EP462 – Summiting WordCamp US 2023

Episode Transcription

Speakers:
Sé Reed: 60.09%
Jason Tucker: 19.12%
Jason Cosper: 20.79%
Sé Reed:[00:00:00]
3, 2, 1.
Jason Tucker:[00:00:09]
This is episode number 462 Summiting WordCamp US 2023.
Sé Reed:[00:00:27]
I’m Sé Reed. I make WordPress teach WordPress speech. WordPress fly across the country to do WordPress stuff. I don’t know why, but
Jason Cosper:[00:00:34]
And you all know who it is. It’s your boy Jason Cosper, A K a Fat Mullenweg. Back at it again on the world’s most influential WordPress podcast.
speaking to those podcasts. Subscribe to them. We’d appreciate it, and hang out with us in our discord.
I.
Sé Reed:[00:00:49]
I need to chat in the Discord more about this sitch, what we’re doing. Hi, from Washington. Oh
Hello?
Sé Reed:[00:00:57]
Hi from Maryland. Sorry. Wherever the heck I
Wherever you are.
Sé Reed:[00:01:01]
Hi. From a little tourist trap town that was like literally built for hotels and conventions. That’s
Wow. That’s what it is, huh? Nice.
Sé Reed:[00:01:10]
it’s like wild. All the buildings, you know how like mixed use, like, you have like, um, like restaurants, you know, retail on the bottom, and then above you have apartments and people live there.
Oh, weird.
Sé Reed:[00:01:37]
I’m like that, that’s, this is a weird little manufactured city that we are in.
Uhhuh.
Sé Reed:[00:01:42]
Uhhuh. Wait, I gotta, I’m gonna
Did they rename the city, uh, WordPress Just for, just for this, uh, this occasion.
Sé Reed:[00:01:50]
Did what? Who?
Did, did they, did they rename it WordPress just for this occasion.
Sé Reed:[00:01:54]
No, we did not take over the whole town. Um, we haven’t even taken over this whole hotel. It is huge. Um, this, we are, it’s actually like a biodome. The Gaylord hotels are like enclosed, so there’s like, pretend outside. So like you’re in like, what feels like a, it’s like basically like a giant atrium, but it’s got like a glass ceiling.
No, it’s not surprising.
Sé Reed:[00:02:36]
It’s not surprising. Okay. I, I’m surprised by it because we all got an email that said, Hey, someone had covid. And I was like, oh, that means we’ll all be masking. It did not mean that everyone’s like hanging out in enclosed rooms and enclosed spaces and happy to just get covid, I guess, or whatever. I don’t know.
Wow.
I. I did not and did not plan on attending Word Camp us or the Community Summit. I did not even bother to apply to the community summit because I knew that nobody would still be taking covid seriously.
Sé Reed:[00:04:00]
Yeah. And there’s a new wave and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So there’s
there is, there is a new wave and, uh, there have been so many people on my timeline on the Fedi verse, like in group chats that I’m in locally here, uh, in Bakersfield and Central California, it is popping off.
Sé Reed:[00:04:27]
and like in a really
within the past like three weeks.
Sé Reed:[00:04:31]
Yeah. Mm-hmm. I had some clients who had it before I left. I didn’t see them in person. Um, I masked on the airplane, which was very uncomfortable, uh, for a red eye masking. Not fun, but I did it anyway. And I’m masking here, not in this hotel room, but hopefully, whatever.
Yeah.
Sé Reed:[00:04:52]
I was like, wow, someone already tested positive. That means they came here with Covid. That’s what, that, that’s what that means. They arrived with Covid.
how did contributor day go for you?
Sé Reed:[00:05:02]
Okay.
looks like it was eight 30. Eight 30 to five, right?
Sé Reed:[00:05:06]
day of Word camp, uh, US proper. And I feel like I have already done the conference. I’m done. It’s like I don’t need any of the rest of it. Um, I’ve been here since Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning was the first day of the community summit and the community summit.
Was Well, did they have, did they have a summit at, around one of the Word Camp Europe’s? I think this is, uh,
Sé Reed:[00:05:38]
Mm. It’s possible.
I think this is the first community summit since the one that they had in Philly, right?
