The Month in WordPress – May 2022

WordPress has a lot to celebrate this month. The newest release “Arturo” is here. WordPress turned 19 years old last week. And WordCamp Europe, the first in-person flagship WordCamp in two years, is starting today in Porto, Portugal. Read on to learn more about these and other exciting news around WordPress!

Say hello to WordPress 6.0 “Arturo”

WordPress 6.0 “Arturo” was released on May 24, 2022. Named in honor of the Latin jazz musician Arturo O’Farrill, the awaited release brings more customization tools and numerous updates to make the site-building experience more intuitive.

Check out the WordPress 6.0 video and the announcement post for an overview of the most important changes. Interested in knowing more about the features that will help you build with and extend WordPress? Then the WordPress 6.0 Field Guide might be for you.

Over 500+ people in 58+ countries made WordPress 6.0 possible – Thank you!

Happy 19th birthday, WordPress!

Time flies, doesn’t it? Believe it or not, May 27 marked the 19th anniversary of WordPress’ first release! To celebrate, the community put together a special site (wp19.day) where contributors shared thoughts, videos, live shows, and more.

You can still join the fun using the hashtag #WP19Day on social media, or even contribute photos of the swag you used to celebrate to the WordPress Photo Directory.

New in Gutenberg

Two new versions of Gutenberg were released last month:

• Gutenberg 13.2 shipped on May 11, 2022, and brings a new API to save editor preferences on the server, visual guides for padding and margins, and improvements to the Comment block.
• Gutenberg 13.3 comes with a new Table of Contents block and a number of enhancements to existing blocks to provide more ways to display content, among other highlights. It was released on May 25, 2022.

Team updates: Five for the Future, guidelines for in-person regional WordCamps, and more

• Following an earlier discussion on in-person regional WordCamps, the Community team announced new guidelines for these WordPress events.
• The Five for the Future (5ftF) initiative is key to ensuring the future of the WordPress project. As part of the ongoing efforts to improve this initiative, Executive Director Josepha Haden suggested a definition for 5ftF pledges and contributions.
• Tonya Mork posted a summary of the core test stats for WordPress 6.0.
• The Meta and Theme Review teams shared an update on the work done over the past year to improve the theme review process. As a result, the average time for themes to be reviewed has decreased by 90%.
• Josepha Haden kicked off a discussion post to gather feedback on the Community Code of Conduct section of the new Contributor Handbook.
• On a similar note, the Community team created a new Incident Response Training. The course, which is live on Learn WordPress and considered a work in progress, addresses how WordPress contributors take and respond to code of conduct reports.
• The Training team published new lesson plans, workshops, courses, and Social Learning Spaces on Learn WordPress. See what’s new.
• The #WPDiversity working group organized several Allyship and Diverse Speaker Workshops in April. Attendees reported a 40% increase in public speaking confidence after attending the Speaker workshops. Stay tuned for the next events!
• A summary of the 14th testing call of the Full Site Editing (FSE) Outreach program – “Rallying Recipe Reviewers” was recently published.
• You can also find high-level feedback on the FSE Program in this May 2022 post.
• Learn more about the projects the Design team contributed to over the past month.
• Anne McCarthy hosted a Hallway Hangout to talk about various FSE pull requests and designs. The recording is available in this post. 
• The May editions of the Meetup Organizer Newsletter and the Polyglots Monthly Newsletter were published.
• The latest edition of People of WordPress features the story of Dee Teal.

Open feedback/testing calls

• The Core team is working on ​​an experimental pull request (PR) to implement fluid typography. They welcome feedback on design, functionality, and API.
• Version 20.0 of WordPress for Android and iOS is now available for testing.
• Were you involved in the WordPress 6.0 release? Take some time to reflect on what you learned and participate with your feedback in this retrospective.

WordCamp Europe is here!

• WordPress Foundation’s Kim Parsell Memorial Scholarship returns for WordCamp US 2022. Visit this post for more information.
• The WordCamp US Call for Sponsors is now open.
• Two more in-person WordCamps are happening this month:
  • WordCamp Warsaw, Poland on June 11-12, 2022
  • WordCamp Montclair, NJ, USA on June 25, 2022
• The WordPress community is meeting today at WordCamp Europe (June 2-4) in Porto, Portugal. This edition celebrates the return to in-person events and the 10th anniversary of WCEU. For everyone heading to Porto, have a great WordCamp!

Have a story that we could include in the next issue of The Month in WordPress? Let us know by filling out this form.

The following folks contributed to this Month in WordPress: @rmartinezduque, @laurlittle, @harishanker.