There are a lot of exciting features coming to WordPress 6.3 which will set the tone for the next few years of our favorite CMS.

We’ll explore the upcoming state of this new release and provide some thoughts on which demographic of WordPress user it’s shaping to serve. As always, please share this on social and be sure to join the newsletter.

The Not-So-Nice Side of the WordPress Community

1. The WordPress community, like any other, has its share of negative behaviors and incidents. While the majority of the community is supportive and positive, there are instances of abuse and misconduct that can’t be ignored.
2. Several recent incidents highlight the issue: Mika Epstein, a member of the WordPress Plugin Review team, faced abusive behavior from plugin developers; Raiber Cristian, a WordPress developer, decided to stop offering free support on WordPress.org due to abusive behavior; and WordCamp Dhaka was cancelled due to concerns about corporate influence and favoritism.
3. The author suggests that the community needs to police itself, support each other, and stay informed about abusers. They also suggest that more concrete rules could be part of the solution, but acknowledge the challenges in enforcing them and the potential for unfairness.

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Accessibility expert Adrian Roselli sued for wanting accessibility to be accessible

• Adrian Roselli, a well-known accessibility expert, is being sued by AccessiBe, a company that provides automated accessibility solutions. The lawsuit is in response to Roselli’s criticism of AccessiBe’s product.
• Roselli’s main argument is that automated tools like AccessiBe’s cannot fully ensure a website’s accessibility and may give a false sense of compliance, potentially leading to legal issues for the website owners.
• The lawsuit has sparked a backlash from the web accessibility community, with many viewing it as an attempt to silence valid criticism and discussion about the effectiveness of automated accessibility tools.

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Vox media drops its own CMS

• It stopped licensing Chorus to external publishers last year, per Adweek, but continued to use it to power its own network of over a dozen digital media sites.
• The company still owns other tech products, including Concert, its advertising platform, and Coral, the commenting platform it acquired in 2019. But moving forward, monetizing its own audience engagement will become a bigger focus.
• Vox Media will move its own websites off of Chorus and into WordPress VIP, the enterprise arm of the 20-year-old CMS company.

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Use ChatGPT to Generate Group Conversation Topics for Your Online Community

• The article discusses how AI, specifically OpenAI’s ChatGPT, can be used to generate conversation topics for various online communities, including those focused on Brie cheese lovers, video game wiki writers, backyard gardeners, and digital nomad business owners.
• The author emphasizes the importance of a well-crafted prompt in generating relevant and engaging conversation topics. Being clear and specific in communicating what you want from the AI greatly improves the chances of getting a useful response.
• The article also promotes Paid Memberships Pro, a WordPress plugin for building and managing online communities. The plugin allows users to sell free and paid subscriptions to their community and offers a variety of add-ons and integrations designed for community websites.

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Links from the grab bag

• Jeff Matson has officially joined Pressable’s marketing team
• Syed Bahlki defends WordPress with a $1M wager
• WPCoffeeTalk: Going deeper with Bluehost new Wondersuite
• Watch the 6.3 product demo