";s: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:101:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-9-to-focus-on-managing-plugins-and-themes-gutenberg-targeted-for-5-0";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4788:"<a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/planning.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: <a href="https://stocksnap.io/photo/5ZMT04MIW6">Oli Dale</a>
<p>Matt Mullenweg, the overall product lead for core releases in 2017, has published <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/06/16/4-9-and-gutenberg/" target="_blank">an overview for what users can expect in WordPress versions 4.9 and 5.0</a>. After the success of 4.8 and the initial release of Gutenberg last week, Mullenweg is aiming to see the plugin installed on 100K+ sites during the next few months before merging it into core. He also suggested that WordPress could put a promo for the plugin in the upcoming 4.8.1 release.</p>
<p>&#8220;In the meantime I think we can do another user-focused 4.9 release with the theme of editing code and managing plugins and themes, doing v2s and polishing some features we brought into WP last year,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;Weston and Mel already have some good ideas there, and we can start to discuss and brainstorm at the Dev chat next week. This will also allow the Gutenberg-driven release to be 5.0, which is a nice-to-have but not the primary driver of this decision.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mullenweg elaborated on changes to the release process in <a href="https://ma.tt/2017/06/4-8-and-whats-coming/" target="_blank">a post on his personal blog</a>. The original idea was for releases to be driven by improvements to the three focus areas (the editor, customizer, and REST API), but the radical changes that Gutenberg introduces to the editing experience means that customization improvements will need to wait until the editor is a little further along:</p>
<blockquote><p>
Mel and Weston took this as an opportunity to think about not just the “Customizer”, which is a screen and code base within WP, but really thinking in a user-centric way about what it means to customize a site and they identified a number of low-hanging fruits, areas like widgets where we could have a big user impact with relatively little effort.</p>
<p>WordPress is littered with little inconsistencies and gaps in the user experience that aren’t hard to fix, but are hard to notice the 500th time you’re looking at a screen.</p>
<p>I didn’t think we’d be able to sustain the effort on the editor and still do a meaningful user release in the meantime, but we did, and I think we can do it again.</p></blockquote>
<p>During this week&#8217;s core development meeting, contributors brainstormed more specific items for inclusion in 4.9. The ability to schedule customizer changesets is one feature they discussed as a possibility. Customizer component co-maintainer Weston Ruter described the feature as &#8220;adding statuses for changesets: being able to draft a changeset to come back to later, and then to be able to schedule it to go live.&#8221;</p>
<p>The <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/customize-snapshots/" target="_blank">Customize Snapshots</a> feature plugin contains the UI for this and Customize Changesets, the term for the underlying infrastructure required for saving a Customizer session as a draft, <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-4-7-to-ship-with-infrastructure-from-the-customize-snapshots-feature-plugin" target="_blank">was added in WordPress 4.7</a>. Adding the UI in WordPress 4.9 would allow users to share Customizer sessions, preview them outside of the iframe, and schedule them to publish at a future date.</p>
<p>Andrew Roberts, a contributor to TinyMCE, said they should have a new mobile-optimized UX, which would result in a responsive toolbar, that could land within the proposed 4.9 timeframe.</p>
<p>&#8220;I would wonder if we couldn&#8217;t tweak the UI to be closer to Gutenberg (e.g. white toolbars),&#8221; Roberts said. &#8220;I had raised this idea before and it was thought it was better to wait until Gutenberg, but I remain of the opinion we could iterate a little bit closer to get users used to it.&#8221;</p>
<p>Contributors also discussed the possibility of changing the default font in the editor to ease the transition to Gutenberg in the future. Currently, Gutenberg uses system fonts for UI and Noto Serif for the editor text.</p>
<p>Mel Choyce, who is heading the Customizer focus with Weston Ruter, said she hopes the team can finish the Gallery Widget for 4.9. Current progress on the widget can be found on <a href="https://github.com/xwp/wp-core-media-widgets/pull/120" target="_blank">GitHub</a>.</p>
<p>WordPress 4.8.1 is tentatively planned for the last week in July, and contributors anticipate including a fix for some issues with the <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/40951" target="_blank">new Text Widget stripping out code</a>.</p>
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";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"WPTavern: WordPress’ New Gutenberg Editor Now Available as a Plugin for Testing";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72098";s: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://wptavern.com/wordpress-new-gutenberg-editor-now-available-as-a-plugin-for-testing";s: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:9087:"<p><a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/gutenberg.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>One of the featured sessions at WordCamp Europe 2017 was Om Malik&#8217;s interview with Matt Mullenweg, followed by a 20-minute Q&amp;A from the audience. After showing a preview of the new Gutenberg editor with dynamic blocks replacing widgets, Mullenweg announced that it is now <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/" target="_blank">available as a plugin on WordPress.org</a>.</p>
<p>Gutenberg has been in development for six months and is ready for testing, but its developers do not recommend using it on production sites. Anyone interested in the future of WordPress will want to take it for a test drive, as the new editor will revolutionize the way users think about creating and editing content. The demo video at WordCamp Europe also showed Gutenberg working smoothly in a mobile context.</p>
<p>At first glance, it may appear that WordPress is trying to copy its more recent competitors (Medium, Wix, and others) to keep pace, but the 14-year-old software has offered many of these content capabilities for years. Mullenweg explained how the new editor simply unifies the UI into blocks that can be placed anywhere. Gutenberg is set to replace widgets, the HTML UI of shortcodes, and blocks previously offered through the TinyMCE toolbar.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/gutenberg-blocks.png?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve taken stabs at this before, if you imagine our previous efforts with post formats &#8211; to make it easier to do certain types of media or quote posts or things like that,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;That whole concept can now flatten to just being a block. Working all that in, it&#8217;s bringing things we&#8217;ve been thinking about for a very long time in WordPress.&#8221;</p>
<p>If you&#8217;ve ever sat down with a new user to introduce them to WordPress, then you probably answered a long list of painful questions regarding the many varied and confusing ways of creating content. Gutenberg has the potential to make WordPress much easier to use.</p>
<p>&#8220;Right now WordPress makes you learn a lot of concepts &#8211; shortcodes, widgets, the stuff that exists inside TinyMCE as blocks today &#8211; and people rightly wonder why they can&#8217;t use those things everywhere,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;What we&#8217;re trying to do is shift it so that you only have to learn about blocks once and once you learn about the image block, that can be in a post, in a sidebar, in a page, in a custom post type, and it will work exactly the same way. Whatever is integrated with it, let&#8217;s say a plugin that brings in your Google Photos or your Dropbox, that will now work everywhere, too.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mullenweg said his previous attempt at replacing TinyMCE lasted approximately two years and they never ended up shipping it. Getting Gutenberg off the ground at this time allows WordPress to take the best of what competitors in both open source and commercial spaces have been doing, and improve upon it.</p>
<p>&#8220;Medium started five or six years ago,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;Browser technology, what you can do, has advanced quite a bit. I think this actually allows us to leapfrog past some of the really great visual editors, because we&#8217;re able to build on the shoulders of things like Medium, Wix, Squarespace, and others that have come before us.&#8221;</p>
<h3>Gutenberg First Impressions and Concerns</h3>
<p>The Gutenberg plugin is now active on more than 300 sites and first impressions are rolling in. This is the first time the new block editor has been easily accessible to any user who wants to try it. Gutenberg also offers a somewhat unique testing experience in that it creates its own menu inside WordPress, so users don&#8217;t have to choose between the old editor and the new one. Activating Gutenberg doesn&#8217;t make it an either/or experience and users can test at their own convenience.</p>
<p>From my initial testing, I found that Gutenberg provides a clean and enjoyable experience. Up until this point many of us couldn&#8217;t fully anticipate what Gutenberg would look like, but the interface is very similar to what one might imagine for an improved &#8220;distraction-free writing experience.&#8221; Gutenberg provides a more minimal UI for both the visual and text editors, although inserting blocks seems to be less functional when using the text editor.</p>
