ibutors gained confidence, mentors found joy in guiding, and our community grew stronger and more inclusive.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://wpkolhapur.org/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Kolhapur WordPress community</a> continues to host regular contribution‑focused events and welcomes contributors from around the world to join us.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you feel inspired to begin your own contributor journey—or to help others start theirs—connect with the<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/community/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Make WordPress Community Team</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Together, we can build a better WordPress for everyone.</strong></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, 19 Aug 2025 12:41:51 +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:\"Makarand Mane\";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:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:23:\"Matt: MCP NYC Hackathon\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:23:\"https://ma.tt/?p=147954\";s: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/2025/08/mcp-nyc-hackathon/\";s: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:7292:\"<p>Over the weekend, <a href=\"https://automattic.com/\">Automattic</a>/<a href=\"https://www.beeper.com/\">Beeper</a> had the pleasure of hosting and sponsoring the Build the Future MCP Hackathon in New York City organized by <a href=\"https://x.com/adamanzzz\">Adam Anzuoni</a>, alongside <a href=\"https://www.anthropic.com/\">Anthropic</a>, <a href=\"https://www.stainless.com/\">Stainless</a>, <a href=\"https://workos.com/\">WorkOS</a>, <a href=\"https://smithery.ai/\">Smithery</a>, and <a href=\"https://www.mongodb.com/\">MongoDB</a>. As someone deeply passionate about open-source technology and the potential of AI, I was thrilled to not only support this event but also to speak at it and serve as one of the judges. For those unfamiliar, <a href=\"https://modelcontextprotocol.io/\">MCP stands for Model Context Protocol</a> and enables AI models to interact with multiple tools in a more efficient and structured manner, allowing developers to create sophisticated agents that can handle complex tasks. And it&#8217;s only 8 months old! The energy in the room was electric—hackers collaborating, iterating, and demoing groundbreaking projects in just a few hours. (I would love to see the results of a longer overnight or all-weekend hackathon.)</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-3 is-cropped is-style-rectangular wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147970\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_389-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147969\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_884-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147972\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_1384-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147963\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_757-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147968\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_1259-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147962\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_832-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147977\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_1462-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147973\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_1254-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147974\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_1027-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147975\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_1053-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147966\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_1938-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147965\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_2067-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-147967\" height=\"403\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/ma.tt/files/2025/08/MPC-HackathonNYC-20250816_2001-1024x683.jpg?resize=604%2C403&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"604\" /></figure>\n</figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For a wrap-up of the winners, <a href=\"https://x.com/AlexReibman/status/1957194025271808088\">check out this great X/Twitter thread by Alex Reibman</a>. The first-place winner, <a href=\"https://x.com/AlexReibman/status/1957198942006858160\">Levels AI</a>, orchestrates different AI/ML models to solve specific business requirements without needing heavy manual coding or specialized teams. Essentially, it&#8217;s models creating more models—a meta-approach to AI that could streamline operations for companies of all sizes. Yusuf Olokoba said the name was inspired by <a href=\"https://x.com/levelsio\">Pieter Levels</a>, which is pretty cool. I wanted to note one team in particular: BeepResearch, which used <a href=\"https://www.beeper.com/mcp-hackathon\">our early access Beeper API and local MCP</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-twitter\"><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">6/ BeepResearch (Bonus)<br /><br />MCP server to chat with your messaging apps like iMessage, Whatsapp, FB,  X, etc. over <a href=\"https://twitter.com/beeper?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@beeper</a>. And Ollama + gemma3 to query photos in natural language <br /><br />Honestly, this was barely just a prompt, but it’s super powerful<a href=\"https://twitter.com/AlexReibman?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@AlexReibman</a> <a href=\"https://t.co/mh69aqREjd\">pic.twitter.com/mh69aqREjd</a></p>&mdash; Alex Reibman ?? (@AlexReibman) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/AlexReibman/status/1957201788735537389?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 17, 2025</a></blockquote></div>\n</div></figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Judging the entries was tough! People built so much cool stuff in a really short period of time. I always say technology is best when it brings people together, and this was a great example of that, and makes me very excited for Contributor Day <a href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/\">at WordCamp US next week</a>. (Which has such a stacked AI program as well.) Hopefully some people who enjoyed the office <a href=\"https://automattic.com/work-with-us/job/nyc-applied-ai-in-office/\">might consider getting 24/7 access</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I also just want to take a beat and say how amazing it is that I&#8217;m blogging this, on a United flight from Houston to San Francisco I&#8217;ve taken a million times, on a plane 36,000 feet in the air and technology is amazing. I can&#8217;t wait until United has Starlink!</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also last week <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/mcp-adapter\">the WordPress AI team shipped its MCP adapter</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, 19 Aug 2025 07:15:06 +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:14;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:54:\"Open Channels FM: Open Channels FM End of Summer Break\";s: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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=107063\";s: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://openchannels.fm/open-channels-fm-end-of-summer-break/\";s: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:155:\"We are taking a break until September to accommodate vacations and back-to-school preparations while finalizing our rebranding efforts for a polished look.\";s: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, 18 Aug 2025 12:16:37 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";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:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:62:\"Open Channels FM: Why Customer Success is Worth the Investment\";s: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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=106131\";s: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://openchannels.fm/why-customer-success-is-worth-the-investment/\";s: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:361:\"These days, it feels like every business is leaning on AI, chatbots, or endless help articles. While those tools can help, they often leave customers frustrated and waiting for real answers. What actually makes a difference is human-centered service. 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For free and lower-priced accounts it runs a version of WordPress called <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/multisite/create-network/\">WordPress MS</a>, or WordPress Multisite, which is designed for super-efficient multi-tenant usage, which is what has allowed it to introduce hundreds of millions of people to WordPress and run at a huge scale. (It was <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2006/10/mu-and-bbpress/\">initially called MU</a>, for multi-user, but we had to change it because someone squatted the name WPMU and built a business on top that was confusing users with commercial products. Such is my curse.) It revolutionized the hosting industry in a number of ways, including acclimating customers to per-site pricing instead of unlimited domains and raising the bar for what a host would manage for users so they didn&#8217;t have to worry. It has also provided a highly secure base login, which allows us to offer popular SaaS services, such as <a href=\"https://jetpack.com/support/jetpack-stats/\">statistics</a> and <a href=\"https://akismet.com/\">anti-spam</a>, to all WordPress users, regardless of where they&#8217;re hosted.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>At higher-priced plans you&#8217;d get access to not just a curated set of plugins and themes but the ability to install anything you like from the ecosystem, which invisibly switches your account to <a href=\"http://wp.cloud/\">WP.cloud</a> in the backend that supports unlimited plugins and themes and custom code, in a way that&#8217;s still multi-datacenter and maintenance-free. This has been very successful and works great for a ton of customers, but it still puts an asterisk when you recommend WordPress.com to someone because they&#8217;d need to be on one of the higher-priced plans to get an experience of WordPress with custom plugins and themes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the first time ever <a href=\"https://wordpress.com/blog/2025/08/12/for-a-limited-time-unlock-plugin-power-on-personal-premium-plans/\">we&#8217;re running a summer special where every single paid account gets that full WP.cloud experience</a> with full customization and control. It&#8217;s a test we&#8217;re running until August 25<sup>th</sup>. It&#8217;s WordPress, without the asterisk, without limits, implemented in a way that&#8217;s intuitive and safe for novice users, while also being extremely powerful for developers. If you haven&#8217;t checked out WP.com in a while, it&#8217;s a great deal starting at just $4 per month. I&#8217;m curious to see the results of how this goes. We also have a number of more radical things I&#8217;m eager to try out!  It&#8217;s a great time to reimagine what you&#8217;re doing from the ground up and question your longest-held beliefs, as AI has really put people in a more experimental and open mindset.</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, 14 Aug 2025 02:52:33 +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:4:\"Matt\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:18;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:80:\"WPTavern: #181 – Bob Dunn on rebranding Do the Woo and growing openchannels.fm\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:48:\"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=198779\";s: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:94:\"https://wptavern.com/podcast/181-bob-dunn-on-rebranding-do-the-woo-and-growing-openchannels-fm\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:42355:\"<details>Transcript<div>\n<p>[00:00:19] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, rebranding Do the Woo, and growing openchannels.fm.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the podcast today, we have Bob Dunn. Bob is a long standing figure in the WordPress community, having branded himself as BobWP back in 2010. With nearly two decades of experience in WordPress, Bob has become one of the most recognizable voices in WordPress podcasting. Producing shows that have educated, inspired, and connected countless developers, builders, and enthusiasts.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most recently, he launched Open Channels FM, a rebrand and expansion from his well-known Do the Woo podcast, which was originally focused on WooCommerce, but now explores broader topics around the open web, open source, and the wider maker community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bob talks about his journey in podcasting, from running Do the Woo for almost seven years to the decision to rebrand and launch Open Channels FM. He explains why he felt it was time to broaden the focus, welcoming listeners from outside of just the WooCommerce and WordPress ecosystem, and how that led to a network approach with multiple channels and series.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bob describes how Open Channels is structured. Rather than traditional shows, the network features three flexible channels, Open Makers, Open Source Reach, and Open Web Conversations, each hosting a variety of series. This lets content stay organized and evergreen, and accommodates the 25 to 30 rotating hosts with the freedom to produce series across different topics.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bob talks about the challenges, and rewards, of handing over the mic, stepping into a more of a managerial and founder role and how he&#8217;s building a sustainable, collaborative, podcasting network.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss Bob&#8217;s technical approach as well, including how he uses WordPress to manage multiple RSS feeds and subscriptions, making it easy for listeners to follow specific channels or get the fire hose of all content.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bob also shares insights on rebranding a podcast, managing redirects, retaining audiences, updating hundreds of featured images, and ensuring continuity without confusing listeners.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in open source podcasting, or building community driven content, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Bob Dunn.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:37] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I am joined on the podcast by Bob Dunn. Hello Bob.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:40] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Hey, hello Nathan. Great to be back.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you so much for joining me today. Bob and I have been chatting for quite a long time. Actually over many years, we&#8217;ve been chatting for quite a long time, because we&#8217;re both very, very, very into the exact same thing, and that is podcasting in the WordPress space.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Should anybody not have heard of you, Bob, I know it&#8217;s a bit of a generic question. Do you mind doing your little potted bio to tell us who you are, and what you&#8217;ve been doing?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:04] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Been in business a long time. Two major businesses, branded myself, BobWP in 2010. Did a lot of stuff between then and now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, yeah, right now I am doing openchannels.fm. I&#8217;m running that, that is a podcast channels with, actually three channels, we&#8217;ll be explaining more about that. But yeah, I&#8217;ve just been in WordPress quite a while and I think since, oh, I don&#8217;t know, about 17, 18 years or so.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s a fairly long time. You were one of the voices, when I joined the WordPress space, you were the established podcast voice I think. There were a few, but not many. And there&#8217;s very few that have survived. You&#8217;ve managed to, turn a living out of podcasting in the WordPress space. So Bravo, well done.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:50] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Thank you. Yeah, it&#8217;s been interesting. It&#8217;s something you just kind of keep going and, you know, doing it all yourself. It gets to a point where, yeah, it&#8217;s a lot of work, but it&#8217;s paid off.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So a little while ago, I&#8217;m going to say about, I don&#8217;t know, six months ago, something like that, you can correct me in a moment. But for the longest period of time you&#8217;ve had Do the Woo. Prior to Do the Woo, there was a bunch of other naming conventions for your podcast. What was it that, in the most recent past, why did you decide to jettison Do the Woo and create openchannels?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Open channels, by the way, you can be found at openchannels.fm. There&#8217;s no hyphens or anything. It&#8217;s just as you&#8217;d imagine, openchannels.fm. Go and check that out. You&#8217;d be able to see what we&#8217;re talking about. What was the reasoning behind that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:35] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah, so I actually did the rebrand early June. It was at WordCamp Europe, but I&#8217;d been thinking about it for about a year. So you have almost seven years under the belt with Do the Woo, and it started out as a WooCommerce focused podcasts. And over the years I added more WordPress into it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then over the last couple years I started talking about a bit more of the, you know, even outside the WordPress bubble. And I felt like something was always missing, because it&#8217;s kind of two-prong where WordPress developers, builders, a lot of our audience need to also be aware of other stuff that is going on around them. I&#8217;m not trying to push somebody one direction or another. It&#8217;s like just know stuff that is happening out there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then also for people that don&#8217;t know WooCommerce, expanding on that, trying to bring them in on other topics. They would look at WooCommerce or they look at WordPress and say, hey, you know, I&#8217;ve never really dug into them. I listen to a few of these.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two major things that really, I had been chewing on for like, oh man, it had to be almost a year, was growth and sustainability of the site. And, you know, it worked great when it was really WooCommerce focus, but people had the impression that, if they know Woo, they&#8217;d look at it and say, oh, it&#8217;s a WooCommerce podcast. I&#8217;m not going to check it out because I&#8217;m not using WooCommerce.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then of course, people that didn&#8217;t know anything about it, they would maybe think it&#8217;s, I don&#8217;t know, some wrapper or something. I don&#8217;t know what, you know, the title is like, it didn&#8217;t really define it. And of course they dig in a little bit, they learn what it is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, yeah, that was the impetus. It was like, I thought, man, it&#8217;s time to, as hard as it is to change a brand or even drop one that has worked for you, I thought we are moving more into content around the open web, open source, fediverse, all these different things. And I really want to make this something where, like I said before, people that don&#8217;t know WordPress or WooCommerce would come and listen to other stuff and maybe they&#8217;d check it out, maybe they don&#8217;t.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then the WordPress people would continue, because we still have that content in there and they could learn about other stuff. They could learn about things that probably will really help their business even staying in WordPress. So I&#8217;m not, again, trying to push them out of it, it&#8217;s just open your mind a bit and learn new things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:14] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> The wisdom that I often get when I read around the podcast industry, and if you are just a consumer of podcasts and you&#8217;ve never really dug into that industry, in the same way that WordPress has just a gigantic amount in the background, as soon as you prize open the can and realise that there&#8217;s this whole open source software, and there&#8217;s events and all of that, the same is true inside of podcasting. There&#8217;s a whole industry going on in the background that you may not realise is there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And one of the pieces of sage advice which is often delivered, is to kind of niche down when you are beginning your podcast. Because obviously, you are going to be a small fish in a very big pond. And so the more specific that you can get, the more likely you are to build up that audience over time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so I&#8217;m guessing that that&#8217;s kind why you went with Do the Woo? So that it was pretty clear at the beginning, okay, we&#8217;re really focusing on Woo. So have you noticed that the pivot away from that, so from Do the Woo as a name, even though there was more content in there, to this much more open channel, so open source, whatever that might cover. Has your audience kind of, and I don&#8217;t really want to use the word forgiven, maybe I want to use the words, gone with you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have they come across that brand transition willingly, or do you sense that some people have, you know, lost interest because now it&#8217;s not just Do the Woo? Because that&#8217;s, I suppose, something you have to be mindful of.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:09:29] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah. You know, I&#8217;m sure some have maybe decided differently, but the interesting thing is how I built it and how I, even after the launch, reorganised it even more, is that all the content that was on there is still on there and continues to be on there. And so as I looked at how can I best organise it, I first put it into like five shows, and it still didn&#8217;t quite make sense and gel. So I thought, well, what if I do three channels, and I have an open source reach channel, an open web conversations channel, and an open makers channel.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of the WordPress and Woo stuff went under the open makers channel. So now we still have series, like three or four series on WordPress. At least three series on WooCommerce, and then a variety of other stuff. So the thing was to get people convinced, and when I talked to a lot of people and I was at WordCamp Europe, you know, it&#8217;s like, it&#8217;s basically the brand is changing, we&#8217;re expanding, but the stuff you&#8217;ve been listening to is not going away.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I have to really emphasise that. And it&#8217;s, yeah, there&#8217;s a bit where you think, oh, you know, am I going to lose it? But then they may come back, they may actually see that, yes, this is still existing, you know, getting this stuff out in front of people. And also, there will be now newer people that will, instead of looking at a name, Do the Woo and thinking, hmm, what do I do? Something like open channels, even though it is a lot broader, might interest them a little bit more.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, there&#8217;s definitely the ability to tap into a new audience. So this podcast, WP Tavern, it has one show. And on a weekly basis we have a show and, you know, it&#8217;s me talking to somebody else. And I guess Do the Woo was a bit more like that. There was this one show and it would drop with a regular cadence and what have you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it may have escaped people because we didn&#8217;t really introduce it as such. But open channels is not that formula is it? It&#8217;s more of a, kind of like a network, I suppose, for want of a better word. You&#8217;ve got your own mini kind of network of podcasts. So let&#8217;s just dig into that a little bit. So you&#8217;ve iterated it a bit. You started with maybe three shows and now it&#8217;s up to however many, we&#8217;ll get into that. Do you just want to go through what all of the different shows are, and broadly what they cover?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:41] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah, so what happened is during this whole time of change, and some of this even happened before June, was that I had a whole bunch of shows. So you go to the thing and you&#8217;d see like, I don&#8217;t know, there was like 15 shows or something. And it seemed a bit too much to me. You&#8217;d go there and it&#8217;d be like, whoa, you know? Realistic, you&#8217;d think, okay, you&#8217;d find the show you like and stuff and listen to it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But as I was expanding the content I launched on June 5th with, there&#8217;s a website, there&#8217;s five shows and there&#8217;s some series under those five shows. And that still didn&#8217;t gel after I started getting in there and start rebranding it and working on it deeper, and I&#8217;m still working on it. I realised that what I&#8217;d like to do is eliminate the aspect of a show, so when they go there, it&#8217;s open channels, so it&#8217;s plural.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You&#8217;ve got the three channels that I mentioned, and underneath all of those are series. So there&#8217;s several. Some of them, there&#8217;s quite a few series under open makers. There&#8217;s some under the other two channels. And the reason I did that is channels are a lot more flexible, and also series are incredibly flexible. If you have a show and you stop it, it&#8217;s like, bam, you know, people, oh, where did that go?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I thought, what if I had these three umbrella channels that I could put series in? I could start them up. Some of them have been going on forever. Some may just go on a few months, but they&#8217;re part of that whole stream under that channel.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now everybody can go there and get all the podcasts that come in, or they can actually subscribe to the three channels.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the series are just a variety under it. And I haven&#8217;t really, the series are often focused more when they happen, the name of the series. I mean, I decided putting all the series on the site would just confuse people more. It&#8217;d be like, oh, what?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then they can go through and they&#8217;ll see, you know, if they look through the episodes, they&#8217;ll see the various series. I mean, there&#8217;s, under open makers, there&#8217;s Woo Product Chat, there&#8217;s WP Behind the Builds, there&#8217;s WP Agency Tracks. And a lot of those were pre-existing. And so the other channels as well will have specific series under it, like Open Web Conversations has a series on the fediverse. One is on, oh man, I should have written some of this down. I can&#8217;t even remember all the series.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyway, there&#8217;s a few under that and there&#8217;s a few under open source. And what the beauty of it is too with as many hosts as we have now, I don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s like around 25 to 30 hosts. They can pop around in different channels and under different series, or they come up with an idea for a show and we basically do it, and I say, okay, where should I pop that under? I can pop it under a series. It just makes it a lot more flexible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Talking about it makes it sound more confusing. Going to the site is a bit more cohesive. But the feedback I got from a lot of people, they loved the idea of the organisation and they loved the idea of expanding into more of the open web and open source stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:08] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, well, let&#8217;s get into that bit in a minute. But let&#8217;s just stick to the consumption of open channels. So if you go and subscribe in a podcast player, so, you know, typically on a phone or something like that, to this podcast, WP Tavern, it&#8217;s fairly straightforward. You either drop in the RSS feed, which is, you know, available, or you can type in WP Tavern, and that&#8217;s then saved. And every episode that we produce, including this one, will appear when it&#8217;s published.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How are you doing it for openchannels.fm? Because you&#8217;ve obviously got three channels, and then there&#8217;s different shows and series which live under that. How is it consumed? Is there just one overall RSS feed which will get you the lot? Or can you say, okay, I only want to, I don&#8217;t know, consume the stuff about the open makers or the open web conversations? How does it work?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:55] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah. What I&#8217;ve done is, you can, if you want the fire hose, you can go to openchannels.fm, it has its own feed, and then I do the feed for each of the channels. Like you said, open makers, open source and open web conversations. I thought of going down even more to every series, but I thought that just confuses people more so, you know, it encapsulates what each of those channels are about.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I mean, open makers is, somebody said, yeah, you know, it&#8217;s about people in tech making stuff. You make stuff, even if it&#8217;s WordPress only. Sometimes it&#8217;s interesting to hear how other people are making stuff. And it opens it enough where it&#8217;s long, that long funnel of people that make things, you know, whether the developer, designer, their marketing stuff, whatever.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so that was, yeah, I think that&#8217;s the best way to have people subscribe is, you know, they can get it all. But they can look at the three channels too. So if they go on their pod thing and look for open web conversations, that&#8217;s primarily what they&#8217;re interested in. What we&#8217;re talking about there, they can subscribe to that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:04] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Just from a, well, it&#8217;s not particularly technical, but from a slightly technical point of view, how do you manage that? If memory serves you&#8217;re using Castos, which is a sort of self-hosted, it&#8217;s a WordPress plugin, which binds your RSS feed into your WordPress website, but also carries the functionality to have different series and episodes all within the same WordPress website. I might have been kind of promoting that a bit, and it&#8217;s not the solution that you used, but I think it is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:29] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah, it is. And so what it allows you to do, I could have actually created feeds for each series, but then I thought, is that going too granular? I mean, are you looking at all this stuff and thinking, so Open Web channel is like the default channel, I mean, openchannels.fm. Then you create three feeds for three shows or channels, which are the other three. And then when I do a series, I just choose to put it under whichever channel it should fall under.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Right, okay. So you&#8217;ve basically got three places to go and update, and you can handle all of that in the WordPress admin and what have you. I should probably say that there&#8217;s a SaaS equivalent as well. You don&#8217;t have to use WordPress to make that happen, but it&#8217;s so tightly integrated with WordPress, it kind of makes sense.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other curious thing about it though is that for the longest time we were really familiar with you as a real significant piece of that jigsaw puzzle. You know, Bob would do the episodes. It is always Bob, in the same way that there&#8217;s always me on this. But with this, I think you said now you&#8217;re up to, did you say 25 or 15 co-hosts, something?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:36] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> 25-30 hosts.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:38] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, that&#8217;s a lot. So you&#8217;ve got 25 other people who are helping you create the content. In effect, they have become you for these shows. They are the host, if you like, and they&#8217;re then interviewing people, and talking about whatever that episode may be about.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>How are you coping with that? How are you coping with no longer being behind the mic? And you&#8217;ve basically become a bit of a manager for a podcast network, which is curious.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:59] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah. Yeah, I&#8217;d like to, you know, I was talking to somebody about this and to me it was, it ended up being a goal that I didn&#8217;t know I wanted it to be a goal. You know, as I started to step back, I thought, well, you know, I&#8217;ve talked a lot over the years, I mean, more than anybody ever wanted to hear. I thought, well, maybe, you know, it&#8217;s time to get some other voices out there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the time being, I&#8217;m still doing the opening, but I keep myself as forefront as, I guess you call founder or whatever, of the podcast channel. And I&#8217;m cool with it. I love hearing the different opinions. It just was a shift for me at some point where I had no problem with it. And I think testing it in the beginning, I think the first three, so I brought on Brad Williams at the very beginning, because I didn&#8217;t want to do it by myself. We were just doing co-hosts and then we continued for a while.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then I brought on, later on I brought on Mendel Kurland, which at the time was GoDaddy, and Jonathan Wold who at the time, he was at WooCommerce, and now he has his own thing going on. And I would still be part of it, so it was the four of us. But I started liking the idea when I wasn&#8217;t part of it. It was fun to see somebody else take and run with it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so over that period of years, I became more and more confident with people. Now, it&#8217;s basically, unless I have an idea for a guest, a lot of them choose our guests. They choose a topic because they&#8217;ve done this long enough. They know what I like to hear. They know what not to do and to do. I keep it pretty open for them. And they love that freedom because they don&#8217;t have to, you know, they come in, they do the recording, all the production stuff is not their responsibility.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I think it&#8217;s also helped them to get to know each other more. They&#8217;ve gotten to know other guests. It&#8217;s built their brands some, I hope. And it became a point where I was just like, I thought this is it, this just works. And I&#8217;ve been really lucky with the hosts I&#8217;ve had, because they&#8217;ve been excellent. I never have problems. I mean, it just is a nice flow and they&#8217;ve all become good friends and, yeah, it works.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:17] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I think if you were looking at it from the outside, there are so many trip wires there where you think, well, that, couldn&#8217;t work. You know, 25 hosts, multiple shows, yeah, okay. Good luck with that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But obviously, the history that you&#8217;ve got doing the shows and turning up to WordPress events, presumably you kind of knew most of these people fairly well already, so you had that rapport and trust with each other.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#8217;s a lot to trust them to just get on with it. To be able to say, okay, here&#8217;s the time slot, go off, get your guests and then just hand me the recording at the end, I&#8217;ve got complete trust in you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it does sound like you&#8217;ve still got your fingers in there a little bit with the kind of like the post-production and the editing, and finally making the episode into what it is and all of that, and shipping it. Do you ever see yourself stepping out to the point where you don&#8217;t even do that, where it&#8217;s just, there&#8217;s just this network?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:05] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> You know, I&#8217;d really like to kind of just have the role as founder. I mean, I&#8217;ve done a production and I&#8217;ve done this for, when we ran our other business before WordPress, the life and WordPress and stuff, we basically did everything, we didn&#8217;t have employees. So I&#8217;ve been doing this like over three decades.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, I am at a point where, no, I think it&#8217;s time to step back from some of this production stuff. I would like to because it, yeah, it buries you. And when it picks up and you have quite a few shows in a row or something, there&#8217;s some serious work to do. And I get a little too over picky with editing, probably somebody could do it a lot quicker. I mean, I, it drives me nuts sometimes. I&#8217;m thinking, why am I spending this much time on it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, yeah, I definitely am looking at some ways of doing that over the next few months. And looking at some other opportunities, but want to still be part of this, because it&#8217;s still my baby.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:23:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I think that&#8217;s incredible to have that level of trust. I&#8217;ve never yet managed to have that relationship where I thought that I wanted to step away. I think for me, the bit that I enjoy more than anything else is this bit that we&#8217;re doing now, the bit I&#8217;m having a chat with somebody. I really do like the one to one, or one to few. So the most I do is 2, 3, 4 really is the sort of ceiling, and that&#8217;s the bit that I like most.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so the bit that you&#8217;ve stepped into, curiously, would be something that I would not really wish to be involved in. I&#8217;d rather just hand that off to somebody, but I do know what you mean.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You have a perfectionist approach to the editing, and you can be halfway through it and think, I&#8217;ve just spent six hours and all I&#8217;ve done is remove empty space that nobody would&#8217;ve noticed. Anyway, it can be curious.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So are you still iterating? Are you still willing to take on some new voices? Are you still open to people approaching you?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:23:57] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah, we are. Because I think with this new brand, it&#8217;s kind of, before I get into that, I was just going to mention is that when you rebrand, I&#8217;m finding there&#8217;s a ton of work with post rebranding, and another one of my picky little, I don&#8217;t know what you want to call it, is I started looking at the site and I thought, well, I want this site to reflect the new brand a hundred percent. I don&#8217;t want people to go back and get confused.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve been changing the featured images on 670 episodes with the new brand. And, you know, that&#8217;s just, again, that&#8217;s me. But I want, it was quite a shift in rebranding and I want to make sure that, when they even go back, they see that, yes, I&#8217;m still on the same podcast, you know, I&#8217;m still on the same site so. Now I&#8217;ve lost track of what you asked.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> No, it&#8217;s okay. I&#8217;m actually going to pivot and just ask you a quick technical question, which is, did you close down your previous RSS feed, and rely on people finding the new one, or is there some clever way of moving people over?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:58] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah, you have to redirect it basically. It&#8217;s not a lot of steps, but it&#8217;s steps that if you don&#8217;t do it in the right order, it can really pretty much screw up everything. And right now, I am having a bit of challenge with some of the stuff moving over on Apple and the feeds and stuff, and I just put in a support question with them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you basically, eventually I&#8217;ll shut down a show called Content Sparks and Do The Woo. Because they were, they&#8217;re now under Open Makers as a series, but I kind of got to make sure all the things are connected and working smoothly. So it&#8217;s something, if anybody ever does this, whoever&#8217;s hosting your podcast, talk to them and ask them questions until you feel confident to be able to do steps one through five, without blowing up your whole podcast.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:43] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s a bit like when you move a website, there&#8217;s loads of different bits and pieces that you&#8217;ve got to get right and in the correct order so that, I don&#8217;t know, your email carries on sending, and all the posts that you desperately want to be still in the search engine results, that kind of thing. Yeah, there&#8217;s a lot of hoops to jump through.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, so much so that a few kind of pivot ideas that I&#8217;ve had, not around WP Tavern, but around other podcasts that I do, I&#8217;ve kind of backed away just because the technical challenge was just not worth the time investment for the minor thing that I wanted to do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Anyway, the question, returning to where we got to. The question was, are you still open to modifying what you do or have you solidified for a little period of time? In other words, if somebody catches sight of your podcast or listens to this one and thinks, do you know what I could contribute? I&#8217;ve got an idea in the open space that I would like to contribute. Are you still open to new hosts or is it really just guests now? Have you solidified on the hosts? Where are you at with all that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:36] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> You know, the hosts, I think the hosts that are on it right now, they always have the option. I mean, they volunteer their time. I&#8217;m hoping they get rewarded by, you know, brand and exposure. And I know a lot of them have met a lot of people and built relationships that they never would&#8217;ve been able to because they actually talked with someone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s another reason this particular structure of it now is so great because it&#8217;s so fluid. So it&#8217;s easy. If somebody comes in and has an idea, and it kind of gels and I think, okay, this is great, or maybe it exists with an idea I already have going or a series I do. Yeah, I&#8217;m always open to that because, you know, and some people kind of serve as, I don&#8217;t want to say substitute hosts, but they&#8217;re kind of there if I need to grab somebody, or I have an idea and it&#8217;s like, I need somebody to host this and this person would be good.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, yeah, kind of a long answer there, but I&#8217;m always open, because this is not, this is a reason to change this is to keep it fluid and make it sustainable basically, where it can continue to grow.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So definitely not closed, but you&#8217;re happy with where things are at the moment. If the status quo was to continue, that would be great. But, you know, new voices is possible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again, not just with the personnel, are you kind of fairly happy with the structure that you&#8217;ve got, the three channels that you&#8217;ve got now? Have you solidified more? Because it sounds like there&#8217;s, you know, been a couple of months of chopping and changing over there. Do you think you&#8217;ll stick with what you&#8217;ve got?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:02] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah, I think that&#8217;s definitely, it&#8217;s where it is because, like I said, I did something completely different in the rebrand in June, and since then I did something different again.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think what happens is, when you rebrand and you start restructuring, what you thought was the right structure, you start looking at it and you think, oh, maybe this isn&#8217;t quite right. Maybe I should do it this way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so I talked to several people. Getting some opinions, it&#8217;s nice because sometimes I&#8217;m inside my own head and it&#8217;s like, I need somebody to tell me if I&#8217;m just stupid or it&#8217;s a wild idea or, yeah, this is good. So, yeah, I like the three structured channels because it gives me so much flexibility under those.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think it&#8217;s pretty remarkable what you&#8217;ve managed to do. You know, you went from just many, many, many years ago, just beginning a podcast. And just hacking away at that for years and years and years. And now you&#8217;ve got this, kind of like little mini network.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But also, I&#8217;m getting the intuition, I could be wrong about this, but I get the intuition that you&#8217;ve leaned into the word open so that you are no longer limited to just WordPress as a project. Is that the case? Are you going to be leaning into just other open source things, whether that&#8217;s other CMSs or, I don&#8217;t know, anything in the open source space? Is that in fact the case?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:19] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah, you know, I think what it is, in fact I was just talking to somebody, person that does accessibility, she wants to bring on somebody from Joomla and talk about accessibility because she&#8217;s under the open source channel. And exactly that. The impact of open source has been so huge and WordPress has been at the core of it. And WordPress will still be a big part of this podcast or this channels. And, yeah, I feel it&#8217;s healthy for my hosts. It&#8217;s healthy for everybody that listens, and everybody in the WordPress to hear about other stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You know, it just opens your mind. It has you thinking more about things and knowing what&#8217;s out there. And sometimes maybe you think, well, you know, I&#8217;m burned out on WordPress, but you hear some other stuff and you think, well, maybe it&#8217;s not so bad. You get a big picture of the open source and open web.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:30:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> There&#8217;s certainly no shortage of things to talk about if you go into open. I mean, obviously WordPress is such a large niche that you really can talk about that until the cows come home. But the you prize open the can of open source, you know, you really are a hundred x&#8217;ing the amount of things that you can talk about. So that&#8217;s kind of really nice that you can, well, you&#8217;ve basically got an infinite horizon of content to make in the near and distant future. And I don&#8217;t suppose open source is going anywhere in the short, medium, or long term. It&#8217;ll still be around.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, speaking of short, medium, and long term, if you&#8217;ve taken yourself away from the mic on every occasion to being in a few, and then kind of now being in the minority of things, and we talked about how you enjoy kind of managing the whole thing, even though it sounds like there&#8217;s a lot of shepherding cats, let&#8217;s put it that way, in the background.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is the intention for you to sort of get to the point where you can be invisible in this, well, certainly from a public facing point of view. You wouldn&#8217;t have your voice in any of them at some point, and you would be able to, I guess, silently kind of move away. Is this like an end game here? What&#8217;s going on?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:14] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> No, you know, I think I&#8217;m going to be involved, and the thing was built on my brand really. And I need to stay and keep my fingers in whatever way works for me. And, you know, I&#8217;m, I just turned 68, and I&#8217;m ready to do other things every once in a while like sit on a rock on the beach and look the water. You know, important things like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But no, it&#8217;s, I like looking at it as still being the face of it, but maybe, can I say not so much the voice of it? I&#8217;m out there, I&#8217;m still, you know, a huge part of it, and probably as long as I have my fingers in it, I&#8217;ll occasionally do little short podcasts. Right now, I do some on the updates on the site and, you know, I might even whip up something like, you know, thoughts from the founder, I don&#8217;t know.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh, I like it, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:05] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah, something like that. So there&#8217;s, I don&#8217;t want to just become invisible because it really, how a lot of people have known this, and how I&#8217;ve built it is through my personal brand, and I think that&#8217;s important to stay intact with it. So I&#8217;m not going away anytime soon. And yeah, just need to reevaluate how many hours I put into it and how I can make it, again, more productive and sustainable. Because, you know, if I&#8217;m sick, who&#8217;s to do the production?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. When it was just you, you could just say, well, I&#8217;m not to record that one. I&#8217;ll just skip a week. But now that you&#8217;ve got like these 25 other hosts, you&#8217;ve got to kind of manage all of that. Oh, that&#8217;s really interesting. And of course, you&#8217;ve got to put time in the calendar to sit on the rock on the beach as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:47] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah, I know. I&#8217;ve got to get that in there, you know. It&#8217;s very important.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> How does this whole thing hang together from a financial point of view then? So is it a sponsorship relationship? Do you onboard sponsors to keep the whole thing, because obviously, you know, it&#8217;s trying to, you&#8217;re trying to support yourself in all of this. How does that work?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:03] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s basically sponsorship. And the sponsorship model, but ever since I started this podcast, in fact, before I started this one and did another one before that, I started having sponsors right away.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if your podcast is your main source of income, you got to have something. So yeah, it&#8217;s sponsorships. I am sure you relate to it yourself. And, you know, unless you&#8217;re famous and they just roll in, or you can get like a million subscribers paying $5 a month or something like that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, yeah, we&#8217;re constantly looking for sponsors. And I&#8217;ve changed the model so many times over the years. And it&#8217;ll probably change a little bit here again soon. So it&#8217;s never capped at a certain number. That might be capped for a period of time. But, yeah, it&#8217;s a constant flex and it&#8217;s hard work. And that&#8217;s all I can say.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I will just drop the URL for that. So if you&#8217;re interested from this conversation, if you&#8217;re interested in getting on as a sponsor for the openchannels.fm network, it&#8217;s the regular URL, openchannels.fm, but then append to the end of that, /sponsors, plural, or you can just find it in the main menu at the top of the site. That will also get you there and, yeah, you&#8217;ll be able to find out more about how you might make the journey into sponsoring that podcast.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, Bob, I know that you are a busy man. You&#8217;ve got 25 cohosts to shepherd and lots of editing to do, and dare I say it, sitting on a rock on the beach is also going to feature at some point during the day as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So thank you so much for chatting to me today. Once more, if you want to check out what Bob is doing with all of his co-hosts and his new structure, go to openchannels.fm to find out more. Bob Dunn, thank you so much for chatting to me today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:34:47] <strong>Bob Dunn:</strong> Thank you. Always a pleasure.</p>\n</div></details>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today we have <a href=\"https://x.com/bobwp\">Bob Dunn</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bob is a long-standing figure in the WordPress community, having branded himself as BobWP back in 2010. With nearly two decades of experience in WordPress, Bob has become one of the most recognisable voices in WordPress podcasting, producing shows that have educated, inspired, and connected countless developers, builders, and enthusiasts. Most recently, he’s launched Open Channels FM, a rebrand and expansion from his well-known “Do the Woo” podcast, which was originally focused on WooCommerce but now explores broader topics around the open web, open source, and the wider maker community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bob talks about his journey in podcasting, from running Do the Woo for almost seven years, to the decision to rebrand and launch Open Channels FM. He explains why he felt it was time to broaden the focus, welcoming listeners from outside of just the WooCommerce and WordPress ecosystem, and how that led to a network approach with multiple channels and series.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bob describes how Open Channels is structured. Rather than traditional shows, the ‘network’ features three flexible channels, Open Makers, Open Source Reach, and Open Web Conversations, each hosting a variety of series. This lets content stay organised and evergreen, and accommodates the 25 to 30 rotating hosts with the freedom to produce series across different topics.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bob talks about the challenges and rewards of handing over the mic, stepping into more of a managerial and founder role, and how he’s building a sustainable, collaborative podcasting network.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss Bob’s technical approach as well, including how he uses WordPress to manage multiple RSS feeds and subscriptions, making it easy for listeners to follow specific channels, or get the firehose of all content. Bob also shares insights on rebranding a podcast, managing redirects, retaining audiences, updating hundreds of featured images, and ensuring continuity without confusing listeners.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you’re interested in open source, podcasting, or building community-driven content, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Useful links</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://bobwp.com/\">BobWP website</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://openchannels.fm/\">openchannels.fm</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://castos.com/\">Castos</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://openchannels.fm/sponsors/\">Sponsor Open Channels FM</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, 13 Aug 2025 14:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Nathan Wrigley\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:19;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:98:\"Open Channels FM: How to Start Contributing to the WordPress Developer Blog (Even If You’re New)\";s: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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=104438\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:100:\"https://openchannels.fm/how-to-start-contributing-to-the-wordpress-developer-blog-even-if-youre-new/\";s: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:377:\"Are you passionate about building websites or tinkering with WordPress, but feel like sharing your ideas on the WordPress Developer Blog is only for seasoned pros? Great news: it’s not. Recently, on &#8220;The WordPress Way” series, a couple of long-time contributors, Justin Tadlock and Mary Baum, shared how welcoming and accessible the WordPress Developer Blog [&#8230;]\";s: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, 13 Aug 2025 11:30:28 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";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:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:76:\"Open Channels FM: Find Some of our Open Channels FM Hosts at WordCampUS 2025\";s: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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=105843\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:83:\"https://openchannels.fm/find-some-of-our-open-channels-fm-hosts-at-wordcampus-2025/\";s: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:125:\"If you\'re heading to WordCampUS, don\'t forget to say hi to our awesome hosts and check out the sponsors supporting the event.\";s: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, 13 Aug 2025 08:26:56 +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:5:\"BobWP\";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:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Matt: Haitian Times on Newspack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:23:\"https://ma.tt/?p=147128\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:48:\"https://ma.tt/2025/08/haitian-times-on-newspack/\";s: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:388:\"<p>One of the projects that has been going very well within Automattic is Newspack, a vertical WordPress distribution tailored for publishers. 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In addition to all of the education that takes place at WordCamps, these are the main opportunities that committers (the folks who make the decisions on what code is ready to be shipped with WordPress) have to get to know each other and chat about ideas we have.