# WordCamp US 2023 — Matt Mullenweg Q&A Session (Full Transcript) **Event:** WordCamp US 2023 **Date:** 2023-08 **Location:** National Harbor, MD **Video:** [youtube.com/watch?v=3Fa0Q-brSeI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fa0Q-brSeI) > Transcript generated via Descript from YouTube audio. Timestamps link to the exact moment in the YouTube video. --- **[0:00](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=0)** — And, uh, thank you. I'm gonna invite Josepha back on the stage and we're gonna do some questions and maybe some answers. Great job. Come join me in my office. **[0:15](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=15)** — I also have no idea how the Slido thing is gonna work. And this is an experiment. It's much like being at this venue is an experiment. One, we might not continue. Yes. Um, but okay, we've got this slide. Yeah. This is actually not the slide. This is something else. Um, we can't see that thingy where we see all the. **[0:33](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=33)** — And so this is here so we can see it. Oh, cool. Sorry, I'm just doing housekeeping while you all are watching. Um, yes. So you can scan this QR code or go to slido.com and put in that number with the hash slash pound or no, anyone? **[0:49](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=49)** — You got it. You can figure it out. I believe in you. It's kind of cool. Easter rate that we have. 1770 or seven? Seven, six. Oh yeah. Seven, six. Oh, it's 1776. Yeah. Um, and I think you'll, you can also vote on the questions. So part of what we were trying to do with this was allow people like, whatever, **[1:06](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=66)** — so this is now, I won't feel bad if you all look at your phones right now. Let's see how good this wifi is, uh, and kind of vote up the questions. 'cause that way. Uh, one thing we're experimenting with this is it's not just who gets to the mic fat first. Like, we're trying to hear what most of you would like to, uh know. **[1:27](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=87)** — Um, okay. Let's see if this gets to 10 votes. I'll answer it. Oh, oh no. 13. Okay. Okay. It's also here if you would like to see it. So, first question is, do you still blame nascent. Um, I'm gonna have to explain this one. Uh, yeah. **[1:43](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=103)** — Andrew Nas, please stand up. Should I blame you for this question? Um, this is, uh, this is a fun double entendre as well because, uh, I don't know, this could have the same command, but the SVN, you could write SVN blame. **[2:00](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=120)** — Yeah. And see who's responsible, or the last person who committed a particular line of code. And it's kind of fun to see like, oh, where'd this function come from? And the most humbling thing as a developer is when you do that and it's your own name that shows up. Who wrote this? **[2:16](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=136)** — Oh, me. Um, I still have a number of lines in the WordPress code base as well, which is both, uh, exciting and a little scary. Uh, but, uh, we no longer blame na for things. And in fact, I would generally ou like to announce a jubilee of blame. **[2:32](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=152)** — I, I've just heard a few in some conversations or something like, oh, I heard you don't like this company or Heard WordPress doesn't like this or that. And, um. I would just like officially for 2023 to reset all of that to neutral. So if you think I like something or don't like something, let's reset **[2:49](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=169)** — that to zero and just build from scratch because you know, we're not gonna make it another 20 years. We're carrying around a lot of baggage, right? So this is one of my favorite uses of the word Jubilee. And most of the time no one knows what I'm talking about. **[3:05](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=185)** — So maybe it's just me and you on this stage that know what we're talking about. Uh, yeah. So look it up. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh, should we go by like, top voted one, or how do you wanna do this? However you want to choose. You wanna take this top one? **[3:20](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=200)** — The, what is the greatest existential threat to WordPress? Sure. Or actually any of these four you wanna do. Okay. Um, I can take, what is the greatest existential threat to WordPress? Um, so f. Sorry, I'm trying to figure out which hat to have on. **[3:37](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=217)** — Do I have my admin operations hat? Uh, or do I have my WordPress community hat? Okay, so here's the thing. The greatest. Threat to WordPress as a community is always, um, whether or not we can still get together and collaborate in, um, in an effective way. **[3:55](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=235)** — Hmm. Uh, because so much of our community is built on the way we get together and the way we collaborate. I really loved at the community summit how we saw people talking through really contentious conversations and still like. Respecting one another as people for the most part, and, and really like trying **[4:16](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=256)** — to address the root issue as opposed to resorting to just kind of general, um, ad hoc sort of attacks on each other. I. And the way that we are coming back together, um, post COVID VID and the way that, um, we are kind of looking at the future of our event series. **[4:36](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=276)** — The event series does so much work. On behalf of this project, I've. Said it a couple of times. There's a podcast somewhere if someone wants to like share it so other people know what