Welcome to the official blog for the WordPress Support team.
Need help with a WordPress issue? You can find help with your WordPress problem by posting in the support forums or asking on the #wordpress IRC channel.
Want to get involved?
Answering a question in the support forums or on IRC is one of the easiest ways to get started. Everyone knows the answer to something!
We have a detailed handbook to help contributors learn how to work with the forums and IRC.
Weekly Meetings
As well as discussing support issues here on the blog, we use Slack for group communication.
Our weekly meeting is held every Thursday 17:00 UTC and the next will be at Thursday, 17:00 UTC(your time zone) in #forums on Slack.
A note-taker for the meeting is requested, taking notes is a great way to get more involved with contributing to a team, and getting to know how they operate, so don’t be shy, no prior experiences needed, and volunteering happens at the start of the meeting!
General announcements
General information from the WordPress community in general is shared during this segment.
WordPress 5.4 status
After a new release of WordPress, the first few meetings are used to collect information on potential recurring issues users may be experiencing.
Checking in with international liaisons
This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.
There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!
Open floor
This part of the meeting only happens if there is time, the team aims to cover the pre-planned topics first in any given meeting.
When open floor starts, any topic posted either as a comment to this agenda post will be looked at, or as many as there is time for. If there is still time left after this, then meeting attendees may step forward with questions, comments, remarks, anything relating to the support team that they’d like to handle.
It is also important to note that not everyone is comfortable posting things publicly, there is complete understanding of this, and users are welcome to contact the team representative (@clorith) via direct messages on Slack with whatever they wish the team to look at together.
For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.
A note-taker for the meeting is requested, taking notes is a great way to get more involved with contributing to a team, and getting to know how they operate, so don’t be shy, no prior experiences needed, and volunteering happens at the start of the meeting!
General announcements
General information from the WordPress community in general is shared during this segment.
WordPress 5.4 status
After a new release of WordPress, the first few meetings are used to collect information on potential recurring issues users may be experiencing.
Checking in with international liaisons
This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.
There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!
Open floor
This part of the meeting only happens if there is time, the team aims to cover the pre-planned topics first in any given meeting.
When open floor starts, any topic posted either as a comment to this agenda post will be looked at, or as many as there is time for. If there is still time left after this, then meeting attendees may step forward with questions, comments, remarks, anything relating to the support team that they’d like to handle.
It is also important to note that not everyone is comfortable posting things publicly, there is complete understanding of this, and users are welcome to contact the team representative (@clorith) via direct messages on Slack with whatever they wish the team to look at together.
For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.
A note-taker for the meeting is requested, taking notes is a great way to get more involved with contributing to a team, and getting to know how they operate, so don’t be shy, no prior experiences needed, and volunteering happens at the start of the meeting!
General announcements
General information from the WordPress community in general is shared during this segment.
This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.
There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!
Open floor
This part of the meeting only happens if there is time, the team aims to cover the pre-planned topics first in any given meeting.
When open floor starts, any topic posted either as a comment to this agenda post will be looked at, or as many as there is time for. If there is still time left after this, then meeting attendees may step forward with questions, comments, remarks, anything relating to the support team that they’d like to handle.
It is also important to note that not everyone is comfortable posting things publicly, there is complete understanding of this, and users are welcome to contact the team representative (@clorith) via direct messages on Slack with whatever they wish the team to look at together.
For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.
A note-taker for the meeting is requested, taking notes is a great way to get more involved with contributing to a team, and getting to know how they operate, so don’t be shy, no prior experiences needed, and volunteering happens at the start of the meeting!
General announcements
General information from the WordPress community in general is shared during this segment.
This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.
There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!
Open floor
This part of the meeting only happens if there is time, the team aims to cover the pre-planned topics first in any given meeting.
When open floor starts, any topic posted either as a comment to this agenda post will be looked at, or as many as there is time for. If there is still time left after this, then meeting attendees may step forward with questions, comments, remarks, anything relating to the support team that they’d like to handle.
It is also important to note that not everyone is comfortable posting things publicly, there is complete understanding of this, and users are welcome to contact the team representative (@clorith) via direct messages on Slack with whatever they wish the team to look at together.
For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, or bring them up in the meeting.
Many countries are starting to experience the Daylight Savings Time (DST) changes these days, and although a lot of teams change their meeting time when this happens, the support team hasn’t done so for many years, and will keep it’s 17:00 UTC time slot.
Adjusting the meeting format a little
Although a pre-existing weekly time slot, we had no published agenda this week, and just winged it. This turned out to be a popular format, as it allowed for more users to get a word in that would normally feel compelled to sit idle by when an agenda existed.
In light of this, we’ll be looking to do an informal agenda-less meeting regularly, likely once a month, to help spur further such good conversations.
Upcoming changes to WordPress 5.4
The newly introduced full screen editing by default that’s slated for WordPress 5.4 was discussed at length, and although it’s inclusion in the release is still up for debate, we will plan for a scenario where it is included.
