A Little Communication Goes a Long Way  ## Metadata - Author: [[Jeff Chandler]] - Full Title: A Little Communication Goes a Long Way - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #wordpress - #product-ops - #developer-relations Author: Jeff Chandler Source: Article (WP Tavern) Reference: https://wptavern.com/a-little-communication-goes-a-long-way date created: 2025-08-21 00:00 --- # Title: A Little Communication Goes a Long Way ## Table of Contents: - [🔗 Introduction](#-introduction) - [🔗 🧭 Controlling the Flow of Information](#-🧭-controlling-the-flow-of-information) - [🔗 📈 How Much Communication Is Enough?](#-📈-how-much-communication-is-enough) - [🔗 🔐 Communication During Security Incidents](#-🔐-communication-during-security-incidents) - [🔗 🤝 Be Honest](#-🤝-be-honest) - [🔗 🗒️ 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) - [🔗 🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-🔍-seo-evaluation) - [🔗 🎯 Conclusion](#-🎯-conclusion) ### References: Include a list of sources consulted and cited in the article. - iThemes 2014 security breach incident post by Cory Miller (referenced example) - Prior WP Tavern guidance on changelogs (referenced by the author) ## 📝 Summary: The article argues that consistent, transparent communication is essential for maintaining user trust in WordPress plugins, themes, and services. It recommends regular updates (new features, bug fixes, white papers, testimonials, major changes), emphasizes owning and promptly communicating about security incidents, and highlights that honest communication—especially during crises—can strengthen customer loyalty. Controlling the narrative via owned channels (blog, changelog, social) prevents rumors and keeps developers and users aligned. ## 📖 Main Content: The author underscores that communication is a core product competency, not a marketing afterthought. Silence breeds uncertainty; even “no update” updates can reassure users. The piece advises product teams to maintain an information cadence across owned channels to “control the flow of information,” specifically naming blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and changelogs. On cadence, there’s no hard rule, but a month of silence raises concern. The strongest section focuses on incident communication: when a security issue occurs, immediately disclose, take responsibility, explain actions, and keep sharing updates as you learn more. The iThemes 2014 breach is presented as a model—Cory Miller’s transparent response reportedly led upset customers to pledge support. The concluding guidance: be honest, avoid unrealistic expectations, and keep a visible pulse—especially for paid products. Personal reflections: - In OSS ecosystems, communication debt compounds faster than code debt because it erodes social capital. - Changelogs function as user-facing release notes and institutional memory for contributors; investing in clarity here reduces support load. - Crisis comms should be pre-planned: define SLAs, roles, and templates before incidents happen. ### 🗒️ Notes - Why communication matters - Reduces doubt, abandonment feelings, speculation. - Reinforces trust with paying users. - What to communicate - New features and major bug fixes. - White papers and deep dives for rationale. - User testimonials to reinforce value. - Major changes/announcements (pricing, roadmap, ownership). - Channels and ownership - Use project blog, social media, and changelogs to control narrative. - Changelogs should be clear, structured, user-readable. - Cadence - No fixed rule; a few updates per week are feasible with modern tools. - Silence beyond a month is concerning; even “no news” updates help. - Security incident playbook - Own the issue; be transparent and immediate. - Explain what happened, accept responsibility, outline remediation. - Provide ongoing updates as facts emerge. - Example: iThemes 2014 breach handled openly; customer support increased. - Ethical baseline - Be honest; avoid ignoring customers or setting unrealistic expectations. - Visibility matters more as user base grows. ## 📖 References: - A Little Communication Goes a Long Way — WP Tavern by Jeff Chandler: https://wptavern.com/a-little-communication-goes-a-long-way - Context example mentioned: iThemes 2014 breach response by Cory Miller (company post; readers can search iThemes 2014 security breach Cory Miller for the original statement) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1) Original idea: “Users and especially paying customers want to know what’s going on... Going an extended period of time without communicating leads to doubt, a feeling of abandonment, and speculation.” - Paraphrase: Users—particularly those who pay—expect regular updates. Long silences invite uncertainty, make people feel deserted, and fuel rumors. 2) Original idea: “If your plugin, theme, or service experiences a security issue, the best thing to do is own it, be as transparent as possible, and inform users immediately… Thanks to Miller’s honest approach… customers pledged their support.” - Paraphrase: When security problems arise, take responsibility, disclose promptly, and be open about fixes. This straightforward response, as seen with iThemes, can transform frustration into customer backing. ## 📰 Newsletter: This week in WordPress, a reminder that shipping great code is only half the job—shipping great communication is the other half. If you’re learning web development, build the habit now: keep a living changelog, publish short “what’s new” notes, and share “why” behind your decisions. Recent updates around the ecosystem underscore the power of transparency—public roadmaps, concise release notes, and candid incident posts consistently outperform radio silence. Community highlight: shout-out to teams publishing user-friendly changelogs and postmortems—your clarity saves everyone time. New plugin authors: add a “COMMUNICATION.md” to your repos outlining update cadence, support channels, and incident procedures. For inspiration, look to examples like iThemes’ transparent breach response in 2014, which turned a crisis into renewed customer trust. Resources: - Why consistent updates matter and what to post (features, bug fixes, testimonials, white papers): A Little Communication