Emergency Pod! WordPress Frustrations  ## Metadata - Author: [[WP Minute - Learn WordPress]] - Full Title: Emergency Pod! WordPress Frustrations - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #WordPress - #OpenSourceCommunity - #WebDevelopment Author: Matt Medeiros Source: [The WP Minute](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI) Reference: YouTube Transcript date created: 2024-09-13 12:00 --- # Title: Emergency Pod! WordPress Frustrations ## Table of Contents: 1. 📝 [Summary](#summary) 2. 📖 [Main Content](#main-content) - 🗒️ [Notes](#notes) 3. 📖 [References](#references) 4. 🗣️ [Paraphrase](#paraphrase) 5. 📰 [Newsletter](#newsletter) 6. ✅ [Action Items](#action-items) 7. 🧪 [Hypotheses](#hypotheses) - 📊 [Methodology](#methodology) - ❓ [Questions](#questions) 8. 🔮 [Future Research](#future-research) 9. 💡 [Implications](#implications) 10. 🧠 [Learning Styles Assessment](#learning-styles-assessment) 11. 📊 [Accessibility Assessment](#accessibility-assessment) 12. 🌍 [DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Assessment](#deib-assessment) 13. ✅ [Logical Validity](#logical-validity) 14. 🔍 [SEO Evaluation](#seo-evaluation) 15. 🎯 [Conclusion](#conclusion) ### References: - Medeiros, Matt. “Emergency Pod! WordPress Frustrations,” The WP Minute, 2024. [YouTube Transcript](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI). ## 📝 Summary: This emergency podcast hosted by Matt Medeiros dives deep into ongoing frustrations within the WordPress ecosystem, particularly around the development cycle, community engagement, and leadership. Key topics discussed include open source vs. ownership, Automatic’s role, community contributions, and feature prioritization within the platform. ## 📖 Main Content: The discussion centers on the friction between WordPress’ ideals of democratized publishing and its practical complexities. Developers and content creators face obstacles in contributing to or influencing core development, leading to a recurring theme: how can the community better balance innovation and accessibility? The panel also critiques Automatic’s stewardship, raising questions about leadership transparency and the scale of its investments. ### 🗒️ Notes - **Open Source vs. Ownership**: WordPress is an open-source project, but Automatic holds much of the control, leading to frustrations around decision-making transparency. - **Community Contributions**: A growing divide exists between those contributing code and those building businesses on WordPress. - **Leadership Role**: Matt Mullenweg's influence as a “benevolent dictator” is discussed, with questions about succession planning and the future of the platform. - **Feature Requests**: The slow pace of feature implementation, such as UI improvements, leads to community dissatisfaction, especially compared to faster-moving competitors like Webflow or Squarespace. ## 📖 References: - Medeiros, Matt. “Emergency Pod! WordPress Frustrations,” The WP Minute, 2024. [YouTube Transcript](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI). ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. Matt explains that while WordPress promotes democratized publishing, the platform’s development processes and leadership remain centralized, leading to dissatisfaction among contributors. He stresses the need for clear communication from leadership about how decisions are made and why they take so long. 2. During the discussion, it’s pointed out that feature prioritization often feels out of touch with user needs. The panelists cite examples like the Gutenberg block editor’s complex interface, which some users find overwhelming, contrasting it with more streamlined competitors. ## 📰 Newsletter: 🎉 **Exciting WordPress Updates & Community Conversations** 🎉 In this week’s WordPress community roundup, Matt Medeiros hosts an “emergency pod” to tackle some hot-button issues facing developers and creators alike. The conversation dives into frustrations with WordPress’ development cycle, the role of Automatic in leading the platform, and feature gaps. With community involvement at an all-time high, it’s clear that conversations around transparency and innovation will continue to shape the future of WordPress. 👉 Check out the full discussion here: [Emergency Pod](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI) ## ✅ Action Items: - Reflect on how to foster more transparent leadership and clearer communication around WordPress decision-making. - Evaluate how WordPress’ evolution impacts open-source developers and contributors. - Encourage community-driven efforts for clearer onboarding for contributors, promoting initiatives like the "data liberation" project that offers opportunities for impactful work. - Align these discussions with broader open-source advocacy efforts, aiming to streamline contribution processes for new developers. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: 1. If WordPress leadership improves communication, community engagement and satisfaction will increase. 2. Developers contributing to high-impact projects, such as data migration tools, will gain recognition, improving overall participation in the community. 3. A more transparent feature-request process will reduce frustration among professional WordPress users. ### 📊 Methodology: - **Data Collection**: Conduct surveys on developer satisfaction and analyze participation rates in GitHub issues. - **Usability Testing**: Perform user tests comparing the ease of feature requests on WordPress vs. proprietary platforms. - **Analytics**: Track engagement metrics within WordPress open-source projects and correlate them with leadership communications and community events. ### ❓ Questions: - How can Automatic balance innovation with keeping its core users satisfied? - What strategies could enhance transparency in WordPress’ decision-making processes? - Is there a more efficient way to onboard contributors to core WordPress projects? ### 🔮 Future Research: Explore the possibility of integrating AI-driven features in WordPress, improving onboarding processes, and simplifying contributions. Investigate the effects of other major platforms like Shopify and Wix encroaching on WordPress’ market share, particularly regarding ease of use and extensibility. ### 💡 Implications: Clearer contribution channels could increase both the number and quality of developer contributions, directly improving platform innovation. By improving transparency and decision-making, WordPress could set a higher standard for how open-source projects are run, potentially influencing other projects. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: 1. **Visual Learners (Spatial)**: - **Present**: Some graphs or charts are missing that could better visualize WordPress' growth and community impact. - **Improve**: Add infographics showing Automatic's contributions and WordPress’ development milestones. 2. **Aural Learners (Auditory-Musical)**: - **Present**: The podcast format caters well to auditory learners. - **Improve**: Offer a podcast summary of the discussion, highlighting key points. 3. **Verbal Learners (Linguistic)**: - **Present**: Strong verbal content with detailed descriptions and analogies. - **Improve**: Add more text-based summaries or links to related articles to deepen understanding. 4. **Physical Learners (Kinesthetic)**: - **Present**: Lacks interactive components. - **Improve**: Suggest adding tasks for contributors or challenges, such as mock feature requests or plugin exercises. 5. **Logical Learners (Mathematical)**: - **Present**: Logical breakdowns of the open-source process are partially provided. - **Improve**: Offer step-by-step guides to contributing and explain the decision-making flow within WordPress. 6. **Social Learners (Interpersonal)**: - **Present**: Live chats and discussions create a strong community-focused environment. - **Improve**: Introduce more opportunities for real-time collaboration on GitHub or in Slack. 7. **Solitary Learners (Intrapersonal)**: - **Present**: Reflection points are minimal. - **Improve**: Include individual journaling prompts or reflections on personal development within the open-source ecosystem. 8. **Naturalistic Learners**: - **Present**: No references to environmental or natural contexts. - **Improve**: Relate concepts of open-source collaboration to ecosystems or natural symbiosis to engage these learners. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment: - **Screen Reader Compatibility**: Ensure all alt-text is descriptive for podcast graphics. - **Keyboard Navigation**: Improve accessibility for users navigating through GitHub and WordPress documentation. - **Contrast and Readability**: Review the color scheme on documentation websites for high contrast. - **Text Resizing**: Ensure the podcast and transcript can adjust to different text sizes without breaking functionality. ### 🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Assessment: - **Cultural Relevance**: Increase examples and perspectives from a wider range of cultures within WordPress' development conversations. - **Inclusive Language**: Continue using gender-neutral and accessible language, especially when discussing leadership and contributions. - **Neurodiversity Support**: Use clearer headers, bullet points, and concise statements to aid individuals with ADHD or neurodiverse processing styles. - **Representation**: Integrate more diverse case studies of contributors to highlight how WordPress supports various communities. ### ✅ Logical Validity: - **Sound Deductive Reasoning**: The argument that transparency and clearer communication could improve the platform is well-reasoned. - **Appeal to Facts**: The use of GitHub statistics and development timelines supports claims about slow progress and community frustration. - **Logical Flow**: The content builds naturally, though some points could use more structured transitions to connect discussions on leadership and community roles. - **Fallacies**: None detected, though there could be more acknowledgment of the broader successes Automatic has contributed to WordPress’ growth. ### 🔍 SEO Evaluation: - **Keywords**: Use terms like “WordPress frustrations,” “open-source leadership,” and “community contributions” effectively but could include more long-tail keywords. - **Meta Description**: Needs optimization to include key frustrations and action items discussed in the podcast. - **Title Optimization**: The title is effective but could be more concise. - **Content Length**: The podcast is thorough but could benefit from more concise summaries. - **Internal/External Links**: More links to GitHub repositories, official documentation, or related discussions would increase credibility. - **URL Structure**: Simple and SEO-friendly. - **Image Optimization**: Ensure that all podcast thumbnails and embedded visuals have alt-text and optimized file sizes. ## 🎯 Conclusion: The podcast discusses deep-seated frustrations in the WordPress community, from the complexities of open-source leadership to the challenges of getting features prioritized. While WordPress continues to democratize publishing, this conversation stresses the need for a more transparent, accessible, and collaborative environment to maintain its relevance in an increasingly competitive market. Short Summary for [Emergency Pod! WordPress Frustrations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI) by [Merlin](https://merlin.foyer.work/) Title: Dissecting WordPress Frustrations: Live Discussion on Challenges and Evolution in the WordPress Community [00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4) Discussion about frustrations with WordPress over the years [02:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=150) Discussion on influencers contributing directly to WordPress [06:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=398) Understanding the nuances of automatic apparatus in WordPress [08:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=510) Discussion on the evolution of WordPress events and the need for returning to certain event types [12:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=755) Open source doesn't mean ownership; it's about licensing and community understanding. [14:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=872) Discussion on the misconception of WordPress being easy to customize. [18:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1115) Automatic, the company behind WordPress, invests in various companies and initiatives beyond WordPress products [20:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1244) Large organizations profiting from Wordpress should contribute back to the community [24:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1453) Open source contribution benefits explained [25:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1549) Open source value for building businesses on WordPress [29:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1745) WordPress enables content portability and manipulation [30:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1859) Open source project visibility through GitHub [34:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2059) WordPress democratizes publishing through open source initiatives [36:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2174) Understanding top contributors and their affiliations on GitHub [39:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2399) Encouraging users to provide feedback through issue submission [41:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2502) Exploring the decision-making process for implementing features in WordPress [44:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2692) Companies like Automattic are making efforts to engage with YouTube creators and provide organized content. [46:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2802) WordPress proposals and communication process [50:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3020) Challenges of developing for WordPress ecosystem [52:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3126) User feedback impacting feature implementation [55:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3345) Discussing the difference in user base impact on implementing features [57:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3448) Core