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With WordCamp Europe 2023 in June, we feature Stefano Cassone, a web designer, photographer and volunteer translator, who believes his life has been transformed through WordPress and its community.

The People of WordPress series shares inspiring stories of how people’s lives can change for the better through WordPress and its global community of contributors.

Stefano has always been fascinated by the internet. His initial learning in the 1990s was through joining friends at a local pub where they could explore how websites were structured and learn to use chat software.

This led to Stefano creating websites for fun in 1998, and his first paid job was for the shop where he bought comics. He turned to content management systems (CMS) to speed up the creation process for sites, but found he needed more documentation to really understand their capabilities. Then he read a magazine article about WordPress, a CMS which was being used to make incredible blog sites, and was supported by an international community and documentation. Over time, Stefano started using that documentation to work on websites in Italian.

WordPress provides a life-changing turning point 

Stefano describes himself as an introvert. He found that WordPress helped him to work from home, to develop his skills and the quality of what he could produce, as well as build his self-confidence. 

A catalyst for the turning point in his life and career was the discovery of an area for events on the WordPress dashboard. On this page, he found a forthcoming local meetup in Rome. 

In November 2017, Stefano took the step to go along to this event, led by a curiosity of what he might discover and intrigued by how a software could be supported by a vast community. The topic at the event was on WP-CLI, a command line interface for WordPress. He recalled that he felt outside his comfort zone as he did not regard himself as a developer and at that point, had only used the software for simple jobs. He wondered whether using the software as his only CMS was going to be a long term option and if these meetups were suitable for him.

At the meetup, people were talking about a forthcoming event, called WordCamp Rome. Through his research, he saw that there was a lot of enthusiasm for this event. This intrigued him and he wondered if it would show him that he could have a career using the software after all.

Unfamiliar with WordCamps, Stefano found it difficult at first to know what he could go to and how to get involved, but he persevered and attended the event.

“The WordCamp was a great discovery: talks at all levels from basic to those for developers, advanced and very advanced. I was immediately struck by the enthusiasm of the volunteers. It was an environment where I felt very comfortable, so much so, that I asked myself how I could participate in some WordCamps.”

Stefano Cassone

From this event, Stefano was encouraged by those he met to consider applying as a volunteer for a future WordCamp.

There was also much talk at the event about ‘Slack’. It was new to Stefano, but with help from those attending, he signed up for the messaging tool Slack, used by the WordPress community. He was still unsure how he could contribute, and if he would be welcome.

Joining thousands of volunteer translators of WordPress

Stefano took the plunge and was excited to find there was a team called Polyglots. In this team, people from across the world translate the WordPress software into many different languages. He started with translating a theme he was using in his work. Little by little he became more interested in plugins and attended meetings with other translators. He offered his skills to translate into Italian themes and plugins in general and as his experience grew, he took on the volunteer role of a General Translation Editor. He also took care of the translation into Italian of the WordPress Core. More recently he has joined the group of translators for the HelpHub, which is part of the WordPress documentation system.

He said: “Participating in the WordPress Slack has helped me enormously: I’ve met a lot of people who I now call friends. Moreover, by translating, I learned a lot about how themes and plugins work.

“It’s a great way to contribute to WordPress, especially for someone like me who is not a developer. Translating also allows me to fully understand how WordPress works.”

“I always say that translating themes, plugins, and the Core software is the best way to learn WordPress, better than any course or book.”

Stefano Cassone

Sharing skills to support Open Source WordPress

Stefano’s growing commitment to the open source WordPress project was further boosted through his volunteering. He was a volunteer at WordCamp Rome 2018 and participated there in his first Contributor Day where he had the opportunity to translate the software with others. 

He was also able to bring his own hobbies and skills to help the project grow and reach others. One example was his passion for photography, and he volunteered as a photographer for many other events in Italy organized by the WordPress community. He said: “This commitment to the community also allows me to have fun: being a photographer means having the opportunity to walk around the halls and capture moments of the life of a WordCamp.” The more WordCamps he attended, the more he wanted to be part of and keep contributing to the wider WordPress community.

