WordCamp Asia 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A  ## Metadata - Author: [[WordPress]] - Full Title: WordCamp Asia 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#WordPress, #WordCampAsia2024, #OpenSource, #Community] Author: Chloe Bringman, Matt Mullenweg Source: WordCamp Asia 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A Reference: [YouTube Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOF70YJLC5U) date created: 2024-09-14 13:00 --- # Title: WordCamp Asia 2024 Q&A with Matt Mullenweg ## Table of Contents: 1. [Introduction](#introduction) 2. [Diversity in Speakers Program](#diversity-in-speakers-program) 3. [Collaboration Between Web3 and WordPress](#collaboration-between-web3-and-wordpress) 4. [Engaging Working Parents in WordPress](#engaging-working-parents-in-wordpress) 5. [Future of WordPress Development](#future-of-wordpress-development) 6. [Media Management in WordPress](#media-management-in-wordpress) 7. [Data Liberation and the Open Web](#data-liberation-and-the-open-web) ### References: - WordCamp Asia 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOF70YJLC5U ## 📝 Summary: In this Q&A session at WordCamp Asia 2024, Matt Mullenweg discussed the evolution of WordPress, upcoming features, and community-related initiatives. Key points included enhancing the diversity of speakers at events, integrating Web3 technologies, improving media management, and encouraging open data standards. The discussion also touched on supporting working parents within the community and maintaining the open-source vision for WordPress. ## 📖 Main Content: - **Diversity in Speakers Program**: Matt addressed the importance of diversifying the speaker lineup at WordPress events, emphasizing the need to support individuals from underrepresented groups. He encouraged people to apply regardless of financial challenges and noted that companies like Automattic may offer sponsorships for qualified speakers. - **Collaboration Between Web3 and WordPress**: A Web3 proponent asked about integrating decentralized publishing within WordPress. Matt acknowledged the shared values between open-source software and Web3, while questioning whether blockchain technologies provided any clear benefits over existing methods of combating censorship. - **Engaging Working Parents in WordPress**: When asked how to get more working parents involved in organizing WordPress events, Matt suggested leading by example and utilizing existing WordPress community resources for balancing personal and professional commitments. - **Future of WordPress Development**: Matt expressed excitement about future WordPress developments, particularly around collaborative editing in Gutenberg. He sees co-editing functionality, similar to Google Docs, as a game-changer for collaboration within WordPress. - **Media Management in WordPress**: The media library within WordPress was criticized for lacking robust organization features. Matt acknowledged this and shared his vision for a more advanced media library with features like tagging, better indexing, and reverse lookups to see where media is used across a site. - **Data Liberation and the Open Web**: Matt advocated for data liberation, supporting efforts to make users' data easily accessible and transferable across platforms. He mentioned creating open-source tools to retrieve data from services that make data extraction difficult. ### 🗒️ Notes: - **Diversity Initiatives**: Speakers from financially constrained backgrounds may still apply, with sponsorships available. - **Web3 Integration**: Open-source and decentralized projects may align, but it's unclear if blockchain adds unique value. - **Working Parents**: Lead by example, and utilize community resources to engage more parents in WordPress events. - **Gutenberg's Future**: Collaborative editing is on the horizon, making WordPress more interactive and real-time. - **Media Library Enhancements**: Matt highlighted plans to improve media management features, making the library more useful for content creators. - **Data Liberation**: WordPress is committed to ensuring users can easily access and migrate their data. ## 📰 Newsletter: 🎉 **WordCamp Asia 2024 Q&A Recap!** Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, shared exciting insights at this year’s WordCamp Asia. Here's a quick rundown: - **Diversity in Speakers**: Matt encouraged underrepresented groups to apply for speaking opportunities at WordCamps, with potential sponsorships to overcome financial barriers. - **Web3 & WordPress**: Can Web3 integrate with WordPress? Matt shares his thoughts on the future of decentralized publishing. - **Future of Gutenberg**: Collaborative editing is coming soon to WordPress, allowing real-time collaboration like never before! Check out the full session [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOF70YJLC5U). ## ✅ Action Items: As a Developer Advocate with a focus on WordPress and open source, this Q&A session aligns perfectly with my efforts to foster inclusivity and transparency. From promoting diversity at events to discussing future WordPress developments like collaborative editing, these topics reflect the core values of open-source advocacy and contributor engagement. For the next newsletter, I’ll include updates on Web3 integration, enhancing media management, and ways to support underrepresented groups in WordPress events. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - A more robust media library will enhance WordPress’s ability to compete with dedicated content management platforms. - Collaborative editing within WordPress will increase engagement and lead to higher adoption rates among non-technical users. ### 📊 Methodology: To test these hypotheses: 1. **User Surveys**: Conduct surveys among WordPress users to determine the impact of media library improvements and collaborative editing features. 2. **Adoption Analysis**: Track the adoption of Gutenberg’s collaborative features post-release and analyze usage trends. ### ❓ Questions: - How can WordPress foster more inclusivity, particularly for working parents and underrepresented groups in the tech industry? - What role will Web3 play in the future of content management, and how can WordPress integrate its principles effectively? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Investigate how the introduction of collaborative editing will affect team workflows in WordPress. - Explore the impact of improved media management tools on content-heavy websites, like blogs and e-commerce stores. ### 💡 Implications: Future research could inform best practices for integrating collaborative tools into WordPress, enhancing the platform’s appeal for teams working remotely or across different time zones. Additionally, improving media management can streamline workflows for content creators, leading to higher productivity and satisfaction. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: 1. **Visual Learners (Spatial)**: - **Present**: WordCamp presentations included slides and visual elements. - **Improve**: Future sessions could add infographics or visual summaries of key takeaways. 2. **Aural Learners (Auditory-Musical)**: - **Present**: The Q&A was available via live video and audio. - **Improve**: Offering an audio-only podcast version could make the content more accessible to auditory learners. 3. **Verbal Learners (Linguistic)**: - **Present**: Clear and concise language used throughout the session. - **Improve**: Supplementing the talk with additional blog posts or written summaries would benefit linguistic learners. 4. **Physical Learners (Kinesthetic)**: - **Present**: None. - **Improve**: Future events could include interactive workshops or hands-on sessions for kinesthetic learners. 5. **Logical Learners (Mathematical)**: - **Present**: Complex concepts like Web3 integration were discussed. - **Improve**: Providing more structured, step-by-step breakdowns of these concepts could help logical learners. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment: - **Screen Reader Compatibility**: The video was accompanied by live captions but lacked detailed alt text for visual elements. - **Improve**: Ensure all visual content is paired with alt text and that all videos have proper captions and transcriptions. ### 🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Assessment: - **Cultural Relevance**: The event was accessible globally, - Document Tags: [[matt mullenweg]] [[wcasia]] - Summary: The speaker introduces Matt Mullenweg, WordPress co-founder, at WordCamp Asia. Matt's vision for an open web shaped WordPress and fostered a global community. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions, with a focus on diversity and collaboration. Matt discusses initiatives like co-editing for Gutenberg and the potential of blockchain in publishing. - URL: https://youtube.com/watch?v=EOF70YJLC5U&si=Cd8H1Lo4FHAo29eg [Applause] wow I didn't think I was going to be nervous but I am welcome it has been what I think an extraordinary word Camp thus far uh my name is chlo bringman and I'm honored to introduce our last keynote speaker WordPress co-founder and the CEO of automatic Matt Mullen wig [Applause] yes so Matt's vision for an open and accessible web has helped shape WordPress and by extension the web as we know it his commitment to open source principles has advanced WordPress and fostered a global community of contributors and innovators many of of whom are gathered here today in this Auditorium or online now uh we have a little bit of some housekeeping um before I ask you to join me in a warm welcome to bring Matt onto to the stage um some tips for asking questions live I'd like to ask you to introduce yourselves briefly um when you have the floor we're eager to hear from as many of you as possible during today's session when you're speaking please talk slowly clearly and directly into the microphone so everyone can hear you well and you have the opportunity to ask Matt what has been on your mind so let's make the most of this time together and be mindful of the other attendees waiting their turn if you have additional questions after your first we kindly ask that you save them for another opportunity there will be a couple of volunteers who are running around with microphones on either side of the auditorium raise your hand uh if you have a question for Matt and so without further ado please join me in welcoming Matt Mullen wig to word Camp Asia [Applause] 2024 hello hello how y'all doing did you have a good Work Camp I am so excited to finally be here oh my goodness I mean 2020 2021 22 three there's there was reasons I wasn't able to make it for each one some reasons we all couldn't make it for some of those but uh it's so great to be here today and in this amazing room with a I I really enjoyed a lot of the talks I got to see um and happy to talk about any of those but yeah who's got their hands up we can start queuing up some some questions I am visiting today from Houston Texas oh am I supposed to point okay how about over there we can get started introduce your name stand up so people can see you and hello let's get started my name is milab I am from Serbia and always first question so here uh at this word camp we saw some changes to speakers program there were invited speakers and I would like to propose something uh there are a lot of if we are talking about diversity of speakers there are a lot of speakers good speakers who are involved in WordPress who cannot attend these big events because of financial uh difficulties so there are initiatives to help them one of them is suppor inclusion inch.com please visit that and my question is uh will will Foundation or and or automatic support such initiative to help you uh speakers who cannot attend and are actually good speakers to come and and maybe have another addition to speakers program to actually help people thank you for the question thank you uh yeah we've had invited speakers at many many work camps before going back to some of the early work camp San Francisco that ated like word Camp United States so it's not a new program I would encourage folks to like speakers who want to speak at any word Camp around the world to apply and then if you're ex regardless of whether you think you're financially able to attend or not so get your talk in first right and then if you're accepted and there's some barrier I think both automatic and many many other companies uh would be very excited to sponsor uh folks to to visit and it's actually I think a relatively cost-effective way uh to do it now work camps do have a sort of uh certainly the local like the city ones tend to want to emphasize local speakers but for these Regional ones sure let's get people from all over the world we have that here today and I think it's part of the the cool thing about these more Continental work camps so does that sound good cool thank you all right who's up next the lights's actually kind of bright I might need that just to folks um with the mics just run to people with the hands up we got one up here but it's a little hard for me to see some of you y pass the mic and then if you want to go next so we'll do that next and then who wants to be third so we can keep this moving want to get through as many as possible okay how about over there all right H hi M um we met before uh I'm Phoebe and