I'm talking about. But it does like 17 different jobs on its own. These event series. It brings people into the project and it teaches them how to use WordPress. **[4:52](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=292)** — It teaches them how to work with each other, how to work remotely, how to work online. Like it there does so many things. Um, and so I think that. Um, a little bit the way that, that we are at 50% reactivation of our meetup groups. **[5:08](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=308)** — And I really, really encourage everyone to, like, if you don't know what a meetup group is or if your local meetup group is just not meeting and you can't figure out who's helping them meet, like get out there and do something about it, because this is the lifeblood of what makes this project work and what makes open source work. **[5:24](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=324)** — And so that to my mind, is the greatest existential threat to WordPress, especially in the current, um, climate that we're in. Yeah, thank you. What I like about that is. The greatest threat I don't think is any competitor. It's ourselves, which is exactly what you just said. **[5:40](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=340)** — Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'll jump to a, a little easier one that we could go quickly. A book you enjoy recently. Um, I'll name two. Uh, Ken l Paper Menagerie, one of my favorites all time. He's was the speaker this morning. If you weren't here, uh, which I can tell a lot of you weren't, uh, check **[6:00](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=360)** — out that, uh, video as soon as it's up. And of course you can always cheat by going to livestream and rewinding. Uh, really special talk. And, um, a more recent one. And actually I, I thought about Kim here as a speaker. Maybe we'll do it a future work camp is, uh, will Guder, I **[6:15](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=375)** — think his name as he pronounced, called Unreasonable Hospitality. And, uh, the reason I thought that could be interesting to bring in to the WordPress community is just like we all do service to our customers, to our clients, to each other, to the WordPress users, like, and it's a book about, um. **[6:32](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=392)** — He's one of the sort of two people along with, uh, Daniel Hume behind 11 Madison Park, which kind of ro it's a story of how they rose from kind of like a brassy in New York that not a lot of people knew about to literally being the number one restaurant in the world, uh, on the 50 top restaurants list. **[6:49](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=409)** — And so, and they did that not just through amazing food, but also amazing hospitality and one of the first to really like, innovate on that. And I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned for the WordPress community. Any books you wanna throw in there? So I'm in the middle of a book right now. I, um, have been feeling like I was missing reading, but I've been **[7:07](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=427)** — in a reading rut and so if anyone has books to recommend, I got out of my reading rut on accident. I was going through my library app and accidentally checked a book out. So I'm reading it and it's whoopsy, uh, it's called Eleanor Elephant. **[7:22](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=442)** — Elephant is completely fine. Something, it's, yeah. Yes. And, um, it starts out in a, in a kind of dark place, but also talks about like the power of community and how one or two people helping someone can bring them together past things that are, that they're struggling with. **[7:39](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=459)** — I'm only about 40% of the way through, but it, it is, it's nice. It was a nice accidental checkout of my book. Hmm. Cool. Yeah. Uh, if you have recommendations, you can just share somehow. Yeah. Okay, number one here from Jess. **[7:54](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=474)** — What does the future of WordPress look like if search engines move from links to AI generated responses? I think about this all the time. Yeah. Um. You know, I've been spending a lot more time in San Francisco, um, been talking to a lot of the AI companies, open ai, mid journey. **[8:10](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=490)** — Um, who else? Philanthropic. Like basically embedding really deeply there. 'cause I, again, I think it's the future. Um, I told you nine days before chat, TPT came out to really pay attention to ai, the rest of the world since that release, that was kind of the, uh mm-hmm. **[8:26](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=506)** — Uh, what would you call that moment when everyone started paying attention to something like the, the break, maybe the Netscape moment or something? The panic, the excitement. Yeah. I'm just saying words that, you know, I like it. Um, so one thing that I'll say from all of those conversations is that **[8:44](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=524)** — the folks making this, um, although these initial versions do kind of like. Again, like, uh, if it's just giving the whole answer, there's no reason to visit the site. It's interesting to see the experiments on things like, uh, Microsoft's Bard where they're trying to do attribution a lot better, and it's very imperfect now. **[9:01](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=541)** — But I can tell you that every single one of these, um, companies, um, is very much thinking about both how they attribute and then maybe also how they do like micropayments or something like that. So like places where content came from, uh, or creators. Um, and also how they can enable creators to like. **[9:19](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=559)** — You