Tag Archives: Tavern

New Social Web Foundation Launched with Automattic’s Support   – WP Tavern

[ad_1] The Social Web Foundation was officially launched on September 24, 2024, with a mission to foster a “growing, healthy, financially viable, and multi-polar Fediverse.” This non-profit organization is spearheaded by Evan Prodromou (Research Director), Mallory Knodel (Executive Director), and Tom Coates (Product Director) and is dedicated to uniting social networks through the open standard protocol, ActivityPub. The Fediverse is a collection of interconnected, decentralized social media platforms that communicate using open protocols, with ActivityPub—developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)—as the primary standard. “Until now, no major organization has taken on advocacy for ActivityPub as its central goal. Many people have ideas about what the Fediverse needs to be bigger, safer, and easier to use. But the solutions they propose fall between the cracks of anyone implementer or service. We want the SWF to be the entity that takes on those jobs.”, said Evan Prodromou, often referred to as “The Father of the Fediverse.” Tom Coates emphasized the foundation’s straightforward goal: “Fundamentally, its goal is pretty simple – it’s there to help the Fediverse grow in a sustainable and healthy way that benefits everyone.” The Social Web Foundation is our best chance to establish the conditions in which the new social media operates with zero harm. – Mallory Knodel The foundation aims to address challenges within the ActivityPub ecosystem and support its growth, especially in the commercial sector. Key areas of focus include: People: Educating the public about the Fediverse and its benefits. Policy: Clarifying policy frameworks for international and federated networks. Protocol: Developing and maintaining open standards. Plumbing: Building the necessary infrastructure Thirteen prominent companies, including Automattic, Mastodon, Meta, Ghost, and Medium, are backing the foundation. Automattic & Fediverse Automattic’s involvement with the Social Web Foundation comes as no surprise, given its long-standing contributions to the Fediverse. Back in 2021, Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg expressed interest in bringing ActivityPub support to Tumblr. In 2023, Automattic acquired the ActivityPub plugin for WordPress from German developer Matthias Pfefferle and made the ActivityPub feature available across all WordPress.com plans. “Automattic is excited about the launch of the Social Web Foundation and its mission. We’re eager to collaborate with the Foundation to expand platform diversity and enhance the support for various content types—especially long-form content—within the Fediverse, fostering greater interoperability across the ecosystem.”, said Matthias Pfefferle, Open Web Lead at Automattic. To know more about Automattic and Fediverse, check the YouTube series, The Fediverse Files.  [ad_2] Source link

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WordPress Enforces Plugin Check and 2FA for New Plugin Submissions – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Security Review Lead Chris Christoff has announced two new changes for the WordPress Plugin Directory, effective from October 1, 2024. These changes aim to enhance plugin directory security and promote best practices among plugin developers. Mandatory Two-Factor Authentication As of October 1, 2024, all plugin owners and committers must enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) to submit new plugins to the WordPress Plugin Directory. This change was announced by Automattic-sponsored developer Dion Hulse last month. Plugin owners are encouraged to enable 2FA, review committers’ access levels, and use additional security features like the SVN password option and Release Confirmation. Detailed guides on Configuring Two-Factor Authentication and Keeping Your Plugin Committer Accounts Secure are also available. Plugin Check Tool From now on, any new plugin submitted to the Plugin Directory will first go through a pre-submission check using the Plugin Check tool. If any errors are found, the submission will be blocked until they are fixed. This new step aims to reduce the review queue by enabling plugin authors to catch common issues before submitting their plugins for manual review. Plugin Check helps by identifying frequent issues, such as mismatched versions between the plugin header and the readme.txt file, incorrect text domains, and erroneous “Tested To” values in the readme. Although Plugin Check adds a layer of automation, it will not replace the manual review of plugins. David Perez from the Plugin Review Team recommended making Plugin Check a part of the development workflow as “In addition to things relevant for the review process, the tool flags violations or concerns around plugin development best practices, from basic requirements like correct usage of internationalization functions to accessibility, performance, and security best practices. It does so using both static checks using PHP_CodeSniffer and dynamic checks, where it actually activates your plugin to test it “live”.” The Plugins Team is working to expand Plugin Check’s coverage to existing plugins. A roadmap detailing this broader application will be released in the coming months. Contributors can help improve the tool via its GitHub Repo. The WordPress community has responded positively to these updates. Josepha Haden Chomphosy tweeted “This was years in the making and is a huge deal. Congratulations (and big thanks) to everyone who contributed!” These two measures are expected to help the WordPress Plugin Team improve the security of the platform while reducing the backlog of plugins awaiting approval. [ad_2] Source link