uh our team kind of living in a paradise a parallel universe which is in web 3 we are building something in blockchain to help media and journalists to actually achieve decentralized publishing and our taglines is actually same as WordPress which is we want to democratize publishing and I'm from Hong Kong um so I want to see a view how w three could coordinate with this Mission um that we have uh and obviously we are one of the wew um wey plug in that here today so I feel like I'm in a really rare like situation where I'm the minority here um so I just really want to head this conversation with you and see how we can truly achieve um decentralized publishing to help people that are being censored no matter is from political censorships or commercial censorships um yeah thank you wow thank you for your question um and yeah we did meet I think you're I've taken like a hundred hundreds of photos of people and thank you for the T-shirt you gave me um the there's a lot to unpack there so uh I'll try to work backwards being one of the few three companies here there probably were a few more a few years ago right there was a little bit of a cycle there and it feels like a lot of folks moved on although now crypto prices are all the way back so who knows maybe there'll be another cycle um in terms of Wordpress is participation in it you know one way where I think well second I would say what is web 3 right that could be a whole conversation um you mentioned blockchain so let's just I'm going to assume for the sake of discussion that sort of like blockchainbased things integrated with WordPress is that fair okay um uh there's what's nice about a lot of these blockchain projects I'm not sure about yours but most are open source which sort of just by default we share some of the ideals with the open source nature of Wordpress and its entire technology stack you know everything that it's built on we're built on the shoulders of giants it's open source Turtles all the way down as they said so the uh there's plugins for pretty much everything and as you know our Marketplace is totally open there's no like cut you have to pay there you have to go through the application process which I apologize is still like Ray behind but um but then yeah it could be totally open uh I think in terms of publishing things to like a immutable blockchain um that is a use case it's kind of a tricky one because uh well one you could already do it you could put things in like the uh Bitcoin blockchain right and people have at the very first Satoshi node right reference that uh Financial Cris article crisis article um so that's already possible and then for everything else I think large Publishers um tend to need some moderation capability often even to comply with laws in the places where they operate so um and for evading censorship there are Technologies like tour and other things that allow people to get past it including like tour secret sites hosting and others so whenever there's sort of a a problem like that I always say like what are all the ways it could be solved um does blockchain make it better or different and are there existing blockchains that can solve some of the same things um one I have had my eye on because especially with you know we're in kind of our first AI election cycle where AI tools are very prevalent deep fakes have gotten so good and you know I think I forget the number but like uh over half of large democracies are having like major lessons in the next two years and so um something around uh sort of being able to stamp content to be authenticated whether it's photos articles and unmodified I think it's kind of interesting there's been a number of proposals about this over the years there's one a few years ago that not sure where it is but I just saw a new one last month that name is escaping me that I hope to look at when I'm back from sabatical I forgot to say that technically I'm not supposed to be here so automatic has this benefit where every five years everyone gets two to three year three two to three months pay time off um it's a beautiful benefit we've had hundreds and hundreds of people take it uh I have not for 18 years and it was a very intense year last year so I was like ah okay in December I announced that in February I was going to do the three months off um and I had this on the calendar I was like I cannot miss work Camp Asia again so this is my exception yall are my uh my exception to sabatical thank you so but for some things like it's a little trickier for me to speak to automatic stuff because I'm not really in a day-to-day like I usually am but May 1st I'll be right back in there so thank you I think we were going up here next and then we'll do there and then down there so thank you next hi my name is Lena I have been organizing word press event in Bangkok for many years with Camp Bangkok and with Camp Asia 2023 now that I'm working mom with a small kids it's harder to to do this on group of about as people find is difficult to get a new organizer can you give us an an advice on how to get working parent M moms to join and see the good in being part of the WordPress Community thank you um that is probably an area I'm not an expert in not that I'm an expert in many of the things we're talking about but and that one I feel particularly ill suited to have a great answer but perhaps we could follow up with that with the events team yeah which has a number of working moms and so they'll probably be able to answer that better so I apologize I don't have a good one for you right now um setting the example and leading by example like you just did and sharing your story I think is also amazing so everyone in this room and everyone watching the live stream now sees your your example and there's probably many more things like that we can do so thank you think it was over here next yeah all right um what initiatives or project are you personally excited about within the WordPress ecosystem right now that's a good one and just to so we keep it moving I think there's a mic down here right so let's bring one down any on this side okay right there you'll be next and you'll be third um initiatives I'm excited about on WordPress um gosh co-editing for Gutenberg so this is the oh we got a yeah um this is the idea that I mean not unlike Google Docs or many other applications like in theory not everyone in this room but a lot of people in this room or some people in this room could have the same document opened at the same time we could be editing it it would be merged instantly there would be no conflicts uh if there you went offline and came back online that'd be handled in a really intelligent way