contributors have deploy access to WordPress core [1:01:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3695) Discussion on WordPress legacy version control system - SVN [1:04:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3842) WordPress core code is not on Git due to security and access reasons. [1:07:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4078) Improving WordPress user experience [1:09:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4189) Discussion on WordPress governance [1:13:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4407) WordPress development challenges [1:15:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4514) WordPress.org approval process [1:18:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4729) WordPress contributors face obstacles with minimal progress. [1:20:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4839) The project aims to make it easier to move content within WordPress and between web hosts. [1:24:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=5049) Discussion on Matt Mullenweg's role in open source contributions [1:26:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=5161) Content creators need to understand and contribute beyond just creating content. --------------------------------- Detailed Summary for [Emergency Pod! WordPress Frustrations](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI) by [Merlin](https://merlin.foyer.work/) Title: Dissecting WordPress Frustrations: Live Discussion on Challenges and Evolution in the WordPress Community [00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4) Discussion about frustrations with WordPress over the years - We're dissecting challenges faced with WordPress over the last 20 years - Current attention on WordPress has led to more discussions on the same challenges [02:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=150) Discussion on influencers contributing directly to WordPress - Exploring the idea of influencers engaging in dialogue and contributing to WordPress community - Live stream with content creators discussing importance of the topic and sharing ideas [06:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=398) Understanding the nuances of automatic apparatus in WordPress - Exploring the concept of contributing, payment, and features prioritization in automatic apparatus - Emphasizing the importance of continuous learning and discussing nuances for honest conversations. [08:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=510) Discussion on the evolution of WordPress events and the need for returning to certain event types - Highlight on the history of WordPress events pre-co era, including PressNomics as a flagship event with business focus - Emphasizing the importance of educating newer community members about past events and the value they provided [12:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=755) Open source doesn't mean ownership; it's about licensing and community understanding. - Open source allows code reuse, forking, and viewing, but doesn't imply ownership or entitlement to features. - There's a misunderstanding about what open source truly means, emphasizing the importance of licensing and community. [14:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=872) Discussion on the misconception of WordPress being easy to customize. - Contradiction of the misconception that users can easily control the platform just by expressing desires. - Highlight on the complexity of WordPress operation and the misinterpretation around open source terminology in the community. [18:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1115) Automatic, the company behind WordPress, invests in various companies and initiatives beyond WordPress products - They invest in companies like Kostas, InstaWP, and hosting companies, showing a diverse portfolio. - Recent investments include Liquid AI and the acquisition of Beeper for $125 million, signaling a move towards messaging services. [20:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1244) Large organizations profiting from Wordpress should contribute back to the community - -1.1 [24:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1453) Open source contribution benefits explained - Contributing for free raises questions of value and benefit - Open source projects rely on community contributions for sustainability [25:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1549) Open source value for building businesses on WordPress - WordPress is powerful and has grown large due to its open source nature - It allows for business replication without being constrained by hosting platforms [29:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1745) WordPress enables content portability and manipulation - WordPress allows for easy content migration between web hosts - Open source nature of WordPress grants visibility into project development [30:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=1859) Open source project visibility through GitHub - GitHub provides visibility to track changes and history of releases - GitHub, along with tools like Slack, helps manage and navigate the open source project effectively [34:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2059) WordPress democratizes publishing through open source initiatives - WordPress tool helps democratize publishing, while open source initiative drives contributions for future development. - Gutenberg project is an example of an open-source project separate from WordPress, with the potential for widespread adoption. [36:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2174) Understanding top contributors and their affiliations on GitHub - Identifying top contributors on GitHub and their affiliations, particularly with Automatic and GoDaddy. - Exploring how the affiliations of contributors may influence decision-making in open-source projects like Gutenberg. [39:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2399) Encouraging users to provide feedback through issue submission - Highlighting the importance of active involvement in software development - Emphasizing the diverse user base of WordPress and the need for constructive feedback [41:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2502) Exploring the decision-making process for implementing features in WordPress - Discussion on evaluating cost benefit analysis for contributing to WordPress - Investigating if frequent contributors face issues with their suggestions being implemented [44:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2692) Companies like Automattic are making efforts to engage with YouTube creators and provide organized content. - Automattic and other entities are trying to reach out to content creators on platforms like YouTube to improve communication and support. - People are frustrated with the pace of changes in platforms like WordPress due to its complex nature and decision-making processes. [46:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=2802) WordPress proposals and communication process - Proposals are made on WordPress .org and make level. - Communication happens through comments, slack groups, and various open channels. [50:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3020) Challenges of developing for WordPress ecosystem - Delays due to complex development tasks and backward compatibility - Impact of team size on technical challenges and speed of development [52:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3126) User feedback impacting feature implementation - Companies like Apple may consider implementing features based on user feedback and upvotes to improve user experience and increase customer satisfaction. - Understanding the working process and complexities involved in feature development before forming opinions on efficiency and optimization strategies. [55:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3345) Discussing the difference in user base impact on implementing features - Implementing features can differ between smaller user bases like Croco Blocks and larger user bases like WordPress - Effective communication through videos and illustrations for issue resolution [57:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3448) Core contributors have deploy access to WordPress core - 72 total core contributors with deploy access - Gutenberg has over 1300 contributors over time due to open contribution [1:01:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3695) Discussion on WordPress legacy version control system - SVN - SVN is used in WordPress for version control, similar to GitHub but older - Track ticket discussing bug related to filters on patterns archive page in WordPress [1:04:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=3842) WordPress core code is not on Git due to security and access reasons. - WordPress core contributors keep the code mirrored on GitHub to allow for visibility, but discussions and contributions happen on track.wordpress.org. - All WordPress themes, plugins, and community discussions are hosted and managed on wordpress.org, with the core code also mirrored on GitHub for visibility. [1:07:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4078) Improving WordPress user experience - Unclear expectations and needs of users - Transparency and leadership, core tenets of the project [1:09:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4189) Discussion on WordPress governance - Exploring the notion of a benevolent dictator in the WordPress community - Emphasizing the importance of understanding the governance structure before progressing [1:13:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4407) WordPress development challenges - The challenges of maintaining control over the evolving WordPress platform. - The role of the community in shaping the development of WordPress. [1:15:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4514) WordPress.org approval process - Contributing to WordPress.org plugins may take months for approval - Data Liberation project may offer faster approval for contributions [1:18:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4729) WordPress contributors face obstacles with minimal progress. - Many empty GitHub repos and lack of progress on middle ground solutions. - Need to protect WordPress from competitive marketing and focus on portability. [1:20:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=4839) The project aims to make it easier to move content within WordPress and between web hosts. - The project originated as a pet project by Matt, the WordPress Community lead, and has now been handed over to the community for development. - The challenge for developers is to establish themselves in the WordPress community and contribute to Open Source despite limited visibility. [1:24:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=5049) Discussion on Matt Mullenweg's role in open source contributions - Mullenweg's approach to delegation and contribution in open source projects - Impact of Mullenweg's visionary and innovative ideas on the future of projects [1:26:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nYye07EPlI&t=5161) Content creators need to understand and contribute beyond just creating content. - Thought leaders and influencers should go a step further in leading and influencing. - Live stream discussions like the one on Bridge Builders Channel provide insights into different workflows. - Document Tags: [[wordpress]] [[philosophy]] [[mark zymanski]] - Summary: The author discusses frustrations with WordPress and the need for better communication and understanding within the community. They emphasize the importance of open-source contributions and how everyone can play a role in improving WordPress. Overall, the conversation encourages collaboration and engagement to enhance the platform. - URL: https://www.youtube.com/live/3nYye07EPlI I want to do this first [Music] it's an emergency pod Mark samansky that's what we're doing today an emergency pod never thought I would stoop so low but here we are emergency it's not an emergency listen um we're going to happy to have everybody uh joining this emergency live pod today I don't even like the word pod I rally against that word uh quite often in the podcasting space but we're going to just have a discussion because it's fresh in our mind really at least it is for me um watching uh some live streams this morning I'll show those in a moment we're going to talk about the sort of frustrations that a lot of folks have been sharing not just this year but for the last 20 years of Wordpress uh and how we've sort of maybe got to this point and I think that um hey things are are exactly the same uh as they were a decade ago 15 years ago except now hey there's more people there's much more attention on it and we're really dissecting a lot of the same Challen challenges um that we've had um for many many years so happy to have people join this conversation and happy to be here with you mark samansky as always not just listening to your voicemails but seeing your wonderful face Live on YouTube it's always a pleasure Matt thank you so much for having me as always uh can do you want to tee up while I coordinate this do you want to tee up today's live stream that we watch I'm going to pull it up so we can see it but Paul Charlton launched uh went live today but can you tee that up for the audience let them know what it was uh that was going down what the topic was and and what we're going to react to yeah you know what I can give maybe some speculative context to around it a little bit so obviously we have the bridge builder series Matt Eastwood is the you know the head of that with me Bren oconnell and um we had a recent episode I was on Friday with uh Ann Bulet and uh Max zel and that was a pretty interesting thing but the reason I think that's related is because we clipped out a piece of that where an was specifically talking about um like kind of like influencers and like do we have a as influencers and WordPress people like that people that have audiences should we kind of talk more about um and create kind of dialogue like more kind of like the idea of like contributing more directly to Wordpress rather than just like kind of like shouting out our opinions into the