Community + Code: Episode 27 - Miriam Schwab  🔗 **Source:** [Community + Code: Episode 27 - Miriam Schwab](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [community-and-code, five-for-the-future, open-source-sustainability, elementor, wordpress-community, developer-relations] > author: Miriam Schwab > source: Community & Code > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo > date created: 2026-09-22 > > > [!info] Generated analysis — not the author's words. Sections below are machine-written > > from the captured source. Only text inside `> [!quote]` blocks is verbatim from the author. > > Do not quote or attribute any other line to the named author. > > > [!note] Re-upload > > The channel re-uploaded this episode on 2026-09-22 as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLYbGTr3AyM (92–95% identical transcript). This analysis was written from the re-upload and ported here; minute marks may differ by up to 3 seconds. > > # 🏷️ Title: Episode 27: Miriam Schwab > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - [Episode 27: Miriam Schwab — Community & Code (YouTube)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo) - [Five for the Future](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/) - [Elementor on the WordPress.org plugin directory](https://wordpress.org/plugins/elementor/) - [Detailed Plugin Guidelines](https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/detailed-plugin-guidelines/) - miriamschwab.me — the guest's personal site, as she states it at 50:30 (URL not opened) ## 📝 Summary - **What happened:** Community & Code host Chris (self-introduced as "Chris Jazz Sequence on the internet" — auto-caption rendering of his handle, unverified; he says he works at Pantheon and is president of the "WP Community Collective") interviews Miriam Schwab, head of WordPress at Elementor, for 51:30. She traces a path from freelance content writer to a 13-year WordPress agency in Israel, to co-founding Strattic (captioned "Stratic"), a static-publishing platform for WordPress, to Elementor's acquisition of Strattic, and then to a role she built without a job description. - **Why it matters:** she describes how a company with — in her words — 21 million active installs set up Five for the Future: sponsoring outside contributors rather than lending staff time, picking teams by asking Make WordPress teams where the gaps were, starting with Performance. She gives a business argument for contribution: it's brand spend, not a direct-ROI line item. - **Key stakeholders:** plugin companies deciding how to contribute; Make WordPress teams (Performance, Plugin Review, Theme Review, Hosting, AI) that receive sponsored contributors; small agencies facing contribution expectations; WordCamp organizers and sponsors. - **Risks and tradeoffs:** everything is first-person account from an Elementor employee; install counts, growth history, and team claims are unverified in this note. The episode has no pushback on Elementor's past plugin-guideline "missteps," which she mentions without detail. - **Bottom line:** at scale, contribution works when one "WordPressy" person owns it — sponsorship design, plugin-guideline pre-clearance, partner channels, event presence — and leadership frames it as the right thing to do plus brand investment. ## 📖 Main Content - **Career arc.** Schwab switched from computer science (taught in Hebrew) to English literature, the one program taught in English at the time. Content-writing work led her to websites, which she taught herself to build from open online resources. Around WordPress 3.x she was one of the first in Israel offering WordPress as a professional platform, and ran the agency for 13 years, serving tech companies and large nonprofits. - **Strattic.** Prompted by a blog post from Matt Biilmann of Netlify (captioned "Matt Bilman ... atlifi"; spelling unverified) on generating a static copy of a WordPress site, she built a service that keeps WordPress as the hidden editing source and deploys a static site. Buyers were often CISOs or CTOs uneasy about WordPress; Strattic let marketing keep its "power tool." She says customers included Fortune 500 companies, governments, and the UN; she ran it for about six years with venture funding and accelerators. - **Elementor connection.** She met Elementor's founders when they sponsored an early WordCamp she organized in Israel — "three guys with like a folding table," before Elementor, when their product was a theme called Pojo. The acquisition landed right before WordCamp US San Diego, the first large post-COVID WordCamp. - **Why only WordPress.** Every alternative she tested was more limiting; "WordPress made the decisions for me." She calls herself a "fake developer": she understands tech and has managed dev teams but doesn't want to write code, so she needs a platform that lets her assemble. - **The role.** About six months after joining, the founders offered a position with no title or job description. Her read of the gap: Elementor's staff came from non-WordPress, often non-open-source companies. The role covers ecosystem relationships, shared users with other product companies, and alignment with WordPress.org plugin guidelines — including checking with the Plugin Review Team before shipping anything that might need review, after "some missteps" before her tenure. - **Five for the Future.