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Patchstack Secures $5M in Series A Funding – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Patchstack, a leading WordPress security company, recently raised $5 million in its Series A funding round. The funding round was led by Karma Ventures, G+D Ventures, and Emilia Capital, an investment firm backed by Yoast founders Marieke van de Rakt and Joost de Valk. “With the Series A, we plan to accelerate Patchstack product development and build a top-level sales and marketing team,” said Patchstack’s co-founder and CEO, Oliver Sild. He believes Patchstack could “potentially hyper-automate the entire open-source software security process.” In 2022, the company received a €2.7M R&D grant from the European Innovation Council. Earlier this year, Patchstack was also selected by Google for its AI for Cybersecurity accelerator program, leveraging its vast dataset—the largest in the world of open-source security vulnerabilities. The company’s managed VDP platform, developed in collaboration with the European Union, is free for all plugin and theme developers and helps projects comply with the upcoming European Cyber Resilience Act.  Last year they published 76% of all known WordPress-related security vulnerabilities and became the largest CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) Naming Authority by volume in 2023. Their Zero-Day Bug Bounty Program awarded the highest bounty in WordPress history – $14,400- to John Blackbourn, who exposed a critical vulnerability in the LiteSpeed Cache plugin last month. “I have been following Patchstack’s progress for some time, have had many great discussions with Oliver, and think that the team is on a noble and exciting mission to protect users of open-source technologies from cyber threats,” said Kristjan Laanemaa from Karma Ventures. [ad_2] Source link

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Matt Mullenweg’s Ecosystem Thinking for Open Source Success  – WP Tavern

[ad_1] WordCamp US 2024 is in full swing, and Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, shared his thoughts on a powerful philosophy driving Open Source.  Ecosystem Thinking Mullenweg introduced the concept of “Ecosystem Thinking,”  a philosophy that drives successful collaborative projects.  “Actual Open Source licenses are the law that guarantees freedom, the bulwark against authoritarianism. But what makes Open Source work isn’t the law, it’s the ethos. It’s the social mores. It’s what I’m now calling Ecosystem Thinking: the mindset that separates any old software with an open source license from the software that’s alive, that’s humming with activity and contributions from a thousand places.” he noted. This philosophy comprises four essential elements: Learn: Embrace the beginner’s mindset and constantly engage with new ideas. Evolve: Apply what you learn to the next iteration, allowing real-world feedback to guide you. Teach: Teaching others reinforces your own understanding, spreading knowledge throughout the ecosystem. Nourish: Share the fruits of your success with the broader community to help everyone thrive. ‘Nourish’ is the philosophy behind WordPress’s Five For the Future initiative, where companies and individuals commit a portion of their resources to supporting the WordPress project and ecosystem. This ethos is what keeps Open Source alive and vibrant. Mislabeling Open Source He also shared the challenges Open source is facing. Even though Open Source has taken over as an “intellectual and moral movement,… false prophets like Meta are trying to co-opt it.” He referenced Meta’s “open-source” AI model, Llama, as a prime example of this trend. While LLaMA is free, its license restricts use for companies with over 700 million active users. Mullenweg argued that although Meta has the right to impose such terms, labeling it as “Open Source” misleads the public. Vote with your Wallet Mullenweg encouraged the community to “vote with your wallet” by supporting companies that actively contribute to the Open Source ecosystem. He praised organizations like Newfold, Awesome Motive, 10up, Godaddy, Hostinger, and Google but warned of “parasitic entities that just want to feed off the host without giving anything back.” To make his point, Mullenweg compared the Five For the Future contributions from Automattic and WP Engine, a competitor of similar size. Automattic contributes 3,786 hours per week, while WP Engine contributes just 47. “Those of us who are makers, who create the source, need to be wary of those who would take our creations and squeeze out the juice. They’re grifters who will hop onto the next fad, but we’re trying to build something big here, something long term—something that lasts for generations,” he said. Mullenweg urged the community to be mindful of their choices: “Think about that next time it comes up to renew your hosting or domain, weigh your dollars towards companies that give back more, because you’ll get back more, too. Freedom isn’t free.” This is not the first time Mullenweg has discussed this point. “Those who care about the future of WordPress should spend their dollars with less parasitic companies,” he said in 2022. [ad_2] Source link

