


<p><span>[00:12:55]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> No, because I didn&#8217;t thought that it was an event in India. It was a <span>[00:13:00]</span> global event online. So from the photos, from the photos team.</p>



<p>So this time is in India, maybe next time is another place. </p>



<p><span>[00:13:09]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right. That&#8217;s, that&#8217;s actually really good to know because. They tried to convey that it is, it is an international event for all the organizers are mostly from Kerala. Yes. And so </p>



<p><span>[00:13:19]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> they are been talking about the idea, you know, about making it, uh, more times in another hosting cities around the world.</p>



<p><span>[00:13:31]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. All right. Uh, and I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m sorry, you probably already said this. Where did you first see it?</p>



<p><span>[00:13:39]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> I don&#8217;t know. I think it was the photo channel on Slack. Okay. Yeah, probably was there. </p>



<p><span>[00:13:46]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Probably the first place they announced it. Um, so how many photos did you put in? </p>



<p><span>[00:13:54]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> I don&#8217;t remember. </p>



<p>It was a hundred something maybe?</p>



<p>No. No, no, no. No, <span>[00:14:00]</span> no, no. 80, 80 something. 83. Because the woman who won was 86. I was three photos, three photos behind her. Yeah. </p>



<p>Wow. </p>



<p><span>[00:14:13]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Okay. Um, that&#8217;s quite a lot. Uh, for those. Okay. Watching, listening, and unaware. You can only, only, only upload five at a time until they get moderated. And so you have to wait. And particularly during this event, the wait was really quite long most days because there were just so many to do.</p>



<p>Um, how did you manage to get so many through? Get up early in the morning or? </p>



<p><span>[00:14:42]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> No. Okay. Now that I, this is over, I can tell my secret. </p>



<p><span>[00:14:46]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yes. </p>



<p><span>[00:14:48]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> No. Uh, okay. Uh, actually it was a hack on, uh, you know, hacking in a good way. I consider myself, myself a hack, a hacker, uh, not by <span>[00:15:00]</span> the idea of the pirate that breaks things, but, uh, to find the loopholes, find the tricks behind things.</p>



<p>And, uh, when the event was presented, uh, one of the moderators, uh, sold us. How the moderation, uh, QA works, right? I don&#8217;t remember if it was Michelle, maybe it was Michelle. Uh, and she said that, uh, when she moderate photos, uh, uh, you choose one of the photos from the QA and then, uh, the system automatically, uh, select another one random for you.</p>



<p>Yes. So the trick is really easy is just to keep always five photos on the queue. Yes, because that way there&#8217;s more possibility of your photos get picked and moderated. Yep. And also they <span>[00:16:00]</span> say that the moderators have a problem because if the system flags an image, because it considers it violence, nudity, or whatever.</p>



<p>Uh, the photo gets on hold, uh, because a super moderators have to, uh, go there and review that and remove the flag. And it was, uh, it happened a lot with animals. So no photos for animals. So if you, yes, send no photos for animals and keep five photos all the time, it&#8217;s more </p>



<p><span>[00:16:34]</span> <strong>Hari:</strong> problem probable that your photos </p>



<p><span>[00:16:38]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> get approved.</p>



<p><span>[00:16:40]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s a good plan. Um, in the early days, I used to always keep five in the queue, but that&#8217;s because there are only three of us moderating and you can&#8217;t moderate your own. Well, </p>



<p><span>[00:16:52]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> those are not the early days. The early days were when, uh, Rocio Valdivia, uh, tell us, okay, we are <span>[00:17:00]</span> doing something new, </p>



<p>which is going to be.</p>



<p>A photo, something that they, they have sent me that they need photos. So you have been taking photos to WordCamp, so share, share that with us in this, uh, Google Drive album. </p>



<p><span>[00:17:17]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> That is a long time ago. Yeah. It&#8217;s been, it&#8217;s been years now, do you realize? </p>



<p><span>[00:17:22]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> Yeah. Yeah. I do now. </p>



<p><span>[00:17:25]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. Um, yeah. So. Uh, tell me about your photography, uh, do you have a, do you have a big camera or do you use a phone?</p>



<p><span>[00:17:37]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> I use several cameras, uh, I&#8217;m sorry. I&#8217;m a Sony shooter. I have been volunteering, volunteering as a photographer for a lot of work. Um, actually I work at my, uh, day job is as a developer and a translator. So this is more than a hobby, but you know, once you start going <span>[00:18:00]</span> to more and more work, you get a sponsor, you get a better year and you end up, uh, organizing the photography team or work on Europe, </p>



<p><span>[00:18:08]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> things happen.</p>



<p>There you are. </p>



<p><span>[00:18:13]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> And there goes your impostor, your impostor syndrome, because you have, there&#8217;s one point in which you have to review the application for the volunteers, and you have to, to vet people who has been working as a professional photographer. For the press for 20 years or for the New York times, the National Geographic.</p>



<p>And you say, okay, I have to tell this guy how he has to take photos in a WordCamp. Okay. </p>



<p><span>[00:18:39]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s funny. Uh, so you&#8217;ve been around WordPress for a while doing photo photography for a while. Um, I, I have a compliment for you. Um, another moderator was, we were talking about, um, I think kind of deal with <span>[00:19:00]</span> people submitting too many photos that were.</p>



<p>Against the rules and someone said, Oh, but not, you know, he knows what he&#8217;s done. </p>



<p><span>[00:19:09]</span> <strong>Hari:</strong> Yes, </p>



<p><span>[00:19:10]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> I actually take it a little personal when a photo of mine get rejected because, Oh, okay. That wasn&#8217;t, you cannot see the </p>



<p><span>[00:19:19]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> face. You would have approved it. </p>



<p><span>[00:19:25]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> I don&#8217;t know. I don&#8217;t know if I, if I, one time I&#8217;m on the other side, I don&#8217;t know what the decision would have taken in moments like that, but yes, </p>



<p><span>[00:19:34]</span> <strong>Hari:</strong> it hurts.</p>



<p>Yeah, </p>



<p><span>[00:19:37]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> I know what you mean. I gave up, uh, I don&#8217;t want to say caring. I gave up feeling the sting long ago. I have, I don&#8217;t know, I&#8217;ve, I&#8217;ve a couple dozen rejected photos now. </p>



<p><span>[00:19:52]</span> <strong>Hari:</strong> No, </p>



<p><span>[00:19:52]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> but, uh, actually that, uh, has been, it&#8217;s much better now because, uh, on the early <span>[00:20:00]</span> days when a photo gets, gets, uh, got rejected, they only say, uh, that we don&#8217;t accept your photo.</p>



<p>And now the moderators leave a comment saying okay we cannot accept that photo because there&#8217;s a face showing on the top right or there&#8217;s a logo so you can crop the photo or edit or whatever. </p>



<p><span>[00:20:22]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> That&#8217;s nice. Um, do you have any plans to do a photo event in New York City? </p>



<p><span>[00:20:31]</span> <strong>Hari:</strong> I have already done now. Okay. A WordPress one?</p>



<p>I did, I did. Yeah. No, I, </p>



<p><span>[00:20:35]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> I did a, a WordPress photo walk during a WordPress meetup because I&#8217;m one of the organizer of the WordPress meetup group. Sure. And it went nice. We was like, uh, 10 foot photographers. I taught them how to contribute to the photo, the photo WordPress photo directory when taking photos and then they upload the song and it </p>



<p>went great.</p>



<p><span>[00:20:58]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> I was talking with <span>[00:21:00]</span> Bigel in another interview and he said one of the issues they had with photo walks is that everybody takes a picture of the same thing. </p>



<p>Yes, </p>



<p><span>[00:21:08]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> because you tend to go in a group and oh hey a plant, hey a plant, everyone takes a photo of a </p>



<p><span>[00:21:14]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> plant, yeah. Yes, a bird, look get it. No, </p>



<p>but we, we did, </p>



<p><span>[00:21:19]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> uh, we did that on Seville on Christmas night.</p>



<p>So there was a lot of lights, a lot of different, uh, photos to take. And when, you know, we, there was always that photo that everyone, everyone took, but, uh, for most of it, it was, it was nice. </p>



<p><span>[00:21:40]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> That&#8217;s really great. I think that&#8217;s all the questions I have for you. Um, really, I just wanted to know what you thought of being a participant in the event.</p>



<p>You liked it? </p>



<p><span>[00:21:51]</span> <strong>Hari:</strong> I like </p>



<p><span>[00:21:51]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> it very much. The only thing that, uh, maybe I missed, uh, I, I don&#8217;t say this as a critic, not, uh, <span>[00:22:00]</span> just as, uh, something that should be, uh, taken into account for the other edition, that, uh, as a participant, I missed a little more communication during the event, because it was the opening event, the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony, the closing ceremony.</p>



<p>that, uh, But during that, uh, you know, we try to get people into talk, um, uh, talking to the photos, uh, channel, but not so many people, uh, get involved, uh, on talk. So maybe, I don&#8217;t know, make, uh, some workshops or get, try to get people into the conversation. </p>



<p><span>[00:22:39]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Right. That&#8217;s, uh, that&#8217;s an excellent point. Um, and I know people who were involved in the organizing.</p>



<p>So. I&#8217;ll definitely pass that on. Um, a lot of people said they, well, I guess when I was talking to the volunteers, they said they didn&#8217;t feel the need for more <span>[00:23:00]</span> communication. They were able to just do their thing and move on. But that&#8217;s maybe it&#8217;s different from as a volunteer. Participant. </p>



<p><span>[00:23:11]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> Another thing that, uh, I don&#8217;t know, there&#8217;s something that, you know, you, that you have your opinion.</p>



<p>I have mine, but the fact that the prices about, uh, participation, uh, with actually when you have a, such a huge bottleneck, because, uh, if you say, okay, I&#8217;m giving you a price. If you submit the most photos, actually you are making more pressure The moderator that actually volunteers. So like, okay, you are going to work a lot this, uh, the, maybe the prices will, should have been to the </p>



<p>moderator who actually, but </p>



<p>they, it was you that was working during the event.</p>



<p>Not me. I was </p>



<p><span>[00:23:57]</span> <strong>Hari:</strong> sick. </p>



<p><span>[00:23:57]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Well, you are, you, it was, <span>[00:24:00]</span> it was, it was Michelle. Mostly Marcus was at a work camp. I was sick and Michelle. Moderated like 900 photos. That&#8217;s </p>



<p><span>[00:24:10]</span> <strong>Nilo:</strong> just for you to share more on that </p>



<p><span>[00:24:11]</span> <strong>Hari:</strong> word than me. </p>



<p><span>[00:24:12]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. Yeah. That&#8217;s actually an excellent point. All right. Well, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.</p>



<p>Um, maybe I&#8217;ll see you, uh, at work camp Europe this year. We&#8217;ll see. We&#8217;ll try. All right. Our final interview of the day comes from Chicago, Illinois. Yet another international attendee. Thanks for being here today. Uh, tell us your name and where you&#8217;re from. Sure. </p>



<p><span>[00:24:44]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> Uh, Jeff Paul, director of open source at 10 up and I live in the Chicago area.</p>



<p><span>[00:24:51]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right. Um, there was a time when most of TENUP lived in the Portland area. </p>



<p><span>[00:24:58]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> Unofficial <span>[00:25:00]</span> headquarters. Yeah, we still have a good size contingent there, but not fully, fully distributed, fully remote, fully growable. Uh, so yeah, spread out for sure. </p>



<p><span>[00:25:10]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Nice. So we&#8217;re here today to talk about the, uh, international photos event that happened recently, and you are a participant.</p>



<p>What does that mean? What does that mean to you? I&#8217;ve heard a number of things about what it means to be a participant in this thing. What does it mean to you to be a participant in that event? </p>



<p><span>[00:25:28]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> Yeah, I mean, it was, uh, I saw it as an opportunity to finally do something with the, like, tens of thousands of pictures I&#8217;ve taken with my, uh, camera phone over the years, right?</p>



<p>Uh, never really printing many out, uh, only occasionally sending some to folks, uh, Infrequently posting to my own blog. So yeah, it was like, Oh, I can actually, you know, one contribute, uh, to the project, which is cool in a new way for me. And then also like make use of hopefully some photos, <span>[00:26:00]</span> um, mostly accepted, uh, at this point.</p>



<p>Excellent. </p>



<p><span>[00:26:05]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> That&#8217;s cool. Um, do you, you use a camera or </p>



<p><span>[00:26:08]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> a phone? Primarily just a camera phone. So iPhone, whatever of the moment, uh, I think, I think my, the archive of things does include a camera, you know, back when. Yeah. The cameras on phones did not quite, uh, parallel the megapixels that you would get, but everything in like recent history is pretty much just the camera that&#8217;s, or the, the, sorry, the phone, um, yeah, not, not like a DSLR house over here by any means.</p>



<p>Yeah, </p>



<p><span>[00:26:37]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> I don&#8217;t own a camera. I do it all on the phone. Uh, and if I did, I would struggle. Like I would take it on a photo walk, but most of my photos are very spontaneous and I&#8217;m not going to have my camera at a restaurant, walking down the street, whatever. And I think the vast majority of the photos on the project are camera phone.<span>[00:27:00]</span> </p>



<p>So how did you hear about this event? What made you think? Hey, I&#8217;m going to go. Go do this thing. So </p>



<p><span>[00:27:07]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> I, uh, I subscribe and follow the, uh, WordCamp Central, I think central. wordcamp. org, uh, just to be alerted when there&#8217;s new camps that come up, uh, usually to see if it&#8217;s one I want to try and attend. Uh, and this one came up as, uh, you know, it was unusual in that it wasn&#8217;t your typical WordCamp.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s, you know, one of these kind of newer events that are being, uh, trialed now. And, uh, Seemed like an easy thing to contribute to. Um, the part participation part was a little more difficult &#8217;cause I think it was mainly hosted out of, um, India and the Indian time zone, and so I don&#8217;t have a great overlap there.</p>



<p>Um, so it was more of like a solo effort and not really as much of a community feel, <span>[00:28:00]</span> uh, on my end. But, uh, yeah, caught it from Word Camp Central. </p>



<p><span>[00:28:04]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Uh, I&#8217;m all right. It&#8217;s a good place. I&#8217;m finding that, uh, it was a very solitary event for most people. Um, Ari was on earlier and he said he picked five photos and sat down and uploaded them and he was done.</p>



<p>And that&#8217;s the extent, I mean, he did, he did nine total. So he did that maybe twice, but, uh, just a few minutes in a, in a week long event to be a participant. But then he also pointed out that the results of those few minutes are going to last. Right. You know, those photos are right out there for anybody to use forever.</p>



<p>Uh, so that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s kind of a cool, cool thing, a very simple way to be able to impact the project with a minimal effort. Yeah, probably one </p>



<p><span>[00:28:56]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> of the easiest ways to contribute perhaps, uh, across <span>[00:29:00]</span> all the, the make teams for sure. I&#8217;m sure </p>



<p><span>[00:29:02]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> it is. Yeah,</p>



<p>that&#8217;s cool. I just, it still blows my mind. What a big thing it is for so little effort. Right. Right. Yeah. So, uh, how many photos did you upload? </p>



<p><span>[00:29:20]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> Um, I don&#8217;t have the immediate numbers, but I would say that I, so my first interaction with the photo directory was around WordCamp US last year. I published a couple.</p>



<p>Uh, I think I, </p>



<p><span>[00:29:36]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> I mean, just in this, uh, this event. Right. </p>



<p><span>[00:29:39]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> Point being, I think I had done a couple. You know, last fall didn&#8217;t really do any started in January being a bit more active, um, not probably more than like a dozen or two a month, but then I think during the span of the photo event. Uh, probably got, um, you know, I, I was, <span>[00:30:00]</span> you know, the, the cap is five at a time and pretty much as soon as one would get approved or rejected, um, you know, fairly quickly find another one and submit.</p>



<p>So, um, I don&#8217;t know exactly how many I submitted or the total that were accepted, but I, I&#8217;d probably say easily, uh, a dozen or so in that short timeframe. </p>



<p><span>[00:30:21]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Um, I am impressed by anybody who got in more than 5 or 10 because the moderation queue was, it was very difficult to maintain. So well done. Um, I had another question.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m trying to remember what it was. How many? Oh, would you do it again? Yeah, definitely. I mean, </p>



<p><span>[00:30:48]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> I think I. You know, I, I have a friendly, not even a wager, just a friendly competition with, uh, Jonathan DeRozers and, uh, I think Jeff <span>[00:31:00]</span> Galensky, uh, that came out of Twitter of just contributing as a group to the photo directory over the course of this year and just, you know, seeing how much the group of us can, can get published there.</p>



<p>Uh, so I&#8217;ll. You know, continue to try and find ones to to submit. I think if there was another event would happily join in. I think the tagging aspect was a little clunky. So hopefully that can be improved. Um, and given that it was. You know, a community event for me, and it sounds like for others that you talk to it didn&#8217;t feel like there was a lot of a community feel.</p>



<p>So trying to find ways to give it more of that would be, I think, interesting and perhaps, you know, get keep folks more engaged. Um, you know, there was certainly, I think, a kickoff and a conclusion, uh, to the event, um, that was a synchronous call, but, uh, the time didn&#8217;t work for me, it was, I <span>[00:32:00]</span> think, super early on a Friday or Saturday or something, and I think, um,</p>



<p><span>[00:32:02]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> It was Saturday, I remember.</p>



<p><span>[00:32:04]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> Yeah, I was, yeah, I was five kids, so it was, it was difficult to make that happen. Um, And I think it was, I think it was fun that there was like, uh, awards for, you know, kind of like a, almost like an art show, right? Like best in show sort of thing. And there was monetary, uh, awards, uh, attached to that. Uh, uh, Aaron Jorban, who, you know, I collaborated with, um, as well in, in getting things submitted.</p>



<p>Uh, you know, he was, I think one of the honorable mentions or something, which was kind of cool for him. Um. I think if there were ways to, again, give it more of a community feel would be just a bit more interesting. Um, perhaps, um, like specific, um, side quests or achievements, right? Like a photo, you know, this sort of a photo or, um, you know, this kind of composition.</p>



<p>Right, exactly. Uh, best use of the color red. Who knows, right? Um, <span>[00:33:00]</span> uh, like those are things I think that could be interesting to. You know, give folks an idea of if they&#8217;re, if they&#8217;re going out to actively shoot with a camera or a camera phone to, you know, what to look for versus just like searching your back catalog of things to submit, um, could be fun and could give it a bit more of a community feel.</p>



<p>I mean, the, the site they had up that pulled in, uh, kind of the tagged photos that were accepted was fun to. Browse through and see, but it didn&#8217;t feel like I was really interacting with anybody. Um, and that aspect. </p>



<p><span>[00:33:29]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right. Um, did this event feel special? Did it feel different from other times you&#8217;ve uploaded photos or were you just given incentive to do it a lot this one week?</p>



<p><span>[00:33:43]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> Uh, I think it was, it was interesting in that it was, you know, one of these next generation events that I think the community team is trying to, to spur forward. So I think it was fun to participate in that manner. Um, you <span>[00:34:00]</span> know, outside of that, um, you know, I don&#8217;t know that it was dramatically different than the contributions to the photo director I&#8217;ve done in the past, except for the fact that I kind of ratcheted up my attention to, um, keeping that cue of five.</p>



<p>Pictures topped off, right. So I could have things getting into the, the competition as it were. Um, other than, other than that, um, probably not a dramatic difference, uh, for me feeling wise again, because there, there wasn&#8217;t much of like a, a real community aspect of that contribution of, of, of things.</p>



<p><span>[00:34:37]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> So basically I&#8217;m hearing that you&#8217;d like just more community involved or something more of a feeling of community during the event.</p>



