In this episode, John James Jacoby and I discuss Automattic’s quest to create a new service tailored to journalists. We discuss what’s next for Cory Miller as his chapter at iThemes ends later this month. Near the end of the show, we talk about recent leadership changes in the WordPress project and share our opinions of Slack’s new logo.
Stories Discussed:
Embarking On My Next Adventure
WordPress 5.1 Schedule Updates
Expanding WordPress Leadership
How WordPress Knows What Page You’re On
WPWeekly Meta:
Next Episode: Wednesday, January 23rd 3:00 P.M. Eastern
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Category: WordPress Weekly
Let’s be clear about the Leadership Expansion kerfuffle, Jeff. The appointment of Joost de Valk ( @joostdevalk ) as Marketing & Communications Lead over Bridget Willard (@gidgey) who was the acting Marketing Team Rep leader was not rectified with apologies as you say.
In fact, Bridget ‘retired’ from the Marketing Team as a result, and some members of the team are disappointed, since this dropped out of the blue with no prior engagement by Mullenweg nor Executive Director Josepha Haden. de Valk notes that this opportunity developed out of the Growth Councils and because Gutenberg was not properly marketed. Well, the Growth Councils are simply a circle of Automattic corporate associates, and they entered WordPress.org to issue work requests with actually operating any teams there. If the role of WordPress.org is now to champion Automattic and allied initiatives, that’s a whole ‘nother hairball.
As John James Jacoby commented there’s a lack of documentation of how WordPress.org decisions are managed by Matt Mullenweg. de Valk was challenged on this by a Marketing Team member in his very first meeting with the group: “As the unfortunate situation of the announcement of the new leadership roles has shown, a transparent overview of responsibilities and hierarchies is definitely lacking.”
While it’s understood that you often represent the Automattic point of view in these matters, it’s ridiculous for you to conclude lessons learned and no need for the WordPress Governance Project, when the opposite is the case. Good luck discussing and debating with Morten Rand-Hendriksen about this.