Naming is hard—but important

Photo of author
Dan Knauss
This is an important topic that came out of a Post Status Slack #security discussion involving Robert Rowley and John James Jacoby: WordPress Terminology Meta. It continued over at the WPwatercooler.

Design and Development News for the Week of October 31

Photo of author
Daniel Schutzsmith
Missing Menu Items • Farewell PHP 7.4 • I Didn’t Know You Could Do That in the Block Editor • Why is Your Computer Cosplaying as a PDP-11? • Effective Writing for Devs • The State of CSS • The Swiss Army Knife of Website Tools: Website Toolkit

A Visit from the Good Idea Fairy

Photo of author
Dan Knauss
Building, Supporting, and Selling a Winning Product — With or Without WordPress.org • Are Active Install Counts Relevant to Your Business's Success? (Even if they are accurate? And they haven't been.) • Let's Fix What's Broken (The Plugin Repo) Not What Isn't (The Freemium Model) • Follow Leaders, Adopt Standards • Tools and expertise from rtCamp • Some great and "doable" ideas for the future of plugin business metrics on the .org repo. Could some of them help put an end to intrusive and manipulative dark patterns in the WordPress Admin dashboard and notifications?

Five takes on helpful plugin stats and insights

Photo of author
Dan Knauss
Good ideas for the future of data disclosed to plugin authors using the wordpress.org repository:

1) Identify surges of unhappy users reacting to a bad release — and the opposite, happier outcome.

2) Use pageview analytics to estimate total potential user interest and conversion rates.

3) Assess a plugin's performance with the .org search algorithm, the quality of releases, and plugin incompatibility as well as PHP compatibility issues.

4) Collect significant user behavior data anonymously without phoning home.

5) Just reveal all the raw data with privacy options for individual authors — no interpretive analysis on wordpress.org.

BONUS: Let's take this discussion somewhere else!

Post Status Excerpt (No. 70) — Trust and Distrust: Microaggressions, Active Install Growth Data for Plugins, and Open Source Security

Photo of author
Dan Knauss
In this episode of Post Status Excerpt, Dan and Ny take on three issues in the WordPress community that can threaten or impair trust while also revealing how foundational trust and healthy communication are: 1) racism and microaggressions, 2) the sudden removal and uncertain fate of the active install growth chart in the WordPress.org plugin repository, and 3) open source and security. Briefly discussed: emerging US federal policy that aims to secure open-source software. Zero-trust architecture might work well for networked machines, but human relationships and communities need trust.

Active Install Charts Removed from Plugin Repo

Photo of author
Dan Knauss
In reaction to as-yet-unpublicized details about the abuse of active install data in the WordPress.org plugin repository, the charts displaying that data have been removed from plugin pages in a move expected to be temporary. Important (and some familiar) questions are emerging as this story unfolds: how to balance the values of openness, security, and privacy as well as cooperation and competition at WordPress.org — still the central hub for WordPress plugin businesses.

Salary Transparency: Why Not?

Photo of author
Piccia Neri
On the Post Status job board, like many others, most of the WordPress employers who use it don’t include salary ranges on their job listings. Should they? Piccia Neri asked them all why they do or don't practice salary transparency. She also put the question to agencies, freelancers, the WordPress community, developers, and designers on Twitter. Find out what Piccia learned and why she thinks salary transparency should be a universal practice where it hasn't yet become a legal obligation.

Test New Page Cory 7.25.22

Photo of author
Cory Miller

The Professional Network of WordPress and the Open Web >> We Make The Web Join Us The Professional Network of WordPressWe have memberships for Individual Professionals, Agencies, Software, Hosting and Partners Join today! Featured Career Business Community Jobs Can't Keep…

Market Size and Market Shares: Thinking Bigger About the WordPress Economy

Photo of author
Dan Knauss
$635.5 billion…That’s "billion," with a “B.” Let's look at the size of the universe inhabited by our market of markets of cathedrals and bazaars: the WordPress ecosystem. How should we think about WordPress's market share or, maybe more accurately, its shares? Are we selling them short and dampening growth?

Post Status Excerpt (No. 62) — The Open Web Universe with Matt Mullenweg

Photo of author
Olivia Bisset
David and Olivia Bisset sat down for a chat with Matt Mullenweg about open source, Tumblr, and how Matt deals with negativity. Matt has three roles today: CEO of Tumblr, CEO of Automattic, and project lead for the next release of WordPress. He shares what went wrong with post formats and what he would love to acquire next if he could. The answer may (or may not) surprise you! Recorded shortly before WordCamp Europe 2022.
A2 Hosting
WordPress.com