** Leadership assigned it as one of her first tasks, with one constraint: sponsor contributors financially rather than give internal staff time, because teams were at capacity. She interviewed Make WordPress team members and contributors, started with a Performance sponsorship (Google invited Elementor to help there), and now sponsors contributors on Performance, Plugin Review, Theme Review, Hosting, and AI, plus one team she couldn't recall. She collects reports to check the contribution is useful. - **Being findable.** Before her role, reaching Elementor was hard; now partners contact her directly, and Elementor runs shared Slack channels with partner companies, including hosts, to fix issues for shared users. - **Entrepreneurial employee.** She had never been an employee and feared being told what to do; the role instead resembles being Strattic's CEO — relationships plus tracking competitive and tech developments. She writes an internal weekly newsletter on AI and WordPress. She reports to the CEO and describes leadership's stance as "you do you." - **Events and speaking.** She was Elementor's first conference speaker, then set up a program encouraging colleagues to apply to speak. She set up a process to sponsor WordCamps Elementor doesn't attend, and started attending events such as CloudFest. - **Contribution economics.** Her position: expect contribution from companies with a thriving product, not from small agencies living project to project. For larger companies, beyond "it's the right thing to do," contribution is brand investment — being seen as cooperative "good citizens of the ecosystem." Chris adds a DevRel view: content pays off on a long tail, and cites a prior guest, John Hawkins, on "return on connection." - **Why Elementor grew.** Her attribution: right product at the right time, a long free-only period, listening to feedback even from single users, slow and careful hiring, and founders — named in the transcript as Ariel and Yoni — who, in her words, have humility and keep rethinking. - **Uncertainties:** proper nouns come from auto-captions (Strattic, Matt Biilmann, Netlify, Pojo, 3-2-1 Contact, John Hawkins, the "Angie" livestream the host mentions at 45:30); treat spellings as unverified. Install figures are the speaker's. ### 🗒️ Notes #### ⏱️ [00:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=17s) Host intro - Host frames Schwab as two decades in WordPress; met at WordCamp US San Diego right after Elementor acquired Strattic. - Episode themes: community presence inside a "21 million install company," contribution as brand investment, and a WordCamp Israel connection that led to the acquisition. #### ⏱️ [02:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=121s) From literature to websites - Studied computer science in Hebrew after moving to Israel, couldn't follow it, switched to English literature. - Childhood PC from her father at about age eight; typed in programs from printed code books; read a science magazine (captioned "321 contact"). - The websites her writing went into interested her more than the writing. #### ⏱️ [05:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=331s) Learning in the open web - Taught herself from shared answers online (Stack Overflow cited); credits the web's open-source culture. - Host recalls Yahoo directories, web rings, guest books, and paying for BBS access before internet access. - Schwab: the early web removed "the constraint of geographic proximity." #### ⏱️ [09:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=573s) Agency years - Path: content → websites → WordPress as a professional offering around version 3 → 13-year agency. - Tried product ideas while her kids were young; learned "you really have to learn to say no even to yourself." #### ⏱️ [12:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=721s) Jamstack and Strattic - A static-WordPress case study blog post triggered the idea; Jamstack alone meant "too many somersaults" to match WordPress. - WordPress as a staging-like source of truth, static deploy for speed and resilience. - Security leaders drove adoption; marketing kept WordPress. About six years, VC-funded. #### ⏱️ [14:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=871s) Elementor founders and WordCamp US San Diego - Founders sponsored her early WordCamps in Israel with a folding table; prior product "Pojo." - She attended WordCamp US San Diego about a week after the acquisition, unsure of her place. Attendance figure disputed on-air (she says under 200). #### ⏱️ [17:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=1020s) Why WordPress and nothing else - "I have always been all in on WordPress": constant learning plus the community. - Host lists Zen Cart, Joomla, Magento, ExpressionEngine; says Drupal has a site-configuration profession WordPress never needed. #### ⏱️ [22:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=1351s) "Fake developer" - "WordPress made the decisions for me" — it was the platform where things she tried worked. - Host: there