um this I think is just for collaboration going to be so cool like imagine if you could send a link of sort of a draft for a new version of the site to a client or a friend and then get on the phone and just kind of tweak things in real time with them they could change something you could change something you could give them a lesson you know so you're you're sort of telling them what to do they're learning the interface and then you're talking about it in real time I mean things like that it just opens up such a wide array of collaboration and workflow that I think it's really uh through that then going to open up WordPress to a much wider audience than it is today and uh and then personally I'm just really looking forward to it because um you know I've been writing for so many years now and still one of the craziest things is it's so hard to edit your own writing and so everything I do I mean sometimes you can tell when I just publish without an editor and then the first comments like oh here's these three typos I'm like ah I checked it like four times but now um you know being able to have someone else in there and then the other thing that could be cool is what if that entity coming in to chat with you and edit and do things is maybe an AI like chat gbt that could also be really interesting like maybe calling it in and saying hey what do you think would make my site more compelling to audiences in Japan or something like that that could be very very very cool so so that's I'd say one thing I'm pretty excited about I'm also very excited about the location for the state of the word this year and where Work Camp Asia is going to be next year so can't say it now but yall if you stick around you might get some uh some fun things there all right how about um here yeah thank you sha could I ask goner question sorry yogish from Bangalore India I do have a guro question later maybe sometime but um um yeah I'm the project really I'm excited about is data migration the data Liberation oh yeah yeah and uh so uh the way I look at data Liberation is um is is uh you know there is a standard for printing paper we call it in India when we buy paper we call it A4 sheet is a standard size and so you type on A4 sheet on uh your laptop and you print on for sheet so whatever you're writing or printing or doing anything you're most probably writing on A4 sheet and is not it's is made by anybody but so as um WordPress uh data Liberation project is WordPress getting to be the A4 of the web is this the the standard is this like the last fightback of the open source against the Gated uh Gardens of people who are trying to take over the web well I think with you know infinite scroll it's like those do Matrix printers just goes on forever do you remember those used to print out the signs oh a lot of people don't recognize that I feel a little old the stitches on the edge yeah thank you josea I'm so glad we're getting younger Generations in the WordPress the um you know paper a good analogy I'm not sure I do think of things like um railroad gauges so the idea that railroad sometimes used to have like different widths and things and then we kind of standardize and we're able to connect all the railroads in the United States and um I think about this a lot when I travel because there's so many different plugs but actually a cool thing like um I saw at the hotel them and they actually all the plugs are kind of like one of those Universial plugs you can plug anything into I was like oh that's kind of neat maybe that's the future like like why does every single country well not every country but you know there's so much variation and it it feels a little silly to have to carry around all these adapters um for the web I think about for data Liberation even when an export is available um there's a lot more term I forget if Cory doctor or someone else said it but called malicious compliance Corey said that yeah um so governments are finally coming in and saying hey some of these big companies you're really locking in your users in ways that seem hostile or anti-competitive or just not nice so could you open up and uh sometimes the companies like really open up in a cool way and sometimes they open up in this term called malicious compliance where it's kind of open but gosh it's such a pain in the butt that it's almost impossible to use and even some well-intentioned things like uh Google's takeout feature really impressive you can get everything from your Google account out um but you know when I do that which I I do a couple times a year to analyze some of the data um it takes like you know 24 to 48 hours to generate like there's this I'm like hm I could just scroll on this page and kind of extract it from the HTML or I can press the export button they going to send it to me two days later like that makes it hard for Integrations there's no apis for a lot of these things um and It's Tricky um when there have been apis for some of these things for example Facebook used to have a ton of apis they actually got really attacked for it right because Cambridge analytica used it to gather a lot of data so data being open can also be abused so these are these are very tricky topics what I think is is not tricky at all is you accessing your own data and I believe every single person is a human right that all of us should have immediate standard format and uh open access to our own data on these Services yeah and where it doesn't exist we should write code to get it and that's the idea of data Liberation um because a lot of these companies aren't even bothering with malicious compliance they're just saying you know we're we're like a roach motel your data checks in it can never get out um and so that's what I want to do I want to develop just a completely open source set of things that can whether it Tak scraping or spidering or you know whatever it is to get your own data out and um and then that can be you can either go into WordPress or you know since WordPress is open itself that can then be a bridge to pretty much anything else that people want to do with it and I think that would be very powerful be incredible gift we could give to the open web at large and would sort of effectively increase user Freedom quite a bit so I introduced this in the state of the word in Madrid in December um it's started off a little slower than I would like um if you are a company looking for a way to increase your five to the Future contributions adopting one of these data Liberation projects um can be really incredible and it doesn't just need to be from other uh Services you know we something we kicked off at Work Camp us was actually all the learning