void um and seeing like who follows that and stuff like that which um obviously big topic we'd have to dissect all that but I feel like maybe this was um a little bit uh kind of related to that regardless if it was directly related it definitely had you know the same topic to talk about um so it's was just back and forth a little bit on that and that is what um I was really excited to see this live stream today so um I saw came up in my subscriptions and uh Paul uh WP toots for some of you guys I may not know his name Paul Charlton uh put that up there and it was him Imron from web Squadron Mark craw cwell from um Wiki design and then also Jeffrey at lightbox um all great content creators so um yeah it was a really good live stream that uh that they put on and uh I know I was watching it Matt was watching a lot of other people were watching it and we just had a lot of ideas so that's kind of where we are right now just kind of giving our thoughts because this is a very important topic regardless of your opinion on it there's a lot of nuance here that needs needs talked about so I threw in the chat for right now uh the clip from the bridge builder series uh with Amo blette and uh right up on the screen as well we have Paul Charlton friend of the show uh and uh Imran from web Squad web Squadron uh I've never synced up with him though I would love to uh you know but he they switched the the live stream over to his channel because Paul was having some connection issues it's always going to come off probably in the wrong light that we're do that we're doing this and reacting to this video because obviously I have some strong opinions on um some of the answers or some of the commentary in today's uh discussion I am uh obviously a proponent of of open- source fan of Wordpress I think everyone generally always throws out the general statement that we're all fans of Wordpress and we just want to see it do better um I have a particular angle as you know Mark and a lot of people watching the show you know I have this particular angle on what that means to to to love WordPress wanted to see it succeed and to also criticize it I've been a Critic of Wordpress for many years primarily though at the uh the leadership level not so much the the software side of things like yeah of course there are things where I wish this could be better but I've never been one to be hypercritical of how things are getting done um because uh while I appreciate designing a good product um I also as somebody who has developed products before from the product developer standpoint not the actual punching the code into the into the computer perspective I appreciate a good product I appreciate the process and I can understand why things end up maybe being the way they are um but I'm not a front-end designer uh I'm not a JavaScript expert so I can't debate or or give hypercritical feedback on how something is done or at least I don't feel like I can't I should give that kind of feedback because I can't do it right so like I'm not the guy who's going to tell people hey it should be you know we discussed this with Kevin uh it should be whatever 768 pixels by the I mean I'm not the guy to tell you that I'm just the guy that says this works for me or it doesn't you know uh so that that's like my perspective on it but uh I highlighted a couple topics from today's discussion I think you maybe jotted some down let me just tell you the topics some of the topics that I pulled and then we'll we'll we'll jump into them so I wrote things down uh from today's live stream if I can find it I sent it to you here it is so like open source versus ownership I want to talk about that uh today and highlight a post that I've that I've written in and and highlight one from dhh um from base camp and Ruby on Rails fame um the automatic apparatus like it could be a 5H Hour episode just talking about the automatic apparatus uh but I do want to talk about that because some of the feedback that I heard in today's live stream is like I wonder if people understand I mean I don't think I fully understand it uh either but I I feel like I have a strong understanding of how automatic works and I want to just highlight some of that today um contributing what that means like time versus payment versus not for me that's probably the biggest uh thorn in my side from today's from observing today's live stream um which will'll break apart in a little bit and uh prioritizing features so open source versus ownership automatic the apparatus contributing versus uh being paid or versus not for me and then how how do we end up here like how do these features get prioritized um those are my big four did you have some big takeaways today that you want to punch into I think that you those ones there summarize the big takeaways from specifically from the stream really really well the one thing I'll say here before we get into all of it is the same thing that I kind of said to you in Rel in kind of uh relation to that and it's fact that you know I'm I consider myself like relatively newer to the actual understanding of how this all works rather than just using Wordpress as a tool and I think that the big thing that I've uh maybe just the way that I am is like I like to try to break things down to like as fundamental as possible and really understand like the things like how everything works as I'm trying to learn it like I'm asking a lot of questions right you and I have had so many conversations I'm trying to get to the bottom of it I feel like the one thing that we could all do a little bit better is understanding that this is very nuanced and that we kind of all need to get no matter who we are like if we're always just getting more educated on how everything works then we can have a more honest discussion across the across the the board and I'm not talking about anybody specifically I'm just saying that's my my personal uh philosophy on it so that's why I love talking to you know guys like yourself because you guys have been it for a while and you understand uh the ins and outs of it and then you know we can kind of go from there with a conversation so but I like these topics I'm excited to chat about them I'm also not you know you say that a lot to me and others have said like hey you've been here for and I'm also of the mindset that have I been here too long yes like do I only see it from a particular angle yes uh I was just talking in the the last episode with Cory Miller on the podcast and um you know when I talk to folks like you and and others who just don't understand like why maybe say word camps are the way they are you know we came from a time I guess this all like pre-co where there were many types of Wordpress events that were happening press nomics sort of being like a flagship business focused WordPress event that happened uh was a company I worked at pagely and uh that happened for many years that was like the thing like so many people were hyped to go to that because it was very business focused and a lot of deals got done and you just saw the business side of Wordpress Loop comp for developers like there was a time where these like other events were happening um you know so when folks come into the community like you like in a postco world where they're kind of like trying to figure out events again you're like why why why doesn't this exist and I maybe for like the old folks in the group where it's like oh yeah we had that at one time and we're forgetting to like relay that to you or to like understand we need that back like we need these types of things back so it's sort of like you know the waves have crashed on the shore and they're pulling away like oh yeah at one time we had all that and now it doesn't exist let's get this stuff going uh for folks uh I want to talk about let's talk about this WordPress uh open source ownership thing I think this is a great post um and I should probably pull up my own site as well that way we have that I wrote a post a couple weeks ago called what would we do with the keys to the kingdom and I referenced um this is the post what would we do with the keys to the kingdom I'll throw that in chat as well um and I referenced this post by uh David Hansen from uh henm Hansen from base camp again started Ruby on rail's open source project and he writes open source is neither a community nor democracy I'm not going to obviously read the whole post here but I I implore folks to go ahead and read this um this is something that I think is very true and is what triggered me to say what would we do uh with the Keys of the Kingdom if we had it like a lot of US Air our grievances online and uh on live streams like this and podcasts and blogs and Twitter threads what would we really do if we were the ones in control um I don't I don't think it would be any better in fact I would probably guess it would be worse uh because as David points out like there needs to be somebody who's getting it done getting the job done setting the direction um and sort of that's the person that's the leader of the project uh and in our case it's it's Mullen wig and I don't think and I'm and I fully stand behind that as the decision there are things I don't like about it but I still fully stand behind that decision because I still have enough confidence in his ability to to do this with you know the criticisms that I would still give along the way um this is a fantastic piece I think every everyone should read this because what it's saying is it's like you don't own it like we don't own this that's the thing like we it's it's open source and we can kind of fall into this uh gray area where're like oh my God like this is ours we all have this say but we don't in the in the fundamental direction of where the project is going we can have say on little things that happen along the way again I talked about this last week I think it was you live when uh we got our little feature put into WordPress 6.6 perfect example we showed up we we said something we made a post on GitHub an issue people developed it it went in we got credit like that's awesome that's the cool thing about open source and you can make these changes massive fundamental direction we're probably going to have less of a chance to have that to have that opportunity for us because we're not in control open source doesn't mean we own it we just partake in it um that's just my particular view I'd love to have your thoughts on that Mark if you have something else yeah for sure so I hadn't ever seen that article and I know we're were talking about it last week and you sent that to me I would highly recommend if you guys haven't read that article um from dhh uh was great stuff um I think the thing that it it it pointed out to me because again I'm trying to navigate this space and understand like where everybody's like kind of mentally at with a lot of this I do think there's some absolute Ely just across the board again to differing degrees definitely some misunderstanding between like what open source is and what that actually means um from my understanding currently where I'm at from my framework is open source doesn't mean anything really about the community per se it's more so much more about like the licensing of the software so like GPL version two I was like actually looking up today because I'm trying to wrap my head around this too like it when something says it's open source it's just meaning like the software licensing right and correct me if I'm wrong so it's like you can see anyone can see the codee they can reuse the code they can Fork the code whatever but ultimately um there's more to it than that but I'm saying it doesn't inherently mean that you own it as like a Community member it probably doesn't even really mean that you're entitled to an like an opinion or your or your feature set per se like like it it's not inherently so then that's where all these other things come into play and it's like everybody uses WordPress and they get they hear the word open source and they kind of get sounds like a little bit misled to the fact that like oh you can like you can just basically just scream what you want to happen and then it can happen I I contradict that slightly though with the fact that I don't think that would be like a bad thing but it doesn't seem like that's inherently the way that it operates um so again this is just kind of me trying to think of like okay how is it how is it actually work and then is there a way to make it better or something like that but uh I think the bottom line is again the open source side of things I think that word and that terminology and the way that it's thrown around sometimes does I don't I think it's just a slight Mis understanding perhaps from what I've seen here because uh I don't know that's I'm still navigating myself like I said but that's kind of where I'm at with it yeah and and it's I totally understand because I get caught up in that as well sorry I'm just playing with my I turn my gain instead of my volume um I get caught up in that as well because I I feel like I love it too and I feel like I want this ownership and WordPress isn't an interesting spot because unlike let's say Ruby on Rails which is what uh dhh is mostly referring to like he built I I don't even know what the technical term is the the he built that coding framework that code base to make his own products and the byproduct was oh this is now open source you too can go build your own product like I'm doing over here with base camp right so he built like this what I'll call like the engine of of base camp back in the day to help him build that product and oh by the way I'm open sourcing this so you can do that too it WordPress on the other hand was created open source and then automatic was built to help sell the dream of Wordpress and they're the same exact products so it's it's it's very hard to um get yourself away like pull yourself away from that and say oh this is this is mine because I can do it on any website I can I can build it I can make it it's all mine but really it's not uh the GPL and open source affords you to go ahead and do other things but like the overall direction of where this is going is not ours and I think it's high time that we understand that be okay with it um because I've said this a million times I don't want to get