<p><span>[00:34:45]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> Yeah, something. I mean, or, or even, uh, you know, WordCamp U. S. last year, there was a physical. Uh, exhibit that had photos, I think from the photo directory printed out, um, and matted and framed in a nice little <span>[00:35:00]</span> photo installed down, uh, in the sponsor area. Um, so </p>



<p><span>[00:35:04]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> They&#8217;re doing that again and WordCamp Asia, </p>



<p><span>[00:35:06]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> awesome.</p>



<p>So you, I, you know, I could totally see where like, if, you know, this could be done again, perhaps, um, you know, the weeks leading up to a major WordCamp event, uh, and then. You know, maybe sponsored by one of the major sponsors and, um, you know, then the, the best and show the selected ones are actually then printed in, in, uh, shown in, in person at that WordCamp, I think would be really cool.</p>



<p>Um, you know, it gives you, again, it gives you a bit more of a, uh, community feel. Um, but, uh,</p>



<p><span>[00:35:46]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> those are great ideas. Um, tomorrow, my, uh, episode is going to be. About next gen events. Oh, cool. And all the <span>[00:36:00]</span> different ideas people have had for them. There&#8217;s some pretty exciting ones. I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m really looking forward to the future of WordPress events. Yeah. </p>



<p><span>[00:36:07]</span> <strong>Jeff:</strong> I mean, I think the. I&#8217;d love to see more of the kids camps.</p>



<p>Um, especially ones that are attached to other events just because, uh, you know, if I&#8217;m already going, it&#8217;s great. It&#8217;d be great to bring my kid along and have them have something that&#8217;s tailored to their interests. Um, and then the, uh, the do actions I&#8217;ve never been able to participate in those. And so I, I, I would love, I would love to have, again, maybe attached to a.</p>



<p>Like a WordCamp, uh, Europe, Asia, U. S., um, you know, the ability to, you know, leverage the skills we have in contributing to the project and, and instead, you know, contribute to, you know, a worthy organization, right? I would love to see that as well. Um, and, and also really curious, what Uh, you know, perhaps all the other next gen ideas are like really excited to see, um, you know, the project branching out just beyond what I still love the camps.</p>



<p>Uh, you know, they&#8217;re, they&#8217;re, <span>[00:37:00]</span> they&#8217;re fantastic. Um, but also really, always really interested and excited to see what else comes up there. So, uh, I&#8217;ll have to stay tuned. You got a, got a good hook for me on that one. </p>



<p><span>[00:37:10]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right. Well, yep. Check it out tomorrow. All right. That&#8217;s all I have for you today. Thank you for being here.</p>



<p>I appreciate your time. Good to see you Topher. And that concludes our episode for today. I&#8217;m glad you came. Thank you very much. It was really interesting hearing all the different experiences that people had, the variety of experiences. Some took just moments to be involved. Some took hours. And it was exciting to see how a different kind of event can happen.</p>



<p>Uh, which brings me to my next point tomorrow, we&#8217;re going to be talking with Julia Golomb from the community team about next gen events and what they are, what they could be and how you can be involved. So please stop <span>[00:38:00]</span> by.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 28 Feb 2024 21:16:20 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Topher DeRosia";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:38;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:57:"WPTavern: Automattic Faces Scrutiny Over AI Access Policy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=154448";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:68:"https://wptavern.com/automattic-faces-scrutiny-over-ai-access-policy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6480:"<p><strong>This article is a joint effort by James Giroux &amp; Jyolsna. </strong></p>



<p>After <a href="https://searchengineland.com/reddit-google-ai-content-licensing-deal-437782">unconfirmed reports</a> of Google entering into a content licensing agreement with Reddit for training its AI, 404 Media claimed yesterday that <a href="https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/">Automattic is set to sell Tumblr and WordPress.com users’ content to Midjourney and OpenAI</a>. If true, this could mirror an <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23791528/openai-shutterstock-images-partnership">extended partnership that Shutterstock entered into with OpenAI</a> last year.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Claims of 404 Media&nbsp;</h2>



<p>404 Media claims insider information about the deal–backed up with documentation–confirming Automattic is in the advanced stages of negotiation with these AI companies. To validate its claims <a href="https://www.404media.co/tumblr-and-wordpress-to-sell-users-data-to-train-ai-tools/">404 Media quoted Tumblr Product Manager Cyle Gage</a> as he reported on an internal message board, the status of the initial data collection process and how it included content that should not have been collected.</p>



<p>While 404 Media has provided quotes from an internal source, it has not provided any specific proof such as screenshots of conversations or access to source materials to assist others in validating their claims. 404 Media also refers to user content as “users’ data” which can easily be misconstrued as personally identifiable information (PII) or credit card information. Whereas the content being discussed in the article is content that is already publicly available.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Response From Automattic&nbsp;</h2>



<p>Within a few hours of 404 Media’s article going up, Automattic released a statement describing its position on content distribution and the rights of all users on WordPress.com and Tumblr to opt out of their public content being included in data shared with AI partners.</p>



<p>Automattic makes the argument that AI regulation and legislation do not yet exist and, as such, is taking these steps to proactively provide users with additional methods of controlling how and where their content is made available. They are creating a pathway for AI partners to get streamlined access to the content users are open to sharing while also taking steps to remove access to content that users no longer want to be shared. In other words, the content in question is already available to the AI companies as it’s publicly crawlable and content deals only make it more accessible and manageable.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Automattic published “<a href="https://automattic.com/2024/02/27/protecting-user-choice/">Protecting User Choice</a>” emphasizing the following points:</p>



<ul>
<li><em>We currently block, by default, major AI platform crawlers—including ones from the biggest tech companies—and update our lists as new ones launch.</em></li>



<li><em>We have a setting to discourage search engines from indexing a site on WordPress.com and Tumblr. This signals to search engines not to crawl that content or include it in search results.</em></li>



<li><em>We have added similar settings to WordPress.com and Tumblr to discourage crawling by AI companies. If you already discourage search engine indexing, this is automatically enabled.</em></li>



<li><em>We will share only public content that’s hosted on WordPress.com and Tumblr from sites that haven’t opted out.</em></li>
</ul>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p><strong>We will share only public content that’s hosted on WordPress.com and Tumblr from sites that haven’t opted out.</strong></p>
</blockquote>



<p>The <a href="https://automattic.com/2024/02/27/protecting-user-choice/">article</a> continues hinting at a deal in the future: “We are also working directly with select AI companies as long as their plans align with what our community cares about: attribution, opt-outs, and control. Our partnerships will respect all opt-out settings. We also plan to take that a step further and regularly update any partners about people who newly opt out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”&nbsp;</p>



<p>Automattic also released a <a href="https://wordpress.com/blog/2024/02/27/more-control-over-the-content-you-share/">new tool</a> that “lets you opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use such content for training models. We will engage with AI companies that we can have productive relationships with, and are working to give you an easy way to control access to your content…We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from WordPress.com and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner… We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">WordPress.org Users Aren’t Affected</h2>



<p>Josepha Haden Chomphosy, Executive Director of WordPress shared this with the community in the Slack channel: “I can confirm that the WordPress project is not involved in selling user data or content for AI training purposes. This has been our consistent stance across the long history of WordPress, even as recently as when I was sharing<a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2023/01/letter-from-wordpress-executive-director-2022/"> thoughts for the future of our project heading into 2023</a>.”</p>



<p>Later, Jetpack <a href="https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/1762620580589920361">tweeted</a> that “data from Jetpack connected sites is not included. This only applies to WordPress.com hosted sites.”</p>



<p>Interestingly, Automattic has been struggling to make Tumblr profitable after acquiring it in 2019. Last year Matt revealed that <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/12/tumblr-is-losing-30m-each-year-ceo-says/">Tumblr is losing $30M</a> each year.</p>



<p>We have reached out to Chenda Ngak (Head of Communications at Automattic) and will update this article once we get her quote. </p>



<p>(WordPress (or WordPress.org) is an open-source CMS while WordPress.com is a hosted platform owned by Automattic, a company founded by Matt Mullenweg. Both are not the same.)</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 28 Feb 2024 19:11:40 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Jyolsna";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:98:"WPTavern: #110 – Thomas J. Raef on the Shift in How Hackers Attack, and How to Protect Your Site";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=154445";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:110:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/110-thomas-j-raef-on-the-shift-in-how-hackers-attack-and-how-to-protect-your-site";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:49263:"Transcript<div>
<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>



<p>Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case how your session cookies are being used to attack WordPress websites.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice. Or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast. And you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the podcast, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you, or your idea, featured on the show. Head to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox, and use the form there.</p>



<p>So on the podcast today, we have Thomas J Raef.</p>



<p>Thomas is the founder of We Watch Your Website, a company that has been removing malware from websites since 2007. During that time, he&#8217;s seen many changes in the methods hackers use to take over our website, and that&#8217;s the focus of the podcast today.</p>



<p>With hackers becoming increasingly agile in their tactics, targeting everything from plugins to session cookies, Thomas brings to the table data he&#8217;s gathered from 2023, that puts the spotlight on the evolving digital threat landscape.</p>



<p>He explains how the system that he runs is able to gather a very large data set about WordPress websites in real time. Recording data directly from the server, he&#8217;s devised systems, which makes sense of this data. He&#8217;s able to turn back the clock and trace the stack of circumstances which led to a website being compromised.</p>



<p>We&#8217;re all used to hearing that plugins themes, and sometimes the WordPress core, are the most likely culprits when something goes wrong. The story goes that out of date code, or a zero day is discovered and leveraged. Whilst Thomas does not doubt that this is true, he&#8217;s here to paint a somewhat different picture. A picture which puts the focus upon stolen session cookies as the most important factor in website attacks last year.</p>



<p>Thomas explains what session cookies are, and why they unlock so much potential for a hacker. He tells us about the ways that session cookies are harvested, and the ways that you can mitigate the problem.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;ve ever been concerned about the security of your WordPress site, or intrigued by the intricacies of cyber security, this episode is for you.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>And so without further delay, I bring you Thomas J. Rafe.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Thomas Raef. Hello, Thomas.</p>



<p>[00:03:29] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Hello, Nathan. How are you?</p>



<p>[00:03:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah. Good thank you. Firstly, dear listener, I have to extend my sincerest thanks to Thomas. For reasons that I won&#8217;t go into, Thomas and I have had to cancel a podcast appointment on multiple occasions, and by multiple, I really truly do mean multiple.</p>



<p>So I just want to extend my thanks to Thomas for sticking with me. Coming back on many occasions only to find that a, I wasn&#8217;t there, or b, I wasn&#8217;t able to do the interview. So apologies for all that, Thomas, and thank you for staying the course. Really appreciate it.</p>



<p>[00:04:00] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Not a problem at all.</p>



<p>[00:04:01] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So Thomas is joining us today and we&#8217;re going to have a fairly in-depth conversation about security.</p>



<p>I know this is a topic that you&#8217;ve probably heard little bits and pieces about before, I think unless you&#8217;ve read the article that we&#8217;re going to delve into, I think it&#8217;s quite likely that you won&#8217;t have heard what Thomas has got to say. Now because we&#8217;re delving into security and security is a very technical thing and getting the right intuitions about security requires knowledge.</p>



<p>I think Thomas, it would be great if you could just paint a little bit of a picture. Give us your potted bio if you like, about who you are, what the company is that you founded and so on. Just so that we have some inclination that you know what it is that you are talking about.</p>



<p>[00:04:44] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Okay, sure. Yeah. I started, I&#8217;ve been in the IT industry since, as I tell people, IBM has one month more experience in the PC market than I do.</p>



<p>They started, originally released the IBM PC in September of 81. And, I started working with PCs in October of 81. So in 2007, 2006, I&#8217;m sorry, I was working more toward security. More and more people were getting hacked. This was well after the I Love You virus and all the, popular ones. And I was just really inquisitive.</p>



<p>So got started in 2007 with the company that I founded, We Watch Your Website. Nobody ever asked me what does your company do? But, I started that company, it was to address the need for malware remediation on websites. That&#8217;s it.</p>



<p>People ask about, oh, my computer&#8217;s infected. Can you help me? I can, but it&#8217;s not, that&#8217;s not what we do. So at any rate, we started that. I started We Watch Your Website. Belonged to a website called Badware Busters, which was started by Max Weinstein, who I believe now is with Sophos.</p>



<p>He&#8217;s a Harvard grad. Google would send people to badwarebusters.org with their infected websites, get help for free. Daniel Sid, who founded Sucuri. And so I learned a lot, and started applying that to helping people with infected websites.</p>



<p>Got a call from Bluehost one day, helped out, Matt Heaton, the founder with his personal website, and they&#8217;re like, hey, how would you like if we sent you some business? And I was like, oh, okay. And for the longest time I was their default to go to for infected websites, so that I learned a lot.</p>



<p>Had to automate a lot because they were sending me so many sites, so much business. So I had to automate our procedures a lot, but people also wanted to know how their sites were infected. So it got me down the avenue of reading, log files, and how could I record things and, infections in the database and so on, so forth.</p>



<p>So we&#8217;ve been doing this now since 2007. As of now, the day of this recording, we are now watching over 12 and a half million websites. Gives us a lot of data.</p>



<p>[00:07:06] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, a very large amount of data. We&#8217;ll get into that. So first of all, dear listener, I think it&#8217;s probably a good idea if you are listening to this, to perhaps pause the recording and go and read an article, which is on the We Watch Your Website blog.</p>



<p>Now, had we been able to record this podcast episode at the first opportunity. We probably wouldn&#8217;t have been so far away in time because this article was written on the 3rd of January, 2024. So it&#8217;s not the newest one, but the information, I presume is still up to date and you are sticking by the conclusions that you made there.</p>



<p>And the article is called The Real Attack Vector Responsible for 60% of Hacked WordPress Sites. And we&#8217;ll get into what that 60% is, and potentially how it differs from what most people, I would imagine think is the cause of problems on WordPress websites throughout the world. But first of all, wanted to dive into the sort of technical details of how it is that your system works.</p>



<p>So you mentioned that you&#8217;ve automated a lot of things. You mentioned that there are gigantic amounts of log files being created all the time. But I wonder if you would tell us how your system differs from what typically most WordPress users will do, which is install some plugin. Your service is not that. So tell us what it is that you do, and how it differs from what a plugin can do.</p>



<p>[00:08:34] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Yeah. One of the problems with the security plugins, not all, is that it only operates at the application layer. So it can only see things, its way. On a VPS or a dedicated server or a cloud server like Digital Ocean, Vultr, et cetera.</p>



<p>We can actually install some agents on there that give us information at the network layer. Like for instance, one of the problems with a lot of security plugins that we&#8217;ve seen is they&#8217;ll see an attack from an IP address, but that IP address has been spoofed by the hackers because of the way the security plugin was written.</p>



<p>So our information is the raw IP address, like we&#8217;re seeing it at the network level of the server. Doesn&#8217;t matter if it&#8217;s WordPress or anything else, we&#8217;re seeing the raw IP address. So that gives us an advantage there. So, the information that we collect, on a live basis on a server based account is we grab the access logs live.</p>



<p>We&#8217;re also monitoring the database for changes live. We&#8217;re monitoring the files, they call it the file integrity monitoring is the term that they, they like to use. So we&#8217;re watching for any file changes on your website. And then we&#8217;re also watching the processes.</p>



<p>The processes run in memory on your server. There&#8217;s certain elements in the processes that can tip us off to an infection, or an attack. And for all these logs, like I said we&#8217;re, right now we&#8217;re monitoring 12 and a half million websites.</p>



<p>We have seven clusters that collect this data, and each of these clusters can collect 20 million log entries per second. And then it correlates all this information. So you log into a WordPress site, there&#8217;s an entry in the database, it only stays in there until you log out. Now if you don&#8217;t log out the information stays in there, but we want to capture it as it happens. So that&#8217;s why we&#8217;re monitoring the database live.</p>



<p>So yeah, you log into a WordPress site, there&#8217;s activity in the access log, where you came from, your user agent, things like that. You know what point you went to. Changes in the database. So we capture that as well. And our system has been designed to be smart enough so it knows a failed attempt versus, a session cookie. If you just close your browser and then you open it back up again and you&#8217;re still logged in, that&#8217;s because your session cookie is still active.</p>



<p>So we can tell that type of login versus you&#8217;re logging in with a username and password. We can see attacks, sometimes we see attacks before they&#8217;ve been announced. Other times, we&#8217;re just seeing them like everybody else is. So that&#8217;s the information that we&#8217;re gathering, and how we&#8217;re gathering it.</p>



<p>[00:11:39] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I&#8217;m imagining a WordPress website. This may be a terrible analogy, but I&#8217;m imagining a WordPress website, a bit like a layered cake. And the front end of the website, I&#8217;m imagining is the icing on the top. So that&#8217;s the very top, and you can go down, and you get into the plugin space and you get into the admin space, and eventually you get into the sort of base layers of the cake. And at this point we&#8217;re onto the hardware and the software that the WordPress site is running on. So we&#8217;re thinking about the operating system that your host is using.</p>



<p>And from what you&#8217;ve said, and forgive me if I get this technically wrong, but it sounds like your system is able to access the lower down levels of that cake, the base layer if you like. Things approaching root access to the OS, things like that. So from that, it sounds like you can gather a different set of data than a plugin may be able to, and I guess your contention would be that because you are able to gather that different set of data, and it probably doesn&#8217;t have the capacity to be modified.</p>



<p>Once you&#8217;ve gathered that data in real time, you can then spend time looking back at that data in the days, weeks, months after. Patterns may have been discovered. You discover patterns and you can figure out what&#8217;s happened. So does that layer description work fairly well, with WordPress at the top, and the OS, the computer that it&#8217;s running on at the bottom, and you are injecting yourself as close to the bottom as you can?</p>



<p>[00:13:07] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Yes. Perfect analogy. You summed it up nicely. Yeah, we&#8217;re working at the, at a range, and typically at a root level, where the username that&#8217;s running the WordPress site doesn&#8217;t have access to the stuff, as you described, at the lower layers that can&#8217;t get, that user doesn&#8217;t have access, doesn&#8217;t have permissions, authentication, to access the stuff at the lower levels of the cake. And that&#8217;s where we operate. We can&#8217;t be tampered with unless you have root access, and hacker has root access that&#8217;s game over.</p>



<p>[00:13:42] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. So that&#8217;s the first thing to notice. You are able to gather a different type of data than a plugin would do, simply because the plugin cannot typically, there may be scenarios where it can, I don&#8217;t know, but typically it can&#8217;t get outside of WordPress, so it can&#8217;t necessarily get to the operating system which is running WordPress. That might be Linux or whatever it is, but your system can.</p>



<p>If that&#8217;s the case, I&#8217;m presuming that if you want to use your service. It&#8217;s not a WordPress plugin. You are in some way getting access to the server. If I was to sign up as a client of yours, what would that process look like? Do you ask for SSH details from me and things like that?</p>



<p>[00:14:28] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Yeah, basically. We typically provide our public key for SSH and you can install it, we can install it. And then that gives us the access, the accessibility that we need to implement our system onto your server. We watch all the sites on that server. It is just something with me from years and years ago, I couldn&#8217;t see why if I have access to all of your sites, why I should charge you per site. It never made sense, and that&#8217;s just me. I&#8217;m not saying my way is right. That&#8217;s just me. Yeah, we cover every site on that server and it&#8217;s just easier that way.</p>



<p>[00:15:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So you are collecting data at this root level, in many cases I would imagine, in real time. And you said that could run on seven clusters of servers that you yourself have got. So it&#8217;s everything that&#8217;s happening on the server is reporting things in real time to you. And I think you mentioned the slightly jaw dropping number of 20 million. Log files could be written per second.</p>



<p>That sounds to me like a fairly unmanageable amount of data to look at. I&#8217;m imagining a spreadsheet with an additional 20 million rows added per second. And, I&#8217;m quickly realizing that no human can actually take any meaningful glance at that and get any data out.</p>