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WordPress Community Team to Retire CrowdSignal for Jotform – WP Tavern

[ad_1] The WordPress Community Team has announced plans to retire CrowdSignal in September 2024 in favor of Jotform for post-event attendee surveys. Automattic-sponsored Community Engagement Specialist Isotta Peira has shared more details about the decision and the future plans.  Why the Change? CrowdSignal (previously Polldaddy), owned by Automattic, has been used by the community to collect responses, including at large events like WordCamp Europe. However, it has some limitations.  Isotta Peira explained, “We decided to move away from CrowdSignal primarily to address the need for a multilingual solution, ensuring that all attendees worldwide can choose the language in which they complete the survey. This shift allows us to overcome an inclusion barrier that has been a challenge until now.” Accessibility experts like Alex Stine have previously raised concerns about CrowdSignal’s accessibility, while the WordPress Training Team has reported problems like data capture failures during surveys.  In a Slack conversation, Thijs Buijs, Team Representative of the WordPress Sustainability Team, shared his experience: “The experience we had with the team reps vote for #sustainability is that a lot of votes were not recorded in the backend as well as at front-end. We did not apply any restrictions like ip-limitations etc. I feel sorry to say but the tool appeared to be unreliable even after having tested it multiple times prior to launching the official voting.” After evaluating various alternatives, the WordPress Community Team identified Jotform as the best tool to meet their needs. “It’s user-friendly, allows easy addition of collaborators, facilitates sharing results while maintaining confidentiality, and includes built-in accessibility checks. This move is a significant step towards more inclusive and effective feedback collection.”, said Isotta Pereira. Jotform will enable the Community Team to grant organizing team members access as collaborators, allowing them to customize surveys as needed and receive submissions directly. Implementation Plan Isotta Pereira outlined the implementation plans: “We will begin with the English Attendee survey for local WordCamps and Events and coordinate the implementation of translations between Q4 2024 and Q1 2025. This transition will also include the Organizer post-event Debrief survey and Sponsor surveys if needed. We encourage Flagship WordCamps to adopt this tool so that both organizers and the community team can collect and access responses efficiently.” For local event organizers, the new WordPress Event Attendee Feedback Survey link will be included in the updated organizer reminder post-event. They can also volunteer to translate the survey into various languages before the official translation initiative begins. The Community team also appreciates feedback from Flagship organizers about using Jotform and the challenges they anticipate. The team is keen to understand whether standardizing surveys across different Flagships would be beneficial for gathering consistent feedback. Feedback from the Community Julia Golomb, Lead Organizer of WordCamp US 2024, commented on the transition: “We’ll try this new tool to survey our attendees… will share this tool with the WCUS co-organizers and together we will adapt it to use for WCUS 2024. I’ll report back on our experience!”  Steve Mosby, WordCamp Europe organizer, also expressed a positive outlook. He said, “If the system can provide a multilingual survey this could support increasing the number of responses – whilst also still providing generic values in the back-end (e.g. Yes/No questions, Enumerated type questions) – this would help with analysis!” Community members can provide feedback about the transition till September 30, 2024. [ad_2] Source link

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State of CSS 2024 Survey Now Open – WP Tavern