<p>There are still many bugs and rough edges, but this interface appears to be a natural evolution of WordPress&#8217; content editing experience. It <em>feels</em> like WordPress. The editor pulls in many of the elements that have worked well historically and introduces a minimal UI that makes it possible for anyone to build a beautiful, feature-rich post without knowing any HTML. Gutenberg is the most exciting thing to happen to WordPress in a long time.</p>
<p>&#8220;The default state is likely my favorite &#8216;Distraction Free Writing&#8217; implementation in WordPress yet,&#8221; WordPress core committer Aaron Jorbin said in <a href="https://daily.jorb.in/2017/06/random-thoughts-on-gutenberg/" target="_blank">a post listing his initial observations</a>.  I’m simultaneously able to focus on my content, and yet I have all the tools I need for writing. I don’t have all the tools I need for content creation.&#8221;</p>
<p>Matt Cromwell, co-author of GiveWP, also wrote up his <a href="https://www.mattcromwell.com/gutenberg-first-impressions/" target="_blank">first impressions of Gutenberg</a> with high compliments for the new writing experience.</p>
<p>&#8220;In recent years we’ve seen Medium become the de facto elegant writing experience,&#8221; Cromwell said. &#8220;Medium is able to do that though by limiting the formatting and layout options dramatically. Gutenberg has the potential to allow writing to be as elegant as Medium or more so, plus deliver far more flexibility with layouts and content types.&#8221;</p>
<p>One area of uncertainty for WordPress developers is how Gutenberg will handle support for plugins and maintain a high level of performance with a large number of custom blocks added.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">I'll try again when it has support for plugins. I can't see this landing in core if it doesn't work with plugins.</p>
<p>&mdash; Josh Pollock (@Josh412) <a href="https://twitter.com/Josh412/status/877913290063663109">June 22, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">It *should* store the block data as JSON (or serialized object, IDC) into postmeta, but instead it uses regexp to parse HTML and queries DB.</p>
<p>&mdash; Christian Nikkanen (@k1sul1) <a href="https://twitter.com/k1sul1/status/877945432889884672">June 22, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>&#8220;I miss a lot of the meta boxes I’m used to seeing on the screen,&#8221; Aaron Jorbin said. &#8220;Things like Yoast SEO (on some sites) and custom taxonomies are just not shown. If every metabox ever made for WordPress needs to be remade, it sure is going to make developers&#8217; lives a living hell.&#8221;</p>
<p>Matt Cromwell also detailed a nightmare scenario of having more custom blocks than the current UI can handle.</p>
<p>&#8220;What happens when you have 25 plugins that all want to load 25 custom blocks into that tiny &#8216;Insert&#8217; dropdown?&#8221; Cromwell said. &#8220;Will there be a search? Or will it just scroll forever?&#8221;</p>
<p>Mullenweg specifically addressed some of these concerns in his Q&amp;A session at WordCamp Europe.</p>
<p>&#8220;A lot of people have a lot of things built into the edit screen, so part of the reason we&#8217;re putting it out there as a plugin first and also pushing it so hard to get as many people to install it as possible, is so that everyone who has posting and editing screen adjustments can rethink them to be beautiful within this new framework,&#8221; Mullenweg said.</p>
<p>Mullenweg anticipates that WordPress will release version 4.9 before merging Gutenberg, because he wants to see it tested on more than 100,000 sites before replacing the edit screen. If all goes well, the new editor could land in WordPress 5.0.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think that some things that people did, like TinyMCE toolbar things, aren&#8217;t really needed any more,&#8221; Mullenweg said. &#8220;Stuff that people did in the past with custom post types might be better as blocks. It gives us a real opportunity to reimagine a lot of the user interactions and flows that today we&#8217;ve taken for granted on the edit screen for five or six years.&#8221;</p>
<p>Check out Mullenweg&#8217;s WCEU 2017 interview below to see the live demo of Gutenberg and make sure to take a few minutes to <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/" target="_blank">install the plugin</a> to see it in action for yourself.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 22 Jun 2017 22:29:55 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:38;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:75:"Post Status: The future of the WordPress economy, and why I’m not worried";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"https://poststatus.com/?p=37734";s: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:63:"https://poststatus.com/future-wordpress-economy-im-not-worried/";s: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:13965:"<p><em><strong>Editor&#8217;s Note</strong>: This is a guest post by Joshua Strebel, the CEO and co-founder of <a href="https://pagely.com">Pagely</a>. Pagely was one of the first managed WordPress hosts and continues to be a market leader. Josh has some thoughts about the WordPress economy, which I asked him to share here for the Post Status audience. He&#8217;s been around for a while, and I think he&#8217;s got a pretty good hold on the state of things. I hope you enjoy his commentary. And if you like this post, you&#8217;ll also enjoy <a href="https://poststatus.com/publish">Post Status Publish</a>.</em></p>
<hr />
<p>There’s been some <a href="http://chrislema.com/wordpress-economy-shrinking/">recent speculation</a> on whether or not the WordPress economy is beginning to slump. I would answer &#8216;yes&#8217; and &#8216;no&#8217;; it <em>is</em> clearly evolving, and some areas are contracting while others are growing. I believe we are feeling the effects of<strong> </strong><b>market maturity</b>.</p>
<p>Are downmarket “one stop shop” alternatives and in house teams the best solution for the future of WordPress? No, because hosting providers, developers, and agencies who specialize in this space are where the concentrated real quality resides, and people are always willing to pay for quality. Ultimately WordPress has staying power because of its ecosystem, so let’s take stock of that.</p>
<h2>The current state of the WordPress economy</h2>
<p>In 2017 WordPress is used by major publishers, enterprises, <a href="https://pagely.com/solutions/universities/">universities</a> and even custom SaaS applications. In fact the world’s leaders in business and marketing trends use WordPress (and aren’t necessarily leveraging in house teams to do so). To name a few:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://newsroom.fb.com/">Facebook Newsroom</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.gv.com/">Google Ventures</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/">Mercedes Benz</a></li>
<li><a href="https://techcrunch.com/">TechCrunch</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/">Bloomberg Professional</a></li>
</ul>
<p>WordPress powers an estimated <a href="https://wordpress.org/about/features/">28% of all websites</a> which run the gamut of single contributor blogs and simple websites to applications and complex portals. That’s nearly 75 million websites built by anyone from the very beginner to the professional with an extremely advanced level of technical skill. WordPress is both easy to use and graceful in its complex abilities to do just about anything you would need a website to do.</p>
<p>There’s also the community behind WordPress, an ecosystem of people around the world with this one thing in common. As an <a href="https://pagely.com/blog/2017/05/citizen-guide-open-source-community/">open source community</a>, our entire industry is plugged into every update. We can contribute to testing or code. We have all the power to make sure the WordPress economy stays strong and continues to grow.</p>
<p>New businesses are constantly being formed around plugins, themes and services built specifically for WordPress, with no signs of stopping. In fact, we’ll continue to find more and more creators of WordPress specific companies, with full time jobs elsewhere, using this as an opportunity to contribute to the community.</p>
<p class="lead txt-danger">However, the near constant flow of new entries into an already saturated market is outstripping demand. The WordPress pie overall is still growing but not quick enough to absorb the new sellers entering into the lower third of the market. The new players are typically unable to challenge the dominant players for a significant market share, and the demands and needs of the customers are also moving up the value chain. Yes, some newcomers do disrupt the established WP players, but it is happening with less frequency, and the barrier is ever higher.</p>
<h2>Economies ebb and flow: Apple and Airbnb (and WordPress)</h2>
<p>The companies and brands that have changed the way people live experience low points. Just like the ones we’ve feared will appear in our own industry. But you know these companies well, and they and their economies have persevered.</p>
<p>Take the classic example, one of the greatest comeback stories of all time: Apple. Apple defied all odds and went from near bankruptcy to the powerhouse hardware leader it is today with over one billion iPhones currently in use. They lost Steve Jobs and many feared they would lose their focus and tumble downward. Instead they’re the <a href="http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/10/05/five-years-after-steve-jobs-an-apple-with-the-courage-to-say-no">largest and most profitable</a> they’ve ever been. Walk down the streets of New York City or San Francisco and you’ll see brick and mortar shops dedicated to alt-genius-bar services and shattered screen replacement. The Apple economy is strong.</p>
<p>Just like Apple, Airbnb almost flopped, but came out on top. It has an ecosystem of its own with tons of offshoot companies that support various aspects of the community, just like WordPress. After near failure Airbnb now supports a community of over 100 million and is valued at over $30 billion. They also face <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-11/airbnb-faces-growing-pains-as-it-passes-100-million-users">growing pains</a> and — at times — volatility, but companies like this — the ones that fundamentally change the way the world works — aren’t going anywhere.</p>