LMS plugins getting some data compatibility for some of their common uh data uh and we basically got all or not all but I think almost all the big LMS is in the room in WordPress so even increasing compatibility within WordPress I think would be pretty darn neat so that's the plan it's kind of what Gutenberg did by the way so Gutenberg tried to create a common block format because we saw this user need around sort of page Builders and more Atomic editing and goodur tried to create a common format that it was easy to get things in out of into and out of so thank you for your question [Applause] thanks hello Mt uh my name is p and I'm originally from Poland and speaking about the uh old things that are keep recurring uh with within WordPress uh there is this um wordpress.com and wordpress.org uh issue uh or like division that only seasoned people within the community understand and um would it be possible to retire wordpress.com maybe uh replace it with like jetpack mean I don't work there right now so I guess no kidding I'm kidding and then just name wordpress.org you know as a one thing that body can uh you know misspell or uh confuse with anything else yeah there's a few layers to that first thank you for the question um and I wonder like was this like an original mistake when we setting all these things up um we've had competitors who told us it actually made us way harder to compete with WordPress as a whole um and then of course within the WordPress Community some people have liked it and some people haven't I think one of the things which is actually changing very rapidly which I know because I I've been reading the public blog of wordpress.com as you may have noticed they announced that their interface which previously was different from WP admin is now coming a lot closer so what this will mean is part of the confusion I think stemmed from like if you got a WordPress tutorial or watch something or you had a client sign up for wordpress.com for hosting which is I think great hosting they'd say like hey this button you said is there is actually over here or something or I can't find it and so unifying the interfaces more which means word coming basically back to WP admin I think helps some of that confusion quite quite a bit and then the name and as youall might know I'm a domain name at fish andado um as you can see on there I'm M.T I would legally change my name to that if it was allowed by my government but you're not allowed to have a dot in your name or a punctuation like that I think you have apostrophes but that would be kind of odd um for M um the the so we have w.org actually for WordPress and I find myself sometimes referring to it as w.org or Warg you know resistance isn't futile but resistance to Freedom is so that's a reference to the Borg on um on Star Trek but so work is kind of cool and that could be and it's just neat having a onlet domain name like almost no one has that um the other direction is we could keep wordpress.org is wordpress.org or WP work and move uh wordpress.com to wp.com which we have or I thought about like submitting like trying to get w.com it's never been issued so we'd have to like go through some sort of IAM process or something but I think we have a good argument for it so that's kind of all the things I'm considering please no one else go out and get w.com now but yeah uh without that it'd be kind of tricky too so I think we'll still continue to like survey customers see what's going on see how this next change with the interface sort of changes the the distance and in the community and if it helps particularly around tutorials education just everything being a lot more cross-compatible and um and go from there so that probably needs like six months to like sort of iron out see how the usage is and everything and also just confusion so we can do surveys and everything then after that definitely going to readdress this oh thank you I also know some SEO people are like no don't change your domain Yos is probably writing me a message right now um all right I think we had it down here that was next y'all have to help me track the order um so who was next was it you okay I think it was this one I think sorry third the gentleman in the black shirt and then okay next next so second do you have one over there on the side okay third and then all the way up there fourth does that sound good all right man we're going to get through a good amount of these this is awesome all right okay okay so hello Matt my name is try I'm from meala India and finally nice to meet you in person so my question is um you have uh I think back in 2014 or 15 you give the community to learn uh JavaScript deeply right so my question is like what will be the future of um WordPress in term of like development uh pring are we moving are we like more into the Java Script unless of PHP or is it will it go through like the same p as what what PR is going right now thank you thank you um yeah that was that was a fun a fun shift and I don't remember when it crossed over and someone can fact check this but I believe the majority of new code in WordPress is Javascript now and has been for some time so in many ways You could argue by what's the majority of activity happening um that Gutenberg has made us sort of a JavaScript for this project um and that shift was not easy a lot of people had to learn new things it was it was um I was very very very impressed the WordPress community did that um you know I said the learn deeply thing one other time do you know when it was yeah in Porto December 2022 or November sum summer 2022 anyways before chat chbt came out I said learn AI deeply so if you know where I think things are going that's where it is and that's probably doesn't mean that we're going to be able to run AI models like on $3 month shared hosting but I do think that we are all going to be using AI in our daily lives to augment our development find bugs fuzz things test improve everything from the code to the writing to the review times on the plug-in queue or whatever it is and so that's where I would encourage youall take that time that you put into the learning JavaScript to at least play with these tools every day if you can I don't remember all the numbers who yeah all right hey Matt Which Way ah there we go uh I'm Russell from Bangladesh uh I work as a marketer for a plug-in development company what I wanted to ask you is uh some features as a Content management system in WordPress are to be honest a little dated in terms of their architecture or in terms of their design and as a marketer there are some features that I need specifically to manage my content and manage my media so