Contribution to WordPress is inspiring

When Stefano was asked to become an organizer for the WordPress meetup in Rome in October 2019, he knew he wanted to be part of reaching and supporting more people in his area. He faced challenges with finding venues, but a greater issue was to come: the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Spurred on by the Italian WordPress community as a whole, he was determined that the meetup was still needed. The regular event was transformed into an online meeting. He was able to gain help from people he had met as a volunteer to share their expertise with meetup attendees. 

The community in Italy also worked together to put on WordCamp Italia online. It brought together the organizers of previous meetups and WordCamps, and new contributors too. Stefano volunteered in both online editions of this camp, including being part of the social and communication team. He found it to not only be a fun experience but also one that helped him grow professionally and learn from so many others.

He went onto help restart the Rome WordPress meetup in-person meetings in May 2022 and was an organizer for the third WordCamp Rome and volunteering for camps in 2023.

What will WordPress bring you?

“Persona and professional growth and friendship” are some of the things they have brought Stefano. Contributing boosted his confidence and willingness to try new opportunities in his work. 

He said: “The best thing I got out of joining the WordPress community was the chance to collaborate with some people on a working basis and, I have to say, that was incredible. Being with many of them you have an incredible opportunity to grow in knowledge, you just have to be ready to learn. With WordPress you never stop learning.”

His top recommendation is: “Join your local meetup or think about organizing one, it will introduce you to an amazing world. Don’t be afraid to meet people at WordCamps and Contributor Days, because you will learn more there than in dozens of courses. Talk to people at those events and don’t worry. The WordPress community is inclusive so you’ll always feel welcome, and you will see enthusiasm like you’ve never seen at other IT events. Sign-up and get involved.”

Share the stories

Help share these stories of open source contributors and continue to grow the community. Meet more WordPressers in the People of WordPress series.

Contributors

Thanks to Stefano Cassone (@deadpool76) for sharing about his adventures in WordPress.

Thank you to Abha Thakor (@webcommsat), the late Surendra Thakor (@sthakor) and Meher Bala (@meher) for interviews, writing the feature and collaborating on images, to Chloe Bringmann (@cbringmann), Mark Smallman (@marks99), Nalini Thakor (@nalininonstopnewsuk), Mary Baum (@marybaum), and Maja Loncar (@majaloncar) for help with reviews.

The People of WordPress series thanks Josepha Haden (@chanthaboune) and Topher DeRosia (@topher1kenobe) for their support.

Our community team recently traveled to Bangkok, Thailand to meet with longtime WordPress.com customers Karin and Nok Phisolyabut. They’re the owners of Yarnnakarn, a small arts and crafts studio that specializes in telling stories through contemporary ceramic pieces.

Part of why we love this studio, in addition to their beautiful work, is because Yarnnakarn espouses a deep commitment to sustainability and supporting their community. They continuously explore and experiment with new techniques to reduce their impact on the environment, including working with local materials and craftspeople. Rather than focusing on uniformity and quantity, they seek beauty in the flaws and imperfections innate to each natural ingredient, creating truly unique pieces.

Yarnnakarn’s work can be found all over the world and we’re thrilled that WordPress.com has helped them in that journey. Watch the video below to tour their shop, hear their story, and find out how they use their website to grow their reach.

Visit WordPress.com/customers to get 30% off your first year of the Business plan, or click below:

Whether you want a simple blog that highlights recent posts, a visually stunning portfolio, or an online home for your small business, your website should be just as unique as you are. That’s why we’re excited to introduce a new site design tool that guides you through the process of creating a memorable custom homepage. 

Our designers have put together a library of hundreds of patterns, colors, and fonts that you can mix and match for whichever distinctive vibe you’re going for. 

Try it out today by clicking the button below:

Create your own design

When you create a new site at WordPress.com, you’ll now find the option to start from a Blank Canvas. This is where you become the designer (with a little help from us): We’ll guide you through decisions on layout, colors, fonts, and more. No matter your goals for your site, we have the building blocks to help you turn your creative vision into reality. 

Pick the perfect palette 

Paint your patterns with the click of a button, applying custom color palettes to your entire page via our global styles feature. Our simple tools allow you to take the artistic lead on your site. Are you Blueberry Sorbet? Midnight Citrus? Perhaps a moody Charcoal? We have dozens of colorful options to set a mood that works for you and your audience.

