I haven’t been doing a great job blogging regularly so far this year. We’ve now passed the 40% mark of the calendar year, and I’m hoping to make up for that during the remaining 60% of the time. To get started, here are some thoughts on a few topics that have been on my mind over the course of the last week.
Attending and presenting at WordCamp Europe
I’m currently sitting in Terminal A of Boston Logan International Airport waiting for the first leg of my journey to attend WordCamp Europe in Basel, Switzerland. In addition to the obvious reasons to be excited (seeing friends, meeting new people, checking out what everyone in the community has been building), I’m also really happy with what my presentation has grown into and can’t wait to present it. It’s not just about the decision making frameworks Core Committers use, but also a reflection on the project’s foundational philosophies and how they’ve helped the project thrive.
There are several points in my speaker notes that have stuck with me. I plan to write some additional posts to explore deeper in the coming weeks!
If you’re unable to join in person, I’m including the live stream below.
WordPress reaches 22 years old
Last week was the 22nd birthday for the WordPress project. The first version of the software was released on May 27, 2003. While 22 is not as exciting as 21, I always enjoy reading the reflections from the community and seeing how the software we all help maintain has changed lives.
I first used WordPress around 2007, and received my first credit for contributing in 2013. This means I’ve now been a user of WordPress for over 80%, and a contributor for over 55% of the project’s lifespan.
Happy Birthday WordPress! 
New WordPress AI team
Also last week, a post was published to announce the formation of a new AI team for the project. I’m really looking forward to this team getting started. Initially, the stance of the Core team was to observe and wait for the needs to become more clear. But the time has come to explore taking action in some important areas. Specifically extensibility of the block editor, documentation, and ensuring any necessary internal functionality is available through APIs.
Near term, I think once some of these items have a plan to be addressed, what could make the most sense is several canonical AI plugins that integrate with different models or services similar to how importing site content works (WordPress, Tumblr, Movable Type/TypePad, etc. each have their own plugin).
If you have thoughts about the place AI has in the project, join the conversation in the #core-ai channel of the WordPress.org Slack!
Featured image credit: CC0 licensed photo by Nilo Velez from the WordPress Photo Directory.
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