Big News
We, Marieke and I, are acquiring Post Status from Cory and Lindsey Miller. And we’re excited about this community and the history that has brought Post Status to where it is – a true staple of the WordPress community where thoughts flow freely, business is done, and mutual support is abundant.
I want to tell you about the plans we have for Post Status. Over the past few months, it’s become very clear that Post Status is an enormously important place for the community to come together and discuss all things WordPress. A place with light moderation, but also with true freedom of speech (within the boundaries of treating everyone with respect) and the freedom to have different opinions.
We want to enshrine those freedoms even more. That’s why we (Marieke and myself) will be buying Post Status from Cory and Lindsey, which is currently a for-profit LLC in Alabama. We have bought the brand, the Slack, the website and everything related to those, and transferred it to a foundation that we created in the Netherlands at the end of last year, called, aptly, Post Status. With that, Post Status will become a non-profit.
A proper non-profit needs a board of more than one, of course, with a diversity of opinions and backgrounds. For the speed of setting all this up, those board members needed to be European. I have found both Juliette Reinders Folmer and Karim Marucchi willing to join me on this board. I want to thank them for this, and I hope you all agree that it’s nice they’re willing to play this (uncompensated) role.
What are the plans?
We expect to reduce the prices for membership. We do want to get more sponsors on board to pay for our costs, mostly so we can turn this into a paid Slack again. Slack has a generous 85% discount for non-profits which we aim to take advantage of. We will also retain most of the team that has been working on Post Status, most visibly, Michelle Frechette, who will stay on as our Executive Director.
We might still do offline conferences and other things, but they will have to be paid for by sponsoring and ticket sales and might be organized by a separate entity.
Politics
While we have a clear no politics rule on Post Status, we do of course discuss WordPress and wider open source politics. While we individually have opinions and will share those, the Post Status foundation has no plans to take any political stance in these discussions. We want Post Status to be a safe place for all.
The Future of Post Status
The future of Post Status will be to build on the foundation first created by Brian Krogsgard, and further built by Cory and Lindsey. We welcome your thoughts and ideas.
Most importantly, we want to continue to be a place that provides opportunities to share ideas, business, and even frustrations.
Finally
That leaves me with one thing: thanking Cory Miller and Lindsey Miller for their stewardship of this community the last few years. The fact that we’re all still here, talking about WordPress, is no small feat.
If you’re interested in learning more about our new sponsorship opportunities, get in touch with me. I look forward to sharing more.
Congrats to all. I love the future plans. Very well laid out. 👏
Congrats Joost!
First of all, this is amazing news for the community. Thank you for doing this.
Now, this is more something for the foundation, but is it an idea to provide a bridge to a (closed) Discord and/or Matrix to lower the costs? I assume even with the 85% discount the costs for Slack must be quite high.
Indeed a very interesting future! Exciting years ahead!