Find a fitting font

Whether something stately and classic or sleek and modern, the typeface you use sets the tone for everything you’re trying to do with your site. Our thoughtful and engaging one-click font pairings will have you feeling like an expert typographer in no time.

Edit with ease

Patterns? Check. Colors? Check. Fonts? Check. You’ve got the basics of your site set up. Now it’s time to harness the power of the Site Editor. Bring your page to life by adding images, content, products to sell, and more. As you get comfortable, continue to experiment by adding or removing patterns, playing with colors and fonts, and making your site look and feel exactly the way you want it to. 

Click below to get started with our DIY site assembler:

Learn more 

Need some extra help? Our new Quick Launch course will guide you through what to include on a compelling homepage, and how to tie it together with our new DIY design assembler. Additionally, here’s a few more resources to get you started with designing on WordPress.com:

• Create additional pages with Page Layouts
• Using block patterns
• Global styles
• Using the Site Editor

You did it and I think congratulations are in order! You, dear WordPress enthusiast, have helped WordPress thrive for the past 20 years. It’s an incredible accomplishment, and I couldn’t be more thankful.

Did you know: WordPress is seven years older than TikTok (2016), came four years before Tumblr (2007) and the first iPhone (2007), beat Facebook to market by about a year (2004), and is about five weeks older than Tesla (July 2003).

May 27, 2023, marks exactly 20 years since Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little forked b2/cafelog to create WordPress Version 0.70. Quite a bit has taken place in the past 20 years, and imagine how much more we can accomplish together in the next 20!

You can read about the first 20 years of WordPress in two parts:
Milestones: The Story of WordPress (2003 – 2013)
Building Blocks: The Evolution of WordPress (2013 – 2023)

Whether you celebrate at one of the 100+ meetup events, are strutting your stuff in some limited edition WP20 swag, or joining in a collective reflection on WordPress in your unique way on social media, WP20 is a celebration of you – the WordPress community.

A Common Legacy

As I scroll through the amazing photos and memories shared on social media of past WordCamps and meetups, I think about the people who got WordPress to where it is today. The thousands of contributors who patched bugs and tested new features; organized events and fostered community; or wrote documentation and translated strings — how those contributions paved the road we travel today. A road that allows more people across the globe to use WordPress and contribute to WordPress, advancing the mission of democratizing publishing and giving us a little more freedom in the world. To the giants on whose shoulders we stand, those unsung, tireless, and passionate committers working through long nights and longer weekends: all of WordPress thanks you!

The dedication to and support of open source software has and will continue to ensure that WordPress endures for another 20 years and beyond.

the freedom to build.
the freedom to change.
the freedom to share.

The more our community invests in itself and supports one another, the stronger WordPress and the open source software movement becomes. And WordPress benefits, not just the present community, but future generations of contributors, entrepreneurs, educators, and enterprises large and small alike.

A Shared Future

If the last two decades are any indication of what lies ahead, then wow, the opportunity to innovate, lead, and sustain a versatile publishing platform will be profound!

Looking ahead at the next few years, our community will navigate Gutenberg Phases 3 and 4 together, delivering features that bring easy collaboration and multillingual support directly into the software. These next steps for WordPress will ensure our legacy of creating useful, relevant, and reliable software remains strong while keeping in mind the core elements of our mission regarding accessibility, performance, and stability.

By renewing our emphasis on the Five for the Future program, and continuing to elevate our standing, we can make WordPress the household name it deserves to be. We can be more recognizable in known growth markets such as the enterprise and education sectors, but also every community beyond the open source and developer communities. Opportunity abounds!

When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

Clarissa Pinkola Estes

There is no time like the present to invest in the future of WordPress. The community is the greatest asset within the WordPress ecosystem. This means every WordPress user, from casual bloggers to enterprise extenders, is invited to rediscover all that our community means and does, and how each one of us can further our positive impact.

Through all our planning, both short- and long-term, we can ensure that WordPress never loses sight of its user. Each one of us individually, and together, can do our part to make WordPress better, just as we have done each day for the past 7,305 days.

On May 27, 2003, co-founders Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little announced that WordPress was available to the public. Their vision, as you can still read in their original post on WordPress.org, was to foster a means by which anyone could easily share and discuss their ideas with the world. 