what those be do you mind sharing uh for instance uh the media library uh content does involve a lot of media so when I'm trying to manage media on my own website or on a client's website it becomes difficult to actually track with track it with the media library inside WordPress so I'll have to depend on third party plugins that will actually let me manage them so there are some basic features that I would say uh do should not actually require development from third party plugins that are that should be actually intuitively included in the CMS so I actually got involved into the core contribution and I started uh a ticket so that I the feature is integrated with thank you so but me that ticket later I'll check it out cuz I have my own wish list uh sure sure uh so my question is uh when you're actually implementing new features in core what's the line you draw between features that should be available as third party plugins and features that should be included in core ah wow that is a good question because I would say it's one of the hardest things we do in core and there is both an art and science to it so uh and I think I think we've gotten it wrong many many times where we brought some things in that we end up taking out later or moving into a Plugin or just deprecating entirely and I know for a fact there's many many areas media library would be a great one that um we could use a lot more like I would let me think what's on my media library last I actually so I have over 30,000 photos uploaded to M.T um because I used to you know carry a camera everywhere cuz I was really shy just so nor at a work Camp I just take like 150 photos and upload them all and so that added up really quickly over the years um so I have a lot of these actually like a large Media Company indexing it and actually back in the day had some really cool features that have regressed so for example I had a people tagging feature or and then a taxonomy for people it's part of why we developed custom taxonomies was my photo blog um there was indexing alt tags comments the metadata that we put in like the um what's the name of the the format exf metadata um so things I would love are being a reverse so being able to see which media is embedded in which post um almost like a that's the ticket oh thank you a round of applause for him that's awesome H what are the chances um I want to be able to do that I want to do way more sort of the idea of like the sort of the golden copy of things and then you can have different versions of it with different crops or or filters or or other things in different context um we don't have a good concept of that we're just creating new files for everything um we still don't handle heic files well at least with however my PHP is configured maybe that's a server issue but gosh I feel like we should be doing so much more processing on the client side and maybe even pushing some of that if I'm editing something maybe that's faster to do in the browser in the JavaScript which now have incredible virtual machines and really fast processors then it is trying to do that on the server side so uh those are some of the things on my mind around it and uh yeah some of the other stuff is probably still CDN stuff like jetpack Photon which does like the realtime resizing and everything like that like that's still a little tricky but um yeah so that would be some of my core media wish list if anyone from core is here we'll write it down thank you oh oh finally you said how do we decide um yeah I wish I could say it's just the things I like there's so many things I like that aren't in core so it's really it's a it's all in the tickets so it's that conversation usually we debate it um at our best you know people try to understand both sides of it coming in or not really really well I love the Charlie Munger thing where you should be able to argue your opponent's side of a debate just as well as you can argue your own or even better and uh use that to find like where it fits um I would say our balance that I think about is kind of what everyone needs but also how do you build what people are going to need um down the line and many times with WordPress you know we have some features built in that no one's asked for originally but now I consider them crucial to our integrity as a Content management system for example the revision system you'd be shocked at how many other content Management Systems you edit something and the old versions are gone so if you ever want to go back or know who edit it or anything like that they just don't have it the data does not exist so how can you be a true content management system if you don't have that at that point you're just like file editing without Version Control it's it's ridiculous so you can tell I judge content Management Systems a lot I I use them all so it's like I'm like wow I can't believe they don't have this so uh that's that's kind of how the thought process goes and I can't wait to see your argument for why they should go in core I might drop in a low plus one there thank you thanks okay hi m my name is Anand I am from India uh so last year me and Puja we were planning to attend word Camp Europe and she might have also told you just before the session that we couldn't attend because our Visa got rejected and that's not about us this happened with lot of people from India Nepal Bangladesh Pakistan especially from our region and there was a common reason uh because they doubted the authenticity of Visa letter issued by wcm Euro can you say that one more time there is is the issue there is the question about the authenticity of Visa letter that was issued by Work Camp Europe because the question is that the event was happening in Athens and the Visa letter was issued by organization that is registered in San Francisco so this is the common reason that we all got and and after at that time there was a lot of discussion on the slack also and the P2 post was also posted that there is need of having a registered organization in Europe as well so that this cannot happen in the future but still this year I can I have seen a such same communication same communication the slack few years few days back and the wcu slack that they are still ISS issuing the Visa letter from that part of India but that part of the world so it can still become tough for us to get a chance to experience the Work Camp Europe so can we do something about this I mean probably because now we have Work Camp Asia to get get the experience of wordcam Flagship work cam but still we want to explore that part of the world what is the experience of that word cam Europe and what US yeah so first I'll say even