into it now but I think automatic needs to survive in order to be the best Steward of Open Source WordPress um I think we need I think we need I think we need to dig into that though for a second I don't know where you going okay yeah we yeah we'll dig into that okay um so let's just talk about automatic uh the apparatus because one of the one of the things that came up in that conversation was oh uh automatic has like $900 million what are they doing with all that money and and this is where this is where I have like a a a a fundamental difference in like content creators and I I don't want this to come off as like super disrespectful but it's like if you're going to to to criticize us try to understand as much as possible of of where all of the chips lie in this in this game uh of automatic in open source um let me pull up automatics website and then we can share this and this is great information for anybody who's never really you know taken a look at this stuff don't forget been living and breathing this stuff for a while now now so um I can understand how it can it can get overwhelming so let's just take a look at this page this is automatics homepage here are all the products that they're that they have listed here which uh I don't even yeah pocketcast so wordpress.com beeper Tumblr day one woocommerce jetpack WordPress VIP which is Enterprise level hosting if you've never uh run across that before pocketcast which is a podcast uh app podcast listening app akismet which is the spam protection uh product that they launched uh many many years ago long reads newspack uh gravitar and then they also contribute wordpress.org and then all these other uh open source initiatives WordPress for iOS WordPress for Android P2 buddy press BB press board Camp uh WP job manager five for the future right so that's just automatic like the core products and then automatic is also investing and purchasing other companies um they had invested in kastos which is a company that I worked at before um insta WP they've uh done seed round investments in other WordPress uh hosting companies they've done investments in this is like that traditional VC world that maybe folks aren't just acquainted to but it's not just hey we're g they're giving money to automatic to just do WordPress it's all the things uh at at automatic where that money goes right 2000ish people work at that company if we just take a look at crunch base which is some of this data now is locked behind a uh a payment uh payment wall but recently in the wp product talk uh interview with Mullen Weg uh they were talking about the size of the company he's just over 2000ish people now uh at automatic and their recent funding round came from uh where they hide it now let's see so the last one it says 2021 automatic was funded by 30 investors of ir Global and black rock being the most recent investors Black Rock should raise some eyebrows of course for some people automatic has made 19 Investments the most recent was last year uh liquid AI uh it's a it and their recent acquisition of beeper 125 million that's a a messaging app um and they're looks like they're getting more into the to the messaging game this is the point I'm trying to make here is 2,000 people if you've ever worked in an organization with a 100 people let alone 2,000 people it is extremely difficult to move things forward I'm not saying that this is the right thing uh I'm just saying like this is what happens when you have an organization that grows this large who's also trying to build a profitable company if you look at somebody like GoDaddy publicly traded company I think automatic roughly valued at 7 billion ion dollar from blog posts and stuff that you see um but you look at somebody like a GoDaddy and you start to see their profitability um their market cap their amount of employees and you're like well boy they're also profiting profiting off the back of Wordpress why don't they do more and they do they do a lot uh in the community but this is where that frustration grows at the sort of Enterprise in big level whereas automatic isn't bad just because it's getting a lot of money there's a lot of other compan with a lot more money also profiting off of Wordpress who should also fall under scrutiny and contribute back to Wordpress as well so I just have a fundamental issue when it's like they've got all this money why aren't they making WordPress better because look at all the stuff that they're doing and it's not 2,000 people just making WordPress better right of those 2,000 people I don't know how many people are in administrative right 200 people 10% of the company are in HR com like all this other stuff legal uh you know then you have a executive team and then you have support staff and then you have the product managers and marketers and SEO people like it's a big company um and it's they're not all just pouring their resources into into WordPress um does that make sense to you mark you know I mean it it definitely does make sense and I hear where you're coming from with the with the number thing yeah it definitely you know 900 million I'm sure that doesn't obviously all go to like the word press project because automatic rais that I mean that that that makes sense totally on paper I mean but again like I feel like I always just try to ask questions and then the next question I would have is okay who who is I want to know exactly as as as good of data as we have which I know we do have some I'm sure we could like find some or whatever on the actual WordPress project stuff but like I've seen those graphs of like okay automatic is like the biggest chunk of supporters like people writing code and then like God daddy is in there or you know um P up is in there and people contributing to actual WordPress so one of my questions is I know half the answer to it but one of my questions is okay who is actually contributing to Wordpress so for instance when anybody goes on the internet and says hey this sucks about WordPress like the this feature this UI ux whatever like I don't like this who is that specifically who made that decision uh to make that to put that in there or to change something or whatever so like how does that actually work cuz I feel like that's a big problem where you know in in private companies you don't or you know public but like you actual corporations like you don't really have that full clarity but maybe you'll have like some sort of like a leadership type chart and things like that and you'll be able to kind of like decipher some things or whatever but like ultimately you're just yelling at Apple for instance oh they changed something oh we hate Apple so with WordPress I feel like it ends up just being kind of the same way even though it doesn't operate the exact same way I want to say like cuz there's just seemingly people getting paid from automatic there's people getting paid at 10up there's people getting paid at GoDaddy to sponsor certain amount of hours to this project right and then I don't know the the I don't know the answer here but there's also Free Labor right that is that is contributing to it so that screws with people as well like just mentally which totally makes sense it's like who who is like contributing for free like how does that work um and then you have conversations like we'll probably get into like well why would I contribute regardless of code why would I contribute in GitHub or slack or whatever for free because people are making money from me doing this and then the rebuttal to that is like well you contributing is how the open source project continues to flow forward so it's kind of like you are helping yourself even though you're not getting paid there's a lot of I just expressed a lot of different things there but I'm telling you like this is from like we'll call it like more boots on the ground type thing I'm in the comments I'm in uh you know making content I'm watching other people's streams I'm on Twitter these are the types of questions that people just don't know the answers to and it's not really their fault because it's so godamn nuanced that it's it's so like I've spent the last 12 months my life trying to figure this out and I consider myself to be kind of of this mindset where I can dive in and deal with this and try to figure it out and try to piece it out and one of my goals is to hopefully come out on the other side and be like hey this is really nuanced but here's like a crash course because I haven't seen anything like that I wish I wish something like that would exist um so I don't know so I I I think once again again like understanding the value of Open Source and and what we have so in my post um what would you do the Keys of the Kingdom I say look it's it's totally fine to be a Critic to be critical obviously if you're not bashing people I think everybody says that um and everyone says yes I I love I love WordPress but what you have to just understand is where the value of open source gives you the ability to build your own business on the back of Wordpress is is quite powerful and also very understated uh I think it came up in Paul's live stream today where somebody said well what would happen if it was five I I don't think you wouldn't get this kind of amplification for WordPress and it certainly would not have grown this large for obvious reasons if it wasn't uh open source and you won't be able to do that with another platform like you simply can't do it with a commercial Wix Squarespace uh web flow because those are all hosted hosted things and there's no portability there it's just off the table so you have to be able to say I value that ability for me to just take this start a business replicate it with as many sites as I want without being taxed right is there a way can I throw a monkey wrench in here for just a Qui second though cu cu cu you have said this many times to me and and while I don't disagree with it I do think that this is kind of where we talk about the you know the the current gen versus the next gen and stuff like that like from what I see and I'm not saying this is I don't have data per se but from what I see people are becoming more and more and more casual and carefree about like losing control of their data and I don't know if that is like something that can be stopped so I'm you know we don't need to go down Rabbit Hole here all I'm saying is like when you make the claim of this is open source and you can't you're like you're not going to have the same impact with something that's not open source I'm not I'm not saying that I want that to happen I'm just saying that like people are so so quick to just give up their [ \_\_ ] nowadays that like they don't even think like these like and again I'm not I'm not I'm not trying to judge these people I'm making observations they watch a Wix ad and they're like this is fantastic super easy I'm going to I'm just going to jump on there and use it like they don't even think twice about like where is this data what's going to happen if this if the if these people jack up my rights what's going to happen if like I say something and they kick me off here like they don't think about any of that until it happens so and and if those things continue to happen maybe people will care more but I'm saying like I mean you know the phones that we have and the different things like I mean we're the phones is a great example cuz we have apple and we have Google basically and then we have like you know these other types of phones where it's like oh you don't have you know not connected to the internet or whatever so I'm not trying to get off topic here but I'm saying that I I wouldn't just like make it seem like this is always going to be the case because there's it doesn't seem like it's even trending in that direction it seems like it's trending away from that yeah you got to open source isn't just about oh this is this is my data like that's not the uh that's not the argument for open source and data um and in fact like what data do I actually have on my website when you people just think of data right I immediately go to well every single one of my credit cards have been compromised by you know by by them AT&T was and they sent out an email and they're like here's how you can protect it uh moving forward how about you protect my data you're like why are you yelling at me and telling me not to answer phone calls from SP you know mark spam you're the one that got breached so there's data like your customer data your customer identifying uh information and in WordPress I think people kind of throw that around it's certainly about the content uh in your WordPress site and for me it's much more of that like technical reason is I can be portable with it I can I can take that content from one web host to another web host or I can extract it uh or archive it how and when I want I can manipulate that right so yes WordPress allows you to do that and yes WordPress is is open source um you know so I I think that the argument is is for open source for the for the reason that we're going to jump into uh you know right now and one of the things uh let me just share the screen again one of the things that come up and I'm going to try to zoom in and do this so that it's as easily readable as possible I'm trying to do it with two hands here hold on one second so zoom in so this is the the Gutenberg GitHub um repo WordPress doesn't operate and uh either Zach or or Brian if you're in there um none of the uh the comments uh for WordPress core are in GitHub this is that is all in um uh uh track and WordPress Legacy like SVN it's um that's a whole other stream that we can go into but if we look at just Gutenberg because they are using GitHub for all of the communication here this is the value of this is the other value of Open Source right is that we can actually see it and see this stuff being developed right sure are things happening behind the scenes that are not being you know documented they're in slack the conversations are have happening in slack absolutely do I think it's nefarious no it's just the way of life right it's like you have conversations with if you're if you're at a job and you have a meeting with somebody you're talking to them in Zoom or in person that stuff isn't documented things happen right so what this open source