<p>WordPress itself isn’t in danger of a near flop, but these are valuable examples of economies that fared far worse and still made it through.</p>
<h2>The core strengths of WordPress</h2>
<p>WordPress possesses fundamental characteristics that so many of today’s great leaders encompass. All leaders like this are built to support a growing economy for a long time to come.</p>
<h3>Brand</h3>
<p>In Pagely&#8217;s own recent user survey, the most important factors for choosing a service were <strong>reliability </strong>and <strong>security</strong>. These are cornerstones of the WordPress brand <em>(haters gonna hate – but core has been really solid for many years in both respects)</em> and reasons why such a large percentage of the internet continues to choose it to power their websites. As a brand, WordPress is synonymous with being one of the most reliable and secure CMS options available. Quality service providers that support WordPress, like Pagely, also often encompass these brand characteristics. We often hear of these same characteristics as pain points from customers trying to work in-house or with downmarket alternatives.</p>
<h3>Ubiquity</h3>
<p>WordPress users span nearly every industry in the world. Publishers, Fortune 500 Companies, Music, Fashion, Tech, Politics, you name it. Like I mentioned above, ~75 million websites use WordPress, and they are published in dozens of languages. WordPress is literally a web that has woven itself through the digital and physical world.</p>
<h3>Community</h3>
<p>The WordPress community is made up of contributors, coders, engineers, designers, marketing professionals, and every other title necessary to run a business. The community reaches so far that it touches every corner of today’s tech workforce. Not only is the community large, but it cares. We care. The number of blogs and forums dedicated to helping people understand WordPress are impossible to count. Events like WordCamp, LoopConf, Publish, and PressNomics occur all year long and prominent core contributors participate. Don’t hate me for loosely quoting Lincoln. But, it could be said here that “[WordPress] of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”</p>
<h2>The WordPress ecosystem rewards quality</h2>
<p>While the core strengths of WordPress support the service itself, quality is what supports the economy as a whole. And the fact remains that people <em>are</em> willing to pay for quality. To paint the picture, at Pagely a core aspect of our mission is to bring a flexible, friendly, and first-rate experience to all our customers. In staying true to that high standard of quality we’ve seen substantial <a href="https://pagely.com/blog/2017/01/pagely-2016-in-review/">year over year revenue growth since 2014</a>. With an ecosystem that strives for and rewards quality, the larger WordPress economy is in a position to keep growing — and continue to take us along with it.</p>
<p>Any &#8220;economy&#8221; will ebb and flow, but when a technology powers 28% of something, it has staying power; WordPress and the ecosystem we’ve built around it isn’t going anywhere, <strong>but it is changing</strong>.</p>
<h2>The ecosystem is maturing — and growing</h2>
<p>I would argue that after 12+ years the WordPress ecosystem has firmly moved from &#8220;<strong>New market</strong>&#8221; territory where there were wide open spaces for entrants to dominate. As an example, commercial themes really took off in 2008,  managed WordPress hosting came to prominence in 2010, and commercial plugins rose to fame in 2011. These, and most channels in the ecosystem are now clearly defined &#8220;<strong>Existing markets</strong>.&#8221;</p>
<p>Since 2015 or so, the majors players in each category have been well known, with few exceptions from new entrants claiming significant market share. <strong>Those who are doing this are using <a href="https://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/the-four-types-of-market-market-maturity-where-does-your-startups-product-belong/">strategies</a> common in existing markets: Resegmentation based on price, and resegmentation based on a niche strategy.</strong></p>
<p>Borrowed from <a href="https://www.inc.com/karl-and-bill/6-signs-your-market-is-maturing.html">this article</a>, we can identify six signs a market is maturing. Not every point applies completely to our ecosystem, but enough do that I believe we can safely make this call.</p>
<ol>
<li class="mb-1">Customer needs/desires do not appear to be evolving rapidly.<br />
– <small class="txt-danger">eCommerce and membership sites are the most recent ‘asks’ that come to mind, and that was a few years ago.</small></li>
<li class="mb-1">Consolidation by leading competitors is reducing competitive intensity.<br />
– <small class="txt-danger">GoDaddy, EIG, Envato, and Automattic are rapidly consolidating products and services into their domain</small>.</li>
<li class="mb-1">Disruptive innovations and new entrants are gaining share only gradually and top out at relatively low levels.<br />
– <small class="txt-danger">Some really innovative things are happening, but they&#8217;re around the corner and seem slow to pick up traction.</small></li>
<li class="mb-1">Market shares of leading competitors have solidified and are changing gradually, if at all.<br />
– <small class="txt-danger">We pretty much know who the leaders are in every category and the price points they own.</small></li>
<li class="mb-1">Price, brand, and/or channel strategy have supplanted product innovation as key value drivers.<br />
– <small class="txt-danger">Refining the value proposition to our customers has greater focus at Pagely vs. shipping the latest tech du jour, which is happening just behind the scenes at measured pace.</small></li>
<li class="mb-1">Cash flows are increasingly turning positive and being returned to investors rather than invested into the market.<br />
– <small class="txt-danger">Not in all cases, there is still a lot of energy being focused on market expansion.</small></li>
</ol>
<span class="pullquote alignright">The pie is still growing overall, but a higher percentage of that growth is being concentrated among the established leaders who do more than the basics.</span>
<p>The massive low-cost hosting providers are enrolling many thousands of new WordPress users a day. Their product offering is good enough for the price point, their marketing spends are huge, and any new customer starting to use WordPress is landing there.</p>
<p>It is the same with eCommerce on WordPress — there are just two or three plugins and services absorbing new users.</p>
<p>In the agency space, the buyers willing to spend capital (enough to sustain a high-end WordPress agency) on WordPress solutions are not buying $500 websites, or $5,000 websites as they once were. They are buying $50K-$1M custom-built WordPress backed applications. The resources and talent required to serve these clients is concentrated at a handful of established and well known shops.</p>
<p>These examples continue into every segment of the ecosystem.</p>
<p>WordPress is getting easier and easier to use right out of the box. If the majority of the new WordPress users needs are solved on install (via core, bundled plugins, or the hosting platform) then a wide swath of the current ecosystem is going to shrink.</p>
<p><strong>In all channels, new market entrants or existing small shops are being out-gunned by the established players, or the buyers needs are being met upon install.</strong></p>
<h2>Adapt to win</h2>
<p>So is the WordPress ecosystem shrinking? <strong>Yes, segments of it are and will continue to do so</strong>.</p>
<p>It’s like in any industry: the car replaced the horse and the robot replaced the factory worker. What was successful in the New Market phase may not work in the more mature, &#8220;Existing Market&#8221; phase we are in.</p>
<p><strong> Other segments, many not even identified yet, will expand.</strong> There are still big challenges that need to be solved in WordPress, the solutions for which will surely prove to be innovative and profitable. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Ocean-Strategy-Expanded-Uncontested/dp/1625274491">Go find the next blue ocean</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 22 Jun 2017 22:00:09 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Joshua Strebel";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:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:112:"WPTavern: WordPress Marketing Team Launches Case Studies and Usage Survey for Agencies, Clients, and Enterprises";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=71973";s: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:121:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-marketing-team-launches-case-studies-and-usage-survey-for-agencies-clients-and-enterprises";s: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:5563:"<a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/survey.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: <a href="https://stocksnap.io/photo/FI3UYVGNFD">Lukasz Kowalewski</a>
<p>WordPress&#8217; Marketing Team has <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/2017/06/15/wordpress-case-studies-and-usage-survey/" target="_blank">launched a set of surveys</a> to gather case studies and usage data from agencies, clients, and enterprises, with the goal of providing more resources for adoption. The Usage Survey was created to capture feedback on the factors that influenced an organization to select WordPress as well as any barriers to using the software. The team plans to use use the data to provide resources, such as fact sheets, FAQs, case studies, testimonial videos, and other marketing materials.</p>
<p>During the <a href="https://wptavern.com/state-of-the-word-2016-mullenweg-pushes-calypso-as-future-of-wordpress-interface-proposes-major-changes-to-release-cycle" target="_blank">State of the Word address in 2016</a>, Matt Mullenweg said the project could no longer get by on &#8220;marketing happenstance&#8221; but needed to form a more coordinated effort to counter the millions of dollars that proprietary systems are spending marketing their products against WordPress. These research surveys are one of the first steps in that direction, along with the <a href="https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-proposes-wordpress-growth-council" target="_blank">WordPress Growth Council</a> that Mullenweg formed to bring together more people with large-scale marketing expertise.</p>