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This year I&#8217;m serving as one of the leads for the Core Table at Contributor Day. It&#8217;s been a few years since I&#8217;ve been a lead on contributor day, and I&#8217;m excited at the prospect of helping new folks contribute for the first time while also helping existing contributors have an impact on WordPress. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m also organizing the (largely informal) conversation amongst Committers and the (just barely more formal) security team&#8217;s in person meeting. These are teams that work together throughout the year and being able to take some time to meet each other in person is always a great experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an independently sponsored contributor to Open Source, I don&#8217;t have a company paying for my hotel or flight. While I did apply for the <a href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/apply-for-the-open-horizons-scholarship-to-attend-wordcamp-us/\">Open Horizons Scholarship</a>, I was unfortunately turned down. This means that essentially all of my sponsorship money for August will be going towards my attendance. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have added <a href=\"https://github.com/sponsors/aaronjorbin?frequency=one-time&amp;sponsor=aaronjorbin\">some one-off tiers of sponsorship</a> focused on WordCamp US 2025. There is also a free form for you to sponsor any amount you feel comfortable with or <a href=\"https://aaron.jorb.in/get-in-touch/\">get in touch</a> if you have another way you want to support me. If there are any organizations looking to help support an independent voice inside of WordPress, please consider sponsoring my attendance at WordCamp US. </p>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https://aaron.jorb.in/sponsor-a-wordpress-core-committer-at-wordcamp-us/\">Sponsor a WordPress Core Committer at WordCamp US</a> appeared first on <a href=\"https://aaron.jorb.in\">Aaron Jorbin</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, 12 Aug 2025 16:11:02 +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:6:\"jorbin\";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:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:82:\"Open Channels FM: Open Channels FM, the Channels, the Series: Rebranding Phase Two\";s: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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=105774\";s: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:86:\"https://openchannels.fm/open-channels-fm-the-channels-the-series-rebranding-phase-two/\";s: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:302:\"In a recent episode, founder BobWP gave you an idea of where we are going with in Phase 2 of our rebranding. He had mentioned the move from shows to channels and the flexibility of series, plus some restructuring. As we continue through Phase 2 this month, we thought it would be good to give [&#8230;]\";s: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, 12 Aug 2025 10:07:00 +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:5:\"BobWP\";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:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:92:\"Open Channels FM: Enhancing Client Collaboration with Figma Prototypes in WordPress Projects\";s: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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=104295\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:99:\"https://openchannels.fm/enhancing-client-collaboration-with-figma-prototypes-in-wordpress-projects/\";s: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:237:\"Web agencies face client engagement challenges during project transitions. 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This also included starting the handbook.</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Tickets covered: </strong>89 (a large amount this time were feedback focused)</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>One reflection I had was giving myself time this month to give the feedback, have the planning and discovery conversations as 6.9 formed. This was a little different from the push to ship of past months, but it forms the base for focused work the next few months.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sharing the journey</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Last month I spent quite some time writing as I explored, so I wanted to also share those.</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://binatethoughts.com/optimizing-triage-with-ai-starting-points/\">Optimising triage with AI starting points (continued thoughts including exploring the MCP</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://binatethoughts.com/first-props-and-contribution-journeys/\">First props and contributor journeys</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://binatethoughts.com/what-if-we-paused-default-themes/\">What if we paused default themes</a>.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><br />Upcoming plans for contribution</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>August is going to close out by my attendance at WordCamp US, where I am giving a talk on &#8216;The system is the Strategy&#8217;. I also plan to attend the contribution day. Apart from that my focus will be:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Triage: </strong>focus on <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/ancient\">ancient and inactive</a> trac log.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Core AI:</strong> fill out the handbook and have ready for WCUS contributor day. Continue to document processes and decisions as they are made, including roadmaps.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Move on to the triage of the components label if time.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Look to update design handbook ready for WordCamp US so it can also be self serve for current projects.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Sponsors this month</h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p>I now have these sponsors: <a href=\"https://www.bigscoots.com\">BigScoots</a>, <a href=\"https://greyd.io\">Greyd</a>, <a href=\"https://kinsta.com\">Kinsta</a>, <a href=\"https://servmask.com\">ServMask</a>, <a href=\"https://github.com/aaronjorbin\">Aaron Jorbin</a>, <a href=\"https://github.com/timnashcouk\">Tim Nash</a>, <a href=\"https://github.com/jeffpaul\">Jeffrey Paul</a> and <a href=\"https://github.com/scotrumery\">Scot Rumery</a>. To everyone who sponsored me and helped me secure sponsorship, thank you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Want to sponsor me? You can through <a href=\"https://github.com/sponsors/karmatosed\">GitHub</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is always sponsorship, of course, that is volunteered, and I&#8217;ll do as much as possible whilst still keeping things flowing – let&#8217;s get contributing!</p>\n</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, 10 Aug 2025 18:57:48 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"binatethoughts.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:\"\";}}}}}i:26;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:107:\"Gutenberg Times: New Blocks, Interactivity Router API, WordCamp US Schedule, and more—Weekend Edition 337\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=41414\";s: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:113:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/new-blocks-interactivity-router-api-wordcamp-us-schedule-and-more-weekend-edition-337/\";s: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:18857:\"<p>Hi there! </p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the updates of the last few weeks, there appears to be some increased excitement ahead of the next major WordPress release on December 2, 2025. The planning has been done. The announcement of the release squad is imminent.  </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Did you get a chance to read through the <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/28/roadmap-to-6-9/\"><strong>Roadmap to 6.9</strong></a> post? It&#8217;s challenging to pick the most exciting features and updates, be it the DataViews or the Site Editor improvements or better template handling&#8230; What is it that you are most excited about? </p>\n\n\n\n<p>ICYMI: <strong>WordCamp US</strong> has published the <a href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/schedule/\">schedule</a> for the four-day event. <a href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/schedule/\">Check it out!</a>. <a href=\"https://www.therepository.email/wordcamp-us-2025-schedule-now-live-with-new-career-corner-and-student-initiatives?utm_source=mailpoet&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source_platform=mailpoet&amp;utm_campaign=issue-268\">Ray Morey has more details.</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have a splendid weekend ahead, until the next time. <img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f44b.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yours, <img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f495.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /><br /><em>Birgit</em></p>\n\n\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-group\" style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<nav class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents\"><ol><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordcamp-us-schedule-new-blocks-interactivity-router-and-more-weekend-edition-337/#0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordcamp-us-schedule-new-blocks-interactivity-router-and-more-weekend-edition-337/#0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordcamp-us-schedule-new-blocks-interactivity-router-and-more-weekend-edition-337/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wordcamp-us-schedule-new-blocks-interactivity-router-and-more-weekend-edition-337/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.</a></li></ol></nav>\n</div></div>\n</section>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\"></div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v21.4.0-rc.1\">Gutenberg 21.4 RC1</a></strong> is available for testing. It seems the team is almost back to last year&#8217;s numbers of PRs merged per release. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>A brief look at the changelog, and it&#8217;s brimming with DataViews updates. <img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f389.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /> </p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p><img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f399.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /> The latest episode is <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-119-wordpress-6-8-2-and-6-9-gutenberg-21-1-21-2-and-21-3-releases/\">Gutenberg Changelog 119—WordPress 6.8.2 and 6.9, Gutenberg 21.1, 21.2, and 21.3 Releases</a> with Tammie Lister. </p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-style-no-vertical-margin\"><img alt=\"Tammie Lister and Birgit Pauli-Haack recording Gutenberg Changelog 119\" class=\"wp-image-40972\" height=\"184\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-25-at-10.53.45.png?resize=652%2C184&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"652\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><em>If you are listening via Spotify, please leave a comment. If you listen via other podcast apps, please leave a review. It&#8217;ll help with the distribution.</em></p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>John Blackbourn</strong> announced the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2025/08/maintenance-releases-for-wordpress-branches-4-7-to-6-7/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Maintenance Releases for WordPress branches 4.7 to 6.7</strong></a> and wrote: &#8220;Following on from the WordPress 6.8.2 maintenance release last month, the included update to the root security certificate bundle has been backported to all branches back to 4.7. This ensures that when your site performs server-side HTTP requests, the most up-to-date information about trusted security certificates is used.&#8221;</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>An interesting discussion is happening among contributors regarding which new blocks should be added to the editors if any. For a long time there was strong hesitation to add more blocks beyond the basic ones already available, and users were pointed to the many plugin options. There appears to be a some movement now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can read more in this Gutenberg issue, published by <strong>Matias Ventura</strong>, lead architect of the Gutenberg projects. <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/71026\"><strong>New block</strong></a> additions for the Block Library. After being discussed also in this week&#8217;s Core Dev Chat on Slack, you&#8217;ll find a plethora of opinions in the comments. There are quite a few aspects to consider before contributors move ahead. Well, we all need sliders, tabs , accordions, icons, breadcrumbs, and mega menus to create awesome themes and sites. We might be ok pushing the MathML, marquee, time to read, pop-up dialog and stretchy text into the plugin space. What do you think? Let your ideas be known and comment.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In his post <a href=\"https://elliottrichmond.co.uk/migrating-legacy-wordpress-content-to-the-block-editor-a-real-world-case-study/\"><strong>Migrating Legacy WordPress Content to the Block Editor: A Real-World Case Study,</strong></a> <strong>Elliot Richmond</strong> shares his experience, from planning to pitfalls. The post is a practical look at what it takes to bring old content into the modern editor. Richmond demonstrates the technical implementation for transforming 15+ widget types, managing edge cases, and processing 200+ property listings with galleries while maintaining functionality and performance. He describes his content analysis and mapping, the pattern-based architecture with placeholder replacement, batch processing techniques, and handling complex metadata transformations.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nagir Seghir</strong> published a <a href=\"https://developer.woocommerce.com/2025/08/08/developer-advisory-changes-to-session-management-and-cron-jobs-in-woocommerce-10-1/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Developer Advisory: Changes to session management and cron jobs in WooCommerce 10.1</strong></a>. Review your plugins if </p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>it changes how long user sessions last, </li>\n\n\n\n<li>uses <code>woocommerce_persistent_cart</code> from user data, or </li>\n\n\n\n<li>works with WooCommerce background jobs. </li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Test with WooCommerce 10.1 before the August 11 launch. Check status logs for session warnings. Update code since logged-in user session storage is changing from usermeta to session table only.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>EventKoi</strong>, the new event management plugin on the block mentioned in the previous newsletter editions, just announced the release of a free version. You can download it from the <strong><a href=\"https://eventkoi.com/#pricing\">pricing section.</a></strong></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In his latest tutorial, <strong>Carlo Daniele</strong>, at Kinsta, explains <a href=\"https://kinsta.com/blog/style-block-variations-gutenberg/\"><strong>how to hack Gutenberg blocks with style variations and block</strong></a> variations. He demonstrates creating an animated Polaroid effect for the Image block, covering the differences between these features : Style Variations change appearance with CSS, while Block Variations create preconfigured block versions. The tutorial includes setting up a development environment, building a complete &#8220;Image Hacker&#8221; plugin, and addressing compatibility issues with WordPress&#8217;s lightbox feature. It&#8217;s a great tutorial to level up your block customization skills. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>If you need a shorter version of how to create block styles, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> shows you <strong><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAyIHY0TtCI\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">How to make a custom block style in minutes!</a></strong> on YouTube. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>If you are eager to learn more ways to add block style variations to your theme or plugin you can read through the complete developer guide. &#8220;<a href=\"https://wordpress.com/blog/2025/05/07/custom-block-styles/\"><strong>Mastering Custom Block Styles in WordPress: 6 Methods for Theme and Plugin Developers</strong></a>&#8221; by yours truly. </p>\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-callout undefined not-color-set\" style=\"border-color: #f9f9e5; border-radius: 22px; border-style: solid; border-width: 0; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; text-align: left; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; background-color: #f9f9e5;\">\n<p><strong> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2025&#8221;</a> </strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. The previous years are also available: <strong><strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/\">2020</a> | <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2021/\">2021</a></strong> | <strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2022/\">2022</a></strong></strong> | <strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2023\">2023</a></strong> | <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2024/\"><strong>2024</strong></a></p>\n</section>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ronald Huereca</strong> has written a detailed guide on <strong><a href=\"https://dlxplugins.com/tutorials/how-to-generate-a-block-manifest-to-improve-block-performance/\">How to Generate a Block Manifest to Improve Block Performance</a>.</strong> You&#8217;ll learn what they are and how to effectively use them in your block plugin. In this comprehensive resource, Huereca not only explains the technical aspects of block manifests but also shares best practices for implementation, ensuring that you can optimize your plugins for better performance.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Juliette Reinders Folmer</strong> released <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress-Coding-Standards/releases/tag/3.2.0\"><strong>v3.2 of the WordPress Coding Standards</strong></a>, PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) to enforce WordPress coding conventions. This release adds stricter meta usage checks, new sniffs for heredoc, better PHP 8.1+ callable support, expanded deprecated feature detection to WP 6.8.1, improved documentation, higher PHPCS requirements, and various optimizations. These help developers ensure cleaner, more up-to-date, and future-proof code.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In his latest live stream, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> took a <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCRrxmSoIb4\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Deep Dive in explaining WordPress Interactivity API Router.</strong> </a>He looked at the WordPress Interactivity API and how its routing system works. He walked through the @wordpress/interactivity-router package and showed how to use its front-end routing features. This is useful if you&#8217;re working on custom blocks or interactive themes. He covered how the Interactivity API functions, what the routing package does, and how you can apply it in your own WordPress projects.</p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In his latest livestream, <strong>JuanMa Garrido</strong> explored <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEcumw0sb6Y\"><strong>how to test WordPress PHP code with PHPUnit</strong></a>. You can follow along as he spun up the Docker-powered wp-env test stack, created WordPress-standards-compliant unit tests, used TDD for clean architecture, and wired everything into CI pipelines—so your plugins and themes stay stable, refactor-ready, and bug-free.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEcumw0sb6Y\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-41492\" height=\"367\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/JuanMa-Garrido-Unit-tests-with-PHP-unit.jpeg?resize=652%2C367&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"652\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-callout undefined not-color-set\" style=\"border-color: #eeeeee; border-radius: 26px; border-style: solid; border-width: 0; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; text-align: left; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; background-color: #f3efe9;\">\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/\">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now also available via <a href=\"https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/playnightly.json\">WordPress Playground</a>. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? <a href=\"mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com\">Email me </a>with your experience</p>\n\n\n\n<p><img alt=\"GitHub all releases\" src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge\" /></p>\n</section>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size\"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? </em><br /><em>Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href=\"mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com\">them via email</a> or</em><br /><em> send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size\">For questions to be answered on the <a href=\"http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast\">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, <br />send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-group\" style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\">\n<p>Featured Image: Photo by Kimson Doan on Unsplash</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>\n\n\n<form action=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/\" autocomplete=\"on\" class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait\" method=\"post\"><div class=\"ngl-form-container\"><div class=\"ngl-form-field\" style=\"margin-bottom: 25px;\"><label class=\"ngl-form-label\" for=\"ngl_email\"><br />Type in your Email address to subscribe.</label><div class=\"ngl-form-input\"><input autocomplete=\"email\" class=\"ngl-form-input-text\" id=\"ngl_email\" name=\"ngl_email\" required=\"required\" style=\"border-radius: 21px;\" type=\"email\" /></div></div><button class=\"ngl-form-button\" style=\"background-color: #005075; border-color: #005075; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 21px;\" type=\"submit\">Subscribe</button><p class=\"ngl-form-text\">We hate spam, too, and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone <br />except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay\"><div class=\"ngl-message-svg-wrap\"><svg fill=\"none\" height=\"24\" stroke=\"#fff\" stroke-width=\"2\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"24\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><polyline points=\"20 6 9 17 4 12\"></polyline></svg></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay-text\">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input id=\"ngl_list_id\" name=\"ngl_list_id\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"26f81bd8ae\" /><input id=\"ngl_double_optin\" name=\"ngl_double_optin\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"yes\" /></form>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n</section>\";s: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, 09 Aug 2025 01:43:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:27;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:92:\"Open Channels FM: Navigating Tech Careers, Global Moves, and the Rise of AI in the Workplace\";s: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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=105388\";s: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://openchannels.fm/navigating-tech-careers-global-moves-and-the-rise-of-ai-in-the-workplace/\";s: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:368:\"Welcome to this episode of DevPulse, Expanding the Stack. Today, co-host Carl Alexander dives into a lively conversation with Nyasha Green, a software developer, project manager, and popular LinkedIn Learning instructor. Nyasha shares her journey as a tech generalist, discusses the ups and downs of juggling multiple jobs, and reveals how she found her true [&#8230;]\";s: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, 07 Aug 2025 14:03:45 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:28;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:80:\"WordPress.org blog: Portland, Are You Ready? The WCUS 2025 Schedule Has Arrived!\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=19004\";s: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://wordpress.org/news/2025/08/portland-are-you-ready-the-wcus-2025-schedule-has-arrived/\";s: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:5040:\"<p>We’re excited to announce that the full schedule for WordCamp US 2025 has been published! From August 26–29 in Portland, Oregon, join web creators, innovators, and community leaders for four days of learning, collaboration, and inspiration. This year’s lineup brings together sessions on everything from cutting-edge AI to hands-on workshops, performance, accessibility, design, and the future of WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19026\" height=\"576\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/wordpress.org/news/files/2025/08/ScheduleHeader.png?resize=1024%2C576&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"1024\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"padding-top: 0; padding-right: 0; padding-bottom: 0; padding-left: 0;\"><strong>Check out the full schedule and start planning your WordCamp experience.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-fill\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-blue-1-background-color has-background wp-element-button\" href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/schedule/\">View The Schedule</a></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contributor Day — Connect, Collaborate, and Give Back</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Kicking off the week on Tuesday, August 26 is Contributor Day, it is your chance to roll up your sleeves and make a direct impact on WordPress. Whether you’re a seasoned developer, creative designer, translator, marketer, or simply passionate about open source, there’s a place for you to get involved. Join WordPress teams working on real projects, share your skills, and connect with people across the global community. Contributor Day is also a fantastic place for hiring managers or business owners to meet emerging talent and see contributors in action. Lunch is provided, and both in-person and select remote participation options are available. If you’ve ever wanted to help shape the future of WordPress, this is your moment!<br /></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more: <a href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/schedule/#contributor-day\">Start planning your Contributor Day activities &gt;&gt;</a></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Showcase Day — See WordPress in Action</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Showcase Day on Wednesday, August 27, shines a spotlight on what&#8217;s possible with WordPress. Get inspired by live demos, case studies, and actionable presentations from experts and innovators using WordPress in creative and impactful ways. You’ll see how changemakers, nonprofits, publishers, and agencies use WordPress to solve real-world problems, build new products, and drive the web forward. Highlights include hands-on workshops, technical talks, and practical sessions covering everything from design systems to modern AI. It’s a full day dedicated to celebrating the talent, creativity, and innovation of the WordPress community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more: <a href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/schedule/#showcase-day\">See where these inspirational showcases take you &gt;&gt;</a></p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Conference Days — Learn, Connect, and Level Up</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The main event days for Thursday and Friday, August 28-29, feature a robust mix of technical deep-dives, product masterclasses, and sessions designed for all experience levels. Whether you’re a developer, designer, business owner, or just starting out, you’ll find plenty to explore—from future-focused discussions on AI and performance to hands-on workshops and networking events that bring the community together.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Keynote Highlights:</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Amy Sample Ward, CEO of NTEN:</strong> The Tech That Comes Next: How Changemakers, Philanthropists, and Technologists Can Build an Equitable World. Featured Wednesday, August 27.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Danny Sullivan, from Google Search</strong>: Industry leader, featured Thursday, August 28.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Matt Mullenweg, Co-founder of WordPress:</strong> Featured Friday, August 29.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>More keynotes announcing soon!</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>With dozens of sessions across multiple tracks, plus workshops and networking opportunities, WordCamp US is set to be an unforgettable experience. Don’t miss your chance to connect, share ideas, and help shape the future of the web.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Check out the full schedule and start planning your WordCamp experience.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-a89b3969 wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-fill\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link has-blue-1-background-color has-background wp-element-button\" href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/schedule/\">View The Schedule</a></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Wed, 06 Aug 2025 20:03:43 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Brett McSherry\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:17:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:1:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:26:\"HeroPress: New Continents!\";s: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://heropress.com/?p=8130\";s: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:95:\"https://heropress.com/new-continents/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-continents\";s: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:1983:\"<img alt=\"Google map of Central America with some HeroPress pins on it.\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" height=\"512\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/central_america.webp\" width=\"1024\" /><p>When I made the Continents taxonomy I didn&#8217;t think it through very well.  For example, I made an Oceania continent, which isn&#8217;t really real.  Also, most of the terms in the taxonomy are countries, which I think is more interesting, but I don&#8217;t really surface them anywhere.  More on that someday.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the struggles I had was how to sort essays from Central America and the Middle East. Did you know the Middle East is on three different continents?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I simply gave up on cartographically and geographically correct and decided to sort countries the way people do. So now there are two new continents, <a href=\"https://heropress.com/continent/central-america/\">Central America</a> and <a href=\"https://heropress.com/continent/west-asia/\">West Asia</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here are what countries I&#8217;m considering in those areas:</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading8130_fcbf04-94 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\">Central America:</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Belize</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Guatamala</li>\n\n\n\n<li>El Salvador</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Honduras</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Nicaragua</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Costa Rica</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Panama</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"kt-adv-heading8130_9080a1-50 wp-block-kadence-advancedheading\">West Asia</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Iran</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Iraq</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Syria</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lebanon</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Israel</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Jordan</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kuwait</li>\n\n\n\n<li>UEA</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Oman</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Yemen</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Saudi Arabia</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Israel</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Palestine</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you for your <a href=\"https://heropress.com/donate/\">support</a>.</p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https://heropress.com/new-continents/\">New Continents!</a> appeared first on <a 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, 06 Aug 2025 16:52:30 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:57:\"WPTavern: #180 – Karla Campos on organising WordCamp US\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:48:\"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=198673\";s: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/podcast/180-karla-campos-on-organising-wordcamp-us\";s: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:48213:\"<details>Transcript<div>\n<p>[00:00:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, what goes into organizing a flagship WordCamp.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the podcast today we have Karla Campos. Karla has been involved in the WordPress community for over 10 years. Starting out in Miami, and taking part in meetups and word camps before stepping into larger organizational roles. With a background in media and marketing, Karla brings plenty of experience in both web and events to the world of WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Karla joins us today as a lead organizer for the upcoming WordCamp US 2025, which will take place in Portland at the end of August. Remarkably, this is her first flagship WordCamp, and she&#8217;s organizing before ever attending.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss what motivated Karla to take on this major responsibility, how she balances the volunteer work with her professional life, and the challenges, expected and unexpected, along the way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss the organization of such a huge event from working with a professional production company to handling the logistics, communications, accessibility requests, visas, and more, for a thousand plus attendees. Karla shares how the community side of the event is managed, the late night worries, and what it really takes, both in time and personal commitment, to make a WordCamp US happen, especially as a volunteer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>She also highlights some of the initiatives for this year&#8217;s event, renewed efforts to welcome students and first time attendees, including student ticket pricing and the WP Trail Buddies Program to help newcomers feel at home. She also teases the introduction of a hackathon style contributor today, and new remote collaboration options.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;ve ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of a WordCamp US, how it&#8217;s organized, how volunteers are supported, and what motivates people like Karla to invest their own time and resources, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Karla Campos.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am joined on the podcast by Karla Campos. Hello, Karla.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:21] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Hello. How are you, Nathan?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, good thank you. Very nice for you to join us today. I really appreciate it. Karla&#8217;s here today, we&#8217;re going to talk about WordCamp US, which is happening in Portland. Actually, I was going to say later this month, almost later this month. We&#8217;re recording it right at the very, very end July, 2025. It&#8217;s taking place toward the end of August, 2025. So it&#8217;s pretty soon.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But before we get into that, Karla, will you just give us your little potted bio. Tell us who you are, what you do in the WordPress space, and maybe very quickly just tell us how the heck you came to be organising a WordCamp, one of these flagship WordCamps.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:56] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> I always like to say that my involvement in projects sometimes comes about serendipitously. Just kind of like, hey, look, I saw that on the internet, it looked interesting, and I decided to join.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I actually have about more than 10 years with the WordPress community in Miami. When I first moved to Florida, I started going to meetup groups and then I met the WordPress Miami organisers and started really getting involved with them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>My ex-colleague and coworker, her name was Jackie Jimenez, she unfortunately passed away, but we had a lot of great moments building things together in the WordPress Miami community. And when I saw the announcement online, I said, you know, she would&#8217;ve loved to do this with me. Let me check it out. And then that&#8217;s how I kind of just decided to join the organizer group.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I&#8217;ve been with WordPress for over 10 years. I&#8217;ve been working in marketing. I used to work for Telemundo here in the Florida area. I used to work for iHeartRadio. So I have a lot of the media marketing background as well as the working on websites and copy. So I&#8217;ve been around for a while, just I&#8217;m more of like a quiet, in the background type of person.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And have you attended any of these flagship, so the flagship ones are obviously WordCamp Asia, WordCamp Europe, WordCamp US. Have you attended any of those flagship ones in the past?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:18] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Is it odd that this is my first flagship and I&#8217;m organising it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think it&#8217;s great.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:22] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> It feels almost surreal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So just before we hit record, you said that, I don&#8217;t know, something like a month ago, you caught wind of the fact that WordCamp US still needed some volunteers. Have I got that about right? It&#8217;s about a month ago that you became involved in the organisation of the upcoming event.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:38] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> I would say May, I think May. You know, the dates are all come together. We don&#8217;t even know what month it is. Because we&#8217;re working on it so much in the backend. So I would say around May, when I first saw the, or when I got pulled into the organiser group.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Since then, has it kind of taken over your life? I don&#8217;t mean that to sort of sound disparaging, but has it kind of crept in into all the different parts of your life? So you&#8217;ve basically got no free time left anymore.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:04] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> It has because you&#8217;d think, okay, you know, even because we do have a production team that&#8217;s helping organise the event to make sure it&#8217;s properly handled for all the attendees, because we do expect around a thousand, it&#8217;s always been that amount for a flagship.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we have a production company working on the backend helping us with the production to make sure everything is smooth. But still, with that going on, I still feel like at 2:00 AM I&#8217;m thinking WordCamp US, WordCamp US. I know there&#8217;s something I have to do. So yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Let&#8217;s split out what the production company do first of all. So I genuinely don&#8217;t know what that even means. So, a production company, I&#8217;m guessing you offload something, all the tasks that you can to them. I&#8217;m guessing they&#8217;re a commercial entity and they get paid to fulfill whatever contractual obligations that you&#8217;ve got. What is it that they handle? And then we&#8217;ll get into what the community side of things, the team of community, volunteers, and so on are doing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:59] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> So the production team is making sure that the venue and everything that happens at the venue is organised. So from some of the room logistics, so more on the venue side, that they&#8217;re handling that part to make sure that we can handle everything else that comes with organising, including all the planning around contributor day, showcase day, the photographers. So that&#8217;s our side, and then their side, the production team, is more of venue logistics.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And so do they handle things like, oh, I don&#8217;t know, the building of the sponsor booths and things like that? Because when you attend these events, there&#8217;s a very, very professional feel to them. So it&#8217;s not like you just show up and, you know, it&#8217;s kind of thrown together at the last minute. It really does feel, when you actually stop and think about it, you have a great sense of, gosh, there&#8217;s months, possibly years of organising that&#8217;s gone on in the background. Is it that kind of thing? You know, making sure that essentially when you walk in, everything looks right, everything that you can see, they do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:57] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Yes. And then Megan Marcel, which is my co-lead organiser, she&#8217;s heading that part. So she&#8217;s managing that production company to make sure the venue and all the booths are on point, that they look like what they cost. Because, you know, those booths and everything that the sponsors spend, it&#8217;s not cheap things. They&#8217;re very luxurious. Sometimes more than others. But yeah, so she&#8217;s making sure that that&#8217;s covered with the production team. That it looks a hundred percent what the sponsors expect.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:25] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And, okay then, let&#8217;s flip to the more community side. So everything that is not part of the production team&#8217;s remit. What are some of the tasks that you are finding yourself worrying about at 2:00 AM in the morning?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:36] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Actually just making sure the communications, and all the attendees are getting service. So I am the lead organiser in charge of communications and marketing, and I have other team leaders under me, like Caroline Harrison, who is the team lead for the attendee communications. So we&#8217;re getting a lot of requests when it comes to accessibility, food that they have allergies or that they need visas.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of traffic, of course, right now, I told you we had about 730 attendees already registered, so that email traffic is coming into our teams. So I&#8217;m just like, I saw an email and I know my team handled it, and I know they&#8217;re prompt but, you know, I wake up at 2:00 AM. Did I answer that email? Was that a nightmare? Did I miss something?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s how it&#8217;s been in my life, you know, like I&#8217;m having these nightmares that I didn&#8217;t do something, but I did, because I&#8217;m a very responsible individual. But it just feels like that. It&#8217;s become so intertwined in my life that I&#8217;m having nightmares that I didn&#8217;t do a task.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:09:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> When you get involved in the WordPress community, there&#8217;s obviously so many bits and pieces that you can get involved in, but very many of them don&#8217;t really, at the beginning, at least anyway of community involvement, don&#8217;t necessarily have crunch points in time. Obviously, as you get more into the community, there might be moments. You might be, I don&#8217;t know, a release lead or something like that, in which case there will be a date in the calendar where things have got to be all tied off.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But mostly, there&#8217;s never that calendar moment where everything&#8217;s got to be finished. But you very, very much are faced with a ticking clock, aren&#8217;t you? Because come the date that the first people are arriving, the attendees are arriving, and presumably, before that the production team need to get in, and set up all the sponsor booths and make sure all of that&#8217;s taken care of and what have you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s a curious thing. So the stress, I guess, does pile up a little bit. And it would behoove all of us who attend events like this, just to pause for a moment and remember that it is done by a bunch of volunteers who have this ticking time bomb, if you know what I mean, in the back, where everything&#8217;s got to be finished by a certain date. And so I would just like to express my gratitude for the fact that you&#8217;ve stepped up basically and tried to fulfill that role. Appreciate it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:40] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Thank you. I appreciate the nice kind words, because it&#8217;s been a little bit hectic and, you know, it&#8217;s good to hear that people appreciate your work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Have you actually had a chance to go around the building yet? I know we discussed this prior to hitting record, but is this more of a kind of, you&#8217;ll be showing up the first time in the same way that everybody else will, or have you managed to sort of walk the floorboards as it were?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:00] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Like I mentioned earlier, but we weren&#8217;t live, I&#8217;ve seen personally the venue in virtual tours and et cetera, but I&#8217;m coming to the Oregon area a week before. So I&#8217;ll be there earlier to see the venue. Go through the walkthroughs and do what the team does earlier, so that everything&#8217;s on point. But from what I&#8217;ve seen, everything&#8217;s going great.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:22] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Do you get any sort of remuneration for any of the work that you do? So by remuneration, I&#8217;m specifically talking about finance. Does anything get offset? So for example, if you are based in Florida, presumably you&#8217;re going to be hopping on a plane, and there&#8217;ll be the food that you&#8217;ve got to eat during the time that you&#8217;re there, and the accommodation, the hotels and so on. Does somebody at the level of volunteering that you have nominated yourself for, does any of that get offset, or is this completely voluntary, where you&#8217;ve got to dig into your pocket for every single expense?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:50] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> This is voluntary. So yeah, I&#8217;m just putting in from my end to support the community. So if ever you are planning on joining something like the WordCamp organisation groups, it usually is a volunteer thing. There are some scholarships but that&#8217;s, you have to apply for and it&#8217;s very competitive. So I don&#8217;t think everyone gets one. But yeah, no, everything that I&#8217;m putting in personally is through my own finances.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:16] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, again, obviously I gave you some thanks a moment ago and I&#8217;m about to do it again. Thank you for that commitment as well, because it&#8217;s not nothing. You know, going to Portland on an airplane from where you are, you know, it&#8217;s all the way across the country. It&#8217;s not a cheap place to reside in. Accommodation in and around the venue is probably at a premium, you know, it&#8217;s summertime, everything&#8217;s quite expensive around there. So it&#8217;s not inconsiderable, and there is an impact to that. So again, once again, thank you for taking the time, and also allocating the funds to make that possible. Obviously, events like this cannot happen without people like you doing it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:51] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Yes. And I think they must be done. You know, sometimes we have to make sacrifices to bring together something that brings people together around WordPress, which powers people&#8217;s businesses, their livelihoods. So, you know, I don&#8217;t mind putting in when I know that I make an impact in a community and helping those people with their livelihoods.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Now you said that this all began for you in May, and we could get into what it was that exactly prompted you to do that. It sounds like somebody kind of sent something in your direction, which you responded to. So what have we had May, June, July, basically, you&#8217;ve been into this for a couple of months.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Any intuitions now of regret? That&#8217;s probably not something that we want to get into too much, but do you know what I mean? If you could rewind the clock to, let&#8217;s say April during 2025, did you get into this with your eyes wide open, or has it ended up being much more of a task than you imagined? What I&#8217;m basically trying to ask is, are there any bits of this that you think, gosh, I didn&#8217;t really anticipate that was going to be involved? This is way more than I was imagining biting off.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:54] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Yeah, the time required to do all the work that needs to be done, and I&#8217;m a confident person, so I went in this, I have experience organising events for Telemundo, big concerts of 50,000 people plus. So I went in confident thinking, I got this. But as I got more into it, I just started to notice, okay, well, this is taking a lot of my time that I wasn&#8217;t prepared for.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I&#8217;ve adapted and I&#8217;m good now. It&#8217;s been a rollercoaster ride, but it&#8217;s fun for me because I&#8217;m that type of person who enjoys the challenge.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, it&#8217;s been fun, it&#8217;s been unexpected for sure. So we&#8217;ve had ups and downs, but we&#8217;re getting through it, you know, and that&#8217;s the fun of a rollercoaster ride, so yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:31] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> What are some of the things that you didn&#8217;t anticipate? Obviously, you said it&#8217;s ended up being more time, so yeah, more time has been required of you. But what beyond that? What are some of the things that you didn&#8217;t anticipate that you would need to do, that you have in fact ended up doing?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:44] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> I think all the time spent talking to people, it&#8217;s been really crazy. So I think I just didn&#8217;t anticipate the timing. So I think I originally volunteered for about 10 hours per week. Leading up to the event I think, a week before the event we&#8217;re supposed, or a month before the event, we&#8217;re supposed to be putting more in time, but this feels like a full-time job.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh my gosh, you know, like I just didn&#8217;t anticipate for that. So it&#8217;s been kind of, like we talked about before, merging with my normal life where I&#8217;m just like, oh wait, my to-do list for my regular projects, and my family and everything is now part of WordCamp, if that makes sense.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So during the onboarding process that you&#8217;ve had over the last couple of months, how have you learnt what you needed to know? Because this event, I mean, it can&#8217;t have been thrown together in the last couple of months. Presumably you came along and joined at some point where many things had been set in motion. But how did you acquire the knowledge that you needed to do the work that you are now doing? Who taught you all of this and so on?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:43] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Well, we do get the last year&#8217;s folder with all the information. So it came about from a lot of reading, asking past team members. So we do have some people who were part of the organizing team last year. Gail Wallace, one of our co-leads, she&#8217;s doing contributor day, she&#8217;s doing photography, she&#8217;s also helping with the lead organising. So she was very helpful in just kind of letting us know about the previous year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have mentors like Kevin Christiano and Aaron Campbell from hosting.com, who also worked with WordCamps in the past. And there are mentors who we can always contact on Slack. So we do a lot of work on Slack, and we can always message them back and forth with any information any, hey, we need help with this. They&#8217;re always there to just say, hey, this would be a better practice from our experience last year. So we do have mentors there that help us, and that&#8217;s been a big relief.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:37] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> How much time do you imagine, if I was to ask you on a, let&#8217;s go for a weekly basis. At the moment, so we&#8217;re three-ish weeks away from the event, something like that, how much time are you spending during the previous week? So the last seven days, how many hours do you think you&#8217;ve clocked up working towards this event?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:53] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> At least, I would say 30 hours.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:55] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Wow, okay. And so that then presumably has had a material impact upon the regular work that you do. Now, either you are just superhuman and can add 30 hours into your working week with no perceived, you know, there&#8217;s just, that&#8217;s fine. I can just add 30 hours in. Most of us, including myself, could not do that. I would have to kind of offset one thing with the other. Have you done that? Has it had an impact on the business, the work that you normally do? Have you had to sort of downgrade the amount of time you&#8217;ve been spending recently on that kind of work?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:22] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Not on my business, more on my free time, so I&#8217;m not getting out this summer to the pool as I would have last year. But luckily, we&#8217;re having a super heat wave in Florida, so it&#8217;s too hot outside anyway.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s like it&#8217;s been planned, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:35] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> It&#8217;s been planned. The universe is putting a heat wave out there, so now I can&#8217;t outside in the pool, but I would probably still take my devices out there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Has the team had any concerns around attendee numbers? Because I remember I went to this event last year, and I actually don&#8217;t know what the numbers are, but I&#8217;m going to guess it was in the region of, I don&#8217;t know, 1,300 to 1,500, something like that, attendees.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s obviously been a lot of controversy in the WordPress space since that event. I wondered if there has been some anxiety? I have a recollection that the event, the planning of the event probably would&#8217;ve been happening earlier than it did for this event.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I&#8217;m just wondering if you could speak to that, whether or not the team itself are happy with the numbers that you&#8217;ve got so far? And whether or not things are kind of late in the planning, let&#8217;s put it that way. Do you feel that it&#8217;s all being put together in a rushed way?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:23] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> No, I think we&#8217;re on track. I mean, we expected the event to be smaller this year because there have been discussions around different things that are happening in just the space, like traveling restrictions, people being scared to fly to the US, different things that we knew it was going to make the numbers less.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But right now we&#8217;re up to 730 registered attendees. So we are planning for a thousand attendees. That&#8217;s our goal. Hopefully more. But yeah, we expected that it was going to be a little bit less than last year for the various reasons, including the travel restrictions and things that people do not want to come to the US for.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But, Portland is ultimately a very friendly place and I think our concern is that everyone is safe and happy at the event. So I think we&#8217;re doing a very good job with that right now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:11] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I guess also there&#8217;s maybe, the fact that an event like this has happened in the previous year at the exact same venue. There&#8217;s maybe a little bit that would be squandered there, if you know what I mean?