<p>So you talked about automation. Do you just want to get into that a little bit? What are you doing there? Because my immediate intuition here is that you are looking backwards in time to find problems that have occurred. So maybe somebody&#8217;s come to you and, something quirky is going on with my website.</p>



<p>Please, can you look back and see if there&#8217;s something that has happened? So is that what you are doing? Are you looking back in time to spot patterns? Or are you also looking for things happening in real time to prevent known let&#8217;s call it attacks for now?</p>



<p>[00:16:19] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Both. For the report that we&#8217;re talking about today, obviously we went back in time. So we have a huge ScyllaDB database, that&#8217;s pretty much spread around the world. And so all this information is gathered and put into that database.</p>



<p>And then from there we can run our queries for these reports. Yeah, we can look back in time. But also, in real time, our system is watching for these patterns. Yes, in creating this report we did spot a number of new patterns along the way.</p>



<p>You dig in further there into your data, because you have all the data, and you can see that these patterns had started a year ago or so. And were repeating with different sites around the world. So, to answer your question, yeah, we do analyze things in real time, so we can see when a hacker or someone from a Digital Ocean server, let&#8217;s say. I don&#8217;t want to pick on Digital Ocean, but let&#8217;s say one of their servers was logging into your WordPress site. Now there&#8217;s a obviously a couple things that could be happening there.</p>



<p>Somebody could be using like a management console, like a MainWP, ManageWP, some of those, WP Umbrella. Some of those types of management systems. And that&#8217;s something you install on your own server and then it connects to your website. But, we know about those. Typically a server, or let&#8217;s say a GoDaddy server. Why would a GoDaddy server want to be logging into your WordPress site over and over again? And it has an outdated user agent. There&#8217;s a couple of red flags there. Those types of things we block, we filter in real time and block.</p>



<p>[00:18:05] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, so you&#8217;re spotting patterns for things that have happened and you are doing that after the fact. But you&#8217;re also gaining, I guess useful information from those patterns to create rules which can prevent things from happening. Because you can see this pattern is recurring. Okay, it&#8217;s now cropping up over here. Let&#8217;s block that traffic, because we know that is very likely to be malicious. The user agent is five years out of date, and it&#8217;s coming from a server that has no business logging in at all. It&#8217;s not an end user. There&#8217;s something quite strange here. And so in that way, you are preventing things.</p>



<p>Okay. I think we&#8217;ve got a vague handle on what it is that you gather, and why you gather it, and how you gather it. Obviously, if you want to reach out to Tom and talk about this, you can do, I&#8217;m sure by the end of the podcast we&#8217;ll have dropped an email or a contact form or something like that.</p>



<p>But I&#8217;m going to link back now to the article. Once again, it&#8217;ll be linked in the show notes, and I&#8217;ll give you the title again. The Real Attack Vector Responsible for 60% of Hacked WordPress Sites in the Year 2023. So we&#8217;re looking back at the previous year.</p>



<p>Now, I think that if I was to ask more or less, let&#8217;s say I had a thousand WordPress users in a room, and I was to ask them, what is responsible for the majority of problems with WordPress websites in terms of let&#8217;s say being hacked. I know that you didn&#8217;t want to use that word, but let&#8217;s just use it.</p>



<p>I think the intuition would be, it&#8217;ll be problems with themes, plugins and possibly, but not very often, Core. But plugins and themes. I think most people&#8217;s intuitions will be out of date or vulnerable, zero day problems with plugins from and themes. And you are saying no to that. You&#8217;re not saying that doesn&#8217;t exist, but what you are saying is that there is a much bigger attack surface, which I genuinely didn&#8217;t even know about until I read this article.</p>



<p>But you&#8217;ve got three types of attacks. Let&#8217;s just list those out quickly. We&#8217;ve got the first one is compromise username and password credentials. I don&#8217;t think we need to go into that too much. Obviously if you&#8217;re distributing your username and password everywhere, or it&#8217;s been part of the LastPass breach, we know that anybody can log in as you right.</p>



<p>Plugins and themes. We&#8217;ve just touched on that.</p>



<p>But you are saying that there&#8217;s this other thing, stolen session cookies, and your contention is that the majority, not just a small slice of the cake, the majority of problems, compromise problems with WordPress websites is to do with this.</p>



<p>So firstly, can we lay out the groundwork? What is a session cookie and how can it be stolen, and how impactful can the stealing of a session cookie be?</p>



<p>[00:21:01] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> A session cookie is required with http, https. It maintains your session basically, so that, if you&#8217;re on, let&#8217;s say you&#8217;re on an e-comm website, and you add some stuff to your shopping cart, and then you browse around the site, and then you come back to your shopping cart. And you say, oh, okay, yeah, I&#8217;m going to, order this stuff.</p>



<p>The session cookie is required so that it knows you from somebody else visiting the site at the exact same time, putting stuff in their cart. It keeps your session separate.</p>



<p>In the case of WordPress and our research in particular, a session cookie keeps you logged in, or shows WordPress that you are logged in with valid credentials.</p>



<p>So you go to your WordPress website, log into WP admin, enter your username and password. Hopefully it&#8217;s using some form of 2FA or MFA, to help you be more secure. But now you&#8217;re in, and as you&#8217;re bouncing around different pages, WordPress needs to know that, okay, yes, you are authenticated to go to this page and to do this activity.</p>



<p>And that&#8217;s all, that&#8217;s what the session cookie does. It&#8217;s a little piece of code on your local computer, on your local device, that your browser saves that tells the website that yes, you are authenticated to do these activities as an administrator on that WordPress site.</p>



<p>[00:22:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Can I just pause you there and can we just delve into that a little bit more deeply? Because I, I know that there&#8217;s going to be a bunch of people listening to this who are very technically proficient and they&#8217;ll probably be thinking, Nathan, this is all very straightforward. But equally, I think there&#8217;ll be a bunch of people who, what you just described is not entirely obvious. So let&#8217;s just drill down on that.</p>



<p>So if I go to wptavern.com and I go to the login page and I enter my username and password and 2FA or what have you, and I&#8217;m now logged in. The WordPress website has then provided something to my browser. It is unique for that session.</p>



<p>So if I then go to another page or leave the browser window open and come back, let&#8217;s say in 24 hours, when I am browsing around, every time I try to do something new, go to a new page, add a new post, or what have you, that cookie is being requested and there&#8217;s a check going on to say, is this person allowed?</p>



<p>Do we have authentication to say that this person in the recent past logged in and we know them. And that&#8217;s happening all the time, right? Until we log out. And if we log out, that cookie is expunged, it&#8217;s deleted. And that&#8217;s the reason that if we go to, let&#8217;s say I&#8217;m in Chrome and I&#8217;m logged in successfully to WordPress, and then I open up Firefox and try to use my WordPress website, it won&#8217;t allow it. Because that cookie has not been lodged in the browser.</p>



<p>And if I was to open up a private or incognito window, the same thing. It&#8217;s a different silo. I can&#8217;t interact until I&#8217;ve logged in again. So this cookie, if you like, is the gatekeeper for my access until I log out. So the possession of that exact cookie proves who I am, and it&#8217;s the only thing, it&#8217;s the only thing which entitles me to use the website. So if I can somehow get hold of that cookie, and it&#8217;s not my cookie, let&#8217;s say I&#8217;m logged into your website. If I can get hold of Thomas&#8217;s cookie for his WordPress website, I can impersonate you a hundred percent you. No caveats, no ifs, no buts. I am you. Have I got that right?</p>



<p>[00:24:43] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Yep, exactly. It is the key to the kingdom.</p>



<p>[00:24:46] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So if that could be taken from me, all bets are off. As far as any machine in the world is concerned, any computer that I&#8217;m using at that moment, if I can get that cookie, I can be you. In the case of a WordPress website, I can then delete every piece of content that has ever been written on that website. I can deface the website in any way I see fit. If I happen to steal the session cookie for your Amazon website, obviously I have the credentials to go and use your credit cards and buy and, whatever it is that I wish. So this cookie really is, it is the gatekeeper for everything, and you are saying it&#8217;s being stolen.</p>



<p>[00:25:27] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Yes, big time.</p>



<p>[00:25:28] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s not trivial. It sounds like, stolen session cookie, it&#8217;s a, it&#8217;s a stolen session cookie. It sounds benign, but it really is unlocking complete access to whatever it is that user in WordPress is entitled to do. And obviously if it&#8217;s an administrator role, that&#8217;s a problem.</p>



<p>Okay, so the next thing I have to ask is, how on earth do I get your cookie? How is it possible that cookies can escape the confines of my browser? How can that be achieved?</p>



<p>[00:25:56] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> There&#8217;s a number of ways, and big thing if you really want to go down the rabbit hole, as Oliver from Patchstack likes to call things, you can Google the term info stealer, and you can see how big a market that is in the underground. Info stealers bypass antivirus programs, they bypass almost everything and they have access to your computer.</p>



<p>Let&#8217;s say, in our scenario here, you log into a WordPress site, you don&#8217;t log out, you just close the browser window, or you leave it open, whatever. You go to another website, your computer gets infected with an info stealer, first thing it, it does is grab all the information at can.</p>



<p>So it&#8217;s grabbing your bank information. Information about your computer, your browser, all sorts of information. But it&#8217;s also grabbing session cookies because those are, they&#8217;re easy to use. And, as you said the gatekeeper to so many things.</p>



<p>So it records all that information, and the info stealers start to use it in whatever way they can. And I was just reading a report yesterday where they said that within 10 seconds after an info stealer has infected somebody&#8217;s computer, it steals all the information that it needs, then it&#8217;s gone.</p>



<p>So it could delete itself so there&#8217;s no trace. So you, don&#8217;t think, oh geez, my antivirus just found this info stealer on my computer after I ran a full system scan. I should contact my bank. No, they don&#8217;t want you to think about all that. They want to be able to sell your information or use it themselves. So, 10 seconds, bam, they&#8217;re gone. They&#8217;ve taken everything they need.</p>



<p>[00:27:38] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> This then is an attack which is perpetrated typically onto the computer that you are using. So I&#8217;m sitting in front of my Mac, could be Windows, could be Linux. So it&#8217;s a vulnerability that somebody has discovered in the OS that I&#8217;m using. So Mac, Linux, Windows, what have you. We know how this works. There&#8217;s so many routes into this, but one might be that you accidentally click on a malicious link in an email and it takes you somewhere and you may be on a website, which looks like a legitimate website, but is actually downloading a payload and opening it up.</p>



<p>We don&#8217;t need to get into that, but have I got that right? This is something which is installed on your local computer. One of its primary things will be to consume bank details and all that, but also to just what browsers are there. Can we please have all the session cookies? We extract those, remove the offending software, and it&#8217;s like nothing ever happened. Again, have I parsed that about right now?</p>



<p>[00:28:33] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Yep, perfectly.</p>



<p>[00:28:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. So I guess all the caveats around not clicking links in emails and keeping your operating system up to date, and the general hygiene of being a custodian of a computer. But you are saying though, that it will go into the browser, suck out all of the cookies, and from that moment on, if I, and we&#8217;ll just stick to WordPress from now on, if I haven&#8217;t logged out of my WordPress website.</p>



<p>And obviously if I&#8217;m a manager of a hundred WordPress websites, oh boy, then you could have a hundred WordPress website cookies in there. How long do I have for the attacker to go and do their dastardly work? I know that if I leave my WordPress website and I don&#8217;t click logout, at some point it logs me out. But I don&#8217;t entirely know what that length of time is. I have this intuition. It&#8217;s two days or 14 days or something. like that.</p>



<p>[00:29:29] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> You&#8217;re right on,both accounts. It typically, it&#8217;s 48 hours, from the time you logged in. But, if you click on the remember me, on your login page for a WordPress, the session cookie stays live for up to two weeks. Now, that&#8217;s only if you do not log out. If you log out, it instantly expires the session cookie. So it won&#8217;t matter if your session cookie&#8217;s stolen or not. It&#8217;s expired, so it can&#8217;t be reused, but so it&#8217;s 48 hours or two weeks.</p>



<p>[00:30:03] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So that&#8217;s interesting. The one utterly mitigating factor here is that if you simply log out of any of these services, the WordPress website we&#8217;ll use again as the example. If I was to simply log out each time that I&#8217;d finished working, that cookie, even if it was stolen, it&#8217;s of no use.</p>



<p>They would be asked to log in again. So, okay, but, if I&#8217;ve clicked remember me, the attackers who stole the, let&#8217;s say I&#8217;m on the, website today. I log in today, I click remember me, and moments after I do that, by coincidence my computer is, all of that data is exfiltrated away from it. They&#8217;ve got 14 days to impersonate me, and presumably there&#8217;s the capacity for them to continue to pretend to be me beyond 14 days. Do they have the capacity to extend that 14 day window by, oh, I don&#8217;t know, going to a particular page which authenticates me again or something?</p>



<p>[00:31:01] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> No, originally that was my impression was that they could extend that time period. My friend Calvin quickly corrected me on that, on that little bit. So no, you can by going into the database. Once you have admin rights, you could go into the database and change things in the, in the database table, the user meta, and extend the life of the cookie. But, no. There isn&#8217;t any way that you can extend that. I recently, I corrected that in the article. You have up to two weeks.</p>



<p>[00:31:30] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So how do you spot that this is happening?</p>



<p>[00:31:33] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Obviously if you&#8217;re, If you&#8217;re logging in with username and password, you have to go to WP admin or WP login, and log in. With a stolen session cookie you don&#8217;t need to do that. The session cookie is active, non expired, however you want to call it. I could just go and access a URL of plugin install dot PHP, and give it the parameters that follow that, and it&#8217;ll install that plugin. I don&#8217;t have to authenticate.</p>



<p>And the thing about session cookies that I also want to mention right now is, session cookies are valuable because they bypass 2FA, because you&#8217;re already authenticated. It bypasses 2FA, MFA, everything. You&#8217;re in. So yeah, I could install a bogus plugin. I can install a bogus theme. Anything you can do in a query string, basically as an admin, you can do with a stolen session cookie.</p>



<p>[00:32:35] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So in the logs that you are seeing then, is the way to see this that suddenly some entity on the internet just crops up and successfully requests a page that they shouldn&#8217;t have been able to access. So in this case, you were talking about installing a plugin.</p>



<p>The typical route to that would be to log in, but you don&#8217;t see any activity from that IP address, and what have you, going through the login process, and because that&#8217;s missing, you are then inferring from that, hang on. How can they have missed the login step? They must have used a stolen cookie in order to achieve this. Is that about right?</p>



<p>[00:33:18] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Yeah. And being able to go back in time, as we mentioned before, gives us a lot of power because we can see, was there a login from this IP address? Now some people will say, IP addresses can change in the middle of a session, blah, blah, blah.</p>



<p>Yeah, but the way our system works is you&#8217;re not going to see a login, from Canada and then four hours, 4, 5, 6 hours late, whatever, have a login from Hong Kong. It&#8217;s virtually impossible. So what our system does is, it goes back and says, okay, when was the last valid login?</p>



<p>People say, you can&#8217;t tell that from a, from an access log. Again, access logs are not the only thing that we monitor. We also monitor the database so we can see who logged in, from where, with what user agent, so on, so forth. All that is recorded and kept.</p>



<p>So we can say, okay, John logged in from Canada on Monday, and we see that he used the username and login, and bam. So he logged in and now, a day later, somebody from wherever, Hong Kong, or from a server suddenly just went right to the WP admin slash plugin dash install dot PHP, with a long query string, telling it what plugin to install.</p>



<p>Plus you see in the database another access happening. So there&#8217;s a combination of things going on that when all correlated, paints a perfect picture of. Okay, this person, the person from Hong Kong, accessed with the session cookie, probably taken from John in Canada when he logged in the other day because it&#8217;s the same username, but now he&#8217;s in Hong Kong and they just installed a bogus plugin. So, it doesn&#8217;t take a rocket scientist to put all this together and say, yeah, okay, unequivocally, that was a stolen session cookie.</p>



<p>[00:35:21] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So if you go to the article, again, it&#8217;ll be linked in the show notes. You can see there are some log entries written out, or there&#8217;s a screenshot taken of this exact process. So you can see what&#8217;s going on, and what I&#8217;m inferring from this is if you were to just look at a handful of logs, just two or three log entries, pretty much everything would look benign.</p>



<p>Any single log entry is going to appear broadly legitimate. Obviously if you&#8217;ve got a Chrome user agent dating back to, 2006, there&#8217;s probably something weird going on there. But broadly speaking, any one of those logs in isolation could be legitimate. It&#8217;s the picture that you are building up over time. You know the we had somebody in Canada. Now we have somebody in Hong Kong. They&#8217;re coming, they&#8217;re doing things, which it looks like they ought to have had to log in order to do. And you&#8217;re just building up this tapestry, this mosaic of different things and inferring, different things from that.</p>



<p>Okay, so I think we&#8217;ve got a handle with that. Now we&#8217;re going to go towards the sort of middle of the article, and this is probably where we&#8217;ll round off this conversation because, you&#8217;ve summarized the findings from 2023 and you&#8217;ve got a couple of charts. One is a pie chart, which spells things out really easily. And this pie chart is called yearly distribution of hack root causes in 2023.</p>



<p>And again, my intuition would&#8217;ve been plugins, themes, core, would&#8217;ve been the big slice of that pie. And your data is telling you that makes almost 33%. So it&#8217;s almost exactly a third, and I would&#8217;ve expected that to be significantly bigger.</p>



<p>Compromised logins, so stolen through stealing the computer or just getting into a LastPass vault, or just asking somebody what their user name and password was, 7.2%.</p>



<p>Now that leaves us with a remaining almost exactly 60%, almost two thirds is this stolen session cookie. So the takeaway that you&#8217;ve got is the vast majority of infections, hacks, whatever we want to call it, is coming via this mechanism. That&#8217;s fairly surprising. Was that something you expected to see?</p>



<p>[00:37:39] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Not at all. I fully expected to see more of the core, plugin, theme vulnerabilities. This was originally intended to, a, to see exactly where the numbers fall. But also I wanted to, with no request, but I wanted to share this information with Oliver from Patchstack.</p>



<p>He&#8217;s got some valid data, a large amount of data, to show that this is how hackers are hacking is through vulnerable plugins and themes. But, yeah, it didn&#8217;t turn out that way at all. I was shocked, and I ran through the numbers so many times. I had to delay this report so many times because I was just like, no, this can&#8217;t be</p>



<p>[00:38:20] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, because it&#8217;s not the intuition that we have, it&#8217;s not the received wisdom. It&#8217;s not what we see being talked about online in blog posts and what have you.</p>



<p>Interesting addendum to that pie chart though, is another chart which sits beneath it, and it&#8217;s more akin to a bar chart. But what it shows is that, if you were to take this month by month. So it takes that entire year and it divides it up into month by month, and you can see the data. And it does show that in certain periods of the year 2023, that intuition of it&#8217;s going to be plugins, themes, and core. That was in fact the case.</p>



<p>For certain periods of time, plugins, themes, core was the dominant problem. And for example, your data is pointing that in April, 2023, plugins, themes, core was the major problem. And can you correlate that to some sort of zero day, or some widely used plugin, or some core update. Are you able to match that against a widely known problem with an external third party piece of software like a plugin?</p>



<p>[00:39:26] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> plugin? Yes, right around that time is when the essential add-ons for Elementor was hit. That was huge. That particular point in time was right when essential add-ons for Elementor had a zero day, and hackers went crazy.</p>



<p>[00:39:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay, so what we&#8217;re learning from that is, or maybe I&#8217;ve got my intuitions wrong, but also I should say that the same sort of thing seems to have happened in July, and we could get into what was the problem there. But it seems that from your data, the hackers are agile in their approach to this.</p>



<p>So in other words, if their primary vector during the year 2023 was stealing session cookies and there&#8217;s no major problems, no zero day exploits amongst WordPress plugins and themes. They&#8217;ll concentrate on the session cookie, because if there&#8217;s no big problems with plugins and themes, this is going to be our best vector of attack.</p>



