Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 11:57 pm on November 23, 2020
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Plugin Review Team Update: 23 Nov 2020

Today we mailed out the 5.6 ‘please update’ reminders. Just over 200 bounces and auto replies (combined) were received. Please double check the emails of your pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party committers. All emails for plugins are sent to the committers (NOT the support reps) and they are expected to be sent to developers. There must be no auto-replies.

Bounces are being closed this week, and auto-replies get one warning before they are closed.

  • Plugins requested : 169
  • Plugins rejected : 9
  • Plugins closed : 17
  • Plugins approved : 67

Plugin Queue Stats (current)

  • Plugins in the queue (new and pending)* : 702
  • → (older than 7 days ago)** : 607
  • → (2020-11-16 – 2020-11-23) : 73
  • → (new; not processed or replied to yet)* : 37
  • → (pending; replied to)* : 665

HelpScout Stats

  • Total Conversations: 336
  • New Conversations: 233
  • Customers: 291
  • Conversations per Day: 42
  • Busiest Day: Wednesday
  • Email Conversations: 233
  • Messages Received: 428
  • Replies Sent: 521
  • Emails Created: 151
  • Resolved: 200
  • Resolved on First Reply: 23%

#plugins

Estela Rueda 11:59 am on November 20, 2020  

Design team updates 11 November 2020

Since the last update, the team met on Wednesdays as per the usual time at 18:00 UTC. We had three weekly meetings, as well as CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ triage. You can read the meeting notes below

Next meetings coming up:

Triage Core/MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress./Gutenberg: Tuesday 16:00 UTC

The design meetings are on Wednesdays at 18.00 UTC.

Updates

#design-team

Stefanos Togoulidis 3:23 pm on November 17, 2020
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Mobile Team Update – November 17th

WordPress iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads. and Android version 16.2 is available for testing. Sign up here to join the betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. program on iOS or follow this link on your Android device, tap on Become a beta tester.

Highlights for the last two weeks:

  • BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. Editor: Big performance improvement on Android and various other fixes.
  • Full Site Editing: Fix for Android multiple image uploads, modal layout picker enhancements and fixes, and a theme color bug fix.
  • Other Projects: tackling some modernization aspects of the UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing., fixed a crash on iPad when tapping the Reader Detail menu button, and added categories to the pre-publishing bottom sheet.
  • Infrastructure: new iOS push notification system, screenshots automation improvements for Android, and iOS release automation tooling improvements.

#mobile

Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 12:56 am on November 17, 2020
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Plugin Review Team Status – 16 November 2020

PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party Status Change Stats

  • Plugins requested : 179
  • Plugins rejected : 7
  • Plugins closed : 43
  • Plugins approved : 64

Plugin Queue Stats (current)

  • Plugins in the queue (new and pending)* : 702
  • → (older than 7 days ago)** : 584
  • → (2020-11-09 – 2020-11-16) : 95
  • → (new; not processed or replied to yet)* : 42
  • → (pending; replied to)* : 660

HelpScout Stats

  • Total Conversations: 309
  • New Conversations: 217
  • Customers: 262
  • Conversations per Day: 38
  • Busiest Day: Wednesday
  • Email Conversations: 217
  • Messages Received: 356
  • Replies Sent: 440
  • Emails Created: 137
  • Resolved: 166
  • Resolved on First Reply: 29%

#plugins

Andrea Middleton 11:39 pm on November 16, 2020
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Discussion: Observations from the WordPress Contributor Survey results

The first WordPress Contributor Survey was conducted in 2015 (here’s the announcement post), but the results were never published. In 2019, an identical survey was conducted, with the survey translated into five languages other than English! The purpose of this post is to invite contributors to share their observations when they review the results of both surveys, as well as to discuss how contributor teams might apply these observations to make their work more effective. 