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So the idea that you&#8217;d get a similar number of the exact same people, plus others, coming back to the same venue. I know for me at least anyway, it is quite nice to have the opportunity to go to different places. I&#8217;m going to be in attendance, so it hasn&#8217;t put me off. I&#8217;m still going to be there. But I think some people do like the fact that, you know, it&#8217;s in Portland one year and it&#8217;s in, I don&#8217;t know, Texas or California or whatever it may be in different years.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So maybe that kind of speaks into it a little bit as well. But yeah, the whole thing around traveling to the US, plus the obvious problems that we&#8217;ve had in the WordPress space around the community and so on. And then maybe this third piece of it being in the same venue and in the same location, maybe all of those conspire to not make it as big as last year. But still, a thousand, which seems to be the target number, is pretty credible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you anticipate getting to a thousand? Is the trajectory at the moment, if you were to map that forward, do you think you&#8217;ll actually manage that? Despite the fact that it&#8217;s an aspirational target? Are you fairly confident you&#8217;ll get there?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:14] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Yeah, I&#8217;m confident. But I told you earlier, I&#8217;m a confident person, I&#8217;m always thinking positive. And we do have a lot of student initiatives, because we want to bring more people into the WordPress community, more students that perhaps haven&#8217;t even had the opportunity to experience WordPress, and the community, and how that can help them build their career.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, our topic is sort of like the future of WordPress. And we&#8217;re doing a lot of student initiatives so that, you know, everybody gets a little bit of that WordPress community feel and that would, there&#8217;s a lot of students very interested, so I think we can reach the number.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I certainly hope so. I mean, when you say students, I&#8217;m presuming from that, that you mean younger people by that as well. So not just people that are in education, but really aiming that target at young people in education.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It always struck me when you go to these events that the demographic definitely skews older. I don&#8217;t mean, you know, particularly old, but you don&#8217;t tend to find a bunch of 18 to 20 year olds wandering around in large proportion.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems to me, it&#8217;s definitely in the late twenties, early thirties, forties, fifties and and upwards. So that&#8217;s been a definite charge that you&#8217;ve had then has it, to try and get younger people? Have I got that right? When you said student, did you mean younger people?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:29] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Well, we are working with colleges because they&#8217;re very interested in how AI and WordPress are evolving, and everything that&#8217;s going around that. And through our event, the teachers that work at the colleges are very excited to connect the students with the future of the web and whatever&#8217;s happening with web development and AI.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>They&#8217;re really interested in sending the students there because even though they&#8217;re educators, they&#8217;re not the innovators. So they want to come to WordCamp to connect with those innovators, including Google. Google&#8217;s liaison of search, Danny Sullivan, that was amazing to the students. They wanted to meet people in charge of the tech industry and connect there. So I&#8217;m talking about those students, yeah, the students that are in the tech industry that want to connect with the industry leaders.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:17] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think things work slightly differently over here in the UK, but I know that in the US there&#8217;s this sort of concept of college credits, where you do a certain thing and it can count towards part of your educational program. You know, you can tick some boxes and it will get you to jump over some hurdles.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Do you know if an event like WordCamp, in this case WordCamp US, do you know if an event like that can count? And does that in some way then kind of make it slightly easier to sell a WordPress event into that student marketplace, if you like?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:47] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> It can, depending on the teachers. Some of the universities and colleges already have their structured standards on how credits work. But if we&#8217;re working with the teachers, sometimes they have summer school projects that they get extra credit, that helps their grades. So we can tie that in with that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re welcome to working with any teacher who wants to help their students grow their career and willing to give them extra credit and opportunities. So it depends on the college and the teacher and what already they have established.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:23:17] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, like I said, we don&#8217;t kind of operate that system, certainly for WordCamp US, I don&#8217;t think that would particularly count. But I know that those kind of systems exist.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just pivoting to you a little bit and the work that you did in the past. Obviously it sounds like you&#8217;ve got a heritage in being involved in sizable events, credible events in the tech space, and perhaps other spaces as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>What do you make of this event? How do you sort of see it? Do you see it as a sort of professional tech event, something that you may have attended on behalf of organisations that you were working for before? Or is this much more of a kind of community event?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I can&#8217;t really sum up the exact target of what I&#8217;m trying to say there, but I&#8217;m just really after a feel of what you make of the event in terms of whether it&#8217;s more, I don&#8217;t know, more friendly, a little bit less business orientated, and perhaps skewing more to community, that kind of thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:05] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> I think it&#8217;s a little bit of both. It is a friendlier atmosphere from the different tech events that I&#8217;ve been involved in that feel more serious. Because when you go to a WordCamp, you automatically feel that it&#8217;s a little friendlier, a little bit less corporate.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes, everyone is very skilled. They&#8217;re very like awesome in their profession, but they&#8217;re also very down to earth and just willing to, hey, share a tidbit here, a tip here. I&#8217;ve even seen people help other people with their websites live at the events. Hey, look, I&#8217;m having a problem with my website. It&#8217;s not doing something on mobile. It&#8217;s not responding the way I want it to. It&#8217;s not responsive. Can you help me? And someone will stop and say, yeah, let&#8217;s sit down here in this corner. Let&#8217;s go to that room, and let me look at it and help you a little bit. And it&#8217;s something that I don&#8217;t see at other conferences where people have this community feel. So I&#8217;ve always admired that about WordCamps.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s really hard to encapsulate, isn&#8217;t it? What that thing is. But that thing is a thing. And what I mean by that is there is some quality of community spirit that definitely hasn&#8217;t existed at any event that I&#8217;ve been to outside of the WordPress space. It feels a little bit more like, heads down, you&#8217;re there for work, you must concentrate entirely on work, and maybe you&#8217;ll attend some kind of, I don&#8217;t know, after party or something like that. But again, the entire purpose of that will be business, business as usual.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there is much more of sense of camaraderie. And really, I suppose if somebody is listening to this and is kind of on the fence about these events, definitely I would draw your attention to that fact. And although if you are perhaps slightly more on the introverted side, it doesn&#8217;t necessarily make it a hundred percent easier to attend, and this feeling that you&#8217;ll just suddenly be embraced by everybody in the hallway, it probably won&#8217;t work that way. But there is definitely a more friendly atmosphere. There&#8217;s a different, and dare I say it, vibe going on, which I have always really appreciated. It definitely feels less corporate, more friendly. There&#8217;s more of an opportunity to make friendships, for want of a better way of describing it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:07] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Yes. And also, I&#8217;m sure you know Michelle Frechette.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:10] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:11] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> I think everyone knows Michelle. She&#8217;s organising something called WP Trail Buddies. So she&#8217;s actually connecting veteran WordCamp attendees with new attendees, so that they can have like a friend, a buddy at the WordCamp that they can do things with, so they don&#8217;t feel alone and they feel welcome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s a new thing, and that sounds, you know, if a person is coming to WordCamp for the first time, they can go that route, you know, they can actually have somebody there with them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:37] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I would draw everybody&#8217;s attention, if you&#8217;ve never been to one of these flagship WordPress events before, there is something particularly good about this Portland one. And the thing that I enjoyed so much last year, I enjoyed the event, but the venue itself was so brilliant, so enormous. There was never this hint of falling over people. There was quite literally acres of space to mill around.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so the hallway track felt very much, you know, you could take five minutes out and go and sit in the corner over there and get on with your own stuff, what have you. But this would be a really good one to attend. So I would definitely advise people, if you&#8217;re on the fence and you kind of think, I maybe should go, I&#8217;m not entirely sure. Everything is geared up. We know what that place is like, the conference center is absolutely magnificent. So I would definitely urge people who are wavering, who aren&#8217;t entirely sure to give it a go.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I will put a link into the show notes for the initiative that Michelle Frechette is leading, the WP Trail Buddies. And if you&#8217;ve got concerns about showing up and just hanging out and feeling a little bit isolated, then Michelle will be able to introduce you to somebody who has been there, done that, for want of a better word. Again, another reason to have a little look.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the tickets are really inexpensive. It&#8217;s not nothing, but at the moment, I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s going to be any change in this. But it&#8217;s a flat hundred bucks. And, in all honesty, you&#8217;ll probably eat more than a hundred dollars worth of food in the time that you&#8217;re there. So the ticket price is just absurdly low.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:02] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Yes, and we do also have a student pricing of $25, if the students show ID, or proof that they&#8217;re enrolled in school. So that&#8217;s also like an amazing deal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Now, the events often have a bit of a formula to them. There&#8217;ll be presentations, and they will run over a couple of days. So you&#8217;ll pick various tracks and you can go and see this person, and then come out into the hallway and hang out in the hallway.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then also there&#8217;s this idea of contributor day. And in contributor day, typically you would select a table, that table will be aligned to some core part of the project. So it could be photography, it could be Core, it could be, I don&#8217;t know, polyglots, something like that. And you would allocate your time and decide to work on that for the day.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have a feeling that you are doing something a little bit different on contributor day this time around. Do you know about that? Do you want to speak about that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:51] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> We are, but it&#8217;s a secret.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Is it? Okay.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:54] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> No, it&#8217;s a hackathon, but Gail Wallace is going to speak more about that in the coming weeks. So we&#8217;re just waiting for her to share all the information about what she&#8217;s been working on with that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there is something new, which is collaborating remotely for the Testing Team. So that&#8217;s fun. That hasn&#8217;t been done before.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:14] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So the Testing Team will be open to kind of like a, more of like a Zoom approach. So it won&#8217;t just be people that are attending in the room. They&#8217;ll be able to offer the opportunity for people to join live, but remotely. Yeah, that&#8217;s really nice. That&#8217;s a really nice idea.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The hackathon, I was lucky enough to go to a hackathon earlier this year. I attended CloudFest in Germany, in Rust in Germany. Obviously you are not able to reveal whether you know or otherwise what that will involve. For the people listening to this, I&#8217;ll just give you some indication of what that might involve.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And a hackathon, rather than just showing up and deciding on the spur of the moment what it is that you&#8217;re going to be involved with. A hackathon is more of a kind of project based thing, where you come to the hackathon with a project that you would like to see finished in a certain way. So you might come and say, during the next day, we&#8217;re going to try and do this thing, so we&#8217;re going to move from here to here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in that way, everybody coalesces on the exact same purpose, and tries to push that thing over the line. And in the hackathons that I&#8217;ve been to, again, there&#8217;s this sort of slightly tongue in cheek, fun, competitive edge as well, where at the end of the day, different people from the different teams sort of stand up and say exactly what they did and how they did.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then there&#8217;s kind of like a voting, there&#8217;s a panel of people who decide who the, and I&#8217;m doing air quotes, who the winner is. So, again, obviously I&#8217;m not going to try and get you to reveal any details, but that kind of component, if it is anything like that, that really does bring something new and a bit of fun, I think.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:30:40] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Yeah, I think people enjoy, when it&#8217;s friendly competition on something that they&#8217;re passionate about building, I think they enjoy that, like sports. So it&#8217;s exciting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:30:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s a good way of describing it, sporty, competitive edge kind of thing, isn&#8217;t it? Just sort of rehashing a bit of a question I asked a minute ago though. Obviously, like I said, you&#8217;ve been involved in these kind of events before in different spheres. Is there anything that you think, if you were to rerun your time, and maybe you&#8217;ll be involved in next year&#8217;s WordCamp US, I don&#8217;t know. Is there anything where you think, do you know what, I think we could try this, or we should jettison that? Obviously nobody&#8217;s implying that you are going to be the decision maker in any of this, but are there any bits and pieces that you think, well, we should definitely try that, or we should definitely maybe lose that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:23] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> I think we&#8217;ve had so many ideas, and we were all just kind of thrown together as a new team. And there were so many ideas flying around that we just couldn&#8217;t get to. So we&#8217;re doing the best ones that we thought about, but like there were so many others that we could&#8217;ve included.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I&#8217;m not sure if I&#8217;m going to be joining next year or not, I haven&#8217;t planned that out yet. But I think we&#8217;re going to at least have a discussion with the organisers about just kind of like looking back, hey, what did we like. Let&#8217;s leave little notes for the next year&#8217;s organising team so that they can, you know, they can know what to expect.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But now we have a roadmap together as a team. So I think it&#8217;s fun. And we&#8217;ll be way more prepared next year and add more fun stuff that we just didn&#8217;t have time for. But we&#8217;re all very creative, so you know how those discussions go when everybody&#8217;s creative, throwing ideas. And it&#8217;s like, all right, we have to pick just three because all of these are great but, you know, we&#8217;re on a time constraint, so we just execute these.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I think it&#8217;s been fun all around. But yeah, just kind of getting all the ideas that we had together and executing them next year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think it&#8217;s kind of an important moment for these kind of events because they&#8217;ve been running largely on the same format for a really long time. And there&#8217;s definitely, in events outside of the WordPress space, there definitely are some of these fun ideas kind of creeping in, making it a little bit more entertainment, if you know what I mean, at the same time as being educational and informative. And I think it would be interesting to sound some of those different organisations out. Maybe go to the different events like DrupalCon and things like that, and see how they do things differently. See how sponsorship works and so on and so forth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, one question, which I think probably will be rounding off the episode, if that&#8217;s all right with you, would be to ask you, when does your involvement with this end? And I don&#8217;t mean, you know, that you might get involved next year. Because obviously I&#8217;m going to attend, and the minute the whole thing is finished, it&#8217;s kind of more or less over for me. I may go back to the hotel or spend a few days in Portland having a look around or what have you. But for me, the event has kind of finished at that moment. For you, I&#8217;m guessing that&#8217;s not the case. Do you have any anticipation of what it will involve in terms of collapsing the event down? At what point it will be considered to be finished by the team?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:28] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Well, physically we have to be out by a certain date and everything cleaned out. So I am planning to stay there a little bit longer to handle that with the rest of the team. But I think we should be done by the 31st. Everything should be cleared out, physically.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then of course we&#8217;re going to reunite and just kind of have a meeting and talk about the experience. And like we were talking about, what can we do better next year? And I think maybe, I think we&#8217;re still going to be in talks at least two weeks after the event is over to kind of close that out as a team.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. So it definitely doesn&#8217;t end on the day that it&#8217;s going to end for me. So, yeah, there&#8217;s another example of the amount that people like you are doing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would just draw attention to the fact that clearly this is not an event which is being organised entirely by you. There&#8217;s obviously a huge team of people going on in the background. And it would be remiss of us not to thank all of them. Can&#8217;t mention them all by name, but if you go to the website, I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;ll be places where you can go and find out who is involved in the team.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don&#8217;t forget that if you want to get tickets and you&#8217;re a student, you can pay just $25 for a, basically three day event. I mean, that&#8217;s nuts. Or if you are not a student and you want to attend, then $100. And there are still, I think, some additional options that you can explore, perhaps sponsorship options and things like that, above and beyond that as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, Karla, that&#8217;s all the questions I&#8217;ve got. Is there anything that I&#8217;ve missed? Is there anything prior to recording to this you thought, ah, I must remember to say that, but didn&#8217;t get a chance to say it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:34:57] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> I just want to say thank you everyone for even thinking of attending. It&#8217;s going to be a great event. We have amazing speakers all about the future of WordPress and AI. How everything in technology is changing, what that means for your business now. Or if you have plans for a new business, what it means for you in your career. It&#8217;s going to be just a great place to network with people in the field, and I&#8217;m extremely excited. So I hope you&#8217;re excited just like I am. And I hope to see you guys at the WordCamp US 2025.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:35:26] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So I should probably at this point mention that the links to anything that we&#8217;ve mentioned so far will be in the show notes. But if you do wish to find out more about it, head to us.wordcamp.org/2025. And as is usually the case, there&#8217;s a whole bunch of links at the top of that website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So for example, you can look at the schedule, so see who&#8217;s speaking. You can look and dig into the location and about it. And obviously buying the tickets as well, that&#8217;s all going to be there. So us.wordcamp.org/2025, the numbers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There we go. Thank you very much for chatting to me today, Karla Campos. Really, really appreciate it. And very, very best of luck with the event. I hope to see you there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:07] <strong>Karla Campos:</strong> Thank you, Nathan.</p>\n</div></details>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today we have <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/KarlaJCampos/\">Karla Campos</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Karla has been involved in the WordPress community for over 10 years, starting out in Miami and taking part in meetups and WordCamps before stepping into larger organisational roles. With a background in media and marketing, Karla brings plenty of experience in both web and events to the world of WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Karla joins us today as a lead organiser for the upcoming WordCamp US 2025, which will take place in Portland at the end of August. Remarkably, this is her first flagship WordCamp, she&#8217;s organising before ever attending.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss what motivated Karla to take on this major responsibility, how she balances the volunteer work with her professional life, and the challenges, expected and unexpected, along the way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss the organisation of such a huge event, from working with a professional production company to handling the logistics, communications, accessibility requests, visas, and more for a thousand-plus attendees. Karla shares how the community side of the event is managed, the late-night worries, and what it really takes, both in time and personal commitment, to make WordCamp US happen, especially as a volunteer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>She also highlights some new initiatives for this year’s event, renewed efforts to welcome students and first-time attendees, including student ticket pricing and the WP Trail Buddy&#8217;s program to help newcomers feel at home. She also teases the introduction of a hackathon-style Contributor Day and new remote collaboration options.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you’ve ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of WordCamp US, how it’s organised, how volunteers are supported, and what motivates people like Karla to invest their own time and resources, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Useful links</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/\">WordCamp US 2025</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/navigating-wordcamp-with-confidence-meet-your-wp-trail-buddy/\"> WP Trail Buddy</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, 06 Aug 2025 14:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Nathan Wrigley\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:81:\"WordCamp Central: First-Ever WordPress Campus Connect in Southeast Asia Kicks Off\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:40:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/?p=11510566\";s: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:106:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/news/2025/08/first-ever-wordpress-campus-connect-in-southeast-asia-kicks-off/\";s: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:7991:\"<p>Last July 25, 2025, WordPress Campus Connect finally made its mark in Southeast Asia by holding its first-ever event in the region in the City of Golden Friendship, Cagayan de Oro (CDO) City, Philippines. <br /></p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11513820\" height=\"1200\" src=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2025/08/AD_4nXeTSe31BWPdP76V_oKAUARZoHIF06ayAveRaIHq52bYGiSP0ZJskLfxhX-zPfy-AkhBcElYsS_IqtnVSAQbs9DCUErozmJVpJL-GK9P6EWL_QskgpCsrt9w8NZLPs8VoKTvsK_2Rw.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" width=\"1600\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Pictured: The WordPress CDO and Iloilo teams, speakers, and the PHINMA-COC students who attended the event. </em></p>\n\n\n\n<p>The event was held at PHINMA-Cagayan de Oro College. Over 100 students and school staff warmly welcomed the Philippines WordPress chapters that organized the event.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The WordPress CDO chapter, with help from its sister organizations in WordPress Iloilo and WordPress Iligan, conceptualized this initiative as a bridge between traditional, controlled classroom learning and real-world practices and insights practiced by full-time WordPress practitioners. The event is also in line with the group’s commitment to upholding WordPress&#8217;s original mission of being a platform for “everyone”.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most of the day&#8217;s presentations were centered around possible career paths that the student attendees might consider exploring after graduation. </p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11513819\" height=\"1066\" src=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2025/08/AD_4nXcWlJIctiTlyT6bfjjZ58Yr6B566Zqi-YXMtBKR9fNuYUPyNCos9rmp-J-cUpDlSEvrqvbgVaD4J24sRn2or040Dy0vjZDclaIzNd_w_kkGHFtLnuIWCaBKvDAbV9Qg7U_70SrM2w.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" width=\"1600\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p>After the opening address by Mr. RJ Cainglet, SBO Adviser of College of Information Technology, Mr. John Tañedo, a 15-year web designer and brand strategist, started the presentations with a talk that was simply entitled “Careers in WordPress”. His talk was straight-laced in its assessment of the current realities facing job seekers in the real world, particularly in freelancing and working as a part of a small-business operation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Mr. Tañedo was effusive in WordPress&#8217;s capabilities of giving just about anyone a leg up in starting careers in the digital space, he emphasized the need for students to be aware of the responsibilities that are actually needed for their careers, particularly if they are aiming to be either developers, designers, or marketers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Kim Isaiah Valencia, a full-time WordPress developer and a core member of WordPress Iloilo, continued the afternoon by holding a quick workshop on WordPress installation, themes, plugins, and hosting. </p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11513816\" height=\"1066\" src=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2025/08/AD_4nXeXHmu-bb_H54eLNgn82hlp_kUcN1l5psABKgH6juQ0hrndwUZURAyE-9CSxf7c7Qxxg8BOfcD9ftexxD8d0BbdTa_R_k4WSDSTGk-okRsEwaOV0xkFV77lrtBj-YNUSghayqvc.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" width=\"1600\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Mr. Valencia and Mr. Hao guiding the student participants in installing WordPress on their laptops.</em></p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a room packed with students starting on their WordPress journeys, Mr. Valencia took the time to track each row&#8217;s progress on installing WordPress on the devices they have with them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Kyne Hao, a UI/UX designer and advocate, continued the pace with his talk on Design Thinking. He argued for the need for human-centered design, as design itself is observable in everyday things like appliances and furniture, as opposed to being just applied digitally. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Hao laid out how students can practice simple design thinking frameworks by focusing on the tenets of Empathizing, Defining, Ideating, Prototyping, and Testing. Even in settings where a QA Tester is present, he emphasized the need for getting into the mind of the “target user”.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11513815\" height=\"1066\" src=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2025/08/AD_4nXfIxULH1X74yQdw9Cc-94vEF8hDio_yhKEDppD6c5-hv_hDhwiQBCb9sZ6nsEA02NIoXSK_4_8Bawy_Tqva3PbfY69WvV247e-H-gszomCbUQRv6YAUALkD0hPG95vj0iZ32M71.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" width=\"1600\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The final talk of the afternoon was on Career Growth, Challenges, and Insights. Mr. Glenn Palacio, a creative with a remarkable 13-year career in Photography, tempered the anxieties of everyone in the room who might be thinking of how new technologies like Generative AI might affect their careers in the near future.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mr. Palacio laid out that even with the disruption and ethical challenges brought about by Gen-AI, the need for one&#8217;s creativity, adaptability, and critical thinking should always be at the forefront. He proceeded to illustrate real-world examples of businesses using AI to enhance their processes and business services. </p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11513818\" height=\"1066\" src=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2025/08/AD_4nXf0-Z7BXn3wfPQ07R3lniQo1-Q1gmCS3nhsfgqP_pxKeu3vKxlNHDsYXfR7v2i0QjRnAwBmQLGJvIRBhvMp91NvqXF39JbtlXRGNYnBViyWwNfCFiJ4ML8Gn2NesQgM8N-cKXFN1w.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" width=\"1600\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Ms. Harcy Joy Dela Cruz, WordPress CDO lead organizer, gifting a WordCamp-branded swag to a lucky student. </em></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the afternoon heat, the event was lively all throughout, with the students&#8217; enthusiasm rubbing off even on the presenters and organizers. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the event ending on a high note, the likelihood is very high that other WordPress Campus Connects will spread to other neighboring cities in the region. </p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img alt=\"From L-R: Mr. Ian Malhin, PHINMA-CDO Engagement Associate of the Employer Engagement office; Mr. Kim Isaiah Valencia; Mr. Kyne Hao; Mr. John Tañedo; Mr. Glenn Palacio; and Mr. Riel Jun Estologa Cainglet, SBO Adviser.\" class=\"wp-image-11513817\" height=\"1066\" src=\"https://central.wordcamp.org/files/2025/08/AD_4nXdVTRNsJMv2A-ZSaHPkS7C3A1s4LIeGz6duVVflXkxhAPOrtErcCoLrlLzCHwvezlA32r7gi1XJ4dFzVY64SbLvSs4pJPti7GkDzpkrWxEOiDwPKBqKDPa2QH2rFOBp3iINpqkqkA.jpg\" tabindex=\"0\" width=\"1600\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><em>From L-R: Mr. Ian Malhin, PHINMA-CDO Engagement Associate of the Employer Engagement office; Mr. Kim Isaiah Valencia; Mr. Kyne Hao; Mr. John Tañedo; Mr. Glenn Palacio; and Mr. Riel Jun Estologa Cainglet, SBO Adviser.</em></p>\n\n\n\n<p>For those who want to be a part of our next events in the Philippines, you can follow us at either of the pages below if you&#8217;re near these cities: </p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/WordPressCagayanDeOro\">WordPress Cagayan de Oro</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/WordPressIloilo\">WordPress Iloilo</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/wordpressiligan\">WordPress Iligan</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The WordPress Campus Connect in CDO would not have been possible without the support of the following sponsors:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://automattic.com/\">Automattic</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.bluehost.com/\">Bluehost</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://hosting.com/\">Hosting.com</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://kinsta.com/\">Kinsta</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://woocommerce.com/\">WooCommerce</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Special thanks to <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/webtechpooja/\">Pooja Derashri</a> and <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/anand.au14\">Anand Upadhyay</a>, two incredibly passionate individuals who have been instrumental in bringing WordPress Campus Connect to life.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pooja, your mentorship kept us grounded, and Anand, thank you for continuously pushing and inspiring us to take this initiative forward. Your support means a lot to our growing community in the Philippines.</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, 06 Aug 2025 12:24:56 +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:19:\"Harcy Joy Dela Cruz\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:74:\"WordPress.org blog: Maintenance Releases for WordPress branches 4.7 to 6.7\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=18997\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:90:\"https://wordpress.org/news/2025/08/maintenance-releases-for-wordpress-branches-4-7-to-6-7/\";s: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:2117:\"<p>Following on from <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2025/07/wordpress-6-8-2-maintenance-release/\">the WordPress 6.8.2 maintenance release last month</a>, the included update to the root security certificate bundle has been backported to all branches back to 4.7. This ensures that when your site performs server-side HTTP requests, the most up-to-date information about trusted security certificates is used. Further information can be found on <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/62811\">the Core Trac ticket</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A new maintenance release for each branch from 4.7 to 6.7 is now available. If you have sites on these branches and they support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The latest and only supported version of WordPress remains as 6.8.2. This is being done as a courtesy for sites still running older versions of WordPress. You can <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.8.2.zip\">download WordPress 6.8.2 from WordPress.org</a>, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Thank you to these WordPress contributors</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Special thanks to <a class=\"mention\" href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/desrosj/\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>desrosj</a>, <a class=\"mention\" href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ocean90/\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>ocean90</a>, <a class=\"mention\" href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/davidbaumwald/\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>davidbaumwald</a>, <a class=\"mention\" href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/peterwilsoncc/\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>peterwilsoncc</a>, <a class=\"mention\" href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/jorbin/\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>jorbin</a>, <a class=\"mention\" href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/estelaris/\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>estelaris</a>, and <a class=\"mention\" href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/johnbillion/\"><span class=\"mentions-prefix\">@</span>johnbillion</a> for backporting and releasing this update.</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, 05 Aug 2025 19:11:05 +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:15:\"John Blackbourn\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:96:\"Open Channels FM: The Real Impact of Sponsored Contributors on WordPress Progress and Innovation\";s: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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=105241\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:103:\"https://openchannels.fm/the-real-impact-of-sponsored-contributors-on-wordpress-progress-and-innovation/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:177:\"In this episode, Adam talks to Miriam and Amy about contributing to WordPress, sharing insights on how companies and individuals can support the open-source project effectively.\";s: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, 05 Aug 2025 09:09:59 +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:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:87:\"Open Channels FM: How to Handle Customer Support as a Growing WordPress Plugin Business\";s: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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=103843\";s: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:94:\"https://openchannels.fm/how-to-handle-customer-support-as-a-growing-wordpress-plugin-business/\";s: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:159:\"To succeed in a WordPress plugin biz, focus on customer support. Start solo for real feedback, then scale with docs and AI, but don’t forget the human touch.\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Mon, 04 Aug 2025 07:21:17 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:102:\"Gutenberg Times: Roadmap for WordPress 6.9, Block Bindings, Mega Menus, and More—Weekend Edition 336\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=41023\";s: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://gutenbergtimes.com/roadmap-for-wordpress-6-9-block-bindings-mega-menus-and-more-weekend-edition-336/\";s: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:23414:\"<p>Hi there,</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I found a new AI tool, and I like it very much: <a href=\"https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code\"><strong>Claude Code</strong></a>. For $20 per month you get a fabulous buddy to co-create plugins and themes for WordPress or scripts and modules for other purposes. It works right there in your terminal window. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>It helped me a great deal writing a plugin for the Gutenberg Changelog podcast so I can build a great podcast landing page. I needed additional social link icons and created block bindings for episode meta and podcast options data. Block variations will help me add the blocks to the inserter, and I don&#8217;t have to write block markup. Then I created a podcast archive template that I registered directly from the plugin. I am not yet done testing, but if you want to look at the code <a href=\"https://github.com/bph/gt-podcast-bb\">it&#8217;s on GitHub</a> with some additional details. My plugin augments the Seriously Simple Podcasting plugin I have been using since 2015 and makes it more blocky. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>What AI adventure did you pursue this week? Hit reply or share in the comments. I&#8217;d love to hear from you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have a splendid weekend. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yours, <img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f495.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /><br /><em>Birgit</em></p>\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-group\" style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<nav class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents\"><ol><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/roadmap-for-wordpress-6-9-block-bindings-mega-menus-and-more-weekend-edition-336/#0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/roadmap-for-wordpress-6-9-block-bindings-mega-menus-and-more-weekend-edition-336/#0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/roadmap-for-wordpress-6-9-block-bindings-mega-menus-and-more-weekend-edition-336/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/roadmap-for-wordpress-6-9-block-bindings-mega-menus-and-more-weekend-edition-336/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.</a></li></ol></nav>\n</div></div>\n</section>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\"></div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Aki Hamano</strong> released <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/30/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-3/\"><strong>What’s new in Gutenberg 21.3? (30 July)</strong></a> In his release post he highlighted: </p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/30/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-3/#highlight-1\">DataViews enhancements</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/30/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-3/#block-library-enhancements\">Block Library Enhancements</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/30/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-3/#migration-to-typescript-continues\">Migration to TypeScript continues</a>. </li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p><img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f399.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /> The latest episode is <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-119-wordpress-6-8-2-and-6-9-gutenberg-21-1-21-2-and-21-3-releases/\">Gutenberg Changelog 119—WordPress 6.8.2 and 6.9, Gutenberg 21.1, 21.2, and 21.3 Releases</a> with Tammie Lister. </p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-style-no-vertical-margin\"><img alt=\"Tammie Lister and Birgit Pauli-Haack recording Gutenberg Changelog 119\" class=\"wp-image-40972\" height=\"184\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-25-at-10.53.45.png?resize=652%2C184&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"652\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><em>If you are listening via Spotify, please leave a comment. If you listen via other podcast apps, please leave a review. It&#8217;ll help with the distribution.</em></p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong> published <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/28/roadmap-to-6-9/\"><strong>Roadmap to 6.9</strong></a>, the list of features contributors are working on to get ready for the release on December 2, 2025. It&#8217;s quite aspirational and starts with a few features where WordPress 6.8 left off. Here are the chapter headings. </p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/28/roadmap-to-6-9/#evolving-the-site-editor\">Evolving the Site Editor</a> </li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/28/roadmap-to-6-9/#refining-content-creation\">Refining content creation </a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/28/roadmap-to-6-9/#command-palette-everywhere\">Command Palette everywhere</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/28/roadmap-to-6-9/#developer-updates\">Developer updates</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/28/roadmap-to-6-9/#performance-improvements\">Performance improvements</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rae Morey</strong> reported about it on The Repository: <a href=\"https://www.therepository.email/wordpress-6-9-roadmap-block-comments-site-editor-updates-and-an-admin-redesign\"><strong>WordPress 6.9 Roadmap: Block Comments, Site Editor Updates, and an Admin Redesign</strong></a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Muhibul Haque</strong>, training team rep, just announced <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/training/2025/07/29/announcing-training-team-cohort-wordpress-block-editor-basics/\"><strong>the Training Team Cohort: “WordPress Block Editor Basics”</strong></a>. &#8220;This hands-on learning experience will guide you through the essential tools, tips, and features of the Block Editor, helping you gain confidence and practical skills. &#8221; he wrote. The post offers a form to indicate your interest. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>The host of the WPLift&#8217;s Cosmos podcast, <strong>Julia Colomb,</strong> invited members of the WordPress AI Team, <strong>James LePage</strong>, <strong>Jeff Paul</strong>, and <strong>Pascal Birchler</strong> to chat with her on episode 5, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cFPE0WUaS4\"><strong>WordPress AI Team on Future of WP, and Human Side of AI at Cosmos by WPLift</strong></a> ,of the new show. They covered the core building blocks of AI features. They aim to boost multilingual features and make developer workflows smoother. They also touched on privacy and bias in AI.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cFPE0WUaS4\"><img alt=\"James LePage, Pascal Birchler, Jeff Paul and host Julia Colomb \" class=\"wp-image-41126\" height=\"371\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-02-at-10.22.05.png?resize=652%2C371&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"652\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode site builders and owners</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Troy Chaplin</strong> recently launched version 2.0 of his <strong><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/block-accessibility-checks\">Block Accessibility Checks plugin</a>,</strong> enabling developers to add custom validation checks for their blocks. This version features a new <a href=\"https://github.com/troychaplin/block-accessibility-checks/tree/main/docs\">Developer API</a> that works with any block, whether it&#8217;s from your own plugin, a third-party source, or for a client project.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>While initially aimed at identifying accessibility issues, the API also allows for various feedback types, such as content length checks and required fields, as long as it&#8217;s written in JavaScript.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chaplin aims to integrate accessibility and quality checks seamlessly into the editing workflow.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-41096\" height=\"358\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/screenshot-1.png?resize=652%2C358&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"652\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Stephanie Pi, </strong>developer advocate at Woo<strong> </strong>has an update for WooCommerce site builders: <a href=\"https://developer.woocommerce.com/2025/07/31/woocommerce-block-theme-an-update-on-our-strategy/\"><strong>WooCommerce Block Theme: An update on our strategy</strong></a>. In short, WooCommerce decided not to release its new “Purple” block theme as a separate product because it overlapped with other WordPress themes. Instead, they’ll add new design patterns and templates directly into WooCommerce, so all users benefit from updates, regardless of which theme they use.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Rae Morey,</strong> The Repository,  has more:  <a href=\"https://www.therepository.email/woo-withdraws-block-theme-submission-reconsiders-successor-to-storefront\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Woo Withdraws Block Theme Submission, Reconsiders Successor to Storefront</strong></a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>A new event management plugin entered the stage: <strong>Lesley Sim</strong> and <strong>Ahmed Fouad</strong> launched <span><b><a href=\"https://eventkoi.com/\">EventKoi</a></b></span>, built for classic or blocks theme. The first version comes wiht a 50% launch discount. On the roadmap are a free version as well as updates for Elementor, Beaver Builder, or Bricks, and a ton of features. </p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-41131\" height=\"467\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/EventKoi-calendar-screenshot1-scaled-1.png?resize=652%2C467&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"652\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> has a great tutorial for those of us who are bit shy in using the full theme.json to style blocks. In <a href=\"http://developer.wordpress.org/news/2025/07/you-dont-need-theme-json-for-block-theme-styles/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>You don’t need theme.json for block theme styles</strong></a> you learn about block stylesheets and how to wp-enqueue your styles for block related styling. Tadlock also says, &#8220;It&#8217;s not one or the other&#8221;.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><em>If you are interested in the developer blog, <strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> and <strong>Mary Baum </strong>spoke with <strong>Abha Thakor</strong> on the OpenChannels show OpenMakers. In <strong><a href=\"https://openchannels.fm/learn-share-and-grow-with-the-wordpress-developer-blog-community/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Learn, Share and Grow with the WordPress Developer Blog Community</a>,</strong> they explored how this powerful resource helps developers at every stage. From sharing code breakthroughs and real-world case studies to offering guidance on writing, editing, and contributing, Justin and Mary unpack the collaborative spirit that fuels the blog and the broader WordPress community.</em></p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-pocket-casts wp-block-embed-pocket-casts\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Jamie Marsland </strong>has tested a new Menu Designer plugin by <strong>Mike McAlister</strong> and put it all in a video for us: <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z12kUMtLODw\"><strong>WordPress Is About to Get a Whole Lot Better (Exclusive Preview)</strong></a>. </p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n<p>There is prior art, which I mentioned here a while ago. </p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Nick Diego</strong> wrote a developer blog tutorial on how you can build a mega menu yourself with a template part, a custom block and the interactivity API:   <a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/news/2024/02/an-introduction-to-block-based-mega-menus/\"><strong>An introduction to block-based mega menus</strong></a> with an experimental <a href=\"https://github.com/ndiego/mega-menu-block\"><em>Mega Menu Block</em></a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Dave Smith</strong> authored the plugin <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/getdave-responsive-navigation-block/\"><strong>Responsive Navigation Block</strong></a>,with which you can display and apply alternative styling to different navigation menus based on the screen size using the WordPress Navigation block.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Hans-Gerd Gerhards</strong> also works on improving the navigation block with his plugin <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/shrinking-logo-sticky-header/\"><strong>Dynamic Header &amp; Navigation for Block Themes</strong></a>. </li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Mike McAlister</strong> seems to take the task to the next level with the Menu Designer. Stay tuned.  </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>On OpenChannels, <a href=\"https://openchannels.fm/designing-for-clients-using-figma-systems-and-wordpress-block-themes/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Designing for Clients Using Figma Systems and WordPress Block Themes</strong></a>, <strong>Ash Shaw</strong>, founder of Lightspeed, joined <strong>Derek Hanson</strong> on the <em>Publishing Flow</em> show. Shaw shared how adopting Figma has revolutionized their design-to-development handoff, enabled more efficient client workflows, and strengthened alignment with WordPress’s core block themes.</p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-pocket-casts wp-block-embed-pocket-casts\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n<p>Ash Shaw&#8217;s talk at WordCamp Europe is available on WordPressTV: <a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2025/06/07/bridging-design-and-development-figma-design-systems-for-wordpress-success/\"><strong>Bridging Design and Development: Figma Design Systems for WordPress Success</strong></a></p>\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-callout undefined not-color-set\" style=\"border-color: #f9f9e5; border-radius: 22px; border-style: solid; border-width: 0; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; text-align: left; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; background-color: #f9f9e5;\">\n<p><strong> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2025&#8221;</a> </strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. The previous years are also available: <strong><strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/\">2020</a> | <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2021/\">2021</a></strong> | <strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2022/\">2022</a></strong></strong> | <strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2023\">2023</a></strong> | <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2024/\"><strong>2024</strong></a></p>\n</section>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and Tools for the Block editor.</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The team at <strong>Codeable</strong>, the freelance platform for WordPress developers,  published <a href=\"https://www.codeable.io/blog/what-is-react-used-for/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">What is React Used For? Popular Implementation Examples</a> for developers starting to consider adding ReactJS to their toolbox.<br /></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>In his latest video, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvNLnTsL1Ro\"><strong>AI Assistance, Right in Your Browser!</strong></a>, <strong>Jonathan Bossenger</strong> explored Google Chrome&#8217;s built-in Gemini support for the Developer Tools. He wanted to find out if it&#8217;s any good at helping him fix warnings and errors in my code.</p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tom Rankin</strong> published on the WPMayor site the <a href=\"https://wpmayor.com/best-wordpress-web-development-ai/\"><strong>10 Top WordPress Web Development AI Tools for 2025 (By Use Case)</strong></a>. He wrote, &#8220;The right AI tool will reduce your development time and improve both your code quality and creative output. I want to share 13 tools that could make the biggest impact on your WordPress workflow.&#8221; He tested them all. </p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> continues his Block Developer Cookbook series on YouTube with <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMoI72gmmkc\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The WordPress Developer&#8217;s Guide to Mastering Custom Block Bindings</strong></a>. He takes you along when he creates a custom block binding source to connect a block variation to the post excerpt. You&#8217;ll learn how to bind dynamic data to your blocks for a seamless editing experience. </p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n</div>\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-callout undefined not-color-set\" style=\"border-color: #eeeeee; border-radius: 26px; border-style: solid; border-width: 0; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; text-align: left; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; background-color: #f3efe9;\">\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/\">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now also available via <a href=\"https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/playnightly.json\">WordPress Playground</a>. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? <a href=\"mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com\">Email me </a>with your experience</p>\n\n\n\n<p><img alt=\"GitHub all releases\" src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge\" /></p>\n</section>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size\"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? </em><br /><em>Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href=\"mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com\">them via email</a> or</em><br /><em> send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size\">For questions to be answered on the <a href=\"http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast\">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, <br />send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-group\" style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\">\n<p>Featured Image: Bergen, Norway by Birgit Pauli-Haack</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\"><strong>Don&#8217;t want to miss the next Weekend Edition? </strong></p>\n\n\n<form action=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/\" autocomplete=\"on\" class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-form ngl-form ngl-portrait\" method=\"post\"><div class=\"ngl-form-container\"><div class=\"ngl-form-field\" style=\"margin-bottom: 25px;\"><label class=\"ngl-form-label\" for=\"ngl_email\"><br />Type in your email address to subscribe.