project allows us is to see this stuff happen and and we can analyze it and also comment on it and and see it in real time so when people say why did they do that we can see it right here uh in something like like GitHub especially for the Gutenberg project so that's what this open source project affords us it affords us that that visibility this is also a uh a hat tip to Version Control Mark you and I talk about this a lot this is all done in GitHub a Version Control type of uh tool tool so that we can go back and see everything that's happened um over the course of all of their releases tie it back to a particular thing so add example for Corey block and post list this is the issue where it all sort of stemm from you can now click that and say why did they do that and you can see it was started um by a particular person I don't know exactly what this is ADD example for cury block and post list but as an example you can see what the the thing was why it exist should exist how it's going to get done examples so on and so forth and you can track the whole thing and see it all come together um on GitHub if we go back can I jump in here yeah go for it okay so so I just had kind of like a a moment here where I like pieced a bunch of things together there's a general sentiment that not backed by data but there's a general sentiment that like GitHub and the slack this that whole situation which again difficult to manage something of this size but GitHub and slack and like in track I don't know what track is but like I haven't gotten there yet but like all these different things to like manage this open source project people have said and we've actually seen we have seen examples of this on on Twitter and stuff like that or X or whatever like to say like oh you know the code base is getting kind of like it's hard to jump in it's hard to like understand different things like that it's hard to get involved and all that sort of stuff because I mean there's probably a reasonable amount of people that have never used GitHub or don't use it like frequently enough to understand kind of what's going on there I'm not saying it shouldn't be hard or whatever but like there's a general sentiment there I feel like that is hard to get involved or people don't know where to start I have personally educated people after I learned from guys like you how to go where to go things like that so I think we're moving in the right direction there but it is kind of difficult there I don't have an answer for that but I want to reference that article that you made and you you had me read with from dhh where he he mentions in there it's not a democracy it's not like a community it's more of like there's a level of elitism and it's not in a bad way the elitism but like a level of elitism I I relate that in this case to like you have to understand how to use these tools you have to understand the language that's going on you have to understand the the way to get involved and actually in impact and do something if you want which is interesting to me because you juxtapose that with the idea of democratizing publishing which the the tool itself actually does correct but utilize or or moving it Forward is not those things are disjointed from one another which again I'm not saying is a bad thing but it is the reality of the situ sitation so it's just kind of a weird spot where like if if you and I weren't having this conversation for the last 12 months like there's no way anybody would understand that whole that whole ju position of all that yeah because it's way too nuanced well yeah but it's also it's uh I don't know unfortunate is the right word but it's it's the unfortunate sort of messiness to this where the tool itself uh is democratizing publishing and then the open source initiative you know WordPress driving getting people to contribute f for the future and then some of those I guess sometimes that that that those two statements can get conflated uh or mixed together so folks feel like well I thought we were democratizing building this thing no no no the tool itself will help us democratize publishing um but what we're doing is building this in an open source fashion um so let's just take a look at Gutenberg as an example uh this is uh the graph and listen I'm not a developer but um I can try to understand the highway of how we're all connected here this is the stats from the repo from 2016 to 2024 when Gutenberg project first started again it's a standalone project um and plug-in uh that exists um outside of Wordpress and for for many reasons but uh one of the reasons is Matt thinks Matt Mullen WG thinks that this project will be bigger and and more adopted potentially than than WordPress itself like Wix could some one day be like oh yeah that Gutenberg thing is good let's bring it and adopt it into Wicks uh and then therefore they would be giving back to the Gutenberg project etc etc um and it's just just for those that might not know Gutenberg stands uh separate in its own separate plugin so if you ever want the more advanced features that are being developed like this is being developed and enhanced outside of Wordpress core right so there's all the features that are happening in Gutenberg and then there's all the features happening in WordPress and when a WordPress Point release comes together um they take whatever uh the last five or six releases from Gutenberg itself and bring it into into the core release right that's a 50,000 foot view of this um but back to the main point here is when you say who is making these decisions uh you can go in and look at all the top contributors uh in this in this screen here on on GitHub and you can see everybody I'm not going to punch into everyone here uh but if we don't if we discount um this chap here who hasn't contributed since roughly 20 middle of 2020 um the top 10 contributors not counting this person uh out of the top 10 contributors eight of them are from automatic uh two of them uh one is uh from GoDaddy see if I can see him if you just hover over folks names um it depends if they filled out their profile but you can see if they're getting paid from automatic or if they work from automatics not like it says we get paid by autom IC um I think this is the person right here yeah so this uh this is actually the the the the chap that helped Brian put our uh our our little feature together uh at the end he gets sponsored by loose Inc L oos Inc um so he's not automatic and there's one other person here on the list from uh from GoDaddy the rest here are are automatic but that's just the top 10 then you can go back and see like okay who who are all these other folks getting uh you know contributing to uh Gutenberg right so if we go and we look at this person it may or may not say it yep so at automatic he works at automatic and that's the other thing that this open- Source World affords us is we can kind of see who's putting this all together um and who's making the decisions here and at least easily here with with the Gutenberg thing um so when folks are like oh yeah I wish it had this feature I wish it had that feature and you and then you look at automatic this is the going back to the bigger issue is you look at our mag and why are they making these decisions they have all this money because this is just one sliver of of a project that automatic is paying people to contribute to which basically helps us whether you like Gutenberg or not and you don't think it's moving fast enough all that work is contributing back to us and our customers and our friends and our clients who use this stuff hopefully getting better and iterating better year after year um they're the one footing the most amount of payroll out of those 2,000 people and millions and millions of dollars that they have they're the ones contributing the most to Wordpress what does that lead to that leads to that sort of elitism and uh control uh and Direction uh you know that you can or cannot agree with totally up to you on on whether or not you know you you want to um but this is where when you're saying who's doing it you can kind of come and see it right here back to the issue I had on the Stream is you know when uh I'm frustrated too and actually I thought about doing it I'm not going to do it today on today's live stream but this is a a frustration that that Paul brought up that I've brought up and many other people have brought up before is like why is why are all these other settings behind the three dots right the three dots the Infamous three dots why can't I just expose that forever how would you do it you would come here to let's say Gutenberg because I would believe that would be that would fall under a guten B issue and you would open a ticket just like I opened a ticket about putting the command in the command pallet for getting to template Parts you to could come in here and say I want that three dots to be exposed every time I go into a WordPress site I don't want to have to do it every single time I agree how do you make that presentation how do you propose that you come here you make the issue and you start writing the The Proposal but you can't just be like ah I just want this thing know yell it into the void and then hope it gets done just not going to happen so if you really want it come here open an issue and then then you'll see how software is really made because it there's just one set of vocal people like you me and others who get this stuff but WordPress is being used by so many other people that it's not just for us and that I think that's what that folks who are so vocal about this need to realize got it that totally makes sense yeah I mean I think you know as a content creator obviously we get wrapped up sometimes in like making the content for our audience who is you know supporting us but you know we don't really have any power if we're not like going in and doing this stuff it's it's amazing uh I think it was Brendan I was talking to him today and it's it's pretty incredible that we do have the opportunity to do this you know we can't go into the githubsign stuff you know big uh players or wix's or whatever you know and and do that sort of thing so it is definitely something I should do a lot more um and I think that I I just may if I actually see something that I disagree with like I think that three dot thing is like great a great example um I mean just the the question that I would have in response to that though is how are these decisions getting made initially though like like I think okay here's the perspective that I get from some people how did it get to this point where like so many people even like supporters think that there's so many we weird things about the a platform and again I'm not going to say that I sit here and use Gutenberg every day I don't okay but I'm saying that like you you get that from people that are actually in there often and they're like and then and then people that are exploring it often from a deeper base not just the UI but like the code and like the way it interacts with other third party tools and things like that and it's like how did it get to that level is it is it is it literally just if you go in there and just have a suggestion like what's the actual process for making that happen you know like how who who's the end decider of like if if the if the command pallet should have the template part thing show up in it that seems like a pretty straightforward one but like that would be my next my next line of thinking is because I think that is definitely something that some that people have said as well it's like well they're they're doing a cost benefit analysis in their head they're like okay well I could make content I could talk about some stuff I could talk about all these different things okay that I know that that is working to some extent I know that that's resonating with people I know that people are you know appreciating that content it's thought okay so then somebody comes to me and they say hey uh you know you should really go into the GitHub and and write all the stuff up and do all these different things to to make sure that these actually get pushed in fair fair thing fair point but then they're like okay well I'm not getting paid by you know I'm not getting paid to sponsored to to produce any of this content or contribute or anything like that we already had the discussion it's a it's a fair point but there's definitely counters to that but then the question becomes if they like are there people like putting stuff in like putting a bunch of is there somebody this super straightforward question is there somebody in like deep in the contribute contributor aspect of Gutenberg that has put in like a hundred issues and none of them have ever gotten taken up oh yeah so like you see what I'm saying like that's that's like why am I even going to do that I'm I'm playing devil's advocate here why would I even like put anything in there if it's not going to even get like seen cuz then you have I could absolutely see a case where like you have people put stuff in there and their their reputation has already preceded them and then they're not going to get the stuff the stuff isn't going to get taken up anyway that's not a reason to not do it because I I think three steps ahead if you actually did that and put that in there and then it didn't get taken up now you make a video and you say guys I told them to do this and they didn't do it yeah yeah so that's actually a brilliant plan yeah yeah and and and that's that 100% And and that's why punching into that one specific issue that I have uh with the live stream today like the only hard criticism I have against the guys that that hosted that panel today was the fact that I was like it's not my job to do this I'm not going to you know go and and do that I don't have time for that well man if you're in this living and breathing it and making a living off of creating content for WordPress and you don't have the time I don't think many people in the audience are going to have the time or the care uh uh or the understanding to really you know follow this through right they said something oh 500 people watching this maybe 50 people go and do something I doubt it if you're not going to do it and you're representing a fact that you won't do it then I don't think anyone