<p>With the proliferation of user-friendly, DIY commercial website solutions, WordPress has reached a critical time where the project needs to shed its image as a clunky, legacy CMS and demonstrate why it&#8217;s the market leader. This not only requires WordPress to deliver from a technical standpoint, especially in the areas of editing and customization, but also requires the 14-year-old project to step up its marketing efforts.</p>
<p>WordPress&#8217; Marketing Team exists to &#8220;help people market WordPress as open source software and the WordPress community.&#8221; The need is evident, as even the most experienced WordPress professionals struggle to properly articulate the difference between WordPress.com and the self-hosted software in a way that newcomers can understand. This is an intractable marketing problem for the self-hosted community.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Explain to me in two paragraphs or less the delineation between <a href="https://t.co/shm7MBBfUi">https://t.co/shm7MBBfUi</a>, Jetpack, and <a href="https://t.co/w3VOMjx5s9">https://t.co/w3VOMjx5s9</a>.</p>
<p>&mdash; Ryan D. Sullivan (@ryandonsullivan) <a href="https://twitter.com/ryandonsullivan/status/877350749792903168">June 21, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">WordPress(dot)org has lost the branding battle with WordPress(dot)com.</p>
<p>&mdash; Drew Jaynes (@DrewAPicture) <a href="https://twitter.com/DrewAPicture/status/877649047456231424">June 21, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>David Skarjune, a contributor on the Marketing Team who helped put the surveys together, <a href="https://wordimage.com/articles/marketing-wordpress-as-free-software/" target="_blank">describes the problem that WordPress professionals face in marketing the free software</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Here we have the classic WordPress.COM and WordPress.ORG duo that encompasses the nature of the WordPress free software system. This twosome drives the project and sometimes it drives us crazy—only because it instills wide-eyed confusion trying to explain these companion entities to the rest of the world. Simple enough: get a free blog at .COM or get free software and help at .ORG. However, free software makes no sense to the average person, and too many writers, marketers, and designers don’t much care how the InterWebs actually operate.</p></blockquote>
<p>The confusion between WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress is just one of the many factors that make the software a unique marketing challenge. <a href="http://devwp.eu/" target="_blank">Mario Peshev</a>, CEO of <a href="http://devrix.com" target="_blank">DevriX</a>, identified many more <a href="http://devwp.eu/15-obstacles-enterprises-report-wordpress-development-partners/" target="_blank">obstacles that enterprises find in using WordPress</a>. Several of these include misconceptions about security, scaling, and limitations for functionality beyond blogging. WordPress&#8217; Marketing Team aims to provide agencies with free resources to combat common misconceptions and show real-world examples of where the software is quietly powering enterprise websites behind the scenes.</p>
<p>If you have an interesting example of how WordPress solved a client&#8217;s needs, feel free to <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe9cYQRDtJCcI1nphPTfO_Lb7qAGJP68l0_ceyj0uMNzOwI2g/viewform?usp=sf_link" target="_blank">submit a case study</a>. If you represent an organization that is using WordPress and can offer feedback on why you selected it and any obstacles you continue to face, please take the <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf--7zTsKrE7nRSMWoCXnYWJQxDD9GjttKsqoPUJ-kuM9XjkA/viewform?usp=sf_link" target="_blank">WordPress Usage Survey</a>. Both surveys will be open through July 14, 2017, and the results will be published on WordPress.org.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 22 Jun 2017 04:33:42 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:54:"WPTavern: WPShout Updates and Acquires WPHierarchy.com";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72233";s: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:65:"https://wptavern.com/wpshout-updates-and-acquires-wphierarchy-com";s: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:1423:"<p><a href="http://wphierarchy.com/">WPHierarchy.com</a> is a WordPress resource <a href="https://wptavern.com/pretty-wordpress-template-hierarchy-diagram">created</a> by Rami Abraham in 2013. The site is an interactive version of <a href="http://wpdaily.co/wp-template-hierarchy-chart/">Michelle Schulp&#8217;s colorful diagram</a> of WordPress&#8217; template hierarchy. Each template is linked to documentation that explains its function.</p>
<p>Over the years, WordPress&#8217; template hierarchy has changed. For instance, paged.php no longer comes after archive.php. The site however, hasn&#8217;t kept up with the changes.</p>
<p>In an effort to keep the site going, updated, and maintained, WPShout has <a href="https://wpshout.com/links/wphierarchy-com/">acquired the domain</a> from Abraham for an undisclosed amount. The team fixed the most of the obvious issues and the site is once again a valuable resource for visualizing the template hierarchy.</p>
<p><img /></p>
<p>David Hayes, of WPShout, says they&#8217;re working on collaborating with <a href="https://twitter.com/marktimemedia/">Schulp</a> to visualize and better explain how Custom Templates can be applied to all post types.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;d like to report an error or want to contribute, you can do so via the <a href="https://github.com/pressupinc/wphierarchy">project&#8217;s Github page</a>.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 22 Jun 2017 00:59:52 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Jeff Chandler";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:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"WPTavern: WPWeekly Episode 278 – Recap of WordCamp Europe 2017";s: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:58:"https://wptavern.com?p=72367&preview=true&preview_id=72367";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"https://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-278-recap-of-wordcamp-europe-2017";s: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:2118:"<p>In this episode, <a href="http://jjj.me/">John James Jacoby</a> and I are joined by <a href="http://coachbirgit.de/">Coach Birgit Olzem</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/caroleolinger">Carole Olinger</a>, <a href="https://arrowrootmedia.com/">Jaki Levy</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/mcdwayne?lang=en">Dwayne McDaniel</a> who attended <a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org/">WordCamp Europe</a> in Paris, France.</p>
<p>We discuss contributor day and the effects of having it at the beginning of a WordCamp instead of at the end. Each individual shared their experience attending the event and described what their favorite session was.</p>
<p>Lunch was provided at WordCamp Europe in paper bags with plastic utensils. With 1,900 attendees, this resulted in a lot of trash. We discussed the impact WordCamps can have on the environment and why larger WordPress events should act as a role model for being as sustainable as possible.</p>
<p>We also talked about <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/">Gutenberg</a>, the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/">WordPress marketing team&#8217;s efforts</a>, and the differences between WordCamp US and EU.</p>
<h2>Stories Discussed:</h2>
<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/woocommerce-drops-50-renewal-discount-on-subscriptions">WooCommerce Drops 50% Renewal Discount on Subscriptions</a></p>
<h2>WPWeekly Meta:</h2>
<p><strong>Next Episode:</strong> Wednesday, June 28th 3:00 P.M. Eastern</p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Itunes: </strong><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wordpress-weekly/id694849738" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via RSS: </strong><a href="https://wptavern.com/feed/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Subscribe To WPWeekly Via Stitcher Radio: </strong><a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wordpress-weekly-podcast?refid=stpr" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to subscribe</a></p>
<p><strong>Listen To Episode #278:</strong><br />
</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 22 Jun 2017 00:12:03 +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:13:"Jeff Chandler";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:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:52:"HeroPress: Becoming Known 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:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=1927";s: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:142:"https://heropress.com/essays/becoming-known-wordpress-community/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=becoming-known-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:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11929:"<img width="960" height="480" src="http://20094-presscdn.pagely.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/062117-1024x512.jpg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: I was helping hundreds of people that were using WordPress for their business. That's powerful." /><h3>So you make websites, right?</h3>
<p>My name’s Juan and I make websites. I’ve been doing that since my brother came home with a computer’s magazine that had a CD with a copy of Front Page 98. I learned about HTML. Tables. Marquees. Divs. CSS. Flash. ActionScript. JavaScript. PHP-Nuke. phpBB. Blogger. And, finally, in 2008, I learned about WordPress.</p>