What started as a humble open-source blogging platform is now the driving force behind over one-third of the internet’s most popular websites, including The New York Times, Salesforce, and Disney. But the non-profit WordPress project continues to further its mission of democratizing publishing for the entire world. Just as Version 0.7 was available as a free download under the General Public License (GPL) 20 years ago, WordPress remains free today — at Version 6.2 and counting. 

Automattic — the parent company of WordPress.com, Jetpack, Tumblr, and other web platforms and services — didn’t yet exist when Mike and Matt launched WordPress. But since its birth in 2005, the two organizations have worked hand in hand. Through the Five for the Future initiative, Automattic commits 5% of our company’s resources — including over 4,000 employee hours per week — to the open source WordPress project. In turn, we benefit from the amazing work they do in improving WordPress and ensuring the best possible experience for building and maintaining your website, no matter how small or large.  

It’s a symbiotic relationship for which we have a deep appreciation. The WordPress community often uses a saying that we love: “A rising tide lifts all boats.” A healthy and thriving WordPress project benefits all of us. 

So, to our friends in the WordPress open source community, we extend a heartfelt congratulations and thank you. Happy 20th anniversary! We can’t wait to see what the next two decades — and beyond — will bring. 

The WordPress.com team is always working on new design ideas to bring your website to life. Check out the latest themes in our library, featuring fresh options for startups, visual creators, minimalist bloggers, and more.

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Iotix

Looking for a great starting point for creating a business or startup website? Try lotix. It offers tailored templates and patterns, including a business landing page, blog, and pricing sections, to help you present yourself and your business more quickly and easily.

With Iotix, you can create a professional and polished website that reflects your brand to help you reach your target audience.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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Storia

Storia is a stunning visual story theme designed to showcase your creative work and engage your audience. With large featured images and a minimalist design, this theme allows your visual content to take center stage and tell a compelling story. With Premium styles, you assume a laid-back, contemplative, or excited mood, depending on your aesthetic.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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CTLG

CTLG is a free, responsive WordPress block theme specifically designed for creating lists, directories, and catalogs. It comes with a variety of predesigned templates and four distinct premium style variations. Its index template features a full-width header, followed by a right-aligned query loop where you can display blog posts or pages, and a simple full-width footer. Its post and page templates follow the same layout.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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Hey

Hey is a simple block theme made for personal blogging. The front page consists of only a few elements: a site logo, a heading, and a list of your three latest posts. On other pages, the site logo is smaller, so the content takes the main stage in a single column.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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Vetro

Vetro is a portfolio theme with wide-width layouts that allow for generous imagery and typography. Its simple pages are aligned left with ample right paddings and large content blocks to grant viewers focus on visuals and short paragraphs.

Click here to view a demo of this theme.

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To install any of the above themes, click the name of the theme you like, which brings you right to the installation page. Then click the “Activate this design” button. You can also click “Open live demo,” which brings up a clickable, scrollable version of the theme for you to preview.

Premium themes are free to use for those on a Premium plan or above, or can be purchased individually by those with free sites or Personal plans.

You can explore all of our themes by navigating to the “Themes” page, which is found under “Appearance” in the left-side menu of your WordPress.com dashboard. Or you can click below:

Join guest host Rich Tabor and WordPress Playground innovator Adam Zielinski as they discuss the capabilities and promise of WP Playground in episode 56 of the WordPress Briefing. Stay tuned for your small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks.

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

Host: Josepha Haden Chomphosy
Guests: Rich Tabor and Adam Zielinski
Editor: Dustin Hartzler
Logo: Javier Arce
Production: Brett McSherry and Nicholas Garofalo
Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

Show Notes

• WordPress Playground and the Playground Github repo
• WordCamp Gliwice
• WordCamp Europe 2023, Contributor Day, and WP Connect
• #meta-playground in the Making WordPress Slack
• ChatGPT
• WooCommerce
• CloudFest and Daniel Bachhuber
• The Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship for travel to WordCamp US 2023
• Find your closest location for a WordPress 20th Anniversary celebration
• Changes to the WCUS event for 2023

Transcript

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy Haden Chomphosy 00:00:00]

(Intro music)

Hello everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress Open Source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go.