in your audience is going to do it um but 100% this is when I had the same thing with the conversation with Kevin you you have to be able to meet in the middle and be like okay I'll spend time on your side and you spend time on my side because the same thing's happening on on the automatic side and the contributor side they're not they're saying I'm not going to watch there's so many videos how I'm going to watch an hourong video of these people like this going to say the same thing uh sorry I left that comment on um so there needs to be some participation and you and I um are seeing that and other folks who are on this uh on the live stream right now are seeing this from automatic with like an McCarthy trying to reach out to to YouTube creators and sort of extending that Olive Branch from automatic I'm seeing it too from like the media core side trying to get more sort of uh uh organized content and information out to content creators so it's slowly happening I think people are just just uh really upset about the velocity and just simply can't understand why it takes so long because of the because of the size of this apparatus that we have uh in front of us um it just it's just going to take time and and and I I don't know any other way uh other way around it how do these things get decided on hey even I'm not 100% sure and I love anybody in the audience uh like Courtney you I saw you uh jump in I don't even know how all of the decisions are made and I think that that's largely what everyone has an issue with but you have the core vision of the phases that Mullen WG uh spelled out many years ago uh we're on the third phase right I think fourth phase third phase um of the of the Gutenberg project and he sets the the general tone and direction it's him right that's why he is still a lead contributor here in WordPress even though I don't even know if he writing lines of code being contributed to it he's just uh the guy who's who's who's leading that direction and again I don't have any problem with it as long as somebody's leading it right somebody needs to lead it and have a vision um then there are oh I forgot my screen's not up one second and then there are um things like this that happen uh I don't know 100% how people this I just randomly search on on make WordPress for the word proposal because these are these are how things can happen um starting at the say WordPress .org and and make level people will do proposals to have things happen uh on either the WordPress uh.org site um and for you know the team around it so that's just one other column of all how this happens uh people write out a proposal they put the idea out and people talk about it and then eventually something happens and whether that whole conversation happens here in these comments uh this little comment section and eventually it leads into something changing uh or there's a slack group that's happening and people are chatting there and then it makes its way into the project yes this is where like that disjointedness happens where there's so many different pockets of communication but at least there's pockets of communication happening and it's all out mostly in the open um you know so there's just many areas that impact WordPress and and these conversations are are happening all over the place you want to put that link in the chat because like like this is an example this is just an example I I just I just searched for the word proposal yeah I got you but apparently I've seen that before like proposals with other things and stuff like that so like let's can we use this as a quick example though just I I I don't want to I don't want to put Javier on blast here because I'm sure he's a let me read Courtney let me read Courtney's comment and the other open source project proposals have a formal process with that community's designated people like core committers uh have a period of rfc's uh requests for comments uh WordPress doesn't have this H there you go okay that kind of answers my question so like this like a proposal like this for whatever from anybody happens and then it's like I a random person would jump in here and read it and I would say okay I kind of agree with it kind of don't agree with it this is a great idea this a stupid idea whatever it is maybe voice my opinion there but then what happens next because it's not like this isn't supposed to be Democratic right like let me let me pose some some scenarios here because this is how I this is how I learn to understand things so we have whoever puts a proposal in here and then underneath this we we could have 55 people that say this is the worst idea I've ever heard and then then though because this isn't like Democratic driven by the people could we have whoever the whoever the like what happens next like what if the is there somebody that like kind of monitors these and says no actually I disagree with you 55 people this is a fantastic idea we're doing it is can it work like that or am I I'm just guessing I don't know because I'm really confused on how this part Works do we we don't have a process for that uh for this particular particular you know I would imagine for this particular thing uh and I guess it also depends on it is it something that's impacting uh uh wordpress.org like the site uh which is this particular post about having a WordPress hosting directory um but the software is is can and could happen without uh you know this official uh proposal yeah uh Daniel says this is the same discussion we keep having going all the way back to Wordpress and the foundation uh how does are being made 100% um Courtney said I'm correct I trust Courtney Mark says yeah Mark you're Craig uh tonic loads of uh loads of discussion uh zero real leadership you know the only thing I have an issue is when you say like our the the leadership is it is it about you don't like the leadership or is it things aren't happening fast enough because once again I just I've been in the software world for a long long time and either you know I work at gravity forms that's my that's my day job um there are things that just have to get done and then there are nice to have features and then when the things that have to get done are either complex or we're trying to support WordPress or uh certain WordPress features and it has to be um backwards compatibility and you're wrestling with that like man sometimes the software thing takes a while and I said this in your life stream last week Mark like imagine when we were talking about Version Control like imagine trying to do WordPress with 2000ish people and then imagine trying to develop a website with six people right and just like how drastic of a difference it is with 2000 but also like how it can be the same kind of technical challenge with just six people looks like we lost Mark's video Mark is back yeah just fixing it sorry about that but yeah that's um yeah I don't know it's very interesting thing but this is this is the type of stuff here where like the way the way I work and I think about these types of issues is like I'm not even at the point where I can like render a full opinion on if this is right if this is wrong because what we just discovered there as an example it's I guarantee you most people don't even know that I I guarantee most people don't even know that that's how it works where like you could put up a proposal for instance and then we're still not even sure if like how that gets vetted if there is a process sounds like there kind of isn't one you can render your you can render your opinion on it but then it it we don't know how that ends up circulating through compare and contrast that with maybe something like at another type of company another Corporation where like you could just put in feature requests and maybe it gets cared about maybe it doesn't but ultimately though the thing there is like if I went to Apple and somehow Apple's a bad example but if I went to a company like that put in a feature request and 10,000 people upvoted it I think they're going to be like wow a reasonable percentage of our user base thinks this is a good idea let's look look at it a little bit and then they might implement it just because most of the user base agrees and they want to make more money they want to make their clients more happy so that's the way that I would kind of think about it um but again here's my thing to I'm not even rendering an opinion on whether I think this is right or wrong I we just need to understand hopefully the majority of people need to understand how it's working before we even say if it's okay this is good bad or like is there is there a way to make things uh kind of more efficient like do we have a way to optimize things our opinions on how to optimize things can't even really do that cuz it seems like there's a lot of minutia here that needs to be uh still understood by the masses one of the comments I saw from tonic and and and we've all we all say it um I think there's different levels of uh I'm just trying to pull up something else yeah guys Apple was a bad example let's pick somebody else sorry hold on one second let me just pull this up so like it it's been so long I really have an issue with how long like being super critical on how long it it takes um because we all know like for instance in that live stream today uh somebody mentioned like oh as soon as I have an idea for Croco blocks I send them a message and they build it well okay great but that's like block building it for their however many customers they have 10,000 100,000 I don't know what the number is but it's certainly not millions and it's certainly not uh a complex product as or piece of software as WordPress is so it's it's one thing to be like oh yeah I need that thing throw it in just like with the expand three dots on uh the entire uh admin panel how like how would you get that done how would you do that and let's say you can propose it to to Gutenberg what what is enough so if we use your example before Mark about like oh uh we tell people to go and create an issue and then if it doesn't get done for five years like there was an issue recently somebody brought up again has been in there for like 13 years right um but if somebody puts an issue in and it doesn't get touched like well how much effort did you put in to creating that issue right did you clearly articulate it is it a big enough issue for somebody to pick up on it um is it easily solvable right so when I put my issue in for putting in a command into the command pallet I was lucky enough to have Brian cords be like I think I can do that and write that code and I will go and do it so immediately it was like a one two combo of like here's my idea here's why I think I need it so I articulated at halfway decent it's very simple thing so it's not that hard and then Brian wrote it and then got feedback from other developers who who contribute to to Gutenberg and moved it up moved it up the chain so it's one thing to be like go and create an issue and just be like this thing needs help and then you just leave but it's another thing to come in and say okay we need those three dots expanded I think the best place for that is in the site editor preferences because this is what I was thinking when I was listening to it and it would be a toggle inside the site prefer preferences window and I would even make a little screenshot of like here's where it can go here's a little toggle UI and you could turn this on and off but but that just starts the discussion right for a thing like that because it's one thing to just say it it's another thing to implement it and that's the difference between like I don't know a user base of Croco blocks versus WordPress Croc blocks may like yeah throw it in Easy right we're only supporting 10 you know I don't mean this in a bad way we're only supporting 10,000 paying customers or whatever the number is versus millions of people have to use this and then it has to be supported right so there's a big difference I I I I I hope people realize like you can show up and create that issue but then what a a good issue versus a bad issue does that make sense I think it does how do you feel about um how do you feel about filming a video on the three dots posting that on YouTube then posting that video on GitHub as well sure yeah 100% and then and then seeing how that goes and then posting a follow-up video on what the what the outcome was yeah I mean yeah I mean the more the the more you can give to a a a developer or a product person to see that I mean I mean the better right uh I I think when you look at it from uh uh political is not the right word but when you look at like trying to convince somebody it's certainly not going to help if you just yell at them and say this feature is terrible we need we need it to be something different please explain elaborate uh and if you can demonstrate it with a with a video and a in an illustration um where was I going I was going with we're looking at Gutenberg oh WordPress core contributors right so there's core contributors to Wordpress um so this is across the the the lifespan uh of Wordpress and uh these are folks who actually had core contributor access to Wordpress like those that can actually push the code to Wordpress core and you can come in you can see all of them um throughout the history of Wordpress uh let me go back so I can see that number the number is 72 total contributors core contributors right folks who can actually push code to Wordpress core which impacts the entire world that's why that number isn't as big as something like uh Gutenberg which has uh 1300 is people over time 1100 contributors over time because uh this is a project on G on guten on GitHub that anybody can come and and contribute too right so is that's wait so there's 72 active core contributors no you'd have to no that's overall time really yeah uh people who are can you leave what do you mean like can you leave has there always been 72 total like no no these are so it's it's people that can actually deploy the code right these are core contributors that can actually deploy the code and yes Daniel isn't that also only contribut with GI up account correct yeah but core contributors core contributors people contribute code to Wordpress that doesn't necessarily make them a core contributor which