It’s been an intense week for the WordPress community. Jetpack’s search replacement for promotions has been a catalyst, but it’s not the root issue, in my mind.
There’s been an erosion of discourse in the community, and it needs to be fixed. At times, Post Status’s own Slack has been part of the problem.
Too many of us are forgetting that behind the various entities in our ecosystem, there are people. People who work hard, have good intentions and care for the WordPress project and the web more broadly.
There are plenty of opportunities for critique, concern, questioning, and discourse. But it’s imperative that we mutually respect one another and don’t discard the value individuals bring to the ecosystem — even when we disagree with decisions being made.
At times, I’ve failed as a moderator, and I’m sorry for that. We can all do better.
I made some changes in Slack, and I have more changes in how Post Status will fit into the broader community coming.
The #club channel in Slack is optional, and the general channel is #announcements only. I also did some other cleanup and reminded everyone of the community conduct policy (pinned in Slack).
Large open source communities like the WordPress one have many challenges. People have too often burned out and left when they feel like they are excluded or not heard.
I don’t know the best way to move forward as a broader community, but I know some of the things I can do to make Post Status more inclusive, more engaging, and more community-oriented — so that’s what I’ll do.