(Intro continues)

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy Haden Chomphosy 00:00:40]

Today we’re gonna spend a little time talking about WP Playground. This is a project that debuted at State of the Word in December 2022, but it was demoed for me about a month prior in November.

I was, and remain, absolutely floored by the potential future applications, as well as the innovative thinking behind it. So I’ve invited a couple of excellent WordPress futurists to the show today so that we can listen in on their conversation.

Welcome guys.

[Rich Tabor 00:01:07]

Hey everyone, I’m Rich Tabor, and I’m here today with Adam Zielinski to talk about WordPress Playground. So for those of you who don’t know what WordPress Playground is, can you tell us a little bit more about it, Adam?

[Adam Zielinski 00:01:18]

Absolutely. WordPress Playground is WordPress that works in your browser like there’s no server with PHP or database like there’s just your browser and JavaScript, and you can run it in so many more places that we’ll all get to. For example, I just came back from WordCamp Gliwice, where on a Contributor Day, a couple of developers got set up with WordPress in just a couple of minutes, whereas normally, it can take hours to do that.

[Rich Tabor 00:01:44]

Yeah, that’s, that’s pretty impressive. Do you think that, particularly for WordCamps and other demo-type areas, this would be something that’s very useful? Or what do you think would be the other problems that could be solved with WordPress Playground?

[Adam Zielinski 00:01:55]

Playground solves one primary problem, and that is WordPress is pretty difficult to get started with. I’m not even talking about creating your website, but let’s say, someone told you there’s this WordPress thing that you should try. Well, you Google for it, and you find installation instructions, and there’s like three hours of work for you there.

So then maybe you’ll find a hosting company, and you have to pay some money. So with WordPress Playground, you can actually try it for free because there’s no cost to run it. It just runs on your device. If you’re a developer, and you want to start learning WordPress, normally you have to go through quite an extensive setup process, and there are some tools to make it easier, but maybe there’s still friction like you have to even own a computer, like a PC device or a Mac. Playground can run on your phone, and it can power interactive tutorials that you can use and just start learning there and there with zero setup.

Like if you work on a product team and someone asks you to test a code change, with Playground you can just click a link and test it with no infrastructure behind it. And if you’re a company creating a plugin, you can just show your plugin in a live demo to people. And this isn’t something many plugins are doing because it’s quite hard to get a live demo set up.

[Rich Tabor 00:03:12]

Ah, that’s pretty impressive. So, you know, amongst like tutorials, code changes for developer environments, the mobile application running, do you think that, since there’s such a wide brevity of ideas that WordPress Playground can kind of plug into, would this be more of a developer tool?

Is that right? Or is Playground more of a like a click and play-type application that can run anywhere and demo anything?

[Adam Zielinski 00:03:36]

I’d say it’s both, but it’s more transparent for the users. So there are a whole lot of things you can do with Playground as a developer, as I just mentioned. But who are you doing these things for? Well, some of them are for the users, as in live demos, or there’s a WordCamp Europe coming, and I know some people are doing workshops there. They are going to use Playground to get everyone set up. So now that’s, well, maybe a workshop that teaches you how to build a theme, for example, right? Now you can just get started without any setup process. So there’s both, it’s very useful for development teams, and it’s very useful for them to build stuff for the final users.

[Rich Tabor 00:04:21]

That’s great. I know you, and I have probably both been in the same scenario at WordCamps when you’re trying to get dev environments set up, and it takes, you know, the better half of the workshop to get to step one. So this is really gonna be interesting to see it, especially at WordCamp Europe, and to see it getting into action.

Are you planning on going to WordCamp Europe this year?

[Adam Zielinski 00:04:39]

Absolutely, I will have a table at Contributor Day, a WordPress Playground table. So yeah, everyone’s invited to come over. I’ll show you a lot of cool stuff. And then at WP Connect on Saturday at 10:00 AM, there will be a WordPress Playground session where you’ll be able to learn more and see some cool demos.

And this will be a conversational format, so we’ll just have a nice chat.

[Rich Tabor 00:05:01]

Super cool. So how else can people find out a little bit more info about Playground and perhaps even get involved and contribute to the project?