<p>Then they&#8217;ll drop that, and go to the plugin, theme attack at the moment where that looks like it&#8217;s going to offer the best, I really don&#8217;t mean to say the word best, but for them at least, it&#8217;s going to be more useful for them to flip over to attacking that particular zero day in a plugin or a theme or whatever it may be. And so they switch. So they&#8217;re not stupid.</p>



<p>[00:40:42] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> They&#8217;re not. I tell people this all the time. I hate to give hackers credit, but they&#8217;re some of the smartest people in the world. I&#8217;ve said for years that if hackers ever focused on a cure for cancer, there&#8217;d be no cancer. These people are smart.</p>



<p>The people who write the code, there&#8217;s various levels of hackers and, they&#8217;re not all super smart, but the ones who write the code, they&#8217;re extremely smart and yeah, and agile. As you can see. Like I said, I&#8217;ve had other people ask me why do you think that they shifted so much to stolen session cookies? Because just Google info stealers, and you&#8217;ll see just a plethora of information. Entire company&#8217;s dedicated to tracking info stealers.</p>



<p>There&#8217;s a company in Israel that buys old computers from people, and they dissect these computers and find out that, how many info stealers are on these computers.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s a huge market. Some people say, oh no, it&#8217;s, that rarely happens. No, it happens a lot. And it&#8217;s not just my information, it&#8217;s information from many other security companies on how prevalent this is.</p>



<p>To me it lends credence to how effective something like a Patchstack is at preventing Infections through plugins and themes and core because, that&#8217;s what they do. That&#8217;s what they focus on. So to me hackers saw the writing on the wall. Okay more and more people are implementing processes and procedures to prevent us from hacking their core themes and, plugins.</p>



<p>So we have to shift our focus here, and okay, we got all these info stealers that are running rampant. We&#8217;ll just have them steal session cookies too. Because, when you think about the whole spectrum of computer security. How are most attacks carried out? Oh, through an infected website. Well, how do you get those? Oh, let&#8217;s steal session cookies. One just feeds on the other. So it&#8217;s a logical progression for hackers, and they need them for phishing, infected websites for majority of their attacks.</p>



<p>Steal session cookies. We don&#8217;t have to worry about 2FA. Seems like the whole world is starting to shift towards 2FA. Stolen session cookies bypasses 2FA. We get access to website. It&#8217;s like a perfect scenario for them.</p>



<p>[00:42:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So we&#8217;re used to the mantra of update plugins, update themes, keep WordPress core up to date. And nowadays inside a reasonably up-to-date WordPress website, there&#8217;s the option to automate all of that. And there are, you mentioned things like MainWP and ManageWP and what have you.</p>



<p>There are these services which will assist you in that. But now we have this new problem of session cookies. Are there any bits of advice that you could give for remediating this problem? We touched on logging out as a really credible way of doing it, but is there anything else that you would advise a typical user of WordPress that they can do to, mitigate this? Because it does sound as if, if your session cookie is stolen, you really are putting your feet to the fire a little bit. So what can we do?</p>



<p>[00:43:47] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Other than logging out, you have two good options. The first one is Fortress by Calvin. He controls, the whole Fortress, is a, like a login system, if you will. That&#8217;s putting it lightly.</p>



<p>But, it controls session cookies in a way that keeps them very short term, and forces auto log out and so forth.</p>



<p>The other option is SolidWP. Nice thing about SolidWP is they tie the IP address into the session cookie. So guess what? Somebody steals your session cookie, they&#8217;re going to go use it from Hong Kong, they can&#8217;t. It&#8217;s a separate, it&#8217;s a different IP address. Case closed.</p>



<p>[00:44:32] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So there go. Three bits of advice. You&#8217;ve got a couple of services that you can use there, but also just log out. It&#8217;s a fairly surprising set of results that you came up with in 2023, and I guess on some level it is also, it&#8217;s kind of misery making in a way, isn&#8217;t it? Because it just demonstrates that the hackers are serious about this and they&#8217;re credible at what they do. And I guess it&#8217;s a process of just listening to advice from people like you and trying to stay one step ahead.</p>



<p>I guess you&#8217;ll be doing this again in 2024, and we&#8217;ll see if the, ground has moved. Let&#8217;s hope it has, and that slice of the pie that 66% has in some way gone down.</p>



<p>Thomas, if somebody wants to reach out to you and have a chat about this, talk about what it is that you do and what have you, where are the best places that they can find you?</p>



<p>[00:45:22] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> They can email me. It&#8217;s traef, traef@wewatchyourwebsite.com. They can find me on Skype, We Watch Your Website.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m on Facebook, as Thomas J Raef. You can ping me on Messenger. Like I said, I&#8217;m active in a lot of the Facebook WordPress groups, the admin bar, places like that.</p>



<p>Pretty easy to find. I always like talking. Ping me, look me up. Get a hold of me. We&#8217;ll talk.</p>



<p>[00:45:51] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you. Well, the ones that you mentioned, I will make sure to put into the show notes, but thank you so much for giving us that interesting information from the data that you gathered over the year 2023. Really fascinating. And Thomas, I appreciate you coming on the podcast and chatting to me today. Thank you so much.</p>



<p>[00:46:08] <strong>Thomas J. Raef:</strong> Thank you, Nathan. It&#8217;s always a pleasure chatting with you. Be well my friend.</p>
</div>



<p>On the podcast today we have Thomas J. Raef.</p>



<p>Thomas is the founder of We Watch Your Website, a company that has been removing malware from websites since 2007. During that time he’s seen many changes in the methods hackers use to take over a website, and that’s the focus of the podcast today.</p>



<p>With hackers becoming increasingly agile in their tactics, targeting everything from plugins to session cookies, Thomas brings to the table data he’s gathered from 2023 that puts the spotlight on the evolving digital threat landscape.</p>



<p>He explains how the system that he runs is able to gather a very large dataset about WordPress websites in real time. Recording data directly from the server, he’s devised systems which make sense of this data. He’s able to turn back the clock, and trace the stack of circumstances which lead to a website being compromised.</p>



<p>We’re all used to hearing that plugins, themes, and sometimes WordPress Core, are the most likely culprits when something goes wrong. The story goes that out of date code, or a zero day is discovered and leveraged. Whilst Thomas does not doubt that this is true, he’s here to paint a somewhat different picture. A picture which puts the focus upon stolen session cookies as the most important factor in website attacks last year.</p>



<p>Thomas explains what session cookies are, and why they unlock so much potential for a hacker. He tells us about the ways that session cookies are harvested, and ways that you can mitigate the problem.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;ve ever been concerned about the security of your WordPress site or intrigued by the intricacies of cybersecurity, this episode is for you.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Useful links</h2>



<p><a href="https://wewatchyourwebsite.com/">We Watch Your Website</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/cybersecurity-history-iloveyou/45001/">ILOVEYOU worm</a></p>



<p><a href="https://cyber.harvard.edu/newsroom/BadwareBusters">Badware Busters</a></p>



<p><a href="https://wewatchyourwebsite.com/the-real-attack-vector-responsible-for-60-of-hacked-wordpress-sites-in-2023/">The Real Attack Vector Responsible for 60% of Hacked WordPress Sites in 2023</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.scylladb.com/">ScyllaDB</a></p>



<p><a href="https://fortress.snicco.io/">Snicco Fortress</a></p>



<p><a href="https://solidwp.com/security/">Solid Security</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 28 Feb 2024 18:27:39 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:108:"WPTavern: ‘Support Inclusion in Tech’ is Fundraising to Sponsor More Marginalized WordPress Contributors";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=154423";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:113:"https://wptavern.com/support-inclusion-in-tech-is-fundraising-to-sponsor-more-marginalized-wordpress-contributors";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3235:"<p>Support Inclusion in Tech (SiNC) is now fundraising on the <a href="https://opencollective.com/support-inclusion-in-tech">Open Collective (OC) Foundation</a>’s platform. Founded and spearheaded by <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/planningwrite/">Winstina Hughes</a>, SiNC assists underrepresented WordPress contributors and provides financial support to WordCamp speakers for travel and hotels.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">What is SiNC?</h2>



<p>SiNC was proposed by Winstina Hughes in 2022 to mitigate the financial stress of underrepresented groups seeking to participate in WordPress events and was first tried in<a href="https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-us-trials-new-program-connecting-underrepresented-speakers-with-sponsors-for-travel-and-lodging-costs"> WordCamp US 2022</a>. She advocates for a 5th freedom, envisioning “the freedom to experience a thriving community truly open to everyone through sharing of information about The WordPress Open Source Project at community events.”</p>



<p>Interested candidates seeking travel and/or lodging assistance can confidentially register on the <a href="https://supportinclusionintech.com/apply-for-support/">SiNC website</a>, entering an anonymous directory listing. SiNC then pairs them with sponsors who provide financial assistance by reimbursing necessary amounts. SiNC currently provides a Mentorship Program to all speaker applicants.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Last year, 60% of applicants received assistance, and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/shan003/">Sharon Norah</a>, the co-lead for the WordPress Kampala community, became SiNC&#8217;s inaugural sponsored WordPress contributor.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Fundraising on Open Collective Foundation’s Platform</h2>



<p>February is Black History Month and is the perfect opportunity to find long-term solutions to support the marginalized. Those interested can make one-time contributions to sponsor a speaker&#8217;s travel and/or accommodations. Winstina Hughes has been approached to explore expanding support to speakers participating in WordPress conferences beyond WordCamps.</p>



<p>I reached out to Winstina, and this is what she had to say: “If absolute transparency speaks to your heart, this is my way to honor your donation and impact as we work together to reduce barriers to the full inclusion of underrepresented speakers worldwide,&#8221;&nbsp;</p>



<p>SiNC&#8217;s fundraising effort deserves recognition, especially in the current climate where <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/14/as-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-comes-under-legal-attack-companies-quietly-alter-their-programs.html">companies face scrutiny</a> for their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, prompting many to reconsider and rebrand their initiatives.</p>



<p>We hope SiNC&#8217;s fundraising initiative succeeds, especially considering the discontinuation of another notable WordCamp assistance program, <a href="https://donatewc.org/">DonateWC by Ines van Dijk</a>, due to the lack of a volunteer team. Rob Howard’s suggestion for <a href="https://masterwp.com/wordcamp-speakers-need-to-get-paid/">paying all WordCamp speakers</a> is also yet to become a reality.&nbsp;</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 28 Feb 2024 10:51:56 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7:"Jyolsna";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"Do The Woo Community: WooCommerce Plugins for Portugal with Marco Almeida";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=79152";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:72:"https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-plugins-for-portugal-with-marco-almeida/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:417:"<p>Marco Almeida, WordPress and Woo plugin developer, talks about the niche of building WooCommerce plugins to meet the needs in Portugal.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a href="https://dothewoo.io/woocommerce-plugins-for-portugal-with-marco-almeida/">WooCommerce Plugins for Portugal with Marco Almeida</a> appeared first on <a href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce and WordPress Builder Podcast</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 28 Feb 2024 09:26:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"WPTavern: The Perils of Hiring: A Cautionary Tale from A WordPress Business Owner";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=154408";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:91:"https://wptavern.com/the-perils-of-hiring-a-cautionary-tale-from-a-wordpress-business-owner";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5607:"<p>After being in the WordPress world for 15 years, I’ve made some incredible friendships and I’ve heard some crazy stories in regards to their WordPress business. Recently one of those friends reached out to share his latest experience, and I’m here to say it is one of the crazier ones. For privacy reasons, I’ve changed the names of both parties as well as the name of the agency.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><br /><strong>Introduction:</strong></h2>



<p>As we all know, starting a business is not for the faint of heart. The statistics can be depressing as 20% of businesses fail within the first 2 years. Beating those stats and growing has become even more rare. After 10 years of being in business,finding and retaining skilled employees and developers has been the bane of Mike’s business growth, which is a crucial aspect of success for any agency. Mike as the lead developer and owner of WebEase, a US-based WordPress service agency, has recently had a lesson for others navigating the hiring landscape.<br /></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Background</strong>:</h2>



<p>WebEase currently has a standard slate of full-time employees in various roles including, sales, marketing, customer support, operations, and design. What’s missing is another developer, as Mike is both owner and lead developer, building the business from the ground up. With the current situation as it is, Mike has struggled to keep up with adding needed features to the service, as well as customer requests, leading him to explore the option of hiring a senior developer to ease the workload.<br /></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The LinkedIn Connection:</strong></h2>



<p>Enter Dave, a senior developer Mike discovered through <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/">LinkedIn</a> who was “open to work”. After a few LinkedIn messages, emails, and finally an official interview via Zoom, Mike offered Dave the job. The onboarding process went smoothly, and Dave appeared to be a perfect fit for the team, wasting no time in getting the required software stack set up and installed per Mike’s instructions. However, within just two weeks, red flags began to surface, with communication becoming a significant issue. Dave remained unresponsive on all channels, causing concern from Mike. <br /></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The Shocking Revelation:</strong></h2>



<p>The situation took a dramatic turn when a third party from Ukraine contacted Mike via the website’s Contact Us form. They were claiming that they had not received payment for work performed for WebEase. At this point, Mike was a bit confused. Who were these people in the Ukraine? They did reference Dave in the contact form, but Mike was honestly baffled at that moment. To Mike&#8217;s surprise, it was revealed that Dave had subcontracted the work to an overseas company without informing anyone at WebEase.<br /></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Digging Deeper:</strong></h2>



<p>To understand the extent of the situation, Mike logged into the company&#8217;s <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a> repo with <a href="https://code.visualstudio.com/">VS Code</a> and utilized the <a href="https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=waderyan.gitblame">Git Blame</a> tool. This revealed the true scope of the situation, leaving Mike not only concerned about missed deadlines but also alarmed by the unknown developers who had gained access to WebEase&#8217;s codebase. Had they added code that could leave his customers exposed in any capacity? Realizing the severity of the situation, Mike took swift action, halting the outstanding payments to Dave(Mike pays his contracts using a credit card), informing Dave of what he had found, and emphasizing the potential irreparable damage to the sale of his company, which is currently in negotiations with a valuation starting at 6 million USD. In response, Dave denied any wrongdoing but faced with undeniable evidence, threatened legal action against WebEase. Mike stood his ground, asserting that Dave’s actions constituted fraud and posed a significant threat to the integrity of WebEase&#8217;s source code.<br /></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The Aftermath:</strong></h2>



<p>After documenting the entire situation with numerous screenshots of the emails between them, Mike&#8217;s credit card company sided with him, halting all payments to Dave as well as performing a chargeback for a few charges that had already been processed. Despite Dave’s initial defiance, he eventually went silent once again, not only leaving Mike to reflect on the red flags he had missed during the hiring process but also having to schedule time to review any code that was touched by Dave and the subcontracted developers. <br /></p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Conclusion:</strong></h2>



<p>So, where is Mike now? He is still searching for that honest senior developer though sadly, he has fallen further behind on adding features that would benefit his customers as code review takes time.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Additionally, it turns out that Mike is not alone with this experience as there are just too many bad actors out there trying to make a quick buck and take advantage of over worked business owners.&nbsp;</p>



<p>My hope is that other business owners/WordPress agencies can learn from Mike&#8217;s story, emphasizing the importance of due diligence, effective communication, and a vigilant approach to safeguarding the integrity of their codebase and business operations.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 28 Feb 2024 01:15:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Adam Silver";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"WPTavern: WordPress Photo Festival 2024, A Five Part Retrospective, Part 2, Volunteers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=154383";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-photo-festival-2024-a-five-part-retrospective-part-2-volunteers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31923:"<p>From February 3-10 the Kerala, India WordPress community hosted an International Photos event, to both boost the number of photos at https://wordpress.org/photos as well as increase the number of contributors.</p>



<p>In this series we&#8217;ll talk with organizers, volunteers, and participants about how the event went as well as the community team, about how this event is a model for the second generation WordPress events.</p>



<p><strong>In this particular we&#8217;ll meet volunteers Sadie-Michaela, Chetan, and Yogesh.</strong></p>



<p>This article is available in Video, Audio, and transcribed text.</p>







<p>Audio Edition</p>







<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Transcription</h2>



<p><span>[00:00:00]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Welcome to day two of our series on the WP Photos event that happened earlier this month. In this episode, we&#8217;re going to be talking to several volunteers. People that helped out to make the whole event happen very smoothly. I was very impressed as I talked to them to learn how tasks were dealt out and how much fun they had doing it.</p>



<p>And how free they were to take part in the event while still being volunteers. We&#8217;re going to start today with Sadie. All right, welcome. Could you tell me your name and where you&#8217;re from?</p>



<p><span>[00:00:53]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> I&#8217;m Sadie and I&#8217;m from the Scottish Highlands. Sadie Michaela Harris. </p>



<p><span>[00:00:58]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Ah, the Scottish Highlands. Is that them <span>[00:01:00]</span> behind you in your screenshot?</p>



<p><span>[00:01:01]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> Yes, right behind me in my screenshot. That&#8217;s Loch Glascarnoch just down the road from where I live. </p>



<p><span>[00:01:05]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> That&#8217;s beautiful. You are blessed to live in such a wonderful place.</p>



<p><span>[00:01:10]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> I just said it is very lovely, very beautiful. I do feel very blessed. </p>



<p><span>[00:01:14]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Um, so we&#8217;re here to talk today about volunteering for the, um, international photos event that took place recently.</p>



<p>And you were a volunteer, correct? </p>



<p><span>[00:01:25]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> I was a volunteer. Yeah, volunteer for the photos festival in Kerala. Yeah, earlier this month. </p>



<p><span>[00:01:33]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> What were your tasks? </p>



<p><span>[00:01:36]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> I made I moderated photos. And I made a short video about how to for people that were new to the photo directory, and how to upload and start sending in their contributions, I guess would be the way to describe it.</p>



<p><span>[00:01:52]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right, that sounds really cool. Little tutorial. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I didn&#8217;t know you made videos. </p>



<p><span>[00:01:59]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> <span>[00:02:00]</span> I don&#8217;t normally I just they asked could I do it? So I just thought </p>



<p><span>[00:02:04]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Well, there you are. </p>



<p><span>[00:02:04]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> I had to follow screenshots and stuff to, yeah, screenshots and talk, talk through it and then share the shots on the, on the same, um, blog post that we added it to.</p>



<p>So, yeah, it was, it was an amateurish job. Do pop by and have a look. </p>



<p><span>[00:02:17]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> I will. What do you think? Um, have you volunteered at a remote event before?</p>



<p><span>[00:02:22]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> Oh, sorry. I&#8217;ve volunteered, but nothing to do with WordPress. I&#8217;ve done other things, but my roles in other things, but nothing to do with WordPress, it was my absolute first, um, first, first opportunity to do that.</p>



<p>So yeah, it was good fun. What did you think? I really enjoyed it. Um, I met obviously the people that I didn&#8217;t know before that were part of it chatting behind the scenes, um, the guys over in India and. We had a prolific amount of, uh, photos that were submitted. It&#8217;s certainly over, I definitely over 1500. I don&#8217;t know.</p>



<p>It was really, it was a really successful <span>[00:03:00]</span> event. I felt and, uh, so many different, um, photographs, you know, as it always is, but, um, yeah, just really good, really, really positive people were engaging on social media or. Twitter mainly that I saw it shared on, um, so yeah, it was nice. People got involved and it swelled the directory for people to use on WordPress.</p>



<p><span>[00:03:19]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah.</p>



<p>Did you interact much with other volunteers? </p>



<p><span>[00:03:28]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> I interacted more, just a couple, couple of them with the guys that actually were running it. Um, and not so much hugely outside of that because, um, probably to do with different time zones of where we all are. So on times when I had some time to moderate on photos or get involved with things.</p>