The primary concern is users feeling lost, how do we help them find their way back to their usual flow, and the desire for a simple solution to users.
It was mentioned, but has since been discovered to be incorrect, that a keyboard shortcut would let you toggle the mode, this is not the case as of this writing.
Pre-defined replies
The support team has a list of pre-defined replies for regularly occurring scenarios (available at https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/contributing-to-the-wordpress-forums/stock-answers/) which got updated this past week to allow for easy copy-pasting, and also got expanded with a new entry.
Old topic notifications
Discussions about how to handle older topics which may or may not be relevant followed suit, and one of the better ideas that came forth from this discussion was to add a notice, much like plugins does for older plugins, that information in this topic is more than X times old, and may not be accurate any more.
Checking in with international liaisons
Members of our broader community from Sweden, Russia, Bangladesh, and India took part in the lively discussions this week, and a thank you for that, as broader views are unimaginably valuable!
One who smiles rather than rages is always the stronger.
A note-taker for the meeting is requested, taking notes is a great way to get more involved with contributing to a team, and getting to know how they operate, so don’t be shy, no prior experiences needed!
General announcements
General information from the WordPress community in general, and specifics to the support team, are shared during this segment.
This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.
There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!
Open floor
This part of the meeting only happens if there is time, the team aims to cover the pre-planned topics first in any given meeting.
When open floor starts, any topic posted either as a comment to this agenda post will be looked at, or as many as there is time for. If there is still time left after this, then meeting attendees may step forward with questions, comments, remarks, anything relating to the support team that they’d like to handle.
It is also important to note that not everyone is comfortable posting things publicly, there is complete understanding of this, and users are welcome to contact the team representative (@clorith) via direct messages on Slack with whatever they wish the team to look at together.
For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, bring them up in the meeting, or reach out to @clorith privately.
A note-taker for the meeting is requested, taking notes is a great way to get more involved with contributing to a team, and getting to know how they operate, so don’t be shy, no prior experiences needed!
General announcements
General information from the WordPress community in general, and specifics to the support team, are shared during this segment.
This is the section where we reach out to the non-English speaking parts of our community, to see how they are doing, if there’s anything we can help each other with, or just interesting things going on that it would be nice to share with others.
There’s no requirements for previous participation or “fame” to share here, anyone is welcome, and we encourage newcomers to participate!
Open floor
This part of the meeting only happens if there is time, the team aims to cover the pre-planned topics first in any given meeting.
When open floor starts, any topic posted either as a comment to this agenda post will be looked at, or as many as there is time for. If there is still time left after this, then meeting attendees may step forward with questions, comments, remarks, anything relating to the support team that they’d like to handle.
It is also important to note that not everyone is comfortable posting things publicly, there is complete understanding of this, and users are welcome to contact the team representative (@clorith) via direct messages on Slack with whatever they wish the team to look at together.
For any other items to discuss, please add them to the comments below, bring them up in the meeting, or reach out to @clorith privately.
The Beta Tester plugin has had an update to make beta testing easier and more obvious. RC (Release Candidate) is scheduled for March 3rd. Marius (@Clorith) requests that support volunteers continue testing and making notes for any stumbling blocks that users might hit to be added to the “Master List” when the release is out.
The Site Health feature will include a new dashboard widget, so be aware that users might find it and be confused as to its significance. Also to be aware of is the Calendar widget markup is changing. Tara (@t-p) asked about apply_shortcode and what the difference is, if any, to the old do_shortcode. While it is currently simply an alias, we should be encouraging the usage of the newer apply_shortcode going forward to match documentation and best practices to prepare the ground for the eventual deprecation of do_shortcode.
The discussion wandered off into the weeds at this point, so @Clorith brought us back to the path with the next agenda item:
International Liaisons
Each week we check in with the international teams. All reports that came back indicate no major issues, although the Swedish forum has seen at least one user with a completely wiped site, and Yui ゆい (@fierevere) of the Russian forums noted they have also seen a spike in hacked sites. There have also been cases reported in the English forums. Marius mentioned there have been a couple of high-profile plugins with security vulnerabilities in the past few days, which could be related. Watch out for ongoing issues with these.
Open Floor
There’s been a lot of activity around some plugins. While sharing information about ongoing issues is good, we need to make sure we remain neutral and keep things professional.
Tara asked about ThemeGrill as to whether the problems are fixed. Version 1.6.2 includes the relevant changes required to mitigate the issues. Yui ゆい reports that Duplicator has also been fixed for similar related issues. Joy asked about whether the WP Importer was impacted; Marius stated that there are no known issues there. James (@macmanx) points out that we’ll be seeing threads about these issues for some time yet, considering the number of sites impacted.
There was a good, albeit wandering into the weeds again, discussion about automatic updates and users updating manually or not. Also mentioned was backups and their importance. There was a suggestion that the Site Health feature could highlight the importance of updating WordPress and installed plugins and themes.