<p>I loved writing and enjoyed having my own blog after seeing that social networks like MySpace or Fotolog weren’t going too far. I kept learning and found the power of WordPress to create more complex sites. I decided that my hobby could be my job. I became a freelancer. I found clients, I made lots of mistakes, I didn’t make much money. I was alone in my small village in the North of Spain: Santoña, in Cantabria.</p>
<p>I knew I wasn’t the only one creating websites around, but I never thought about meeting people like me. I didn’t know about the real power of Open Source. I was isolated, planning to move with my girlfriend to another city, Pontevedra, and I didn’t have a clue about what was going to happen soon in my life.</p>
<h3>The power of WordCamps</h3>
<p>One day I found out that in November of 2015 there was going to be a WordCamp in Santander, a city 50 km. far from my village. An event for WordPress developers and users. That sounded good. I had no idea that that kind of events were happening all around the world. I had no idea about anything related to the WordPress Community. I didn’t know that the Community was even a thing.</p>
<p>So I went there a Saturday morning and attended to most of the talks.</p>
<blockquote><p>I remember sitting in the last rows, as if I were hiding so no one would notice that I was there alone.</p></blockquote>
<p>I didn’t want to say anything stupid and I was just absorbing all I could from the speakers and their presentations.</p>
<p>After a great talk about theme development I waited for the speaker and I thanked him for all the info. I was nervous. He was a speaker. He was from another league, right? But he was a really nice guy, ‘if you have any doubt, just ask me’. Cool.</p>
<p>On Sunday we had the Contributor’s Day. And there I was, randomly in the Community table, learning how to organize a Meetup with some people I had just met, Rocío Valdivia and Ibon Azkoitia. Remember these names. They told me that, as I was moving to another city where there wasn’t any WordPress group, I could start one myself.</p>
<p>My brain: Wait a second. Me? Starting a WordPress Meetup in Pontevedra?</p>
<p>I took notes and kept enjoying the day. I met many people and, being not very good remembering names, all I could do was following them on Twitter. And signing in the WP Slack channel.</p>
<p>At the end of the event, Darío, the main organizer asked me about how was the experience. I had loved it. Will you come back? Yeah, but next year… as a speaker!</p>
<p>My brain, again: As a speaker? Are you really listening to yourself? You hate speaking in public. You’re the most nervous person ever.</p>
<h3>My first year in the Spanish WordPress Community</h3>
<p>The days after the event were weird. I started reading about the people I met and I found out that some of them were incredible developers, some of them had thousands of followers in Twitter, some of them had the most important websites about WordPress in our language… And I didn’t have a clue about all that.</p>
<p>Did it matter? Not at all. These people don’t care about those things and will help you no matter who you are or where you are coming from.</p>
<p>Moving to a new place was a slow process, so I didn’t have to worry about the Meetup I promised to organize, but the weeks were running and I had no idea about what to talk about in the next WordCamp as I told Darío.</p>
<p>I started to become a little more involved in the Community. I helped translating plugins to Spanish. The original translation of WooCommerce was made by a drunk robot or similar, so there were thousands of strings to be revised and translated again. It was fun. And a lot of work that I did with the help of Fernando Tellado, an experienced translator and member of the Community.</p>
<blockquote><p>And I was helping hundreds of people that were using WordPress for their businesses. That’s powerful. I was helping many people.</p></blockquote>
<p>By that time I was reading many WordPress related blogs and sites and I decided to curate a weekly post with the ten best links (in Spanish and English) I read every week. That’s how I started Enlace Permanente, which is almost now in its #70 edition with many subscribers to the newsletter and followers.</p>
<p>I kept talking with Ibon, Darío and others in the Slack channels and on September of 2016 we decided to go to WordCamp Seville. I travelled the country from North to South and spent there a fantastic weekend. I shared an AirBnb apartment with Ibon, Mauricio Gelves and Fernan Díez, who became great friends. I met more new people and strengthened the relationship with ‘older’ mates.</p>
<p>And, as I was finally moving to a new flat in Pontevedra, I decided it was time to start the local Community of the city. A city where I didn’t know any other developer or WordPress user. But… I was sure someone will be there.</p>
<p>I had the help of Rocío, who works at Automattic and all her time is donated to the WordPress.org Community team, working at WordCamp Central helping Meetup and WordCamp organizers all around the world.</p>
<blockquote><p>She was extremely helpful and she’s the reason that today in Spain we have more than 40 different Meetups and 5 WordCamps in 2017.</p></blockquote>
<p>I planned the first event for the end of November, but before, I had to send an email to Darío as the Call for Speakers of WordCamp Santander 2016 was already open. I decided to talk about my experience the last year. ‘From being no one to being a speaker: a year in the Spanish WordPress Community’. That was the title of my talk.</p>
<p>And yes, I was nervous. I didn’t sleep well the week before. I talked quickly. But I did it. People laughed, people clapped and people enjoyed my story. This story. And they learned about how they could help an awesome Open Source project like WordPress and meet great people at the same time.</p>
<h3>Becoming a known member of the Community</h3>
<p>When you become part of a Community for the first time, you easily find that there are small groups within the big one. People that already know each other of past events, of past projects. And maybe you think that it’s not easy to be part of those groups. Or that they won’t accept a new one.</p>
<p>Well, that didn’t happen to me in the WordPress Community.</p>
<p>Everyone was ready to say ‘hi’ to the latest addition. Everyone was ready to help with translation doubts. Everyone was ready to share their experience organizing local groups. Or answering questions in the support forums. Or just ready to chit chat. Or to organize a trip for the next WordCamp.</p>
<p>So I just started doing the same.</p>
<blockquote><p>And you don’t do it to become a known member of the Community. That’s just a catchy phrase for the post. You do it because it feels good.</p></blockquote>
<p>Because you meet great developers, designers, freelancers… Because you can help anyone who knows a little less than you, the same way that the people that know more help you.</p>
<p>In 2017 I was lucky enough to be part of WordCamp Madrid and WordCamp Bilbao, as a volunteer and as a speaker. I had the chance to talk about something that I’m really passionate in Madrid: the open web. I had the chance to speak up about net neutrality, about our contents, about walled gardens, about what we can do to save the web. I shared an important message with my peers.</p>
<p>And in Bilbao I had the chance to explain the process of creating a WordPress theme from the moment the designer starts wireframing a project. My day to day job. Best practices, advice, tools, how-tos… I showed how I do my job to become better at it and to help others to become better too.</p>
<p>Also in Pontevedra, we’re around 20-25 people every month in the local Meetup. And in Galicia, the region where I live, I’ve helped creating two more Meetup groups, in Ourense &amp; Lugo. And I’m sure there will be more soon! There are almost 3 million people here, so many WordPress users still to find!</p>
<h3>And what now?</h3>
<p>I want to keep having fun and working to make WordPress a better tool and platform for as many people as possible. I want to find more people in the local communities to show them what we have here. And who knows? Maybe organizing a WordCamp in 2018.</p>
<p>Also, in the next months I would like to find out if it’s possible also to become a more active member of the Global WordPress Community. As English is not our first language and we’re a little shy, probably not many Spanish speakers are known in the WP world. But I’m sure that the steps I did to become part of our national group can be done exactly the same way to be part of the international one, don’t you think?</p>
<p>So, who knows? Will I go to a WordCamp in the USA or another country next year… as a speaker?</p>
<p>And you? Are you ready to become part of your local and national Community? It’s easier than you think, I’m sure of that. Just… say it out loud and start doing stuff.</p>