<p>Not so much beforehand. Um, a little bit with the, the main guy that was, or, um, organizing it that I was interacting with, um, okay. Out there in Kerala. And, uh, he was the one that said, oh, you <span>[00:04:00]</span> know, can you, can you make a video for this? So that was, you know, sort of things that were happening behind the scenes and just messaging back and forth on Slack about what was coming up in the few days that were in the runup to the event.</p>



<p>Yeah. Um, blocks going up and stuff like that. You know, there was a special website for the, for the event. Um. On the Word camp site. And, uh, yeah, it was just, um, people slowly contributing bits of other things. There were other people that had made videos on different kind of topics as well. So, yeah. All right.</p>



<p><span>[00:04:29]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Um, the reason I&#8217;m asking these questions is because in a, in an in-person event, the volunteers often have a meeting at the beginning where they&#8217;re all together and then they work together, is in the halls and, and all of that. And it is a very different thing with, uh, a remote event. Um, did you feel well supported?</p>



<p>Like you had everything you needed to do? The tasks that were set before you? </p>



<p><span>[00:04:51]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> Yeah, I think so. I mean, the only tasks really I was doing was that I made the video ahead of time and moderating photos. And I do <span>[00:05:00]</span> that anyway outside of the event for the directory. So I didn&#8217;t feel it was, um, yeah, I didn&#8217;t feel anything really unnatural at all, I have to say.</p>



<p>Yeah, it was. It was good. Yeah, I don&#8217;t know. Maybe it&#8217;s I guess maybe it depends on the kind of person you are. And if you need reassurance, I could say that from my own side, I work for my own quite independent. So somebody else might, especially if they&#8217;ve been at an in person event, may find it a little bit different, shall we say, but not from I found it fine.</p>



<p><span>[00:05:34]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. All right. Um, yeah, I&#8217;ve been quite encouraged by all that I&#8217;ve heard from from everyone who&#8217;s volunteered. Um, it, it went well, um, the post pandemic events and some post pandemic events have really changed how, uh, remote events work, the quality, um, the, the significance and <span>[00:06:00]</span> things like that. It used to be a remote event was kind of slapdash.</p>



<p>You know, everybody get on zoom and we&#8217;ll talk for a while and we&#8217;re done and they&#8217;re quite different. Now. </p>



<p><span>[00:06:13]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> No, I completely agree. Even things, you know, in a smaller environment here where I am, I&#8217;m a community counselor and we&#8217;ve we held all our meetings because we needed to during the pandemic by zoom.</p>



<p>Um, and we&#8217;ve, we&#8217;ve continued on because we, we live great distances apart and our area is so big. So especially during the winter months, it&#8217;s hugely helped have it going more professional and doing via zoom and teams and stuff. It&#8217;s really been helpful. </p>



<p><span>[00:06:43]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. Well, that&#8217;s really great. Uh, would you do it again?</p>



<p><span>[00:06:50]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> Oh, definitely. Yeah, absolutely. I would. Yeah. I jumped on this one because it was, um, photo specific and I do, you know, I&#8217;m a prolific photo taker. Um, So <span>[00:07:00]</span> I like being involved in that. Um, but I would definitely, I wanted to go to a WordCamp and I thought there was going to be one, um, in England actually, although I&#8217;m up in Scotland.</p>



<p>But it, it was advertised for a date last year and then it never materialised. So I&#8217;m not sure what happened with that. Yeah, it would be lovely to have something like that in Inverness. I would champion. Oh yes. Inverness, yeah, beautiful part of the world. And yeah, plenty of WordPress users up here. </p>



<p><span>[00:07:27]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Well.</p>



<p>All you have to do is apply. Maybe I&#8217;ll You could be, you could be able to eat organizer. Yeah. Maybe I&#8217;ll, </p>



<p><span>[00:07:36]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> maybe I&#8217;ll, how far in? I found they seem to be quite well planned. I know that those, um, word Camp Europe, for example, um, is Oh, yes. Upcoming. Been in the planning. Well, I guess at least since the last one that, um, took place.</p>



<p>Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. </p>



<p><span>[00:07:52]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Do you plan WordCamp Europe? </p>



<p><span>[00:07:54]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> I&#8217;m, like this, I&#8217;m quite busy and it&#8217;s quite far away, um, from where I am. So, <span>[00:08:00]</span> never say never, because I don&#8217;t ever say ever, but, um, never. It would be fun. It would be fun to make and stay a few days either side. Yeah. </p>



<p><span>[00:08:11]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. Uh, well, I very much appreciate your time. I, uh, I&#8217;m excited to hear about your volunteering and how it went.</p>



<p>And I&#8217;m excited to hear that you liked it and, and we&#8217;ll come back. Uh, do you have any advice for anybody else? Uh, both, both for bonus events and just regular remote events, uh, for </p>



<p><span>[00:08:32]</span> <strong>Sadie-Michaela:</strong> volunteering. I would just say jump in and get involved and enjoy it. You&#8217;re sure to enjoy it. Um, yeah. Friendly, just jump in, have a go, give it a go would be my, my advice.</p>



<p><span>[00:08:46]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> After I finished talking with Sadie, I talked with Chetan from India. All right. I&#8217;m here with Chetan. And, uh, did you tell me your, your full name and where you live? </p>



<p><span>[00:08:59]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> Hi, <span>[00:09:00]</span> I&#8217;m Chetan Trizavati. I&#8217;m living in Ahmedabad, it is in India. </p>



<p><span>[00:09:05]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right. Um, how far from Kerala? </p>



<p><span>[00:09:10]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> It&#8217;s like, uh, around two hours flight from here.</p>



<p><span>[00:09:14]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> So, yeah. All right. That&#8217;s quite a ways. And, uh, you were a volunteer at the photos event? </p>



<p><span>[00:09:23]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> Uh, yes, uh, I was a volunteer. I was helped to write the content in our local language. So people in our local language can understand how to contribute in Photo Festival.</p>



<p><span>[00:09:35]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Sure. I heard that a lot of the documentation was in many languages.</p>



<p>Yeah. Um, and you&#8217;re the first person I&#8217;ve met who actually wrote that. Um, what language was it? It was in Gujarati. Okay. Um, that&#8217;s really, that&#8217;s really cool.</p>



<p><span>[00:09:50]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> That&#8217;s one of the things I admire about this event is that it was mostly people know, uh, they want to contribute, they don&#8217;t know how to start. So it will <span>[00:10:00]</span> help a local contributor </p>



<p>as well.</p>



<p><span>[00:10:03]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Sure. Um, what other roles did you have? Or was that it?</p>



<p><span>[00:10:12]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> So, uh, I was, uh, like, uh, contributing to our, uh, community as well. So I, uh, more about the local community. They can participate. So, uh, I was, uh, like, uh, helping other contributors as well. Okay. </p>



<p><span>[00:10:30]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Um, I was, uh, this is, this is a virtual event and at, at, um, in person events, a lot of times the volunteers are near each other, they hang out, they go to dinner for, you know, to get together.</p>



<p>That doesn&#8217;t happen with virtual. Did you spend any time working with any other volunteers? Or were you just on your own most of the time? </p>



<p><span>[00:10:52]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> Uh, uh, in virtual we don&#8217;t spend as much time like in physical event. But, uh, whatever you have a question, we directly <span>[00:11:00]</span> ask in our chatting or like we facing this issue.</p>



<p>How can we help? So it is more like a connection on our messaging. Okay. That makes sense. </p>



<p><span>[00:11:13]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Um, I, I am a strong proponent of both in person and virtual events for different reasons, and they both have their benefits and drawbacks. And I think one of the drawbacks is that the volunteers don&#8217;t get to assemble in one place and share and things like that.</p>



<p>Um, but it still sounds like it was a good event. Did you, did you have a good time and, and you would take place again? You would do it again? </p>



<p><span>[00:11:38]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> Yes, definitely. Because it&#8217;s a nice initiative to contribute so people can, they can upload whatever their creativity. Also, they want the good price. So they&#8217;re more encouraged by their contribution as well?</p>



<p><span>[00:11:52]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yes. Uh, did you contribute photos? Yes, I did. How many? </p>



<p><span>[00:11:59]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> Yeah. <span>[00:12:00]</span> Yeah. I, I.</p>



<p>16 photos were, uh, selected and with the WP Kerala because there are many photos in pending. So people are running with the photos. So we have to wait for our photos. Uh, </p>



<p><span>[00:12:19]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> right. Yes. Yes. Yes. Um, did you seek out the role of volunteer or did someone come to you and say, please, will you volunteer? Um, um, did you go seeking the role of volunteer?</p>



<p>Or did someone come to you and ask you to be a volunteer? Uh, uh, </p>



<p><span>[00:12:42]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> actually the lead organizer was, uh, asked me to help. How can, uh, how can we help? So I said, I definitely can help. So, uh, in our local community, because we have one of the large community in India. So it was, uh, uh, very good opportunity to <span>[00:13:00]</span> contribute for them.</p>



<p>I ask them, whatever I can do, I&#8217;ll definitely </p>



<p>help them.</p>



<p><span>[00:13:08]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Excuse me. It sounds like they did a really good job reaching out because they reached out to me as well, and I know they reached out to other people around the world and I think that&#8217;s kind of kind of key, rather than wait for people to show up and say, here I&#8217;m going to work.</p>



<p>Yeah, to actually reach out and ask.</p>



<p><span>[00:13:23]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> Yeah, because sometimes people don&#8217;t know how to contribute because if, uh, if he had the, I don&#8217;t know, there is voluntary as well, because mostly in what you live in the, we hardly find volunteers, but he come to me that he needs help to promote the event. So it was really good.</p>



<p>They need to do the core guys can contact all the people to help them. </p>



<p><span>[00:13:46]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Sure. Yeah. My, my talk at WordCamp Asia last year was, was titled the power in the asking. Um, yeah, there is power in asking people to help. That&#8217;s always help. Yes. Yeah. <span>[00:14:00]</span> That&#8217;s always help. Yeah. Um, do you have any advice? Do you have any advice for people doing just virtual events, working, working virtual events?</p>



<p><span>[00:14:12]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> Uh, for that they have to communicate like, uh, Uh, creating a post that they can, uh, get idea what is going to happen on each day with it. Because in virtual people, uh, don&#8217;t get usually the focus on the time, but for example, physical there are physical available in virtual, they can live in between of the time.</p>



<p>So the, they have to be some, uh, good ideas, some good creativity so they can, uh, attract more. How can that, that even get helpful or they can even contribute for themselves. Okay, that&#8217;s great. For example, for example, the photo festival, they have a good prizes. So people increase more, they can contribute as more as photos.</p>



<p>So they can, in reward, they can also <span>[00:15:00]</span> get some prizes. </p>



<p><span>[00:15:02]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Okay. Do you have any advice for someone who might do another photos event like this? So imagine if it were not done at Kerala. Some, some other groups that were going to do the same thing. What would you tell them?</p>



<p><span>[00:15:14]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> Oh, yeah. So, uh, in one they have to, uh, ask, uh, many volunteers.</p>



<p>They can, uh, help to approve photos because in the, uh, in this event we are faced like a lot of people are waiting to approve their photos. Also, some sometime takes, were notating adding, but we all know that this is contributor as a volunteer because we have to wait as well. So in advance, if we can ask other people to contribute to like, uh, approval photos.</p>



<p>So they can have a good amount of people they can help to upload photos so other people can contribute. So in less time they can get approval for the photos as well. </p>



<p><span>[00:15:53]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Okay. That&#8217;s pretty great. </p>



<p><span>[00:15:56]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> Um, I&#8217;m excited to see more <span>[00:16:00]</span> photo events. Uh, I think it&#8217;s pretty ideal for a virtual event. Um, and I&#8217;d like to see They have almost 12, 000 photos submitted in this event.</p>



<p><span>[00:16:10]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Ah, yeah. Um, I like that it was based in a city but not Only in that city. So this one was Kerala. I&#8217;d like to see one in, uh, Sydney, Australia, or I&#8217;d like to see one, you know, any, any other city, um, and then see a bounce around the world to see how each city presents sort of like the Olympics or, or a global work camp.</p>



<p>You know what I mean? </p>



<p><span>[00:16:42]</span> <strong>Chetan:</strong> Yeah, it is like a city, but, uh, in Kerala is state. So, uh, for example, Kochi has a word game, but at this time, Yeah, this is the Kerala Photo Festival, so it is based on the street, but, uh, it is virtually one, so anyone can participate, <span>[00:17:00]</span> so mostly people have participated as much as they can.</p>



<p><span>[00:17:06]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yes. Well, thank you for your time. This has been really helpful. I&#8217;m excited to include you in my story. Thank you so much. My final volunteer for this episode is Yogesh. Hello there, can you tell me your full name and where you live? </p>



<p><span>[00:17:24]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> Okay, my name is Yogesh, Yogesh Londe. I live in Bangalore, India. </p>



<p><span>[00:17:31]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> And where&#8217;s Bangalore, generally speaking?</p>



<p>North? South? </p>



<p><span>[00:17:35]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> Bangalore is south of India. It&#8217;s like right in the middle of the southern, towards the southern tip of India. </p>



<p><span>[00:17:43]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Oh, okay. The warm </p>



<p>part.</p>



<p><span>[00:17:46]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> Lovely, yeah. It&#8217;s warm part, but because of our altitude, we have cooler weather. Whenever it rains, whenever we have humidity, it&#8217;s lovely weather. It&#8217;s the city of perpetual springs.</p>



<p>Ah, <span>[00:18:00]</span> well, that sounds like a great place to visit. You should, yes, definitely. </p>



<p><span>[00:18:05]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right. Well, we&#8217;re here today to talk about your role as a volunteer in the recent WP Photos event. Um, so let&#8217;s just dive right in. What was your task as a volunteer? What did you volunteer to do? </p>



<p><span>[00:18:20]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> Yeah, as a volunteer? Um, as a volunteer, uh, for the photo, uh, WP Photo , I was, my only task was to al uh, the attendees on the Zoom call at the inaugural and at the, it&#8217;s a tiny task, but I love doing it because it was, I was contributing to.</p>



<p>That&#8217;s fantastic event that we sure. </p>



<p><span>[00:18:49]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. Something I noticed on the, on the page for volunteers. There are many, many volunteers and from the ones I&#8217;ve talked to, they each had a very small job, which I kind of like because. <span>[00:19:00]</span> Yeah, it allows volunteers to, to be full attendees and not have to work the whole time.</p>



<p>Um, but why did you get, why did you, uh, did you get selected for that job or did you choose that job? </p>



<p><span>[00:19:13]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> I chose that job. I volunteered, uh, to do something for the WPS and I was, I was selected for this. Okay. </p>



<p><span>[00:19:28]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right. Um, have you volunteered at a remote event before? </p>



<p><span>[00:19:36]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> I did volunteer, uh, remote event before with you.</p>



<p>One of the events was with you. The. Yes. Uh, word Fest Live, which went Yes. Word </p>



<p><span>[00:19:50]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Fest. Yeah, </p>



<p><span>[00:19:52]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> word Live twice. And, uh, I was an organizer at Word Camp India, uh, 2021. It was <span>[00:20:00]</span> online year, remotely. </p>



<p><span>[00:20:01]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Oh, I remember that. Yeah. Um, how does, how does this event compare? &#8217;cause those are, well, I guess, uh, one was a word camp word dress was not a camp.</p>



<p>Um, although it felt like one, um, how does it compare? </p>



<p><span>[00:20:17]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> Oh, well, this one is a very unique event. The focus was only on contributing to WordPress photo directory. And that&#8217;s a fantastic way to contribute to an open source project, especially, specifically WordPress. So the entry bar is quite low, so anybody can participate, anybody can take a lovely photo and, uh, share it with the world saying that I took this photo and you can use it the way you like.</p>



<p>And that&#8217;s the only condition to contribute to WordPress photo directory. <span>[00:21:00]</span> And that was, um, that was what the whole WP Photo Kerala was about. So. That way, the, the, the aim of the program was, uh, contributing to WordPress Photos. So that way, the work that I was supposed to do was very little, minimal work, and it was very easy, but enjoyable.</p>



<p><span>[00:21:26]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> I&#8217;m really glad to hear that. Um, you know, I&#8217;ve been working on this story for a week and a half now, and I&#8217;m just now realizing how non exclusive, how inclusive this event was, um, a word camp by its very nature is exclusive. You pick 20 speakers and everybody else. Doesn&#8217;t take part. But with, with this photos event, every single person who showed up could <span>[00:22:00]</span> totally take part.</p>



<p><span>[00:22:02]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> Everybody is&#8230; it&#8217;s everybody&#8217;s event. My event is organized this event. I, I also clicked some photos and I contributed during this event. Um, yeah, </p>



<p><span>[00:22:13]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> well, that&#8217;s really cool. Um, was there, uh, what was internal communication like? Between volunteers, between volunteers and organizers, et cetera. Was there an organized system or was it just kind of track people down as you, as you need?</p>



<p><span>[00:22:38]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> Um, I, I&#8217;m not sure I was not on any of the, I, I&#8217;m not sure if the organizing team has their own Slack channel or anything, but, uh, I am, I communicated with the organizing team over, uh, uh, make WP Slack. And <span>[00:23:00]</span> whenever they need it, they will get in touch with me over WhatsApp or phone call because I&#8217;m, uh, I&#8217;m regularly in touch with them.</p>



<p>And so I was given a primer what my role was. This is what you&#8217;re supposed to do. And if you need help, just contact me. And since my task was very minimal, so I didn&#8217;t need the specialized training or anything. And so I was just doing that task with Marshall. Muting or, uh, asking them to, you know, uh, turn on their microphones.</p>



<p>So those, those were simple tasks, which I am already well aware of. So I did not need much. </p>



<p><span>[00:23:45]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right. Um, I&#8217;ve been, as I&#8217;ve been watching the event, that&#8217;s like. I didn&#8217;t watch the event very well. I was ill, but I&#8217;m looking back at it and I&#8217;m trying to think about, <span>[00:24:00]</span> um, what was done and why and how, how it might get done better.</p>



<p>Maybe it&#8217;s perfect. I have noticed some things that are just really spot on and, and couldn&#8217;t be done better. Um, so I&#8217;m trying to decide if better communication is needed. And it sort of sounds like no, from the volunteers I&#8217;ve spoken to, like, no, I just, I was told what to do and I did my thing and, and it&#8217;s all good.</p>



<p><span>[00:24:25]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> Communication was just enough, just enough. So it was not overload of, you know, just enough, but, uh, even their, uh, communication over the website was fantastic. That was fantastic. Tell me about that. Attended was fantastic. You know, the, the blog posts on, uh, WP Photos Kerala were, um, was actually how to contribute to WordPress Photos directory.</p>



<p>In many Indian languages. So, they had Maharashtra, <span>[00:25:00]</span> Tamil, Bengali, Nepali, Marathi. So many languages. So they&#8217;re like, you know, as you said, it was inclusive. Anybody who could, who wanted to learn how to contribute to what this photo directory, they could just go to the website and say, Oh, there is already a post in my own language.</p>



<p>So if I don&#8217;t understand it very well, I could read that post in my own language and understand, yes, that&#8217;s so easy. What am I supposed to do? How do I do it? What are the conditions? And that&#8217;s, that makes sense. So. It&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, uh, it&#8217;s fantastic at many levels. Number one, it makes it inclusive. Everybody&#8217;s welcome.</p>



<p>No matter what language you speak, which part of India, what language you speak, everybody&#8217;s welcome. Number two is they got the community involved. The people who do only translation, polyglot community. They don&#8217;t do anything. I mean, they might not have the skills to do a <span>[00:26:00]</span> photo edit, uh, photo approvals, uh, other, uh, coding, other things, but they were involved and they became part of it.</p>



<p>Yeah. And, uh, so they got people excited about, uh, contributing to WordPress by translating, which is interesting. So it went across. Disciplines. Yes. Cross discipline collaboration. </p>



