Full Site Editing Pre-Merge Overview

Full site editing is where the promise of 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/ gets proven—the technical aspects meet the philosophical aspects as a user-focused tool meant to empower the user to create, and express, and sustain themselves online. Community readiness should be higher for full site editing than for 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. editor, but there are known (and unknown) gaps in knowledge we still need to bridge. 

The following is an outline of the communication work needed in the pre-merge period for Phase 2 of the Gutenberg project. This will put us in a position to merge Full Site Editing later this year while raising awareness and increasing the skills of our community as we go.

Some Context for Where We Are

Phases of The Full Site Editing Project

  1. 2019 – Throughout 2019, Gutenberg project leads explored the necessary interactions and potential technical implementations of full site editing.
  2. 2020 – Early in 2020, technical leaders (Matias et al.) worked publically on full site editing based on the learnings from 2019.
  3. 2020 – Throughout 2020, CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. developers built and refined full site editing tools and interactions.
  4. 2021
    1. Jan 2021 – Josepha posted a proposed timeline for the merge to Core.
    2. Mar 2021 – WordPress 5.7 release and follow up iterations
    3. Apr 2021 – Go/no go dates (Apr 13, 27)
      1. If go – Jul 2021 full site editing in WP5.8
      2. If no go – Dec 2021 full site editing in WP5.9
    4. Apr/May 2021 (ASAP) – Finalize teams for WordPress 5.8
    5. Jul 2021 – WordPress 5.8 release and follow up iterations

Communication of This Project

As in the pre-merge time period for the block editor, there are four genres of content to provide:

  • Updates and progress content to WordPress contributors—all contributor teams including theme and 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 authors—so that there is confidence in the process.
    • WhereSlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/., Make network, 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//news/, social media, events
  • Training and explanation content to WordPress users—end users, agencies, theme authors, plugin developers—so that there is confidence in exploring full site editing.
    • Where – WordPress.org/news/, WP publications (newsletters, blogs, podcasts, etc), events
  • Aspirational and inspirational content to WordPress users’ and their clients—site maintainers, account executives, business owners—so that there is confidence in choosing full site editing.
    • Where – WordPress.org, WordPress.org/news/, events
  • Awareness raising and broadcast content to the WordPress users outside the contributor community—new users, users who aren’t aware of the community, etc—so that there is confidence in the choice of WordPress as a CMS.
    • Where – WordPress.org, WordPress.org/news/, events

The Communication Work Ahead

Who Communicates and What Do They Share?

We’ve got a lot of excellent voices ready to help us share important information, as well as many who can help promote and disseminate it. I want to make sure that we can identify which type of content is most important for each group to create or share. (Note that some people can/will float from group to group, depending on the context.)

  • Leadership
    • Who – Project lead, Executive Director, technical and product leads.
    • Message – Clarify the project’s North Star; the “why” behind the vision. Remind what we stand to gain, and the short-term wins.
  • Product
    • Who – Design, development, and others who are at the front of defining what blocks are and how they improve WordPress.
    • Message – Share what is changing. Remind what’s at the end of this journey, wayfinding footholds, and clarify where we are in the journey to Full Site Editing.
  • DevRel
    • Who – Community voices that developers look to for updates, training, and general Gutenberg insights.
    • Message – Training and awareness among our various developer communities, and testing/feedback between “co-developers”/users and product folks. Remind where we are in the journey to Full Site Editing.
  • Marketing
    • Who – Further the existing messaging with the tools and experience marketing folks can offer.
    • Message – Raising awareness about Full Site Editing.

Known Challenges

Here are a few things that might make this communication more difficult. If you can think of other communication challenges (or solutions to the ones below), please share them in the comments!

  • We don’t have established communication channels with theme and plugin authors.
  • Communication on the Make network, Slack, and WordPress.org/news/ is only in English, and there are no established methods of translating non-English language feedback for Core designers and developers.