[ad_1] The annual State of CSS 2024 Survey is officially open. The survey aims to explore the “world of styles and selectors to try and identify upcoming trends, and figure out what features and tools to learn next.” Organized by Devographics, with support from contributors, translators, and volunteers, the survey is open to everyone. CSS users are encouraged to take the survey by September 7, 2024. This year’s survey introduces several new features and takes around 15-20 minutes to complete, with all questions being optional. The survey covers 11 key topics, including Layout, Shapes and Graphics, Colors, Interactions, Accessibility, and a concluding ‘About You’ section. Since its launch in 2019, the survey has grown in popularity, with 9,190 developers participating last year. Some insights from the previous survey include: Most participants were from the USA, followed by Germany and the UK. 61.3% of respondents identified as male, 7.7% as female, and 1.4% as non-binary or gender non-conforming. Bootstrap and Tailwind CSS topped the list in terms of usage, while Tailwind CSS and PureCSS led in retention.  CSS was primarily used for web apps, blogs, and marketing sites.  Subgrid was the most commented feature, Open Props the technology with the highest percentage of returning users and Panda the tool most mentioned in freeform questions.  The survey data is valuable for browser vendors, influencing their focus areas and roadmaps. Rachel Andrew, content lead for web.dev and developer.chrome.com at Google, shared that the State of CSS survey is one of the methods they use to learn what’s important to the developers. “These surveys let you tell us exactly what you are using, and what you want to use but can’t due to bugs or lack of support. They help us to see the places where more learning materials might be helpful, or which things we should prioritize for implementation in the browser.”, she said.  Sacha Greif mentioned that this year, the team aims to release the results within weeks after the survey closes. The next surveys on the schedule are the State of HTML 2024 (September 10), the State of React 2024 (October 10), and the State of JavaScript 2024 (November 10). [ad_2] Source link

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Five for the Future Site Relaunched with a Block-Based Design – WP Tavern

[ad_1] After revamping the WordPress.org homepage, Theme Directory, Plugin Directory, Pattern Directory, and HelpHub, the Meta team has now updated the Five for the Future site. Members of the Meta, Design, and Community teams collaborated to redesign and launch the site in time for WordCamp US 2024. A Fresh New Look Developer Relations Advocate Nick Diego shared, “ This visual update is part of an ongoing effort to create a consistent design language across WordPress.org… This change marks the beginning of modernizing Five for the Future.” New Home page The update features a block-based child theme built on top of the shared WordPress.org parent theme, streamlining aesthetics and simplifying future updates. Key changes include: All content has been converted to blocks, making it easier to manage and update. The layout, typography, and color scheme have been standardized to align with the broader WordPress.org ecosystem. A new contributor testimonials section featured both on the homepage and as a dedicated page, showcases the experiences and contributions of community members An updated pledges directory lists organizations committed to contributing to the Five for the Future initiative.  What’s Next? Future plans include adding new features and content, such as case studies and more testimonials from participating organizations. A Five for the Future blog and newsletter are also in the pipeline.  Nick Diego added, “Forthcoming updates will aim to improve organization profiles by listing activity, automating emails, enhancing onboarding, and adding options for sponsored contributors. The goal is to showcase the strength and impact of Five for the Future with a refreshed, feature-rich website.” You can suggest improvements or report issues with the new theme by opening a ticket on GitHub. For updates on upcoming WordPress.org changes, join the #website-redesign Slack channel. [ad_2] Source link

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Automattic is Migrating Tumblr to WordPress  – WP Tavern