[Adam Zielinski 00:05:08]

There’s a developer.WordPress.org/playground website. There’s a link in a show notes where you’ll be able, like this is the perfect entry point to the entire rabbit hole of WordPress Playground.

There’s a quite a few projects under the WordPress Playground umbrella, and they all live in a single GitHub repository where you can just find any issue that interests if you want to contribute and just start contributing. Also, there’s a Slack channel in WordPress org space called #meta-playground, and I highly encourage everyone interested in coming over to say hi.

And probably one of the best places to ask questions and get acquainted with the community.

[Rich Tabor 00:05:54]

Oh, that’s great; I’m very intrigued about the project overall. I think that there’s an immense amount of potential, for WordPress Playground. Just last question here, like, where do you see the future of this project going? What is the most interesting application that hasn’t been done yet, or the things that are really gonna be the next level in unlocking Playground for everyone?

[Adam Zielinski 00:06:12]

There’s quite a few. Imagine being able to go to WordPress.org and have a WordPress demo right then and there without having to download anything. Then you customize it, and you have a button to host your website anywhere or just to download it.

Imagine having a live preview for all the themes and plugins in the directory and even in WordPress core, but these are sooner than later. Maybe like, let’s talk more grandiose, shall we? So there’s this term, 1 billion new users coming online in the next, like in the nearest future, and plenty of them doesn’t even own a desktop device. Maybe they have a mobile phone, maybe they have a tablet, maybe we’re talking about a young, prospective developer somewhere. And currently, if you don’t own a desktop device, you cannot contribute to the WordPress plugin ecosystem at all.

Like, we’re seeing more and more of creating themes with no code, which is really exciting. But you cannot build the plugin, really. Well, with WordPress Playground. Suddenly you can do development on a mobile device. So development tools and code editors and just the entire suite of things we use as the developers on our desktop of devices like this may come online and be available in your browser.

And if you’re on a train and you just have a phone with you, but you still want to learn, how to build a plugin, well, you’ll be able to do that. Furthermore, there’s a lot of exciting opportunities with ChatGPT, as in, well, here’s a WordPress running entirely on your device. So maybe if that’s connected to ChatGPT, you’ll be able to say, well, I like fish, or like, I want two columns and a photo of a racing car on top of it.

And because ChatGPT can output HTML, we connect the two, and suddenly, you can build a website entirely in your browser using natural language.

[Rich Tabor 00:08:20]

Man, that’s, that’s really interesting. It really does unlock the next, potentially the next like, wave of innovation in the WordPress experience, especially removing all the complications of getting set up and actually seeing what’s there. I think that it really could, be huge for users every day.

[Adam Zielinski 00:08:38]

Oh, here’s one more. So, edge computing is big lately, and it’s going to be bigger in the future. WordPress Playground runs on this new technology called Web Assembly, and it just happened so that a bunch of edge computing providers allows you to run web assembly on their gear. So imagine having WordPress running entirely in edge infrastructure with no centralized server.

Truly decentralized WordPress. It could be big for a well cost of operating, but also for speed, but also even further down in the future. Imagine downloading the actual, you know, even WordPress around time to your device and having the entire website on your phone. So then you know, you’re on a train, you enter a tunnel, but you can still browse that WooCommerce store and add things to your cart even though there is no range at all.

[Rich Tabor 00:09:32]

Wow, that’s, that’s pretty crazy. How far out there do you think something like that is?

[Adam Zielinski 00:09:37]

It’s hard to tell. I mean, technically, it is possible. There are a lot of challenges with regard to privacy, right? And data security for the edge computing case specifically. As for the development tools, there was a Cloud Fest hackathon earlier this year where I was with Daniel Bachhuber, also from Automattic, and we led this exciting project that brought the WordPress development environment into the browser using a couple of editors that are out there, and this is too much of an MVP for actual production use yet, but we got it working, and we build an actual plugin on a phone without internet access.

[Rich Tabor 00:10:19]

Wow. And that was just a hackathon, just hacking at it to see what you can get.

[Adam Zielinski 00:10:23]

Yeah, it was two and a half days.

