WordCamp Europe 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A  ## Metadata - Author: [[WordPress]] - Full Title: WordCamp Europe 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [WordCampEurope2024, MattMullenweg, WordPress, Q&A, OpenSource] Author: [Transcript Author] Source: [WordCamp Europe 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxQ5yhsxig4) Reference: [YouTube Video Link] date created: 2024-09-12 15:00 --- # Title: WordCamp Europe 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A Highlights ## Table of Contents - [Introduction](#introduction) - [Key Questions Answered by Matt Mullenweg](#key-questions-answered-by-matt-mullenweg) - [Markdown Editing in WordPress](#markdown-editing-in-wordpress) - [Multilingual Features in WordPress](#multilingual-features-in-wordpress) - [Sustainability Dashboards](#sustainability-dashboards) - [Database Structure](#database-structure) - [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging](#deib-in-wordpress) - [WordPress AI and Automation Integration](#wordpress-ai-and-automation-integration) ### References - [WordCamp Europe 2024 Video Transcript](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxQ5yhsxig4) ## 📝 Summary: Matt Mullenweg engaged in a Q&A at WordCamp Europe 2024, discussing a range of topics, from the future of multilingual support in WordPress to sustainability dashboards for contributors. He also shared insights on the evolving role of AI in WordPress, potential improvements in the database structure, and the importance of building inclusive systems for contributors. ## 📖 Main Content: ### Markdown Editing in WordPress: Matt responded to a question about integrating Markdown into WordPress editing. He discussed using Gutenberg to make editing more accessible while ensuring that technical users can sync with GitHub for advanced control. The goal is to provide easy access for casual users while offering flexibility for developers. ### Multilingual Features in WordPress: A highly anticipated feature, multilingual support, was addressed by Matt. He emphasized the importance of community-driven plugins in the meantime but highlighted that official multilingual support (Phase 4 of Gutenberg) is still in the exploration phase, with no specific development start date yet. ### Sustainability Dashboards: Courtney Robertson asked about sustainability dashboards for contributors. Matt highlighted the need to ensure data integrity before public rollout. He acknowledged issues with gaming the system and stressed the importance of clean, trustworthy data for meaningful dashboards. ### Database Structure: In response to a query on modernizing WordPress's database, Matt argued that creating numerous custom tables could reduce performance and complicate integration. Instead, he suggested relying on existing tables and exploring performance improvements through technologies like SQLite. ### DEIB in WordPress: A contributor requested the formation of a formal Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) team. Matt supported the idea but emphasized that DEIB should be integrated across all teams rather than exist as a separate entity. He promised to review the proposal and provide further guidance. ### WordPress AI and Automation Integration: When asked about AI integration in WordPress, Matt mentioned the rapid developments in AI and how some future features may be embedded directly into operating systems and browsers. He recommended following Apple's recent announcements for insights into the future direction of AI in WordPress. ### 🗒️ Notes - **Markdown in WordPress**: GitHub integration may enable seamless editing for technical users, but the goal is broad accessibility through Gutenberg. - **Multilingual Features**: Still in early development; community plugins are the current solution. - **Sustainability Dashboards**: The focus is on ensuring accurate and trustworthy data before public exposure. - **Database Structure**: Matt favors using existing tables and relying on improvements in hardware performance. - **DEIB**: DEIB principles should be embedded in every WordPress team. - **AI and Automation**: AI features might be integrated into clients like operating systems, reducing the need for separate implementations. ## 📖 References: - [WordCamp Europe 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxQ5yhsxig4) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. **Original**: "I think new tables should be rare and special. Creating too many tables leads to inefficiencies in the database, complicating integrations." **Paraphrase**: Matt cautioned against the excessive creation of new database tables, noting that it can lead to performance issues and make integration more challenging. 2. **Original**: "AI will likely be integrated directly into browsers and operating systems, which means that WordPress won't need to do as much custom work on AI features." **Paraphrase**: Matt suggested that future AI tools will likely come pre-integrated into user environments like browsers and operating systems, reducing the need for WordPress-specific AI development. ## 📰 Newsletter: In this issue, we’re diving into some of the hottest updates from WordCamp Europe 2024, including Matt Mullenweg’s thoughts on the future of multilingual features in WordPress. While phase 4 of Gutenberg is still in the works, community plugins are filling the gap. Matt also shared insights on the evolving role of AI in WordPress and how new sustainability dashboards could help contributors. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue exploring new features! [Watch the full Q&A here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxQ5yhsxig4). ## ✅ Action Items: 1. **Contributor Engagement**: Leverage the evolving sustainability dashboards to better track and encourage open-source contributions. 2. **AI Exploration**: Follow recent AI developments in browsers and operating systems, exploring how these innovations can be incorporated into WordPress. 3. **Database Modernization**: Explore the potential for integrating SQLite into WordPress to address performance issues without overhauling database structure. 