can actually affect WordPress core is there like this is a stupid question is there like one person or like the small team the leadership like that vets this code like I mean you can't just like push it right I mean obviously you can't just like do we trust those people enough that's the core that's at the end of the day the the buck stops at the as far as I understand it the buck stops at the core contributors right so testing all that stuff happens that's why I always say one of the best things to do is to see um you know when they're when they're releasing a a new version of of Wordpress to actually watch that happen in slack because you get to see sort of like I I I sort of sort of attribute it to like watching a spaceship launch right all the the checks and you know we're checking this and we're doing that and okay we're going to everybody everybody's checking in everybody's making sure there's no last uh errors when they're committing the the code uh you know to Wordpress um they get to see all that stuff right or you get to see all that stuff as like a as like a you know somebody in the audience seeing this thing launch and everybody's checking in and you really get to see wow there's there's a lot of people that that that that partake in this but you know you can even see it like again back to the value of uh of of Open Source Version Control I know I'm bouncing around here a lot um but when you go and look at something like uh this is this is where like I'm not a developer so this is why it's probably painful for developers in the audience but uh if you look at something like add padding around selected values author filter you know you can come and see from a a developer standpoint uh performance test you can you can see how all of this stuff affects the code you know for lack of a better word like was there an issue when the code was uh uh merged into a particular you know version of Wordpress so like all of that stuff is being tracked in in GitHub so you can kind of see where things are failing and and what where the code is going if that makes sense and again I'm not a not a developer I just I just trust the process here and I trust something like like GitHub conv verion control because you that is all documented so you can kind of see if there if there is a problem you can go back and go oh God this is where this code got merged we need to we need to roll that back uh or we need to pull that out kind of thing yeah okay makes sense um what is what is track is track something different uh we don't have to we don't have to get into it I was just high level high level just something else yeah is just Legacy it's like Legacy Version Control um ah before like GitHub existed no we use it we still use it uh in in WordPress so track is uh where like all these issues happen in in in GitHub um and then there's like SVN uh. WordPress let me show let me pull it up Daniel has some uh strong opinions on SVN apparently let me tell you about SVN yeah I mean SVN Mark you're probably too young for this but do you remember ever hearing about like Ms Doss like it's yes it's it's it's like that um oh wow you know interesting uh so and so if we pull up this but it was the same concept then but not yeah it's just it it's been there since yeah since WordPress uh WordPress started right so um I don't know if we go into you know something like this it's just a very old you can you can tell it's just a very old school uh setup it just runs on on wordpress.org so this particular one is uh a Track ticket which is classified as a bug says filters on pattern archives page not working open 13 hours ago last modified 7 hours ago uh somebody says here's the description when you're on the patterns archive page you want your filter sync or not sync pattern the back office crash with this JS error so this is obviously the code stuff happening um and then this person I'm not even going to pretend to dissect this code but this person replied with with the issue uh so it's Legacy and it's being used by people that don't use git yeah but this is where all the core WordPress stuff happens and WordPress themes and plugins because it's because it's not on git or just because it's Legacy and you haven't moved it hasn't moved or Min moved and I and I believe it hasn't moved because um what Courtney said I think she said um security by obscurity because if there is some kind of huge security issue with WordPress seemingly they don't want that to be on GitHub or accessible for anyone to either contribute or get access to it um so it stays with just the core contributors and they mirror it as Courtney also mentioned it's it's it says it right here to link up pull requested the take it so all that code is getting mirrored to GitHub so you can see it but all the other discussions and access to contribute that code happens in in track you you to be logged in to see that I guess in track no this stuff is no this is I'm not logged in this is all you can go to core. track. Wordpress to see it okay and you get an RSS feed for it too and you can see absolutely everything happening so this covers everything under wordpress.org which is a whole other discussion which is wordpress.org itself uh WordPress core WordPress themes like all the themes that are hosted at wordpress.org all the plugins that are hosted at wordpress.org like this is where theme developers are are still putting their their themes and having the discussions of approval and what has to be changed what needs to be updated like this is that whole Community is in here um but it all all the WordPress cor stuff all also gets mirrored to to GitHub so you can see the code you're just not going to uh you're just not going to see all those discussions H okay do you think it's like important do you think it would be like beneficial to try to I mean I I'm I'm a little I'm a little I don't know if I'm just too young you know not not not jaded by life just yet or something but like the the sentiment that like this is just keep this just keeps happening like you know like you like it's just the way that it is it's always it's it's always been like this it's always going to be like this that type of thing it doesn't ever really resonate with me I I find it to be like quite um like maybe it will end up being true but I find it to be like quite like I don't know just maybe a sad way to think about things like do we think like things could improve like it it's almost seems like it's a sentiment that like you can't improve anything like it's just ah this is just how it is I again like I I I I don't um it depends on what you mean by improv and like what that and and how much are are you looking to improve all it once I mean obviously I'm not the one you know with the with the answers or the on the leadership side but it's just like what doesn't what does Improvement look like does it look like we're getting more features you know not the like bricks versus WordPress core like are like do we feel like that's an improvement like oh we're starting to satisfy those requirements that we get in bricks and now we have that stuff in in WordPress is that is that Improvement is it Improvement in the publishing side of it um you know somebody on that call today brought up like oh the first thing I do is I disable all the screen options like all the stuff that shows up on I'm assuming he's talking about like WordPress dashboard and all the other stuff that pops up like okay is that is how bad is that is like is that all you want get better is like that improve like that onboarding experience like is it the onboarding experience is it more themes like what is it that people want and I don't think that anyone can clearly answer that um because there's just a such a vast amount of of stuff that people want from WordPress you know I don't know what Improvement looks like is it is it clear clear uh clearer objectives is it more transparency with leadership is it those features we talked about like what is it like what is it going to make it better because my my answer is I'm not unhappy right like I know I'm going to come off as as an automatic apologist but I also say like step up other companies who are also making millions if not billions of dollars off of off of this industry and and contribute I'm not worried about I I I'm you know I'm of the of the mindset of like I don't feel like it's that bad because because we still have the the products to be able to to do things better if you don't like Gutenberg you know that that's fine but you can you have other options Elementor bricks Beil go ahead pick something else I mean I think uh the transparency aspect of it which I'm not even blaming I wouldn't even pass blame for the transparency it's very hard to be transparent about so many different like the whole process of it but my question would be like is that a is that a core tenant of the whole project as a whole and obviously like Matt Mullen wi's kind of the epicenter of progress like Daniel said and like a question cuz I'm new because I'm new here I don't know how long I can say that for it but question because I'm new here yeah you're run out you're GNA run out of that pretty soon did did he uh did he ever describe himself as a benevolent dictator or was that something that was just because I hear that all the time like did he did he say it was like that or it did somebody just like say that that was how it was I I think that was and if anybody's in the audience that remembers this I think that was tongue and cheek from because he's really good friends with um Tim Ferris and I I want to say it was on Tim Ferris podcast where he Tim labeled him the benevolent dictator it might have been passed around before uh or maybe he said it but the first time I had heard it really was on um was on the Tim Ferris podcast he says it's used Beyond WordPress my mouth keeps dying for some reason H interesting I know why okay all right so it's not like a foreign concept or whatever and like he would probably if you asked him like are you a benevolent dictator he would say yes uh I would assume he would say yes he probably like looked at you sideways but well I'm just saying I'm just saying because I feel like it it I'm not again I'm I'm not the point where I'm like casting judgment or opinion necessarily but I just feel like that even something as silly as that it's like everybody understanding that it's not a democracy and rather it's it's rather him moving it forward if that is the case and everybody knew that then at that point you could say okay well I do or don't agree with that but until we understand that that is how it is cuz still I think people are confused apparently that it's not a democracy and it's not like oh I want something I can just say it it just happens which is important to know like we have to understand the the parameters of what we're dealing with and and like what the situation is before we can actually have an honest conversation or and make any progress whatsoever regardless of what your definition of progress is so um yeah and I would say the only thing I would say though is like if that's the case you line those line those up it's like I mean I I as an aside maybe off topic I find it like crazy that like 43% of the internet seems to be completely uh completely like at the the mercy of one individual like that's kind of like that that seems a little concerning to me not not like again nothing against Matt mull we never spoke to the guy seen his interview seems great but I'm just saying like all of that one person epicenter of that like and we've talked about this before hopefully there's like kind of more of like we're understanding now that like time is a reality and like we have buil we're building kind of like you know some um uh Contin you know contingency to that like with you know troops and different things like that like kind of the you know the seconds in command and stuff like that uh which I don't know how much or how little that has happened in the past and everything cuz obviously when you're trying to run something big you can't just do it alone so I don't know that's just we don't have any answers there I don't feel like from what I've heard it's just we'll see what happens but that's still something that's kind of like just I would just be curious about like how how do we how do we go about that you know not the next generation of users the next generation of operators or yeah you know leadership even yeah yeah I think that there's um yeah it's something that people bring up a lot and and you know I I I think it almost sounds worse too it sounds a lot more urgent when you frame it that way like oh it's a whole 43% this big number is reliant on him it is um and it isn't because it's like ideas like he does set the motion forward and he and he does allow for all of these automatici to contribute to to Wordpress um but I think just like if you're um I don't know you have an idea for a movie and a movie starts getting made like as a writer or as like the Creator like okay it's one thing to like here's the thing I want done but then it's again it's this massive apparatus and it changes and evolves over time and it's out of your control unless you're just an absolute Maniac narcissist and you're just like in everybody's face which you know hey it it kind of sounds like he's in he's still talking to all these people about all these products like he does need to maybe take a step back and and hyperfocus on on the core of Wordpress um but I think like his direction there's one thing like he sets the tone in the direction but how it evolves he's not like it's him writing the lines of code and the features are being built or whatever maybe like even like Steve Jobs to a degree I guess um you know he has the idea this is the vision but eventually like reality sets in and it has to be built a certain way and and it and it evolves just because there's so many people um you know contributing to this thing that maybe his idea doesn't take shape exactly like he's wanted um and he's you know he's talked about it look at the uh data Liberation initiative that's just his idea and until maybe he makes uh automatici actually you know write these export import migration tools um he's just like here's this idea for data Liberation here's what we should do