[Rich Tabor 00:10:25]

Oh, that’s awesome. That’s really cool, man. Well, this has been quite a pleasure. Thanks, Adam, for chatting all about WordPress Playground. Folks, just be sure to check out developer.WordPress.org/playground to explore, experiment, and play with WordPress Playground.

This has been awesome, Adam.

[Adam Zielinski 00:10:43]

Thank you so much for having me, Rich.

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:10:45]

What a remarkable new way of working with and experiencing WordPress. I would love to be able to find ways across the project and ecosystem to help folks see what they’re getting into before they get into it, but also, who knows what the future holds for that project. Keep an eye on it.

(Musical interlude)

[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:11:10]

That brings us to our small list of big things happening right now in the WordPress project. The first one is that the Kim Parel Memorial Scholarship for WordCamp US 2023 is open, and applications for it are the WordPress Foundation will once again be offering that scholarship for Travel to WordCamp US.

It is for specifically for women in technology, women in the WordPress space. I’ll include a link to that in the show notes.

The second thing is WordPress’ 20th anniversary is still coming, as we heard in the last podcast.

So we have reached over 100 events that are scheduled on or around May 27th, which is WordPress’ launch date. There is still time to find your closest location and attend one of those events. And probably, there’s also time to pull together an event of your own. Head on over to wp20.WordPress.net if you would like to see events in your area.

And the third thing is WordCamp US 2023. I realize WordCamp Europe comes before that, but the programming team actually has a really interesting thing that they’re doing this year. They have some changes to the way that they are organizing the event and finding speakers for the event. But as always, they are working very hard to make sure it is an attendee-focused event.

I’m gonna include a link or two to some announcements that are really worthwhile there. Head on over to the podcast page to see those. And that, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Thanks again to my guests, and I’ll see y’all in a couple of weeks. 

WordPress 6.2.2 is now available!

The 6.2.2 minor release addresses 1 bug and 1 security issue. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 5.9 have also been updated.

WordPress 6.2.2 is a rapid response release to address a regression in 6.2.1 and further patch a vulnerability addressed in 6.2.1. The next major release will be version 6.3 planned for August 2023.

The update process will begin automatically if you have sites that support automatic background updates.

You can download WordPress 6.2.2 from WordPress.org or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates,” and click “Update Now.”

For more information on this release, please visit the HelpHub site.

Security updates included in this release

The security team would like to thank the following people for responsibly reporting vulnerabilities and allowing them to be fixed in this release. 

• Block themes parsing shortcodes in user-generated data; thanks to Liam Gladdy of WP Engine for reporting this issue.

The issue above was originally patched in the 6.2.1 release, but needed further hardening here in 6.2.2. The Core team is thankful for the community in their response to 6.2.1 and collaboration on finding the best path forward for proper resolution in 6.2.2. The folks who worked on 6.2.2 are especially appreciative for everyone’s understanding while they worked asynchronously to get this out the door as quickly as possible.

Thank you to these WordPress contributors

This release was led by Jonathan Desrosiers.

WordPress 6.2.2 would not have been possible without the contributions of the following people. Their asynchronous coordination to deliver security fixes into a stable release is a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community.

Aaron Jorbin, Alex Concha, Anthony Burchell, Chloe Bringmann, chriscct7, Daniel Richards, David Baumwald, Ehtisham S., Greg Ziółkowski, Isabel Brison, Jb Audras, Jeffrey Paul, John Blackbourn, Jonathan Desrosiers, Josepha, Marius L. J., Matias Ventura, Mike Schroder, Peter Wilson, Riad Benguella, Robert Anderson, Ryan McCue, Samuel Wood (Otto), Scott Reilly, and Timothy Jacobs

How to contribute

To get involved in WordPress core development, head over to Trac, pick a ticket, and join the conversation in the #core and #6-3-release-leads channels. Need help? Check out the Core Contributor Handbook.

Thanks to @cbringmann, @davidbaumwald, @chanthaboune, @jeffpaul for proofreading.

In recent weeks, you may have seen a redesigned Stats page on your WordPress.com dashboard. This all-new Stats experience enhances your ability to analyze and optimize your site’s content. We’ve restructured the layout in a friendlier way, introduced new modules that reveal crucial data points, and revamped the overall look of this powerful analytics tool.