know, create more and, uh, train models on your own stuff, kind like what, uh, Ken attempted to do with the kin bott. It's way better now. And, uh, and so how that could be like a copilot or like an assistant editor for you or something like that. **[9:35](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=575)** — Um, available on demand. Um, the. Uh, so I think the future of WordPress is actually more exciting than ever because the, uh, the places where you're referred to or the visit or being an authority about these things, um, something that becomes cited or **[9:51](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=591)** — maybe even directed to perhaps even a future of WordPress looks like. Where, uh, we're providing the API. So that's, uh, let's say you asked it a question, asked a question to chat GBT, it could call out to your website. To run an additional query to maybe get results for items in **[10:09](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=609)** — your store or something like that. Um, so I think there's actually gonna be a lot of integrations and I dunno if it was obvious from that a hundred year thing, but I think having your own domain is really important. And, uh, we should all be thinking about like, what are homes on the web look, **[10:25](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=625)** — uh, look like, feel like, and also like that sort of search for differentiation. Like it was already a little bit on the social networks. I think when people are in like chat boxes all day, that's not the final interface for these things. And what's it gonna look like when maybe you talk to something, but then it takes you in a browser directly to something. **[10:42](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=642)** — So maybe it's not like you're in a chat box, you're, it's just like a little Siri like icon that pops up on your desktop or something. So, um. I think that might be one of the models. But again, I wouldn't try to predict anything in AI more than like two months in advance. And even then you feel a little, like who knows what's gonna happen? **[10:59](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=659)** — Well, too much. Yeah. Uh, let's see. When these are anonymous, I can't tell who's asking. I realize that's the point. Unless, is there someone named Anonymous here? I know. So. Hi. Nice to, nice to finally meet you. **[11:16](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=676)** — Accessibility standards question. Oh, okay. And what was your name? Blake. Blake. So Blake asked the accessibility standards question. We can skip to that one. How do we ensure that more Gutenberg developers are aware of accessibility standards? Um, well talk to them. **[11:32](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=692)** — They're here. Uh, it's a little bit of a tricky question 'cause it assumes they don't know about accessibility standards and I would actually argue that they care about it quite a bit. Did you have a follow up there? Uh, to listen to working with it was amazing work at first of all, and working with the **[11:50](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=710)** — accessibility team, one of the big things that we like desperately need is, um, just good for developers to be aware of some of the standards and also like, like, um, what they're creating school features to think about some early **[12:06](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=726)** — on. Yeah. The tickets are created after the fact. Sure. So let me try to repeat that. So, because people can't hear you, we have no mics here. So let me try to, is that all right if I try summarize? So, um, the accessibility team that met at the contributor day felt like **[12:23](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=743)** — the Gutenberg developers were maybe thinking about accessibility later on in the process, and tickets were being created and testing after a feature was developed and not early enough. Um, I, I will say again that your question assumes that they're not doing this, so it's a little bit like, when did you stop? Beating your wife type question. **[12:40](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=760)** — And on behalf of the Gutenberg developers, I will say they deeply care about accessibility. They could name to you all the standards and they're still gonna mess it up. And so there will always be a a process. So I would say if there's certain things, like you literally believe they don't know about the a 2.1 or something like that. **[12:57](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=777)** — Like let's do a session and get together. And talk to them or maybe like just reach out to the people who you feel like are doing a bad job at this and say, Hey, can we do a zoom about like X, Y, Z? And everyone always wants to learn. Um, I will say that coming at it from like a, why are you doing this wrong is **[13:15](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=795)** — probably not the best place to start. Uh, or why don't you care about this? Is is not a good place to start. I would start maybe a little bit more with like. Hey, you know, I'm seeing the same kind of ticket come up over and over again. Like, how can we maybe get to this earlier or someplace like that? So, um, yeah, I wanna make sure that, I think Gutenberg developers **[13:33](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=813)** — are great and they're doing a job. I think it's more of sure that they, that was, Gutenberg developers are great and we just wanna make sure you keep getting greater. The other thing you do is become a Gutenberg developer. **[13:49](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=829)** — Yeah. So, uh, you know, like I encourage everyone to learn JavaScript deeply. I think we're seven years into that now. And so like, if you have a, a background or