was always an answer (Codex, blog posts); other CMS forums went stale. #### ⏱️ [24:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=1470s) Head of WordPress, undefined - Offered after ~6 months with no title or job description. - Gap: staff from non-open-source companies; ecosystem relationships; strict plugin-guideline alignment. #### ⏱️ [27:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=1621s) Guidelines and Five for the Future setup - Checks with the plugin team before implementing anything that might need review; proceeds only on a yes. - Chose sponsored contributors over staff time; asked teams where help was needed; started with Performance alongside Google. - Current sponsored areas: Performance, Plugin Review, Theme Review, Hosting, AI, plus one she didn't recall. #### ⏱️ [29:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=1741s) The face of Elementor - Partners, plugin developers, and hosts contact her directly; shared Slack channels replaced friction. - She started documenting her own work to see what the role is. #### ⏱️ [31:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=1860s) Prioritizing a self-directed role - Host compares DevRel's unstructured time to sprint-ticket engineering. - Schwab: role feels like being CEO — relationships plus staying current; writes a weekly internal AI + WordPress newsletter. - Fixed things she disliked: Five for the Future, WordCamp sponsorship style, no speakers; built a speaker program; sponsors WordCamps Elementor doesn't attend. #### ⏱️ [35:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=2132s) Contribution: ideology vs. finance - Host asks, with "WP Community Collective president" hat on, how leadership squares contribution with financial math. - Leadership's reason: "because it's the right thing to do." CEO calls her "WordPressy." - Small agencies can't be held to the same standard; "have a little sympathy." #### ⏱️ [40:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=2401s) Contribution as brand investment - She was "very cynical" about brand before Elementor; now says brand needs a real product behind it. - Contribution signals a collaborative, contributing company. #### ⏱️ [41:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=2461s) Long tail and return on connection - Host: DevRel content converts months later, not as 500 leads next week; "I just smirk" when ROI comes up. - Cites John Hawkins (earlier guest): an agency attended every WordCamp it could for about two years; the lesson was "return on connection." #### ⏱️ [43:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=2612s) Speaking pays off late - Talks got zero feedback on the day; projects arrived six months later. - "You have to be in it because you love the people"; help flows both directions. #### ⏱️ [45:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=2730s) Install growth - Per Schwab: about 1 million installs within 6–12 months of launch; #3 plugin when she joined, then passed Yoast, then #1; "now like 21 million" active installs. - Her reasons: right product at the right time, free-only for a long time, "all in on open source," listening to feedback. #### ⏱️ [48:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=2910s) Hiring and founders - HR takes as long as needed to fill roles; she works horizontally with finance, legal, design for WordCamp booths. - Founders named as Ariel and Yoni; she describes them as open to discussion. #### ⏱️ [50:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=3030s) Where to find her - miriamschwab.me — a WordPress site she says she built with AI; LinkedIn, X, Make WordPress Slack, Post Status Slack. ## 📚 References - [Community & Code, Episode 27 (YouTube)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo) — primary source. - [Five for the Future on WordPress.org](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/) — the pledge program discussed at 27:30–29:00. - [Elementor plugin page](https://wordpress.org/plugins/elementor/) — WordPress.org displays active installs in capped bands, so the "21 million" figure is the speaker's, not the directory's. - [Detailed Plugin Guidelines](https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/detailed-plugin-guidelines/) — the guidelines she checks against. - [Make WordPress Performance team](https://make.wordpress.org/performance/) — first sponsored-contributor team. - Not verified here: Strattic acquisition date, the Netlify case-study post, the John Hawkins episode. ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - Schwab came to WordPress sideways: a literature degree, content writing, then curiosity about the sites her words lived on. She learned from people who shared answers online, which she ties to the web's open-source roots. - Her agency grew on being early to professional WordPress in Israel. Strattic grew from pairing WordPress editing with static delivery so security leaders and marketers could both get what they wanted. - Elementor's founders were early WordCamp Israel sponsors, and that relationship led to the acquisition and then to a role defined by what was missing: someone who knows the WordPress ecosystem inside a company whose staff mostly didn't. - She set up Five for the Future by sponsoring outside contributors, chosen by asking teams where the need was. She treats plugin-guideline compliance as a standing pre-check with the review team. - On who should contribute, she separates small agencies, which often can't, from thriving product companies, which should — both because it's right and because it builds the brand. The host adds that community work pays back through connections, not measurable ROI. - She credits Elementor's growth to timing, a long free period, open source, listening, careful hiring, and founders who keep discussing decisions. ## 📰 Newsletter - **How a 21-million-install plugin (her number) runs Five for the Future.