Goes a Long Way (WP Tavern) - Adopt release-note best practices: keep versions, dates, impacts, and upgrade steps up front. Bottom line: Communicate early, often, and honestly. Your users—and your future self—will thank you. ## ✅ Action Items: Prompt for aligning this article to your Developer Advocate and future OSPO leadership focus: - Purpose: Evaluate how each article advances open-source advocacy, contributor engagement, education, and transparent governance in the WordPress ecosystem. - Use this template per article: - Mission alignment - Open-source advocacy: Identify how transparent communication supports sustainable OSS (e.g., trust, governance, funding). - Contributor engagement: Extract tactics to reduce uncertainty for maintainers and contributors (cadence, changelogs, roadmaps). - Education: Translate article insights into curricula (release notes writing, incident communication drills). - Transparency & inclusivity: Map recommendations to inclusive comms practices (plain language, accessible formats, multilingual options). - OSPO relevance - Policy: Define comms policies (incident disclosure SLAs, changelog standards). - Process: Document comms workflows across product, security, support, and community. - Metrics: Track communication SLOs (time-to-update, changelog completeness, issue response times). - Funding & sustainability: Tie trust gains to renewals, sponsorships, and contributor retention. - Actions for GoDaddy and WordPress community - Create COMMUNICATION.md and INCIDENT_RESPONSE.md te - Summary: Whether you manage WordPress plugins, themes, or a service, a key component to keeping users happy is communication. Users and especially paying customers want to know what’s going on. Going an extended period of time without communicating leads to doubt, a feeling of abandonment, and speculation. - URL: https://wptavern.com/a-little-communication-goes-a-long-way [](https://149611589.v2.pressablecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/CommunicationFeaturedImage.jpg)photo credit: elycefeliz – cc Whether you manage WordPress plugins, themes, or a service, a key component to keeping users happy is communication. Users and especially paying customers want to know what’s going on. Going an extended period of time without communicating leads to doubt, a feeling of abandonment, and speculation. Communicating is not hard and these days, developers have more ways than ever to keep users and customers informed. If you’re experiencing writer’s block or don’t know what to write about, here are a few ideas. * New Features * Major Bug Fixes * White Papers * User Testimonials/Reviews * Major Changes or Announcements The key is to maintain a cycle where you communicate, users and customers provide feedback, and implement the feedback into continued improvements. While it doesn’t always work this way, it’s an ideal strategy that keeps developers and users on the same page. #### Controlling The Flow of Information Ideally, a news site is not the first place users should discover what’s going on with a particular project. Blogs attached to a project’s site are an excellent way to keep insiders and outsiders informed. By utilizing Facebook, Twitter, change logs, and a blog, you control the flow of information and what you want people to know. Speaking of change logs, last year, [I offered advice](https://wptavern.com/wordpress-plugin-developers-need-to-communicate-better-in-change-logs) on what information to include and how to differentiate between the changes. Users read change logs and should be an important part of any developer’s communication strategy. #### How Much Communication? There’s no set rule on how much you should communicate but with all the options available, there’s no excuse not to push out a few updates a week. However, this all depends on how many users you have, how much development activity is going on, etc. Sometimes, there’s nothing to report and that’s fine. When it becomes concerning is when there is a lack of communication after a month or more. #### Communication Can Make or Break a Business Most of what I’ve discussed so far deals with software development. However, there is one aspect of communication that can make or break a business and that’s during a security issue. If your plugin, theme, or service experiences a security issue, the best thing to do is own it, be as transparent as possible, and inform users immediately. A great example is when [iThemes experienced a security breach](https://ithemes.com/2014/09/23/important-security-update-for-all-customers/) in late 2014, that affected approximately 60,000 customers. iThemes CEO Cory Miller could have swept the breach under the rug and fix things behind the scenes but instead, chose to [immediately inform customers](https://wptavern.com/ithemes-suffers-security-breach-customers-urged-to-reset-passwords). In his post, he explains what happened, takes full responsibility, and explains what they’re going to do to make things right. As the company learned more about the breach, they shared that information with customers and the public. Thanks to Miller’s honest approach of attacking the issue head on, a lot of upset customers pledged their support for the company. #### Be Honest If iThemes chose to keep the breach under wraps for as long as possible, chances are that at some point it would be exposed likely causing the company irreparable damage. Humans are not perfect and security vulnerabilities happen, but it’s how they’re handled that can make or break a business. Be honest with yourself and to those giving you money. Nothing good happens by ignoring customers or setting unrealistic expectations. As the user and customer base of plugins, themes, and services increases, so does the impact of communication. You don’t have to write a thesis every week but it’s nice to know that the developers behind a project have a pulse, especially if it’s for something people are paying for. If communication is something you’re struggling with, let us know in the comments. If you develop a popular theme or plugin, let us know what your strategy is for keeping people informed. ##### Share this:, A Little Communication Goes a Long Way, Jeff Chandler, 01gnmcy7n1etwvh4cmx3vw5kma.