Why I Joined FAIR  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Delta]] - Full Title: Why I Joined FAIR - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #wordpress - #fairproject - #decentralization - #FAIR Author: Sam Sidler Source: https://www.delta.blog/why-i-joined-fair/ Reference: 2025-06-06 https://www.delta.blog/why-i-joined-fair/ date created: 2025-06-11 20:15 --- # Title: Why I Joined FAIR ## Table of Contents:  - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Assessment](#-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-assessment) - [✅ Logical validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ## 📝 Summary: Sam Sidler highlights the existential threat centralization poses to the WordPress ecosystem. Sidler argues that the concentration of leadership, infrastructure, and control in one individual and company introduces systemic risks that threaten WordPress’s sustainability. The FAIR Project is introduced as a federated, decentralized initiative designed to distribute infrastructure control, promote transparency, and foster collaborative governance, thus safeguarding WordPress’s future. ## 📖 Main Content: Sidler outlines how WordPress’s reliance on a single person and company for leadership and infrastructure creates critical single points of failure. This centralization has practical consequences including service downtime, lack of scalable infrastructure investment, and governance challenges such as opaque decision-making and unchecked policy enforcement. The article cites examples like WP Engine’s blocked access and community moderation inconsistencies to illustrate the risks inherent in concentrated control. WordPress.org’s repeated downtime underscores the fragility of the current infrastructure setup. FAIR is framed as a solution that embraces decentralization by offering a federated package manager and infrastructure system. It operates as a neutral branch of the project, encouraging contributions from a broad range of stakeholders — including competitors — to collaboratively build a resilient and sustainable WordPress ecosystem. Sidler’s narrative is a call to the community to join FAIR in decentralizing critical infrastructure, ensuring WordPress’s health and longevity for decades to come. ### 🗒️ Notes - **Centralization Issues** - Leadership and infrastructure largely controlled by one individual and company. - Single point of failure creates systemic risk. - Examples: Community bans without due recourse, code of conduct enforcement issues. - **Infrastructure Concerns** - WordPress.org’s recurring downtime affects millions globally. - Hosting expenses fall to one entity with little incentive to expand. - **FAIR Project as Decentralized Solution** - Federated package manager supporting WordPress ecosystem. - Not a fork or replacement, but an augmentation of existing infrastructure. - Governance designed to be neutral, transparent, and inclusive. - **Community and Ecosystem Impact** - Encourages collaboration across commercial and community boundaries. - Aims to mitigate risks of centralization for long-term sustainability. - **Vision** - Decentralization is necessary for WordPress to thrive beyond 22 years. - FAIR embodies a collective step toward that future. ## 📖 References: - Sidler, Sam. "Why I Joined FAIR." 2025-06-06. https://www.delta.blog/why-i-joined-fair/ - FAIR Project official site: https://fair.pm/ - Related WordPress community discussions and news. ## 🗣️ Paraphrase:  1. Original: “The WordPress ecosystem is far too centralized—FAIR represents a step toward a decentralized future, one that I believe must exist.” Paraphrase: The concentration of control within the WordPress ecosystem is excessive; FAIR offers a crucial move toward decentralization that is essential for its survival. 2. Original: “If we want WordPress to survive for another twenty-two years, if we want to protect the community and ecosystem we have, collectively, built over the past two-plus decades, the future of WordPress must be decentralized.” Paraphrase: To ensure WordPress endures the next 22 years and safeguards the community and ecosystem built over time, it is imperative to adopt a decentralized future. ## 📰 Newsletter: Hey WordPress enthusiasts! 🌟 Sam Sidler shares a powerful reflection on why centralization threatens the very survival of WordPress. The FAIR Project is introduced as the community’s beacon for decentralization—a federated approach that distributes infrastructure control and governance to avoid single points of failure. With transparent leadership and open collaboration, FAIR welcomes everyone, even competitors, to contribute and secure the future of WordPress. Dive into this must-read for anyone passionate about the open web: https://www.delta.blog/why-i-joined-fair/ ## ✅ Action Items: - Use Sidler’s testimony to reinforce messaging on the risks of centralization in WordPress talks and workshops. - Advocate for FAIR and similar decentralized projects in the WordPress ecosystem. - Develop educational materials on federated governance and infrastructure decentralization. - Facilitate community engagement and contribution pathways into FAIR initiatives. - Track FAIR’s progress to inform ongoing advocacy and strategy. - Promote inclusivity and transparency principles central to FAIR in your outreach. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - Decentralization improves infrastructure uptime and user trust in WordPress. - Federated governance enhances contributor satisfaction and reduces community conflicts. - Collaborative, cross-competitive engagement fosters innovation in open source ecosystems. - Centralized control is directly linked to bottlenecks in project scalability and responsiveness. ## 📊 Methodology: - Monitor WordPress.org uptime and performance before and after FAIR adoption. - Conduct contributor surveys regarding governance satisfaction and participation. - Analyze code contribution trends to identify innovation bursts correlated with FAIR involvement. - Comparative studies with other federated open source projects. ## ❓ Questions: - What governance safeguards prevent power consolidation within FAIR itself? - How will FAIR maintain security and trust in a federated infrastructure? - How do competing commercial interests cooperate effectively within FAIR? - What metrics will FAIR use to demonstrate improved ecosystem resilience? ## 🔮 Future Research: - The impact of decentralized package management on ecosystem health. - Effective federated governance models for large-scale projects. - Community dynamics in collaborative open source environments involving competitors. - Measuring long-term benefits of infrastructure decentralization. ## 💡 Implications:  Insights from FAIR’s development could redefine how major open source ecosystems address sustainability, governance, and resilience, setting a precedent for other projects. ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: 1. **Visual Learners (Spatial)**: - Present: Clear structure, no visuals. - Improve: Add diagrams showing centralized vs. federated systems. 2. **Aural Learners (Auditory-Musical)**: - Present: None. - Improve: Provide audio or podcast content explaining FAIR. 3. **Verbal Learners (Linguistic)**: - Present: Well-written narrative with examples. - Improve: Incorporate more storytelling and analogies. 4. **Physical Learners (Kinesthetic)**: - Present: No interactive elements. - Improve: Add hands-on demos or contribution tutorials. 5. **Logical Learners (Mathematical)**: - Present: Logical arguments and flow. - Improve: Include data visualizations and flowcharts. 6. **Social Learners - Summary: The WordPress ecosystem is far too centralized—FAIR represents a step toward a decentralized future, one that I believe must exist. - URL: https://www.delta.blog/why-i-joined-fair/  WordPress has a problem—an existential threat. And, if we don’t act, *WordPress* as we know it—the community, the code, the ecosystem—won’t survive. This isn’t a new threat; it has existed for effectively all of the twenty-two years that WordPress has existed. And, it isn’t coming from outside the ecosystem—while other platforms continue to make strides against WordPress, what can and will be its downfall is internal. No, the biggest threat to WordPress is a single word, manifested across the community and ecosystem for over two decades, made increasingly visible over the past nine months. Centralization. WordPress has long been led by a single person, with the project’s infrastructure paid for and overseen by that same person. One company contributes an outsized share of the project’s code, and oversees all of the official events. Even the WordPress Foundation is effectively a shell of what it could be, [as I’ve written about recently](https://www.delta.blog/please-reconsider-donating-to-the-wordpress-foundation/). *All of this* is problematic. There do exist open source projects with benevolent dictators; leaders who act in the best interests of their projects at all times. This *can* work. But, a single dictator is also a single breakpoint and at the size and scale of a project like WordPress, a single breakpoint is unacceptable. One problem with one individual can bring down the entire house, and destroy the project *forever*. WordPress cannot—*must not*—continue at the whims of one centralized company or person. We’ve seen, time and again, the problems this can cause the project. When WP Engine was blocked from accessing WordPress.org, when individuals who spoke up were banned from the community, when Code of Conduct violations go unenforced—each of these actions (or lack thereof) happened without recourse, and at the whims of a single individual. This isn’t just theoretical; it’s practical too. Over the past few years, every WordPress release has led to downtime for WordPress.org, as it is unable to keep up with demand. Given the centralized nature of the server, this downtime will continue unless additional resources are added to WordPress.org, affecting millions of users around the world. But that site is owned and managed by one person, shouldering all of the expense, with no incentive to increase hosting costs. *This doesn’t have to be the case.* If we want WordPress to survive for another twenty-two years, if we want to protect the community and ecosystem we have, collectively, built over the past two-plus decades, **the future of WordPress must be decentralized**. And all of this brings me to [FAIR](https://fair.pm/?ref=delta.blog). FAIR represents a step forward for the WordPress ecosystem; an initiative working to build a future where no *one* person or entity controls critical infrastructure. Together, we can all ensure that WordPress exists forever. The message of FAIR is one of collaboration and cooperation—as a community, we can build the future we deserve. At the start, FAIR’s federated approach provides a package manager designed to support the WordPress ecosystem. It’s not meant to usurp what exists today, but act as a branch of the project, with neutral leadership focused on building decentralized infrastructure. And we’re going to do it together: like true open source projects, FAIR welcomes contributions, as everyone—even competitors—works together to build the future of WordPress. The future of WordPress is decentralized, and I’m proud to have helped lay the groundwork and be a part of it., Why I Joined FAIR, The Delta, 01jxgghwaeh820p0x9pg9wf747.