Later this week, nearly 2,000 people will be in Philadelphia, PA to attend WordCamp US, the annual conference devoted to WordPress. One of the event’s highlights is Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word presentation. In it, Mullenweg shares data on WordPress’ growth throughout the year and gives insight to where the project is heading. About…
A few days ago, I offered advice on how non-developers can contribute to and influence core WordPress development. Communicating online is hard but where and how you communicate affects the likelihood of making an impact. CMS Critic is a site I’ve read for years as it routinely publishes articles on a variety of content management…
This post was contributed by Tom J Nowell. Tom is a VIP Wrangler at WordPress.com VIP, lead of the WP The Right Way project, blogger, and community moderator at WordPress Stack Exchange. Tom will be speaking at WordCamp New York later this month on escaping and security. This is a story about my job as…
In the past 4-5 weeks, I’ve moderated every comment submitted to WP Tavern. Not only was it an experiment to see what would happen but a new way for me to use WordPress. The experiment introduced me to several drawbacks in WordPress’ comment moderation system. Lack of Context Comments that are pending moderation in the…
At Prestige over the weekend, I heard a presenter say that family comes first. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this advice but it’s becoming more prevalent. I generally hear this advice from those who are living comfortably, have two kids or more, and/or have gone through the startup process more than once. I’m…
This piece was contributed by guest author Peter Suhm. Peter is a web developer from the Land of the Danes. He is the creator of WP Pusher and a huge travel addict, bringing his work along with him as he goes. The other day I posted a warning about using Composer in WordPress plugins…
Tom McFarlin published a thoughtful piece on what he perceives to be the sad state of the WordPress community. Too many people are participating in behavior that is embarrassing from the outside looking in. It’s a long read, but it highlights the need for members of the WordPress community to stop and reflect on our…
One of the habits I developed when I started using WordPress is to always read a plugin’s changelog before updating. The changelog is a communication channel that bridges the gap between me and the developer. It tells me what’s changed, what to expect, and any other information the developer thinks I should know. The most…
Earlier today, I watched a free presentation on how to use the WordPress REST API by Rachael Baker via WPSessions. If you missed it, you can watch the recording for $9. As I watched the presentation, it was clear that no matter how many tutorials I read, WordCamp sessions I attend, and videos I watch,…
For the last three years, the WordPress Theme Review Team has tried to encourage theme authors to adopt the Theme Customizer. In April, the decision was made by the TRT to no longer encourage, but require all theme options to be in the customizer. Although the decision was three years in the making, the community…
This opinion piece was contributed by guest author Peter Suhm. Peter is a web developer from the Land of the Danes. He is the creator of WP Pusher and a huge travel addict, bringing his work along with him as he goes. Yet another WordPress prophecy Okay, I admit that the title of this…
Donnacha MacGloinn published an excellent post on WPMayor.com predicting the end of the webhosting industry. Although he talks about the industry as a whole, MacGloinn says the need for specialized WordPress hosting is quickly disappearing. With the lingering perception that this stuff must be difficult, and the customer’s delight with all that WordPress can do…
Over the weekend, the WordPress plugin directory implemented a major change that better reflects how popular a plugin is. The number of total downloads has been replaced with the number of active installs. While the numbers are not exact, they’re close enough to give people insight into usage. When it comes to reporting WordPress plugin…
I’ve used WordPress to write about WordPress for more than seven years, it’s how I make a living. Recently though, writing in WordPress feels more like being a data entry specialist. I guess in some ways, it’s not surprising considering that’s exactly what I’m doing. The post editor is more or less a pretty user…
In the last year or so, WordPress.com has been experimenting with a new post editor. As a user of WordPress.com, I clicked the add new post button and was shocked to discover an entirely different interface than what I’m used to. Continuously pushing improvements across the platform with little to no announcement and measuring feedback…