This week on WPwatercooler WCUS 2023 organizer Tom Finley joins us to delve deep into the current state and future of the WordPress community, focusing particularly on its governance, inclusivity, and ethical stances. Topics ranged from the role of Automattic and Matt Mullenweg in shaping the community, to the challenges faced by volunteer contributors feeling burnt out or marginalized. The panelists discussed the implications of hosting companies like Pantheon, which had been embroiled in a controversy over their stance on hosting hate group sites. They also talked about the need for transparency in decision-making processes, the power dynamics within the community, and the complexities of making ethical and philosophical choices as community members. The sentiment throughout the episode was one of existential crisis: a struggle to balance personal ethics with community ideals, weighed down by issues like control, contribution, and the potential for organizing independently of existing structures. The panel ended on an introspective note, questioning the efficacy of their own discussions in either contributing to or alleviating the ongoing crisis within the WordPress world.

More about Tom – Web, Biz, Mastodon

Links

• Interlude: Gutenberg Moves Fast
• Cost of Spam
• Withdrawing my workshop from HighEdWeb 2023
• Open Letter on Elevating Our Standards
• Discussion about the WordPress Annual Survey with Josepha Haden Chomphosy