Sé Reed:[00:05:45]
I don’t actually know, but I did go to that one in Philly, so that makes sense. I didn’t, didn’t go to that one, but I did go to that. That makes sense. Timeline wise, um, it was really interesting. You know, there’s a no attribution policy, so I won’t be saying anything that anyone said specifically. Um, but I, I do have a lot to say about it.
Oh.
Sé Reed:[00:06:28]
someone somewhere. Um, and oddly enough, that is a huge theme that came up for the community summit, is that people are making decisions somewhere and having discussions somewhere. But, um, not everyone is clear on where those things are. So the idea of the invisible conversations, the invisible decisions and the invisible work that is done on, um, on WordPress in general is, was a big topic.
Wow.
Sé Reed:[00:07:45]
Yeah. There’s, there’s one fo person who’s actually in the same, like it says, 40 hours for meta and marketing, and I’m in every meeting for both meta and marketing and they’re not there.
You know what, for 40, 40 hours, uh, no meetings. I mean, that, that just sounds like a personal preference to me. That just sounds like they’re not a
Sé Reed:[00:08:10]
but it’s async, they’re async meetings. Like, it’s not like you can, like, you know what I mean? It’s like you can go back and look at them. So like, there’s not. Really an excuse. ’cause if you don’t wanna like sit there on your computer and watch like GitHub issues roll by in Slack for an hour, I get it.
quiet, contributing
Sé Reed:[00:08:39]
I mean, they’re contributing. They’re contributing by virtue of the fact that they
instead of quiet, quitting. It’s quiet, contributing.
Sé Reed:[00:08:48]
I love it. Quiet. Contributing.
yeah, that’s, that’s what happens before people finally drop out of the project. They, they quiet, contribute.
Sé Reed:[00:08:58]
contribute. No, I, I think that it’s really about this invisible, like that was a big thing that I talked about a lot is like, We have these invisible processes, like processes where like people just kind of know what’s happening and like someone, someone tells someone else, and then that’s how they know.
Right.
Sé Reed:[00:10:02]
like someone came and just like, whoop and they’re out of there. And then my, uh, I like to talk, I did in fact sing this at, um, only a tiny bit, but I said, we don’t talk about Bruno. No, no, we didn’t talk about Bruno. No, I don’t wanna us get us a copyright
So what’s the, what’s the, off, what’s like the offload, the offboarding process for, for someone who’s doing this? Is there a way of knowing that’s happening
Sé Reed:[00:10:28]
it’s really funny that you say offboarding because that is a term that was really, um, kind of brought up and it seemed to be
mean I work in it. That’s onboard. Offboard is my, is my jam. That, that’s
Sé Reed:[00:10:39]
Yeah, I
are my two.
Sé Reed:[00:10:41]
there was, there was an excessive amount. Not excessive appropriate, but a lot like it, an appropriate amount of, a lot of talk about onboarding, onboarding, new contributors, onboarding sponsored contributors, onboarding, you know, just anyone.
delegating, and then the, and then cutting them off entirely so that way they are no longer contributing and no longer can do anything bad. Wow. That’s, that’s, that’s fun. That sounds like a
Sé Reed:[00:11:25]
in fact, I, so I’m, yeah, it’s, it’s like their projects are just like, no longer have a shepherd. It’s like all the sheep are, I mean, the sheep being like the projects, not people, but like, you know, the shepherd just suddenly like gone and it’s like just the sheep just wander off.
So, so these, these contributors are basically sent down the memory hole and right to, to borrow from 1984.
Sé Reed:[00:11:48]
Yeah, exactly. And you’re not supposed to talk about them and they’re like erased because they actually are, their document ownership and, uh, is, uh, turns into just a generic owner, like their name is
a mystery man. It’s just a mystery man avatar.
Sé Reed:[00:12:03]
cases it just is like, you know, the, the name of the company.
Wow.
Sé Reed:[00:12:07]
that’s weird. I’m pretty sure the company didn’t share it with me, but, okay,
So there’s like stubbed accounts for each of the contributing, um, uh, companies, and then they just swap out the person.
Sé Reed:[00:12:19]
Uh, I don’t know about all of the companies. I can only speak about one of the companies because that is the, one of the companies that fuels all of the sponsored contributors on my team,
very fun, huh?