though I travel a lot um not an expert in visas uh and I've definitely experienced though where I like have to mail my passport off for a couple weeks or but usually they go through I haven't had one the nighted yet so the first thing I'll say is you know what they are loss how many awesome people that that country miss having and it uh which country was it h oh Athens Greece um yeah they missed out on tourism dollars they missed out on so much um two I would say that it's been really cool um here in Taiwan to have like some support from the government and I think we even had a congress person speaking the other day um who used to organize WordPress meetups so you know the thing you just described is kind of a common sense thing like there's a really good explanation for it and I totally get that maybe at some level of some bureaucracy someone felt like they couldn't make that decision but there's someone maybe a level or two higher that can say hey look at this these events happen every year all these years this is a contributor these are you know there's a million ways where I think you could easily justify um why it's a really good idea to issue Visa so we're Camp attendees um perhaps that could be something we consider you know before choosing a location in the future it looks like Joseph is going to say that we are uh do you want the mic hi it's still me I'm still josea oh thank you good um yes so this is something that we can certainly look at and we do look at when we're trying to decide what country what city to go to but also um we have a a crackerjack legal team at the at the old automatic place and so we can talk to them to see what options are available to us and and yes that's probably the best bet because I also am not an expert in visas well thank you Jose how can we also use the size and influence of our community to get these issues heard by the right people I don't know exactly who the right people are in some of these different places but I'm sure we can figure that out especially with the collective intelligence in this room and finally I will say you know do a Work Camp India I'll be there so get everyone trying to go to your [Laughter] [Applause] country some other people but is that about Work Camp India or I've been pushing so I don't know there's something in the middle we'll figure it [Laughter] out I think we're all the way over here right remember if y'all could help me track the order and this was the last one we chose right you were the fourth or was there anyone I chose after this okay next okay so first second okay let's see how about way up there let's start at the top one work we down third fourth fifth six okay so we'll start up there and then work our way down oh okay well well lightning round hi Matt this is prima from WP manage ninja um I'm from Bangladesh actually and I'm also organizing ing this event and thank you we had uh we had a successful Work Camp last year in Sate Bangladesh and this year we are also arranging a w Camp select and my question is that like we are arranging W camps but uh in our community the women participation is very less like they they do know about the community they know about what press 90% of women are educated about it but still they are dropping so what resource es currently do you have now so that I can Inspire so many more women from my community do you have any resources you want there like angelin hi everyone uh so oh my name is Angela Jin um yes hi um so wonderful question uh come join the community team we have a number of resources on our uh deib diversity Equity inclusion and belonging page and uh we will we absolutely want to uh help you with that so yeah okay youall ready for the lightning stuff okay start start up there top row yep yep what's that oh you don't have a mic well that would help thank you thank you for the opportunity I am ganga cfle from Nepal the most beautiful WordPress Community we have please uh oh I don't I can proudly say that and everyone was asking questions to Matt but I would like to thank him for making WordPress and making our living from WordPress thank you Matt thank you thank you hi Matt my name is Ahmed one of the organizers of wcam Asia 2024 since my esteem colleague didn't ask the question I'll take the opportunity I just I like this there's a plan that's right so Matt you've been to Taiwan there was W cam taiwwan 2023 but what came Asia happened first time in Taiwan I want to hear two takeaways that you got from this event thank you ah um you know I'll say first one I'm supposed to go quick uh so the first one I'll say is that I you know particularly from noes talk and sort of the talk around the plug-in ecosystem and everything I've been germinating a lot of ideas particularly how to change a WPA admin dashboard to make it a little more applike and allow launching into different experiences and I'm not sure yet how this is going to interact with the new admin redesign or or what so it's kind of in the different phase but it sort of also highlighted for me that our plug-in taxonomy that you can have kind of solo plugins Community plugins or commercial plugins is going to be really really critical to this and I think it's not well understood and I'd like to look at the numbers for how much it's being used right now and but how we present that in directories and essentially our version of the App Store and if there are things that we maybe even change with the with the termin techology of plugins to sort of recognize that maybe mainstream might be more familiar with the idea of kind of apps or modifications it's a little tricky because plugins do actually change WordPress you know they're not like their own separate things like on a smartphone where you're launching entirely new thing some of them are but many are not so and maybe that's something else we put in the taxonomy like is this something that's modifying existing WP admin screens is it integrating with them or is it kind of replacing that like it's it's a whole new thing you have a whole new section and how should that work navigation wise I think becomes very very interesting there could be a modality kind of like on Google where there's kind of like the nine dots on the top right and that that has like a little app launcher something like that could be kind of interesting um the second thing is that uh taipe um has it was too short and I don't think I can eat anymore the rest of the trip I've had beef noodles several times a variety of dings soup ding like I was like that was one of the things I'm a big foodie and wow wow uh ta has definitely delivered so thank you finally hi my uh my name is Sam I Am from Indonesia I want