<p><span>[00:26:29]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> So I have a question for you. Um, I&#8217;ve made content in the past, targeted at India, and I&#8217;ve considered translating it. But I&#8217;ve been told by many people, I think maybe even by you, that English is all we need.</p>



<p>Oh, yes. People speak English, that it&#8217;s not needed. What made this special? </p>



<p><span>[00:26:49]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> So, okay. Now, that&#8217;s, you&#8217;re right. So English is all we need when we come to WordPress dashboard. Or, uh, website menu, or, uh, <span>[00:27:00]</span> contact us page, or, uh, about us, uh, con, contact details. But when you want, when you want to tell the story, or when you want to give detailed instructions, uh, there are people who will benefit reading it in their own mother tongue.</p>



<p>So, as, as, uh, as I, I&#8217;m saying. In case of Heropress, there are some essays which are already written by the author in their own mother tongue and in English. So, I like to read the essays, for example, in Marathi. I like to read the essays, for example, in some of the languages, like Persian. So, those essays, as you said previously, when people write in their own mother tongue.</p>



<p>There&#8217;s no accent. Or when I&#8217;m reading in somebody&#8217;s mother tongue, that essay is without any accent. </p>



<p><span>[00:27:55]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yes. There&#8217;s no accent when you write in your own mother tongue.</p>



<p><span>[00:27:59]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> That&#8217;s true. <span>[00:28:00]</span> That&#8217;s true. That&#8217;s true. So I enjoy reading stories when people tell stories, narrate stories in their own mother tongue. That&#8217;s special.</p>



<p>Same way, um, the documentation should be in the mother tongue because there are terms which people understand better in their own mother tongue. So for me, yes, I, I would read documentation predominantly in English, my first choice would be already English because I&#8217;ve always been doing that. </p>



<p><span>[00:28:32]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> So, right.</p>



<p>There are many people that makes good sense.</p>



<p><span>[00:28:42]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> And so that, that way that it did make it special this time, yes. </p>



<p>Yeah. And I, you know, I&#8217;ve had other people say that even if their English is excellent, knowing the other person took the time to translate it for their convenience <span>[00:29:00]</span> is special. Oh, </p>



<p>yes. Oh, yes. Yes. </p>



<p><span>[00:29:10]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right. Uh, I don&#8217;t have any more questions for you.</p>



<p>I really appreciate your time. Thank you for coming. Thank you for taking part in the photos project.</p>



<p><span>[00:29:18]</span> <strong>Yogesh:</strong> Uh, lovely chatting with you. I have enjoyed talking to you. </p>



<p><span>[00:29:23]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. And that brings us to the end of day two of our series about the WP photos project that took place internationally. Today, we spoke with volunteers tomorrow.</p>



<p>We talked with some attendees and find out what it was like to go to an event where you didn&#8217;t necessarily rub elbows with anyone else, but everybody was there. See you tomorrow.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 27 Feb 2024 21:28:06 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Topher DeRosia";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"Gravatar: Gravatar Manifesto: One Profile, Everywhere";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"http://blog.gravatar.com/?p=1057";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:79:"https://blog.gravatar.com/2024/02/27/gravatar-manifesto-one-profile-everywhere/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5744:"<p class="has-medium-font-size">Beyond the avatar with new, open-source tools</p>



<p class="has-small-font-size">Gravatar has been a humble profile picture service for over two decades. Your globally recognized avatar, linked to an email address, traveling with you around the web.&nbsp;</p>



<p class="has-small-font-size">With many <em>billions</em> of avatars served across sites like WordPress.com, Slack, GitHub, and ChatGPT.</p>



<p class="has-small-font-size">We want to give you a preview of the next evolution of Gravatar. Building on our legacy by empowering users to claim control of their digital identities and equipping developers with the open-source tools they need to build a better web.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A New Approach to Identity</h2>



<img width="660" height="495" src="https://gravatar.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/image-4-1.png?w=660" alt="" class="wp-image-1195" />



<p>Gravatar redefines online identity by linking it to an email address rather than a name. This subtle yet profound difference opens a world of possibilities — allowing you to curate multiple profiles for various facets of your life, whether work, family, or play.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Even be anonymous. We support that, too!</p>



<p>On sites and apps integrated with Gravatar, easily import and share profile details like your avatar, bio, and interests for a seamless and engaging experience.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Your Online Business Card</h2>



<img width="660" height="495" src="https://gravatar.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/image-5-1.png?w=660" alt="" class="wp-image-1196" />



<p>What’s old is new again, and Gravatar is the original ‘link-in-bio’ tool. Every Gravatar account comes with a free public profile page.</p>



<p>If you haven’t visited your profile in a while, now is an excellent time to check out the recent updates.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Use the convenient QR code to share with those you meet in real life, replacing old-fashioned business cards. Add links to your social accounts, contact information, calendars, payment methods, and more. Look for new integrations and personalization settings in the months to come.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Privacy First Profiles</h2>



<img width="660" height="495" src="https://gravatar.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/image-6-1.png?w=660" alt="" class="wp-image-1197" />



<p>With Gravatar, you always decide what information gets shared and when.</p>



<p>You may choose to have your avatar and display name public. But you may want information like your phone number or your birthday private. Gravatar will ask you to confirm before sharing non-public data with a new site or app. And we’ll soon have tools to help keep up with where profile data is used.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Users set permissions, developers build worry-free.</p>



<p>A major benefit of Gravatar is that if you need to update any information, you can just do it once.&nbsp; The change is then instantly available to every site you’ve shared it with.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Let’s Kill Passwords</h2>



<img width="660" height="495" src="https://gravatar.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/image-8.png?w=660" alt="" class="wp-image-1198" />



<p>We will soon release a new passwordless authentication service that can be added to any website or app. Logging in with Gravatar will be the simplest way to bring your profile with you to new sites and services.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Stolen passwords result in data breaches and identity theft. Passwords are also a pain for all of us to manage, reset, and remember.</p>



<p>Going passwordless with Gravatar&#8217;s oAuth service transforms login experiences by ditching traditional usernames and passwords for a more secure, convenient, and future-proof approach. It eliminates common vulnerabilities and reduces support drama around forgotten passwords or locked-out accounts.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Gravatar&#8217;s authentication prioritizes your security. We use open standards, offer seamless Passkey integration, and provide free, developer-friendly tools (a WordPress plugin, mobile SDKs, and more).&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Powerful APIs For Developers</h2>



<img width="660" height="495" src="https://gravatar.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/image-7-1.png?w=660" alt="" class="wp-image-1199" />



<p>Gravatar&#8217;s APIs offer developers unparalleled flexibility and power to customize user experiences using Gravatar profile data.</p>



<p>The existing free API allows for easy implementation of avatars and basic profile details across websites and applications.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Later this year, a new paid API service will extend this functionality with access to more data users have opted to share, including job titles, interests, contact details, and social connections. This expanded dataset will open up new possibilities for developers around e-commerce, CRM, content algorithms, fraud detection, and personalized user experiences.&nbsp;</p>



<p>End users will always control when and if their data is shared.</p>



<p>By leveraging Gravatar&#8217;s APIs, developers can significantly reduce user onboarding friction and tap into a vast network of millions of profiles for a more interconnected web experience.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Join Us On This Journey</h2>



<p>Gravatar fosters a more connected, accessible, and user-centric internet.&nbsp;We are just getting started. We’d love to have you along for the ride.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Subscribe to our blog below to be notified of future updates.</p>



<p>Developers, <a href="https://docs.gravatar.com/join-beta-waitlist/">join our beta waitlist</a> for early access to the tools coming soon.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 27 Feb 2024 16:30:30 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Ronnie Burt";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:40:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.5 Beta 3";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=16992";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://wordpress.org/news/2024/02/wordpress-6-5-beta-3/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8180:"<p>WordPress 6.5 Beta 3 is here and ready for testing!</p>



<p><strong>This beta version of the WordPress software is under development</strong>. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended you evaluate Beta 3 on a test server and site.</p>



<p>You can test WordPress 6.5 Beta 3 in four ways:</p>



<table><tbody><tr><th>Plugin</th><td>Install and activate the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).</td></tr><tr><th>Direct Download</th><td>Download the <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.5-beta3.zip">Beta 3 version (zip)</a> and install it on a WordPress website.</td></tr><tr><th>Command Line</th><td>Use the following <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/cli/">WP-CLI</a> command:<br /><code>wp core update --version=6.5-beta</code>3</td></tr><tr><th>WordPress Playground</th><td>Use the <a href="https://playground.wordpress.net/#{%20%22preferredVersions%22:%20{%20%22php%22:%20%228.0%22,%20%22wp%22:%20%22beta%22%20},%20%22features%22:%20{%20%22networking%22:%20true%20},%20%22steps%22:%20[%20{%20%22step%22:%20%22login%22,%20%22username%22:%20%22admin%22,%20%22password%22:%20%22password%22%20},%20{%20%22step%22:%20%22importFile%22,%20%22file%22:%20{%20%22resource%22:%20%22url%22,%20%22url%22:%20%22https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wpaccessibility/a11y-theme-unit-test/master/a11y-theme-unit-test-data.xml%22%20}%20},%20{%20%22step%22:%20%22importFile%22,%20%22file%22:%20{%20%22resource%22:%20%22url%22,%20%22url%22:%20%22https://raw.githubusercontent.com/WordPress/theme-test-data/master/themeunittestdata.wordpress.xml%22%20}%20},%20{%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20{%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22query-monitor%22%20},%20%22options%22:%20{%20%22activate%22:%20false%20},%20%22progress%22:%20{%20%22weight%22:%202%20}%20},%20{%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20{%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22create-block-theme%22%20},%20%22progress%22:%20{%20%22weight%22:%202%20}%20},%20{%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20{%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22debug-bar%22%20},%20%22progress%22:%20{%20%22weight%22:%202%20}%20},%20{%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20{%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22health-check%22%20},%20%22progress%22:%20{%20%22weight%22:%202%20}%20},%20{%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20{%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22test-reports%22%20},%20%22progress%22:%20{%20%22weight%22:%202%20}%20},%20{%20%22step%22:%20%22installPlugin%22,%20%22pluginZipFile%22:%20{%20%22resource%22:%20%22wordpress.org/plugins%22,%20%22slug%22:%20%22user-switching%22%20},%20%22progress%22:%20{%20%22weight%22:%202%20}%20}%20]%20}">6.5 Beta 3 WordPress Playground instance</a> to test the software directly in your browser without the need for a separate site or setup.&nbsp;</td></tr></tbody></table>



<p>The current target date for the final release of WordPress 6.5 is <strong>March 26, 2024</strong>. That&#8217;s only four weeks away! Get an overview of the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-5/">6.5 release cycle</a>, and check the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">Make WordPress Core blog</a> for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/6-5/">6.5-related posts</a> in the coming weeks for more information.</p>



<p class="is-style-default"><strong>Catch up on what&#8217;s new in WordPress 6.5</strong>: <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2024/02/wordpress-6-5-beta-1/">Read the Beta 1 announcement</a> for details and highlights.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">How to test this release</h2>



<p>Your help testing the WordPress 6.5 Beta 3 version is key to ensuring everything in the release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2024/02/28/help-test-wordpress-beta-3/">This detailed guide</a> will walk you through testing features in WordPress 6.5. For those new to testing, follow <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2024/02/15/help-test-wordpress-6-5-beta-1">this general testing guide</a> for more details on getting set up. </p>



<p>If you encounter an issue, please report it to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">Alpha/Beta area</a> of the support forums or directly to <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">WordPress Trac</a> if you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report. You can also check your issue against a list of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major">known bugs</a>.</p>



<p>Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/">testing initiatives in Make Core</a> and join the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/core-test/">#core-test channel</a> on <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/">Making WordPress Slack</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Vulnerability bounty doubles during Beta/RC</h2>



<p>Between Beta 1, released on February 13, and the final Release Candidate (RC) scheduled for March 19, the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/security/2024/02/12/welcoming-2024-with-wordpress-6-5-beta-1/">monetary reward for reporting new, unreleased security vulnerabilities</a> is doubled. Please follow responsible disclosure practices as detailed in the project’s security practices and policies outlined on the <a href="https://hackerone.com/wordpress">HackerOne page</a> and in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/about/security/">security white paper</a>.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Beta 3 updates and highlights</h2>



<p>WordPress 6.5 Beta 3 contains more than 45 updates to the Editor since the Beta 2 release, including more than 35 <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&changetime=02%2F21%2F2024..02%2F27%2F2024&milestone=6.5&col=id&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=id">tickets for WordPress Core</a>.</p>



<p>Each beta cycle focuses on bug fixes; more are on the way with your help through testing. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 2 using these links:</p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/commits/wp/6.5?since=2024-02-21&until=2024-02-27">GitHub commits for 6.5</a> since February 21</li>



<li><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=closed&changetime=02%2F21%2F2024..02%2F27%2F2024&milestone=6.5&col=id&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=id">Closed Trac tickets</a> since February 21</li>
</ul>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Double the haiku for Beta 3</h2>



<p>Find a Beta bug,<br />it will help the team a lot,<br />and improve WordPress!<br /><em>&#8211; submitted by</em> <em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/lada7042/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>lada7042</a></em></p>



<p>In code, dreams are bold,<br />WordPress&#8217;s story unfolds,<br />Beta journey&#8217;s told.<br /><em>&#8211; submitted by <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/huzaifaalmesbah/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>huzaifaalmesbah</a></em></p>



<p><em>Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dansoschin/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>dansoschin</a></em>, <em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/swissspidy/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>swissspidy</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/adarshposimyth/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>adarshposimyth</a></em>, <em><a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/davidbaumwald/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>davidbaumwald</a></em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 27 Feb 2024 16:27:30 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"Lauren Stein";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"WPTavern: FSE Outreach Experimental Loses Two Words, Gains New Life";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=154354";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"https://wptavern.com/fse-outreach-experimental-loses-two-words-gains-new-life";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:7938:"<p>Sometimes success means having to say goodbye. That’s sort of what happened to the FSE Outreach Program, newly launched as plain <em>Outreach</em>.</p>



<p>The longtime facilitator of this initiative, Automattic Product Wrangler Anne McCarthy, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/09/07/evolving-the-fse-outreach-program/">announced the upcoming changes</a> in September 2023:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p><em>What started as an</em> <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2020/05/01/an-experimental-outreach-project-for-full-site-editing/"><em>experimental program in May 2020</em></a><em> with the expectation that the Site Editor would ship in the following 6 or so months turned into nearly 3.5 years of feedback loops, knowledge sharing, and community building. With WordPress 6.3 bringing Phase 2 to completion, it’s time for the FSE Outreach Program to evolve alongside the broader WordPress project and needs.</em></p>



<p><em>The intention was to “get feedback about pain points to the right people faster and help keep us on track for Phase 2”. We did this! You did this.</em><br /><em>All good things must come to an end–or they need to adapt to continue to stay relevant. </em></p>
</blockquote>



<p>It was the culmination of consistent commitment to both expand the scope of testers and to nudge users to experiment with new features:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p><em>The primary goal is to help improve the Full Site Editing experience by gathering feedback from WordPress site builders [&#8230;] the program also seeks to grow awareness and ability with full site editing features.</em></p>
</blockquote>



<p>As the adoption of the Site Editor (nee FSE, or Full Site Editing)<a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-2023-survey-block-editor-on-the-rise-positive-feeling-about-contributing-drops"> continues to grow</a>, it’s time to refocus on discoverability and redefine the program’s goals.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Extending the Test Team</h2>



<p>The first step—renaming the Making WordPress Slack channel to<a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/C015GUFFC00"> #outreach</a>—has been completed. But as culture has taught us—from William Shakespeare to failed rebranding endeavors—a new name doesn’t change the nature of the object it delineates.</p>



<p>Birgit Pauli-Haack, leading the new program, sees Outreach as an enablement platform where site builders and extenders collaborate with core developers. With teammates Justin Tadlock and Nick Diego, she’ll coordinate the effort to recalibrate the program to further this partnership and deepen the community’s trust.</p>



<p>In her <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/01/29/proposal-whats-next-for-the-outreach-program/">proposal post on the Core blog</a>, Pauli-Haack listed several use cases for the rebranded channel, aiming to keep it approachable, friendly, and wide-ranged—a destination for WordPress newcomers and professionals alike.</p>



<p>“The FSE Outreach program made it clear that connecting in this channel facilitated participants’ first contributions and lowered the barrier to connecting with the open-source project,” says Pauli-Haack, clarifying that “because site builders and extenders regularly intersect, the channel’s content will be relevant to both user groups. There’s a lot of overlap of interests and concerns.”</p>



<p>Outreach will be a place to:</p>



<ol>
<li>Connect with Developer Hours and Hallway Hangouts presenters beyond the live event.</li>



<li>Resurface relevant content from the Dev Chat about upcoming features and call for testing from various teams.</li>



<li>Collect feedback on breaking changes in future releases and provide answers and workarounds.</li>



<li>Allow design and engineering teams to tap into this extended user base for input on GitHub issues and Trac tickets.</li>



<li>Arrange ad hoc working groups for issues raised across social media that are outside the scope of the Support team.</li>



<li>Provide support and resources to Meetup organizers.</li>
</ol>



<p>Rather than a link between support and marketing or even a dedicated end-user-oriented developer advocacy initiative, Pauli-Haack thinks of Outreach as an extension of the Test team: “It is part of the open-source process to build the software and close feedback loops, ideally before the next version is released or to help improve the current functionality. It is part of user testing in a broader sense.”</p>



<p>A welcome side effect of the original program was the comeback of the Test team, whose members now post regular updates and proactively share testing instructions aimed at non-developers.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">No Bug Reports Needed</h2>



<p>Two comments posted in response to the “What’s next” post echoed a long-standing obstacle, particularly for casual, non-technical contributors: how to encourage them to share feedback while lowering the barrier to entry associated with GitHub.</p>



<p><strong>How will Outreach address these issues?<br /></strong>“The program is another way for site builders and developers to get comfortable contributing and collaborating on the open-source project. Any constructive and problem-oriented feedback is welcome, especially if it doesn’t fit into the guardrails of a bug report or a feature request. By discussion and collaboration, we discover the next steps to a possible solution.</p>



<p>It’s also an opportunity for extenders to find an open ear for airing pain points on extending WordPress. Part of the extender Outreach is the Extensibility Issues Triage initiative. Each month, contributors from agencies and extenders go through the project board of identified issues, try to move them forward to get them reviewed and ultimately merged.”</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A Group Endeavor</h2>



<p>In the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2024/02/23/recap-hallway-hangout-whats-next-for-the-outreach-program/">recap of the Hallway Hangout</a> dedicated to discussing these typical difficulties and possible ways to alleviate them, the team proposed actionable steps:</p>



<ul>
<li>Set up a GitHub team that contributors can ping when they want to gather early feedback from users.</li>



<li>Encourage engineers to use the Outreach channel to request extenders’ feedback on new features earlier in development before they’re merged and shipped.</li>



<li>Create a wishlist for upcoming releases to get users’ input on priorities. This overlaps with the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2023/11/27/summary-hallway-hangout-triage-extensibility-issue/">Extensibility Issues Triage</a> initiative.</li>
</ul>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p><em>The goal is to make the Outreach Program more accessible and sustainable, improve collaboration across teams, and help guide WordPress development through early and ongoing user and contributor input.</em></p>
</blockquote>



<p>Coming up with ideas is the easy part—making them happen is the real challenge. As Pauli-Haack mentioned, “This can only be a group endeavor if we want to broaden the reach and be a welcoming place for people interested in particular focuses of the software.“</p>