</label><div class=\"ngl-form-input\"><input autocomplete=\"email\" class=\"ngl-form-input-text\" id=\"ngl_email\" name=\"ngl_email\" required=\"required\" style=\"border-radius: 21px;\" type=\"email\" /></div></div><button class=\"ngl-form-button\" style=\"background-color: #005075; border-color: #005075; border-width: 1px; border-style: solid; color: #ffffff; border-radius: 21px;\" type=\"submit\">Subscribe</button><p class=\"ngl-form-text\">We hate spam, too, and won&#8217;t give your email address to anyone <br />except Mailchimp to send out our Weekend Edition</p></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay\"><div class=\"ngl-message-svg-wrap\"><svg fill=\"none\" height=\"24\" stroke=\"#fff\" stroke-width=\"2\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"24\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><polyline points=\"20 6 9 17 4 12\"></polyline></svg></div><div class=\"ngl-message-overlay-text\">Thanks for subscribing.</div></div><input id=\"ngl_list_id\" name=\"ngl_list_id\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"26f81bd8ae\" /><input id=\"ngl_double_optin\" name=\"ngl_double_optin\" type=\"hidden\" value=\"yes\" /></form>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n</section>\";s: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, 02 Aug 2025 00:18:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:36;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:83:\"Open Channels FM: Learn, Share and Grow with the WordPress Developer Blog 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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=104406\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:89:\"https://openchannels.fm/learn-share-and-grow-with-the-wordpress-developer-blog-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:175:\"In this episode, Abha Thakor chats with Justin Tadlock and Mary Baum about the WordPress Developer Blog, discussing its value for developers, collaboration, and contributions.\";s: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, 31 Jul 2025 09:45:39 +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:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:37;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:30:\"Matt: Beeper and Automattic 20\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:23:\"https://ma.tt/?p=145158\";s: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:33:\"https://ma.tt/2025/07/new-beeper/\";s: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:1060:\"<p>To announce and celebrate the incredible engineering achievement of the <a href=\"https://www.beeper.com/\">Beeper</a> team launching local bridges and their premium model we <a href=\"https://automattic.com/2025/07/29/beeper-update-event/\">hosted a fun event in Automattic&#8217;s space in NYC</a>. The app side of Automattic does some amazing work, and the applications themselves are pretty well known and reviewed, but many don&#8217;t know they&#8217;re part of Automattic, so it was a good opportunity to tell that side of our story a bit. Here&#8217;s the video from the event:</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed alignwide is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n\n\n\n<p>And if you&#8217;ve ever wanted to get better control over your instant messages, regardless of what network they may be on, definitely <a href=\"https://www.beeper.com/\">check out Beeper</a>. I find it especially useful on desktop, like a Superhuman for messaging.</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, 31 Jul 2025 02:20:37 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s: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:38;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:80:\"WPTavern: #179 – Mariya Moeva on the Impact of Google’s SiteKit on 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:48:\"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=197933\";s: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/podcast/179-mariya-moeva-on-the-impact-of-googles-sitekit-on-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:43544:\"<details>Transcript<div>\n<p>[00:00:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, how the Google Site Kit plugin is attempting to simplify their product offering, right inside of WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea. Featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox, and use the form there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So on the podcast today we have Mariya Moeva. Mariya has more than 15 years of experience in tech across search quality, developer advocacy, community building and outreach, and product management. Currently, she&#8217;s the product lead for Site Kit, Google&#8217;s official WordPress plugin.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>She&#8217;s presented at Word Camp Europe in Basel this year and joins us to talk about the journey from studying classical Japanese literature to fighting web spam at Google, and eventually shaping open source tools for the web.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mariya talks about her passion for the open web, and how years of direct feedback from site owners shaped the vision for Site Kit. Making complex analytics accessible and actionable for everyone, from solo bloggers to agencies and hosting providers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Site Kit has had impressive growth for a WordPress plugin, currently there are 5 million active installs and a monthly user base of 700,000.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We learn how Site Kit bundles core Google products like Search Console, Analytics, Page Speed Insights, AdSense into a simpler, curated WordPress dashboard, giving actionable insights without the need to trawl through multiple complex interfaces.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mariya explains how the plugin is intentionally beginner friendly with features like role-based dashboard sharing, integration with WordPress&#8217; author and category systems, and some newer additions like Reader Revenue Manager to help site owners become more sustainable.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>She shares Google&#8217;s motivations for investing so much in WordPress and the open web, and how her team is committed to active support, trying to respond rapidly on forums and listening closely to feedback.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discussed Site Kit&#8217;s roadmap, from benchmarking and reporting features, to smarter, more personalized recommendations in the future.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;ve ever felt overwhelmed by analytics dashboards, or are looking for ways to make data more practical and valuable inside WordPress, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Mariya Moeva.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m joined on the podcast by Mariya Moeva. Hello, Mariya. Nice to meet you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:35] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Nice to be here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Mariya is doing a presentation at WordCamp Europe. That&#8217;s where we are at the moment, and we&#8217;re going to be talking about the bits and the pieces that she does around Site Kit, the work that she does for Google. Given that you are a Googler, and that we&#8217;re going to be talking about a product that you have, will you just give us your bio? I&#8217;ve got it written here, you obviously put one on the WordCamp Europe website. But just roughly what is your place in WordPress and Google and Site Kit and all of that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:05] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah. I mean, I&#8217;ve had a very meandering path. When you would look back to what I studied, which was, you know, classical Japanese literature, all these poems about the moon and the cherry blossoms, who would&#8217;ve thought at that time that I would end up building open source plugins? But I did have a meandering path and I ended up here because, mostly because of passion for the open web, and for all kinds of weird websites that exist out there. I really love stumbling upon something great.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I started Google on the web spam team, actually looking into the Japanese spam market, because of this classical Japanese literature degree and the Japanese skills. And then after a couple years or so, I basically despaired of humanity because all you look at is spam every day. Bad sites, hacked sites, malicious pages. And I just wanted to do something that makes the web better rather than removing all the bad stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so I switched over to an advocacy role, and in that role I essentially was traveling, maybe attending 20, 30 conferences every year, talking to a lot of people about their needs, what they have to complain about Google, what requests they have. And I would collect all of this feedback, and then I would go back to the product teams and I would say, hey, this and this is something that people really want. And they would say, thank you for your feedback.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Essentially at one point I said, okay, we&#8217;re going to build this thing, and that&#8217;s why I switched into product role. And I was able to take all the feedback over the years, that we&#8217;ve gotten from developers and site owners, and to try to build something that makes sense for them. So that&#8217;s how I ended up in the product role for building Site Kit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the idea from the very beginning was to make it beginner friendly and to make it from their perspective to match that feedback, rather than doing something that is like, here&#8217;s your stuff from analytics, here&#8217;s your stuff from Search Console, figure it out. That&#8217;s how we ended up building this and it&#8217;s been now five years. And it actually just a month ago entered the top 10 plugins. So clearly people find some value in it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have 700,000 people that use it every month. And overall it&#8217;s currently at 5 million active installs, meaning that these sites are kind of pinging WordPress so they&#8217;re alive and kicking. It&#8217;s been very encouraging to see that what we&#8217;re doing is helpful to people and we will keep going. There&#8217;s a lot to do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:29] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I think it&#8217;s kind of amazing because in the WordPress space, there are some of the, let&#8217;s call them the heavy hitters. You know, the big plugins that we&#8217;ve all heard of, the Yoasts of this world that kind of thing. Jetpack, all those kind of things. This, honestly has gone under the radar a bit for me, and yet those numbers are truly huge. Four and a half to 5 million people over a span of five years is really rather incredible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:54] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> It grew very fast, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:55] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. And yet it&#8217;s not one that, well, I guess most people are reaching out to plugins to solve a problem, often a business problem. So, you know, there&#8217;s this idea of, I install this and there&#8217;s an ROI on that. This is not really that, not really ROI, it&#8217;s more site improvement. Okay, here&#8217;s a site that needs things fixing on it. Here&#8217;s some data about what can be fixed. And so maybe for that reason and that reason alone, it&#8217;s flown under the radar for me because it doesn&#8217;t have that commercial component to it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:24] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah, for sure. It&#8217;s for free and it&#8217;s not something that, yeah, sells features or has like a premium model and we don&#8217;t market it so much. But I run a little survey in the product where people tell us where they heard from it, and a lot of the responses are either YouTube video, or like blog posts or word of mouth. So it seems to be spreading more that way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, no kidding. I&#8217;ll just say the URL out loud in case you&#8217;re at a computer when you&#8217;re listening to this. It&#8217;s SiteKit, as one word, dot withgoogle.com. I don&#8217;t know if that&#8217;s the canonical URL, but that&#8217;s where I ended up when I did a quick search for it. So sitekit.withgoogle.com. And over there you&#8217;ll be able to download well, as it labels itself, Google&#8217;s official WordPress plugin.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first thing that surprises me is, a, Google&#8217;s interest in WordPress. That is fascinating to me. I mean, obviously we all know, Google is this giant, this leviathan. Maybe you&#8217;ve got interest in other CMSs, maybe not. I don&#8217;t really know. But I think that&#8217;s curious. But obviously 43% of the web, kind of makes sense to partner with WordPress, doesn&#8217;t it? To improve websites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:08:31] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah. I work with plenty of CMSs. I work with Wix, with Squarespace, and we essentially what I try to do and what my team tries to do, we are called the Ecosystem Team. So we want to bring the things that we think would be useful to site owners and businesses directly to where they are.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if you are in your Wix dashboard, you should be able to see the things from Google that are useful. And same if you are in WordPress. And obviously WordPress is, orders of magnitude, a bigger footprint than any of the others. And also it has this special structure where everything is decentralised and people kind of mix and match. So that&#8217;s why we went with the plugin model. And using the public APIs, we want to show what&#8217;s possible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because all the data that we use is public data. There&#8217;s no special Google feature that only the Google product gets, right? We are just combining it in interesting ways because I&#8217;ve spent so much time talking to people, like what they need. And so we just curate and combine in ways that are actually helping people to make decisions and to kind of clear the clutter.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because when you go to analytics, it&#8217;s like 50 reports and so many menus and it&#8217;s like, where do I start? So we try to give a starting point in Site Kit. And we also try to help with other things like make people sustainable. One thing that we recently launched just a month ago is called Reader Revenue Manager. So you can put a little prompt on your site, which asks people to give you like $2 or whatever currency you are in, or even put like a subscription.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so the idea is you don&#8217;t have to have massive traffic in order to generate revenue from your content. If you have your hundred thousand loyal readers, they can help you be more sustainable. So we&#8217;re looking at these kind of features, like what can we launch that is more for small and medium sites and would be helpful? And how can we make it as simple as possible? So that people don&#8217;t kind of drop off during the setup because it&#8217;s too complicated.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Would it be fair to summarise the plugin&#8217;s initial purpose as kind of binding a bunch of Google products, which otherwise you would have to go and navigate to elsewhere? So for example, I&#8217;m looking at the website now, Search Console, Analytics, Page Speed Insights, AdSense, Google Ads, and all of those kind of things. Typically we&#8217;d have to go and, you know, set up an account. I guess we&#8217;d have to do that with Site Kit anyway. But we&#8217;d have to go to the different URLs and do all of that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The intention of this then is to bind that inside of the WordPress UI, so it&#8217;s not just the person who&#8217;s the admin of that account. You can open it up so that people who have the right permissions inside of WordPress, they can see, for example, Google Analytics data. And it gets presented on the backend of WordPress rather than having to go to these other URLs. Is that how it all began as a way of sort of surfacing Google product data inside the UI of WordPress?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:21] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah, we wanted to bring the most important things directly to where people are, so they don&#8217;t have to bother going to 15 places. And we wanted to drastically decrease and curate the information so that it&#8217;s easy to understand, because when you have 15 dashboards in Analytics and 15 dashboards in Search Console, and then you have to figure out what to download and in which spreadsheet to merge and how to compare, then this is. Maybe if you have an agency taken care of, they can help you. But if you don&#8217;t, which 70% of our users say that they&#8217;re one person operation, so they&#8217;re taking care of their business, and on top of that, the website. We wanted to make it simpler to understand how you&#8217;re doing, and what you should do next with Google data.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:02] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So it&#8217;s a curated interface. So it&#8217;s not, I mean, maybe you can pull in every single thing if you so wish. But the idea is you give a, I don&#8217;t know, an easier to understand interface to, for example, Google Analytics.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was always the thing for me in Google Analytics. I&#8217;m sure that if you have the time and the expertise, like you&#8217;re an agency that deals with all of that, then all of that data is probably useful and credible. But for me, I just want to know some top level items. I don&#8217;t need to dig into the weeds of everything.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And there was menus within menus, within menus, and I would get lost very quickly, and dispirited and essentially give up. So I guess this is an endeavor to get you what you need quickly inside the WordPress admin, so you don&#8217;t have to be an expert.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:43] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah. And then it gets more powerful when you are able to combine data from different products. So, for example, we have a feature called Search Funnel in the dashboard, which lets you, it combines data from Search Console on search impressions and search clicks, and then it combines data from Analytics on visitors on the site and conversions. So it kind of helps you map out the entire path, versus having to go over here, having to go over there, having to combine everything yourself. So when you combine things, then it gets also more powerful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have another feature which lets you combine data from AdSense and Analytics. So if you have AdSense on your site, you can then see which pages earn you the most revenue. So when you have that, suddenly you can see, okay, so I have now these pages here, what queries are they ranking for? How much time people spend on them? Can I expand my content in that direction? It helps you to be more focused in kind of the strategy that you have for your site.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Is it just making, I mean, I say just, is it making API calls backwards and forwards to Google&#8217;s Analytics, Search Console, whatever, and then displaying that information, or is it kind of keeping it inside the WordPress database?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:58] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> We don&#8217;t store anything, well, almost anything. Yeah, we wanted to keep the data as secure as possible, so we created this proxy service, which kind of helps to exchange the credentials. So the person can authenticate with their Google account, and then from there, the data is pulled via API, and we cache the dashboard for one hour. After that we refreshed authentication token. From the data itself, nothing is stored.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So it&#8217;s just authentication information really that&#8217;s stored. Well, that&#8217;s kind of a given, I suppose. Otherwise you&#8217;ll be logging in every two minutes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:29] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Right. So that&#8217;s the model that we have because we really wanted people to be able to access this data, but also to keep it secure. And because of how the WordPress database is, we didn&#8217;t feel like we could save it there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It sounds from what you&#8217;ve just said, it&#8217;s as if it&#8217;s combining things from a variety of different services, kind of linking them up in a structured way so that somebody who&#8217;s not particularly experienced can make connections between, I don&#8217;t know, ads and analytics. The spend on the ads and the analytics, you know, the ROI if you like.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Does it do things uniquely? Is there something you can get inside of Site Kit which you could not get out of the individual products if you went there? Or is it just more of a, well, we&#8217;ve done the hard work for you, we&#8217;ve mapped these things together so you don&#8217;t have to think about it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:15:10] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> The one thing that it does that I&#8217;m super excited about, and we&#8217;ll build on that, but we have the fundamental of it now, is it actually creates data for you. Because in contrast to Search Console or Analytics or all these other, which are kind of Google hosted, they can only tell you like a long help center article, go there on your site, then click this, then paste this code, right? They cannot help you with this, whereas Site Kit is on the website.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if you agree, which we don&#8217;t install anything without people&#8217;s consent, like they have to activate the feature, but if you agree, then we can do things on your behalf. So for example, we can track every time someone clicks the signup button and we can generate an analytics event for you, even if that plugin normally doesn&#8217;t send analytics events. And that way, suddenly you have your conversion data available.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So very often people look to the top of the funnel, like how many people came to my site? But they don&#8217;t look to what these people did beyond kind of, oh, they stayed two minutes. So what does this mean? You want to see, did they buy the thing? Did they sign up for the thing, or subscribe or whatever it is? And we help create this data because we have this unique access to the source code of the site.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we create, for example, on leads generation or purchases. We also, every time that a specific page is viewed, we will generate an event about the author of the page. So then we can aggregate the data, which authors bring in the most page views. Let&#8217;s say you have like a site with five, six, whatever authors. Or which categories are bringing in the most engagement and these kind of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So it really does get very WordPressy. It&#8217;s not just to do with the Google side of things. It is mapping information from Google, so categories, author profiles, that kind of thing, and mapping them into the analytics that you get. Okay, that&#8217;s interesting. So it&#8217;s a two-way process, not just a one-way process.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:09] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah. It&#8217;s very much integrated with WordPress. We have also a lot of other features, like for example, that kind of stretch into other parts of the website. So this Reader Revenue Manager that I mentioned before with the prompts that you can put on your pages. You can go to the individual post and for every post there&#8217;s like a little piece of control UI that we&#8217;ve added there in the compose screen, where you can say, this is excluded from this prompt, or, you know, you can control from there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we try to integrate where it makes sense, like where the person would want to take this action. And again, because it&#8217;s on the website, we can kind of spread out beyond just this one dashboard.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And would I, as a site admin, would I be able to assign permissions to different user roles within WordPress? So for example, an editor, or a certain user profile, may be able to see a subset of data. You know, for example, I don&#8217;t know, you are involved in the spending on AdSense. But you, other user over there, you&#8217;ve got nothing to do with that. But you are into the analytics, so you can see that, and you over there you can see that. Is that possible?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:12] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> We have something called dashboard sharing. So it has the same, like if you use Google Docs or anything like that, it has this little person with a plus in the corner, icon. And then from there, if you are the admin who set up this particular Google Service, who connected it to Site Kit, then you&#8217;re able to say who should be able to see it. So you essentially grant view only access to, let&#8217;s say all the editors, or all the contributors or whatever. And then you can choose which Google service&#8217;s data they can see.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:44] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So yes is the answer to that, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:46] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah, yeah. So they don&#8217;t have to set it up, I mean, they have to go through a very simplified setup, and then they basically get a kind of a screenshot. I mean it&#8217;s, you can still click on things, but you can&#8217;t change anything, so it&#8217;s kind of a view-only dashboard.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m kind of curious about the market that you pitch this to. So sell is the wrong word because it&#8217;s a free plugin, but who you&#8217;re pitching it at. So obviously if you&#8217;ve got that end user, the site owner. Maybe they&#8217;ve got a site and they&#8217;ve got a small business with a team. Maybe it&#8217;s just them, so there&#8217;s the whole permissions thing there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But also I know that Google, there are whole agencies out there who just specialise in Google products, and analysing the data that comes out of Analytics. Can you do that as well as an agency? Could I set this up for my clients and have some, you know, I&#8217;ve got my agency dashboard and I want to give this client access to this website, and this website and this website, but not these other ones? Can it be deployed on a sort of agency basis like that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:38] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> You would still have to activate it for every individual site. So in that sense, there&#8217;s a bunch of steps that you have to go through. But once it&#8217;s activated, you can then share with any kind of client. And actually we have a lot of agencies that can install it for every site that they have.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Just today someone came and after he saw the demo, he was like, okay, I&#8217;m going to install it for all my clients. Because what we&#8217;ve heard is that it&#8217;s exactly the level of information that a client would benefit from. And this means then that they pester the agency less. So we&#8217;ve literally heard people saying, you&#8217;re saving me a lot of phone calls. So that&#8217;s why agencies really like it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the next big feature request, which we&#8217;re working on right now, is to generate like an email report out of that. So for those who don&#8217;t even want to log into WordPress to see, there will be a possibility to get this in their inbox.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So you could get it like a weekly summary, whatever it that wish to trigger. And, okay, so that could go anywhere really. And then your clients don&#8217;t even need to phone you about that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:41] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah. So we are trying to really actively reach people where they are, even if that&#8217;s their email inbox.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And the other question I have is around your relationship with some of the bigger players, maybe hosting companies. Do you have this pre-installed on hosting cPanels and their, you know, whatever it is that they&#8217;ve got in their back end?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:02] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah, we have quite a few hosting providers that pre-install it for their WordPress customers. The reason for this is that they see better lifetime value for those customers that have a good idea of how their site is doing. And yeah, Hostinger is one of those. cPanel. Elementor pre-installs it for all of their users. And they see very good feedback because again, it&#8217;s super simple to set up and super easy to understand once you have it. So for them it&#8217;s kind of like an extra feature that they can offer, extra value to their users for free.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> We know Google&#8217;s a fabulous company, but you don&#8217;t do things for nothing. So what&#8217;s the return? How does it work in reverse? So we know that presumably there must be an exchange of data. What are we signing up for if we install Site Kit?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:47] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> So, at least, I mean, Google is a huge company, right? There&#8217;s hundreds of thousands of people working. So I can&#8217;t speak for the whole of Google, but I can speak for the Ecosystem Team, which I&#8217;m part of, like the web ecosystem.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The main investment here, or the main goal for us is that the open web continues to thrive, because if people don&#8217;t put content, interesting, relevant content on the open web, the search results are going to be very poor and that&#8217;s not a good product.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So our idea is to support all the people who create content to make sure that they&#8217;re found, like if you&#8217;re a local business, that people can find you when they need stuff from that particular local business. And what we see is that, especially for smaller and medium sites, they really struggle, first with going online, and then with figuring out what they&#8217;re supposed to do. And so a lot of them give up because in comparison to other platforms, it&#8217;s a little bit of an upfront investment, right? Like you have to pay for hosting, you have to set up the site, you have to add content.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we try to help people as much as we can to see the value that the open web brings to them, so that they can continue to create for the open web. So that&#8217;s our hidden motivation. I think in that sense, we&#8217;re very much aligned with the WordPress community because here everybody cares about the open web and for all kind of small, weird websites to continue flourishing and get their like 100 or 300 or 1,000 readers that they deserve.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s the motivation. I think because it includes other things like AdSense and AdWords, like people can set up a ads campaign directly from Site Kit in a very simplified flow, and the same thing for AdSense. Obviously some money exchanges hands, but this is relatively minor compared to the benefit that we think there is for the web in general.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:23:35] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Google really does seem to have a very large presence at WordPress events. I mean, I don&#8217;t know about the smaller ones, you know, the regional sort of city based events, but at the, what they call flagship events, so WordCamp Asia and WordCamp Europe and US, there&#8217;s the whole sponsor area. And it&#8217;s usual to see one of the larger booths being occupied by Google. And I wonder, is it Site Kit that you are talking about when you are here or is it other things as well?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But also it&#8217;s curious to me that Google would be here in that presence, because those things are not cheap to maintain. So there must be somebody up in Google somewhere saying, okay, this is something we want to invest in. So is it Site Kit that you are basically at the booth talking about?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:19] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> So me, yes, or people on my team. We have like a Site Kit section this year. There&#8217;s also Google Trends. There&#8217;s also some other people talking about user experience and on search. And this changes depending on which teams within Google want to reach out to the WordPress community.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But with Site Kit, we&#8217;ve been pretty consistent for the last six years. We are always part of the booth. But the kind of whole team, like the whole Google booth content has kind of changed over the years as well depending on who&#8217;s coming.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:51] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I know that a lot of work being done is surrounding performance and things like that, and a lot of the Google staff that are in the WordPress space seem to be focused on that kind of thing, talking about the new APIs that are shipping in the browsers and all of those kind of things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, so on the face of it, a fairly straightforward product to use. But I&#8217;m guessing the devil is in the detail. How do you go about supporting this? So for example, if I was to install it and to run into some problems, do you have like a, I don&#8217;t know, a documentation area or do you have support, or chat or anything like that? Because I know that with the best will in the world, people are going to run into problems. How do people manage that kind of thing?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:27] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah, this was something that I was super, I felt really strongly about based on my previous experience in the developer advocate world. Because very often I got feedback that it&#8217;s super hard to reach Google. And it&#8217;s also understandable given the scale of some of the products.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But when I started this project I insisted that we allocate resources for support. So we have two people full-time support. One of them is upstairs, the support lead. He knows the product inside and out. They&#8217;re always on the forum, the plugin forum, support forum. And they answer usually within 24 hours. So everybody who has a question gets their question answered.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve also created the very detailed additions. When you have Site Kit, you also get a few additions to the Site Health forum, so you can share that information with them and they see like detailed stuff about the website so they can help debug. And in many, many cases, I&#8217;ve seen people coming pretty angry, leave a one star review, then James or Adam who are support people, engage with them, and then it turns into a five star review because they feel like, okay, someone listened to me and helped me figure out what is going on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have real people answering questions relatively quickly. And they don&#8217;t just go, of course they focus on the WordPress support forum, but they also check Reddit and other places where people like mentioned Site Kit, and they try to help and to direct them to the right place. So for Site Kit, we have very robust support.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, when it&#8217;s an issue with a product, a Google product that is connected to Site Kit, so it&#8217;s not a Site Kit problem, let&#8217;s say you got some kind of strange message from AdSense about your account status changing. Then we would have to hand over to the AdSense account manager or support team that they have, because we don&#8217;t know everything, like how AdSense makes decisions and stuff like that. But for anything Site Kit related, we are very fast to answer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:22] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s good to hear because I think you&#8217;re right. I think the perception with any giant company is that it kind of becomes a bit impersonal, and Google would be no exception. And having just a forum which never seems to get an answer, you drop something in, six months later, you go back and nobody&#8217;s done anything in there except close the thread, kind of slightly annoying. But something like this. So 24 hours, roughly speaking, is the turnaround time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:45] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah. I mean, not on the weekend, but yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. Still, that&#8217;s pretty amazing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:47] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah, yeah. We are very serious about this because, I mean, also the WordPress community is really strong, right? So you want to show that we care. We want to hear from people. A lot of bugs then also turn into feature requests and get prioritised to be developed. So, yeah, we really value when people come to complain. It&#8217;s a good thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Excellent. Okay, well, we won&#8217;t open that as a goal, please send in your complaints. But nevertheless, it&#8217;s nice that you take it seriously.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So it sounds like it&#8217;s under active development. You sound like this is basically what you&#8217;re doing over at Google. Do you have a roadmap? Do you have a sort of laundry list of things that you want to achieve over the next six months? Interesting things that we might want to hear about.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:21] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Sure, yeah. I mean, my ultimate vision, which is not the next six months, I would love to move away as much as possible from just stats. As curated and as kind of structured as it is right now, and get more into like recommendations, and like to-do list. Because what I hear from people again and again, it&#8217;s like, I have two hours this month, tell me what should I do with those two hours?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So they&#8217;re asking a lot from us. They&#8217;re asking essentially to look, analyse everything and to prioritise their tasks, to tell them which one is the most important or most impactful. And this is like several levels of analysis further than where we are now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So one thing that we are looking to work on is benchmarking, because you cannot know are you growing or not, unless you know how you&#8217;re doing on average. And today, people who are a little bit more savvy can do this of course, but a lot of people don&#8217;t. And so for us to be able to tell you, not just you got 20 clicks this week, but also this is okay for you, or this is better than last year, this time, or this is better than your competitors. I think that&#8217;s a really valuable way to interpret the data and to help people understand what it means.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:38] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. And really, Google is one of the only entities that can provide that kind of data.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:44] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Especially for search.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, especially against competitors. That&#8217;s really interesting because analysing the data, whilst it&#8217;s fun for some people, I feel it&#8217;s not that interesting for most people. And so just having spreadsheets of data, charts of data, it&#8217;s interesting and you no doubt gain some important knowledge from it. But being told, here&#8217;s the outcomes of that data, try doing this thing and try doing that thing, that is much more profound than just demonstrating the data.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I&#8217;m guessing, I could be wrong about this, and I&#8217;ve more or less said this in every interview over the last year, I&#8217;m guessing there&#8217;s an AI component to all of that. Getting AI to sort of analyse the data and give useful feedback.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:30:22] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> I mean, we are investigating how to do all of these things. I think in the case of WordPress, it&#8217;s a little bit trickier again, because of the distributed nature, and the fact that all the site information lives on the site and then all the Google information. So we&#8217;re not like fully hosted where you can access everything and control everything, something like a Squarespace or a Wix.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there&#8217;s definitely, like AI is a perfect use case for this, right? Like benchmarking, you can bucket sites into relevant groups and then see, are they performing better or worse? That&#8217;s like classic machine learning case. And we will see exactly, technically, how we&#8217;re going to reach this, but that&#8217;s one of the things that we&#8217;re working on right now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another thing is to expand much more the conversion reporting and to help people understand, are they achieving their goals? Because this is something that surprisingly to me, so many people pay money and invest time in the site, and they cannot articulate what the site is doing. Is it working? Is it doing its job? And they&#8217;re like, well, like I got some people visiting. And I&#8217;m like, did they buy the thing? So you have to know what to</p>\n\n\n\n<p>track, and then also to take action after you see the metrics, like to move them in one direction or another. And so helping people like map out this full funnel is one thing that we&#8217;re working on. And the other thing is also this email report.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:40] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s amazing. So really under active development. And you sound very impassioned about it. You sound like this has become your mission, you know?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:47] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> I think, nobody ever complained that something is easy, right? When you make things simple and easy for people, they appreciate, even if they&#8217;re more knowledgeable than if they can do more advanced things themselves.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I personally really care, like every time that I find a random website with really strange content, but just, someone put their soul into it. I recently found something in Zurich of like tours of Zurich, walking tours, by someone who really cares about history and architecture.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it&#8217;s a terrible website design wise, but the content is amazing. And I was like, okay, this person could use some help, but he&#8217;s doing, or she&#8217;s doing like a great job at the content part, and then should get the traffic that they deserve for this. So that&#8217;s what motivates me also to come here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>One person, two or three WordCamps ago came over and was saying, everything about Google is hard except Site Kit. And I was like, yeah, that&#8217;s what we are trying to do. We really want to simplify things for you. So, yeah, being here is also super motivating. To talk to people and to hear feedback and feature requests. And again, we like when people come to complain.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:54] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Well, I was just speaking to a few people prior to you entering the room and those few people all have Site Kit installed on their site. So you&#8217;re doing something right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:02] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> I hope it&#8217;s helpful. I hope it answers some questions and saves people some time. That&#8217;s what we are trying to do. Yeah, we are in the part of Google that has the ecosystem focus, so we know that ecosystem changes take longer. I mean, still it&#8217;s a fast growing plugin. It got to 5 million in 5 years, but still that&#8217;s 5 years. And in the context of software companies which move very fast, 5 years is a long time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, we will keep going and hopefully more people can benefit from it. But we do have, yeah, still there are many people who come by and they&#8217;re like, whoa, what is this? Show me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Well, that&#8217;s nice. There&#8217;s for growth as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:38] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah, yeah. For sure. I mean, for sure there&#8217;s always, and more people create new sites. So, again, going back to that hosting provider question of like, can we bring it to them at the moment of creation so that they know this is something I can use?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:50] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. So one more time, the URL is sitekit.withgoogle.com. I will place that into the show notes as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mariya, I think that&#8217;s everything that I have to ask. Thank you so much for chatting to me about Site Kit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:34:01] <strong>Mariya Moeva:</strong> Yeah, thank you for the invitation. It&#8217;s been a pleasure to talk about the ecosystem. And, yeah, if people have feature requests, they can always write us either on GitHub in the Site Kit repo, or on the support forum, or if they are coming to any WordCamp where we also are, we are also super happy to hear. So we always love to know what people struggle with, so that we can build it for them and make it easy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:34:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you very much indeed.</p>\n</div></details>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today we have <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariyamoeva/\">Mariya Moeva</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mariya has more than 15 years of experience in tech across search quality, developer advocacy, community building and outreach, and product management. Currently she’s the product lead for Site Kit, Google’s official WordPress plugin. She’s presented at WordCamp Europe in Basel this year, and joins us to talk about the journey from studying classical Japanese literature to fighting web spam at Google, and eventually shaping open source tools for the web.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mariya talks about her passion for the open web and how years of direct feedback from site owners shaped the vision for Site Kit, making complex analytics accessible and actionable for everyone, from solo bloggers to agencies and hosting providers.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Site Kit has had impressive growth for a WordPress plugin, currently there are 5 million active installs and a monthly user base of 700,000.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We learn how Site Kit bundles core Google products, like Search Console, Analytics, PageSpeed Insights, AdSense into a simpler, curated WordPress dashboard, giving actionable insights without the need to trawl through multiple complex interfaces.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mariya explains how the plugin is intentionally beginner-friendly, with features like role-based dashboard sharing, integration with WordPress’ author and category systems, and some newer additions like Reader Revenue Manager to help site owners become more sustainable.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>She shares Google’s motivations for investing so much in WordPress and the open web, and how her team is committed to active support, trying to respond rapidly on forums and listening closely to feedback.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We discuss Site Kit’s roadmap, from benchmarking and reporting features to smarter, more personalised recommendations in the future.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by analytics dashboards, or are looking for ways to make data more practical and valuable inside WordPress, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Useful links</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://sitekit.withgoogle.com/\">Site Kit</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://readerrevenue.withgoogle.com/\"> Reader Revenue Manager</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://trends.google.com/trends/\">Google Trends</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://sitekit.withgoogle.com/documentation/troubleshooting/site-kit-support/\">Site Kit support</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://github.com/google/site-kit-wp\">Site Kit on GitHub</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, 30 Jul 2025 14:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Nathan Wrigley\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:112:\"Open Channels FM: Navigating Rebranding Phase Two with Sunsetting Series and Channel Updates at Open Channels FM\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=104313\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:119:\"https://openchannels.fm/navigating-rebranding-phase-two-with-sunsetting-series-and-channel-updates-at-open-channels-fm/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:180:\"BobWP\'s updating us on the podcast\'s rebranding journey called \"phase two.\" He explains how they\'re changing series, sunsetting some, and keeping the good stuff fresh and relevant.\";s: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, 30 Jul 2025 09:50:56 +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:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:54:\"WordCamp Central: Highlights from WordCamp Masaka 2025\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:40:\"https://central.wordcamp.org/?p=11380324\";s: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://central.wordcamp.org/news/2025/07/highlights-from-wordcamp-masaka-2025/\";s: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:17056:\"<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p>WordCamp Masaka 2025, held from July 18–19 at Equator University of Science and Technology, wrapped up with a strong sense of community, innovation, and shared purpose. The second edition of this dynamic gathering brought together 291 attendees under the theme “Connecting Communities, Inspiring Ideas.” While we were just 9 shy of our 300-participant target, the energy and engagement made the event a resounding success.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Participants from across Uganda and beyond including speakers from South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana—engaged in the two days of insightful talks, practical workshops, and meaningful conversations about the future of WordPress and open-source collaboration.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A heartfelt thank you to our amazing sponsors for their incredible support. This event would not have been possible without your generosity.</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Admin Sponsors:</strong> <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/jetpack/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jetpack</a>, <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/bluehost/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bluehost</a>, <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/woo/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Woo</a>, <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/hosting-com/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hosting.com</a>, <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/kinsta/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kinsta</a>, <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/elementor/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elementor</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Micro Sponsors:</strong> <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/forthfocus/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fothfocus</a>, <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/die-seo-firma/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SEOFirma</a>, <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/sharebility-uganda-edutech/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sharebility Uganda</a>, <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/kasiryelabs/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">KasiryeLabs</a>, <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/sponsor/ablestate/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ablestate</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Media Partners:</strong> <a href=\"https://x.com/videoproducerug\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wrapped</a>, <a href=\"https://metaversewp.com/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MetaverseWP</a>, <a href=\"https://urban-magazine.biz/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Urban Magazine</a>, <a href=\"https://wplift.com/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WPLift</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Venue Host:</strong> <a href=\"https://equsat.ac.ug/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Equator University of Science and Technology</a></li>\n</ul>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Look at the Event</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the many impactful moments was the panel discussion titled “From Barriers to Belonging: Building Diverse &amp; Inclusive Tech Communities.” This session encouraged meaningful dialogue around representation and inclusion, prompting participants to reflect on how to build more welcoming and equitable environments in tech.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"Panel discussion at WordCamp Masaka 2025 featuring moderator Cerinah N Kasirye and panelists Sumaiya Nalukwago, Samuel Osei, and Scovia Akello Emaru discussing building diverse and inclusive tech communities.\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczOaW1CJCYusTKqynyD-xxT1_gHs3KFRMvACZ0aciRh8dwD59QhG_idqtHd4RHp30weQJqW8nNHFV8oW-8fCddA2jtPAfsXAPaOTXqODfjV8sXUWBPsgZLT_nnvHCYu3pQ7C2D8gxKoCVr9Yn4bQjBh0=w1463-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">From left: Cerinah N Kasirye (Moderator), Sumaiya Nalukwago, Samuel Osei, and Scovia Akello Emaru — panelists of “From Barriers to Belonging: Building Diverse and Inclusive Tech Communities” at WordCamp Masaka 2025.</figcaption></figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The event also featured a vibrant Student Engagement Program, which provided high school, vocational, and university students with an opportunity to explore WordPress. Through hands-on workshops, practical presentations, and networking opportunities with industry professionals, students gained valuable exposure and insights. Notably, several high school representatives expressed strong interest in bringing hands-on WordPress workshops and training sessions to their schools. They also proposed mentorship programs to help students develop real-world projects—highlighting a growing enthusiasm for learning and community involvement.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczMY8qnPrt-5qBKfvGKegcqVl35QzX0DzQywSSjJX84DKz_ajfgn9AS3WLHHdRZeyUfC7xON70Qjhx88zLA5NxuJXDj7fRlxPmqLdqXaPbzzg-tF64OVqh4vbS60Cma3T6YQRZH-IIzbhz4rNcR1IMQb4w=w1463-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczPgKp4K3RE8FPhX10ehskPvbl-FXjbaFzFzEmove07e6kdyYVesJLKutHogfoZsUAKf5Rx3esfJC6KhIazbjtCfkJgwG8iJVNmTnHUs-9LXcpY4BpuiKraH-DXXXv67PZMFbQsbtMSnNACKVeEhWlBe-A=w1463-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>The swag from Jetpack was warmly appreciated by attendees, adding a thoughtful and useful touch that made the event even more memorable.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"Thabotswana, a representative from Jetpack, seated at the Jetpack sponsor table during WordCamp Masaka 2025, with a laptop in front of him and branded Jetpack swag displayed beside him for attendees.\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczOEW8LiCRAPBh_NjNtXsTn3mrMVZJb-o7jupKFtmtUF156sOX2VL096j7PalGF07W2K7qAEY0QlaRn7gvcp3IDiGs_XwaA6rGHwqD6WbvJxQp2xNGFxOzpepQXGKcsF0DdEuE0T7KhxnncuHmbmtTWD=w1298-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Thabo Tswana from Jetpack at WordCamp Masaka 2025 sponsor table.</figcaption></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-style-default\"><img alt=\"Swag items from Jetpack displayed at WordCamp Masaka 2025\" src=\"https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GwT5JDcWsAAOBmr?format=jpg&amp;name=900x900\" /><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Jetpack swag items on display at WordCamp Masaka 2025 sponsor table.</figcaption></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<p>Key themes explored during the event included:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Community and Career Growth: Sessions offered guidance on personal and professional development within the WordPress ecosystem.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Security Focus: Attendees gained essential knowledge to protect websites and mitigate threats.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Design and Development: Practical insights covered modern workflows, full site editing, and block editor techniques.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Diversity and Inclusion: Sessions highlighted how missing perspectives create an innovation gap that could threaten WordPress’s future, emphasizing the need to build diverse and inclusive communities and empower women in tech.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Website Management: Strategies for backup, restoration, and site migration were shared.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Marketing and Innovation: Topics included growth strategies like email marketing, AI and VR applications, and WordPress’s role in sustainable development.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout the event, networking breaks and a community photo session provided ample opportunities for attendees to connect, share ideas, and build lasting relationships.