passion for an area, whether it's design, accessibility, usability testing, like I'd say learn a bit of JavaScript, **[14:05](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=845)** — you can actually get involved with these things directly, which is pretty exciting. All right. Next up, there are a ton. Okay. Yep. That one. Can you speak more about where you see the design of the WP Admin dashboard going? Want me to take this one? Yeah. **[14:20](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=860)** — Um, there are some posts out about it. There are some posts. And what will those be? On? Make core, those are on make.wordpress.org/i believe design. Yep. That's a yes. On design slash design. You can leave out the, I believe, correct? **[14:37](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=877)** — No, no. Uh, the, for me it's really about. What I'm actually thinking about most in the admin is, uh, how much knowledge it presupposes. So we have amazing documentation and tutorials and learn and everything like **[14:54](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=894)** — that, but it's always someplace else. It relies on someone clicking on the hope thing or knowing to go to the documentation or something like that. And there's so many opportunities to be in line with the interface. Just a few extra words. Um. **[15:10](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=910)** — Could be really, really powerful. Or thinking about how we name things. Yes. So I had a great conversation with Rich as we were going through the slides earlier. Like, okay, you know, this is called behaviors, you know, what does that mean? A behavior is like, when I think of that word, what do I think of? **[15:26](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=926)** — Like, I think of maybe like a kid getting into trouble at school or, and then you go into that, it says Default, no behavior. No behavior. Yep. And then light box. Three options, each of those. Like what does that mean if you don't know what it means? Even the word light box is kind of a, a jargon. **[15:43](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=943)** — It's a terminology. As I was going through the slide, I made sure to like try to explain what a light box was. So if you didn't know, you would kind of know. That means like, oh, a little inline thing where you click and it pops up without going to another page. And um, so if that's what we're doing when we teach WordPress to **[15:58](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=958)** — someone, can we just say that? And the original name of it. And can we put some of that in line? Um, the other place, I've been thinking about this a lot that we decided to work on. So personally I'm thinking a ton about media and then actually comment moderation, uh, because I realized that like spam is starting to get pretty good. **[16:15](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=975)** — Yeah, I think I got my first LLM spam. Um, maybe it was written by those spam cans in the art gallery. I dunno. Uh. But it was a really good comment that was totally contextual to my blog post and a little unusually long, it's like four paragraphs and, um, **[16:32](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=992)** — you know, from an IP address, I'd never gotten anything from before. I'd never gotten a comment from this person. And then, of course, a website that was a bit spammy. Um, and so, uh, but like how easy would it be if I was brand new to blogging to not really realize. **[16:49](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1009)** — That what this was was an automated comment that was just trying to get a back link to the website. And so like what could we do to show that comment to maybe show the reputation of the website and to like say maybe, hey, sometimes people leave comments just to get links. So like, look at this with a second eye, or like, you know, see if they have **[17:07](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1027)** — a avatar art or something like that. Like what's different things we could teach 'em. Yeah, so that particular thing, like how to get help information into the dashboard in better places for people who are in current need of help as opposed to like trying to figure it out in a handbook came up in the community summit quite a bit and **[17:23](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1043)** — there were a lot of people that were very interested in helping to kind of research that help us get that figured out. I think that's a great thing to include in that redesign. Yeah. Cool. I heard a yes. Thank you. Whoever you are. So think about that as well as y'all go through the WordPress interface. **[17:39](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1059)** — Try to look at it with a beginner's mind. And, uh, ask yourself, or when you're teaching other people WordPress, which I hope you're doing frequently, like what words do you find yourself using or explaining things? And actually a really cool way that anyone can contribute, right? Because this kind of like what to call things and what to name **[17:56](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1076)** — things is, uh, as who said it? Simon? One of the two hard things in computer science. Mm-hmm. Naming things, caching and off by one errors. Yes. Uh, well, like what can we do around that? Um, so. Cool. **[18:12](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1092)** — Uh, LMS question, long-term planning is great, and the LMS improvements will be awesome. How much support can we get behind a project like the Field's API, which is making progress? Um, did anyone work on the field's? API at the contributor day? We didn't have anything around it. Oh, I, I saw a hand and a half. **[18:28](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1108)** — Okay. So maybe that's also something, you know, work camp is coming