Can we afford WordCamps?

On today’s podcast, we’re chatting about the increased cost of WordCamp travel & accommodation. With new proposals in the pipeline for shaping what WordCamps look like over the next few years, perhaps we’ll see a change.

Here are your most important WordPress news links of the week!

WordPress Confirms 8 Pilot Events to Launch the Next Generation of WordCamps in 2023 – WP Tavern

Important takeaways:

• In May 2023, WordPress’ Community Team announced a shift in the WordCamp format to promote adoption, training, and networking for professionals, focusing flagship events more on connection and inspiration.
• The team has generated 64 ideas with 59 organizers who are willing to follow up on their ideas.
• Eight pilot events have been confirmed and six of them will launch in 2023. These events offer a glimpse of what future events could look like.
• The first ever Low-Cost WordCamp is planned in Leipzig, Germany, for July 1, 2023. It will host 90 attendees and keep costs low with no swag, no social dinner, and no after party.
• In Sevilla, Spain, a “WordPress Day” is planned on July 2, 2023, with the focus on engaging 50 attendees in three different areas of contribution.
• The community in Tegal, Indonesia is planning a “Scale Up” Workshop for October 22, 2023, where 50 participants will join in a 1-day training event to expand their WordPress skills.
• Other approved pilot events for 2023 include a Rural event for small towns/villages, a WP for Publishers in Bangalore, and a Community Day in Rome, Italy.
• The Community Team is still accepting pilot events for 2023 and is also scheduling into 2024.

Link: Original Article

Finding Freedom and Opportunity With WordPress: How Wolf Bishop Overcame Prison and Addiction to Launch a Career – WP Tavern

Important takeaways:

• Timothy “Wolf” Bishop, who served time in prison for crimes related to a gambling addiction, credits WordPress for changing his life’s trajectory and helping him find stability.
• During his time in prison, Bishop started a blog as a form of self-therapy. He discovered WordPress thanks to a correctional officer who had her own blog.
• After his release from prison, Bishop faced the stigma of being a felon. Despite the challenges, he launched a career in WordPress after being offered a support role at InMotion Hosting.
• Bishop has since worked in various support roles and launched his own development and hosting companies. His current business, WP Octane, offers low-cost shared WordPress hosting.
• Bishop is working on launching a prison program to teach inmates WordPress skills. The program has received preliminary approval from the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Link: Original Article

State of Drupal presentation (June 2023) | Dries Buytaert

Important takeaways:

• Automattic, the main developer behind Gutenberg, provided full funding for a proposal to use Drupal Gutenberg towards the most easy-to-use enterprise CMS.
• Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, was excited about the idea of more Drupal sites using Gutenberg and offered to provide the full €20,000 in funding.
• Automattic will also be sending some Gutenberg experts to join the sprint at no cost to the Drupal community.

Link: Original Article

Why everything you know about your WordPress Malware Scanner is wrong

Here’s the summary of the second part of the article:

• The article challenges the conventional method of plugin-based malware scanning in WordPress, stating that it is flawed and conceptually impossible. The authors argue that malware scanning plugins can be manipulated by malware, making detection difficult or impossible in some cases.
• The article discusses two types of malware scanners: Local Scanning Plugins and Remote Scanning Plugins. Local Scanning Plugins operate directly on your WordPress website, performing all their functions on the server where the website is hosted. Examples include WordFence and NinjaScanner. Remote Scanning Plugins communicate between your WordPress site and a corresponding remote application. Examples include MalCare and Virusdie.
• The authors conclude by stating that a significant number of sites with popular security plugins installed get hacked, and the installed malware tampers with the security plugin files in a significant number of cases. They argue for a shift in security approaches to address these issues.

Link: Original Article

Sustainability Team • Supporting Organizations • Commercial & Community Themes & Plugins • Pattern Curation – Post Status

Important takeaways:

• The WordPress Sustainability Team has been launched with the main objective of embedding sustainable practices into the WordPress community and its processes, focusing on ensuring longevity socially, economically, and environmentally.
• Several organizations exist to support the work of WordPress, such as The WP Community Collective and HeroPress. A proposal has been made for a way of displaying such supporting organizations.
• New filter controls have been introduced for Themes and Plugins to distinguish between Commercial efforts and Community efforts.
• The Patterns Directory is considering using filters for displaying all patterns associated with a theme.
• The article also mentions various updates related to WordPress 6.3 and 6.4, WP-CLI releases, and other community, core, design, docs, hosting, meta, mobile, openverse, performance, plugins, polyglots, project, support, sustainability, test, theme, training, tutorials, online workshops, courses, and WPTV updates.

Link: Original Article

The Power of Community: A WordCamp Europe Sponsorship Story

Important takeaways:

• The author discusses the difficulty of calculating the return on investment (ROI) from sponsoring a WordCamp, noting that it’s practically impossible to determine a definite financial benefit. However, they emphasize that people don’t sponsor WordCamps for financial ROI, but for other benefits.
• Having a sponsorship booth raised Barn2’s profile in the community. For two days, people constantly approached the Barn2 team wanting to connect and learn more about them. This increased visibility is considered valuable, especially in the long term.
• The author is considering sponsoring WordCamp Europe next year and possibly WordCamp Asia too, despite the higher cost of sponsoring WordCamp US.
• The author emphasizes that sponsoring WordCamps is an opportunity to give back to the WordPress community, which is a huge benefit in itself.

Link: Original Article

Matt Medeiros

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Thursday, 22 Jun 2023

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Reading time:

7 mins

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