** On [Community & Code Ep. 27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo), Elementor's head of WordPress Miriam Schwab explains the setup: sponsor outside contributors instead of lending busy staff, ask the teams where help is needed, start where the pain is (Performance), then expand — now Plugin Review, Theme Review, Hosting, and AI. Pledge details live at [Five for the Future](https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/). - Her pitch to finance teams: contribution is brand spend, the same way companies already pay for things with no direct ROI. Her pitch to the community: "have a little sympathy" for small agencies running project to project. - Bonus for plugin shops: she pre-clears anything guideline-adjacent with the Plugin Review Team and ships only on a yes. ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Developer advocacy: pitch a talk on "brand investment vs. ROI" for contribution budgets, using the episode's 40:00–42:00 argument as the frame. - Education: a short module on setting up a company Five for the Future pledge with sponsored contributors. - Developer experience: publish a partner contact path and shared-channel intake so partners don't hunt for a person. - Developer marketing: track long-tail attribution (first touch months before a lead) rather than per-post leads, per the host's point at 41:30. - Community management: run an internal speaker-application program like the one she built. - Internal/external/cross-project: shared Slack channels with hosts and plugin partners for shared-user issues. #### OSPO - Policy & Governance: write down who owns WordPress.org guideline compliance and the pre-clearance step with the Plugin Review Team. - License Compliance: not applicable to this source — licensing isn't discussed. - Security Management: not applicable to this source beyond Strattic's static-delivery security pitch. - Software Inventory: not applicable to this source. - Developer Support: an internal weekly briefing on ecosystem and AI developments, modeled on her newsletter. - Community Engagement: sponsored-contributor placements chosen by interviewing the receiving teams. - Strategic Alignment: report contribution as brand investment with periodic contributor reports, not revenue attribution. #### Community - Maintainers: ask sponsored contributors for regular reports so sponsors can check the work is useful. - Contributors: document which teams currently lack sponsored help (she started with Performance for that reason). - Sponsors: sponsor WordCamps you won't attend; set a process for it. - Ecosystem: contribution expectations scaled to company size, not a flat percentage. #### WordPress - Core: not applicable to this source beyond sponsored contributors. - Core Performance: first team Elementor sponsored; a case study of how outside sponsorship entered the team would help others. - Core AI: one of Elementor's sponsored areas; publish how sponsors can engage it. - **Core Program Team:** a public map of sponsored contributors by team, so companies can see gaps before choosing. - Mobile: not applicable to this source. - Playground: not applicable to this source. - Community: WordCamp sponsor guidance for companies sponsoring events they won't attend. - Training: Learn WordPress lesson on the self-taught path Schwab describes (content writer to builder). - Marketing: not applicable to this source. - Support: not applicable to this source. - Design: not applicable to this source. - Documentation: a "how to pre-clear a feature with Plugin Review" page for large plugin companies. - Photos: not applicable to this source. - TV: add human-corrected captions to Community & Code episodes; auto-captions garble names (Strattic, host's handle). - Polyglots: not applicable to this source. - Accessibility: not applicable to this source. - Meta: not applicable to this source. - CLI: not applicable to this source. - Hosting: Hosting team is a sponsored area; shared host–plugin Slack channels as a documented pattern. - Tide: not applicable to this source. - Openverse: not applicable to this source. - Themes: Theme Review is a sponsored area; note staffing sources. - Plugins: Plugin Review is a sponsored area; document the pre-clearance consultation path for large plugins. #### The WPOCC - Programs: scaled contribution guidance — separate expectations for small agencies and large product companies. - Projects: interview large-plugin contribution leads (Elementor via Schwab) for a playbook on