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczPlwIiI4E1IzNZ2fWkYZerd9-lCg4ANwFdEMO6cO0VTqqGCxqiqT-vTcZcUw2sPOxdbtWs26CpeCNoA59fH1-yY-kKwM4j4MhAmzyALBcWtTRuRuX2EadYdL86PpDRiOwD77aSBE121wk5Mlur1wCDbBQ=w1733-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczN5i1Nay5UKSyyoVsNS_gyzSZ4okuOhwpBs9IeLmjHVXDjW39-aCxawgIvv5WYKvYrxypQOhBMlWHbxhgWxGaDsCVeke5nx1jFSVboNwP3LSbz73UHjMzqEoOyjVMvJbNDZvJld6jgm-UT8z645hQ2C=w1463-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczMKrozq1eGAVPeDIvpcRL8ERV-mjcttH64bYDtJG0eWPQredf67pkp85j-uqEjH_8uZ5Gu3dM5FoaDswtEls2A8uJIV7Qu8GFVzoBGM6iJAGhVEICe_XOnyU2WEyX59R2UIgRAYe7YbJM4XwDTBxs9k=w1463-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczMRB0TV91fj6XgeNFM7Zcg_5Xuzz3CVM6ziRoywITAQE0p1TsVM-ESguAphNNL2eMbb808KvggWywhcDumTTuAP8c9vRMZJSXgVGv3NTCecAmAXGat7XEMX2KV7dDZ-HWDv6ksKz5zxdEIeLii4ipdB=w1463-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczNAjFX5DQxfvaSWGNFsE-oGDYTYzaSNJGNUp9Vsz2PulrcmUt7St95y6R6abQjJL10oY5bGuSDog9Al3OuHy6iIjo1JwjMkMVRy4qcxYnFCTlSGJJHJW-mqYRqNiztp6QT45BzIkF7WdC6RkyNGrxWH=w1463-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczPqTl-uETljl5-2jh49daWSU0YLff065-OuLDfRYpWayqVOXG9sBQbRFxTAa0nMNmxQnmWwgC8XvKGQ4bp_LEyEYOeNuWRFXgAGft1cIJzipCcrLgaTM6HfUZ_WRWa81RqXn_Aomhld6oeYBeuj7b-zPA=w1463-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AP1GczMwMdCytIIOebKK-GXOoF9cEqbIhDvJEtqjS3VJ-CH8Ol4bQiOl4lof6N-UlAzxBjhFPqaA6ky2CfqwQARzezYaomkE9qPklpY7-fKfi8jTp2a9JHrOWSi1Mbwm024bazgJ5eAIn9gzJCJBNBIJdI3ezg=w1463-h975-s-no-gm?authuser=0\" /></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--1\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https://photos.app.goo.gl/4bD56irqtbJKUKsD7\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f4f8.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /> Browse Photo Gallery</a></div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-spacer\" style=\"height: 20px;\"></div>\n</div></div>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Impact and Community Spirit</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>WordCamp Masaka 2025 was a testament to the thriving WordPress community in Uganda. It served as a powerful platform for knowledge exchange, skill enhancement, and fostering a strong sense of camaraderie. The diverse range of topics, from technical deep-dives to discussions on community building and future technologies, ensured there was something for everyone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The enthusiasm of the speakers, the active participation of attendees, and the invaluable support from sponsors created an unforgettable experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the event, <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/thehopemonger/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Arthur Kasirye</a><strong> </strong>(Community Program Supporter),<strong> </strong><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/ssebuwufumoses/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ssebuwufu Moses</a> (WordCamp Masaka 2025 Lead Organizer),<strong> </strong>and<strong> </strong><a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/thabotswana/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thabo Tswana</a> (Event Supporter) met with <strong>Professor Mouhamad Mpezamihigo</strong>, Vice Chancellor of Equator University of Science and Technology, to introduce the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2025/07/introducing-wordpress-credits-a-new-contribution-internship-program-for-university-students/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">WordPress Credits Internship Program</span></a>—an initiative that integrates university students into the WordPress open source community through hands-on contribution projects. Professor Mpezamihigo expressed strong interest in the program and committed to formally submitting the university’s interest form, signaling a promising collaboration to advance student engagement and practical skills development.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The success of this event reinforces the growing potential of WordPress as a tool for digital empowerment and economic development in the region. The connections made and the knowledge shared will undoubtedly contribute to the continued growth and innovation within the Ugandan tech landscape.</p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Looking Ahead</strong></h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The community looks forward to building on the momentum generated by WordCamp Masaka 2025 by continuing to collaborate, learn, and contribute to the global WordPress project.</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p>Follow Masaka WordPress Meetup on X and LinkedIn for updates, news, and upcoming events.</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-social-links has-visible-labels is-style-pill-shape is-content-justification-left is-layout-flex wp-container-core-social-links-is-layout-fdcfc74e wp-block-social-links-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-x  wp-block-social-link\"><a class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\" href=\"https://x.com/WordPressMasaka\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><svg height=\"24\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"24\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><path d=\"M13.982 10.622 20.54 3h-1.554l-5.693 6.618L8.745 3H3.5l6.876 10.007L3.5 21h1.554l6.012-6.989L15.868 21h5.245l-7.131-10.378Zm-2.128 2.474-.697-.997-5.543-7.93H8l4.474 6.4.697.996 5.815 8.318h-2.387l-4.745-6.787Z\"></svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label\">X</span></a></li>\n\n<li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-linkedin  wp-block-social-link\"><a class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\" href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/company/wordcampmasaka/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"><svg height=\"24\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"24\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><path d=\"M19.7,3H4.3C3.582,3,3,3.582,3,4.3v15.4C3,20.418,3.582,21,4.3,21h15.4c0.718,0,1.3-0.582,1.3-1.3V4.3 C21,3.582,20.418,3,19.7,3z M8.339,18.338H5.667v-8.59h2.672V18.338z M7.004,8.574c-0.857,0-1.549-0.694-1.549-1.548 c0-0.855,0.691-1.548,1.549-1.548c0.854,0,1.547,0.694,1.547,1.548C8.551,7.881,7.858,8.574,7.004,8.574z M18.339,18.338h-2.669 v-4.177c0-0.996-0.017-2.278-1.387-2.278c-1.389,0-1.601,1.086-1.601,2.206v4.249h-2.667v-8.59h2.559v1.174h0.037 c0.356-0.675,1.227-1.387,2.526-1.387c2.703,0,3.203,1.779,3.203,4.092V18.338z\"></path></svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label\">LinkedIn</span></a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For more information about WordCamp Masaka 2025, please visit <a href=\"https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https://masaka.wordcamp.org/2025/</a>.</p>\n</div></div>\n</div></div>\n</div></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, 30 Jul 2025 05:50:19 +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:15:\"Ssebuwufu Moses\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:83:\"HeroPress: A Decade with WordPress: My Journey of Growth, Contribution, and Courage\";s: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=8082\";s: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:212:\"https://heropress.com/essays/a-decade-with-wordpress-my-journey-of-growth-contribution-and-courage/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-decade-with-wordpress-my-journey-of-growth-contribution-and-courage\";s: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:15545:\"<img alt=\"Pull Quote: When I look back, the journey feels full — full of lessons, full of change, and full of heart.\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" height=\"512\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/072925-min.jpg\" width=\"1024\" /><figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright is-resized\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXcRyDxyvsWpBpWWa2G9siWnD6J54uFuHtkTcHklkXSvTW8nCoC2sGRwz45NlqLHrF3V6djYlvDcmh0tdf849n6cMqg4d_9yceVVEvaWWPKR3Bgrm-qSKTGfBxjyo67aRW5gyEtC?key=5NJTv3YzQ_HvxKfiq8hX5A\" style=\"width: 245px; height: auto;\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I never imagined I’d be writing this.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ten years. A full decade of working in tech, without pause. Of growing, stumbling, learning, and showing up — with WordPress at the center of it all.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I look back, the journey feels full — full of lessons, full of change, and full of heart.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-from-india-s-city-of-lakes-to-the-heart-of-open-source\"><strong>From India’s City of Lakes to the Heart of Open Source</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This year marks a major milestone in my life — 10 years of professional experience in the WordPress ecosystem. As I reflect on this journey, it’s not just a work anniversary. It’s a story woven with personal growth, learning, community, and quiet resilience — a journey that began in a small city in <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udaipur\">Udaipur, Rajasthan, India</a>, and now reaches across the globe.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXedVMYabF4JiHteWIjqrp24wRnBnLGodWAaRQ9yY3iFP6hykY88FQ-VHse-2WX-HYOeiWzn6-J8wuulsTXfMkFFvSBW3eGXl8LyB50CEAE_aXLdQRFEwVKQ9QXh9SEFR93l9wnPFg?key=5NJTv3YzQ_HvxKfiq8hX5A\" style=\"width: 805px; height: auto;\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I was born and raised in Udaipur — a city known for its lakes and history, but not especially for tech companies. After completing my college degree, like many fresh graduates, I faced the uncertainty of landing a job — especially with the added constraint of staying in my hometown. Thankfully, my parents were incredibly supportive. They guided me, encouraged me, and reminded me that ambition has no boundaries — not even geographical ones.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-unexpected-beginning\"><strong>The Unexpected Beginning</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Though I had trained in software testing, I didn’t know much about WordPress back then. I stumbled into the WordPress world by joining a local startup in Udaipur. That decision would change the course of my life.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The company, led by <a href=\"https://heropress.com/essays/wordpress-my-future/\">Puneet Sahalot</a>, was where my real journey began. Puneet, a close friend and mentor, introduced me to WordPress — its structure, its vastness, and more importantly, its values. He had a gift for seeing potential in people and believed in exploring uncharted paths. Puneet is no longer with us today, but his wisdom and encouragement remain a cornerstone in my journey.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>With his influence, I began digging deeper into WordPress. Finding my first bug on the WordPress core was a moment of both confusion and pride. Submitting it felt like stepping into a world where I didn’t just work on projects — I became part of a global movement.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>“That one bug wasn’t just a bug — it was a beginning.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>That first bug ignited something within me. I started contributing to various areas — from core testing to translations, organizing local WordCamps, and even speaking at events. It felt empowering to give back to something that gave me so much.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_1987.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8096\" height=\"800\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_1987.jpg\" width=\"800\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/9c4e2977-d4b6-44b4-a5d5-87ba4ece3883.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8100\" height=\"576\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/9c4e2977-d4b6-44b4-a5d5-87ba4ece3883.jpg\" width=\"1024\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/7704fd56-150f-4ff7-a68d-c432269a8c5e.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8101\" height=\"768\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/7704fd56-150f-4ff7-a68d-c432269a8c5e-1024x768.jpg\" width=\"1024\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/f6e17e30-332e-4084-9a79-8b7720015785.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8102\" height=\"768\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/f6e17e30-332e-4084-9a79-8b7720015785-1024x768.jpg\" width=\"1024\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_9437.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8103\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_9437-984x1024.jpg\" width=\"984\" /></a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Screenshot</figcaption></figure>\n</figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-growth-beyond-comfort-zones\"><strong>Growth Beyond Comfort Zones</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Marriage brought a new chapter — I moved to a metro city and joined <a href=\"https://brainstormforce.com/\">Brainstorm Force</a>, where I worked on a suite of powerful WordPress products, including the very popular Astra theme.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>From a small local team to a larger product-driven organization, the shift was both challenging and fulfilling. I moved from being a tester to becoming a Product Manager, learning to balance leadership, quality assurance, user experience, and team collaboration. I found myself not just testing products — but shaping them.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>I was also incredibly grateful to have a life partner who encouraged me to aim higher and supported my ambitions every step of the way.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the proudest moments in my journey was being selected to lead the test team for the WordPress 5.6 and 5.7 releases. It was surreal. The appreciation and recognition I received from the global community made me realize how far I had come — from finding my first bug to helping others make WordPress better.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-2 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_9461.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8104\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_9461-922x1024.jpg\" width=\"922\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/unnamed.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8107\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/unnamed-766x1024.jpg\" width=\"766\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/unnamed.png\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8108\" height=\"189\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/unnamed-1024x189.png\" width=\"1024\" /></a></figure>\n</figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-a-new-rhythm-work-and-motherhood\"><strong>A New Rhythm: Work and Motherhood</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Life shifted gears again when I joined <a href=\"https://caseproof.com/\">Caseproof</a> (<a href=\"https://memberpress.com/\">MemberPress</a>) — a fully remote role that brought with it the flexibility I needed at a very important time in my life.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Working remotely was a new experience but quickly became a blessing. When I became a mother, I embraced both worlds with open arms. I continued to work with the same dedication, sometimes holding my daughter in one arm while debugging with the other. My work never stopped, and my love for WordPress only deepened.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>These moments, though challenging, became proof that passion, purpose, and parenthood can co-exist beautifully. Each bug fixed, each feature tested, each call attended — became part of a rhythm that blended professional focus with maternal joy.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>“I didn’t take big leaps. I took small steps. But I took them every day. That’s how I got here.”</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Some days were messy. Some were magical. But all of them were mine.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-3 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_3196-scaled.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8109\" height=\"768\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_3196-1024x768.jpg\" width=\"1024\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_9721-scaled.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8099\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_9721-768x1024.jpg\" width=\"768\" /></a></figure>\n</figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-beyond-the-screen-the-explorer-in-me\"><strong>Beyond the Screen: The Explorer in Me</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Outside of my professional life, I’m a passionate foodie and an avid traveler. Exploring new places and trying different cuisines fills me with joy and curiosity. So far, I’ve had the privilege of visiting <strong>30 countries</strong> — each one offering a unique flavor, story, and lesson.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recently, my family and I began a new chapter by relocating to <strong><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai\">Dubai</a></strong>. It’s a city that’s fast-paced, full of opportunity, and incredibly vibrant — and we’re absolutely loving it so far. This new environment continues to inspire both my personal and professional sides in unexpected ways.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-4 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_6636-scaled.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8111\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_6636-768x1024.jpg\" width=\"768\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_5727-scaled.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8110\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_5727-768x1024.jpg\" width=\"768\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_1726-scaled.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8098\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/IMG_1726-768x1024.jpg\" width=\"768\" /></a></figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/753fb658-ee15-4087-9665-1b8c23255d34-scaled.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8112\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/753fb658-ee15-4087-9665-1b8c23255d34-768x1024.jpg\" width=\"768\" /></a></figure>\n</figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-still-learning-still-contributing\"><strong>Still Learning, Still Contributing</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Even after 10 years, I still feel like a student. The tech world evolves fast, and I try to keep pace. Recently, I’ve been diving into modern testing tools like <strong><a href=\"https://playwright.dev/\">Playwright</a></strong> and <strong><a href=\"https://www.cypress.io/\">Cypress</a></strong>, and experimenting with <strong>AI-based automation</strong> — which is not just fascinating but necessary in today’s evolving digital landscape.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m excited to explore new contribution opportunities in WordPress — mentoring, accessibility testing, performance initiatives, and more. There’s always more to give back, and more to learn.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-final-thoughts\"><strong>Final Thoughts</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This journey wasn’t built on dramatic turns or overnight success. It was made up of steady progress, genuine passion, and a strong belief in community and consistency.</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>To those starting out, unsure of their path — your story is waiting. Take that first step.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>“You can build a global impact even from a small city. WordPress doesn&#8217;t ask where you&#8217;re from — it only asks, what will you contribute?”</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-reflections-after-10-years\"><strong><img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f30a.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /> Reflections After 10 Years</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If I’ve learned anything over these ten years, it’s this:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You don’t need to be loud to be seen.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>You don’t need to do it all at once.</li>\n\n\n\n<li>You just need to keep showing up — honestly, consistently, and with curiosity.<br /></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-let-s-connect\"><strong>Let’s Connect</strong></h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f4e7.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /><a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/monika-rao-7261a185/\"> LinkedIn</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li> <img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f4bb.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /><a href=\"https://github.com/monika-12\"> GitHub</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"http://twitter.com/monikarao13\"> <img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f310.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /> Twitter</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If you ever want to talk about testing, WordPress contributions, remote work, motherhood, or just career growth, feel free to reach out. I’d love to help, share, and learn with you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https://heropress.com/essays/a-decade-with-wordpress-my-journey-of-growth-contribution-and-courage/\">A Decade with WordPress: My Journey of Growth, Contribution, and Courage</a> appeared first on <a 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, 30 Jul 2025 04:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:10:\"Monika Rao\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:86:\"Open Channels FM: Designing for Clients Using Figma Systems and WordPress Block Themes\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=104272\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"link\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:93:\"https://openchannels.fm/designing-for-clients-using-figma-systems-and-wordpress-block-themes/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:217:\"In the first episode of Publishing Flow, host Derek and Ash Shaw talk about how Figma transformed their WordPress workflow, enhancing design collaboration, client workflows, and even open-sourcing their design system.\";s: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, 29 Jul 2025 12:22:11 +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:5:\"BobWP\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:53:\"Carlos Bravo: Enable xdebug on wordpress-develop repo\";s: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://carlosbravo.blog/?p=1222\";s: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:76:\"https://carlosbravo.blog/2025/07/28/enable-xdebug-on-wordpress-develop-repo/\";s: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:1492:\"<p>Just adding this for my future self&#8217;s health. First, update the PHP config file.</p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>// Enable xdebug.\n\n...\nxdebug.mode=develop,debug\n...</code></pre>\n\n\n\n<p>The VSCode launch file:</p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>{\n    \"version\": \"0.2.0\",\n    \"configurations\": &#91;\n		{\n			\"name\": \"Listen for XDebug\",\n			\"type\": \"php\",\n			\"request\": \"launch\",\n			\"port\": 9003,\n			\"pathMappings\": {\n				\"/var/www\": \"${workspaceFolder}\",\n			},\n		},\n    ]\n}\n</code></pre>\n\n\n\n<p>Do not forget to update your <code>.env</code> file.</p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>...\n\n# Where to run WordPress from. Valid options are \'src\' and \'build\'.\nLOCAL_DIR=src\n\n# The PHP version to use. Valid options are \'latest\', and \'{version}-fpm\'.\nLOCAL_PHP=latest\n\n# Whether or not to enable Xdebug.\nLOCAL_PHP_XDEBUG=true\n\n...</code></pre>\n\n\n\n<p>Beware of trying to make it work with AI; you may end up with some hallucinations and tons of files!</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img alt=\"Screenshot of a code editor displaying a file tree with nine changed files, including php-config-enhanced.ini, launch.json, and xdebug-test.php.\" class=\"wp-image-1230\" height=\"280\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/carlosbravo.blog/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-28-at-18.16.29.png?resize=320%2C280&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"320\" /><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">AI generated and updated files, that are not needed in my case.</figcaption></figure>\";s: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, 28 Jul 2025 16:18:59 +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:12:\"Carlos Bravo\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:109:\"Gutenberg Times: Gutenberg Changelog 119 – WordPress 6.8.2 and 6.9, Gutenberg 21.1, 21.2, and 21.3 Releases\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:53:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?post_type=podcast&p=40947\";s: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://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-119-wordpress-6-8-2-and-6-9-gutenberg-21-1-21-2-and-21-3-releases/\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:11:\"description\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:49786:\"<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack and guest Tammie Lister discuss the latest WordPress and Gutenberg updates, including WordPress 6.8.2 and 6.9, as well as Gutenberg plugin releases 21.1, 21.2, and 21.3. They highlight the renewed excitement around shipping features, the introduction of a core AI team, and significant developments such as Data Views, advanced admin design planning, and ongoing work on collaborative editing. The episode emphasizes the importance of experimenting with new tools, building muscle memory, and encouraging feedback to help shape the evolution of WordPress and Gutenberg.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-69-gutenberg-releases-wordpress-6-0-1-the-create-block-theme/#shownotes\">Show Notes</a> / <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-69-gutenberg-releases-wordpress-6-0-1-the-create-block-theme/#transcript\">Transcript</a></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Editor: <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandy-reed/\">Sandy Reed</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Logo: <a href=\"https://markuraine.com/\">Mark Uraine</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Production: <a href=\"https://icodeforapurpose.com\">Birgit Pauli-Haack</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-larger-font-size\" id=\"shownotes\"><strong>Show Notes</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/11/wordpress-6-9-planning-proposal-and-call-for-volunteers/\">WordPress 6.9 Planning Proposal and Call for Volunteers</a></p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/07/17/ai-building-blocks/\"><strong>AI Building Blocks for WordPress</strong></a>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/07/17/php-ai-api/\">PHP AI Client</a>  (<a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/php-ai-client\">GitHub)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/07/17/abilities-api/\">Abilities API</a> (former Feature API) (<a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/abilities-api\">GitHub</a>)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/07/17/mcp-adapter\">MCP Adapter</a> (<a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/mcp-adapter\">GitHub</a>) </li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/ai/2025/07/17/ai-experiments-plugin\">AI Experiments Plugin</a> <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/ai\">(GitHub</a>)</li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Ryan Welcher livestreams</strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqLXvOneHHw\">Is the Feature API the Future of WordPress?</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwWcnZbsElQ\">Unlocking Potential: Feature API Meets WordPress and LLMs</a></li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Jonathan Bossenger livestreams</strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tee4mifo4kw\">Feature API  (Now Abilities API) updates &amp; building a block with Claude Code</a> </li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q-1aGvHfqo\">WordPress MCP &amp; Feature API updates </a></li>\n</ul>\n</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What&#8217;s released</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/news/2025/07/wordpress-6-8-2-maintenance-release/\">WordPress 6.8.2 Maintenance Release</a> </li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/18/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-2-16-july/\">What’s new in Gutenberg 21.2? (16 July)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/07/02/whats-new-in-gutenberg-21-1/\">What’s new in Gutenberg 21.1? (2nd July)</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v21.3.0-rc.1\">Gutenberg 21.3 RC 1 </a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What’s in active development or discussed</h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/70711\">Update Experiments settings screen to use DataForms</a></li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/70751\">Template Versioning: preserve active plugin/theme templates</a></li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\">Stay in Touch</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Did you like this episode? <a href=\"https://lovethepodcast.com/gutenbergchangelog\"><strong>Please write us a review </strong></a></li>\n\n\n\n<li>Ping us on X (formerly known as Twitter) or send DMs with questions. <a href=\"https://twitter.com/gutenbergtimes\">@gutenbergtimes </a>and <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bph\">@bph</a>.</li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>If you have questions or suggestions, or news you want us to include, send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a>. </em></li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Please write us a review on iTunes! <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/itunes/\">(Click here to learn how)</a></em></li>\n</ul>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\" id=\"transcript\"><strong>Transcript</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:00:12]: Well, welcome to our 119th episode of the Good Merck Changelog podcast. In today&#8217;s episode, we&#8217;ll talk about WordPress 6.8.2, WordPress 6.9, Gutenberg plugin releases 21.1, 2 and 3. And then we have two couple of things that are still in the works that need your feedback and discussions. I&#8217;m your host, Birgit Pauli-Haack, curator at the Gutenberg Times and WordPress developer advocate and core contributor for WordPress. Tammie is joining me today and I&#8217;m so happy to be able to catch up with my dear friend. Tammie was the design lead on the Gutenberg Project Phase one and still contributes a ton to the project. She sponsored two days a week by a range of awesome companies and individuals, and she&#8217;s also a co-founder of Guildenberg, a company focused on empowering and supporting product makers and also creates products herself. Welcome Tammie to our show. How are you today?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:01:10]: I&#8217;m great. How are you?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:01:12]: Oh, I&#8217;m good, I&#8217;m good. Yeah. I&#8217;m still on Vacation Brain. It&#8217;s my second week back and it&#8217;s the first episode so I don&#8217;t know if I speak Norwegian, German, English or any other language.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:01:24]: So I think you just need to hold on to that Vacation Brain. It&#8217;s important right it for a while.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:01:31]: Well, it&#8217;s holding on to me actually quite a bit. So when you were last on the show it was January, that&#8217;s half a year ago. So a lot has happened since. Anything that stands out for you that you&#8217;re excited about, that you&#8217;re working on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:01:48]: And that you, yeah, tiny really not significant thing called the core AI team that been released and also just everyone focusing together for 6.9. I feel the most significant thing I think is just the force that everyone is rejuvenated with working in this in the direction of features and the excitement everyone has about shipping. I don&#8217;t know about you, but there&#8217;s generally like a, a shipping is in the air. That’s what it feels like at the moment. People want to ship things and make things and then explore the things. And I think we&#8217;re going to find as we kind of go through the change log. That&#8217;s what caught me as I was, I was reading it, people are using these features and then going oops, I need this. Oops, I need this. And that is what makes everything better as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:02:37]: Yes, I agree with you. There&#8217;s a lot of creativity in the air. There&#8217;s a lot of excitement about what&#8217;s coming next. With the AI, but also just with how to work with the Gutenberg editor. Now that&#8217;s really at a total different level. Yeah, I totally get it. Okay, so let&#8217;s get started. </p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Announcements</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>WordPress 6.9 well, the good news is there will be a second major release in 2025. Since the end of May, Automattic has said they&#8217;re contributing again to the open source project. And so some of the contributors are back, but there are also new ideas in there that are coming. So the core committers met in a quarterly meeting earlier. You&#8217;re one of the core committers, so you were at the meeting, but I know Cheltenham rules there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister </em>[00:03:23]: Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:03:24]: And then out came a proposal that Jeff Paul published on the make blog with a planning proposal as well as the call for volunteers. So Beta 1 is scheduled for October 21st. If the release team that comes together kind of follows the plan and then the release candidate, which is very important for a lot of things, is November 11th, and the final release is then December 2nd in 2025. So from what I hear, and please correct me if I&#8217;m wrong or add to it what I&#8217;m missing, it&#8217;s going to be a little bit more improvements on the design tools. It&#8217;s the new admin design. At some point we will see something more in the release and there will also be maybe even just in experimental ways in Gutenberg collaborative editing. There&#8217;s some explorations, big explorations in the media library, what else.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:04:22]: So I think a lot of it&#8217;s being worked out at the moment and the roadmap post is due. So everything you say, I think it&#8217;s to be determined the boundaries of a lot of those things. But the best way that I can frame it is 6.9 will lay a lot of the groundwork for 7.0 as well. So for some of these things that we want, we have to do some infrastructure just like we had to do with Gutenberg in the phases we have to do infrastructure before. So just to suddenly go ta da, here&#8217;s an admin redesign that would be a little bit a lot for people. So how that happens in what ways, that happens in what areas, that is something that&#8217;s. It&#8217;s either I use the word sprinkles, that&#8217;s a weird word to use. But either some areas more functional could be in 6.9. I think it&#8217;s been worked out at the moment where that is the most useful. But at least friction, I think that&#8217;s the best way to. You know, it&#8217;s one of those Venn diagrams. How can we get the most feedback without causing the least issues at the same time? There&#8217;s been lots of different talks about how that could be done. Everyone will have an opinion and I think that&#8217;s just going to shape up over the next kind of few weeks and then we will see from there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:05:31]: Yeah, yeah, I, I like that. You know, the, the. All those expirations and aspirations in the air. We&#8217;ll see where that all lands and. Yeah. Will you hear it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:05:40]: You.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:05:40]: You will hear it at the Gutenberg Changelog first, because a lot of things will happen in the Gutenberg plugins in the following releases. If my calculations are correct, I think 21.8 will be the plugin release that will make all the features into the 6.9 release. Could be also release candidate 20.9 or something like that. But yeah, something like that. So there are a few. We are at three now, so there are five more Gutenberg releases and we will find out what will make it and what will be still in experiments or just the underlying infrastructure. You mentioned it before. AI is in the air. Around WordCamp Europe there was a new core team announced and we talked about it a month ago with Annabella and Anne McCarthy. Vacation Brain. </p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Community Contributions</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So this week James LePage, one of the team reps, published a post called AI Building Blocks for WordPress. And he outlines first that it&#8217;s not going to be primarily in core. It&#8217;s more like everything is built as a canonical plugin, like a feature plugin, and to void kind of early login into a space that&#8217;s highly not settled and still exploratory, all the standards or something like that. So there are four plugins. One is the PHP AI client SDK. SDK stands for Software Development Kit. So for any that any developer who wants to include AI features can build an appliance for that. Then the Abilities API, you might have heard about it under the name Feature API. That has changed. It&#8217;s now Abilities API and that is that you can register features from your plugin that NNI can react on or act on. And then the MCP adapter, that&#8217;s Model Content protocol adapter for WordPress. And then the last one is the AI Experiments plugin, which is actually a showcase plugin to reel it all in. Yeah, so that&#8217;s kind of that what the post outlines.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:07:57]: Yeah, and I think the Experiments plugin is, as you say, it&#8217;s where everyone&#8217;s going to come together and use these things and also show people how to use these things and how they could implement them. We&#8217;ve had experiments in Gutenberg, we&#8217;ve kind of tucked away. We&#8217;ve also had experiments in design, we&#8217;ve had experiments in theme and I really love this because everyone is trying to work out how on earth they do AI, how on earth they do things where they can be useful in these projects. And one of these things can be maybe you do not know how to very few people do how to do PhPSD or MCP, all these kind of things but you really want to start learning that then being involved in the experiments plugin gives you an opportunity to kind of ride along and start to learn and discover with these teams that are already at that edge and exploring and it&#8217;s more on product kind of work in those kind of pieces.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:08:56]: Yeah, for sure. So if you also want to kind of Follow along Experience WordPress developers I know that Jon Bossenger has a live stream on Twitch where he kind of explores the new things and figures out a way to actually implement something. So he has used the Abilities API to create courses in Sensei via an AI client. So if you want to see how that&#8217;s going to work, go to the YouTube channel of Jon Bossenger. I definitely will share the link in the show notes about that. I also know that Ryan Welcher on his Twitch streams did quite a few experimentations with that lately. He&#8217;s doing his block development cookbook but afterwards he&#8217;s going to jump into AI again. But the previous editions definitely had some MCP and abilities API explorations there. That might be interesting for you because when you see an experienced developer kind of explore things and kind of also go detours. Yeah. You get a better way of thinking for yourself and your head around things that work.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:09:59]: Many, many of them are also exploring it like it&#8217;s a new thing for everybody even if you are an experienced developer. So being able to sit there and as someone who&#8217;s talking through and working through it really helps you kind of feel it&#8217;s not just you that maybe.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:10:14]: Doesn&#8217;t understand.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:10:17]: We&#8217;re all trying to work out where everything goes and how this new world functions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:10:22]: Yeah. You are not alone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:10:24]: Yes. Which is what&#8217;s also exciting. And one of the things that&#8217;s also mentioned in the Roadmap is Gutenberg Phase three. A lot of the pieces in there, from the admin redesign to collaborative editing, all of and the Media Lab, which I&#8217;m so excited about. Media is one of my little pet things. But being able to have all of that work be looked at as well, is going to be very exciting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:10:49]: Yeah, yeah. For sure. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. </p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What’s Released &#8211; WordPress 6.8.2</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>What&#8217;s released? Well, just this week came out WordPress 6.8.2 maintenance release with about 15 block editor fixes as well as 20 core tickets. A full list of bugs is in the release candidate announcement. You get from the release post block editor features where some of the bigger problems with the navigation link some fixed the query loop bug that overrode the query inherit attribute. Yeah. So it&#8217;s a nice good bug fix maintenance release that makes life a little bit easier and squashes some bugs. </p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gutenberg 21.1</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>And that brings us to Gutenberg 21.1 release. There were a few enhancements in there. Do you want to take it on and kick it off?</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Enhancements</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:11:40]: Yeah, I&#8217;m going to start with the block library, which is always a good place to start. It&#8217;s been around for a while, but it still is really good to kind of refine it. And the big pieces here really. Comments pagination had some unwanted block margin. Little things like this though feel like they&#8217;re small but they&#8217;re really significant for something that you. You go to time and time again having that unwanted margin and there&#8217;s little refinements and to me it shows maturity and that little refinement coming through. And then this navigation block. I actually was part of this piece with the sub indicator. This shows sometimes a small thing can feel. So it&#8217;s where the flip submenu. So the submenu indicates whether something has a submenu or not. And it wasn&#8217;t showing it, it wasn&#8217;t visually indicating. And it seems like something would be a very easy commit. It is not because it has a lot more implications in testing. So it shows in collaboration how we should have more extensive testing helps as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:12:45]: Yeah, yeah, I can see that. And for the bottom margin, if they are unwanted kind of and removed, I can see quite a few theme developers who. Who fixes that on their theme with custom CSS. Now they need to kind of also remove the custom cms.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:13:02]: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:13:02]: To fix that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:13:03]: So which is good. But it also shows that if you are making these. So. So one of the things I always suggest is have a kind of hacks file or at least a section so you know that you&#8217;ve hacked it. So you know you&#8217;ve worked around the system, not just kind of hide it within your theme. And it&#8217;s really important to notice these releases and check back if you possibly can with and kind of the last one here in the block Library is remove screencast.com embed block variation. So again, if something isn&#8217;t getting used as much, been able to take that away.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:13:35]: Yeah, absolutely. And well, they also need to take away the O embed part in Core, not only in Gutenberg there. Yeah, so and then there were some updates on the interactivity API that&#8217;s certainly interesting for developers who have actually explored that already. There&#8217;s now support for new router regions where you can click on and jump to and it supports also new styles and script models on the client side navigation. And it also starts using TypeScript for some of the helpers and some of the components or things. I call them modules. So you can better test it against and make sure that your code is compliant there. So the next thing is really exciting for me because I&#8217;m always. I hear a lot of plugin developers kind of talking about extensibility and now we have one block is actually really easy to extend and allow additional block variations. That&#8217;s the social icons block. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now you can add any other service that is not maintained by Core easily in a block variation easily. And the PR is 70261 if you want to jump on it has some nice instructions on how to do this. I also know that Justin Tadlock is working on a tutorial for the block developer for the developer blog. Not Block, blog. I&#8217;m really excited about it because I&#8217;m or it came to a good timing for myself. I&#8217;m working on a block theme for the good work times and we have the podcast there, and the podcast needs additional things in there like the podcast name and the description is one thing, but you also need additional social icons where you can subscribe to the blog and to the podcast. So I identified seven of them and of course only one of them is in Core and I need to create the other six of them. I did my first trial on it and it was fairly easy to do. It gets a little bit complicated when you have your own styling to it. But if you&#8217;re just going to push it into the Gutenberg interface and let the user style it or change color pretty much, then it&#8217;s fairly easy to implement.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bug Fixes</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:16:00]: So I guess we move on to bug fixes now and then. Bug fixes. This is one of my favorite sections really because it means we&#8217;re just kind of cleaning up a little bit. So calendar block colors do not change between global styles and theme JSON things like that we spoke about like the theme fixing things, things like that, really, really important. Quality of life changes, and then social links allow icon size to be reset and on a theme. Jason Styles. That&#8217;s 70380. That is really, really important as well. Again, a Quality of Life. And you were talking about hacks. There probably has been a hack that you had to put in to kind of work around that as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:16:39]: Yeah. For both of them for the calendar blog as well as for the social links.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:16:42]: Yeah, I can imagine there&#8217;s like a not important for the second one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:16:50]: Yeah. Yeah. I also came to accustomed to study the bug fixes because sometimes you run into bugs and say is it still there and. Or is it not? And all of them. Oh, it&#8217;s not there anymore. And it&#8217;s kind of really.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:17:03]: And then you can just clean up your bug file, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:17:06]: Yeah. And you can clean up your brain with the workarounds. Not only the theme files but also the memory stuff. Yeah. And that is pretty much what I found interesting in the Gutenberg 21.1 there&#8217;s a whole changelog with tooling and documentation updates and the release post actually has all the change log in there. So you can read up about that. </p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gutenberg 21.2</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>And we&#8217;re coming to Gutenberg 21.2 and here we see already some changes to the Data Views. It introduces the per page sizes to control the available size of the items per page. So that is something that comes from the admin where you can say it&#8217;s kind of getting feature part on the WP admin view you can say okay, I want 50 things on my page. Please do this also on the new Data View. So that&#8217;s cool.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:18:04]: Yeah, I love this. This also and the kind of next release shows that Data Views is getting used by people because it shows that we need to improve it. I am someone that has been using Data Views in situations and they are great, but they are quite limiting. And it means the more potential you have, the more easily it is to use for an implement. And it also means more feedback. So that&#8217;s what&#8217;s happening and how and improvements are happening. So yeah, the more things like this, whenever you see Data Views or API, that&#8217;s what gets me very happy. I like the other fixes, but this sets us. It&#8217;s moving us forward. And I think sometimes a lot of this can feel hidden because it&#8217;s more like the infrastructure in the sense. But Data Views, data Forms and API work, it really just moves us forward.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:18:53]: Yeah. So can you share in what kind of situations you use the Data Views?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:18:59]: I&#8217;ve been using a lot of experimental, so one of the big things I&#8217;ve been doing is anytime I&#8217;m creating a plugin that&#8217;s pretty much what I use for my interface at the moment. I am trying to not have the normal the interface we use. I&#8217;m trying to use the Data Views from now on because it&#8217;s the way we&#8217;re going. So it feels a lot more natural to do. It&#8217;s easy to do it on the front and you can do it on the back. You can choose how much you have a little bit depending on what you want to do. You may have to do wrappers, all those kinds of different things. So. But again through a lot of it&#8217;s through experimentation but through doing experimentation you find the limitations. So there was a ticket that there&#8217;s been a few people having a conversation. The limitation on settings for example tangent to Data Views you can&#8217;t have a two column necessarily under a particular situation but if you want to do that there needs to be bug fixes. So it&#8217;s by using and by finding out we need to use them in particular situations. So again this having per pages and the one after this improving inline all of these kind of things allow you to be able to start to implement in different ways.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:20:11]: Yeah, yeah. And I can also see that there&#8217;s. There&#8217;s two effects in there with starting now to use the Data Views. One is you get a lot of experiments and practice in it. So experience is kind of you try to adopt it, see how you fail or the system fails and then you can improve upon it. But the muscle memory that you build that you kind of get into the new API really pushes you forward when things then land in core.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:20:39]: And I was lucky enough, I think it was back in November. Goodness me, at Core Dev Days there was an awesome workshop in it and, and that it feels a long time ago now, but it felt kind of like it wasn&#8217;t early with Data Views but it kind of felt that it was earlier and. But that version feels very far away from the version that we&#8217;re getting to play with now and the version now it&#8217;s a lot less grumpy when you implement it. So I would encourage everyone just if you, if you&#8217;re gonna make something and you just want to experiment with it, just start playing with it and see about implementing it. There&#8217;s some great stuff on the developer blog about using it which is just easy to follow. I think it&#8217;s been recently updated. Unless you would know that I think it&#8217;s been updated or recently updated.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:21:29]: Yeah, I think one mom did a blog post about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The next one is. Do you want to take the next one too?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:21:38]: Yes. So that&#8217;s a block library one. So the block library add open in app toggle. That&#8217;s like a one those like tongue twisters open in new tab toggle to navigation block sidebar. Okay, so this one, what I like about this is it shows a consistency of interface and actually it shows it even more so if you and I the nerd that I am, I like reading back into tickets and. And actually it shows that. So when it got implemented, one of the last comments is we need to roll this out places to make sure it&#8217;s consistent. So it&#8217;s adding a consistency but then it needs to be rolled out to make sure it&#8217;s consistent in other places. So the interface that we have is great. But if it&#8217;s not consistent. So yeah, that. That&#8217;s what it does. It puts it in the relevant place for where you need the information at the right time and then it&#8217;s rolling it out. So it&#8217;s. It&#8217;s a small quality of life thing. But these. That&#8217;s the type of thing we need to do with the editor interface at the moment.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:22:41]: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Because you cannot just say oh, I&#8217;m in a different context. Why is it not working like that. Yeah, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:22:49]: And. And thinking we now know where people are looking at the time. Like you can make a best guess. You can be like me kind of. But there is a language that is becoming and the language that is refining and then that means we can take some things away and we can really refine where things go.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:23:05]: Yeah, there was. So the next thing is what the format library that improves the inline image replacement workflow. I have not quite figured out what that does, but I&#8217;m just recently discovered the inline image. Again. I kind of was at the early on image block fan and not doing anything in line with images. But I like when you do icons in there or cannot because the whole paragraph works differently when you have an image in there and then you have to fiddle with it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:23:37]: Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:23:37]: And so they. They improve the workflow. I&#8217;m not sure if that&#8217;s getting there. It&#8217;s getting there. Yeah. So if you are using inline images. Yeah. Check it out and see if it really helps you with getting around that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:23:51]: So in the block editor. So this ticket says allow replacing the post locked modal component 70586 but if you kind of dig into this the too long don&#8217;t read is prep for collaborative editing work. So it&#8217;s basically providing a filter for that which is such an enticing kind of part of it. So in order to be able to build again like what we were talking about, we want all these things in 6.9 and 7, but we need some infrastructure. We need that extensibility and we need the foundations to be able to do that. You can&#8217;t just slap a layer on it and ta da. It just works. So we need all this infrastructure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:24:29]: Yeah. And it&#8217;s also a shift in kind of approach of things. We have 20 years was only one person editing a post and now we need to get ready that multiple people adding a post. So all the lock things need to be a little bit moving from a.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:24:44]: Book to an iPad.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:24:49]: This was really a book to an iPad. The iPad is still one person using it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:24:53]: Well, yeah, but it&#8217;s multiple layered.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:24:55]: Yeah, it definitely gets more complex. Yeah. When multiple people do things and when instead of one.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:25:02]: Yeah, that&#8217;s a tin can with a bit of string to a zoom. There you go. That&#8217;s a random analogy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:25:12]: Yeah, that&#8217;s a good analogy. It&#8217;s like, it&#8217;s like from the caveman to the. Yeah, the Middle Ages. Yeah. Yeah. We have some changes in the components library and there&#8217;s now the date calendar and date range calendar components. They seem to have been missing and now they&#8217;re here. So you can use them for your interfaces when you do events, something like that, or scheduling things. So you have more components to work with and you don&#8217;t have to build them yourself.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:25:46]: But that&#8217;s also part of the design system which we need. Right. So part of it is again the first version. It&#8217;s best bet. It&#8217;s like we think we know, but it when in phase one, when we were building an editor now we needed all these components and all these pieces because we were building an editor, we were making paragraphs and headings. That&#8217;s what we were doing. And it&#8217;s not that anymore.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a kit that you can build anything you possibly can think of. So therefore it needs all the pieces of an interface kit to be able to extend so the components. And it&#8217;s now a question of that. Does it need everything? No, because that&#8217;s a lot to maintain. But it&#8217;s certainly if something is used frequently and is going to be like really required by the interface frequently, then it needs to have it. So having our own components or at least having something like native is really, really important.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:26:44]: Yeah. Especially now when they get to the. The whole new admin is built on components greater now.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Liste</em>r [00:26:52]: And it also means that product makers can use those components a lot easier.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:26:56]: Lovely. Yeah. You don&#8217;t have to make decisions about interfaces anymore.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:26:59]: Yes. I was like, I need a calendar, I need it to work, I need an age.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:27:04]: What are the attributes?