[ad_1] Automattic announced last week its plan to migrate Tumblr to WordPress, a move described as “one of the largest technical migrations in internet history.” This move comes after Automattic acquired Tumblr in 2019, marking the company’s biggest acquisition at the time. During the acquisition, Matt Mullenweg had pointed out that “Tumblr and WordPress have always been very philosophically aligned.” An emerging Tumblr/WordPress plugin and theme ecosystem were on the cards, and Matt said that once Tumblr’s backend is on WordPress, the idea of plugins can be explored. After the acquisition, Tumblr faced tough times, with Matt revealing last year that it was spending about $30 million more than its annual earnings. The porn ban didn’t help matters, but the Twitter Exodus of early 2023 following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the social media site gave it a sudden boost.  The migration announcement post said, “We’re not talking about changing Tumblr. We’re not turning Tumblr into WordPress. That would defeat the purpose. We acquired Tumblr to benefit from its differences and strengths, not to water it down. We love Tumblr’s streamlined posting experience and its current product direction. We’re not changing that. We’re talking about running Tumblr’s backend on WordPress. You won’t even notice a difference from the outside.” Automattic reiterated that “The changes will be exclusively at the backend.” The migration though not easy – with Tumblr hosting over half a billion blogs – will be a win-win situation for both WordPress and Tumblr. Automattic believes that “Tumblr will benefit from the collective effort that goes into the open source WordPress project. And WordPress will benefit from the tools and creativity we invest into Tumblr and contribute back to WordPress.”  Men Wanted for Hazardous Journey Automattic is actively seeking experienced PHP programmers to undertake this migration project. Matt compared this to the famous British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s recruitment ad for his Antarctic expedition, which read, “Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.” The advertisement continues, “If you’re an experienced programmer… if you’re a SQL‑slinger… if you’ve worked on other big audacious projects like this… if Gordian knots tremble in your presence, we want to work with you!” “We’re already seeing interesting candidates apply and resume review is underway for full-time roles. All relevant experience is welcome, particularly those who have worked on other large migrations or are just excited about working on a challenge of this size.” – Bob Ralian, Tumblr Migration Lead Interested candidates can apply through the website giving a brief introduction about themselves. The post does not give any details about the remuneration or the application deadline.  Community Response  Matt tweeted “I’m excited about this one.”, while Eric Karkovack of Speckyboy quipped “Will there be a project status blog? If so, I’d recommend calling it “Tumblng Into WordPress”.” Platform Lead Engineer at Pew Research Center Seth Rubenstein tweeted, “This is so exciting. I hope this means it becomes easier to create Tumblr themes in the future; especially, dare I say, if they’re just block themes…” Courtney Robertson, Open Source Developer Advocate at GoDaddy, also hopes to see more “ block themes supporting post formats SOON.” Head of WP Relations at Elementor, Miriam Schwab dubbed it “The ultimate “data liberation” project” while Developer Advocate WPEngine Damon Cook speculated, “I wonder if there will be outcomes from this large migration that could overlap and help solve pieces of the Data Liberation project.” Product Designer Yash Bhardwaj was excited ”This will go down in history books similar to some ancient empire conquering another.”  Nick Weisser of Openstream is optimistic “This would represent a significant increase in the market share of #WordPress, pushing it from around 43% to over 60%?” I’m sure no one foresaw these developments when Jeff Chandler wrote “WordPress To Be More Tumblr Like” in 2010. Category: News, WordPress [ad_2] Source link

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WordPress Training Team Seeks Ideas to Attract New Learners – WP Tavern

[ad_1] The WordPress Training Team is currently seeking ideas and feedback from the community to prioritize activities that will increase engagement with the newly revamped Learn WordPress platform and attract new learners.   Automattic-sponsored Kathryn Presner stated, “We want to have a steady flow of new learners discovering the site and taking advantage of the valuable resources it offers.” She has outlined three types of potential activities that the Training Team is considering –  expanding marketing initiatives, increasing the Training Team’s visibility at WordCamps, and equipping learners and contributors with resources to promote Learn WordPress.  Community members can go through the list of planned promotional activities, workshops, and events in Kathryn’s post. They can also share feedback and suggest new activities by September 10, 2024.  Home to high-quality educational resources, Learn WordPress, was launched in 2020 and received a revamp very recently.  Lately, various WordPress teams have been exploring ways to attract new members to the WP ecosystem. Just last month, the Community Team proposed updating WordCamp budget guidelines to draw in new attendees.  These initiatives are encouraging especially when there have been talks of the WordPress market stagnating. Category: News, WordPress [ad_2] Source link