Sé Reed:[00:12:31]
team. So,
We’re definitely gonna have to have a discussion about this, like, like,
Sé Reed:[00:12:35]
aren’t we having a discussion about it
yeah. But, but I don’t wanna take up the whole thing. I mean, there’s like an entire event that you went to and everything.
Sé Reed:[00:12:40]
the funny thing is,
Yeah.
Sé Reed:[00:12:43]
it was the same conversation I went to every single, every single I went, there was like four, four, uh, topics or whatever, and I went to all of them.
You literally work for hr,
Sé Reed:[00:14:34]
Yeah, I like got to say it to like a whole group of different people each time.
boy.
Sé Reed:[00:14:53]
uh, the, the real problem, and this was just underscored, just, just it, it, it is mind boggling how unanimously the new contributor experience is a cluster for everyone.
Have any of you worked for a company?
Sé Reed:[00:16:08]
about this? Please? Because we, we weren’t supposed to make any decisions. So it’s just conversation,
Wow.
Sé Reed:[00:16:16]
which I didn’t realize was gonna be as frustrating as it was.
it seems like the summit had a lot going on though. I mean,
Sé Reed:[00:16:22]
It had a
was tracks
Sé Reed:[00:16:25]
There’s track. Yeah, it was weird. But the, so they weren’t, the facilitators were not necess, were not, um, they didn’t present. Right. They read like the description. And then, so the setup was interesting. There are usually two note takers per session, and I’ll get back to those folks in a second.
Which is hard to do when no one else is talking because you’re, you’re essentially dominating the conversation. Yeah.
Sé Reed:[00:17:35]
and other people are talking, I can generally like curb my, my talking impulses, but if no one’s talking, I’m like, I, am I really raising my hand again? Oh, there it is. Hand’s going up. Like, ah,
you, can you tell me a little bit about like how, how a session works? Are you essentially showing up as the marketing, like one of the marketing people in the session and there’s other people in there too, or two?
Sé Reed:[00:17:58]
there was a lot, some facilitators, like one in one, they, they were very, the, the facilitators did their own thing for the most part. So in one session, Maybe it was ’cause it was a little smaller, but we went around the room and said who we were and you know, what we were, what we did in WordPress sort of deal.
Yeah, I’m just thinking like, be because of that, I, if you’re in a, like I’m reading some of the, some of the, um, the different, uh, topics for each of these.
Sé Reed:[00:19:16]
Yeah, pop it on so we can look at it. I’ll tell you as I
yeah. It’s just like, I, I’m just trying to think of like, how would you, um, go for it. Cost per while I’m doing this.
Uh, yeah, uh, I was gonna say, like, while, while Tucker’s getting that up, um, I, what I recall of, uh, attending, uh, a few of these community summits was that, um, usually, um, folks like Will. Circle up some chairs. They will, um, kind of all, uh, like collect, uh, in a way that usually traditionally, um, like puts no one at the center occasionally.
Sé Reed:[00:20:25]
Or like you guys go sit over there and talk about that, that you all wanna talk about, and now you guys go sit over there and you talk about that over there. Yeah.
But, but didn’t, it didn’t center anybody as like, leading the conversation. Even if there was a person who was there, like kind of going, okay, this is what we’re gonna talk about. Uh, and, and facilitating a little bit, but it didn’t necessarily mean that like they were where the, the buck stopped, uh,
Sé Reed:[00:20:55]
Right. Or that they were like, it, it, it, um, many of the facilitators were sponsored contributors and many of the facilitators were, you know, occasionally were project leadership. And there is, there’s a dynamic, I actually said this at one point, uh, to someone who’s, you know, there’s not a very small, it’s a pretty small project leadership, so it’s one of a few people.
Right?
Sé Reed:[00:23:27]
know, because it’s not a tra, it’s not a talk, it’s not like a really a session. But I don’t know what it was. My favorite topic,
Mm-hmm.
Sé Reed:[00:23:33]
was open source participation in global legislation.
Mm.
Sé Reed:[00:23:37]
And I was, I, I guess not shocked, um, that I actually ditched a second part.
Right.
Sé Reed:[00:24:30]
but I, I find it to be accurate in this. So I’d like to think that the positioning of this topic, for example, was not malicious or anything.