up and there's also other work camps would contribute today. So maybe we could do like a little table on that or something. Um, I, I have to admit, I don't, haven't seen the latest with field API. So if it's making progress, I'm not aware of the latest latest. **[18:43](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1123)** — Um, this is, you know, uh, as you might have seen like Dribble is actually, um, exploring Gutenberg. And so it might be actually really, really cool if Drupal adopts Gutenberg, which I think is right now the best thing about WordPress. So I was also looking like, well, what's the best thing about Drupal we could adopt? **[19:00](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1140)** — And they have like some awesome custom, they call it CCK, custom content. Mm-hmm. Kit, I think call it Fields api, they call it Field API, oh, and Drupal. It's called Field Tape Pi. Now that it used to be called CCK. Oh it did. Okay. All right. Um, I'm just old school. Thank you. Yeah, **[19:15](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1155)** — 2016. I think my Drupal or originally drop.org user number is like in the hundreds or something. Oh. Uh, it was very early on, uh, on the Drupal front. It actually predates WordPress by a couple years. Mm-hmm. Um, so I'll check that out. I'm gonna tell you a secret 'cause it's a secret to us 'cause **[19:33](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1173)** — we can't see what's in here. There are 87 questions in this queue. Oh. Yep. We don't have that much time left. So we have 35 minutes. We are not fast. Question answerers. Matt and I, let's try to end about five. Okay. Yeah. So let's call it 15 minutes. Um, just 'cause we've been sitting for a while and like, **[19:48](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1188)** — I also don't know when I got that text, so it could have been, oh, uh, we're ending at five. You wanna read this top one? Sure. Advice for developers on smaller agency teams that are having trouble keeping up. I have a top down suggestion and a bottom up suggestion. The top up, top down suggestion is smaller agencies. **[20:07](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1207)** — Um, why not have a a host your own learning day inside your teams, like inside your company? I know that if it's like three or four people, it feels kind of weird, but also like that's the best number of people to learn with. You don't have to feel too stupid 'cause you're not around 150 people in the internet. **[20:24](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1224)** — Uh, and, and yeah, you can learn a lot by just like. Puzzling through problems together. But then the, the bottom up suggestion is, yeah, go over to learn.wordpress.org. Um, that is the newest extension of the training team in the WordPress project. **[20:40](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1240)** — And there is a lot of stuff that is in small chunks. And so you can see like little bits as you go, um, as you need them, just like, I don't know. I, I wanna call them like tidbits, morsels of education. 'cause I think, I think I'm hungry. But, um, yeah, that's, that's what I would suggest. **[20:57](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1257)** — I know it's hard to keep up with all of it all the time though. Yeah. I'm gonna suggest a really awesome podcast too. Oh. Hosted by someone here on stage with me. Oh. Hello everybody and welcome to the WordPress Briefing Weekly podcast. **[21:12](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1272)** — You can subscribe to it in Pocket Cast, which is open source or your favorite pod catcher. Yep. And, um, it's on wordpress.org/news as well. Yep. Slash news slash podcast. And I have listened to, I believe, every single episode. Oh wow. Um, uh, they're short, they're sweet. **[21:27](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1287)** — You get some josepha, and it's a good way, I think, to keep up with what's going on in the WordPress, uh, world. So That's true. That's true. Ooh. Uh, thank you Amy, who asked that question. Next up we have awesome, Paul. Good to differentiate from all the other Pauls, I guess. Yeah. **[21:42](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1302)** — Or actually I think all the Pauls in this room are awesome. If you were starting all over with WordPress and still starting where you did, what would you do differently? Oh, um, the number one thing I would do differently is, uh. Change the column name of ID in the post table. **[22:01](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1321)** — That's quite a number one. Alright. Um, it's, it's capitalized. It's also just id, it should be post underscore id, which is the convention we took with naming future column names. I actually think maybe our migration stuff is good enough that we could change this now and, you know, we've had the database abstraction layers for a while, **[22:19](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1339)** — but, uh, man, that drives me crazy. I love a good, uh. I love a good column table structure. Still love sequel. Um, something I originally learned thanks to my sister here. Charlene, um, **[22:37](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1357)** — she's a professional genealogist, but was doing genealogy research more than 20 years ago. So before WordPress started and before, there was really awesome stuff you could upload your genealogy files to and things. And so, uh, we made a website, mullen.com, still up there, uh, that I was trying **[22:52](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1372)** — to post all her genealogy research. It turns out a great way to learn about relational databases is. Relational family trees. And so, and you, you can kinda see me learning sequel on there 'cause it's like, here's a page of a person and then here's everyone else with the first name, you know, Louis