<div class="rtsocial-container rtsocial-container-align-right rtsocial-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-twitter-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-twitter-horizontal-button"><a title="Tweet: Becoming Known in the WordPress Community" class="rtsocial-twitter-button" href="https://twitter.com/share?text=Becoming%20Known%20in%20the%20WordPress%20Community&via=heropress&url=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fbecoming-known-wordpress-community%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-fb-horizontal fb-light"><div class="rtsocial-fb-horizontal-button"><a title="Like: Becoming Known in the WordPress Community" class="rtsocial-fb-button rtsocial-fb-like-light" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fbecoming-known-wordpress-community%2F" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-linkedin-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-linkedin-horizontal-button"><a class="rtsocial-linkedin-button" href="https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fheropress.com%2Fessays%2Fbecoming-known-wordpress-community%2F&title=Becoming+Known+in+the+WordPress+Community" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Share: Becoming Known in the WordPress Community"></a></div></div><div class="rtsocial-pinterest-horizontal"><div class="rtsocial-pinterest-horizontal-button"><a class="rtsocial-pinterest-button" href="https://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://heropress.com/essays/becoming-known-wordpress-community/&media=https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/062117-150x150.jpg&description=Becoming Known in the WordPress Community" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Pin: Becoming Known in the WordPress Community"></a></div></div><a rel="nofollow" class="perma-link" href="https://heropress.com/essays/becoming-known-wordpress-community/" title="Becoming Known in the WordPress Community"></a></div><p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com/essays/becoming-known-wordpress-community/">Becoming Known in the WordPress Community</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 21 Jun 2017 11:30:39 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Juan Hernando";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:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"WPTavern: WordCamp Europe 2018 to be Held in Belgrade, Serbia, June 14-16";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72113";s: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:82:"https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-europe-2018-to-be-held-in-belgrade-serbia-june-14-16";s: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:1938:"<p>Belgrade, Serbia will host the sixth edition of WordCamp Europe, June 14-16, 2018. Prior host cities include Leiden, Sofia, Seville, Vienna, and Paris. Attendees and the massive 221-person volunteer crew gave their enthusiastic approval when organizers announced the event would be returning to Eastern Europe next year.</p>
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<p> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BVcncQEhX_g/" target="_blank">WordCamp Europe 2018 will be in Belgrade, Serbia, June 14-16! &lt;3 #wceu</a></p>
<p>A post shared by Sarah Gooding (@pollyplummer) on Jun 17, 2017 at 9:18am PDT</p>
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<p></p>
<p>The Serbian WordPress community has <a href="https://wptavern.com/a-glimpse-into-serbias-rapidly-growing-wordpress-community" target="_blank">grown exponentially since the first WordPress meetup</a> was held in 2013 at ManageWP&#8217;s offices. Now, Serbia hosts meetups in several cities and many of them are averaging more than 100 attendees. Meetup.com is not very popular in Serbia so the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/613503768679500/" target="_blank">WP Serbia Facebook group</a> is used more frequently to organize community events. The group has grown from 600 members to more than 4,700 during over the past two and a half years.</p>
<p>At WordCamp Europe I had the opportunity to interview Jenny Beaumont, this year&#8217;s local lead for Paris, along with Milan Ivanović who will lead the local team next year in Serbia. Beaumont shares the challenges of wrangling busy volunteers on the local team and offers Ivanović some advice as he prepares to head up the team in Serbia. Ivanović is eager to acquaint WordPress&#8217; global community with Serbia&#8217;s famous hospitality and sums up why prospective attendees should consider attending in 2018: &#8220;The food!&#8221;</p>
<div class="embed-wrap"></div>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 21 Jun 2017 05:22:33 +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:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:65:"WPTavern: WooCommerce Drops 50% Renewal Discount on Subscriptions";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72173";s: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:75:"https://wptavern.com/woocommerce-drops-50-renewal-discount-on-subscriptions";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2919:"<p>Customers who purchased extensions from <a href="https://woocommerce.com/">WooCommerce.com</a> are discovering that the renewal discount of 50% has been removed. Instead, they are now paying full-price.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://woocommerce.com/blog/">WooCommerce blog</a> and the official <a href="https://twitter.com/woocommerce">Twitter account</a> do not mention anything about the price increase.</p>
<p>We contacted Automattic and asked if the discount was removed and if customers received prior notice of the price increase. Todd Wilkens, head of WooCommerce, provided the Tavern with the following statement:</p>
<blockquote><p>All customers receive notification of their upcoming renewal 7 or 15 days before a charge. If anyone received an incorrect price, please contact us immediately and we will make it right. As always, we are committed to making sure WooCommerce is affordable to the widest range of people while maintaining our high level of service and support.</p></blockquote>
<p>A customer upset by the change contacted WooCommerce&#8217;s support desk and inquired about the price increase. The support representative confirmed that the discount was removed and that customers will need to pay full-price to renew.</p>
<p>The customer service rep also explained that the change is due to WooCommerce moving to a straight renewal process, similar to other SaaS products. The representative concludes the ticket by saying they&#8217;re monitoring and accepting feedback about the change.</p>
<img />WooCommerce Customer Support Response
<p>Nathan Hadsall, who makes a living using WooCommerce, is among those upset by the change. &#8220;I have been a huge WooCommerce supporter and most of my work as a developer is spent working with WooCommerce,&#8221; Hadsall said.</p>
<p>&#8220;However this type of approach to business is very sad. I have no problem paying for a license despite the fact that GPL software is available cheaper and legally/ethically by other means.</p>
<p>&#8220;I will still stick to WooCommerce since the core is fantastic and is getting better. The biggest change for me will be the plugins and code I use to extend WooCommerce functionality. I will probably start to look elsewhere.</p>
<p>&#8220;The biggest gripe I have is with the way WooCommerce does business. WooCommerce has never seemed to care about their customers. Slipping this pricing change in was not an honest move.&#8221;</p>
<p>Raising prices for renewals is a part of business and something I think many customers expect at some point. However, raising prices on subscriptions that existing customers may have set to auto-renew, without explicitly notifying them about the change, can create a negative, lasting experience.</p>
<p>If you purchased a subscription on WooCommerce.com and have set it to auto-renew, keep a close eye for your renewal notice.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 21 Jun 2017 02:56:19 +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:13:"Jeff Chandler";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:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50:"WPTavern: Disqus 3.0 Beta Improves Comment Syncing";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72176";s: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:61:"https://wptavern.com/disqus-3-0-beta-improves-comment-syncing";s: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:2195:"<p>When <a href="https://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-269-interview-with-daniel-ha-ceo-and-co-founder-of-disqus">we interviewed</a> Daniel Ha, CEO and co-founder of Disqus, earlier this year, he explained why some users were <a href="https://wptavern.com/wpweekly-episode-269-interview-with-daniel-ha-ceo-and-co-founder-of-disqus#comment-216978">reporting problems</a> syncing comments between Disqus and WordPress and that improvements would be coming soon.</p>
<p>&#8220;We may have taken some services offline to work on them which may have affected those who were trying to sync,&#8221; Ha said.</p>
<p>Disqus <a href="https://blog.disqus.com/disqus-for-wordpress-3.0-plugin-beta-now-available-for-testing">has released</a> 3.0 Beta 1 that fixes syncing issues and introduces a redesigned settings screen. Disqus 3.0 was rewritten to take advantage of newer APIs in WordPress which will allow for faster iterations of improvements.</p>
<p>Comments are synced to the WordPress database using a webhook method instead of wp-cron making the process more reliable. This version also supports edited comments and comment states enabling users to see if comments are approved, pending, or deleted.</p>
<img />Disqus 3.0 Settings Screen
<p>Disqus 3.0 has a redesigned settings screen that includes shortcuts to frequently visited sections of Disqus&#8217; backend. Disqus replaces the Comments top-level menu item and shortcut links are now available in the WordPress Admin Bar.</p>
<p>Other improvements to the plugin include:</p>
<ul>
<li>Replacing WordPress comments template with Disqus comments</li>
<li>Replacing WordPress comment count with Disqus comment count</li>
<li>Automatic closing of WordPress login window when using single sign-on</li>
</ul>
<p>The plugin is only available <a href="https://github.com/ryanvalentin/disqus-wordpress-plugin/releases/">via Gitub</a> as the team seeks feedback to identify potential issues before rolling it out to the public. If you discover a bug, you can report it by <a href="https://github.com/ryanvalentin/disqus-wordpress-plugin/issues">opening a new issue</a> on the project&#8217;s Github page.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 20 Jun 2017 07:28:24 +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:13:"Jeff Chandler";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:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:21:"Matt: Peak Tea Demand";s: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:38:"https://ma.tt/2017/06/peak-tea-demand/";s: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:38:"https://ma.tt/2017/06/peak-tea-demand/";s: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:459:"<p>I found this funny anecdote from <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-is-changing-the-electric-grid/">a CNET article about the future of power</a>: </p>