Yeah, so what I was asking earlier regarding, regarding the, the idea of having someone like yourself who’s representing the marketing team, if you went to, if you went to this one in particular, it’s like, can WordPress become the household name that it deserves it, that like, that one makes sense, like that one makes like, that one makes sense for marketing, but if, and, and it probably makes sense for somebody like Polly Gloss where that looks at it and goes like, okay, well, you know, uh, in this language you can say about, you can go about it this way, or in this language you can say about this way.
Sé Reed:[00:25:19]
didn’t go to that one,
showing up to this.
Sé Reed:[00:25:21]
That’s, that sounds like marketing. Um, right. But I went to the five for the future one because I think that sponsored contribution and five for the future is like, I’m not concerned about if WordPress has a strong, healthy contributor culture and is a strong and healthy project, it will be, it, it will continue to grow and be, you know, that you cannot develop WordPress into a household name, uh, that it deserves to be, by the way, is a really weird, like way to phrase that.
Maybe sustainability would be a good, a good group of people to show up to that.
Sé Reed:[00:25:56]
Yeah. I’m like, I, I would just go up there and be like, Hmm, what are our motivations here? Um, but, uh, I actually would, I, I think if you do not have a robust WordPress community supporting the, the community, the software, the, the process, the open source components, um, then it doesn’t matter if it’s a household name ’cause it’ll be like, you know, a household name that no one doesn’t matter.
What’s funny,
Sé Reed:[00:26:23]
too?
what’s funny is in between those or, or like right next to those two topics, uh, refining five to the future in a robust WordPress community, just to the other side of that building trust in WordPress, c m s plugin and security, that is something that I could absolutely see being valid for someone for marketing.
Sé Reed:[00:26:46]
all I.
both of those things could be combined into can WordPress become the household name It deserves to be because you are building trust, you are making a robust community. Like, take that, take that conversation in Woodrow Wilson, C right in the middle and throw it the fuck out
Sé Reed:[00:27:06]
that’s exactly how I felt about that session actually. Although apparently, um, I, some of the things that I heard were interesting. Um, uh, some of the sessions, I, I, you know, you hear secondhand, right? What happened in the session and no attributions, you’re like, kind of like here was the gist of it. Um, and, uh, I, I was like, someone will write down whatever ideas anyone comes up with in that, and then we can, you know, try to implement it in the marketing team with our sponsored contributor problems and our ineffective marketing and whatever we’ve got going on over here.
sounds like a wordpress.com problem, not a wordpress.org
was just absolutely about to
Oh,
that this, this sounds like an in, this sounds like an internal discussion that should be happening at automatic, even though automatic is not WordPress, and WordPress is not automatic.
Sé Reed:[00:28:11]
mean, look at the description. It’s not even like, sorry,
Right.
Sé Reed:[00:28:16]
I didn’t even look at the description. ’cause I was like, I don’t wanna be there. I don’t wanna, I do not want, I had friends that went to
The Internet’s best kept secret at at 43% market share bullshit.
yeah.
Sé Reed:[00:28:33]
um, it, you know,
by Blue Host and I wasn’t there so I can say it, but yeah. Facilitated by the Blue host guy.
Sé Reed:[00:28:40]
oh, I didn’t, I missed all that. What?
I mean, uh, Devin is the one that was facilitating, so
Sé Reed:[00:28:47]
Yeah, it’s uh, it was very much sponsored contributors facilitating and I don’t know if that is because,
that’s kind of
Sé Reed:[00:28:52]
many mathematicians, I don’t know if that’s because they were just like, we know that person will be there and consistent and you know, ’cause they’re there ’cause of their job. I don’t know. Uh, there’s definitely a dual culture.
yeah, like for instance, at my, at my work we, you know, I, I work at a nonprofit that has volunteers involved and has people that are paid involved. And, uh, our thing is, is like we can hire a volunteer who will like essentially work. You know, there every day, but we don’t pay them. But they’re also not allowed to be a, um, uh,
Sé Reed:[00:30:06]
how are we in overtime already? What the hell?
I know, right. But they’re also not allowed, they’re also not allowed to be someone’s boss as a volunteer. So, so I, I can, I can kind of see how this
Sé Reed:[00:30:19]
like the team rep that, I’m sorry, overtalk, that’s really interesting in terms of the team rep and the idea of leadership in the project, because there is this idea of can, um, you know, can someone who’s a volunteer who can in theory ditch out any time, um, Have these leadership roles.
