Following the holiday shutdown of WordPress.org, some interesting conversations have been happening among leaders in the WordPress world.
As I summarized last week, an open letter from 20 anonymous signatories called for an end to Matt Mullenweg’s excessive control over critical project infrastructure, including websites, repositories, communication channels, and security tools.
Last Friday, the conversation broadened when both Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi published thoughtful posts on what that change might look like.
Joost called for (among other things) a move toward Federated and Independent Repositories (FAIR) as supplemental update sources as a way to take back the commons.
Karim emphasized the need to secure the supply chain and modernize the tech stack so that WordPress can become the Open Web’s operating system.
Joost and Karim plan to convene a group in mid-January to work on the initiatives that they described.
Government Websites Face Accessibility Hurdles as New Standards Loom
The study, published by the Web Almanac as part of the State of the Web 2024, shows the results of a Google Lighthouse scan on the home page and a secondary page.
The assumption of the study was that if accessibility problems exist on a state’s home page, they likely exist throughout the website.
Colorado lead the results at 96% compliance, with Vermont, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia achieving scores above 90%.
It’s important to note that automated scans like Google Lighthouse typically do not find all accessibility problems on a web page. Human testing is more thorough.
How does your agency think about accessibility? Are you positioned to capitalize on what is sure to be a growing demand for accessibility in the coming years?