4. **DEIB Initiatives**: Work on embedding DEIB principles into WordPress teams and encourage broader community engagement. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: 1. If multilingual support is fully integrated into core, it may lead to increased adoption in non-English-speaking regions. 2. Enhanced sustainability dashboards will improve contributor engagement by providing more transparent tracking and rewards. 3. AI integration into WordPress could reduce development times for tasks like content creation and site optimization. ### 📊 Methodology: 1. Conduct surveys among contributors to assess engagement with sustainability dashboards. 2. Analyze performance metrics of sites using different database structures (e.g., SQLite vs. MySQL). 3. Test AI tools within WordPress to evaluate their impact on user efficiency. ### ❓ Questions: 1. How can WordPress balance performance with extensibility in the database? 2. What specific DEIB initiatives would benefit the contributor community most? 3. How will AI impact the average user's experience within WordPress? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Explore AI’s role in automating content generation within WordPress. - Investigate the most effective models for integrating multilingual support into core WordPress features. - Assess the impact of sustainability dashboards on long-term contributor retention. ### 💡 Implications: Future research could transform how WordPress handles database efficiency, internationalization, and AI-powered user tools. Improved sustainability dashboards may drive more consistent contributions, fostering a stronger, more diverse community. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: 1. **Visual Learners**: The use of diagrams or flowcharts could enhance understanding, especially when explaining database structures or AI integrations. 2. **Aural Learners**: Including audio summaries or podcasts for discussions on multilingual features and AI would aid auditory learners. 3. **Verbal Learners**: Expand on the content by adding more rich, descriptive text explaining concepts like sustainability dashboards. 4. **Kinesthetic Learners**: Providing interactive demonstrations or hands-on activities, such as testing out database changes, would support practical learners. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment - Document Tags: [[Matt Mullenweg]] [[WCEU]] [[wordpress]] - Summary: Matt Mullenweg answered questions about WordPress at WordCamp Europe 2024. He discussed making WordPress more accessible and improving core features. Matt also mentioned the importance of data integrity and community involvement in WordPress development. - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxQ5yhsxig4 we'll now go into questions and answers if you have any questions besides where word Camp is going to be next year uh please come to one of these microphones and I would be happy to answer [Applause] it or try to answer it so we'll start here first uh please say uh your name and quick question right uh hi there hi madam uh my question is this I have a prototype on my laptop right now you mentioned editing documentation should be as easy as click and start editing it so I have a prototype right now that takes markdown handbooks that WordPress uses and allows editing them in playground and then contributing a request back to GitHub my question was this uh you mentioned also re reviewing flows in WordPress all that do you see that more centered around Gap or wordpress.org in some way oh good question right cuz we're we're a pretty good content management system um it's a good question uh I think when I think about making this most accessible like I I mean my background is I'm an engineered and so I love GitHub I love code editors I love all those things I actually love markdown um and textile was another one uh from the early days of Wordpress from the text pattern program but I will say that if we want to make this accessible to as many people as possible the Gutenberg editor is just going to be Way Beyond and I'd be very excited with what we could start to integrate into it so for example again how do we create great feedback loops for everything so as you're editing something or writing something could we have like little you know llm giving you feedback on it um and what could we do with blocks you know so I I am very attracted to the kind of like committed all the GitHub we could even synchronize it I know we have some new two-way sync stuff going to and from WordPress and maybe we do that just to make it easy for both sides like we have the WordPress and then we sync it to to GitHub two-way and by the way that's just cool in general right uh so that might be the answer that satisfies both just like we kind of support get an SVN still um but I think that for the default when you click at it it should be good work so thank you and I can't wait to your prototype how about over here hello Matt thank you so much for your great presentation my name is Benjamin zavit and I'm in a CO part of the core team and I help the community team as a core Mentor uh this year I had the uh opportunity to be a design lead for the 6.5 update um last years um the multilingual uh functionality inside WordPress has been announced for several years um are there any plans on when the development will start and what features are expected for the initial release so yeah this is phase four of Gutenberg [Applause] which um not yet it's the easy answer so I would say I would love to see things to continue be it's explored in the plugin space including different data models and interaction models um that's the most important thing we have to to decide to really get this into core now that said we got a lot of collaboration which is phase three of Gooden birg to get well right and I've actually been sort of thinking about um maybe even personally leading like some iteration releases where we go back just to existing features go back to phase one go back to phase two and polish it and do some iterations on it because because I think um you know it can be very enticing in software to always move to the new functionality the new thing and uh I want to make