The purpose of the survey is to help WordPress contributor leadership establish contributor experience baselines so that the organization can observe how things change over time. The survey includes questions about team involvement, recognition, and event involvement; there is also a section about demographics, which helps us identify how diverse our contributor base is. 

Here are the 2015 and 2019 survey results.  Here’s the report in PDF and PPT formats, as well.

Differences in distributing the two surveys

In 2015, the survey was conducted separately from the WordPress annual survey and only offered in English. 234 people responded to the survey. 

In 2019, this survey was offered at the end of the WordPress annual survey. The survey was available in 6 languages: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and German. 368 people responded to the survey. 

Of the respondents who took the main survey in 2019, 14% say they contribute to the 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. WordPress project. 6% opted to participate in the Contributor survey.

General observations on contributor behavior 

The majority of WordPress contributors are unpaid/self-sponsored volunteers. Overall, most contributors remain happy with their contributor experience, though the proportion of contributors who are happy with their experience shows a slight 2-point decrease from 2015 (from 85% to 83%).

Since 2015, there is a notable increase in the number of contributors who feel consistently recognized for their contributions. Recognition from peers is still reported to be more important to contributors than recognition from other teams or project leadership.

Most contributions are made whenever people have time, which is consistent with responses from 2015. The majority of contributors still average 0-2 hours in a given week, but many teams have seen increases in contributors who are able to offer substantially more time (15+).

Aside from participating online, 64% of Contributors say they were part of a meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. organizing team. Speaking at a local meetup (54%) and attending a local meeting (51%) are also common activities among contributors.

Demographic observations

  • 60% of contributors say they make a living from WordPress.
  • Locations among contributors responding to the survey have shifted significantly across the globe. Europe’s engagement with the survey increased significantly, from representing 37% of the responses collected in 2015 to 46% in 2019. North America responses significantly decreased from 46% to 6% for this survey.  
  • Nearly half (47%) of the contributors say they are White/Caucasian, while 16% prefer not to answer the survey question about ethnicity.
  • The vast majority (80%) within the contributor community identify as male.
  • Nearly three-quarters (74%) of contributors say they are heterosexual/straight, and 12% prefer not to share their sexual orientation.
  • 39% of contributors are 30-39 years of age, while nearly one-quarter (24%) are aged 40-49. Less than one-quarter (23%) are under the age of 30.

Feedback and discussion! 

Thank you to all the contributors who have shared their feedback on the survey so far! I’ve been told that the questions about military service and political views (at least on a spectrum of liberal-conservative) aren’t meaningful to contributors in many parts of the world and appear US-centric. If there are any other questions that you think should be added or removed, please feel free to share them in a comment on this post. 

Apart from feedback about the survey itself, I’d also like to invite contributors to discuss the results that they found interesting and meaningful. Here are some questions to help frame that discussion:

  • Did any results surprise or disappoint you?
  • Does this demographic information match your observations? 
  • Are teams set up to welcome contributors with 0-2 hours per week, as well as contributors with 15+ hours to work? 

Please leave your thoughts on a comment on this post! 

#survey, #user-developer-survey

Courtney Engle Robertson 8:43 pm on November 13, 2020
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Training Team Update 13 November 2020

Hello from the Training team. It’s been quite a bit since our last post but much progress has happened. Our work is now live on Learn in a soft-launch stage, with props given to the 130+ contributors over our 7 years together.

What We’re Working On:

  • Small chunks of contribution opportunities:
  • Medium chunks of contribution opportunities:
  • Large chunks of contribution opportunities:
    • Coordinating with Community and MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. to restore functionality lost during GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ disconnect on Learn website.
      • Tracking contributions
      • A method to audit and stage content

After we complete the functionality needs and clean any findings from our recent content audit, we can open up to create additional lesson plans and accompanying materials.

