In April, @matt wrote about reflection; how, after twenty years, WordPress is still growing, not just in code and contributors, but in responsibility. The Jubilee post invited us to pause and ask what kind of project we want to be for the next twenty.
One piece of that reflection was a review of accounts that had previously been banned from participating in our community spaces, including WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ and SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.. This review wasn’t done in isolation. It took collaboration across community teams and a shared commitment to fairness.
Any community as large and global as WordPress will at times feel the tension between openness and accountability. Processes don’t always hold up. Intentions don’t always translate into outcomes. And sometimes, we just get it wrong.
This review wasn’t about undoing everything. It was about restoring trust. Trust in the systems we use to moderate, and trust in the people behind them. Each account was considered in context and with care.
Most were reinstated. And a small number remain blocked, in cases where there were credible threats, harassment, or other actions that compromised the safety of others. In those moments, we choose safety. That’s not always the easiest choice, but it’s the right one.
What’s next
With this review now complete, I’d like to shift focus toward improving how we handle these situations going forward. That includes being more transparent when actions are taken, creating clear and consistent paths for appeal, and documenting decisions in ways that are easier to understand and easier to trust.
It might also be time to take a closer look at how responsibilities move through the project. In areas like moderation and community safety, is it time to establish clearer rotations? Rotating roles can help us avoid centralizing too much authority in any one place, and it guards against the single points of failure that open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. and communities should always aim to minimize. It’s a principle we trust in architecture. It applies equally to people and processes.
Bans and blocks aren’t a sign of failure. They’re part of maintaining a healthy space. But growth means we keep looking at how we apply them with care, with humility, and with a willingness to evolve.
If we continue to center empathy, transparency, and the shared goal of making WordPress better for everyone, we won’t just be stronger. We’ll be ready for whatever comes next.
Props to @jdembowski for help with this post