sponsored contributors. - Funding experiments: test a "brand investment" framing in sponsor pitches and record which companies respond. ### FAIR - Technical independence: not applicable to this source. - Policies and covenants: not applicable to this source. - Productized governance artifacts: not applicable to this source. ## 🧪 Hypotheses - H1: Companies that assign a single named owner to ecosystem relations run a Five for the Future pledge longer than companies without one. - H2: Sponsored contributors placed by interviewing receiving teams stay active longer than those placed without consultation. - H3: Pre-clearing guideline-adjacent features with Plugin Review reduces plugin-directory enforcement actions for large plugins. - H4: Framing contribution as brand investment raises approval rates for contribution budgets compared with ROI framing. - H5: Speaking at WordCamps produces inbound work with a median lag of months, not weeks. ## 📊 Methodology - H1/H2: Five for the Future pledge data plus contributor activity per team over 24 months; compare pledges with and without a named owner. - H3: Plugin Review Team records of guideline issues for top-100 plugins, before/after a company adopts pre-clearance (needs team cooperation). - H4: survey or interviews with contribution leads at plugin and hosting companies on the pitch used and budget outcome. - H5: speaker survey logging talk date and first related inbound contact. ## ❓ Questions - What were the plugin-guideline "missteps" before her role, and what changed in process after? - How does Elementor measure whether sponsored contribution is "valuable," beyond receiving reports? - What's the threshold where she thinks contribution stops being optional — revenue, headcount, installs? - Does the brand-investment framing survive a budget cut, or does "right thing to do" carry it? - Which sixth team does Elementor sponsor? ## 🔮 Future Research - Comparative study of how the largest WordPress companies staff Five for the Future (staff time vs. sponsored contributors). - Contributor retention under corporate sponsorship vs. employment. - Measurement methods for "return on connection" at community events. ## 💡 Implications - **Practice:** a company can start contributing without spare staff by sponsoring outside contributors, if someone owns placement. - **Policy:** contribution expectations that ignore company size penalize small agencies. - **Security:** Strattic's pitch shows security leaders as the gatekeepers for WordPress in enterprise; static delivery addressed that audience. - **Education:** self-taught paths through open answers remain a WordPress entry route. - **Funding models:** brand budgets are a plausible funding source for open-source contribution at product companies. ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment - Reading level estimate: conversational speech, roughly Flesch-Kincaid grade 7–9 (estimated from transcript sentence length, not computed). #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: video format; frames weren't checked, so visual content is unknown. - Improve: a timeline graphic of agency → Strattic → Elementor; a chart of sponsored teams. #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: full audio conversation, 51:30. - Improve: chapter markers matching the segments in Notes. #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: stories and named examples (folding table, "fake developer," "WordPressy"). - Improve: a glossary for Five for the Future, Jamstack, static publishing. #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: none. - Improve: a checklist for setting up a Five for the Future pledge. #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: explicit reasoning chain for contribution (right thing → brand investment). - Improve: a decision tree on sponsored contributors vs. staff time. #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: interview format; frequent references to WordCamps and Slack communities. - Improve: discussion prompts for meetups on contribution expectations. #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: career reflection. - Improve: self-assessment on what an organization can realistically contribute. #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: "ecosystem" framing used throughout. - Improve: not applicable to this source beyond that metaphor. ## 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: not assessable; source is video. - Improve: publish a transcript page with headings per segment. #### Keyboard navigation - Present: YouTube player controls; not tested. - Improve: not applicable to this source. #### Contrast and readability - Present: not assessable; frames weren't checked. - Improve: not applicable to this source. #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: not assessable. - Improve: not applicable to this source. #### Media and captions - Present: auto-captions exist (this transcript) but garble names: the host's handle, "Stratic," "atlifi," "321 contact." - Improve: human-corrected captions (WCAG 2.2 SC 1.2.2 Captions, Prerecorded). #### Forms and interactions - Present: none. - Improve: not applicable to this source. #### Standards