sure that our core especially with all the new stuff we've introduced patterns block all this sort of stuff is just like really dialed and really intuitive really you know makes the simple things intuitive and the complex things possible uh I don't think we're at that standard yet right now and so um yeah I know in Europe you really really want the multilingual that's why I made made it phase 4 uh because I I knew it was so important but in the meantime the good news is that there are some excellent plugins including some I saw in the in this in the uh the sponsor area there that can solve this problem for our users and perhaps provide a good technical framework you know for what we do in the future thank you so much thank you hey Matt I'm Courtney Robertson with GoDaddy and I have this habit of asking asking you questions and then coming back a year later and let's like revisit the same thing so stats dashboards we spoke last about it during the Q&A here last year um the brief update is sustainability team is currently trialing some options and you mentioned feedback loops I want to get some feedback maybe now related to how teams organizations project leadership and also individual contributors be they sponsored unsponsored or those even just hobby contributors not wishing to be sponsored I've been doing a lot of talking and researching while we're here asking people what do you envision these dashboards to look like what's going to serve those four areas but I really would love to get some project leadership feedback loop maybe now about what kinds of data that you're looking for how would you implement that data um how would that improve contributions to word press in your perspective yeah so I'll H we're short on time so I'll say I'll say the quick thing that uh I want to fix or have to fix before we we do more of this that's blocking it is there's some gaming right now happening of some of our stat systems and uh not really at the low end but at the high end and so I really want to make sure we we root out all that spam uh before we make these systems used for trustworthy things so I feel like the data needs to be really trustworthy first before we start exposing it and that's part of why I turned some of it off because I was like oh this is actually not reflective of reality there's some there's some spam here or spammy behavior so uh we got to work on that when we feel like the data is high integrity um I think we'll be able to expose lots of different views and I'm very curious to see what you do with uh because I have some plugins that I'm curious to look at I also have some stuff I currently have access to at the back end that's kind of cool that I think we could make publicly accessible um but yeah love to hear the results of your kind of conversations with users so thank you all right let's go over here hi Matt my name is hendrik I want to make this short uh let's talk database for a second WP post and WP options have been our Rock for a lot of years now and uh we've seen in the past past uh few years several plugins uh go into their own data tables like vomer or Y um so when can you see like a way of core modernizing the database structure and make it more performant and uh more modern what do you think uh I would actually push back that creating lots of tables is more modern or more optimized um the I think it's one of the big advantages we have over like the cck system of Drupal or other things is that they get out of hand right people make a a database table for everything and then it makes it much harder to integrate different sorts of things that actually are the same they could all be in the WB post table for example um with things like commenting or search or indexing or filtering or so uh I think I think new tables should be rare and special um I also think that with you know part of me wanting sites to be more Dynamic is we need to bet on Mo's law so let's not forget that the speed of processors the transistors everything is doubling every 18 months and so you know what used to be a performance issue now fits into RAM on a $2 a month server and or we you can switch to SQL light as the database p in which we now officially support and all the performance issues go away or something like because it's only a gigabyte of data it's not like a terabyte so I think there's a lot that can happen in an automated way and actually I was having a really interesting discussion at the sort of VIP Enterprise meet up last night about things we could actually do to like maybe scan queries or or rewrite some things on the Fly uh either it's like object cache or other kind of ways that you know again you don't need to necessarily create the new table to fix it U Because by the way then when all the new table is like okay what are the indices what's happening with the table cache what there's so many things that happen um where it's not always the best optimization but I will then also say like talk to your doctor every site is different and you know one of my favorite aums of engineering is a profile before you optimize so uh we do this you know I showed some of that for Gutenberg whatever your project is that you're working on figure out a really good profile system or profiling way to run it against things uh because it's always humbling to learn like where the actual bottom necks are um and yeah I see you n so thank you thank you he how about over here hi my name is buret and I'm currently spare head of the dib working group last year at wamp Europe I proposed a formal dib team can we finally have a people and culture team to improve and be as a shared resource for all contributors I get us so often if we finally get some formal team that we can be more visible with our work well I'm happy to check out the proposal um I would say you know one thing that comes to mind is that that should be embedded to every every single team right it's part of our doing the mentorship programs it's part of like literally everything we do and so um I want it to H I don't want it to be just one team and so I'd love to have some feedback on like where it's doing well but I'll have to read your proposal I don't