and he just throws it out there and now it's up to the community and anyone else who wants to contribute to that to actually make it reality so what did he do he sort of like uh put the carrot on the end of the stick a little bit closer and he was just like oh if you want to make this plugin I'll make sure make a plugin to do something like this I'll make sure it gets approved in 24 to 48 hours or whatever which is you know contrary to like if you just have a plugin that you want to contribute to wordpress.org it might take a month two months three months I don't even know what the wait time is anym for plugins so his thing was like I can help you get this done faster if you're contributing to this data Liberation project as an example yeah I I I feel like I mean that totally makes sense to the ex uh example with data Liberation there I would just be kind of literally interested maybe just like literally ask him the question of like how do you to me it's a little concerning not concerning but it's like it's interesting that he as that with that example came up with data Liberation seems like a great idea then nobody did anything with it and then he had a dangle the carrot and it's like does he as using that one as the the one in question does is he going to have like a a direction for that that people are going to have to follow as well um and he's just getting it started and then he's going to be like okay actually this is kind of where I want you to go something like that or is he much more hands off than that because I've literally heard like again without actually talking to him and hearing that specific stuff I've heard kind of both ways I've heard he's very on you know like you said on all the different companies kind of like in there like CEOs of different companies and stuff like that very like Hands-On with a lot of that stuff and but also at the same time like how could you possibly be Hands-On with all this stuff I mean it's just too vast so I I don't know I would love I would I'm just curious genuinely about that as an example but I'm trying to just find something really quick yeah what else you see any any chats coming in while I look for this anything that anyone's saying yeah I got one from Elliot Richmond the plan is there is no plan that's a that's a fun one damn it that's a fun one uh and then Peter says there's always forking classic press exists I'm not personally uh interested in it but uh but there is that I mean again that's the beautiful part I mean again I don't know I maybe I'm just like kind of too meta for a lot of these conversations I just literally think like what happens if Matt wig literally just decided tomorrow tomorrow that he wasn't going to do was do anything I'm getting e are you you're hear an echo right now yeah I was hearing myself myself all right tell me if you hear this tell me if you hear this without you I have a little bit of a uh sad trombone one though do you hear that all right so I I just need to turn that on for a second do you hear me do you hear me twice okay so you just be quiet for a second and I'm going to play this uh I'm going to play this clip uh from the day to Liberation this is from um Matt Mullen wg's summer update at word Camp Europe talking specifically about uh the data Liberation project which is the data Liberation project so as I spoke about at state of the word I'll reintroduce day deliberation this is the idea that one of the best things we could do as an open source Community is unlock all the proprietary platforms all the places where people have their data locked in to systems which might not allow export or easy composability or transferability of their data um so we we term this data Liberation and uh if you scan that QR code or go to wordpress.org data- Liberation you will see we have the start of what uh hopefully will be something that creates a ton more freedom on the web and a ton more portability between platforms including in and out of Wordpress WordPress could be maybe a middle ground between something else um however this has had very very little progress so if you go to that page click on some of the links you'll see mostly empty GitHub repos so I just wanted to point this out as an amazing place if you're interested in contributing to Wordpress uh to adopt something and have total ownership of it so if you want to sort of each of these projects is fairly self-contained so if uh you want a chance to actually lead something within the WordPress project you could be in charge of the say Wix to Wordpress converter or something like that um this I think is also going to be really important for us as the more and more marketing dollars uh hundreds of millions of dollars are spent in marketing for proprietary platforms proprietary platforms have gotten tons of investment in the past few years things like Shopify Squarespace Etc and they are coming as sort of the macroeconomic conditions have changed they've started to really Target WordPress agencies WordPress users WordPress sites quite a bit and so they're coming and trying to snipe away our community um so we have to keep an eye out for that and the problem as well is when people go that way it's almost impossible to go back the other way it's like uh I don't know if you had this advertisement here but the roach motel the roaches check in they don't check out that's a lot of these proprietary cms's that let you check in your data but you can never check it out so a part of our mission to democratize the web and increase freedom I think it's really really important that we create portability even when the platforms themselves try not to allow it the other big part of this that I think is also super relevant for this audience is we need to make WordPress to Wordpress easier who's ever tried to transfer a WordPress site to something else or going to import all right so I'm just going to stop it there you should be good I shut off loop back um you know I you know we this project he he came up with this idea data Liberation and maybe other people talked about it I mean we've all always talked about making it easier to move from where WordPress to Wordpress for sure um one from one web host to another web host you know moving your media from I just want my media to go to this WordPress website or whatever um so okay so whether or not this is just a a pet project like understanding that Matt comes up with maybe a lot of pet projects as you know somebody in a more Innovative uh leadership position should be doing like taking bets and and making these different uh uh things happen uh that is how it started uh at least the way that I understand it with data Liberation here's an idea here's why we need it to get done and uh let's go build it and by let's go build it it's just here it is you know WordPress Community go and build this now I think what's important to understand is that if you're a developer like you have to get your your this is this is the this is the the challenge that a lot of us have with the community is we we only see ourselves like website builders mostly like we're the most vocal we're doing content marketing we're on Twitter LinkedIn live streams doing all this stuff but there are there's a whole group of people much greater than the business side of Wordpress who are who are developers and somebody who wants to make a name for themselves um rightfully so and you and you love the idea of Open Source and you're a fantastic developer and how do you shoulder your way up in in a community um where you want to give back to WordPress but but maybe you just don't have the podium or the stage that's that is there for you what he said is hey you could be the person who makes the Wicks to Wordpress converter or whatever like you could be the person that leads that and there's a certain Allure there for somebody who wants to build that right just like if if WordPress was like Hey we're doing an open call for podcasters for wordpress.org I'd be like yeah I'll probably try to throw my hat into that ring like I I'll try to create a story or an audio series about WordPress that I'll that I'll contribute to and I would feel super passionate about that there is there are people out there much again much greater and much more mass than us who would be like yes I want to write code in open source and give it give back to Wordpress and be that person who made that Wix to Wordpress converter because one you either just love it you love the idea of solving this issue which I think a lot of developers are attracted to development in general um or you're trying to make it you're trying to build up your resume and you want to get noticed you want to get a job you want to you want to be hired by automatic you want to be hired by some you know web agency or some software company and if you're the person who made you know made their mark on the data Liberation project and you are making wi Wix to Wordpress so much better um yeah you you've just increased your chances to be maybe hired by automatic or Wix because Wix does have an open- Source division air quotes where they give back to to their own open- source um projects as well so it's also a calling card to the developers who are out there who who want to contribute to this stuff and I think we only see it from one lens we're like well that'll never happen who's going to do that well somebody will eventually maybe step up or if not it doesn't and it just dies out um and it really depends on on Mullen WG on whether or not he says okay no one wants to to jump into this open source thing I'll take 12 people from automatic and make sure that they're contributing their time to data Liberation yeah I mean uh again as as far as the day of Liberation example goes uh yeah I don't know I it what you laid out there makes sense if you're if you're a developer trying to make a name for themselves or whatever then like those are the types of project and Matt Mullen Wick seems to be absolutely like a Visionary and Innovative guy as far as those things go um again I'd be interested to see like how much of he he is super Hands-On with versus just having the ideas and letting them kind of like naturally kind of flow um I'm sure there's examples of that in the past and I'll be interested to see how it moves in into the into the future um just because feel like everything's getting pretty big there's a lot going on so obviously just can't be reasonable amount of Delegation I feel like has to be has to be continually made and I'm I'm sure he's doing a good bit of that so so I'll just I'll I'll sort of wrap up my side of it from call to action you know check out uh the the the live stream that uh Paul was supposed to host on his uh on his on his channel today I'll paste that uh in the chat if any anybody else has any other questions go ahead and drop them in now uh you know obviously a long conversation the the only thing you know that I really you know have a critical take on is if you're a content creator and you're somebody with an audience that you you should want to be meeting in the middle right like it's not just good enough to it's still impactful I just think from my own point of view like you have to try to meet in the middle and get the other person to cross aisle this goes on both sides right like if you're an automatici um and again we're seeing those efforts uh with Nick Diego and McCarthy uh you know Rich tabers going on shows and stuff like that so there is a little bit of listening coming from that side um but from the content creator side I feel like it's um it's it's detrimental that you that you understand uh this apparatus and that you also uh are you know meeting in the middle and contributing more than just the content I think if you're a a thought leader uh an influencer a YouTuber and you have the audience that you have to do you have to go a step further right as as a leader um in my opinion just in my opinion uh check out the live stream today it is still good discussion it's making more people talk so yes there's a Compound Effect there's a domino effect here um check out uh the the live stream discussion that I linked up again it went on uh the web Squadron Channel supposed to be Paul's Channel um yeah check it out it's a good good conversation and folks like Mark who's on the stream today does a series called uh Bridge Builders Bridging the Gap I'm not going to fill in the what's the what's the sub headline I want we do we do we can yeah it's mat eastwoods over on mat Eastwood's Channel me and uh Brendan oconnell uh co-hosted with him and yeah we just look at different Builders and different workflows and things like that because I do think that that is a tough thing none of us have infinite hours in the day so we can't all get like to see the behind the scenes of how everything works and then we just hear it via rumors from you know different content and things like that oh this is great this is terrible and it's nice to see it you know and a hope and we try to package it in a short stream but it normally ends up being like two to three hours but um you know just trying to just trying to give people different perspectives on stuff I don't like I said I don't have all the time in the world to look at all these different things so it's cool to see it uh from professionals and uh that are using these different workflows and just give us a little bit of a peak behind the curtain on the other things we're not using every day so yeah awesome stuff uh everybody else thanks for joining the stream today uh thanks for hanging out asking questions thrown in your two cents the wp minute the wp minute.com hey you know what's happening tomorrow another live stream uh talking about another widely debated company Elementor uh we're going to talk about is Elementor locking you in to my mouse keeps dying is Elementor locking you in to AI you can join that conversation uh with me uh tomorrow at 12: p.m. Eastern right here on this channel let me throw up the screen one more time uh youtube.com WP minute joined by Ryan Logan uh talking about his recent findings of Elementor and can we shut off that pesky AI who's in control we'll find out tomorrow uh on the live stream everybody thanks for watching we'll see you in the next one, Emergency Pod! 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