and everyone else born in 1959 and everyone else, you know, like sort of **[23:11](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1391)** — different, you know, pivoting and stuff. So, um. I think this is a skill, actually, that would be a good sort of thing. I feel like some newer developers aren't as familiar with just like some basic SQL and optimization, learning how to use explain queries and stuff. So maybe a good thing if you haven't looked at that in a while to loop back to, **[23:28](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1408)** — I wasn't there when it started, but I would like to add one that I would start, I would start doing the word camps earlier. Ah, I think that the thing that really differentiates our project from every everybody else and sets us apart is this community. And that is when that all really had an opportunity to bring in non-developers **[23:45](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1425)** — and design and all the things. And so I would, I know you did the first one ever, so I'm saying, please do this back, future you. And so, yes, that's my answer. It's, it's early 2006. That was pretty early. If you wanna see some of the story of that, check out my blog, ma tt Um, I posted a blog post a few days ago called, I Love Word Camps **[24:03](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1443)** — because I do, and uh, that's one of my favorite days of the year. And a little bit of the story about how Word Camp got started, the inspiration for the name, everything. So if you want to get some little tidbits of history, check that out as you're choosing the next one, I'm gonna tell everyone, don't worry, we're gonna answer these questions later. **[24:20](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1460)** — Oh yeah. The ones we don't get to now, we'll put online, right? Yes. As always. Cool. You wanna write this one? The Darren one? Yes. Hey, Matt, as you think of the longevity of WordPress, what is your succession plan for your leadership and vision in the project? Ah, from Darren. Thank you Darren. **[24:35](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1475)** — Yeah. Uh, my vision is, it outlasting me for sure. Uh. It, someone replied it was morbid. But uh, uh, you might have seen, actually, you know, one thing that as our community has gone longer and longer, we deal with all parts of life. **[24:50](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1490)** — We have new babies born, we have. People who were babies now start to contribute to WordPress. We have kids camps. Um, we also, you know, have some people who we've lost. Yes. And, uh, we now have a page at wordpress.org/members. **[25:06](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1506)** — So wordpress.org are members, uh, to honor those people who were part members of the community, members of people who contributed, who organized things, who were really part of this tribe of people who choose to care about the mission of WordPress. Uh, a place where we can, you know. **[25:21](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1521)** — Have their name link to their website, uh, link to their profile, tell a little bit about 'em. And when we posted this, I said, you know, I'm gonna be on this page someday. So I was like, oh, Matt. But I actually meant it in a really positive way and that I hope that, hopefully not soon, but that someday this page is gonna far outlive me and be **[25:41](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1541)** — something that, and when, when we designed the page, we actually thought, okay, how do we make this something that, you know, can be around for many decades to come? Uh, so. Uh, how I think about it is much how we approach this long-term thinking. So like what are, what's really key to, what's the magic **[26:00](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1560)** — that makes WordPress work? That's right. Um, what are structures that are really conducive to iteration? What are structures that get us kind of wound around our axle sometimes? Um, what's, uh. What does good leadership look like? **[26:15](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1575)** — Uh, where do we mess it up sometimes when we try new things? Where do we, uh, where has it gone really well? And, um, yeah, that's all I've got to for that for so far. Okay, great. **[26:31](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1591)** — Another AI question for you. Do you wanna do a not AI question? I am making 10 minutes. We can do it. Uh, well, yeah, let's see. Any plans? Figma, do you have any say more relational? **[26:48](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1608)** — Um, yeah, we can go through some of these quickly. Um, any plans utilize or create prototyping tools such as Figma or paint pots in order to get from the design tool straight to WordPress? Um, I actually think, I'm not familiar with paint pots, so this **[27:03](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1623)** — is my first time hearing about that. I'll check it out. Um. Figma is really cool. Um, I think just got bought by Adobe, um, proprietary tool, but really, really effective. We've been using a lot. Um, I have seen some like Figma to Gutenberg translators. I think that's gonna be a very cool area. **[27:20](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1640)** — Um, and if we don't, maybe we should have like an importer or canonical plugin for that in the future because I think that is really kinda interesting. Uh, I also think one thing that's really cool, particularly as we get this collaboration features in Gutenberg, is you might be able to do some of the stuff directly in Gutenberg. Which would be really interesting and really cool as well. **[27:38](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1658)** — So right now Figma is, in my experience, one of the best around this collaborative design