<p><strong>How will you ensure that the channel remains focused, and balances sometimes conflicting needs and interests?<br /></strong>“These are ideas that come from knowing that non-contributors need to connect with contributors. We want to ensure an ongoing humming in the channel, letting people know what’s happening. As this is still a young initiative, we will see what will come of it. It’s version one, and we will continue to iterate.”</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 27 Feb 2024 10:00:53 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Ronny Shani";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"Do The Woo Community: The Collaboration of the Interactivity API with WordPress and WooCommerce";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=79149";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:74:"https://dothewoo.io/interactivity-api-collaboration-wordpress-woocommerce/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:481:"<p>WordPress and WooCommerce devs Carlos Bravo and Lucio Giannotta discuss the collaboration of WordPress core and Woo with the Interactivity API, a new framework for developers.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a href="https://dothewoo.io/interactivity-api-collaboration-wordpress-woocommerce/">The Collaboration of the Interactivity API with WordPress and WooCommerce</a> appeared first on <a href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce and WordPress Builder Podcast</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 27 Feb 2024 10:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"WPTavern: WordPress Photo Festival 2024, A Five Part Retrospective, Part 1, Organizers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=154319";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-photo-festival-2024-a-five-part-retrospective-part-1-organizers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:39857:"<p>From February 3-10 the Kerala, India WordPress community hosted an International Photos event, to both boost the number of photos at https://wordpress.org/photos as well as increase the number of contributors.</p>



<p>In this series we&#8217;ll talk with organizers, volunteers, and participants about how the event went as well as the community team, about how this event is a model for the second generation WordPress events.</p>



<p>In this particular we&#8217;ll meet organizers Bigul Malayi and Ajith R N.</p>



<p>This article is available in Video, Audio, and transcribed text.</p>



<p></p>







<p>Audio Edition</p>







<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Transcription</h2>



<p><span>[00:00:00]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Hello! My name is Topher DeRosia. This episode begins a five part series on the WordPress photo festival, 2024 that took place February three through 10. We&#8217;ll talk to organizers, volunteers, and participants about how the event went as well as the community team, about how this event is a model for the second generation WordPress events.</p>



<p>Before we get started, I&#8217;d like to provide some background for the event. At the State of the Word 2021, Matt announced the WP Photos project. A project to have the WordPress community submit photos for use by anyone in the world for any <span>[00:01:00]</span> purpose. As of today, there are over 15, 000 photos available in the Photos repository.</p>



<p>The 2024 Photo Festival was an attempt to both boost the number of submitters as well as the number of photos. We begin our story talking with Biggle from Kerala. Biggle, can you tell me your full name and where you live? </p>



<p><span>[00:01:27]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Hi, good evening. I&#8217;m Bigul. My full name is e. Malai is my family name.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m from,  South India, southern part of India. I live in a state called Kerala. And my city name is Kozhikode, Calicut. It is one, in the olden time it is very famous for,  what to say, spices. So many European traders came here for trading spices in the past. <span>[00:02:00]</span> </p>



<p><span>[00:02:00]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Were those, were those the Portuguese? Like I know the Portuguese would go up.</p>



<p><span>[00:02:04]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yes, yes, yes. Exactly. He landed here. He was,  then he started the colonization of India. Uh, okay. So the Portuguese came here and before,  Portuguese, we were in trade with Arabs and Chinese,  traders. So,  my city,  has been in touch, direct contact with the,  foreigners, different traders from the world.</p>



<p>For more than 800 years. </p>



<p><span>[00:02:32]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Wow. That&#8217;s really impressive. </p>



<p><span>[00:02:34]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> And,  if you, yeah. And for rest of the, my,  state Kerala is in touch with the spice spreading and tea,  lot of,  commodity spread here since the time of Greeks and Romans. Hmm. Maybe you can find,  the, some ships of Ella Malabar coast in,  so,  the Solomon episode of Bible also.<span>[00:03:00]</span> </p>



<p><span>[00:03:00]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Oh, yeah, I&#8217;ll bet. Yeah. Um, so we&#8217;re here today to talk about the WP photos event that happened there Uh, tell me about it. What is it for somebody who doesn&#8217;t know? </p>



<p><span>[00:03:13]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Okay. Um photo festival,  as everybody know,  We have no way to contribute back to weight plus since last two years and many people are involved in that project uh, because uh nowadays everyone carry good camera or Mobile.</p>



<p>So we were able to click nice shots wherever we go. So we have a lot of contributors to the,  wait portal directory. There are thousands of contributors and,  uh, from our in Kerala, we have five meetup groups. And most of the time we organized the meetups and where camps together m took at that. So,  uh, we noticed many people from,  our community.</p>



<p>We have a, uh. We have <span>[00:04:00]</span> three active with, with,  WhatsApp group and we have,  five meet groups also. So from there we noticed many,  people in our communities,  actively contributing to WebPress photo directory. And few of them,  the photos were selected in,  in our associated newsletters and uh,  also some other websites related to it.</p>



<p>Press. Uh, especially like a good number of times, zero press, et cetera. So,  as a token of appreciation, people love to contribute more back to the WordPress photos. So,  as per the,  current status, many,  bedcams. Uh, or waitress meetup groups are organizing a photo walk. So be impressed from,  waitress Tokyo group.</p>



<p>And they,  they used to do photo walks very often than other meetup groups. So <span>[00:05:00]</span> we decided to go,  something similar,  but they did so,  A few months back last year,  we went to a botanical garden nearby in Calicut,  that is hardly,  10 kilometers from my native,  I used to go there in the childhood,  because that botanical garden has a lot of,  plants.</p>



<p>where it is more than thousands of plant varieties, especially they have a garden for ginger and bananas. Uh, it sounds like </p>



<p><span>[00:05:33]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> an ideal place for a photo walk. </p>



<p><span>[00:05:35]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yeah. Yeah. Photo walk. So we&#8217;ve been there and also they have,  they have a very good pond for lotus and, um, water lilies. So And we were able to take a lot of photos there.</p>



<p>And the funny thing is that actually we were only allowed to stay there for three hours, but that day we went there on a Sunday and that day was very rainy day and we were not able to <span>[00:06:00]</span> walk sometime because of the heavy rain. Thankfully, there were some,  kind of a shot,  uh, that way to understand.</p>



<p>What to say? Some kind of a hut. Yeah. A shed hut, hut, hut, or roughly shed there. So we, we were able to sit there and we were able to talk about WordPress and general web development things. So it&#8217;s like extended a WordPress day. And we were 15 people and, um, Then,  we took more than six hours,  to,  Rob around botanical cat</p>



<p>And uh, thankfully that day there were a coffee bar nearby, or there is a coffee bar. Actually, they were serving food also in the working days, but Sundays are day for them, so we were able to only able to drink coffee until four evening . Nice. So, but,  the, at. Most of the year was very chilly,  because it is very cool and rain was most of the time it was raining and we were able to take very good <span>[00:07:00]</span> photos.</p>



<p>And I think more than 200 photos from that walk is already in the photo directory by different people. And a few are still remaining to upload those photos. Oh yeah. But still, it is very nice. After seeing,  that in those years from the,  and we also created few reels and . Sure. So it was very successful.</p>



<p>Ah, yeah. When we shared it in the,  our community groups, meetup groups and uh,  WhatsApp group,  we got very good response then,  from the people and they want to be part of that. But,  in, so we thought that if we had taken 20 or 30 people to. Or a botanical garden,  because the photos will be similar,  because there is a limitation.</p>



<p>There will be many photo duplications. Not sure. Yes. Yes. There are a lot of chances for that. So,  we started to think about how we can have a photo contributed day <span>[00:08:00]</span> and how we can differentiate from a photo market. Then we came with the idea about it. Uh, it was a half day for the contribution day. And we organized it in last year after 23 weeks after the photo book.</p>



<p>Uh, and it went very well. Uh, it it was in last November, and it went very well. We were able to contribute another 200 photos from and most of the participants were different part of Kerala. Uh, so more than 60 people attend that event also. So,  that was a very interesting,  feedback from the people.</p>



<p>And, but,  we,  there were a lot of positive feedbacks and one of the negative feedback was,  they&#8217;re not getting much time to contribute the photo. As we ah know. Uh, we can only upload,  five photo at a time and Right. We have to wait for the moderation. Uh, so we were looking for,  an option how we can, uh.</p>



<p>We can make a remedy for this and <span>[00:09:00]</span> what will be the exact solution for this when we are organizing a photo walk or photo contributor day. So people want to contribute more than 10 or 15 photos. And we have to, we have to consider it as a part of the event, these photo sessions. So we were thinking about different models and Finally, we came up with the idea that still few people don&#8217;t know what, why we should contribute the photos and what are the methods we have to follow, what are the things we have to take care of.</p>



<p>So we decided to have a different format. Uh, we plan to organize a photo festival and it&#8217;s fully dedicated for the contribution of WordPress photo directory. And we decided to. Run it as a one week program on the first day, we organized two orientation, one in the,  Asian morning time zone and one in the hour evening time.</p>



<p>So the people from different <span>[00:10:00]</span> parts of the globe can attend even,  uh, the people from the American side also can attend because it will be early morning for them. So we organized two meetings. One is in the early morning time, time and evening time. So,  more than a hundred people attended both of the meetings,  all in one.</p>



<p>And they, at, they came to,  know more about how we can contribute to the photo directly and what all are the things we have to take her about. What is the relevance of a CCO license, et cetera. Sure. We had a very interactive discussion,  on the both sessions. And people started to contribute and the interesting fact that our goal for this photo festival was 1000 photos to the photo directory in a one week time.</p>



<p>On the first day itself, there are more than 400 photos submissions. And that is the first time the photo directory is facing that much load. Actually the moderators was busy. For the next one week, <span>[00:11:00]</span> because whenever you look to the photo directory, there will be more than 200 to 50 photos in the queue.</p>



<p>Even on the last day, there were,  we spent a lot of time on Friday and also Saturday morning. And then also there were more than 60 photos,  submitted for our photo festival. So that was an immense response. Our goal actually, as like I mentioned before, our goal was thousand photos, but we were able to.</p>



<p>I mean the pupil sub contributor more than around two, 2000 photos. But as you know, we cannot, there, there are few of the photos around 400 plus photos. Were not up to the mark. They have. Yeah. It always happens. They were matching tower guidelines, so it happens. So we were, we had to reject those photos because they, most of them were not up to the market because of different issues like clarity paid,  et cetera.</p>



<p>So,  in, uh. After that also, even we <span>[00:12:00]</span> rejected 400 plus photos, there were,  thousand 544 photos contributed the WordPress photo directory as a part of that. And,  it is contributed by,  more than 160 contributors from different parts. </p>



<p><span>[00:12:16]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> And that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s just within one week.</p>



<p><span>[00:12:17]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Right. Yeah, within one week.</p>



<p>Actually, the funny thing is that,  more than 300 people registered for the event, but thankfully only 170 people contributed. Otherwise, it will be a big, big, big, big,  delay will cause that to monitor the photos and moderate the photos. It will take a lot of, lot of time. It will not be possible to sort all the things in a one week time.</p>



<p>So overall, we get a very good feedback and. It is,  it&#8217;s a nice way of contributing back to WordPress. </p>



<p><span>[00:12:53]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. Uh, I do know the moderator struggled to keep up because they came in so quickly. Um, at one point <span>[00:13:00]</span> there was, I think a thousand in the queue. Um, I watch personally, I watch every photo go by in an RSS feed just for fun.</p>



<p>And,  there&#8217;s usually 40 or 50 in a day. And I got up over 2000 in my reader before I could start catching up. And so that was crazy. Um, I personally was ill during that time. So I wasn&#8217;t able to moderate or even attend. And so, and I&#8217;m one of the moderators. So,  that put extra weight on some of the others.</p>



<p>Uh, Marcus Burnett is a moderator and he was at a word camp. And so,  it was, it was a pretty stressful time. I don&#8217;t think anybody expected that volume. Um, and it was. It was pleasantly international. Uh, you know, it was India heavy, but that&#8217;s okay. It&#8217;s that was. That&#8217;s your home, your home base. But I saw people from all over the world contributing, and that <span>[00:14:00]</span> was very encouraging.</p>



<p>Um, I&#8217;m excited to see other cities,  other States around the world,  pick up the mantle and. And do something similar, um, sort of like the Olympics, you know, where,  it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s international, but it&#8217;s really about the city. </p>



<p><span>[00:14:25]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yes. Yes. We can consider,  because,  after this,  when we can conclude the photo festival, most of the participants were checking when will be the next event.</p>



<p>So of course we have to think about a bigger vision, maybe next year,  in a bigger manner. </p>



<p><span>[00:14:46]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Um, tell me about the future. Have you, have you already thought about,  doing another one yourself? Have you thought about, or has anybody approached you and said, Hey, we&#8217;d like to do this <span>[00:15:00]</span> also. </p>



<p><span>[00:15:01]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yeah, we got a very good feedback from the community because community,  because few approach, I mean, a few community organizers in touch with us, they, they.</p>



<p>told told us that they will be doing something similar as a part of their webcam. Uh, not in a bigger, bigger manner, but a kind of a smaller version of this. Uh, so I, I hope,  it will be followed by,  many other communities and people want a bigger version of this. Uh, so maybe,  next year we can, we can plan a bigger one.</p>



<p>Yeah, I, in a sense, what I mean that,  actually that,  many people contributed more than 30, 40 photos and they want to contribute more. And also the thing is that. They were not getting enough time to contribute as they,  they want because,  many, <span>[00:16:00]</span> uh, participants conducted us through different social media channels, even a few of them contacted us directly, directly because they have our,  phone numbers or WhatsApp numbers.</p>



<p>So they, they ping me directly and say, why my photo is spending queue for last two days. I have tons of photos with me. I want to contribute. I want to contribute. What, well, when you will be moderate. Okay.</p>



<p><span>[00:16:25]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Uh, so that&#8217;s, that speaks to some of the logistics that we need to take care of. Yeah. Particularly around moderators.</p>



<p><span>[00:16:31]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yeah. So yes, please carry on, </p>



<p><span>[00:16:36]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> but we have enough moderators for daily submissions. It&#8217;s working fine. Yes, exactly. But so that&#8217;s not going to scale. So, yeah, points that out. This is a good stress test for the for the system. </p>



<p><span>[00:16:51]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yes, exactly. So, but we can do that. Uh, we can,  we can in touch with moderators. Uh, in advance.</p>



<p>If this time <span>[00:17:00]</span> we only pinged them, um, just around two weeks before the event. Next time we can make a,  a long plan and we can ping them in advance, two, three months advance. So they can be ready. They can devote some time on that particular two, three weeks. And we can give people,  more than a week or 10 days or 15 days.</p>



<p>Contributing to the WordPress photo directory. So everybody will get enough time to contribute their good photos to the photo directory. And also,  uh, so there will not be any hurry. So we will get enough submission also. And also as a moderator, we will get enough time to moderate it. And,  for,  for us, it will get enough.</p>



<p>time to sort out the photos and announce the winners rather than we keep doing in a one or two days. Uh, so,  that is our plan. And also,  many people,  be discussed in person multiple <span>[00:18:00]</span> times. Many people want to contribute to the WordPress photo directory, but they&#8217;re not willing to create an account in WordPress.</p>



<p>org or they are not willing. Submit the photos one by one and when we, when we were,  sharing this group in a few of the professional photographers we know and they shared it in their WhatsApp group about this. Uh, so immediate response is that, is it possible to send the photos,  send the photos via email?</p>



<p>Uh, so that is the normal practice. Yeah. Normal practice here. Uh, some,  when a online media or a,  regular media conduct the event for the photo festival like this,  for example, nature for the festival or,  by wildlife photograph festival. There are a few photo festivals happens here most of the time.</p>



<p>Uh, by conducted by some organizations or online,  uh, agencies like that. They will only ask them to send the <span>[00:19:00]</span> photos we have made. So they were expecting the same from us. So,  we expect a few,  professional photographers participations, but unfortunately we only get less than 10,  from our state,  because of this.</p>



<p>So next time we will think of a way to include them also. Uh, so we have to work on that. Uh, we need,  if we get one or two volunteer to monitor this, we will surely consider this. </p>



<p><span>[00:19:28]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. I know, I know that there are develop professional developers in the world who became professional developers because of WordPress.</p>



<p>I&#8217;m going to be really curious to see if we get professional photographers. Grow out of this program. Yes, exactly. That would be really great. </p>



<p><span>[00:19:49]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yeah, we are hoping for that also. But there is also another problem is that,  they, they are ready to share a few of them are ready to share, but they are not willing to <span>[00:20:00]</span> share in a license.</p>



<p><span>[00:20:02]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Right?</p>



<p><span>[00:20:03]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yes. That is a difficulty. Yeah, that&#8217;s a difficulty. And so at least we missed a few great photos because of that, but we can compromise with that,  because we, that&#8217;s one of the most important thing in our guideline. Sure. </p>



<p><span>[00:20:21]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. Um, I&#8217;ve given some thoughts to that and we, I think we as a community need to do a better job of communicating why it&#8217;s worthwhile to, for a professional to submit some photos.</p>



<p>Uh, under the CC zero license, um, they never want to give anything away. It didn&#8217;t make sense. It it&#8217;s their culture. Um, but I think, I think we can convince them that it&#8217;s, that it&#8217;s worth it in some ways. Um, so that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s something we can learn from this project. </p>



<p><span>[00:20:56]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yes. And also,  a few of <span>[00:21:00]</span> the,  Professional photos submitted in our,  Event as a part of this event get wider recognition.</p>



<p>One of them is,  selected as the 15, 000 photo. Yeah. There was a tweet from Waitress,  Twitter handle about,  15, 000 photos and one of the professional photos submitted as a part of the event is selected for that. Ah, that&#8217;s great. The one, maybe you remember the blue one, um, of uh,  Kingfisher, blue Kingfisher?</p>



<p>Yes, I do. It&#8217;s, yeah, it is selected as one of the,  best photos of,  our photo festival. </p>



<p><span>[00:21:40]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Ah, that&#8217;s great. Um, I&#8217;d like to talk to you for a few minutes about,  organizers. I noticed you have a lot of them. Mm-Hmm, . Um, my, my local work camp usually had four. What did you have 20 or something like that? <span>[00:22:00]</span> </p>



<p><span>[00:22:00]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yeah, I actually,  as I told you before,  we conducted, I mean, we organized this event as a,  on the band banner of it, the Scarlet community.</p>



<p>Uh, we have,  uh,  for community with respect to community here. So,  all these organizers from that group. Okay. And they are part of our,  last two, three bedcams also. And we worked as a team since we started. So all of them were part of this event in a different, different way. </p>



<p><span>[00:22:32]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> So what kinds of, what kinds of different things did they do?</p>



<p>I mean, okay. So it&#8217;s not a, it&#8217;s not a word camp, so you&#8217;re not getting a venue. You&#8217;re not, you know, all that stuff. What, what did they do for this event? </p>



<p><span>[00:22:47]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Um, actually,  most of us were in the part of,  in the initial process itself. So,  as, as I described before, a few minutes before we started it as a <span>[00:23:00]</span> photo walk in the first, then we organized as a photo direct, I mean, a photo contributor after they contributed dates.</p>



<p>Then we decided to go for a photo festival. So all this idea came when we sit together,  in different Zoom calls. So all of them has their own suggestions and we were discussing about the, the, so it took three, four meetings,  That will from a photo up to photo festival. So everyone was part of the discussion and they were sharing their idea in our group.</p>



<p>So, so we have a WhatsApp group and telegram group for this. And also we have a slack group. So we were discussing a lot of things, how to, how to execute in a better manner. So,  a lot of suggestions came from all of these people and, and also they, they shared about this event in their,  all, all possible ways, like,  they&#8217;re in between their friends and <span>[00:24:00]</span> family in between their colleagues.</p>



<p>Okay. In a different way. So that is why we get a wider,  spread of this event in a short time, actually as a part. As a part of our budget, there was,  250 allocated for online campaign,  especially for the Instagram ads. Uh, but,  in the, on the first day, we, our plan was to execute it on, after we,  we organize the first orientation, the first day orientation and to wait for the response, how will be the response.</p>