#training

Francesca Marano 1:27 pm on November 10, 2020
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Core Team Update: October 2020

Current major releaseMajor Release A set of releases or versions having the same major version number may be collectively referred to as “X.Y” -- for example version 5.2.x to refer to versions 5.2, 5.2.1, and all other versions in the 5.2. (five dot two dot) branch of that software. Major Releases often are the introduction of new major features and functionality.: WordPress 5.6

The past month of October 2020 saw the WordPress 5.6 release cycle kick into high gear with weekly Betas.

You can read an update on the progress of the release and a note explaining why the widget screen will not ship in 5.6, after all.

Not included in the initial scope was the REST API Authentication, which was proposed and merged in October!

Minor Releases: 5.5.2 and 5.5.3

GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/

  • At the beginning of every month, planned tasks are posted. This is what was planned for October.
  • In October, Gutenberg 9.2 (the last version of the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party to go into WordPress 5.6)

New Default Theme: Twenty Twenty-One

At the end of September, the new default theme was introduced.

In October, work continued on tirelessly on it, to make it as accessible, performant and usable as possible. Meetings continued and a couple of test-scrubs were organised to test overall functionality, UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing., UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it., and Dark Mode.

PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. 8

Works continues to make WordPress CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. as compatible as possible with the next release of PHP 8, scheduled to be released few days before 5.6 is released.

A detailed call for testing has been published in the blog, with instructions. Deadline is November 17th.

Miscellaneous blog posts, updates, and discussions published in the Core Blog

The next update will be about November and it will be published in early December. We are committed to bringing Core updates to this blog 🙂

In the meantime, you can also check the Week In Core updates, which have been brought back today in the Core blog.

#core

Marius L. J. 3:13 am on November 10, 2020
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Support team – November 5th – Summary

In keeping with a previous post, to reduce noise the support updates are more sporadic, and posted when there’s actionable items outside of regular check-ins.

Headlines / Community updates

After some hearty discussions surrounding handling of support requests for commercial products on the 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/ forums, a set of guidelines for how moderators should respond to such topics was worked out.

This work spurred the now published Moderator Enforcement Guidelines, the goal of which is to ensure a unified response to scenarios that happen regularly, and make it easier to reference others to as well so they can see what the process is.

Open floor

We had a good discussion on how to get the forums more forum-like, there’s already a meta ticket for this (https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/4007), but it doesn’t quite hit all the right notes.
A post will follow with a proposal for how this could be approached, that would solidify their place as a forum, and also make discovery a bit easier.

#support

Ipstenu (Mika Epstein) 2:15 am on November 10, 2020
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Plugin Review Team Status: 09 Nov 2020

PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party Status Change Stats

  • Plugins requested : 165
  • Plugins rejected : 5
  • Plugins closed : 29
  • Plugins approved : 66

Plugin Queue Stats (current)

  • Plugins in the queue (new and pending)* : 656
  • → (older than 7 days ago)** : 560
  • → (2020-11-02 – 2020-11-09) : 65
  • → (new; not processed or replied to yet)* : 29
  • → (pending; replied to)* : 627

HelpScout Stats

  • Total Conversations: 296
  • New Conversations: 196
  • Customers: 261
  • Conversations per Day: 37
  • Busiest Day: Tuesday
  • Email Conversations: 196
  • Messages Received: 414
  • Replies Sent: 462
  • Emails Created: 115
  • Resolved: 172
  • Resolved on First Reply: 26%

#plugins

Estela Rueda 5:53 pm on November 3, 2020
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Design team updates 30 October 2020

Since the last update, the team met on Wednesdays as per the usual time at 18:00 UTC. We had two weekly meetings and a show & tell, as well as CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ triage. You can read the meeting notes below

Next meetings coming up:

Triage Core/MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress./Gutenberg: Tuesday 16:00 UTC

The design meetings are on Wednesdays at 18.00 UTC.

Updates

  • The #design team is looking into different ways to get more contributors involved and how to improve the way we communicate our participation.
  • There have been improvements in the blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. directory and the design team is looking for feedback.
  • We had a design focus session: how to design for Windows10 high contrast mode.

#design-team