to ask you a question about Gutenberg um what do you feel about the current state Gutenberg so far and how do you plan to reduce the level of abstraction inside the kenberg because I feel that Gutenberg might be how you call like harder to contribute as uh you know like new developers thank you cool thank you and let me do a quick check um CU we started late can I have a little extra a little extra time since we started late yeah okay thank you I was here on time just kidding just kidding um Gutenberg uh the level obra I think the development honestly is something that you got to learn and I think that the way that Gutenberg does development and the JavaScript first is kind of the future of most web development so it is unfamiliar for me as well by the way it's not what I learned originally um and there are probably some abstractions that we could simplify but by and large um I would dive into it and uh please Avail yourself of uh the work camps the tutorials the other people in the channels like let's teach each other like so much of the learning in WordPress is peer-to-peer and I think you will find in the Gutenberg cour of bellber community a lot of um maybe even openness you could suggest like hey do you mind doing like a little zoom and showing me something or something like that it certainly it happens at work camps on developer and contributor days I'd love for that to happen more outside of our in-person events um in terms of how I feel about gudenberg you know I have the thing where I'm like the unhappiest WordPress user in the world so I do I I just you know when I use the software I I can see in my head where we're going to be and I just get so impatient for where we are right now you know when we started Gutenberg we said it was going to be a 10-year project and so it feels like we're that 60 to 70% of the way there um the collaboration is going to be huge I think there's a lot of interface things I think we could have better terminology or simplify some of the things that we have Dro down should maybe be radios there's there's just a lot in there that I think could be a lot more intuitive and more visual so that as you're changing things you're kind of seeing what it's going to change and you get kind of more of that like a tactile feel from interacting with the software in the blocks so that's what's on my mind for it thank you for the question in this section how are we doing okay but um hello uh uh finally it's really nice to meet you in person so this is to Islam I have a complete different question so before asking my question I would like to say that as a Muslim I stand with Israel so uh I I do have uh that specific question so you know I'm know if I'm going to answer any questions about that whole stuff is that the question uh the question uh the question is all about uh you know there are so many contents that are really dangerous for specific groups you know like uh uh what should I say it's all about anti semitism or you know prism something like that are you planning for any projects in the future to you know uh you know block those uh anti-Semitism and pro terrorism contents in the future especially there are so many people there are so the many group people they are going to buy some websites from wordpress.com you know uh it will be really really dangerous for specific uh you know group so I would love a great answer from you thank you so much thank you um so this is a moderation question I'm trying not to comment on moderation stuff anymore but this is a good one um so on wordpress.com all that sort of stuff there's whole trust and safety teams actually have a particularly on.com a really good record of you know there's there's some I think very reasonable rules and it's built a very good reputation over the past 18 years over addressing this type of content uh when it does pop up um things against groups whether that's anti-Semitism or anti-muslim or all the antis that are represent the the Lesser angers of our nature um in terms of within WordPress you know we don't have a a team on wordpress.org but also it doesn't come up very much because it's mostly just discussion about the software but the volunteers do take things down immediately when there's something that is out of line with our community guidelines and finally I'll just say that open source and particularly the guidelines and Norms of our community are very very inclusive it's one of my things I'm most proud of especially when I look around the room seeing folks from all over the world coming together United by a common vision and even competitors you know maybe commercial competitors or places where sometimes countries or leaders of countries are disagreeing with each other the people are coming together um to create something that belongs to all of us it's open source so it really belongs to humanity and that sort of prumm stance you know especially in a world where there's so much stuff which is frustrating or confusing or like driving me crazy I'm sure many of yall it's nice to be involved with something where we can um all work together so and there's a is there a crook or has a Kirk more question okay one more question from me actually oh if that's I'm so sorry to the folks up there uh if you uh like send it to me uh tweet me the question or leave a comment on my blog and I'll answer it so those uh three folks right there so state of the word uh this past year was for the first time outside of the United States and I'm curious if you have any plans for this year where it might be H what is what are the suggestions India I do like that I I got to admit though this might be someplace where I just was right before this so I'm proud to announce that state of the word uh for 2024 will be in Tokyo so on December 16th 2024 um I think we're actually going to have a couple hundred seats in there so like say what's the capacity 250 or 350 in the theater3 perfect so I'd love to see some of you there I just got back from Tokyo it's one of the most amazing cities in the world on so many levels we have this beautiful venue at like the top of a building and then we'll do like a fun thing afterwards in art gallery so um can't wait to see some of you there this is going to be a very exciting state of the word because more stuff is happening in 2024 in a very very long time and with that I just want to say thank you to every single person in this room because you are what makes WordPress so let's keep making it together and I believe the organizing crew is coming on now right all right see [Applause] you go, WordCamp Asia 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A, WordPress, 01hrpsz4knzcckqmvm9mwm9548.