<p>And thankfully,  we got a very good response on the first day itself because of this,  indirect collaboration with the people like friends, family, colleagues, et cetera. So that helped, that helped a lot. Uh, so we were able to,  do the promotions in a very short,  short time because of this wider <span>[00:25:00]</span> base.</p>



<p><span>[00:25:01]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Right. </p>



<p>I really like that. Um,</p>



<p>I&#8217;m accustomed to a lead organizer deciding what the tasks are and then assigning them to as many contributors are as needed, which might be four or five or whatever for an event, or at a very large event, maybe, you know, a dozen or so. But I really like the idea of people coming to the meeting and saying, I think we should do this, and I&#8217;m willing to do the work.</p>



<p>And so now I&#8217;m an organizer, you know, um, that&#8217;s very, very,  open source, you know, to come to the group and say, I&#8217;m going to do this work for this project. </p>



<p><span>[00:25:47]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Actually, we always tell one thing, we always tell one thing here. Uh, we, we are trying to execute that. Like there is a famous verse from Three Musketeers, one for all, all for one.</p>



<p><span>[00:25:59]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> <span>[00:26:00]</span> Yes. Yeah, that&#8217;s really great. </p>



<p><span>[00:26:04]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Okay. And also,  uh, the important thing is that we also get a very good support from other Indian community,  like,  for example, maybe you have noticed that,  Sadie has created a. video also pinged us to,  join us a volunteer. Uh, okay. So she created, she created a article,  she write, wrote an article in our,  event,  event site about how to contribute to web water directly with a good video.</p>



<p>So people were able to,  if a people, if a person reading that article,  he or she will be able to,  get a clear understanding of how to contribute to a web photo directory. So, </p>



<p><span>[00:26:46]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> uh, that was translated too as well, right? </p>



<p><span>[00:26:48]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, so be conducted. So,  in our internal discussion,  this idea came that,  we can translate this, the article to different Indian languages.</p>



<p>Then we <span>[00:27:00]</span> conducted,  some of our, I mean, most of our community here, and we were able to, um, Translated to multiple languages like Tamil,  Canada, Hindi, Marti,  Gujarati, Bengali, Nepali. Okay. Uh, we have translated these master languages, so,  that&#8217;s really great. Yeah. So it, it,  it gave. , it, it, it helped us to get a,  uh, wider recognition e even in the community, and people were able to read,  read the article in their languages and they were able to,  contribute to the,  photo directory without much hassles.</p>



<p>So,  it helped a lot. </p>



<p><span>[00:27:43]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. That&#8217;s, that&#8217;s pretty cool. Um, I interviewed Sadie and,  in a couple of days he&#8217;ll be able to watch. Okay. Nice. The interview about her making that video. Okay. Um, I think that&#8217;s it <span>[00:28:00]</span> for today. Okay. I really appreciate your time. Okay. Thank you very much. Um, you&#8217;ve been very patient throughout the entire interview process.</p>



<p><span>[00:28:09]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> It&#8217;s been a journey for both of us. It&#8217;s a pleasure to talk to you because you are one of our men in the photo. I thank you very much. Actually, we, we, we started to contribute after seeing the efforts you have taken for the photo directory, especially you, Michelle and Marcus. </p>



<p><span>[00:28:31]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Uh, well, thank you very much.</p>



<p>We really appreciate that. It&#8217;s nice to hear. </p>



<p><span>[00:28:36]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> Okay. Thank you very </p>



<p><span>[00:28:37]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> much. Bigul was not the only organizer by a long shot. There were quite a few. I also interviewed Ajith. So tell me your whole name and where you&#8217;re from. </p>



<p><span>[00:28:49]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Yeah. My name is Ajit R N. So I&#8217;m from Cochin, Kerala. It&#8217;s a Southern state of India.</p>



<p><span>[00:29:00]</span> So yeah, basically I live near. Uh in the middle of the sea and the mountains so Okay, it&#8217;s </p>



<p><span>[00:29:08]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> uh, yeah, it&#8217;s on the uh, it&#8217;s on the Western shoreline, right? Yeah. Yeah, that&#8217;s right. Yeah, I know I kind of keep track of things by by their relation to mumbai and I know mumbai is about halfway down on the west And so you guys are like, so halfway between the bottom and Mumbai, right?</p>



<p><span>[00:29:30]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> No, actually South actually we are,  no, no, actually we are way below that. So we are the bottom part of the India on the left side. Okay. If you see Yeah. the hot part. . Yeah. . Yeah. </p>



<p><span>[00:29:45]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> So, yeah. Okay. So,  tell me what you did with the WP WP Photos event that happened recently. </p>



<p><span>[00:29:54]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Okay. Uh, basically my role was to take care of all the <span>[00:30:00]</span> website and all the design side of things.</p>



<p>So I did most of the website and all the facilitated all the things for the registration. And also we did some small apps to display the live feed of the photos. Oh, nice. Yeah. Right. Yep. Yeah. Also we got some leaderboard too. So anyway, since the event is over, I think that&#8217;s finalized. So yeah. Okay. So basically my role was to mostly doing all the technical stuff, I guess.</p>



<p>So, yeah. Yeah. That&#8217;s it. </p>



<p><span>[00:30:38]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. Your title was organizer. Yeah. Yeah. That&#8217;s correct. I was surprised. There are quite a few organizers. What was it like 10 or something like that? </p>



<p><span>[00:30:46]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. So we basically,  we are a group of organizers. So,  whenever there&#8217;s an enemy, we call a meeting and everyone will <span>[00:31:00]</span> input, </p>



<p><span>[00:31:00]</span> <strong>Bigul:</strong> uh, </p>



<p><span>[00:31:02]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> we will do their parts.</p>



<p>So that&#8217;s it. Yeah, since this was a,  we didn&#8217;t get enough time to prepare all. Uh, prepare for the event. So like we just got approval and in the next one week or one and a half week, we just, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s only a short amount of window. So most of us didn&#8217;t have free enough time to go through the whole process.</p>



<p>So a bunch of us came together and we did, and yeah, it&#8217;s, that&#8217;s basically. Okay. </p>



<p><span>[00:31:43]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Um, Bigger mentioned he was the main point of contact. Well, okay. So I asked him if he was lead organizer and you&#8217;d not say yes. He said it was main point of contact. Was there a lead organizer? Was there one person or was it just like main point of <span>[00:32:00]</span> contact was by default?</p>



<p>Yeah, actually, </p>



<p><span>[00:32:03]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> uh, he was, yeah, actually we didn&#8217;t,  specifically any lead organizer, so, because. Actually, initially he came up with this idea, so we all communicate through him and he really, yeah, if, if you say, if you, if he can be said, who is the leader, I think it&#8217;s, we can tell it first, so, yeah, that&#8217;s right.</p>



<p>Anyway, we didn&#8217;t get into that conversation, so we, </p>



<p>we work as a group. </p>



<p><span>[00:32:33]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> All right, that makes sense. Have you, um, organized, been on an organizing team for a WordCamp before? </p>



<p><span>[00:32:46]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Yes, I did. So actually I was part of the two editions of WordCamp Cochin. Okay. And one edition of WordCamp Kerala we conducted last year.</p>



<p><span>[00:32:58]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> So my question related <span>[00:33:00]</span> to that is, how is this different from an organizer standpoint? </p>



<p><span>[00:33:05]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Yeah, since this is a purely online event, so there is no interaction with people physically. So basically that was a challenge. In some way, or maybe we can say the, we can cut out a few of our teams. Like we don&#8217;t need to organize a venue or, and all things related to that.</p>



<p>So basically, yeah. So anyway, the reason we choose to go for an online event, because since it was basically a contributing photos to the photo directory, and if you do it on one day, we. May not have get enough photo contributions. So if it was a <span>[00:34:00]</span> longer event or an online event, then everyone can participate.</p>



<p>So with their own time. </p>



<p><span>[00:34:08]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Okay. So would you say it&#8217;s easier, harder or just different?</p>



<p><span>[00:34:16]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> I think it&#8217;s just different. So it&#8217;s,  not an easy path. So, yeah, so, </p>



<p><span>[00:34:23]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> yeah, I can imagine some parts would be easier and some parts would be harder. </p>



<p><span>[00:34:26]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Yeah, yeah, some parts would be harder. So the organizing the talks and all the things, the interaction between the,  attendees.</p>



<p>So that was a bit different from an in person event. So I&#8217;m not sure if we get enough,  networking experience or networking opportunities. With these online events, so Sure, yeah. That, yeah, that&#8217;s an issue. So, but the easy parties,  like I mentioned before, we don&#8217;t need to worry about the venue and the core setup for <span>[00:35:00]</span> the speakers and all sort of things related to that.</p>



<p>So, yeah, that&#8217;s, that makes sense. </p>



<p><span>[00:35:07]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. That, yeah, that. Um, let&#8217;s talk about the future a little bit, um, specifically for a photos event, not just virtual, but specifically for a photos event, what would you do differently in the future, especially from your standpoint is as the tech guy, what would you build differently?</p>



<p>How would you come at it? </p>



<p><span>[00:35:30]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Uh, so I think,  the easiest way is to,  we can build a efficient. A system to, I mean, display the photos. So currently we have some limitations with the API, how we get the photos and display them. So sometimes it&#8217;s harder to get all the info we need in one go or something like that.</p>



<p>And <span>[00:36:00]</span> the other thing we might need to change is,  if we can accept more photos from a user, but that&#8217;s a Uh, I think it&#8217;s different. So if you get more photos from one person, I think it&#8217;s a bit harder to moderate. So I think the other thing, the one thing I would do differently is,  the, if we can serve first come first,  uh, maybe we can approve the photos of the person who submitted it first.</p>



<p>So maybe that way everyone will get a decent chance. So. Right. Something like that. So, yeah, I think, I know some of the,  photos from the users. So since the Q and the admin is random, so maybe some of the photos of, from a user will come to us to moderate regularly. So, yeah. And I think,  also in the recent update, <span>[00:37:00]</span> they fixed the sorting issue with the date.</p>



<p>So maybe that will help in the future. So, and the other thing,  maybe. Uh, we can,  this, this time, I think we didn&#8217;t get enough time to plan things perfectly. So yeah, we did in the short amount of time we got. And so maybe next year, if we are,  planning to do this kind of event, mostly I think prefer a hybrid kind of event, maybe.</p>



<p>Some if anyone can anyone wanted to attend the event in person, they can and also if it&#8217;s going to be a longer even like this, maybe at one week or something like that. So sure. Yes. Maybe the initial day we can <span>[00:38:00]</span> just gather like a regular webcam and we all have the token. Or the opportunity to do the networking and or some of those things.</p>



<p><span>[00:38:08]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> So, um, you mentioned more time to prepare. How much did you take? How much did you have? Just one week? </p>



<p><span>[00:38:17]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> I think less than two weeks. So that&#8217;s </p>



<p><span>[00:38:19]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> okay. So if I wanted to do one of these myself, I should plan on three or four weeks preparation. </p>



<p><span>[00:38:28]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Yeah, that would be perfect. So I,  the main reason is we need to prepare the site and the contents.</p>



<p>So once it&#8217;s ready, I think,  the rest is,  spread the spreading the information around the community. So what we did was we just reach out to all our friends in the community and they share the or the social media post. So that&#8217;s the, right, that&#8217;s how we get all the attendees. So we didn&#8217;t <span>[00:39:00]</span> do any like,  a promotion or social media advertisement Right.</p>



<p>Or anything like that. So it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s mostly, I I heard that word of mouth, so yeah. That&#8217;s it. </p>



<p><span>[00:39:11]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. That was very impressive. And it worked well. It got me, I mean, Yeah, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s why I was there. Yeah, pretty great. Okay. </p>



<p><span>[00:39:21]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> The, the other thing we did differently is we,  translate the how to post in different local languages.</p>



<p>Right. So, yes. So that way we will get more inclusion from different part of the region. So in India,  there is Officially 26 or 30 or something like that. Language is this standard. </p>



<p><span>[00:39:47]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> So, right. Yeah. And you personally translated all of them, right? No, no, no, no. </p>



<p><span>[00:39:56]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> I think I only can read one or two of the languages.<span>[00:40:00]</span> </p>



<p>Some I can,  understand and some I can speak. So maybe only I can read and write. </p>



<p><span>[00:40:08]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> So, yeah. What are your main, what, what are those two that, you know, are really well? </p>



<p><span>[00:40:13]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Actually, my,  mother tongue is Malayalam, so. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, the other,  I can talk in English, so. Great, yeah. It&#8217;s not an official language in India, anyway.</p>



<p>But we all speak, communicate in English, since everyone knows it. The other two languages I speak, Tamil. Yeah. So it&#8217;s, yeah. That&#8217;s nearby. And the other is Hindi. Yeah, it&#8217;s nearby. Oh, yeah. And also, yeah, Hindi, so I know a little bit of Hindi. And so, and also I know some Canada or something like that. </p>



<p><span>[00:40:48]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Um, I have, I have my translation badge on wordpress.</p>



<p>org. I have, I have translated WordPress <span>[00:41:00]</span> into Canadian, Australian, and British. Okay.</p>



<p>That&#8217;s how far multilingual I am. </p>



<p><span>[00:41:13]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Okay. So, all right. So from English. Yeah. </p>



<p><span>[00:41:19]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Yeah. Well, thank you very much for your time. I appreciate </p>



<p><span>[00:41:23]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> it. Okay. </p>



<p><span>[00:41:24]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Um, and,  I look forward to talking to you, talking to you again. Okay. Good. Sure. </p>



<p><span>[00:41:31]</span> <strong>Ajith:</strong> Thank you. All right. </p>



<p><span>[00:41:32]</span> <strong>Topher:</strong> Bye bye. And that&#8217;s our story for today. I hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to stop by tomorrow.</p>



<p>We&#8217;re going to talk to some volunteers from the event and find out what it&#8217;s like to work at an event where you don&#8217;t really interact with the attendees. Or the organizers or anyone else. What&#8217;s it like to run, not just a virtual event, but a photo walk like </p>



<p><span>[00:42:00]</span> this. I&#8217;ll see you tomorrow.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 26 Feb 2024 19:40:31 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Topher DeRosia";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:87:"WPTavern: WordCamp Canada (WCEH) Announces Call for Speakers, Sponsors &amp; Volunteers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=154309";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:89:"https://wptavern.com/wordcamp-canada-wceh-announces-call-for-speakers-sponsors-volunteers";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6294:"<div class="wp-block-group has-neutral-100-background-color has-background is-layout-constrained wp-container-core-group-is-layout-1 wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained">
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">tl;dr</h2>



<p>The first-ever <a href="https://canada.wordcamp.org/2024/"><strong>WordCamp Canada</strong></a> is callin&#8217; out for Speakers, Sponsors, and Volunteers, ready to bring the community together, post-pandemic style. It&#8217;s a beaut chance for all us Canadians to showcase what makes us unique, from our love for poutine to our bilingual chats, all while diving deep into WordPress, inclusivity, and Indigenous perspectives. So, grab your toque and let&#8217;s make it a good one, buddy!</p>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>
</div>



<p>Neighbour. </p>



<p>You have no idea how good it feels to drop that little ‘u’ in there. It’s also a great word to lead into a conversation about the first-ever <a href="https://canada.wordcamp.org/2024/">WordCamp Canada</a> launching its Calls for Speakers, Sponsors, and Volunteers.</p>



<p>Post-COVID many local meetup groups and WordCamps are facing headwinds as the habits of getting together must be re-learned. Facing such headwinds, a group of Canadians has decided that the best way to reboot the community across the country is to host a national WordCamp.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p><em>&#8220;Many meetups fell dormant during the pandemic and we couldn’t keep up. This is an opportunity for those existing communities, as well as those communities yet to come to come together and maybe find their people.[sic]&#8221;</em></p>
<cite>Shanta, WCEH Organizer</cite></blockquote>



<p>As a fellow Canadian who loves <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/poutine">poutine</a>, wears a <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/tuque">toque</a> outside in the winter and has often been described as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20150311-can-canada-teach-the-rest-of-us-to-be-nicer">nice</a>, I’m excited to see us celebrating our national identity and inviting others to participate.</p>



<p>With WordCamp US a regular event, you may be wondering why the Canadians felt the need to have something similar. After all, they’re right next to each other and it’s not difficult to travel between the two countries.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Welcome to the conundrum that is being Canadian. Because we are different. It is different here and how we view the world, technology and our role in all of it is also different.&nbsp;</p>



<p><a href="https://www.queensu.ca/strathy/sites/stratwww/files/uploaded_files/publications/volume8/Barr-Gillberry-Wp8.pdf">Sorry</a>.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p><em>“Many think we’re the same, but we face some very different challenges, including those challenges because we are so close to the US. [WCEH] gives Canadians and Canadian companies the chance to shine. When many of those companies would get swept up at places like WCUS, they can shine at WCEH!”</em></p>
<cite>Shanta, WCEH Organizer</cite></blockquote>



<p>Our roads are bumpier and we drink milk from bags. We’re an officially bilingual country where the <a href="https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/as-sa/98-200-X/2021013/98-200-X2021013-eng.cfm">majority speak one language</a>. We’re open to immigration in ways that might intimidate other countries (humble brag). </p>



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<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Stunned by the size of these giant milk bags sold in supermarkets in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Canada?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Canada</a>! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/milk?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#milk</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/travel?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#travel</a> <a href="https://t.co/HDVKVDicqo">pic.twitter.com/HDVKVDicqo</a></p>&mdash; Carol C (@carolchan9394) <a href="https://twitter.com/carolchan9394/status/911077079382462465?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 22, 2017</a></blockquote>
</div>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>



<p>While many outside of Canada view it as a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/maple-syrup-vault-tour-1.6279797">maple syrup-hoarding</a> place of multiculturalism and inclusivity, we’re also reckoning with our colonial past and our treatment of Indigenous Peoples and <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/racialized-minorities">racialized Canadians</a>.</p>



<p>To keep this national conversation at the forefront, the <a href="https://canada.wordcamp.org/2024/call-for-speakers/">Call for Speakers</a> at WordCamp Canada has placed particular emphasis on topics related to accessibility, underrepresented voices, multilingualism and indigenous communities.</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">
<p><em>“[There] exists an increasing acknowledgement of the need for conscious efforts towards “<a href="https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525">a renewed nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous Peoples based on recognition of rights, respect, cooperation and partnership.”</a> This has informed our desire to focus on indigenous empowerment and perspectives, as well as accessibility, inclusivity, and underrepresented communities in general.”</em></p>
<cite>Paul &amp; Gina, WCEH Organizers</cite></blockquote>



<p>The organizing team also expressed their interest in exploring how Open Source and WordPress ideals intersect with Indigenous principles. I’m personally excited to see a WordCamp place particular emphasis on these kinds of topics, it feels very, um, Canadian. Perhaps that’s the point.</p>



<p>So <a href="https://foreignlingo.com/canadian-slang-for-friend/">buddy</a>, if you’re looking for a WordCamp to put on your calendar, join me and my fellow <a href="https://www.yukon-news.com/letters-opinions/a-beginners-guide-to-moose-herding-6967796">moose-herding</a> canucks in my hometown of Ottawa, Canada this July 11-13 for the inaugural WordCamp Canada.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 26 Feb 2024 15:36:15 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:12:"James Giroux";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";O:48:"WpOrg\Requests\Utility\CaseInsensitiveDictionary":1:{s:7:"*data";a:9:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Fri, 15 Mar 2024 03:34:32 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Fri, 15 Mar 2024 03:15:29 GMT";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:16:"content-encoding";s:2:"br";s:7:"alt-svc";s:19:"h3=":443"; ma=86400";s:4:"x-nc";s:9:"HIT ord 2";}}s:5:"build";s:14:"20211220193300";}