Let’s jump in and take a short tour! 

Go beyond the numbers

On the new Stats page, you’ll now see two tabs:

• Traffic: When you first click over to Stats, you’ll land on the Traffic page, which displays your site’s latest metrics. By navigating within the chart at the top, you can also focus on a specific week or month.
• Insights: This is where things get interesting, in our opinion. The Insights tab allows you to view and learn from long-term trends. This includes data about the most effective times/days to publish, your most popular posts/categories on an annual (or all-time) basis, visual overviews of your traffic and posting history, and more. 

Monitor trends and track cumulative stats

When checking stats, it’s easy to focus on the present and lose track of content performance over time. To help you take that longer-term view, we’ve pulled together “7 Day Highlights” to help you compare visitor interaction on a week-to-week basis, along with a year-in-review section that displays cumulative stats for the year.

You can also monitor lifetime statistics, as well as other interesting data points, by looking at “All-time highlight” on the Insights tab. 

Know your impact anytime and any place 

Everything on the Stats page has been optimized for mobile phones, tablets, large desktop monitors, and everything in between.

Having these numbers available across multiple platforms allows you to check on your latest posts’ data and traffic stats when and where it’s most convenient. 

A better Stats experience 

We believe that these changes will help you better understand how your website is performing and make data-driven decisions to grow your business. We hope you enjoy the new Stats page, and look forward to hearing your feedback. 

Check it out for free today at WordPress.com/stats or in the Jetpack mobile app.

WordPress 6.2.1 is now available!

This minor release features 20 bug fixes in Core and 10 bug fixes for the block editor. You can review a summary of the maintenance updates in this release by reading the Release Candidate announcement.

This release also features several security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. All versions since WordPress 4.1 have also been updated.

WordPress 6.2.1 is a short-cycle release. The next major release will be version 6.3 planned for August 2023.

If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically.

You can download WordPress 6.2.1 from WordPress.org, or visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”.

For more information on this release, please visit the HelpHub site.

Security updates included in this release

The security team would like to thank the following people for responsibly reporting vulnerabilities, and allowing them to be fixed in this release.

• Block themes parsing shortcodes in user generated data; thanks to Liam Gladdy of WP Engine for reporting this issue
• A CSRF issue updating attachment thumbnails; reported by John Blackbourn of the WordPress security team
• A flaw allowing XSS via open embed auto discovery; reported independently by Jakub Żoczek of Securitum and during a third party security audit
• Bypassing of KSES sanitization in block attributes for low privileged users; discovered during a third party security audit.
• A path traversal issue via translation files; reported independently by Ramuel Gall and during a third party security audit.

Thank you to these WordPress contributors

This release was led by Jb Audras, George Mamadashvili, Sergey Biryukov and Peter Wilson.

WordPress 6.2.1 would not have been possible without the contributions of the following people. Their asynchronous coordination to deliver maintenance and security fixes into a stable release is a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community.

Adam Silverstein, Aki Hamano, amin, Andrew Ozz, Andrew Serong, André, Ari Stathopoulos, Birgit Pauli-Haack, Chirag Rathod, Colin Stewart, Daniel Richards, David Baumwald, David Biňovec, Dennis Snell, devshagor, Dhrumil Kumbhani, Dominik Schilling, Ella, George Mamadashvili, Isabel Brison, Jb Audras, Joe Dolson, Joen A., John Blackbourn, Jonathan Desrosiers, JuanMa Garrido, Juliette Reinders Folmer, Kai Hao, Kailey (trepmal), Marc, Marine EVAIN, Matt Wiebe, Mukesh Panchal, nendeb, Nick Diego, nickpap, Nik Tsekouras, Pavan Patil, Peter Wilson, pouicpouic, Riad Benguella, Ryan Welcher, Scott Reilly, Sergey Biryukov, Stephen Bernhardt, tmatsuur, TobiasBg, Tonya Mork, Ugyen Dorji, Weston Ruter, and zieladam.

How to contribute

To get involved in WordPress core development, head over to Trac, pick a ticket, and join the conversation in the #core and #6-3-release-leads channels. Need help? Check out the Core Contributor Handbook.

Thanks to @sergeybiryukov for proofreading.