<blockquote><p>Power and utility companies must exactly balance supply with what people consume at any given moment. UK grid operators famously must cope with a demand surge after the TV soap opera &#8220;EastEnders&#8221; ends, when thousands of people start boiling water for tea.</p></blockquote>";s: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, 18 Jun 2017 15:59:05 +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:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"WPTavern: WordCamp Europe 2017 Draws 1900 Attendees from 79 Countries";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72127";s: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://wptavern.com/wordcamp-europe-2017-draws-1900-attendees-from-79-countries";s: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:5654:"<a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/wordcamp-europe-2017-volunteers.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: WP Tavern
<p><a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org" target="_blank">WordCamp Europe</a> was held this weekend in Paris, bringing together 1,900 attendees from 79 countries. Another 1,000 people joined via livestream from 77 countries to make a total audience of 2,900 participants from 92 countries. The number of attendees on the ground was about one third less than original estimates of 3,000, but everyone who wanted a ticket was able to get one. A team of 221 volunteers communicated on Slack behind the scenes to make the event run as smoothly as possible.</p>
<p>The event&#8217;s 45 organizers made the presentations more accessible to speakers of different languages with live captioning and real-time audio translation.</p>
<a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/live-captioning.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: WP Tavern
<p>WordCamp Europe is the leading WordPress event for catching presentations about the ongoing efforts to bring the software to all the languages of the world. A large percentage of attendees were multi-lingual leaders in WordPress&#8217; translation community, resulting in many presentations and lightning talks focused on topics like communication, internationalization, organizing translation sprints, and using inclusive language for interfaces.</p>
<a href="https://i0.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/petya-wceu-2017.png?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: <a href="https://twitter.com/WCEurope/status/875616228714270726">WordCamp Europe 2017 Photography Team</a>
<p>Matt Mullenweg and Om Malik joined the event for a casual Q&amp;A session with attendees wherein Mullenweg showed a demo of the new Gutenberg editor and announced its availability as <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/" target="_blank">a plugin on WordPress.org</a>. We&#8217;ll cover their comments on the future of the editor and the open web more in-depth in another post.</p>
<p><a href="https://i1.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/wceu-q-and-a-with-matt-and-om.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a></p>
<p>This year&#8217;s WordCamp Europe sponsors had space for large 360° booths and the opportunity to be featured in 30-second advertisements between sessions. Organizers also arranged for sponsor workshops with a dedicated space for those who purchased the highest sponsorship levels. These workshops included topics like Creating a WordPress Theme for the Masses, Intro to WooCommerce, Jetpack tips, and hosting product demos.</p>
<a href="https://i2.wp.com/wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/sponsors-wceu.jpg?ssl=1"><img /></a>photo credit: WP Tavern
<p>WordCamp Europe had no shortage of swag unique to the event, including a limited edition French plush Wapuu, posters, postcards, socks, stickers for European WordCamps, and other items for sale in the traveling Swag Store. A giant, stuffed French Wapuu made the rounds, appearing in pictures with attendees.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">The fun, family and Wapuu moment  <a href="https://twitter.com/WCEurope">@WCEurope</a>! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/getwapuu?src=hash">#getwapuu</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WCEU?src=hash">#WCEU</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wceu2017?src=hash">#wceu2017</a> <a href="https://t.co/eykTMyuiC8">pic.twitter.com/eykTMyuiC8</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Anil Gupta (@guptaanilg) <a href="https://twitter.com/guptaanilg/status/875969553053962240">June 17, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="hi" dir="ltr">Swag + Wapuu = ❤️ <a href="https://t.co/Lg5LGYeHmj">pic.twitter.com/Lg5LGYeHmj</a></p>
<p>&mdash; WordCamp Europe (@WCEurope) <a href="https://twitter.com/WCEurope/status/875721426753527808">June 16, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-europe-2017-kicks-off-with-contributor-day-focused-on-growing-wordpress-through-inclusion" target="_blank">Contributor Day</a> kicked off the event on Thursday with a strong turnout of 473 attendees. Traditionally, WordCamp contributor days are held on Sunday after the main event, the day following the after party when many who signed up struggle to make it on time &#8211; or at all. WordCamp Europe attendees generally appreciated having the contributor day scheduled before the main conference and the higher attendance numbers demonstrate the success of this arrangement.</p>
<p>The after party featured a 1930&#8217;s theme at the Pavillon d’Armenonville. Attendees dressed the part and enjoyed a relaxing end to the WordCamp with an evening of dancing and meeting new and old friends.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Maybe the coolest guys at <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WCEU?src=hash">#WCEU</a> After-Party! ❤️<img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/2.3/72x72/1f44c.png" alt="????" class="wp-smiley" /><a href="https://twitter.com/schlessera">@schlessera</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/glueckpress">@glueckpress</a> <a href="https://t.co/p0xDyjyD9N">pic.twitter.com/p0xDyjyD9N</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Carole Olinger ???? (@CaroleOlinger) <a href="https://twitter.com/CaroleOlinger/status/876180870763294721">June 17, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>Organizers anticipate that videos of the presentations will be available next week. We will also be rolling out video interviews with interesting people from the European and global WordPress community in the coming days.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 18 Jun 2017 13:45:51 +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:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"WPTavern: 10 Lessons Learned From Five Years of Selling WordPress Products";s: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:29:"https://wptavern.com/?p=72103";s: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:85:"https://wptavern.com/10-lessons-learned-from-five-years-of-selling-wordpress-products";s: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:7934:"<p><img />This post was contributed by <a href="https://www.rebeccagill.com/">Rebecca Gill</a>. Rebecca is the founder of <a href="https://www.web-savvy-marketing.com/">Web Savvy Marketing</a>, a web development, design, maintenance, and SEO consulting company based in Michigan and host of the <a href="https://www.seobits.fm/">SEO Bits podcast</a>.</p>
<p>Rebecca recently <a href="https://wptavern.com/9seeds-acquires-web-savvy-marketings-genesis-theme-store">sold her Genesis Theme store to 9seeds</a>, a store she managed and maintained for five years. In this post, she shares ten lessons learned from selling WordPress products.</p>
<hr />
<p>When <a href="https://wanderingjon.com/">Jon Brown</a> and I started talking about Web Savvy Marketing selling its theme store to 9seeds, it became abundantly clear that I wasn’t just selling him a portfolio of Genesis child themes. Anybody can do that. What I was really selling him was an established process and five long years of making mistakes and creating solutions.</p>
<p>When I launched our theme store and stepped into the world of developing WordPress products, I was beyond naïve. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I didn’t know how to run a successful e-commerce business.</p>
<p>But after a lot of mistakes and course corrections, I found stability, a lot of great customers, and more revenue than I expected.</p>
<p>Today, I&#8217;m sharing my top 10 lessons learned with you, so I can spare you from falling down the same rabbit holes and pitfalls.</p>
<h2>My 10 Lessons Learned</h2>
<h3>Reputation Is Everything</h3>
<p>I didn’t set up out to create a strong reputation and I honestly didn’t know I was doing it. I was just following the rules given to me by my Grandmother and the basics of business I learned while working for my prior employers.</p>
<p>What I realized was this – having a strong reputation helps you sell, but it also helps keep you out of hot water when things don’t go as you plan. People are more willing to buy from you, become your brand advocates, and forgive you when you make a mistake.</p>
<h3>A Strong FAQ Page Is Worth Its Weight in Gold</h3>
<p>I didn’t see this as a necessary page at first, but once I had the same question asked 100 times, I realized I needed to have an easily accessible page that answered common questions. Our comprehensive FAQ page has saved me time, but it also aided in sales. Visitors receive immediate answers to their questions and they are more inclined to hit the buy button while you still have their attention and interest.</p>
<h3>Thorough Post-sale Communication Is a Requirement</h3>
<p>During the first year of our store opening, I was flooded with post-sale emails and inquiries. No one was using our support forum and the option of self-service. I was so annoyed and frustrated it wasn’t even funny. And then something happened.</p>
<p>I realized it wasn’t the buyers’ fault. I realized it was my fault. I had failed to communicate, provide next steps, and set expectations. Once I took ownership over this issue, I created a follow-up sequence that provided post-purchase instructions on where to go and what to do.</p>
<p>A magical thing happened – or many things actually. I freed up my time because people stopped emailing me and I had happy customers who actually thanked me for all the great follow-up information. That was a win/win if there ever was one.</p>
<h3>Email Templates Save Oodles of Time</h3>
