Issue #163 Loop WP

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Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #163 of Loop WP!

Last week, we took a final look at FAIR as more details are now available on how it works, its structure, and who is involved.

This week, I’ve a quick update on the new format for this newsletter over the summer, and we will discuss Five For The Future reform.

Let’s go! 👇

A Quick Announcement

📢 Over the summer (starting July 9th), this newsletter will be keeping its weekly format, but we won’t be going as deep into a “single” weekly topic.

💡 I wanted to maintain my weekly sending frequency instead of switching to an email every other week, but with my kids being out of school, I can’t go into as much detail as usual.

However, you may still encounter the occasional detailed topic that you're accustomed to, friend 😉.

Fixing Long-Standing Issues

💡 Last week, The Repository published an article, “Can WordPress Finally Fix Five for the Future? Contributors See Rare Chance for Reform.” In that article, there are some additional links I think you should read:

• Dissecting Matt Mullenweg’s comments at WordCamp Europe, part 2 (Former Automattic employee Samuel Sidler).

• Five for the Future WCEU25 Chat (Courtney Robinson).

The article goes on to cover related areas such as “Trust, trademark, and tensions“, and “An Operations Team to move things forward”, but I want to focus on “Recognising all contributions“.

Recognising All Contributions

🎉 What struck me the most, friend, as it’s something I (and so many others) directly relate to, was this quote:

🤔 It’s often presumed that if you aren’t contributing to code, then you aren’t contributing to WordPress, and that’s just wrong.

Laura hits the nail on the head with the above quote, and I discuss this in detail in Issue 140, based on a poll I ran in January.

Paul Charlton (WP Tuts) released a video on this almost a year ago, helping those who struggle with GitHub “contribute to WordPress” by submitting a bug.

🧠 Paul also mentions in the video that there are other ways to contribute to WordPress, and Remkus de Vries has written on this topic, and I encourage you to read it.

🎉 You might be surprised that you have contributed more than you think.

It’s not an exhaustive list, but if you’ve:

• Organised a WordCamp

• Volunteered at a WordCamp

• Promote WordPress via your own marketing channels

• Engage with WordPress official channels

• Participated actively in the Community (via Slack, social media, offline conversations, etc.)…

• Creating educational resources (like the free Block and Block Theme academies from Ollie WP).

…you are contributing! (Heck, if you run a WordPress newsletter, you are contributing. 😉) Remkus’ article, from over two years ago, still (unfortunately) holds true today.

A Six-Month Window

🤞 Positivity and optimism surround the subject, but Automattic will need to come to the table for some honest discussions, and I’m hopeful that will happen.

🫠 I don’t know about you, friend, but I don’t want to be having the same conversations next year that we’ve been having for more than three years!

While WordCamp EU saw the launch of FAIR, the inaugural Alt Ctrl Org, and a lot of positivity around those, I believe this momentum and positivity need to continue into WordCamp US if we are to see change in six months.

So, if you want to see a reformed Five For The Future, it’s now time to get involved and share your voice wherever you can.

Before You Go

🚨 I strive to remain neutral in my newsletters, but I will express my opinion when necessary.

I want to bring to your attention another article by The Repository in the News & Tips section below, regarding WordCamp US.

👀 It’s an essential read, as I caught Daniel’s comments in the X (Twitter) thread in real-time, and I’m so glad James followed up on Matt Mullenweg’s remarks (which I missed).

⚡️ For the record, I entirely agree with James’s defence of Daniel as Matt’s claims/allusions that Daniel was “stalking”, “harassing” or “dunking” are just plain false.

That’s It For This Week 👋

Next, I'll be publishing one of my favourite newsletters of the year (I only do this twice a year), and I can’t wait to share it with you.

See you next week! 😀

Weekly WordPress News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful WordPress News & Tips:

• Bug Fix - Google AI Mode traffic bug fixed after organic search was mislabeled as direct traffic in Analytics. (Search Engine Journal)

• Improve FSE Adoption? - An early barrier and an early win would be to improve the Navigation Block. (Brian Coords & Mike McAlister)

• <1% - Dropping security updates for WordPress versions 4.1 through 4.6. (WordPress)

• Technical Optimisation - Yoast SEO still plays a critical role in how I technically optimise my sites for search engines. While I don't use or need all of its features, it still provides the ones I need most. (Coywolf)

• It Starts With A Promise - The long-term cost of short-term platforms. (Jono Alderson)

• Not An Automattic Event - WordCamp US Faces Scrutiny Over Automattic’s Role as Ticket Sales Lag. (The Repository)

• 🚀 Sevalla by Kinsta - Sevalla is the home to your web projects. Host and manage your applications, storage, databases, and static sites in a single, intuitive platform. (Kinsta)

• Cache Up - With Carrie Dils, Mika Epstein, and Ryan McCue. (Post Status)

• Woo-hoo! - Shareable checkout links are coming to Woo 10.0. (Brian Coords & WooCommerce)

• Join The Waitlist - EventKoi is live! A powerful & flexible events calendar plugin for modern WordPress sites. Join the waitlist. (Lesley Sim)

• Infographic - Who Accessibility Helps. (Equalize Digital)

• Archived & Closed - A Little (Late) Spring Cleaning. (WordPress)

• Exploring WordPress Playground - A developer’s sandbox for experimentation. (Kinsta)

• How To - Add additional fields to the WooCommerce Checkout Block. (Tom Cafferkey)

• Interview - Free WordPress Dev Courses and the Future of Ollie ft. Mike McAlister. (Webmasters.fm)

• Apply Here - The Incident Response Team is looking for new members (WordPress)

If you have a question about this email or WordPress, please reply, and I will respond as soon as possible.

👋 Until next time,