You, you don’t find out until the email bounces.
Sé Reed:[00:30:48]
Yeah, exactly. Until your tags, your, your messages go unanswered for days or whatever. It’s like, or forever I
That’s where, that’s the offboarding side for me is the delegation and setting up a delegate for someone to pick up the emails and, uh,
Sé Reed:[00:31:01]
was a lot of talk, there was a lot of talk about off-boarding. There’s a lot of talk about, um, getting the folk like burnout. There’s a lot of talk about burnout, contribute, burnout. Um, there was a lot of talk about like, if you, like, how do we get the people who are before they burnout to communicate with the folks who are, you know, still there, not burning out, not leaving and um, before they’ve like, you know, dropped off the planet or whatever.
Yeah.
Sé Reed:[00:31:43]
I didn’t know was a problem I guess. But I’ve been around the community now for a really long time. You know, we’re about 11 years old, our show, right?
Divisive to them.
Sé Reed:[00:32:47]
Yeah, exactly. Divisive to them. They’re like, this is excluding me. It’s like, it’s not actually excluding you.
centering yourself, asshole.
Sé Reed:[00:32:56]
That’s a little different. Wow. You’re really fired up today, Cosper.
Yeah. Wow.
I will, I will say, um, just, just real quick, regarding the whole burnout thing, the, the topic of the word burnout on WordPress tv. Um, looking here, this is, this is not a new topic like at all. We may have called it something else before this, I don’t know. But there’s, there’s a lot of burnout.
Sé Reed:[00:33:25]
fascinating. Um, I had not thought about that. I, I like that a lot. Um,
There’s a lot of burnout.
Sé Reed:[00:33:30]
there’s a lot of burnout. Uh, and you know, a lot of the burnout comes from the fact that there, everyone’s trying to do these things and there’s no processes or there’s an invisible wall that they hit and they’re like, I don’t know where, why, I’m not sure why I can’t go past this, and no one will tell me why I can’t go past this.
We’ll have to, we’ll have to count the number of burnout posts
Sé Reed:[00:35:28]
oh my Lord,
so,
Sé Reed:[00:35:30]
freaking, we’re so burned out. We’re like a fire over
Yeah. Did they talk anything about the idea of a, like a thermometer or a way of, um, of, uh, putting a number, putting a value to one’s burnout? Was there anything like that?
Sé Reed:[00:35:47]
Uh, there’s actually a really cool conversation happening. Not, it was very prevalent at the summit, but it wasn’t, it didn’t come out of that. There’s a really interesting conversation about dashboards that are happening. So dashboards for teams that would. There’s no metrics for this. This is a problem.
but uh, I was waiting for you to say K p I, so I could take a drink.
the,
Sé Reed:[00:37:12]
I never say K P I, if I can help it.
The interesting thing about this and, and one of the reasons that I, I wished that, uh, I, I could have, uh, attended that, that I wish that I, I didn’t, uh, feel like I, I couldn’t attend because of, uh, the, the lack of precautions taken
Sé Reed:[00:37:31]
you are right to
uh,
Sé Reed:[00:37:32]
that, by the way, just so you know,
Yeah. Um, but one of, one of the things that I, uh, really have a hard time with is like, through work.
Sé Reed:[00:38:30]
You are invisible.
I, yeah, I’m invisible and every few months I get an email from the five for the future system going, are you really contributing?
Sé Reed:[00:38:44]
That email goes out no matter what. We actually talked about that in, in one of
Oh, that is
Sé Reed:[00:38:50]
didn’t know that existed. But that email is just a little ping email, which marketing of course has no, why would marketing ever look at any at email communication? That’s just bonkers.
it’s, and and the way it, the way it reads is it looks like you haven’t been doing anything. Have you been doing any, have you actually been
Oh no.
Sé Reed:[00:39:09]
Hmm, are you really doing anything?
Yeah.
Sé Reed:[00:39:13]
That’s
It’s terrible.
Get off your ass. That is bad.