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:27:07]: Yeah. And then I think often people like is. Oh, it&#8217;s always going to look. No, you can style it into your heart&#8217;s content. It can be pink with sparkles if you really want. Maybe don&#8217;t do that. But you. But that&#8217;s the thing of a component. You are getting the bones and the structure and the muscle. You aren&#8217;t necessarily getting the makeup.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:27:29]: But it&#8217;s a weird analogy day. Yeah. But it&#8217;s good. Yeah. Yeah. For the Interactivity API, maybe we kind of need to think about some of the knowledge is there. But the two additional PRs that came into good 20.1 will prioritize the custom. Click event handlers for full page navigation that&#8217;s now enabled and then also Preserve media. Preserve media attributes on the initial style sheet after client side navigation. So it&#8217;s a client side navigation. It&#8217;s a full page navigation that has been more stable on the. With the interactivity API. So router feature that was started last plugin released and now it&#8217;s coming. It came in an additional feature there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:28:21]: And moving on from that and I&#8217;m just going to kind of have a note about API. We likely are going to see more APIs because we should. Because that then shows that you can extend. There&#8217;s been talk about should menus have something like that with the templates API we&#8217;ve seen with site editor sort post types alphabetically within the add template modal. That&#8217;s 70562. Again, all of these things before maybe we would have had something that wasn&#8217;t an API. But an API is a far better way of doing this. It&#8217;s a far more modern approach of doing this and it&#8217;s the proper way to do extensibility.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:28:57]: Yeah. And you have to know how you build it first before you can extend this. Yeah. Right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:29:03]: So you have to.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:29:04]: Yeah, you have to know what.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:29:05]: What you&#8217;re going to build. And the thing is you can&#8217;t particularly to undertake an API because there&#8217;s a maintenance burden. And I think this is always something particularly like doing work in extensibility. Yes. You could support everything, but unless you have a time machine, that&#8217;s a lot. So really being considerate, particularly once you have an API of just how useful is that? How much of a burden is that going to support is really, really important.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bug Fixes</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:29:35]: Yeah, absolutely. And we are in the bug fixes again. I like the first one that I want to point out that it&#8217;s the image box it preserves now the line breaks when the caption comes from the media library. So there was a disconnect. Yeah, absolutely. Where you have to do it twice. Why is this losing my. My line breaks and now I have to do it again. Yeah. So now it can do it automatically. It&#8217;s smart enough. And the same is fixed now with the RSS block. Some of the. Well, WordPress allows you to put markup into the title, but when the RSS block pulls in the title it displayed the raw coding instead of the. Yeah, now it kind of just strips it out and shows a very consistent title display in your RSS block for from other sites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:30:33]: So this is in bug fixes, but it&#8217;s quite important. It&#8217;s enable support for showing individual block variations in style book.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:30:41]: Oh yeah, yeah. That&#8217;s pretty much my most favorite feature enhancement. I think it&#8217;s enhancement but it&#8217;s on a bug fix because you were trying to look to click on the style variations and it wouldn&#8217;t come so there was expectations enables it in the right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:31:01]: Section is basically.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:31:06]: What happened was when you wanted to style the button block in your site in the styles, you were only able to style the default one. But when you clicked on the outline, you got back to the default one. You couldn&#8217;t style the outline. You had to use a theme JSON or some other JSON file for it or plugin for that. I don&#8217;t know how hard the fix was, but it&#8217;s there. I think that&#8217;s it. </p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Gutenberg 21.3</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>So we&#8217;re coming for Gutenberg 21.3. Do you want to start out again because it&#8217;s your favorite pieces.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:31:38]: So the first section is Data views under enhancement. So again this really shows the data views are getting used and that&#8217;s too long don&#8217;t read. I guess this episode is these features are getting used by people and these feature getting therefore improvements and iterations and people working on them. So there&#8217;s two particular things to call out or there&#8217;s several things at least there&#8217;s add the data field type 70657, and then add group by field support to grid layout. So this is about grouping items by fields and allows you to organize amounts of data and extend layouts such as table layout in the future. So it&#8217;s setting that groundwork and allowing grouping and it also supports the data Field type. So it&#8217;s again setting up for something that you can do now and allowing you. And also it links in with the new calendar component. So it&#8217;s that kind of link in with the new components as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:32:36]: Yes. So it had a date type field, date time field type. And now there&#8217;s also a date field type that&#8217;s just a date here. It&#8217;s kind of. You need it for the events calendar in the ticket.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:32:49]: Yeah. It says filtering and editing features will be implemented in the future.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:32:53]: Yes. Yeah. And then for the block library, the cover block now supports a poster image. So users with large video file or slow Internet connection see still an image in there before the video loads. That&#8217;s kind of an enhancement for slower connections. Or if you do it locally and you can&#8217;t get the video from another place. Yeah, so that&#8217;s pretty cool. And then the post content block has now an add name selector, a tag name selector. That&#8217;s kind of the part where you identify semantic ways for the. For the cost. Post content. Is it a main content? It&#8217;s a section content. It&#8217;s an article kind of semantic thing. Missing words here. Tags, tags. HTML. Semantic HTML tags. I think the. The technical term for that is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:33:44]: Yeah, there was one we haven&#8217;t called out, but I&#8217;d like to mention about layout. Adding max limit to row span and column in grid, which is a quality life, which I think is really important as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:33:55]: Excellent. Yeah. Oh yeah, here I see it. Yes, it&#8217;s absolutely. Yeah. And that also shows that there&#8217;s a work to be done on the Grid blog. And that might. Might be. It might not come to 6.9, but it&#8217;s definitely coming. It&#8217;s better. It&#8217;s back on people&#8217;s task list. Yeah. Under the bug fixing there was nothing really stand out for me.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bug Fixes</h3>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister </em>[00:34:18]: It just looks like a lot of quality of life and.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:34:20]: Yeah, well, some blocks good bug.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:34:22]: Fixing to me, which is. There&#8217;s been a lot of activity in this release which is really good and there&#8217;s a big section of quality and documentation, which always makes me happy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:34:33]: Absolutely. So that was it. There was one. Oh, that&#8217;s what I was looking for. Yeah. There&#8217;s one that says remove public APIs for getting images. That has to do with the list view. That there are images in the. In the list view to identify some of the blocks. When you have a cover block that you see the image of that there was an implementation for that, but that is still experimental and there was a shift in how experiments are actually implemented in Gutenberg so people are not tempted to use experimental public APIs anymore. Yeah. So if you find that confusing. It definitely is, but it&#8217;s also for your own good, so to speak. For the good of the maintenance safety. Absolutely. For future safety. But of course, there&#8217;s an acknowledgment that there are plenty of experimental things still in Gutenberg that all have been used in production for many years. Yeah, that was it. That was the Gutenberg release. </p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What’s in Active Development or Discussed</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Now we have what&#8217;s in active development or discussed. We can certainly not talk about everything, but we wanted to talk about the update experiment Settings screens to use the data forms. There&#8217;s a PR by Fabian who said, okay, so Gutenberg has an experiment screen where you can check the on or off some of the experiments, like for the collaborative editing or for the grid layout for some forms. And he said, well, if we do want other people to use the data views, we probably should rewrite that experiment settings page in a Gutenberg. So I really love that initiative. Yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:36:15]: Experiment should be experimental.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:36:19]: Say that again.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:36:21]: The experiment should be experimental.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:36:23]: Absolutely, absolutely. Well, a few plugin releases before Anne went through and actually gave some section headers in there. So they were not just added to the list and not kind of clustered together.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:36:37]: And that&#8217;s where there was a. Like, under certain circumstances the two column can be worked out. So that&#8217;s how we find out the limitations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:36:45]: Right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:36:45]: Like by using this, all these features again, we have to use them. This is what we&#8217;ve learned time and time again. They&#8217;re great, they&#8217;re amazing, but we need to use them, we need to implement them. Even we can&#8217;t put them in a beta and say, oh, just do some usability testing. No, we need to build with them. We need to get our hands dirty and need to see, oh my goodness, you can&#8217;t do this. Oh, this doesn&#8217;t work with this type of data. That&#8217;s what we need to happen. So using it in the plugin makes a lot of sense in a way that doesn&#8217;t cause a negative experience. And that page isn&#8217;t going to hopefully cause a negative experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:37:25]: Well, if you want to learn how to do this, yeah, that&#8217;s a kind of an interesting page to look at the code to learn from it and kind of say, maybe you can implement it in your own one page settings page.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:37:38]: It looks so much better when you look at it. You look at and no shade. Because at the time the settings pages were amazing in WordPress. But times have changed and looking at the two columns or the new Iterations. Even the single version is night and day. It really is.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:37:59]: Yeah. When you see the before and after, you see. Really see the difference. Okay, I want to live there. I don&#8217;t want to live there anymore. Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:38:07]: I want to be there in that world. World has white space.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:38:14]: Yeah, the road has white space. A couple of days ago I showed my husband, he is also a programmer, but he is a programmer from the early database days. Yeah like a clipper and ebay and all that. And then he sees some of the. And he looked at the screen and said well what&#8217;s all the white space there?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:38:43]: That was the thing like back then it costs, it cost bandwidth. Like every line was a cost. I remember when I learned you couldn&#8217;t have have large space taken up because it costs. Now it doesn&#8217;t. Now I just want all the space because it doesn&#8217;t. Well, it does cost, but it doesn&#8217;t cost as much now. It almost costs us more to not have it because it costs us like a negative user experience which is weird, wibbly, upside downy world to live in. But that&#8217;s what we have. Of course we don&#8217;t go too far to the extreme where you can actually implement it or use it because too much white space. Space is weird. But yeah, just be able to breathe in an interface.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:39:21]: Yeah. And. But it&#8217;s interesting that these visual DNA is still in. In some people&#8217;s minds. Right. That&#8217;s what that. What I kind of took away from it said go away, go back to your 90s, go back to your terminal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:39:37]: Go back to your courier terminal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:39:39]: No, he says why are you doing command line? Isn&#8217;t that so 80s didn&#8217;t we call go away with? Okay. So yeah, it&#8217;s interesting discussions in Pauli-Haack&#8217;s home. So we have a second thing that we wanted to talk about that&#8217;s the PR by Luigio Teschio and he is working on exploring template versioning to preserve active plugin and theme templates instead of letting it be overwritten by database. And I don&#8217;t know how that&#8217;s going to work. Have you looked at that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:40:18]: I haven&#8217;t really looked at it yet, but I&#8217;m really curious to follow it. And I think just exploring different ways of doing things is really interesting as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:40:28]: Yeah. So I leave that link in the.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:40:31]: Call for feedback and thoughts on it, which is a really interesting perspective. I think real world use cases is something I was trying to think about and that&#8217;s the kind of feedback I would like to give and that&#8217;s what I&#8217;ll be going back to it with trying to add that type of thinking.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:40:48]: Excellent. Excellent. So, well, I guess we&#8217;re at the end of the show. This is it. And as always, dear listeners, thank you so much for being here. And if you want, you can leave us a review on any of your favorite podcast apps. And if you&#8217;re on Spotify, the review is you can also leave comments. So we can have a little conversation there as well, if you want to. But the show notes will be published on Gutenbergtime.com/Podcast. This is episode 119. If you have questions or suggestions or news you want to include us, send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a> that&#8217;s <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a> so, Tam, is there anything that you want our listeners to take away from it that we haven&#8217;t talked about?</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tammie Lister</em> [00:41:35]: I think the big one is if you can start experimenting and exploring things like data views and data forms in your product, because now is the time to do that. And then start giving feedback, because there&#8217;s lots to come this year that you&#8217;ll be able to end early next year. So being able to, as you mentioned, start that muscle memory and start learning with it is really, really important.</p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Birgit Pauli-Haack</em> [00:41:57]: Excellent. Yeah, that&#8217;s a great way to end this podcast episode. And thank you all for listening. Thank you, Tammie, for being here. And goodbye. And I&#8217;ll see you at WordCamp. Yes, thanks for having me. All right, take care. </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, 26 Jul 2025 15:23:55 +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:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:80:\"Gutenberg Times: WP-Admin Redesign, Block theme adoption — Weekend Edition 335\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:35:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=40940\";s: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:86:\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-admin-redesign-block-theme-adoption-weekend-edition-335/\";s: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:18505:\"<p>Hi,</p>\n\n\n\n<p>ICYMI, organizers of WordCamp US (WCUS) <a href=\"https://x.com/WordCampUS/status/1948389752274559339\">announced</a> Danny Sullivan, search liaison at Google, as the keynote speaker. It&#8217;s hugely relevant now that sites are dealing with decreasing clicks from search engines. The brilliant <strong>Rae Morey</strong> of <em>The Repository</em> has the skinny for you about <a href=\"https://www.therepository.email/googles-danny-sullivan-to-keynote-wordcamp-us-2025-as-speaker-lineup-begins-to-take-shape\">what else is happening at WCUS</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am really getting excited for WordCamp US. Are you, too? <a href=\"https://us.wordcamp.org/2025/tickets/\">Did you get your ticket yet?</a> I would love to meet you and catch up! </p>\n\n\n\n<p>You might have to juggle family plans and necessities, though. You might need to get kids to school or enjoy the last summer camping trip over Labor Day weekend. Or you might be apprehensive about traveling to the US in general. All good reasons. And I will miss you. We can catch up afterward. <img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f917.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /></p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enjoy this week&#8217;s updates. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yours, <img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f495.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /><br /><em>Birgit</em></p>\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-group\" style=\"padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-group-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<nav class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents\"><ol><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-admin-redesign-block-theme-adoption-weekend-edition-335/#0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</a><ol><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-admin-redesign-block-theme-adoption-weekend-edition-335/#admin-redesign-abilities-api-and-routing\">Admin Redesign, Abilities API, and Routing</a></li></ol></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-admin-redesign-block-theme-adoption-weekend-edition-335/#0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode Site Builders and Owners</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-admin-redesign-block-theme-adoption-weekend-edition-335/#2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</a></li><li><a class=\"wp-block-table-of-contents__entry\" href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-admin-redesign-block-theme-adoption-weekend-edition-335/#3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and tools for the block editor</a></li></ol></nav>\n</div></div>\n</section>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\"></div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-word-press-release-information\">Developing Gutenberg and WordPress</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>First-time release lead <strong>Aki Hamano</strong> made <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/releases/tag/v21.3.0-rc.1\">Gutenberg 21.3 RC available for testing.</a> </p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Tammie Lister</strong> and I included Gutenberg 21.1, 21.2, and 21.3 in our latest Gutenberg Changelog episode recording. We also talked about WordPress 6.9, the AI Team, and more. The episode will drop on your favorite podcast app over the weekend.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-40972\" height=\"185\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-25-at-10.53.45.png?resize=652%2C185&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"652\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"admin-redesign-abilities-api-and-routing\">Admin Redesign, Abilities API, and Routing</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Lead architect of Gutenberg <strong>Matias Ventura</strong> published two issues on GitHub for broad discussion of the next iteration of the Admin Design and tied together concepts of the Command Palette with the Abilities API. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/70913\"><strong>Admin Materials and Surfaces</strong></a>, Ventura outlines the next iteration of the Admin redesign with screenshots. He breaks it down into three main building blocks. You can think of it like organizing a house:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Materials</strong> are like the rooms and spaces (the foundation, main areas, and pop-up spaces)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Concepts</strong> are like the furniture and appliances that go in those rooms (navigation menus, content lists, forms, etc.)</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Screens</strong> are like how you arrange everything together for different purposes (living room setup vs. kitchen setup)</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The goal is to make WordPress&#8217;s admin area more flexible so users can customize their workspace, and plugin developers can create interfaces that fit naturally with the rest of the system. The updates need to ensure consistency, flexibility, scalability, and clarity across the entire admin and plugin experience. <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/70913\"> To learn more details, consult the GitHub post</a>. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/70710\"><strong>Abilities &amp; Workflows Overview</strong></a>, Ventura outlines plans to create a unified system for handling keyboard shortcuts, commands, and AI-powered workflows. This would enable creating a &#8220;smart assistant&#8221; for WordPress that can help users accomplish tasks more efficiently.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The post aims to show how contributors can connect these three things that are currently separate and also creates a shared language to discuss these concepts. </p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Abilities</strong>—Callable functions with well-defined descriptions, inputs, and outputs schemas that both humans and AI can understand and use</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Workflows</strong>—Chains of abilities, possibly requiring user interaction via form controls along the way to accomplish complex tasks</li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Visual Workflow Editor</strong>—A drag-and-drop interface where users can create custom workflows without coding</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<p>In short, the idea is to make it possible that you instead of manually creating a new page (going to Pages → Add New → entering title → setting up template), you could use a workflow that asks for the page title upfront, automatically creates it, and takes you straight to editing &#8211; all triggered by a single command.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In his overview issue, <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/70862\"><strong>Admin Redesign: A solid routing foundation</strong></a>, <strong>Riad Benguella</strong> shares insights from the site editor work and discusses plans to improve the admin dashboard&#8217;s structure by changing how pages load and connect. Using advancements from the performance team on speculative loading and view transitions, as well as various new libraries, should help the admin page load more quickly and smoothly and improve the developer experience for contributors as well as 3rd-party product builders. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>The challenging aspect is ensuring backward compatibility in WordPress so that thousands of plugins continue to function well while creating a new, faster foundation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>All three GitHub issues are ready to be discussed with the larger site builder and developer community. It&#8217;s the moment to take part in the next iteration of the admin design by providing feedback and sharing use cases.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this week&#8217;s podcast episode, <strong>Tammie Lister</strong> makes a case to developers to work with the current iteration of DataViews and Data Form for plugins to become familiar with the approaches, develop muscle memory, and provide feedback on what doesn&#8217;t work yet to make sure it&#8217;s included in the following iterations of the Admin Design work. </p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p><img alt=\"?\" class=\"wp-smiley\" src=\"https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f399.png\" style=\"height: 1em;\" /> The latest episode is <a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast/gutenberg-changelog-119-wordpress-6-8-2-and-6-9-gutenberg-21-1-21-2-and-21-3-releases/\">Gutenberg Changelog 119—WordPress 6.8.2 and 6.9, Gutenberg 21.1, 21.2, and 21.3 Releases</a> with Tammie Lister. </p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-style-no-vertical-margin\"><img alt=\"Tammie Lister and Birgit Pauli-Haack recording Gutenberg Changelog 119\" class=\"wp-image-40972\" height=\"184\" src=\"https://i0.wp.com/gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-25-at-10.53.45.png?resize=652%2C184&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"652\" /></figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><em>If you are listening via Spotify, please leave a comment. If you listen via other podcast apps, please leave a review. It&#8217;ll help with the distribution.</em></p>\n</div></div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"0-p\">Plugins, Themes, and Tools for #nocode Site Builders and Owners</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Wes Theron</strong>, Automattic, published a new video to teach you how to  <strong><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zU7JKgwnwjs\">use the Group Block</a></strong>. Besides adding a Group block to your canvas, he covered how you can nest multiple Group blocks and control them via the ListView. He also has tips on styling a group block, organizing your layout, and previewing it on mobile devices or locking it against accidental changes.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Simon Cooke</strong> from Human Made put out an interesting piece called <a href=\"https://humanmade.com/full-site-editing/full-site-editing-vs-leading-page-builders-a-strategic-comparison/\"><strong>Full Site Editing vs. Leading Page Builders: A Strategic Comparison</strong></a>. He explains why going with Full Site Editing can be a game changer—it&#8217;s built right into the WordPress core. This means it&#8217;s generally faster, more secure, and way easier to manage when things get big. On the flip side, page builders can really bog things down and cause a headache with plugins, especially for larger teams.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>The <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/view-transitions/\">View Transitions </a>plugin by <strong>Felix Arntz</strong> played the main character in <strong>Jamie Marsland&#8217;</strong>s video <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/\"></a><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/\"></a><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQu5UhWskuM\"><strong>This FREE WordPress Plugin Is a Must-Have for Every Website!</strong></a> It makes your WordPress site to feel faster, smoother, and more like a modern app. Marsland feels that anyone&#8217;s hardly talking about it.</p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n<p><strong>Joe Simpson Jr.</strong> gave a talk at <strong>WordCamp Monclair</strong>: <strong><a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2025/07/25/a-journey-from-page-builders-to-blocks-in-wordpress/\">A Journey from Page Builders to Blocks in WordPress</a></strong> and it now available on WordPressTV. <br />If you’re still hanging on to the Classic Editor or those tried-and-true theme methods, you’re not alone—and this session is right up your alley. Simpson takes a leisurely stroll through a real-world site rebuild, sharing the bumps and surprises that come with moving from classic setups or page builders to full site editing with blocks. He&#8217;ll talk through how to pick the right tools for your needs, compare the different ways to build a site these days, and help you figure out when it might finally be time to make the switch. Simpson also even looks back at how Gutenberg has evolved over the years. Whether you’re new to WordPress or just a bit slow to embrace the changes, there’s something here for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"2-word-press-6-0-1-and-6-1-scheduled\">Theme Development for Full Site Editing and Blocks</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Cloudways&#8217; <strong><a href=\"https://x.com/iiarehman\">Abdul Rehman</a></strong> set out to explain <a href=\"https://www.cloudways.com/blog/wordpress-hybrid-themes/\"><strong>WordPress Hybrid Themes: What They Are, Why They Matter, and How to Build One in 2025</strong></a>. He found<br />Hybrid WordPress themes are the best of both worlds—they mix old-school classic theme structure with cool new block features. You get more design freedom without ditching your old plugins or custom code. Perfect if you want flexibility but aren’t ready for a full block theme leap.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n\n<p>At WordCamp Montclair, <strong>Beth Soderberg</strong>—who’s been using blocks since the early days—shared <a href=\"https://wordpress.tv/2025/07/25/my-process-for-building-a-custom-wordpress-theme-in-2025/\"><strong>how she builds custom WordPress themes in 2025</strong></a>. She walked us through her current process of building a block theme. She talked about choosing base themes and explained how her tools and workflow have changed. Soderberg also broke down how she decides when to use the editor and when it’s better to dive into code, plus showed how blocks can handle page structure instead of relying on old-school templates. She wrapped up with some tips on setting up the site editor so it’s easy for anyone to manage a block-based site.</p>\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-callout undefined not-color-set\" style=\"border-color: #f9f9e5; border-radius: 22px; border-style: solid; border-width: 0; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; text-align: left; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; background-color: #f9f9e5;\">\n<p><strong> <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Keeping up with Gutenberg &#8211; Index 2025&#8221;</a> </strong><br />A chronological list of the WordPress Make Blog posts from various teams involved in Gutenberg development: Design, Theme Review Team, Core Editor, Core JS, Core CSS, Test, and Meta team from Jan. 2024 on. Updated by yours truly. The previous years are also available: <strong><strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2020/\">2020</a> | <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2021/\">2021</a></strong> | <strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index-2022/\">2022</a></strong></strong> | <strong><a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2023\">2023</a></strong> | <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/references/keeping-up-with-gutenberg-index/gutenberg-index-2024/\"><strong>2024</strong></a></p>\n</section>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"3-building-themes-for-fse-and-word-press\">Building Blocks and tools for the block editor</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If you found last week&#8217;s four-hour Block Development Cookbook video was a little too much to get started, <strong>Ryan Welcher</strong> began the work of slicing up the cookbook into individual recipes videos. Here is <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4COA6no19k\">his announcement video</a> and first recipe: <strong><a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogf0qOAmkIo\">Save Time With This Block Binding Trick!</a></strong></p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-showhide ng-block\" width=\"100%\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\n\n\n<section class=\"wp-block-newsletterglue-callout undefined not-color-set\" style=\"border-color: #eeeeee; border-radius: 26px; border-style: solid; border-width: 0; padding-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 20px; padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; text-align: left; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; background-color: #f3efe9;\">\n<p><strong><a href=\"https://gutenbergtimes.com/need-a-zip-from-master/\">Need a plugin .zip from Gutenberg&#8217;s master branch?</a></strong><br />Gutenberg Times provides daily build for testing and review. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now also available via <a href=\"https://playground.wordpress.net/?blueprint-url=https://gutenbergtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/playnightly.json\">WordPress Playground</a>. There is no need for a test site locally or on a server. Have you been using it? <a href=\"mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com\">Email me </a>with your experience</p>\n\n\n\n<p><img alt=\"GitHub all releases\" src=\"https://img.shields.io/github/downloads/bph/gutenberg/total?style=for-the-badge\" /></p>\n</section>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size\"><em>Questions? Suggestions? Ideas? </em><br /><em>Don&#8217;t hesitate to send <a href=\"mailto:pauli@gutenbergtimes.com\">them via email</a> or</em><br /><em> send me a message on WordPress Slack or Twitter @bph</em>.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-small-font-size\">For questions to be answered on the <a href=\"http://gutenbergtimes.com/podcast\">Gutenberg Changelog</a>, <br />send them to <a href=\"mailto:changelog@gutenbergtimes.com\">changelog@gutenbergtimes.com</a></p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide\" />\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:7:\"pubDate\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:31:\"Fri, 25 Jul 2025 23:19:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:18:\"Birgit Pauli-Haack\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:84:\"Open Channels FM: Managing Team Growth and Delegation in WordPress Plugin Businesses\";s: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:33:\"https://openchannels.fm/?p=103823\";s: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://openchannels.fm/managing-team-growth-and-delegation-in-wordpress-plugin-businesses/\";s: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:348:\"In this episode of WP Behind the Builds series, host Mark Westguard chats with Maarten Belmans of Studio Wombat to explore the ins and outs of running a WordPress plugin business. Maarten shares his journey from leaving a cushy IT consulting job to traveling Australia and launching his first WordPress plugin. The conversation covers how [&#8230;]\";s: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, 24 Jul 2025 13:22:10 +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:5:\"BobWP\";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:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:102:\"WPTavern: #178 – Adam Silverstein Explores Transformative Browser Features Impacting WordPress Sites\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}s:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:48:\"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=197768\";s: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/podcast/178-adam-silverstein-explores-transformative-browser-features-impacting-wordpress-sites\";s: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:79151:\"<details>Transcript<div>\n<p>[00:00:19] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case, how new, native browser features, are transforming what&#8217;s possible on the web.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com/feed/podcast. And you can copy and paste that URL into most podcast players.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com/contact/jukebox and use the form there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:01:10] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> So on the podcast today we have Adam Silverstein.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adam is a WordPress Core committer and works to fix bugs and improve modern web capabilities. He&#8217;s also a Developer Relations Engineer on Chrome&#8217;s Web Platform team at Google, and there he focuses on making the open web better for everyone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adam is here to break down how the rapid evolution of browser technology can supercharge your WordPress sites. We are doing this by referencing his presentation at WordCamp Europe 2025, in which he covered multiple new features of browsers, which can be used by WordPress users to bring a variety of experiences to their websites. In many cases these are browser APIs and features, and are quietly redefining what&#8217;s possible on the web. From CSS powered popovers, and scroll driven animations, to speculative loading that speeds up your page transitions. Adam explains how these advancements are changing what&#8217;s possible for both developers and end users.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The conversation sheds light on the collaboration between browser vendors, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, through initiatives like Interop and Baseline, paving the way for more consistent and robust features across platforms.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adam also talks about practical topics central to the WordPress community, like how the Popover API and native CSS carousels reduce JavaScript bloat, make sites more accessible, and deliver a better overall user experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He shares exciting new frontiers, such as browser-based image processing, powered by WebAssembly, which is paving the way for universal support of modern formats like AVIF and Ultra HDR, and even running AI locally in your browser, no API key or cloud server required.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He provides concrete examples on how these technologies can be leveraged in WordPress via Core updates, canonical plugins, and Gutenberg experiments, with a special focus on how developers can get involved and offer feedback to help shape future web standards. Prepare to look at your browser in a whole new light, truly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether you&#8217;re a theme designer, plugin developer, or site owner simply curious about what&#8217;s next, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com/podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Adam Silverstein.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I am joined on the podcast by Adam Silverstein. Hello, Adam.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:51] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Hello.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:03:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> This is our second conversation. We had a conversation, I want to say four years ago, maybe more in San Diego, think. And at that point we talked about images, AVIF, WebP, those kind of things. We might get into that today.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adam&#8217;s been working with Google for many, many years. Making the web a faster place, I think is a fair way to sum up your career. Just tell us a little bit about yourself, just so that, because this is a fairly technical topic and you are honestly going to have to teach me an awful lot as we speak. Let us know what your credentials are, why people should listen to what you have to say.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:04:21] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Oh, wow. Being a Googler is not good enough, huh? Well, I&#8217;ve been doing WordPress for a long, long time. I think I started, first started contributing back in 3.6. So I&#8217;m deeply involved in the Core project. I am a Core committer, which is something that I consider an honor, a privilege, and a responsibility. There&#8217;s not that many of us in the world, but I&#8217;m one of the people that actually commits code to WordPress.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I used to have my own run, my own agency, tiny me agency, but building sites for clients directly. Then I wound up at 10up. Learned to build enterprise sites, and work with large teams, and do a lot of planning. And then eventually made my way to Google where I&#8217;ve been doing developer relations work. I&#8217;m trying to educate developers and bring things like all these new APIs that I talked about in this talk, so that people can learn about it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Have you been focused more or less entirely on WordPress, or are you in any way engaged with the Chrome team?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:11] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah. So our team kind of organisationally was under Chrome, like that was kind of where we sit. We worked with other, like I&#8217;ve worked with Drupal and TYPO3. So I&#8217;ve worked with some of the other CMSs out there, especially like the open source ones. So that&#8217;s kind of been in my purview, but I would say primarily focused on WordPress. That&#8217;s where I&#8217;ve had the most experience and am most comfortable.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s kind of interesting because on my computer, obviously I have a browser using Chrome, it&#8217;s kind of one of the most benign pieces of software that&#8217;s there, in that it doesn&#8217;t really have a task that&#8217;s assigned to it. I have a music editing piece of software, and I go there for that. And I have a video editing piece of software, and on it goes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:49] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes. And you&#8217;re running those in your browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:05:51] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Right. But also the browser is just this open thing, you know, you can basically do anything in it, and so incredibly powerful. And it feels like in the last few years it&#8217;s got way more powerful. But most of that is entirely hidden because I open it up and it looks broadly the same today as it did five years ago. You know, the UI may have changed a little bit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:13] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Right. But what&#8217;s changed is what you can do with it, right? So you talked about editing video or editing audio in your browser. Like, that was not something that was possible five or 10 years ago when we had blue links and HTML. And it was basically, we were publishing newspapers on the web. That was the limit of what we could do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:29] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I have an app, it&#8217;s called Descript. I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;ve come across it, but it&#8217;s a full audio, video editing suite entirely in the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:37] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> And famously Adobe released Photoshop. Runs in the browser. The full Photoshop. Yeah, I mean it&#8217;s like mind blowing that that&#8217;s even possible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So the capabilities of the browser have dramatically increased. And you&#8217;ve just done, or you&#8217;re about to do? Just done.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:54] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:55] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. Firstly, how did It go?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:06:56] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> It went great. Packed room. I think people got something out of it. People gave me good feedback.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And it was called Modernising WordPress with New Web Platforms. And I&#8217;m just going to read a bit of the blurb that went with that. It says, WordPress is a powerful platform for building websites of all shapes and sizes. To truly thrive, WordPress is embracing the latest advancements in web technology. This talk will explore how developers and site owners can leverage cutting edge web platform capabilities to create next generation WordPress experiences. And then there&#8217;s a little bit more which mentions web APIs and so on and so forth. So that really is going to be the core of this discussion.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, caveat emptor, dear listener, I have nowhere near enough knowledge to ask you these questions. But I&#8217;m going to hope that you are going to help me through it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So first stop then, let&#8217;s just go through a whole laundry list of these different APIs. What are some of the fun things that a browser can do now, that it couldn&#8217;t do previously?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:07:53] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> So in the talk, I sort of break it into three areas. There are features that help developers do things that maybe we could do, but we struggled or relied on heavy JavaScript libraries to do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s things that help users by creating better experiences on the web than we previously had the ability to do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then the third category is things that previously were just impossible. Just things that we can now do, like running Photoshop in the browser, we mentioned that we could not do before.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I did not explore, this is not, the talk was not like an exhaustive list of all the APIs, but it was rather sort of a selection of ones that I thought were interesting. Most of them are new. They are sometimes available only in one browser, not in all the browsers. So they&#8217;re things that are coming to the web platform. Some of them were already on the web platform.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So let&#8217;s go through them. I&#8217;ll see if I can remember them all. I have my little slide deck here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So in the category of helping developers, the first one that I talked about is this thing called the Popover API. So popovers are simply like dialogues or elements that you want to hover above the rest of the page content. And in WordPress we use these extensively in the admin. Like for example, the pointers that you get when you install a new plugin. Or if you open a dialogue, or even like mobile menus use a popover.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we have it in Gutenberg. And so we already have this technology, but it relies on JavaScript, and it&#8217;s actually surprisingly complicated to do a popover. You have to pay attention to always being at the highest level. And if there&#8217;s another popover, how do you handle that? And you have to make sure it&#8217;s accessible, so when the user hits the escape key, the popover closes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if it&#8217;s a pointer that&#8217;s trying to point to a new feature, say in a menu, how do you handle when the user resizes the window and that element moves? These are very complicated things. And in JavaScript that means you&#8217;ve got a heavy library that&#8217;s running just to do this simple popover thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So with this new CSS based popover API, you can create a popover with just a couple of lines in your code, and the browser takes care of all of the complicated parts of actually doing the popover.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:09:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So just pausing there for a moment. The whole power of CSS, I&#8217;m going to say three years, this has been capturing my attention. CSS seems to be able to do a load of programmatic things now that it didn&#8217;t used to be able to. So in this case it&#8217;s, I don&#8217;t know, it&#8217;s calculating the height of the viewport and figuring out is there another thing, how much further to move it down? All of this being handled natively in the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:13] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Exactly. And I think like your point is very true, like CSS capabilities have grown tremendously, and the ability to do sophisticated layouts. And all of these kind of feature things that typically might require JavaScript, now we can do directly in CSS, even things like calculations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So CSS is a programming language just like JavaScript, right? People like to poo poo it and and so forth, but it&#8217;s quite powerful. And a lot of these features that I&#8217;m talking about are based on CSS.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:10:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s kind of interesting, if the 18-year-old me was beginning again, I think CSS would be the thing that I would do first. I think I would learn that inside and out before ever looking at JavaScript. Because I you&#8217;ve got the foundation of modern CSS, and I know there&#8217;s a lot of W3C things that are still being decided and what have you, and obviously the browsers have got various different capabilities. But so much that we would&#8217;ve relied on for JavaScript is now capable with CSS, but unexplored I think by many.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:11:08] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Right. So this feature popover is available in all the browsers. It&#8217;s in Baseline. So Baseline is the set of features that developers should be looking at for deciding what they can use. Baseline is a somewhat new concept, so people might not be aware of it. But it is basically a way of knowing which features are available on all the major browsers. So if you see a feature that is labeled Baseline, like in the MDN docs, that means it&#8217;s available on all the browsers. You can count on it as a developer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So in my talk, I covered a lot of APIs that are actually not in Baseline yet. They&#8217;re still in development. They maybe are available only in Chrome, or Chrome and Edge, or maybe Chrome and Edge and Firefox, but not Safari. As developer, those are the APIs you need to be a little bit wary of, right, because you wanna build something that&#8217;s going to work for everyone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In many cases, the API will gracefully degrade, it just won&#8217;t work in the non-supporting browser. But in the case of like a popover, if it is supported in all the browsers, so you&#8217;re safe to use it. If it wasn&#8217;t, you would need to have that JavaScript as a fallback. So some of these APIs are, you know, new and experimental, but the browser vendors are all planning on adding support for them. So I only choose APIs that actually browser vendors have indicated their support.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:12:14] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Can we just pause there a moment because I began my journey with the web, oh, Internet Explorer 5 kind of days. You probably remember the days as well as I do, and it was chaos, you know? I mean, really we had to try and fix a whole bunch of things that Internet Explorer did differently from all the other browsers. The browsers didn&#8217;t agree on almost anything. They went off in completely different directions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That, I&#8217;m going to say, over the last five or maybe more, maybe more like eight years, there seems to have been a real confluence of, and I don&#8217;t know if that&#8217;s done from like a senior management level, but it does seem like Mozilla is talking to Chromium, Chromium is talking to Safari, and a lot of the people seem to attend the same conferences and talk the same language. They may adopt it at different rates, but they&#8217;re all trying to get to the same point, the open web.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:13:00] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes. And in fact, they&#8217;ve developed an approach to collaborate on this, and that is called Interop. So the Interop effort is sort of a group effort by all of the browsers to agree upon a set of features that they&#8217;re going to work on for each calendar year. So there&#8217;s Interop 2025, there&#8217;ll be one for 2026, and so forth.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And these features are, they come from either the browser&#8217;s needs, what they want to build, or from developers. So there&#8217;s an open process where they open a GitHub repo each fall and developers can go and submit. And we&#8217;ve actually had some from WordPress that made it in and influenced what browsers do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So as developers are out there working, they&#8217;re finding pain points, they&#8217;re struggling to do this or struggling to do that, or it doesn&#8217;t work well in one browser. It works in one browser, but not the other. Interop is sort of the effort each year to come up with a set that the browsers agree upon working on. And those features hopefully all land in Baseline the following year.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember those days very well, and that&#8217;s why we have things like jQuery, right? So we had all these libraries that were built with this promise of sort of normalising the capabilities. Now, you&#8217;re absolutely right, the browsers have realised this is a problem for developers and they&#8217;ve come together to form a standard, and that is the Baseline thing that I mentioned.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So they&#8217;re always building new APIs on their own, and some of them will never make it into all the browsers, and they may go away or they may change. But if they make it into Baseline, you can be sure that you can use them. And that&#8217;s what&#8217;s different, right? We have this set of features that we can rely on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I kind of feel we lost a decade somewhere of real productivity. You know, the browsers could have been capable of a whole lot more than they are now. I mean, we&#8217;re happy with where we&#8217;ve got, but it does feel like we lost, this proprietary approach to browsers really wasn&#8217;t in the best interest of anybody. But you can see how it grew out of Microsoft and all of these other organizations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m guessing that Google with its Chromium browser, Chromium based browser, the fact that that became utterly dominant was probably quite a pivotal point. You know, it was in the sort of eighties and nineties percent, adopted by 80 or 90%. I guess Google was able to push things through a little bit more.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:14:59] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Perhaps, like they do often lead on features. I mean, I wouldn&#8217;t say they&#8217;re always the lead on features, sometimes Safari has a great idea and they want to develop it, and with Firefox as well. But they do have a huge effort going into it. And, you know, of course Microsoft famously adopted Chromium as the engine for Edge. And so Microsoft is actively contributing as well to Chromium, which is the core of Chrome.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So yes, I think the dominance did allow them to sort of lead on features and have the other browsers sort of need to follow. If Chrome is going to ship a feature, everyone&#8217;s going to use it. But I don&#8217;t know if that&#8217;s always the case. You know, when you read these, I&#8217;ve read some of these proposals, you know, the browser vendors, they talk to each other in the open, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So these aren&#8217;t like private conversations that are happening in a room somewhere. They are all into open source software. So they&#8217;re, you know, there&#8217;s a repo where like, for example, Chrome will come in and say, we&#8217;re working on this new API, we would like feedback from the teams building Mozilla and Safari about if this is a good feature, are you going to support this? And that&#8217;s like typically early in the process where they try to get that feedback so they know whether this is something that is likely to land in the platform.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:02] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I don&#8217;t really know whether it was the best thing for one browser to sort of win out, but it certainly seems now that the dust has settled, it seems that that was a fairly good thing to happen.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:11] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah, I mean, I think if we had only had one browser, that would not be good. I mean, Apple is definitely dominant on mobile in markets where iPhones are very popular.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> North America, for example.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:22] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Exactly. North America and Europe, I think as well. Although if you look at most of the world, it&#8217;s actually Android that is far more dominant. So that&#8217;s where Chrome gets a big percentage of its users because Android is the default browser there, just as Safari is the default browser on iOS devices</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:35] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I guess there was the whole Chromebook thing as well with, you know Google trying to promote this idea of a browser computer, for want of a better word.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:43] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Chrome OS.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:16:44] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, Chrome OS exactly. And but the idea that, when it first came out, I remember looking at Chromebooks and thinking, yeah, it&#8217;s intriguing. It can do Google Docs, but where&#8217;s the video editing? Where&#8217;s the audio editing? I&#8217;m guessing like a modern Chromebook is a full swap out for a, it just doesn&#8217;t have the physical storage memory in some cases.