WP Briefing: Episode 70: A Look Ahead at WordPress in 2024

Curious about WordPress’s big-picture items for 2024? Phase 3, Data Liberation, new meetups, and more, get the spotlight in this episode. Join Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy for all this, plus a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks.

Credits

Host: Josepha Haden Chomphosy
Editor: Dustin Hartzler
Logo: Javier Arce
Production: Brett McSherry
Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

Show Notes

• Real-Time Collaboration
• Make WordPress Core
• Data Liberation
• Make WordPress Plugins
• WordCamp Events
• Small List of Big Things
  • Overflow Questions from State of the Word 2023 in Madrid, Spain
  • Annual Meetup Survey – This is the final chance to share your feedback on WordPress meetups for 2024 and how we can improve the program in the future. 

Transcripts

Josepha: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the WordPress Briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go. 

(Intro music) 

Josepha: Hello, my dears, and welcome to 2024. I hope you’ve had a lovely break. At the top of the year, I like to look around and gather the projects that the community is interested in. We can’t always commit to everything, and sometimes even the things we plan to do can’t make it across the finish line. In the next few weeks, I’ll be publishing kind of the big picture goals for the year, but I wanted to share a little bit about what I’ve collected so far.

Josepha: Firstly, we’ve got Phase 3. This has been called a few things over the years: collaborative editing, multiplayer, co-editing. But whatever it’s been called, the biggest changes to writing and design workflows are likely to happen in this phase. A redesigned workflow can be a bit of a shock. But fortunately, we already have a prototype out there.

I’ll include a link to some resources in the show notes, or of course, you can always stop by make.WordPress.org/core for some insights. But I would encourage you to, at the very least, get your hands on that prototype to see what it looks like is coming in Phase 3 so that you can be aware and provide your feedback.

The next thing on our list is Data Liberation. This is a new-to-us project that was introduced at State of the Word. Fortunately, though, it’s not a new concept overall. Data Liberation is actually one of the earliest ideas that sold me on WordPress. The idea that you could set up a site for a client, or yourself, and that hard work wasn’t lost if something went wrong, was really important to me. It’s been a long time since we put any effort into our importers and exporters, and I think this will be a good focus for the year.

Josepha: The next thing that I’ve picked up, kind of a list of three things, but there are three mid-sized areas that I want us to pay attention to this year: plugins, old tickets, and new meetups. 

Plugins, because they really have turned a corner on where they ended 2023. A lot of work has been done to make sure that they’ve streamlined some efforts, gotten some better onboarding for folks as they’re going in, and we could really use a hand to keep that momentum going.

Old tickets, because it’s something that we hope for year after year when we’re talking to people about what they want in new releases. So often, part of what they say is some way to work through all of these old things that have been around forever, some with patches. And why not, after all?

And then new meetups, because I really still think that meetups are the best intro to WordPress. No matter whether you’re wanting to become a developer eventually or, like, the community-building aspect is the thing that hooks you forever. Meetups are the place to encourage those and discover those. 

Josepha: The next thing on my list is also two things. It’s two things, but kind of a guess at the moment. There are two summit items that I want us to try to consider this year.

So the first one is contributor recognition. Acknowledgment and recognition, I think, are two different things, and there was an entire series of sessions at the summit where we talked about it. And so I think that it’s worth us digging in on that.

The other thing from the summit that I would really like us to all kind of dig in on is accessibility, how we do it, how we confirm it, what we think we should do versus what we actually do, and see what we can move on the needle there.

And the last thing is sort of a personal wish. I think it’s about time that we take a look at the way that we kind of manage ourselves as a project, the way that we do our meetings and report on our successes, things like that. And I realize that this is a big thing, and it might be a little bit scary. But, I mean, we’ve been doing this for a really long time, and it’s probably as good a time as any, frankly, to look at what we’re doing by habit or tradition and see if it still suits us.

So, that’s my back of the napkin set of notes so far. Keep an eye out in the next couple of weeks for the annual Big Picture post so you can get some context, notes, and discussion opportunities. And, of course, anything that has shown up that’s a bit bigger, a bit more final will be in there as well. 

But first, our small list of big things.

(Music interlude) 

Josepha: Firstly, State of the Word had nearly 200 questions submitted, and Matt has been answering the overflow on make.WordPress.org/project. So, I’ll include a link, but head on over there to that post if you would like to catch up on those.

And then the second item, and last item, is that you’ve got a few more days left to give us feedback on WordPress meetups in 2023, and give us an idea of what we can do to improve those. I believe those close on January 14th. I really love my local meetup, and I hope that we can get some of that same sort of feeling going in all of yours, too.

Josepha: And that, my friends, is your small list of big things. Don’t forget to follow us on your favorite podcast app or subscribe directly on WordPress.org/news. You’ll get a friendly reminder whenever there’s a new episode. If you liked what you heard today, share it with a fellow WordPresser, or if you had questions about what you heard, you can share those with me at wpbriefing@WordPress.org.

I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Thanks again for tuning in for the WordPress Briefing, and I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks. 

(Music outro)