Sé Reed:[00:39:18]
no way to measure it. There’s no way to prove you’re doing anything. Conversely, there’s no way to prove you’re not doing anything. So there’s a ton of people who are like, I’m contributing to all these themes.
the rationale, yeah, the rationale is, or rather, the default way of thinking is you’re not contributing enough. Instead of saying like, look at you contributing all over the
Sé Reed:[00:39:37]
Or, and, and again, this is, this is some wild radical talk, but what if it was like, how’s it going with your contribution?
or, Hey, thanks for contributing,
Sé Reed:[00:39:46]
Just like,
feels guilty that they didn’t contribute.
Sé Reed:[00:39:50]
and tell us what’s up? Like, has it been going well? Anything you need blockers on? Like, and this is some of the things we talked about.
Airing new grievances.
Sé Reed:[00:42:31]
Yeah. What was it? Airing of grievances,
Yep.
Sé Reed:[00:42:34]
Yeah. So it’s like an airing of your grievances, but like nothing happens after that. Like, can we solve the grievances?
Yeah.
Yeah. People’s,
Sé Reed:[00:44:12]
what’s happening there.
people’s feet need to be held to the fire.
Sé Reed:[00:44:17]
Yeah. Luckily I love holding feet to the fire. Like, I think it’s just a cozy way to live. I’ll hold the feet, make a nice fire, maybe get some marshmallows. I’ll be like, here are marshmallows and hot chocolate. But also your feet need to be right here. So
Uh, so
Sé Reed:[00:44:32]
closer? Little closer?
you, you, you said that you weren’t sure if people had been posting stuff. I, I see stuff on the make, uh, blog, the summit, uh,
Sé Reed:[00:44:43]
it’s there. Yeah. I didn’t know if it was up yet or not.
I mean, it’s not all there, but there are at least, uh, as of this recording two pages worth of, uh, various notes from, from different sessions and
Sé Reed:[00:44:56]
I gotta go check those out and leave some feedback
Yeah.
Sé Reed:[00:45:01]
and see what, I mean. I don’t, there’s not a format for the notes either, so there’s not a format for the notes, there’s no structure for follow up. So I am, um, there’s no, it’s not like a team has been appointed to like handle the follow-up word camp.
I was gonna say, why, why don’t, why don’t, uh, some of us, uh, either out there in the audience or here, like on the show today, uh, take it to ourselves to, to go, I’m gonna make sure that Tucker puts the, the summit stuff in the show notes. Like, go to the summit, leave feedback. Uh, if there is something in the notes that, uh, you don’t understand, uh, if the notes seem a little obtuse, ask for clarification.
Sé Reed:[00:46:29]
Yeah. I don’t know where the non attribution starts. Like, so can we say, you know, can we tag Joseph up in our comments and be like, what are your thoughts on this? Like, that’s not in the
I mean, we can,
Sé Reed:[00:46:38]
can we ask
we, we can, the, the people who took the notes can’t. Um, so I,
I didn’t go, so
Sé Reed:[00:46:47]
Right. So that gives you both an objectivity and an ability to, um, to, to, to, you know, we, we have no plan. We have nothing that’s happening like right after. I just, that I feel like that seems sort of essential. Like, everyone’s like, yes, we’re posting ’em on the blog. And I was just never able to get anyone to get past that because I always ask my question at the end, like of the session.
bunch of dead.
Sé Reed:[00:48:25]
And so it’s just without. When we don’t solve the solutions here, they are being, it’s the same thing with plugins, right? If you don’t solve the solution problem in core, the solutions exist in a plugin, and that same thing is happening with the problems in the community. If the problems in the community aren’t getting solved by the community, they’re now gonna be solved by third party people outside of the community.
Right, this, this, uh, this predilection to, to build a site to go off and, uh, build a, a plugin, a site, uh, some sort of like, it’s really prevalent in this community.
Sé Reed:[00:49:32]
Yeah. Turns out we
it’s really,
Sé Reed:[00:49:34]
It’s a thing,
yeah. Well, it, I mean, it, it falls. I, I know that I love to, to speak in, uh, cliches. Uh, so please take a drink if, if you’re, uh, if you’re watching and have something in hand, um, but I mean, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Sé Reed:[00:50:04]
I turn over
that’s
Sé Reed:[00:50:05]
a, I can build a website for that. Do you need a website for that? I can build a website.
Right.
are, are we just gonna do this like in, in Vatos forums or something? Is, is that what we’re doing here? Like, are we just like, you know, is there like a, I don’t know, just doesn’t make sense. I, I don’t, I don’t understand why you’d wanna do this elsewhere instead of inside WordPress.