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:01] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> It doesn&#8217;t have any. It&#8217;s, well, I mean, it has some for caching, but basically you log in and that&#8217;s your computer. Someone else logs in, it&#8217;s their computer. It&#8217;s fully in the cloud.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s pretty amazing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:10] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Although I will say, I bought a cheap Chromebook, like 150 bucks, refurbished, but I bought it to travel with so that I didn&#8217;t have to carry around my eight pound MacBook Pro. And because I&#8217;m a developer, I figured out how to do development work on it. You can install Linux on it and run, you know, Docker and all the things that you can do on a desktop machine.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Does take some effort, like that&#8217;s not built in. But they are actually full computers, it&#8217;s just that the way the operating system is set up is this sort of cloud-based thing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#8217;s quite, I think they&#8217;re amazing honestly. And, like I said, very inexpensive and also like bulletproof. You never have problems with them because your whole world is basically the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:47] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And it kind of boots in half a moment, and it&#8217;s so secure.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:17:51] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah. They&#8217;re fantastic, and especially for like schools or corporate settings because it has all that management built in. I think they&#8217;re great computers. I would definitely recommend them, especially for people who don&#8217;t want to spend all the money that it takes to get, you know, and especially like you&#8217;re saying, everything&#8217;s in the browser these days. So there&#8217;s really, you don&#8217;t need a desktop computer to do most things.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:10] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. I think we painted a picture of the power of the browser, we&#8217;ve done well there. We got kind of hijacked a little bit. So you were talking about popovers, that was the first thing. Let&#8217;s return to that. What&#8217;s one of the other things mentioned?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:18:20] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Next on my list is this Scroll Animations API. So this is animations like CSS animations that are either triggered or tied to a scroll event. So you could think about, like Slider Revolution has this feature in it, or you&#8217;ve seen it on like Apple&#8217;s website where you&#8217;re scrolling and as you&#8217;re scrolling an image is fading in or something is being revealed. Or another good example is like a reading indicator that Medium has at the top of the page as you scroll down.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So we can do these things today with JavaScript, but it involves paying attention to the user scroll position, and this kind of heavy handed approach to monitoring the user. With CSS scroll driven animations, it&#8217;s just a couple of lines of CSS and suddenly you&#8217;ve tied an animation to scrolling.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So again, all handled by CSS, no need for a JavaScript library. Any impact in, I mean, these JavaScript libraries are famous for sort of bogging things down, tons of bloat and what have you. I&#8217;m guessing that because it&#8217;s shipping in the browser, that is minimal to say the least, almost non-existent.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:17] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes, and the animations are CSS animations, so they&#8217;re not happening on the main thread. JavaScript famously has one main thread, and if you have something running on that main thread, it&#8217;s going to interfere with other JavaScript. So if you can get rid of some of the JavaScript on your website, that&#8217;s freeing up that thread for the other JavaScript that you have, that you want to do to track your analytics or to, whatever else you&#8217;re trying to do on your page with JavaScript. This is one less piece of JavaScript you need on your site.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> The feature that you&#8217;ve just mentioned is something that I guess WordPress developers are going to be particularly interested in. They love all that stuff.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:19:48] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes, clients love it. They love animations. And again, this is something that&#8217;s very lightweight, right? The argument against these types of animations is they&#8217;re typically very heavy.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other advantages of using CSS based features versus JavaScript is accessibility. Often these features, I mean this isn&#8217;t necessarily true with scroll driven, but like with the carousels, it&#8217;s got that accessibility built in. It&#8217;s got the escaping out of the dialogue.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Again and again we see that, when you build something in JavaScript, I&#8217;m going to talk in a minute about CSS carousels. When you build it in JavaScript, if you want to make it accessible, there&#8217;s a lot of extra work that goes into doing that well. If the browser builds the feature in as like a fundamental, almost like an HTML component, then the expectation is the browser will take care of that for you. So as a developer, you won&#8217;t even have to pay attention to it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:20:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m guessing that in the case of the one you&#8217;ve just described, that&#8217;s really easy to map onto this podcast because a WordPress user, they&#8217;re using a page builder or something like that. They&#8217;re going to have encountered these options, you know, somewhere buried in the settings for this image component is a fade in on scroll.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And I&#8217;m guessing that in the future in WordPress, this might be some sort of toggle in a block, an image block or something like that. You&#8217;ll just switch it on, assign some characteristics to it like, I don&#8217;t know, fade to 50% at halfway through the viewport. And that will just create the CSS, but all done inside of a panel of a block.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:21:11] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah, I did exactly that as a pull request and have a link to that in my talk. Yeah, that&#8217;s a great example. It could be an image, it could be a header block.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I guess one question I have as a Core committer is whether that is actually Core territory. We have this long standing philosophy in WordPress that it&#8217;s kind of the 80 20 rule that a feature that we land in Core should benefit 80% of users, otherwise it belongs in plugin territory.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That said, one of the things we&#8217;re talking about now is this idea of canonical blocks. So there&#8217;s a lot of new blocks being proposed in Gutenberg right now, and the question is like, how many blocks do you actually want to ship with the editor? There&#8217;s a zillion different things you could think of building a block for, or a feature like animation, say for images like we&#8217;re talking about. But if it&#8217;s not valuable for all users, does it really belong in Core? And does it just overload the list of blocks they have to choose from, or the list of features they have to choose from? Why not just let plugins extend it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other idea, like I said is this idea of canonical blocks. So you could have a block that&#8217;s developed by the Core team, is supported by Core, and is directly installable in the admin, in a like clearly labeled way that this is a Core product. But actually not ship it with WordPress. So it&#8217;s something that you could install with one click. I mean, we actually haven&#8217;t defined exactly what a canonical block or plugin is, but this is sort of what my idea is. It&#8217;s something that&#8217;s like, you&#8217;re one step away from having it installed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, it feels like a canonical plugin, at least feels to me like something which has the security guarantee of Core, plus the updating guarantee of Core. Basically if you install it, it&#8217;s going to work with the latest version of WordPress, plus the all the backwards compatibility. I kind of like the idea of, like Apple ship with things like iOS, like Core animations. A plugin which just enables the animations in Core blocks.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:22:51] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Right. Like the capability might already be there. I mean, you know, so one of the other APIs that I talked about in another section is the Speculative Loading API. So this is a good example. And this is actually shipping in WordPress 6.8. And this is the ability for the browser to prefetch the resources for a page that a user is about to navigate to.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And in WordPress, we shipped it in the most conservative mode possible, which essentially is the user needs to click down on the link, and then before they let go of their mouse, so the time between the mouse down and mouse up event is when the browser is prefetching the resources for that link.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So if the user clicks down on the link, we&#8217;re very confident that they&#8217;re actually going to navigate. Although it is possible to drag away and not navigate. 90% of users are going to follow that link or more. And so the idea is not to waste prefetching for links that users never visit.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>However it is possible to configure this API in a more bold manner where it will, for example, prefetch links that you hover over, which is going to give you much more of a head start, but also a lower hit ratio where, you know, some people will hover over links and they never click on them. So it depends on your use case.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I&#8217;ve already seen, so we landed the API in WordPress at the very conservative level. There&#8217;s already a plugin out that lets users configure that API for their own site, so they can adjust the default settings.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s another setting that&#8217;s even more aggressive where it actually pre-renders the page. And in that setting, it&#8217;s almost as if you&#8217;ve loaded the page you&#8217;re about to navigate to in another tab, and when you click the link, it&#8217;s like switching tabs. It&#8217;s an instantaneous transition. It&#8217;s like amazing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, you know, if you&#8217;re pre-rendering every page a user hovers over, that&#8217;s going to be a huge additional load on your server. So there is a trade off there. But maybe you have like a large call to action button on your homepage that 50% of your users are going to click on. Go ahead and prefetch that. They&#8217;re going to get a better experience. You&#8217;re going to get a better conversion rate if that page loads faster.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:24:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> if memory serves, this is a browser API, Speculation Rules API and everybody&#8217;s got it switched on in 6.8 and beyond. But it&#8217;s in conservative, and it&#8217;s prefetch not pre-render, it&#8217;s click. And honestly, the chances of you not wishing to get to that page are pretty, like you say, you could slide away. But yeah, if you were to download the speculation rules, I can&#8217;t remember what the name of the plugin is. Anyway, the plugin, the option there is to do things like pre-render, or hover. And then, yeah. You could get into a real mess with the server and, you know, just wasteful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:25:23] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah. If you, especially if you&#8217;re on like a light end server, but maybe you want that, like the most important. Like, let&#8217;s say you have an e-commerce store and you&#8217;re really trying to get people to add things to your cart. You know, there&#8217;s all kinds of studies that show that if your pages load faster, and it&#8217;s even buy like things like a hundred milliseconds, the conversion ratio is much higher. People are quick to abandon slow sites. I mean, there&#8217;s all kinds of data on that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So you may decide it&#8217;s worth investing the additional resources and dedicated hosting and caching so that you can prefetch and pre-render and get that faster navigation. This API enables that type of navigation that is, you really can&#8217;t get that without this API because it&#8217;s basically letting the browser know, it&#8217;s okay to like start loading resources before I even visit a page.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:06] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, I keep having this thought that at some point Chrome&#8217;s going to come up with, it&#8217;s going to know a whole year in advance all pages that I wish to visit and just load them all for me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:15] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Well, I did actually an experiment with AI to see, like ask AI which link is the user most likely to click on? And I tried it both with just literally dropping the HTML of the webpage in the AI, as well as drawing a screenshot. And I tried it on a very simple page, so like a WordPress plugin page. There&#8217;s a large blue button that says download. Probably the most likely link that users will click on. But the AI was like very good at identifying that. So in theory you could imagine that the browser could actually predict into some degree what users, based on their behavior, are going to click on, or based on the layout of the site.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:26:50] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So this is a, curious new world in which we live, isn&#8217;t it? So there could be heuristics about what I&#8217;m literally doing with the mouse. So the mouse is, I don&#8217;t know, approaching a button. That&#8217;s a fairly strong indication. And also, I guess the speed.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:05] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah, if it&#8217;s paused over the button.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Right, or slowing down, the speed is sort of coming to a terminus. Yeah. This is all really interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The 6.8, the Speculative Loading in 6.8, what I really like about that is that there&#8217;s zero configuration. It just works. So it&#8217;s using this fabulous new feature of the browser, but also no technical knowledge whatsoever. Absolutely none. And it would hopefully just save you a bunch of, well, your visitors a bunch of time.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:33] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Exactly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. Fabulous. Okay, that&#8217;s another one. Any others?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:37] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Oh my gosh, so many. We did touch briefly on CSS carousels, but let&#8217;s just cover that again. So over half of WordPress websites load some sort of slider or JavaScript library.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Like them or hate them, they&#8217;re there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:27:49] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes. And even if people don&#8217;t use them, they seem to load them because I don&#8217;t know if half of sites all have sliders, but in any case, this is a very popular feature for WordPress sites. And of course there&#8217;s many plugins out there that do this, and they all rely on a JavaScript library. There are several very popular ones. They&#8217;re very full featured libraries. They do all the things that you need for a carousel.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now we can do that with CSS, so you don&#8217;t need the JavaScript library. Now, there may be advanced features that the JavaScript libraries will be able to do that will add some functionality. But the goal of the CSS implementation is to basically be feature parity with what you can do now with JavaScript. So all kinds of carousels</p>\n\n\n\n<p>with buttons that you can click, with little indicators as to which slider, which image you&#8217;re on. You know, just all the features that you can imagine in a carousel. There&#8217;s a great demo site on the chrome.dev site of just like a zillion different carousels.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> What does the DOM look like for that?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:28:43] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> It&#8217;s so simple. It&#8217;s like you have the images themselves, and you have a couple of pseudo elements like scroll marker, and there&#8217;s some for the scroll arrows. I don&#8217;t actually remember all the deals because I haven&#8217;t built one. But it&#8217;s all done using like CSS selectors essentially to indicate which elements are the control elements, and which elements are the target elements. And you can even do things like grouping them so that like when you hit the right arrow, it&#8217;s like a page of things moving back and forth, like several elements.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like I said, they&#8217;ve tried to address all of the features. And again, here you would be able to do a CSS based carousel, that means no JavaScript required, right? You don&#8217;t need to load that giant JavaScript library. It&#8217;s going to be immediately available, right? So JavaScript takes some time to load. It&#8217;s going to work more quickly. And it&#8217;s also hopefully going to have accessibility built in. So you don&#8217;t have to worry about if your JavaScript library is keeping up with accessibility standards. It&#8217;s going to be a standard web component.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, okay. Of course. Yeah, if everybody&#8217;s implementing the same thing, it&#8217;s not this weirdy JavaScript thing that you downloaded from somewhere.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And okay, another question about, just sticking on that one for a moment. Will that be performant in the sense of, I don&#8217;t know, if I&#8217;ve got a carousel of 15 images, will the 15th one be loading at the moment.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:56] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Lazy loaded?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, exactly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:29:57] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> You would hope so, yes. I mean, I think in general it will be more performant than a JavaScript implementation. Unless the JavaScript implementation is doing some magic that the browser&#8217;s not aware of, like lazy loading. I think that is, will be built in. But you, again, don&#8217;t have that JavaScript running on the main thread doing the actual animations. All the animations are CSS animations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:30:16] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s kind of curious because that example, I&#8217;ve always liked how they look but I&#8217;ve always been persuaded that it&#8217;s the wrong thing to implement because of the JavaScript bloat, the inaccessibility. So they kind of went into that pariah status for a while. But if done right, there&#8217;s absolutely no reason not to implement it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:30:36] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah. And I think, you know, like you said, clients love them, they&#8217;re very popular. I think one of the arguments that I&#8217;ve heard about them is that data shows that most users never navigate beyond like the second image. So there is sort of questionable value there, especially if you&#8217;ve got one that say has 30 images in it on your homepage. Maybe that&#8217;s not such a great idea.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>But maybe if you have three products that you want to feature at the top and you don&#8217;t know how to feature them all, a slider is a good way to have three things that the user can see all in the same space. So I think they have their uses, but I think there is the sort of resistance to using them from developers is based on solid data.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s interesting as well because given, I don&#8217;t know the, bad reputation they have, it&#8217;s kind curious that that got made.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:31:16] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Right. So this actually brings us to a good point. Where do the browser vendors come up? Why are they building these things right? So the reason they decided to build CSS Carousel is this is an area that developers have struggled with.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Like I said, there are several libraries that are well established that have built really good sliders, but that&#8217;s taken a long time, right? And they still have accessibility challenges.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is something that a lot of developers want to build, their clients are demanding it, and they&#8217;ve typically struggled to actually build something quality. So this is the impetus for a lot of these features that I talked about is places that developers are struggling. And that Interop project that I mentioned earlier, that&#8217;s where developers can give their feedback to the browser vendors about which features they feel are lacking.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was the sort of like the last question of my talk was to developers, what are you struggling, what are you constantly using JavaScript for? What are you finding that&#8217;s still incompatible between browsers? Because I think that&#8217;s actually really important to get feedback from developers. The browser builders are in a room somewhere, they&#8217;re doing their thing. You know, they&#8217;re not out here building WordPress websites, so they&#8217;re not building Gutenberg. So we as developers have a responsibility to give feedback to the actual browser vendors so they know what we need, what we&#8217;re struggling with.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You may not know the answer to this question, but does Chrome in a default setup where I install Chrome and then just click yes, yes, yes to everything that I&#8217;m asked. Does it provide heuristics back to Google about things like that? There&#8217;s millions of people interacting with carousels, for example.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:44] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> I&#8217;m going to say, well, going to say no because they&#8217;re, Chrome does collect data, but you have to opt in. By default, you would not have that box checked.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:51] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> But it is possible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:32:52] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes. And many people do. Many people do provide that. And most of that data is available publicly. So that data is anonymised and then made available publicly as part of the CrUX, the Chrome user experience data set. And that&#8217;s an open public data set that you can query using BigQuery. If you have a website or a product that&#8217;s very popular, you can get amazing data about how many sites are using it, about the performance of those sites, about growth over time. There&#8217;s all kinds of data out there.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, again, it&#8217;s a subset of the web. It&#8217;s not every website on the web because there&#8217;s a privacy concern about this data. So the only data that&#8217;s reported is when the pages or sites have enough visitors that you couldn&#8217;t track back to individual users. So it is a limited data set. Small sites with low traffic won&#8217;t appear in it. However, it&#8217;s incredibly valuable. And if you build a popular plugin, for example, this is a great way for you to gather data about how your plugin is being used, because some of the sites that install it will be in that data set and it&#8217;s public data.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:33:51] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. I&#8217;ll put a link to that in the show notes. That&#8217;s CrUX. CrUX. So that&#8217;s interesting. So there&#8217;s two routes there. There&#8217;s the heuristics provided by the browser if you opt in, but also it sounds to me like there are open channels communicating through people like you, if you&#8217;re a developer.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:34:04] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Like me, or like the Interop process that I mentioned earlier, where they open up a GitHub repo each year and you can just open an issue saying, here are the things that we&#8217;re struggling with. And I mentioned like Gutenberg actually did that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a couple years I was posting on the WordPress blog, hey, Interop is open, let&#8217;s give feedback. We did have one, at least one year where the Gutenberg team went in and made a long list of things that where they found incompatibilities. And some of those made their way into actual interrupt tasks. So it is incredibly valuable to give that feedback. And the browsers want to know, they want to build products that developers like to use.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:34:36] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. next, if there is a next.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:34:38] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Oh yes. Okay, so now we&#8217;re getting into, I think I hopped around a little bit, but the next section was about improving user experience. So the first one is actually a really simple one that I think is really cool. It&#8217;s customisable select.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:34:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh, so good.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:34:50] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes. So the select element traditionally has been rendered by the operating system. And that means, so if you have a select list, like a dropdown, you&#8217;re going to see a bunch of words and you&#8217;re going to be able to scroll through those. But if you want to make it more visual, say add some images or icons next to each word, you really couldn&#8217;t do that. If you wanted to do that, you&#8217;d reach for a JavaScript library that would render the select element graphically, but wasn&#8217;t really a select element.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So this is the ability to actually put HTML inside your select elements. So a great example of that is icons and images in the dropdown. So, for example, I gave a lot of different examples of how we can use this in WordPress Core, but one is in the media library where we filter by media type. We can add like nice little icons. So if you&#8217;re looking for, you know, the videos, you get a nice little video icon. It just makes it easier for users to find what they&#8217;re looking for.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And again, this is still a semantic select element, so it&#8217;s going to be accessible just like a regular select element. If the browser doesn&#8217;t support this feature, it&#8217;s just going to fall back to a regular select element.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s also going to autofill correctly, right? So another example I gave was a currency selector that adds flags for the country of the currency. A nice, helpful thing. If your browser knows that you use the Euro, it&#8217;s going to select the Euro because autofill is this great technology that helps us select things that we always select. But if it&#8217;s a JavaScript do hickey, the browser has no idea what&#8217;s going on inside there, so autofill will not work correctly. So it has some real key advantages over traditional, you know, the way we would build these before. Now we can just do full on HTML select elements.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s the kind of thing that once you&#8217;ve seen it, it&#8217;s like, why.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:25] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Why didn&#8217;t that exist before?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Because we just have the OS. It just looks like an OS selector. So on my Mac, it looks like a Mac. On my phone, it looks like Android, whatever that would be. Which leads me to that actually. So on the phone, same experience because it&#8217;s not stepping outside of the browser. if I&#8217;ve got those flags, for example, or I&#8217;ve got coloured backgrounds or rounded corners or whatever it may be, Because it&#8217;s not reaching out to the OS to create this select, it&#8217;ll work on any device.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:53] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Right.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:54] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Nice.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:54] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> And it&#8217;s CSS controlled, right? So you could do a different mobile implementation than your desktop implementation.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:36:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. I mean, it&#8217;s profoundly brilliant when you see. I&#8217;ll put some links to some demos somewhere into the shownotes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:06] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> You know, I&#8217;ve got several pull requests open both in Core and in Gutenberg to add these features into the select elements that we already have. It&#8217;s kind of a simple enhancement. And again, like if your browser doesn&#8217;t support it, you don&#8217;t really, there&#8217;s no harm, right? You don&#8217;t benefit from the feature, but you don&#8217;t lose anything either. I love that one. You know, I&#8217;m hoping that form plugins in our ecosystem will adopt it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:25] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh, no doubt. I mean, why wouldn&#8217;t you, basically? that&#8217;s a brilliant one. Thank you. Next.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:37:30] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Another one that, this one actually pairs really well with the Speculative Loading API and it&#8217;s called, the View Transitions API.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this one is really cool because it basically turns your static website into a, kind of a fluid app-like experience. And in the slide deck, I have this great demo video of just a classic theme, where the users just clicking through to different pages. So you&#8217;re on say, the archive list and you&#8217;ve got a list of titles. And you click on a title and it&#8217;s going to take you to the single post page. And what happens is the browser actually navigates between those two states. So you see the title that you just clicked on, grow and expand, and it winds up in the position where it will be on the page you&#8217;re navigating to.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Same thing like with the featured image. Let&#8217;s say you have featured images and those appear in a list and you click on the featured image, the image will grow to where it&#8217;s going to be in the final position. So it creates a smooth animation between the different pages of your site, or states of a single page app.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And these are again, CSS animation, so you can control them. It has an auto mode where it picks the animation for you, so you really can do a very, just few lines, and get this effect working, but you can also customise it. So if you want the page to say scroll left when you hit the next button and scroll to the right when you hit the back button, you can implement it that way.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:38:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So the place I&#8217;ve seen this before really is on mobile applications.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:38:48] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> On apps. You see it on apps, right. Because it creates this fluid experience. We are used to on the web this idea of, you click on a link and then there&#8217;s kind of like a little bit of a wait. Then boom, there&#8217;s a refresh and the next page starts loading. And this kind of bridges that gap. It&#8217;s something that changes how users perceive your website. It doesn&#8217;t really change what&#8217;s loading. It&#8217;s the same before and after states. What it&#8217;s doing is creating that transition between the two states.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:39:12] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It feels more like you&#8217;re on a journey as opposed to these little stops along the way to get to the final destination. It just creates this sort of fluid, endless experience. And I believe, I think I saw one of your colleagues, Felix Arntz, I believe he&#8217;s got a plugin, like a feature plugin out.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:39:30] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> It is. It just shipped. It&#8217;s part of the Performance Lab plugin suite. So that is basically going to add a way for themes to just opt in. So we have a feature in WordPress where you can be, add themes support. And you can say, my theme supports this feature. So if themes opt in, they can just enable this API and just, you instantly get the navigations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We fortunately benefit in Core from a lot of consistent naming for things. Like the class names on titles tend to be consistent among all the Core themes. And even in the ecosystem, a lot of people have stuck to those standards. And that makes it really straightforward to sort of choose the correct elements for the transitions.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Because part of setting this up is you sort of need to tell the browser, this is the title element. On the previous page, this is the title element on the next page. I want you to navigate between those two. And fortunately, at least for the Core themes, that&#8217;s pretty standard to do. So there is a pretty straightforward way to like implement it across all the core themes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I just want to remind the listener that, you may have got lost, we&#8217;re not talking about WordPress per se. We&#8217;re kind of talking about what the browser enables WordPress to do. So these view transitions, of course they can be implemented by a WordPress website, but it is in effect the browser that&#8217;s doing the hard work here.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>You don&#8217;t have to be tied to WordPress, you could do this in HTML and CSS if you so wish to do it. But it&#8217;s easy to imagine that this is some clever JavaScript thing that somebody&#8217;s implemented in WordPress. And it&#8217;s just not that. This is just happening inside the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:53] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> No, these are all browser features and, yeah, the talk is kind of like, how do they apply to WordPress? How WordPress use them?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:40:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I can imagine a world in the future where this feature in particular will have been massively overused. You know, people will, like scrolling animations for the, you know, this grows and this shrinks, and let&#8217;s see how that&#8217;ll settle. But the implementations that I&#8217;ve seen are just magnificent. They give you that, I don&#8217;t know, I&#8217;m on my phone, I use a music app, and I go to the next song and somehow the little icon for that song grows in this nice fluid way. Things fade in and fade out. Text becomes bigger, and it&#8217;s all happening. And It just encapsulates the screen perfectly. It gives everything the perfect place. And instead of it being a moment where it all just changes, everything slides into place. And it just feels natural, and we&#8217;ve got it coming in the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:39] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> It is amazing. Yeah. It&#8217;s, a pretty cool feature.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. Okay, next.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:41:42] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Okay. So I did talk about what you mentioned, we talked about modern images before. So I did talk a little bit about modern image formats, just a kind of love of mine. I honed in on. HDR imagery. So we all, most of us have smartphones these days that actually take high dynamic range images, right? Previously we had standard dynamic range, but now all of our phones take multiple exposures and combine those to create an HDR image.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have long had the ability to save images in HDR with formats like AVIF, WebP supports it. However, the challenge comes when you upload those images to WordPress and then you try to use them on a standard definition monitor, an SDR monitor, right? So you&#8217;ve got an HDR image, but suddenly you&#8217;re displaying it on a monitor that can&#8217;t display HDR, and you have to sort of, re downsize it to that lower bit depth, and that degrades the image greatly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So there is a new format available that&#8217;s ISO standard, and it&#8217;s called Ultra HDR. And this is a combination of standard jpeg SDR imagery with a gain map metadata layer. So it&#8217;s a single image format that includes both the SDR data as well as the data required to render the HDR version of the image. So it&#8217;s a full HDR image when you view it on a monitor that can support it, but on a monitor that doesn&#8217;t support it, you can just use the SDR image, you don&#8217;t need to do some conversion to try to create that alternate image.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;ve never heard of this, so I&#8217;m going to try and parse it in real time. Let&#8217;s see how this works. So I&#8217;m imagining an image and I&#8217;m imagining like a CSS gradient over the top, There&#8217;s a bit of metadata which does something. The underlying image is unchanged, but there&#8217;s something gone over the top.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:25] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes, it&#8217;s called a gain map.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:27] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Right, so gain mapping. And I can put that on, put that off. So it&#8217;s metadata transforming the image, but the image is the same.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:33] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:35] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Interesting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:43:35] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes. So I am a programmer and I deeply know about how WordPress media works, but I am not a photographer. However, there have been some great contributions from photographers who really know this space well. And they&#8217;ve come in and helped us on the media team really understand the challenges of handling these types of images and publishing them to the web, right?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I have a link in the slide to one of those guys and his photography website. He&#8217;s a software developer and a photographer. And he&#8217;s got like those sliders you can kind of see before and after and see what the difference is between SDR and HDR imagery. And you realise, oh my God, HDR images are amazing. So the point of this feature, or the thing that I&#8217;m talking about is to try to let people actually be able to use HDR images on their WordPress websites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:44:17] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s fascinating. So a metadata layer living on top of an image, which visibly transforms it, but not just to add, I don&#8217;t know, to change the hue or the tint of it, to render a better image of a higher quality. Gosh that&#8217;s fascinating.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:44:32] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yep. So the challenge we have in WordPress is the ability to process these images. So in WordPress, when you upload an image, it goes to the backend, to the web server, and then we process it, we convert it to various sizes for different display sizes. So you get a different image when you&#8217;re browsing the site on a mobile or a desktop or a high definition screen. We have all different sizes, and themes can add sizes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And all of that image processing happens using a couple of image processing libraries. GD and Imagick are the two that we support natively. Those libraries do not support the latest format, so Ultra HDR was maybe just added to Imagick. It will take years before that library, the new version of the library is actually available to WordPress sites. So even a format like AVIF that&#8217;s been around for quite a while now, is only supported by 30% of WordPress servers. So only 30% of WordPress sites can actually upload AVIFs and get the full, you know, various sizes that they need.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So that&#8217;s a limitation of the architecture of WordPress. And one of the next features that I talked about is something that will help us leapfrog that limitation. Browser based image processing. Exactly right. So what I&#8217;m talking about here is WebAssembly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So WebAssembly is the ability to run code that was written in another language like C or C++, that targeted a machine language, is meant to be run natively on the hardware. So that, for example, these image processing libraries, and also newer image processing libraries, can be run directly in the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what this gives us the ability to do is ship the latest version of the image library directly with WordPress. We no longer have to rely on hosts doing the messy and difficult process of upgrading servers, very challenging thing for hosts to do, to get the latest version of the Imagick library. We can just ship that library directly in the browser. And that gives us the ability to make every WordPress site support AVIF, and it also gives us the ability to do things we simply can&#8217;t do today on the backend.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>A good example of that is converting gif or gifs to movies, right? This is a common performance recommendation. Gifs are very heavy. You convert them to a native video element and they behave just the same for users, but they&#8217;re much lighter because the compression is so much smarter. Can&#8217;t do that in WordPress right now. Neither of the image libraries support that ability. But there are image processing libraries that handle this, and we can run those directly in the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:46:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Let me see if I&#8217;ve got this right. So in this world of the future, it&#8217;ll be possible, let&#8217;s say in the block editor, I drag in a, I don&#8217;t know, a jpeg or something, but I could convert that on the fly to an AVIF for example.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:05] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes. Even if your server didn&#8217;t support AVIF.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:06] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Even if. So it&#8217;s literally in the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:09] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:09] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. First thing is that quick.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:11] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Well, okay, so it&#8217;s not quick on the backend either, right? But it is asynchronous, so you can continue working on your post while it&#8217;s happening.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:18] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Right. So you wouldn&#8217;t necessarily see anything.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:20] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Right. You would that it was processing. And of course it would depend on how large your image is, how many subsized images you&#8217;re creating. But no, it&#8217;s not fast. It&#8217;s a slow process, but it&#8217;s a one time thing each time you upload an image.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:31] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That was next question. It&#8217;s a one time thing. So the movie thing that you just described, where you got the gif to a movie, again, a one-time thing?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:38] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:39] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So we upload it. In the background, asynchronously, it&#8217;s converting it, and then at some point it gets saved, I guess as a .mov file or something like that? inside the media library?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:47:50] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> And this is actually not some future technology you&#8217;ll be able to use someday. You can use this today by installing Pascal&#8217;s Media Experiments plugin. So my colleague Pascal has swisspidy as his handle, people know him by that. But he&#8217;s got the Media Experiments plugin, and that will let you do all these things that I&#8217;m talking about today. And it is experimental, so beta software, but, check it out because it really demonstrates what we can do.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s also a PR already open in Gutenberg with a whole roadmap for landing this feature. It is already sort of an experimental feature in Gutenberg. So if you install the Gutenberg plugin and you go into experiments, you can actually enable this feature. I don&#8217;t think it has all of the things that he has in the plugin, but it has sort of the additional framework for it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:48:28] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> If I were, well, I am fairly non-technical, this is the kind of stuff I expect, I think. You just drag an image from any device of any kind into the editor, whatever that editor interface is be it Gutenberg or, you know, whatever. It should just handle that. You know, there shouldn&#8217;t be a proclivity for we prefer this thing or we prefer that thing. It should just do it and whatever output I want, I want it as an AVIF, I want it as a WebP. Okay. we&#8217;ll just transform it in the background. I know there&#8217;s a ton of technological milestones to be achieved and overcome with that, but that is, I think, the expectation. The web should just work like that. Everything should convert and be easy, and drag and droppable and, yeah.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:49:10] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah, and famously, several years ago, Apple started storing images in the HEIC format, which is a better compression than jpeg. However, it&#8217;s not a web safe format. I think Safari is the only browser that supports it. So when we upload HEICs to WordPress now, we do convert them to jpegs for users.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, that only happens if your server supports HEIC images. Again, we rely on the server libraries, and that statistic is very similar to AVIF. It&#8217;s about 30% of sites. Fortunately Apple does automatically convert them if you upload them from your phone. But people do get into this problem where they wind up with HEIC images on their desktop and they&#8217;re trying to upload them to their WordPress, and then it will get rejected if your server doesn&#8217;t support it.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:49:50] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, this whole thing of, I&#8217;ve got images. It&#8217;s an image. Well, it&#8217;s in the wrong format. It&#8217;s an image.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:49:55] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Right? Why do I have to care?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:49:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It shouldn&#8217;t matter. Yeah, okay. That&#8217;s a perfect example. Okay, so images, anything else?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:50:02] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> The other one that I think is really cool that maybe people don&#8217;t know about is running AI directly in your browser. So there&#8217;s a great library called Transformers.js that lets you run a whole bunch of different models, kind of, it acts as an interface.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So just like the large language models that we have online, like Gemini and ChatGPT. You can actually run smaller versions of those directly in your browser. And some of the advantages of that are the data is private. There&#8217;s no API key required, or cost to you to use these. You can ship an AI directly with your product. So imagine you have a software, a plugin that is designed for company bulletin boards. You don&#8217;t really want that data going out to some remote API, but you&#8217;d like to give users a way to summarise the conversation from yesterday. A language model running in your browser is capable of doing that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:50:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Where does it live.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:50:50] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> It runs in the memory of the browser and it gets downloaded in cache. So there is a large download when you first start using it to actually download the model. And then it&#8217;s cached, with the browser storage APIs.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:51:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s persistent.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:51:03] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> It&#8217;s persistent, yes.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:51:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. Switch the machine off, switch the machine on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:51:05] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes. It&#8217;ll stay cached in your, browser. Browser has the ability to store files.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:51:08] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m guessing the constraints around what it can do compared to, I don&#8217;t know, ChatGPT 4o or whatever is much more minimal.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:51:15] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Significant. Right. This is in the browser, you&#8217;re probably going to get the performance maybe that you got out of the models a year ago or a year and a half ago. Remember when.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:51:24] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Oh not that bad then.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:51:25] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah. Not that bad, right? And you can imagine that a year or two from now, they&#8217;re just going to get better. And there have been dramatic improvements, and even like new approaches to how they&#8217;re doing them. So they&#8217;re getting quite good. They&#8217;ll never be as good as the large language models that are running in the cloud that have abundant resources.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s also hybrid models, right, where you use the local version when that&#8217;s all you have available, your offline, say, for example. Or you have a more complex query, then it can go to the cloud. There&#8217;s different ways of approaching that. But you can build a hybrid system, but the point of, the ability to run it in the browser, is to actually be able to do everything locally, and not rely necessarily on a cloud provider.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:52:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It really feels at the minute as if Google is in a big pivot towards AI.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:52:06] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Absolutely.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:52:07] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> In fact, it kind of feels like if you were to describe it as a race, it feels like Google is kind of nudging ahead at this moment in time. I just watched some of the bits and pieces from Google IO.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:52:16] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yes. Really impressive.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:52:16] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It was pretty profound in many respects. But also, can you constrain that AI? So for example, could I limit it to one, well, let&#8217;s say website? It can only be used and consumed by this thing. I don&#8217;t know if there would be a need for that. I&#8217;m just wondering, is it available to all the things or can you constrain it?</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:52:35] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> I mean, so there are actually aI things being built into the browser where you&#8217;ll get AI in the browser itself. But this is not really that, this is more like it&#8217;s running inside your app. So it would be constrained. And I see this as something that we&#8217;ll start to see like plugins, shipping AI with their plugin, and it doesn&#8217;t require you to have ChatGPT or some other service provider, it just has the AI built in.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe it&#8217;s identifying objects in an image. Or maybe it&#8217;s reviewing comments as to whether they&#8217;re spam. So things like that where it&#8217;s a pretty straightforward AI capability, it works really well on these smaller models. And so that&#8217;s something that I could imagine would just be built into a plugin. You would add this AI feature, but it doesn&#8217;t require that you sign up for a ChatGPT account, and get an API key and install it. You know, there&#8217;s a lot of barriers, I guess, to using the cloud models.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:53:23] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. I feel like you&#8217;ve left the most interest, well, not the most interesting, but the bomb is there. My head is kind of a bit taken by that one because I can really, I mean, everybody&#8217;s fascinated by AI, the possibilities of it. But it&#8217;s always an API key. It&#8217;s always a go off somewhere else. I mean, maybe it hasn&#8217;t been for people such as yourself, but I did not know that it was possible in the browser.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>And if it&#8217;s only a year behind, honestly, the stuff that I want to do with it is give it a corpus of information and filter that a little bit and give me a summary of it. That&#8217;s what I&#8217;m using it for. I&#8217;m imagining that all of that would be possible in the browser at no monetary cost.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:53:59] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Exactly. Right. Because you&#8217;re doing the computing yourself on your own platform.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:54:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And I would imagine, like I said, Google leaning into this, that&#8217;s only going to get more investment from them.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:54:10] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah. I mean, there is, yes, there&#8217;s a lot of investment going on in AI right now, so it&#8217;s pretty exciting. Yeah, and I did have, you know, I did talk a little bit about just how AI is going to impact all of our workflows and stuff, but that&#8217;s not really in the, it was kind of an expansion because it&#8217;s not actually a web capability, per se.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:54:25] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. Well, I think maybe that&#8217;s the perfect place to end it. Unless you&#8217;ve got some cataclysmic thing which can trump that.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:54:30] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Nope. That was the end of talk. The last slide was really just asking for feedback from developers. So that would be my last thing to say is just, you know, try to give feedback. I&#8217;m always open. My DMs are open on WordPress Core Slack. And like I said, there&#8217;s the interop thing where you can actually open up a ticket.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:54:45] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So, again, dear listener, just remember all of this, the browser is doing this. It sounds like it&#8217;s WordPress doing it, or it sounds like some other third party service. It&#8217;s not, it&#8217;s all in The browser and it&#8217;s fascinating. The browser is definitely more powerful today than it was yesterday. Adam Silverstein, thank you so much for chatting to me.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>[00:55:02] <strong>Adam Silverstein:</strong> Yeah, thank you.</p>\n</div></details>\n\n\n\n<p>On the podcast today we have <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/adamsilverstein/\">Adam Silverstein</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adam is a WordPress Core committer, and works to fix bugs and improve modern web capabilities. He’s also a Developer Relations Engineer on Chrome’s Web Platform team at Google, and there he focuses on making the open web better for everyone.