<p>Even with my stellar FAQ page and follow-up emails, I still received inquiries from people who asked similar questions. I learned to create email templates for anything I had to answer more than five times. This reduced my response time from five minutes to thirty seconds. This freed up my time and more importantly, it gave faster responses to my customers, so they were happy.</p>
<h3>Create Systems to Save Sanity</h3>
<p>I’m slightly <span class="st">obsessive-compulsive</span> and I used this to our advantage with the theme store. I created project templates for any new theme launch and I mimicked the same type of tight structure I have with large custom website builds.</p>
<p>We had a template full of to-do items, ownership of tasks, and expected turn around times. This made the design, coding, and launch of a theme very systematic. This in turn translated to faster product launches, fewer mistakes, and a reduction in development costs.</p>
<h3>Strong SEO Is Your Friend</h3>
<p>I could not have been successful without search engine optimization. I let SEO lead the way for what we would sell, who we would sell it to, and how we would market the final product. Strong SEO helped me select the right themes to develop, get quick sales, and cover my development costs within a few months of each launch.</p>
<h3>Social Media Is a Time Suck but Worth Every Minute Invested</h3>
<p>I have a love/hate relationship with social media. I hate that it takes so much time and it can be so emotionally draining. At the same time, I love that it helps you reach customers around the world and it supports the SEO process. Social media was a life raft in many ways and I don’t think the store or sales would have grown without it.</p>
<h3>If Things Can Go Wrong, They Will Go Wrong</h3>
<p>I have felt like this has been the norm for us this last year. Hosting, plugins, payment gateways, and third-party software sites have worn me out. And I’ve had a team to fix everything. You have to expect things to fail and you must have a plan to fix them quickly. It’s the nature of life and business. Learn to deal with issues quickly and to address one thing at a time.</p>
<h3>Grace Goes a Long Way in Diffusing Bad Situations</h3>
<p>No matter how hard you try and how hard you work, your customers will have bad days. When that happens you might receive the brunt of their emotions. This is called &#8216;transference&#8217; and in most cases it has nothing to do with you or your product.</p>
<p>You have to recognize this for what it is and handle it with grace. Close your email, walk away from your desk, or do whatever you have to do to not reply in anger. Instead, you need to let the moment pass so you can reply calmly and with grace. In each situation where I&#8217;ve used this tactic, I’ve had the crazy person reply with an apology, tell me they were having a really bad day, and then thank me for keeping my calm.</p>
<h3>People Will Steal Your Products, So Try Not to Take It Personally</h3>
<p>People will steal your work and your products. You’ll find your premium digital products sitting for download on forums and it will break your heart. Don’t let it. Address the situation and move on. Don’t let someone else’s bad juju ruin your mood, day, or momentum. It won’t help the situation and it will drive you crazy if you let it.</p>
<h2>In Hindsight</h2>
<p>I loved launching and owning our theme store. I didn’t sell it because I hated it or because it wasn’t profitable. I sold it because it was no longer the best fit for our company and me personally, which meant it wasn’t going to service our customers as it should.</p>
<p>If I had the opportunity to do things over, I would still launch and I’d follow the same path I did over the last five years.</p>
<p>The theme store brought me some wonderful employees, great online friends, and it brought me deeper into the WordPress community.</p>
<p>Selling the store was a hard decision, but the right one. In my heart, I knew I wanted to focus the company more on custom development and I wanted to spend more time with my SEO courses and my <a href="https://www.seobits.fm/">new podcast</a>.</p>
<p>If you’re new to WordPress products and you’re considering launching a new product offering, I encourage you to jump in. Learn from my mistakes, but hold on, because you’re in for a wild ride.</p>
<div id="epoch-width-sniffer"></div>";s: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, 16 Jun 2017 22:36:13 +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:13:"Jeff Chandler";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:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:29:"Matt: 4.8 and What’s Coming";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:22:"https://ma.tt/?p=47440";s: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:43:"https://ma.tt/2017/06/4-8-and-whats-coming/";s: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:3844:"<p>Last week <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2017/06/evans/">we released version 4.8 &#8220;Evans&#8221; of WordPress</a>, as I write this it has had about <a href="https://wordpress.org/download/counter/">4.8 million downloads</a> already. The release was stable and has been received well, and we were able do the merge and beta <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/4-8/">a bit faster</a> than we have before.</p>
<p>When I <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/01/04/focus-tech-and-design-leads/">originally wrote about the three focuses for the year</a> (and in <a href="https://ma.tt/2016/12/state-of-the-word-2016/">the State of the Word</a>) I said releases would be driven by improvements in those three areas, and people in particular are anticipating the new Gutenberg editor, so I wanted to talk a bit about what&#8217;s changed and what I&#8217;ve learned in the past few months that caused us to course correct and do an intermediate 4.8 release, and why there will likely be a 4.9 before Gutenberg comes in.</p>
<p>Right now the vast majority of effort is <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg">going into the new editing experience</a>, and the progress has been great, but because we&#8217;re going to use the new editor as the basis for our new customization experience it means that the leads for the customization focus have to wait for Gutenberg to get a bit further along before we can build on that foundation. Mel and Weston took this as an opportunity to think about not just the &#8220;Customizer&#8221;, which is a screen and code base within WP, but really thinking in a user-centric way about what it means to customize a site and they identified a number of low-hanging fruits, areas like widgets where we could have a big user impact with relatively little effort.</p>
<p>WordPress is littered with little inconsistencies and gaps in the user experience that aren&#8217;t hard to fix, but are hard to notice the 500th time you&#8217;re looking at a screen.</p>
<p>I didn&#8217;t think we&#8217;d be able to sustain the effort on the editor and still do a meaningful user release in the meantime, but we did, and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/06/16/4-9-and-gutenberg/">I think we can do it again</a>.</p>
<p>4.8 also brought in a number of developer and accessibility improvements, including <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/04/23/target-browser-coverage/">dropping support for old IE versions</a>, but as I mentioned (too harshly) in my <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2017/04/13/first-quarter-check-in/">first quarter check-in</a> there hasn&#8217;t been as much happening on the REST API side of things, but after talking to some folks at WordCamp EU and the community summit before I&#8217;m optimistic about that improving. Something else I didn&#8217;t anticipate was <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2016/12/28/supporting-the-future-of-wp-cli/">wp-cli coming under the wing of WP.org as an official project</a>, which is huge for developers and people building on WP. (It&#8217;s worth mentioning <a href="https://github.com/wp-cli/restful">wp-cli and REST API work great together</a>.)</p>
<p>To summarize: The main focus of the editor is going great, customization has been getting improvements shipped to users, the wp-cli has become like the third focus, and I&#8217;m optimistic about REST-based development the remainder of the year.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll be <a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org/session/interview-and-qa/">on stage at WordCamp Europe in Paris tomorrow afternoon</a> doing a Q&amp;A with <a href="https://om.co/">Om Malik</a> and taking audience questions, will also have a few announcements. You can get to the livestream tomorrow <a href="https://2017.europe.wordcamp.org/">on the WordCamp EU homepage</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 16 Jun 2017 13:33:03 +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:"";}}}}}}}s:27:"http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom";a:1:{s:4:"link";a:2:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:3:{s:3:"rel";s:4:"self";s:4:"type";s:19:"application/rss+xml";s:4:"href";s:36:"http://feeds.feedburner.com/wp-pipes";}}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:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:2:{s:3:"rel";s:3:"hub";s:4:"href";s:32:"http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:42:"http://rssnamespace.org/feedburner/ext/1.0";a:1:{s:4:"info";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:0:"";s:7:"attribs";a:1:{s:0:"";a:1:{s:3:"uri";s:8:"wp-pipes";}}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";O:42:"Requests_Utility_CaseInsensitiveDictionary":1:{s:7:"*data";a:10:{s:12:"content-type";s:23:"text/xml; charset=UTF-8";s:4:"etag";s:27:"64t/DXUfcn8QydvHkdsgH4XJ/cg";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Thu, 13 Jul 2017 21:23:58 GMT";s:16:"content-encoding";s:4:"gzip";s:4:"date";s:29:"Thu, 13 Jul 2017 21:42:13 GMT";s:7:"expires";s:29:"Thu, 13 Jul 2017 21:42:13 GMT";s:13:"cache-control";s:18:"private, max-age=0";s:22:"x-content-type-options";s:7:"nosniff";s:16:"x-xss-protection";s:13:"1; mode=block";s:6:"server";s:3:"GSE";}}s:5:"build";s:14:"20170522211635";}