Sé Reed:[00:50:24]
if the community summit is a representation of the community, which is its own conversation, uh, then the community
kinda scary too.
Sé Reed:[00:50:33]
are. The community is consistent. The community understands the problems. The problems have been well articulated by most of the people.
That was an expressed concern from somebody is that, oh, once we start commenting on, uh, relevant issues, we’re also gonna have to start commenting on irrelevant issues because that seems really fucking disingenuous.
Sé Reed:[00:53:38]
yes. That was a real, that was a real thing. I won’t attribute it. Um, but, uh, it, it was a real conversation. So, I
Wow.
Sé Reed:[00:53:45]
I, sadly that was the most, the end of that session was felt like the most productive because we did come up with, here’s, here’s what WordPresses Lane looks like. And it was just a list of suggestions.
is, is it? Is it time for a Gutenberg Community Summit?
Sé Reed:[00:56:35]
I think it, it, I think we need to like bring Gutenberg into the fold. I met some really great people from Open Verse and Open is, they characterized it as like kind of the, the, the lost sheep of the, of the world. They’re like kind of the odd, odd team out, uh, because they’re built in a totally different tech stack because it was an acquired thing.
a mixed use homeowners association is what it sounds like.
I, I would, I would argue that, uh, open versus too new to be lost and no disrespect to anybody on that team. Uh, but when you have projects like the Tide Project, uh, which did get a little bit of, uh, love and mention a allegedly, uh, in the hosting space for P H P compatibility, uh, I saw,
Sé Reed:[00:57:56]
about that even, oh my gosh.
right. Uh, I, I saw there was, yeah, I saw that there was discussion around that and, uh, was really excited that, uh, they’re talking about, uh, kind of bringing the Tide project back, something that has not seen love in years.
Sé Reed:[00:58:41]
Not sort of lackadaisical. Just absolutely lackadaisical.
Right.
Sé Reed:[00:58:46]
was confirmed. That has been confirmed this week by me. I, I am, it is lackadaisical. That is applicable.
that is, but I’m, yeah. What, what I’m, what I’m getting at is like, I, I understand, okay, like you feel like the outsiders a little bit, but like, there are some projects that are truly neglected.
Sé Reed:[00:59:07]
Yeah, they, they really are, they’re not neglected. They’re a fully sponsored team. They just don’t, they haven’t been like, brought into the community so they feel like, you know, they’re out here. I think Tide was a big part of a community and then just like withered, like didn’t get any love. And so it’s, I think that’s actually worse.
Right. The, the Tide project specifically was a Google project. Hey, wait a minute. A Google project abandoned the hell you say.
Wait, we’re, we’re in our Google reader age right here. This is awesome.
Yeah.
Ride the wave.
Sé Reed:[00:59:53]
I’m really hopeful. I hope that anyone who listens to this and made it through the entire hour, which, sorry, I didn’t, don’t even know how that happened. Um, I guess I had a lot to say. Uh, I hope that everyone goes and reads the summit summaries. Um, I hope that anyone who attends the summit or attended the summit goes and reads the summaries and comments and makes corrections.
I’m looking forward to hearing about that one
Sé Reed:[01:00:46]
day, but for example, I had a bunch of folks come down to the marketing table because, and I was like, Hey, they came a little later. I was like, oh yeah, we’re we’re designers.
hours not contributing.
Sé Reed:[01:01:23]
yeah, like it’s, so they came down to, to marketing and, um, it just, uh hmm. It, that, that is, that’s weird. Like, it’s just weird that no one stepped up at all. And design is another one of those teams that’s sort of like all sponsored contributors. So, um, if they don’t want. Participation. The best way is to just not be there.
Yeah. It, that’s, that’s Hanlon’s razor, by the way. I’ll make sure that that makes it into the show notes.
Sé Reed:[01:02:09]
uh, we can also, let’s also post in the show notes the, where I got that reference today, the article from which I got that reference, which everyone should read. We’re not talking about it, but you should read it. Okay.
Well, that’s it. You heard about what we’re gonna be talking about next week, so we’ll see you all there. Talk to you later. Bye-bye. Go on over

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EP462 – Summiting WordCamp US 2023

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