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#135 – Jonathan Bossenger on Enhancing WordPress Learning Experiences – WP Tavern

[ad_1] [00:00:00] Nathan Wrigley: Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley. 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, enhancing WordPress learning experiences. If you’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. If you have a topic that you’d like us to feature on the podcast, I’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. So on the podcast today, we have Jonathan Bossenger. Jonathan based in Cape town, South Africa, has been an integral part of the WordPress community for nearly a decade. Transitioning from software development to web, and then WordPress development, he found his passion in education. Since attending his first word camp in 2015, he has focused on creating educational content for WordPress developers. Now employed at Automattic as a developer educator, he contributes to the Learn platform, helping to train and guide new developers in the WordPress ecosystem. He’s on the podcast today to explain some of the ways that you can learn WordPress with up to date, freely available content. We discuss the goal of making WordPress learning accessible globally, especially for those who can’t afford expensive courses. The discussion gets into the transformative potential of the Learn WordPress platform, especially in the era of Playground, which will enable interactive coding practice without the need for external tools. Jonathan sees this as a game changer for web agencies, providing a streamlined training resource for new developers and conserving valuable time and resources. We cover Jonathan’s journey from software developer to developer educator, supported by his former employer, Castos. He shares the challenges of keeping educational content current amidst WordPress’s rapid evolution, and the importance of staying updated with WordPress core developments. The conversation also touches on the structured learning pathways, designed to guide learners from beginner to advanced levels. Segmented into user designer and developer categories. The professionalism of WordPress projects like Learn, and the essential role of contributors in translating and internationalising content to reach a broader audience ,comes under the microscope as well. And Jonathan reflects upon the dynamic nature of open source communities, stressing the need for decisive leadership in software development decisions from time to time. Towards the end, we talk about the many ways that you can assist the Learn project, and there are many more ways than you might imagine. If you’re curious about how people learn about WordPress, and how you can be a part of that project, this episode is for you. If you’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’ll find all the other episodes as well. And so without further delay, I bring you Jonathan Bossenger. I am joined on the podcast today, once more by Jonathan Bossenger. Hey, Jonathan. [00:03:59] Jonathan Bossenger: Hello, I’m back. [00:04:01] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. We’re going to be talking about a really important subject, and a subject which I think is getting more importance. We can get into the politics or what have you of that in a moment. Before we begin the conversation all about Learn, and what’s going on over there, Jonathan, for those people who don’t know who you are, do you want to just give us your brief potted history? Maybe your current job, and your history with WordPress and so on? [00:04:24] Jonathan Bossenger: Sure. So for those who don’t know, my name is Jonathan Bossenger. I live in Cape Town in South Africa, which is the country right at the tip of Africa. I have been involved in the WordPress community now for about nine years. I went to my first WordCamp in Cape Town in 2015, and I am a web developer, originally a software developer, then a web developer, then a WordPress developer. And I’m now transitioned to this wonderful new thing that I call, or at least people call developer educator. I’m currently employed at Automattic, I’m sponsored to work full-time with the WordPress training team, and my job is basically creating educational content for WordPress developers. So everything that is on Learn, that has to do with WordPress development, I have got some hand in somewhere there. [00:05:05] Nathan Wrigley: Was this a pivot that you kind of had as part of your north star five or six years ago, or is this very much an evolution that kind of happened to you without it meaning to be the case? [00:05:16] Jonathan Bossenger: I did pivot from software development to developer education kind of organically, but also with a little bit of support. You’ll appreciate the story, Nathan. So as you will know, I was working at Castos for a number of years. I was the initial developer that Craig hired when we first kicked Castos off. I became lead developer as the company grew. And in conversations that I had with Craig, as my CEO, as the company grew, and as we run about the time the TinySeed thing happened and Craig had some money that he could spend to grow the team and all those things. He sat me down and he said to me, right, what does the future look like for you? As the company grows, we’ve got potential to get big, what does the future look like? And he said the word engineering manager, and the term CTO came up, and I realised in those conversations that that was not what I wanted to be doing. As much as I enjoyed developing software, I’m not great at leading people. I

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