reference - Main gap: SC 1.2.2 caption accuracy; SC 1.2.8 media alternative (full transcript) not confirmed. ## 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: Israeli WordPress community and WordCamps; learning in a second language; global WordCamp sponsorship. - Improve: more on regional communities Elementor sponsors remotely. #### Inclusive language - Present: plain conversational language; jargon ("Jamstack," "five for the future") mostly explained in context. - Improve: define Five for the Future on first mention. #### Neurodiversity support - Present: none structural; long free-form conversation. - Improve: chapters and a summary. #### Representation - Present: a woman founder and executive in WordPress leadership; career combined with raising young children. - Improve: not applicable to this source. #### Psychological safety - Present: Schwab describes an employer where she learned "you can express your opinion"; empathy for small agencies. - Improve: not applicable to this source. ## ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - Distinction by scale (39:00): contribution capacity differs for agencies living project to project vs. thriving product companies — a concrete mechanism (cash flow) backs it. - Analogy to existing spend (39:30–41:00): companies already fund brand with no direct ROI, so ROI isn't the right test for contribution. It holds if contribution produces brand sentiment, which she asserts but doesn't measure. - Process evidence: team selection by interviewing Make WordPress teams is a specific, checkable method. #### Fallacies - **Survivorship bias** — 43:32: speaking led to projects for her; people for whom it didn't aren't heard. Fix: ask other speakers or cite data. - **Post hoc attribution** — 46:31–49:30: growth credited to listening, hiring, and founders' humility without a way to separate those from timing, which she also names. Fix: rank the causes or name evidence for each. - **Appeal to authority (mild)** — the "21 million" figure has no source offered. Fix: cite Elementor's own reporting. #### Tone of voice - Warm, anecdotal, self-deprecating ("one-trick pony," "fake developer"); host is conversational and adds his own DevRel perspective at length. Positive toward Elementor throughout; no critical questions. ## 🛡️ DARVO Analysis - Deny: she mentions pre-tenure plugin-guideline "missteps" and frames them as lack of an owner, not intent ("it wasn't because they were trying to not meet the guidelines"). That's minimization of a specific issue, but light and not aimed at an accuser. - Attack: none identified. - Reverse victim/offender: none identified. - Otherwise not applicable to this source — a friendly interview with no accusation or dispute. ## 🎯 Conclusion - Bottom line: Elementor's contribution program works through one owner who knows the ecosystem, sponsored contributors chosen with the receiving teams, pre-clearance with Plugin Review, and a leadership rationale of "right thing to do" backed by brand value. - Next step: if you run contribution for a company, ask two Make WordPress teams where they need help before choosing where to sponsor. ## 🔄 Refactor Appendix — Episode 27: Miriam Schwab ### 📚 Literature Atoms (H3) #### [H1] Open-source contribution is a brand investment > [!quote] ID:rw_01m34k7y0pneq6q0fn08przyhp > investing in contributing back to open source is a brand investment to the ecosystem. **Context & use**: - 40:40, answering how Elementor squares contribution with financial math. - Gives contribution leads a budget frame that isn't ROI. **Tags**: #xref #share **Highlight**: [view highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m34k7y0pneq6q0fn08przyhp) <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [H2] Sponsored contribution starts by asking receiving teams > [!quote] ID:rw_01m34k7z4t2q6bhztqew2dfhky > How do we sponsor contributors in a meaningful way? Which teams need contribution? **Context & use**: - 28:03, Five for the Future setup after choosing sponsorship over staff time. - Method is reusable for any company starting a pledge. **Tags**: #xref **Highlight**: [view highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m34k7z4t2q6bhztqew2dfhky) <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [H3] Contribution expectations should scale with company size > [!quote] ID:rw_01m34k807d3zqgzh30ym7gcc25 > Like it's not feasible for large for smaller organizations. It really it often is not no matter what anyone says. **Context & use**: - 38:50, drawing on her own agency years. - Counterweight to flat "everyone should give 5%" messaging. **Tags**: #xref #articleseed **Highlight**: [view highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m34k807d3zqgzh30ym7gcc25) <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> #### [H4] Community presence works only when the people are the motive > [!quote] ID:rw_01m34k81g76f7p8bmk08wfjfh9 > But I just loved meeting the people. So like, you know, you have to be in it because you love the people **Context & use**: - 44:50, after describing speaking that paid off months later. - Pairs with the host's "return on connection" point. **Tags**: #xref #aphorisms **Highlight**: [view highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m34k81g76f7p8bmk08wfjfh9) <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ### 🧠 Permanent Candidates (H4) #### [P1] Contribution budgets belong next to brand budgets **Claim** (one sentence, Courtney's voice): When a company already pays for brand without a direct ROI, open-source contribution should be judged by the same test instead of by lead attribution. **Evidence pointer**: [[#[H1] Open-source contribution is a brand investment]] **Scope & conditions**: holds for product companies with a thriving open-source product; fails for small agencies without margin (see H3). **Links**: - [[Five for the Future]] — because applies-in pledge budgeting - [[Return on connection]] — because extends the no-direct-ROI argument to events - [[OSS sustainability]] — because evidence-for company-funded contribution models <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ### ✏️ Fleeting Queue - [F1] What were Elementor's pre-role plugin-guideline "missteps," and what did Plugin Review record? — 26:52 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tmz9qsXJvo&t=1612s #fleeting #inbox - [F2] Pre-clearance with Plugin Review as a documented process for big plugins #fleeting #inbox - [F3] Find the John Hawkins "return on connection" Community & Code episode — 42:30 #fleeting #inbox ### → Things 3 (max 2 actions) - [ ] Draft a WPOCC note on contribution expectations scaled by company size — Community & Code Ep. 27, 38:50 #things <!-- deep-read:sections end --> 📄 **Full text:** ![[Full Document Contents/Articles/Community + Code Episode 27 - Miriam Schwab.md|Community + Code: Episode 27 - Miriam Schwab by YouTube]] ## Highlights - what I was doing first. My degree is in English English literature and that seemed like a pretty natural progression from that. But the truth is that when I started studying in university, I started I was studying computer science ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kt7mm5bj5sttjhpmkkfwva9d)) - Note: The non-linear path into WordPress: started in computer science, ended up with an English literature degree. - Tags: atom/literature/h3, wordpress, career-path - the one of the co-founders of Netlefi where he did a case study where he generated a static version of a WordPress site and of course performance was better and you know all that the ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kt7mmc75r0wehhwajrhnfx1b)) - Note: The Stratic seed idea — Netlify co-founder's case study generating a static version of a WordPress site for better performance. - Tags: wordpress, atom/literature/h2, jamstack - Elementor I knew the founders um they I met them first when I was organizing word camps in Israel. So, one of the first ones that I did, they sponsored at the time. They were like three guys with like a folding table that was like they ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kt7mkxrpz7ccpf3m81vjpb1t)) - Note: Origin of the Elementor relationship — met the founders as WordCamp Israel sponsors when they were "three guys with a folding table." - Tags: atom/literature/h2, wordpress, elementor - enabled me to do what I wanted to do. I am what I call a fake developer. And what I mean is I like bar I sat at some point in writing code and I hated it. I hated it. I don't want to do that. I want to get things ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kt7mmjvswhj9jt9b4s9ez2f1)) - Note: Self-description as a "fake developer" — understands the tech but doesn't want to write code; WordPress let her build anyway. - Tags: atom/zettel/z1, wordpress, identity ## New Highlights added 2026-09-22 at 9:06 AM - that? How do we sponsor contributors in a meaningful way? Which teams need contribution? Um so I had like I spoke to a ton of people in the community um you know the from the contribution ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m34k7z4t2q6bhztqew2dfhky)) - Note: Five for the Future design questions: how to sponsor contributors, which teams need help (~28:05). - Tags: action/h1, atom/literature/h2 - community at some point. Like it's not feasible for large for smaller organizations. It really it often is not no matter what anyone says. Like I know what it's like when I was running my ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m34k807d3zqgzh30ym7gcc25)) - Note: Contribution often isn't feasible for small organizations (~38:49). - Tags: atom/literature/h3 - investing in contributing back to open source is a brand investment to the ecosystem. It's like our brand is that we are collaborative cooperative um contributing we are doing the right ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m34k7y0pneq6q0fn08przyhp)) - Note: Contributing back as a brand investment (~40:40). Ported from the 2026-09-22 re-upload analysis. - Tags: atom/literature/h1 - many ways um very well. But I just loved meeting the people. So like, you know, you have to be in it because you love the people. And if good stuff comes your way, great. And by the way, it goes the ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01m34k81g76f7p8bmk08wfjfh9)) - Note: Be in it for the people; opportunities are a side effect (~44:50). - Tags: atom/zettel/z1