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adam is here to break down how the rapid evolution of browser technology can supercharge your WordPress sites. We’re doing this by referencing his presentation at WordCamp Europe 2025, in which he covered multiple new features of browsers, which can be used by WordPress users to bring a variety of experiences to their websites.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>In many cases, these are browser APIs and features, and are quietly rdefining what’s possible on the web. From CSS-powered popovers and scroll-driven animations to speculative loading that speeds up your page transitions. Adam explains how these advancements are changing what’s possible for both developers and end-users.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The conversation sheds light on the collaboration between browser vendors, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, through initiatives like Interop and Baseline, paving the way for more consistent and robust features across platforms.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adam also talks about practical topics central to the WordPress community, like how the Popover API and native CSS carousels reduce JavaScript bloat, make sites more accessible, and deliver a better overall user experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He shares exciting new frontiers, such as browser-based image processing powered by WebAssembly, which is paving the way for universal support of modern formats like AVIF and Ultra HDR, and even running AI locally in your browser, no API key or cloud server required.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>He provides concrete examples on how these technologies can be leveraged in WordPress via Core updates, canonical plugins, and Gutenberg experiments, with a special focus on how developers can get involved and offer feedback to help shape future web standards. Prepare to look at your browser in a whole new light, truly.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Whether you’re a theme designer, plugin developer, or site owner simply curious about what’s next, this episode is for you.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Useful links</h2>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://europe.wordcamp.org/2025/session/modernizing-wordpress-with-new-web-platform-features/\">Modernizing WordPress with new Web Platform Features</a> &#8211; Adam&#8217;s presentation at WordCamp Europe 2025</p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://new.drupal.org/home\">Drupal</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://typo3.org/\">TYPO3</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.descript.com/\">Descript</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://developer.chrome.com/blog/introducing-popover-api/\">Popover API</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://web.dev/baseline/\">Baseline</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/\">MDN docs</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interop\">Interop</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_scroll-driven_animations\">Scroll Animations API</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.sliderrevolution.com/\">Slider Revolution</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://chrome.dev/carousel/\">Chrome Dev carousel demos</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://developer.chrome.com/docs/crux\">CrUX</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://cloud.google.com/bigquery\">BigQuery</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://developer.chrome.com/blog/a-customizable-select\">Customisable Select demos</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/performance-lab/\"> Performance Lab plugin</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_HDR\">Ultra HDR</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.image.php\">GD</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://www.php.net/manual/en/book.imagick.php\">Imagick</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://webassembly.org/\">WebAssembly</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://github.com/swissspidy/media-experiments\"> Pascal Birchler&#8217;s Media Experiments plugin</a></p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers.js/index\"> Transformers.js</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, 23 Jul 2025 14:00:00 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:14:\"Nathan Wrigley\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:\"data\";s:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:59:\"Weston Ruter: Instant Back/Forward Navigations 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:4:\"guid\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:33:\"https://weston.ruter.net/?p=35588\";s: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://weston.ruter.net/2025/07/23/instant-back-forward-navigations-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:36679:\"<p class=\"is-style-text-subtitle is-style-text-subtitle--3\">The new <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/nocache-bfcache/\"><strong>No-cache BFCache</strong></a> plugin enables instant back/forward navigations, particularly while logged in. See <a href=\"https://weston.ruter.net/category/wordpress/feed/#demos\">demos below</a> for the impact this has on browsing.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The speed of page navigations in WordPress has seen a big boost in 6.8 with the introduction of <a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/2025/03/06/speculative-loading-in-6-8/\">Speculative Loading</a>. When paired with the original <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/speculation-rules/\">feature plugin</a>, site visitors can experience instant page navigations thanks to its opt-ins for prerendering and “moderate eagerness”. However, WordPress does not enable such instant navigations by default. WordPress core must take a conservative approach since prerendering may cause compatibility problems, like with analytics or ads. There is also a sustainability concern with moderate prerendering since a user may momentarily hover over a link but not intend to follow it at all; this results in an unused prerender, which can waste a user&#8217;s bandwidth (and CPU to a limited extent) as well as increase the load on the web server (which can be problematic on shared hosts without page caching). Furthermore, even when prerendering is enabled, not all visitors may be able to experience instant page loads because: </p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Moderate eagerness is limited on mobile devices (where there is no hover heuristic on touch screens).</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Speculative Loading is not enabled when a user is logged in. (<strong>Updates:</strong> See <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/performance/pull/2097\">PR</a> which introduces a frontend opt-in, and the <a href=\"https://github.com/westonruter/speculative-loading-admin\">Speculative Loading Admin</a> plugin for a backend opt-in.)</li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Speculation Rules API is currently only <a href=\"https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_elements_script_type_speculationrules\">supported</a> in Chromium, leaving Safari and Firefox users out.</li>\n</ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Nevertheless, there is a much older web platform technology that enables “prerendering” <em>and</em> which is supported in all browsers: the <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/bfcache\">back/forward cache</a> (bfcache). This instant page navigation involves no network traffic and no CPU load. Previously visited pages are stored in memory as a snapshot with their entire state so that they can be restored instantly. Navigating to pages stored in bfcache is as fast as switching open browser tabs.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back/forward history navigations are very common, as according to the <a href=\"https://web.dev/articles/bfcache\">web.dev article</a> on bfcache:</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Chrome usage data shows that 1 in 10 navigations on desktop and 1 in 5 on mobile are either back or forward. With bfcache enabled, browsers could eliminate the data transfer and time spent loading for billions of web pages every single day!</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Also learn more via the <a href=\"https://youtu.be/Y2IVv5KnrmI\">following video</a>:</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n\n\n\n<p>While Speculative Loading enables prerendering, bfcache involves “pre<em>vious</em>-rendering”.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>The good news is that 84% of WordPress origins in <a href=\"https://httparchive.org/\">HTTP Archive</a> are already bfcache-eligible (based on <a href=\"https://gist.github.com/gilbertococchi/083c1516149cf5f70b103451d1790cbc\">this query</a> from <a href=\"https://github.com/gilbertococchi\">Gilberto Cocchi</a>). <strong>However, the most frequent user of your site may still not be able to experience instant page navigations via bfcache: <em>you!</em></strong> While browsing around the WP Admin and navigating the frontend of your site, the pages most likely aren&#8217;t eligible for bfcache due to various <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Performance_API/Monitoring_bfcache_blocking_reasons#blocking_reasons\">blocking reasons</a>. This sluggish experience extends not only to administrators but also to users of sites which require authentication, including e-commerce (e.g. WooCommerce), social (e.g. BuddyPress), and any membership sites. The 84% metric above doesn&#8217;t take into account these types of WordPress sites since HTTP Archive exclusively crawls public URLs without authentication. Users browsing WordPress sites on shared hosts or when on a slow connection will be especially frustrated by slow back/forward navigations. Enabling instant back/forward navigations will not only make your users happier (especially you), but it can also improve your <abbr title=\"Core Web Vitals\">CWV</abbr> passing rate <a href=\"https://developer.chrome.com/blog/crux-navigation-types\">in <abbr title=\"Chrome User Experience Report\">CrUX</abbr></a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve been on a mission to bring back bfcache (or rather to bring it forward).</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"stale-content-in-page-caches\">Stale Content in Page Caches</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Before going further, I wanted to call out a potentially negative consequence of navigating cached pages. While instant back/forward navigations can provide a big performance boost to the user experience, they can also be a source of confusion when navigating to a cached page with stale content. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consider the case of an e-commerce site, where a user is on the shopping cart page. From there, they click a link to a related product, and from that product page they add it to the cart dynamically (e.g. via Ajax). At this point, if they hit the back button to return to the cart page and the cart is restored from a page cache, they may not see the newly added product in the cart. A user can simply reload the page to fix this, but this can also be handled automatically. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>As described in the “<a href=\"https://web.dev/articles/bfcache#update-data-after-restore\">Update stale or sensitive data after bfcache restore</a>” section of the web.dev post, the <code>pageshow</code> event with the <code>persisted</code> property (further <a href=\"https://weston.ruter.net/category/wordpress/feed/#jit-page-cache-invalidation\">discussed</a> below) indicates when a page was restored from bfcache. This event can be used to update the DOM with the latest shopping cart details. In fact, WooCommerce already <a href=\"https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/blob/47845a498f0918a90d60ab3adca204d13a712cde/plugins/woocommerce/client/blocks/assets/js/base/context/hooks/cart/use-store-cart-event-listeners.ts#L40-L50\">implements this</a> for its cart:</p>\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><span><code class=\"hljs language-typescript\"><span class=\"hljs-keyword\">const</span> refreshCachedCartData = ( event: PageTransitionEvent ): <span class=\"hljs-function\"><span class=\"hljs-params\">void</span> =&gt;</span> {\n	<span class=\"hljs-keyword\">if</span> ( event?.persisted || getNavigationType() === <span class=\"hljs-string\">\'back_forward\'</span> ) {\n		dispatch( cartStore ).invalidateResolutionForStore();\n	}\n};\n<span class=\"hljs-comment\">/* ... */</span>\n<span class=\"hljs-built_in\">window</span>.addEventListener( <span class=\"hljs-string\">\'pageshow\'</span>, refreshCachedCartData );</code></span></pre>\n\n\n<p>Simply searching a plugin&#8217;s codebase for “pageshow” (e.g. <a href=\"https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Awoocommerce%2Fwoocommerce%20pageshow&amp;type=code\">in Woo</a>) should indicate whether bfcache navigations are accounted for. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>Note also that stale content is also an issue <a href=\"https://github.com/WordPress/performance/issues/1774\">we&#8217;ve faced</a> with Speculative Loading, especially when using non-conservative eagerness.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Breaking Caching to Preserve Privacy</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>My bfcache work began two years ago when I started collaborating on <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/55491\">#55491</a> to eliminate the use of the <a href=\"https://developer.chrome.com/docs/web-platform/deprecating-unload\">deprecated</a> <code>unload</code> event handler in WordPress core. Not only does this event fire unreliably, but it also has the side effect of making a page <a href=\"https://web.dev/articles/bfcache#never-use-the-unload-event\">ineligible for bfcache</a> via the “<a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Performance_API/Monitoring_bfcache_blocking_reasons#unload-listener\">unload-listener</a>” blocking reason. I had <a href=\"https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/wpp-research/pull/75\">queried</a> HTTP Archive myself at the time, and I found it to be the second most common blocking reason. So in <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/56809\">r56809</a> we eliminated all uses of <code>unload</code>, including from:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Heartbeat API</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Post locking in the classic editor</li>\n\n\n\n<li>Post previews</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p>However, even with the use of <code>unload</code> eliminated, I was confused why I wasn&#8217;t finding pages to be eligible for bfcache in my testing. (The removal of <code>unload</code> in core likely didn&#8217;t make a dent in bfcache eligibility in HTTP Archive since only <a href=\"https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/wpp-research/pull/75#:~:text=Lastly%2C%20in%20heartbeat%2Dscript%2Dpresence.sql%20I%20check%20to%20see%20how%20common%20the%20Heartbeat%20script%20actually%20is%3A\">0.25%</a> of unauthenticated pages had the Heartbeat API present.) It turns out that several weeks before I started working on this, a <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/55968\">commit</a> had landed which <em>intentionally</em> broke browser page caching (both bfcache and HTTP cache): the <code>no-store</code> directive was added to the <code>Cache-Control</code> response header for logged-in users. (Specifically, this was added to the <code><a href=\"https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_get_nocache_headers/\">wp_get_nocache_headers()</a></code> function.) This introduced the “<a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Performance_API/Monitoring_bfcache_blocking_reasons#response-cache-control-no-store\">response-cache-control-no-store</a>” bfcache blocking reason, which was actually the <a href=\"https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/wpp-research/pull/75#:~:text=Pages%20whose%20main%20resource%20has%20cache%2Dcontrol%3Ano%2Dstore%20cannot%20enter%20back/forward%20cache.\">most common reason for ineligibility</a>, just above <code>unload</code> in my HTTP Archive query. The reason for adding this is found in <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21938\">#21938</a> which proposed adding the <code>no-store</code> directive in order to explicitly <em>disable</em> caching so that authenticated pages do not get stored in the browser cache. This was followed up with <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/61942\">#61942</a> to also send <code>no-store</code> on the frontend while a user is logged in. The rationale for this is rooted in privacy, per the commit message:</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>The intention behind this change is to prevent sensitive data in responses for logged in users being cached and available to others, for example via the browser history after the user logs out.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Consider an administrator who is logged in to WordPress on a shared computer and is working on something sensitive, like managing API keys on an admin screen. A malicious person could navigate back to that admin screen via the back button after the user had logged out. Nevertheless, the “bad guy” will need to act fast because a browser won&#8217;t store cached pages indefinitely; Chrome, for example, holds onto pages in bfcache for <a href=\"https://developer.chrome.com/docs/web-platform/bfcache-ccns#:~:text=The%20bfcache%20timeout%20for%20Cache%2DControl%3A%20no%2Dstore%20pages%20is%20also%20reduced%20to%203%20minutes%20(from%2010%20minutes%20used%20for%20pages%20which%20don%27t%20use%20Cache%2DControl%3A%20no%2Dstore)%20to%20further%20reduce%20risk.\">10 minutes</a>. (Tip: When using a shared computer, always exit the browser after logging out of all sites when ending work.) So while <code>no-store</code> here does improve privacy, it does so at the expense of the user experience by degrading the performance of back/forward navigations. Even when pages aren&#8217;t eligible for bfcache, removing <code>no-store</code> still improves back/forward navigation performance since pages can be served from the browser&#8217;s HTTP cache (although the DOM has to be re-built and scripts have to be re-executed).</p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Surely there must be a way to preserve privacy and promote performance together.</strong></p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s important to note that the <code>no-store</code> directive not only prevents pages from being cached by the browser, but it also preserves privacy by preventing proxies from caching pages, per <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers/Cache-Control#no-store\">MDN</a>:</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>The <code>no-store</code> response directive indicates that any caches of any kind (private or shared) should not store this response.  </p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Keeping authenticated pages out of page caches prevents embarrassing scenarios like serving a user the shopping cart page for another user. Nevertheless, there is a more tailored <code>Cache-Control</code> mechanism for this purpose: the <code>private</code> directive. Again, per <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers/Cache-Control#private\">MDN</a>:</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>The private response directive indicates that the response can be stored only in a private cache (e.g., local caches in browsers). ¶ You should add the private directive for user-personalized content, especially for responses received after login and for sessions managed via cookies. ¶ If you forget to add private to a response with personalized content, then that response can be stored in a shared cache and end up being reused for multiple users, which can cause personal information to leak.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>This is what was originally requested in <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/57627\">#57627</a>, but both <code>private</code> and <code>no-store</code> were added together, with the <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/55968\">commit</a> message reasoning:</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>The <code>private</code> directive complements the <code>no-store</code> directive by specifying that the response contains private information that should not be stored in a public cache. Some proxy caches may ignore the <code>no-store</code> directive but respect the <code>private</code> directive, thus it is included.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>So how can the <code>private</code> directive be retained for proxies, while removing the <code>no-store</code> directive so that a user can benefit from browser caching but not at the expense of privacy?</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Preserving Privacy while Caching</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In order to omit the <code>no-store</code> directive and enable instant back/forward navigations while preserving privacy, a way is needed to evict pages from the browser cache when a user logs out. In my research, there are three mechanisms to do this, with various degrees of browser support.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The <code>Clear-Site-Data</code> Header</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The most straightforward mechanism to invalidate pages from bfcache would at first seem to be the <code>Clear-Site-Data</code> HTTP response header. This is supposedly Baseline 2023 Newly Available, but there is an asterisk: “Some parts of this feature may have varying levels of support.” Per <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers/Clear-Site-Data\">MDN</a>, this header “sends a signal to the client that it should remove all browsing data of certain types (cookies, storage, cache) associated with the requesting website.” In fact, the <code>cache</code> directive for this header seems to be exactly what is needed, as it even <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/Headers/Clear-Site-Data#cache\">explicitly calls</a> out bfcache:</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>The server signals that the client should remove locally cached data (the browser cache, see <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Guides/Caching\">HTTP caching</a>) for the origin of the response URL. Depending on the browser, this might also clear out things like pre-rendered pages, <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/bfcache\">backwards-forwards cache</a>, script caches, WebGL shader caches, or address bar suggestions.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>However, note the word “might”. In my testing, sending this header does currently evict pages from bfcache in Chrome. But, there is an <a href=\"https://github.com/w3c/webappsec-clear-site-data/issues/73\">open spec question</a> for whether Clear-Site-Data should clear bfcache; it mentions <a href=\"https://github.com/w3c/webappsec-clear-site-data/issues/68\">dropping</a> the <code>cache</code> directive entirely, and it suggests that a different <code>executionContexts</code> directive may be more appropriate (but its browser support is even worse and it may be <a href=\"https://github.com/w3c/webappsec-clear-site-data/issues/59\">dropped</a> from the spec). Firefox <a href=\"https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1671182\">dropped support</a> for the <code>cache</code> directive but then <a href=\"https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1930500\">restored</a> it, although in testing it seems Firefox only evicts pages from the HTTP cache and not from bfcache. Finally, Safari doesn&#8217;t seem to evict pages from either the HTTP cache or bfcache when this header is sent. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>When/if browser support for this is improved, implementing eviction of pages from browser caches could be as simple as:</p>\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><span><code class=\"hljs language-php\">add_action(\n	<span class=\"hljs-string\">\'clear_auth_cookie\'</span>,\n	<span class=\"hljs-function\"><span class=\"hljs-keyword\">function</span> <span class=\"hljs-params\">()</span> </span>{\n		header( <span class=\"hljs-string\">\'Clear-Site-Data: \"cache\"\'</span> );\n	}\n);</code></span></pre>\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, while this header seems to be tailor-made for evicting pages from browser caches, it cannot be relied on since it is clearly not widely available in Baseline, and not even “newly available” either. There is also a Chromium bug (<a href=\"https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40233601\">40233601</a>) where sending this header can greatly delay page response times, possibly causing a logout link to take half a minute to respond. The final mark against <code>Clear-Site-Data</code> is that the header requires a secure context (HTTPS), so the WordPress sites still on HTTP could not evict pages from browser caches using this header (although privacy could be the last of their concerns at this point).</p>\n\n\n\n<p>So to preserve privacy, another browser page cache invalidation method is currently needed.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Broadcast Channel</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Going back to the aforementioned bfcache <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Performance_API/Monitoring_bfcache_blocking_reasons#blocking_reasons\">blocking reasons</a>, one of them is “<a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Performance_API/Monitoring_bfcache_blocking_reasons#broadcastchannel-message\">broadcastchannel-message</a>”:</p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>While the page was stored in back/forward cache, a <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/BroadcastChannel\">BroadcastChannel</a> connection on the page received a message to trigger a <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MessageEvent\">message</a> event.</p>\n</blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>I went down a rabbit hole with this one, thinking I could leverage this blocking reason as a bfcache eviction mechanism. In my discarded implementation, all authenticated pages include a script which listens to a broadcast channel such as “auth_change”. Then, to evict authenticated pages from bfcache upon a successful logout (or logging in as another user), a script can be included on the page which simply broadcasts an arbitrary message to this same “auth_change” broadcast channel. This causes the eviction of any authenticated pages in bfcache which are listening to messages from this broadcast channel.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was seeing very promising results with this approach, where pages were being successfully evicted from bfcache in Chromium (Chrome/Edge) and Firefox. Nevertheless, eviction was not happening in Safari, which apparently has not yet implemented this blocking reason. <em>However</em>, this approach fell apart once I closed DevTools.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Normally when DevTools is open I have “Disable cache” checked in the Network panel. This disables the HTTP cache, but not the bfcache. What I would see then is if I navigated around the WP Admin and then logged out in a second tab, hitting the back button in the first tab would immediately take me to the login screen. This is exactly what I wanted. However, once I closed DevTools, I started seeing pages served from the browser&#8217;s HTTP cache when navigating back/forward. Because the <code>no-store</code> directive is removed, this means the browser may actually serve pages from HTTP cache when navigating back/forward, even when the <code>Cache-Control</code> header has <code>no-cache</code>, <code>must-revalidate</code>, and <code>max-age=0</code>. And here, when the user logged out, they shouldn&#8217;t be served from either HTTP cache or bfcache to preserve privacy. So this was not a viable approach in the end.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"jit-page-cache-invalidation\">Just-in-time Page Cache Invalidation</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, the most reliable solution I&#8217;ve found to invalidate pages from both bfcache and the HTTP cache is to do so just-in-time with JavaScript: When a page is restored from a browser cache and it is determined to be stale, the page contents are wiped and the page is reloaded. This approach is also referenced in the aforementioned “<a href=\"https://web.dev/articles/bfcache#minimize-no-store\">Update stale or sensitive data after bfcache restore</a>” section on web.dev, although I&#8217;m accounting for pages not only restored from bfcache but also the HTTP cache. </p>\n\n\n\n<p>My implementation involves the creation of a new session token when the user authenticates. This session token is served in the HTML with each authenticated page, and it is also set as a <code>wordpress_​bfcache_​session_​{COOKIEHASH}</code> cookie which can be read by JavaScript. When a user logs out, this session token cookie is cleared. Whenever a page is loaded, the session token in the HTML is compared with the current session token in the cookie. When they don&#8217;t match, then the page is invalidated. If a page is served from bfcache, then the <a href=\"https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/pageshow_event\"><code>pageshow</code> event</a> (with <code>persisted</code> true) is used to do this check; if a page is served from the HTTP cache, then the check is done when the script module is executed. If the user had logged out, then reloading the page will take them to the login screen which, after authenticating, will redirect them back to the page they had been on.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>As this page cache invalidation mechanism depends on JavaScript, scripting must be enabled to be eligible to omit the <code>no-store</code> directive from the <code>Cache-Control</code> header. This JavaScript detection can be done when the user submits the login form.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>This implementation has been made available in a new plugin: <strong>No-cache BFCache</strong>. It is available <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/nocache-bfcache/\">on WordPress.org</a> and <a href=\"https://github.com/westonruter/nocache-bfcache/\">on GitHub</a>. This is a feature plugin to implement <a href=\"https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/63636\">#63636</a> in WordPress core.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-plugin-directory wp-block-embed-plugin-directory\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/nocache-bfcache/\">No-cache BFCache</a></blockquote>\n</div></figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"demos\">Demos</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>In the following demos, I have Slow 4G network emulation enabled along with CPU throttling. This is in order to better simulate what an average user may experience when navigating, such as on a mid-range device potentially with a WordPress site on a shared host.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Demo: Navigating the WordPress Admin</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>After navigating from the Dashboard to the posts list table and then opening a post to edit, you can see the difference in speed navigating back and forth through the browser history:</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns alignwide is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Without bfcache</h4>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">With bfcache</h4>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Demo: Navigating the WordPress Frontend</h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Here you can see me draft a message in a BuddyPress activity update. Then I navigate to another URL, and then I go back and forward:</p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns alignwide is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-28f84493 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Without bfcache</h4>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The drafted BuddyPress activity update is lost when navigating away from the page before submitting. The activity feed and Tweet have to be reconstructed with each back/forward navigation.</figcaption></figure>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\">\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">With bfcache</h4>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n\n</div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The drafted BuddyPress activity update is preserved when navigating away from the page without submitting. The activity feed and Tweet do not have to be reconstructed when navigating to previously visited pages via the back/forward buttons.</figcaption></figure>\n</div>\n</div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Appendix</h2>\n\n\n\n<p>WooCommerce has been serving pages with <code>no-store</code> even for unauthenticated users on its Cart, Checkout, and Account pages. This slowed down navigating a store, even though Woo already implements support for ensuring a cart is up-to-date via the <code>pageshow</code> event, as <a href=\"https://weston.ruter.net/category/wordpress/feed/#stale-content-in-page-caches\">mentioned</a> above. The lack of bfcache means not only that navigating back to the cart is much slower than it needs to be, but there can also be data loss, for example an entered coupon but accidentally not applied. In PR <a href=\"https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/pull/58445\">#58445</a> the sending of <code>no-store</code> was removed. This is slated to be part of v10.1. See <a href=\"https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/pull/58445#issuecomment-3014404754\">before/after demo videos</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Similarly, in Jetpack certain admin screens are sending <code>no-store</code> which slow down back/forward navigations. In Jetpack 14.9, PR <a href=\"https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/pull/44322\">#44322</a> removes this and greatly speeds up navigating to/from Jetpack admin screens, as seen in the <a href=\"https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/pull/44322#:~:text=no%2Dstore.-,Demo%20Video,-Compare%20navigating%20back\">demo videos</a>.</p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes the instantaneous navigations enabled by bfcache (and prerendering in Speculative Loading) can be a bit jarring, since pages load faster than expected. So the No-cache BFCache pairs well with the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/plugins/view-transitions/\">View Transitions</a> plugin which now features an Admin View Transitions opt-in. This helps smooth the overall experience.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<p>Special thanks to <a href=\"https://kinsta.com/\">Kinsta</a> for <a href=\"https://github.com/sponsors/westonruter\">sponsoring</a> part of my time contributing to WordPress while I&#8217;ve been <a href=\"https://weston.ruter.net/2025/05/14/a-decade-as-a-core-committer-my-wordpress-contribution-history/\">between full time roles</a>. I also <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_I_JsFi2M0&amp;t=842s\">discussed</a> this bfcache project in my “<a href=\"https://youtu.be/d_I_JsFi2M0\">From Cassette Tapes to Core Commits: Weston Ruter’s WordPress Journey</a>” interview with <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerwilliamsmedia?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_profile_view_base_contact_details%3BSVYGJ1iQReyyHVN4aXnkag%3D%3D\">Roger Williams</a> last week.</p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" />\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Where I&#8217;ve shared this, if you want to boost:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-social-links is-layout-flex wp-block-social-links-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-linkedin  wp-block-social-link\"><a class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\" href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/posts/westonruter_instant-backforward-navigations-in-wordpress-activity-7353696655562452995-zu-E?utm_source=share&#038;utm_medium=member_desktop&#038;rcm=ACoAAACIeJ0BUsdEu-G5aiGg1JkXrMQ-C6tbCsI\"><svg height=\"24\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"24\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><path d=\"M19.7,3H4.3C3.582,3,3,3.582,3,4.3v15.4C3,20.418,3.582,21,4.3,21h15.4c0.718,0,1.3-0.582,1.3-1.3V4.3 C21,3.582,20.418,3,19.7,3z M8.339,18.338H5.667v-8.59h2.672V18.338z M7.004,8.574c-0.857,0-1.549-0.694-1.549-1.548 c0-0.855,0.691-1.548,1.549-1.548c0.854,0,1.547,0.694,1.547,1.548C8.551,7.881,7.858,8.574,7.004,8.574z M18.339,18.338h-2.669 v-4.177c0-0.996-0.017-2.278-1.387-2.278c-1.389,0-1.601,1.086-1.601,2.206v4.249h-2.667v-8.59h2.559v1.174h0.037 c0.356-0.675,1.227-1.387,2.526-1.387c2.703,0,3.203,1.779,3.203,4.092V18.338z\"></path></svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">LinkedIn</span></a></li>\n\n<li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-bluesky  wp-block-social-link\"><a class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\" href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/weston.ruter.net/post/3lumkutpuv22l\"><svg height=\"24\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"24\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><path d=\"M6.3,4.2c2.3,1.7,4.8,5.3,5.7,7.2.9-1.9,3.4-5.4,5.7-7.2,1.7-1.3,4.3-2.2,4.3.9s-.4,5.2-.6,5.9c-.7,2.6-3.3,3.2-5.6,2.8,4,.7,5.1,3,2.9,5.3-5,5.2-6.7-2.8-6.7-2.8,0,0-1.7,8-6.7,2.8-2.2-2.3-1.2-4.6,2.9-5.3-2.3.4-4.9-.3-5.6-2.8-.2-.7-.6-5.3-.6-5.9,0-3.1,2.7-2.1,4.3-.9h0Z\"></path></svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Bluesky</span></a></li>\n\n<li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-mastodon  wp-block-social-link\"><a class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\" href=\"https://mastodon.social/@westonruter/114901525584434540\"><svg height=\"24\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"24\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><path d=\"M23.193 7.879c0-5.206-3.411-6.732-3.411-6.732C18.062.357 15.108.025 12.041 0h-.076c-3.068.025-6.02.357-7.74 1.147 0 0-3.411 1.526-3.411 6.732 0 1.192-.023 2.618.015 4.129.124 5.092.934 10.109 5.641 11.355 2.17.574 4.034.695 5.535.612 2.722-.15 4.25-.972 4.25-.972l-.09-1.975s-1.945.613-4.129.539c-2.165-.074-4.449-.233-4.799-2.891a5.499 5.499 0 0 1-.048-.745s2.125.52 4.817.643c1.646.075 3.19-.097 4.758-.283 3.007-.359 5.625-2.212 5.954-3.905.517-2.665.475-6.507.475-6.507zm-4.024 6.709h-2.497V8.469c0-1.29-.543-1.944-1.628-1.944-1.2 0-1.802.776-1.802 2.312v3.349h-2.483v-3.35c0-1.536-.602-2.312-1.802-2.312-1.085 0-1.628.655-1.628 1.944v6.119H4.832V8.284c0-1.289.328-2.313.987-3.07.68-.758 1.569-1.146 2.674-1.146 1.278 0 2.246.491 2.886 1.474L12 6.585l.622-1.043c.64-.983 1.608-1.474 2.886-1.474 1.104 0 1.994.388 2.674 1.146.658.757.986 1.781.986 3.07v6.304z\"></svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Mastodon</span></a></li>\n\n<li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-twitter  wp-block-social-link\"><a class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\" href=\"https://x.com/westonruter/status/1947932105599815923\"><svg height=\"24\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"24\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><path d=\"M22.23,5.924c-0.736,0.326-1.527,0.547-2.357,0.646c0.847-0.508,1.498-1.312,1.804-2.27 c-0.793,0.47-1.671,0.812-2.606,0.996C18.324,4.498,17.257,4,16.077,4c-2.266,0-4.103,1.837-4.103,4.103 c0,0.322,0.036,0.635,0.106,0.935C8.67,8.867,5.647,7.234,3.623,4.751C3.27,5.357,3.067,6.062,3.067,6.814 c0,1.424,0.724,2.679,1.825,3.415c-0.673-0.021-1.305-0.206-1.859-0.513c0,0.017,0,0.034,0,0.052c0,1.988,1.414,3.647,3.292,4.023 c-0.344,0.094-0.707,0.144-1.081,0.144c-0.264,0-0.521-0.026-0.772-0.074c0.522,1.63,2.038,2.816,3.833,2.85 c-1.404,1.1-3.174,1.756-5.096,1.756c-0.331,0-0.658-0.019-0.979-0.057c1.816,1.164,3.973,1.843,6.29,1.843 c7.547,0,11.675-6.252,11.675-11.675c0-0.178-0.004-0.355-0.012-0.531C20.985,7.47,21.68,6.747,22.23,5.924z\"></path></svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Twitter</span></a></li>\n\n<li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-threads  wp-block-social-link\"><a class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\" href=\"https://www.threads.com/@westonruter/post/DMcW7QUOfrC?xmt=AQF0RmSf6xjzbuDgVlvigocp0pk-4R0eBjA7GUIEXS4bQw\"><svg height=\"24\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"24\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\"><path d=\"M16.3 11.3c-.1 0-.2-.1-.2-.1-.1-2.6-1.5-4-3.9-4-1.4 0-2.6.6-3.3 1.7l1.3.9c.5-.8 1.4-1 2-1 .8 0 1.4.2 1.7.7.3.3.5.8.5 1.3-.7-.1-1.4-.2-2.2-.1-2.2.1-3.7 1.4-3.6 3.2 0 .9.5 1.7 1.3 2.2.7.4 1.5.6 2.4.6 1.2-.1 2.1-.5 2.7-1.3.5-.6.8-1.4.9-2.4.6.3 1 .8 1.2 1.3.4.9.4 2.4-.8 3.6-1.1 1.1-2.3 1.5-4.3 1.5-2.1 0-3.8-.7-4.8-2S5.7 14.3 5.7 12c0-2.3.5-4.1 1.5-5.4 1.1-1.3 2.7-2 4.8-2 2.2 0 3.8.7 4.9 2 .5.7.9 1.5 1.2 2.5l1.5-.4c-.3-1.2-.8-2.2-1.5-3.1-1.3-1.7-3.3-2.6-6-2.6-2.6 0-4.7.9-6 2.6C4.9 7.2 4.3 9.3 4.3 12s.6 4.8 1.9 6.4c1.4 1.7 3.4 2.6 6 2.6 2.3 0 4-.6 5.3-2 1.8-1.8 1.7-4 1.1-5.4-.4-.9-1.2-1.7-2.3-2.3zm-4 3.8c-1 .1-2-.4-2-1.3 0-.7.5-1.5 2.1-1.6h.5c.6 0 1.1.1 1.6.2-.2 2.3-1.3 2.7-2.2 2.7z\"></svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Threads</span></a></li></ul>\n\n\n\n<p></p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https://weston.ruter.net/2025/07/23/instant-back-forward-navigations-in-wordpress/\">Instant Back/Forward Navigations in WordPress</a> appeared first on <a href=\"https://weston.ruter.net\">Weston Ruter</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, 23 Jul 2025 07:51:21 +0000\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";}}}s:32:\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\";a:1:{s:7:\"creator\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:12:\"Weston Ruter\";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:21:\"\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n	\n\";s:7:\"attribs\";a:0:{}s:8:\"xml_base\";s:0:\"\";s:17:\"xml_base_explicit\";b:0;s:8:\"xml_lang\";s:0:\"\";s:5:\"child\";a:2:{s:0:\"\";a:5:{s:5:\"title\";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:\"data\";s:82:\"Jonathan Desrosiers: Implementing AI in Open Source Without Losing the Human Touch\";s: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:37:\"https://jonathandesrosiers.com?p=6434\";s: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://jonathandesrosiers.com/2025/07/implementing-ai-in-open-source-without-losing-the-human-touch/\";s: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:14016:\"<p class=\"\">AI is reshaping how we interact with technology and with each other. In large, collaborative Open Source communities like <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/\">WordPress</a>, the shift towards AI is exciting, but it brings unique challenges when applied across a global contributor base.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">There are extreme stances on both sides of the argument. On one side: &#8220;AI everything.&#8221; On the other: &#8220;AI has no place here.&#8221; I am somewhere in the middle. Watching. Listening. Experimenting.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I spend a lot of time <a href=\"https://jonathandesrosiers.com/2019/06/wordpress-triage-team-3-month-reflection/\">thinking about contributor workflows and triage</a>. This post is a reflection on how we might integrate AI into those areas in thoughtful ways, without losing the human qualities that make Open Source great.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-ai-is-just-the-newest-kind-of-automation\">AI Is Just the Newest Kind of Automation</h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Automation is not new. WordPress has embraced automation in many forms over the years: build scripts, linting tools, unit testing, continuous integration workflows, and more. AI is simply another form of automation. It only does what we configure it to do. We haven’t reached any kind of singularity just yet.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But with great power comes great responsibility. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. Every proposed use of AI should be <a href=\"https://maintaine.rs/desrosj\">measured against</a> our <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/about/philosophy/\">core values</a>: putting the users first, backwards compatibility, democratizing publishing, and making WordPress welcoming to contributors of all skill levels.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-should-always-be-human\">What Should Always Be Human?</h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Before we introduce AI into the community, we need to answer one critical question: What <em><strong>must</strong></em> be human? If we first identify those things and declare them sacred, we can then begin to explore how to best surround and support them with AI-related tools.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Related to that is another important question: What do people <em><strong>expect</strong></em> to be human? And where do those expectations align or conflict with perception, or the tasks that actually make us more productive?</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-full wp-lightbox-container\"><img alt=\"A person standing alone in front of a large, bright white screen, with only their silhouette visible against the light background.\" class=\"wp-image-6439 not-transparent\" height=\"1707\" src=\"https://jonathandesrosiers.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/96466603e98a99495.95027958-scaled.jpg\" width=\"2560\" /><button class=\"lightbox-trigger\" type=\"button\">\n			<svg fill=\"none\" height=\"12\" viewBox=\"0 0 12 12\" width=\"12\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\">\n				<path d=\"M2 0a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v2h1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 1 .5-.5h2V0H2Zm2 10.5H2a.5.5 0 0 1-.5-.5V8H0v2a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h2v-1.5ZM8 12v-1.5h2a.5.5 0 0 0 .5-.5V8H12v2a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H8Zm2-12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v2h-1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 0-.5-.5H8V0h2Z\" fill=\"#fff\">\n			</svg>\n		</button><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/\">CC0</a> licensed <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/photo/untitled-post-submission-621/\">photo</a> by <a href=\"https://www.nilovelez.com/\">Nilo Velez</a> from the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/\">WordPress Photo Directory</a>.</figcaption></figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">From personal experience, I hate when I’m forced to interact with AI or a chat bot when I was instead expecting (or hoping for) a human. Rarely am I surprised in a good way. More often I’m frustrated and disappointed by limitations and rigid structure. Expectations matter.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The right approach could be to let each contributor configure the level of AI support they want to meet their needs and expectations.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Some common-sense boundaries might include the following:</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-first-and-last-interaction-on-every-ticket-should-always-be-human\">The first and last interaction on every ticket should always be human</h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Creating a ticket in a large project takes courage. A human response is a sign of respect and gratitude. Every reporter is owed at least two human responses. That human interaction sets the tone, builds trust, and encourages continued participation. Tactfully sprinkling AI in the middle is acceptable.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-ai-should-not-be-used-for-evaluating-ideas-or-making-decisions\">AI should not be used for evaluating ideas or making decisions</h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Verifying a patch, helping adhere to coding standards, providing suggestions for improvement, or flagging potential issues based on past commit activity are all great opportunities to use AI. But using AI to actually make decisions becomes quite risky.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I think it’s safe to say that the overwhelming majority of contributors expect final decisions to be made by humans. However, AI could support the evaluation of ideas by identifying possible consequences, providing historical context, fact-checking, and validating rationale.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">There could also be an option to request deeper AI insight using a keyword, like <code>needs-ai-feedback</code>, when necessary.</p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-ai-can-break-down-cultural-and-language-barriers\">AI can break down cultural and language barriers</h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Global collaboration is a strength of Open Source, but it also introduces communication challenges. Language barriers, social norms, and tone differences can unintentionally create friction. AI has the potential to help us bridge those gaps. It can assist with translating intent, softening language, and suggesting more inclusive phrasing. By helping contributors express themselves clearly and interpret others more generously, AI can promote empathy and reduce misunderstandings.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">While there are <a href=\"https://es.wordpress.org/support/\">localized support resources</a> for the WordPress project, it&#8217;s generally expected that when contributing you are doing so in English. But what if AI were used to automatically translate any message, allowing someone to contribute in their native tongue? <a href=\"https://jonathandesrosiers.com/2025/07/the-ghosts-of-unactivated-contributors/\">How many more contributors could we activated</a> with something like this?</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When used thoughtfully, AI can enhance human conversations across cultures rather than replace them.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-ai-as-a-contributor-onboarding-tool\">AI as a Contributor Onboarding Tool</h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">AI is great for handling beginner-leaning tasks. So how can we use AI to level up contributors that are just getting involved?</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This is also tricky because Open Source projects <em>need</em> contributors of all levels to ensure a healthy pipeline. We don’t want to replace them since the novice contributors of today are potentially future maintainers and leaders. Instead, we should focus on how to support and empower them.</p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignwide size-full wp-lightbox-container\"><img alt=\"A large, empty auditorium with rows of numbered blue seats with yellow trim.\" class=\"wp-image-6444 not-transparent\" src=\"https://jonathandesrosiers.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/957645e31e382a517.41452423-scaled.jpg\" /><button class=\"lightbox-trigger\" type=\"button\">\n			<svg fill=\"none\" height=\"12\" viewBox=\"0 0 12 12\" width=\"12\" xmlns=\"http://www.w3.org/2000/svg\">\n				<path d=\"M2 0a2 2 0 0 0-2 2v2h1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 1 .5-.5h2V0H2Zm2 10.5H2a.5.5 0 0 1-.5-.5V8H0v2a2 2 0 0 0 2 2h2v-1.5ZM8 12v-1.5h2a.5.5 0 0 0 .5-.5V8H12v2a2 2 0 0 1-2 2H8Zm2-12a2 2 0 0 1 2 2v2h-1.5V2a.5.5 0 0 0-.5-.5H8V0h2Z\" fill=\"#fff\">\n			</svg>\n		</button><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/\">CC0</a> licensed <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/photo/957645e31e/\">photo</a> by <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/author/tomlach/\">Tomek Lach</a> from the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/\">WordPress Photo Directory</a>.</figcaption></figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">AI could assist new contributors in a number of ways: explaining the history behind a change, suggesting further reading, answering questions, and setting expectations by describing what usually happens next for similar tickets.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The number one thing I hear from new contributors is that it’s too hard to find something to do. That’s ironic, given how much work there is. Unfortunately, most of it just isn’t easy to find.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">With the right prompts, AI could help new contributors by doing things like:</p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">Ask qualifying questions and use its understanding of contributor expectations and process to suggest appropriate tickets.</li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Provide detailed descriptions of what needs to be done and why it matters.</li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Recommend logical next steps or related tickets based on interest and skill level.</li>\n</ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">These types of interaction could help people get started and build confidence more quickly.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-preserving-the-human-voice\">Preserving the Human Voice</h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Another fun idea: What if we trained AI bots in the style of long-time contributors? That kind of tool could preserve institutional knowledge while making expert guidance more accessible.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Many have joked before: &#8220;If only we could clone <a href=\"https://profiles.wordpress.org/sergeybiryukov/\">Sergey</a>.&#8221; Maybe AI makes the kind of mentorship our most prolific contributors provide more scalable. With well-documented public contributions, we could build agents trained on a contributor’s feedback patterns (with clear disclaimers that they are approximations, not endorsements, of course).</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It could also be component-specific. Perhaps there’s a Jonathan bot that responds to feedback requests on Build/Test Tool tickets. Or perhaps a <a href=\"https://aaron.jorb.in/\">Jorbin bot</a> that offers a clever pun before sharing deep historical context. These bots wouldn’t replace the people behind them; they could help scale their impact and preserve bandwidth. Of course, we’d need community agreement, ethical safeguards, and consent before simulating the voice of any individual contributor.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-strengthening-ai-tools-through-documentation\">Strengthening AI Tools Through Documentation</h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Cross-team collaboration and documentation could benefit greatly from AI. But AI is only as good as the data it&#8217;s trained on. That makes clear, consistent documentation essential, not just helpful.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">For AI to be successfully implemented, our processes, workflows, and expectations all need to be clearly documented. Now is the time to take stock of our processes, standards, and documentation gaps. This includes teams like Performance, Accessibility, Internationalization, Design, and AI itself.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">There are already areas where automation could be introduced thoughtfully. Trac, for example, uses a s<a href=\"https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/contribute/trac/keywords/\">et of action and status keywords</a> that are excellent candidates for AI-assisted workflows. A keyword like <code>fixed-major</code> could automatically trigger a pull request backport. Similarly, AI could suggest keywords, help verify whether a keyword is appropriate, or identify when something has been overlooked. But the documentation around these keywords is basic at best.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-building-educational-content\">Building Educational Content</h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Another promising area is summarizing complex or repetitive concepts. AI excels at distilling large volumes of discussion and activity into summaries, tutorials, or templates. This could be especially useful for the Learn team, where AI might monitor contributor activity and auto-draft course outlines or video scripts for tasks that are frequently repeated.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Creating this content can take a considerable amount of time, and contributors who perform these tasks often don’t have the bandwidth to document them as well.</p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-closing-thoughts\">Closing Thoughts</h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">AI holds enormous potential to make Open Source more welcoming, efficient, and inclusive. But that’s only possible if we use it with intention. We should approach AI the same way we approach any other major change to the project. It should be evaluated like everything else: carefully, collaboratively, and with the long-term health of the community in mind.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">How do we avoid creating more work for our future selves?</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Let’s not just ask what AI can do. Let’s ask what it should do, what it should never replace, and how we can answer those questions together as humans.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right has-small-font-size\"><em>Featured image credit: <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/\">CC0</a> licensed <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/photo/844634897d/\">photo</a> by <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/author/jenniferbourn/\">Jennifer Bourn</a> from the <a href=\"https://wordpress.org/photos/\">WordPress Photo Directory</a>.</em></p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https://jonathandesrosiers.com/2025/07/implementing-ai-in-open-source-without-losing-the-human-touch/\">Implementing AI in Open Source Without Losing the Human Touch</a> appeared first on <a href=\"https://jonathandesrosiers.com\">Jonathan Desrosiers</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, 22 Jul 2025 18:05:39 +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:19:\"Jonathan Desrosiers\";s: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:\"type\";i:128;s:7:\"headers\";O:48:\"WpOrg\\Requests\\Utility\\CaseInsensitiveDictionary\":1:{s:7:\"\0*\0data\";a:9:{s:6:\"server\";s:5:\"nginx\";s:4:\"date\";s:29:\"Fri, 29 Aug 2025 01:30:33 GMT\";s:12:\"content-type\";s:8:\"text/xml\";s:13:\"last-modified\";s:29:\"Fri, 29 Aug 2025 01:15:25 GMT\";s:4:\"vary\";s:15:\"Accept-Encoding\";s:15:\"x-frame-options\";s:10:\"SAMEORIGIN\";s:16:\"content-encoding\";s:4:\"gzip\";s:7:\"alt-svc\";s:19:\"h3=\":443\"; ma=86400\";s:4:\"x-nc\";s:9:\"HIT ord 2\";}}s:5:\"build\";i:1727711420;s:21:\"cache_expiration_time\";i:1756474234;s:23:\"__cache_expiration_time\";i:1756474234;}','off'),(1046,'_transient_timeout_feed_mod_d117b5738fbd35bd8c0391cda1f2b5d9','1756474234','off'),(1047,'_transient_feed_mod_d117b5738fbd35bd8c0391cda1f2b5d9','1756431034','off'),(1048,'_transient_timeout_dash_v2_88ae138922fe95674369b1cb3d215a2b','1756474234','off'),(1049,'_transient_dash_v2_88ae138922fe95674369b1cb3d215a2b','<div class=\"rss-widget\"><ul><li><a class=\'rsswidget\' href=\'https://wordpress.org/news/2025/08/portland-are-you-ready-the-wcus-2025-schedule-has-arrived/\'>Portland, Are You Ready? 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