know if there's enough things contained in that question where I could say yes or no right now let's do a second one over here as well um because there's way more people on this side of the room than on this side so hey Matt Adam um I love the idea of uh blueprints for um the playground by the way in Drupal they call them recipes I like that name a lot oo um but I wonder what you think about the idea of having something similar in core itself uh well playground is kind of core itself itself what what would you mean by core itself I mean like I want to spin up an actual WordPress site not a playground temporary site but I'm starting building my site and I just want to start from a recipe yeah so in core I want to make it really easy to go between playground and core yeah I understand that part but I just meant like actually bringing that same system into core uh well think of it as maybe something that'll load in your browser in between yeah so it's not really like going out it's just like a an intermediate step that allow us to do a lot of cool stuff in that sort of virtual machine that would be a little trickier to do on a you know heterogeneous hosting environment on a remote server so um yeah but yeah totally that's all going to be in core and it's going to be kind of wild and also just imagine like every single host in the world could have like a bunch of these recipes by the way thank you druple that's a great name we'll give full credit uh that uh that sort of start things and so you know particularly as plugins you know the 60,000 plugins are creating such unique experiences so like you know start the Sensei recipe or the WB job manager or the you know whatever it is is like that create these like really unique things would be so cool um all right over here hey there Matt uh I'm Mato again with we met on the after party uh I'll be super super fast uh I hope again to to to see you also at this after party the the question for you today is this one so uh I'm now a a part of the of the Meetup organization team of of Milan we and I think that we are not alone uh we use a a wordpress.com uh platform to build our site but since we don't want to invest for now money or we don't have sponsors for now to cover that uh we use the free plan that's consider also advertisement and that's understandable for uh you know a site for someone but in case of a WordPress project why don't provide at least a way to delete advertisement and provide a bit more of freedom to uh the person um to to the to the to the people inside the WordPress project for building sites of about war press Meetup for example what do you think about that is Daniel here where's Daniel do you want to give a free Creator plan to every WordPress meet up all right there you go now you have [Applause] it and you get a sight and you get a sight and you get all right I'm going to go really quickly if we have five extra minutes because we just have I think four more questions so I'll try to get through these really quickly and then we'll we'll get the organizers on stage and you can hear where work Camp's going to be next year so let's do some quick ones to wrap it up hello hello yeah so hi Matt my name is Sumit Singh and I'm act I'm actively involved in the core team and training team and I have one question regarding the upcoming WordPress update so is there any integration of the AI or automation future plan in future update like you know all the other CMS platform already done like weeks squarep other so any update about the upcoming future on the WordPress AI things because everyone talking about the AI right now so my quick answer to AI stuff is check out the WWDC presentation for Monday um I think we're in kind of a a limal period right now where these are like remote apis you call and there's some cool stuff where you can run these mods models like on your own and servers and there's some small models that I actually run on device but now it it looks like the dominant UI for this is probably not going to be conversational or chat um and it will be embedded into browsers and operating systems in really really cool ways and I think Apple showed the most interesting version of that I've seen so far I can't wait to see what Google and Microsoft and what everyone else does with this and so I think some of these features that right now you would have to integrate with the proprietary service which obviously would would do in core will actually just kind of built be built into the clients we all use to access WordPress so um the operating systems and browsers uh so that that would be my quick answer to that thank you thank you it's awesome right over here great oh yeah hi M my n name is Jessica and I'm a developer at grade and I was yesterday at the speed building challenge on stage and my question for you is when will you do a speed building challenge oo [Applause] Jessica was that a challenge it felt like a challenge yes yes was is the gauntlet thrown all right let's do [Applause] one Matias you got to train me this will be fun and the cool thing about spe Bill and challenges that everyone wins because everyone watching it will get to learn from what we do or what we get stuck on like uh so thank you Jessica that was really fun oh there you are all right last question yeah a quick one for for the last question um toron from the German community my question is um if a plug-in is permanently closed there's no way to see it in the back end on the plugins page and this is a huge security issue I think so what do we do yeah we should fix that can we write that down yeah so thank you for the bug report you're welcome it's nice to put the bug in front of 3,000 people when I'm on stage to get it fixed quickly so we'll we'll see how fast we can get that ticket uh going um hey I've got I just want to say thank you Torino m [Applause] this has been amazing um the community is amazing you know I took a a short sabatical this year of a few months and I really really missed yall so it's so good to be back and I can't wait to see you later at the party bye-bye [Applause] [Music], WordCamp Europe 2024: Matt Mullenweg Q&A, WordPress, 01j1wgpj7ykxvtbz5cbrq50pvb.