editing, and you can bring design systems and other things, but when you can be kinda closer to the code and the CSS and everything, like you don't need a Figma representation of your design system or a ways to translate **[27:54](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1674)** — that into code if you're just able to do it all with the blocks of Gutenberg. So that's how I think about it. Cool. Thank you for that question. You wanna read the next one? Do you plan to do anything about making WordPress SQL databases more relational? **[28:09](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1689)** — Sorry, it moved, have different tables for different post types in the near future? Uh, no. Nailed it. Next question. Well, a longer answer is something like the Fields API or other ways of **[28:25](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1705)** — leveraging, um, particularly as like. New versions of MySQL or MariaDB, maybe even canonical plugins for things like elastic search allow different types of querying. When you think about it, most WordPress databases are not that big. Um, I also think that for plugins that are doing more interesting things, **[28:41](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1721)** — like, you know, WooCommerce is moving to the high performance order tables or order system order, what's the S stand for Order storage, uh, which is basically like a custom table for orders. Um, there might be data models which are good to. **[28:56](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1736)** — Move out of the post sort of structure. But um, it's easy to go multi a table there. Like all of a sudden you're doing like different, like what happens to comments, what happens to post meta, what happens to, like, all the other things that are built on the post. And post can actually scale to like tens of millions, **[29:12](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1752)** — sometimes hundreds of millions. So a lot of good stuff fits in there and it's really about to me, like the usage model for where you should move it out. It, this one's good for you. So I'll, I'll read it. Do you wanna kick off on it? Yes. When we talk about diversity, what about language diversity? **[29:28](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1768)** — Oh one. Yeah. We have events in big community. Outside of the English language, are there any efforts to improve this? Yes. Immediately so. So I agree that we need to, um, start having more word camps, meetups, all the **[29:45](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1785)** — things in languages outside of English. Fortunately, we currently are doing the. Hate to say it. Next generation exploration. Oh, what's the, how's the next generation thing go? It's Star Trek. Anyone wanna sing Star Trek real fast? **[30:02](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1802)** — Yes. Oh yeah. There we go. There we go. Um, yeah, so there is an exploration going on about that right now, and I do absolutely think, uh, that we have space for language centric word camps. We had, I think one, maybe two during the pandemic. **[30:18](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1818)** — And they were really well received. They were really well attended. And I, and I think that we absolutely need more of those. And so, yeah, I think that we need them. And there is currently a discussion happening to advocate for those and I. Agree. Yeah. Yeah. **[30:33](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1833)** — Thank you. Mm-hmm. Nice. Have we start with a yes after a no answer. Um, should future work camps have more talks on business and marketing? Do you wanna 1, 2, 3, it and see if we agree? Sure. 1, 2, 3. Yes. Maybe. Oh, hey, scissors. **[30:48](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1848)** — Yeah. Uh, yes. Propose one. So please don't think that there is like people who are speakers at work camps and people who aren't. We are all Prudential work camp speakers, and each one of you has something interesting to say. Each one of you has a story. Mm-hmm. **[31:03](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1863)** — And I'm sure many of you have beautiful stories about business and marketing. Propose that as a talk. I'd love to see more of it in the future. Yeah. That was a five minute timer noise for us. Cool. From Jonathan. Um, how can we attract, I'll read this. Do you wanna answer this one? **[31:18](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1878)** — How can we attract more experts from tangentially related disciplines to contribute and become more involved in making WordPress better tangentially related, as opposed to the things that, uh, it's directly related. What do you mean, trans tangential, tangentially? Things that. **[31:35](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1895)** — I see, I see, I see. Um, yeah, you know, WordPress has a project, and you've said this for years, we have a lot of difficulty getting outside of ourselves. We really love being in here. It's really welcoming. Everyone's super nice. We really want everyone to know how to do everything easily and well and with us. **[31:52](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1912)** — And so it's very difficult to get outside of, of our bubbles. And so we do, I think, lose a lot of that really smart kind of opportunity. From people that are in the Drupal community, although I know that we have like five of you with us. Thank you. **[32:07](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1927)** — Including Abby. Yeah. Uh, and so, yeah, I think I, I think taking our, our knowledge that we have from the WordPress project, whether it's PHP, JavaScript, our exce, our, our success with Gutenberg and taking it out into other communities is a really great way to do that because they don't know how to find us either. **[32:25](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1945)** — And so if we go to them, that's a great way to do it. And something I'll personally try to contribute here, and you saw some experiments with it at this work camp Us was, uh, having both Ken Lou talks and Simon Willis's. Um, Simon being maybe the first, maybe last speaker that doesn't run WordPress for his website yet. **[32:43](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1963)** — He has a custom CMS on it. It's pretty cool. But someday maybe, but we'll be maybe 10 years from now. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll be around. Don't worry. Um, the, that, that also on my part, I, I do a lot of reading, a lot of. Uh, spending time in other communities and I will try my best to try to bring **[33:02](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1982)** — in some, uh, speakers from outside into some of these flagship events. US is probably the easiest, but I'll think about Asia and Europe as well, um, to see if we can bring us with different perspectives, whether they're tangently related or not. Great. **[33:18](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=1998)** — What is the biggest lesson you've learned in your professional lives over the past two years to the two of us? 10 years? Yeah. Heart. Oh, sorry. Past 10 years. What'd I say? Two years. Mm-hmm. My bad. Ah huh. **[33:36](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2016)** — I'm gonna start with an answer so you can think. Go for it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Um, one of the things that did not come naturally to me when I started learning, uh, when I started leading was learning how to. To keep people with me and with the project that we were working on when we **[33:53](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2033)** — were doing things that were very hard. Um, and fortunately by the time we got to Gutenberg, I, I kind of had an idea, uh, 'cause that was very hard for the community. Uh, and, and so I have learned not necessarily like how to prevent all of the problems or all the crises, um, but certainly how to when you encounter them, **[34:11](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2051)** — because we can't predict the future. Um. What to do when you get there. And it's, it was really basic stuff when I started. It was things like, thank people when you find that they're in a really tough time with you, um, when you are there helping with the **[34:27](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2067)** — tough time, like be clearly there. Like say, I'm here, I'm helping. I don't know if I can help, but I'm here to try. Um, and the third thing that was really clear to me later was that. Um, especially when I'm the one who created the problem. 'cause I do that sometimes I have really big ideas and then **[34:44](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2084)** — I'm like, Hey developers, can we make zebras outta WordPress? And they're like, Y yeah. Um, they promise a lot of stuff to me. I think that maybe is not, not, uh, uh, the best. Um, but when I do come to people with a problem that I absolutely **[35:00](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2100)** — am not capable of having a solution for, I make a lot of effort to. To be available as early as possible so that they have an opportunity to ask me all the questions so they can understand it well enough to make their own autonomous choices as best they can. **[35:16](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2116)** — Um, and, and, you know, that's it. Like, just be clearly there and doing the thing. That's the thing that was the hardest for me to learn was how to help people through difficult times. Um, and especially when I was the one creating the difficult time **[35:31](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2131)** — because then I just felt bad about it. So, yeah. Hmm. I think my answer is, is actually kind of related to that. Huh. Or maybe inspired by that, um, around the importance of communication. Mm-hmm. And for me that was, you know, I think it's Frank Lu who says it's not **[35:47](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2147)** — what you say, it's what people hear. Yes. It's what they receive. And so the importance of like, if someone doesn't understand you. The onus is on you to think about how you communicated it and go back to that, uh, was studying things like nonviolent communication and also I'll **[36:02](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2162)** — say like, um, so much of communicating is about listening and I've been doing a lot of work and listening in the past 10 years, um, that I think has been really regenerative in terms of like, you know, understanding better what the needs of y'all sort of having a pulse on the community a bit. **[36:21](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2181)** — Um. And I, if you haven't tried meditation, uh, recommend it as great apps like Calm or, um, uh, waking Up, I think by Sam Harris. Like there's a lot of really good ones. Uh, it's kind of nice 'cause you don't actually need anything. You can read a blog post about it or a book, or go to a retreat. **[36:37](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2197)** — There's a million different ways to do it, but all of 'em I find, um, are great for creating that awareness that allows you to both connect with your thoughts and truly be present and listen to someone else, um, in a way that's really important for communication. So, uh. Maybe I'll, I'll summarize that. **[36:53](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2213)** — LDR as, uh, try meditation. I think that was our last question 'cause I think you have some thank yous and goodbyes over on that slide. Oh, awesome. All right, well thank you Josepha. Thank you. Thank you all for the great questions. **[37:09](https://youtu.be/3Fa0Q-brSeI?t=2229)** — Don't go far. He's saying things.